Can anyone name any defensible, legitimate value to "voter suppression"?

Great Debates
1

In the following recent GD threads –

“Jimmy Carter: Basic requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida”

“Republican voter intimidation tactics”

“Right-wingers trying to block college-student voter-registration drives”

“Why would anyone oppose requiring an ID to vote?”

– we have been discussing a wide range of dirty tricks employed (mostly) by Republicans in recent elections, and the impending one, transparently designed to “suppress the vote” – that is, to prevent persons not likely to vote for the suppressing party from getting registered in the first place; or to discount their registration on technical grounds; or to dissuade them (usually via veiled threats) from turning out on election day.

So far, some posters on these threads have defended the tactics in question as having been misrepresented, and not really intended to suppress voters; or, as being calculated to achieve arguably legitimate ends, such as keeping persons from voting who are not lawfully qualified to vote (e.g., non-citizens, non-residents of the state where they might vote, or ex-felons, who in some states are legally disqualified).

But nobody – yet – has actually argued for any positive value in voter-suppression tactics, nor that such are “fair play” in any sense. I take it as an axiom of democracy that high voter turnout is always a good thing. If you believe in democracy, then you have to believe that 100% voter turnout – participation of all legally eligible citizens in the electoral process – is an invaluable end in itself, regardless of what electoral results it produces. It is a goal all of us, regardless of party affiliation or ideology, must always strive to achieve even if we never quite get there. And any attempt, however subtle, to discourage voter turnout must be classed as a dirty trick. (And should be criminalized, too, in all cases where we can criminalize it without violating the First Amendment!)

Does any Doper care to dispute this? To argue that low voter turnout is ever a good thing? Or that it is “fair play” to not only strive to encourage your own side’s voter base to turn out to vote, but to strive to discourage your opponents base from voting?

2

Erm, I think I could form an argument that low voter turnout is a good thing if the higher turnout is based on something silly (like free doughnuts or something) or is entirely made up of really stupid people who have no real interest in the vote. Would that count as disputing your point?

As for discouraging your opponents, that’s fair game if and only if, it’s a debating-type discouragement and not a waving-a-gun-in-your-face-type discouragment. In other words, “Jehosephat, you don’t really want to vote, do ya, old buddy old pal?” is fair game.

“Jehosephat, if you vote I’m killing your apidistra!” isn’t.

3

The bolded bit above is what many Republicans are concerned with, and it only in line with that concern that I have seen any sort of electoral issues raised by Republicans.

You see, there have been a wide range of dirty tricks employed (mostly) by Democrats in many elections, and the impending one, transparently designed to “steal elections” – that is, paying the homeless to vote, voting on behalf of dead people, voting a few times (Vote early, vote often?), getting illegal immigrants to vote, et cetera.

4

Yes, it would. And I would counter by saying:

  1. “Really stupid people” have as much right to vote as anyone else. It’s their government too, and they are affected by public-policy decisions. Citizens of a democracy are not allowed to vote so they can give the body politic the benefit of their wisdom, such as it is. They are allowed to vote so they can defend their own interests. They are allowed to vote so they can make their will known and, to some limited extent, acted upon.

  2. It is for the voter, nobody else, to decide whether he or she has any “real interest” in the matter being voted upon.

  3. I so no harm in offering people petty bribes such as donuts to do what is their civic duty in any case. The secret-ballot system makes sure bribes large or small can’t actually be used to buy votes – because the briber has no way of knowing how a given bribed voter actually voted.

Funny you should mention the donuts thing. From Michael Moore’s website – http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2004-10-06:

5

You asked if it can be better to have low turnout. If there are only three people who actually know what the vote is even about and twenty who are going to pick something randomly, it would be better, probably, if the twenty didn’t bother to show up. I didn’t even hint that they didn’t have a “right” to vote, just that at times, yes, it would be better if people didn’t vote stupidly, or ignorantly.

Because this is a debate about a hypothetical, I can’t provide real-world examples.

Which is why I despise the idea that people should be shamed into voting. And, again, if this is a hypothetical, there would be times when I would hope the idiots would stay at home. There would be times when I, having an equal claim to idiocy, should stay at home.

If people are showing up to vote because they are going to get a pastry, I think the world would be safer if they just got them in the mail.

You asked if I thought low voter turnout is ever good. I think it very much could be, under specific circumstances that only exist in a theoretical universe. Because, as it stands, we can’t tell the idiot from the visionary.

6

Cite?

BTW, “paying the homeless to vote” is not a “dirty trick” unless the homeless persons in question are non-citizens or otherwise legally ineligible. (Lack of a permanent street address does not make them legally ineligible.)

7

Paying anyone to vote, even if it’s only payment in underwear or noodles, is generally frowned upon, as it can be seen as a form of attempting to subvert the voter through bribery. I’m all for encouraging all eligible voters to get off their lazy butts and vote, but not for material reward. Let the mercenary bastards stay home.

Neither party can claim never to have engaged in questionable practices around election time; that the Republicans seem to have elevated it to a new level in Florida and elsewhere strikes me more as a result of greater opportunity than of fewer scruples.

Which is not to say that what’s going on in Florida in particular – and various other states as well – is therefore excuseable. The suppressed voter rolls, polling station shenanigans, and (worst of all) electronic voting systems all need to opposed by all people of good conscience, party notwithstanding.

8

I’m still waiting for your cite, Brutus. The abuses you describe – the same person voting more than once, casting votes on behalf of dead people, etc. – are things I’ve heard of, but they date from the long-gone days of urban machine politics. Can you cite any proven instance from the past 10 or 20 years?

9

Funnily enough, casting votes on behalf of the recently deceased apparently still goes on in – can you guess? – Florida.

Unfornately my cite (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=566688) has just gone into paid subscription mode, dammit, so unless I can find another source you’ll just have to take my word for it.

10

If not a cite, can you provide more details? What election? What county? Who is supposedly to blame?

11

Illegal immigrants voting.

Bribing voters and voting twice.

I am not here to argue the merits of the claims. I am saying that if we had a clear, concise, and verifiable voting and voter registration process, the problems simply wouldn’t exist. Unfortunately, it seems that whenever the issue is raised, all we get are impassioned crys of ‘Voter suppression!’, instead of any productive results.

Illegal immigrants shouldn’t be voting, right? Nor should people vote twice or the dead vote at all, right? And people shouldn’t be bribed to vote one way or the other, right? There is a simple solution to all that: Prove who you are when registering and when voting. Heck, I have to prove who I am when using my credit card to buy something at the store, why not when carrying out my fundemental civic duty? I know, I know, ‘But not everybody can afford a $30.00 ID Card!’ Then the state picks up the tab. Simple.

One man, one vote. And I suppose if you simply must let women vote, give them one vote as well. (Each, not collectively!) :wink:

12

My state will accept a utility bill with your address on it. (For voting. As far as I know, there is still no ID requirement for registration. Could be wrong.)

P.S. I wrote ‘vote early, vote often’ on the calendar in the kitchen at work for November 2nd. One guy thought I was serious!

13

Well, those cites don’t support what you said in your earlier post. The first, from the Washington Times, merely discusses the possibility that illegal aliens might vote in in the absence of preventive safeguards; it does not cite any evidence that any such aliens have voted or are planning to vote in November, and it certainly does not say Democrats have been encouraging illegals to vote. (N.B.: If Democrats or a nonpartisan grass-roots organization were to run a get-out-the-vote drive in a Latino neighborhood, that is not encouraging illegals to vote.) The second cite, Howard Troxler’s column from 2000, mentions a couple of admitted double-votes by students at Marquette Universtiy in Wisconsin, and a Gore supporter in Milwaukee who might be charged with “bribing” homeless voters with cigarettes to get them to the polls. (As I’ve said before in this thread, I see absolutely nothing wrong with that last, nor with Michael Moore’s underwear and Ramen noodles.) Pretty thin stuff. And there’s nothing at all in either cite about dead people voting.

14

He forgot the link to John Edward’s web site.

“I’m feeling a negative sense about a plant. Did your loved one have a bad experience with a plant? A green plant? About waist high? It’s a very negative feeling. Your loved one wants Kerry to win.”

15

Like I mentioned, Mr.Glutton, I am not interested in playing dueling cites. Regardless of what the esteemed Mssr.Carter may have to say about the matter, I have my own doubts about the lefts claims of ‘voter intimidation’. But how would that affect making sure that one citizen gets one vote? How does ensuring honest registration and voting equate ‘voter intimidation’?

My pet theory is that a certain party does not want a honest and verifiable voting and registration process because it eliminates a whole bag of tricks from their armory. But hey, that’s just a theory. Regardless, we have a pretty dated and patched-together voting process in this country. Certainly it could use modernization.

16

Well, see…that’s a problem, Gyrate. They’re homeless.

If it is honest registration and legal voting practices, it doesn’t. Maybe we are after the same goal after all.

It is a very strange and infuriating to be a political activist, register to vote, and then not be able to vote in an election that really matters to you – especially when you are a “long-haired hippy type” in the 1970’s.

That happened to my first husband. When he complained at the Election Commission, he was treated like he was scum. (The irony is that it was by aids who supported the person he would have voted for and for whom I had served as a fund-raising hostess in a previous incarnation. And they were Democrats. It has happened on both sides even though this situation is just anecdotal.)

Then we are so in agreement. Both sides in this election should be protected in every state.

17

I agree entirely. See my recent thread – “Why not have a national ID card?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=277773. One reason I like the idea is that a national ID card, encoding all information relevant to any person’s business with any government entity, federal, state, or local, could provide a basis for a national standardization and regularization of our voting-registration system and our balloting system. A national ID card could reflect your status as a citizen or noncitizen, and also your status as a licensed or unlicensed driver, etc., etc. And every person who holds such a card and is legally eligible to vote would be a registered voter, automatically, at her or her most recent residence of record. No actual registration process required!

But that’s not what this thread is about. This thread is about the suppression or discouragement of legally eligible voters – which has been, for the most part, a Republcian, not a Democratic, sin. (E.g., see “Bullies at the Voting Booth,” by Anne-Marie Cusac, an article in the October 2004 issue of The Progressive – http://www.progressive.org/oct04/cusac1004.html. Apparently, this year the Pubbies have plans in motion to suppress the potentially Democratic vote in every swing state.)

So what do you have to say about that? Is voter suppression as defined above ever a good thing? And why?

18

But look at what Anne-Marie Cusac is calling ‘intimidation’! Come on. If you were talking about gangs of club-wielding thugs keeping people away from the polls, that’s one thing. We are talking about someone complaining at every attempt to verify the eligibility of a voter; like every ID request ‘disenfranchises’ some Haitian or something.

So far, all I see is an attempt by the left to keep open the door to shady voting behavior, not an attempt to stave off Jim Crow II.

(Some choice and telling excerpts)

19

Please expand on that. What, precisely, is your objection to any of those “telling excerpts”? Since we don’t have a national ID card, and since African-Americans are less likely than others to have driver’s licenses or state-issued ID cards (we’ve had threads on that question, see the OP), legislation requiring ID for voting in Missouri clearly is aimed at suppressing the black vote. So is any plan to have “poll-watchers” in black or low-income precincts to require voters to present ID or proof of citizenship, in states or jurisdictions where that is not required by law. And look at the end of Cusac’s article:

That’s the kind of thing I’m challenging you to defend, Brutus. If you can.

20

The NAACP should have acted on all this on March 2000, not November 8, 2000, after the election.