But it isn’t, is it?
“Both sides are just as bad” is one of the laziest, as well as inaccurate, arguments we often see here.
Is it also correct if the state closes most of the polling places in poor districts so that the people there would have to stand in an eight-hour line to cast a vote, so some of the people who would have voted instead go home?
For sure, there are some liberals who would support that based on some bizarre rationalization. Just like the Repubs rationalize Voter ID laws as giving us confidence in the correctness of an election. However, it wouldn’t be reasonable to do so.
You are suggesting an outcome (80% turnout) is a possibility for OUR country, despite the fact that states with Voter ID do not have 80% turnout.
How does that work?
If more voters went to the polls on Election Day, brought IDs with them, and fewer stayed home, then there would be a mathematically higher turnout.
That’s your potential 80% turnout right there.
Or, if more voters went to the polls, stopped at McDonalds first, and fewer stayed home, there would be a mathematically higher turnout. Clearly, the key to increasing turnout is to require voters to eat at McDonalds before votings, no?
Not important at all. If candidate A gets 103,286 votes and candidate B gets 103,281 votes and the votes are all correctly counted and recounted, we swear in A and get on with life. In either event, roughly half the voters had no problem with A and roughly half had no problem with B, so whoever wins is pretty immaterial. The people have spoken and have pretty much said “We don’t really favor one over the other”.
If we take the position that every single voter must have ironclad ID, then we will disenfrancise hundreds if not thousands of people for the sake of preventing a handful of fraudulent votes. In this case, the cure is worse than the disease.
The fact that voter ID laws overwhelmingly handicap minority and poor voters tells you all you need to know about the motivation for these laws.
Yet that isn’t happening, is it? Wonder why?
*Potential *is a Latin word meaning “imaginary”.
It’s known as voter apathy.
I’m a minority American. I had no problems getting an ID, any more than a white person would have. Race is irrelevant.
Go on. How does adding a burden to the voters fix the turnout problem?
You’ve already told us that having voter ID laws in place should mean an 80% turnout. Well, it doesn’t. So, why not?
No thoughts on the influence of the specific character of the American electoral system, as noted back in post #3? It must be a moral failing?
And why is that a problem? If only people who care enough about the issues make their way to the polls, isn’t that a good thing? Frankly, I don’t care if people don’t want to vote. It’s the people who want to vote and are prevented by lack of ID or by intentionaly under-providing of voter machines in certain districts that have my sympathy.
That’s not what I said. Read carefully.
Except that other countries aren’t set up so that demanding voter ID will disenfranchise people, so that’s irrelevant.
No it isn’t. Suppressing the minority vote is a major goal of voter ID laws.
I’m a minority American and had no difficulty getting an ID and voting.
Apparently this needs repeating.
No it doesn’t because it’s irrelevant. Voter ID is designed to suppress the poor and minority vote on a statistical level, in order to pretend that isn’t what it is doing; inevitably some slip though since it isn’t a blanket ban.
So, what am I supposed to be taking away from this? That it is possible to get an 80% turnout with Voter ID? Ok, I’ll accept that as a given.
If you’re not claiming that high voter turnout is a benefit of Voter ID, then I must ask again:
- What voter fraud? Since you earlier claimed this law thwarts it.
- What do I, as a citizen, get out of Voter ID?
- If I get more “correctly cast and counted” votes from Voter ID, how many more?
Anecdote is data?
Anecdote of one is data?