Comes now the federal judge team of Chief Judge Kozinski, Judge Ikuta, and Judge Berzon, and they say that Arizona’s requirement that voters present ID before voting is valid:
Gonzalez v. Arizona.
And (obviously) emphasis added.
This finding rejects arguments made in many different voter ID threads.
I can agree with this ruling. Asking for ID to register to vote seems like a no brainer as long as the state is willing to pay for it for people who can’t afford one. One can argue about the wisdom of such laws, but the constitutionality seems pretty obvious.
Many of the arguments I’ve seen here were really ridiculous and ultimately was used to address the problem a person in the back woods with no address, lost their birth certificate, with no internet access even through the library and couldn’t afford the $30 + 2 stamps for a birth cerificate and SS card.
But when I used the argument that having to pay for ID was a “poll tax” and pointed out via reducto ad absurbum that requiring a person to drive (i.e. own a car) or pay for a bus ride was likewise a poll tax, I was an idiot who didn’t get it.
Sigh, do we have to go through the whole “disenfranchising tens of thousands of largely Democratic voters to prevent practically non-existant voter fraud is a bad thing for democracy?” again. It may be constitutional, but its still a bad idea. If you really want to fight voter fraud, outlaw absentee ballots. Admitedly this will likely most affect military and elderly voters who tend to vote GOP, but that’s their problem.
I would say that 2 of a utility bill, voter registration card and mailing would be pretty easy to obtain, especially the last 2 if you registered to vote.
What I would like to see is a discussion of the part struck down.
Why do you care what my idea of a good idea is? I’m not a legislator.
I have a fair amount of expertise in reading and interpreting laws, though, so I would think my opinion of the law’s constitutionality would be of interest.
But why is my opinion of the law’s goodness valuable?
Because if the law is taken and returned then if it weren’t good in the first place then its goodness is not impaired and no theft has occurred. Or something.
Why is it so important that your opinion on this matter be masked if you are not acting in an official manner for either side? Opinions are not a weakness per se-in fact, having an opinion that swings one way and yet allowing that the law might swing the other can be seen as a strength.
I’ve not found it to be so. For example, despite feeling that the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, is a horribly unwise and socially poor idea, I have always opined that it was constitutional, yet I don’t seem to draw any particular strength from that.
People seem to assess the merits of my argument on the basis of whether I support their current position, period.
I disagree. Saying that you disagreed with the ACA and yet allowing that it was constitutional puts you on a much higher level then those who gave an opinion on the constitutionality based solely on their personal likes and dislikes. It openly says that you are less likely to spin facts to suit your needs.
Well, OK. Unfortunately, the formula does not work to my benefit here, since I believe these laws are a good idea, provided the IDs in question are free of charge.
There’s nothing wrong with opinion lining up with fact, of course. In this matter I think I agree-there seems to be no real difficulty in acquiring the I.D., and it serves a very useful purpose. Baring some sort of convincing “slippery slope” problem, of course.
Why is it a good idea? If a thing is not broken, why fix it? And, more importantly, why fix it in a way that blatantly favors the political advantage of one party over another?
Have you any doubt about that, that such is the intent here?
