“One Man-One Vote”
How can you best serve this underlying principle of American Democracy without accurately identifying in some way individuals as they cast cast their ballots? There is nothing unjust about the law itself, and whether it ultimately serves one political side or the other must not enter into any ruling as to its constitutionality. Even if it was deliberately crafted to help one side over the other, the law itself does not take a side.
I love the fact that this is from the Ninth, who is viewed to be, let’s say, not of a conservative bent.
Makes sense to me. My passport expired years ago, and I haven’t had the need to renew it. I’m not sure how I’d prove I was a citizen. I guess I could show my birth certificate, but I’m not sure I even have a copy of it anymore.
Even having shared my opinion, I’m hesitant to debate it, since it is my opinion, and it derives from weighing factors that you undoubtedly weigh differently.
I agree with what Czarcasm said – there’s value in knowing that votes came from identified people, as opposed to any warm body who appears at the polling station knowing the name of a registered voter. Confidence that the system is doing what it’s supposed to be doing is important.
Having solved this pernicious problem, fairness-minded Republicans will now focus their attention on the issue of low voter turnout and will crusade to make voting compulsory.
Sorry, I can’t type that with a straight face.
Really?
I mean… you’d really favor compulsory voting?
I’m OK with low voter turnout. I think there’s tremendous value in having a vote, and I assume that people who don’t care, or don’t understand any of the issues, simply stay home. I see that as their right. And, frankly, I think the quality of the aggregate vote is improved when voting is at least slightly more difficult than picking a hangnail.
But I can see the argument for lowering obstacles, too. I can’t really see the compulsory voting argument.
Voting is compulsory in Australia and the turnout is higher as a result. It’s the only real way that a representative can claim to have the remit of the majority of their constituents.
The alternative Identification methods make this seem more reasonable. Particularly if each voter is sent an official mailing indicating what they need to bring in addition to the mailing. Although I might prefer that the individual mailing was all that was required along with stating your date of birth.
You still would have a problem if you were homeless, but in that case I don’t see any way you could prove your residency.
If the smart-ALEC Republicans who insist upon this were sincere, is there no way to reach their goal of “confidence in the process” that does not tilt the field in their favor? I daresay. See any evidence of their firm commitment to that effort? I don’t, perhaps you do.
Why, for instance, if it necessary that this be done at once, immediately, before the next election? Not to stem the avalanche of voter fraud, which is a problem roughly equivalent to citizens being gored by unicorn. There is no “emergency” here, save for the dread prospect of Democrat voters.
Its not like they don’t know that a portion of potential Dem voters are going to be impacted, from inconvenience to disenfranchisement. Of course they know! See any efforts to reach out to voters likely to be impacted, funds being allocated for proactive efforts? How about efforts to promote voter registration drives amongst the unregistered voters. Can anyone, anywhere, show me one Republican…one! mind you!..who says something like, “Yeah, this will unfairly effect voters who are likely Democrat, so we need to erase that problem, we need this to be an effort in citizenship innocent of partisan shenanigans.”
Get back to me if you find one, haven’t had my morning miracle yet…
Sincerity. Goals. Necessity. Emergency.
When it comes to deciding whether a law stands, none of these should be factors.
I’m sure Arizonians concerned with voter fraud are secure in the knowledge that their elections are protected by requiring two forms of ID that couldn’t be found by sifting through garbage.
:dubious:
CMC fnord!
No snark implied or intended, but I have no idea what you’re trying to say here. I would think maybe “necessity” and “goals” are close to the same general thing, but I have no idea how they wouldn’t be factors. Unless somehow we are talking about the law as some sort of shiny steel abstraction of pure rationalism, unsmirched by grubby human fingerprints.
I guess sometimes the law is a robot. Sometimes its a prostitute. This one is a ho.
Not a Republican and I don’t have terribly strong opinions about this subject, but think the court made the right decision.
That said, I live in state that doesn’t require ID to vote, instead using essentially the honor system, but I haven’t a problem with that. Yes, voter fraud occurs and is a huge problem but it’s mostly due to fraud by officials or abusing the absentee ballot system(I.E. college students or snow birds voting in the state they’re in and sending an absent ballot to the state they’re from and of course the professionals using multiple phony absentee ballots).
Voter impersonation fraud is pretty rare because it’s so incredibly inefficient compared to sending in large number of absentee ballots.
That said, I think the fears of thousands of voters being “disenfranchised” is ridiculous.
People don’t have state IDs because they have no need for them. If they wanted them, they’d have them. Moreover, there are a number of states that have passed voter ID laws, and yet I’ve seen no evidence that poor or minority voters in Indiana etc. have started voting in lower numbers.
Tell you what, Ibn. You look me right in the monitor and tell me you think the motives behind this are one hundred percent legit, the Republicans who are pressing for this all across the country…are solely and strictly concerned with integrity at the voting place, and I’ll believe you. I’ll take your word that you believe it.
You miss the subtlety. Who says it has to be about “disenfranchising”? Who says there is nothing to bitch about if they aren’t actually stopping someone from voting? Oh, so they are only discouraging, only making it more difficult, more troublesome for one group of people? Is it an amazing coincidence that they just happen to be people more likely to vote Dem?
You say you don’t believe “thousands”. In the aggregate, across the nation, given the full court press by the Pubbies to get this thing through before Election Day? Well, ok, what number of affected people do you require before this is a non-trivial matter? Is it OK to use the legislature as an instrument to ensure the political power of the Republican Party, so long as there are a limited number of people affected? Well, how many people does that need to be before the stench becomes noticeable?
Does anyone buy this story? Anyone at all, sincerely believes that the whole purpose of this Republican effort is the integrity of the voting rolls? And has nothing to do with discouraging Democrat voters?
I ask this, and I get interesting answers, but answers to questions I didn’t ask. Its Constitutional? Not the question. Its legal? Not the question. Does this effort reveal the abject cynicism that the Republican Party has become? Closer. The other question is Are they going to get away with it? Apparently so, and nobody gives a shit but us moonbats.
I honestly believe that Republicans consider voter impersonation fraud to be a serious threat to the republic, and are not simply trying to suppress legitimate votes for Democrats.
I don’t think they’re right. I don’t think the problem is nearly what they imagine it to be. But I do think they’re honest about it.
Bullshit. They’re trying to supress as many Democratic votes as possible, legitimate or not. This whole endeavor is a solution in search of a problem. I’m much more worried about voter registrations being tossed because they indicated a Democratic preference or inequitable distribution of voting machines on election day, etc.
As to the constitutionality, I honestly don’t give a fuck. Sorry to disappoint everyone who was waiting in breathless anticipation of my opinion as to its constitutionality- oh wait, that’s not my schtick.
In a special sort of way, I think **Mosier **may be right. Most Republicans probably do honestly believe that voter impersonation fraud is rampant, or at least potentially rampant, and constitutes a genuine threat to good order. But do I think Karl Rove believes this? It is to laugh. The Acorn fiasco showed that actual facts could be overwhelmed by a sufficiently vigorous campaign of disinformation, and hearts and minds swayed to exert political influence.
Which once again demonstrates the cynical manipulation that has become the watchword of today’s Republican leadership. And of course also demonstrates how willing small - ‘c’ conservatives are to be manipulated.
Don’t run for President, or I’m telling everyone you were born in Kenya.
Regards,
Shodan
I think I fall into the “potentially rampant” category.
By this I mean that the country got a wake-up call in Florida in 2000, where the results of the race were so close as to constitute a statistical tie – that is, every race has a margin of error, and the results were inside that margin.
If we don’t trust, say, 2,000 votes, and the election is decided by 80,000 votes… who cares? Even in the most generous of situations to the loser, he’d still have lost by 78,000. But when a Florida situation comes long, rare though they may be, all of a sudden not trusting 2,000 votes becomes a terrible barrier.
For this reason, it makes sense to me to cover our assess to the extent that we can, and put in place reasonable measures that increase our faith in the result of an election. They may not be perfect, of course – in fact, making them even close to perfect would be prohibitive – but it makes sense to make them better.