If I ran for president, something like that would be the least of my problems. 
Not to be unnecessarily pedantic, but rampant would suggest such occurrences to be (synonyms offered) widespread, unchecked, epidemic, extensive, etc. Fated as I am to live in Flori-duhh, and being quite conversant with the variety of ways we seem capable of inventing to screw up what should be rather simple exercises of the franchise, I still find it a stretch to see your example as demonstrating any rampant problem.
Your adding the modifier ‘potentially’ only dilutes the significance of the threat further. Potentially also describes the threat of having next November’s election interrupted by the sun going nova.
Nor does it change the fact that most conservatives, unlike yourself, haven’t actually given this more than a moment of thoughtful analysis, but are instead knee jerking in response to a deliberate, orchestrated campaign from their leadership designed to raise heat but little light. While a somewhat rational argument can be offered that (in terms of safeguarding the process from fraud) it “couldn’t hurt”, an equally valid argument can be made that inconvenience if not outright disenfranchisement of primarily Democratic voters or potential voters will also result. And further, it is argued that this dislocation will far outweigh any actual reduction in fraudulent votes made by individual voter impersonation.
Given this, the conclusion by my side of the aisle that these voter ID initiatives are a deliberate manipulation, perpetrated upon “the base” by their cynical leadership, designed not so much to reduce an actual problem, but primarily to reduce participation by a particular class of voters.
I’m tired of this argument unless you can get some data on how many Democrats vs. Republicans are unable to get proper ID to vote. You make it sound like tens or hundreds of thousands of potential Dems can vote because of this but every Pub voter has ID.
So back up your assertions with data or let it go.
Is data really necessary? Can’t we just reason it out? Who, statistically, is more likely NOT to have a driver’s license, the very poor or everybody else? I think it’s obvious that the very poor lack licenses at a much higher rate than the middle and upper classes. Who, statistically, is more likely to find it a hardship to get to a government office for one of those free IDs? Again, the very poor. In which parts of the city are you more likely to have to wait in line in a government office to get your business done, in the gated community or the inner city? Will SOME poor people jump through these hoops to vote? Sure. SOME will, many won’t. Republicans know this full well, which is why their doing it in the first place.
I don’t believe any of that and I don’t think anything I said could be construed as suggesting I did since I said that voter impersonation fraud was incredibly rare.
Moreover, you’ll notice I said I was fine with my own state, Rhode Island, not requiring IDs to vote.
However, I also don’t have a strong objection to the US joining most of the world in requiring people to present IDs to vote.
Finally, we’ve had the voter ID laws in places for, I believe, at least two to three election cycles in states like Indiana. If requiring an ID did actually discourage voting, shouldn’t we be able to present evidence from Indiana or one of the other states to prove this.
I.E. has there been a decline in the elderly, the poor, or minorities voting?
Yes, both are potential, but those two potential events are separated by many orders of magnitude of likelihood. The Florida fiasco was rare, but certainly not in the same ballpark as a solar nova. (And of course, if one event happens, we must deal with the messy after-effects; the other will leave the entire planet a mass of swirling plasma with no clean up needed or possible.)
I don’t know what percentage of conservatives have done what level of thinking about this. I’m curious to know how you reach your conclusion that most have done none.
So you don’t have any data on how many Americans would find it financially impossible to get ID.
Yes.
I’d love to reason it out. Where are these statistics?
Again, I don’t know without a look see at those statistics.
I don’t know-got any facts or stats on hand?
Yes. I reasons thusly: after the enactment of the Indiana voter ID law, minority voting did not fall – in fact, it rose slightly.
QED.
OK, so we must first enact draconian laws for proving your ID, then go back and do a study on how this impacted various socio-economic groups, then we might have a problem? And all this to solve a problem that doesn’t exist?
I don’t think your proposed first step is necessary. Why don’t we just study the mild and reasonable laws that we’ve already enacted?
It sure beats deciding what laws are constitutional based on unsupported opinion.
This thread that Bricker linked earlier has some numbers handy.
It just struck me that in this thread and inddeed the whole discussion of voter ID and proof of citizenship that apparently:
Voter ID laws are a vast conspiracy used by Republicans to disenfranchise an unknown number of poor Democrats, however there is no concern that not requiring proof of citizenship is a vast conspiracy of Democrats to illegally enfranchise 11 million Democrat voters.
So tell me why the former position is reasonable and the latter is not?
Now wait just a doggone minute- I honestly don’t care if it’s constitutional- it’s just insane policy.
Same reason that voter fraud in Ohio in 2004 was a big deal and hanging chads in 2000 were a big deal, but New Black Panther voter intimidation in 2008 and ACORN fraudulent registrations were not.
Regards,
Shodan
Yeah, right. The ooh so scary New Black Panther guys kept so many inner city blacks from voting for McCain. Probably cost him the election, the scoundrels! And how many illegal votes were cast because of ACORN? Oh yes, zero, zilch, nada, none, diddly squat, zippo, nil.
I find this quote, attributed to Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, in many places including here
I find similar sentiments repeated endlessly in right-ish commentary, from arguably more credible sources down the spectrum to such as John Fund (“Stealing Elections, Revised and Updated: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy”) and further down to such as James O’Keefe. I believe that such statements misrepresent the reality of voter impersonation fraud, and seek only to inflame fear about it. I observe that most discussions by conservatives of voter ID laws and proposals focus on some variation of the above sky-is-falling or about-to fall belief. Further, I note that there is no parallel vigorous call to strengthen the absentee ballot system lest disaster ensue, despite the fact that it is clearly a more fruitful avenue for actual voter fraud. I conclude from this that ‘most’ conservatives have not actually examined the actual extent, not the hyper-inflated “possibility”, of voter impersonation fraud and are supportive of ID requirements merely because they accept the glurge their leadership feeds them.
YMMV.
About those statistics in regard to increase/decrease of voter participation amongst the poor disenfranchised, we are offered to believe that there is no such effect, because there has been an increase in participation amongst the poor and otherwise minority.
It begs the question, thouigh, doesn’t it? In order for those numbers to be significant to our argument, we would have to know two things: the numbers who actually voted, and the numbers who might otherwise have voted. We have the one, but where is the other?
Indeed, there has been a definite increase in participation by the poor. First off, there’s a lot more of them. At least part of that is the increase in population over all, and part of that is the dreadful economic condition of our nation. Duh. Secondly, there was an increase in involvement and participation. I think the cause is obvious, his first name is Barry.
So, we would naturally expect an increase in poor/disadvantaged voters, yes? How then do we measure the actual increase against a potential?
The Pubbies seem to have noticed this trend, and respond with glad cries of “Hosanna!”, joyous as principled men are to see an expansion in the electorate. Ha, just kidding, no, they moved as swiftly as possible to shut it down.
And if they were sincere, wouldn’t you expect some effort to ensure that the problems that concern us here don’t arise? A vigorous voter registration drive, some outreach program to ensure that persons inconvenienced or thwarted by this legislation can easily be in compliance?
Well, about that:
And here:
A summary of such can be found here:
http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/archives/states_legislatures_work_to_restrict_voting_rights/
How blatant does it have to be before some of you guys catch on?
I got it, and I agree with most of it…but what, legally, can be done about it?