Arizona Voter ID law upheld by Ninth Cir

[elucidator]

Step one: bitch! Loud and long, repeat as necessary. Used to do it in person, sit down next to somebody on the bus, say, and start in. Now I’ve got the intertubes, and a web site that connects to the smartest, hippest people on the planet. Old way, only get to a couple of people at a time, this way, I can connect to five, six people on any given day! Progress!

Also, here I can reach out to conservatives of conscience, who reject and condemn this sort of pious chicanery. Sometime, I’ve found both of them to be in agreement with me!

Only connect.

But they got a real doozy here, beautifully framed in pious bullshit about “integrity” and “voter confidence”. But, hey! after all, we can mount a voter registration drive and…oh, wait.

[Chessic_Sense]

@elucidator

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.

Why can’t this be both an effort to increase election integrity and also an effort to stop Democrats from voting? If the Democrats are cheating, isn’t it honorable to stop them from continuing their shenanigans?

[Bricker]

@CannyDan

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.

I do not believe that rigor infuses your methodology.

[CannyDan]

@Chessic_Sense

Why can’t this be both an effort to increase election integrity and also an effort to stop Democrats from voting? If the Democrats are cheating, isn’t it honorable to stop them from continuing their shenanigans?

Where is there evidence or even implication that Democrats are “cheating”? Unless by cheating you mean registering people who are poor, and/or young, and/or brown?

[elucidator]

I do not believe that rigor infuses your methodology.

Rigorous methodology is not required to prove the glaringly obvious.

[Sinaptics]

I’d be more okay with a purple finger or a registry of fingerprints or something. What is I lose or have my wallet stolen the day before the election? Or regarding bills, what happen to my wife, who carries a different last name which doesn’t appear on the bills? Too many pitfalls not even getting into the disenfranchising argument.

[CannyDan]

@Bricker

I do not believe that rigor infuses your methodology.

You are correct. There is nothing rigorous about my reliance on such as **elucidator’s **cites in Post 59. So sorry to have been a bother.

[Ibn_Warraq]

@Chessic_Sense

Why can’t this be both an effort to increase election integrity and also an effort to stop Democrats from voting? If the Democrats are cheating, isn’t it honorable to stop them from continuing their shenanigans?

What is there that “the Democrats” are “cheating”?

[elucidator]

@CannyDan

You are correct. There is nothing rigorous about my reliance on such as **elucidator’s **cites in Post 59. So sorry to have been a bother.

He has proven, to his complete satisfaction, that this is legal and Constitutional. Questions like “justice” are for lesser minds, like mine own.

But don’t worry. We’re right, he’s smart, sooner or later, he’s ours.

[elucidator]

Hey, I just found out something! ALEC, the greasy eminence behind this turd festival, has bailed on this whole “voter ID” thing. Bit late, sure, but there you have it.

According to our good friends at Talking Points Memo, without which no citizen can hope to be well-informed, the slack has been taken up my another forthright conservative group, one with close ties to such beloved conservative icons as Tom DeLay (R-Undead) and Jack “Cough” Abramoff.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/alec_voter_id_national_center_for_public_policy_research.php?ref=fpblg

[CannyDan]

@elucidator

He has proven, to his complete satisfaction, that this is legal and Constitutional. Questions like “justice” are for lesser minds, like mine own.

But don’t worry. We’re right, he’s smart, sooner or later, he’s ours.

I agree that it is Constitutional, and legal, (if free and freely obtainable) and the totality of its effects are unjust, so we are ‘right’. I also agree that **Bricker’s **smart.

I truly hope you are also correct in your prediction.

[elucidator]

From your lips to the Ears…

[CannyDan]

@elucidator

From your lips to the Ears…

Now you sound like my bubbe.

[SailorHG]

I am a little late to this party, but I have a real question that I have not yet seen raised about this topic:

I understood that most states already require ID to purchase tobacco/alcohol, at least for people under age 30. And I also believe, though it may be a bit snobbish of me, that the poor already spend a significant percentage of their income on such things. (No cites, just personal experience/opinion, and I would be happy to be proved wrong.)

If so, then how are they being disenfranchised to also be required to show ID at the polling station? Most of them already have one, and probably even use it regularly.

Even for older voters who aren’t “carded” any longer, I would think an expired ID would serve to prove who they are.

Is this whole debate really even an issue?

Corrections and alternate viewpoints are welcome.

[gamerunknown]

@SailorHG

Is this whole debate really even an issue?

According to this article from the thread Bricker and I linked:

@The Prospect

23 percent of people over 65 do not have a valid ID

only 45 percent of African American men and 51 percent of African American women have valid ID;

54 percent of Hispanic men and 41 percent of Hispanic women have a valid driver's license; and

47 percent of Milwaukee County's African American adults and 43 percent of the county's Hispanic adults have a valid driver's license.

Referring to those in Wisconsin.

[Inner_Stickler]

Given that there is no evidence that voter impersonation at the polls is a common or even uncommon method of voter fraud, but absentee voting and election official fraud is frighteningly common, the fact that we’re even spending any time on voter id issues instead of actually addressing real problems is what irritates me.

[BobLibDem]

@SailorHG

I am a little late to this party, but I have a real question that I have not yet seen raised about this topic:

I understood that most states already require ID to purchase tobacco/alcohol, at least for people under age 30. And I also believe, though it may be a bit snobbish of me, that the poor already spend a significant percentage of their income on such things. (No cites, just personal experience/opinion, and I would be happy to be proved wrong.)

If so, then how are they being disenfranchised to also be required to show ID at the polling station? Most of them already have one, and probably even use it regularly.

Even for older voters who aren’t “carded” any longer, I would think an expired ID would serve to prove who they are.

Is this whole debate really even an issue?

Corrections and alternate viewpoints are welcome.

You don’t have a constitutional right to buy liquor or cigarettes. You do have a constitutional right to vote.

[Czarcasm]

@BobLibDem

You don’t have a constitutional right to buy liquor or cigarettes. You do have a constitutional right to vote.

All citizens have a constitutional right to vote.

[Czarcasm]

Being upset when Republicans are clever is a reaction.
Being cleverer is a solution.

[What_the]

@John_Mace

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.

Aren’t there plenty of well-funded groups that can do that? I know they’d rather use their funding to influence elections in other ways but still.