My goodness! You actually used Faux News as a source!
You know better than that. Anything posted or broadcast by Faux is completely unreliable and funded by the Koch brothers!
Are you seriously saying the inhabitants of this board consider Faux News reliable?
So in order to vote, I should be required to prove I’m not an evil “villan”?
Not in my America, Buddy… Not in *MY *America!!
Happy Patriotic 4th of freeking July!
(singing)… My country 'tis of thee…(fades out, leaving not a dry eye in the house.)
Let me know when you plan to start doing that.
It would be unconstitutional 
So your argument is “the official figures are low by several orders of magnitude, despite investigations leaving basically no stone unturned in an attempt to discover fraud”? I’m reminded of an old “friend” of mine and his truly glorious adage - “remember, everything is at least 1000 times more toxic than they tell you”. Sure, he never did anything to actually prove it, but he believed it.
But okay, sure, maybe there are more than the reported number of cases of ID-preventable voter fraud (even though voter impersonation fraud is, as previously pointed out, completely asinine and you’d have to be as dumb as James O’Keefe to attempt it on any scale that would affect anything). Given the demonstrable chilling effect that voter ID has on legitimate voters, particularly low-income and urban voters, is this really a thing we want to bank on? No! Of course not! Especially because, again, the amount by which we’d have to be off by is ridiculously high!
Math time. Working off the 10% figure from the Brennan Center on voting-age citizens with no ID, and assuming that at least 0.1% of them both want to vote but would consider getting ID onerous (I think this is a very fair number, and actually extremely low - only one in a thousand), you end up with 0.01% of the general populace that’s effectively disenfranchised. They can’t vote, but want to. Keep in mind that a vote that legally should be cast but is not allowed to has the same net distorting effect as a vote that is cast illegally. Given that assumption, the amount of distortion from voter ID laws in the election is 146,000,000 * 0.0001 = 14,600.
So let’s assume that there is more in-person voter fraud than you claim. How much more would there have to be? Well, 40*365 = 14,600. Even being extremely charitable with what percentage of those without ID want to vote, you’d still need more than 360 times as much fraud going on as has been detected.
And then there’s your comparison. Shoplifting, drunk driving, underage drug use… These are all fairly descrete crimes. If someone drives drunk and nobody sees it, there’s virtually no way to prove that it happened a day or two later. Voting, however, has a long paper trail, with registrations, ballots with names on them, voter rolls… Even without ID, we are very capable of detecting fraud long after the fact. When we investigate for voter fraud, there’s generally a pretty good understanding of what to look for, and good reason to believe that not much has been missed. So I guess the question is… Why should we believe that less than 0.1% of those without ID want to vote? Why should we believe that the amount of voter fraud detected is off by a factor of more than 350? Why do you believe this? How can you believe this?
Oh, and for the record? This “friend” of mine was essentially completely fucking insane. If I’m comparing you to him, you fucked up big time.
I want to understand, your saying both , the number of actual voters that would be effected is so minuscule as to make no difference to any given election, yet it’s to much trouble to make those few get ID? or to important to those voters to put undo burden upon them?
Yet 99+% of actual voters have some acceptable form of ID but deserve no protection that it would afford them?
Do you have any numbers to show which Way those few voters might vote? Is it 50/50? 40/60? Democrat / republican? If it’s a 50/50 split then what difference does it make if they have ID or not? the only argument you have is it’s to much trouble as far as I can tell.
What I’m saying is that the gulf between the number of voters likely to lose their voice due to voter ID laws and the amount of voter fraud it is capable of stopping is huge. For every illegal vote you prevent, you are likely to prevent 300+ people from legally voting. Remember, that 0.1% I brought up earlier isn’t just “the people without ID who want to vote”; it’s specifically people who want to vote but who would find getting ID very difficult. And yes, it can be very difficult to get a valid photo ID - in some places, the nearest DMV is an hour or more away by car (something those without voter ID don’t have), and there’s no public transit.
Wait, where’d you get that figure? 99+%? That’s simply not true! If it was, this wouldn’t be much of an issue! The real figure is around 89%. More than one in ten voting-age Americans lacks government-issued photo ID. That’s been the basis for my calculations.
This goes both ways, doesn’t it? Is there any reason to believe that voter fraud is anything but a 50/50 split? Therefore it shouldn’t matter either way? :rolleyes: But of course, there is good reason to think that those voter would swing democrat. Those without ID are very often poor, minorities, or young. You know, groups which tend to heavily favor democrats. Hell, that 11% number goes up to 25% when you examine only African-Americans. I should remind you that African-Americans overwhelmingly (60-70%) self-identify as Democrats and barely ever (5-7%) self-identify as Republicans.
Here, let me list them in a sort of “cliffs notes” version.
[ul]
[li]Voter impersonation fraud is so rare as to be negligible[/li][li]The number of people without ID is 11% of the population[/li][li]Many of those without ID want to vote but find getting ID extremely onerous[/li][li]Those without ID tend to lean heavily democratic[/li][li]Other forms of electoral fraud (such as absentee ballot fraud) are far more common and yet are absolutely not addressed by this law[/li][li]There is little to no reason to believe that the official figures on how common voter fraud is are off by the orders of magnitude necessary for voter ID to make sense[/li][li]There is no reason to believe that all those without ID do not want to vote[/li][li]Voter impersonation fraud is so rare because it’s a very stupid crime to commit - most of the time, it ends up being an honest mistake[/li][/ul]
The arguments for voter ID border on fractally wrong.
Mr. Budget Player Cadet, that is a lucid, intelligent, well thought-out objection.
Overruled.
/Judge Chamberlain Haller
Math ‘n’ Logic, bitches.
Voter impersonation fraud is so rare as to be negligible
The number of people without ID is 11% of the population
Many of those without ID want to vote but find getting ID extremely onerous
Those without ID tend to lean heavily democratic.
Other forms of electoral fraud (such as absentee ballot fraud) are far more common and yet are absolutely not addressed by this law,
There is little to no reason to believe that the official figures on how common voter fraud is are off by the orders of magnitude necessary for voter ID to make sense
There is no reason to believe that all those without ID do not want to vote
Voter impersonation fraud is so rare because it’s a very stupid crime to commit - most of the time, it ends up being an honest mistake
I don’t believe your premise on this point, I don’t think you can even begin to know how prevalent it is until you start using measures like ID to verify identity. ID would also fix the accidental voting very easily, honest mistake are still mistakes, just try to tell that officer you didn’t see the new speed limit signs while trying to get out of that ticket.
You, my friend, are truly the most special of snowflakes.
Okay, so give me a number. You think the official measurements of voter fraud are off. How much are they off by? What do you think is the real number? How many fraudulent votes were cast since 2000 that voter ID could have prevented?
Just people without ID. What percentage of them do you think want to vote? What percentage of them do you think have
See, that’s the beauty part of my argument. I intentionally chose numbers that were tiny. I don’t have solid figures on this, although the Brennan Center gives us a pretty good look into how many people would have trouble and the answers aren’t pretty (upwards of 10 million Americans with no ID live more than 10 miles away from the DMV - that’s upwards of 2/3rds of the original 14.6 million!).
I gave you a combined figure of 0.1% above - that is, 0.1% of people in America with no ID both find it highly onerous to acquire ID and want to vote. Do you think this figure is low? If so, why? Why would you assume that people without ID are so much less likely to vote?
Moronic, just for good measure. It’s not racist to notice that certain racial minority groups are statistically less likely to have photo ID. It’s also not racist to notice that those same racial minority groups tend to swing overwhelmingly in one political direction. Facts are facts, there’s nothing racist about pointing them out.
No, but this does speak to the partisan nature of these bills. Absentee ballot fraud is something like 40 times more common than impersonation fraud, and yet the same people who cheer for voter ID laws would scoff at the idea of requiring your absentee ballot to be notarized. Somehow, I guess it’s just a coincidence that absentee ballots tend to favor republicans, and voter ID laws would stop mostly democrats from legally voting.
Harry Reid is a buffoon, and that statement is asinine. There is exactly one reason to discount the evidence: if there is good reason to believe that the evidence is lacking or tainted. And we have no such reason. Why do you believe that the figures on impersonation voter fraud are so low? What makes you think that the investigation was incapable of detecting them? Do you think the Bush administration was inco- lemme rephrase that. Do you think that the Bush administration was incapable of following a very clear party-line goal? You think they would have done this huge investigation into something politically convenient for them if they thought they couldn’t find any voter fraud? That’d be like an anti-Nixon group staging a huge investigation into the Watergate Scandal while knowing that the results would come back negative because they had no functional way of demonstrating a break-in.
Well, if you want to put it that way, then we can change the numbers a little bit on my previous equation. My figure of 0.1% was obviously very small if we make no assumptions about these people with regards to their voting tendencies. If we make no such assumptions, then it’s fair to attribute the same general voting pattern to them that the rest of Americans have - so around 40% participation. Which means that instead of 0.1% of 10%, you end up with 40% of 10%. And let’s assume that at least half of them don’t have ID because they consider it too much of a pain in the ass to get. So our final figure is 2%. Given that, the amount of distortion from voter ID laws in the election is 146,000,000 * 0.02 = 2,920,000.
…Oops. Suddenly that 365 number I came up with earlier looks positively friendly.
It’s not a premise, it’s a whole argument which you apparently skipped over earlier in the thread. The smallest congressional district in the country has 416,412 people in it. The smallest. The average is closer to 700,000. What’s the likelihood that one single vote is likely to sway anything? How about 10? How about 100? This is, of course, assuming that the voter fraud is all going in one direction - which we have no reason to believe.
I think you’re wrong, and I’d use the fact that we can and regularly do investigate to see if fraud took place as evidence. Indeed, there’s been quite a lot of that going on.
That’s from the judge’s decision in a court case on voter ID. Is it correct that you have to register to vote at a specific polling location? If so, then I honestly don’t understand how voter ID would stop any fraud that isn’t incredibly easy to detect already. And I certainly don’t see how it could become anything resembling an endemic problem.
Please. You keep just saying “I reject that premise” or “I think it can’t be detected”. Can you please tell us your reasoning? Why do you believe that?
BPC, I’m glad you’ve decided to elaborate to this individual the same things that I’ve wanted to. I’m a lazy researcher.
Kudos to you.
Seconded.
And also, please be gentle on your poor head. That’s a pretty solid brick wall there.
If I thought I was gonna convince anyone, I wouldn’t do this. I’m just bookmarking this page so that when this shit comes up again and again and again, I have a quick reference.
All you needed to say!
You have your ideas, I have mine,
this county used to be a great place for everyone to express both, now, not so much, to much hate filled vitriol over actual debate.
Now with all that said, (short and to the point) I think voter ID will win in court and I’ve stated over and over why I believe that to be true, it is my opinion and should be taken at just that, nothing more, nothing less.
Yeah, that’s your Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin etc.
They can’t handle debate, so they make up silly names for their opponents, deny the truth, and foster an environment of fear.
I don’t listen to Hannity or Levin, I still listen to Rush when I have the chance, and like you said, he fosters fear like, don’t listen to Rush, he’ll make fun of you and stuff!
But the liberal left they are all caring and stuff and only debate on the merits of their positition, just look up holly hobby lobby on twitter or Facebook and you’ll find proof of that!
No, he fosters fear like: Oh no, I don’t understand it! I’m afraid of it! Where’s my pills! You all should be afraid of it, too!
Yes, and unlike you, I care whether or not what I believe is true. You could say this about literally any topic. Climate change, evolution, the shape of the earth, heliocentrism… Yes, we both have our ideas, but only one of us has the mental capacity to justify them. And these ideas are anything but harmless - the actions they lead to affect the most fundamental means of change in a democracy. If I’m wrong, and you’re right, then we have stolen elections to fear. If I’m right, and you’re wrong, then we have unjustly prevented a great many people from exercising their fundamental rights, and tilted election results. The fact that you cannot represent your position well enough to convince, well, anyone is not just an intellectual failing on your part, it is a moral failing as well.
I’ve been trying very, very hard to foster a debate here. I’ve asked you multiple times to try to justify your beliefs. “Why do you believe X”, I asked. “What justification do you have for believing Y”. You just wouldn’t answer. That’s not debate, that’s a statement of position. Look, if you had made one cogent point I would have worked with it. But you didn’t! I systematically dismantled every single point you made. And your response is then to say, “I have my facts, you have yours” and bemoan how hate-filled and vitriolic debate has gotten? If you cannot reasonably defend your position at least have the strength of character to admit defeat!
I think it’ll win in court too. Just like GMO labeling laws, just like religious exemption from the law in the Hobby Lobby case, just like unlimited anonymous political funding. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t fucking stupid, and it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t fight tooth and nail against it. See, what bugs me about this is, I systematically went through and shredded every argument you put forward, and your response was “Well, I still think I’m right, it’s just my opinion”. Hell, all that’s missing was a typical “opinions can’t be wrong” schtick.