Kind of lost in the pit thread discussion talking about new Voter ID laws being pushed by Republicans is actual facts surrounding what efforts are actually necessary to vote.
Every state I’ve looked at it is possible to register to vote by mail and vote via mail in ballot. Nowhere did I find it necessary to produce a photo ID to do these things.
I contend that it is possible for almost every American to vote with minimal expense maybe 88 cents in postage being the high end.
I find the Republicans to be repulsive on the issue and believe they fully intend to disenfranchise people from voting, I believe they have presented the actual voter fraud and their solutions dishonestly but they are not preventing people from voting as some in the other thread are claiming. Scummy and dirtbaggish absolutely.
The voter ID laws do require people have an ID to vote at the polls but that is not the only way one has to cast a vote.
The Republicans are being dishonest on this issue, why not simply point that out and argue on the merits rather then making up hypotheticals claiming the poor will not be able to vote. The Republican goal is to persuade voters preferable Democratic ones not to bother trying to vote, countering by claiming they’ve made it prohibitively expensive for the poor to vote feeds into their goal, Wouldn’t it be more productive to spend time educating the poor how they can vote with minimal expenses?
I’d much rather see an honest rebuttal on the voter ID legislation then the crap going on in the pit.
Your cite doesn’t provide the information you think it does. You’ll have to be more specific. Pick a state I’ll show you how you can register and vote without a photo ID.
The cite shows states where you need to show photo ID if you show up at the polls on election day. It doesn’t say that you need to show a photo ID if you send in your ballot by mail. That’s what the OP is saying.
Take the case of Georgia, for example. Georgia shows up on your cite as a state which strictly requires photo ID. But I just went to the Georgia elections web site, and you can obtain an absentee ballot for an upcoming election without showing photo ID, and then you can fill out and submit the absentee ballot, again without showing photo ID.
Don’t a lot of states have limitations on who can vote absentee? I know that in California, it was a big deal back in the 90s when they changed the law to let everyone vote by mail if they choose. Though, I’m not sure exactly what they changed the law from. But, I remember hearing in the last election that California has a much higher percentage of mail-in votes than most states.
If you can get around the voter ID laws by simply electing to vote by mail, that would seem to completely undermine the reasoning for these laws. Not that I agree with them in the first place.
Well it undermines the reasoning the Republicans have outlined. If their real goal was to eliminate voter fraud leaving a gaping hole like mail in ballots would show they are incompetent in trying to achieve that goal.
What it comes down to though is mail in ballots have had a favorable percentage for Republicans so they’d rather leave those systems completely untouched. It’s the urban voters showing up at the polls that have favored Democratic party that they are trying to take a chunk out of.
So Republicans when it comes to voter ID laws are either evil or incompetent? Is there another explanation for this?
People voting by mail generally vote Republican by substantial majorities anyway. They’re usually older and less likely to procrastinate. Republicans don’t want to do anything to make that type of voting harder.
Boty is correct. Where electoral fraud does occur it’s usually through the abuse of the Absentee ballot system if for no other reason then you can get vastly more bang for your buck.
For example, in the late 90s when the Miami mayoral election was stolen it was phony absentee ballots and whenever the dead vote it’s usually via absentee ballot.
Unfortunately the American electoral system is a disgrace which largely operates on the honor system.
In California it has been well-known for decades that the first totals shown right after the polls close show more support for the Republican candidates than the final counts, mainly because they include only the absentee ballots.
That article deals strictly with absentee ballots in California not the nation as a whole. Moreover the article attributes the Republican success to being better organized not anything about the voters themselves.
Finally it says that roughly 44% were Republicans, 41% were Democrats and the remainder declined to register with a party. That’s hardly overwhelming.
I think a more interesting study would be Oregon. It’s all vote-by-mail there, so it really is a question of who can be bothered to open their mail and fill out their ballot while sitting at home. Do we see the same sort of swings in voter intensity in an all-mail system?
I know a lot of people think that’s true, but I would be surprised if that were actually true anywhere in the US. It’s definitely not true in California, for example – absentee ballots are always counted here, even if the election is a landslide.
Volunteer election inspector here. (one of the “little old ladies behind the table.”)
In Michigan, if you register by mail, you get flagged in the voter registry book with a notice for the inspectors that you must vote in person (ergo: show ID) the first time you vote. As absentee votes are handled at the township office, every vote we volunteers tally that day involve people coming in and voting in person (meaning they also need to either show ID or sign an affadavit) so the point for us is moot, but the notation does exist.
And, as for the “absentee votes aren’t counted unless it’s close,” we occasionally get people who walk in wanting to vote on election day who have already been issued an absentee ballot. SOP is to call the clerk’s office to see if they’ve returned it. If they’ve turned it in, and it’s early enough in the day and their vote hasn’t been opened and tallied yet, it’s possible for the office to pull their envelope and destroy the ballot and let the voter vote in person if they want to. But if it’s after 4 o’clock, they’re usually shit out of luck because even in a big election all of the absentee votes have usually been tallied by then (with the exception of those that people turn in in person before the 8pm poll closing.)
Military personnel, esp. the officer ranks, have a strong conservative inclincation, and tend to vote heavily Republican. They are often overseas, or at least not stationed in their home district.
Remember Florida, when a bunch of military ballots weren’t a hundred percent kosher? Remember the screaming shit fit the Pubbies threw when it was suggested that, since the absentee ballots weren’t strictly legal, they should be tossed?
Yes, but I’m pretty sure military ballots make up a small percentage of absentee ballots. Also it’s ridiculous to imply only Republicans were upset at the attempt to throw out absentee ballots that weren’t stamped when military personell didn’t need to stamp their ballots.
You’ll remember the Democratic VP candidate openly condemned this.