A majority of Republicans, Independents and Democrats support voter ID laws.
Most people have no trouble voting. Most people would like to pay fewer taxes. Do the math.
I only didn’t cite Democrats because polling isn’t the end of the story on these types of issues. If Democrats went all out in favor of their view of voting rights, Democratic voters would start supporting them, much as Democrats became more favorable to gay marriage when Democratic politicians started coming out for it.
I think it’s the other way around. Democratic politicians started “evolving” in favor of SSM only after that issue became quite popular with voters.
Politicians are great at telling which way the wind is blowing, although some Republicans seem to be a bit lagging these days.
Both are true. Politicians evolved on it as public opinion changed, but the recent rash of big name politicians coming out for it has increased support for gay marriage even more.
Exactly.
Most people don’t see a right to vote and reasonable voter ID laws as being in tension. So being in favor of reasonable voter ID laws won’t cause them to oppose a right to vote amendment.
(Those who are for voter ID laws for disenfranchisement purposes will be against a right to vote amendment, of course, but that’s the battle advocates of a right to vote are trying to bring.)
Like Little Nemo, I’d keep the amendment simple, but I’d also just have it apply to Federal elections. The states would eventually come around to the Federal standard, expecially since just about every state other than VA and NJ has their state elections coincide with House of Representatives elections. But at least it would be voluntary, which would get rid of the ‘forcing something down the states’ throats’ bit.
I’d also limit the exclusion of criminals to those incarcerated.
Hell, if it were up to me alone, I’d let prisoners vote. My sense is that giving prisoners a reason to be connected to the outside world is good for their rehabilitation. And I really can’t see how it does harm to democracy to let prisoners vote. Even while incarcerated, they’re still citizens, and should be able to exercise this right that in no way interferes with their punishment. But I also know that people are nuts about this sort of thing, and an amendment that lets prisoners vote wouldn’t get through a much better Congress than this one, let alone 38 state legislatures.
Do you have a cite for that? I still think it’s the other way around.
Tangential factoid for international context - our European overlords are currently arguing with the UK government that our blanket ban on people in prison voting contradicts human rights law. Apparently, at least some prisoners in gaol need to be allowed to vote. The Great British Public goes 
.
The idea behind limiting the vote to citizens, rather than just anyone who happens to show up at the polls, is that citizens have the welfare of this country at heart when they vote, whereas non-citizens would not. Felons fall into that same category, except they’ve already proved that they don’t have the best interests of their country at heart.
“Most” is really a comfort if you’re one of the people who wasn’t able to vote. Nobody’s suggesting there are plans to disenfranchise the majority - but disenfranchising just a few percent would swing elections if the disenfranchisement was properly targeted.
And while there may be support for the general principle of voter ID laws, I don’t think there would be the same support for using those laws as means of disenfranchising people who would otherwise be eligible to vote. If anything, I think there would be a backlash if the public became convinced the voter ID laws were being used to rig elections rather than prevent election rigging.
That’s why some voter ID laws get struck down and some get upheld. The ones that are upheld are narrowly tailored to further a compelling government interest.
Could you give some examples of voter ID laws that were struck down? I’d like to read the decisions and see what their reasoning was. I suspect in many cases, the judges would have been relying on one of the amendments I listed above. If so, then I think my argument still applies.
Recently, Texas and Ohio got struck down. The only difference I can see between the laws that get upheld and the laws that got struck down are what types of ID are acceptable. Strict voter ID laws that require a government issued photo ID don’t tend to survive scrutiny, but looser laws that allow things like library cards or utility bills as valid ID get upheld. Or, alternatively a state can provide free voter ID, as Rhode Island’s new law does.
Then there’s the in between like Pennsylvania’s voter ID law, which got struck down for the 2012 election, but only because it didn’t give enough time for voters to comply. So it will be in effect for elections going forward. The Pennsylvania law also allows many forms of ID.
There’s also the question of state constitutions. I believe Wisconsin’s voter ID law was struck down because it violated the Wisconsin Constitution.
While I’m in favor of prisoners being able to vote, I’m as confused as the Great British Public. I don’t see how this is a basic human rights issue at all.
How so? If I embezzle money from your grandma, I’ve proven that I don’t have the best interests of your grandma at heart. But I don’t see how that proof is scalable to the level of a nation.
ETA: People put their parochial interests ahead of what’s best for their community, city, nation, etc. all the time. That’s politics. (Should we deny the franchise, and the right to spend money to influence politics, to those who want to keep on dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere without any regulation?) The only difference with a felon is that they took it to an illegal extreme. But I don’t see how that automatically makes their political judgment worse than those who keep their not having the best interests of their country at heart within legal bounds.
To be honest, I don’t agree with ANY of this. The idea behind limiting the vote to citizens is that citizens have a right to have a say in their own governance.
Where their “heart” is is obviously not relevant, since people since the dawn of time have been routinely voting not where the best interests of their country lay, but where their own interests lay. Do you think there aren’t a lot of high income earners out there voting for the candidate who won’t raise taxes on rich people, even if they have the economic savvy to know it might be good for the country as a whole? People are entitled to vote for what benefits them if that’s how they want to cast their ballot.
Furthermore, government derives its power from the consent of the governed. *All *of the governed - not just the nice ones.
If felons don’t get to vote, maybe they shouldn’t pay taxes. Isn’t that how it works?
Texas was (IMHO correctly) struck down because Texas charged for the IDs, $22.
The only thing I remember in Ohio was a rule that early voting was available only to military personnel; that rule was axed. I don’t recall an Ohio voter ID law getting struck – adahar, do you have more detail?
sigh
Where do these crazy ideas come from?
We tax foreign income but don’t permit the aliens earning such income to vote.
So, no, felons have to pay taxes, and it’s perfectly permissible that they don’t vote. Minors pay taxes, and it’s perfectly permissible that they don’t vote. Voting and taxes are only tangentially related, revolutionary war slogans notwithstanding.
Out of curiosity, did you take a class in high school called Civics, or a class with a similar course of study?
Sure people vote for parochial reasons, but 99% of voters are good people who think their interests and their patriotism are not in conflict.
Felons are not good people, and many are not just self-interested, but generally destructive. Many are borderline nutcases, and most are incredibly ignorant. Most states have decided, with good reason, that qualified voters should be patriotic, law abiding citizens, which excludes criminals, non-citizens, children, and the severely mentally disabled.
Never mind, not Ohio, I got voter ID confused with the early voting fiasco.
We all *think *that, don’t we?
I don’t really see a correlation between thinking it, and its being true.
Tru dat. “No one is good except God.” - J.C.
The same could be said about many of the law-abiding. Ever hear the phrase “malefactors of great wealth”?
While I could see some political advantage in excluding borderline nutcases and the extremely ignorant from the electorate (there go the Fox News and Glenn Beck demographics!), that’s not the way voting eligibility works, and I’d be against it if it did.
Really? I didn’t know patriotism was a qualification for voting, directly or indirectly, in any state.
Children aren’t citizens? That’s not what my son’s passport says. And ‘criminal’ is a loose term - is a felon who’s ‘paid his debt to society’ still a criminal? If so, at what point, if ever, does he stop being a criminal and become a former criminal?
ISTM that you’re just stringing together a bunch of feelgood phrases, rather than making an argument.