# I Pit the ID-demanding GOP vote-suppressors (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 12, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943 "2012-06-12T19:15:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 103
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2012, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2041 "2012-07-31T13:28:17Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Preface: Earlier today I was thinking about posts that someone else in this thread made, and I was thinking to myself “geez, this guy. At least with Bricker, even when I totally disagree with him, even when I think he’s taking the thread off on a tangent and being all lawyery and weasely, at least he writes things where I clearly see the point that he’s trying to make, and the things he say do in fact support that point, although obviously I don’t always agree with those conclusions”. That said, this time, you’ve totally lost me. Thanks very much for the kind words. Let me give it another shot. > [@](#): > > My position is that voter ID laws, as discussed in this thread, are unethical and antiDemocratic (with various bits of additional subtlety that I’ve already posted about at great length). If there’s a difference between “those laws are bad” and “those laws are bad NO MATTER WHICH PARTY BENEFITS”, I don’t see what it is. Of COURSE that’s my position, or at least my claimed position. How could someone ever be arguing otherwise? Is anyone in this thread (or any thread in the history of the SDMB) arguing “those types of laws are bad, and I _do_ care which party benefits”? That’s an absolutely correct observation. You and I are saying the same thing here: implicitly (and now explicitly) your argument against the Voter ID law is that you object to the process, no matter which side benefits. If you were to say, “This is terrible when Republicans do it, but it’s not so bad when Democrats do it,” we can agree it would be somewhat of a blow to the strength of your argument, yes? But how is it so different, when you’re presented with a similar use of legislative power for Democratic partisan benefit, and you say, in effect, “Nah, I don’t know any thing about that; I don’t wish to learn; I’m not interested; I don’t care.” Isn’t that, in large measure, equivalent to “It’s not so bad when Democrats do it?” The Voter ID issue is inherently a subjective one. We must weigh the interest in assuring that the registered voter is the person casting a ballot in the name of the registered voter against the difficulty in obtaining that assurance. The more difficult the process, of course, the more we hurt voter participation. But there’s no objective scale involved – we have a subjective determination in how much weight we assign to the importance of identifying voters and how much difficulty that’s worth as a trade-off. Necessarily, then, when you argue about how important voter participation is, and how important these kinds of tools of a democracy are, you are implicitly saying, “This is how I really feel about people being denied the tools of democracy.” But if your tactic is to only focus on situations in which the GOP is potentially the bad guy, and willfully ignore situations in which the Democrats are the bad guy, then your ability to make that argument is compromised. Imagine the police in fictional Bedforestown. They cruise the streets at night. If they see a car with a white driver, they generally ignore it, although if they see an infraction they’ll act. A car with a black driver will be watched carefully, and if the driver commits any traffic violation, they are pulled over and ticketed. Black drivers complain about the scheme and are told, “These are two different situations. What you did wrong has nothing to do with what any other drivers did or didn’t do. And besides, you have nothing to complain about: we didn’t see white drivers commit many traffic infractions at all.” You can’t focus your attention on one thing, deliberately remain ignorant of another, and then use that as both a sword and a shield in argument. I contend your collective outrage is real against the Republicans, but weak or non-existent against the Democrats, because the real source of the outrage is not misuse of power of the legislature for political gain. The real source of the outrage is REPUBLICAN power gain by misuse of the power of the legislature. If I’m wrong, what else explains your ennui – even when given links and summaries about Democratic misuse of the power of the legislature – for learning about it? Fun? It’s more fun to argue on the righteous side when Democrats are righteous? Isn’t that, functionally, the same thing as what I’m accusing you of? Willful ignorance can only arise if, deep down, you simply don’t think Democratic malfeasance is as bad as Republican malfeasance. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2012, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2042 "2012-07-31T14:03:56Z")
Bricker alighted on liberal hypocrisy guys. We just need to suck it up. If there’s ever a new voter drive in the US that’s sponsored by the Democrats, it should ensure that there’s a representative outside the Conscience Point nightclub seeking to get their patrons valid IDs and a helipad on Wall Street to take executives to a voting booth. Alternatively, they should just discourage the poor from voting, same effect in principle. That way there’d be no partisan advantage that’s inherent in a democratic system. You know, that great levelling spirit of man and all that. Fair and balanced. Equality of opportunity, not of voter rolls. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2012, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2043 "2012-07-31T15:37:47Z")
Golly, **Bricker,** if this liberal hypocrisy thing was so important, I gotta wonder why you didn’t bring it up before now? Clearly, such an irrefutable and devastating critique must have…excuse me, I’m getting a message from our OCD Archivist…what’s that you say?..yes?..oh, he did bring it up before? Oh, really? Well, maybe once or twice but…what?! Eleven thousand three hundred and twenty seven times! Sort of understandable, I guess, I mean, its such a totally destructive point, it wipes out everything in its path, absitively and posolutely destroys any point we might make. Because, as everybody knows, when a hypocrite tells you the truth, its no longer true. If a hypocrite tells you pigs can’t fly, sure betcha pig flop will be dropping from the skies soonest! Better buy an umbrella. A _sturdy_ umbrella! These laws were undemocratic and unAmerican, sure! But then a hypocrite said they were, so now they are not. Damn! He got us again! ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2012, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2044 "2012-07-31T18:05:34Z")
And you know, come to think on it, I do remember that you admitted that at least some Republicans were doing this for the partisan gain to be had. A fit of non-partisan candor, duly noted, duly approved. But can you point out the post where you renounce, denounce and otherwise condemn? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2045 "2012-07-31T18:33:58Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > These laws were undemocratic and unAmerican, sure! But then a hypocrite said they were, so now they are not. > > Damn! He got us again! You were the one that insisted the problem was not the laws, but the laws combined with the motives of the lawmakers. Weren’t you? Are we back to the problem being the laws now? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2012, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2046 "2012-07-31T18:45:57Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > And you know, come to think on it, I do remember that you admitted that at least some Republicans were doing this for the partisan gain to be had. A fit of non-partisan candor, duly noted, duly approved. > > But can you point out the post where you renounce, denounce and otherwise condemn? It doesn’t exist, because I don’t. To the contrary, I said that the motives of the lawmakers were irrelevant. I said that as long as there’s an independent valid reason for the laws that I approve of, I’m fine. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2012, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2047 "2012-07-31T20:11:50Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Thanks very much for the kind words. You are welcome. Also, you have a fine singing voice. > [@](#): > > You and I are saying the same thing here: implicitly (and now explicitly) your argument against the Voter ID law is that you object to the process, no matter which side benefits. Right > [@](#): > > If you were to say, “This is terrible when Republicans do it, but it’s not so bad when Democrats do it,” we can agree it would be somewhat of a blow to the strength of your argument, yes? Umm, I’m not really sure what I would be saying, here. Would I be making an argument at all? Ie, “hey, here’s something Republicans did, and here are 5 reasons it’s bad (1, 2, 3, 4 5). Oh, and it’s OK when Democrats do it”? That would be a bizarrely weird thing to say. However, if I did say that, it would be a blow to my integrity, but not to the logical validity (or lack thereof) of my argument. > [@](#): > > But how is it so different, when you’re presented with a similar use of legislative power for Democratic partisan benefit, and you say, in effect, “Nah, I don’t know any thing about that; I don’t wish to learn; I’m not interested; I don’t care.” Isn’t that, in large measure, equivalent to “It’s not so bad when Democrats do it?” No, it is not. I have never read much about the Armenian genocide committed by Turkey in the early part of the 20th century. I could maybe name you 3 facts about it, and I might be wrong about all of them. Does that mean that I condone genocide? That I think that the Turkish genocide is less bad than other historical atrocities with which I’m more familiar? Not at all. > [@](#): > > Imagine the police in fictional Bedforestown. They cruise the streets at night. If they see a car with a white driver, they generally ignore it, although if they see an infraction they’ll act. A car with a black driver will be watched carefully, and if the driver commits any traffic violation, they are pulled over and ticketed. Black drivers complain about the scheme and are told, “These are two different situations. What you did wrong has nothing to do with what any other drivers did or didn’t do. And besides, you have nothing to complain about: we didn’t see white drivers commit many traffic infractions at all.” > > You can’t focus your attention on one thing, deliberately remain ignorant of another, and then use that as both a sword and a shield in argument. There’s an important distinction there, however, which is that the police have the job, the responsibility, of being fair, of enforcing laws equally. I, as an SDMB poster, do not. If I were a national news anchor, or a judge, or maybe a political scientist, I would be in a position where part of my responsibility was in fact to learn about all sorts of relevant issues, seek them out, etc., so as to have a comprehensive and balanced view of lots of stuff. But I’m not and I don’t. If I were to have a bizarre fixation on female Republican senators involved in baking-related scandals, and posted 99% of my posts in threads about that topic, that just means that that’s what I’m interested, it doesn’t mean that I condone baking scandals from male Republican senators, or Democrats, or anything else. > [@](#): > > If I’m wrong, what else explains your ennui – even when given links and summaries about Democratic misuse of the power of the legislature – for learning about it? > > Fun? It’s more fun to argue on the righteous side when Democrats are righteous? > > Isn’t that, functionally, the same thing as what I’m accusing you of? Willful ignorance can only arise if, deep down, you simply don’t think Democratic malfeasance is as bad as Republican malfeasance. In a word, no. For instance (and I really don’t intend bringing this up as a lol-rub-your-face-in-it) suppose that one morning there are two big scandals that have broken, one in which there’s another child molestation case involving the Catholic Church, and one in which some prominent abortion rights group is caught doing something somewhat comparably wrong. You log onto the SDMB and see a thread about each one. Which thread are you more likely to open up and participate in… one in which you’re going to have to spend a lot of time saying “yes, this organization which I’m very devoted to did something really really awful, and I have to keep stressing that, and it’s bad” or one in which you can be pointing out the errors and flaws of people you strongly disagree with and oppose? Now it’s possible that your brain is wired differently enough from mine that you would be equally likely to read or participate in each thread, but if you in fact would be more likely to read the abortion scandal thread (as I suspect is the case) that doesn’t make you a hypocrite, it just makes you human. To sum up, you seem to be making an argument with three main steps: (1) MaxTheVool is a hypocrite (or some slightly less strong word), and therefore his position on the voter ID issue is invalid (or at best suspect) (2) We know he’s a hypocrite because he has different views on the MA business and the voter ID business differently (3) We know he has different views on those two issues because he has posted a lot about one, and not about the other. We’re already spent a lot of time talking about (1), not too much left to say, although there are certainly posters like **Der Trihs** who I do in fact believe might well judge situations very differently if Republicanss vs Democrats are involved… but who are also intelligent and eloquent people capable of crafting logically sound arguments, arguments which aren’t automatically invalidated just by the double standard of their author. (2) Is one that I’ve talked about some, but you haven’t responded to, with a key bit from my long post being this: > [@me](#): > > One final point: very complicated real life issues are very rarely actually analogous or comparable. Occasionally you’ll have a D and an R congressperson both involved in very similar corruption scandals, or very similar tweet-pictures-of-their-genitals scandals, and then it’s at least not hilariously silly to think that honest people should react the same way to each. But in the real world, that’s pretty uncommon. For instance, I’m still really pissed off about the Bush/Gore 2000 election debacle and the supreme court decision. Am I pissed off just because my “team” lost? Well, I don’t think so, and I guess it might be useful to find the same situation happening in the other direction and see how I felt about that… except that the same situation, with similar enough details that it’s very closely comparable, will NEVER happen in the other direction. The odds are astronomically against it. So if we want to assess the validity of my position, I guess we’re stuck actually discussing the facts of the case. That is, just because there are some vague similarities between the voter ID issue and the MA issue does not mean that they are so identical that demonstrating that someone has different opinions about them is evidence of hypocrisy. In fact, almost no two “real” issues ever are. I think that if (and again, I don’t know why you’d actually want to spend your time doing this) you really really wanted to demonstrate that some SDMB poster was a hypocrite, you’d have to do one of two things: either find two issues that are INCREDIBLY similar, one going each way, and show that that poster didn’t react the same to them; or show a pattern extending over lots and lots of different issues, to generate an “average” of sorts. Another way of thinking about it is that you certainly have the right to propose the “voter ID issue and MA issue are really really similar” test, but you can’t just kind of summon it out of thin air. If you want to make the extraordinary claim that those two issues are so close to identical that people’s level of hypocrisy can be judged by their varying reactions to those two issues, then you’d better make an extraordinary argument about it, not just point out that there are a few similarities (both involve actions taken by a legislature, both effect how some election to some office will take place) and then assume that your test is valid. As to the precise details here, while I do think the onus is on you to actually make a comparison, I’ll point out at least one utterly key distinction I see between the two, which is the issue of the self-correcting nature of Democracy in general. One of the fundamentally nice things about Democracy is that if a party gets in power, and starts screwing up, they will then get voted out of power, and the pendulum will swing back and forth. However, this depends on voting rights being equally distributed across the entire populace… certainly, if there was some (obviously fictitious) law that just said “ok, this 10% of the populace, who are all democrats, never get to vote again” it would throw that pendulum out of whack. So if the liberal view of the voter ID issue is correct, and it’s going to have a continual and long lasting affect of reducing turnout by democratic voters by a measurable amount, then it’s messing with the key mechanism of democracy itself… so you could end up in a situation where 52 or 53 percent of the voting populace ended up in favor of Democrats, but the Republicans stayed in power forever due to the shenanigans they implemented back when they were in the majority. There is nothing of that in the MA issue. In the MA situation, if in the future there’s a shift and MA becomes 52 or 53 percent Republican, then absolutely nothing that the legislature did to set how special elections for senators occur will have the slightest impact on whether the legislature, senators, and/or governor end up being Republicans. I think that’s the single biggest difference, but I’m not going to say it’s the only one. But I think that’s more than enough for it to be entirely reasonable for people to have different opinions of the two cases. As for (3), I’ve already addressed that earlier in this post. One final point: Perhaps surprisingly, at this point, I am NOT claiming that I know with certainty that the voter ID issues will in fact reduce turnout in a measurable way. I suspect that it will, but I’m not an expert in the various types of fields that would be necessary to really analyze or predict what will happen. So if the laws pass, and in fact turnout doesn’t drop among low income or democratic voters, I will be surprised (and pleased), but I won’t feel like “holy shit, is my face red, I was sure making a bunch of BS up back in that thread last year”. My point is not “I have proven that this will have an effect”, it’s “I find it highly likely that this will have an effect, I believe that effect would be antiDemocratic, and I believe the bill’s sponsors in fact intend it to have that effect, and I find the whole situation immoral and troubling for (various reasons)”. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2012, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2048 "2012-07-31T20:55:10Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > You were the one that insisted the problem was not the laws, but the laws combined with the motives of the lawmakers. Weren’t you?.. No, the motivations are so naked and blatant, no such discussion is needed. Voter ID laws may have a minor positive effect, especially in calming the shattered nerves of Republicans, trembling for fear of the voter fraud monster under their beds. Funny thing about that is, they may very well have created and unleashed a monster that will gobble them up! Which I probably will not have time to renounce and condemn, being too busy with the giggling fits. With an exception: those Republicans who really do believe that illegal voters are tilting elections away from the majority of real American, then their motivations could be held to be innocent, even laudable. But deranged. > [@](#): > > …Are we back to the problem being the laws now? Well, since your “neutral justifications” climbed the high board to perform the 21-meter faceplant, yeah, pretty much. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2012, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2049 "2012-07-31T23:26:59Z")
So Bricker’s argument is now, _Dems do it to!_ But it, in this case, is _Dems in one state flipping who chooses replacement senators_. So tell me dear Bricker, how many millions of people did the Dems keep from voting in that one case? You’re saying they’re the same, and you’re a fucking moron if you believe that. This is really the only song you can sing. _Buh buh buh… you do it toooooooooo!!!1_ If you had any self respect… well I guess we don’t need to worry about that. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2012, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2050 "2012-07-31T23:31:51Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Inferences, you can easily deny. I don’t deny things I mean. I’m not a cowardly liar like you are. > [@](#): > > I’d like a direct answer: And I’d like you to grow some balls and discuss things honestly, like an adult does. > [@](#): > > Yes, or no: Voter registration efforts limited to poor, urban areas, such as those conduced by ACORN, led to higher Democratic vote proportions. If you want more people to vote, going to areas of high population density and low voter turnout makes sense. If you took a single moment to think about that, you’d have come to the same conclusion. > [@](#): > > Yes, or no: Democratic politicians who assisted ACORN’s efforts did so to get that higher Democratic result. Sure. But in addition to getting higher voter turnout, they _increased participation in the democratic process_. And if you weren’t such a dishonest partisan bitch, you’d be for that. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2051 "2012-08-01T00:57:59Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > So Bricker’s argument is now, _Dems do it to!_ > > But it, in this case, is _Dems in one state flipping who chooses replacement senators_. > > So tell me dear Bricker, how many millions of people did the Dems keep from voting in that one case? > > You’re saying they’re the same, and you’re a fucking moron if you believe that. This is really the only song you can sing. _Buh buh buh… you do it toooooooooo!!!1_ > > If you had any self respect… well I guess we don’t need to worry about that. No, I have another song: guess who won? Me me me me me me me!! Let me know when you and the rest of your useless whiners manage to overturn the laws. Right now, you can whine like a bitchy baby all you want. But guess what? The law is still the law I want. Ha. Ha, I say. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2052 "2012-08-01T01:02:57Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > You are welcome. Also, you have a fine singing voice. Will respond when I have more time to type, since I have to compose a reply rather than calling you names. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2053 "2012-08-01T01:11:21Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No, I have another song: guess who won? > > Me me me me me me me!! > > Let me know when you and the rest of your useless whiners manage to overturn the laws. Right now, you can whine like a bitchy baby all you want. But guess what? The law is still the law I want. > > Ha. Ha, I say. Why are you so afraid of arguing in good faith? Don’t be afraid, Bricker. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2054 "2012-08-01T01:24:05Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No, I have another song: guess who won? > > Me me me me me me me!! > > Let me know when you and the rest of your useless whiners manage to overturn the laws. Right now, you can whine like a bitchy baby all you want. But guess what? The law is still the law I want. > > Ha. Ha, I say. For now. And what, pray, did you have to do with it besides gloating on a message board? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2055 "2012-08-01T01:30:30Z")
And this just in, by way of our good friends at _ThinkProgress_. A lefty site, but embedded links to sources… [http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/07/31/617401/why-pennsylvanias-voter-id-law-will-create-chaos-on-election-day/](http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/07/31/617401/why-pennsylvanias-voter-id-law-will-create-chaos-on-election-day/) ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2056 "2012-08-01T03:45:11Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > And this just in, by way of our good friends at _ThinkProgress_. A lefty site, but embedded links to sources… Just to be clear, I’m saying that getting ID’s should not be a problem (and now my caveat, or ‘out’ if you will) if you have a competent government doing the implementation. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2057 "2012-08-01T03:51:13Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > Just to be clear, I’m saying that getting ID’s should not be a problem (and now my caveat, or ‘out’ if you will) if you have a competent government doing the implementation. I might amend that to competent AND MOTIVATED. And of course, if in fact this is being done partly as a voter suppression tactic, as many of us suspect, the government won’t be motivated. Quite the opposite, in fact. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2058 "2012-08-01T04:25:12Z")
Of coure, [it could be worse.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=660459) :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2059 "2012-08-01T05:37:14Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I might amend that to competent AND MOTIVATED. And of course, if in fact this is being done partly as a voter suppression tactic, as many of us suspect, the government won’t be motivated. Quite the opposite, in fact. The problem with incompetence is that it isn’t controllable and rarely just affects a specific group. This looks to actually affect their own constituents even if it doesn’t actually stop them from getting an ID. A pissed off voter is not a good thing for the party responsible if it wants to keep those people voting for them. Nor is the message, “Vote for me! We’re the people who fucked up a simple procedure for getting an ID. Imagine what we can do if you put us in charge of the entire government!”. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/2060 "2012-08-01T09:35:15Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Why are you so afraid of arguing in good faith? Don’t be afraid, Bricker. With others? As you can read, I’m doing it. With you? You’ve shown why that doesn’t work. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=102) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=104)