# 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:** 157
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3121 "2012-12-01T08:34:41Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > … And you wonder why most of us think you’re a blithering idiot. Can’t be. Needs be an agile mind to construct such teetering towers of unreason, with the Leggos of illogic, to spring from shaky premise to flimsy conclusion as nimbly as a mountain goat. Anybody can be kinda wrong, being totally wrong takes talent. ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3122 "2012-12-20T22:31:06Z")
[http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/crist-testifies-in-senate-that-there-was-voter-sup/nTbSx/](http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/crist-testifies-in-senate-that-there-was-voter-sup/nTbSx/) Update: No big surprise, Crist testifies in Senate that there was voter suppression in Florida Not a whole lot of interest, even by Senate members. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3123 "2012-12-21T01:40:28Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > [http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/crist-testifies-in-senate-that-there-was-voter-sup/nTbSx/](http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/crist-testifies-in-senate-that-there-was-voter-sup/nTbSx/) > > Update: No big surprise, Crist testifies in Senate that there was voter suppression in Florida > > Not a whole lot of interest, even by Senate members. Since this is _Help the Handicapped Week_, out of kindness I’ll save the **Blickhead** a click: [QUOTE=Hypothetical Blickthering Idiot] He’s obviously perjuring himself out of spite. So sad to see someone once on the side of Freedom and Justice swallow the Obama glitter-poo. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3124 "2013-02-06T05:15:56Z")
Ann Coulter Under Investigation For Voter Fraud — Again! [http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/02/04/ann-coulter-under-investigation-for-voter-fraud-again/](http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/02/04/ann-coulter-under-investigation-for-voter-fraud-again/) It seems she lives in NYC, but votes in Connecticut. (and/or Florida???) \*_ **also** _ > **[Waiting Times at Ballot Boxes Draw Scrutiny (Published 2013)](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/us/politics/waiting-times-to-vote-at-polls-draw-scrutiny.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1)** > > With studies suggesting that long lines at the polls cost Democrats hundreds of thousands of votes in November, party leaders are beginning a push to make voting and voter registration easier. > [@](#): > > \*_ **snip** _ > A Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis determined that blacks and Hispanics waited nearly twice as long in line to vote on average than whites. > **snip** > > A separate analysis, by an Ohio State University professor and The Orlando Sentinel, concluded that more than 200,000 voters in Florida “gave up in frustration” without voting. > > \*\*_ **snip** _ Best way to suppress votes is to make sure there aren’t enough voting machines in areas you don’t like. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3125 "2013-02-06T22:35:45Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > Ann Coulter Under Investigation For Voter Fraud — Again! > > [http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/02/04/ann-coulter-under-investigation-for-voter-fraud-again/](http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/02/04/ann-coulter-under-investigation-for-voter-fraud-again/) > > It seems she lives in NYC, but votes in Connecticut. (and/or Florida???) > > \*_ **also** _ > [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/us/politics/waiting-times-to-vote-at-polls-draw-scrutiny.html?pagewanted=1&\_r=1](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/us/politics/waiting-times-to-vote-at-polls-draw-scrutiny.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1) > > Best way to suppress votes is to make sure there aren’t enough voting machines in areas you don’t like. So… The last time she voted questionably, she was cleared. Does your post suggest she was guilty? Do you believe she was guilty? ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3126 "2013-02-06T23:04:54Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > So… The last time she voted questionably, she was cleared. This statement, like so many that you make, is a lie. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3127 "2013-02-06T23:34:45Z")
This is richer still: [“Despite Longest Lines in the Nation, Florida State Secretary Calls Elections ‘Fair’”](http://www.thenation.com/blog/172714/despite-longest-lines-nation-florida-state-secretary-calls-elections-fair) > [@](#): > > Yesterday, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner released his long-awaited report on how the state’s elections system can be improved. He spent a month on a fact-finding mission, talking with county elections supervisors and other concerned constituents to produce this list of recommendations on “increased accessibility & efficiency in Florida elections.” But the only thing Detzner seemed to learn from the supervisors was how to throw them under the bus. The state secretary focuses mostly on the problem of long lines—Florida voters waited an average of forty-five minutes, the longest time of any state—and he goes out of his way to blame this on the county election officials. > > There’s a lot to unpack about long lines, but before doing that, let me list all of the problems Detzner’s report does _not_ address: > > • There is no mention of felony disenfranchisement at all, despite the work of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition advocating for automatic voting rights restoration and Governor Rick Scott’s dialing back of progress made on this issue by his predecessor Governor Charlie Crist. Detzner fails to even mention the problem of confusing and trapping the formerly incarcerated with conflicting information about their voter eligibility. > > • No acknowledgement of the “souls to the polls” campaign, where community organizers mobilize black churches to increase voter turnout in mostly marginalized communities. The report backhandedly refers to early voting on the Sunday before Election Day as a “regionally popular voting” day that most elections supervisors would rather do without. But there’s no mention of race and how it helps black voters despite a federal judge citing those reasons for why Florida could not ban it. > > • Nothing on purging. Florida spent the better part of last year fighting for the right to purge eligible voters from rolls, falsely labeling thousands of them as “non-citizens.” This fight is still playing out in federal courts, but there’s no mention of this in the report. > > • There’s nothing on the problem of voters being challenged, unbeknownst to them, by groups like True the Vote, also leading to confusion and eligible voters denied their rights. > > • No mention of language assistance needs for Haitian and Creole voters, though this is one of the fastest growing populations in the state, and many of them do not speak or read English fluently. > > • While the report talks about how to improve voter registration file processing and management, it says nothing about the law it passed that severely limits the time third-party voter registration organizations, like the NAACP, have to collect and turn over files to the county. There is existing litigation to reverse this as well, (it was temporarily blocked last year) but Detzner didn’t bother mentioning it. > > • Despite the call from advocates around the state for a more modernized voter registration system, the report says little about it. The best it can offer is guidelines on how elections supervisors can better manage registration records. ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3128 "2013-02-06T23:37:19Z")
Not to defend Ann Coulter in any way, but the New York Daily News article that the Addicting Info article links to is four years old. In the end the commission found “insufficient evidence” that she was registered improperly in Connecticut, but as[this blog](http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8124)points out (with scans of documents indicating that Coulter had registered and voted elsewhere months before she withdrew her name from Connecticut’s rolls) they must not have looked too hard. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that she actually voted twice in any election. It does seem like she’s voted (more than once!) in states where she has declared outright, on TV, that she does not live. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2013, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3129 "2013-02-08T17:55:27Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > This statement, like so many that you make, is a lie. Ok, great. So is she in fact guilty, in your opinion? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2013, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3130 "2013-02-08T19:13:32Z")
Well, maybe it wasn’t so much that she was “cleared” as nobody gave enough of a shit to do anything about it. I could probably track down that factoid. If I gave a shit, which I don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2013, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3131 "2013-02-08T19:37:26Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Well, maybe it wasn’t so much that she was “cleared” as nobody gave enough of a shit to do anything about it. I could probably track down that factoid. If I gave a shit, which I don’t. But I thought the lack of criminal convictions proved that these offenses don’t actually happen. Isn’t that the party line? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2013, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3132 "2013-02-08T19:42:46Z")
Oh, I see. It wasn’t about Ann of Green Goebbels at all, it was just another effort to prove that you are smarter than the people you keep losing arguments to. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2013, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3133 "2013-02-08T22:58:56Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Oh, I see. It wasn’t about Ann of Green Goebbels at all, it was just another effort to prove that you are smarter than the people you keep losing arguments to. I keep losing arguments… …and the Voter ID laws are still in place. So, yeah, as long as they remain, I am happy to be declared the continual and eternal loser of arguments. I lose, laws stay…great end. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2013, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3134 "2013-02-08T23:49:14Z")
Let the word go forth, that on all the pylons, monuments and stele, shall be inscribed these words “ **Bricker** , Continual and Eternal Loser of Arguments!” So let it be written, so let it be done! ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3135 "2013-02-09T00:07:42Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > But I thought the lack of criminal convictions proved that these offenses don’t actually happen. > > Isn’t that the party line? ??? I have no idea what you’re talking about. However, such a claim is (clearly) patently ridiculous. So where’s the gotcha? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3136 "2013-02-09T00:26:47Z")
Maybe he’s thinking of ACORN, yet another argument he is unable to accept having lost to a bunch of pseudonyms on the Internet. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3137 "2013-02-09T00:43:26Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > ??? > > I have no idea what you’re talking about. However, such a claim is (clearly) patently ridiculous. So where’s the gotcha? I agree that such a claim is ridiculous. However, in my recollection and opinion, that was in fact the essential claim: “There’s basically no vote fraud happening!” “Well, there is some.” "Cite? Cite?’ ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3138 "2013-02-09T01:02:28Z")
No, no, when a rich person with homes in more than one place votes in only one of them it’s voter fraud, but when an illegal immigrant is denied the vote it’s disenfranchisement. At least according to some idiot lefties. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3139 "2013-02-09T01:34:32Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > No, no, when a rich person with homes in more than one place votes in only one of them it’s voter fraud, but when an illegal immigrant is denied the vote it’s disenfranchisement. At least according to some idiot lefties. Yes, both of these things happen, and yes, they are not linked. They are mutually exclusive. Did you actually have a point, or were you too busy with your copy of Atlas Shrugged and a tube of lube? ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3140 "2013-02-09T01:40:46Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Ok, great. > > So is she in fact guilty, in your opinion? Did I say that? Perhaps you could quote me where I offered an opinion on Mr. Coulter’s guilt or innocence, ya know, to refresh my memory. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=156) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=158)