# 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:** 197
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3921 "2013-11-26T23:39:53Z")
To be ruthlessly fair, gerrymandering is not entirely their fault, it is the product of political horse-trading by the Incumbency Party, the party that doesn’t much care what happens so long as they keep their seats. The grasping greed of the Forces of Darkness in exploiting that is more than a little disgusting, but it wasn’t all their idea. Equality in voting, that’s the ticket. Equal access to voting, expanded voting, expanded voter registration. A constipated Republican only has to think about those, they are cured! ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3922 "2013-11-26T23:49:13Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > To be ruthlessly fair, gerrymandering is not entirely their fault, it is the product of political horse-trading by the Incumbency Party, the party that doesn’t much care what happens so long as they keep their seats. The grasping greed of the Forces of Darkness in exploiting that is more than a little disgusting, but it wasn’t all their idea. > > Equality in voting, that’s the ticket. Equal access to voting, expanded voting, expanded voter registration. A constipated Republican only has to think about those, they are cured! Right… I’m not saying “you, Bricker, are responsible for Gerrymandering” or even necessarily “Republicans are responsible for Gerrymandering”. I’m saying “Crowing about how you keep winning elections, implying that the will of the people is on your side, when in fact significantly fewer votes were cast for your side than our side in the last set of congressional elections, rings fairly hollow… and in fact illustrates precisely one of the main points I’ve been trying to make through all my contributions to this thread, which is that when an elected body controls the election that elect it, an anti-democratic feedback loop can occur”. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3923 "2013-11-27T00:09:55Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes. In fact, I’ll make you a deal. Republicans can win the elections, and you’ll get to keep announcing how horribly mean and unfair they are to the voters. I recall a bit from a Heinlein novel: You can tell a deal is a fair one if it still looks fair when you turn it around. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3924 "2013-11-27T17:28:43Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes. In fact, I’ll make you a deal. Republicans can win the elections, and you’ll get to keep announcing how horribly mean and unfair they are to the voters. Have you been drinking with **adaher** again? Seriously, we talked about this, it just isn’t good mental hygiene. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3925 "2013-11-27T17:58:55Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > How about I’ll make you a deal… we’ll come up with an actual fair and just voting system, including no gerrymandering, and we’ll actually let the will of the people decide who should be in congress. If Obamacare is such a catastrophe that 55% of people vote Republican next election, and that results in Republicans having a 55-45 majority in the house and gains in the senate and possibly the presidency, I won’t complain at all. That’s fine. But I doubt either side will be willing to give up their own gerrymandering, even while they’d love to see the other side renounce it. Still, I’d take that deal in a heartbeat. Gerrymandering is used to guarantee “minority representation.” I am surprised you’re willing to let that go. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3926 "2013-11-27T17:59:57Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I recall a bit from a Heinlein novel: You can tell a deal is a fair one if it still looks fair when you turn it around. Ok. He can keep whining and Republicans keep winning elections. Works fine. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3927 "2013-11-27T19:17:30Z")
Then why do they cheat? Why do they need to implement the force of law to give them an advantage? If they truly believed that they had the majority of the American people behind them, wouldn’t they be eager to see more people vote and be registered to vote? And yet, oddly, they are not. Point of fact, they are willing to move Heaven and earth to prevent such a disaster from befalling them. Oh, just a helpful hint: that noise the dog makes just before he bites a hole in your ass? That isn’t “whining”. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3928 "2013-11-27T19:20:08Z")
Upon reflection, I recall that you already explained this, they have to do this because of the treachery and skulduggery of CASA volunteers, undermining our electoral confidence with voter fraud schemes. Yes, you already explained that, I had quite forgotten. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3929 "2013-12-05T17:38:42Z")
[More hijinx in Ohio:](http://www.thenation.com/blog/177454/ohio-gop-resurrects-voter-suppression-efforts) > [@](#): > > In response to the long lines, Ohio adopted thirty-five days of early voting in 2008, including on nights and weekends, to make voting more convenient. But following the large Democratic turnout in 2008, Ohio Republicans drastically curtailed early voting in 2012 from thirty-five to eleven days, with no voting on the Sunday before the election, when African-American churches historically rally their congregants to go to the polls. Voting rights activists subsequently gathered enough signatures to block the new voting restrictions and force a referendum on Election Day. In reaction, Ohio Republicans repealed their own bill in the state legislature, but kept a ban on early voting three days before Election Day (when 98,000 Ohioans voted in 2008), adding an exception for active duty members of the military, who tend to lean Republican. > > These cuts disproportionately impacted black voters, who made up a majority of early voters in large urban areas like Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County and Dayton’s Montgomery County in 2008. Ohio Republicans brazenly tried to cut early voting hours in Democratic counties while expanding them in Republican ones. GOP leaders admitted the cuts in Democratic counties were motivated by racial politics. “I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban—read African-American—voter-turnout machine,” said Doug Preisse, the GOP chair in Columbus’s Franklin County. > > These voter suppression efforts backfired in 2012. The Obama campaign successfully sued to reinstate early voting on the three days before Election Day (although Secretary of State Jon Husted limited the hours) and the overall share of the black electorate increased from 11 percent in 2008 to 15 percent in 2012. > > But now Ohio Republicans are once again resurrecting efforts to make it harder to vote. Last month, the GOP-controlled Ohio Senate, on a party-line vote, voted to cut early voting by a week, eliminating the “Golden Week” when Ohioans can register and vote on the same day during the early voting period (Senate Bill 238). The legislation was introduced and passed in one week, with almost no time for substantive debate. The Senate also passed a bill preventing the secretary of state or individual counties from mailing absentee ballots to all eligible voters unless the legislature provides the money, which they are unlikely to do (Senate Bill 205). The Ohio House, which is also controlled by a large GOP majority, is holding hearings on the bills this week. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3930 "2014-01-17T16:51:37Z")
[Update:](http://www.post-gazette.com/news/state/2014/01/17/AP-Pennsylvania-judge-strikes-down-state-s-voter-ID-law/stories/201401170131) The PA law has been ruled unconstitutional, to the surprise of no one but the targets of the OP. > [@](#): > > the requirement to present an acceptable form of identification when voting in person “unreasonably burdens the right to vote.” > … > In his ruling, Judge McGinley wrote that the law poses “a substantial threat” to hundreds of thousands of qualified voters. > > “Voting laws are designed to assure a free and fair election; the Voter ID Law does not further this goal,” the decision reads [The ruling](http://www.post-gazette.com/attachment/2014/01/17/Judge-decision-commonwealth-voter-ID-law-unconstitutional.pdf), for those of you. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3931 "2014-01-17T17:04:12Z")
So, this happened 78 pages ago… > [@Bricker](#): > > Bah. You lost. It’s legal, it has widespread support, and it’s happening. It’s not anti-democracy. It’s an obvious and prudent move, and there’s zero, zip, nada, and also zilch you can do to change this trend. ---
**Author:** ![Falchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@Falchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falchion)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3932 "2014-01-17T18:17:28Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > [Update:](http://www.post-gazette.com/news/state/2014/01/17/AP-Pennsylvania-judge-strikes-down-state-s-voter-ID-law/stories/201401170131) The PA law has been ruled unconstitutional, to the surprise of no one but the targets of the OP. > > [The ruling](http://www.post-gazette.com/attachment/2014/01/17/Judge-decision-commonwealth-voter-ID-law-unconstitutional.pdf), for those of you. I’m just impressed that you have a sufficiently extensive knowledge of Pennsylvania law (and the state constitution) to know whether or not to be surprised. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3933 "2014-01-17T18:18:56Z")
Read the ruling. It isn’t based on narrow, technical points of law, but on all the other basic-principles and simple Duh stuff we’ve been discussing in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3934 "2014-01-17T18:44:18Z")
> [@Falchion](#): > > I’m just impressed that you have a sufficiently extensive knowledge of Pennsylvania law (and the state constitution) to know whether or not to be surprised. What a dunbassed response. ---
**Author:** ![Falchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@Falchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falchion)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3935 "2014-01-17T18:55:45Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Read the ruling. It isn’t based on narrow, technical points of law, but on all the other basic-principles and simple Duh stuff we’ve been discussing in this thread. I’ll read it when I get home; it’s too long for at work. Glancing at it, it looks like a perfectly plausible discussion of impermissible delegation between state agencies and the view that requiring ID burdens those without it becuase they have to get it (and they have to produce the underlying documents to verify it) (and while the “alternative IDs” don’t seem to pose a burden, there’s no obligation that they be issued – which I don’t understand whether that means that he thinks that a requirement that all colleges issue IDs would be permissible (which makes sense) or that it’s that each colleges issue IDs to all people (which makes less sense)). It’s a lot about the difficulties of implementation and a faulty effort to raise awareness of the requirement. And the rejection of the equal protection challenge. I haven’t read the thread, so I don’t know what you all have been discussing, but a good chunk of that doesn’t strike me as “simple Duh stuff.” Edit: If, as the news reports suggest, this hinges on the line about “house of cards” and the DOS ID scheme, and the whole thing lives or fails with that, then it really is about agency authority and delegation and that strikes me as fairly technical. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3936 "2014-02-20T19:32:26Z")
[New bill to scale back early voting in Georgia.](http://www.salon.com/2014/02/20/gops_chilling_new_assault_on_voting_why_this_man_wants_to_close_georgia_voting_sites/) > [@](#): > > Republicans in Georgia’s General Assembly are advancing a bill to dramatically scale back early voting for elections in hundreds of cities across the state. The bill’s sponsors argue that cash-strapped municipalities cannot afford to staff polling places for up to three weeks before Election Day. Crying foul, civil rights activists call the bill a thinly veiled assault on voting access for the state’s minorities in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent weakening of the Voting Rights Act. > > One thing beyond dispute is that Georgia’s robust three-week length of early voting has been used time and again to justify controversial and oft-successful proposals to eliminate polling places in localities across the state. Now, town officials fear that state lawmakers will pull away the very rationale that closed their cities’ voting sites. > > Shuttering election precincts to cut costs is a measure that, despite concerns from civil rights activists, has seduced officials across Georgia. In visits to local elections offices around the state, Brian P. Kemp, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, has pushed the idea that, because Georgia’s long days of early voting increases voter access, localities can go ahead and eliminate Election Day polling sites. If the new bill passes, residents in cities that have pursued this logic could see their already truncated election infrastructure matched by a slash in voting days. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2014, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3937 "2014-02-26T18:50:04Z")
[Ohio cuts early voting hours that are key to black turnout.](http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/02/25/3329131/ohio-restricts-early-voting-hours-key-black-turnout/#) ---
**Author:** ![Pidril\_Pidrilych](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f1d935/32.png) [@Pidril\_Pidrilych](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pidril_Pidrilych)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3938 "2014-02-27T04:12:32Z")
NAACP requires marchers protesting North Carolina voter ID law to carry a photo ID on them at all times. Just when you think the bigotry, stupidity and outright hypocrisy of the left reached a new low… ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3939 "2014-02-27T04:25:30Z")
> [@Pidril\_Pidrilych](#): > > NAACP requires marchers protesting North Carolina voter ID law to carry a photo ID on them at all times. > > Just when you think the bigotry, stupidity and outright hypocrisy of the left reached a new low… Wow…I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Google search that goes all the way back to the sixth page before a neutral source shows up. That’s a metric fuckton of right-wing nutso carrying that story. Incidentally, “suggestion” does not equal “requirement”. And “attending a protest” does not equal “casting a vote”. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/3940 "2014-02-27T04:29:56Z")
> [@Pidril\_Pidrilych](#): > > NAACP requires marchers protesting North Carolina voter ID law to carry a photo ID on them at all times. > > Just when you think the bigotry, stupidity and outright hypocrisy of the left reached a new low… Hello, welcome. Care to provide a source for your claim? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=196) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=198)