# 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:** 273
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5441 "2014-06-11T14:31:51Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > **Bricker** will be delighted to know that [Virginia has taken steps to increase confidence in election integrity.](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/31/1235411/-New-Approach-to-Voter-Suppression-in-Virginia) Up to 350,000 Virginians (of a demographic favorable to Democrats) may have to reapply to vote in November. I think many will decline the chance to re-register [del]due to annoyed impatience[/del] so that their disenfranchisement can serve as a monument to confidence in electoral integrity. “…of a demographic favorable to Democrats…” Cite? This is, as following your own link makes evident, part of a program that begun in 2005 called the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck, participated in by: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia. [Here is a PDF](http://www.nased.org/NASED_Winter_2013_PP_Presentations/KANSAS.pdf) that lays out the program’s processes. Can you identify how, specifically, this produces a “…demographic favorable to Democrats…” as targets? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5442 "2014-06-11T14:46:28Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I wasn’t saying the (hypothetical) changes in Idaho WERE objectionable, I was saying that they aren’t automatically NOT objectionable just because some other (hypothetical) state had preexisting more-onerous restrictions in place beforehand. OK, got it. But it seems to me that a restriction (viewed in totality) is either onerous or it’s not. What I get from this exchange is you view the _change_ towards more onerous to be of more importance than the actual difficulty of the final scheme. Why, though, would this be true? Why isn’t the only issue “Is this scheme impermissibly burdensome?” > [@](#): > > Think about it this way… the 2000 Florida debacle was an absolute perfect storm of stuff going wrong, and yes, a lot of people ended up viewing Bush as an illegitimately elected president, for various reasons. And: > (a) the Republic survived just fine, That’s not a great measure. The Republic also survived the Nixon presidency, but there is widespread agreement that Nixon’s actions in office were deleterious to the Republic and, had he not resigned, would have almost certainly led to impeachment and removal – which also would have hurt, but not brought down, the Republic. We ought not to dismiss a harm simply because the Republic will survive it. > [@](#): > > (b) even if there had been previous legislation which made the “determining who actually voted and whether they were who they said they were” side of things absolutely perfect (and voter ID laws would only go a tiny way towards that, if at all… someone with a driver’s license can still dangle a chad) there STILL would have been plenty of outrage and unrest and claims of illegitimacy based on, for instance, the butterfly ballot, and the voting roll purges, and the fact that the person who was in charge of certifying the election was entirely NOT non-partisan, and so forth. So you’ve got a situation which even at it’s WORST causes anger and resentment and increased hostility in political discourse, which are not trivial issues but are not anywhere near an existential threat to this country’s survival. Then your proposed solution addresses only a fraction of that issue… and even if that issue was fixed perfectly, the anger and resentment and increased hostility would likely still go on. That’s why I call voter confidence unimportant, not just because you and I have different priorities Its true that the solution under discussion addresses only a fraction of those issues. But that’s no reason to reject it. It’s a reason to accept it and continue to address the other issues, to the extent possible in the prevailing landscape. > [@](#): > > But give how long this thread has been going and how full of outrage it is, with fairly few people saying “look, here are links to 40 times in the past Century when both parties have pulled similar shenanigans” I don’t think it’s clear that this level of attempted-voter-suppression has risen to the level of unobjectionable common chicanery. Are you asking for links in which the Democrats have, in the past century, participated in frauds regarding voting? Because, speaking of Nixon, the 1960 presidential race is a compendium of fraud, [mainly in Illinois:](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-09-26-jfk-chicago-politics_N.htm) > [@](#): > > Mayor Daley already had a reputation for stuffing ballot boxes and giving ward bosses and precinct captains vote quotas. Two recounts of Chicago-area voting later showed that Democrats had likely stolen tens of thousands of votes, but most were in the Cook County state’s attorney race. > > Between classes at the University of Chicago and into the night, sometimes until 2 a.m., Schiller joined other members of Wexler’s team to conduct interviews and cull through ballots and election judges’ tallies. When Schiller misplaced a draft of a report, a supervisor feared someone had broken in and stolen it. > > Wexler’s report, issued in April 1961, found “substantial” miscounts in the 1,367 precincts it examined, including unqualified voters, misread voting machines and math mistakes. In one precinct, voters asked where to deposit tickets for a drawing for hams. In another, a precinct captain handed out slips of paper entitling voters to free lunches. > > Wexler brought contempt charges against 667 election officials, but the cases were dismissed by a Democratic judge. Three people were convicted on criminal charges. ---
**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:** [June 11, 2014, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5443 "2014-06-11T15:16:12Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Can you identify how, specifically, this produces a “…demographic favorable to Democrats…” as targets? The rule targets newcomers. Old-time Southern bigots vote GOP; newcomers less so. (More generally, mobile people have wider range of experience and exposure to culture and, therefore, are less likely to vote GOP.) The rule exempts military. Military tend to vote GOP. Hope this helps. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5444 "2014-06-11T15:43:08Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > The rule targets newcomers. Old-time Southern bigots vote GOP; newcomers less so. (More generally, mobile people have wider range of experience and exposure to culture and, therefore, are less likely to vote GOP.) Even if I accept that uncited assertion… the rule targets people who have moved from anywhere. That is, an “old-time Southern bigot,” who lived in South Carolina and moved to Virginia is just as targeted as one who moved from Democratic stronghold Detroit. So. Cite? ---
**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:** [June 11, 2014, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5445 "2014-06-11T15:52:18Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > … the rule targets people who have moved from anywhere. That is, an “old-time Southern bigot,” who lived in South Carolina and moved to Virginia is just as targeted as one who moved from Democratic stronghold Detroit. Are you stupid or what? :smack: _ **Taking the simplified case that SC, Virginia and Detroit natives all vote GOP, GOP, Demo respectively, what will be the effect on GOP/Demo vote ratio given the rule?** _ Work some example numbers if you still don’t get it. In the past, I’ve called you “stupid” when I meant “perversely ignorant.” But now it appears _you really are stupid_, unable to cope with extremely simple arithmetic. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5446 "2014-06-11T16:01:59Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Are you stupid or what? :smack: > > _ **Taking the simplified case that SC, Virginia and Detroit natives all vote GOP, GOP, Demo respectively, what will be the effect on GOP/Demo vote ratio given the rule?** _ Work some example numbers if you still don’t get it. > > In the past, I’ve called you “stupid” when I meant “perversely ignorant.” But now it appears _you really are stupid_, unable to cope with extremely simple arithmetic. _sigh_ Yes, I grant that if we focus the question myopically on Detroit, South Carolina, and Virginia, there might be a problem. But the program itself encompasses: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia. So what I’m really asking for is a cite that targeting people that move between those jurisdictions would affect more Democratic voters. You may use as much complex arithmetic as you wish. But you can’t simply invoke it by reference – that is, claiming that “Simple arithmetic proves it,” is insufficient. Please show your work. ---
**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:** [June 11, 2014, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5447 "2014-06-11T16:11:52Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > _sigh_ > > Yes, I grant that if we focus the question myopically … _sigh_ And, you completely ignored the other part of my comment, that people who move are probably more likely to vote Democratic than the yokels who spend all their lives in Fagbottom Hollow. Naturally, people who’ve had the urge to explore and have experienced more diversity are likely to be more enlightened and intellectually curious – these people tend to vote Democratic. (And, PLEASE don’t bore us with stories of how you’ve visited NRA conventions and operas all over Dixie, but still idolize Karl Rove and Glen Beck. We’re speaking of general tendencies, not inviolable rules.) ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5448 "2014-06-11T16:24:34Z")
Deleted ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5449 "2014-06-11T16:54:50Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > _sigh_ And, you completely ignored the other part of my comment, that people who move are probably more likely to vote Democratic than the yokels who spend all their lives in Fagbottom Hollow. Naturally, people who’ve had the urge to explore and have experienced more diversity are likely to be more enlightened and intellectually curious – these people tend to vote Democratic. No, I didn’t. To that comment, I replied, “Cite?” ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5450 "2014-06-11T16:56:38Z")
Hey Max: Do you also endorse the idea that the scheme identified above is inimical to Democrats over Republicans? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5451 "2014-06-11T17:05:59Z")
Which group of persons is more transient? The prosperous and settled, who tend to vote Republican? Or the other kind? This really isn’t all that complicated, unless you need it to be. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5452 "2014-06-11T18:09:20Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Which group of persons is more transient? The prosperous and settled, who tend to vote Republican? Or the other kind? > > This really isn’t all that complicated, unless you need it to be. That’s a question. I actually had asked for a cite. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5453 "2014-06-11T18:46:28Z")
Sorry, forgot about your scrupulous disdain for rhetorical tactics. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5454 "2014-06-11T18:49:40Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Hey Max: > > Do you also endorse the idea that the scheme identified above is inimical to Democrats over Republicans? Without having read or researched deeply, that seems plausible, but unproven… although if a bunch of liberal politicians started complaining about it being inimical, I would tend to believe them, because what would be their incentive to lie about it? ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5455 "2014-06-11T20:50:05Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > _sigh_ And, you completely ignored the other part of my comment, that people who move are probably more likely to vote Democratic than the yokels who spend all their lives in Fagbottom Hollow. Naturally, people who’ve had the urge to explore and have experienced more diversity are likely to be more enlightened and intellectually curious – these people tend to vote Democratic. Then according to your logic, I should have been voting Democratic since the 1980s, when I was literally travelling around the world. Most everyone I know today has moved from somewhere else to Houston. Several of them have travelled far more extensively than I have. And we all vote Republican. Your argument does not hold water. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5456 "2014-06-11T21:30:44Z")
Well, it wasn’t too bad until it foundered on the rocks of your anecdotal evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5457 "2014-06-11T22:21:34Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Sorry, forgot about your scrupulous disdain for rhetorical tactics. That’s an apology. Thanks. But it’s not a cite. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5458 "2014-06-11T22:22:39Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Without having read or researched deeply, that seems plausible, but unproven… although if a bunch of liberal politicians started complaining about it being inimical, I would tend to believe them, because what would be their incentive to lie about it? Their incentive could be to build the narrative that Republicans are undermining voters’ rights. Although in truth, I have not seen any politicians complain about this program. Have you? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5459 "2014-06-11T22:23:40Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Well, it wasn’t too bad until it foundered on the rocks of your anecdotal evidence. As opposed to your… Uh… your what, exactly? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/5460 "2014-06-11T22:47:30Z")
“Anecdotal evidence”, like “military intelligence” and “feminist humor”, is an oxymoron. One does not build a wall with marshmallows mortared with cotton candy. Pretty sure you know this stuff. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=272) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=274)