# 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:** 450
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2016, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8981 "2016-04-02T16:42:43Z")
“ **Bricker** , you are in the desert and you come across a turtle lying on it’s back. It will die if you don’t help it turn over, but you do nothing. Why is that?” "First off, that is a tortoise, not a turtle. The tortoise is lying, it makes no real difference that the turtle is lying on its back, its still lying! That is the accepted standard, and if you want to change it, then you have to prove your position is better, because you are the one demanding change. If you really want to insist that lying turtles have the right to demand my assistance, all you have to do is get enough people together to vote for a Constitutional Amendment recognizing tortoises as turtles, and get it passed and ratified. That’s how our system works! However, I am an open-minded and evidence based person, unlike many of the people on this tortoise leaning board who are blindly devoted to reptile hypocrisy. I will review this latest evidence and if I find that I am mistaken, I will probably change my viewpoint. May take me a while, I’m rather busy lately…" “Could you just shoot me instead, like in the movie? This is like being nibbled to death by ducks…” “A duck? Why a duck?..” ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2016, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8982 "2016-04-02T17:06:12Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > This is like being nibbled to death by ducks It’s more like wrestling with a pig. The pig \*enjoys \*it. You’re enabling him. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8983 "2016-04-08T12:01:45Z")
Warning – from the lefty Maddowblog. But still, they didn’t make up the quotes, or yank them out of context: **Wisconsin’s voter-ID scheme comes into sharper focus** > [@](#): > > Rep. Glenn Grothman (R), a far-right freshman from Wisconsin, generated national headlines this week when he admitted on television what many have long assumed. Looking ahead to this year’s presidential election, the Republican congressman expressed confidence about the GOP doing well in the Badger State, thanks in part to one specific policy. > > “[N]ow we have photo ID,” Grothman said, “and I think photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference.” > > At least in public, Republicans are supposed to say voter-ID schemes have nothing to do with rigging elections by suppressing voting rights, though some on the right occasionally slip and accidentally tell the truth, as Grothman helped prove. > > Now, another shoe has fallen. A former Republican staffer in the Wisconsin legislature wrote a Facebook message this week, confirming that he saw GOP state lawmakers who, while considering voter-ID measures, “were giddy about the ramifications and literally singled out the prospects of suppressing minority and college voters.” > **[Wisconsin's voter-ID scheme comes into sharper focus](https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/wisconsins-voter-id-scheme-comes-sharper-focus-msna828911)** > > First, a Republican congressman admitted that voter ID is an election tool to help his party. Now a Republican staffer offers compelling new proof. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8984 "2016-04-08T15:01:13Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Warning – from the lefty Maddowblog. But still, they didn’t make up the quotes, or yank them out of context: > **Wisconsin’s voter-ID scheme comes into sharper focus** > > [Wisconsin's voter-ID scheme comes into sharper focus](http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/wisconsins-voter-id-scheme-comes-sharper-focus#break) I can’t believe he came right out and admitted that! [sup]\*[/sup] - “That,” meaning his belief that many illegal non-citizens and felons vote Democratic. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8985 "2016-04-08T15:18:29Z")
If if that was the point, which it isn’t, why would his false belief be something you’d support? :dubious: [Allbaugh’s entire post makes it clearer:](https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=221323231557115&id=100010383187417&pnref=story) > [@](#): > > You wanna know why I left the Republican Party as it exists today? Here it is; this was the last straw: I was in the closed Senate Republican Caucus when the final round of multiple Voter ID bills were being discussed. A handful of the GOP Senators were giddy about the ramifications and literally singled out the prospects of suppressing minority and college voters. Think about that for a minute. Elected officials planning and happy to help deny a fellow American’s constitutional right to vote in order to increase their own chances to hang onto power. A vigorous debate on the ideas wasn’t good enough. Inspiring the electorate and relying on their agenda being better to get people to vote for them wasn’t good enough. No, they had to take the coward’s way out and come up with a plan to suppress the vote under the guise of ‘voter fraud.’ The truth? There was almost none. Oh wait, GOP Speaker Voss’ estranged wife voted twice in both Idaho and WI, and a GOP staffer was caught voting twice. But it was good rhetoric. Yesterday, one of my employees, born in California went to get his WI ID. He was told he couldn’t use his CA ID to get a WI ID without his birth certificate which is back in CA. The result? He’s not able to vote today. Here’s a young man in his early 20’s, who is taking part and interested in voting for the first time in his life. He was excited to go to the polls. What kind of a state, a legislature, a political party is it that denies this young man his right? The GOP was born out of greater opportunity and equality. Wisconsin, yes the Wisconsin Republican Party, under the leadership of Republican Governor Robert M. ‘Fighting Bob’ La Follette lead the country in creating greater voting access to its citizens. The WI GOP was seen as a shining example of equality. THAT was the party I joined in the 80’s and fought for. That party no longer exists. I don’t belong to any party now. I don’t think the Dems have all the answers either. But my God, to watch a party I once fought for deny a young man his voting rights…it boils my blood, leaves a pit in my stomach. It’s time for a ‪#‎GOPImplosion‬ ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8986 "2016-04-08T15:32:25Z")
Esquire’s reporting it, as well: > **[Another Republican Forgets to Use His Inside Voice While Discussing...](https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a43700/voter-id-wisconsin/)** > > No need to prove what they're doing—they'll tell you. **Another Republican Forgets to Use His Inside Voice While Discussing Restrictive Voter ID Laws** > [@](#): > > If I were obvious anagram Reince Priebus, besides starting each day with a heaping helping of Honey Roasted Arsenic-O’s, I’d bring all my party’s politicians in for a three-day conference on Using The Inside Voices, because too many of them are out there giving away the game. First, there was He, Trump, forcing the entire anti-choice infrastructure of the Republican Party to explain how abortion is the one form of murder for which we expressly do not arrest the perpetrator. And now, here comes Wisconsin Congressman Glenn Grothman, not the brightest bulb in the chandelier on his best day, telling a Milwaukee TV station what’s what on Wisconsin’s new laws regarding voting. > “Well I think Hillary Clinton is about the weakest candidate the Democrats have ever put up. And now we have photo ID, and I think photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference as well.” > > You may recall that a state legislator in Pennsylvania named Mike Turzai told the same inconvenient truth back in 2012. > “We are focused on making sure that we meet our obligations that we’ve talked about for years,” said Turzai in a speech to committee members Saturday. He mentioned the law among a laundry list of accomplishments made by the GOP-run legislature. “Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it’s done. First pro-life legislation—abortion facility regulations—in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.” > > Now, the obvious counter-argument from the folks invested in suppressing votes they do not like is going to be that both of these goobers meant that the new laws would help thwart the Democratic voter fraud which is rampant in their overheated imaginations. Unless you have to take off your shoes to count to 20, you will not believe this. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8987 "2016-04-08T15:33:11Z")
Everybody knows that America is, basically, a center-right country. That’s why nobody questions that, because everybody knows it. Most Americans, and all _real_ Americans, are aligned with Republican points of view. How then, you may ask, does the Democratic party manage to win elections. You don’t have to ask, I’m going to tell you anyway. Voter fraud! Only possible answer, isn’t it? That’s just plain old common sense, right there! So, really, when you look at it the right way, the Republicans aren’t doing anything wrong, they are just stealing back what was stolen in the first place! Why, they are actually _protecting_ the voter confidence and voting rights of Americans by blocking off this security glitch. Want further proof? Well, just look at the shameful lack of prosecutions for these dastardly crimes! We already know that the Dems are cheating on a massive scale, but not getting caught for it, no matter how many Liberty University law school grads search it out. Massive investigations have been conducted, and come up empty. Why? Well, for the same reason you never see elephants hiding it trees! Because they are very, _very_ good at it! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8988 "2016-04-08T16:01:47Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > You mean the “Voting Privileges for Democrats Act?” > > Yeah, that was a shame. That lie is beneath even you. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8989 "2016-04-08T16:24:24Z")
More Interesting Stuff (warning! MSNBC source): **Ex-staffer: Wisconsin GOP intended ID law to disenfranchise Dems** > [@](#): > > A day after Wisconsin’s strict voter ID law helped cause long lines at the polls and kept some would-be voters from casting a ballot at all, a former GOP staffer told MSNBC his party actively intended for it to disenfranchise Democratic voters. > > Todd Allbaugh, who served as chief of staff to a Republican state senator, said in an interview Wednesday that at a closed-door caucus meeting in 2011, GOP lawmakers openly discussed how the the ID bill would hit minorities and students hardest. > > “One of the senators said, ‘We need to think about the ramifications here, what this means, particularly in Milwaukee and college campuses across the state, what that could mean for us,’” said Allbaugh. > > “What I’m interested in here is winning, and we need to use the opportunity, because if Democrats had the power to do it to us, they’d do it,” another senator said, according to Allbaugh. > > “I was in the room when this thing was conceived and birthed,” Allbaugh added. “Some bills work differently in reality than they were intended. This one worked exactly as intended.” > **[Ex-staffer: Wisconsin GOP intended ID law to disenfranchise Dems](https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/ex-staffer-wisconsin-gop-intended-id-law-disenfranchise-dems-msna828766)** > > After Wisconsin’s voter ID law helped cause problems at the polls, a former GOP staffer told MSNBC his party intended it to disenfranchise Democratic voters. He didn’t mention the illegally voting non-citizens and the felons. Probably just slipped his mind. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8990 "2016-04-08T17:25:15Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That lie is beneath even you. Sorry, but the evidence shows that it is not. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8991 "2016-04-08T18:08:57Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > More Interesting Stuff (warning! MSNBC source): > > **Ex-staffer: Wisconsin GOP intended ID law to disenfranchise Dems** > > [Ex-staffer: Wisconsin GOP intended ID law to disenfranchise Dems](http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/ex-staffer-wisconsin-gop-intended-id-law-disenfranchise-dems) > > He didn’t mention the illegally voting non-citizens and the felons. Probably just slipped his mind. Hmm… > [@](#): > > Confusion over the law resulted in long lines during Wisconsin’s presidential primary. MSNBC reported that approximately 300,000 people in Wisconsin don’t have an acceptable ID, and many voters had to wait for hours to get one before voting. College students in particular had difficulties, as many of them are originally from other states and had to get new ID cards. Allbaugh said this was part of the plan. \*\*Representative Glenn Grothman, a state senator in 2011, when the law was discussed at a closed-door meeting (it is unclear if he was at the meeting), acknowledged on Tuesday that the law would help the GOP, saying, “We feel if there’s less fraud it’ll help Republican candidates. We can’t prove it, but that’s what we think.” > > \*\* Well? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8992 "2016-04-08T18:11:33Z")
Key words: “We can’t prove it”. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8993 "2016-04-08T18:19:53Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Hmm… > > Well? I see. You’re citing a different person, at a different time, to show that the original person at that time made a statement about illegally voting noncitizens and felons. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8994 "2016-04-08T20:49:20Z")
Its a pretty standard Brickertrap. “Well?” invites your comment and interpretation, so that he may criticize and nitpick, proving you wrong about something. Anything, really, so long as you are wrong. Note that he is not actually saying anything _himself_, thereby offering no vulnerability. And, after all, he has already accepted that “some” Republicans have malign motives in all of this, “some” of the Republicans who voted for these things. Across the country…maybe half a dozen, maybe more, we have no way of knowing! Except for that part about voting for it. Does sort of imply some responsibility, that voting thing. And, of course, this admission of skulduggery supports my previous conjecture about Republican belief structures about voting fraud. Rather than believe that there is no massive Democrat voting fraud, he prefers to believe that the Democrats could mount this massive conspiracy and never get caught. Because they are really, really good at hiding in trees! And the Girl Scout at the door with those cookies? Level ten _ninja_ assassin. Shit, I about half _wish_ the Dems were that good at conspiracy and cunning. But no. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8995 "2016-04-08T21:14:54Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I see. You’re citing a different person, at a different time, to show that the original person at that time made a statement about illegally voting noncitizens and felons. No, you don’t see. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8996 "2016-04-08T21:28:56Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > “A duck? Why a duck?..” Everybody knows **that.** Because one of its legs is both the same. ---
**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:** [April 8, 2016, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8997 "2016-04-08T22:09:25Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No, you don’t see. In his defense, you’re kind of an incoherent pedantic asshole. But I still love you. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8998 "2016-04-08T23:04:05Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No, you don’t see. Okay, I’ll bite. What was your point? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8999 "2016-04-09T00:27:40Z")
Well, what do _you_ think his point was? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9000 "2016-04-09T02:28:42Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Well, what do _you_ think his point was? Hmm… Well, it gives me post #9000, if nothing else. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=449) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=451)