# 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:** 462
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9221 "2016-04-17T01:21:19Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I don’t think you ever responded to post 8978 in this thread, from Elvis1Lives, quoting a study about id-law effects in Wisconsin: I never respond to any posts from Elvis1Lives. > [@](#): > > And that’s particularly galling given that while some voter ID laws have been found constitutional (so far), other generally similar ones have been found unconstitutional. Meaning that believing that these laws should be found unconstitutional isn’t some crazy fringe insane viewpoint, it’s just a slightly different opinion about how much of a burden is too much of a burden. If you think the speed limit should be 60 and someone else thinks it should be 65, you don’t get to go nuts and accuse them of wanting to rule the roads by fiat. Different state constitutions produce different results. What makes you desire a rule by fiat is your unwillingness to accept the final determination by the component court. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9222 "2016-04-17T01:23:39Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > If you think the speed limit should be 60 and someone else thinks it should be 65, you don’t get to go nuts and accuse them of wanting to rule the roads by fiat. Do the people on the other side of the speed limit debate get to “go nuts” and declare a particular speed limit unconstitutional? That’s what has happened in this thread, and in other threads on this message board. No cite, but I swear that I have read people say that the _Citizens United_ decision, itself, is unconstitutional. Which, as you know, is impossible. ---
**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 17, 2016, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9223 "2016-04-17T01:31:25Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I never respond to any posts from Elvis1Lives. While we are in agreement regarding that particular poster, here is the content of that post so technically you can respond to me instead: [Ari Berman’s](http://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsins-voter-id-law-could-block-300000-registered-voters-from-the-polls/) analysis of Wisconsin alone may have overstated numbers, but they’re a lot more than zero. > [@](#): > > The lead plaintiff who challenged the voter-ID law, 89-year-old Ruthelle Frank, has been voting since 1948 and has served on the Village Board in her hometown of Brokaw since 1996, but cannot get a photo ID for voting because her maiden name is misspelled on her birth certificate, which would cost $200 to correct. “No one should have to pay a fee to be able to vote,” Frank said. > > Others blocked from the polls include a man born in a concentration camp in Germany who lost his birth certificate in a fire; a woman who lost use of her hands but could not use her daughter as power of attorney at the DMV; and a 90-year-old veteran of Iwo Jima who could not vote with his veterans ID. > … > > There is a clear racial disparity in terms of who is most impacted by the law. In 2012, African-American voters in Wisconsin were 1.7 times as likely as white voters to lack a driver’s license or state photo ID, and Latino voters were 2.6 times as likely as white voters to lack such ID. More than 60 percent of people who’ve requested a photo ID for voting from the DMV have been black or Hispanic, according to legal filings. > > The law also targets students. Student IDs from most public and private universities and colleges are not accepted because they don’t contain signatures or a two-year expiration date (compared to a ten-year expiration for driver’s licenses). “The standard student ID at only three of the University of Wisconsin’s 13 four-year schools and at seven of the state’s 23 private colleges can be used as a voter photo ID,” according to Common Cause Wisconsin. Numerous other examples of people getting herded into the bureaucratic maze, with no way out. ---
**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 17, 2016, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9224 "2016-04-17T01:42:17Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Do the people on the other side of the speed limit debate get to “go nuts” and declare a particular speed limit unconstitutional? How is it a symptom of “going nuts” to use an adjective like “unconstitutional”? Sure, the opinion of the person saying so may be uninformed and if they’re on this message board it’s safe to say their opinion carries no authority, but “nuts” ? Really? > [@](#): > > No cite, but I swear that I have read people say that the _Citizens United_ decision, itself, is unconstitutional. > > Which, as you know, is impossible. Why is it impossible? It’s _moot_ to say a SCOTUS decision is unconstitutional, but there’s always the possibility a later version of the court [will reverse that decision](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_overruled_United_States_Supreme_Court_decisions) and then it _will_ be unconstitutional. I ask rhetorically, to be sure. I don’t mind admitting that based on what I’ve observed of your posting history, I predict your response (if any) will be useless and vapid. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9225 "2016-04-17T02:15:47Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > No cite, but I swear that I have read people say that the _Citizens United_ decision, itself, is unconstitutional. > > Which, as you know, is impossible. But here’s the thing… suppose someone who you believe to be of moderate intelligence and reasonable civil knowledge says that citizens united is “unconstitutional”. Sure, you could point and laugh and say “wait, it’s a supreme court decision, that’s the final arbiter of what is or is not constitutional, you might as well say that black is night and war is peace, yuck, yuck, yuck”. Or you could realize that what they probably mean is “in my opinion, citizens united OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN FOUND unconstitutional, and I hope that as the court changes in the future, this injustice will be corrected, but for now I recognize that it is in fact the law of the land”. That’s assuming anyone came right out and said “citizens united is unconstitutional” in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9226 "2016-04-17T02:43:35Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > … your unwillingness to accept the final determination by the component court. I’m guessing the word you meant was “competent”, a court authorized to rule on the question at hand. Don’t know what a court might be a “component” of, except for a Mongolian Cluster Court. Even so, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. There is a lot of real estate between just to the left of Calvin Coolidge and wild-eyed revolutionaries like **Max** and **Bryan**. Shit, I bet I’m the only guy here who regularly posts wearing a Che! t-shirt! ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9227 "2016-04-17T02:52:47Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Hey, wait a sec, demanding to know why someone isn’t criticizing a person who is on their own side is a Bricker trademark. He could sue you! I’m a witness! Not “demanding”, simply encouraging him to a more wholesome attitude! Your use of such an imperative shows that you are just like Hitler. (Or maybe Sgt. Preston? Are you a big guy? He was. A husky fucker, they say…) ---
**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 17, 2016, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9228 "2016-04-17T03:14:33Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > That’s assuming anyone came right out and said “citizens united is unconstitutional” in the first place. Heck, I’m still waiting for the cite of someone saying “nobody ever cast an illegal vote,” which was apparently so powerful a claim that Bricker thought it was analogous to the death penalty in some way, until he decided that votes weren’t like executions at all and what kind of silly-Billy thought they were in the first place? ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9229 "2016-04-17T04:33:51Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Or you could realize that what they probably mean is “in my opinion, citizens united OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN FOUND unconstitutional, and I hope that as the court changes in the future, this injustice will be corrected, but for now I recognize that it is in fact the law of the land”. This is a text based medium. We can only go by what is posted, not by what somebody “probably means”. > [@](#): > > That’s assuming anyone came right out and said “citizens united is unconstitutional” in the first place. I’m not sure why you’re surprised by this. People have said that Voter ID laws are unconstitutional, in this very thread. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9230 "2016-04-17T05:33:56Z")
Yes, it is a misnomer, like saying “less” when one means “fewer”. Results from a commonly held belief that the Constitution was created by extraordinary gentlemen as a revolutionary advance in justice and equality. Almost by reflex, they think that anything flagrantly unjust in America must be unConstitutional. And as Twain put it, there is nothing wrong with that except it just ain’t so. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9231 "2016-04-17T12:46:30Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > I’m guessing the word you meant was “competent”, a court authorized to rule on the question at hand. Don’t know what a court might be a “component” of, except for a Mongolian Cluster Court. Resistance is futile-prepare to be assimilated. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9232 "2016-04-17T14:40:39Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > I’m guessing the word you meant was “competent”, a court authorized to rule on the question at hand. Don’t know what a court might be a “component” of, except for a Mongolian Cluster Court. Punching down! Punching down! Check your privilege, native English speaker! I’m just a poor guy brought up by a Spanish-speaking parent! ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9233 "2016-04-17T14:45:49Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > While we are in agreement regarding that particular poster, here is the content of that post so technically you can respond to me instead: > > [Ari Berman’s](http://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsins-voter-id-law-could-block-300000-registered-voters-from-the-polls/) analysis of Wisconsin alone may have overstated numbers, but they’re a lot more than zero. > > Numerous other examples of people getting herded into the bureaucratic maze, with no way out. So, I agree that $200 is too much. But according to this, it’s really $20. And that’s not $20 per election, but a one-time $20 expenditure, which Ms Frank does not allege is burdensome. She says, rather, that she refuses on principle. So did you know it was $20 and not $200, Bryan? ---
**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 17, 2016, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9234 "2016-04-17T15:06:31Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > So, I agree that $200 is too much. > > But according to this, it’s really $20. > > And that’s not $20 per election, but a one-time $20 expenditure, which Ms Frank does not allege is burdensome. She says, rather, that she refuses on principle. > > So did you know it was $20 and not $200, Bryan? Okay, now follow-up on the 299,999 other Wisconsin voters mentioned in the original article. If for one in a thousand, the burden represents a significant hardship, that’ll be 300. Now estimate the number of illegal voters. Is it still “dozens?” I assume you (at least intermittently) care about numbers, since you asked that “3 out of 9000” thing earlier. Let me know if you still do or if you’re back to “the numbers don’t matter since the law was passed properly.” And incidentally, was the problem ostensibly being addressed actually worth making even one citizen pay an extra $20? It remains unclear to me. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9235 "2016-04-17T15:13:12Z")
Bricker, did you read that entire article? It seems pretty damning to me. Here’s the opening several paragraphs: > [@](#): > > Johnny Randle, a 74-year-old African-American resident of Milwaukee, moved to Wisconsin from Mississippi in 2011, the same year the state legislature passed a law requiring a government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot. Randle, with the help of his daughter, petitioned the DMV to issue him a free ID for voting because he could not afford to pay for his Mississippi birth certificate. > > After a five-month “adjudication process,” the DMV denied his request. His daughter ultimately tracked down his Mississippi birth certificate, but the name listed, Johnnie Marton Randall, did not match the name he’d used his entire life, Johnny Martin Randle. The DMV said that he would either need to correct his name through the Social Security Administration and get a new Social Security card reflecting the name on his birth certificate or go to court to “change” his name and “provide court documents reflecting that your name has legally been changed to read as ‘Johnny M Randle.’” But Randle worried that any change to his Social Security information might interrupt the monthly disability payments he survives on. (This account comes from a new lawsuit challenging Wisconsin’s voting restrictions filed by Democratic lawyer Marc Elias, Hillary Clinton’s campaign counsel.) > > Randle was forced to choose between his livelihood and his right to vote. As of the April 5 presidential primary, he is still not able to vote in Wisconsin. After voting without incident in the formerly Jim Crow South, he was disenfranchised when he moved to the North. Stories like Randle’s are why the Wisconsin Supreme Court dubbed the voter ID law a “de facto poll tax” and it was blocked in state and federal court until a panel of Republican-appointed judges reinstated the measure in 2014. Do you think it’s fair to describe Mr. Randle as “disenfranchised”, or say that his vote was “suppressed”? I also think this comment is particularly telling: > [@](#): > > “It’s just, I think, sad when a political party—my political party—has so lost faith in its ideas that it’s pouring all of its energy into election mechanics,” Republican State Senator Dale Schultz, a rare dissenter, said in 2014. “We should be pitching as political parties our ideas for improving things in the future rather than mucking around in the mechanics and making it more confrontational at our voting sites and trying to suppress the vote.” ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9236 "2016-04-17T15:17:39Z")
> [@](#): > > …So did you know it was $20 and not $200, Bryan? So, injustice is acceptable so long as its affordable? Or is it that only the lazy and indolent will have their voting rights trimmed, and that’s OK because its their fault? Been a while since twenty dollars meant all that much to me, but I remember. You? ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9237 "2016-04-17T15:18:15Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > This is a text based medium. We can only go by what is posted, not by what somebody “probably means”. Nonsense. There are plenty of situations, including typos, exaggeration, hyperbole, analogy, and goodness knows what else, where we do something other than literally read the precise meaning of the words that someone posts. And if you’re not certain what they mean, well, you can ask. Or you can just think “wow, that person is a moron”, to make yourself feel better about how dumb people disagree with you are, and go on with your life. > [@](#): > > I’m not sure why you’re surprised by this. People have said that Voter ID laws are unconstitutional, in this very thread. And some voter ID laws _have_ been found to be unconstitutional. There’s a big difference between some total crank who thinks that the IRS is unconstitutional (likely involving admiralty flags or what have you) and someone who looks at a dozen laws, 4 of which were found unconstitutional, the other 8 of which were upheld by 5-4 margins by a court that no longer exists, and argues that the other 8 are also “unconstitutional”. I leave as an exercise to the reader to determine precisely what they might mean. ---
**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 17, 2016, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9238 "2016-04-17T15:23:00Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > So, injustice is acceptable so long as its affordable? Or is it that only the lazy and indolent will have their voting rights trimmed, and that’s OK because its their fault? > > Been a while since twenty dollars meant all that much to me, but I remember. You? Well, there’s a rumour going around that Bricker was poor and raised by a Spanish-speaking parent, so ask him if he remembers when 20 pesos were a big deal, or bolivianos or bolivars or whatever Spain was using before the euro. ---
**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 17, 2016, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9239 "2016-04-17T15:27:23Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Nonsense. There are plenty of situations, including typos, exaggeration, hyperbole, analogy, and goodness knows what else, where we do something other than literally read the precise meaning of the words that someone posts. And if you’re not certain what they mean, well, you can ask. Yeah, I was mildly taken aback when D’Anconia suggested we were limited to strict literalism, considering how fond this board is of sarcasm and irony. I had to wonder if he was that clueless or just trying to pull some lame defense tactic of “yeah, that’s what you MEANT but not what you SAID, so neener-neener!” By the way, Spain was using the peseta before the euro. That was bugging me until I had to just look it up. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/9240 "2016-04-17T15:34:09Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > …Let me know if you still do or if you’re back to “the numbers don’t matter since the law was passed properly.”… Oh. he’s not telling you that you are wrong because it supports his argument. He just really likes telling you you’re wrong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=461) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=463)