# 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:** 516
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10301 "2016-09-12T02:10:38Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > Heck it doesn’t matter anymore since California automatically registers everyone who gets a drivers license to vote… Funny – my nephew in California just got a license, at age 15 – but they didn’t register him to vote. So not everyone. ---
**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:** [September 12, 2016, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10302 "2016-09-12T02:21:23Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > As for the Monkey Cage study, the dispute is about exactly how many non-citizens are voting. The fact many are is undisputed, since states are really lax about checking voter registrations with their databases. I dispute it. So you’re wrong AGAIN. And your “fact” is wrong, too. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10303 "2016-09-12T02:33:16Z")
It should be simple then to demonstate that states are fulfilling their obligations under federal law and checking the citizenship status of newly registered voters. ---
**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:** [September 12, 2016, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10304 "2016-09-12T02:34:41Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It should be simple then to demonstate that states are fulfilling their obligations under federal law and checking the citizenship status of newly registered voters. You made the claim; you back it up. That’s how it works. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10305 "2016-09-12T03:02:13Z")
I made the claim, I backed it up. Posting a cite that purports to debunk does not automatically mean it is debunked. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10306 "2016-09-12T03:17:55Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I made the claim, I backed it up. Posting a cite that purports to debunk does not automatically mean it is debunked. Nope, I did that, you only repeated the now debunked (and by their own results of 2014) article again, you only were stupid enough to think that that would fly after the many other reports that came before and after that showed how incomplete your article and the study was. It may had sounded ok back then, but as usual with many conservatives, you only show to have trouble dealing with the march of time and new evidence. ---
**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:** [September 12, 2016, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10307 "2016-09-12T15:14:17Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > Heck it doesn’t matter anymore since California automatically registers everyone who gets a drivers license to vote and allows illegal immigrants to get drivers licenses and doesn’t let the DMV check folks against against immigration databases. Liar. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10308 "2016-09-12T18:38:32Z")
And this just in… > [@](#): > > The North Carolina Republican Party has spent years trying to cut the early voting days available in their state…the leaders of the state GOP have a new argument: early voting will allow dead people to influence the election in the crucial swing state. > > “We have a situation here where you have to be alive on Election Day. If you vote early, you still have to be alive,” the state GOP’s executive director Dallas Woodhouse told local Fox reporters. “In a very close race you could literally have dead people voting.”… [https://thinkprogress.org/north-carolina-gops-new-argument-against-early-voting-people-could-die-before-election-day-8b7e36748248#.2s1q1b2t4](https://thinkprogress.org/north-carolina-gops-new-argument-against-early-voting-people-could-die-before-election-day-8b7e36748248#.2s1q1b2t4) (Includes quote on video) _…And dey back to back, belly to belly Don’t give a damn, dey done vote already…_ ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10309 "2016-09-12T18:52:33Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > “We have a situation here where you have to be alive on Election Day. If you vote early, you still have to be alive,” the state GOP’s executive director Dallas Woodhouse told local Fox reporters. “In a very close race you could literally have dead people voting.”… Better than the alternative, in which the GOP kills everyone who early voted the wrong way and disqualifies their vote on that basis. I believe the Dems filibustered that version of the bill. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10310 "2016-09-12T19:04:01Z")
Ricin on the early ballots! Leaves no trace, dead in a couple days! If anybody notices that a bunch of early voters check out, say God smote them! ---
**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:** [September 12, 2016, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10311 "2016-09-12T21:15:25Z")
Interesting tactic, but what if someone dies on election day after polls have opened but before they close? Check to see if they voted and track down their ballot to void it? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10312 "2016-09-12T22:21:25Z")
Immediately place the miscreant under arrest. Offer a plea bargain for a lighter sentence. ---
**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:** [September 16, 2016, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10313 "2016-09-16T16:26:07Z")
More fun and games: a GOP-driven “voter verification program” appears to be resulting in [hundreds of thousands of legitimate voters being potentially or actually removed from the voter rolls](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-gops-stealth-war-against-voters-w435890) due to having a similar name to another voter or a felon. The methodology is…not particularly robust. > [@](#): > > In battleground-state Ohio, Republican Secretary of State John Husted’s Crosscheck has flagged close to half a million voters. In Dayton, we tracked down several of the suspects on our lists. Hot spots of “potential duplicate” voters, we couldn’t help but notice, were in neighborhoods where the streets are pocked with rundown houses and boarded storefronts. On Otterbein Avenue, I met Donald Webster, who, like most in his neighborhood, is African-American. > > Crosscheck lists him registered in Ohio as Donald Alexander Webster Jr., while registered a second time as Donald Eugene Webster (no “Jr.”) in Charlottesville, Virginia. Webster says he’s never been a “Eugene” and has never been to Charlottesville. I explained that both he and his Virginia doppelgänger were subject to losing their ability to vote. > > “How low can they go?” he asked. “I mean, how can they do that?” > > I put his question to Robert Fitrakis, a voting-rights attorney who examined our Crosscheck data. I showed him Donald Webster’s listing – and page after page of Ohio voters. Fitrakis says that the Ohio secretary of state’s enthusiasm for Crosscheck fits a pattern: “He doesn’t want to match middle names, because he doesn’t want real matches. They’re targeting people with clearly defined ethnic names that typically vote for the Democratic Party. He wants to win Ohio the only way he knows how – by taking away the rights of citizens to vote.” ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2016, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10314 "2016-09-16T16:54:00Z")
“Donald” and “Webster” are ethnic names? ---
**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:** [September 16, 2016, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10315 "2016-09-16T17:00:28Z")
Yes, it only affects people named Donald Webster. Hundreds of thousands of people named Donald Webster. You have immediately spotted the flaw in the argument. I mean, it’s not like the article addressed this: > [@](#): > > We had Mark Swedlund, a database expert whose clients include eBay and American Express, look at the data from Georgia and Virginia, and he was shocked by Crosscheck’s “childish methodology.” He added, “God forbid your name is Garcia, of which there are 858,000 in the U.S., and your first name is Joseph or Jose. You’re probably suspected of voting in 27 states.” > > Swedlund’s statistical analysis found that African-American, Latino and Asian names predominate, a simple result of the Crosscheck matching process, which spews out little more than a bunch of common names. No surprise: The U.S. Census data shows that minorities are overrepresented in 85 of 100 of the most common last names. If your name is Washington, there’s an 89 percent chance you’re African-American. If your last name is Hernandez, there’s a 94 percent chance you’re Hispanic. If your name is Kim, there’s a 95 percent chance you’re Asian. > > **This inherent bias results in an astonishing one in six Hispanics, one in seven Asian-Americans and one in nine African-Americans in Crosscheck states landing on the list**. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2016, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10316 "2016-09-16T17:22:45Z")
I can certainly see that angle, but it seemed like a weird comment to make for Donald Webster being the primary example. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2016, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10317 "2016-09-16T17:50:53Z")
What is the alleged purpose of this colossal goat fuck? I kinda know what the actual purpose is, but don’t yet grasp the sham purpose. Juan Garcia lives at 123 Maple St., Los Angeles, CA. He is registered to vote there. He previously lived in New York, NY, and registered to vote there. So, maybe he is still registered to vote in NY, he can legally vote in CA, jump a quick plane to NY, and vote there? Too silly to give any thought to. Juan lives in CA, and somebody finds out he’s moved to CA, and…aha!..his registration is available in NY for someone to exploit and vote as him! So, all they have to do to get a thousand fake votes is research enough registration records to find enough people who moved so they can fake their votes. And assign one hundred people to vote ten times in one of those names… No, the logistics of massive voter impersonation fraud is still absurd. Security issues involving several hundred, several thousand conspirators? Still too stupid. So what dread thing is Crosscheck allegedly going to prevent? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2016, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10318 "2016-09-16T18:35:47Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > “Donald” and “Webster” are ethnic names? It could be, for that specific location (then again, it might not.) For instance, I heard, with no cite, that Democratic primary voters voted for [Alvin Greene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_South_Carolina,_2010#Campaign), an almost complete unknown, partly based on ethnic identification based on his name, which doesn’t _look_ ethnic to me. So if someone creating the databases knew that “Webster” was more likely to be ethnic in that area, they might have added it. ---
**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:** [September 16, 2016, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10319 "2016-09-16T22:00:07Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > I can certainly see that angle, but it seemed like a weird comment to make for Donald Webster being the primary example. Be aware that a well-to-do Donald Webster is more likely to receive notification that he’s been de-registered, is more likely to have the time and know-how to fight the de-registration, and\*\*\* is much more likely to get helpful response from the registration bureaucrat\*\*\*. Programs like _Crosscheck_ make an utter sham of American democracy. Is this horrid program still in place for Ohio this November? Other states? Don’t kid yourself — these vote suppression schemes do change election results, probably even changing the outcome of the 2004 Presidential election. Did **Brickhead** ever express an opinion on _Crosscheck_? “Nanner nanner nanner; your side would do it too if you were smart enough”? Or has he just shambled off, tail between his legs? ETA: Hey, **Brickhead**. The heinous policies you espouse are likely to put Trump in power. Is this still “democracy at its finest”? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10320 "2016-09-20T08:31:14Z")
Can someone tell me why the voter registration process is separate from the voter ID process? You have to establish your ID to register, why not issue a voter ID card at the same time? Then every registered voter would have a voter ID to present at the poll. Grandfather in existing voters with the current system, and within a few years, with normal attrition and moving, most people would have current voter ID. To avoid having to make unique cards at all registration locations, just sync the voter registration process with the state ID and add a voter endorsement to any state ID, the same as organ donation, and send out a replacement card. A small price to pay for a reliable, streamlined system that doesn’t disenfranchise anyone, and reduces voter fraud. Too simple? Or would that not achieve the real purpose of voter ID laws? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=515) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=517)