# 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:** 531
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10601 "2017-09-28T00:12:54Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > There are no laws against something like this? I’m not saying there are or are not, I’m wondering if there are. It seems like falsely advertising the voting times and polling places would be somewhat illegal. So far as I am aware, there are a few states that have laws that might be read to prohibit this, but in my view any such reading would run afoul of the First Amendment. (See Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 16-1006, “It is unlawful for a person knowingly by force, threats, menaces, bribery or any corrupt means, either directly or indirectly. . . To attempt to awe, restrain, hinder or disturb an elector in the free exercise of the right of suffrage.” Mere false information would likely not pass the muster as “corrupt means.” ---
**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 28, 2017, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10602 "2017-09-28T00:19:05Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > There are no laws against something like this? I’m not saying there are or are not, I’m wondering if there are. It seems like falsely advertising the voting times and polling places would be somewhat illegal. There are laws against impersonating government officials (18 U.S. Code § 912 is the Federal version) but I’m not sure how you’d apply it to people who hang up official-looking posters in public places. Plus there’s enough wiggle room in putting an official-looking but actually privately trademarked symbol (just different enough from the government seal to qualify for legal distinction) on the misleading publications. I’d guess that the moment a venue tries to define the line where a ‘dirty trick’ crosses over into actual fraud, you’d have a lot of creative effort turned toward getting as close to that line as possible. The better approach is likely a well-educated public who will react strongly negatively to anyone who lies to them about politics, making these kinds of lies cost more than they gain, but what are the odds of _that?_ ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10603 "2017-09-28T00:21:16Z")
Awesome, thanks for the replies. I would think telling people to go to the wrong polling place would “hinder” an elector. (I’m assuming elector means a person going to vote.) ---
**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 28, 2017, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10604 "2017-09-28T08:32:14Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > So the study includes a substantial set of respondents (enough to classify as “often”) who actually had valid ID and could have voted, but did not merely because they thought they didn’t have the right ID? Hence the inclusion of the phrase "and misinformation about the laws " in my post. > [@](#): > > Yeah, six gallons of I-don’t-care to that one. You cannot seriously argue you oppose a law because people mistakenly believed something about the law. Good thing I didn’t make that argument then. > [@](#): > > Or I guess you can, in your world. Thank God you don’t control the real world. Since you have made it abundantly clear that the number of people you care about is quite small and all ideologically aligned with you, and that you are perfectly fine with voter suppression efforts, misinformation campaigns and far worse as long as it also benefits your particular political agenda, I similarly have to be thankful you don’t run the world either. > [@Bricker](#): > > Not necessarily a public good, but not a ill that requires suspension of the First Amendment. > > Several years ago, I offered the following analogy: if I announced that I was placing a voodoo curse on anyone who voted for the Democrats, and the measurable result of that threat was that 5,000 voters chose to not risk it and not vote, what if anything should be done? And yet you support an extensive swath of new laws, complete with a very expensive level of government administration and compliance, to address a problem that is minimal to the point of non-existence but which creates a greater problem by orders of magnitude, all in the pursuit of the equally intangible “voter confidence”. Sounds like voodoo to me. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10605 "2017-09-28T12:14:40Z")
Not to mention that the alleged crisis of voter confidence is of that party’s own creation, as part of the same effort. Why does anyone continue to give them, and their defenders such as in this thread, any credit for any honesty at all? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10606 "2017-09-28T17:34:21Z")
Tradition. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2017, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10607 "2017-11-12T18:58:59Z")
Great Radiolab segment on the math behind debunking the voter fraud myth (one form of it, anyway) — [630: Things I Mean to Know, Act 1: Fraud Complex](https://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/630/things-i-mean-to-know?act=1#act-1). ---
**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:** [December 19, 2017, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10608 "2017-12-19T04:58:55Z")
The recent election in Alabama debunks the myth that “nigras are too lazy to register, anyway.” Alabama had some of the most repressive voter-suppression measures in the country: - photo ID was required so stringent that 10% of voters nationwide lacked it, and the percentage was even higher in Alabama, especially among blacks; - the primary way to get photo ID was DMV offices, so Alabamy shut down DMV offices in black counties. Yet Democrats in Alabama overcame these obstacles, voted at a rate slightly higher than Republicans, and elected their first Democratic Senator in 25 years. (Of course they still would have failed if the Alabama GOP hadn’t decided that a pedophile appealed best to family values, but we have to take our victories where we can get them.) I wonder if the vote suppression backfired! Some rednecks were slightly unhappy that they’d have to vote for a pedophile, so didn’t waste the energy to get photo ID. I don’t have the stomach to search Brickhead’s 2000 posts in this thread. What’s his stand on shutting down the DMV offices in black counties specifically? Is it - Nigras too lazy to drive to the next county don’t deserve teh vote. - The shutdowns were done by the elected legislature in the Heart of Dixie. Why do you hate democratic processes? - The triumph of the immoral baby killer over the wholesome Judge was a victory for Satan. I’m moving to Somalia. Although whites voted for Jones in unprecedented numbers, before celebrating too hard do remember that - The pedophile won 68-30 among all whites - The pedophile won 79-19 among the core GOP demographic: white men with no college degree. - Nationwide [Republicans hate Democrats more than they hate atheists](http://www.people-press.org/2016/06/22/1-feelings-about-partisans-and-the-parties/). Sweet Home Alabama still has [“a wheel in the ditch,”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QGMz9beIL0) but [Democracy (may be) coming to the U.S.A.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU-RuR-qO4Y) ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2017, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10609 "2017-12-20T15:28:38Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Hence the inclusion of the phrase "and misinformation about the laws " in my post. > > Good thing I didn’t make that argument then. > > Since you have made it abundantly clear that the number of people you care about is quite small and all ideologically aligned with you, and that you are perfectly fine with voter suppression efforts, misinformation campaigns and far worse as long as it also benefits your particular political agenda, I similarly have to be thankful you don’t run the world either. > > And yet you support an extensive swath of new laws, complete with a very expensive level of government administration and compliance, to address a problem that is minimal to the point of non-existence but which creates a greater problem by orders of magnitude, all in the pursuit of the equally intangible “voter confidence”. Sounds like voodoo to me. The Virginia legislature just left Republican control by the result of one vote in one Delegate race. But because we require ID here in Virginia, voters are reasonably confident that this was a legitimate result, and that one illegal vote wasn’t at fault. Not voodoo. Reality. Right in front of your face. ---
**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:** [December 20, 2017, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10610 "2017-12-20T15:47:14Z")
What does this “voter confidence” look like? How are you measuring it? How many voters are “more confident”? How many are less confident? How many illegal votes did this system prevent? Because if it’s just a hypothetical subjective intangible, it’s indistinguishable from voodoo. ---
**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:** [December 20, 2017, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10611 "2017-12-20T15:51:52Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The Virginia legislature just left Republican control by the result of one vote in one Delegate race. > > But because we require ID here in Virginia, voters are reasonably confident that this was a legitimate result, and that one illegal vote wasn’t at fault. > > Not voodoo. Reality. Right in front of your face. Although in 1991 Jim Scott won by a single vote, without benefit of voter ID, and they seemed to accept his victory just fine > [@](#): > > Ms. Simonds is not the first member of the Virginia House to pull off an improbably close victory. > > In 1991, a former Virginia delegate named Jim Scott won a race by one vote and was nicknamed “Landslide Jim.” On Tuesday, Ms. Simonds embraced the same name. “You can call me Landslide Shelly as long as you call me delegate,” she said. > **[In Virginia, a 11,608-to-11,607 Lesson in the Power of a Single Vote...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/us/virginia-house-of-delegates-single-vote.html)** > > Virginia Republicans appear to have lost control of the House of Delegates in an election decided by a single vote in a nail-biting recount. ---
**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:** [December 20, 2017, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10612 "2017-12-20T15:59:54Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Although in 1991 Jim Scott won by a single vote, without benefit of voter ID, and they seemed to accept his victory just fine That doesn’t disprove the “voter confidence” theory, it just proves that the voter confidence margin is less than one vote. Still important! ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2017, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10613 "2017-12-20T16:00:11Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The Virginia legislature just left Republican control by the result of one vote in one Delegate race. > > But because we require ID here in Virginia, voters are reasonably confident that this was a legitimate result, and that one illegal vote wasn’t at fault. > > Not voodoo. Reality. Right in front of your face. Seems easy to me to create a fake Employee ID with a photo. How many voters used an Employee ID that was fake? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2017, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10614 "2017-12-20T16:34:43Z")
How many absentee ballots were included? I would think more than one. The antidemocratics are certainly “confident” they could not get away with anything more to hold power against the will of the people. ---
**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:** [December 20, 2017, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10615 "2017-12-20T16:52:40Z")
There was a very close election!! This trivial and mundane factoid means that the liberals were completely wrong all along; voter suppression is a hoax; **Bricker** wins the thread! Got it. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2017, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10616 "2017-12-20T17:10:33Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The Virginia legislature just left Republican control by the result of one vote in one Delegate race. > > But because we require ID here in Virginia, voters are reasonably confident that this was a legitimate result, and that one illegal vote wasn’t at fault. > > Not voodoo. Reality. Right in front of your face. If it had gone the other way by one vote, how confident would voters be, given that it is the democratic vote that was attempted to be suppressed? Ultra-close election, if there were 2 people that would have voted, but did not, due to not being able to produce ID to the satisfaction of the poll workers, it would have gone entirely the other way. And that’s not getting into absentee ballots and all the confidence destroying that their use creates. If you think that the people of Virginia would have been right to have questioned the vote without voter ID, then the people of virginia would have been right to question an election with it. ---
**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:** [December 20, 2017, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10617 "2017-12-20T17:33:07Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > There was a very close election!! > > This trivial and mundane factoid means that the liberals were completely wrong all along; voter suppression is a hoax; **Bricker** wins the thread! > > Got it. I know that was sarcastic, and it has to be added that way early in the thread I noticed that in Virginia judges found that the ID requirements were not onerous or made to surgically remove minorities, hence the changes were allowed there. The result, as I noticed and **Bricker** ignored, was that Virginia turns blue while many states were judges noticed that surgical removal or a failure to make IDs easy to get by the poor or minorities remain red. **Bricker** in reality wins nothing but more asshole karma. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2017, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10618 "2017-12-20T17:33:29Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > But because we require ID here in Virginia, voters are reasonably confident that this was a legitimate result I carry the rock Lisa Simpson sold me, and am reasonably confident that I am safe from tiger attack. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2017, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10619 "2017-12-20T17:53:01Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > But because we require ID here in Virginia, voters are reasonably confident that this was a legitimate result, and that one illegal vote wasn’t at fault. You mean, YOUR voters are reasonably confident that this was a legitimate result - and we can’t even be sure of that, now can we? There has never been any iota of proof of systematic fraud as a result of voters entering voting stations with fake IDs. The damage caused by removing tens of thousands of voters from rolls and then forcing them to go through complex bureaucratic processes to reestablish their right to vote, on the other hand, is documented, as are other abuses and schemes to suppress voters of certain demographic profiles. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2017, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/10620 "2017-12-20T21:01:47Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > There was a very close election!! > > This trivial and mundane factoid means that the liberals were completely wrong all along; voter suppression is a hoax; **Bricker** wins the thread! > > Got it. Actually, what he said is no longer operative. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/court-tosses-out-one-vote-victory-in-recount-that-had-briefly-ended-a-republican-majority-in-virginia/2017/12/20/ed979a70-e5b9-11e7-a65d-1ac0fd7f097e\_story.html?utm\_term=.2ff08016a91e](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/court-tosses-out-one-vote-victory-in-recount-that-had-briefly-ended-a-republican-majority-in-virginia/2017/12/20/ed979a70-e5b9-11e7-a65d-1ac0fd7f097e_story.html?utm_term=.2ff08016a91e) So I guess he doesn’t win the thread after all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=530) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=532)