# 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:** 56
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1101 "2012-07-09T15:24:43Z")
> [@Mentor\_and\_Liar](#): > > Damn; son! Asked and answered. Allow the bailiff to read from the transcript: > > Lawyas gonna loy, I guess. Why is it “not looking good?” Has any state with photo ID laws for voting ever refused to accept a US passport? Your’re insisting that Minnesota would be the first, and your evidence is that you think so. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1102 "2012-07-09T15:27:15Z")
> [@Skip](#): > > Because almost every other election in the US where voter fraud has been measured produces results that are as minuscule as that one? From the very same link: > [@](#): > > Indeed, evidence from the microscopically scrutinized 2004 gubernatorial election in Washington State actually reveals just the opposite: though voter fraud does happen, it happens approximately 0.0009% of the time. That’s a rate more than twenty times 0.00004%. That’s an order of magnitude difference. How is that “as minuscule?” ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1103 "2012-07-09T15:31:43Z")
> [@Skip](#): > > Reading the [Wikipedia page on the ‘fraud’ in the Washington 2004 elections](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_gubernatorial_election,_2004#Further_legal_challenges) is hilarious! Some highlights (Rossi is R/Gregoire is D): > > Emphasis mine. “One dead woman was marked as having voted in person at the polls.” And “No evidence was brought before the court of any of the illegal votes benefitted Gregoire.” (A sentence you emphasized.) Which way did the dead woman vote? We don’t know, so you trumpet, “No evidence was brought before the court of any of the illegal votes benefitted Gregoire.” That’s exactly my point. Whoever impersonated that woman cast a vite. We don’t know who that vote was for. And you use that lack to say there’s no evidence. If there had been a photo ID system in place, the imposter could not have voted. Then we wouldn’t need to speculate. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1104 "2012-07-09T15:34:05Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Finally! After you repeatedly insisted that it was impossible to measure voter fraud, I had to engage in a painstaking process of hiding you and educating you about your own state’s voter registration. We delved into the social security system in order to assess how we would identify your Nordic sleeper vote fraudster. > > When finally we had reached the end game, I asked you in post 542: > > You chose to respond by arguing that I had erred in accusing you of argumentum ad populum. > > Now, some 550 odd posts later, you finally man up and answer the question. Congrats. You have cells that might some day form a spine. Nothing I said has changed. If you now agree that so far as you have shown, the measurement of all illegal votes hasn’t been done in anything approaching a comprehensive way, and yet you insist that we should assume the numbers are zero until proven otherwise, then you now agree with me. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1105 "2012-07-09T15:37:28Z")
> [@](#): > > …t took you fifteen seconds to demand the links, and me five minutes to provide it. Why didn’t you just Google them? Because you are supposed to? You are the one who posted it, aren’t you supposed to know where you got it? What, you don’t _know_ where you got it? Short term memory issues, is it? You posted your list, and one minute later forgot where you found it? Or is it that you just cut and pasted from some utterly partisan source and are embarrassed to admit it? ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1106 "2012-07-09T15:43:16Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > In any event, even they don’t claim that “0.00004%” is anything more widely applicable than the rate of illegal voters in Ohio in 2004. Why should I care about that number? The 0.00004% number sounds bogus. However, by your logic: Houston has roughly 6.22 million people in the metro area. 0.00004% of that number is (rounding up) 3. If those people are running around committing armed robberies, why should we care about them? A crime is a crime and we should all care if even just 1 person is committing the crime. ---
**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:** [July 9, 2012, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1107 "2012-07-09T15:43:35Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Not at all – because although I grant that the payoff from such investment as a general rule is virtually nil, what price do you place on the correct selection for a state governor? Or for the President? > > When we invest in such procedures, we mitigate the risk of another Florida-2000 clouding the legitimacy of the next President. That’s easily worth the money being spent. What you are missing, on purpose, I assume, is that if a voter ID law keeps ten thousand times as many people from voting as would have committed fraud, the result is not the _correct selection_ for state governor. Let me rephrase, if you keep many, many more people from voting than would have committed fraud, you are \*reducing \*the integrity of the election. You aren’t \*ensuring \*it. But since the lost votes would come to Democrats, in general, you’re okay with that. ---
**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:** [July 9, 2012, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1108 "2012-07-09T15:44:37Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > The 0.00004% number sounds bogus. However, by your logic: Houston has roughly 6.22 million people in the metro area. 0.00004% of that number is (rounding up) 3. If those people are running around committing armed robberies, why should we care about them? > > A crime is a crime and we should all care if even just 1 person is committing the crime. But if the law that fights that crime incarcerates ten thousand times as many innocent people, it’s a bad law. We can at least agree on that, right? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1109 "2012-07-09T15:47:09Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Because you are supposed to? You are the one who posted it, aren’t you supposed to know where you got it? What, you don’t _know_ where you got it? Short term memory issues, is it? You posted your list, and one minute later forgot where you found it? > > Or is it that you just cut and pasted from some utterly partisan source and are embarrassed to admit it? _sigh_ Close. > **[List of close election results](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_close_election_results)** > > This is a list of close election results on the national level and within administrative divisions. It lists results that have been decided by a margin of less than 1 vote in 1,000 (a margin of less than 0.1 percentage points): single-winner elections where the winning candidate was less than 0.1% ahead of the second-placed candidate, as well as party-list elections where a party was less than 0.1% short of the electoral threshold or two lists that obtained seats are less than 0.1% apart. This ... This was my original source, but I dislike citing to Wikipedia as a primary source, and that page has a bunch of non-US elections mixed in. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1110 "2012-07-09T15:51:34Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > What you are missing, on purpose, I assume, is that if a voter ID law keeps ten thousand times as many people from voting as would have committed fraud, the result is not the _correct selection_ for state governor. > > Let me rephrase, if you keep many, many more people from voting than would have committed fraud, you are \*reducing \*the integrity of the election. You aren’t \*ensuring \*it. No. Not as long as the procedure is reasonable. Look, if I tell you, “Don’t you dare vote! If you vote then I will come to your house and infect you and your family with smallpox,” then that’s a legitimate threat. If I tell you, “Don’t you dare vote! If you vote I’ll make a voodoo doll of you and curse you and your whole family to sickness,” then that’s NOT a reasonable threat. And even if it causes people to stay home, I don’t favor punishing the voodoo doctor. The bare fact that some people stay home doesn’t concern me – if they stay home based on an unreasonable rationale, then too damn bad for them. ---
**Author:** ![Curiosity\_Kills\_Her](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@Curiosity\_Kills\_Her](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Curiosity_Kills_Her)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1111 "2012-07-09T15:52:15Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Let me rephrase, if you keep many, many more people from voting than would have committed fraud, you are \*reducing \*the integrity of the election. You aren’t \*ensuring \*it. Precisely this. Also no concern at all over voting through the mail, which obviously does not require an ID and is much easier to vote illegally with. ---
**Author:** ![Mentor\_and\_Liar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2acd7d/32.png) [@Mentor\_and\_Liar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mentor_and_Liar)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1112 "2012-07-09T16:18:38Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Why is it “not looking good?” Has any state with photo ID laws for voting ever refused to accept a US passport? > > Your’re insisting that Minnesota would be the first, and your evidence is that you think so. Yeah, I just totally made that shit up. Among other things, I read the histrionic ravings of our former Governor and former Vice-President as written in the largest daily newspaper in Minnesota, to wit [“Surprisingly, there are also two glaring omissions in the proposed amendment. The first is that it does not specify an acceptable government-issued ID. A passport would not qualify, nor would a regular student ID.”](http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/159799395.html) and then I just cold repeated it as if reputable sources and my own experience had any relevency. Quoted it and–fare thee well, tra la la–provided a link as if I heeded not a wit your speculation that I needn’t trouble my pretty little head over it. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1113 "2012-07-09T16:27:50Z")
Submit documentation and proof that your head is pretty, and also little. An affidavit from God Almighty, countersigned by the Archangel Gabriel, _may_ be considered adequate, provided it does not support conclusions that **Bricker** finds disagreeable. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1114 "2012-07-09T17:08:36Z")
> [@Mentor\_and\_Liar](#): > > Yeah, I just totally made that shit up. Among other things, I read the histrionic ravings of our former Governor and former Vice-President as written in the largest daily newspaper in Minnesota, to wit [“Surprisingly, there are also two glaring omissions in the proposed amendment. The first is that it does not specify an acceptable government-issued ID. A passport would not qualify, nor would a regular student ID.”](http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/159799395.html) and then I just cold repeated it as if reputable sources and my own experience had any relevency. Quoted it and–fare thee well, tra la la–provided a link as if I heeded not a wit your speculation that I needn’t trouble my pretty little head over it. But as you can see from a minimum of research, namely reading the actual language, it’s untrue that a passport would not qualify. You didn’t make it up. But you credulously repeated it without any skepticism, because it meshed with your desired narrative. If the quote had been something you didn’t like to hear, you would ignore it or examine it with a fine-toothed comb to identify flaws. ---
**Author:** ![Skip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@Skip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skip)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1115 "2012-07-09T17:11:51Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > That’s a rate more than twenty times 0.00004%. > > That’s an order of magnitude difference. How is that “as minuscule?” Oh let’s cut the BS. 0.0009% is a miniscule number. 0.00004% is even more miniscule. Even if we take the worst case scenario of 0.0009% it still wouldn’t effect a single election outcome. For all intents and purpose they’re equivalent. Anyway I’ve always used 0.0009% in all my calculations. That equates to 1200 fraudulent votes out of 131 000 000 cast in 2008 presidential elections. I’d be happy to start using 0.00004% if you think it’s more accurate. That’s an entire 53 fraudulent votes out of 131 million. Someone needs to stop this plague of illegal voters. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1116 "2012-07-09T17:21:01Z")
The problem is that there are few consequences for you, **Mentor and Liar** , for being wrong. The board will support you, because you were wrong in the service on the correct cause. The amendment will pass, the enabling regulations made, and a passport will suffice. And I’ll start a thread pointing out how you were wrong. And what do you suppose the bulk of responses to that thread will be? I already know. I know because I’ve been down this road before. When Virginia was considering a constitutionla amendment to ban same-sex marriage, some loud-mouth who studied rhetorical approach at the same school of ethics you attended claimed that the new law would make it impossible to prosecute domestic abuse cases, because of the way it limited Virginia’s definition of “married.” No citations to law would sway him. Well, Virginia passed that amendment. And after a year went by, with no problems prosecuting any domestic abuse cases, I posted a thread the pointed out the error. And of course that thread was immediately answered with an acknowledgement of error and admission that the idea had been wrong. Ha! Ha! I slay myself. No, that would have happened, on a board where people cared about such things. What actually happened was a chorus of “Get a life,” and “That’s all in the past, why do you care?” As though they knew all along that the argument was bullshit, and were genuinely affronted that someone wanted to call them to account for using bullshit. After all, it was in a good cause. And of course that’s what will happen here. The amendment will pass, a passport will be acceptable, I’ll start a thread reminding you of this, and I’ll get yelled at by people wondering why I’m gloating, why I don’t have a life, and sorrowfully saying that they used to respect me, but now they’ve lost all respect. And of course, you and your ilk will continue to try to get mileage out of bullshit claims like this one, never worrying about any meaningful reckoning after the fact. Right? ---
**Author:** ![Skip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@Skip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skip)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1117 "2012-07-09T17:22:51Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > That’s exactly my point. Whoever impersonated that woman cast a vite. We don’t know who that vote was for. And you use that lack to say there’s no evidence. I never said that voter fraud doesn’t happen. I said that it’s inconsequential. And one case of a dead person voting in an election with 2 600 000 votes cast ( 0.00038%) kind of proves my point. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1118 "2012-07-09T17:26:41Z")
> [@Skip](#): > > Oh let’s cut the BS. 0.0009% is a miniscule number. 0.00004% is even more miniscule. Even if we take the worst case scenario of 0.0009% it still wouldn’t effect a single election outcome. For all intents and purpose they’re equivalent. > > Anyway I’ve always used 0.0009% in all my calculations. That equates to 1200 fraudulent votes out of 131 000 000 cast in 2008 presidential elections. I’d be happy to start using 0.00004% if you think it’s more accurate. That’s an entire 53 fraudulent votes out of 131 million. Someone needs to stop this plague of illegal voters. I’m glad you agree. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1119 "2012-07-09T17:28:18Z")
> [@Skip](#): > > I never said that voter fraud doesn’t happen. I said that it’s inconsequential. And one case of a dead person voting in an election with 2 600 000 votes cast ( 0.00038%) kind of proves my point. You admit there’s one, but deny there’s more. And if I painstakingly proved there was another, you might admit there was two – but deny there are more. “The thirteenth stroke of a clock is not only wrong itself, but casts grave doubt on the accuracy of the preceding twelve.” And you keep acting like I have the burden of proof here. The laws are passing, right and left. I don’t have to prove anything. It’s a done deal. ---
**Author:** ![Skip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@Skip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skip)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1120 "2012-07-09T17:29:46Z")
> [@](#): > > And of course that’s what will happen here. The amendment will pass, a passport will be acceptable, I’ll start a thread reminding you of this Allowing passports to be used for Voter ID wouldn’t make a difference. Out of [300 million Americans only 1/3rd own passports](http://travel.state.gov/passport/ppi/stats/stats_890.html). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=55) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=57)