# 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:** 83
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1641 "2012-07-23T07:30:09Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > because I don’t think you’ve ever worked a hard day in your life. I strongly strongly disagree with the position Bricker is taking in this thread, and many of the techniques he is using to argue his position. I find it to be unethical and basically morally bankrupt. But your personal attacks on him are getting pretty preposterous and unsupportable, and all it does is make you (and, by extension, others arguing on the same side) look like a frothing-mouthed rabid absolutist moron. ---
**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 23, 2012, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1642 "2012-07-23T07:30:24Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > The whole point of this thread is the worry that the Democrats will lose votes because of more stringent requirements. That’s what I’m referring to. Looser, or easier, requirements favor the Democrats. > > Unbelievable. Poor doesn’t mean retarded. Nor does it mean lazy, or any other thing other than not having as much money as someone else. It is harder to do the things most people might take for granted if you are poor. It doesn’t make them impossible or even anything more than an inconvenience. I’d suggest it is you who have actually never been poor if you assume it equals being incompetent. Actually, I grew up to a single mother on welfare. I’ve eaten government cheese and my family never had a car. Well, up until I was four or so we had a car you could see the ground through the floorboards. We were always pennyless for the last week of the month, eating nothing but whatever was left in the fridge. We had to steal shopping carts and return them to get groceries home (from a store around half a mile or so away). So I know exactly how it is to be poor. I know the ignorance from my neighbors and I know the defeatism that permeates generational poverty. As it happens I wooed a middle-class girl and she managed to help me out of that. Now, I think you are the one not understanding here. Ten percent of the voting public wouldn’t not have an ID if it were truly easy. You’ve got multiple things adding up to that number. [But as I showed above](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15297558&postcount=1529), you aren’t even listening to me, and you haven’t even apologized for ignoring everything I’ve said to you this thread, so I don’t particularly want to engage you much. Okay? ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1643 "2012-07-23T07:33:10Z")
Edited to make this whole post more clear: > [@Uzi](#): > > You’re goal is to keep the current situation, which favors one party over the other, in place. Just because dems would prefer the current situation to the hypothetical situation post-voter-ID-laws in no way means that the current situation “favors one party over the other”. The current situation could be 100% fair, with the law tilting it towards the repubs. Or the current situation could favor dems, with the law making it favor dems less, or make it fair, or make it favor repubs. Or the current situation could already favor repubs, with the law making it favor them more. The fact that this law would make things worse for dems and better for repubs is not prima facie evidence that the current situation favors either party over the other, nor is it evidence against 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 23, 2012, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1644 "2012-07-23T07:33:54Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I strongly strongly disagree with the position Bricker is taking in this thread, and many of the techniques he is using to argue his position. I find it to be unethical and basically morally bankrupt. But your personal attacks on him are getting pretty preposterous and unsupportable, and all it does is make you (and, by extension, others arguing on the same side) look like a frothing-mouthed rabid absolutist moron. If Bricker understood how hard the working poor worked, he would likely care more that they are being kept from voting. Instead he laughs about it. He thinks they should walk they happy ass 20 miles or take a day off of work to get an ID. His position is predicated on him thinking that the poor are lazy. That they have plenty of time and they can go get ID like he had to. That said, we’re personal attacking _each other_. It’s the pit, remember? ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1645 "2012-07-23T08:18:44Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Just because dems would prefer the current situation to the hypothetical situation post-voter-ID-laws in no way means that the current situation “favors one party over the other”. The dispute in this thread is over limiting the ability of people to vote. And it is assumed that most of them will vote Democrat which is why many here are upset. Whether that is true seems to be largely irrelevant, it seems. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1646 "2012-07-23T09:16:14Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > If Bricker understood how hard the working poor worked, he would likely care more that they are being kept from voting. Or, more likely, he’s been there, and realises that they are _not_ being kept from voting. Not one person is being kept from voting by being required to claim their freely available ID to vote. Having to travel to the nearest city once every few years to claim it is, as I said earlier, an utterly trivial hardship. If this law will have any real effects, it will be to make it _easier_ for the 10% to get ID, as the states will be required to provide it for free, and this will make the whole of their lives easier. You, and several others here, have no argument, and have put no thought into the issue beyond “Republicans BAD! **Bricker** BAD!”. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1647 "2012-07-23T10:30:15Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > The dispute in this thread is over limiting the ability of people to vote. And it is assumed that most of them will vote Democrat which is why many here are upset. Whether that is true seems to be largely irrelevant, it seems. Which in no way addresses what I said. You described the current situation as one which “favors one party over the other”, which carries a strong implication that the current situation is unfair, is advantageous to the dems over the repubs, needs to be rebalanced, etc. As far as I can tell, unless you think there are lots of illegal aliens voting (which no one seems to be seriously claiming), there are no grounds for finding the current status quo actually unfair or unjust. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1648 "2012-07-23T10:37:31Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > Or, more likely, he’s been there, and realises that they are _not_ being kept from voting. Not one person is being kept from voting by being required to claim their freely available ID to vote. Having to travel to the nearest city once every few years to claim it is, as I said earlier, an utterly trivial hardship. I may have a somewhat different take on this than others on the generally same side of the argument, but to me, the question is not one of “can I produce evidence that there are a meaningful number of people for whom this new arrangement makes it IMPOSSIBLE or at least PROHIBITIVELY DIFFICULT to vote”. Rather, I claim this is an issue of the way large groups of people work. If you have 10,000 people and they currently do anything at a rate of 50%, and you make that thing somewhat more difficult to do, even if it’s only a fairly moderate obstacle for many of them, then fewer than 50% of them will do it. That’s as close to an immutable law as you can possibly come up with in a field as broad and diverse as human behavior. It’s basically the law of supply and demand… make donuts cost .10 more and fewer people will buy donuts, even if .10 is a fairly easy hurdle to overcome for any individual person. So if we making voting more difficult, fewer people will vote, and if we make voting more difficult in a way that impacts particular groups specifically, fewer people in those groups will vote. Now you might well look at all the people in those groups and point out to me how for nearly every member of that group, if they prioritized voting to be as important as it SHOULD be, and if they managed their time and money as well as they SHOULD, then in fact they would be able to vote, it wasn’t IMPOSSIBLE, yada yada yada. But to me, that’s irrelevant. An obstacle that makes it harder for certain groups, presumed to have party-line-correlations, to vote WILL mean that fewer people in that group vote, which WILL have a huge chance of changing the outcomes of elections, which DOES mean that the law needs to pass an extremely high bar of scrutiny before I will consider it to be ethical and little-d-democratic. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1649 "2012-07-23T10:49:17Z")
Then you need to address why people consider voting so unimportant that they won’t make a trivial sacrifice that will actually make the rest of their life easier to do so. I’m assuming here that state-issued photo ID functions as ID in all situations, not just voting, but I’d be amazed to hear that it didn’t. An interesting statistic would be how many of the 10% of people without sufficient ID to vote under these laws do currently vote. I would suspect it’s a fairly low number. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1650 "2012-07-23T11:18:51Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > The higher principle is that everyone who has the right to vote is allowed to vote. You seem to think that just showing up at a voting booth is enough to determine you have the right. No, this is one case where you have to demonstrate that the right in question applies to you. _WHY?!_ I asked you this before and got no answer. Why, if demanding this proof makes the whole system work worse and makes it overall less accurate, should we have to demonstrate that the right in question applies to us? I mean, the proof you want is already a redundancy after registration, so why the fuck bother? > [@Uzi](#): > > Yes, and all you have to do to resolve the issue is get people the proper ID’s. You would thus foil the dastardly plot of the Republicans and help any number of people. Do you know what the figures being thrown around for the “free ID program costs” in Alabama are? IIRC, the figure was something like $69,000,000. That’s a lot of money for a political party to pay _out of pocket_ to ensure that its members can, you know, _vote_. I’m rather sorry that I have to point this out, but you turning it around and saying “why aren’t the democrats spending a ton of their own money helping people the republicans fucked over” doesn’t quite work, no matter how often you try it. > [@](#): > > But that isn’t your goal. You’re goal is to keep the current situation, which favors one party over the other, in place. And you are using an appeal to a higher principle that isn’t being violated to justify your argument. The current situation is _fair_. There is no reason to indicate that the (completely negligible) voter fraud statistics lean one way or another. The situation after voter ID laws would be fairly clear: almost all demographics likely not to have ID cards are blue demographics. > [@Uzi](#): > > The whole point of this thread is the worry that the Democrats will lose votes because of more stringent requirements. That’s what I’m referring to. Looser, or easier, requirements favor the Democrats. BULLSHIT! THAT IS NOT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT, YOU DISHONEST SHITBAG! > [@](#): > > Unbelievable. Poor doesn’t mean retarded. Nor does it mean lazy, or any other thing other than not having as much money as someone else. It is harder to do the things most people might take for granted if you are poor. It doesn’t make them impossible or even anything more than an inconvenience. I’d suggest it is you who have actually never been poor if you assume it equals being incompetent. Yes, Uzi, _some people have trouble getting ID_. WHY IS THIS NOT GETTING THROUGH YOUR THICK-AS-A-BRICKER HEAD?! > [@Uzi](#): > > The dispute in this thread is over limiting the ability of people to vote. And it is assumed that most of them will vote Democrat which is why many here are upset. Whether that is true seems to be largely irrelevant, it seems. No, we’re upset because of the limiting of people to vote. Stop fucking lying, you asshole. > [@Steophan](#): > > Then you need to address why people consider voting so unimportant that they won’t make a trivial sacrifice that will actually make the rest of their life easier to do so. I’m assuming here that state-issued photo ID functions as ID in all situations, not just voting, but I’d be amazed to hear that it didn’t. If you read the rest of the thread (or even just the last few pages), you’d realize that the problem is that it’s _completely non-trivial_ for some people to get ID. If you live 30 miles away from the nearest DMV and there is no public transit, or the public transit is expensive, then that is not a trivial sacrifice. > [@](#): > > An interesting statistic would be how many of the 10% of people without sufficient ID to vote under these laws do currently vote. I would suspect it’s a fairly low number. 1/25000? Because that’s what it’d take to bring it on par with the figures for voter fraud. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1651 "2012-07-23T11:22:18Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > Then you need to address why people consider voting so unimportant that they won’t make a trivial sacrifice that will actually make the rest of their life easier to do so. No I don’t. In the current state, let’s say 50% of the population currently regularly votes, and that 50% is divided roughly between 50% who lean left and 50% who lean right (gross oversimplifications here). Now among those who actually vote, there is almost certainly (as there is in pretty much all measurable human traits) a bell curve… a few people who are SUPER dedicated to voting no matter what, a larger group of people who take voting pretty serious and will overcome medium sized obstacles to get to vote, and a few people who vote because it’s currently convenient, but probably wouldn’t if it was at all trickier. These levels of voting devotion occur on both sides, presumably in similar amounts (although I guess there’s some possibility that the shape of the curve is different between left-leaning and right-leaning groups… but I haven’t actually seen anyone make such a claim). So if you do something that adds obstacles to voting for EVERYONE, ie, it’s 10% harder for everyone to vote, then turnout will presumably drop around the same amount across the board, and it’s “fair” (although things that result in voter turnout dropping are, in themselves, bad). However, if it’s something that adds more obstacles to one group than to another, then it will have an unfair outcome, and I claim that outcome is unfair even without finding people who are now not voting who were voting before and analyzing their life and asking them why they didn’t vote, and pointing out how easy it is to get the bus to the DMV, etc, etc, etc. That part doesn’t matter at all, at least as far as I’m concerned. Part of what makes this so tricky, and in fact the root issue underlying all of this, is that things can sound fair on the surface but then very predictably lead to massive discrimination. Heck, a “literacy test” is something with a rational basis, something which does not inherently seem to have anything to do with favoring one political party or race over another, and yet was a key part of jim crow laws for decades. Similarly it’s easy to look at a pure poll tax and say "hey, it requires EVERYONE pay $5 to vote, that’s totally nondiscriminatory, and we’re using that $5 to upgrade the polling station, so that’s totally rational, and, c’mon, most people, even people who are darn poor, can really come up with $5 if they have to and if they really care about voting (and even THAT is true… even many really truly extremely poor families COULD come up with the $10 if there was a gun to their head… it’s just that to them, the obstacle that it presents, and the lost opportunity cost it presents, is VASTLY greater than for more affluent voters.) ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1652 "2012-07-23T11:27:48Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > If you read the rest of the thread (or even just the last few pages), you’d realize that the problem is that it’s _completely non-trivial_ for some people to get ID. If you live 30 miles away from the nearest DMV and there is no public transit, or the public transit is expensive, then that is not a trivial sacrifice. I’ve read the entire thread. Travelling to the nearest city once every few years is a trivial sacrifice for anyone. This seems to be what is being missed here. Even if this ID has to be renewed in person every time, that would mean people having to travel to the city as much as 15 times in their life. For something that, quite apart from allowing them to vote, will increase their day-to-day quality of life. Seriously, I know the US considers itself different from the rest of the world on this, but even there you have to prove your identity on a regular basis. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1653 "2012-07-23T12:11:21Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > I’ve read the entire thread. Travelling to the nearest city once every few years is a trivial sacrifice for anyone. This seems to be what is being missed here. Even if this ID has to be renewed in person every time, that would mean people having to travel to the city as much as 15 times in their life. > > For something that, quite apart from allowing them to vote, will increase their day-to-day quality of life. Seriously, I know the US considers itself different from the rest of the world on this, but even there you have to prove your identity on a regular basis. Tell that to the person without a car who lives where public transportation isn’t readily available. Tell that to the people with physical handicaps who just can’t make the trip. There are many people who haven’t had a picture ID for years who are living just fine. Why would the ID improve their quality of life? The bottom line continues to be that those who would be most likely to throw up their hands, give up, and not vote trend disproportionately Democratic. Of course, this is the reason that the laws are proposed in the first place. If the Republicans gave a flying fuck about fair elections, they’d shut down Diebold and insist on paper ballots for everyone. They’d insist on equitable distribution of voting machines on election day. But they simply aren’t interested in fair results, they’re interested in winning. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1654 "2012-07-23T12:24:39Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Tell that to the person without a car who lives where public transportation isn’t readily available. Tell that to the people with physical handicaps who just can’t make the trip. There are many people who haven’t had a picture ID for years who are living just fine. Why would the ID improve their quality of life? They can arrange to get a lift once every four or more years. It is, as I said, trivial. If they had to do it daily or weekly, you’d have a point, but they don’t, so you don’t. > [@](#): > > The bottom line continues to be that those who would be most likely to throw up their hands, give up, and not vote trend disproportionately Democratic. Of course, this is the reason that the laws are proposed in the first place. If the Republicans gave a flying fuck about fair elections, they’d shut down Diebold and insist on paper ballots for everyone. They’d insist on equitable distribution of voting machines on election day. But they simply aren’t interested in fair results, they’re interested in winning. So, instead of sitting here whinging about it, make sure all these people get ID, which will help their lives overall (and stop pretending it won’t, while we’re at it), and watch your party win by a landslide. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1655 "2012-07-23T13:09:18Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I strongly strongly disagree with the position Bricker is taking in this thread, and many of the techniques he is using to argue his position. I find it to be unethical and basically morally bankrupt. But your personal attacks on him are getting pretty preposterous and unsupportable, and all it does is make you (and, by extension, others arguing on the same side) look like a frothing-mouthed rabid absolutist moron. I wondered how long it would take. Damn it, **Max** , this post does just the opposite: it places you – correctly – on the other side of the table from frothing-mouthed rabid absolutist moron. Let me suggest that this is not the environment to correctly explore if my tactics or my position is unsustainable, since my tactic is driven by my responses to frothing-mouthed rabid absolutist morons. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1656 "2012-07-23T13:13:12Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > No I don’t. In the current state, let’s say 50% of the population currently regularly votes, and that 50% is divided roughly between 50% who lean left and 50% who lean right (gross oversimplifications here). Now among those who actually vote, there is almost certainly (as there is in pretty much all measurable human traits) a bell curve… a few people who are SUPER dedicated to voting no matter what, a larger group of people who take voting pretty serious and will overcome medium sized obstacles to get to vote, and a few people who vote because it’s currently convenient, but probably wouldn’t if it was at all trickier. These levels of voting devotion occur on both sides, presumably in similar amounts (although I guess there’s some possibility that the shape of the curve is different between left-leaning and right-leaning groups… but I haven’t actually seen anyone make such a claim). So if you do something that adds obstacles to voting for EVERYONE, ie, it’s 10% harder for everyone to vote, then turnout will presumably drop around the same amount across the board, and it’s “fair” (although things that result in voter turnout dropping are, in themselves, bad). However, if it’s something that adds more obstacles to one group than to another, then it will have an unfair outcome, and I claim that outcome is unfair even without finding people who are now not voting who were voting before and analyzing their life and asking them why they didn’t vote, and pointing out how easy it is to get the bus to the DMV, etc, etc, etc. That part doesn’t matter at all, at least as far as I’m concerned. > > Part of what makes this so tricky, and in fact the root issue underlying all of this, is that things can sound fair on the surface but then very predictably lead to massive discrimination. Heck, a “literacy test” is something with a rational basis, something which does not inherently seem to have anything to do with favoring one political party or race over another, and yet was a key part of jim crow laws for decades. Similarly it’s easy to look at a pure poll tax and say "hey, it requires EVERYONE pay $5 to vote, that’s totally nondiscriminatory, and we’re using that $5 to upgrade the polling station, so that’s totally rational, and, c’mon, most people, even people who are darn poor, can really come up with $5 if they have to and if they really care about voting (and even THAT is true… even many really truly extremely poor families COULD come up with the $10 if there was a gun to their head… it’s just that to them, the obstacle that it presents, and the lost opportunity cost it presents, is VASTLY greater than for more affluent voters.) OK. Can I ask you, then, why Georgia saw an upturn in minority voting after passing their Voter ID law? ---
**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 23, 2012, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1657 "2012-07-23T13:23:39Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I wondered how long it would take. > > Damn it, **Max** , this post does just the opposite: it places you – correctly – on the other side of the table from frothing-mouthed rabid absolutist moron. > > Let me suggest that this is not the environment to correctly explore if my tactics or my position is unsustainable, since my tactic is driven by my responses to frothing-mouthed rabid absolutist morons. Consider that you are the one who is outright lying and also calling for ten thousand times as many people to be kept from voting as would cast fraudulent ballots. Consider that. You are getting attacked because you’re rah-rahing evil things. Also, are you going to retract your outright lies about my position on gerrymandering? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1658 "2012-07-23T13:34:47Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Consider that you are the one who is outright lying and also calling for ten thousand times as many people to be kept from voting as would cast fraudulent ballots. > > Consider that. You are getting attacked because you’re rah-rahing evil things. > > Also, are you going to retract your outright lies about my position on gerrymandering? The moment you retract your lies about me, I’ll be happy to review any statements I made about you for accuracy. Until then, I’ll go with what I see: someone whose entire goal is criticism doled out based on the party that benefits. ---
**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 23, 2012, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1659 "2012-07-23T13:39:00Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The moment you retract your lies about me, I’ll be happy to review any statements I made about you for accuracy. Until then, I’ll go with what I see: someone whose entire goal is criticism doled out based on the party that benefits. What lies are those? As far as I can tell you support a law that will keep many, many thousands of times as many people from voting as would cast fraudulent ballots. You specifically don’t care if the law was passed based on a partisan basis to secure a continuing and unfair electoral advantage. ---
**Author:** ![Skip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@Skip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skip)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/1660 "2012-07-23T13:40:22Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Can I ask you, then, why Georgia saw an upturn in minority voting after passing their Voter ID law? Correlation is not equal to causation. NEXT! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=82) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=84)