# I Pit the ID-demanding GOP vote-suppressors (Part 1)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943>\
**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:** 1\
**Showing post:** 8493

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**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:** [February 8, 2016, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8493 "2016-02-08T17:08:39Z")

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> [@Bricker](#):
>
> You’re mistaken. I think the reason you’re mistaken is that you’re confusing a verifiable fact (“Republicans exist who have advanced Voter ID as an electoral strategy”) with a balance of harms (“This fact is sufficient to reject current laws.”)

No, you’re mistaken. My position is that the circumstances do not justify the _creation_ of tighter voter ID laws. Your justification for these laws is not only baseless - i.e. you believe the public might lose confidence in the validity of close elections - it represents willful blindness to much larger sources of electoral error, defined as outcomes that do not represent the will of the electorate.

That said, legislatures of course have the job of legislating, even if what they’re legislating is useless or even actively harmful.

> [@](#):
>
> I certainly concede the first. I don’t concede the second, and you cannot claim that the second is a matter of objective fact.
> 
> So on what specific objective matter do you contend I am willfully blind?

Enhanced voter ID laws are designed to, some members of the Republican Party have publicly acknowledged, give an edge to Republican candidates. You’re not recognizing this as a possible outcome, i.e. you’re implicitly saying those Republicans are engaging in sheer fantasy. I content you are determinedly not recognizing the intended outcome, clinging instead to the tenuous notion that these laws are needed to address a nonexistent problem, which you further insulate yourself from adding a pointless buffer zone:

1. Voter fraud is a nonexistent problem.
2. But _your_ concern is that _public perception_ is that voter fraud is a real problem, therefore it is fair to pass legislation with the goal of _addressing public perception_ rather than voter fraud.

There are of course better ways to address concerns about election fairness, based on what we know to be _actual_ problems with how votes are cast and counted, but you absent yourself from having to consider those, in part because legislators aren’t pursuing those options, because legislators don’t benefit from those options.

> [@](#):
>
> I guess we need to nail down “systematic.” Obviously there are people who seek to limit the voting of those populations they believe will vote against their party.
> 
> I don’t agree that qualifies as “systematic.”

Are the people pushing for these laws elected officials? If so, they are by definition part of the system, hence their efforts are indeed “systematic”. The more petty your nitpicks, the more confident I become in your loss of the argument.

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