Yet another court says that Voter ID laws are the bees knees!
Wait, I thought I read that there was no ruling on the merits here? Or did I misinterpret the news reports?
I’d also like to repeat my question (to the wider audience of voter ID law supporters, not you in particular, Bricker), with an edit:
How would those on the conservative/Republican side rate their agreement with this statement: no matter what reasons politicians put forth for voter ID laws, and no matter why many voters and constituents think it’s a good idea, there is a significant number of politicians who introduced these laws for the primary purpose of benefiting themselves or their party in future elections by making it harder for legal voters statistically likely to vote for their opponents to cast their ballot.
I’d rate it an Electric Lime. It’s #36 on the list.
There was a ruling on the injunction. That’s not a ruling on the merits… in a sense.
But in Pennsylvania, the standard for the granting of an injunction is that the party requesting the injunction, the petitioner, must show every one of the following:
[ol]
[li]relief is necessary to prevent immediate and irreparable harm that cannot be adequately compensated by money damages; []greater injury will occur from refusmg to grant the injunction than from granting it; []the injunction will restore the parties to their status quo as it existed before the alleged wrongful conduct; []the petitioner is likely to prevail on the merits; []the injunction is reasonably suited to abate the offending activity; and, [*]the public interest will not be harmed if the injunction is granted [/ol][/li]
The judge found no credible evidence that the harm would happen at all, much less that it was immediate or irreparable. Every single witness that petitioners tried to use to show a person that would be denied the right to vote was found to be not credible for that purpose. Based on the availability of absentee voting and provisional ballots, not one witness showed that he or she would fail to have his vote counted in the general election.
I have no idea what happened to all those people who work twelve jobs and have seventeen children. Not a single one of them showed up. 93-year-old Bea Bookler testified by video deposition. As the judge observed, she seemed quite frail and tremulous. She also qualified for absentee balloting, and if she showed up in person could cast a provisional ballot.
Since the ultimate merits depend on the existence of actual people who can showed they are unconstitutionally encumbered by this law, this determination is pretty damn close to a ruling on the merits.
Just so you don’t think us liberals are totally ignoring your post here ..
No one disputes that shenanigans like this have been occurring in elections from time to time. Problems with absentee ballots, less-than-trustworthy characters actually in charge of adding up the votes, things like this. There were several examples of this type of vote manipulation earlier in the thread.
But here’s the rub … none of these examples were Voter ID Fraud. NONE of them would have been affected ONE WHIT by the ID laws being pushed upon the nation by ALEC and the GOP (a wholly-owned division of the Koch Bros, Inc.). So that’s the issue … bring us some solid examples of voter fraud that would have been prevented by these laws. Lay them out before us. Let us examine how many fraudulent votes have been cast, that would not have been allowed with these new ID restrictions. If that number is greater than the thousands of legal votes likely to be suppressed by these laws, then it’s worthwhile.
Bet you can’t do it.
So, it is, but it isn’t? Is this a common practice in the law, the Certficate of Sorta Kinda?
And which Bricker is speaking here, the legalistic cynic or the crazy ass mofo who sincerely believes that the Democrats are bringing armies of illegal voters to subvert the Will of the People? Kinda thought he was a mirage, just you doing some personal, one on one trolling of Lobohan.
So, before more effort is invested in a rational argument, I would like to be assured as to whether you have totally lost your shit, or just having a good yank. Of the chain, lest I be misunderstood…
You don’t really believe that, right? Or no? Do we need to apply special Bricker filters, so that we know when you are actually speaking what you think and believe, and when you are just yanking our chains before you dive down the “just kiddin’!” hidey hole?
And this, by way of our good friend at ThinkProgress (a lefty site, so if they are lying about this, the reader is encouraged to provide proof…)
Must be about “voter confidence”, or some such. It just looks like legal buggery of voter’s rights to favor a particular party, but really isn’t. Darned if I can see how that’s possible, but that’s why we have lawyers…
I need a new irony meter.
People who don’t have the resources to meet increased registration requirements didn’t show up for something even more abstractly related to their right to vote.
Do you bother to even read what you write?
But there were supposed to be 750,000 of them. Simple math suggests one or two should have been able to make it.
Bricker is still arguing completely retarded bullshit? Wow, I’m surprised. Idiots can be so tenacious…
Silly, man! Conservatives are required to provide objective evidence. Liberals only need subjective evidence.
The NY Times ran an editorial on this today. Then, just this afternoon, the Republican Secretary of State announced that all early voting hours would become uniform across the state.
Did they think no one would notice the blatant discrimination of the Republicans’ original plan?
But you see there are two angles to the voter ID laws. One is new requirements. The other is the fact that many of those people don’t even know that they don’t meet the requirements.
By the way, if voter fraud supposedly exists, they should have had at least 1 example of it to present in court.
The law is intended to ensure voter confidence.
By keeping thousands of times as many people from voting than would have cast fraudulent votes.
Keep fucking that chicken, liar.
I cannot help but hear this being said in the same tone as “Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life” from The Manchurian Candidate.
Sure. Keep …er… complaining that the law requires Voter ID. Ha ha ha!
Side #1: Show us examples of voter fraud that these laws would prevent.
Side #2: Well…we can’t. But they’re there! Show us examples of people who these laws will prevent from voting!
Side #1: Oh they’re there. They just don’t know it.
This seems to be the two sides in a nutshell.
I believe the law is intended to increase the confidence of some voters. I highly doubt it increases the confidence of voters for whom the erected barriers are problematic.
I also believe that anyone suggesting that voter confidence is the only or even primary intent of the law is selling something. I can see however why a lawyer might argue in favor of adding superfluous laws to the books.
Sure, that’s what the lawmakers say. That’s what they tell their constituents. That may even be what said constituents believe.
But is that really the intent? I’m suspicious. (Thus my question above, which has gone largely unanswered. Though I’d guess what you’d respond to it - and I mean that seriously, based on previous answers. I just hoped there’d be more discussion of it. Ah, well.)