Where are you looking?
It’d be more accurate to say poor people have more trouble getting an ID. It just so happens that minorities have a greater chance of being poor.
Folks, please, just let go of this faux naivete about “what on earth does minority status have to do with it?” [/wide-eyed wonder]
To remind everybody of what this issue is about: The facts about voter-ID laws are these (and if you care to try to dispute them as facts, knock yourself out):
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There is a small but not insignificant proportion of registered voters, and a higher percentage of total eligible voters, who do not possess a government-issued identity document of the kind the voter-ID laws require.
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These voters are demographically much more likely than the average voter to be poor or members of ethnic minorities, and consequently much more likely to vote Democratic than Republican.
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Consequently, imposing voter-ID laws makes it statistically inevitable that there will be some net suppression of Democratic votes. Whenever you impose a regulation making it more difficult or complicated to vote (e.g., having to acquire an official document that you don’t already own), it inevitably suppresses some votes.
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That Democratic vote suppression is the only measurable impact the voter-ID laws will have. Even the proponents of voter-ID laws acknowledge that they cannot show any evidence that non-negligible amounts of voter fraud are actually occurring, nor will they be able to tell whether voter-ID laws are actually effective in preventing it if it is occurring. In other words, we can’t tell whether the alleged problem actually exists nor whether the proposed solution will solve it: we do know, however, that the proposed solution will have the “side effect” of suppressing some votes.
So stop already with the cherubically innocent prattle about “but gosh folks, those poor and minority voters can just go get themselves the required ID! See, nothing to worry about!”
The point, twinkletoes, is that it is statistically inevitable that some voters who have to undertake a hitherto-unnecessary additional procedure in order to maintain their eligibility to vote won’t undertake it, and this necessarily means that fewer poor and minority voters will vote.
You know this as well as we do; in fact, it’s the only real reason that Republicans in general are supporting the voter-ID laws in the first place. So please drop the pretense that the fact that it’s disproportionately poor and minority voters who would be affected by these laws is somehow trivial or irrelevant. It’s the crux of the whole debate.
That’s one way to read it; but DirkGntly actually seemed to be saying that “fewer Democrat votes” is what “isn’t a BAD THING, people, electorally speaking”
and “is healthy for a republic.”
You mean, the Noble Lies of Ignoble Liars?
No, we haven’t.
Requiring an ID to cash checks does not ensure that no checks are ever fraudulently passed. But it does, as I said, create a framework that usually allows for successful prosecution of a bad check writer.
I think this is a fine, and generally very accurate, analysis.
Not true.
As Bosstone correctly observes, this is a side effect, not the goal.
How can you defend, as FACT, the claim that it’s the only real reason?
So, the Democrats aren’t willing to make teeny little sacrifice for the good of the Republic? OK, so a few Congressgits, Senators, maybe a President carved out of frozen mayonnaise…is that too much to ask in order to protect our sacred voter confidence?
Guess we know who the real patriots are here!
Republicans stand firm, perfectly willing to let the Democrats surrender their advantage in illegal aliens and felons. Of course they don’t feel good about it, they are simply fraught with anxiety over this. But if protecting the sanctity of our voter rolls mean that a few more Republicans are pressed into service, they are willing to face that challenge!
Minorities, leftys, people like that, a few minor rights will be inhibited. But you may rest assured, your right to remain silent will not be abridged! But if you give up that right and insist on bitching about this, all bets are off. Rights are for patriots.
Do we know this for a fact? If you were to learn that total voter turnout ROSE in a particular state following the introduction of Voter ID laws, how would that fact affect your hypothesis?
Might we imagine that the publicity surrounding the change motivated voters to go out, get ID, and vote – even voters that didn’t vote before? If no, why not?
I might think that the population increased in a given state. Usually does, what with all the fucking…
Wait, no, I see it! The plan is to so infuriate minority and disadvantaged voters that they press ahead no matter what, leap over all the newly installed hurdles, register and vote Democrat! Thus handing the Republican Party a disastrous electoral catastrophe!
Brilliant!
Thank you. Unfortunately it’s no good in finding a way forward, just for trying to get everyone on the same page.
I admittedly do think that the side effect of suppressing Democrat voters is a reason this particular issue is being given so much attention, at least by certain Republicans, particularly the politicians who have much to directly gain from stacking the deck. However, absent direct admission, it’s really unproductive to proceed on that assumption, and dealing with the goal instead of the more inflammatory side effect is the best way to get something done beyond yelling at each other.
When the purported “goal” isn’t fucking based on fact, and the purported “solution” wouldn’t fucking address it even if it were, what other assumption can one make?
You’re not fooling anybody with that pseudo-pious crap.
Then you expect to see similar increases in turnout in other years.
Only a complete fucking retard or an utterly partisan jack-off would advocate a solution that would disenfranchise more people than would illegitimately vote.
I wonder which Bricker is.
You have to choose one?
Good point.
That’s all fine and well, and much of it well said, but you run into trouble when you start to conflate the intentional and the accidental. If a good policy results in one group being hit by it a little more than the other, does that meson that it is necessarily a bad thing to do? Also, I’m of the mind that as long as steps are taken to get IDs to those who can’t easily get them themselves, all is good. Iraqis and others sometimes risk their lives to cast their vote. All we’re asking is that people show a damn ID. And if that’s too much trouble, then voting itself just isn’t that important to you and you can go about election day like any other day without the bother.
How does it create a framework for prosecution?
ID’s are easily falsifiable, especially nowadays. In another thread a did some research and found one can be bought online for $20-25 complete with readable magnetic stripe.
Even if you’re not using a fake ID, non-citizens driver licenses do not convey that they’re non-citizens, as I’ve already shown.