Let’s go further. I’m pretty much always in favor of going further. Now we have plenty of time, a couple years before major elections. Lets make getting voter ID so cheap, easy, and convenient that anybody who wants to vote can have it, no prob.
Heck, as long as we’re about it, why not couple that with a full-court press to register new voters! All of them with rock-solid voter ID. Millions of previously unregistered voters! Warms the heart, to be sure.
Of course, we could use some people with experience in registering previously unregistered voters. Shouldn’t be too hard to find. We also need the firm public support of someone on the “other side”, someone with rock solid credentials as a tighty righty with long standing support for voter ID, which is very popular with the American people. A Republican, for sure, maybe even a lawyer!
I don’t, because I never believed the proper way to analyze the new Voter ID laws was as voter suppression laws.
I think the next Pennsylvania election, for example, will have the same laws discussed here in this thread working in full effect, which I believe is the proper outcome. This gives the state more than two years to roll out the program and ensure that everyone who wants an ID has one, and it removes from the opponents’ arsenal the claim that there’s a rush to place the laws into effect.
Well, yes, that will definitely work to defuse that claim. Because then it won’t be true.
In Brickerspeak, is that the same thing as saying it wasn’t so? Or is that saying that some Republicans thought of it that way, but they were wrong, it wasn’t the right way to analyze it? Counselor, you are as slippery as a catfish in a barrel of motor oil.
Some Republicans thought of it that way, but since there was a valid, neutral justification for the Voter ID laws, they should be analyzed under that rubric.
Polling places already know (they have lists, just like Stalin haha) of those who are registered to vote. So what is the problem?
People have drivers licenses or state IDs already. So why do we need ANOTHER form of ID? So what is the problem?
Military people have their federal ID, as do federal workers. So why do we need ANOTHER form of ID? So what is the problem?
State employees have a state ID. So why do we need ANOTHER form of ID? So what is the problem?
Many many people have a company ID badge, with picture and everything. So why do we need ANOTHER form of ID? So what is the problem?
It would appear that the wild claims of rampant fraud wre just another “Rovian” style lie and were baseless, at least as far as the VOTERS being the perpetrators.
I don’t see any valid reason why this became a sudden dire emergency THIS time. I suppose the courts failed to see it too, since they struck it down here and there. So the Ockam’s Razor answer is, it was a non issue, cooked up for political reasons.
I’ve researched this issue, and have publishable results.
Compare, for instance, the number of states with no strict voter ID laws to the number of reported instances of voter impersonation fraud, Cross-reference that to the number of emergency room admissions for marijuana overdose in those same states. Would it surprise you to know that they are exactly the same number! Kinda changes your whole viewpoint, doesn’t it?
Now, compare Idaho’s numbers for voter impersonation fraud to hunter’s reports of being sexually molested by Bigfoot. Both are almost exactly zero, except that the latter is .0001! No, wait, that’s a dust speck on my monitor. It’s zero too. So, never mind.
Shayna has posted several excellent posts in other threads about how it did indeed backfire. I’m pretty sure many people got of their butts and voted (most, but not all, for Obama) – including, if necessary, by waiting in line for seven hours – precisely because some jerks who think like Bricker were trying their damnedest to prevent them from doing so.
P.S. Since Husted failed to deliver the goods, will he still get paid by his Koch Brothers sugar daddies? Maybe his contract was “50% for effort, the rest if you get the job done.”. (I kid. Don’t try to refute me, Bricker.)
I want to speak up for Bricker who surely doesn’t deserve your snide sarcasm. Just as he has fought so diligently against voter impersonation, I’ve no doubt that Bricker would take on the Bigfoot rape victim’s case pro bono, at least if [del]the dust speck[/del] she were a Republican voter.
One would have to admire “Republican idealism” … if the very term weren’t such a sick oxymoron.
Some of the courts that struck it down “here and there” seem to have done so only as to this election cycle. That is, you’re right about “sudden dire emergency” being unavailing, but as far as I can tell, Pennsylvania will have Voter ID laws in effect for the 2014 mid-terms. You OK with that?
Other states had their laws struck down by the DoJ as violative of Section 5 of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits any changes that might affect minority representation in voting in states with a poor track record of civil rights.. But given the data that this election created in states that had Voter ID laws, that decision might not survive… the “backfire” we see discussed above s good evidence that Voter ID laws do not harm minority turnout.
This is a rare and special thing, it must be preserved like a perfect butterfly of crystalline chutzpah. It didn’t work, therefore, it didn’t happen. A golden butterfly to be preserved in my scrapbook, for Bricker’s Greatest Hits, Volume 6…
Wait! Still fluttering! Hammer, quick! BAM! Ah. There. Much better.
