Example:
Mary Ellen Smith = Voter reg card
Mary Jane Smith = Driver’s license
Are they the same person? And should we expect the polling clerk to make that call?
This same person comes to your store with a credit card with the first name and an ID with the second. You going to let them make the purchase or are you going to call the credit card company to check first?
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
Then you’re a damn fool.
[/QUOTE]
You do realize you live in a country where you have to prove who you are to vote? You want us to stop that and go to a system like the above where if you throw a dart at a list of names on the board, the one you hit is the one you’re allowed to vote with?
Picture ID, Additional Documentation, Voter Roll, Voter registration card, Voter Registration, Existence, Citizenship, Residence.
So, voters can go through that inefficiency, ending up with two different names and still be able to vote under this system. And frankly, are you for or against having to prove who you are to vote because a voter registration card seems to be exactly what a photo ID would be to vote with, the difference being your photo would be on the damned thing even if you had ‘minor’ differences in your name.
Are you fucking unable to read? The existing (before newly imposed “picture ID”) systems in the various states were flexible enough to allow voters to establish their citizenship and register using some combination of identifications, under no pressure of time, and with the opportunity for the prospective voter to satisfy the authority and even overcome any doubts through various means as appropriate to that individual. And on the actual day of voting, only those people who had already proven they were qualified to vote would identify themselves using, again, some variety and combination of acceptable forms of ID that might include picture ID, signature comparison, non-picture ID, and visual recognition. The cases of in-person voter fraud were so few as to be dwarfed by even the “noise factor”. There was no proof, anywhere or at any time, of more than a random handful of “bad” votes, let alone anything that could change an election. The system wasn’t broke. It wasn’t being abused. And it sure isn’t being fixed by these new laws.
But as long as it could have happened, then all voter ID laws are fully justified. Even if it means that thousands of people are discouraged from voting or just unable to meet the new ID requirements in time to vote, it’s important that the tiny number of theoretical fraudsters be stopped.
More importantly, is the goal of preventing 100 fraudulent votes worth disenfranchising tens of thousands of legitimate voters? If you’re a Republican, the answer is “If it helps my party win elections without having to actually have ideas that are worthy of voting for, then hell yes!” To a person with any degree of moral fiber, the answer is of course not.
So, to pick up our last thread of conversation where we left it off, it seems like there are two positions you might be taking:
(1) Voter ID laws will not and do not actually reduce voter turnout. Since they don’t actually have the negative effect many of us were assuming/predicting, then it’s a bunch of wailing and gnashing of teeth over nothing
or
(2) Voter ID laws might in fact have the effect of reducing voter turnout, but because it’s not making it IMPOSSIBLE for anyone (or many people) to vote, just making it somewhat more difficult, it’s perfectly A-OK, even if those additional difficulties are more likely to be an issue for one party’s voters than the other
The whole thread, I thought you were mainly holding position (2). Certainly you’ve engaged in a bunch of rhetoric about your Voodoo analogy and so on and so forth that seems relevant to that position. But then in your last few replies, you seem to imply that you’re holding position (1). Can you clarify whether your position is (1) or (2) or other?
I could just say “see answers above” but since you asked me directly, I owe the courtesy of a direct reply.
For dog catcher, maybe. For a national election, the chance of it coming down to 100 “voodoo” votes is infinitesimal. So tiny a chance, and so incredibly slim a margin, that even were I on the losing side, I’d have to shrug my shoulders and declare it a toss-up. (Note, I live in FloriDUHH, and such a scenario has zero resemblance to the infamous ‘butterfly ballot’ election, so please don’t drag out that analogy again.)
Whereas the chance for some number of voters being inconvenienced enough by the new “picture ID” laws that they forgo voting is much higher. Probably orders of magnitude higher. We will not know until the fullness of time rolls over the various possible circumstances. But it still seems to many of us that elections wherein the vote is suppressed, regardless whether such suppression skews to one side or the other, is simply moving us further from, rather than toward, elections truly demonstrating “the will of the people”.
I agree. It’s a once in a decade – hell, a once in a generation – event.
But that’s just when you need it the most. House fires happen rarely. But it’s when the house fire does happen that the smoke detectors need to be fully charged and working.
Indiana’s 8th US congressional district, 1984. 4 votes.
Alaska’s US congressman, 2008. 1 vote.
I don’t really care much what it seems “to many of you.” Because the “many of you” are actually a minority. The majority of US, the voting public, like the idea of photo ID. And if the “will of the people” is not to get off their ass and obtain a free photo ID, then I can only imagine they don’t particularly care to vote.
In any event, what solution are you proposing? The laws are passed, signed, court-approved…what do the “many of you” wish to do?
I’ll wait if you need to have a quick meeting with the rest of you.
Now answer me this question: what’s the solution you’re proposing? Bearing in mind that the Photo ID laws have been passed, signed, polled with approval, found by the Supreme Court to be constitutional…what course of action, specifically, are you proposing?
It isn’t necessary to persuade a majority of the public that these laws are a racially-tinged power grab. It is only necessary to persuade those groups most affected. That way, they will organize and fight even harder to counteract the laws’ intended effects.
It’s a win-win: you get the peace of mind of Voter ID, and Democrats don’t get boned. Then we only have to sort out the exceptional cases of people fully disenfranchised by the laws.
Actually, I live in a country that has a nonpartisan government agency dedicated to running elections and maintaining voter rolls and they do so very well.
What difference does it make what name you vote with?
From what I can tell, you’re looking at a fairly trivial problem, and are advocating a solution that even if it works creates a far larger problem, and you “don’t care”. Regardless of the specifics, that’s a damn fool way to behave.
Anyway, I see Bricker is citing some examples of close elections. Funny thing about the 2004 Washington governor’s race - there were, what, less than a dozen improper votes and hundreds of votes uncounted because of malfunctioning or mismanaged voting machines? Motes and beams, Bricker, motes and beams.
I’m totally OK with that. Get 'em out in droves. People that are engaged, that vote, are better for the body politic by far than people who sit around, too lazy to vote.
So, with respect to (2), is there a line at some point? If these laws were passed and the next election black turnout dropped by 5%, or 10%, or 30%, or 80%, at some point would you agree that something nefarious was going on?
I think there are two main directions I’m coming from here:
(1) Just because an issue has been resolved (and I’m not sufficiently familiar with all the different laws in all the different states to know if all these issues HAVE in fact been resolved) doesn’t mean it’s not still worth debating the actions that led to it in the first place. I mean, one might imagine a universe in which you and I argued for a long time and then you said “hey, you know, I do now in fact think that that law that was passed 2 years ago was, at the time, unethical and underhanded”. Granted that’s not a very LIKELY outcome
(2) If I were to propose actual changes going forward, it would be to have all elections run by non-partisan commissions. Are voter ID laws a good thing? How easy should it be to get IDs? How should the transition be handled? Well, I think one thing and you think another thing, but it’s 100% clear to me that whoever is making these decisions should NOT be the very elected body that has a vested interest in the outcome of the election. You often use “well, then get a majority to support you, have an election and change the law” as a rhetorical device in various debates, but what happens when I get a (slim) majority who support me, but the members of my slim majority have to work 10% harder to vote than the members of your minority, and that reduces turnout among my slim majority just enough that your side keeps winning the vote about changing the system. Is that right and just and reflecting of the will of the people?
One further comment for Bricker and others… one thread of this debate that has come up a lot is the idea that getting an ID is really EASY, so anyone who doesn’t do so (or doesn’t already have one) must be lazy. The idea that “get an ID” is such a minor inconvenience that it should no more interfere with one’s voting than, I dunno, moving the polling place a further block away, or something.
The problem with all those arguments, to me, is that they’re refusing to recognize the variability in people’s lives and living situations. Something that would be trivial for you can be incredibly difficult for someone else. Some people don’t have cars. Some people don’t speak English well. Some people aren’t accustomed to dealing with government bureaucracy. Some people have 4 children under the age of 5 and can’t afford babysitters ever.
Sure, a quick jaunt down to the DMV sounds easy enough for you and me, and it would be easy enough for you and me. But it’s ridiculous for you to assume that it’s just that easy for everyone. Furthermore, a few stories have come out in the past few days about high-level elected representatives who couldn’t get voter IDs due to confusion with middle names and maiden names and so forth. How much harder is that going to be to deal with for someone who is NOT an elected representative, NOT someone who can make a fuss to the press, does NOT have a nice easy-to-spell “American-sounding” name, and does NOT have the experience and general resourcefulness to deal with this kind of bureaucratic nonsense?
“Nefarious?” No – but I’d agree that at some point – and 5% sounds like a fair, if somewhat arbitary, point – that the cure was perhaps worse than the disease.
OK, so to be clear – as to this point, you proposed solution is simply to gain my agreement that there was something underhanded and unethical in play?
You can have that now: I have no doubt that some legislators favored these laws because they perceived an electoral advantage in them, one born of suppressing opposition votes.
Some changes require slightly more than a bare majority. Inertia is not simply a force of physics. I’d say that the situation you describe falls generally within the confines of “this is how representative democracy works.”
