If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, don’t exaggerate!
Then the law had no effect at all? Then why do it? The guys who did this, they said “Well, this will have no effect at all, but what the heck, we’ve nothing better to do”? Seems unlikely.
OK, how? What would you accept as proof. You don’t accept Nate Silver’s analysis, who’s would you accept? It is entirely possible that such an effect would be slight, and hence difficult to detect. I think, and have so stated, the originally the voter id laws were only meant to trim a few points from the Dem rolls. Which still would not have been a legitimate use of legislative power.
Again, what evidence would you accept? After all, you deny it has any “meaningful effect”, which leaves us to wonder if you think the Republicans stupid, to waste their time on a useless and empty gesture.
I don’t recall any Constitutional clause that approves disenfranchising the stupid.
If my party leaders passed a law with some flimsy pretext, and the law stated that the only polling place in a particular district would be in the lobby of a hospital, and I knew that a bunch of the Republicans in this district were members of a cult which had a rule that they could not go into hospitals, I would OPPOSE THAT LAW. I would NOT be all “well, it’s popular and there’s a pretext and at least SOME of the people who proposed MIGHT not be venally corrupt”. That law would be UNAMERICAN and I would NOT SUPPORT IT.
Why do you find that so shocking?
If I may also chime in, I would also oppose voting-day shenanigans even if they tended to support an end I liked, and if shenanigans happened to be written into law, I would oppose that law.
Bricker, you might want to take notes as this might be a new concept for you- principles.
I don’t. But if the law had valid reasons to support it, and those reasons were neutral on its face, then you’d be quite justified in supporting it.
Now, if you’re saying you’d still piously oppose the law, even so… I’m glad for this insight into your character, but I’m not sure I believe your opposition would be all that vigorous.
Because when the Democrats have the legislative power and push through changes that clearly and completely benefit them – like the appointing of a senator to a vacant seat being the governor’s power only when the governor is a Democrat – I son’t see much in the way of outrage from you. So, sure, perhaps you were privately outraged. Good for you. But it’s certainly fair to say you haven’t spent a tenth as much time communicating your outrage on that point here on the SDMB.
Point me to all those posts you made showing your opposition to Massachusetts’ governor-power-swap shenanigans.
Or did you mean you’d also oppose that law, but not ever really mention or talk about your opposition, but you’d seethe on the inside, with your rage burning like the fire of 1,000 really weak suns, not suns, come to think of it, more like firecrackers, or maybe sparklers, wet sparklers, really not even proper sparklers at all, and when you say 1,000, you mean one?
As an incidental note, and this post will be my only mention of it as it might be hijackish, if Bricker is martyring himself by posting here in this liberal bastion because it’s all cruciblish and shit, I invite him to tell me the name (privately) of a more conservative board he knows of where he gets unchallenging praise and agreement. I’ll register there under my real name with no mention of this board or Bricker’s referral and see if I can face the fearsome dragon of a politically opposed crucible and maybe be as heroically nobly martyrish as our friend Bricker.
They shouldna done that. That’s blatantly corrupt partisan bullshit.
Got anything else I’ve been neglecting to weigh in on? Maybe bronies or Tibetan lottery systems or Venezuelan fishing rights?
You’re not a fraction as funny as I am. I vaguely recall seeing the Massachusetts Appointment Shuffle mentioned a few times, but this is the first time my opinion has been requested (well, not really requested, more like assumed).
Truth be told, it’s hard to summon much outrage. The situation is significantly different than fucking with the franchise. Frankly, I was a little surprised that a state legislature, any state legislature, had control over what I’d thought was uniformly the purview of the governor. Are there other states that do this? This is more of a minor educational moment for me, rather than some kind of litmus test of my liberalness.
OK, that makes 80 references to “liberal hypocrisy” by Bricker in this thread. Those of you who bet the “under 80” in the pool can tear up your tickets. “Neener-neener” is not yet resolved.
Huh, silly me for assuming that if you mentioned something, it was because you thought it was relevant. My mistake for presuming integrity on your part.
So why DID you mention it in the first place?
Well, you’re so mockable it’s hard to resist, but I get my reasoned arguments in there when I need to.
What does that even mean in this context? If such a thing happened, and I were asked my opinion, I would say “I wish that had not happened, it was wrong for the democrats to do it”. Would I be out marching against it? Would I be changing party affiliations over it? No. But why would anyone expect me to? If, instead of vocally championing voter ID laws, your response had been mild disappointment in what you saw as a sleazy act on the part of the party you support, and then you’d just never said anything about it one way or the other on the SDMB, no one would be hounding you and insisting that you turn in your metaphorical flag pin.
Oh. For. Fuck’s. Sake.
I can’t believe you’re still trying to get mileage out of that one ridiculous example. There are two MASSIVE reasons why that comparison fails:
(1) You have no idea what my opinion of that issue is, because I haven’t commented on it. You want to be able to read into it that I heard about it and was totally cool with it because, hey, it was Democrats. But that is utterly baseless. There are dozens of different reasons why you might never have seen me comment on that issue, many of them completely compatible with my being able to criticize Democrats when criticism is due them. Now, if you were genuinely curious about my position, and you asked, I might research the issue enough to feel confident stating a position. But instead you started out by insultingly implying that I was a hypocrite, at which point, what’s the point of my even having an honest opinion, if you’re just going to assign one to me?
(2) Voter ID laws and the Massachusetts issue are NOT particularly comparable. They have vague similarities at best.
Seriously… it’s just kind of sad to see you trotting this out Yet Again, hoping against hope that it will somehow win you points this time.
Still, its a very remarkable demonstration of memory. I can barely remember what I had for breakfast, Bricker can remember every word you ever said! Now that is very impressive! And just a little creepy.
No, wait, actually, I can’t remember what I had for breakfast. Maybe I’ll ask the goldfish.
So to sum up. You’re um, possibly against it, if you had time to think about it, not that you’ve ever heard of it before, and no one should assume anything about any failures to mention it before, even if you heard me mention it before, which you really haven’t. Oh, and I should stop bringing this up repeatedly.
And stop trying to tie Democrats using their legislative majority to stack the deck with Republicans using their legislative majority to stack the deck, because the two are at best only slightly comparable.
And another thing – how dare I?
You seriously don’t have the slightest bit of shame in claiming piously how outraged you’d be even if your own side did something like this, and then posting the comments above? Really? Not the least twinge?
Here’s the problem with your solutions is that it is a false analogy. The issue at hand is whether or not a person should have to prove they are legally entitled to vote and the disenfranchisement/fraud that may result from that. For example, under the Voter’s Rights Act one does not have to prove citizenship, just say they are. Does that reduce disenfrachisement at the cost of fraud? Does Voter ID reduce fraud at the cost of disenfranchisment? Are people disenfranchised by their choice (I could get photo ID but I don’t) or the state’s choice (making it extremely difficult to establish ID).
Your examples deal with access to voting places (assuming you are legally entitled to vote) so is the tread were about a Republican county board of supervisors repairing roads in a Democrat precinct on election day or a Democrat county “having a computer error” and didn’t sent out ballots to Republicans then your analogies would be appropriate.
The issue is citizenship? I thought the issue was identity. So, this is all about the vast CASA conspiracy to sneak in illegal aliens to vote for Democrats? Outside of friend Bricker’s unimpeachable testimony, referenced above, have you any evidence of that? Be advised that paranoid fever dreams do not constitute evidence.
I don’t see the distinction being that great. Requiring an ID to vote and making the ID difficult to get for some voters strikes me squarely as an “access” issue.
NO! For whatever umpteenth reiteration – the citizenship issue is addressed at the time of voter registration, in different ways in different jurisdictions. Some voters’ registrar (by whatever title) must be satisfied at the citizenship of each and every applicant, using whatever criteria have been established by state law.
Qualifications for registration as a voter (including but not limited to citizenship) are not addressed by these voter ID laws, which only address the non-existent problem of in-person voter substitution fraud. These laws are simply and exclusively about access to the voting booth by people who are already qualified as voters and thus are legally entitled to vote.
Please keep this in mind and stop repeating that stupid argument.