“Unable?”
Then I’d be extremely supportive of mandating additional resources towards removing whatever barriers were creating the inability. This would preserve the benefits of Voter ID, and almost certainly have ancillary benefits as well: life is surely difficult without ID for reasons apart from being unable to vote.
On reflection, is “voter confidence” one of those conveniently nebulous concepts, like the “specialness” of heterosexual marriage as defended by magellan01?
Actually, you didn’t say that. And you would have been wrong if you had said it. Nothing about the 2000 election controversy involved questions of fraudulent or invalid votes being cast.
Umm… “yes?”
Great. Got any examples of politicians who are advocating for voter ID laws who are also advocating for streamlining of the issuing of said IDs?
I’m beginning to think you have some severe problems with memory, or with your ability to use common Internet search tools. Or both:
From 2006:
From 2012:
And pretty much in every thread on the subject in between and since.
Got any examples of people who are unable to vote?
Sure.
Now having answered your question, please answer mine.
It was never about preventing, it was about making it harder. Preventing would not have worked, the very same principled Republicans who so staunchly rejected this repulsive exercise would have been even more critical. Neither of them would have accepted it.
It seems like youa re saying that complying with voter ID laws isn’t much of a burden. Does it matter to you that this minimal burden is greater on some than others, by design.
Do you have a problem with requiring people to be literate to make a living?
I didn’t read anything in that long article identifying anyone who was unable to vote. Please quote the text that you are relying upon that shows someone unable to vote.
I don’t agree that it’s by design. I agree that it’s a secondary effect of the rule, and that some Republicans support the plan because of this secondary effect, but I don’t agree it’s by design.
And as long as the burden is minimal, it does not matter enough to me to reject the plan.
nm
“Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania: Done.”
Shhhh! Don’t you know it’s RUDE to remind the Counselor and adaher that their party is the metaphorical smoking ruins of a combination crooked casino and insane asylum?
As long as they’re going to insult our intelligence with tawdry and obvious lies about their motives, of course they need to be shown that shit doesn’t work.
The Counselor is known for his reverence for court rulings, and his glee in citing them in any situation he finds applicable. But not the PA one, for some odd reason. Wonderwonderwonder …
You’re lying.
Evidence that you are wrong is the context. Republicans are proposing a bunch of new laws about elections, of which voter ID is one. The rest of the laws? Well, if there were a large number of Republicans who were interested in the issue of voter confidence, then you’d expect the rest of the laws to be things that would actually address that issue, such as mandating electronic voter machines with human-verifiable paper output, and things to verify IDs when it came to mail-in votes, etc. Instead, the package of laws of which voter ID laws are a part involve cutting voting hours, eliminating early in-person voting, and so forth.
So the evidence suggests that the intended effect of the law is voter suppression, and the effect on voter confidence that you’re so fond of is, at best, secondary.
Don’t interrupt him while he’s looking for an example of Republican politicians trying to improve and ease the process of getting the required ID’s. It’ll be any minute now, I’m quite sure, any minute now …
Well, some Republicans had nefarious motives, true. But just some! The rest of them, principled Republicans, men of strict moral fortitude, spoke out firmly opposed to such…ah…sordid behavior! Really, there were whole bunches of them!
Wasn’t quite fair of me to ask for their names so I could praise them, 'cause there were so many!
(Personally, because I still respect the man, I think Barry Goldwater would have totally rejected the whole idea…)
Okay, on the understanding that you won’t just turn around and say “anecdotal evidence doesn’t count.”
There’s Dorothy Card, an elderly Texas woman who’s never had a problem voting before, but may do so now because she can’t get the necessary ID, despite several good-faith efforts. I realize she’s not technically been blocked from voting, simply because an election has not yet occurred since this latest round of voter-ID efforts. I expect we’ll have more anecdotes come November.
That said, it’s not that big a deal, I guess, in the larger sense. If 0.1% of the population is disenfranchised (to address a problem that perhaps occurred 0.0001% of the time), it shouldn’t affect elections any more than, say, the weather. If you’re okay with disenfranchisement of some of your fellow citizens, of course.
And of course, I add as afterthought, you’re still invited to name a politician promoting voter ID laws who is also promoting making those IDs easy to get for the whole electorate. We mustn’t forget that, of course.