Yes.
So returning to the claims about the voting patterns of people that move between states.
It’s both, although I think it’s two fairly distinct issues. One issue is that I’m extremely suspicious of any situation in which an elected body messes with the rules of its own elections, because of the potential for abuse. And in that case, to me there’s a big sliding scale where I have to (imprecisely) factor in all sorts of issues to decide what my opinion of it is. The other issue is an absolute issue of impermissible burdens.
It’s not acceptable to require someone to pass a college-level literacy test to vote, even if I see absolutely no partisan intent in either the whys or hows of its implementation. Voter ID requirements, however, are not in themselves automatically off limits (and in fact are, in a total lack of context, probably a good idea), but the SWITCH to those requirements can be, to me, offensive and unethical, based on a bunch of context.
True. If we could push a magic button and make it automatically be the case that in all future elections, no matter how close, everyone on both sides would be 100% certain that the correct result was reached, that would be a good thing. I’d push that button. I’d pay some money to push that button. I’d jump through some hoops to push that button. But:
(a) it’s still not THAT big a deal, given that we’ve clearly survived and even thrived for centuries without it, as have plenty of other democracies
(b) a solution which gains “ok, we’re certain the votes were counted accurately” at the cost of “but plenty of people who wanted to vote and should have been able to vote were unable to vote, for partisan reasons” doesn’t actually improve things
(c) voter ID is only a tiny little bit (and far from the most important bit) of getting us to “the votes were counted accurately”.
It’s also worth noting that sometimes it makes sense to say “well, you have to start somewhere, it’s important to take the first step”. But that’s a lot more meaningful when you’ve got a bunch of steps which depend on each other, so you can’t do the second until you do the first, at which point there’s additional reason to take the first step, even if it there are arguments against that step in isolation. In this case, however, voter ID laws aren’t a prerequisite for having something like auditable-computer-voting-machines-with-paper-output or something, which would finally solve dangling chads permanently once and for all.
No, I’m saying that muddling with voter roles with the intent of voter suppression is not such a universally attempted tactic that there is no longer any point in decrying it. Some types of government malfeasance may have just become completely common and accepted practice (filibusters, for instance). Trying to mess with voter rolls, voting hours, and so forth has not yet gotten to the point where it is just universally engaged in by all elected officials. (As far as I know.)
Not particularly, no. So if I had to assign my own personal opinion based on knowledge consisting of approximately a 15-word vague description in an SDMB thread, I would say that that claim (the claim that those laws are likely to have disparate impact) is “plausible”.
Even if we suppose that the voters incorrectly stricken from rolls by this procedure are evenly divided between Dems and Reps, there is still plenty of scope for partisan advantage. For one thing, any time additional obstacles are added to register, certain types will be less likely to go through the hoops: the old, the infirm, the poor, those who are afraid of government.
Moreover, voter registration is a process often affected by partisan zeal and partisan malice. Consider the obstacles, criminal as well as merely malicious, that were taken by the GOP against registration by ACORN.
Something Bricker ignores is that, in practice, different types of people are often treated differently by relevant government officials. (And let me concede that “blue” Virginia was a poor example of a state where GOP malice was likely to be predominant.) In 2000 the GOP-run state of Florida counted many illegal military ballots – surely enough to have swung the election. “No one wants to disenfranchise our brave soldiers!” No, but Republicans are happy to disenfranchise other groups.
Given past evidence, it is a good default starting assumption that either malicious partisans designed any new rule about voting, or that they will attempt to exploit it. Anyone who doubted this will be sure of it now, after skimming Bricker’s 1000+ posts. Is he a GOP shill, lying through both sides of his mouth? Or just too stupid to notice GOP mischief? (I think he suffers some bipolar disorder and alternates between these modes.)
Then why did you endorse that very claim made by the author of the piece you quote?
It’s very difficult to take your claims seriously, when it appears that literally any effort that results in any change is presumed to be malicious intervention by sinister GOP operatives.
And therefore I don’t take your claims seriously. Of course, that doesn’t much matter.
But the legislatures in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia don’t take them seriously either.
And that, I think you’ll agree, matters.
Just curious: how many of the twenty-six states you list have Republican-controlled legislatures? If you’re arguing that the laws must be fine and party-neutral because so many states have them, that seems like a relevant data point.
I’m actually arguing:
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That it’s not my job to prove the laws are “fine” and “party neutral.” The proponent of a proposition always has the burden to prove the truth of his proposition.
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That someone who wishes to subvert (1) by declaring that “…it is a good default starting assumption that either malicious partisans designed any new rule about voting…” is not likely to gain much persuasive ground in the real world, despite the presence of sympathetic listeners here.
The list of states is intended to highlight that latter observation.
If you’re going to claim there’s a “valid neutral justification”, you have to be able show its validity, neutrality, and justifiability, hmm? If you’re conceding neutrality now, it’s all over for you.
Oh, right, the burden of proof is always on the other guys, never on you.
Forgive me if I’ve lost the thread a bit, but I thought the proposition in question is that:
“Voter roll purges that primarily affect transients are more likely to affect Democratic voters than Republican voters.”
I think that if you divide the states into two nearly equal groups, and see that 26 Republican-led states have enacted such purges, and 24 Democratic-led states have not, that’s some pretty powerful circumstantial evidence that politicians on both sides of the aisle believe the proposition to be true. (Pedantry insurance: still true if it’s 24 out of 26 on one side and 22 out of 24 on the other.)
If you disagree, could you share why you don’t find that circumstantial evidence compelling?
Sure: enacting a law generally means that the law was considered and found to be desirable. But not enacting a law does not mean that the law was considered and found to be undesirable. The law may not have been proposed. It may have been proposed in committee but sidelined for lack of time and interest. It may have been unfunded in a year when budgets were tight. No valid conclusion can be drawn.
Symbolically:
P –> Q (P implies Q)
Therefore:
~P –> ~Q (Not P implies Not Q) ?
Nope, that’s wrong, of course. If P –> Q, then logically we can only conclude ~Q –> ~P. This is an example of confusing the inverse with the contrapositive.
Sure, yes, I understand symbolic logic. I wasn’t claiming proof. It’s very hard to prove political motivations in cases like these, unless you have politicians going on record, like that guy in Pennsylvania did.
I’m claiming there’s powerful circumstantial evidence. I think if a rational person is presented with…
a) a voter-purging law enacted almost exclusively by state legislatures of one party, and not by legislatures of another party, and
b) that there’s plenty of evidence that legislatures of that first party have been enacting lots of other laws aimed at disenfranchisement of the other party’s voters (closing polling stations, eliminating early hours, etc.)
…then the most sensible conclusion one can come to, absent proof one way or the other, is that the laws in question were enacted primarily to suppress the vote of the other party.
I’m not claiming that’s proof. There are other possible explanations. But I think mine is overwhelmingly more likely than the alternatives, just using a logical examination of the real world. I’d conclude the same if the parties in question were reversed.
I would think it kind of obvious. People who are settled, secure and prosperous don’t move around a lot. its the other kind of people who do. People who move somewhere because they think they can get a job there. People who move somewhere because they hope they can get a job there.
Now, this discounts the numbers of people who have a primary residence, but summer in the Hamptons and winter in Aspen. Still, as a larger, more or less common sense approach, I think it works.
By the by, just for shits and giggles, has anyone checked to see if this is an initiative endorsed and promoted by ALEC? Got a nickel says “Yes”.
By my count, the breakdowns, where “R” = GOP controls both or only house of legislature, “D” = Demos control both, “M” = house controls split between parties, are:
R - D - M
28 - 17 - 5 … All 50 states
20 - 4 - 2 … The 26 on Bricker’s list
8 - 13 - 3 … The 24 not on Bricker’s list
Even if this is statistically significant, I’m not sure what it proves. The Brickhead will probably argue that it demonstrates the GOP is earnestly seeking to improve confidence in elections. :smack:
On a brighter note, real live scientists (rather than partisan Karl Rove idolizers) have studied legislator intent on voter ID issues. They conclude
“Anecdotal evidence”, like “military intelligence” and “feminist humor”, is an oxymoron. One does not build a wall with marshmallows mortared with cotton candy.
Pretty sure you know this stuff.
Did they also assume that legislators answer their own constituent e-mail inquiries?
I can’t answer this question, but is it relevant? Legislators hired the staff that answered their inquiries. “The buck stops here” and all that…
Wazzamatter, Bricker? Cat got your tongue?
I don’t think you can avoid making a fool of yourself, Bricker, but I’ll save you one trip to your barrel of stupid responses:
Drawing 24 balls from a basket of 45 balls, 28 of which are shit-colored, the chance that at least 20 of the drawn balls are shit-colored is only 00.22% if the balls are drawn randomly.
I guess that reduces your lecture about the so very long list of states to mere hebephrenic noise. Got any more?
Drivel. Worse, unoriginal drivel.
The question, as you put it, “…the claims about the voting patterns of people that move between states…”.
Just so. The reader is invited to consider the bleeding obvious, that people who move from state to state most likely are compelled by economic necessity. (Which includes, of course, people who are relocated at the behest of their employers.) A bit like comparing people who rent their homes with people who own their homes.
It is a commonplace of our political and social structure that the less economically advantaged a person is, the more likely that they they favor the Democrats. People who are moving from one state to another are more likely disadvantaged than otherwise. This is an observation that bears on the question, an observation that the reader can confirm entirely on one’s own. I’m not offering evidence, I am pointing out evidence that any of us can see.
There’s nothing remotely “anecdotal” about that.