I know, I know. You need sixteen double blind peer-reviewed studies, blessed by Mother Jones and the New York Times editorial board, before you’ll accept anything.
Unless it’s the elderly voter who marched with Dr. King and now works four full time jobs and can’t get a photo ID because those jobs don’t give time off. Then you’re like a kid watching Seasame Street, ready to believe.
What a good thing the actual country doesn’t listen to you. And the real laws that actually govern us are in place.
What a good thing your ideas are marginal and impotent.
Actually, it was elucidator who brought that up. I’m prepared to cheerfully ignore all concerns about non-citizens getting in trouble and even then the numbers presented are small and the assumptions are major.
As a casual aside, I’d even gladly go along with an assumption for the sake of argument that, say, 1% of all votes recorded in any given American election are cast by people who were not eligible to do so. A concerning number, to be sure, which could be reduced in any number of sane, rational ways. I do not include among those ways a procedure that would reduce the number of eligible votes by 2%, because I object to “solutions” that create bigger problems.
Tell you what, YOU pay the $19.95 and then quote excerpts from the article for us to read - short excerpts, of course, in keeping with copyright law and the policies of this message board. Meantime, you’ve yet to address a single one of my criticisms of the original linked article, falling back instead on your one-track neenery.
I stand by my observation that you have abandoned all pretense of moral and rational analysis of this issue.
To be honest, that was a bit much, it was never about preventing voting, it was about making it more difficult, more tiresome, more time consuming, with an eye to trimming away just enough votes to win. So, not bubonic plague just smallpox. Shame on me. Dully noted.
Not about what a marvelous thing voter id is, or is not. Its only about the way it is being implemented, to tilt the electoral field to benefit Republicans. Seems to me, they ought not do that, and, having done, they ought not get away with it. They have, and they will, most likely.
If we are in agreement on that, we have no issue, and your rebuke is nestled securely in my short term memory until the next bright object or wobbly tissue comes into view.
I don’t think it’s going to tilt things one way or another. And my post was not a rebuke.
Like I said, most industrialized countries have voter ID laws, and they seem to be doing just fine. The US is an outlier. The Republicans might be looking for some short term gains, but as long as people are given a year or so to adjust, these laws simply aren’t a deterent to people who actually want to vote.
Oh. So, there is a threshold of sincerity, then? People should be willing to demonstrate their ardor? Is that requirement spread fairly and evenly across the electorate? The citizen of comfortable circumstances, his challenge is approximately the same as those faced by an economically disadvantaged citizen?
Gosh, I’d love to think so. I don’t, but it would be cool!
Oh right, that was you. I understand what you’re sayin’, it’s just profoundly unpersuasive. And if you follow the link to the original posts, you can see that I explain why in some detail. I’m even polite, which is a bit weird to read.
Perhaps there’s a fundamental philosophical divide in play, but I find I can’t get behind the idea of having citizens prove their worthiness to vote. Rather, I tend to put the onus on making the government prove its worthiness to rule. Sure, have some form of identification to vote, acceptable forms being as numerous as feasible, coupled with an effective and (for the citizen) as effortless as possible registration system.
In short, I figure the burden on the citizen should be as rock-bottom minimal as possible, with no need on their part to demonstrate that they really want to vote - it’s their right, period, and they can treat it as seriously or as flippantly as they like. The notion that the citizen has to show that he wants to vote is troubling - it invites more mandatory demonstrations, on the assumption that a citizen has to somehow earn his vote to the satisfaction of a government employee, and if he doesn’t do so, then by definition he didn’t deserve it. It reminds me of a passage from Heller’s Catch-22:
When symbolic gestures are made normal, there’s no obvious limit to how many can be required.
Is that what we’ve been debating for 9000 posts? I considered that formulation all too obvious to require mention.
The only reason I hang around in the thread is because I can’t quite decide whether Bricker is a stupid man pretending to be smart, or a smart man pretending to be stupid. I’d suggest the NSF issue a grant to study his brain, but the money would probably be better spent playing with bunnies.
And this seems to summarize Bricker’s delicate political view: Nanner, nanner, nanner. Eat shit, rational-thinking scum!
You don’t need any ID to get on the Ilk Bus. If we ask for your papers, we’re just checking to make sure you don’t have a Concealed Carry Permit.
Well, mostly, although a year seems kind of arbitrary and short. After all, these models that you’re on about aren’t examples of instituting a new, additional ID in one year. Mostly, they are examples of using a national ID that people would have anyway, along with - for the most part - ample provisions for voting if you don’t have the ID.
That’s because those models you’re on about weren’t fabricated with the intent of rigging elections.
What would it take to get the Americans to set up a semi-independent agency like the Federal Reserve, with the mandate to equitably and rationally manage electoral districts, voter registration and election procedure? Anything short of orbital mind-control lasers?
You know, I seem to remember, a few pages back, that taking and checking fingerprints (or perhaps photographs) at the polling place was something that all of us, even Bricker, thought was pretty nifty and keen and stuff.
I only pop in and out of this monster thread occasionally, so did I miss something? It seemed like a compromise that everyone could get behind yet now I see everyone arguing again. Has the idea been abandoned for some reason?
I gather the point is that while sane, rational methods to ensure electorate integrity (i.e. all eligible persons can vote, and only eligible persons) are reasonably feasible, the Republicans who are pushing for (and to various degrees have succeeded in) legislating stricter controls on voting are quite obviously disinterested in electorate integrity - they wish to depress voter turnout from demographics likely to vote Democrat. We’ll see the impact, if any, on American elections shortly.
Bricker’s stance is that the legislation is a victory in and of itself, because legislators pass laws, that’s what they do, yes-sir-ree-bob… The moral and rational implications are not his concern, so pushing for stricter controls on the non-eligible without pushing for funding of expanded access for the eligible does not strike him as a problem.
So what? If voter ID marginalizes certain groups, what different does it make what the motivation of the lawmakers is?
But yes, you do raise a good point that these other countries have a longer tradition of a national ID. But they had to start somewhere, and so we are now at that starting point.
And of course the real answer is to do what some states are already doing-- eliminate in person voting and shift everything to vote by mail.
I’m sure you were joking that both result and intent are acceptable even if they align, no matter the damage to democracy and legitimacy, weren’t you, John? Please say you were joking.