Sure it is. I have a keen interest, as does every legitimate voter, in ensuring that only legitimate voters may cast votes. Under normal circumstances, the incidence of illegal votes cast is so small it cannot sway an election, but when an election has a razor-thin margin, such as the 2006 Washington state gubernatorial race, it becomes very possible that the margin of victory is smaller than the number of illegal votes cast. This harms me in the same way it harms every legal voter.
You may not agree. That’s fine. But yours is not the opinion that controls.
Yes, perhaps it does. But given the gravity of importance associated with voting, the harm you suffer is slight in comparison with the laudable goal of assuring your identity when you cast your ballot.
I’m sorry to hear of their distress. But they should realize that having state IDs are pretty much the wave of the future.
Too bad for him. Nothing you’ve said suggests to me he’s in danger of arrest, so his reluctance to go is entirely a figment of his imagination. Why should I care that he doesn’t get an ID because he has an overactive imagination?
Bricker, I was unaware that you lived in Washington State in 2006. My apology, what were your actual damages?
I appreciate your concern where my own situation is concerned yet you have yet to show that your goal is in fact laudable. Your demonstrated empathy in regard to my friends and family is, however, laudable, thank you for that. I shall be sure to tell them of their glorious future. One thing I am unclear on is when exactly is the “future.” You might as easily state that jet packs are the future. Shall I tell them of those too?
You should care that young homeboy has a chance to vote because he has a valid opinion. I suspect you just might be afraid that he would cast a vote on the issue of his possibly marrying his own homeboy someday.
And yet the interest in ensuring vote tallying is verified, accountable, standardised and dare I say legitimate, a problem that effects election outcomes by three orders of magnitude more than actual voter fraud, is almost non-existent?
Meanwhile voter suppression, which is also far more effective in damaging to the integrity of elections than one thousandth of a percent of voters who do so illegally, remains largely unpunished.
ACORN violated election registration law in a single state (despite being required to hand in fraudulent registrations by law), committed no actual voter fraud and was forced to shutdown. Some GOP Consultant in Maryland order 100 000 robocalls fooling who knows how many thousands to stay at home and not vote and gets 30 days home detention. Truly the punishment fits the crime.
I’m quite zen, I assure you. I’m loving this thread. You look like a sentient cowflop throughout it and are diminishing the already-tarnished Bricker Brand™.
I love that you just can’t help yourself from looking like an evil bitch. Bricker, honestly, I’m sure you’re a good person in your everyday life. I’m sure you love your wife and kids. But your internet persona is outright evil and sadistic.
I know lawyers are supposed to argue for things whether they believe them or not, and logical arguments aren’t necessary, persuasive arguments that work in real time are. But this isn’t a trial. Your dishonest arguments and rhetorical chaff aren’t necessary or even acceptable here. These are debates about issues, not trying to confuse the jury into thinking your guy is on the side of angels.
The law requires the use of electronic voting machines, and whatever government agency Congress decided to put in charge of such things signed a contract with Diebold. The machines, however, were flawedfromDayOne.
Bricker, I like you and I’ve never had a problem with you in spite of the flak you may have caught from other posters. Here, however, I feel like you’re being intentionally thick. If the GOP were so concerned about voter fraud, they would have motioned to sink the Diebold machines at the first sign of trouble.
Yeah, but that’s a slightly different animal. Personally, I favor a ballot system with physical backup, “paper ballots”, if you will. The most likely people to rig a system for distributing power are those who already have it.
Be that as it may, that’s a voting *count *problem, after the fact. These are efforts to “head 'em off at the pass”, so to speak. If they don’t vote, nobody counts anything.
You know, this whole thing got me to wondering: that snarky fantasy I offered above, about how Democrats were stealing all those elections with illegal voters. Which, certainly, in a Republican mind would justify somewhat underhanded tactics to right a wrong that sane people know doesn’t actually exist.
I wonder how many actually believe it? Bricker, you don’t believe it, right? Right?
No, I’m not. You haven’t done your research. The law does not require electronic voting machines, for one.
The Help America Vote Act set standards that needed to be met by 2006. Diebold machines that were not HAVA compliant, including the ones you mention, can hardly be said to be the result of HAVA.
So it seems to me that the HAVA does precisely what you claim it doesn’t.
Moreover, there is no “Diebold” lock on anything. Sequoia Voting Systems and ESS are other vendors that make HAVA-compliant systems.
I’m not being intentionally obtuse – I am trying to get you to develop a clear argument. Right now, it seems to me you’ve tossed up “Diebold!” and are expecting that to make your case. You don’t know what the law says and you haven’t formulated a clear complaint.
No, I didn’t live in Washington in 2006. But fine – I lived in the United States in 2000, where the Presidential election was decided by 537 votes. And that’s not a result I feel confident in.
Again, you seem to insist that you, and only you, get to judge how seriously to weigh concerns about voter confidence. In our system of representative democracy, you don’t. That’s done by our elected representatives, or occasionally directly by the people.
It’s not up to me how “homeboy” votes. But it’s up to our elected representatives to ensure our confidence that only valid votes are counted. They are doing so.
Bricker; you have yet to show that if this crisis of voter confidence exists that it has caused any harm; to you, to your dog, or to that guy in your mailroom. “Homeboy” has a valid opinion and you should care about that. This fall Minnesota is having a referendum, it’s a crazy little thing we do to try and determine the will of the people.
At stake are the questions of who has the right to marry the person they love and another little thing about voter ID, it is not a test of who has managed to park their car correctly between elections. Voter suppression laws in no way make me (or you, to be honest) feel more confident that every person who wishes to make their voice heard has had an equal chance to do so, rather I know–for a fact, analytically and personally synthetically–that such laws will make fewer voices heard.
No, he may have an ‘opinion’, there is no proof it is valid. If he wants to voice that opinion through his vote, he can renew his driver’s license, a simple enough process, or use his passport, etc.
And I’ve presented evidence in this thread where those countries that have voter ID have higher turnout rates than in the US (actually most countries have higher turnout rates). Could if be that they have a higher confidence rate that their vote counts?
We pass laws. We pass laws that cancel other laws. Courts approve and disapprove.
Right and wrong are not defined by what the courts decide in the short term.
I find your use of the word “care” ironic in the extreme. You’re happy arguing the technical details of what the system has currently ruled. You take pleasure in confirming the i’s are dotted and t’s crossed without regard to what the text says and means.
These additional barriers are wrong. But you’re happy in arguing they’re technically allowable. That’s just sad.
No, they are not. The US, just like they are the holdouts on the metric system, has to be an exception where common sense isn’t so common (well at least for the people in this thread spouting nonsense like poll taxes, etc).
According to you, will the results of the referenda indicate the will of the people, or not? I mean, right now, Minnesota has no voter ID law, is that right? So the voters – even the ones working six jobs and born in a remote cave with no birth certificate – will be able to accept or reject that law, right?
Not all Republicans share your commitment to candor and ruthless honesty, Counselor. You, at least, are willing to admit that the purpose of the exercise is to screw over the Democrats, which is as refreshing as a cyanide Slurpy on a hot summer day.
One has to be quite careful with you, Counselor. You have a habit of building trap doors and escape routes in your sentence structure and wording. That word, “organized”? hmmmm.
See, over in GD, when I was on about the near impossibility of organized voter fraud? You were right there with an alternative fantasy, about how it need not be “organized”, but could simply be part of a cultural norm amongst the illegal alien community. You even had a rock solid anecdote to offer, having personally overheard a CASA worker talk about how documentation was not really necessary to vote. How, precisely, that equates to a cultural predisposition to voter fraud is a mite hazy…
At any rate, you seemed to be implying, or suggesting, or otherwise slipping in a bit of innuendo, that “organized” voter fraud might not be the preferred form of evil corruption. That an informal, cultural, but not “organized” approach might be preferred by the people who are bent on destroying our voter confidence, and hence, the Republic. Connect the dot, people, you seemed to be saying.
Now, if you hadn’t suggested such things, your statement above would by clear and unequivocal. But you have, and that makes the whole thing a bit more foggy and uncertain.