I Pit the ID-demanding GOP vote-suppressors (Part 1)

[bobot]

@inscrutable

…

Some of you seem to refuse to believe that America has a culture – a white majority culture …

For now, maybe. That will change sooner than many rubes realize. Bring it on, one day we may actually be a melting pot.

[elucidator]

To draw attention to the actual center of the American universe, there was some court action in Texas today.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/03/texas-agrees-to-modify-voter-id-law-for-november-election/?utm_term=.5fd8fb1e9e89
**
Texas agrees to modify voter-ID law for November election**

Texas struck a deal Wednesday that will modify its voter-ID law for the November general election — a development that lawyers suing the state say will make it easier for minorities to cast their ballots.

The state reached the agreement with the Justice Department and minority rights groups just a few weeks after a federal appeals court ruled that Texas’s 2011 voter-identification law was discriminatory…

At a glance, seems much improved. Never know, Texas Republicans are a wily and ruthless bunch, but sure looks like they lost this one. On the surface, the appearance is that an abashed Texas will change its ways and come to Jesus.

But when a Texas Republican says “Trust me”, your best advise is tighten your spincter muscles to a spasm that would crack a walnut, and scuttle away quickly.

[elucidator]

@SlackerInc

…But what we should support is a national photo ID/voting card for every citizen, with a law that includes funding for armies of social workers to fan out into poor communities to help ensure that everyone gets one. .

Oh, Hell, yes! Boldly presuming to speak for the left, double Hell yes! A biggened influx of new, registered voters, across the demographic spectrum. The Republicans will vote for this the same day they vote to make Sunday School illegal.

And commit mass seppuku in the Capitol Rotunda. The Forty-seven Republicans, would be kabuki theater at its very best!

[Bricker]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

There’s an important definitional question.

Bob hates black people as a group, and is willing to take actions to hurt black people, for no reason other than to hurt them. Is he a white supremacist?

Jane knows that white people agree with her more than black people, and is willing to take actions to hurt black people in order to get her own way. Is she a white supremacist?

I think both of them are: if you’re deliberately taking actions that advance the interests of white people as a whole over those of black people as a whole, “white supremacy” seems to be a good descriptor for you. If it isn’t, we need another word to describe people willing to hurt a group by race in order to advance their own interests.

I’m not too concerned about ultimate motivations.

(Now: cue the terrible analogy gotcha questions!)

If you define “the interests of black people,” as being any issue on which there is near-unanimous black support, then you have proved that any person chosen to run against Obama was a white supremacist: Obama gained decidedly dominating vote majorities against each of his opponents.

[iiandyiiii]

@Bricker

If you define “the interests of black people,” as being any issue on which there is near-unanimous black support, then you have proved that any person chosen to run against Obama was a white supremacist: Obama gained decidedly dominating vote majorities against each of his opponents.

But what about the NC legislators motivated to make it more difficult for black people to vote? That’s not nearly the same thing as opposing Obama, is it?

[septimus]

@elucidator

Texas agrees to modify voter-ID law for November election**…
But when a Texas Republican says “Trust me”, your best advise is tighten your spincter muscles to a spasm that would crack a walnut, and scuttle away quickly.

That’s the third state with overturned GOP malice just in the last week or two!

So now Texas joins the company of states where “citizens will no longer have confidence in the integrity of their electoral results.” (sarcasm – I don’t know how to tell it straight like walnut-cracking 'Luci.)

[Salvor]

I have the solution.
-get estimate of % decrease of black people being eligible to vote at the polls from requiring an id

-Take that % and enact a mix of other policies that would essentially double that percentage loss, as a net gain of black people being eligible to vote.
-Require ids to vote.

Problem solved. Then I can stop hearing condescending liberals tell me how much of a fcking cripple I am for being part of a race that is so inept as a group that merely needing to show a picture id would meaningfully impact their ability to vote. If it’s true, then my attitude is to those black people to get your fcking shit together.

You’ve been on this earth for 18+ years, and in all that time you could not scrape together 20 dollars and a trip to the dmv? Do I even WANT that class of loser voting? But I digress, here I am being elitist, thinking that black people should not be treated like cripples where a big bad voter id requirement will forever cripple their capacity to vote.

If you don’t already have an id, effing GET one, jesus, how many decades do you have to live in the US, how god damn marginalized do you have to be to function without a damn id? You live in a cave? I mean come on. Expect a LITTLE better of black people liberals. This is the kind of shit that makes me hate liberals.

Liberals : They’re ONLY black, they can’t be EXPECTED to have ids in the same rates as other groups!

Me: FU assholes. I don’t care if republicans only want IDs to prevent black people from voting, the fact that that’s even a possible effective tactic at all is a god damn disgrace. Get better, EXPECT better.

[Bricker]

@iiandyiiii

But what about the NC legislators motivated to make it more difficult for black people to vote? That’s not nearly the same thing as opposing Obama, is it?

No. But despite your characterizations of the NC legislators’ actions, I am not yet convinced that they were motivated to make it difficult for black people (as opposed to Democratic voters) to vote.

[SlackerInc]

@Bricker

No. But despite your characterizations of the NC legislators’ actions, I am not yet convinced that they were motivated to make it difficult for black people (as opposed to Democratic voters) to vote.

Those two things go together. And making it specifically difficult for an opposing party’s demographic to vote is bullshit regardless. The college ID thing for instance. It’s not about race, but it’s still scurrilous.

@elucidator

Oh, Hell, yes! Boldly presuming to speak for the left, double Hell yes! A biggened influx of new, registered voters, across the demographic spectrum. The Republicans will vote for this the same day they vote to make Sunday School illegal.

Is this the standard now? Democrats can only advocate policies they know Republicans will support? Srsly?

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Bricker

If you define “the interests of black people,” as being any issue on which there is near-unanimous black support, then you have proved that any person chosen to run against Obama was a white supremacist: Obama gained decidedly dominating vote majorities against each of his opponents.

Nice gotcha!

No: we’ve got a situation where Republicans in NC, by all evidence, said this:

1. We want to win!
2. Black people vote against us.
3. Let’s study how black people access polls.
4. Let’s pass laws that make it difficult to access polls in those ways more often used by black people.

That’s entirely different from:

1. We want to win!
2. Black people vote for Obama.
3. Let’s vote for Romney anyway!

If you can’t see the difference, lemme know.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Salvor

Liberals : They’re ONLY black, they can’t be EXPECTED to have ids in the same rates as other groups!

This is incredibly stupid. It has nothing to do with what’s expected, it has to do with what’s actual. Or do the facts not matter to you at all?

[Bricker]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

Nice gotcha!

No: we’ve got a situation where Republicans in NC, by all evidence, said this:

1. We want to win!
2. Black people vote against us.
3. Let’s study how black people access polls.
4. Let’s pass laws that make it difficult to access polls in those ways more often used by black people.

I disagree with this summary.

Let’s start with (2) and (3). What specific evidence supports those points?

[septimus]

@Bricker

No. But despite your characterizations of the NC legislators’ actions, I am not yet convinced that they were motivated to make it difficult for black people (as opposed to Democratic voters) to vote.

Democrats are not a “protected class.” If the NC action were directed against Democrats rather than blacks, would it then be legal and constitutional?

[iiandyiiii]

@Bricker

No. But despite your characterizations of the NC legislators’ actions, I am not yet convinced that they were motivated to make it difficult for black people (as opposed to Democratic voters) to vote.

What more evidence would you need? They specifically researched how black people voted, and targeted the provisions they use most often. They claimed as their justification, in court, that black people had too much access to the vote. I don’t know whether they were motivated by bigotry or by partisanship, but I don’t see how that matters - trying to make it harder for black people to vote is racist, no matter the motivation.

[Salvor]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

This is incredibly stupid. It has nothing to do with what’s expected, it has to do with what’s actual. Or do the facts not matter to you at all?

Oh please, cut the crap, if you thought better of black people, with the new demands you might actually expect most of the black people who vote without relying on ids that did not have them, to go out and get them. But no, that would be TOO much effort for poor little black people.

[Bricker]

@iiandyiiii

What more evidence would you need? They specifically researched how black people voted, and targeted the provisions they use most often. They claimed as their justification, in court, that black people had too much access to the vote. I don’t know whether they were motivated by bigotry or by partisanship, but I don’t see how that matters - trying to make it harder for black people to vote is racist, no matter the motivation.

When, specifically by date, do you contend “They specifically researched how black people voted?” When did that event happen, according to you?

[SlackerInc]

@Salvor

Oh please, cut the crap, if you thought better of black people, with the new demands you might actually expect most of the black people who vote without relying on ids that did not have them, to go out and get them. But no, that would be TOO much effort for poor little black people.

I’m sort of with you, but I would frame it a little differently. Rather than expecting poor, elderly black folks to use their own bootstraps to get the documentation needed and go get ID, I would argue that we should be pushing for the use of social workers to help such people get a free photo ID, rather than just shrugging and saying “go ahead and vote without it”. A photo ID, after all, is a useful thing to have, far beyond voting. I’d argue that you can’t really do much but live in the shadows of American society without one.

[iiandyiiii]

@Bricker

When, specifically by date, do you contend “They specifically researched how black people voted?” When did that event happen, according to you?

I don’t know the specific date. According to the appeals court:

Before enacting that law, the legislature requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices. Upon receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans.

Also:

The State then elaborated on its justification, explaining that “[c]ounties with Sunday voting in 2014 were disproportionately black” and “disproportionately Democratic.” … Thus, in what comes as close to a smoking gun as we are likely to see in modern times, the State’s very justification for a challenged statute hinges explicitly on race – specifically its concern that African Americans, who had overwhelmingly voted for Democrats, had too much access to the franchise.

[Bridget_Burke]

@Salvor

Oh please, cut the crap, if you thought better of black people, with the new demands you might actually expect most of the black people who vote without relying on ids that did not have them, to go out and get them. But no, that would be TOO much effort for poor little black people.

More details onwhy the Voting Rights Act is still needed:

Then, on June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court ruled, in Shelby County v. Holder, a challenge to the Voting Rights Act provision from a largely white and Republican Alabama county, that federal supervision was an unconstitutional intrusion on state autonomy. “History did not end in 1965,” Justice John Roberts wrote for the Court, noting that since 2004 black voters’ registration rates in the South had matched or exceeded those of whites. Dissenting for four Justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued that the success of the Voting Rights Act was no reason to declare it obsolete. She noted that Congress had based its 2006 reauthorization on a fifteen-thousand-page legislative record documenting both outright vote denial and “second-generation barriers constructed to prevent minority voters from fully participating in the electoral process.” Although the Voting Rights Act had achieved a great deal, she wrote, it remained necessary both to complete its gains and to “guard against backsliding.”

At the time, a law requiring voters to show I.D. was pending in the North Carolina state legislature. The day after the Shelby County ruling, Republican state senators announced that they would go forward with what they called “the full bill,” adding the provisions that cut early voting from seventeen to ten days and eliminated same-day registration and provisional ballots for those who try to vote in the wrong precinct. The legislature had asked its research office to look into the racial breakdown of voting behavior, and knew that most African-Americans in the state voted early (sixty and sixty-four per cent in 2008 and 2012, respectively, compared with forty-four and forty-nine per cent for whites). As the district court noted, black North Carolinians are disproportionately poor and more likely to suffer from ill health and transport challenges, which may cause them to need the early-voting option. African-Americans also move more often than whites, making them more likely to try to vote outside the precincts where they are registered. The legislature’s research also showed that African-Americans more often lacked driver’s licenses; the post-Shelby County amendments removed other common forms of identification from the list of acceptable I.D.s.

Reconstruction ended too early…

[Gyrate]

@SlackerInc

I’m sort of with you, but I would frame it a little differently. Rather than expecting poor, elderly black folks to use their own bootstraps to get the documentation needed and go get ID, I would argue that we should be pushing for the use of social workers to help such people get a free photo ID, rather than just shrugging and saying “go ahead and vote without it”. A photo ID, after all, is a useful thing to have, far beyond voting. I’d argue that you can’t really do much but live in the shadows of American society without one.

Maybe we could form some sort of non-governmental organization to do voter registration drives. We could call it the “American Community Outreach and Registration Network”. There’s probably some clever acronym we could come up with too.

Surely the Republicans wouldn’t object to that?