They’d lose, badly, if everyone was forced to vote.
Not quite the question I asked, but close enough for rock 'n roll.
You’ve misunderstood me. The ‘people are lazy’ is the reason that most people who don’t have ID’s now won’t get them.
People have to want something, need something, or be forced to get something, before they will. If they don’t need an ID for driving or some other task, they won’t get an ID. If voting isn’t high enough on their ‘Want’ list, they won’t get an ID. And no one is putting a gun to their head to force them.
As to what you personally do or don’t do, I have no other way but to take your word for it.
I’ve never found poor people’s opinions to be of much particular value. But I also don’t believe that makes them incompetent and not able to do what everyone else does - if they want to.
My experience being ‘poor’ when I was younger was that the poor always had enough money for smokes and booze. Not enough money to fix the car (even though my dad was a mechanic), but enough to have a drink in one hand and a smoke in the other saying that we didn’t have enough money to fix it.:rolleyes:
But sometimes circumstances force a person to be in a particular situation and I personally have no problem helping them. Which is why ID’s are free to those who can demonstrate the need. I have a problem making the task overly complex, though.
As a life long resident of Chicago and Gary Indiana area, the arguments presented here on behalf of minorities are delusional.
You have no idea what people will stand in line for or how long when the incentive is “allgood”.
There is no such thing as “too hard or too far”, there’s way too much liberal ideological ignorance going on here. I dont give a fuck if you read an east coast study, spend a day here and then come back here with the “omg you’re making it too hard to vote” because the shit we go through here on a daily basis, getting a goddammned ID is the simplest fucking thing there is.
Knock off the mental gymnastics you’re not impressing anyone but yourself.
My favorite pinhead argument is that “what if you work 3 jobs and dont have time to get to the DMV” or whatever.
That’s got to be the dumbest thing Ive read in a long time, and I lurk here quite often.
Sure, I agree completely. If you add an obstacle that makes it harder for people to do X, then fewer people will do X. That’s precisely the point I’ve been trying to make this whole thread. If it’s harder for a certain group to vote, then fewer of that group will vote, even if that obstacle is one that a fair number of that group COULD overcome if they cared sufficiently. But people are lazy. And therefore if you put an obstacle for a particular group only, then that group will experience voter turnout decline, and if that group leans heavily towards one party or the other… hey, persto, massively unethical electoral manipulation without actually full-on-disenfranchising anyone.
(Granted, it’s usually a bit more complicated than that, as there will probably end up with some sob stories about people for whom the obstacle happened to be nearly impossible to overcome due to various circumstances… but there will be far fewer of those than of the larger, lazier group that just didn’t try hard enough. But it’s the larger group that is more important, electorally.)
Back to what I said near the beginning.
What opinions of their’s should we be worried that we haven’t collected? I’m not saying that they don’t have a right to vote, what I’m saying is that I don’t give much credence to a fry cook on how to do brain surgery, nor run the government. Someone who is too lazy or can’t figure out how to get an ID is someone’s opinion that isn’t worth much.
Why? No one is being prevented from getting an ID if they manage to bring the correct documents to the register. Are you suggesting that Republican supporters are better organized than the Democrat’s?
ITT: conservative republicans arguing in favor of legislation which would make the voting process more difficult, cost millions upon millions of dollars to implement, and that would solve a problem which is completely and utterly non-existent, while encouraging voter apathy, a problem that we know is very real and very serious.
deep breath
You people are fucking retarded.
How would it encourage voter apathy? Seems like it would make one’s vote more important, not less, it it would increase the confidence that one’s found won’t be undone by a vote illegally cast.
So, where would the increased apathy come form?
It’s self evident. If you make it harder, some people are just going to throw up their hands and say, “Screw it. It’s not worth the effort.” Apathy.
Evidence was cited on page one that voter ID does not increase voter confidence.
You are right though about it will make voting more important. With less voters voting, each vote is worth more. It’s our position that’s the Republican’s whole goal, and not keeping out illegal voters.
That assumes a desire to do it in the first place. I’m sure it will effect some in the way that you fear. But it seems self evident to me that reminding people that the ability to vote is so important that we protect the sanctity of the vote would encourage some people to vote who qualify and may have beeb apathetic in the past. Though we’re both guessing.
I looked quickly and didn’t see it. It wasn’t in the Rolling Stone cite. Did I miss it? But I don’t get how increasing the likelihood that one’s vote won’t be subverted by an illegal vote could possibly lessen confidence in the act of voting.
If you agree that it makes voting more important, isn’t it possible that m ore people who qualify might want to be involved in this important endeavor?
If, tomorrow, suddenly, there was a huge and verifiable backlash, if the poor, minorities and student populations of this country showed a massive determination to obtain the necessary papers and register, the Republicans would drop this effort like a plutonium potato and swear it was all Obama’s idea.
Just to clarify, in case anyone remains under the impression that **Bricker **can ever be presumed to be presenting any summary of any situation honestly: The change in the law was made in order to *prevent *the *Republicans *under Gov. Romney from gaining a partisan advantage, against the will of the people as expressed in the last democratic election in which they chose a Democrat for the Senate seat. That was the immediate purpose, and the longer one was to strengthen democracy itself by preventing the form of partisan hijacking of democracy that the Republicans were attempting.
Naturally, though, since **Bricker **is literally unable to conceive of any greater purpose of citizenship than temporary partisan gain, he must ascribe that motive to those fellow citizens he can see only as his party’s antagonists. And so we get the above tiresome repetition of a tiresome lie, born of his and his party’s frustration at being denied a partisan power they had not been entrusted with by We the People. He could at least take comfort simply in the fact that Ted Kennedy is dead, but no, that’s not enough, is it?
His assertion that the problem is actually the perception of a problem, his having grudgingly conceded that the facts do not support it, is also easily dismissed. The perception is the creation of his own party and its in-house cable propaganda arm, and nothing else. If it were in fact not their own fabrication, it would be far more easily and far more cheaply dealt with by simply educating the public that it wasn’t real. But you don’t see him, or them, advocating that, do you?
His true motivations are found in his stated refusal to discuss Jim Crow’s relationship to the problem. The reason for that is obvious enough - it would be to concede that he’s been badly wrong, and for all the wrong reasons, about the subject, and he simply does not have the moral integrity to say so at this or any point.
I’m not entirely sure which is sadder - Bricker’s habitual lying, or the fact that he thinks so little of anyone else’s intelligence that he expects his lies to be believed by *anyone *else.
More on the general topic, from the former chairman of the Florida GOP:
Who here remains surprised?
Seriously? If that increase requires that voters on your side are disproportionately suppressed and most likely in VASTLY more numbers than fraudulent votes, how could any reasonable person examining both sides NOT lose confidence in the process?
Easy. Because the “confidence” he’s discussing is confidence in a Republican victory. Anyone who might have concerns about that being what is best for the country is simply not thinking things through adequately, and therefore their views can and should be dismissed, and their attempts to oppose the proper outcome it can and should be neutralized. That’s the mindset we see at work here.
For your concern to be justified, you’d have to know that any voter suppression would hit your side 1) more and 2) disproportionately. How do you know this? I asked the same thing upthread and never got a satisfactory answer. So, what is your side and how do you know it would be disproportionately “suppressed”?
You live in a different land. One where you think everything out of your mouth is unstupid. What a strange place you inhabit.
And side doesn’t matter. All you have to do is realize that extra resources are required to vote and it’s absurd not to realize that it would disproportionately affect those with fewer resources. And that the numbers affected eclipse any likely voting fraud numbers.
Before you ask for “satisfactory” evidence, you need to define what you’d find as acceptable. IMO, adding to the bureaucracy to correct a problem for which there is very little evidence, especially coming from the “small government” faction should have a crystal clear basis of support.
Wait—this was the reason you stated:
[QUOTE=AlienVessels]
Seriously? If that increase requires that voters on your side are disproportionately suppressed and most likely in VASTLY more numbers than fraudulent votes, how could any reasonable person examining both sides NOT lose confidence in the process?
[/QUOTE]
One side being disproportionality affected is at the heart of that statement.