Wait,what? DMV clerks are highly trained professionals, sophisticated in the dark arts of counterfeit ID and document fakery? I did not know this, how very interesting! Once again, I am impressed and surprised at your encyclopedic knowledge!
Please forgive if, in the absence of any proof beyond your authoritative expertise, I remain skeptical.
I’ll ignore the divine edict nonsense. :rolleyes:
Have they been trained to evaluate driver’s licenses and determine that they match the person standing before them? If a person can read a voter registration card, evaluate a driver’s license, and tell if a signature matches, then they can read a Social Security card and some utility bills. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist. I’ve been to the DMV and they have very nice intelligent people working there, but I doubt that they are any more capable than the people working the poles.
I understand that. I’m just trying to determine what would in theory be acceptable to conservatives. I’m wondering if they would accept anything less burdensome to voters that would maintain the same level of security or if they would simply continue to find objections. You’ve already indicated in your point 1 that it wouldn’t be acceptable to you for reasons that I don’t find very persuasive.
In any case, they already lessened the birth certificate requirements and, according to a Fox News story I linked to in a previous post, they’ve issued a voter ID to Viviette Applewhite who lacks the proper documentation, so apparently the ID law must have some flexibility, although I don’t know how much.
If the true goal was reliable voter id, all of these problems could be fixed. They could take their time like the Dems did in Rhode Island: take your time, do it right. But we have an emergency here, a pell-mell rush to get this thing in place before the next election! Absolutely cannot wait another minute…why? Oh, right, almost forgot, the urgent crisis in voter confidence!
The State of Pennsylvania claimed such an ability, claimed that programs were in place to satisfy these concerns. As noted above, the judge did not require any proof on their part, he simply took their claims “at face value”. They were, apparently, deemed to be “credible” on no evidence whatsoever.
(Anybody ask them about that? Where, exactly, are the offices, the workers, the budget for this wonderful program? The one you stood up in court and told the judge exists? Did the Plaintiffs not even have the option of questioning this bald statement?)
If you know what the problem is, and you know how to fix it, and you don’t, the reasonable explanation is that you don’t want the problem fixed. Aside from a bald announcement before a supine judge, anybody see anything else to address the problems of the “discommoded”. As in flushed down dis commode.
In Canada you have three options: 1. Gov’t picture ID; 2. Two pieces of non-picture ID (like a credit card and even a phone bill with your name and address); 3. Someone can vouch for you at the poll, essentially confirming your identity. So yes, there are lots of ways to identify voters.
The simple fact is that voter participation has been declining for years, to they point that increasing voter participation is much more important than detecting alleged fraud.
Making it harder to vote de-legitimizes the process given that voting is the primary expression of democratic rights.
I had a criminal case once in which the subject arose – but again, why do I care what you find persuasive? I don’t have the burden of any proof here at all. I don’t have to convince you of a blessed thing. The law exists right now. It’s in effect. It will be followed in November. I have to do nothing to preserve the status quo.
The burden of proof is on your side. You may, if you wish, continue to exercise it by announcing how I have failed to convince you. That’d be grand.
I agree completely. The idea that the level of security is hurt significantly by two non-picture IDs or the vouching is fantasy.
I’d also say that intelligent public policy would seem to require that if you mandate photo ID for voting, you must first get a photo ID into every potential voter’s hand.
That’s so obvious that the only reason I can imagine one can’t see it, is partisan zeal to win.
The specifics of my knowledge come from Virginia, where I once had a client whose fake ID business came to the attention of authorities. Admittedly I’m assuming that other states’ DMV organizations have similar training and materials; in Virginia, the resources available to the DMV clerks included exemplars of birth certificate from from each state, licenses from each state, and guidelines on how to compare signatures.
Poll workers are volunteers who get none of that, have none of that, and can’t reliably do that. A photo is necessary because I can pick up your utility bills and your Social Security card, or fake either with a home computer and color printer. Neither of those have anything like holographic anti-counterfeiting measures.
Well, then, I guess we’ll agree to disagree, since I do find those reasons persuasive.
And as I have pointed out previously, since I don’t have to persuade you of anything, ending this discussion by agreeing to disagree leaves the law in effect, an outcome which pleases me greatly.
Of course. The law gives the DMV Secretary discretion to issue an ID (and delegate that authority) and the state has always said it would work with those people on a case by case basis who were stuck. The only ones denying that have been the ones on your side of the argument.
Fortunately for us all, public policy is not made based on your imagination, or lack thereof.
It’s up to the plaintiff to question the “credibility” of the law or the defendant. The plaintiff’s lawyer can object to anything presented by the defendant’s side. The judge isn’t there to make the plaintiff’s case for them.
The State “claims” the right to create and pass legislation. The plaintiff objects to the law that was passed. The plaintiff presented no one that will be disenfranchised by the law. Was the judge suppose to accept the plaintiff’s unproven “suggestion” that such person’s exist?
The “We can’t prove it but everyone knows it’s true” argument doesn’t hold up in court.
Well, then, I suppose you could stop trying? If all you want to advise is that the law is passed, fuck you if you can’t take a joke, and its all legal and constitutional…why say anything at all? Its not like anybody here doesn’t know the law has been passed. The only information you have to offer is the level of your smug satisfaction. And if that’s the case, you really don’t have anything more to add.
But you do, hoss, you do keep arguing for the rightness and justice of this, you do put forth arguments, you only dive down your hidey hole when confronted with inconvenient facts.
Saying “Fuck you guys, I’m going home” only works if you actually do it, if you come back in and try to argue, sorta takes the snap out of it. But, hey! Freak freely! But after the fifth or sixth time you get up on the balcony and sing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina”, its older than Madonna.
I am forced to use my imagination, since I haven’t seen any reasonable arguments for a policy that keeps thousands of times as many people from voting as it does from fraudulently voting.
There is simply no defense for that. I know your throw your hands up and demand that voter confidence is worth it. But the obvious response is voter confidence isn’t served by keeping thousands of times as many legitimate people from voting as would have cast fraudulent ballots.
Well, we’re outa my depth here, legal wise, I once delivered pizza to a law school, and read a John Grisham novel in Greyhound desperation, but that’s it.
From what I gather, it seems that the judges ruling about the credibility is definitive, even though he stated clearly that no evidence was offered, nor solicited. He took their word “at face value”. I would imagine if the Plaintiffs were entitled to challenge that, they would have. Seems pretty obvious, but TG,IANAL…
Honestly, if I need someone to suss out a fake ID, I’d go with the DMV clerk over the Blue Haired Ladies they dust off every 4 years to work the election tables.
On a side note, while it’s nice that the DMV has discretion in issuing IDs for voting, a person’s voting rights should not be subject to the discretion of a DMV employee.
But the DMV workers can detect fake utility bills and Social Security cards? Are they trained on the appearance of every utility company’s bills, every possible deed, every possible lease?
Yes, I find your reasons unpersuasive, and I’ve explained why.
That’s an excellent point. A DMV employee deciding who can and can’t vote, how wrong is that? Isn’t it the conservatives who always use DMVs as an example (justified or not) of government incompetence? And now here we are, with DMV employees deciding who can and can’t vote. And the conservatives seem to love it.
As interesting as your “imagination” may be, it isn’t proof.
The plaintiff had ample opportunity to provide a credible witness(s) to prove their case. They failed to do so.
Reread my post, you didn’t understand it. In this instance my imagination is based on rational arguments for this policy decision.
None of the GOP boosters in this thread have offered an reasoned argument, so I am left to imagine what arguments there could be.
This is to make it more difficult to vote, not impossible. Finding someone for whom it is impossible to vote is the wrong standard.
The State employees of the DMV follow the rules and regulations of the DMV.
I can only suggest that you become a plaintiff and make “your” case to the court.
Good luck.
Not at all. Although I don’t bear the burden of proof, if I see a particularly weak argument being made, I’m happy to step in and shred it. That doesn’t mean I somehow assume the ultimate burden of proof.