What are you talking about? The Supreme Court upheld the Indiana law which is stricter than in MO.
My point is that it doesn’t have to be photo ID. Any physical item you have to bring with your name on it is more than sufficient to stop any would-be impersonator. Nobody is going to rummage through hundreds of trash cans to pretend to be somebody they’re not on election day.
Democrats should push for these more liberal (in both senses) laws. Not that the GOP would go for them even though they address the problem the GOP claims to have with in-person voting. Compromise, it seems, is dead.
This is not the place to have this argument, and it goes without saying that you’re not allowed to repeat the insults you were just told to stop posting. This is a formal warning to stop. If you have more complaints, start a conversation by private message or post a thread in ATMB.
You know, I got back here with the specific intent of looking up those laws, just to see if they really and truly reflected the same approaches as others, you know, giving the Brickeroonie the old fact check. Only to find that you had pre-empted my effort, and done it succinctly and well.
First, kudos. Second, I’ll get you for this, if its the last thing I do!
I note how the reports mention that the judge decided that the state was offering sincere and effective efforts to supply voter id to those without. Which would be totally cool in my book, and render my objections moot. Hell, with an adequate and effective outreach program to ensure reliable, quick and convenient access to voter id for those without, I would be completely in favor.
But here’s the rub: try as I will, I can’t find any reference to such programs. I would be looking for some provisions in the law, probably, to set up the bureaucratic machinery to actualize such an effort. Some staff hired or assigned, a budget, good stuff like that.
Did the state actually show the judge any such proof of their good intentions? Or did he simply rely on their “credibility”? Worse case: they just stood there and said “Yeah, sure, Your Honor, we’ll take care of that, no sweat!” and the judge said “Good enough for me”?
I agree you make a good point with respect to the Delaware law.
But explain a bit more why Rhode Island’s law, which creates essentially the same requirement for government-issued photo ID, is acceptable and Pennsylvania’s is not. I don’t follow your “It doesn’t take effect until 2014, so it’s OK” argument.
Indiana’s took effect in 2004. Does that mean it’s now OK?
Why, yes, that is an alternative! Is he under any requirement to prove that, or can he simply slander anyone he wants so long as he can bang his little gavel? If he says the witness is not “credible”, does that mean (as you hasten to insinuate) that the witness is lying, or that the witness is simply wrong?
You didn’t know that? This is new information for you? Or did you simply neglect to include such, in your headlong haste to protect voter confidence?
Kinda obvious, isn’t it, Counselor? The extra time is allotted so that people have plenty of opportunity to get what they need, yes? Instead of a desperate rush to get these laws in place before the next election? Is there some emergency, some pressing need to get this in place? I wonder what that might be! Ponder, ponder…
No, I didn’t, although in truth now that I think about it, something is kind of ringing a bell. But I can’t say it was at the forefront of my mind.
Not obvious to me. But I can see the point. Someone might say, “Look, I have a good-faith belief that these laws won’t survive a challenge, and I don’t have time to mount a challenge before they become effective.”
It sure seems to me, though, that they’d have to say something more to justify their belief. In other words, Indiana – which you agree that the Indiana law, passed in 2004 and upheld by the Supreme Court in 2008, is now acceptable – has sort of set the standard. Someone complaining about the lack of time should explain what they see as different about their challenge.
In other words, if Indiana is acceptable, why isn’t Pennsylvania?
Rhode Island’s current law, until 2014, allows the submission of non-photo ID’s, including birth certificates, social security cards, university ID, etc. Thus a voter is not rushing to get an ID for the current election which may be the only one s/he intends to vote in. By delaying the implementation until 2014, in the same way that some legislatures are barred fromn raising their own salaries but may raise the salary of the next, Rhode Island has taken the “favors this or that party” argument off the table. Maybe it will allow Romney to win in 2016 but it will not effect Obama’s chances at all.
However the big difference is the allowance of a voter’s affadavit to be filed with his provisional ballot, to be examined by the election board, stating that s/he is registered but unable to provide proof of identity. The election board shall compare the signature on the affadavit with the signature on the registration and allow or disallow the vote accordingly.
As long as there is such an emergency provision, for those who cannot afford money or time to get the appropriate ID, or who lost it or had it stolen, or just plain forgot it, the vast majority of persons can live with the law. But Pennsylvania, again has no such provision.
With regard to Indiana, if I were an Indiana resident I would object to it just because it is so hard to understand, but there is allowance for a provisional ballot, though it is not clear if a return trip to the precinct is required. That would, IMHO, be excessive. The fact that it was passed so long ago does indicate that it was not passed to harass our current president unlike the law in Pennsylvania.
So (setting aside for the moment how provisional ballots are handled) your position is that the law in Indiana is fine (apart from being hard to understand). Because it wasn’t passed to harass our current president. But the law in Pennsylvania is not, because it was passed to harass our current president?
OK. I simply reject that reasoning. The motive behind the law is utterly irrelevant. It’s either valid, or not, on its face.
No, I don’t say that at all, I say that over the passage of time, whatever ill effects of the law have most likely been washed away. Doesn’t mean that a pell-mell rush, emergency! emergency! AAArrroooga AAArrroooga…is justified, or desirable.
Look if they go about this the right way, if there intentions were sincere, and proper safeguards and outreach in place, I wouldn’t have any objection. Which I have said any number of times, but it doesn’t seem to get through to you, somehow.