No, in my state they changed the voter registration requirements along with the identification rules. It was all part of Kansas Secure and Fair Elections Act of 2011, the main voter ID initiative in this state.
When I moved to Kansas these many years ago, I went down to the DMV with my driver’s license from out-of-state and some proof of my current address (probably my lease agreement). With my new DL in hand, I then registered to vote; other people used other documents proving residence in Kansas (ranging from utility bills to tax statements), all of us swearing under penalty of perjury that we were U.S. citizens lawfully entitled to vote.
That process will no longer work, because my out-of-state ID, by itself, is no longer sufficient to obtain a Kansas ID, and a utility bill + sworn statement sure ain’t enough to register.
The documents used to register would likely (but not guaranteed) be enough to vote.
That’s not my burden. I am responding to others’ claims. In debate, the person making the initial claim bears the burden of proof. Merely gainsaying an unsupported claim can be done without assuming the burden, or as my debate teacher used to repeat: “A gratuitous assertion may be equally gratuitously denied.”
The poll worker asks your name. They then look for your name in the big book of people who really want to vote for Mayor Daley Democrats. You sign your name, and they give you a paper ballot.
One fine voting day, I was told I had already voted. I asked if my brother had voted (He lived in Wisconsin and I knew he wasn’t coming to Chicago that day). When they told me that he had voted, I knew the Ward Heeler had brought in a couple of ringers to boost the Chicago Democrat’s landslide vote count. (FYI - landslides are never recounted. If you want to cheat, cheat big.) Since the Ward Heeler just happened to be at my polling place, he vouched for me, and I was given a ballot.
Back then, it didn’t really take brass balls to commit voter fraud in Chicago. The Daley Democrat poll watchers wouldn’t testify. The Daley Democrat police wouldn’t make an arrest. If the wrong cop did arrest anyone, the Daley Democrat judges would dismiss the case.
I’m sure it’s much more better now, under Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
You asked about “any actual person who doesn’t have any single one of those documents,” not “any actual Kansas resident.” I don’t figure Kansas residents are so very different from people in other states, so I merely referred you to examples of actual people.
Howard’s case gets back to what I was saying earlier about variability of cases. She was able to convince the Kansas election officials that she should be allowed to vote because she had her family Bible and somebody in the family had been able to track down census records. (Whether or not the fact she was attempting to register as a Republican had any impact was the subject of speculation in local media.) Had she NOT possessed that Bible, the result might have been quite different and a whole lot more difficult for her.
I’ve been an election poll worker, and I’ve seen how the poll workers operate through several elections and with multiple types of poll books.
I would bet money that most of the incidents of “they say I’ve already voted” don’t really mean somebody voted in your name; they mean that the person on the line above or below, or the person with a sort of similar name, voted, and the poll worker didn’t catch it. (Example: when the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division investigated alleged dead voters in 2010, they found most of them were indeed basic clerical errors by the election staff.)
Just to be clear: I have always behaved very scrupulously as an election worker, and have never knowingly participated in any funny business.
That said, if I wanted to commit vote fraud, election administration is the way to do it. Somebody casting a ballot who isn’t entitled would be retail level; election staff can do it wholesale. The staff of even a single precinct could cast dozens or hundreds of bogus votes; the folks who program the voting machines or count the votes could manipulate the outcome by thousands or more. Yet there’s almost no discussion of that kind of fraud.
For example, several mathematicians have found “statistical anomalies” that suggest the possibility of widespread electoral manipulation in the 2012 Republican primary; a Kansas professor has filed a lawsuit asking for access to machine tapes to audit results. If the possibility proves out (a big IF, I admit), then hundreds of thousands of votes across the country may have been nullified. Have you seen any huge clamor about verifying the votes are been counted accurately?
Yes, that’s true. But that question was posed following the exchange of multiple posts in which I sought to narrow down the broad, inchoate claim you made about the expenditure of thousands of dollars to a specific state (or states, as subsequent questioning developed: a birth state and a state of residence). So it’s true that in that post, I failed to explicitly repeat the earlier preconditions. That did not mean that the earlier discussion evaporated.
But if talking with you requires that each and every post restates each and every conversational predicate, I can try to make that happen.
Arthur Spry and Charles Hammer did not allege that they were never issued birth certificates. They alleged that they could not find their birth certificates, and that requiring them to apply for duplicates was unduly burdensome.
So, AGAIN:
What specific person, in what specific state or states, is in an actual position of needing to spend thousands of dollars in order to obtain acceptable voting credentials?
So far, every time I investigate details, the claim collapses. And Spry and Hammer dropped their suit after the defense requested information to obtain replacement birth certificates.
So I’m not going to go through each and every name on a list, especially when the very first one turns out to be false. Why don’t you pick the name on your list that undeniably proves your claim, and give me that name?
That evidence would not rule out sudden appearance on this planet at the age of 55, righting wrongs, rescuing kittens, and performing other planet-saving type works.
And we remain at square zero: is there any actual person who lacks the requisite documentation such that obtaining it would cost thousands of dollars? If so, where are they, and in what state do they wish to cast a vote, and in what state were they born?
Isn’t there even one such specific, identifiable person, in the whole country? We’ve had Voter ID laws upheld by the Supreme Court since 2005.
The majority of people are going to be like you, they have a driver’s license and other ID as needed.
Take a person who’s poor (or old) and doesn’t drive. Does that person have a Passport? Nope. College ID card? Nope. Military card? Nope. Bus Pass? Maybe. Government Medical Card? Maybe.
That leaves Voter ID. Going out to get an ID card for the express purpose of voting, from the one place in the state that offers them. You still need to bring some governmental documentation there, documents you might not have handy, and might be difficult or confusing to obtain.
I’m not saying it costs thousands of dollars, but it’s a non-trivial effort.
I took your question to be: are there people in this country who lack a single one of the documents that would be required to vote in Kansas or any other state that has or adopts voter ID laws similar to those in Kansas? The answer to that question is an unequivocal yes.
If you want to limit the conversation solely to Kansas, rather than the broader topic of voter ID restrictions, then we can do so. However, I was using the Kansas rules as an exemplar of how restrictive voter ID laws work, not as the sole topic of the thread. Sorry for the confusion.
Returning to the topic, look at the article about Evelyn Howard. She does not possess a birth certificate, passport, certificate of naturalization, Bureau of Indian Affairs paperwork, consular report of birth abroad, etc., etc., etc. She fits the criteria of the question you asked: an actual person who lacks a single one of the documents.
She was able to vote after she (or someone on her behalf) did some research, located a Bible and census records, and arranged an administrative hearing. How much did that cost? I’ve no idea; it might have been ten bucks, and it might have been ten grand. She still does not possess any of the documents on the list, and I also have no idea how much it might cost her to obtain any of them.
One of the problems is that a chunk of the people who lack IDs are deeply ashamed of that fact and don’t want public attention brought. (Some do, and some have family members who do, so we have some very visible stories, but not everybody fits this profile.) I know somebody who would be an excellent example, except that there’s no published article I can cite. Having been born poor to a single mother in rural Mississippi is something he’s been trying to conceal his entire adult life–having it splashed across the newspaper won’t fly. He’d rather not vote than have the world know about his family.
Look at the article about the Westview Manor residents–none are identified by name, nor are any precise details provided about what exactly they lack. (The fact that they’re a bunch of poor people living on Medicaid in an institution for those with mental health issues might possibly be relevant.) News articles indicate nine of 51 residents had acceptable IDs when the process started; the facility director spent six months very publicly working on it and finally talked (shamed?) the assistant secretary of state into making a personal visit to the facility to sort out the difficulties. How much was spent working on the issue, over those six months and beyond? How do you propose to quantify it?
The articles about Beth Hiller in the local media (e.g., Capital-Journal) don’t mention her even having a granddaughter; they say only that her daughter “would help her mother get an ID” before the next election. Where did you find the information that she does?