Your side is the one saying the problem exists. Do you have any evidence that 110,000 illegal aliens voted?
So your argument is since our side has no cite then we should accept your side as correct?
In nine year’s time what ID will you accept from a college student whom the Supreme Court has said may vote in the state of their college? Many of the current laws specifically forbid college IDs. What in state ID do you think a college student has or should have to vote? What ID should a person have who moves into the state two days before the registration deadline? Do they get an additional nine years?
Ad BTW my mother who was born in 1921 is one of those who does not have a birth certificate, though she now does have many forms of ID.
If the US issued national identity cards, I’d say go for it, probably, but the current state-by-state system seems like a mess.
The non-voter ID crowd keeps asking for cites as to the number of illegal votes cast. The problem is there is no study that can give those numbers. One way would be to call everyone who voted according to the rolls and ask did they really vote or have people prove their identity after they sign the rolls. I am not aware of any study that does this and even if they did, I think the methodology would have some serious flaws. One possibility is to look at provisional ballots. When I was disenfranchised one year having discovered I had apparently voted earlier that day (but I guess I wasn’t disenfranchised by the other side’s definition) I had to cast a provisional ballot which incidentally was not counted given the precinct’s rule that I had already voted and therefore my provisional was a duplicate. Now there are many reasons for casting a provisional like you are at the wrong poll or you are registered but not in their book. Also, this method would miss those whose IDs were taken but they themselves did not vote or they voted by absentee. If (and it is a big if) we can look at provisional votes as an indicator of the magnitude of voter ID fraud. In 2012, almost 8,865 (1.4%) provisional votes were discarded due to being a duplicate vote. Add to this the 4,717 (1.8%) absentee votes discarded for having voted in person. For the sake of discussion, let’s assume that these represent the number of people who voted fradulently although an insignificant number may be due to honest error. Thus we arrive at 13,582 fraudulent votes that could have been stopped by voter ID. But I think if we look at this as a sample, we can account for fraudulent votes when the real voter did not vote. This data would indicate about 1.5% of the votes are fraudulent and out of the 131,590,825 votes cast in that election that means about 200,000 were made by people stealing voter identity.
So those of you that claim that our position is invalid because we don’t have the numbers to back up our claim, how would YOU design a research study that would ascertain how many people use other people’s identities to to vote. As of now, the best estimate we have by a non-partisan survey would be 200,000 that could have been stopped by voter ID. If you have better data I’d love to see it.
You need to look up, “Fallacies: Begging the Question”.
Yeesh!
So what you are tacitly saying is that procedures are already in place to detect and discard duplicate votes. You therefore can’t use those same numbers in a claim that voter ID is necessary to prevent those votes from counting. Additionally, if those duplicates were discarded, then the number of actual fraudulent votes is zero.
What’s needed for your case is to assume that many more duplicate votes are not caught, which a voter ID system could eliminate. We don’t know whether that is true or not. That doesn’t matter. To my knowledge no voter ID system in place has been instituted to deal with this as a problem. Every one is instituted on the premise that fraudulent and ineligible voters are flooding the system in systematic collusion to game the system, not that accidents happen. We additionally don’t know how any system you are advocating for would even address the current inadequacies or inefficiencies. Voter ID just would magically create perfection.
Those warning against current voter ID systems are asking for evidence that these would create more good than bad, i.e. prevent more currently undetected fraudulent votes from going through than they would prevent legitimate voters from voting. This worry stems from good evidence that one party is proposing these to create more bad than good. It’s that existing evidence - backed by several court decisions - that is the concern. Bluntly put, the concern is that the reality of gaming the system by one side is being countered by false accusations of gaming the system by the other side.
There has been in this thread much support for a neutral, unbiased, ungamed system. Counter that with evidence that today’s reality matches that ideal in any conceivable way. Nothing else matters.
No, we want some evidence, ANY evidence, that there is in fact illegal voting going on in any kind of numbers sufficient to outweigh those disenfranchised. I don’t need exact numbers, but give me some proof that there actually have been illegal votes cast. Surely if it is a significant problem, SOMEBODY has been arrested or prosecuted, somewhere at sometime. Surely the real John Doe and the fake pretending to be him have shown up at the same place at the same time at least once. Surely a poll worker has challenged a voter’s legitimacy and been proven right. Surely?
The vote fraud prosecutions I’ve seen have all been something different, something that voter ID would not have caught anyway. I’ve seen prosecutions where the same person voted in two different precincts (even different states), but they had legitimate ID in both places. I’ve seen cases where somebody voted absentee and then tried to vote in person. I’ve seen cases where a spouse or parent cast an absentee ballot for someone else. But I’ve never seen a prosecution in a case where in-person voter ID would have made any difference at all. Have you?
Yes, you were disenfranchised. Were you disenfranchised by an illegal vote, or by a poll worker marking the wrong line in the book? Any evidence one way or the other?
Here in my present precinct, for example, the voter stretches across a table and scribbles their signature next to their name in the book. The poll book faces the worker, not the voter, so you are always signing upside down, and the awkward angle means my signature is even less readable than usual. The only way they know who has already voted is whose name has a scribble next to it. If either the poll worker or the voter gets confused or bobbles which line is which, well, good luck figuring it out. (And the photo ID requirements in this state have not changed this process one whit.)
Why would we assume that? What leads you to conclude that honest error is an “insignificant” factor? Without a firm basis for these assumptions, you have no idea whether voter ID would have made any difference at all.
What flaws? I’m not saying that the wouldn’t be any slop in the answers, but a post-vote survey of registered voters that includes “Did you vote on Nov. 4 of this year?” is likely to shake out, at a minimum, errors in the voting logs, illegal voters, and whatever number of voter impersonations happened that year.
The non-Voter ID crowd (or, me at least) is asking for this because we know the results would support the idea that there is no voter impersonation problem in this country, and no reason to implement a restrictive set of rules to protect us from it. Frankly, the fact that the pro Voter ID crowd hasn’t asked for this tells me that they don’t actually care about the menace of voter impersonation, because they don’t care to understand anything about it.
I will also guarantee that nobody from the non-Voter ID crowd would raise an eyebrow at the idea of a program to achieve 100% ID coverage.
How? Since if ID is not required, then how can a poll worker require an illegal voter to show ID. That is the issue I raised is that there are no studies that ascertain if duplicate votes were because of impersonation. Oh and I did give proof unless you think I’m lying.
Give me some credit for brains. I thought it may have been a wrong line too but nope, the signature was my RL name which is distinctive enough that there was no chance of error. As for prosecution? HA! Forst of all, how do you find the person who took my vote and second even after showing my ID AND voter registration card showing I am that guy and I’m in the right place, the poll worker didn’t care and handed me a provisional that was thrown out as a duplicate (I checked the rules) and the vote in the poll counts (because it would be impossible to throw out).
By the same assumption you side makes that this type of voter fraud is insignificant.
Let’s assume that Saint Cad’s story is true and that someone impersonated him at the polls. That someone took one hell of a chance in doing it- suppose the poll worker had known the real Saint Cad? The impersonator would be facing felony charges. Who risks such a thing in order to cast an illegitimate ballot and have a miniscule effect on the election? Not very many. For every illegitimate ballot that would be thwarted by voter ID there are tens of thousands of legitimate votes that would be suppressed. Those tens of thousands would make a big difference in the outcome, which of course is what the issue is all about.
Mods, I voted erroneously in the poll – how do I change it?
Our side is saying the situation is working as it is. If you’re claiming we need to change things because of a problem, then you need to show the problem exists and how big it is. The burden of proof’s on you because you’re the side that’s making a claim.
Maybe this stupid law is really about “job creating”! As in, someone will spring up with a business creating fake voter ID’s. In this day and age it would be pretty simple, don’t ya think?
Look at is as creating employment, those fake IDs aren’t going to make and sell themselves. And those profiting will be spending that money in their communities, so yeah trickle down commerce! Plus, more and more people will be required to assess all voter IDs to stomp out fakes.
Well, I think you can see how you’re all hurting America’s economic comeback, keeping people from gainful employment and depriving “job creators”!
Why do you hate America?
I realize this thread is far beyond rescue by this point, but again, the point of this thread isn’t to debate the merits or demerits of voter ID - we’ve had exhaustive discussion about that.
It’s a practical one; whether giving 9 years’ notice would stop many voters from saying they could not gather the time or resources to comply.
I guess I just don’t understand why voter ID is a problem, but requiring ID is not a problem in so many other aspects of life. Why is voting special? Why does the honor system work here, but nowhere else? (Unless you’d like to argue that trained graphologists are assessing a statistically significant portion of the signatures.) I’ve had to show ID to accept employment. That seems a bit more fundamental to daily life than voting.
Why do we want to enable the truly poor to continue their marginal existence without the burden of having identification documents? Why not help them get the documents which they might need, instead? (And as far as I can tell, neither side is proposing to actually help the poor. Democrats want them to stay poor and wild and free, while Republicans want them available as surpluss labor until they conveniently die young.)
The usual argument is that “voting is a right.” But the same goes for firearm ownership, and I’m sure we all want people to provide ID when buying guns.
In my state, even before the voter ID law passed, a poll worker had the ability to challenge a voter’s eligibility. Under the old rules, though, evidence of eligibility could include not just current government-issued photo-bearing ID but also documents such as bank statements and utility bills and paychecks. (The evidence did not have to be provided on the spot; the voter could cast a provisional ballot and then mail or deliver the documents before the canvass.) Similar laws existed in many states; surely in all of the decades these have been on the books a poll worker challenged somebody at some point and was proven correct?
And no, you did not give proof of “illegal voting going on in any kind of numbers sufficient to outweigh those disenfranchised,” which is what I asked for.
If somebody went into the polling place and signed your name, then they obviously had no fear of being challenged, even under the old rules. That suggests to me a couple of possibilities you may not have considered: either they knew they would not be challenged (i.e., the poll workers were in on the deal) or they knew they could survive a challenge (i.e., they had photo-bearing ID in your name). In either case, what would a voter ID requirement have accomplished?
We assume in-person voter fraud is insignificant because no evidence has been presented otherwise. You assume votes being thrown out as duplicates indicates illegal voting even though there is evidence of mistakes and irregularities not involving a second person. (I noted, for example, that I have seen reports of prosecutions for double-voting when there was no question whatsoever that it was the same person casting an absentee ballot and then voting in-person. For example, the state of Ohio referred 135 cases of voter fraud to prosecutors after the 2012 general election; the Secretary of State noted that “most involved efforts to double vote … some involved voting in two precincts while others involved requesting absentee ballots and then attempting to vote in person on election day.” How many of the 13,582 duplicate votes you cited are one person trying to vote twice? Any idea?)
You know what, I think you might have won the thread.
You have to prove citizenship or legal residence to jet ANY job in the United States. I’m also required to have photo ID. Does this then violate a fundamental right to work? Only difference is it is an 8th Amendment right not a 1st Amendment one.
I can ask this as many times as you miss he point. Why do you persist in posting as if the issue were voter ID rather than the implementation of voter ID?
In the first place, not everyone is getting a job. If you already have a job, there’s no law that says you have to re-prove your eligibility every however-often-your-jurisdiction-holds elections. If you’ve held the same job since before 1986, you never had to prove anything; the requirements since that date have varied over time. If you are retired, or disabled, you’re not out trying to get a job. (And the elderly and disabled are among the groups most likely to lack ID.) Then of course there’s self-employment in all of its various permutations.
In the second place, how do you figure the 8th amendment states or implies a fundamental right to work?