# Voter ID Laws: Necessary to combat rampant fraud or subtle subjugation of the Democratic demographic **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 24, 2012, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-laws-necessary-to-combat-rampant-fraud-or-subtle-subjugation-of-the-democratic-demographic/622971 "2012-05-24T17:25:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 40
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-laws-necessary-to-combat-rampant-fraud-or-subtle-subjugation-of-the-democratic-demographic/622971/781 "2012-08-20T14:26:57Z")
You’re missing the point. Which is, “Fox News is less serious and less relevant journalistically than a comic on a fake news program.” ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-laws-necessary-to-combat-rampant-fraud-or-subtle-subjugation-of-the-democratic-demographic/622971/782 "2012-08-20T14:40:24Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > You’re missing the point. Which is, “Fox News is less serious and less relevant journalistically than a comic on **a fake news program**.” Then you agree “with” Jon Stewart that Jon Stewart is not a journalist. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-laws-necessary-to-combat-rampant-fraud-or-subtle-subjugation-of-the-democratic-demographic/622971/783 "2012-08-20T14:43:42Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Then you agree “with” Jon Stewart that Jon Stewart is not a journalist. I agree Jon Stewart is no more of a journalist than anyone on Fox News. And no less. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-laws-necessary-to-combat-rampant-fraud-or-subtle-subjugation-of-the-democratic-demographic/622971/784 "2012-08-20T14:49:07Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Then you agree “with” Jon Stewart that Jon Stewart is not a journalist. Of course. When did he ever say he was? Now: Do you agree that he’s \*still \*more credible and a more serious journalist than anyone you’ll find on Fox News? ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-laws-necessary-to-combat-rampant-fraud-or-subtle-subjugation-of-the-democratic-demographic/622971/785 "2012-08-20T16:03:57Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Of course. When did he ever say he was? > > Now: Do you agree that he’s \*still \*more credible and a more serious journalist than anyone you’ll find on Fox News? Jon Stewart says he is “not” a journalist. Why should I believe that he “is” a journalist? He has a dozen or more writers who write comedy routines and Stewart plays the straight man in the comedy sketches. You can’t sue the Daily Show or Stewart for slander or libel. They can’t be held legally responsible for any lies they tell about anyone. It’s comedy. It’s a joke. Maybe it wasn’t funny but it was still just a joke. Nothing personal was intended. Anyone who continues to refer to Jon Stewart as a serious journalist is gravely mistaken. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-laws-necessary-to-combat-rampant-fraud-or-subtle-subjugation-of-the-democratic-demographic/622971/786 "2012-08-20T16:56:32Z")
Who ever _did_? You seem to have misread the question. ---
**Author:** ![Sinaptics](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Sinaptics](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaptics)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-laws-necessary-to-combat-rampant-fraud-or-subtle-subjugation-of-the-democratic-demographic/622971/787 "2012-08-20T18:10:49Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Who ever _did_? > > You seem to have misread the question. Misread…dodging…whichever. No Jon Steward is not a journalist. Yes, they can be sued for libel or slander. Yes, viewers who get the majority of their news from the Daily Show are more informed than those who get the majority of their news from Fox News. In fact, the most recent study (The one that says Fox News viewers are worse informed than people who don’t watch any news) actually singled out the Daily Show. > [@](#): > > Cassino also praised Jon Stewart and “The Daily Show” for being an informative program. People who watched “The Daily Show” were 12 points more likely to identify the Occupy protesters as Democrats. Cassino said: > > ``` > “Jon Stewart has not spent a lot of time on some of these issues. But the results show that when he does talk about something, his viewers pick up a lot more information than they would from other news sources.” > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-laws-necessary-to-combat-rampant-fraud-or-subtle-subjugation-of-the-democratic-demographic/622971/788 "2012-08-20T18:29:12Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Jon Stewart says he is “not” a journalist. Are you under the impression that you have to be designated a journalist before you’re allowed to say true things? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-laws-necessary-to-combat-rampant-fraud-or-subtle-subjugation-of-the-democratic-demographic/622971/789 "2012-08-20T20:14:00Z")
Another way to [del]increase[/del] decrease voter turnout is to limit or do away with early voting. The Republican Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted is attempting to limit early voting - specifically in urban areas, and going so far as to remove Democratic board members who dare defy his plan by voting against it. > [@](#): > > Why do Ohio Republicans suddenly feel so strongly about limiting early voting hours in Democratic counties? Franklin County (Columbus) GOP Chair Doug Preisse gave a surprisingly blunt answer to the [Columbus Dispatch](http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/08/19/fight-over-poll-hours-isnt-just-political.html) on Sunday: “I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban—read African-American—voter-turnout machine.” Preisse is not some rogue operative but the chairman of the Republican Party in Ohio’s second-largest county and a close adviser to Ohio Governor John Kasich. > > Preisse said publicly what many Republicans believe privately—keeping turnout down among Obama supporters is the best way for the GOP to win the 2012 election. That’s why, since the 2010 election, Republicans have devoted so much energy to voter-suppression efforts like limiting early voting hours, restricting voter registration drives, passing voter ID laws, disenfranchising ex-felons and purging the voter rolls. > > Cutbacks to early voting disproportionately disenfranchise African-American voters in Ohio. African-Americans comprise 21 percent of the population in Franklin and Montgomery counties and 28 percent in Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County but accounted for 31 percent, 52 percent and 56 percent of early voters in the respective counties in 2008. (Nearly half of early voting in Franklin County in 2008 did so on nights or weekends.) > > Now it’ll be harder for voters across Ohio, particularly in the most populous, heavily Democratic cities, to find a convenient time to vote before Election Day in order to avoid the long lines that plagued the state in 2004 and may have cost John Kerry the election. “In the hours and days now eliminated by legislative and Sec. of State restrictions, an estimated 197,000 Early In-Person votes were cast, constituting about 3.4% of all votes cast statewide in 2008,” according to a new report by Norman Robbins, research director for Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates. “This is very significant in Ohio where major elections have often been decided by a 2% margin of victory.” > > Republicans were for reforms like early voting until Democrats started using them. “It just so happened that [2008] was the first time that early voting had been used in large numbers to mobilize African American and Latino voters," Wendy Weiser, director of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told the Huffington Post. A federal court ruled on Thursday that early voting cutbacks in Florida—where blacks outnumbered whites by two to one among early voters in 2008—violated the Voting Rights Act. As Doug Preisse admitted on Sunday, Republicans are doing everything in their power to make sure 2012 isn’t a repeat of 2008. > > [The Nation](http://www.thenation.com/blog/169454/ohio-gop-admits-early-voting-cutbacks-are-racially-motivated#) So there are two prominent Republican officials in swing states publicly admitting that their efforts are not to protect election integrity, voter confidence or other hand-waving nonsense. Here’s another Republican official admitting what **Bricker** and others here will not: that these changes are purely about voter suppression that specifically targets likely Democratic voters. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-laws-necessary-to-combat-rampant-fraud-or-subtle-subjugation-of-the-democratic-demographic/622971/790 "2012-08-20T20:18:15Z")
I suggest that those debating whether Jon Stewart is a legitimate citation in political matters start a new thread. That said, [Jon Stewart did weigh in on this issue](http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/08/ohio-secretary-of-state-jon-husted-busted-jon-stewart/) for those who care. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-laws-necessary-to-combat-rampant-fraud-or-subtle-subjugation-of-the-democratic-demographic/622971/791 "2012-08-20T20:25:27Z")
> [@Sinaptics](#): > > In fact, the most recent study (The one that says Fox News viewers are worse informed than people who don’t watch any news) actually singled out the Daily Show. Still, it isn’t necessarily true that watching Fox \*makes \*you uninformed. Rather, it’s that they market to a target demographic, one that includes intelligence and curiosity levels. They use an approach that lets the intellectually lazy feel they actually \*are \*informed, that the “lamestream media” watchers are not, and that they are therefore actually smarter - and they didn’t have to break a sweat to get that self-righteous feeling; they actually had it validated for them. But then, they’re \*still \*less credible as a news source than a satire show on a cable comedy channel. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-laws-necessary-to-combat-rampant-fraud-or-subtle-subjugation-of-the-democratic-demographic/622971/792 "2012-08-20T20:27:48Z")
(Though if someone did start the thread as to whether Jon Stewart was a legitimate cite, I would say that discrediting any citation because of his or her credentials and not on the basis of their position - especially when the person also presents evidence themselves - would be an logical fallacy. Maybe [this one](http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/personal-attack.html)?) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-laws-necessary-to-combat-rampant-fraud-or-subtle-subjugation-of-the-democratic-demographic/622971.md?page=39)