Voter ID Laws: Necessary to combat rampant fraud or subtle subjugation of the Democratic demographic

[Bricker]

@Sinaptics

Every year. I walk up, give them my name, which they verify against a list of names, I sign, or they sign (can’t remember) and that’s that.

Never once have they checked an address. (Pennsylvania)
Since you seem sure (and derisive), do you happen to have a cite that shows that checking your address is part of voting? Prior to this years’ ID laws, of course.

How confident are you that the list contains just names, and not addresses?

I can tell you for sure they check addresses in Virginia, because I have been a poll worker in Virginia.

I will look for some kind of cite for Pennsylvania.

[Bricker]

@MOIDALIZE

I don’t know how representative 546 people from Tennessee are of Americans as a whole, but the professor who conducted the poll identified a possible problem:

In other words, they may not have thought about this fully, and their feelings may be influenced by the way the issue has been presented to them.

Now if all you’ve been hearing is that there’s an epidemic of illegally cast votes, and then you find out that these laws can result in eligible voters being turned away at the polls, wouldn’t that be the type of information that might change attitudes?

Absolutely.

But of course, I can’t think of very many issues for which that statement isn’t true: voters may not have thought about the issue fully, and their feelings may be influenced by the way the issue has been presented to them.

So what? I claimed that the voter ID laws enjoyed wide popular support. I have cited evidence in support of that claim.

You seem to have shifted your objection from “Can’t trust Fox News,” to “Can’t trust Rasmussen,” and now are saying, “Well, the voters may change their minds!”

Yes. I concede that for this, as for virtually any issue, the voters may change their minds. That doesn’t change my claim.

[MOIDALIZE]

@Bricker

Absolutely.

But of course, I can’t think of very many issues for which that statement isn’t true: voters may not have thought about the issue fully, and their feelings may be influenced by the way the issue has been presented to them.

So what? I claimed that the voter ID laws enjoyed wide popular support. I have cited evidence in support of that claim.

You seem to have shifted your objection from “Can’t trust Fox News,” to “Can’t trust Rasmussen,” and now are saying, “Well, the voters may change their minds!”

No, what I’m saying is that the manner in which a poll is constructed and presented to people can influence the result. If you’ve unduly influenced the result, you can’t hold up the results of your poll and claim “This is what people think!”

It’s like the various polls regarding Obamacare. Hackish outfits like Rasmussen will construct a poll that shows that a majority do not favor Obamacare, which then gets trumpeted by conservative ideologues to claim that Americans support repeal. But if you actually make the effort to dig deeper, you find the truth is more complex. You find that if you focus solely on healthcare reform, most Americans support reform; that certain aspects of Obamacare are very popular; that if anything, Obamacare didn’t go far enough; and that most Americans don’t believe the entire bill should be repealed. Hell, poll individual provisions of the bill separately. I bet you’d find broad support for everything but the mandate.

Or how about the Rasmussen poll which asked respondents whether they agreed with the statement “It’s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money.” Who is going to disagree with that? How is that an honest way to frame the issue of taxes? I’m betting if you asked those same people if they supported slashing Medicare and SS because “taxpayers are the best judges,” they’d change their tune in a hurry.

So if your poll is asking people questions in ways that make me say “Oh, COME ON!”, and you’re holding up the results of said poll and declaring that Americans hold some ironclad position on an issue, my inclination is to suspect that you have some agenda.

[Bricker]

@MOIDALIZE

No, what I’m saying is that the manner in which a poll is constructed and presented to people can influence the result. If you’ve unduly influenced the result, you can’t hold up the results of your poll and claim “This is what people think!”

It’s like the various polls regarding Obamacare. Hackish outfits like Rasmussen will construct a poll that shows that a majority do not favor Obamacare, which then gets trumpeted by conservative ideologues to claim that Americans support repeal. But if you actually make the effort to dig deeper, you find the truth is more complex. You find that if you focus solely on healthcare reform, most Americans support reform; that certain aspects of Obamacare are very popular; that if anything, Obamacare didn’t go far enough; and that most Americans don’t believe the entire bill should be repealed. Hell, poll individual provisions of the bill separately. I bet you’d find broad support for everything but the mandate.

Or how about the Rasmussen poll which asked respondents whether they agreed with the statement “It’s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money.” Who is going to disagree with that? How is that an honest way to frame the issue of taxes? I’m betting if you asked those same people if they supported slashing Medicare and SS because “taxpayers are the best judges,” they’d change their tune in a hurry.

So if your poll is asking people questions in ways that make me say “Oh, COME ON!”, and you’re holding up the results of said poll and declaring that Americans hold some ironclad position on an issue, my inclination is to suspect that you have some agenda.

Which questions from the Tennessee poll do you find objectionable?

Are you aware of any polls which show a substantial difference on the issue?

[MOIDALIZE]

What does the Tennessee poll have to do with Rasmussen and Fox News?

[MOIDALIZE]

Anyway, I read the Tennessee poll for the hell of it. They asked whether people were aware that a voter ID law was in place, whether their voter ID law was a good idea or bad idea (most seemed to think good idea), then asked whether various forms of ID would be sufficient under the law (which apparently revealed confusion about what types of ID would be valid).

I didn’t feel like they asked leading questions. I like that they asked about the validity of specific types of IDs (drivers license, expired drivers license, student ID, employee ID, military ID). Maybe it spurred the people of Tennessee to think through the practical implications of the law.

But this doesn’t make Rasmussen and Fox News any less full of shit.

[Bricker]

@MOIDALIZE

What does the Tennessee poll have to do with Rasmussen and Fox News?

Nothing, apart from the fact that it’s rules are similar to both the Fox and Rasmussen polls, without the methodological flaws that you identified in Fox and Rasmussen.

But I introduced the Tennessee poll to support my general claim of broad public support for voter ID laws.

[Bricker]

@MOIDALIZE

Anyway, I read the Tennessee poll for the hell of it. They asked whether people were aware that a voter ID law was in place, whether their voter ID law was a good idea or bad idea (most seemed to think good idea), then asked whether various forms of ID would be sufficient under the law (which apparently revealed confusion about what types of ID would be valid).

I didn’t feel like they asked leading questions. I like that they asked about the validity of specific types of IDs (drivers license, expired drivers license, student ID, employee ID, military ID). Maybe it spurred the people of Tennessee to think through the practical implications of the law.

But this doesn’t make Rasmussen and Fox News any less full of shit.

My impulse, since you read the poll, found no leading questions, liked the questions about validity of types of IDs, and failed to identify any objectionable elements, is to conclude you agree it’s basically a valid poll, with valid results? Is that correct?

[John_Mace]

@MOIDALIZE

It’s like the various polls regarding Obamacare. Hackish outfits like Rasmussen will construct a poll that shows that a majority do not favor Obamacare, which then gets trumpeted by conservative ideologues to claim that Americans support repeal. But if you actually make the effort to dig deeper, you find the truth is more complex. You find that if you focus solely on healthcare reform, most Americans support reform; that certain aspects of Obamacare are very popular; that if anything, Obamacare didn’t go far enough; and that most Americans don’t believe the entire bill should be repealed. Hell, poll individual provisions of the bill separately. I bet you’d find broad support for everything but the mandate.

That’s pretty easy to understand. If you ask people if they want a bunch of free stuff, they usually say “yes”. When you tell them how it has to be paid for, they often baulk. So, how can you say they actually support if if they are unwilling to pay for it? (And in this case, most people won’t even have to pay anything more.) If you eliminate the mandate, the costs will have to be born by everyone else. So, in the interest of accurate polling, why are you not concerned that polls asking people if they want free stuff also ask them if they’d still want that stuff if it isn’t free?

Fact is, many polls show that most Americans oppose the HCRA. This is not some vast, right wing conspiracy by FOX and Rasmussen.

[BrainGlutton]

@John_Mace

Fact is, many polls show that most Americans oppose the HCRA. This is not some vast, right wing conspiracy by FOX and Rasmussen.

Of course, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

One consistent finding is that support for the law on all the polls falls short of a majority. All of the surveys also show near monolithic opposition among Republicans. What these well-reported results often miss, however, is that a non-trivial portion of expressed opposition comes from more liberal Americans disappointed that the Affordable Care Act does not go farther.

For example, the CNN/ORC International polls conducted over the past two years have found between 50 and 59 percent saying they are generally opposed to the “bill that makes major changes to the country’s health care system [that] became law in 2010.” However, the same surveys also asked a follow-up question showing that 11 and 14 percent of all Americans oppose the health reform law because they think its approach “is not liberal enough.”

That particular wrinkle – the relatively small but significant number who see critical shortcomings in the law and want it repealed, but want its replacement to do more rather than less – helps explain why poll questions about repealing the law sometimes produce even more divergent results. The Rasmussen Reports’ automated, recorded voice surveys typically find just over 50 percent of likely voters saying they favor a proposal “to repeal the health care bill and stop it from going into effect.” But those polls offer only favor or oppose as answers (and use a potentially confusing format that requires respondents to say they “favor” repeal in order to mean that they “oppose” the law).

Surveys that offer three or more choices to better reflect respondents’ sometimes conflicted views on the subject find far less enthusiasm for complete repeal. For example, the Pew Research Center has simply asked Americans what “Congress should do with the health care law, expand it, leave it as is [or] repeal it?” They found 38 percent choosing repeal, 20 who want to leave it alone and 33 percent favoring an expansion of the law.

[CannyDan]

The whole “popularity of voter ID laws” is a distraction. I’m willing to accept that polls (valid ones as well as bullshit ones) do demonstrate that in most places there is broad public support for such things. However, it also seems clear that public opinion has been influenced, even shaped, by a deliberate scare campaign conducted by one side of the aisle. Claims like “*OMG!! There are more than 180,000 illegal voters in Florida!!!” *are played over and over by conservative media, repeated endlessly by conservative pundits, and used by conservative politicians to create a climate of crisis and emergency. Even non-partisan media is caught up by the storm, reporting the claims because they have become newsworthy in and of themselves, often without investigating or reporting the veracity of said claim. So everyone, conservative or liberal, knows that everyone is talking about the 180,000 illegal voters in Florida. But when this frightening number turns out, on investigation, to be two guys, one of whom is also questionable, there is no widespread retraction of the original claim. No effort is made to tamp down the fire of rhetoric, or alleviate the unnecessary concerns that were raised. The conservative propaganda machine simply hand waves away the evidence, and moves on to the next scary talking point.

Further, it shouldn’t be necessary to Godwinize this thread to make the point that throughout history some truly horrific policies have been implemented under the rationalization that they enjoy broad popular support. When demagogues deliberately distort reality to further their own ends, the public good becomes the loser.

Here we have a case in point. The spate of new voter ID laws confer a partisan advantage, a fact that even a partisan like Bricker admits. The original versions of these laws were even worse, until the unconstitutionality of charging for the ID was made clear. The present versions will definitely pose real problems for those millions of Americans who do not have photo ID. (Cite– PDF!! 21 million Americans don’t have photo ID, and 13 million American adults do not have ready access to citizenship documents. Further, ten percent of voting-age citizens who have current photo ID do not have photo ID with both their current address and their current legal name. These people skew heavily toward the elderly, the young, and ethnic minorities.) While outright disenfranchisement is perhaps debatable, the facts make it clear that Democratic-leaning voters will be affected, and their votes suppressed, in a disproportionate number.

At the same time, there are other measures that could be undertaken to reduce this burden, such as government programs to help citizens clear the hurdles their personal situation may place in the way of obtaining photo ID. The conservative reaction to calls for such action is “Screw ‘em! Er, what I mean is, that costs too much, and you first have to prove that this is a serious problem, and document the numbers of people you claim need help, and run budgets, and we’ll think about it, but you know there’s an election coming up, and we’re gonna be busy, and all that. (So screw ‘em anyway.)”. When advocates for these measures reply “Why should we have to prove there is a deleterious effect? You need to first prove there is actually a voter fraud problem!” the argument becomes circular. Indeed, that seems to be the deliberate intention of the Republican side. The rallying cry is “Rampant voter fraud! Illegals voting for cakes and cookies! Integrity of the election process! Liberals are against fair elections! All they want is to spend money on programs to help illegals vote!”. Which of course is demagoguery. And bullshit.

Again, enshrining partisan advantage into law, even if the excuse is broad popular support, is putting party before country, and harming the country.

[John_Mace]

@BrainGlutton

Of course, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

I don’t have to go past the first sentence to reject it. Did you not see how many polls in the link I gave showed that to be incorrect? But I’m sure someone will be along shortly to chastise you for linking to a biased cite like Huffington Post.

At any rate if you’d like to hide behind the fact that if you muck with the poll questions enough, then you “only” get a plurality in opposition to the HCRA, I guess that’s what one has to do when faced with bad data. When you start getting at least pluralities in support of it, then you might have something to crow about.

Back on topic, I’ve asked this before and can’t remember getting an answer: Is this even an issue in most Western Democracies? That is, how usual is it not to have voter ID laws?

[BobLibDem]

@John_Mace

I don’t have to go past the first sentence to reject it. Did you not see how many polls in the link I gave showed that to be incorrect? But I’m sure someone will be along shortly to chastise you for linking to a biased cite like Huffington Post.

HuffPo<>Fox. The article is perfectly unbiased and used published polls as cites. What’s the problem? HuffPo has cooties?

[John_Mace]

@John_Mace

I don’t have to go past the first sentence to reject it.

Retract that. I misread the first sentence to say that no poll showed a majority in opposition.

Be that as it may, the key missing element from almost all those polls isn’t whether they are asking precisely what free stuff people want and how much of it they want, but whether or not they are willing to pay for it. Any poll that doesn’t address that issue isn’t worth the robocalls it used to collect its data. Asking people if Obama didn’t give them enough free stuff and if they wanted more is laughable as a way of gauging public support.

[MOIDALIZE]

@John_Mace

Retract that. I misread the first sentence to say that no poll showed a majority in opposition.

Be that as it may, the key missing element from almost all those polls isn’t whether they are asking precisely what free stuff people want and how much of it they want, but whether or not they are willing to pay for it. Any poll that doesn’t address that issue isn’t worth the robocalls it used to collect its data. Asking people if Obama didn’t give them enough free stuff and if they wanted more is laughable as a way of gauging public support.

Do you even understand the law? The opposition is not about having to pay for it, the opposition is about being made to buy a product from the private health insurance industry. You think all these comments you’re making prove how responsible and sensible you are, but you’re arguing against a complete strawman. Many of the people responding to the poll probably already have health insurance. Not surprisingly, there’s large support for requiring plan summaries that are easy to understand, the ability to appeal health plan decisions, and not allowing denial of coverage for preexisting conditions. Gee, what unreasonable, tax-and-spend-liberal ideas those are.

I know the primary interest of most posters here is to see their brain droppings typed out on the internet for everyone to deal with, but would it kill people to make an attempt to read what’s being posted? These other posts aren’t just interludes between your brilliant insights.

[John_Mace]

@MOIDALIZE

Do you even understand the law? The opposition is not about having to pay for it, the opposition is about being made to buy a product from the private health insurance industry. You think all these comments you’re making prove how responsible and sensible you are, but you’re arguing against a complete strawman. Many of the people responding to the poll probably already have health insurance. Not surprisingly, there’s large support for requiring plan summaries that are easy to understand, the ability to appeal health plan decisions, and not allowing denial of coverage for preexisting conditions. Gee, what unreasonable, tax-and-spend-liberal ideas those are.

I know the primary interest of most posters here is to see their brain droppings typed out on the internet for everyone to deal with, but would it kill people to make an attempt to read what’s being posted? These other posts aren’t just interludes between your brilliant insights.

Look. Major aspects of the plan fall apart without the individual mandate. If you can’t get people to support the idea that other people, not them, should pay for the free stuff how are you going to get them to support paying for it?

Can you honestly sit there and tell us that you think it’s perfectly valid to say someone supports “x” without knowing how much they are willing to pay for “x”? If we were talking about a completely different system of health care where overall costs would come down, that’s one thing. But that’s not what’s on the table. What’s on the table is a bunch of regulations imposed on insurance companies that is going to raise the overall cost of insurance and the only way to pay for it is to get people to pay more. Either you expand the base to get people to buy it who wouldn’t otherwise buy it, or you raise premiums for everyone.

[BobLibDem]

@John_Mace

Look. Major aspects of the plan fall apart without the individual mandate. If you can’t get people to support the idea that other people, not them, should pay for the free stuff how are you going to get them to support paying for it?

I don’t think you’re giving the opposing side enough credit. Few people think of HCR as “free stuff”. They know full well that the individual mandate means paying premiums. They see the end result is desirable and expanding the pool as a necessary evil.

[MOIDALIZE]

@John_Mace

Look. Major aspects of the plan fall apart without the individual mandate. If you can’t get people to support the idea that other people, not them, should pay for the free stuff how are you going to get them to support paying for it?

Can you honestly sit there and tell us that you think it’s perfectly valid to say someone supports “x” without knowing how much they are willing to pay for “x”? If we were talking about a completely different system of health care where overall costs would come down, that’s one thing. But that’s not what’s on the table. What’s on the table is a bunch of regulations imposed on insurance companies that is going to raise the overall cost of insurance and the only way to pay for it is to get people to pay more. Either you expand the base to get people to buy it who wouldn’t otherwise buy it, or you raise premiums for everyone.

The health insurance industry is incredibly profitable. UnitedHealth Group, the industry leader, booked over $5 billion in net earnings last year, and their CEO made about $42 million in compensation and exercised stock options last year. So when you state, axiomatically, that regulation MUST result in higher premiums, you are parroting the corporate viewpoint. Because given those earnings figures, I think they’ll live.

But once again you fail to see the point. It’s not about having to pay for health insurance, it’s about being forced to buy a product from an industry that people despise. And the reason they’re despised is all the years they spent gouging people on their premiums and denying coverage.

[Bricker]

MOIDILIZE: as to you post #546, I said:

@Bricker

My impulse, since you read the poll, found no leading questions, liked the questions about validity of types of IDs, and failed to identify any objectionable elements, is to conclude you agree it’s basically a valid poll, with valid results? Is that correct?

[Bricker]

@CannyDan

Again, enshrining partisan advantage into law, even if the excuse is broad popular support, is putting party before country, and harming the country.

This entire post boils down to, “Well, the voters are too stupid to know what’s best for the country!” because they’ve been led astray by evil conservatives.

Well, too bad. The system of government in this country is representative democracy. If you can’t convince voters of the truth of your proposition, and the evil conservatives can convince them of the truth of theirs, then it is their policy that will be carried out.

You are welcome, of course, to continue to inveigh furiously against the evil and misleading tactics the conservatives are using to make their case. Perhaps you will convince enough voters to change things.

Good luck with that.