So all this effort and trouble to stop a scenario that almost certainly exists but is one in a million? Would you also support compulsory anal cavity searches at the border because someone could possibly get away with smuggling drugs?
How can we be sure any random person walking around on the street isn’t really a deep cover sleeper spy? I propose mandatory DNA testing of the entire populace and accent analysis and intense interrogation and…
That was not the only response I came up with. That was the last resort, airtight response I came up with after you threw up increasingly absurd objections to my earlier objections.
But apparently the standard is now, “Does anyone think…?”
OK, great. Under that standard, first, I win hands down, because by any measure the majority of the public thinks there are good reasons to ask for Voter ID.
But more to the point: you imagined a scenario in which it was possible to obtain information to show that illegal voting had happened. But it was an absurd scenario, because without a way to get a conviction, no law enforcement agency will spend the time doing that kind of in-depth investigation, and no private entity will have access to Social Security records.
This is hilarious. You tossed out a completely unrealistic scenario for how such voters could be identified, and are now outraged because I managed to come up with an equally unlikely case in which your scenario wouldn’t catch the bad guy.
Make up your mind.
Not true. The point of the photo ID system is to build a framework in which a person can be convicted for the crime if he commits it.
It is not to prevent the crime in the first place, except by the deterrent effect of more likely punishment.
Bull. It isn’t easy. It might be POSSIBLE, for a mythical government agency with unlimited funding and a desire for the truth, no matter what real world results are possible. It’s not “quite easy.”
I don’t agree it’s one in a million. I posit it’s one in 25,000.
So in the vast majority of elections, it makes no difference.
But in Washington State, the governor’s race was decided by 137 votes in 2004.
Under those conditions, one in 25,000 becomes a result-changer.
The answer to your ass question is no. Because the amount of drugs one person can shove up their rectum can’t dramatically change the political landscape.
Here we have a weighing of interests. It’s indeed possible that one sleeper spy could change the country. But the cost of the countermeasures you mention are very high, and the likelihood of that dramatic an effect is low.
In the case of voter ID, however, the cost is not high. It’s a minor inconvenience to a small number of people.
Keeping thousands of people from voting will distort the election much more than your imaginary in-person voter fraudsters.
Look, you’ve already failed utterly to argue your case in the other two threads, why trot it out again?
You think the two might be connected? A Government issued ID card that could be used for access to health care and for access to voting would encourage everyone to have a card.
The only political party that has interest in ‘solving a problem’ is the one that is doing so for political gain. Otherwise there has been no motivation for voter ID. The reason we don’t have universal voter ID is because we can’t get universal political interest in doing so.
If the net effect of voter ID would be to encourage voter ID, the party currently for voter ID now would then be against it. Higher voter turn out hurts them in the polls and they want no part of that. The issue of voter ID only gets brought up to discourage turn out.
I think it should be the goal of any democratic country to encourage as many people in the country as possible to participate in the democratic process as possible. Historically most Americans don’t see it that way.
Realistically I don’t think either party wants a universal card that allows people to show up at ballots. They are committed to a system that encourages or even requires voters decide on a party before they get anywhere near the ballot boxes. What our elected officials want more then anything is more tools to control the outcome of elections so they can guarantee their jobs.
First off, 1 in 25,000 based on what, exactly? Do you have data to back that up, or is this another Great Unsolvable Mystery?
Second off, Voter ID will not stop these people from voting. At best, at it’s absolute best, it provides the presumption of an additional piece of evidence that the person voted, for use in a future criminal case. So you count on the additional step of showing a Drivers Licence being enough to stop these people from voting, when they already have to show up in person, identify themselves to the worker, and sign next to their name/address on the log book.
“Sorry Mr. Citizen, your papers are not in order, you don’t get to vote. On the plus side, there’s might be a non-citizen out there who has the correct paperwork to vote, but this change might make him too scared to vote, so we’ve done a great job today.”
Maybe lawmakers should focus on doing a thorough and considerate review of the voter rolls, during the 3 years pre-election, rather than their current strategy of pushing through a hasty database match 3 months before the election, then shrugging their shoulders when thousands of citizens have to scramble to retain their suffrage.
Look, you’ve already failed in your attempt to position yourself as the arbiter of the validity of my arguments, a fact proven by the continued overwhelming popularity of Voter ID laws with the public.
Why keep announcing, futilely, that you believe I failed, when it’s your arguments that have utterly failed to sway more than a minority of the public?
A gratuitous assertion may be equally gratuitously denied. I hear “One in a million,” and I reply “One in 25,000.” Why am I the only one that suddenly must provide data?
Yes. And how are any of those effective deterrents? All they have to do if later questioned is deny they voted, just like Ramon Cue of Miami.
I don’t know how people survive otherwise. I made a copy of my driver’s license to mail it in for a change of address, so then I drive to town for some errands. Where do I leave my license? In the copier. :smack:
In town, I needed ID to pick up:
One day, one two hour trip; 3 times ID was required. Luckily it’s a small town and an “Don’t worry about it” attitude was given to me for the meds and sticker. One store wouldn’t sell me beer, even though I’m 36 and the legal age is 21. I went to the next store down the road.
How does anyone live in the year 2012 without valid picture ID?
You have been given the data. We have reviewed multiple investigations of the issue. The data give an estimated rate of around .0004% You don’t get to just set that aside and substitute in your own made up number.
OK, Bricker, let’s accept your figure of 1 in 25,000, for the sake of argument. Now tell us: Which is greater, 1 in 25,000, or 1%? Because the latter is the bottom-end estimate of how much damage voter ID laws cause. If a law does more harm than good, would you not agree that that is a bad law, and should not be passed? Or if it is already passed, that it should be repealed?
“Then what” would be that you would then have actual evidence of in-person voter fraud, you know, the thing that they don’t yet have. That’s the whole point of the exercise. The sign-in sheet at the polling place shows that the person living at such-and-such address voted, while the person living at that address, when called, claims not to have. That’s precisely the evidence you’re looking for.
Because you’re the one who wants to change things and make life harder for (some) people trying to comply with the law.
Really, just the first clause should be reason enough for any Conservative.
Did you really intend to argumentum ad populum your side?
Sorry, I left off a 0. So, in actuality, I agree with Bricker’s estimate of voter fraud occurring approximately 1 in 25,000 voters.
No, I don’t agree with this analysis. The 1% bottom-end estimate simply allows people to not vet because they don’t wish to be inconvenienced. I don’t believe we should pander to that.
No, the sign in sheet shows someone claiming to be that person voted. If the person denies it, a signature (which, we assume, was done to deliberately not match actual signature) is not enough evidence to convict.
I’ll wait for you to figure out your error.
Why don’t you apply that same keen detection of logical fallacy to the post I was replying to?
Hold on there Bricker, let’s not paint an inaccurate picture of what happened.
I said:
My post is factual. We know that there are hundreds of thousands or millions of people who do not have the ID currently. We also know that all of them getting the ID before the election, is very unlikely or impossible given the systems in place.
It is also factual that there are next to zero cases of in-person voter fraud. You may pretend that there are more, but that’s what you’d be doing.
The last part of my post is just a friendly suggestion that you, for the sake of your blood-pressure. Feel free to ignore the advice.
There are no logical fallacies in what I said. So when you said to examine my post, you are not offering reasonable advice.
Whereas you, in your post, literally applies an appeal to popularity, presumably since logical arguments for your illogical and partisan position are non-existent.
You said (emphasis mine, to show your logical fallacy):
That’s of course nonsense and purely an attempt to distract from the weakness of your argument in general. As it happens, I have not yet had the opportunity to discuss the issue with the public, and even if I did, misinformation can have a powerful sway.
In response to your post Lightnin’ says:
You have no leg to stand on.
Your gotcha ya kind of fell flaccid. Look right above your posts. Brilliant!
Just a note, Washington has now moved to a vote-by-mail system. So they’ve already side-stepped any issue that voter ID would solve.