Could Voter Suppression Laws Suppress Republican Votes?
Welcome to that magic time of year when political junkies in the media get so frantic for stories they just start rampantly speculating on everything under the sun. This is a yearly contest to see who can come up with this year's "Silly Season" story that everyone else will obsess about for the entire month of August. What will it be this year? Mitt's "dancing horse" at the Olympics (as David Letterman has taken to calling it)? President Obama secretly plotting to (fill in the blank)?
Of course, while all that is going on, there will be serious stories with dramatic consequences in the political arena which will get short shrift (or no shrift at all) in the national media, as usual. One of the biggest of these non-silly stories this year is the trend towards voter suppression laws in states with inordinate amounts of Republicans in their state government. The comic Doonesbury has been brutally pointing this out all this week with a series of strips on a "Jim Crow tour" of America.
I'm not going to get into the main issue here, I should state. Voter suppression laws are a giant step backwards, and there are plenty of other commentaries out there which explain why. Instead, I'd like to focus on one aspect of the laws which everyone seems to be missing: who will be affected, and how this will affect the overall vote.
The targets of these Republican laws are two large demographics which have been voting overwhelmingly Democratic: minorities and young people. Of the citizens in America who do not have state photo identification, these two groups would be disproportionally affected. People who can't afford to take time off from their two jobs to stand in line at the D.M.V. (or simply cannot afford the fees), and young people who live where there is public transportation or for whatever reason have never gotten a driver's license. And college students, who may only have a student identification card -- which (in some of these states) is not enough to prove who you are at the polling station.
But there's another massive group of people who will also be affected by the new laws: the elderly. People who stopped driving years ago, for example. The thing about this group of folks is: they vote. They vote in numbers far outstripping younger American demographics. And, a lot of the time, they vote Republican.
So are the Republicans who have passed these laws actually hurting their own party's chances? I have two answers to that question, both of them unsatisfying: it's too soon to tell, and we may never actually know. It's too soon to tell, because with any new law on voting procedures, you can't accurately predict the outcome until after it happens. A lot of these laws have been passed since the last presidential election, therefore there simply is no data in these states on how voting patterns will change. It's all guesswork. Even after the election happens, we may never know the full answer of the impact of the voter suppression laws, because public opinion polling just isn't subtle enough to tease out such conclusions.
Think about it: how do the pundits all decide that "Issue X" or "Policy Y" is the reason for the election results of that year? Exit polling. And who do exit polls poll? Voters. Who don't they poll? People who didn't vote. Right there, that's a data problem. In attempting to figure out why a certain group of people didn't vote, if you don't question them about it, you're never going to have any realistic data to pore over.
Voter enthusiasm is down across the board from 2008. It usually is, in a re-election year. So it'll be hard to tell why certain demographics didn't turn out. And nearly impossible to accurately figure out how many of them didn't vote because they didn't have an ID, versus because they weren't excited about the candidates, were disillusioned in general about the political system, had to work, forgot to register, or any one of dozens of other reasons.
Which is a very long way of saying that even using figures is quite possibly meaningless and this entire article is nothing but mid-summer speculation on my part. Having said that, let's look at some numbers, anyway.
Figures from the book How Barack Obama Won by NBC's Chuck Todd and Sheldon Gawiser allow us to at least look at the breakdown of the 2008 Obama vote, state by state. Let's take just two states that may be of critical importance this year: Ohio and Florida. Both have voter ID laws, although Ohio's is less strict than Florida's. Each state has passed slightly-different rules for what constitutes acceptable identification, which makes such comparisons even more difficult.
Obama won Ohio by 51.5% to 46.9% -- a gap of 4.6 percentage points. People under 30 comprised 17% of the voting public, and people 65 or older comprised exactly the same amount. But their votes broke down differently. Young people voted for Obama over McCain 61-36 percent, but older people voted for McCain over Obama by only 55-44 percent. If an equal number of each group were disenfranchised by voter suppression, Obama would have lost more votes than McCain. Whether it would have made a difference would depend on how large a group got disenfranchised. The two groups make up 34 percent of Ohio's voters, and the gap was only 4.6 points, so it is an open question.
Florida, being a retirement destination, has different demographics. In 2008, Florida's youth made up 15% of the voters, while the elderly made up 22%. The voting gap is similar to Ohio's as the youth vote went 61-37 for Obama, while the seniors voted 53-45 for McCain. But because the percentages of the total vote for each group are different, the elderly vote would make more of a difference than in Ohio. Even this might not have helped Democrats, though, because 17% of the vote was from minorities -- who went overwhelmingly for Obama (Hispanic vote was 57-42 for Obama, black vote was a whopping 96-4 percent). Now, obviously, there is some overlap in the minority numbers, as you can be both minority and young (or old), but you cannot be both young and old at the same time (not counting the "young at heart," of course). Even with the overlap, though, Obama won Florida by only 2.6 percent. This is a very thin margin, and it is on thin margins that voter suppression may have its intended effect -- suppressing the Democratic vote.
But I'm going to end on an optimistic note for Democrats, today (remember, we're just rampantly speculating, here). Because Democrats can see this obstacle coming. They know full well that they're going to have some hoops to jump through in their "get out the vote" efforts in the states with new laws. So one would like to think there's an army of Democratic loyalists across the land who are avidly working to make sure that every Democratic voter they're counting on in November does indeed have the correct identification and is ready for the new rules at the polls. Outreach efforts to the minority community, to the young folks, and to the senior citizens should already be underway, in a big way. What is called "the ground game" in politics needs extra effort this year, to put it another way. The Democratic Party better realize this, and better already be fielding those armies in this ground game.
But what I wonder is whether the Republican Party is even paying attention. They passed these laws to bar Democrats from voting, after all, so they might be lulled into believing that every voter affected will be a Democrat. This is just not the case. There are a whole lot of older American voters who are in for a big surprise when they are turned away from the ballot box this year. Older Americans generally lean more Republican than the public in general. This means there may be more older Republican voters affected than the party apparatus realizes. If this is the case, the question has to be asked: could voter suppression efforts by Republicans actually wind up suppressing the Republican vote more than the Democratic vote?
Hey, I warned you this was sheer speculation. Make of it what you will.
-- Chris Weigant
Cross-posted at Business Insider
Cross-posted at The Huffington Post
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
"Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign is asking Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to launch an investigation into voter-registration forms that are being sent to Virginia residents and addressed to deceased relatives, children, family pets and others ineligible to vote...."
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-politics/2012/jul/25/13/tdmain01-romney-camp-asks-va-to-probe-voter-forms-ar-2081517/
Okay, I'm voting for her: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/legally-blonde-inspires-new-york-state-senate-candidate-16848815 I mean, like, totally.
"Okay, I'm voting for her:"
Agreed, that's a no-brainer (pun intended)
Interesting article CW. I won't get into the voter ID debate because I believe it's a pretty simple issue and well debated already.
One thing I was wondering about is the 'getting out the vote' ground game. Am I correct in thinking that Florida went even further than most States and even made this more difficult by introducing new tighter regulations on what you're allowed to do with this? There is also the chance this election could be a repeat of the 2000 debacle with Florida being the key vote too, so this is an important issue...
Also I would think Romney, who basically everything he says and does has only one aim - to get himself elected, wouldn't have missed this point. I think a better argument would be that the Democrats 'ground game' and 'get out the vote' game is likely to be considerably better than the Republicans because of many more years of practice. I don't think the Republicans will have no game - this is massively underestimating them - just that their game won't be as good...
One of the biggest of these non-silly stories this year is the trend towards voter suppression laws in states with inordinate amounts of Republicans in their state government.
Your bias is showing. :D
What you call "voter suppression laws" most Americans would call "insuring vote integrity"...
People who can't afford to take time off from their two jobs to stand in line at the D.M.V. (or simply cannot afford the fees), and young people who live where there is public transportation or for whatever reason have never gotten a driver's license.
People who can afford to take time off from work to vote, can take time off from work to get an ID.
For that matter, they HAD to have an ID to get the job to begin with...
Fees are cheap to nothing for IDs, especially senior citizens. Some states don't have any charge for IDs...
I said it before and no one has been able to successfully refute it..
No one can be disenfranchised from voting unless they allow it..
People who use excuses like, "I don't have an ID" or "I can't get a ride" or whatever are likely not inclined to vote anyways...
And considering the dismal offerings voters are being given this election, I am certain people will latch onto ANY excuse not to vote...
Michale.....
Why am I not surprised that Michale is on that side of this argument too!
For what it's worth I support voter ID (not photo ID). I support the idea that voters should be required to have some form of proof that they are who they say they are (like everywhere else in the world); extending this to make it photo ID only is laughable (like 5 places in the world - and all 5 issue photo IDs to voters for free).
If these photo ID laws were truly about voter fraud and integrity then they'd be introduced in the following fashion:
1. Studies to collect data about disenfranchising effects of the law.
2. Proposals put forward to mitigate the disenfranchising impacts determined in (1).
3. ID introduced slowly and timely, ensuring disenfranchising minimised.
4. If cost-benefit analysis in 1-3 shows that the introduction of ID laws will disenfranchise too many voters (or considerably more than commit fraud) the proposals should be dropped.
No.3 always comes to mind when I see States putting forward new voter ID requirements in a Presidential election year. As if making a change to voter requirements couldn't be done in the 3 years prior, let's do it in a Presidential year and no this isn't an attempt to suppress voters - lol. Laughable. It is so laughable that they even go and admit what the real purpose of said laws being enacted in a Presidential election year are:
"Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done"
Mike Turzai, Republican House leader
Also I would think Romney, who basically everything he says and does has only one aim - to get himself elected, wouldn't have missed this point.
Sounds like you're describing Obama moreso than Romney...
:D
Michale.....
Yes, Obama is so unprincipled and willing to say anything to get elected that he has flip-flopped on almost every single issue and regularly goes on about 'how nice the trees' in the State he is visiting are... Oh wait. That's the other guy. :D
Yes, Obama is so unprincipled and willing to say anything to get elected that he has flip-flopped on almost every single issue and regularly goes on about 'how nice the trees' in the State he is visiting are... Oh wait. That's the other guy. :D
Nope, you had it right the first time... :D
Michale......
The difference between you and I, mitchy is that you hate Romney because of his politics.
I hate Obama because he is a lousy leader and a dishonorable person.. Politics doesn't enter into it at all..
Michale
"The difference between you and I, mitchy is that you hate Romney because of his politics.
I hate Obama because he is a lousy leader and a dishonorable person.. Politics doesn't enter into it at all"
I wrote a long response to this but I don't want to derail this discussion. Maybe I'll give it to CW. Let's just say I there is considerably more about Romney that I hate than just his politics. His entire views on how the world works are completely distorted (because of his 'silver spoon' background) and he isn't fit to lace the boots of McCain in terms of personal principles and moral standing.
You only don't like Obama because you don't believe his background is his real background. To say someone who worked as a teacher, church based community service, promoting civil rights and developing nations charities is 'dishonourable' is just because of your own obscure view of his background (which we have discussed more than is necessary).
You only don't like Obama because you don't believe his background is his real background.
Nope, that came later...
To say someone who worked as a teacher, church based community service, promoting civil rights and developing nations charities is 'dishonourable' is just because of your own obscure view of his background
My lovely wife of 30+ years is a teacher...
Strike TWO.... :D
Michale....
Mitchy,
Yer trying to read too much into it and analyze my hatred of Obama in the context of partisan politics.
That's where you are going wrong...
Michale.....
"My lovely wife of 30+ years is a teacher...Strike TWO.... :D"
Hahaha well played!
I have my moments.. :D
Michale
michty,
I wrote a long response to this but I don't want to derail this discussion. Maybe I'll give it to CW.
CW hasn't asked for "long responses" so let's try not to waste his precious time by sending him stuff he hasn't asked for. He's looking for full-fledged articles. I trust you're working on yours!
I know I'm looking forward to reading it ...
Michale -
See some of the comments over at Huffington Post for some personal stories of the problems these laws have created. Maybe they'll open your eyes a bit.
A side benefit -- seems like some seniors who are being forced to jump through hoops are now dedicated to not only jumping through those hoops, but also never voting Republican ever again.
Can you say "backlash"?
:-)
-CW
See some of the comments over at Huffington Post for some personal stories of the problems these laws have created. Maybe they'll open your eyes a bit.
I have no doubt that there are sob stories galore...
Just as I have no doubt that, if minorities voted Republican, we wouldn't be hearing diddley squat about this from the likes of Huffington Post..
Here???
I have no doubt...
HuffPo???
Not in a million years..
I know that sounds cynical, but I think everyone here would acknowledge it as factual....
Michale.....
A side benefit -- seems like some seniors who are being forced to jump through hoops are now dedicated to not only jumping through those hoops, but also never voting Republican ever again.
Can you say "backlash"?
That's fine...
I am an equal opportunity cynic..
If *anyone* doesn't take the time to vote in the proscribed manner, then I guess voting is just not that important to them..
Nobody can disenfranchise ANY voter without tacit approval..
Michale.....
"If *anyone* doesn't take the time to vote in the proscribed manner, then I guess voting is just not that important to them.."
A right is the sovereignty to act without the permission of others
A right is the sovereignty to act without the permission of others
..... in the manner prescribed by law.
If you have a license, you have a "right" to drive your car.... in the manner prescribed by law.
If the law says you must have ID to vote??
Guess what??? You MUST have an ID to vote...
If you are too busy to get an ID, obviously voting is not that important to you..
Michale...
Lol that is amazing. You equated the right to vote with the right to drive a car! Well done.
Lol that is amazing. You equated the right to vote with the right to drive a car! Well done.
yer the one who brought up voting as a generic "right"...
To paraphrase Spiderman...
"With great {rights} come great responsibilities"
There is NO EXCUSE not to have an ID in today's world..
Michale....
I don't see how requiring an ID to vote is going to disenfranchise anyone. What's wrong with requiring proof of identity for something as important as voting. Verifying ID is required to exercise other rights such as purchasing a firearm. To cash a check you need ID, to open a bank account you need ID, the list goes on. If someone has to exercise a little initiative or go the extra mile to make sure they're able to vote, oh well. Black people and women fought for years for the right to vote, marched, protested, even put their lives on the line. But today people don't want the inconvenience of getting a ride to the DMV for an ID card. Sad.
Well said, Flush..
And you can bet that if the voting group that was allegedly disenfranchised predominantly voted Republican, we wouldn't hear a peep from Democrats over this....
Of course, the converse is also true... Republicans would be screaming to the high heavens about voter disenfranchisement..
Michale....
Flush "I don't see how requiring an ID to vote is going to disenfranchise anyone. What's wrong with requiring proof of identity for something as important as voting. Verifying ID is required to exercise other rights such as purchasing a firearm. To cash a check you need ID, to open a bank account you need ID, the list goes on. If someone has to exercise a little initiative or go the extra mile to make sure they're able to vote, oh well. Black people and women fought for years for the right to vote, marched, protested, even put their lives on the line. But today people don't want the inconvenience of getting a ride to the DMV for an ID card. Sad."
Fwiw I agree with you if you are talking about 'Voter ID'.
Me "For what it's worth I support voter ID (not photo ID). I support the idea that voters should be required to have some form of proof that they are who they say they are (like everywhere else in the world); extending this to make it photo ID only is laughable (like 5 places in the world - and all 5 issue photo IDs to voters for free)."
But the rest of your point is the usual stuff I see from people sitting high on their pedestal completely missing the point on this issue.
We are sitting posting in an internet forum. Our life is good. We can't imagine not having internet or a computer even, never mind something as 'basic' (to us) as photo ID.
But reality in America is such that many people don't have a TV (3.3%), bank account (7.7%), cell phone (9%) or access to the internet (22.7%).
And estimates show that 11% of eligible voters don't have photo ID.
(All percentages are quoted from studies I have seen online).
So just because YOU can't imagine how people can go life without a photo ID doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Can you imagine going through life without TV/a bank account/cell phone or internet access? Well guess what - many people do. Get over it.
Disenfranchising people because they are not living the fantastic life, with the many privileges that we have is not a valid argument. It is not how a democratic country should operate. It is a requirement imposed by privileged people who believe 'but getting an ID is so easy because it was easy for me' showing their complete ignorance of how people at the bottom of the ladder are working.
But reality in America is such that many people don't have a TV (3.3%), bank account (7.7%), cell phone (9%) or access to the internet (22.7%).
If a person doesn't have any of those things, then how would they know how to vote??
How would they know WHO to vote for???
(All percentages are quoted from studies I have seen online).
By all means, post it..
Getting an ID *IS* easy here in the US. Often times it's even FREE...
Getting an ID is easier than voting...
There is simply NO EXCUSE to not have an ID in this country.. It's needed in every day life..
Michale....
"Getting an ID *IS* easy here in the US. Often times it's even FREE...
Getting an ID is easier than voting...
There is simply NO EXCUSE to not have an ID in this country.. It's needed in every day life.."
No it is not! You think because YOU need it in YOUR everyday life that everyone must!
You might use TV, internet, cell phone and a bank account daily but MILLIONS of people don't. The same applies to photo ID.
Getting a bank account is free (in some banks) and easy, yet 7.7% of people don't have one.
It is not for YOU to say that they must jump through hoops that, in YOUR privileged world, are easy to jump through to vote. This is not how voting works! Voting is a constitutional right for EVERYONE regardless of your sex, race, gender, wealth, IQ, intelligence, bank account status, if you can drive a car, if you have a TV, if you have a phone and should also be if you have photo ID.
No it is not! You think because YOU need it in YOUR everyday life that everyone must!
Once again, you are completely oblivious to the facts and reality...
If you live in the US you simply cannot survive without any form of ID...
Voting is a constitutional right for EVERYONE regardless of your sex, race, gender, wealth, IQ, intelligence.....
Travel is also a constitutional right..
But you have to have an ID to do it...
Yes and it's also the LAW that only Americans can vote...
So, how do we enforce that law??
By making sure that only Americans vote..
And how do we make sure that only Americans can vote?? By checking IDs..
Let's face it, the ONLY reason the Left doesn't want IDs is so they can cheat in elections...
NO OTHER reason makes any kind of logical sense...
And, as has been PROVEN, it would be ridiculously easy for Democrats TO cheat, steps must be taken to insure the integrity of the election.
That means making sure ONLY American Citizens vote..
THAT means photo ID for all...
If someone is too lazy to get an ID, they are obviously not that much interested in voting anyways...
As an American citizen *I* have the right to be as assured as humanly possible that *MY* vote is not negated by someone else voting illegally...
Michale.....
"If you live in the US you simply cannot survive without any form of ID..."
11% of eligible voters don't have ID. That's just eligible voters too, not the population as a whole. The idea that you 'cannot survive' in the US without idea is complete over the top laughable hyperbole. It is easily disproven as AT LEAST 35 million people do...
"Travel is also a constitutional right..
But you have to have an ID to do it..."
What you talking about!?!?! I almost spat my coffee out.
Last time I looked you didn't need ID to: get on a bus, get on a train, get in a subway car, walk, run, get in a car, ride a horse etc...
"And how do we make sure that only Americans can vote?? By checking IDs..
Let's face it, the ONLY reason the Left doesn't want IDs is so they can cheat in elections...
NO OTHER reason makes any kind of logical sense...
"
Nope, I have stated time again I am 10000% in favour of voter ID. Voter ID IS NOT PHOTO ID. It works well in America already and all over the world, where levels of fraud in a country that has voter ID are less than 0.001%.
"And, as has been PROVEN, it would be ridiculously easy for Democrats TO cheat, steps must be taken to insure the integrity of the election."
Nope, there is literally no study that has shown people can cheat with voter ID laws in place. Saying this has been proven a complete lie.
And there is literally no study to prove that such laws are necessary - the small amount of 0.00002% voter fraud that exists would be far outweighed by the masses of people you prevent from voting by forcing them to have to have photo ID to vote.
"That means making sure ONLY American Citizens vote..
THAT means photo ID for all..."
Nope. There are much easier ways and normal voter ID methods that have been in place for years and are in place all over the world to ensure the integrity of voting is maintained without requiring photo ID.
"If someone is too lazy to get an ID, they are obviously not that much interested in voting anyways..."
Your level of interest just like your IQ, intelligence, hair colour, race, sex etc etc has absolutely no say in whether or not you should have the right to vote.
"As an American citizen *I* have the right to be as assured as humanly possible that *MY* vote is not negated by someone else voting illegally..."
Yup, voter ID should do this. And, as an American citizen you have a right to vote without discrimination on any basis - such as discriminating against people who do not have a photo ID.
11% of eligible voters don't have ID. That's just eligible voters too, not the population as a whole. The idea that you 'cannot survive' in the US without idea is complete over the top laughable hyperbole. It is easily disproven as AT LEAST 35 million people do...
You still have yet to cite your source for this..
Last time I looked you didn't need ID to: get on a bus, get on a train, get in a subway car, walk, run, get in a car, ride a horse etc...
Walking to the corner store or taking a cross town bus is not "travel"...
To get on a train, plane or bus you have to have a ticket. And, to get a ticket, you have to have an ID...
Nope, there is literally no study that has shown people can cheat with voter ID laws in place. Saying this has been proven a complete lie.
A guy walked into a voting station and asked for Eric Holder's voter card. The guy was white. Eric Holder is the Attorney General of the frakin' United States and is black. This guy COULD have voted as Eric Holder and no one would have known..
It's ridiculously easy to commit voter fraud w/o an ID system in place.
Nope. There are much easier ways and normal voter ID methods that have been in place for years and are in place all over the world to ensure the integrity of voting is maintained without requiring photo ID.
We have well established with your gun control fantasies that "all over the world" is not the US..
Your level of interest just like your IQ, intelligence, hair colour, race, sex etc etc has absolutely no say in whether or not you should have the right to vote.
We're not talking about IQ race sex whatever. We're talking about American citizens only being allowed to vote in American elections. Photo ID required. That's the law in the majority of the states. It SHOULD be the law in ALL states.
Yup, voter ID should do this. And, as an American citizen you have a right to vote without discrimination on any basis - such as discriminating against people who do not have a photo ID.
Using your reasoning, a person should be able to fly w/o a photo ID. After all, if one can't fly without a photo ID, that's discrimination.
Your argument has no cites, no logic and no merit..
A person in the US simply cannot survive without a photo ID..
A photo ID is required in most states to vote.
That's the law. Deal with it..
Michale.....
And I noticed you did not address the issue of American Citizens being disenfranchised by having their LEGAL votes negated by illegal votes..
How come?? :D
Michale.....
Basically what you are saying is that it is better to have 1000 illegal voters vote rather than to have ONE legal voter not being allowed to vote...
That's preposterous!!
That's as ridiculous as saying better one guilty man go free rather than 1000 innocent men be detained..
Once again, we're talking about the REAL world here, not some koom-bye-yaa fantasy Utopia...
Michale......
Sigh. I'll give you one last post. You can reply if you want but I'm done because you have added absolutely nothing to the debate in your last post, just repeated nonsense and made blatantly false statements...
"You still have yet to cite your source for this.."
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=number+of+people+in+america+without+photo+ID
:)
"To get on a train, plane or bus you have to have a ticket. And, to get a ticket, you have to have an ID..."
100% wrong. Complete nonsense. You know I've been to America and travelled on buses right? And never been ID'd once? I'd love to know how you think children without ID get on buses/trains??
Heck I was even on a camper-van for 4000 miles through the 5 large west coast states without showing my ID once (except in bars ;))...
"It's ridiculously easy to commit voter fraud w/o an ID system in place."
100% wrong. If it was so ridiculously easy voter fraud rates would be higher than 0.0002%.
"We have well established with your gun control fantasies that "all over the world" is not the US.."
Billions of people vote every year, most using voter (not photo ID). Fraud levels are still about 0.0001%. So yes these statistics are relevant imo.
"That's the law in the majority of the states. It SHOULD be the law in ALL states."
100% wrong. Try around 12 States, maybe only 6 with strict photo ID.
"Using your reasoning, a person should be able to fly w/o a photo ID. After all, if one can't fly without a photo ID, that's discrimination."
Photo ID for flying has 2 purposes: security and border control. Since going to a voting booth is not entering another country (so not border control), nor is there a danger of anyone hijacking a voting booth and flying it into a building neither of these 2 purposes applies. :)
"A person in the US simply cannot survive without a photo ID..
A photo ID is required in most states to vote."
100% wrong (way more than 11% do).
100% wrong (about 15% have strict photo ID)
"And I noticed you did not address the issue of American Citizens being disenfranchised by having their LEGAL votes negated by illegal votes..
How come?? :D"
100% wrong. Lol. Read the last 2 paragraphs of my last post.
"Basically what you are saying is that it is better to have 1000 illegal voters vote rather than to have ONE legal voter not being allowed to vote...That's as ridiculous as saying better one guilty man go free rather than 1000 innocent men be detained.."
100% wrong. Didn't say anything evenly remotely close to this lol. I mean come on this is just getting silly and making stuff up.
Michale - even by your standards those posts were a bunch of nonsense. On guns at least you had done some research and had some knowledge, so the debate was decent. On this I think you have not researched this issue at all and this is why you keep making blatantly false statements. I suggest you have a look around...
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=number+of+people+in+america+without+photo+ID
:)
That was actually quite funny! :D
But we're not allowed to post GOOGLE links. If you have a link that you read that specific stat, post it..
Otherwise, I won't accept it..
100% wrong. Complete nonsense. You know I've been to America and travelled on buses right? And never been ID'd once? I'd love to know how you think children without ID get on buses/trains??
Again, you are not talking about traveling. You are talking about going down to the corner store or across town to the park.. THAT is not "traveling"..
To get on a bus or a train or an airplane, you must have photo ID and one other piece of ID.
This is fact. If you refuse to accept this, then it's clear you won't accept anything..
100% wrong. If it was so ridiculously easy voter fraud rates would be higher than 0.0002%.
We don't know it's not higher than that..
We DO know that it's ridiculously easy to commit voter fraud in places that don't require photo ID.
townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/04/09/voter_fraud_someone_uses_eric_holders_ballot_in_washington_dc
That's just one of dozens of examples I can show you...
Photo ID for flying has 2 purposes: security and border control. Since going to a voting booth is not entering another country (so not border control), nor is there a danger of anyone hijacking a voting booth and flying it into a building neither of these 2 purposes applies. :)
Which doesn't negate the fact that PHOTO ID IS REQUIRED... By YOUR argument, such a requirement discriminates against those without Photo ID..
But we both know that somethings are MORE important than some luser who is too lazy to get an ID..
Such as the integrity of the vote..
100% wrong (way more than 11% do).
100% wrong (about 15% have strict photo ID)
And you have YET to provide the evidence to support this claim.
Therefore, the claim is invalid...
Michale - even by your standards those posts were a bunch of nonsense. On guns at least you had done some research and had some knowledge, so the debate was decent. On this I think you have not researched this issue at all and this is why you keep making blatantly false statements. I suggest you have a look around...
Childish insults do not change the facts..
The integrity of an election is more important than some lusers who are too lazy to get IDs and who whine and cry and bitch and moan to further some partisan agenda.....
Michale....
Basically, your argument is that a photo ID requirement is discrimination...
Yet, an American must have a photo ID for practically every action said normal American takes during any given day..
Getting on an airplane, for example.
OK, so NOW your argument is, if security concerns trump discrimination concerns, opting for the security concerns is OK...
And we agree on that. We agree that sometimes other considerations would outweigh any discrimination considerations...
So, we are 1000% in agreement on that..
So, NOW the argument becomes something else..
NOW the argument is "does the alleged integrity of the vote considerations outweigh the alleged discrimination considerations"
Now, it your OPINION that it doesn't. It's your OPINION that the discrimination issue is more important than the integrity of the vote.
That's your OPINION and I respect that..
However, I submit that, since you are not an American citizen and you don't VOTE in our elections, your opinion is not as relevant as, say the opinion of an American citizen who DOES vote in American elections and who IS concerned about the integrity of the vote...
So, while I respect your opinion and your right to have it, it doesn't matter one IOTA what anyone who DOESN'T vote in an American election thinks...
If we, as Americans, want to have photo ID requirements as a way to protect the integrity of the vote, then we damn well will have them...
Michale.....
Michale,
I have made it abundantly clear that I care about the integrity of the vote, you have missed this point several times and keep repeating otherwise. Your assertion is false. Voter ID is totally fine with me as it ALREADY secures the integrity of the vote. Photo ID is unnecessary and risks stopping American citizens from voting who are otherwise perfectly entitled to.
And no, it is not my 'opinion' that the integrity of the vote is fine with existing voter ID. It is absolute fact. Current levels of fraud are around 0.0002% - fact. There is nothing to fix, it is working fine. Voter ID is used in like 99% of democratic countries, with fraud issues that are a fraction of a percentage of the vote - fact.
In Pennsylvania where photo ID is being challenged in court, here is the statement that the STATE (who are PRO photo ID) made in their filings:
"there have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states."
So you are in favour of disenfranchising MILLIONS of people UNNECESSARILY to fix a 'problem' that DOESN'T EXIST and is already well addressed with voter ID (which doesn't disenfranchise millions of people).
That is my argument. It has nothing to do with being an American citizen, how accessible photo ID is, security, getting on an airplane. It is perfectly simple - disenfranchising 35 million people to stop voter fraud of 0 million people would be one of the least democratic and most discriminatory things ever done by any Western democracy.
That's my last post, I won't be opening this thread anymore. Good discussing with you, I hope you have taken something - I certainly have. I actually didn't realise (till I did the research) how few Americans have TV/internet/ID/phones. Quite surprising and it goes to show how much I live in a bubble completely apart from the real problems of society...
That is my argument. It has nothing to do with being an American citizen, how accessible photo ID is, security, getting on an airplane. It is perfectly simple - disenfranchising 35 million people to stop voter fraud of 0 million people would be one of the least democratic and most discriminatory things ever done by any Western democracy.
That's your opinion and I respect that.
I just don't happen to agree with it..
And I have the facts on my side..
Good discussion.. :D
Michale.....