We don't need no stinkin IDs

[Hiccup]

At least not to vote.

I don't get it.

The Democrat says such requirements disenfranchise minorities, the poor, women, the elderly and young people.

Besides a photo ID, how else do you prove that you are an American citizen?

[Chesspieceface]

You left out:

He calls photo IDs a modern-day poll tax.

I've been under the impression that most countries in the world expect their citizens and visitors to carry some form of positive personal identification on their person at all times. And how it possibly be disenfranchising women and minorities is beyond me... the impoverished maybe in some minor way... but still... sounds like someone just wants their name in the paper on record as being super liberal.

[AWS260]

Here's a succinct overview of the photo-ID-as-poll-tax argument.

Take Wisconsin, where the Democratic governor three times vetoed photo ID bills passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature. According to one study, more than 80% of Wisconsin residents have a driver's license. But among African American men aged 18 to 24, only 22% have a valid license. Other groups less likely to have photo ID include Latinos, college students and the elderly.

To combat the discrimination argument, some states have agreed to make ID cards free. Yet voters still must pay for the documents needed to get the ID, such as birth certificates. Even more significant is the burden on voters' time, disproportionately borne by poorer voters who don't own a car. How many of them will expend the time and money to collect the required documents and then wait in line at the state motor vehicle office, only to face the prospect of yet another line when they go to vote? A few surely will, but many will not.

[Mr. Sparkle]

The poor and minorities are the least likely to own a car and have a driver's license.

So, maybe they let you bring in a bill for water and and a bill for gas to substitute for a driver's license... but you live in a multifamily home and none of the bills are in your name?

Of course you can bring in a passport, or certified birth certificate, or certified naturalization papers... but none of those things are free. Your kids eat for a week, or you get to vote.

Without a doubt, these kind of laws hit the poor harder than anyone else... and to what benefit? Where is the evidence of mass voter fraud that this is supposed to combat?

[farley2k]

What AWS260 said.

I think many people here find that kind of thing preposterous, but I also think we are all well enough off to have PCs, or jobs with access to PCs and enough time to post. We are not the groups they are talking about.

[Chesspieceface]

But women and minorities?

I mean I get that perhaps there are more impoverished single women and people of the minority than there are say oh, I don't know... white males. But still this issue is poverty, not gender or ethnic background. It's probably true that a percentage of the impoverished are alcoholics or drug addicts does this law disenfranchise alcoholics also? Maybe it disenfranchises cigarette smokers as well. And those who don't eat very well.

[Tareeq]

Without a doubt, these kind of laws hit the poor harder than anyone else... and to what benefit?

Without a doubt, the need to buy food, clothing, shelter, and health care hits the poor harder than anyone else... so what?

The need to register to vote hits the poor harder than anyone else. Do you oppose voter registration? Would you oppose the issuance of a photo ID card for non-drivers at the time of registration, and requiring that the card be shown in order to vote?

[farley2k]

But women and minorities?

I mean I get that perhaps there are more impoverished single women and people of the minority than there are say oh, I don't know... white males. But still this issue is poverty, not gender or ethnic background. It's probably true that a percentage of the impoverished are alcoholics or drug addicts does this law disenfranchise alcoholics also? Maybe it disenfranchises cigarette smokers as well. And those who don't eat very well.

Huh? What are you trying to say? That you dislike the use of women and minorities but if the person had vetoed the bill and just said "the poor" you would have been behind the bill?

[Tareeq]

Huh? What are you trying to say? That you dislike the use of women and minorities but if the person had vetoed the bill and just said "the poor" you would have been behind the bill?

Why does any form of restrictive legislation hit women harder than men? Obviously in the case of this bill it's because most women can't drive well enough to pass a road test, but I mean in general?

[Peacedog]

Are "women" are incapable of affording/obtaining an ID card while they're at home doing all the child rearin? Or maybe they're just stupid?

[Mr. Sparkle]

The need to register to vote hits the poor harder than anyone else. Do you oppose voter registration? Would you oppose the issuance of a photo ID card for non-drivers at the time of registration, and requiring that the card be shown in order to vote?

I'm more concerned about keeping track and counting votes correctly than an amorphous conspiracy to defraud elections... of which there is little to no evidence that I've heard... even firing US Attorneys didn't seem to bring this about.

However, if there is a good way, that doesn't disproportionately disenfranchise the poor and minorities, to ensure nobody is double voting then I'm for it.

[Tareeq]

However, if there is a good way, that doesn't disproportionately disenfranchise the poor and minorities, to ensure nobody is double voting then I'm for it.

Thank you for your grudging concession, but now I'm more interested in knowing whether you oppose the onerous requirement that citizens register to vote at all?

After all, one remains a citizen whether or not one has registered to vote. Why should one have to give up one's franchise simply because the man wants one to sign a silly piece of paper? And all of the evidence shows that voter registration laws do disproportionately disenfranchise the poor and minorities. They don't register as frequently as do the middle class and the white.

So obviously voter registration requirements are discriminatory.

[Grundbegriff]

The poor and minorities are the least likely to own a car and have a driver's license.

So, maybe they let you bring in a bill for water and and a bill for gas to substitute for a driver's license... but you live in a multifamily home and none of the bills are in your name?

Of course you can bring in a passport, or certified birth certificate, or certified naturalization papers... but none of those things are free. Your kids eat for a week, or you get to vote.

As a card-carrying representative of the multi-ethnic ghetto, I can assure you that anyone in those circumstances who lacks a simple state-issued ID (a far lower threshold than the driver's license) lacks it for want of effort, not for want of qualifying credentials and not for want of food (or cigarettes or many other non-necessities that one finds in relative abundance among the supposedly impoverished).

Where is the evidence of mass voter fraud that this is supposed to combat?

The same ambiguities that enable voter fraud make tracking such fraud difficult or impossible. That's sort of the point, eh?

[Blackhawk]

I'm against Ids. Superegos, too.

[Mr. Sparkle]

So obviously voter registration requirements are discriminatory.

It's not obvious to me... you would have to show that minorities were not registering because the barrier was to high. AFAIK all you have to do is sign and mail in a document... I don't even think you need a Number of the Beast. If access to the forms is a problem, then that can easily be solved through activism or making them available in more places with postage paid envelopes.

Before I would support making it harder to vote than that, I want to see some indication of how many fraudulent votes are being cast and an estimate as to how many voters would be disenfranchised by harsher restrictions. Cost/benefit for democracy, ya know?

[Grundbegriff]

After all, one remains a citizen whether or not one has registered to vote. Why should one have to give up one's franchise simply because the man wants one to sign a silly piece of paper? And all of the evidence shows that voter registration laws do disproportionately disenfranchise the poor and minorities. They don't register as frequently as do the middle class and the white.

So obviously voter registration requirements are discriminatory.

Your argument is insurmountable, and I'll be surprised if he takes it on.

The simple fact is that there's exactly one plausible reason to reject ID requirements for voting: to allow the possibility of fraud where needed. Both major parties know this, neither will acknowledge it (of course), and (in the spirit of keeping all pragmatic options on the table in this Machiavellian domain) neither presently has the will to do anything about it. So it will remain as long as most people are ignorant or apathetic about the issue.

[Mr. Sparkle]

The simple fact is that there's exactly one plausible reason to reject ID requirements for voting: to allow the possibility of fraud where needed.

Yes, those US Attorneys who wouldn't pursue flimsy partisan allegations of voter fraud were fired because they were against fair elections right?

The only reason Republicans want this is to disenfranchise likely Democratic votes. Get real.

[Moliere]

The government should just mandate that we all receive ID implants with GPS tracking. That way there would be no fraud and they could watch out for us.

[Tareeq]

Before I would support making it harder to vote than that, I want to see some indication of how many fraudulent votes are being cast and an estimate as to how many voters would be disenfranchised by harsher restrictions.
Cost/benefit for democracy, ya know?

And what data are you relying upon for your assertion that it's difficult for poor people to obtain a state ID card, or a driver's license? Have you ever even asked one about the difficulty involved?

This is purely anecdotal, but I speak with poor people (and sometimes wealthy people) several times a week about their driver's licenses. I speak with people who don't understand English, through interpreters, about the same topic. I speak with some of the biggest idiots on God's green earth about their licenses. None of the people I speak to had any difficulty obtaining a license. (All of them have difficulty keeping the license because they drive without insurance.)

If any idiot can get a license, a state photo ID card shouldn't be much of a stretch.

[Grundbegriff]

The only reason Republicans want this is to disenfranchise likely Democratic votes. Get real.

If Republicans had really wanted this, it would've been pushed through when they controlled both chambers of Congress.

The effect of requiring ID would only be disenfranchisement of Democratic voters if those voters found getting an ID unduly onerous. That argument makes a lot of sense... in an agrarian culture and a non-digital economy. However, it's 2007. We're no longer pre-postmodern. Ain't no ghetto where gettin' ID would be hard.

Today, communication, photography, and even transportation are ubiquitous and cheaply had. There's no excuse for allowing even the possibility of fraud in elections, where rendering that fraud impossible would be trivial.

[Mr. Sparkle]

If any idiot can get a license, a state photo ID card shouldn't be much of a stretch.

You can't vote if you are too lazy to stand in line for hours for something you otherwise have no need for?

Also, are you comfortable with making poll workers the gate-keepers of voting rights? Who watches the watchmen? Doesn't it just shift the fraud possibilities to them? Or are we paying for a government agency to monitor voting now?

[Tareeq]

Also, are you comfortable with making poll workers the gate-keepers of voting rights? Who watches the watchmen?

Have you ever voted at a polling station? Perhaps more pertinently, how on earth did you obtain your driver's license?

[farley2k]

The simple fact is that there's exactly one plausible reason to reject ID requirements for voting: to allow the possibility of fraud where needed.

Bull. Lots of people have posited other reasons you just don't like them so you want to pretend they are not good enough reasons.

[Grundbegriff]

Also, are you comfortable with making poll workers the gate-keepers of voting rights?

...As opposed to no oversight at all? Yes. After counter-balancing fraudulent votes have been canceled out, every remaining fraudulent vote negates a legitimate vote.

Why would anyone want to perpetuate an arrangement in which legitimate voters are certainly disenfranchised by fraudulent negation? (italicized for Fed's amusement)

Doesn't it just shift the fraud possibilities to them?

Yeah. Leave fraud to the people. Down with regulation! Down with centrism. Keep your notaries off our coteries!

Or are we paying for a government agency to monitor voting now?

If we trust a multi-partisan committee to carry the ballots to the truck, or to count the dimpled chads, then why wouldn't we trust such a committee to validate IDs?

[Mr. Sparkle]

Also, are you comfortable with making poll workers the gate-keepers of voting rights? Who watches the watchmen?

Have you ever voted at a polling station? Perhaps more pertinently, how on earth did you obtain your driver's license?

Polling stations are staffed by volunteers AFAIK... do they have some super powers to spot real ID's that I haven't heard about? Are they especially ethical and prescient to always be right about who they turn down or let in?

I've probably changed my license more than most... twice in Maryland, twice in Boston, and once in California... I've never spent less than half a day there... and if I didn't have a roommate who would take me from La Jolla to the DMV, it would have been a burden I might not have bothered with.

[Grundbegriff]

The simple fact is that there's exactly one plausible reason to reject ID requirements for voting: to allow the possibility of fraud where needed.

Bull. Lots of people have posited other reasons you just don't like them so you want to pretend they are not good enough reasons.

Oooh. Good argument.

BTW, there are many plausible reasons to write run-on sentences. Keep stylin'!

[Peacedog]

The simple fact is that there's exactly one plausible reason to reject ID requirements for voting: to allow the possibility of fraud where needed.

Bull. Lots of people have posited other reasons you just don't like them so you want to pretend they are not good enough reasons.

Like the disenfranchisement of women?

[Mr. Sparkle]

Doesn't it just shift the fraud possibilities to them?

Yeah. Leave fraud to the people.

What fraud? I'm still waiting for the evidence, as of yet neither of you has made a point.

[farley2k]

The simple fact is that there's exactly one plausible reason to reject ID requirements for voting: to allow the possibility of fraud where needed.

Bull. Lots of people have posited other reasons you just don't like them so you want to pretend they are not good enough reasons.

Like the disenfranchisement of women?

And minorities!


Obviously Keith Ellison and John Conyers are just stupid.

[Grundbegriff]

Polling stations are staffed by volunteers AFAIK... do they have some super powers to spot real ID's that I haven't heard about? Are they especially ethical and prescient to always be right about who they turn down or let in?

Even with occasional errors in judgment, wouldn't they do a better job of ensuring the integrity of suffrage, on balance, than no validation filter at all?

I've never spent less than half a day there... and if I didn't have a roommate who would take me from La Jolla to the DMV, it would have been a burden I might not have bothered with.

The poor have time, though it's true that they're probably no more lazy.

[Tareeq]

Polling stations are staffed by volunteers AFAIK... do they have some super powers to spot real ID's that I haven't heard about? Are they especially ethical and prescient to always be right about who they turn down or let in?

Polling workers already ask whether or not one is registered to vote and check a name on a precinct list before one is allowed to vote. If one does not appear on the list, one has to bear the onerous burden of filling out an affifavit and casting a provisional ballot, which may or may not be accepted. The decision as to whether to accept that provisional ballot is made by polling workers.

That process is more open to fraud than the alternative. For instance, if you die the week before an election, I can claim to be you and vote in your name simply by saying "I'm Mr. Sparkle. I'm here to vote." I'll even know your address because it's in the phone book if not the obituary. There will be no photo ID required to demonstrate that I'm not you.

And so George W. Bush wins a third term, all over your dead body.

[Grundbegriff]

Obviously Keith Ellison and John Conyers are just stupid.

I can't speak to that issue. I can, however, read the scannable barcode on my driver's license, and so can a scanner uplinked to the same database that prints out the lists of registered voters in a given precinct.

In my experience, barcode technology is quite reliable.

[farley2k]

Obviously Keith Ellison and John Conyers are just stupid.

I can't speak to that issue. I can, however, read the scannable barcode on my driver's license, and so can a scanner uplinked to the same database that prints out the lists of registered voters in a given precinct.

In my experience, barcode technology is quite reliable.

??? Not sure what you mean. That those people are from poor precincts so they are supporting this legislation because it would help their constituents? If that is your implication then it seems they are doing their jobs. If that isn't what you mean, I am afraid I have no idea what you were implying.

[Mr. Sparkle]

Polling workers already ask whether or not one is registered to vote and check a name on a precinct list before one is allowed to vote. If one does not appear on the list, one has to bear the onerous burden of filling out an affifavit and casting a provisional ballot, which may or may not be accepted. The decision as to whether to accept that provisional ballot is made by polling workers.

Yes I know how it works. I wasn't allowed to vote last year because my change of address registration was sent a day too late and I was in voter limbo.

That process is more open to fraud than the alternative. For instance, if you die the week before an election, I can claim to be you and vote in your name simply by saying "I'm Mr. Sparkle. I'm here to vote." I'll even know your address because it's in the phone book if not the obituary. There will be no photo ID required to demonstrate that I'm not you.

Unless it's a vast conspiracy, I don't see how it can make a significant impact... if there were vast conspiracies to fraudulently swing elections, then there would be some evidence of such. Despite the fact that there have been two consecutive extremely close elections with states that swung on low numbers of votes, nobody has been able to uncover any such thing. Why is this? Are the Illuminati really that clever? If they are, then they can make fake ID's too or place their operatives in polling stations to deny their opponents' right to vote.

I just don't see it as a problem until someone proves that it is. It's certainly not worth disenfranchising voters. Feel free to convince me otherwise.

[Tareeq]

Unless it's a vast conspiracy, I don't see how it can make a significant impact... if there were vast conspiracies to fraudulently swing elections, then there would be some evidence of such.

None dare call it conspiracy.

He was ahead of the media on the Joseph Wilson story, you know.

[LawBeefaroni]

Unless it's a vast conspiracy, I don't see how it can make a significant impact... if there were vast conspiracies to fraudulently swing elections, then there would be some evidence of such. Despite the fact that there have been two consecutive extremely close elections with states that swung on low numbers of votes, nobody has been able to uncover any such thing. Why is this? Are the Illuminati really that clever? If they are, then they can make fake ID's too or place their operatives in polling stations to deny their opponents' right to vote.

The Diebold conspiracy is progressing much slower than anticipated. This is a stop-gap measure.

[ChrisGwinn]

Obviously Keith Ellison and John Conyers are just stupid.

In Ellison's congressional district (which is also mine), you don't need to register to vote. There's a ridiculous list of things you can bring to the polls in order to prove you're eligible to vote there, including a copy of a utility bill or somebody who knows you who is registered to vote in the precinct. If I show up with my neighbor and say "This is my neighbor, Bob, and he lives in the precinct", he casts a ballot. Unless they've changed it recently, and I'm pretty certain that they haven't, he does not cast a provisional ballot. I haven't shown any form of ID at a polling place since 2001.

Minnesotans, especially us snobby urban democrat types, really like this system. His failure to oppose ID requirements would cost him votes here. He's smart enough to not piss off the people who vote for him.

[Tareeq]

Don't put away those stinkin' IDs just yet.

You want us to invalidate a statute on the ground that it's a minor inconvenience to a small percentage of voters?

The minimal burden thrust of that question is strong evidence that Kennedy, the probable fifth vote to uphold or strike down Indiana's voter ID law, is likely to uphold. One can foresee Stevens, Souter, and maybe Breyer voting to uphold the law as well, if their decisions are consistent with their past jurisprudence.

[Mr. Fed]

The simple fact is that there's exactly one plausible reason to reject ID requirements for voting: to allow the possibility of fraud where needed.

Well, one plausible non-political argument, perhaps. But there's a strong political status-quo argument: ID requirements will benefit Republicans at the expense of Democrats, at least in the challenged locations.

As to fraud, I note that in arguments the Attorney General of Indiana was forced to concede that there was no record of any impersonation fraud whatsoever in his state. His argument was that the ID law was necessary to public confidence, not to counteract any actual and provable fraud.

From the reports on the Indiana law, in my opinion it's probably constitutional. But as I've said before, an inquiry into its constitutionality is by no means ridiculous, given the history of voting in this country.

[Grundbegriff]

Also, are you comfortable with making poll workers the gate-keepers of voting rights? Who watches the watchmen?

Have you ever voted at a polling station? Perhaps more pertinently, how on earth did you obtain your driver's license?

Polling stations are staffed by volunteers AFAIK... do they have some super powers to spot real ID's that I haven't heard about?

I love this argument: it's far too onerous for folks to get real IDs, but obviously quite easy for folks to get fake IDs.