October 19, 2005
From the desk of Jane Galt:Voter ID
A Georgia judge has just struck down the state's law requiring ID to vote.
One way to think about this is that there's an inevitable tradeoff between keeping people out of the polls who don't have the right to vote, and improperly excluding citizens, and that the state should err on the side of letting as many people as possible vote.
I don't think that really holds up to scrutiny, though. For every illegal voter you enfranchise, you disenfranchise a legal voter who voted the other way.
Another way to look at it is to say that it's simply a political choice: Democrats want as many voters as possible, Republicans as few, and that you should just root for your team.
I don't think that's right either, though. While I agree that any time we tighten voting requirements, we will inevitably exclude some people who should vote along with those who shouldn't, it doesn't follow that the ratio of legal to illegal voters is 1:1. Where the cost-benefit ratio of a measure is high (i.e. where we can exclude a lot of illegal voters at the cost of only a few legal voters), then I'd say it's obvious we should take that measure, because doing so will result in increasing the total effectiveness of legal votes. Remember, each illegal voter effectively disenfranchises a little one, so if we can reduce the illegal voters by a greater number than the legal voters, the net result will be positive.
This presumes, of course, that you think that the purpose of voting is to produce election results, and not to engage in some sort of elaborate political kabuki where everyone feels more empowered and connected by participating, regardless of the outcome. I am assuming that my readers do, in fact, feel that the purpose of an election is to elect people.
The question is, then, whether photo ID requirements are unduly onerous; will they disenfranchise many legal voters? Or, as Democrats argue, will they disproportionately disadvantage one class or political group?
Well, I don't think that the law should take cognizance of whether it has a disproportionate impact on one party; the last thing we want is election law that starts from the results and works backwards to the process. And I have to say that when I hear people waxing indignant about the effect on the poor, my general reaction is "c'mon, I didn't just fall off a turnip truck."
Yes, undoubtedly more of the people without ID's are poor. But most of the poor who lack IDs are illegal immigrants, who aren't (and IMHO shouldn't be) allowed to vote. The overall number of poor people in this day and age who cannot produce a photo identification is trivial. It is nearly impossible to function in this country without an ID, and the poor, who need valid ID to collect government benefits and gain employment, are no exception. Democrats are against photo ID's because illegal immigrants vote Democratic, and it is easier to impersonate someone else in large urban precincts than it is in the suburban and rural areas where there are more Republicans. They cannot reasonably be convinced that a substantial number of poor people who are of sound mind lack any form of identification--no, not even the elderly, most of whom needed IDs at one point, even if they are now housebound.
Is this kind of vote fraud widespread? Well, we'd find out if we put photo ID requirements in place, wouldn't we? Probably absentee ballot fraud is more widespread, which is an excellent reason that you should have to have a notarized application for absentee ballots, not an excellent reason that we should throw up our hands and declare that it's just too darn hard to prevent election fraud.
I'll go even further: I think that there should be a national voting card with a picture on it, and a national database, and in national elections the database should make sure that you only vote in one place. I can only imagine the screams of horror that will ensue at this suggestion.
Update Instapundit's take is pithier:
GEORGIA'S VOTER ID REQUIREMENT was struck down as discriminatory. That's to vote though. You still need one to buy beer. . . .
Posted by Jane Galt at October 19, 2005 3:31 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksI had thought the Georgia program required a payment for issuance of the card. If so, I agree with this court decision. If Georgia really is concerned with voter fraud, I don't see why the state can't make them free of charge. If they were free of charge, by the way, I'd say the program is a net plus; everybody should welcome efforts to crack down on voter fraud.
I vote for kabuki. When you realize that illiterates and the profoundly ignorant are just as entitled to vote as people who actually know something about the political system, how can such a travesty be anything but a group hug? Sure the purpose of the system may be to elect someone, but it's how it's run that matters to whether the best candidate wins.
I think that voter fraud in the vein of multiple voting is more widespread than illegals voting, but I have absolutely nothing to base this on.
Is that wrong?
So why should requiring a picture ID disenfranchise anyone? How many citizens, caring enough to show up at a polling station, really don't have a valid ID? I need a picture ID to rent a video at Blockbuster, for crying out loud. I don't see long lines of the disenfranchised outside video stores. Sheeesh, let's get real.
'illegal immigrants vote Democratic'
Really? Who sez? Why would an illegal immigrant go anywhere near someplace as official and scary as a polling place?
I say electronic voting at atm's are the only way to go. A SS# and a pin# is all you'd need.
P.B., if I'm not mistaken, Georgia law requires $10 for an ID card, but can be waived if the person in question is unable to pay.
Georgia did want $20 for an ID card, and there were parts of the state where people would have to travel a couple of counties to get one.
Of course, Georgia's counties are about the size of my small HOA in California, but distance is still a barrier, especially to those who lack cars. Actually, I doubt that anyone in Georgia lacks a vehicle, but many of them are up on blocks. So anyway, a tax (finally some court actually has the good sense to call a "government fee" a tax -- that precedent could be good if they ever apply it elsewhere) and a barrier to acquiring the required card are against the law.
Georgia should have made it free and accessible. It wouldn't have changed the voting any, but it would have been legal.
I support the use of voter's ID's (and English-only ballots, too) wholeheartedly. But the Georgia pols who invoked memories of racism and poll taxes were idiots. They are to blame, here, and they will be to blame if other places are unable to implement voter ID. What the hell were they thinking?
Evoked, I meant. :-)
...whose actions evoked...
Oh well, the point is the same.
To address everyone's incredulity that there may be reasonable people out there without Photo ID, I know two: my parents. They are both in their mid 50's, and have yet to ever possess a photo ID. My father is a success small business owner of a company for over 20 years, and my mother has worked as an X-ray tech for the same time period. Admittedly, their case is rare, but cases like theirs do exist. Not everyone without a photo ID is a illegal immigrant. Also, young people who are new to voting are more likely to be without a photo ID.
Because the Democratic party has a larger urban voting base, it tends to reap the greater advantage from voter fraud. Specifically, voter fraud tends to occur in locations where there is an active support network to enable and incentivize the fraud. Cities, by and large, have established machines that have developed said underlying support network. This is not to attack Democrats, just to point out a historical and political reality.
You can't do a cost/benefit analysis without knowing costs and benefits. Benefit of ID: prevent fraud. Since no one has detected or even alleged voter fraud in Georgia for a decade, that benefit is a little thin. Cost: well, maybe folks who don't drive don't vote as intelligently as those who do, I don't know, but the Jay/Madison/Hamilton rule book says they get to, anyway.
Rick-
Your parents can go out and get picture IDs, right? Not too onerous a task if they want to continue voting (in Megan's world).
Most states will issue a card that looks like a driver's license, but is only for ID purposes. One imagines the states could be left to coordinate a national voter ID through that sort of program.
Mike W-
Sure, my parents can go out and get an ID card. But in order to do so, they must take off time from work or their personal time, and obtain one. For some, especially those who rely on public transportation and/or have inflexible work schedules, the whole process could be a major pain in the ass. My point is that mandatory voter IDs will discourage some people to participate in the voting process. That may or may not be outweighed by the potential decline in voter fraud, but the cost must be noted.
Rick, did your parents register to vote on a holiday? You can't vote unless you register. If you can register, you can get an ID. Also, if you can find the time to vote, you can find the time to get an ID. And besides, what is wrong with requiring just a smidgen of effort from those who wish to exercise the franchise?
I have a modest proposal on how we can reduce fraud without the costs some of the commenters seem concerned with. Perhaps we could withold an ID requirement, but make voter fraud a mandatory capital offense. That would have no effect on anyone not engaged in such fraud.
How did your mom prove eligibility for employment without some sort of photo ID?
How can an ID (with a fee) requirement for voting be discriminatory and an ID (with a fee) requirement for driving, buying alcohol, etc... not be discriminatory?
This ruling is going to have some interesting consequences if the discrimination theory is applied to anything requiring a photo ID...
EI
I have heresay evidence that the GOP uses the lack of photo IDs to pack the vote in rural and suburban areas too. [West Texas friends tell of
cash, drinks, etc. paid out to itinerant oil workers, etc. to vote early and often in certain close elections.] So everyone does vote fraud.
But if one party is for IDs and one against, you
can bet your bottom dollar they know how it affects their candidates.
mckinneytexas-
I don't think you're totally missing the point, but you are missing my point. I know my parents, or anyone else in a similar situation, are perfectly capable of getting a photo ID. Thats not the point. The fact remains that if you institute a policy that requires photo ID's to vote, some people will be discouraged, simply because it is more of a hassle. This must be taken into account when deciding whether the policy of mandatory photo ID's is a good one.
Earnest Iconoclast-
It is not a question of whether this policy is discriminatory or not. The voting age is necessarily discriminatory, but that doesn't make it good or bad. Driving or buying alcohol are not rights guaranteed by the contstituion.
We have to think of this as a tax. The requirement of photo ID's for voting is like a tax (although not necessarily a monetary one), either by costing someone time, effort, etc. To repeat, requiring those to have photo ID's to vote will certainly discourage some.
We don't have to think of this as a tax. If the amount is so small as to cover the administrative costs, then it is a fee for something the citizen needs, the same as the charges for getting a passport. A citizen has as much right to a passport as to vote. Foreign travel and voting are equally voluntary. Car licenses are analogous. In some states the charges are obviously intended to defray administrative costs, while in other states the charges are clearly intended to produce revenue.
Jim-
Perhaps I'm not being clear. We should think of this, in terms of its effect, as a tax. When you tax something, less people buy it, because it costs more. Well if we "tax" voting (by requiring photo ID's), less people will vote, because it costs more. When I say "cost" and "tax", I do not mean monetary values. A cost could simply be the added hassle of taking time out of your day to obtain the photo ID. If my elaboration is not sufficiently elucidating my point for you, think of it in terms of how game theory costs and benefits are analyzed.
Among other factors, the Georgia Voter ID law loosened the rules for proof of identity for an absentee ballot. If fraud was really the motivation, this was backwards...
Rick McAlexander,
In those terms, any method of voting that requires getting out of bed is a tax, because it's an imposition. Even voting absentee is a tax, given that you have to request an absentee ballot, and then tiresomely fill it out, and then mail it.
(Well, actually, you might not have to do the first. About ten days ago I got an automated phone message from an association of public-sector unions opposed to a CA ballot measure, promising that an absentee ballot would reach us shortly. It hasn't, which as this is probably illegal is just as well for them.)
Perhaps the fact that there were no DMV offices in Atlanta had something to do with the judge's decision.
"Recent census data shows that African Americans in Georgia are nearly five times less likely than whites to have access to a motor vehicle, thus would be less likely to have a photo ID. Moreover, there are only 56 locations in Georgia that issue the primary identification required by the new law. Many of Georgia's citizens in rural areas who do not have accessible transportation may need to travel through two counties to reach a Department of Motor Vehicle Services (DMVS) office.
Georgia recently eliminated the only two DMVS locations inside the City of Atlanta, the state capital where a substantial number of African Americans live. A person living Atlanta must now travel 10-15 miles to access a DMVS office."
Rick, some people are discouraged from voting because its too much of a hassle to go vote. Many of us, regardless of party preference, favor a law that tends to reduce voter fraud. If part of the downside is a few really unmotivated people can't be bothered to get a photo ID, then the odds are good these are the same people who find it a huge effort to vote and often stay home. You are arguing a point based on a marginal and somewhat hypothetical group. And besides, you still didn't tell me how your parents found time to register or how they manage to get off work to vote.
The idea of having an ID requirement to vote is a good one, of course. Ther is no grounds for opposing it unless you consider vote fraud to be a good thing. However, this specific law seems to be a de facto poll tax -- it has the effect of making it impossible to vote without paying a fee to the government.
The proper thing to do would be to issue free (i.e., taxpayer-funded) voter cards to people who do not have driver's licenses. That would pass constitutional muster.
However, this objection is damned silly:
A person living Atlanta must now travel 10-15 miles to access a DMVS office.
*GASP* 10-15 miles? Please. This isn't the horse-and-buggy era. 10-15 miles is practically next door.
I have to disagree with the statement that "Democrats want as many voters as possible, Republicans as few."
I think Republicans genuinely want every genuinely legal voter to vote. I think they rightly believe that illegitimate votes, be they dual votes, the dead voting, or illegal aliens, tend to go Democrat.
I have no problem whatsoever with procedures that make voting slightly harder than scratching one's butt. Anyone who is discouraged from voting by this probably shouldn't vote, because it is highly unlikely that he/she knows John Kerry from John the Baptist, or that the Bush nestegg doesn't come from the brewery biz.
Have you ever bought a can of spray paint? At least in my state you need ID. Cigarettes? Shotgun shells? Beer? Take a plane somewhere?
Is voting REALLY more trivial than buying a can of spray paint to touch up the aging barbecue? Does voting REALLY need to be more loosely monitored?
And I thought that the Jay/Madison/Hamilton Way was to limit voting to male property owners, and certainly not slaves (hell, they might vote for Abolition!). This ID is far less "restrictive" than the criteria originally in the Constitution, to be sure.
Michelle Dulak Thomson-
You are somewhat right. Which is why our government does so many things to minimize the costs of voting. In my neighborhood in West Philadelphia there were numerous voting booths within walking distance of my house. The promixity of voting booths lowered the costs of me going out and voting. If those booths had been farther, there was a likelier chance myself or someone in the same area would be discouraged enough to not vote. I have said all along to think of this LIKE a tax, in the way that we measured its effects. A perfect example is the liquor laws in Pennsylvania. In order to purchase two cases of beer, you have to make to trips in and out of the store. This raises the "cost" of purchasing beer, adding to the hassle. Hence, less people buy beer. The amount may be small, but nevertheless is still there.
mckinneytexas-
My point is very simple and is this: if photo ID's are required to vote, less people will vote, because the costs of voting are higher than they would be. I never made any assesment whether this was a large enough negative to outweigh the positive arguments in favor of photo ID badges. As for me informing you of how my parents managed the time to vote, it is completely irrelevant to our discussion, and quite frankly, crass of you to ask.
Rick-
If you don't want to answer questions about examples you use to "prove" your point, then use different ones. Got any others?
Do you have any evidence that people are discouraged from buying the total amount of beer they want to buy, over time, by the one-case law? Given that it takes a highly gifted person to finish off more than a case per evening, you'd have to look at it over time, since going home with two cases at a time doesn't often equate to drinking 48 beers at a sitting. :-)
Barry-
The question I was asked was: how did my parents find time to take off work? As you can see, it is entirely irrelevant to our discussion. I brought up the case of my parents, as two _slightly_ normal and successful people who don't have photo IDs. My point was that not everyone who lacks a photo ID is an illegal alien.
As for my evidence, no, I do not have any statistical evidence the Pennsylvania law signifcantly decreased the amount of alcohol sold in Pennsylvania. But then again, you are putting the standards for evidence pretty high when you consider this is the comments section of a blog, if this were an academic paper, I'd do my homework.
My point is this: if you make it harder for people to do something, people will do less of that thing. If you make it harder for people to vote, by requiring to have a photo ID, then people will vote less. It is that simple. I'm not claiming that the amount of people who would not vote under the photo ID law would be significant. I would bet it is pretty small. One simply needs to take it into consideration when weighing the costs and benefits of the photo ID law.
One more comment, if you'll oblige...
If one's objective is to reduce drunkenness, then the one-case law makes even less sense, since 3 to 4 people can get three sheets to the wind if they diligently share a case. So even if slightly less beer is consumed overall, the social problems that come from a person downing 8 beers are essentially the same as those that arise when that person drinks 10.
I posted that before I'd seen your post.
It does need to be taken into account. It is unimaginable to me that anyone legally residing in my state could survive without a photo ID, because of the way transactions are conducted (except for those who are operating entirely in the underground economy, of course, but even they probably want to buy beer now and again). Perhaps some places are different.
But one still has to look at the several layers of the question (my point regarding drunkenness).
How many people would be discouraged to vote?
How many of THEM would have voted under any circumstances?
How many of them have any information that would allow them to make an informed choice (as opposed to a vote in return for a six pack, which is not voter fraud but is fraud in spirit)?
Would it not benefit those who still bubble up after all of those questions to have an ID anyway, i.e. might we be doing them a favor by motivating them to get one?
I think that this comes out a wash, considering all of the above.
Making the ID free and easy-to-get is necessary. Requiring it to vote is hardly wrong.
Barry-
Thanks. I was probably not as clear about my point as I should have been. My intention was to have a debate and dialogue about this, and the point of my arguement was that a debate and dialogue were necessary and prudent. I would be willing to bet that a negligble amount of people would be discouraged from voting. Nevertheless, it must be something discussed and looked at, and not tossed aside. It is probably more pertinent to the implementation of the policy, if it passed. For example, making it easy to obtain the photo IDs.
Folks,
Don't believe Rick McAlexander's claim that you can only buy one case of beer at a time in Pennsylvania. Maybe that's the rule at his local distributor in West Philly. I've bought more than one case at a time at distributors in suburban Montgomery County. They even have handcarts at these places, and guess what, Rick, I see people stack more than one case on top of another on the handcarts and then take them to the checkout.
Jon Bass
Rick, how does you Mom work as an X-Ray Tech out of her own home? I can under stand your dad haveing a successful home business, but your Mom puzzles me. You see in most states you have this thing called a Drivers Lic. that has you picture on it and is issued by the state and most places use it as a state id since it is an id issued by the state.
As to fraud, you should all go to Sound Politics and read the last years worth or posts on the governors election out there. Those people could teach the NYC and Chicago machines a thing or two.
To sum up the story the govenors race took three recounts and if the research of the one blogger on Sound Politic is to be believed, and I for one do, then it is a monumental fraud based on incomptitance and mis-management.
>
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"It is enough that the people know there was an election.
The people who cast the votes decide nothing.
The people who count the votes decide everything."
{--Joseph Stalin}
_____________________________
I live in Atlanta, which straddles two counties (Fulton and DeKalb) both of which are connected to the city transit system via bus and train, along with neighboring Cobb County whose bus system hooks into the city one. There are ID locations in the counties, just not within the city limits. Somehow all the City of Atlanta residents that do drive get to these locations for their driver licenses. It really isn't that hard to go get a photo ID.
Also, they had a mobile ID bus going around to issue IDs and at least one recent weekend worth of ID signups were in the city limits of Atlanta (in the poorer areas of town even!). But it was pointed out that the bus wasn't completely ADA friendly (but if you couldn't get into the bus, perhaps it would be easier to vote absentee.)
You could get the ID free if you were too poor to pay.
Once you get the ID, you can renew online, via mail or I think even phone so it shouldn't take frequent repeated visits.
So if you are capable of getting to the polling place on election day - I think you should be more than capable of getting to an ID location or mobile unit. And I don't think it has been mentioned above, but don't those check cashing places and money orders require ID?
"You still need one to buy beer. . . ."
Or cash a check or get on an airplane ...
If democrats believed that there were more fraudulent votes for
republicans than democrats then they'd be right up there pushing
anti-vote fraud measures. But they aren't so we know what they
believe.
If democrats believed that by a considerable margin there are a
more fraudulent votes for democrats than republicans then we
should expect that they'd be fighting anti-voting fraud measures
tooth and nail.
A perfect example is the liquor laws in Pennsylvania. In order to purchase two cases of beer, you have to make to trips in and out of the store.
It's been a while since I was in PA. My recollection is, once I found a beer distributor, that you can't buy less than a case in PA.
Tangental to this topic, (which is already off-topic), it seems that you can only buy wine and liquor from the State liquor store.
While I was employing a bit of hyperbole with the earlier capital offense comment, perhaps the solution to the voting fraud issue is extremely harsh punishments for voting fraud. Perhaps we could permenantly revoke the convicted's authority to vote, make the offense a felony, or mandate significant jail time in the general prison population (preferrably all three). Moreover, prosecute conspiracy to engage in election fraud similarly punishable. In short, make election fraud something actually something with a real downside. This could be augmented in practice by loosening within-state jurisdictional boundaries (hence a county prosecutor from Buffalo could prosecute fraud in Queens). This would create incentives for each party to police the other. If the concerns of the anti-ID patisans is genuinely maintaining voter access, this move should pose little problem.
shawn-
1. Not everyone has a drivers liscense.
2. The older New Jersey drivers liscense did not have a picture ID.
Your derisive language isn't warranted.
Rick,
I don't think anyone has denied that anything that will reduce voter fraud will also probably stop some legitimate voters. The question is not whether it will happen but whether fraud will be reduced more than legitimate voting.
My comment about the discriminatory aspect of requiring a photo-ID was based on what was said about the Court's ruling. Did the court rule that requiring an ID was unconstitutional because it had a disproportionate effect on blacks and was therefore discriminatory? If so, then the same argument would apply to any other requirement for a photo ID, like requiring one to buy alcohol, cigarettes, pseudophed, a gun, etc...
EI
Voting is absurd. Let's just let everybody, including illegals and children and animals, vote as often as they want. Could we really wind up with a less reasonable system? The problem, though, is not that voting is absurd, but that voting determines far too much. A rational polity would restrict voting to the smallest sphere consistent with keeping people from rioting in the streets. All other issues would be decided by market forces.
Earnest-
I see your point. I think its silly to say that photo IDs for voting will seriously infringe on someones right to vote. It may discourage some, but it is a stretch to say their right was violated. However, if one of our goals is to maximize voter turnout, then the potential discouragment must be taken into account. Perhaps this was the true intention of the Courts ruling, but it would have made for sloppy ajudicating if they came out and said it. Not the best ruling.
If democrats believed that there were more fraudulent votes for republicans...
Mark, you and other posters, but not Jane, continue to ignore the fact that Democrats stand to lose the votes of LEGITIMATE VOTERS through poll taxes and the like, and that is reason enough for them to fight.
In other news:
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
More Democrats to be Indicted in East St. Louis
The St. Louis area has seen 16 Democrat election workers convicted of voter fraud or similar charges this past year. This past week an obstruction of justice and plotting to murder a government voter fraud witness can be added to that list of Democrat convictions:
Remind me - why do we as a society place a lot of value on the votes of people who don't place a lot of value on voting? Shouldn't we care less than they do?
Andy, how much do you think people should be expected to pay to express their willingness to vote? $10? $20? What is the correct amount where we should start to respect their right, and below which we can tell them to screw off?
Brittain33,
Point taken. So where do you stand on the idea of incredibly stringent punsishments (with accompanying mechanisms for enforcement post fact) for voter fraud. It doesn't seem to me like such a mechnaism could disenfranchise anyone (well except those committing voter fraud).
I have no serious objections to them. I think voter fraud is way overblown as a factor in recent elections--my family roots are in Hudson County, it's hard to impress me--but it shouldn't be tolerated anywhere.
Does anyone else remember Dan Savage's trip to Iowa where he participated illegally in the Iowa caucus? The state tried to prosecute him afterward, and I don't remember the outcome.
Megan, are you proposing a constitutional amendment? Because a national ID for the purposes of voting like you describe would be a violation of Article 1 Section 5 Clause 1 of the constitution, as well as the 10th amendment.
Brittain33,
Actually, though, the Savage issue shows precisely why so many of us believe that there should be ID requirements. Here someone pretty much openly violated the electoral system, brags about it in the New York Times, and its treated like a joke, or cute, or funny in some way. What would you say if someone were to publicly announce that they specifically chased a group of Democratic voters out of the polling place in the Wall Street Journal. I'm pretty sure anyone, regardless of their political views, would say they should have the book thrown at them. Hell, I'd bet that Howard Dean would be on national television demanding that every Republican victory regarding the precinct should be invalidated. Now, I'll ask you a question. Should Dan Savage face a felony conviction, extensive prison time in general population, and perhaps a permenant loss of the franchise? If not, what punishment should he be given?
how much do you think people should be expected to pay to express their willingness to vote?
Enough so it should be significant -- and indicate that the voter actually values their own vote -- but not enough that it should be a burden.
We're headed down the slippery slope as they say. There is a small, but growing movement that advocates voting by non-citizens, and there are even some legislators here in California pushing for minors to get some voting rights. We're doomed.
not enough that it should be a burden.
That's a good starting point. What I see from some people is that anything can be rationalized away as "not too much of a burden"--waiting eight hours in Columbus to vote, traveling 10-15 miles to get an ID that you wouldn't need except to vote when you live in a city and may not have a car. People will brush away anything if it serves their purpose. I don't expect a web site with a preponderance of partisans from one side or another to arrive at a fair sense of what that burden should be.
One problem we have in the South is that many people are distrustful of authority because if you were identified as voting in the 1960s or earlier, you were labeled a troublemaker and could get fired or lynched. Those days are long past, and frankly anyone who feels that way and is under age 65 has to be responsible for their own feelings. That said, it's a real issue that appears to keep many people away from the polls--people are inherently suspicious of authority. Some local authorities have used that to their advantage, like in Orange County Florida where policemen went to talk to old ladies who were registering voters to try to scare them against breaking the law, or when flyers materialize on Election Day connecting voting to unpaid parking tickets. It happens all the time in areas with large numbers of African-Americans so obviously someone thinks this is a great way to discourage legitimate voters.
Voting is the basic starting point of our democracy. If people feel they can't vote, they lose the basic connection to their government. Local authorities have a long way to go to demonstrate they won't abuse an ID requirement. And if one is passed, it is VERY easy to imagine people challenging IDs left and right to stretch out the process and discourage people from voting. Plus, we add in the complication of IDs expiring periodically, so it's not a one-off deal.
So the question comes down to cost-benefit analysis, as posted earlier in the thread. And before we head down this road, we should ascertain the costs, with a legitimate understanding of how much fraud occurs and through what methods it occurs. The Georgia bill doesn't appear to care about that, based on the different rules for absentee ballots and live voting, which correspond more closely to Republican v. Democratic habits.
I see lots of people willing to act tough to crack down on this problem, but not much cost-benefit analysis.
Imposter voter fraud hasn't been detected in Georgia according to the article.
If imposter voter fraud has been prevalent it probably would have been detected because the real voters would have complained when an imposter voted in their place.
The Savage case notwithstanding, imposter voter fraud in terms of hundreds of votes isn't likely to occur because the risk of being caught isn't worth adding a few votes to one side.
I've spent a period of years with an outdated id. I don't drive or drink and had a steady job so I didn't need to show it to an employer.
I can imagine thousands of poor people in Atlanta for whom
$20 and a 10 mile bus trip outside of Atlanta which would take over a couple of hours would be a major hassle.
If you are concerned about election fraud you should make sure the voting machines are secure and accurate which doesn't seem to be a concern of Georgia officials
See wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,60563,00.html
In particular optically scanned ballets are far more secure than electronic voting. Electronic banking is secure because there is a counter party to watch transactions. With secret electronic voting you cant match up the vote to the person to verify the electronic vote.
And this all dovetails with other points Jane has made about the poor. The state of their civic education is pretty terrible, even for those who didn't grow up in a different time. That's why they don't know their rights when it comes to voting, and what is or isn't tied in. We all know that parking tickets have nothing to do with voting, but if your only interactions with authority are with police who are scared of you and your neighbors, you don't know anyone who works for government or in a white-collar job, and you don't have access to the Internet, how could you know?
This is not basic stuff. This is the details of modern government, and it will never come to pass that everyone will be wise enough and secure enough to evade every semi-official effort to discourage poor and black people from voting. Requiring a high standard is fine rhetoric but only serves to distance people further from the process. People should question whether that's a good thing just because the people don't vote the way they do, for reasons they can't respect.
Bill, the purpose of strict punishment is to raise the price of a crime where detection is rare, thereby making the average punishment appropriate for the crime.
For simple purposes of ex post facto, Savage should have been tried according to existing Iowa law in 2000.
Beyond that point--the fact that he publicized what he did, partly to show what a farce the current system was, meant that he was doing the system a favor with his fraud instead of actually manipulating the result. So he's a bad example for harsh punishment. It's like students I knew in college who pointed out security holes to tech services and were rewarded with lectures from deans about the threat they posed to security by testing them.
Anyway, I'm curious why you included "in the general population." The implication there seems to be that someone who commits a white-collar cime should be included with a violent population he doesn't belong with simply to make his punishment worse. I don't think that's appropriate. Fraud can be very, very serious, but it's not a crime of physical violence. Ken Lay may have ruined the lives of thousands of people but that doesn't mean he gets the Hannibal Lecter mask when he goes to prison.
"...our government does so many things to minimize the costs of voting."
Uh, yeah, like hold elections on thursdays, close the polls at 7, and force you to vote near your home? If they really wanted to reduce the cost (to voters) of voting, the polls would be open for a week and you could vote anywhere you wanted.
If imposter voter fraud has been prevalent it probably would have been detected because the real voters would have complained when an imposter voted in their place.
The problem isn't voting in place of other real people; the problem is voting as someone who doesn't even exist.
Right now, all you have to do is get phony names onto the registration lists (which is fairly trivial) and then show up to vote under the phony name. So one person can easily vote repeatedly.
Republicans want everyone who is legally entitled to vote to be able to vote if they want to.
Democrats want everyone who wants to vote to be able to vote legally as many times as they want to.
> Andy, how much do you think people should be expected to pay to express their willingness to vote?
Is the 2-10 hours/year range really too much of a burden?
> And this all dovetails with other points Jane has made about the poor. The state of their civic education is pretty terrible, even for those who didn't grow up in a different time.
If they're incompetent and/or ignorant, why do we want them to vote?
> which would take over a couple of hours would be a major hassle.
Wah, wah, wah. There are lots of hassles, some are even govt required.
> It happens all the time in areas with large numbers of African-Americans so obviously someone thinks this is a great way to discourage legitimate voters.
Politics isn't beanbag. Trying to depress the other guy's turnout is politics as usual, so why the interest in only certain forms?
Noah Yetter,
Uh, yeah, like hold elections on thursdays, close the polls at 7, and force you to vote near your home? If they really wanted to reduce the cost (to voters) of voting, the polls would be open for a week and you could vote anywhere you wanted.
Thursdays? When did that happen?
As for the rest, if being near your home sometime during the hours the polls are open is impossible, well, that's what absentee ballots are for. And it's hard enough to verify that people are legitimate voters if you're only dealing with a single precinct; I'd hate to see what transpired if every precinct worker had to check off a voter from a roll containing the entire list of citizens of California, and then notify every other precinct in the state that this person had voted and shouldn't be let vote again.
Of course, we could go with purple ink. I like the idea, actually.
Requiring IDs for voting is beyond reasonable. Its self-evident. A quick test to figure out whether an interlocutor is sane or not.
Brittain33,
No offense, but I can't help but recognize the bottom line of the positions you're taking: opposition to safeguards agains voter fraud, concerns about discomforture with official supervision, and what ultimately amounts to a song and dance when the issue of stringent punishment is raised. That bottom line pretty much amounts to...well let the fraud take place. Don't get me wrong, I understand. You reaise a few pretty legitimate issues in the position's defense. But, somehow I don't think you'd take as sanguine a view of the issue if the irregularities were taking place on the other end of the political spectrum.
Rick -
Thanks for going with the example you offered of your parents for a while here. I think the point about asking when your folks could find time to register is this: there's already an existing "tax" to vote - the requirement to register before the election. It seems that that could be rolled into an application for ID and the "tax" would remain the same but would increase the security of the voting process. Am I missing something?
http://www.thecobraslair.com/images/NATIONAL-ID-CARD-STREAM.gif
Brittain 33 writes:
>>>"So the question comes down to cost-benefit analysis, as posted earlier in the thread. And before we head down this road, we should ascertain the costs, with a legitimate understanding of how much fraud occurs and through what methods it occurs. The Georgia bill doesn't appear to care about that, based on the different rules for absentee ballots and live voting, which correspond more closely to Republican v. Democratic habits."
Of course this is the scheme, Brit. Voter suppression techniques against the poor and minorities aren't new in America, and this, I'm afraid, is just another sad example. The obvious dodge to this hustle in Georgia would be to mobilize an intense campaign for absentee ballots in the poor and minority communities, since the very same proposal relaxes the standards on those, with no ID requirement.
Of course...it's presumed that the absentee ballots from poor and minority citizens would actually be COUNTED...
--Cobra
Voter suppression techniques against the poor and minorities aren't new in America, and this, I'm afraid, is just another sad example.
There was only one case of voter suppression documented in the 2004 election, so egregious that Milwaukee's do-nothing DA actually filed indictments (altho now he's stalling till there is little enough attention that he can cut a plea bargain with the Democrat operatives who vandalized Republican get-out the vote vehicles).
Wisconsin's Democratic governor vetoed voter ID legislation on the grounds that it was unfair to the poor, the elderly and minorities. He did however sign legislation which will require valid ID before the poor, the elderly and minorities can buy over the counter cold medicine.
Okay, Cobra,
Maybe you'll be so good as to enlighten us. Since you obviously find any measures to safeguard against voter fraud anathema, how far would you be willing to go in punishing said behavior after the fact? Felony conviction? Significant hard jail time? Revocation of franchise?
Wisconsin's Democratic governor vetoed voter ID legislation on the grounds that it was unfair to the poor, the elderly and minorities. He did however sign legislation which will require valid ID before the poor, the elderly and minorities can buy over the counter cold medicine.
Good one, triticale!
The knots people twist themselves into when discussing what should and shouldn't require ID, who should get what ID, &c. constantly amaze me. Here in CA it's a whole subgenre of our political theater. Latest version: illegal immigrants should be allowed driver's licenses. (Argument for: they're already driving, and this way we'll at least know they passed a driver's exam. Obvious rejoinder: If they're driving without licenses right now, what exactly are they going to do if they fail the exam? Walk?)
The best, though, I think, was the year that Props. 186 and 187 were simultaneously on the ballot. 187, you will remember, was the anti-illegal-immigrant measure that restricted a lot of state benefits, including IIRC public schooling and non-emergency medical care, to people in the state legally. (It passed, but didn't make it past the courts.) 186, which didn't pass and so is pretty much forgotten, would have established a single-payer health care system for California. The joke of it was that the anti-187 campaigners continually raised the spectre of a "national ID card." Nasty, Orwellian thought, yes? Meanwhile, the pro-186 folks had to deal with the obvious problem with their measure: How do you keep people from other states from coming in and freeloading off your nifty health-care system? Won't you have to have some way of . . . um . . . ascertaining that they're actually CA residents? Oops.
Brittain33 is right, of course, that there's something odd about a proposal that makes absentee voting easier while making live voting harder. But I am not so certain that this is partisan. Democratic activists have for several years been keen on absentee voting, going door-to-door in poor neighborhoods to deliver absentee-ballot applications and the like. The old, original reason for voting absentee was because you weren't going to be physically near your polling station on election day; given that people who travel a lot generally have a lot of money or at least make a lot of money, it was reasonable to assume they'd trend Republican. But the new reason for voting absentee is that you can do it without the bother of leaving your house and going down to the polling station, and I'm not going to hazard a guess as to which party is more likely not to bother voting if it's raining.
Personally, I'd want controls on absentee ballots at least as strict as those on "live" ballots. But it's difficult to see how. Photo ID with signature at request of ballot, combined with mandatory check of signature on completed ballot with the one on file? It still doesn't obviate the possibility of fraud, but it makes it harder. How does Oregon handle this?
Triticale writes:
>>>"There was only one case of voter suppression documented in the 2004 election, so egregious that Milwaukee's do-nothing DA actually filed indictments (altho now he's stalling till there is little enough attention that he can cut a plea bargain with the Democrat operatives who vandalized Republican get-out the vote vehicles)."
Where do you get this notion that there was only "one case of voter suppression documented in the 2004 election?"
http://www.thecobraslair.com/images/7-24/BLKVOTEFL-NAT.gif
I could go buck wild right here, but I don't want to hijack the thread away from the Voter ID issue, which I feel is another tool for suppressing the votes of the poor and minority citizens of America. But if you need a refresher course on the shennanigans of 2004, try here:
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=16373
And here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_voting_controversies,_Florida
It's a nice place to start if you want to see the scope of the problem the poor and minorities in America face in regards to their Constitutional right to vote.
Andy Freeman writes:
>>>"If they're incompetent and/or ignorant, why do we want them to vote?"
Because the Constitution has no Amendment banning incompetant or ignorant people from utilizing their rights. Your statement implies that there should some sort of "literacy test" as a requirement for voting.
Sorry. Been there, done that, alongside of grandfather clauses, separate fountains, segregated schools and riding the back of the bus. Those days, are thankfully over.
Bill writes:
>>>"Since you obviously find any measures to safeguard against voter fraud anathema, how far would you be willing to go in punishing said behavior after the fact? Felony conviction? Significant hard jail time? Revocation of franchise?"
What's wrong with enforcement of the laws on the books right now in regards to voter fraud? And what monitor should observe the COUNTING of votes, especially those of the black hole electronic touch screen voting machines that have no paper trail? Who is going to investigate the monstrous potential for fraud in those instances, and what punishment should be levied against those who hack or tamper with that system?
--Cobra
Cobra,
Because the Constitution has no Amendment banning incompetant or ignorant people from utilizing their rights. Your statement implies that there should some sort of "literacy test" as a requirement for voting.
I think Andy Freeman was a little blunt, but he has a point. I for one am a bit tired of "voter turnout" as a good in itself. People who want to vote, sure; people who care enough about voting to make a minimal effort to do so, sure. Warm bodies in the booths, however they come to be there? No thanks.
In Iraq just now, something like 60% of eligible voters voted, even though they knew that a bunch of people lined up outside a polling place was a really, really tempting suicide-bomber target. American non-voters have no excuse except lack of interest. And, frankly, if they aren't interested they're doing us all a positive favor by staying at home.
I don't want "literacy tests," Cobra, but I don't think it's a tragedy if someone who doesn't have a clue what the issues are fails to take the slate card off his doorknob and walk two blocks to the polling place and punch all the indicated votes. The fewer people who do that, the better.
Cobra,
My congratulations on the song and dance. Very impressive. The finale with the change of subject just finished it off perfectly. In regards to your question as to enforcement of current laws, they obviously aren't severe enough to provide a significant deterrant effect. All one needs do is read the article Robert Schwartz links to to see that. The Savage incident only serves to highlight the problem. He feels free not only to break the law, but to brag about it in the nation's paper of record. So, before we start worrying about voting technologies that no one has ever shown any tangible evidence has produced anything other than accurate results, I'd think it would make sense to tackle abuses that we know are happening from publicly available evidence? Or are stuffed ballot boxes and voting corpses acceptable so long as those ballots are marked with a D and those corpses vote straight ticket.
> Because the Constitution has no Amendment banning incompetant or ignorant people from utilizing their rights.
There's a difference between banning and refusing to encourage.
> Your statement implies that there should some sort of "literacy test" as a requirement for voting.
Sorry. Been there, done that, alongside of grandfather clauses, separate fountains, segregated schools and riding the back of the bus. Those days, are thankfully over.
Ah yes, there have, and will be, corrupt police, so we shouldn't have police.
But, it was nice of Cobra to tell us that he thinks that anything that has ever been abused is wrong. Since that's his standard, he can't object to us applying it to whatever he proposes in the future.
Bill, if what you're saying that everyone who doesn't feel that people convicted of vote fraud should be subjected to 10 years of prison rape without prospect of parole is giving a "song and dance" about enforcement, sign me up as second baritone.
The burden's on you to explain why you'd treat a non-violent crime like a violent crime. Because you care a lot about it? Are we supposed to one up each other to show how much we care? That's pointless. I guess I can argue that if you don't think exposing the covert identity of a CIA agent should be punished by hanging, you're giving a "song and dance" when it comes to national security.
I gave my reasons why we should have strict punishment. It's not the same as the punishment you want; oh well.
Brittain33: Because voter fraud undermines one of the foundations of our society.
And it is not a minor problem. The real outcome of the last election for Governor of Oregon is impossible to determine because proven fraudulent votes exceed the margin of victory - they only have a governor because a partisan court awarded victory to the Democrat.
Where is all of this concern regarding voter fraud when we have touch screen voting systems without paper trails?
Second, why is the onus on voter fraud placed upon the people voting, and not the people COUNTING the votes?
Third, why on EARTH do people on this blog want to DISCOURAGE people from voting, especially those who aren't of the right class or educational background? This smacks of elitism and aristocratic arrogance.
Michelle writes:
>>>"In Iraq just now, something like 60% of eligible voters voted, even though they knew that a bunch of people lined up outside a polling place was a really, really tempting suicide-bomber target. American non-voters have no excuse except lack of interest. And, frankly, if they aren't interested they're doing us all a positive favor by staying at home."
And there are rampant stories about voter fraud occuring in Iraq during the past weekend's election:
>>>"It is in Mosul, in Nineveh Province, that the Sunnis may have their best reason to cry foul. Early numbers from the Associated Press which aren't endorsed by the Electoral Commission showed almost twice as many "yes" votes for the constitution as the total number of voters in January's elections for the National Assembly, meaning that every new voter and then some voted for the constitution. Nineveh is generally considered a majority Sunni province, and Mosul was the hometown of many of Iraq's generals and other officers before the 2003 invasion.
"Mosul doesn't make any sense," said Mutlaq.
U.S. soldiers stationed in Mosul told TIME that District Election Officers had moved polling sites that day, confusing voters. In one case, they claimed, an official had moved a polling site to his office at another school two miles from the old site without informing anyone. There were also reports of election officials separating the vote tally sheets from the ballot boxes, allowing them to be marked separately and possibly fraudulently.
"It wouldn't surprise me if the election was rigged," said a U.S. Army officer in Mosul who requested anonymity and who worked on security arrangements for the poll with Iraqi security and election officials. "I don't even trust our election process."
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1119617,00.html
Now, I'm assuming that both Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell have alibis for the October 15, so there must be a different cast of characters presiding over elections in Mosul.
--Cobra
Brittain33,
Bill, if what you're saying that everyone who doesn't feel that people convicted of vote fraud should be subjected to 10 years of prison rape without prospect of parole is giving a "song and dance" about enforcement, sign me up as second baritone.
Bill can speak for himself, but I don't think anyone at all "should be subjected to 10 years of prison rape." It still gobsmacks me that there are people under constant surveillance and tight confinement who are repeated rape victims, and the ones doing the confining and the surveillance profess to be powerless to stop it.
Are you saying that rape is OK as part of the de facto punishment for thugs, but not OK if the crime didn't involve guns, knives, blunt instruments, or fists? Because if you are, count me out.
The burden's on you to explain why you'd treat a non-violent crime like a violent crime. Because you care a lot about it? Are we supposed to one up each other to show how much we care?
And the burden's on you to explain how serious a crime has to be before it can justify locking someone up. Is stealing a vote as serious as stealing a car radio? Or (in a memorable "Three Strikes" case early in that particularly asinine CA law's career) a slice of pizza? I think so.
I'm not saying that prison time is necessarily appropriate, but we have to stop treating fraud as a sort of joke. There was, for example, that study last year that found that some astonishing number of New Yorkers had registered to vote both in New York and in Florida, and had voted absentee in one state and in person in the other. This is, and should be regarded as, a serious crime, and there has to be a punishment sufficient to deter it. A very stiff fine ($10K would probably do it) or an alternative month in jail, maybe. The deterrent level has to be high because the chances any one fraudster is actually going to be caught are negligible, and the chances of prosecution maybe even lower. I don't know whether any of the miscreants in the article I'm referring to (I think it was in the NYT) were even charged with anything.
But most of the poor who lack IDs are illegal immigrants, who aren't (and IMHO shouldn't be) allowed to vote.
This is a little late to come in with -- Jane probably isn't reading any more but: what?
What has that got to do with anything? The relevant question is how many fraudulent votes will be prevented by the ID requirement compared to how many IDless citizens will be prevented from voting. The number of illegal immigrants who can't get photo IDs have nothing to do with it -- a citizen who is entitled to vote and voted in her own name across town is as capable of voting fraudulently as an undocumented immigrant, so the undocumented population isn't any kind of upper bound on the number of possible fraudulent votes. It's completely irrelevant.
If you have relevant statistics on this, share them, but what you said was nonsense.
Cobra,
Where is all of this concern regarding voter fraud when we have touch screen voting systems without paper trails?
There was a time — a couple election cycles ago, shall we say — when I seem to recall people on the Left being rather keen on electronic voting. It was one of those things that was supposed to make voting easier, which was then as now the great goal. Only later did people cotton on to the fact that it allows various rich opportunities for fraud. So does absentee voting, of course, but at least there there's a paper record.
Second, why is the onus on voter fraud placed upon the people voting, and not the people COUNTING the votes?
Well, it should be both, obviously, Cobra. You could have scrupulously fair counting of votes, or scrupulously fair vetting of voters, and still have massive fraud in both cases, provided there were illegal or fraudulent voters in the first case and forging of the results in the second. Neither should be allowed any quarter. You appear to think it's unfair to tackle one half of the problem without tackling the other one simultaneously. It seems to me that vote-counting has been under such scrutiny after 2000 that who's voting in the first place is the natural place to start.
Third, why on EARTH do people on this blog want to DISCOURAGE people from voting, especially those who aren't of the right class or educational background? This smacks of elitism and aristocratic arrogance.
Well, I have a feeling I'm included in there somewhere, so I will answer this. I do not want to "discourage" anyone from voting. I do not care about "class"; I do not care about "educational background." I have met eager voters who knew exactly what they were voting for, hadn't graduated high school, and were making minimum wage, if that. I wouldn't always have voted as they would, but the point is that they knew what they were voting for and why.
What I object to, Cobra, has nothing at all to do with "class" or "educational background." It is, instead, the idea that our democracy will be improved if every citizen is cajoled into voting, whether s/he gives a damn or not, whether s/he even knows what the question is or not. Any citizen who wants to vote should do so; but badgering citizens who have no interest in an election into participating in it seems to me a foolproof way of expanding the fraction of the participating voters that don't know what or whom they are voting for.
Cobra, perhaps you can answer one nagging question for me. So far as I know the Lefty impression of conservatives, the general idea seems to be that they are (a) dumb as rocks; and (b) totally uninterested in civic life, and chiefly busy enriching themselves at the cost of everyone else. So why is it that the people really anxious to nag people into voting, cajole people into voting, make it ever easier to register to vote, make it ever more convenient to vote, &c., are on the Left? Shouldn't the putative stupidity and self-centeredness of the right side of the electorate skew the pool of actual voters leftward? I mean, the expected return on an individual vote is basically zero, so if expected return is all you care about, why bother? And if you're too stupid to get through the sample ballot, double why bother? And yet, one party seems to view apathetic nonvoters as an untapped resource, and it isn't the Republicans. Why is that?
Michelle writes:
>>>"It is, instead, the idea that our democracy will be improved if every citizen is cajoled into voting, whether s/he gives a damn or not, whether s/he even knows what the question is or not. Any citizen who wants to vote should do so; but badgering citizens who have no interest in an election into participating in it seems to me a foolproof way of expanding the fraction of the participating voters that don't know what or whom they are voting for."
The Pre-amble of the US Constitution:
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
It doesn't say "We the enlightened people..." "We the informed people..." "We the saavy people..." or "We the important people..."...oh no. It reads "WE THE PEOPLE" with no dangling modifier. The most ill-read, sloth-like, blinders-on slacker has the same right to vote as the chairman of a political party, and by one-man one vote, the same electoral power.
There are those people in America who don't take full advantage of the rights that they do have. That doesn't mean those rights are forfeited. It's not "cajoling" somebody into voting by letting them know of the history and power behind it. It's not some parlor trick to tell women and minorities their TURE history in regards to voting, where largely CONSERVATIVE forces sought to block their access to the ballot box.
It's no dodge or hustle to let people know what policies on the ballot could be harmful to their way of life, and require their attention.
That's why this ID suppression scheme must be confronted and exposed for what it truly is.
--Cobra
Cobra,
I've said over and over again that I don't want anyone's vote suppressed. I would not, furthermore, suppress the efforts of people who want the apathetic to vote, either. I would merely say, as I have already said, that people who don't give a shit about anything on the ballot and can't be bothered to learn about it would do everyone a favor by continuing not to bother and staying home.
There are those people in America who don't take full advantage of the rights that they do have. That doesn't mean those rights are forfeited.
Well, of course it doesn't.
It's not "cajoling" somebody into voting by letting them know of the history and power behind it. It's not some parlor trick to tell women and minorities their TURE history in regards to voting, where largely CONSERVATIVE forces sought to block their access to the ballot box.
Well, this is a little complicated, Cobra. I rather suspect that if you were to have interviewed a sample of the people who passed the 19th Amendment, you'd have found most of them to be well off the right edge of your political charts. The post-Civil-War amendments' ratifiers, maybe even more so.
But that isn't the point. The point is that right now, there is no barrier to voting for "women and minorities," any more than there is for anyone. Registering is easier than it ever has been. Getting absentee ballots is at least as easy as it ever has been. (It's not as though an absentee ballot is a luxury of the upper classes; quite the contrary, as I've already said.)
It's no dodge or hustle to let people know what policies on the ballot could be harmful to their way of life, and require their attention.
Indeed not. Go ahead and tell them. Just don't try to persuade me that going door to door to registered but "dormant" voters with slate cards and an exhortation to vote is anything but a means to get as many warm bodies as possible in the right attitude. The people doing this are not trying to get potential voters to examine the issues. I've gotten five automated calls already from folks who wanted to alert me to CA's Prop. 75. Has any of them suggested I read the arguments pro and con in the sample ballot? Riiiiight. No, they all wanted to keep me as far away from the sample ballot as reasonably practical, by "branding" the measure as anti-teacher, anti-nurse, anti-firefighter, anti-humanity.
Brittain33,
I hadn't made prison rape a portion of my suggested sentance. My point was to treat them for what they are - common criminals. In point of fact, there are a great many non-violent crimes that receive regular prison time. An embezzler isn't violent, nor are most blackmailers. Hell, even some of the worst crimes in our constitutional system - treason or espionage - aren't violent. Heck, we don't even have to move into other non-violent crimes to see this treatment. Fraud itself is punished with prison. Unless, you're going to lament the great injustice done to the folks at Enron or Worldcom or Tyco, you're going to have to tell me why that kind of fraud needs to be punished severely, but this kind is...well...just not so bad, or even the equivalent of the "students I knew in college who pointed out security holes to tech services".
And, no, I don't support harsher penalties to get into a contest with you about who cares more about this issue. I support harsher penalties because the status quo is obviously not serving as a deterent. If outing a CIA agent were treated so cavalierly that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby did so and felt free to admit to doing so on the editorial page of the New York Times, I certainly would support upping the punishment to hanging.
Finally, please don't take this personally, as I'm sure it wasn't your intent. But, stringent punishments for voter fraud become meaningless unless we're willing to apply them. My "song and dance" comment specifically applies to this point. We have a pretty much open and shut case of voter fraud, and your immediate reaction was to start giving interpretations why, somehow this is different and doesn't merit much in the way of punishment.
I haven't read the details of the Georgia decision, but if a poll-tax, or fee, was involved, then the judges *had to* overturn the law.
If there is no charge for obtaining a state-issued ID, then the idea passes constitutional muster.
Anyone who opposes the concept of requiring ID for voting, as opposed to specifics of the implementation, is objectively supporting increased vote fraud.
I do have comments for you Jane. I really think that you ought to reconsider your comments concerning the poor. I would like to make it very clear and concise to you that you seem to be steroetyping a certain class of individuals that are below the average economoc standard. What I am trying to say here is that you are quite wrong about a lot of poor people in America. Yes, there are some that may have fallen into the your condescending demoralization of poor people. I want to make it clear that not all poor people lack education or intelligence. There are numerable poor individuals and families that have finished a high school education. Some have even had the liberty to attend college. Just because someone is poor does not necessarily mean that have do not have personal ID's, vehicles, or even credit. Though my personal opinion on credit is that a credit based society such as it is in America will be our own financial and economic undoing. Afterall, the borrower is slave to the lender. The lack of job economy in some regions throughout also contributes. I also think it is ludricous that you would assume that poor people are members of gangs and own guns. Not all poor people are drug addicts, in gangs, or own guns. There are number of upper class and even middle-class citizens in society that were or are drug addicts, in gangs, and own guns. It also rather ridiculous for you to classify poor people as anti-social and mentally deficient or ill. There are many wealthy and middle-class people that suffer from mental illness or exhibit anti-social personality traits. Perhaps, you should really search facts before making such generalizations. Not all poor people lack the ability to articulate or speak eloquently when the situation requires. Not all poor people lack friends that are in a different economic bracket. These statement is absurd, there are many poor people who originally came from wealthy or middleclass families. Some were middleclass and may have lost employment due circumstances. Does this mean that they are gang members, do not watch the news, and are uneducated? Please...maybe you need some more education yourself.
The way you folks are ranting, one would think that the proposal was for a truely large fee.
We're actually talking about the equivalent of 2-10 hours every couple of years. If voting isn't worth that to them....
Andy writes:
>>>"The way you folks are ranting, one would think that the proposal was for a truely large fee.
We're actually talking about the equivalent of 2-10 hours every couple of years. If voting isn't worth that to them...."
So what part of "poll taxes are wrong", don't you understand?
--Cobra
Cobra, as I understand it, absentee balloting isn't affected (in fact, that was one of the genuinely relevant objections, and I think you raised it yourself somewhere up-thread), so we aren't talking about a poll tax, unless of course (as I also said up-thread) any imposition on a voter whatsoever, including getting out of bed, constitutes a poll tax. Time spent in line costs money, whether it's at the polling place or at the post office picking up an absentee-ballot application. In fact, it costs more money the more you could have earned in the time you spend on it, so it's a progressive poll tax, if you like.
That said, I think requiring an expenditure before voting is probably unconstitutional for the reason you raise. How's this: make a special voter ID card mandatory to vote, and make it free. Require some verification of identity and citizenship before it's issued. Require this card (and not a driver's licence, a passport, or anything else of the kind) to vote.
Everyone has to get one. Everyone has to prove eligibility to vote to get one. No one has to pay a fee to get one, apart from the cost of time and transportation to the site at which it's issued.
Disadvantage: it'd be hella expensive. Advantage: if it were done right, all legal voters would be on the same footing.
What say you, Cobra? Is even this still a poll tax? If it's not sufficient, I'm open to forcing absentee ballots to be completed in the presence of someone who has examined the voter's proof of US citizenship, striking from the rolls everyone registered in more than one state [I mean, striking them from one state, not both, if they just didn't realize, but striking them entirely if they'd deliberately voted in two states during one election, possibly to be reinstated after some years], requiring proof of US citizenship at the polls, and going the purple-finger route with the entire electorate. That wouldn't entirely prevent fraud, but it'd come close, and probably be cheaper than my first suggestion.
Michelle writes:
>>>"How's this: make a special voter ID card mandatory to vote, and make it free. Require some verification of identity and citizenship before it's issued. Require this card (and not a driver's licence, a passport, or anything else of the kind) to vote.
Everyone has to get one. Everyone has to prove eligibility to vote to get one. No one has to pay a fee to get one, apart from the cost of time and transportation to the site at which it's issued."
I understand your desire to see fair and legitimate elections, and the elimination of voter fraud. Don't think for a second that I'm just being a contrarian, or see the devil behind every street lamp waiting to pounce. I just think that the cost/benefit analysis doesn't work for National Voter ID, and I'll tell you why.
Number #1, it will be a massive, human-run bureaucracy, no matter what data-bases and technology is available, subject to the same errors, omissions, glitches and frauds that CURRENT human run bureaucracies are subject to.
Number #2, who has access to the data-base? What information will be held about you there? Whom do you see to make corrections about your ID? We already know what happened in the State of Florida with Jeb Bush and the Voter List Scrub groups:
"What makes the Central Voter File remarkable is that Florida is the only state that pays a private company to "cleanse" voter rolls. In 1998, the first firm hired for this program was Professional Service Inc., which charged $5,700 for the job.
There was an open bid for the job, which was assigned to DBT Online's, despite the fact that its bid was the highest-priced (several thousand percent over competitors). The state gave the job to DBT for a first year fee of $2,317,800. In the files about the DBT bid there appears a handwritten note which reads "don't need" next to the listing of verification databases, though this work was included in the price.
In 1998 the state signed a deal with DBT for $4 million. Next year, the Florida Department of Elections terminated Professional Service Inc.'s contract. DBT Online later merged into ChoicePoint, of Atlanta..."
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:ONoDMVqXY5cJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Central_Voter_File+Voter+list+scrub+groups,+Florida,+blacks&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
And the danger of having Private Companies in charge?
>>>"At first, Florida specified only exact matches on names, birthdates and genders to identify voters as felons. However, state records reveal a memo dated March 1999 from Emmett "Bucky" Mitchell, a lawyer for the state elections office who was supervising the felon purge, asking DBT to loosen its criteria for acceptable matches. When DBT representatives warned Mitchell that this would yield a large proportion of false positives (mismatches), Mitchell's reply was that it would be up to each county elections supervisor to deal with the problem.
In February 2000, in a phone conversation with the BBC's London studios, ChoicePoint vice-president James Lee said that the state "wanted there to be more names than were actually verified as being a convicted felon".
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:ONoDMVqXY5cJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Central_Voter_File+Voter+list+scrub+groups,+Florida,+blacks&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Oh, the story gets much worse, Michelle...but that's only FLORIDA and Jeb Bush. Could you imagine the entire country's voting rolls being in the hands of Karl Rove (or to be fair and balanced, James Carville or Bob Shrum?) Because on a computerized database system, the people with access control the system, and they don't neccessarily have the best interests of the American people in mind.
It's interesting how many conservatives are dead set against any further registration, identification or information cataloging regarding access and possession of firearms, but when it comes to the VOTE....hmmm.
--Cobra
Cobra,
You're massively misreading me.
In the first place, I'm talking about a national photo ID required to vote, with proof of citizenship required to get one. I am not talking about a computer database. I presume the US Government has some reasonable way of keeping track of who is a citizen and who isn't; and if it doesn't, it damn well better develop one, for reasons that have nothing much to do with voting.
In other words, the "massive human-run bureaucracy" is already sitting there. There is already a list of registered voters; there are already people equipped to check it and make reasonably hard-to-forge IDs (the state DMVs); and there are already documents that anyone holding a legal job in the United States is accustomed to present to prove citizenship. The only real difficulty is that it would, as I said, be very expensive to provide photo IDs to every voting-age citizen of the country free of charge. Especially as you'd have to make people renew them every ten years or so, just like passports.
You don't mention my alternative proposal, and I wonder why not. It's cheaper than the first one, and arguably even more impervious to fraud. Is it an aversion to purple ink? To making people prove they're US citizens? Or what?
What I want to see is a situation in which it's next to impossible to vote in a US election if you're not a US citizen, or have already voted in the same election earlier in the day. Is that so much to ask? Is anything that would get us a little closer to the goal a de facto poll tax? Or what?
>>"The way you folks are ranting, one would think that the proposal was for a truely large fee.
>>We're actually talking about the equivalent of 2-10 hours every couple of years. If voting isn't worth that to them...."
>So what part of "poll taxes are wrong", don't you understand?
Cobra-logic: Police have used speeding laws to discriminate inappropriately, therefore speeding laws are wrong. Someone just chucked her kids into SF Bay, therefore water is wrong.
Note that poll-taxes were turned into a discriminatory tool by Democrats. It's interesting that the sins that Cobra rails about were all committed by Dems, yet they're okay in his book.
Cobra,
I forgot to address this last bit:
It's interesting how many conservatives are dead set against any further registration, identification or information cataloging regarding access and possession of firearms, but when it comes to the VOTE....hmmm.
The "right to bear arms" is a "please keep the government out of my face" sort of right. The right to vote, on the other hand, is of a kind that needs gov't supervision. There are people allowed to vote, and people not allowed to vote, and the former should be allowed to, the latter should not, and no authority but the government has any authority to tell them apart.
Cobra, please, tell us all here what you would do to prevent fraudulent voting. How would you go about preventing noncitizens from voting? How would you go about preventing people from registering in more than one states? How would you go about preventing absentee-ballot fraud? Understand that any time any fraudulent ballot gets into the system, it is the equivalent of someone who voted the other way being disenfranchised. That vote is cancelled by the fraudulent vote just as though it hadn't been cast at all.
As an additional follow-up, perhaps we should pass a special Congressional voting rule. Each Democrat in the House or Senate gets one vote. Each Republican's vote counts for 1.5 votes. Sounds like a pretty terrible idea, eh? Okay, then explain to me why, given patterns in voter fraud, removing protections against such fraud, while simultaneously refusing to replace them with alternate safeguards or impose more stringent penalties against fraud, amounts to anything other than doing the same thing in favor of Democrats in the election process.
Bill,
Okay, then explain to me why, given patterns in voter fraud, removing protections against such fraud, while simultaneously refusing to replace them with alternate safeguards or impose more stringent penalties against fraud, amounts to anything other than doing the same thing in favor of Democrats in the election process.
You're overreaching. No one, so far as I know, is talking about removing existing safeguards. That the existing safeguards are laughable is obvious, but the only people whittling those down at the moment appear to be the Georgia legislature, re absentee ballots. Which, frankly, is a move that could do with an explanation.
But it's clear that everyone assumes that attempts to make it more difficult to vote multiple times or otherwise fraudulently will benefit Republicans. Why should they? Can't we come up with nonpartisan ways of securing the system against fraud? Or is it actually the case that there is existing fraud that benefits one party much more than it does the other, and that this is the explanation of all the dither?
Andy Freeman writes:
>>>"Note that poll-taxes were turned into a discriminatory tool by Democrats. It's interesting that the sins that Cobra rails about were all committed by Dems, yet they're okay in his book."
And once the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 came into being the predominantly WHITE Southern Democrats (called Dixiecrats) changed party affiliation to Republican. Many famous white conservatives who were ALSO against those two acts became the godfathers of today's GOP: Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, William Reinquist, Barry Goldwater, etc.
Andy, if you think I hand passes out to white racists based on party affiliation, you're sorely mistaken.
Michelle writes:
>>>"There are people allowed to vote, and people not allowed to vote, and the former should be allowed to, the latter should not, and no authority but the government has any authority to tell them apart."
I could make the very same statement about firearm ownership, unless you believe that EVERY person walking around in America today should be able to possess a firearm. Who am I to say that the guy sitting next to me on the train is mentally fit to exercise his Second Amendment rights? But if he wigs out, I'll surely be the first person to FIND OUT.
Michelle writes:
>>>"In the first place, I'm talking about a national photo ID required to vote, with proof of citizenship required to get one. I am not talking about a computer database."
United States Population: 295,734,134
According to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2119rank.html
Now, how on EARTH do you plan to be able to VERIFY even a fraction of those citizens' Voter ID cards without a computer database?
To hammer this point home even further, the Department of Motor Vehicles is also on board with THEIR database system:
>>>"The collective DMV databases are the largest law enforcement databases in the country, with records on more individual adults than any other law enforcement databases. The collective DMV databases are the only comprehensive internal security database."
http://www.lexisnexis.com/practiceareas/immigration/pdfs/web785a.pdf
That's why a police officer who pulls you over somewhere can run your license and find out all kinds of facts about you. As you yourself said in your post, that massive bureaucracy is already here, and you KNOW what you have to go through visiting your local DMV for corrections, applications and adjustments.
>>>"Cobra, please, tell us all here what you would do to prevent fraudulent voting. How would you go about preventing noncitizens from voting? How would you go about preventing people from registering in more than one states? How would you go about preventing absentee-ballot fraud? Understand that any time any fraudulent ballot gets into the system, it is the equivalent of someone who voted the other way being disenfranchised. That vote is cancelled by the fraudulent vote just as though it hadn't been cast at all."
Crime is a reality in America. This nation has the highest incarceration rate in the industrialized world, yet there is still crime being committed. You can't catch every crook. Every caught crook isn't found guilty. Not every crook found guilty goes to jail. It's the system we have.
As far as voter fraud and disenfrachisement is concerned, you still have those issues WITH National ID. AGAIN, who CONTROLS THE DATABASE? Which party does the election supervisors belong to? Who decides how many machines and what type go into which district? It is a HUMAN ENDEAVOR, and therefore imperfect, and prone to corruption.
If you impose a National ID system, and left it up to local election boards and jurisdictions to maintenance and administer the system, those in areas with less resources would suffer, (that's the story of America, isn't it?) which was I believe the clandestined goal of many of those heavily favoring National Voter ID in the first place. The suppression of voters by adding layers of frustrating bureaucracy. Let's face it, not too many people ENJOY visiting the DMV for licensing or registration, but in order to legally drive, a daily neccessity for most, it is a priority for survival. The need to vote is vital, but it is generally an annual, or twice yearly event.
Truth be told, voter disenfranchisement is far more easily accomplished from the keyboards of the mainframes of electronic touch-screen machines without paper trails, and the partisan Secretary of State houses in Swing states, but I here-to-fore have heard NO SOLUTIONS to those issues from the "your papers, please" crowd in here.
--Cobra
Cobra, I do not know what it's like dealing with the DMV, for the simple reason that I am one of those people without a driver's license or state photo ID about whom you profess to be concerned. If I needed photo ID to vote in this state, I'd get a CA photo ID. At the moment, when I absolutely need a photo ID, I use my passport.
I will assume, treating the US Government charitably, that it can figure out whether I have a valid passport or not. That is, it has some reasonable way of deciding whether I am a US citizen or not. If I am not a US citizen, I am not entitled to vote. I am also not entitled to work legally in this country absent special arrangements.
Cobra, what is so onerous about supplying the same information everyone has to do to get a job either beforehand to get an ID, or at the polling place to get a ballot?
Let's face it, not too many people ENJOY visiting the DMV for licensing or registration, but in order to legally drive, a daily neccessity for most, it is a priority for survival.
Well, doesn't that mean that "most" already have photo IDs of the sort Georgia would require for voting? Your case was first that this was ridiculously onerous; your new case apparently is that we all know what a pain in the ass it is, because almost everyone's already done it. Making everyone do it over again at no charge would scarcely seem an insurmountable burden.
> And once the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 came into being the predominantly WHITE Southern Democrats (called Dixiecrats) changed party affiliation to Republican.
Except that, with few exceptions, they didn't. The vast majority continued to be Dems until they died. Some, including "Sheets" Byrd, are still alive, and still Dems.
> Andy, if you think I hand passes out to white racists based on party affiliation, you're sorely mistaken.
Yeah right. Note that Cobra never mentions which party enacted Jim Crow. Bull Connor was a prominent Dem, but you won't hear that from Cobra.
The votes for the civil rights acts of the 60s came mostly from Repubs. Dems were split. Cobra won't tell you that.
Andy writes:
>>>"Yeah right. Note that Cobra never mentions which party enacted Jim Crow. Bull Connor was a prominent Dem, but you won't hear that from Cobra.
The votes for the civil rights acts of the 60s came mostly from Repubs. Dems were split. Cobra won't tell you that."
Oh, I consistantly mention that they were WHITE CONSERVATIVES, the same group that wants this new type of voter suppression on minorities now.
Michelle,
You still haven't told me how a National ID card can function without a huge, computerized database.
--Cobra
Michelle,
I have heard a great many demands to make voting easier that create significant opportunities for fraud. Its a simple tradeoff. Meeting the safeguards makes voting harder. Still, in the current discussion, while the need has been alluded to, you're right. No one is demanding that here. I take your point.
On the other hand you ask:
Or is it actually the case that there is existing fraud that benefits one party much more than it does the other, and that this is the explanation of all the dither?
Yeah it is. Take a look at the link above, the Oregon governor's race, or even the case of Marks v. Stinson. Voter fraud in the U.S. while undoubtedly taking place on both sides, pretty clearly favors the Democrats. Is this because Republicans are nobler or more above such things? Republicans would no doubt go head-long into voter fraud given the opportunity. No. Its the result of the fact that the Democrats had long experience with urban political machines. As the party with a bigger presence in cities, they can leverage this experience in ways Republicans can't.
No one would say that fraud in election counts is something that should be permitted, or even tolerated, and at this point such mechanisms might favor Republicans.. The thing is, though, there's no concrete evidence that this is taking place. There are mounds of evidence that significant amounts of voter fraud are taking place and that this fraud significantly favors Democratic candidates.
Cobra,
You still haven't told me how a National ID card can function without a huge, computerized database.
And you still haven't told me why you trust the various forms of ID we already have. I would think that proving your citizenship (if you have, say, left the country and want to get back into it) would be almost as valuable as exercising it. Are US passports a menace because the numbers on them are undoubtedly in a "large computerized database"? How about SSNs?
I'm not talking about fakery here, about forged passports or nonexistent SSNs; I'm talking about information vanishing out of the system, a real SSN being rejected or a real passport declared fraudulent. Because your concern is that everyone legally eligible to vote be able to, right? Whereas I would add to that that everyone not eligible to vote, so far as possible, be stopped. Once again, every illegal vote cancels someone else's legal one. Why doesn't this exercise you at all? It should.
I'm far too lazy to check the whole thread so someone probably already mentioned this. The argument that each vote by an illegal immigrant disenfranchises a legal voter only works if all of the immigrants vote the same way. The outcome of the election, which in theory is what we should be concerned with, is completely unnaffected by illegal votes if the illegals are equally distributed on each side of the political spectrum or if the distribution of their votes is the same as that of legal citizens. Now, you might make a convincing argument that the illegal immigrant vote is significantly skewed toward one side of the spectrum or another but that means you will have to reduce illegal voters by a much larger number than the legal voters who are disenfranchised. Any reasonable assumption on the skewness of the illegal distribution will make the ratio much larger than 1:1, especially when you consider the fact that the disenfranchised legal voters may very well be skewed in the same direction as the illegals. But then again, who the hell am I?
First of all, as someone mentioned much earlier, there is no way this could be considered a poll tax, because there is a bus that is literally driving around to people's houses and giving them an ID as long as they can somewhat prove who they are. I live in the Atlanta area as well, and there is literally not a week that goes by that you do not here something about it on the news.
I love all of the ridiculous references by our socialist friend Cobra about references to the old south and discrimination. The problem is that no matter what reasonable system anyone comes up with to combat fraud, someone will always throw in the red herring that has little connection to what is happening today. Segregated water fountains? Come on. EVERYONE has access to these IDs here in Georgia. You can damn well bet if someone (especially a black person) could prove they called up the vote registration bus and it didn't come, Jesse Jackson would be down here and we would have a march on the State Capitol.
What is duly ironic is the fact that the same people saying that this ID adds new bureaucracy and requires people to "register" in some national database are the same people who want to nationalize healthcare. How do you think we would administer that without added bureaucracy and developing some national database?
hammer
Hammer writes:
>>>"I love all of the ridiculous references by our socialist friend Cobra about references to the old south and discrimination. The problem is that no matter what reasonable system anyone comes up with to combat fraud, someone will always throw in the red herring that has little connection to what is happening today. Segregated water fountains?"
Are you making a claim that there WASN'T discrimination in the South? Are you claiming that black voter disenfranchisement DIDN'T exist?
How am I being a socialist by writing about documented history?
You apparently weren't reading the other posts about voter fraud in Georgia, which apparently is so low it's inconsequential. And what's with the "Jesse Jackson" reference? Is this another case where African Americans are "wrong" to expect the SAME rights as whites?
Michelle writes:
>>>"And you still haven't told me why you trust the various forms of ID we already have. I would think that proving your citizenship (if you have, say, left the country and want to get back into it) would be almost as valuable as exercising it. Are US passports a menace because the numbers on them are undoubtedly in a "large computerized database"? How about SSNs?"
Well, I would answer that one combined with another statement you made up-thread:
>>>"Cobra, I do not know what it's like dealing with the DMV, for the simple reason that I am one of those people without a driver's license or state photo ID about whom you profess to be concerned. If I needed photo ID to vote in this state, I'd get a CA photo ID. At the moment, when I absolutely need a photo ID, I use my passport."
I'm saying it's basically irrelevant in regards to fraud. Again, it's really in the ballpark of those at the polls and their level of dilligence alongside of the level of verification technology at their disposal.
The second a National ID is designed, its model will be the hottest ticket on the black market, just like "fake ID's" are today. If you're saying they should be utilized in conjunction with other big-brother techniques such as micro-chips, and bio-metrics, then you understand why civil libertarians are up in arms over these ideas.
--Cobra
Cobra, I am not saying you are a socialist for writing about documented history, I am saying you are a socialist for distorting it and equalizing it to today's issue. Segregated water fountains and poll taxes specifically targeted blacks and forced a different standard on them. Voter ID holds everyone to the same standard. It is not a poll tax because everyone that does not already have one can get one for free, and they even come to your house. I guess you have accepted defeat in this issue, since your only defense of the issue is to take one statement and make it say another. By merely mentioning the name Jesse Jackson, I evoked a predictable liberal reaction. I make the statement "Jesse Jackson would be down here and we would have a march on the State Capitol." and that says that I thinks its wrong for people to demand equal rights? How is requiring EVERYONE to have THE SAME standard not demanding equal rights?
The amazing thing is the number of partisan hacks fighting against having an ID to vote. Even stalward liberals like media-man Juan Williams and your national hero Jimmy Carter are for having Voter ID. In fact, I believe it was Carter helped craft the bill that put Voter ID in it. If you are going to fight this battle on some kind of philosophical or legal basis, you need to be armed with some better material.
hammer
Or is it actually the case that there is existing fraud that benefits one party much more than it does the other, and that this is the explanation of all the dither?
Michelle, as I stated above, it's because Georgia's brand of "targeted" anti-fraud measures would have the effect of exclusing legitimate voters who favor Democrats.
>>"Yeah right. Note that Cobra never mentions which party enacted Jim Crow. Bull Connor was a prominent Dem, but you won't hear that from Cobra.
>> The votes for the civil rights acts of the 60s came mostly from Repubs. Dems were split. Cobra won't tell you that."
>Oh, I consistantly mention that they were WHITE CONSERVATIVES,
Except that they weren't conservatives, they were largely Huey-long style populists.
Their northern kin, the Wilson-style progressives, nationalized segregation.
The common political thread was that they were Democrats, and well within the redistributionist wing of the party. (The only thing "right" about them was support of the military.)
There is little question that Republicans want to discourage the poor and minorities from voting. The haven't benefitted from increased turnout by and large, although last fall my have been an excpetion or an aberration. Drop all this crap about the Dems and Jim Crow. Long time ago my friends and those people aren't in power anymore and those that supported them now vote GOP. Which party hand out fliers in heavily black precincts telling people to vote on the wrong day? Which party had its majority leader filibuster the motor voter bill in the senate? Which party falsely told black voters in the 90 NC senate race that they were facing imprisonment if they showed up at the wrong polling place? Which party did the same th