Voter ID laws: Everyone has an ID, right? Nope

[geeker2]

Originally Posted by phystech

I need to cash a check - can I do that without a photo ID?

I want to purchase something with a credit card - can I do that without ID?

I want want to own a racehorse - can I do that without being fingerprinted and issued a photo ID?

I want drive a car - can I do that without a photo ID?

I want to travel to Myrtle Beach - can I pass through security without a photo ID?

I want to rent a car, can I do that with out a photo ID?

I want to rent a house in Myrtle Beach, can I do that without ID?

Please use a pie chart next time

[Riot]

Originally Posted by phystech

I need to cash a check - can I do that without a photo ID?

I want to purchase something with a credit card - can I do that without ID?

I want want to own a racehorse - can I do that without being fingerprinted and issued a photo ID?

I want drive a car - can I do that without a photo ID?

I want to travel to Myrtle Beach - can I pass through security without a photo ID?

I want to rent a car, can I do that with out a photo ID?

I want to rent a house in Myrtle Beach, can I do that without ID?

So what? None of that matters. The above are all choices. Voting is a Constitutional right, having nothing at all to do with the ability to do any of the above.

Citizens are entitled to vote whether or not they choose to drive, travel, rent a car or house, buy a horse.

Citizens are entitled to vote even if they are poor and can't afford a car, and don't have a drivers license; even if they are 80 in a nursing home and don't travel out to shop or take the bus, or cash checks, and don't have a bank.

We need to make voting more accessible and easier for those people. Not more difficult simply because they don't fit some imaged middle- or upper-class lifestyle paradigm. There are no class discriminations in the Constitution for Voting Rights. Every citizen is equal: even the poor meth addict can vote.

Oh, yeah - and they tend to vote Democratic.

The courts have determined that several of these voting ID bills are essentially unfair poll taxes on certain, targeted segments of American citizens. That's why they are being thrown out. And besides, as repeatedly proven, "voter fraud" is a false meme that simply doesn't factually exist in any discernable volume whatsoever.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Cardus

On my planet, Riot, it is 2012 and NO ONE has a problem getting an ID card to confirm identity and residency.

But yet in real life, many people, an estimated 5 million American citizens, do. They don't live within 100 miles of a DMV, they don't have transportation, they are elderly and don't have a birth certificate (yet have been voting for 50 years at the same precinct), they are so poor they don't have money to get on a bus and take a day off work to go to a DMV and get an ID.

There is no voter fraud. It's virtually non-existent. And the voter fraud that is found cannot be prevented by a photo ID.

Restrictive photo ID voting laws are simply an ALEC-generated Republican construct to attempt to prevent voters that often vote Democratic from voting. And the federal courts are agreeing.

I will not get into details, but it is a mortal shame that the person most responsible with upholding our country's "laws" -- political constructs that guide, in part, how we live -- refuses to do so when it comes to confirming a person's legal ability to vote.

That would be the Supreme Court and our judicial system. Not a president. Not a Congress. And the federal courts are throwing out restrictive GOP voter ID laws as unconstitutional right and left.

Every state in the Union already has laws determining eligibility to vote. Restricting those further is being found overwhelmingly unconstitutional. Period.

[Rudeboyelvis]

Originally Posted by Riot

There is no voter fraud. It's virtually non-existent. And the voter fraud that is found cannot be prevented by a photo ID.





And the federal courts are throwing out restrictive GOP voter ID laws as unconstitutional right and left.

Is there none, or some but virtually none? You contradict yourself so ofter it is hard to keep up. You don't know anything for fact - you simply regurgitate the same old ACORN spew over and over.



Oh, and your last sentence is an outright lie.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis

Is there none, or some but virtually none? You contradict yourself so ofter it is hard to keep up. You don't know anything for fact - you simply regurgitate the same old ACORN spew over and over.

This has nothing to do with ACORN, Mr. Conspiracy Theorist Three studies - including a massive one by Bush DOJ - has put incidence of documented voter fraud at 0.0002, 0.0003, or 0.0004% depending upon the study.

Oh, and your last sentence is an outright lie.

Nope. Sorry. You need to read a newspaper now and then. Judges are indeed throwing out nonsensical voter ID laws as unconstitutional.

[Danzig]

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/...ete_idiot.html


Republicans don't know precisely how much voter fraud actually occurs -- but then, neither does anyone else. However, voter fraud occurs more frequently than progressives would have us believe, as was ably demonstrated by Hans A. von Spakovsky in an August National Review article:



"The claim that there is no voter fraud in the U.S. is patently ridiculous, given our rich and unfortunate history of it. As the U.S. Supreme Court said when it upheld Indiana's photo-ID law in 2008, "Flagrant examples of such fraud . . . have been documented throughout this Nation's history by respected historians and journalists." The liberal groups that fought Indiana's law didn't have much luck with liberal justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the 6-3 decision. Before being named to the Supreme Court, Justice Stevens practiced law in Chicago, a hotbed of electoral malfeasance."




Requiring photo IDs to vote is better than nothing and may help at the margins, but it isn't going to stop voter fraud. Would poll workers have photos of all registrants on hand to match against the photos presented by voters? (A better solution lies elsewhere.)

The left-wing quotes above don't even rise to the level of speculation; they're part of a deliberate concerted effort to deceive -- a propaganda campaign. Alleging that voter fraud doesn't exist is a straw man designed to divert attention away from other more pressing election problems. Alleging that an undetectable fraud doesn't exist draws attention away from the frauds that can be detected, but aren't. Alleging that voter fraud doesn't exist whitewashes America's voter registration mess.

Progressives allege that new voter ID requirements are meant to suppress turnout, especially of "the wrong kind of people," as the Doonesbury cartoon puts it. But the progressives' resistance to even the most basic safeguards is an attempt to keep elections open to theft. Progressives don't care about the integrity of elections; they just want to win, by whatever means necessary.

[Riot]

Milwaukee-Journal Sentinal today
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/1...rt=newestfirst

The latest study linking support for voter ID laws to their feelings toward African-Americans is not surprising.
By James Causey of the Journal Sentinel
July 23, 2012 11:02 a.m

In the study by the University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication, respondents were asked several questions, and their answers were used to create a spectrum of "racial resentment."

The more resentment people had toward blacks, the more likely they were to support voter ID laws.

So basically, the study suggests that if you really dislike blacks, you really support voter ID laws.



That's interesting, because at the core of voter ID laws is race. There is little voter fraud. Last week, a second judge declared Wisconsin's voter ID law unconstitutional, almost guaranteeing that the ID requirement will not be in place for elections this fall.

Dane County Circuit Judge David Flanagan wrote that the state's requirement that all voters show photo ID at the polls creates a "substantial impairment of the right to vote" guaranteed by the state constitution.

In March, he issued an injunction temporarily blocking the law because the plaintiffs - the Milwaukee branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera - were likely to succeed in their arguments.

Flanagan made that injunction permanent in the 20-page decision he issued Tuesday because he found the impact of the law hit disproportionately hard on the elderly, indigent and minorities.

The judge made the right decision based on the fact that 220,000 people, according to state estimates, don't have the proper ID to vote.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Danzig

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/...ete_idiot.html

[b]Republicans don't know precisely how much voter fraud actually occurs -- but then, neither does anyone else.

Nope. False. There have been several studies on the incidence of voter fraud, and the numbers are clear. And very, very small. Mostly felons voting that should not. And nothing that would be solved by a photo ID requirement.

But the false equivalence of "both sides are wrong" is laughably cute as an editorial debate tactic, especially as the author has to resort to it right up front.

"Buy the premise, buy the bit" is the way to convert the gullible.

[Rudeboyelvis]

Originally Posted by Riot

This has nothing to do with ACORN, Mr. Conspiracy Theorist Three studies - including a massive one by Bush DOJ - has put incidence of documented voter fraud at 0.0002, 0.0003, or 0.0004% depending upon the study.



Nope. Sorry. You need to read a newspaper now and then. Judges are indeed throwing out nonsensical voter ID laws as unconstitutional.

Don't you ever get tired of you own lies?

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis

Don't you ever get tired of you own lies?

Watching you flat-out deny that judges are indeed throwing out the latest ALEC-GOP voter ID laws as they are too restrictive is funny. Which ones specifically are you denying happened: Texas? Wisconsin?

I'll bet you don't think the President's birth certificate is real, either

[Riot]

Brennan Center: 500,000 legal American citizens could be disinfranchised due to restrictive "free" voter ID laws

The Brennan Center, NYU Law School's public policy institute that focuses on democracy and justice issues, has a new report detailing the challenges faced by voters in 10 states with new, restrictive voter ID laws.

Those laws ultimately mean that as many as 500,000 eligible voters won't cast ballots because of the insurmountable barriers these laws erect, particularly for rural voters. In other words, yes, these new laws are basically poll taxes.


The cost of the IDs aside, most of these voters don't have access to transportation to obtain the ID. To complicate matters more, in many of these states, the offices that are designated to issue IDs are open infrequently for short periods of time.

Even if someone seeking photo ID manages to travel to an ID-issuing office, there is no guarantee it will be open during regular business hours. In Wisconsin, Alabama, and Mississippi, fewer than half of all ID-issuing offices are open five days a week. None are open on weekends. And some offices maintain truly unusual hours: the office in Woodville, Mississippi is open only on the second Thursday of each month.

The report also provides an extensive look at the scarcity of ID-issuing offices in areas heavily populated by people of color and those in poverty — the exact population that most lack government-issued photo ID.

In 11 Alabama counties within the rural “black belt,” there are more than 60,000 eligible black voters but no driver’s license offices open more than two days per week. In Texas, in 32 counties near the Mexico border, there are 80,000 Hispanic eligible voters but only two such ID-issuing offices. Across the voter ID states, many of the offices with limited hours are located in rural areas with high concentrations of minority voters.

There's even one office, in Sauk City, Wisconsin, that's open "only on the fifth Wednesday of any month. That would limit the office to being open just four days this year." Sure, you can get a free voter ID, if you happen to have one of those four days free, have transportation, and already have the necessary documentation—birth certificate, marriage license, divorce decree—all lined up.

One state court judge found that these barriers are a "substantial impairment of the right to vote" guaranteed by Wisconsin's constitution, and blocked the voter ID law from being implemented.

So voters in Sauk City will at least be able to exercise their franchise. They're among the lucky.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/0...free-voter-IDs

[OldDog]

[Riot]

A gift for Old Dog, and others to whom voting rights for their fellow Americans is less important than themselves:

[Antitrust32]

Originally Posted by OldDog

though accidental or unintentional ALWAYS are deliberate deep down.

[Antitrust32]

Originally Posted by Riot

A gift for Old Dog, and others to whom voting rights for their fellow Americans is less important than themselves:

when you are drunk you get to see six of them!!!!

[Riot]

Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice launches formal investigation into Pennsylvania's new voter ID law to determine if the law discriminates against minorities.

DOJ's probe marks the first time it has publicly acknowledged a formal investigation of a voter ID law passed in a state which is not covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires certain states with a history of racial discrimination to have changes to their voting laws precleared.

The Pennsylvania investigation falls under Section 2 of the VRA, which prohibits any state from enacting a “voting standard, practice, or procedure that results in the denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group.”

The state itself has estimated that more than 750,000 eligible voters don't have acceptable photo identification. A new study from a University of Washington expert pegs that number at nearly 1.4 million. That's Pennsylvanians who are eligible to vote.

More striking, more than a million actual registered voters don't have the proper id. Most of those registered voters think they have valid ID, but actually don't, the researchers found.

Relevant to this investigation, they found that women, low-income, minority, and both young and senior voters are far more likely to not have the necessary ID. As usual.

Specifically, female eligible voters lack ID at higher rates (17.2%) than do males (11.5%). Latino eligible voters lack ID at higher rates (18.3%) than do non-Hispanic Whites (14.0%). The elderly (over age 75) lack ID at higher rates (17.8%) than middle-aged residents (10.3%) and younger respondents (age 18-34) also lack at higher rates (17.9%).

Eligible voters who make less than $20,000 annually are more likely to lack a valid photo ID (22%) than all other income categories, most notably those who make $80,000 or more (8.2%), and finally 18.5% of respondents who did not complete high school lack an ID compared to 8.3% among college graduates.

If the DOJ does end up suing Pennsylvania, it will have to show that there is significant racial disparity in the law's effects, as well as the significance of the burden the ID requirement places on would-be voters. In the meantime, the ACLU's case on behalf of Viviette Applewhite will be heard this week.

[bigrun]

Originally Posted by Riot

A gift for Old Dog, and others to whom voting rights for their fellow Americans is less important than themselves:

The all American girl, and they are real...

[OldDog]

Originally Posted by Antitrust32

though accidental or unintentional ALWAYS are deliberate deep down.

[Riot]

Ahead Of Voter ID Trial, Pennsylvania Admits There’s No In-Person Voter Fraud

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmem...oter_fraud.php

As the Justice Department investigates Pennsylvania’s voter ID law on the federal level, a coalition of civil rights groups is gearing up for a state trial starting Wednesday examining whether the law is allowable under Pennsylvania’s constitution.

In that case, Pennsylvania might have handed those groups and their clients (including 93-year-old Viviette Applewhite) a bit of an advantage: They’ve formally acknowledged that there’s been no reported in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania and there isn’t likely to be in November.

The state signed a stipulation agreement with lawyers for the plaintiffs which acknowledges there “have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states.”

Additionally, the agreement states Pennsylvania “will not offer any evidence in this action that in-person voter fraud has in fact occurred in Pennsylvania and elsewhere” or even argue “that in person voter fraud is likely to occur in November 2012 in the absense of the Photo ID law.”

Pennsylvania has said that over 750,000 registered voters do not have ID from the Transportation Department, a problem more concentrated in urban centers like Philadelphia.

One top state Republican has claimed the voter ID law would help Mitt Romney win the Keystone state.

Democrats have already altered their campaign plans should the law survives legal challenges.

[OldDog]