It's a wedge issue. The type of thing politicians can debate and create division over while they ignore the real issues like the overseas military adventures and the surveillance state that the American public doesn't overwhelmingly support in anywhere close to the numbers that members of both parties do.

No one's claiming that. What the studies seem to indicate about voter fraud (and what I think Occam's Razor would also suggest) is that the ROI really isn't there, and even politicians have figured this out.

Think about it for a moment. To really influence an election, especially a Presidential one, but even a federal one (say U.S. Rep), you need to get a lot of fraudulent votes. To accomplish this via a method of having people double-vote, or have people vote who are ineligible to vote, you're probably talking enlisting thousands if not tens of thousands of people to break the law in specific districts. That's a pretty big undertaking with a similar pretty good chance of it leaking out. The ROI simply isn't there.

So it's not that politicians wouldn't do it. It's that the risk isn't worth the reward.

Using Occam's Razor again, it's far more likely someone would hack voting machines.

Edit: Damn your fast typing, JPhillips!

Worth noting here somewhere however that you may find different skews in the opinion (on various issues) of the politically active/involved (i.e. those most likely to vote) vs "the American public".

Also if you're going by the letter of the rules it said the candidate couldn't bring a fan while what it sounded like from the moderator statement it sounded like Crist requested one from the venue.

So you CHOSE to wait until you moved to request the birth certifiate and you failed to maintain possession of a pevious copy. You ahd options available to you that you didnt exercie and now complain about the barrier. I guess I ust cant relate. I was adopted at age 9. I still have the paperwork from that time. Through by best count 19 foster home moves after that point I still kept up with that paperwork as a child and still to this day as a 37 year old adult. If your house burned down and it was destroyed I guess that would be a reasonable excuse for not having a copy of your child's paperwork.



This is where I think there are a bunch of red herrings. Stop for a minute and put the political spin aside and forget your rhetoric. Ask this question, how many adults in your life do you know that do not have a form of government ID. This means they dont drive, they dont work, they dont have a checking account, they dont cash checks or money orders, they dont receive government assistance such as unemployment or foodstamps/ebt.

Now once you put together that sample group that meets all the above criteria, tell me exactly how many of them give a shit enough to show up and vote

And I am not even going down the path of do we want non property owning, non income earning people selecting the leadership of the masses though I think that is a fair point of contention.

Not surprised.

You would disagree?

"It doesn't affect anyone like me so it's not an issue." Got it.

JPhillips: see 1960 presidential election. :)

I love how you keep saying what a sacred, most important right this is, and you want to take it away from people who may be poor. And FWIW, there are probably lots of people who take the bus and don't have a government issued ID.

With your repeated silly arguments and disregard for facts, hopefully they don't require an IQ test to vote.

You missed the post he just made where he said he wants to take it away from non property-owners.

So basically he wants to sit on his plantation in the 1830's.

Now I remember why I swore of political threads here years ago.


Never once said that. Ive discussed it here plenty of times I grew up below in the bottom 1% of poverty. Then was passed though the foster system, and a bunch of other poor pitiful me stories...


Like I said above, Ive been poorer than most here have ever witnessed. I lived without indoor plumbing or electricity in the 1980s for a period of 2 years. Ive taken food scraps from a dumpster to eat. Ive stole to eat and feed my baby sister. Through none of that did I not have access to damn ID card as a CHILD much less a "responsible" adult.


Damn reaaly?
Not sure why but I expected better from you.
I said there is a case to be made that if you do not own property, do not have a job, do not have a residence, do not qualify for any government assistance program.If you meet all of those criteria I'd say there is a high probability you are not a legal citizen.

The more modern argument I've heard from conservatives is that only people that pay taxes should vote. When I respond that most people pay sales taxes then they say that people that pay income taxes and don't receive government benefits should be the only ones to vote. Being that most of these people are farmers that I've discussed this with, I bring up farm subsidies. Of course that kind of government assistance (and any type of corporate welfare) doesn't count.

So why not just say "if you're not a legal citizen" (which btw if you're not a legal citizen you're already not eligible to vote?

That reminded me of these...

What ID card was this, may I ask?

Because if it was a non-photo ID, you'd be on the wrong side of today's GOP: GOP proposal would require food stamp recipients to show photo ID | Fox News

Except that's not the hypothetical case in question here.

I think you can agree that someone can a) not have a job, b) not own property, c) not have a residence, d) qualify for a government assistance program and e) not have a government-issued photo ID. These people exist in droves in our cities.

Should they be disenfranchised because they don't have a photo ID? A photo ID they either a) may not be able to afford or b) have trouble getting because the issuing agency is only open 9-5 (when they're trying to find work, or actually working and/or the agency is too far away to walk/use public transport? Today's GOP says "yes, they should be disenfranchised."

It's that simple.

I never said there was no election fraud, there's just extremely little evidence of even small scale voter impersonation. What may have happened in 1960 is a lot easier and more efficient than getting thousands of people to break the law, not get caught, and keep it secret forever.

In my experience, and I recognize that every state is different, the bolded requires legal identification. If you can get gov't assistance without proving who you are what keeps someone with a job from double dipping and alos getting unemployment and foodstamps?


I'm not really worried about "disenfrachised" to be honest. If something is worth having it is worth working for.

If someone isnt willing to be inconvenienced to vote, are they willing to research who and what they vote for?

Again I think voting is the second biggest right we have as Americans, but it is also a responsibility and one that should be taken rather seriously.

I was specifically speaking about birth certificate and social security cards...both of which I still have to this day. (Now I have had to replace both in the last 5 years beause they became so worn they wouldnt be accepted by govt agencies)

That said from the age of 7 I was issued photo IDs when I was in the child care system. They were commonly referred to as "ward cards"...and I've head that was shortened for Ward of the State but I cant find anything now 30 years later to support that.

Can we just disenfranchise all those who just listen to Foxnews then?

I buy that voter fraud is not a big deal in terms of actually impacting elections, but I'm still on the fence about whether there's really tons of people who don't have and can't get IDs. It could be a regional thing. I've never never run into that as a thing here, in one of the poorest states, despite working with lots of poor domestic violence victims, and working within government buildings that provided government services to the most poor. So part of this always feels like the classic beating your chest over being morally superior and trying to paint people who aren't a member of the correct party as racists, which is ultimately a voting strategy to get people to feel dirty about even considering voting for anyone else. I know not everybody here is doing that, but it's the kind of thing that causes me annoyance with this stuff, and why I could never be a Democrat despite agreeing with much of the platform on paper. I just hate the product that they sell.

The problem isn't so much IDs themselves, but which IDs these new Voter ID laws are allowing. The sorta-universal accepted ID, the drivers' license, however, is not held by many. Here's one study alone (just for Wisconsin), which gives an idea of the magnitude.

So then which IDs do you accept? As Posner pointed out, the kinds of IDs these new laws are pushing are indicative of the demographics these laws are trying to disenfranchise. For example in Texas: no to student ID, yes to gun license.

Speaking as a Democrat, I'm kind of offended that you would imply that my electoral strategy is to paint the other party as a bunch of racists. I work very hard to paint the other party as a wide variety of unacceptable stereotypes, and your comment very much denigrates that hard work.

:D

Well, the studies show there are people who don't have IDs and they are mostly minorities (or blacks are less likely to have government ID than whites). Also, the GAO report showed that in 2 states that had voter ID laws in 2012, it reduced the turnout among minority voters and young people (18-20 year olds), the 2 classes less likely to have required IDs.

It's not hard to believe they are enacting these laws to suppress turnout. As was said earlier, blacks wait on longer lines, have fewer polling places, and are more likely to participate in early voting. Wasn't there a recent law to reduce early polling where the local RNC person said it was to help their party (or something to that effect)? When laws are consistently enacted to address a problem that doesn't exist and predominately effects 1-2 classes of voters, isn't it just plain common sense that these laws are designed to remove eligible voters from the pool?

Well, I do apologize for that, and indeed, there are many other wonderful, and more-accurate-than-I'd-like stereotypes to play on, I didn't mean to exclude those.

I'm a registered Republican who supports gay marriage and opposes voter ID laws. (Though, admittedly, I only registered Republican so I could vote in the closed state primary). But still, the Republican party is better off because of the inclusion of me, and even conservative moderates. And I know that annoys you, we've had that debate before, you'd rather the Republicans go completely off the deep-end so we basically have a one party-system in the U.S. And I can see that fire come out in this voter ID stuff in particular, it's like smelling blood in the water, it's a way to characterize the opposition as a whole, and to portray the other side as the side that cares about poor people. And the strategy works some, I DID feel dirty registering republican, but not enough to avoid voting against the tea party in important elections. So I kind of resent the whole strategy, because I don't want to have to feel dirty just to feel like I have any choice at all.

Thanks. I'd hate to think all my demonizing efforts there were for naught.


Not quite. I'd rather have the GOP go off the deep-end so that instead of having one insane party and one (somewhat) reasonable party we could have 2 (or more!) (somewhat) reasonable parties that nevertheless pursue different policy approaches.

Like we had before 1994.

What I find humorous (and I would consider myself very conservative on fiscal issues but definitely on the liberal side of most social issues) is the underlying racism in this thread by the liberals. Do any of you not have an ID? Would it really be that hard to obtain an ID in a 4 year time period... or if we are talking even local stuff 1 year time frame of these elections? Why do you have so little faith in black people to be able to go out and get an ID? Seems like a form of indirect racism to me. They are black so they can't get ID's? Go ahead and explain all of the reasons why these black people can't get ID's.

EDIT: I realize CU Tiger said something similar but I'm not even attempting to toe the GOP line on this one. I think it's a stupid wedge issue. However I don't really see how it could be that hard to get an ID and it seems like the only defense being offered is "Well they are black so they are less likely to get ID's". Seems racist to me.

Let me tell you a story. I'm a middle class/upper middle class white guy in this story, by the way (also in real life).

In 1999 I moved to Illinois. Coincidentally my drivers' license from my previous state (Maine) was about to expire. So I wanted to get a new one.

One day, on my lunch break, I headed over to the State of Illinois center to do the deed. Luckily for me I a) worked within walking distance and b) had the flexibility of a white collar job to take time off in the middle of the day to do this.

After filling out paperwork and waiting in line, I ended up having a very interesting conversation with the bureaucrat behind the glass who informed me that I did not have sufficient ID to apply for said license, despite presenting:

a) a valid drivers' license (with photo) from another U.S. State
b) proof of residency (a copy of my lease, in this case)
c) A VALID UNITED STATES PASSPORT

As you can tell, (c) kind of threw me, there.

Following an animated conversation I was told that what I really needed was a social security card, which I could get at another building 10 blocks away in downtown Chicago.

Long story short I eventually got that license, but it took the entire afternoon. But because I'm privileged there was no negative ramification to me (except the need for a stiff drink afterwards, but that could be argued either way).


I relate this story to indicate that obstacles do exist to ID: they are not imaginary. They also tend to be much easier to surmount if you're white and middle-class or above.

Would the latino who works lawn-service in the Chicago suburbs Monday-Saturday and does not drive (he rides in the truck) be more affected by this? Well, he'd have to take a day off work and get public transport to the DMV. But if he found out he needed a replacement SS card, he'd need to get the train downtown, and then return. And he'd lose a day's worth of wages, which means a lot more to him than it does to me (and I didn't even lose wages, because I'm in a white collar job).

That's a relatively benign, mundane example. There are more.

This does not seem to be about the group of people who are too lazy to get welfare but not too lazy to want to vote. It seems to me to be about young voters, especially out of state/district college students and elderly-disabled/immobile


I too would like college students, stay at home moms, the disabled and seniors in assisted living to not vote. Furthermore, I think each potential voter should demonstrate one of the following before they can vote. Do you:
Give 110%
Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps
Put your nose to the grindstone

I guess I could counter your anecdotal story with my own that involved none of these problems but it seems to me to be a problem with the State of Illinois system which surprise of all surprises seems to have more bureaucratic red tape than any state I have ever lived in. (Missouri, Ohio, Indiana)

I didn't choose anything. The fucking thing was lost in the move. So piss off.

You're right, you can't relate. That's your fucking problem.


It's not a red herring. I know quite a few adults who don't have government ID. They no longer drive. And bank accounts, checks, government assistance like SS don't take a picture ID. I live in Florida with all the old people, remember? There are literally hundreds of thousands of people who don't have ID. You know what they use? Their expired drivers licenses from their previous states. You keep making assumptions that aren't valid and then basing your conclusions on invalid assumptions. As I said, you can't relate.

And as for your last statement? It's only a fair point of contention if you want to go back to the good ole' days, where women, minorities and poor people don't get a say so in their own government. In short, thinking that's a "fair point of contention" makes you an absolute flaming bigot since you and everyone else knows that groups that have been historically oppressed own property at much lower rates than the historically privileged white male. There's no two ways around that. Luckily for the rest of us, this issue was already decided on February 3, 1870 when the 15th Amendment was ratified.

Yes, but in a world where you argue that problems don't exist and I argue that they do, the existence of any one anecdote indicating that problems exist proves my theory and disproves yours, which can only be proven if no such anecdotes exist, at all.

panerd: "Look, man, rocks colored purple just don't exist in this world. I mean, I've never seen one."
me: "I have one in my pocket, here. See?"
panerd: "Fuck!"

I didn't say the problems don't exist I'm saying it seems borderline racist to claim because someone is black they are unable to get an ID like a white person can. Just because there are more black people without ID's doesn't necessarily mean A-->B right?

Am I'm on your side on not only this but a lot of the liberal social issues and you immediately jump on the condescending argumentative approach. I just think the reasoning on the one side in this thread seems to be "Man those blacks they just can't get ID's being black and all."

I have plenty of students from the NYC area that don't have a driver's license and some of them may never get one. The only photo ID they have is from the college.

The point isn't that we don't have faith in them getting ID's. It's more that a larger number of minorities don't have them than other groups. So it's clearly harder for a person without an ID to get one than someone who already has the ID. Also, there are underlying reasons for this to be the case, and it's not lack of faith in minorities, but more lack of faith in available services in certain areas.

No.

It's not racist to say that the poor have a higher bar to access ID and that blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be poor. That's just demographics.

When I moved here I encountered a similar issue with my license. I had a valid Mass license as well as my state issued GT ID and proof of residency. The closest DMVs to me where I can get my license were Beaver Ruin, Moreland (I'd rather shoot myself) and South Dekalb. None of those accessible by public transport (at least without taking several punctual and convenient MARTA buses) and all actually quite far. I got there and waited about 2 hours for my ID and I didn't even have a car yet (in Boston I took the T everywhere and used zipcars).

Anyway, I'm not here to lament why the lazy folks can't get IDs (as was said above) but merely talk about the stats which say they are less likely to have IDs and less likely to have the means/time/etc to get IDs. And the fact that most people who make these laws all but admit the goal is reducing turnout. The fact that people on this board, who seem reasonably intelligent, keep arguing fraud is beyond me.

$9
ID= - How Do I Get an ID? - Non-Driver State ID

That's pretty much what I had to do. FL requires:

Birth Certificate (ORIGINAL copy was required) or Passport
SSN Card
TWO residential address proofs (basically the mortgage and the power bill)

My existing license was no good because it doesn't have my SSN on it, so the only thing I could use it for was to prove I already had a license (so I didn't have to take the driving test).

I think you're jumping to conclusions. Aside of folks like Jesse Jackson, progressives making this case are pointing out (rightly) that certain demographic groups (that span races) have difficulty with this.

You would take the words of some rabble-rousers (like Jackson) and apply that thought process to all Democrats.

Which is fine, because that's what I do in general to Republicans, but at least I admit it. :D

When I had my wallet stolen I had to get a new license in MS. The DMV wouldn't take my birth certificate, they needed a SS card. The SS office needed a birth certificate. So with the same document and an extra two or three hours I finally got a new driver's license.

I agree. It's not racist to say that. It's racist to deny the disproportionate impact that it has on minority groups.

I'm not saying they can't get one, but the assumption that everyone has one or needs one is incorrect.

A $9 poll tax is still a poll tax.

To be fair, I believe Illinois now allows a U.S. Passport as a valid form of ID (and frankly they may have at the time and the agent was just fucking with me), but at the time I did have a little WTF moment.

Seriously, how hard is it for all those old people to get some form of current ID? They clearly already have SOME form of proof they are who they say they are (expired license, SS card, bank statements, checks, utility bills, the list goes on). You're not getting a bank account without some form of photo ID. You've got an SS# if you're collecting social security. If you're here legally, you almost certainly have stuff issued by the government that can prove you are so and so.

Now, if you want to argue our beloved DMV's and the like have way too much red tape, and makes this task more of a pain than it should be, I agree. However, is getting a valid ID some insurmountable task that no one except whites under the age of 60 can accomplish? No.

IL isn't exactly the poster child for efficient government services. :)

Fuck, I'd just barely meet the "points test" on that. Most of the bills are in the wife's name as is the bank account, checks, etc. (yeah, I know she could rob me blind - I figure she's owed it if she does).

My paycheck is direct deposit so I don't get a stub. My school days are long gone....let's see...I could come up with a health card...W-2...credit card...and the electrical bill. The only thing left is our wedding certificate from 20+ years ago. That's the only way I could meet that points system.

There was Ohio in 2012 where Republicans attempted to limit early voting in counties likely to vote for Obama while allowing evening and weekend early voting in counties favorable to Romney.

Of course, that had nothing to do with suppressing voters likely to vote Democrat, that was entirely about fiscal responsibility as those counties with larger black populations couldn't afford the extended early voting hours.