Just curious, since so many common activities require positive IDs these days, and Progressives are all for helping out people with items of need, why has there been no talk of compromise in allowing all people who can't afford positive ID to get the meager amount of funds (its only $5 for a Maine State Photo ID http://www.maine.gov/sos/bmv/licenses/idcard.html, and $17.25 for Minnesota http://www.dmv.org/mn-minnesota/id-cards.php...and I have to assume some of that $12.25 difference is simply a way to gain additional funds from those who can afford the ID) and simply require presentation at polls to prevent fraud.
Especially given how you claim Republican voter fraud. I'd be all for getting rid of that! Seems like a simple and very inexpensive solution.
I don't know any ID system where a birth certificate is not required. Most birth certificates -- and you cite MN here - cost at least $25 --- and there are further difficulties and expense involved in getting to where you can obtain a CERTIFIED Birth Certificate.
Add to that any necessary additional document costs -- for example, again, a CERTIFIED divorce decree -- and again, the potential additional expense and difficulty to obtain that document.
Both are even more difficult if those documents that you need are from out of state, and can present greater difficulties for acceptance in a different state from the state where one is born, or married/divorced. Multiply that if more than once.
So, NO, it is not as minimal a cost as you suggest.
Add to that there is no good reason for it, because the instances of one person pretending to be another is so rare as to be virtually non-existent, this is not a problem. It does nothing for the more frequent - but still very rare - problem of a person voting incorrectly because they are a former felon where there is confusion about their voting rights restored (as distinct and different from intentionally voting illegally).
Republicans are engaging in voter suppression to win elections. That is wrong, that is bad, that is un-American and contrary to our core value of representative government. http://youtu.be/8GBAsFwPglw
That is ON TOP of the cost of the ID itself.
And that is on top of the OTHER ways in which conservatives, exclusively, have attempted to prevent or discourage people from voting.
A lot of white boys don't know how hard it is for black people to get most anything that they, the white boys, take for granted. Not just ID's; things like jobs, checking accounts, home loans, equal educational opportunities, fair and equal treatment under the law--that sort of thing.
"Especially given how you claim Republican voter fraud."
I'm sorry, did I miss that subliminal (or was it semiotic?) message in the cartoon that is posted above? Curiously, though, since you bring it up, the expensive and non-productive investigations instigated by GOPinheads (in virtually every case that I've heard about) have yielded very few, like .0000001%, of fraudulent votes being cast as a result of someone who attempted to use a phony ID or attempted to use a genuine ID that was not their own, to vote.
Are you still buying into the fantasy concocted by that lying sack-of-shit O'Keefe about ACORN? Boy, howdy, that would take some kinda maroon to fall for that bullshit. Oops, hope I didn't hurt anyone's feelings.
Soo many of those activities aren't constitutionally guaranteed rights. Sooo many of those activities are in fact, private activities, activities about which that supplier is perfectly within their right to ask for identification.
It is beyond simplistic and naive' to suggest the goal here is to "confirm identity to avoid fraud." There is no meaningful fraud. A recent evaluation of voting in Ohio found TWO cases out of 21 million votes cast. For that, we want to "require" people, in short use a big government solution, to have ID. Why? Why do we want that? It will deter people from voting, something we most assuredly do NOT want. It will deter FAR more people from voting (estimates range from 1 to 10% of poor people will no longer vote) - than it will ever stop in fraud.
So, why do we want this?
Easy answer, per the prestigious Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU Law school, because it will reduce the number of poor and minority people voting which is assumed (and rightly so) to mean fewer votes for Democrats.
This has NOTHING to do with anything other than trying to steal elections by keeping lawful voters away.
BTW, Beard, I don't seriously believe you aren't aware of this fact.
I think you, like so many Repubs, are fully aware it will suppress Dem votes, and you're perfectly fine with it because you think poor people are too stupid and shouldn't be allowed to vote if they can't follow simple rules and pay a small fee for an ID. I think you know and are perfectly fine with winning elections by deterring voting.
Where is the outrage at this as government overreach, as too big government, since it does not deliver any substantial value or usefulness for the expenditure and intrusion?
Could it be that this is NOT a sincere concern of conservatives?
From a more pragmatic view, as an election judge, adding this is likely to significantly slow the voting process, so there is a process or procedural reason this is bad government as well as all the other reasons it is a failure.
Just curious, since so many common activities require positive IDs these days, and Progressives are all for helping out people with items of need, why has there been no talk of compromise in allowing all people who can't afford positive ID to get the meager amount of funds (its only $5 for a Maine State Photo ID http://www.maine.gov/sos/bmv/licenses/idcard.html, and $17.25 for Minnesota http://www.dmv.org/mn-minnesota/id-cards.php...and I have to assume some of that $12.25 difference is simply a way to gain additional funds from those who can afford the ID) and simply require presentation at polls to prevent fraud.
ReplyDeleteEspecially given how you claim Republican voter fraud. I'd be all for getting rid of that! Seems like a simple and very inexpensive solution.
I don't know any ID system where a birth certificate is not required. Most birth certificates -- and you cite MN here - cost at least $25 --- and there are further difficulties and expense involved in getting to where you can obtain a CERTIFIED Birth Certificate.
DeleteAdd to that any necessary additional document costs -- for example, again, a CERTIFIED divorce decree -- and again, the potential additional expense and difficulty to obtain that document.
Both are even more difficult if those documents that you need are from out of state, and can present greater difficulties for acceptance in a different state from the state where one is born, or married/divorced. Multiply that if more than once.
So, NO, it is not as minimal a cost as you suggest.
Add to that there is no good reason for it, because the instances of one person pretending to be another is so rare as to be virtually non-existent, this is not a problem. It does nothing for the more frequent - but still very rare - problem of a person voting incorrectly because they are a former felon where there is confusion about their voting rights restored (as distinct and different from intentionally voting illegally).
Republicans are engaging in voter suppression to win elections. That is wrong, that is bad, that is un-American and contrary to our core value of representative government. http://youtu.be/8GBAsFwPglw
That is ON TOP of the cost of the ID itself.
And that is on top of the OTHER ways in which conservatives, exclusively, have attempted to prevent or discourage people from voting.
A lot of white boys don't know how hard it is for black people to get most anything that they, the white boys, take for granted. Not just ID's; things like jobs, checking accounts, home loans, equal educational opportunities, fair and equal treatment under the law--that sort of thing.
ReplyDelete"Especially given how you claim Republican voter fraud."
I'm sorry, did I miss that subliminal (or was it semiotic?) message in the cartoon that is posted above? Curiously, though, since you bring it up, the expensive and non-productive investigations instigated by GOPinheads (in virtually every case that I've heard about) have yielded very few, like .0000001%, of fraudulent votes being cast as a result of someone who attempted to use a phony ID or attempted to use a genuine ID that was not their own, to vote.
Are you still buying into the fantasy concocted by that lying sack-of-shit O'Keefe about ACORN? Boy, howdy, that would take some kinda maroon to fall for that bullshit. Oops, hope I didn't hurt anyone's feelings.
Beard,
ReplyDeleteSoo many of those activities aren't constitutionally guaranteed rights. Sooo many of those activities are in fact, private activities, activities about which that supplier is perfectly within their right to ask for identification.
It is beyond simplistic and naive' to suggest the goal here is to "confirm identity to avoid fraud." There is no meaningful fraud. A recent evaluation of voting in Ohio found TWO cases out of 21 million votes cast. For that, we want to "require" people, in short use a big government solution, to have ID. Why? Why do we want that? It will deter people from voting, something we most assuredly do NOT want. It will deter FAR more people from voting (estimates range from 1 to 10% of poor people will no longer vote) - than it will ever stop in fraud.
So, why do we want this?
Easy answer, per the prestigious Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU Law school, because it will reduce the number of poor and minority people voting which is assumed (and rightly so) to mean fewer votes for Democrats.
This has NOTHING to do with anything other than trying to steal elections by keeping lawful voters away.
BTW, Beard, I don't seriously believe you aren't aware of this fact.
ReplyDeleteI think you, like so many Repubs, are fully aware it will suppress Dem votes, and you're perfectly fine with it because you think poor people are too stupid and shouldn't be allowed to vote if they can't follow simple rules and pay a small fee for an ID. I think you know and are perfectly fine with winning elections by deterring voting.
Where is the outrage at this as government overreach, as too big government, since it does not deliver any substantial value or usefulness for the expenditure and intrusion?
ReplyDeleteCould it be that this is NOT a sincere concern of conservatives?
From a more pragmatic view, as an election judge, adding this is likely to significantly slow the voting process, so there is a process or procedural reason this is bad government as well as all the other reasons it is a failure.