But....but......we don't need voter ID laws.........

[fredjr82]

See my response to BABiscuit, however, one thought on this chart is: What % of these people vote currently? How many people is that actually? I would guess that of all these groups, they are already less likely to vote than the average (So if 30% of African Americans vote overall, then it's likely that only 15% of the 25% who don't have ID's would vote). So while I absolutely believe we should find a way for everyone to have an ID (99% of people are capable of getting one on their own, even if they don't already have one), I doubt the actual impact on an election is even close to what this chart suggests.

That's fair. So if those people in the chart don't already vote anyways what's the point of a voter ID law? If the people who are really committing election fraud aren't the ones that can't get a voter ID anyways, do you really think a voter ID will cause this issue to stop? Can IDs not be duplicated? Hell I've known plenty of people who have had fake IDs in the past.

 

[thewop]

That's fair. So if those people in the chart don't already vote anyways what's the point of a voter ID law? If the people who are really committing election fraud aren't the ones that can't get a voter ID anyways, do you really think a voter ID will cause this issue to stop? Can IDs not be duplicated? Hell I've known plenty of people who have had fake IDs in the past.

The point of the voter ID law is to put to rest 99% of the chance fraud could be committed. Has fraud realistically decided the outcome of an election? I have my doubts. However, IMO voting is important enough that we should take steps to make sure people are who they say they are, and that they're only allowed to vote once. While requiring ID doesn't 100% eliminate the chance people commit fraud, I think it's the best we can do right now to ensure the honesty of an election, and remove nearly all question.

I'm sure the doors to fraud would still be open via absentee ballots (which sometimes don't get counted anyway), but nonetheless, I think getting ID's into people's hands is a good solution.

 

[theIowaHawk]

It's both. If there are people registered illegally in that county then requiring ID at the polls will prevent them from voting illegally.

How?

They are registered with their name.

They show up with ID, they vote.

How did the ID stop it?

 

[Hoosierhawkeye]

Guys and gals, this isn't all that complicated.

Yes, it's probably a voter registration problem. But it opens the door wide for voter fraud. If you can't see that....well, if you can't see that, let me explain.

Let's say I want to vote twice. I go to my precinct and cast my vote (some people don't think I should have to go to any specific precinct, but that's another subject). Then, having discovered that Joe Blow in another precinct has died or moved to Omaha, I go to his precinct, say I'm Joe Blow, and vote again. If I had to show an ID, that wouldn't be possible unless I actually had a fake ID, which is highly unlikely.

I have told this story before, but I'll tell it again......a few years ago, when I was still working, I was one of several employees who attended a "meet and greet" type affair in Decorah. We had these things in outlying communities fairly frequently. Gave us a chance to meet readers, answer questions about the paper, get suggestions and criticisms, that kind of thing.

In this case, it was shortly after an election and we had carried a post-election story about voter turnout. The supervisor of elections complained -- in a very nice way -- that the statistics made them look worse than they really were because there were thousands -- her word -- of people listed as registered voters who no longer lived there. Mostly these were students and faculty from Luther who had registered while living there, and remained on the rolls even though they had long since departed.

This wasn't an attempt at fraud, of course. But it created a tremendous potential for fraud -- one that could have simply and effectively been eliminated by requiring ID at the polls.

Voter ID aside, the registration lists need to be monitored and cleansed regularly. Unfortunately, when somebody tries to do that, they get accused of trying to deprive people of their franchise. And in fairness, that sometimes happens. But again, requiring ID would address that problem without disenfranchising anyone.

The crucial factor, as both common sense and the courts say, is that the ID must be easy to obtain and free.

This registering people to vote at college has to stop. Help them get absentee ballots for the places where they live.

I'll tell you why I hate this. I went to Valparaiso University and since it's a private university most of the people there are from out of state. Furthermore in my entire time there I only met one student who was from the city of Valparaiso. But yet we have people registering people to vote there and they are going and voting in local and state elections that don't really even affect them. I got kids there from every state in the union voting for who Valpo's mayor is going to be, which isn't fair to Valpo's residents. Since I'm from the next town over they where also voting for my congressional reps, which isn't fair to me or anyone else who lives in my district year round.

 

[theIowaHawk]

Voter ID aside, the registration lists need to be monitored and cleansed regularly. Unfortunately, when somebody tries to do that, they get accused of trying to deprive people of their franchise. And in fairness, that sometimes happens. But again, requiring ID would address that problem without disenfranchising anyone.

.

Obviously the bolded above. If someone is registered, illegally, and uses an ID for that name...the ID makes no difference. Your situation you bring up isn't equatable.

We need a "live", fully connected registration "list", we've needed it for a long time.

 

[Lone Clone]

Yes you do which with Obama's statements about health care being a right, you shouldn't have to provide identification just like you shouldn't have to provide one to vote.

What do you tell these people when they go to vote? Sorry?

Absolutely. "Sorry, but the law requires you to prove your identity."

Same thing I would say to them if they weren't registered, or if they were in the wrong precinct.

Not rocket science. And experience shows what happens in states with good voter ID laws, like the prototypes in Indiana and Georgia: Voter participation by those groups increases by a greater margin than average. Why? Because the political interest -- e.g., Democrats -- benefitting from the votes of those groups make an effort to inform and assist them. Which is what political parties are supposed to do.

 

[theIowaHawk]

This registering people to vote at college has to stop. Help them get absentee ballots for the places where they live.

I'll tell you why I hate this. I went to Valparaiso University and since it's a private university most of the people there are from out of state. Furthermore in my entire time there I only met one student who was from the city of Valparaiso. But yet we have people registering people to vote there and they are going and voting in local and state elections that don't really even affect them. I got kids there from every state in the union voting for who Valpo's mayor is going to be, which isn't fair to Valpo's residents. Since I'm from the next town over they where also voting for my congressional reps, which isn't fair to me or anyone else who lives in my district year round.

Thinks makes no, or at least extremely little sense to me.

You go to college from, what, August to May, so 9-10 months out of the year....and they don't get a say in the running of that community? Absurd.

 

[theIowaHawk]

If you can register to vote you can get a free voter ID while you are there. Not complicated. I know several living people who don't vote, wouldn't be hard to go vote in their place and vote several times if I was up to it and willing to do something illegal. And it would be very difficult if not impossible to catch me or even notice.

Ok so your strategy is this:

Find people you know are registered and will not vote.
Hope they don't actually go vote.
Vote in their place, using the required identification-type documents/info to do so.
Don't get caught.

Let me ask you this: 129Million people voted for POTUS last time, how many of them do you believe were fraudulent under your strategy? I'm just looking for your (or anyone else) specific opinion, estimate, whatever.

 

[tarheelbybirth]

Or....Or....you could support investing in a 21st century voter registration system that removes dead people from the rolls. This has absolutely NOTHING to do with voter ID....as usual.

 

[Lone Clone]

Obviously the bolded above. If someone is registered, illegally, and uses an ID for that name...the ID makes no difference. Your situation you bring up isn't equatable.

We need a "live", fully connected registration "list", we've needed it for a long time.

You aren't paying attention, or you're being intentionally argumentative. Or you're confused and addressing a separate but related issue.

Yes, if Joe Blow is still registered in Chicago after moving to Omaha, he could show his ID and vote in Chicago. That's an issue which should already have been resolved, because when he registered in Omaha, he was asked if he had been registered elsewhere. If he answered honestly, and the elections officials in Omaha and Chicago did their jobs, he would no longer be on the rolls in Shueyville.

A nationwide voter registery would be extremely helpful, but I suspect that civil libertarians would kneejerk their way into court to oppose it on some kind of wacko grounds.

Where the voter ID requirement would come into play is if Joe Blow's former precinct captain in Chicago, knowing Joe has moved to Omaha, has Fred Weasel claim he's Joe and cast a ballot.

Getting back to the situation you posited, I have always wondered what the result would be if somebody devoted the time and manpower to cross-checking the voter registration lists in college towns like Ames and Iowa City with the lists in the home towns of the students on the list. I imagine there would be thousands of people registered both places. And one could take it s step further and see how many of them voted in both places -- in person at their college town and early or by absentee at their home town.

A New York newspaper did something like this in 2004 with snowbirds, not college students. It found over 40,000 people registered both in New York and Florida, many of whom voted in both states in the presidential election.

Again, the voter ID law wouldn't help in that situation, but the national registry would.

 

[Lone Clone]

Or....Or....you could support investing in a 21st century voter registration system that removes dead people from the rolls. This has absolutely NOTHING to do with voter ID....as usual.

Tar, try to keep up with the discussion if you're going to participate, OK?

 

[theIowaHawk]

You aren't paying attention, or you're being intentionally argumentative. Or you're confused and addressing a separate but related issue.

Yes, if Joe Blow is still registered in Chicago after moving to Omaha, he could show his ID and vote in Chicago. That's an issue which should already have been resolved, because when he registered in Omaha, he was asked if he had been registered elsewhere. If he answered honestly, and the elections officials in Omaha and Chicago did their jobs, he would no longer be on the rolls in Shueyville.

A nationwide voter registery would be extremely helpful, ..

Yes, a national, "live" registry would take care of this.

Where the voter ID requirement would come into play is if Joe Blow's former precinct captain in Chicago, knowing Joe has moved to Omaha, has Fred Weasel claim he's Joe and cast a ballot.

Wait, so in this theory a PRECINCT CAPTAIN willing to violate the law/commit fraud will be foiled by someone showing, presumably him, a voter ID?

Getting back to the situation you posited, I have always wondered what the result would be if somebody devoted the time and manpower to cross-checking the voter registration lists in college towns like Ames and Iowa City with the lists in the home towns of the students on the list. I imagine there would be thousands of people registered both places. And one could take it s step further and see how many of them voted in both places -- in person at their college town and early or by absentee at their home town.

Yes, and that national, "live" registry would fix that. You thinking this has never been checked seems strange.

A New York newspaper did something like this in 2004 with snowbirds, not college students. It found over 40,000 people registered both in New York and Florida, many of whom voted in both states in the presidential election.

How many voted twice?

Again, the voter ID law wouldn't help in that situation, but the national registry would.

Yes, thank you, agreed. Sounds like you've thought this through. So let's work on the real issue then, right?

 

[tarheelbybirth]

Guys and gals, this isn't all that complicated.

Yes, it's probably a voter registration problem. But it opens the door wide for voter fraud. If you can't see that....well, if you can't see that, let me explain.

Let's say I want to vote twice. I go to my precinct and cast my vote (some people don't think I should have to go to any specific precinct, but that's another subject). Then, having discovered that Joe Blow in another precinct has died or moved to Omaha, I go to his precinct, say I'm Joe Blow, and vote again. If I had to show an ID, that wouldn't be possible unless I actually had a fake ID, which is highly unlikely.

Let's assume you know Joe Blow is dead. How do you know his precinct? Ok, you know his address so you look up the precinct for that address. So you decide Joe needs to vote - even though you have no idea whether he's even registered or not - and you go to the polls and commit a felony to add ONE vote to your person's total.

Just out of curiosity, you know Joe Blow is dead AND you know his address. Why not just request an absentee ballot? I don't know about where you live but you can have those sent anywhere here in NC. And I could do THAT for lots of Joe Blows.

OR...given that you have a burning need to add that one vote to your candidate's total, why not just spend a little money and get a fake ID that no poll worker is going to spot? They're so good now, they can fool the scanners the cops have in their cars.

I have told this story before, but I'll tell it again......a few years ago, when I was still working, I was one of several employees who attended a "meet and greet" type affair in Decorah. We had these things in outlying communities fairly frequently. Gave us a chance to meet readers, answer questions about the paper, get suggestions and criticisms, that kind of thing.

In this case, it was shortly after an election and we had carried a post-election story about voter turnout. The supervisor of elections complained -- in a very nice way -- that the statistics made them look worse than they really were because there were thousands -- her word -- of people listed as registered voters who no longer lived there. Mostly these were students and faculty from Luther who had registered while living there, and remained on the rolls even though they had long since departed.

This wasn't an attempt at fraud, of course. But it created a tremendous potential for fraud -- one that could have simply and effectively been eliminated by requiring ID at the polls.

Voter ID aside, the registration lists need to be monitored and cleansed regularly. Unfortunately, when somebody tries to do that, they get accused of trying to deprive people of their franchise. And in fairness, that sometimes happens. But again, requiring ID would address that problem without disenfranchising anyone.

The crucial factor, as both common sense and the courts say, is that the ID must be easy to obtain and free.

You also have to provide the supporting documents for free. And you have to account for a large number of older people - mostly minorities from the south - who have no birth certificate because they were born at home and the birth was never registered.

In the case of voter rolls stuffed with dead people, you've done nothing to curtail fraud by requiring an ID. If someone is hell bent on committing a felony for that one vote, fake IDs are cheap, easy to get, and nearly perfect. Meanwhile, the smart folks are using that list to commit fraud though absentee ballots.

Bottom line, it's hard to see how requiring an ID is going to stop 99.9999% of the fraud that is occurring. Interestingly, the fraud that does occur isn't a priority for those pushing voter ID laws. Why aren't the good folks of Decorah investing in a modern computer-based voter registration system?

 

[86Hawkeye]

Who's going to make sure those that don't have the ability to obtain one, gets one? Are those people that don't have the ability to get one not allowed to vote until they do? Are you willing to take away a person's right because, for whatever reason, they can't get an ID? Answer that question because I see that as a huge deal.

How do you know they're entitled to vote?

 

[86Hawkeye]

And what does that Right to vote stem from? Nothing philosophical about it, either you are legally a citizen of the USA and have the Right to vote, or not.

This.

 

[Lone Clone]

.

Wait, so in this theory a PRECINCT CAPTAIN willing to violate the law/commit fraud will be foiled by someone showing, presumably him, a voter ID?

Getting back to the situation you posited, I have always wondered what the result would be if somebody devoted the time and manpower to cross-checking the voter registration lists in college towns like Ames and Iowa City with the lists in the home towns of the students on the list. I imagine there would be thousands of people registered both places. And one could take it s step further and see how many of them voted in both places -- in person at their college town and early or by absentee at their home town.

Yes, and that national, "live" registry would fix that. You thinking this has never been checked seems strange.

A New York newspaper did something like this in 2004 with snowbirds, not college students. It found over 40,000 people registered both in New York and Florida, many of whom voted in both states in the presidential election.

How many voted twice?

Again, the voter ID law wouldn't help in that situation, but the national registry would.

Yes, thank you, agreed. Sounds like you've thought this through. So let's work on the real issue then, right?

By "precinct captain" I was talking to his party's organizer in that precinct, not an election official. Sorry for the confusion.

I don't recall how many people admitted voting twice in the New York-Florida thingie. Quite a few. But the paper didn't contact all of them.

Is somebody checking the college town thing?

There are two real issues. One is the lousy system for keeping track of who's an eligible voter and where they all live. Absolutely we should get going on that. Your task can be convincing the liberals we aren't trying to intimidate minorities when we do it.

The other issue is people misrepresenting their identity.

In the latter case, the opponents of voter ID always say there's never been shown to be a lot of these folks....which is ridiculous, because nobody -- to my knowledge, anyway -- has ever made an effort to look for them. The only way to do it would be to go through the voter rolls, contact everybody who voted and make sure they're who they claimed to be.

 

[cigaretteman]

By "precinct captain" I was talking to his party's organizer in that precinct, not an election official. Sorry for the confusion.

I don't recall how many people admitted voting twice in the New York-Florida thingie. Quite a few. But the paper didn't contact all of them.

Is somebody checking the college town thing?

There are two real issues. One is the lousy system for keeping track of who's an eligible voter and where they all live. Absolutely we should get going on that. Your task can be convincing the liberals we aren't trying to intimidate minorities when we do it.

The other issue is people misrepresenting their identity.

In the latter case, the opponents of voter ID always say there's never been shown to be a lot of these folks....which is ridiculous, because nobody -- to my knowledge, anyway -- has ever made an effort to look for them. The only way to do it would be to go through the voter rolls, contact everybody who voted and make sure they're who they claimed to be.

Didn't our esteemed Iowa Secretary of State waste a quarter of a million dollars doing just that resulting in charges against 27 voters?

 

[theIowaHawk]

Should our votes be secret?

 

[Lone Clone]

Let's assume you know Joe Blow is dead. How do you know his precinct? Ok, you know his address so you look up the precinct for that address. So you decide Joe needs to vote - even though you have no idea whether he's even registered or not - and you go to the polls and commit a felony to add ONE vote to your person's total.

Just out of curiosity, you know Joe Blow is dead AND you know his address. Why not just request an absentee ballot? I don't know about where you live but you can have those sent anywhere here in NC. And I could do THAT for lots of Joe Blows.

OR...given that you have a burning need to add that one vote to your candidate's total, why not just spend a little money and get a fake ID that no poll worker is going to spot? They're so good now, they can fool the scanners the cops have in their cars.

You also have to provide the supporting documents for free. And you have to account for a large number of older people - mostly minorities from the south - who have no birth certificate because they were born at home and the birth was never registered.

In the case of voter rolls stuffed with dead people, you've done nothing to curtail fraud by requiring an ID. If someone is hell bent on committing a felony for that one vote, fake IDs are cheap, easy to get, and nearly perfect. Meanwhile, the smart folks are using that list to commit fraud though absentee ballots.

Bottom line, it's hard to see how requiring an ID is going to stop 99.9999% of the fraud that is occurring. Interestingly, the fraud that does occur isn't a priority for those pushing voter ID laws. Why aren't the good folks of Decorah investing in a modern computer-based voter registration system?

Taking last things first, does such a system exist, that can look into the homes listed as the address for each voter and see if the person really lives there? Betty Coed registers at Coe, votes in Cedar Rapids for four years, graduates and goes to live in Helena. How does the Linn County auditor know Betty is no longer an eligible voter there?

As for the requirements for getting a voter ID, that hasn't been a problem in the states that have adopted laws. In fact, when opponents were challenging Indiana's law, they couldn't find a single person who had a problem getting an ID. They finally came up with a woman, and were hugely embarrassed when it turned out she couldn't get one because she was a Florida resident.

We aren't talking about a system that's foolproof or anything close to it. Not something that couldn't be defeated by someone (or some organization) willing to go to a fair amount of trouble.

And we aren't talking about one vote. Have you never heard of the "graveyard vote"? Do you honestly think that term was just invented out of thin air for no reason? Hell, Chris Matthews, of all people, has talked about the nonexistent people who vote regularly in Philadelphia, and he's a Democrat. When you have voting turnout over 100%, you really ought to be a tad suspicious, don't you think?

 

[Lone Clone]

Should our votes be secret?

Of course. Why would you ask? That has nothing to do with what we're talking about.

Nobody is going to ask anybody how they voted, just whether they voted. That's public record.

 

[theIowaHawk]

Of course. Why would you ask? That has nothing to do with what we're talking about.

Nobody is going to ask anybody how they voted, just whether they voted. That's public record.

If you didn't believe in secrecy we could discuss allowing parties to investigate fraud.

 

[Lone Clone]

If you didn't believe in secrecy we could discuss allowing parties to investigate fraud.

You've lost me, coach.

 

[swagsurfer02]

Other countries solve this pretty easily with some fun purple ink they put on their fingers. How about we go low tech and solve this issue? Could it be that solving this issue isn't the real issue?

Electoral stain typically contains a pigment for instant recognition, and silver nitrate which stains the skin on exposure to ultraviolet light, leaving a mark that is impossible to wash off and is only removed as external skin cells are replaced. Industry standard electoral inks contain 10%, 14% or 18% silver nitrate solution, depending on the length of time the mark is required to be visible. Although normally water-based, electoral stains occasionally contain a solvent such as alcohol to allow for faster drying, especially when used with dipping bottles, which may also contain a biocide to ensure bacteria aren't transferred from voter to voter.

Not sure fingering a Martian has anything to do with voting!

 

[joelbc1]

It's both. If there are people registered illegally in that county then requiring ID at the polls will prevent them from voting illegally.

No it won't. Multiple IDs will TCO that.
IDs is NOT the answer...,.,......dishonest election officials might be the problem. I know Lone and I disagree vehemently about this. My right to vote should NOT be infringed upon or inconvenienced by those who are cheating. Just as your right to buy a firearm should not.

 

[Lone Clone]

No it won't. Multiple IDs will TCO that.
IDs is NOT the answer...,.,......dishonest election officials might be the problem. I know Lone and I disagree vehemently about this. My right to vote should NOT be infringed upon or inconvenienced by those who are cheating. Just as your right to buy a firearm should not.

Nobody is infringing on anybody's right to vote. Unless you also think it's infringing on the right to vote to require people to be registered; to require people be 18 or older; to require people to be citizens (and in the case of local or state elections, to be residents of the jurisdiction); to require people to either show up in person or go through a specific procedure to obtain and cast an absentee ballot; to be sober when voting; to wear appropriate clothing (nothing that can be construed as supporting or opposing a candidate or ballot issue); to refrain from talking about certain things at the polling place; and probably some other "restrictions" that don't come as quickly to mind.

For that matter, the law ALREADY requires a potential voter to prove his or her identity if challenged, and any citizen can bring that challenge. If I'm at the polling place and someone comes in to vote, identifying himself as Joel, I can lodge a protest that the person is not you and the person has to prove he is. If you don't have the ID with you, you can cast a provisional ballot, then come back with proof of your identity.

I've been a poll-watcher on several occasions, and one of the things I've noticed is that probably 95% of people in line expect to be asked to show ID.

 

[joelbc1]

Nobody is infringing on anybody's right to vote. Unless you also think it's infringing on the right to vote to require people to be registered; to require people be 18 or older; to require people to be citizens (and in the case of local or state elections, to be residents of the jurisdiction); to require people to either show up in person or go through a specific procedure to obtain and cast an absentee ballot; to be sober when voting; to wear appropriate clothing (nothing that can be construed as supporting or opposing a candidate or ballot issue); to refrain from talking about certain things at the polling place; and probably some other "restrictions" that don't come as quickly to mind.

For that matter, the law ALREADY requires a potential voter to prove his or her identity if challenged, and any citizen can bring that challenge. If I'm at the polling place and someone comes in to vote, identifying himself as Joel, I can lodge a protest that the person is not you and the person has to prove he is. If you don't have the ID with you, you can cast a provisional ballot, then come back with proof of your identity.

I've been a poll-watcher on several occasions, and one of the things I've noticed is that probably 95% of people in line expect to be asked to show ID.

Fine. But why a "special" ID? THAT is bullshit. If you can't see how easily an "official voting ID" can be forged, Lone, your more gullible than I. A voting ID will NOT eliminate voter fraud. Period, End of argument.

 

[ANYCHawk]

If you can register to vote you can get a free voter ID while you are there. Not complicated. I know several living people who don't vote, wouldn't be hard to go vote in their place and vote several times if I was up to it and willing to do something illegal. And it would be very difficult if not impossible to catch me or even notice.

Not true in any state I've lived

 

[ANYCHawk]

Who

Do you think we should not have driver licenses?

Yes. BUT THEN AGAIN CAUSE YOU KEEP MISSING THE POINT SO I"LL TYPE IT IN ALL CAPS MAYBE YOU WILL SEE IT THEN. DRIVING I DON'T BELIEVE IS A RIGHT LIKE VOTING.

 

[ANYCHawk]

I like many of your ideas. Free ID's are a no brainer to me. Generally it's about $4-6 to get just an ID (not a driver's license) at the DMV, this should be waived given some qualifications.

Still a poll tax.

Why should those who can, have to pay for a right guaranteed by the constitution or god -- depending what you believe? Either make it free for everybody or continue with the current way. Look, voting fraud is like a crime rate; it's never gonna hit zero. Its part of the cost of having a free society.

 

[ANYCHawk]

Or....Or....you could support investing in a 21st century voter registration system that removes dead people from the rolls. This has absolutely NOTHING to do with voter ID....as usual.

Just like we remove all dead people from email list, telemarketers, the USPS, etc immediately upon their death? naive post is naive.

 

[thewop]

Still a poll tax.

Why should those who can, have to pay for a right guaranteed by the constitution or god -- depending what you believe? Either make it free for everybody or continue with the current way. Look, voting fraud is like a crime rate; it's never gonna hit zero. Its part of the cost of having a free society.

Yes, either way you suggest, we should still require the ID. There is no reason every citizen 18+ shouldn't be able to Identify themselves, at any time, when voting or otherwise. NONE.

 

[naturalmwa]

Yes, either way you suggest, we should still require the ID. There is no reason every citizen 18+ shouldn't be able to Identify themselves, at any time, when voting or otherwise. NONE.

None? You can't think of any reason to resist this?

 

[thewop]

None? You can't think of any reason to resist this?

no. Not a reasonable one.

 

[TexMichFan]

When did we start the you actually had to be alive to vote rule?

 

[lucas80]

It's usually news if 50 percent of the eligible voters participate in an election. 10 percent if it's for something like the school board. I always find it laughable that people will corkscrew themselves into a position where they see massive voter fraud at work. Or, any concentrated/organized fraud. If people vote at a 50 percent clip, they're aren't going to be a bunch of people travelling to different precincts to commit fraud.
I don't object to voter ID laws. I object to the ones clearly designed to dissuade minorities, young people, and low income voters from participating in the system. The giant rash of new laws pushed by Republicans aim to do this.
That isn't laughable, it's scary. There has been a concentrated effort to deny Americans the right to vote. You'd think that the party that boasts of it's superior ideas wouldn't be so afraid of competing in an open election.

 

[Lone Clone]

Fine. But why a "special" ID? THAT is bullshit. If you can't see how easily an "official voting ID" can be forged, Lone, your more gullible than I. A voting ID will NOT eliminate voter fraud. Period, End of argument.

You don't need a special ID. You just need an ID with your photo on it. And it definitely will eliminate one type of voter fraud.

You are like all the other opponents of the idea, in that you simply don't understand it.

 

[Lone Clone]

It's usually news if 50 percent of the eligible voters participate in an election. 10 percent if it's for something like the school board. I always find it laughable that people will corkscrew themselves into a position where they see massive voter fraud at work. Or, any concentrated/organized fraud. If people vote at a 50 percent clip, they're aren't going to be a bunch of people travelling to different precincts to commit fraud.
I don't object to voter ID laws. I object to the ones clearly designed to dissuade minorities, young people, and low income voters from participating in the system. The giant rash of new laws pushed by Republicans aim to do this.
That isn't laughable, it's scary. There has been a concentrated effort to deny Americans the right to vote. You'd think that the party that boasts of it's superior ideas wouldn't be so afraid of competing in an open election.

Wowser. You post this, and then you ignore elections where the turnout is over 100%.

 

[lucas80]

Wowser. You post this, and then you ignore elections where the turnout is over 100%.

I didn't follow the elections in the USSR closely.

 

[Lone Clone]

I didn't follow the elections in the USSR closely.

1. There is no USSR.

2. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were not in the USSR when it existed. Maybe you were thinking of Georgia.

3. Seriously....there are any number of examples of turnout exceeding registration, and in a few cases, turnout exceeding population. Most of these have logical explanations, like computer error. Others are excused by liberals with claims that the explanation is same-day registration. Some are just basically ignored. But as you point out, generally speaking, voter turnout doesn't exceed 50% by much, if at all. Anybody who doesn't raise an eyebrow at turnouts in the 85-95 % range -- especially when they overwhelmingly favor one party -- isn't being realistic.

 

[lucas80]

Let me boil down LC's argument in starting this thread: Look at this shiny thing in my right hand as I justify taking away the right to vote with my left hand.