Voter Id And Suppressing Votes

[Turtle]

 

And I you. I never fail to be dismayed by the contradiction between your touted Buddhist ideals and your bigoted conspiratorial rants. Frown indeed. :frown:

Because Not everyone who is in present bodily form in this country is entitled to Vote....

 

I was not asking a question; I was making a statement about the contradiction between your avowed Buddhist beliefs and your espoused bigoted and conspiracy postings.

 

So now a couple questions: Does Buddhism promote or support bigotry? When posting your politically incorrect ideas do you ever ask yourself 'what would Buddha do?'?

[Celeste]

MPO...Many Democrats/Liberals are downplaying the long term benefits of requiring photo ID for voting and misusing statistic's (biased motives) because it actually benefits the political party THEY support. :D

 

 

If we really look and analyze statistics, a 2006 survey of more than 36,000 voters found that only “23" of the 36,000 people surveyed (that's less than one-tenth of one percent of reported voters) were unable to vote because of an ID requirement. Another example would be the 2008 American University survey in Maryland, Indiana, and Mississippi that found that fewer than one-half of 1 percent of the registered voters lacked a government issued ID.

The most quoted statistics used by the "Democrats" or proponantes against photo ID comes from the 2006 report produced by the George Soros funded Brennan Center for Justice. How ironic that it actually contradicts what Democrats are saying...ie..In footnote 4, it clearly states that "The survey did not yield "statistically significant" results for differential rates of possession of citizenship documents by race, age, or other identified demographic factors."

 

 

Lasty, according to the bipartisan "Pew Center for the States", in 2012, it was estimated that approximately 24 million of the nearly 150 million voter registrations in the U.S. were ineligible. This includes more than 1.8 million dead people, about 2.75  million people with registrations in more than one state, and around 12 million voter records with incorrect addresses.

Albeit the number of prosecuted cases of voting fraud might be on the low side at this time, one should remember that these cases are only a fraction of the actual fraud taking place.

 

 

I honestly don't understand the big hoopla about having an ID for voting. Can you imagine this kind of hysteria when they imposed having to have an ID to get married, to apply for Medicaid or Social Security, to buy cigarettes, alcohol, or airline tickets?! And when it comes to requiring ID... I wonder how many ID opponents became hysterical when CVS had the gall to ask to see their ID when they went to buy fingernail polish remover! ;)

 

 

"Politicians use statistics in the same way that a drunk uses lamp-posts...for support rather than illumination" - Andrew Lang

 

BTW...if anyone in Utah needs help obtaining an ID here in Utah, "The Road Home Emergency Services", located at 235 South Rio Grande Street, will provide all the help you need. Including fee's, ride to DMV, help with obtaining needed documents etc.

 

Edited: For some reason everything ran together without paragraphs...I apologize.

Edited June 19, 2014 by Celeste

[Buffy]

Hi Celeste!

There's lots of back and forth about this of course and lots of money involved. Most of the things you've cited below were from a memorandum from Hans von Spakovsky and Alex Ingram distributed by the Heritage Foundation. I leave checking these folks out as an exercise for the reader.

The Brennan Center--which is not a wholly-owned subsidiary of the world-wide Soros/black helicopter conspiracy, honest--has responded to these so called "myths" which I've excerpted below, but really read the whole thing:
 

If we really look and analyze statistics, a 2006 survey of more than 36,000 voters found that only “23" of the 36,000 people surveyed (that's less than one-tenth of one percent of reported voters) were unable to vote because of an ID requirement.

The 2006 survey they cite for the proposition that only 23 people out of 36,000 nationwide were unable to vote because of an ID requirement is both irrelevant and misleading.[9] First, in 2006, only one state (Indiana) required voters to present government-issued photo ID to vote. Thus, the lack of photo ID would not have prevented voters in other states from voting. Second, and more importantly, the 2006 survey did not ask whether people voted by regular ballot or by provisional ballot; it merely asked whether they voted. But under federal law, anyone whose vote will not count because they cannot meet a photo ID requirement is still entitled to vote a provisional ballot. In other words, it is possible that thousands of people who voted a provisional ballot in 2006 and thus told survey questioners that they voted in fact did not have their ballots count because they did not present photo IDs.

 

 

Another example would be the 2008 American University survey in Maryland, Indiana, and Mississippi that found that fewer than one-half of 1 percent of the registered voters lacked a government issued ID.

Similarly, the American University survey they cite, in addition to being an outlier, has serious methodological problems. Although the study concluded that few registered voters in Maryland, Indiana and Mississippi lacked photo ID, the way the survey sampling was done assured that the results would dramatically underestimate the number of voters without ID. Specifically, contrary to common practice, the study did not adjust for underrepresentation of minority and poorer populations, which are less likely to be included in a random sample. These populations have been shown in virtually every other study on the topic to disproportionately lack photo ID. In fact, the authors of the survey noted, “ome of the limitations of the study stem from the unanticipated results. We expected that a much larger number of registered voters would lack a photo ID, and so we did not over-sample any specific population.” Moreover, even if the results were not skewed, unlike Citizens Without Proof, the American University survey focused only on registered voters as opposed to eligible voters.

 

 

The most quoted statistics used by the "Democrats" or proponantes against photo ID comes from the 2006 report produced by the George Soros funded Brennan Center for Justice. How ironic that it actually contradicts what Democrats are saying...ie..In footnote 4, it clearly states that "The survey did not yield "statistically significant" results for differential rates of possession of citizenship documents by race, age, or other identified demographic factors."

 

This is a fascinating one because it's stated completely out of the context of what the quoted text was footnoting. From the original quoted Brennan Center study, that sentence is: "Citizens earning less than $25,000 per year are more than twice as likely to lack ready documentation of their citizenship as those earning more than $25,000." In other words, the most you can say is that that footnote indicates that lack of possession is not specifically racist, ageist, or other factors but it heavily discriminates against the poor.

And that's exactly the point, because poor folks do indeed lean to the left. Even Mitt Romney and his 47% quote stand in tribute to that.
 

Lasty, according to the bipartisan "Pew Center for the States", in 2012, it was estimated that approximately 24 million of the nearly 150 million voter registrations in the U.S. were ineligible. This includes more than 1.8 million dead people, about 2.75  million people with registrations in more than one state, and around 12 million voter records with incorrect addresses.

 

I honestly strongly recommend taking a look at this Pew study. While the right-wing media has had a field day promoting these cherry-picked points, it's filled with data that supports the other side of this debate as well:

• Nearly 1 in 4 eligible citizens are not registered to vote
• Costs of maintaining a voter lists in U.S. 12 times higher than in Socialist Canada
• Election officials generally do not have access to modern data-matching techniques used by private industry and other government agencies to compare records to readily available databases (effects of extreme budget cutting)
• From 2007-2008 only 9.6% of all driver license transactions resulted in a voter registration transaction and…while driver license transactions increased, voter registration transactions fell to only 6.5% of all driver license transactions from 2009-2010

...and the list goes on.

But really what the quoted numbers say is what the points I picked emphasize: part of the strategy of limiting voter participation is to starve the system so that the techniques used to "fix" the problem--e.g. Rick Perry's indiscriminant (except for emphasizing poor/Democratic-leaning districts) voter purge--is to limit the amount scrutiny that can be applied by simply taking a hatchet and betting that people with more time (which as noted above emphasizes wealthier and more conservative demographics) will battle to get their voting rights back.
 

Albeit the number of prosecuted cases of voting fraud might be on the low side at this time, one should remember that these cases are only a fraction of the actual fraud taking place.

 

I can quite assure you that the folks at Heritage and Americans for Prosperity and endless other groups fighting for Voter ID have been spending millions looking for this data and it still hasn't shown up. They haven't stopped spending either though so who knows what they'll cook up, but so far they've produced bupkis.
 

I honestly don't understand the big hoopla about having an ID for voting.

 

The issue is that voting is one of the only fundamental rights defined by our Constitution. Driving, buying guns, buying drugs, flying on airplanes, buying nail polish remover, and even getting married are all privileges, not rights. Ronald Reagan was responsible for adding to the California Driver's Handbook the immortal tag line "Driving is a privilege, not a right!" That means that these are all benefits of society that you must be willing to do some work for in order to benefit from, not an inalienable right. By the laws of the land, the government is forced to provide you with counsel if your are accused of a crime. Similarly the courts have supported the notion that the government is not allowed to make voting difficult precisely because it is an inalienable right.

The issue of Voter ID cannot--despite endless attempts above and by the conservatives--be divorced from the issue that the intent of these voter registration laws is not to "prevent fraud" but to use statistical reality disenfranchise the poor. Completely removed from the partisan aspects here, Voter ID laws inarguably are biased against the poor based on endless studies. I would love it if there was no statistical correlation between poverty and tendency to vote one way or another, but even if it were Republicans that were more numerously being disenfranchised I'd be against these laws precisely because they violate the Constitution.

So oddly enough, I am agreeing with Ronald Reagan and Strict Constitutionalists on this topic. But then I'm still registered Republican.

We must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have, :phones:
Buffy

[Racoon]

I imagine the UK has voter  ID laws, but to actually vote I just turn up at the polling station with my poll card that has been sent to me in the mail and hand it over. If I have misplaced it I just tell the officials who I am and where I live; they check the name and address on a list, then cross the name off the list and give me my ballot paper.

 

In short, I have never had to identify myself to vote in the UK in European elections, General Elections, Elections for the Scottish Parliament, or Local Elections. There maybe, indeed must be some laws on the matter, but they do not seem to require that I identify myself. Do you think all our elections must, therefore, be rigged?

 

 

Thats Europe and Not the U.S.  And they Sent you Papers and Poll cards, so that gives them some idea of your  ID.

 

They can, at least to your experience, cross off a legitimite name on an actual verified list..

 

So any African muslim, or whomever,  sneaking into your country can't vote for the party that some people want, can they??

 

Hmm, seems reasonable to me that the people who vote should be the recognized citizens of their country.. 

 

I mean are we even having the serious debate that you should actually be a Citizen of your country with ID to prove it to VOTE!! ??

Edited June 19, 2014 by Racoon

[CraigD]

 

I imagine the UK has voter ID laws, but to actually vote I just turn up at the polling station with my poll card that has been sent to me in the mail and hand it over. If I have misplaced it I just tell the officials who I am and where I live; they check the name and address on a list, then cross the name off the list and give me my ballot paper.

 

In short, I have never had to identify myself to vote in the UK in European elections, General Elections, Elections for the Scottish Parliament, or Local Elections. There maybe, indeed must be some laws on the matter, but they do not seem to require that I identify myself. Do you think all our elections must, therefore, be rigged?

Thats Europe and Not the U.S.

The UK voting process Eclogite describes seems to me essentially no different from the MD US process.

 

To vote in the US state of Maryland, I just turn up at the early voting location and show my name and address on the “Sample Ballot and Voter Guide” that has been sent to me in the mail. If I don’t have this, I just the official who I am and where I live. In either case, they find and check-off my name and address on a list, and give me an electronic card on which to record my votes using a special machine.

 

I’ve never been asked for ID, but because it’s easier for the official to read than hear me say my name and address, I have shown the poll worker that information by showing them my Maryland driver’s license.

 

According to my latest voter guide I received, If my name and address did not appear on the list, I would be required to add or change my name and/or address at the poll before I could vote, and be required to show a state-issued ID including a photo of me. If that ID is a valid MD driver’s or non-driver’s license, I could then cast a regular ballot. If it were another form of ID, I could cast a provisional ballot.

 

What is your voting experience, Racoon :QuestionM

[Racoon]

 

 

What is your voting experience, Racoon :QuestionM

 

My Experience is I Vote every time I can possibly. Espescially when its Important.

 

Many thousands of Young Men died at an early age to provide this Right for United States Citizens, And  in my mind I think it is an Obligation to at least Vote within the most important of Elections.

 

[Racoon]

By Importance, that can mean anyhing from local shcool district,to county rep, to Mayor, to state legislator, to Governor, to US Senate!!

 

I VOTE dammit. Because many young men died for my ability to do it! Many people Fought or it!!

Women too!

 And I do it to make a Vote be heard.

 

Every American Citizen, who can show Proof of ID, should Vote in every election...  Thats my opinion.

 

If you don't Vote, then you can't complain.

Edited June 22, 2014 by Racoon

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

....

Every American Citizen, who can show Proof of ID, should Vote in every election...  Thats my opinion.

 

If you don't Vote, then you can't complain.

In a perfect world passing a current events and how well do you know the candidates test as well as presenting proof of identity would be mandatory. 

 

 

I don't agree, I didn't elect the ***holes that are ****ing the country up therefore I am not to blame and therefore I am among those that are allowed to complain :P

Besides thanks to the electoral college instead of citizens directly voting for candidates, who votes for whom means exactly jack**** anyway.....which I guess makes the whole photo ID issue extraneous anyway.

Edited July 1, 2014 by DFINITLYDISTRUBD