Fight against so-called voter "fraud" unwittingly targets legitimate voters.

[DaShi]

Actually all I prefer is a photo ID so we know the person voting is more likely to be that person. How they get the ID is more secondary. I would prefer it be part of the registrations process. AS I said back in post #89.

You keep calling the results of that group facts. You dismiss any questions about their methodology.

I've addressed that already. If you have a reasonable complaint with their methodology please share. In general, they present their case very well. Nothing you've stated actually challenged it. In fact, from your post, it was clear that you simply didn't understand the argument they were making.

I'm sorry if I don't believe getting a photo id is a "heavy obligation" or a "burdensome amount of effort and difficulty"

It the reasons why you don't believe that that are I disagree with and believe are unreasonable and undemocratic.

[DaShi]

Ditto.

See? More support for my case.

[rah]

Oh come on. Having Slowy agree with me is no where near as damning as when Ben does.

[Dr Strangelove]

So... If a National ID was available for FREE, and easy to get (many locations, great hours, open 7 days a week) would people have a problem with a voter ID law?
Or would this too simply be too much of a burden for people...

We've have health care that's free for decades but people still couldn't get to their doctors even for treatment of life threatening illnesses because public transportation was limited. Medicaid found the cost of paying for ambulances and ER fees to be prohibitive so it began to pay for taxis for doctor's visits. Of course, heck, if you can't afford transportation to go get your Public ID, you probably can't afford to get transportation to the Polling Center, so it's all good.
There used to be an organisation that helped poor people register and get to the polls, but since it didn't serve the rich also it was obviously corrupt. A special agent was sent to infiltrate the nefarious organisation, a video was produced and now those rascally octoroons have been put out of business. Yeah, I know I'm being tiresome, just like those wooly-headed pinkos people who keep talking about "class warfare". Now that there is no organisation to help the poor register, obtain IDs and get to polls it's the perfect time to inaugurate a National ID. Oh, wait, what about the Tenth Amendment? Better not be stepping on State's Rights toes!

[rah]

In Chicago, if you're a democrat, you just have to call your alderman and they'll make sure you get free transportation to the polls to vote. I'm sure many other big cities have the equivalent.

[Felch]

You can't use yourself as an example here. You are nothing like the people being affected by this.

Seriously, it's the same arguments that were used to justify Jim Crow laws.

Speaking of Jim Crow, back then almost nobody was ever convicted of lynching. I guess lynching wasn't a problem that needed to be dealt with.

[rah]

Just because an argument was used to justify something negative in the past doesn't invalidate the argument forever.
But I will concede that it deserves extra scrutiny to determine the true intent.

[Lorizael]

Speaking of Jim Crow, back then almost nobody was ever convicted of lynching. I guess lynching wasn't a problem that needed to be dealt with.

There was, however, some evidence that lynching was occurring. Like all the strange fruit hanging around. Do we have any evidence to suggest that election fraud is occurring on a wide scale? And more importantly, do we have any evidence that it's happening in large enough numbers to offset the disenfranchisement that will occur as a result of voter ID laws?

[rah]

If there was a national free ID, would there be any real substantial number of people disenfranchised?
As Doc mentioned, do those that would have undue hardship to get an id even vote (due to that same hardship). All of the studies Dashi quoted didn't cover this scenario.
If there isn't significant disenfranchisement, then how much proof do we need of wide scale election fraud? (Something that is often hard to prove if it is even discovered)

[Lorizael]

If there was a national free ID, would there be any real substantial number of people disenfranchised?

I'm totally in favor of a national free ID. But that is not what is being proposed by the states.

As Doc mentioned, do those that would have undue hardship to get an id even vote (due to that same hardship).

This is an argument for making it easier to vote. Essentially, we have de facto disenfranchisement because the act of voting itself is sometimes hard. Yes, you can argue that maybe lazy people shouldn't be voting anyway, or something like that, but we shouldn't be making those sorts of judgments if we want to claim to have universal suffrage. It should be as easy as possible for registered voters to vote. That could mean online voting (which comes with a whole host of other problems, of course), or voting over the course of a week, or a weekend, or microchips implanted at birth that record your vote, or something else awesome.

If there isn't significant disenfranchisement, then how much proof do we need of wide scale election fraud? (Something that is often hard to prove if it is even discovered)

I'd rather err on the side of caution. The evidence indicates that a large number of people could be disenfranchised, and the evidence indicates that election fraud is not widespread. Until we have more conclusive evidence one way or the other, I'd opt for keeping things the way they are.

[MrFun]

There was, however, some evidence that lynching was occurring. Like all the strange fruit hanging around. Do we have any evidence to suggest that election fraud is occurring on a wide scale? And more importantly, do we have any evidence that it's happening in large enough numbers to offset the disenfranchisement that will occur as a result of voter ID laws?

If IIRC, there were 86 cases of voter fraud out of something like 190 million voters in the 2008 election.

[MrFun]

In some good news, a federal court has ruled that Ohio cannot deny some groups of voters early voting time, while granting it to other groups of voters.

[Lorizael]

If IIRC, there were 86 cases of voter fraud out of something like 190 million voters in the 2008 election.

If there were 190 million votes in the 2008 election, then there were faaaar more than 86 cases of voter fraud.

[Felch]

There was, however, some evidence that lynching was occurring. Like all the strange fruit hanging around. Do we have any evidence to suggest that election fraud is occurring on a wide scale? And more importantly, do we have any evidence that it's happening in large enough numbers to offset the disenfranchisement that will occur as a result of voter ID laws?

How is voter fraud detected and investigated? If it isn't detectable, and it isn't investigated, how certain are we that it is or isn't happening? Why not put into place rules that make it easier to detect voting fraud?

If fraud exists, and it certainly does, and it isn't being detected or investigated, and it certainly is not, then we are all being disenfranchised.

We know that political machines are crooked as hell. It's absurd to believe that someone like Mayor Gray would run a proxy candidate like Sulaimon Brown, engage in finance shenanigans, and not have some of his friends vote on behalf of the recently deceased. Without any sort of mechanism to detect it though, it's all invisible.

Off course, this is really small potatoes stuff. We need to reform the entire political system, starting with the gerrymandering and first past the post elections. If it were a choice between IDs and ending gerrymandering, I'd go with gerrymandering.

[DaShi]

Texas voter ID law was struck for the very reasons discussed here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/texas-voter-id-law-struck-down/2012/08/30/4a07e270-f2ad-11e1-adc6-87dfa8eff430_print.html

Texas voter-ID law is blocked

By Sari Horwitz, Published: August 30

A federal court on Thursday blocked a Texas law that would have required voters to show photo identification, ruling that the legislation would impose “strict, unforgiving burdens” on poor minority voters.

Describing the law as the most stringent in the country, the unanimous decision by a three-judge panel marks the first time that a federal court has blocked a voter-ID law. It will reverberate politically through the November elections. Republicans and Democrats have been arguing over whether tough voter-ID laws in a number of states discriminate against African Americans and Hispanics.

The panel at the U.S. District Court in Washington ruled that Texas had failed to show that the statute would not harm the voting rights of minorities in the state. In addition, the judges found that evidence indicated that the cost of obtaining a photo ID to vote would fall most heavily on African American and Hispanic voters.

Evidence submitted by Texas to prove that its law did not discriminate was “unpersuasive, invalid, or both,” David S. Tatel, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, wrote in the panel’s 56-page opinion. Voting Rights Act cases must be decided by a special panel of three federal judges.

The ruling followed a decision Tuesday by another three-judge panel in Washington that found the Republican-controlled Texas legislature had intentionally discriminated against Hispanics in drawing new legislative districts.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) said the state will appeal Thursday’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is the next stop in a voting rights case.

“Today’s decision is wrong on the law and improperly prevents Texas from implementing the same type of ballot integrity safeguards that are employed by Georgia and Indiana — and were upheld by the Supreme Court,” Abbott said in a statement.

Legal experts said it is unknown whether the Supreme Court will take the case. Rick Hasen, an election-law specialist at the law school of the University of California at Irvine, said Texas will probably request an emergency injunction from the court that would allow the state to enforce the law during this election cycle.

“If this happens, this will be a major question for the Roberts court, and it would have to be decided in short order,” said Hasen, referring to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Texas is the largest state covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires federal approval, or “preclearance,” of any voting changes in states that have a history of discrimination. Because of Texas’s history of discrimination, the voter-ID law signed last year by its Republican governor, Rick Perry, had to be cleared by the Justice Department.

The department blocked the law in March, saying it would endanger minority voting rights. Last month, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. called the voter-ID law a “poll tax,” referring to fees that some Southern states used to disenfranchise blacks during the Jim Crow era.

Texas sued the Justice Department, leading to a week-long trial in July.

The federal court agreed with the Justice Department. The court’s opinion said that among residents who lack other forms of acceptable identification, the burden of obtaining a state voter-ID certificate would weigh disproportionately on minorities living in poverty, with many having to travel as much as 200 to 250 miles round trip.

Under the Texas law, the minimum cost to obtain a voter ID for a resident without a copy of a birth certificate would be $22. The “election identification certificate” is free, but the legislature rejected a proposal to allow people to obtain the necessary supporting documents at no cost.

None of the travel and financial burdens associated with the new law “had ever before been imposed on Texas voters,” Tatel wrote in the opinion.

“A law that forces poorer citizens to choose between their wages and their franchise unquestionably denies or abridges their right to vote,” the opinion said. “Simply put, many Hispanics and African Americans who voted in the last election will, because of the burdens imposed by [the
voter-ID law], likely be unable to vote in the next election.”

Tatel, who was appointed to the appellate court by President Bill Clinton, was joined in the decision by U.S. district judges Rosemary Collyer and Robert L. Wilkins, appointed by presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, respectively.

On Tuesday, a separate panel threw out Texas’s redistricting plans, saying the maps drawn by the legislature undermined the political rights of minorities who are responsible for the state’s population growth.

The Obama administration opposed both the Texas voter-ID law and the redistricting plans, contending that they threaten to disenfranchise millions of Latino and African American voters across the state.

“The court’s decision today and the decision earlier this week on the Texas redistricting plans not only reaffirm — but help protect — the vital role the Voting Rights Act plays in our society to ensure that every American has the right to vote and to have that vote counted,” Holder said in a statement Thursday.

The challenges are part of an escalating national legal battle over voter-ID laws that has become more intense because it is an election year. Eight states passed voter-ID laws last year, and critics say those statutes could hurt turnout among minority voters and others, many of whom helped elect President Obama in 2008.

Supporters of the measures — seven of which were signed by Republican governors and one by an independent — say that requiring voters to show specific photo IDs would prevent voter fraud.

Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state in this year’s presidential election, is on the front line of a bitter split between many Democrats and Republicans over voting rights. A Pennsylvania judge recently allowed a Republican-backed law requiring voters to show IDs to go into effect for this year’s elections, a setback for Democrats and civil rights groups.

In a courtroom just down the hallway from where judges heard arguments over the Texas voter-ID statute, attorneys for the Justice Department and South Carolina are squaring off this week over a similar measure passed by that state’s legislature last year.

The Justice Department rejected the South Carolina voter-ID law in December, and South Carolina sued the government.

Rather than clarifying the situation with other states, the Texas ruling adds to the legal uncertainty. The federal panel emphasized that it was issuing a narrow opinion that pertained only to the Texas law and not to other jurisdictions trying to implement similar laws.

“The State of Texas enacted a voter-ID law that — at least to our knowledge — is the most stringent in the country,” Tatel wrote.

Attorneys for Texas had cited a case in which the Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter-ID law. But the federal panel Thursday rejected the comparison. Because of its history of discrimination, Texas, unlike Indiana, has the burden of proving that its law would not disenfranchise minorities, the panel said.


Del Quentin Wilber contributed to this report.