58 replies to this topic

[*Anastasia]

On Monday morning, Last Week Tonight host and dingo whisperer John Oliver summarized in a brilliant piece why voter ID laws are unnecessary, discriminatory, and—in the case of several American initiatives—just plain insulting, given their sponsors. Check it out.

[Redezra]

Oh wow, that's baaad.

 

In terms of that in-legislature fraud thing where they're all ghost voting.... Should totally just use the british system of "Yeas go over there, Nays go over there, we'll seal the doors and count the lot of you in 5 mins"

[*Anastasia]

Oh wow, that's baaad.
 
In terms of that in-legislature fraud thing where they're all ghost voting.... Should totally just use the british system of "Yeas go over there, Nays go over there, we'll seal the doors and count the lot of you in 5 mins"

Yeah, I found it all very puzzling, just 'cause I'm not used to electronic voting in legislatures. Our House of Commons basically does two roll-calls, the first for the yeas, the second for the neas, and you stand during the call, until the speaker calls your name, and then you sit down. If you're not present, it's impossible for you to vote.

[Redezra]

Oh wow, that's baaad.
 
In terms of that in-legislature fraud thing where they're all ghost voting.... Should totally just use the british system of "Yeas go over there, Nays go over there, we'll seal the doors and count the lot of you in 5 mins"

Yeah, I found it all very puzzling, just 'cause I'm not used to electronic voting in legislatures. Our House of Commons basically does two roll-calls, the first for the yeas, the second for the neas, and you stand during the call, until the speaker calls your name, and then you sit down. If you're not present, it's impossible for you to vote.

Hmm... maybe it's a cut off your nose to spite your face thing.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

In most legislatures you have to be present to vote. That's certainly the case in the US Congress. That's why Marco Rubio faced such controversy over his not showing up.

[*Anastasia]

In most legislatures you have to be present to vote. That's certainly the case in the US Congress. That's why Marco Rubio faced such controversy over his not showing up.

I should think it's probably the case in Texas ans Tenn as well. It seems that they just don't give a fuck.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

Texas might have changed it. A few years ago the Democratic minority there held up passage of a bill by fleeing to Oklahoma so the legislature didn't have a quorum. I bet the Republican majority made sure that would never happen again.

 

I've always had an issue with the progressive view on voter ID laws. We need a photo ID to do any number of things far more trivial than voting, from picking up a prescription to registering a dog. Why wouldn't you need one to vote? How are the people working at the polls supposed to know that you are who you say you are? I understand that voter fraud is a problem of trivially small proportions, but that's not the point. Proving your identity is a basic, fundamental expectation of modern society. It frankly amazes me that anyone can't do it. But that's alright, I have a solution:

 

Make state-issued IDs free.

 

Boom. Problem solved. If the government expects you to prove your identity, then they must provide a means for you to do so. Free national ID cards for everyone.

 

Let's see how the conservatives like THAT idea. 

[*Anastasia]

But that's alright, I have a solution:

Make state-issued IDs free.

Boom. Problem solved. If the government expects you to prove your identity, then they must provide a means for you to do so. Free national ID cards for everyone.

Problem not necessarily solved, sadly. It's only solved for people who have enough other ID to get said photo ID in the first place. I recently discovered, to my dismay, that to get either a driver's license or a provincial photo ID in Alberta, I need to be able to prove my identity with some other form of photo ID. While this is admittedly a ridiculous situation, if states that have used voter ID laws to disenfranchise poor people and minorities wanted to, they could still use such a stupid requirement to do so even while ostensibly offering free ID.

And even if they didn't specifically do that, there are bound to be people who couldn't provide enough alternative, non-photo ID to qualify anyway. Elderly people in rural areas who may not have a birth certificate. Homeless people without a permanent address to appear on any ID they did have, if they had any at all. Indians living on reservations without the same documentation infrastrucuture you're used to in your urbanized society. The list goes on, and all of these cases were documented as preventing people from voting in the latest Canadian election (the first one where ID was mandatory), and I'm sure the same problems apply to many Americans.

As basic as it is for many people, it's easy to forget that there are a lot of people who, for one reason or another, simply can't prove their identities. You've previously agreed with me that voter ID laws are silly, and though at the time both of us brought up the idea of state-issued ID, the fact of the matter is that unless they're willing to issue them without first requiring ID, it's not a solution.

Though that of course is actually doable. You brought up the idea of putting photos on SSN cards—do you need ID to get those? Because I'm pretty sure I didn't need any to get my SIN card. How much simpler my life would be if it had a photo on it, indeed.

[Manoka]

Voter fraud, at it's core disenfranchises minorities more than any other group. 

 

When 4% of the population are Asian, than just 2% of the vote equals half of the Asian vote. Considering that only about half of people vote anyways, you can wash away their votes essentially with just a little bit of effort, which makes it particularly problematic for them.

 

 

Voter ID, ideally, will be used to protect minorities, who by and large seem to have their votes stolen and stadiums put in to poor neighborhoods instead of schools all the time. 

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

In the US you don't need a photo ID to get a driver's license, which for most people is their primary photo ID. States also issue actual photo IDs, which look the same as driver's licenses but do not allow you to drive. Most people get their license when they are teenagers and don't have many forms of ID. As I recall, they require either 2 or 3 pieces of non-photo ID (a Social Security card, credit card, and a utility bill, for example). I believe you can also have someone who does have a state-issued photo ID vouch for you. I'm sure it varies somewhat from state to state, but there are plenty of low income people who have driver's licenses, so it is doable, even if it might not be easy.

 

The bottom line is that if the will were there, it is possible to provide most people a free photo ID. Yes, there would be a small percentage of people on the margins of society who still would not be able to prove their identity, but it would go a long way toward mitigating the problem.

 

Voter fraud is an essentially nonexistent problem. From 2000-2014 more than a billion ballots were cast in the US; there were 31 cases of voter fraud. It's just something conservatives made up to justify their disenfranchisement of minority voters.

[KiWi]

In the US you don't need a photo ID to get a driver's license, which for most people is their primary photo ID. States also issue actual photo IDs, which look the same as driver's licenses but do not allow you to drive. Most people get their license when they are teenagers and don't have many forms of ID. As I recall, they require either 2 or 3 pieces of non-photo ID (a Social Security card, credit card, and a utility bill, for example). I believe you can also have someone who does have a state-issued photo ID vouch for you. I'm sure it varies somewhat from state to state, but there are plenty of low income people who have driver's licenses, so it is doable, even if it might not be easy.
 
The bottom line is that if the will were there, it is possible to provide most people a free photo ID. Yes, there would be a small percentage of people on the margins of society who still would not be able to prove their identity, but it would go a long way toward mitigating the problem.
 
Voter fraud is an essentially nonexistent problem. From 2000-2014 more than a billion ballots were cast in the US; there were 31 cases of voter fraud. It's just something conservatives made up to justify their disenfranchisement of minority voters.

This

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

Out of curiosity I checked the Massachusetts RMV website to see what their requirements are for a license. If you are 18 or older you need:

• Document proving date of birth
• Document proving signature
• Document proving Massachusetts residency
• A Social Security Number (SSN) that the RMV can verify with the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) as having been issued to you OR an acceptable Denial Notice from the SSA. If you present a Denial Notice, you must also present proof of acceptable visa status, an I-94 (Record of Arrival and Departure), and a current non-U.S. Passport.

[*Anastasia]

 
Out of curiosity I checked the Massachusetts RMV website to see what their requirements are for a license. If you are 18 or older you need:

• Document proving date of birth
• Document proving signature
• Document proving Massachusetts residency
• A Social Security Number (SSN) that the RMV can verify with the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) as having been issued to you OR an acceptable Denial Notice from the SSA. If you present a Denial Notice, you must also present proof of acceptable visa status, an I-94 (Record of Arrival and Departure), and a current non-U.S. Passport.

 

All of which would be out of reach of, say, a homeless person.

[Redezra]

But nobody wants them voting, right?

[Manoka]

In the US you don't need a photo ID to get a driver's license, which for most people is their primary photo ID. States also issue actual photo IDs, which look the same as driver's licenses but do not allow you to drive. Most people get their license when they are teenagers and don't have many forms of ID. As I recall, they require either 2 or 3 pieces of non-photo ID (a Social Security card, credit card, and a utility bill, for example). I believe you can also have someone who does have a state-issued photo ID vouch for you. I'm sure it varies somewhat from state to state, but there are plenty of low income people who have driver's licenses, so it is doable, even if it might not be easy.

 

The bottom line is that if the will were there, it is possible to provide most people a free photo ID. Yes, there would be a small percentage of people on the margins of society who still would not be able to prove their identity, but it would go a long way toward mitigating the problem.

 

Voter fraud is an essentially nonexistent problem. From 2000-2014 more than a billion ballots were cast in the US; there were 31 cases of voter fraud. It's just something conservatives made up to justify their disenfranchisement of minority voters.

That they've caught.

 

Although it's not so much as voter fraud as it is fraudulent voting in general. Some people will vote in multiple elections; for instance in the Californian elections, more votes occurred than were people. Voter turn outs tend to be 50% of the population or less, so over 100% is automatically extremely suspicious. In fact 90% is. 

 

There is in some cases over 3,000% voter turn outs. Clearly, something is wrong, made even more suspicious by this being a high-minority percentage community. If we only accepted voter ID's, maybe the number of multiple votes would go down. Minorities are more easily disenfranchised when their votes are robbed and other people can basically manipulate their will to mean anything they want.

Edited by Manoka, 23 February 2016 - 08:27 PM.

[*Anastasia]

Or maybe if you didn't insist on electronic voting machines that can't properly be relied upon, the number of errors caused by them would go down.

[Redezra]

I call bullshit on the 3000% thing.

 

From the Reddit thread commenting on that very story:

 

Good lord people, what ever happened to critical thinking skills? One of the precincts showed only a single registered voter. When more than one person voted in that precinct, it raised a red flag. There's no reason why a precinct would have only a single voter! It much more likely this is an error in the spreadsheet used to keep track of the number of registered voters than it is people sneaking in extra votes.

 --YepItsThatDude

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

 
Out of curiosity I checked the Massachusetts RMV website to see what their requirements are for a license. If you are 18 or older you need:

• Document proving date of birth
• Document proving signature
• Document proving Massachusetts residency
• A Social Security Number (SSN) that the RMV can verify with the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) as having been issued to you OR an acceptable Denial Notice from the SSA. If you present a Denial Notice, you must also present proof of acceptable visa status, an I-94 (Record of Arrival and Departure), and a current non-U.S. Passport.

 

 

All of which would be out of reach of, say, a homeless person.

 

Like I said, there would still be people at the margins who would be left out. But I'm not sure how homeless people would vote anyway. Voting is dependent on where you live, but if you're homeless then you don't really live anywhere. So what would be your home district (or, as you Canadians call it, riding)? I'm sure there must be rules around this, probably varying from state to state.

[*Anastasia]

All that is true, but I guess… I guess I come at it from the perspective that in a democracy, voting is a right. If even one person who wants to exercise that right can't, that's a problem. That's a big problem. Putting barriers in the way of voting that might prevent someone from voting, no matter how noble your intentions, is an act which stands at fundamental odds with the principles of democracy, and it's an act which, in my view, cannot be tolerated.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

Voting is a right. But how do you determine whether the person voting actually HAS that right? What's to stop me from going to the neighboring state and voting?

 

This issue has always had me torn. On the one hand, I realize that voter fraud is not really a thing. And, as I said, I recognize that the real agenda behind voter ID laws, at least on the right, is disenfranchising poor and minority voters. But I still can't get past the fact that we are expected to show IDs for any number of things far more trivial than voting. Some of those things are rights too. I have a right to own a dog, but I have to register that dog, and in order to do so I need to show an ID. I have a right to be a fisherman, but in order to do so I need to get a fishing license, for which I need to show an ID. I have a right to keep and bear arms, but in order to exercise that right I have to show an ID. I have a right to drive a car, but... Well, you get the point. The anal-retentive in me simply cannot accept that we have to show IDs for virtually every aspect of modern life, but when it comes to choosing our leaders people are just expected to believe that we are who we say we are. Why? In what other context would that ever be accepted? That's why the only solution I can see is to provide free IDs.

People get IDs. More to the point, people get first IDs. At some point none of us had an ID, and then we did. So obviously it's not an insurmountable problem. We simply lack the will to fix it.