[stratos]

To me a voter ID is not per say needed here in the USA. We have state issued Driver liscense and State ID cards. Why can't we make these all that one needs to vote. You could even set it so that it does not go into effect for 6yrs thus that gives everyone enough time to save up the 20-30 dollars to get the state ID card and adjust to having to cary it with you to vote.

You don't even need to have both all you need is one or the other. If it is good enough as prof of idenity when needed for any and all situations why can it not be good enough for voteing.

[Vamp018]

About 75% to 90% of the US 18 or older Voter eligible already have some form of government issued ID or DL in the US. It is req for almost all Government, financial transactions, LE Stops, list goes on including to get a Passport to travel to Canada or Mexico. Most Seniors and Disable have a ID Card issued by there State or they get no Benefits. As Bart points Democrats are scared because there busted in the Voter Fraud Scheme's. By the way travel info, if you have a Consular Card, it isn't going to work. All ID's must be issued by the Fed or individual States not other nations vote wise.

[Khar]

Jughead Jughead:

$1:

By a margin of 5-4, the justices quashed section 4 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

They ruled that an updated formula was needed to decide which jurisdictions' election laws need monitoring.

The law requires all or parts of 15 US states, mostly in the South, to receive federal approval for election changes.

$1:

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley told the Birmingham News the decision was "the most significant ruling" in his lifetime.

"Was there a reason to pass the Voting Rights Act 48 years ago? Yes, there was," Mr Bentley said. But he said "areas of discrimination" had been "addressed".

"As governor, I can assure you we're not going to have discrimination in the state of Alabama based on race, especially related to voting," he said.

The Voting Rights Act was intended to stop practices such as literacy tests, poll taxes or similar measures to keep black people from voting, in states with a history of racial discrimination.

I agree with Alabama Governor Robert Bentley. Section 4 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act was a product of it's time, and is irrelevant today. The law should be updated to reflect modern society.

This isn't really a response to you, I'm more or less using your post as a jumping off point.

I'd agree with the panel of federal judges who pointed out numerous problems with groups trying to take down the VRA. Most predominantly, that the courts found against a lot of the photo ID set-ups because it demanded very limiting forms of photo ID to be used. Your social security or student ID isn't enough, but an expired gun license-from-out of state was allowed, for example. Most such programs rejected were simply too stringent for their aim; if you want to use government ID, use government ID, don't make it incredibly limiting as to what can be used so as to select out parts of the population.

Indeed, the courts were more than clear in their decisions that photo ID laws were fine as long as they were not obviously discriminatory. When they discovered the narrowness of a great many of the programs, especially in Texas, it set off alarm bells and was stopped. Smart photo ID laws are and have been allowed; see the link Bart posted. Stupid ones have not been. It's not the photo ID, it's the fact that the ID has obvious negative implications for 11% of voters, usually those who are otherwise disadvantaged and don't have a voice they are supposed to get in an equal, liberal democracy. When seniors cannot use the types of ID Vamp08 mentioned, even though they use it to get benefits, as ID to vote, then there is clearly an issue. When this can stop 18% of seniors from voting, we shouldn't be implementing this, period. What good is a democracy when our security outweighs 1 in 10 person's liberty, without providing any reasonable security gain?

Worse, with section 5 now essentially null and void with section 4 being considered unconstitutional, states with long-term histories of gerrymandering in ways that limits the choice of minorities are now able to push through their redistricting lines. In Texas, prior to the last election, a group of white politicians (without involving their Black or Latino brethren, even elected ones) set about redistricting in a way that was found to be one of the most obvious and egregious example of racial vote limitation in recent memory. Districts were carved up if there was a significant minority population in them; minority Congress members saw their districts disappear; and attempts to explain this were that a man with 1000s of hours of experience with a map-making program didn't understand it's functions. Court case.

In short, these states have not yet earned the right to say "discrimination won't happen." Texas was caught red-handed with three different plans for redistricting that were obvious attempts to suppress the minority vote. Areas of discrimination "were addressed" by ensuring that there was a balance to any future possible racism, and that balance existed via section 5. If the formula needs changing, change the formula, but do not remove the currently existing systems actively protecting the liberty of millions and performing a duty to all Americans in retaining democracy. In doing so, the supreme court has given a grace period for all sorts of shit to be pushed through without recourse, while policy drag time makes it's slow way through congress; presuming that it will even regain any efficacy at all. At least now, we had a check on some states, and we could have kept that while seeking new laws in Congress; expressly removing it inherently castrates the entire system, bereft of justice, while politicians from states likely to engage in this behaviour (very likely those with extensive histories of doing so, as was what the formula targeted) can waffle away days demanding they aren't "discriminated against" for past actions that, as seen above, they are still engaging in.

From what I've heard, for example, Texas is ramming all those laws through that were blocked previously. When a state actively engages in using systems that, in review, were found to be wanting in defending the ideals of democracy, I question the state's dedication to democracy itself. There were no active harms in retaining the system; it forced states to make use of ID laws that were truly accessible to all, and forced accountability on some states when it came to changes in their electoral systems. All it did was make, at the very least, some states cleaner. If we could augment it to target other states not targeted, fine, but that is not helped by reducing the system's scope altogether in the meantime. In my view, yes, 1965 was a long time ago, but I don't think it's long enough ago for some states to be able to use that line.

As for the posts by Bart:

The last post is in regards to the Brennan Center who, indeed, agreed with the beliefs of the majority vote in this case; the VRA should be retained. In a study (hopefully some of you can access the full versions), they continued to find endemic issues with voter suppression or restrictive voting laws in states covered by the VRA and for the reasons the VRA was created. He is also right, in most cases; as seen above by the Texas case, there was a bit of finagling in the last few months in an attempt to redraw lines and impose new laws, hence why it was noted that there were more challenges to the VRA between 2010 and 2012 than in the 45 years before that combined.

In most other cases, yes, there is a continuous, long-term history of attempted voter suppression in many states, especially those southern ones, to this date. However, there was a massive upswing in such issues leading up to the election, so Thanos' post, if removed from hyperbole, does ring of a certain level of truth. Indeed, many decisions, including this Supreme Court one, had come in the month before the election, so there was certainly a massive upswing leading up to the 2012 elections, by whatever time frame you so choose to use. Yay, everyone is right?

I'd also like to note that I have not been able to find any stories, studies or articles that have found that those "dead people" voted. At least, none that haven't been thoroughly debunked (and yes, any student who has done any statistics will nod there heads at what is said by that site in response to the conspiracies). Much like when democratic voters went above and beyond in attacking Bush beyond what could even be conceivably true in figuring out why Bush won over Gore, I view this as the same -- avoiding reality in explaining an electoral loss. All elections have limited vote fraud, and there was evidence that both Republicans and Democrats engaged on it without legitimate support from either party on extremely small scales. The amount of cases actually being followed are minuscule. Those carrying the story are purely hard-core fringe right-wing sites.

In a way, it feels like when the voter suppression thing against the Conservatives up here was launched. The amount of reports went from the five digits to the triple digits overnight, and kept dropping from there. Eventually the courts simply ruled it as irrelevant to the results. I have a feeling the latter is the best thing Republicans could hope for finding down in the states; and even that would be rough in connecting to the Democrats.

[DanSC]

xerxes xerxes:

Tomorrow's headline: Poll taxes return in the states south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Does this happen before or after the annexation of Canada?

[N_Fiddledog]

Here's some more facts on 2012 voter fraud you might want to double-check Khar.

http://www.truethevote.org/news/how-wid ... ts-figures

And I'm going to use Snopes recent policy of scooping convenient cases to make my political point, as if isolated examples prove all cases.

Poll worker who voted for Obama multiple times convicted of voting fraud

$1:

Surely, you recall Melowese Richardson, the Democratic poll worker in the critical battleground state of Ohio who may have voted for Barack Obama up to six times in November.

Upon being charged, she vowed to fight “for Mr. Obama’s right to sit as president of the United States.”

Well, she gave up the fight in short order.

With little media fanfare, it was announced Tuesday that Richardson pleaded no contest to four counts of illegal voting – including voting three times for a relative who has been in a coma since 2003 – in exchange for prosecutors dropping four other illegal voting charges, according to Cincinnati.com.

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/05/30/ ... raud-73217

Also...

$1:

This makes Richardson the third Hamilton County resident to be found guilty of vote fraud this year. Two guilty pleas were obtained just last month by county prosecutors, and three other cases of vote fraud are still pending.

http://www.conservativeblog.org/amyride ... ty-of.html

On the 'pay no attention to the man behind curtain' excuse for ignoring voter fraud on the grounds proven cases are rare so it doesn't matter - here's one that's still argued, but shows the power of one possible 'rare' case of voter fraud.

Voter Fraud May Have Given Us Obamacare

Here is how:

In the ’08 campaign, Republican Sen. Norm Coleman was running for re-election against Democrat Al Franken. It was impossibly close; on the morning after the election, after 2.9 million people had voted, Coleman led Franken by 725 votes.

Franken and his Democratic allies dispatched an army of lawyers to challenge the results. After the first canvass, Coleman’s lead was down to 206 votes. That was followed by months of wrangling and litigation. In the end, Franken was declared the winner by 312 votes. He was sworn into office in July 2009, eight months after the election.

During the controversy a conservative group called Minnesota Majority began to look into claims of voter fraud. Comparing criminal records with voting rolls, the group identified 1,099 felons — all ineligible to vote — who had voted in the Franken-Coleman race.

……………………………..

The election was particularly important because Franken’s victory gave Senate Democrats a 60th vote in favor of President Obama’s national health care proposal — the deciding vote to overcome a Republican filibuster. If Coleman had kept his seat, there would have been no 60th vote, and no Obamacare.

John Fund and Hans vonSpakovsky have written a book that chronicles voter fraud called, “Who’s Counting?”

http://themoderatevoice.com/155458/vote ... obamacare/

Also the 'rare cases' explanation may have more to do with who's in charge of investigating, than amount of convictions.

And I suggest if the socialist paper The Guardian out of the UK is an acceptable reference, then so are mine. There's even links in mine to the actual sources.

[xerxes]

Where is the Guardian cited? All you posted was stuff from right wing hacks and right wing shitrags.

[BartSimpson]

xerxes xerxes:

Where is the Guardian cited? All you posted was stuff from right wing hacks and right wing shitrags.

And the Guardian is a left-wing shitrag staffed and mostly read by left-wing hacks, so your point is....?

I say it this way because I often cite the Guardian for the reason that they sometimes print actual facts. I don't let the source of my information corrupt my perception of the information.

Neither should you.

[xerxes]

True. And when you post stuff from the daily telegraph or other right leaning papers I do the same. But Ndog didn't and you rarely do. You post article from think tanks and bloggers who made up their minds before they even looked at the facts and simply write to reflect to their predetermined answers.

[BartSimpson]

xerxes xerxes:

True. And when you post stuff from the daily telegraph or other right leaning papers I do the same. But Ndog didn't and you rarely do. You post article from think tanks and bloggers who made up their minds before they even looked at the facts and simply write to reflect to their predetermined answers.

And anymore most of the articles you read in 'respectable' media (be they left or right) base most of their content on what they glean from think tanks and bloggers.

It's a new world, my friend, and the definitions of 'reporter' and 'media' are swiftly being redefined.

For instance, in the US many courts and civil rights activists are arguing that people become reporters with press protections the moment they lift up their cell phones and start taking pictures or recording video. There's plenty of good reasons for this not the least of which is that government has no right to license the media or define who is or is not the media.

We've also had bloggers and forum posters blow the lid off of numerous stories in the past decade. Notably a poster from Free Republic (Buckhead) posted his analysis of the alleged George Bush National Guard documents and exposed them as frauds. That forum poster scooped the mainstream media and brought about the end of the career of Dan Rather.

Thus I look at numerous sources of news, commentary, and information because the guys at the New York Times do it, too.

[Thanos]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Thanos Thanos:

Bringing it in two years before an election, instead of two weeks as the GOP was trying to do in too many states in 2012...

The summary of these laws and etc. is quite at odds with your narrative of their being proposed just two weeks prior to last year's election.

http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/e ... ws-roundup

Remind yourself of this when you view the types of ID that GOP legislatures have disallowed, even though those are the only types of ID that the people (elderly, students, etc.) most likely to be disenfranchised (i.e. Democrat voters) are likely to have. The first thing that should be done is sending out a permanent Voter ID card by the state governments just to get rid of the entangling mess of allowable vs non-allowable ID's that will be accepted at polling stations. But of course that won't ever happen because austerity/Jeezus/socialism/Kenyan-in-the-White-House, or whatever other shitheaded excuse or complete lie conservatives will cook up.

In the end all this is going to do is permanently fix a gerrymandering process specifically designed to benefit the likes of the TeaBirchers and religious cranks that form the base of the current GOP. Keeping the system clean or fair (an increasingly un-American word "fair" is) was of the last consideration.

[Khar]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

Here's some more facts on 2012 voter fraud you might want to double-check Khar.

<...>

And I suggest if the socialist paper The Guardian out of the UK is an acceptable reference, then so are mine. There's even links in mine to the actual sources.

Considering the response from both xerxes and Bart, I think I'm vindicated in saying that every single newspaper out there are reporting the exact same facts. I don't deny the Guardian is left-leaning, but I do deny that they are reporting anything different from the other fifty or sixty sources across the political spectrum that I could have used. I'd also deny that it is as "left-wing" as the responding posts you tossed out are "right-wing." The Guardian simply was the first to come up, and I figured in a modern age of Google, one would simply check on any sources being posted anyways, and would do so, especially given that "current events news" is not as susceptible to levels of bias so much as the analysis. The fact is that Texas is pushing the laws through; and that is the full utility I found with that article, the use for that one line among dozens in my post. That your response ignores my other sources, including Supreme Court cases and legal center reviews, speaks more about your standards than my using a newspaper who was quoting the current politician stating they are moving forward with laws in a post-VRA environment.

There is also something very different in the reliability of any main stream media group in having to report the news, in contrast to fringe sites that, as xerxes said, are little more than blogs and shit-rags. The Guardian has a much better record than any of the sites you posted, and is held in account by a great many readers and various organizations. If you had responded with, say, Fox News, and the "facts" had been different, then I'd have been more interested with your response. Given that everyone agrees on the facts, I call bullshit on the idea that I allowed you to do anything in using those as acceptable. Indeed, if my sources has been that bad, how do you think it would have improved the conversation by using equally, or in this case more, biased sources? Wouldn't the correct response to perceived bias have been to either demonstrate the bias impacted the facts, or used unbiased sources in response, as I myself typically do and as you chose not to do?

I'm sorry I muddied this thread with facts available from every competent major news outlet, including all the local Texas papers. I'm sorry that the section you felt you could reply to with your hack sites wasn't even related to the Guardian response, so you're simply wrong in stating that you are responding equally (since your entire case is based on shit sites on a different topic than what the Guardian post was for). I'm sorry you can't tell the difference between reporting on current events and using a source which is just a book review on a blog. Wow! Such vigorous standards! Such depthful analysis!

Considering your response included two of the type of situations I referred to (and yes, there are a several across the spectrum), and your final response sources two partisan hacks rather than "news," you have shit to stand on. I handled the first two in my post by denoting that there are very few cases, and you responded by showing... all of two. Well done! Two is so many. Definitely more than very few, and totally enough to overturn a single district, and from there, overturn an entire election! I think you should read the responses in the final source, where readers make a lot of very good points. Where are the 1099 cases? Where is this proof? How is it that every non-partisan group after every recent election (including 2000 and 2004) found so little evidence of vote tampering? How is it that your source... still doesn't source any facts? Documents? Names? I demanded the exact same amount of scrutiny following the Gore-Bush fiasco, and that one was far more close, far more concerning (because Florida always manages to screw it up somehow) than any of the situations brought up so far.

The numbers? 0.0009% of the time, it's an issue. Brennan Research Center. Cut that in half the majority of the time for the entire nation. The information there crosses all elections and makes valid points about the problems with crying "voter fraud." I had fun reading information on the "dearth" of voting fraud issues that were leading to such laws previously, and I must have read about, oh... tens of cases nationally.

How does your response even begin to refute mine, when what you posted falls exactly into the pattern I describe in my post?

[commanderkai]

Thanos Thanos:

Remind yourself of this when you view the types of ID that GOP legislatures have disallowed, even though those are the only types of ID that the people (elderly, students, etc.) most likely to be disenfranchised (i.e. Democrat voters) are likely to have.

What sort of ID have been disallowed that somehow negatively impact the elderly (aka, a major GOP demographic) and students compared to the general population?

Texas: http://www.votetexas.gov/register-to-vote/need-id

Kansas: http://www.gotvoterid.com/

Georgia: http://sos.georgia.gov/Gaphotoid/

Just used three quick examples of states with voter ID laws already in effect or passed. Texas, especially, was a state that had it passed before the 2012 election, and look at that, it's not unreasonable in my view, and I have doubts it'd horribly impact students or the elderly or the poor.

[Lemmy]

When there is no choice in the choice, does it really matter if certain people are excluded from the vote?

[Thanos]

Imagine a scenario where Sarah Palin was elected as Vice-President of the United States with her cheerleading for a President John McCain as he endlessly quagmired the entire US military in both Iran and Syria, and then re-examine your cynicism about "no choice".

[Lemmy]

Maybe. But I'm not sure why Syria and Iran would be any different/worse than Iraq, Afghanistan and everywhere else the US military is already quagmired.