No Wonder Libs Don’t Want Voter ID Programs

[Red Arrow]

Nice dodge. (ever heard of an absentee ballot? you're being ridiculous.) How about you answer the question. Why do you want to make it harder for US citizens to vote?

You noticed, good for you.  I think the uproar over an ID is also ridiculous.

Direct answer... Making someone show an ID is NOT making it harder for US citizens to vote.  My opinion, I'm sure you disagree.

[Hoss]

I think the election board should make an appointment with me to bring the voting machine and ballot to either my home or place of work.  It is just terribly difficult to get to the polling place.  Right now it's 0.8 mi. It has been as much as 1.6 miles away.   Then on a really big election, I have to wait in line.  The only reason I put up with it is to exercise my right to complain vote.

Let me put this to you.  It doesn't happy to everyone, but just read a moment.

My mother, who is partially disabled, cannot drive.  Currently she has several means to get her around, her sister, my aunt, who takes her to and from the doctor and dentist when she needs when I'm at work.  Me, who lives with her.  My brother in a pinch as well as my sister.  That's it.

Now, what if none of us were around by some chance of fate?  I'll give you this...my mother does absentee ballots.  But guess what?  You still require a witness to sign the ballot.  What if she was the only person in our family left.

So before you start making jokes about 'bringing the ballot box to you', just think some people may need just that.  If my mother were to be on her own, I'm not quite sure how she would vote.  At least not right now.  Because right now I'm the one that witnesses her absentee ballot.

[Red Arrow]

Let me put this to you.  It doesn't happy to everyone, but just read a moment.

My mother, who is partially disabled, cannot drive.  Currently she has several means to get her around, her sister, my aunt, who takes her to and from the doctor and dentist when she needs when I'm at work.  Me, who lives with her.  My brother in a pinch as well as my sister.  That's it.

Now, what if none of us were around by some chance of fate?  I'll give you this...my mother does absentee ballots.  But guess what?  You still require a witness to sign the ballot.  What if she was the only person in our family left.

So before you start making jokes about 'bringing the ballot box to you', just think some people may need just that.  If my mother were to be on her own, I'm not quite sure how she would vote.  At least not right now.  Because right now I'm the one that witnesses her absentee ballot.

If she is really so totally dependent, she would probably be living in some kind of assisted living situation if none of you were around.  I don't mean to be hard hearted but that's the way I see it.

[Hoss]

If she is really so totally dependent, she would probably be living in some kind of assisted living situation if none of you were around.  I don't mean to be hard hearted but that's the way I see it.

You obviously do not know my Mother then.  She is not totally dependent, but when you realize how 'totally dependent' we as a society are on cars for transportation, you would see where I was coming from.

I don't know what the future would hold, but she would fight the assisted living tooth and nail.

But fair assessment from your viewpoint.

[Red Arrow]

You obviously do not know my Mother then.  She is not totally dependent, but when you realize how 'totally dependent' we as a society are on cars for transportation, you would see where I was coming from.
I don't know what the future would hold, but she would fight the assisted living tooth and nail.
But fair assessment from your viewpoint.

My mom is getting up there in years but can still drive.  Putting her in assisted living would probably shorten her life significantly so I know what you are talking about.  I'm going to help my mom stay out here in suburbia hopefully for quite a few more years yet.  If your mom is not totally dependent but cannot drive, an alternative would be an urban life like so many here propose.  It's not such a bad alternative, just different and she would still not be in an old folks home.  If she is able to stay where she is without her sister and kids, she will obviously have someone to take her to the polls or sign as a witness to an absentee ballot.  The point is there are alternatives.  I don't have any kids so at some point I will have to make that decision for myself.

Edit:
A few more thoughts, seriously.

Your mom is already living in "assisted living" but fortunately it is family assisting her.  Good for her, you, your sister, and aunt.  That's what family is about.

I have few friends that have had to put their parents in assisted living (but not nursing homes).  It wasn't pretty in one case, reasonably well accepted in another.  My grandmother lived for about 7 years after my grandfather died.  He had stopped driving about 5 years before that.  She was 97 when her time came.  She lived in the house she and grandpop built after he retired in 1963.  She never had a driver's license and lived in a suburb of Ocala, FL.  Walking to the grocery store with a cart was not an option.  She had church "family" that looked after her.  She also had my Uncle who moved to a town about 20 miles away when he retired.  Just close enough to help, no so close as to be in the way.  At some point, we will all need someone to help us.  Voting is another one of those things.

[nathanm]

Direct answer... Making someone show an ID is NOT making it harder for US citizens to vote.  My opinion, I'm sure you disagree.

So you're saying that adding more paperwork and prerequisites to a process does not make it more difficult to complete that process? Wow. I'll have to remember that next time you're going on about some onerous regulation or something.

If you simply don't think it's a problem to make voting more difficult, OK, but don't try to justify it by claiming that's not what is happening.

[Red Arrow]

So you're saying that adding more paperwork and prerequisites to a process does not make it more difficult to complete that process? Wow. I'll have to remember that next time you're going on about some onerous regulation or something.

If you simply don't think it's a problem to make voting more difficult, OK, but don't try to justify it by claiming that's not what is happening.

I think it is insignificant.  Happy?

[Conan71]

So you're saying that adding more paperwork and prerequisites to a process does not make it more difficult to complete that process? Wow. I'll have to remember that next time you're going on about some onerous regulation or something.

If you simply don't think it's a problem to make voting more difficult, OK, but don't try to justify it by claiming that's not what is happening.

The "hardship" created by this is about the same as opening a checking account.  20 minutes out of your life. 

Far less than getting a driver's license, getting on Social Security, welfare, or food stamps.

Should we assume it's a hardship to even register to vote in the first place?  Should we just do away with voter registration and let whomever shows up to vote, just vote?

[RecycleMichael]

Without evidence of voter fraud, all this does is add unneccessary government bureacracy to a simple right.

I am glad to know you are in favor of unneccessary bureacracy...

[Conan71]

Without evidence of voter fraud, all this does is add unneccessary government bureacracy to a simple sacred right.

I am glad to know you are in favor of unneccessary bureacracy...

Why all the meme's regarding protecting the process and keeping it honest and legit? 

I post an article related to a special interest group mailing out some 5 million pieces of mail trying to register people who may not even be eligible to vote and you say there's no evidence?  This is hardly an isolated incident.  It's hardly creating unnecessary bureaucracy, it's simply enforcing that poll workers check ID's at the polls.  As far as Oklahoma goes, there's no hardship nor any difference than in previous years.  Show up and use your FREE voter ID card to vote. 

I suspect the number of adult Americans without a photo ID is a very, very small fraction of all Americans.

Back in April, in a story that did not receive the attention it deserved, a Tunica County, Miss., jury found Lessadolla Sowers, who have been identified as a member of the executive committee of the county's NAACP chapter, guilty of 10 counts of fraudulently casting absentee ballots in the name of others.

Sowers, The Daily Caller reported Friday, received a five-year prison term for each of the ten counts—for a total of 50 years– but will be allowed to serve those terms concurrently, meaning at the same time.

The problem of voter fraud, despite what the Democrats say, is very, very real. The question is what to do about it. [Check out our editorial cartoons on the Democratic Party.]

A number of states are considering or have passed reforms that make it tougher to cheat at the polls, most of which center on requiring voters to produce a photo ID before they can cast a ballot, a seemingly simple idea taken from everyday life that most people support. After all, you have to show a government-issued photo ID to board an airplane, rent a car, cash a check, buy liquor, enter office buildings in major metropolitan areas, and even before you can get married so why not have to produce a photo ID before you can vote?

[Check out U.S. News's new iPad app.]

Well to many Democrats, who seem to believe that voter fraud–despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary–is merely a figment of the Republicans' collective imagination, asking people to show a photo ID before voting is akin to the restoration of "separate by equal" schools and segregated lunch counters.

Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz who chairs the Democratic National Committee called photo ID an effort to "literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally—and very transparently—block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote for Democratic candidates than Republican candidates."

Once someone explained the meaning of the word "literally" to her, Wasserman Schultz backed off the analogy but not from the sentiment.  NAACP President Benjamin Jealous, who apparently didn't get the memo from Wasserman Schultz, called voter ID one "of the last existing legal pillars of Jim Crow."

The Reverend Jesse Jackson said photo ID was the equivalent of "a poll tax." Former President Bill Clinton said of the effort to enacted voter ID legislation that there had never been "in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today."

Others have attacked the plan because it would be too expensive to provide government-issued photo IDs to everyone who needs but does not have one, a concern that, frankly, is laughable.

Since when have Democrats ever been dissuaded from doing anything outside of the defense sector because it costs too much?

You get the picture. The rhetoric is over the top, probably because voter ID does get at the problem of voter fraud which—for some Democrats—is not so much a theory as a turn out model, a key to winning close elections. [See a slide show of who's in and out for the GOP in 2012.]

A comprehensive study by the Milwaukee Police Department found a strong possibility existed that there was "an illegal organized attempt to influence the outcome" through voter fraud of the 2004 elections in Wisconsin. The Colorado Secretary of State's office determined that nearly 5,000 people who were not United States citizens—and therefore according to the law, ineligible to vote—voted in the 2010 U.S. Senate race. And there are plenty of other examples in the modern era including one other recent U.S. Senate race and a gubernatorial election whose outcomes were determined as a direct result of voter fraud.

Voter fraud is not imaginary. It's real and it threatens the franchise held by ever legitimate voter in the country and needs to be addressed if the electoral process is gong to continue to mean anything. Requiring voters to show a photo ID before they can vote just makes sense.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2011/07/29/despite-what-democrats-claim-voter-fraud-is-real

[AquaMan]

Its always something. I applied at a temp service today and they asked me for my "right to work" card. I was confused and asked her what that was. She said they couldn't pay me unless I had that or another form of identification besides my DL. "A Social Security card or birth certificate, you know". I told her I don't carry either one with me as that would be stupid and that SS cards are not to be used as identification. Besides, I don't know if I even want your jobs. We'll deal with that "right to work" stuff later.

Just embed a numeric digital display on my forearm and lets get it over with.

[RecycleMichael]

You posted an opinion page about voter fraud. I counter it with this...

http://news.yahoo.com/gops-believe-voter-fraud-epidemic-163000131.html

The Republican war on barely-existent voter fraud threatens to disenfranchise countless American citizens
Out of the blue, Florida recently asked a 91-year-old World War II veteran to provide proof of his U.S. citizenship — or he wouldn't be allowed to register to vote. Bill Internicola, born and raised in America, sent the state the information it requested and military papers to boot, according to NPR.

So why was this "flabbergasted" senior citizen targeted by Florida? Republicans across the country are pushing new state laws to stop "voter fraud" — a crime so demonstrably rare that many critics assume these laws are meant not to stop fraud, but to disenfranchise Democratic voters. And as more and more laws pass — in Pennsylvania, an incredible 9 percent of the electorate may be shut out by a new voter ID law — many innocent citizens like Internicola are becoming victims.

One of the legislators leading the charge is Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla). Thanks to Scott, if you're an ex-convict, an early-riser, or have moved recently, you're going to have a lot of trouble casting your vote in Florida. Scott's latest tactic is purging noncitizens from the state's voter rolls, with questionable results. According to The Miami Herald, the state-produced list of non-citizens has targeted "hundreds of actual citizens who are lawful voters."

Between 2000 and 2010, there were 47,000 UFO sightings, 441 Americans killed by lightning — and only 13 cases of in-person voter impersonation.

The Department of Justice is suing Florida to stop this particular law in its tracks, on the grounds that it violates the National Voter Registration Act. But winning this battle alone won't win the war. All over the country, courts are struggling to defend our right to vote against legislators who are stomping on that right: some, accidently — others, with reckless enthusiasm.

Eleven states have now passed laws that require voters to show photo ID and 16 additional states have laws pending, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School. Three states have started requiring voters to demonstrate U.S. citizenship, and six states are restricting registration in other ways — all in the name of stopping the crime of voter fraud.

[Conan71]

Its always something. I applied at a temp service today and they asked me for my "right to work" card. I was confused and asked her what that was. She said they couldn't pay me unless I had that or another form of identification besides my DL. "A Social Security card or birth certificate, you know". I told her I don't carry either one with me as that would be stupid and that SS cards are not to be used as identification. Besides, I don't know if I even want your jobs. We'll deal with that "right to work" stuff later.

Just embed a numeric digital display on my forearm and lets get it over with.

She managed to butcher "employment authorization" into "right to work"?

I've never completed my employment information without an SS card. 

http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-9.pdf

Scroll to page 5.  You need some sort of government-issued photo ID AND your SS card or birth certificate.  That's nothing new, it's been a requirement for years.

[nathanm]

I suspect the number of adult Americans without a photo ID is a very, very small fraction of all Americans.

I don't think it's appropriate to mess with people's right to vote because you think it only inconveniences a few. Here's the thing: Even if only 0.1% of the US population has no photo ID, that's still up to 300,000 people you're disenfranchising. That's the thing about living in a country with lots of people. Even a small fraction of our population is still a lot of people.

Last I checked, there's nothing in the Constitution that conditions the right to vote on one's ability to jump through hoops.

[Conan71]

I don't think it's appropriate to mess with people's right to vote because you think it only inconveniences a few. Here's the thing: Even if only 0.1% of the US population has no photo ID, that's still up to 300,000 people you're disenfranchising. That's the thing about living in a country with lots of people. Even a small fraction of our population is still a lot of people.

Last I checked, there's nothing in the Constitution that conditions the right to vote on one's ability to jump through hoops.

Do you consider registering to vote jumping through hoops?