Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Those of you who claim that these laws do not disenfranchise the poor have probably never been poor.
According to 2010 number, 48% of people over 15 yrs old have a personal income less than $25,000/yr. The median income (2005 numbers) for all individuals over age 18 is $24,000 yr.
What does this mean? This means that these workers are hourly. 24k/yr breaks down to ~$740 per paycheck after taxes or about $370/week meaning that most people are hourly and netting less than $9.25 an hour.
When you are hourly, any time you take off of work directly impacts your bottom line. Taking off to go vote for 2-3 hours during working hours is $30 out of your pocket plus the gas to get there. That is an 8% hit on your next paycheck just so that you can go vote for some politician that probably won't make your life any easier.... and this is assuming that they can get the time off to vote approved in the first place.
Removing extended hours and early voting takes away the opportunity for these people to vote at times that won't directly impact their income.
IF THAT WERE NOT ENOUGH, the same group of laws contains a requirement for photo ID, like a driver's license. The problem with that is:
1. A driver's license will take 2-3 more hours out of the hourly worker's schedule
2. Driver's licenses are not free (they cost $10-$30 depending on where you live)
3. VoterID states (like Georgia, where I live) have now made it more difficult to get driver's licences by requiring more forms of identification
4. Hourly workers making less than $24,000/yr are unlikely to have a car, or enough access to a car to make a driver's license a necessity.
The coincidence of the changes in these laws is not random. It is a deliberate plan to make it more difficult for the poorer half of the country to vote. If you have a good enough job to be salaried, have a driver's license and enough leeway to take time off from your job then these laws do not affect you at all. This is by design.
The only reason that anyone would want to make voting more difficult is because they are more interested in winning elections than actually practicing democracy or giving their fellow citizens their rights under the Constitution. This country has a long history of voter suppression, though the VoterID proponents will claim that their new legislation doesn't do that.
Strange how you don't need a picture ID to pay your taxes, enlist in the military, attend public school or even stand trial for a crime.
Also strange is how this country seems to have functioned for some 200 odd years without a picture ID requirement through periods of time where immigrants made up a far larger percentage of the population than today.
I guess it was ok then because the immigrants at the time (irish, french, german, etc) 'looked' like everyone else.
No it isn't. If the progressives can motivate and transport people to head down to the Capital and call the Republicans racists, they should be able to motivate and transport people to the DMV to get a photo ID. If every progressive complaining about the photo ID would take one of the so-called disenfranchised to the DMV everyone in the state would have an ID by end of summer. But it is much easier to demonize and complain instead of making an actual effort.
Those of you who claim that these laws do not disenfranchise the poor have probably never been poor.
According to 2010 number, 48% of people over 15 yrs old have a personal income less than $25,000/yr. The median income (2005 numbers) for all individuals over age 18 is $24,000 yr.
What does this mean? This means that these workers are hourly. 24k/yr breaks down to ~$740 per paycheck after taxes or about $370/week meaning that most people are hourly and netting less than $9.25 an hour.
When you are hourly, any time you take off of work directly impacts your bottom line. Taking off to go vote for 2-3 hours during working hours is $30 out of your pocket plus the gas to get there. That is an 8% hit on your next paycheck just so that you can go vote for some politician that probably won't make your life any easier.... and this is assuming that they can get the time off to vote approved in the first place.
Removing extended hours and early voting takes away the opportunity for these people to vote at times that won't directly impact their income.
IF THAT WERE NOT ENOUGH, the same group of laws contains a requirement for photo ID, like a driver's license. The problem with that is:
1. A driver's license will take 2-3 more hours out of the hourly worker's schedule
2. Driver's licenses are not free (they cost $10-$30 depending on where you live)
3. VoterID states (like Georgia, where I live) have now made it more difficult to get driver's licences by requiring more forms of identification
4. Hourly workers making less than $24,000/yr are unlikely to have a car, or enough access to a car to make a driver's license a necessity.
The coincidence of the changes in these laws is not random. It is a deliberate plan to make it more difficult for the poorer half of the country to vote. If you have a good enough job to be salaried, have a driver's license and enough leeway to take time off from your job then these laws do not affect you at all. This is by design.
The only reason that anyone would want to make voting more difficult is because they are more interested in winning elections than actually practicing democracy or giving their fellow citizens their rights under the Constitution. This country has a long history of voter suppression, though the VoterID proponents will claim that their new legislation doesn't do that.
Strange how you don't need a picture ID to pay your taxes, enlist in the military, attend public school or even stand trial for a crime.
Also strange is how this country seems to have functioned for some 200 odd years without a picture ID requirement through periods of time where immigrants made up a far larger percentage of the population than today.
I guess it was ok then because the immigrants at the time (irish, french, german, etc) 'looked' like everyone else.
The craziest thing is our voting system does not have a method to verify visually the person voting!
If it were up to me...I would like to see retinal or palm scanners being used. We have early voting here in NC. It's a disgrace when people don't take advantage of all of the days available to vote.
I said nothing about picture IDs, nice dodge. Why would they put in a law saying anyone can challenge a voters eligibility? That is going to lead to parties sending partisans to unfavorable locations to challenge as many people as possible to gum up the works and intimidate people.
No it isn't. If the progressives can motivate and transport people to head down to the Capital and call the Republicans racists, they should be able to motivate and transport people to the DMV to get a photo ID. If every progressive complaining about the photo ID would take one of the so-called disenfranchised to the DMV everyone in the state would have an ID by end of summer. But it is much easier to demonize and complain instead of making an actual effort.
I think your right and just like Moral Monday it's going to galvanize the left like never before in NC. That's usually what happens, the very thing you're trying to do (supposedly prevent voter fraud while suppressing the dem vote) is going to create a boomerang effect. It's going to bring out people on the left in droves who hadn't planned on voting; oh, they will be sure to have ID, etc, etc.
Why do repubs think the dems have all day to plot voter fraud or even want to vote more than once, heck, it takes all the effort in the world to get people to vote ONCE....lol, to get a fake ID and vote twice? This goes to show just how out of touch with reality and the common man some people are.
You can't win continue to gerrymander and rig elections with the upcoming shift in demographics, it has to be policy.
What is even more ironic is that the repubs (with whites as majority in the country) are rebuking the very laws that ould benefit them 50-100+ years from now when they're the new minority....only the good Lord could see fit to this.
One of my favorite passages: Job 20:5 - That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment.
I don't think they see it comin....much like a Black president.
I said nothing about picture IDs, nice dodge. Why would they put in a law saying anyone can challenge a voters eligibility? That is going to lead to parties sending partisans to unfavorable locations to challenge as many people as possible to gum up the works and intimidate people.
Yes, and that's what they do! I volunteered for the Obama campaign on Election Day to serve as a partisan observer to watch for voter intimidation, challenges, etc. I stayed at the polling location all day long. It was a primarily African American community. A couple of republican partisan observers turned up for a few hours in the middle of the day and tried to cause problems with the election judge. Funny enough, they thought I was with them, since I'm white. Anyhow, the Obama campaign was pretty organized and had lots of lawyers like me sitting at the polls all day long to keep an eye on exactly these sorts of shenanigans.
The "broken voting system", in what way was the system broken before? There is basically no evidence of fraud with the prior system. This is just an attempt to keep certain groups from voting, it has nothing to do with stopping fraud because there is little to no evidence that fraud exists in our voting system.
There is evidence of fraud, but you can count the instances on one hand. Most voter fraud occurs through absentee ballots--which have been made easier to cast by the new legislation because preventing voter fraud is not what Republicans are concerned about. Preventing Democrats from voting is their primary concern.
You libs are quick to help folks, but you give people such little credit.
You view them all as imbeciles, helpless sheep adrift on the sea of life.
Working folk have drivers licenses just like the rich. You get them at 16. Arguing that poor cant afford a license is crazy talk.
Is there any "real" data on who and what kind of folks have no id whatsoever? I think it is just lore.
I say again, the GOP are a bunch of X-holes, the Dems are just plain STUPID. What a sorry state we are in. I will take Dems to GOP anyday, but gosh, I wish there was an acceptable alternative.
It's slightly perplexing to me that we can look at this issue without considering it with-in the historical context. Immediately after the civil war the south saw a number of african american candidates elected to office and we can be fairly sure that they were elected due to the power of the african american vote. But, that didn't continue because of various Jim Crow laws that were passed by whites who were threatened by this. This sin continued until the rise of the civil rights movement in the 1960's. I'm not surprised then that 50 years later we are once again seeing this terrible backlash against poor and minority voters. This time it's wrapped in the cloak of "voter fraud." So, I can totally understand how these new laws strike at the same deep cultural wound of disenfranchment in the african american community and with those of us who stand beside them. Of course, if we lived in a country without this history we could rationally discuss "voter id" issue (as several on here have tried to do) as if it really wasn't about voter suppression. But, we don't live in that world. We live in a world where we know people who were denied the right to vote and so as much as the right wants to pretend that there isn't any sub-text - there is! Why is this history so unknown and if not unknown why is it denied - if not directly at least with people's careless comments.
I think your right and just like Moral Monday it's going to galvanize the left like never before in NC. That's usually what happens, the very thing you're trying to do (supposedly prevent voter fraud while suppressing the dem vote) is going to create a boomerang effect. It's going to bring out people on the left in droves who hadn't planned on voting; oh, they will be sure to have ID, etc, etc.
Why do repubs think the dems have all day to plot voter fraud or even want to vote more than once, heck, it takes all the effort in the world to get people to vote ONCE....lol, to get a fake ID and vote twice? This goes to show just how out of touch with reality and the common man some people are.
You can't win continue to gerrymander and rig elections with the upcoming shift in demographics, it has to be policy.
What is even more ironic is that the repubs (with whites as majority in the country) are rebuking the very laws that ould benefit them 50-100+ years from now when they're the new minority....only the good Lord could see fit to this.
One of my favorite passages: Job 20:5 - That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment.
I don't think they see it comin....much like a Black president.
Preach on BA, preach on, because you are telling the truth!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
