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That's not accurate either. I was mistaken but only becsue you need 20 years of service. Both my parents have them and my Mom was never even in the military.
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These laws are flawed, they are impacting people who have done nothing wrong. I think it's real clear that they are all designed to suppress the Democratic vote, if not why would Pennsylvania's House Majority leader Mike Turzai have said " Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”
New laws are always going to be flawed, you work through them. As far Turzai's comment they are 100% consistent with the position there is lot a voter fraud. Using this comment as some sort of proof they are out to disenfranchise people is like me suggesting any Democrat against voter ID is admitting massive voter fraud.
What specifically did you find wrong with the PA law? You could get an ID with as little as SSN and some other minor documentation.
But that aside, doesn't it strike you as just a little odd that voter ID laws only serve to stop one type of fraud while ignoring every other means? If it's such a big problem, why stop with photos- why not go after every possible means of voting fraud, including better scrutiny of computerized voting terminals?
You don't stop here but this is the obvious first step, you need to ID the voter and this is very easy to implement for in person voting. From there you move onto securing absentee balloting but that becomes much more difficult.
As far as the machines go everyone of them should have a paper trail with the paper results being displayed alongside the screen after you finish voting. Randomly select machines after voting has commenced and audit them.
My position as I've mentioned numerous times is that it has to be extended to absentee ballots, the first step in that process is implementing it for in person voting.
sure it will..and then in 10 years or so we will look at voting machines mysteriously switching votes lol. One thing at a time ya know...
sure it will..and then in 10 years or so we will look at voting machines mysteriously switching votes lol. One thing at a time ya know...
I'd immediately require a paper trail for the machines, I would have required that from the beginning. There is lot of things I would have required from the beginning like open source software and one design to be used nationwide. The problem with those machines is the knee jerk reaction caused by the 2000 Florida election, the implementation was not well thought out. It should have been carefully considered. In my area we had 100 year old mechanical machines that were very well maintained and no one ever questioned them. They sent a few of them to the Smithsonian when they were required to replace them. That was a ridiculous waste of money especially considering what was replacing them.
Implementing ID's for absentee balloting becomes much more difficult and probably would not be very popular at all becsue it will require some form of biometric identification. It's something I support 100%.
That's an absurd analogy. If someone goes and votes under my name, then I go and try to vote, obviously we know voter fraud occurred. The notion someone of sound mind is going to commit a felony to try and cast a vote is laughable. And if someone were that nuts then having to creating a fake ID isn't going to be that big of a speed bump, anyways, since they'll already have to know all the info associated with it (name, address, DOB).
How often does your Great-Grandfather still vote? Do you think he would notice if someone used his name to vote? What about those poor babies that died at infancy but still lived long enough to get a Social Security number? Do you think they would complain about someone using their name to vote?
These are both specific types of voter fraud that HAVE occurred and have been reported by the media in years past. The dead voters were a significant percentage of the total vote in one election back in the 80's as I recall.
Dead voters aside, what is our national voting percentage? 98%? No, probably not. 60%? Nope, still too high. 25%? Maybe on a good day and a hot topic. Even being optimistic and having controversy in play over 70% of the voters don't bother, so that would mean less than 30% would be able to notice even if their vote was stolen.
I am not sure what to make of your last statement. In another context you could be saying "Even if someone does commit felony fraud and obtain a fully automatic assault rifle and shoot up a school or shopping mall it would just be a small speed bump compared to all the other ways people die, and lots of people have guns anyway." SMH
That's not accurate either. I was mistaken but only becsue you need 20 years of service. Both my parents have them and my Mom was never even in the military.
Is their address on the card? "Paul Carroll, 86, who has lived in Aurora nearly 40 years, running his own business, Carroll Tire, until 1975.
“I had to stop driving, but I got the photo ID from the Veterans Affairs instead, just a month or so ago. You would think that would count for something. I went to war for this country, but now I can’t vote in this country.” Portage Elections Board Director Faith Lyon said she felt badly for Carroll, but said the law requires an address on even a veteran’s identification card."
Is their address on the card? "Paul Carroll, 86, who has lived in Aurora nearly 40 years, running his own business, Carroll Tire, until 1975.
“I had to stop driving, but I got the photo ID from the Veterans Affairs instead, just a month or so ago. You would think that would count for something. I went to war for this country, but now I can’t vote in this country.” Portage Elections Board Director Faith Lyon said she felt badly for Carroll, but said the law requires an address on even a veteran’s identification card."
Given that it's the 'first case' I don't think it should require a nationwide rewrite of voter ID laws, but if this is a huge concern to people, then why not have people leave a fingerprint next to their name on the voting register and forget about the photo IDs? If the person who fraudulently voted has any kind of record it would only take a few minutes to identify him at which point a felony warrant could be issued for his arrest. If he/she has no fingerprints on file the fingerprint could be held for a later match if they are arrested. What is your solution if someone gets a fraudulent photo ID and votes with that?
In my opinion, all of these 'what ifs' are just Argumentum ad absurdum
Given that it's the 'first case' I don't think it should require a nationwide rewrite of voter ID laws, but if this is a huge concern to people, then why not have people leave a fingerprint next to their name on the voting register and forget about the photo IDs? If the person who fraudulently voted has any kind of record it would only take a few minutes to identify him at which point a felony warrant could be issued for his arrest. If he/she has no fingerprints on file the fingerprint could be held for a later match if they are arrested. What is your solution if someone gets a fraudulent photo ID and votes with that?
In my opinion, all of these 'what ifs' are just Argumentum ad absurdum
Try getting "you must give a fingerprint to vote" past the ACLU, even in limited circumstances.. And I would absolutely stand beside them in opposing that.
Here's what it comes down to for me..
Which is worse? Someone voting who has no right to vote and improperly influencing an election.. or.. Someone legitimately qualified to vote being blocked from voting and that improperly influencing an election?
To me, they are equally offensive.
So, the question becomes.. How do we deal with both? Voter ID isn't a BAD solution, because it basically takes care of improper people voting.. You mention fake IDs, but.. That's getting harder and harder to do. To me, voter ID is the solution.. We just need to tweak it so that legitimate people are not excluded.
But, how do we handle the people who don't have IDs? In theory, they should be a small minority. I know here in SC, if you do not have an ID, you are allowed to cast a provisional ballot. In the June 2014 primaries, there were 44 people statewide turned away.. Yes, that is 44 too many so long as those people were legitimate voters.
SC will issue voter ID cards, at no cost.. I believe they will even issue them with no photo if you sign saying that you have a religious reason for not having your photo taken (Amish). I wouldn't have a problem, since it's such a small number of people.. Have someone on staff at voter registration that goes to communities to register people who want to vote. If you have the opportunity to register to vote, and do not, it's your fault. If you have the opportunity to get an ID and don't, then that is still your fault. If you can't afford a regular ID, don't have time to get one, whatever.. Someone will come to your place of employment and get the info needed to get you an ID. We can make Voter ID work.. we cannot make 'no ID required' work.
Frankly, I'm more upset about the 2.5 million ex-felons nationwide who are disenfranchised than the small number of people who can't vote because they didn't get IDs.. Priorities should be let's get these 2.5 million people voting again before we worry about ~2000 people. But.. Neither is 'right' in my book.
Try getting "you must give a fingerprint to vote" past the ACLU, even in limited circumstances.. And I would absolutely stand beside them in opposing that.
Here's what it comes down to for me..
Which is worse? Someone voting who has no right to vote and improperly influencing an election.. or.. Someone legitimately qualified to vote being blocked from voting and that improperly influencing an election?
To me, they are equally offensive.
So, the question becomes.. How do we deal with both? Voter ID isn't a BAD solution, because it basically takes care of improper people voting.. You mention fake IDs, but.. That's getting harder and harder to do. To me, voter ID is the solution.. We just need to tweak it so that legitimate people are not excluded.
But, how do we handle the people who don't have IDs? In theory, they should be a small minority. I know here in SC, if you do not have an ID, you are allowed to cast a provisional ballot. In the June 2014 primaries, there were 44 people statewide turned away.. Yes, that is 44 too many so long as those people were legitimate voters.
SC will issue voter ID cards, at no cost.. I believe they will even issue them with no photo if you sign saying that you have a religious reason for not having your photo taken (Amish). I wouldn't have a problem, since it's such a small number of people.. Have someone on staff at voter registration that goes to communities to register people who want to vote. If you have the opportunity to register to vote, and do not, it's your fault. If you have the opportunity to get an ID and don't, then that is still your fault. If you can't afford a regular ID, don't have time to get one, whatever.. Someone will come to your place of employment and get the info needed to get you an ID. We can make Voter ID work.. we cannot make 'no ID required' work.
Frankly, I'm more upset about the 2.5 million ex-felons nationwide who are disenfranchised than the small number of people who can't vote because they didn't get IDs.. Priorities should be let's get these 2.5 million people voting again before we worry about ~2000 people. But.. Neither is 'right' in my book.
I agree about the ex-felons, but Voter ID is deeply flawed when the requirements are so onerous that people have trouble acquiring the necessary documents to get an ID, if you look at my earlier posts you will see numerous examples. As far as provisional ballots, one of the examples I cited was about that, someone voted with a provisional ballot but their vote was not counted because they didn't know they had to go to the elections office (presumably with the ID they were unable to get) after they had voted.
I haven't researched how every state has approached the voter ID situation, I just checked and apparently S. Carolina has an exemption for a photo ID if the voter has a reasonable impediment (not sure what that means) But look at what other states require: http://www.ncsl.org/research/electio.../voter-id.aspx
These 'strict' photo ID states all require that a voter without his/her photo ID must return to the elections office within a certain number of days and present the ID in person. That places and additional burden on the elderly or poor person who have no transportation. As far as fingerprints on voter registrations, I don't believe that the ACLU would have a problem with it unless the fingerprints were made a permanent part of a persons record..but we will never know since I am sure that those who advocate for photo ID's do not want a simple solution that would not disenfranchise voters.
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