The Transportation Commissions FINAL Report to the GOV (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh: appointed, tax)

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by greg42

The fraud is a convenient item to point to while requiring IDs would be a handy way to quite possibly suppress a certain part of the vote.

If a case involving voter ID makes it all the way to the US Supreme Court (which makes the case a pretty big deal to all involved in the issue) & the plaintiffs cannot find 1 single person that was disenfranchised by the law then thats pretty telling that voter suppression is not in actuality an issue, thus a very simple way to beef things up in combating any possible fraud by voters should be implemented.
I'm not arguing with you regarding the machines, any problems they pose should be dealt with as well.

[greg42]

Originally Posted by pman

sounds like a suspect argument. I agree that it doesn't address back end problems but what "part of the vote" is being suppressed?

The part that doesn't have any ID acceptable to the new law. Incomprehensible, I know, to those of us sitting here posting on internet forums, quite a luxury in comparison.

Everyone agrees it doesn't address back-end problems. Why is there no outcry for this while there is outcry for making everyone show ID?

Nobody seems to find that worth exploring. Everyone wants to just keep going "Yeah, but we can at least easily make everyone show ID."

I still suggest a key possibility is because it's easier to get a lot of middle-class people (who can't comprehend not having an ID) angry at poor people (who they already think are all committing welfare/food stamp/unemployment fraud). It's always a lot better to have the middle class angry at the poor people rather than at the ruling class, right?

[greg42]

Originally Posted by UKyank

I'm not arguing with you regarding the machines, any problems they pose should be dealt with as well.

They won't be. I guess I shouldn't have assumed that you know that.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by greg42

They won't be. I guess I shouldn't have assumed that you know that.

I got it, you think voting machines are manipulated in some manner.
Do you not think that both areas of potential fraud should be looked at? You keep harping on the machines & ignoring the ID requirement (& also ignoring the facts that show that in actuality the requirement hasn't been shown to have kept anyone from voting).
I at least consistently think that ALL aspects of our voting system should be made to safeguard against potential fraud as best as possible, which includes looking both at voting machines as well as voters and any other issue that could crop up.

[greg42]

Heh, no, at least not any more than you think there's a huge vote-shifting number of people committing fraud because of the lack of ID requirement. I don't get the impression you believe that is going on in a significant way. And I certainly would like to think that tampering with the tabulation is not going on in a significant way. I do believe the back end is the far more likely and greater threat though, that is true.

The point is that it's not reasonable to continue to claim that you're (not you individually specifically but those in support of these laws in general) tackling voting integrity when the only thing these proposals and passed laws address is ID requirements and not any other aspects of voting integrity. So if it's not really about voting fraud, what is it really about? That's where the thought process leads me.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by UKyank

The reasoning is that if you require ID for voting then also requiring ID in general would stop people from claiming they are being disenfranchised.

But again, you still need a legitimate reason to do any of it.

Saying voter fraud isn't much of a widespread problem doesn't cut it in an era of razor close election results

Sure it does. It is not just that it isn't "widespread", it is virtually non-existent. And your point about close elections shows exactly why it would be helpful for political actors to disenfranchise some people they know are more likely to vote for the other guys. In general, reducing the number of otherwise qualified voters for no good reason doesn't make elections more legitimate.

not to mention who knows how much unknown fraud could be occurring when you don't have a system to catch it.

It is also hard to disprove the existence of undetectable magical elves, but there is no more reason to believe they exist.

Seriously, this form of electoral fraud makes no sense to begin with, and when people have looked for it, they haven't found it. You can't justify preventing otherwise qualified citizens from voting on a purely hypothetical problem, particularly when the hypothetical problem doesn't make prima facie sense.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by UKyank

There should be a movement for curtailing all aspects of possible voter fraud especially when there would be no burden on the state at all.

The burden on the otherwise qualified citizen should be enough to outweigh anything but a legitimate justification for the law. And again, calling it "possible" isn't enough--if it is implausible in theory (which it is) and there is no evidence of an actual problem (which there isn't), there is no legitimate justification for denying otherwise qualified citizens the ability to vote.

That said, it WILL create an extra burden for the state--the state will have to provide more current photo IDs--unless you are assuming the many current registered and likely voters without the necessary IDs won't get them, which means you are in fact assuming a huge disenfrachisement problem.

I still contend that there would be no disenfranchisement regardless of an ID requirement anyways & the supreme court agrees as well (at least to the extent if any disenfranchisement exists at all, the safeguarding voter confidence & elimination of voter fraud trumps)

That's not quite right. The Supreme Court said it was constitutional. It didn't say it was necessarily a good idea, or that the benefits outweigh the costs--it held instead the state had a right to make that calculation for itself, and that the record in that case didn't contain enough evidence for the Supreme Court to determine otherwise.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by UKyank

If a case involving voter ID makes it all the way to the US Supreme Court (which makes the case a pretty big deal to all involved in the issue) & the plaintiffs cannot find 1 single person that was disenfranchised by the law then thats pretty telling that voter suppression

I don't want to get bogged down in that case because it isn't really relevant, since no one here is arguing that the law is unconstitutional.

However, you are being a little misleading about the record in that case. The plaintiffs weren't individual voters, but they did try to identify individual registered voters who did not have the required ID. The Court's response was basically that they hadn't proved how hard it would be for these people to get the required ID, but that isn't the same as saying no one in fact would be affected.

The plaintiffs also offered an expert who testified about the estimated number of registered voters that did not possess the necessary ID, but the trial court didn't credit that expert's testimony. The trial judge nonetheless acknowledged there was a substantial number of registered voters without the necessary ID (just less than the expert claimed). Basically, the expert thought it was hundreds of thousands in Indiana, and the trial court thought it was tens of thousands.

Incidentally, the Supreme Court also noted that there was no evidence that Indiana had ever experienced a relevant case of fraud:

"The only kind of voter fraud that SEA 483 addresses is in-person voter impersonation at polling places. The record contains no evidence of any such fraud actually occurring in Indiana at any time in its history."

They claimed there was evidence of such fraud occurring elsewhere at some points in U.S. history, but in almost all of the proffered examples, it turns out they were actually different kinds of electoral fraud (registration fraud, absentee ballot fraud, and so on). The only relevant example they actually cited was a single case from Seattle, which itself was part of a larger scheme largely carried out mostly with no in-person impersonation.

So, seriously, the evidence of this being a real problem is essential non-existent. The Supreme Court nonetheless punted on the issue, which may be an appropriate exercise of judicial restraint, but that doesn't answer the policy question.

[UKyank]

I should specified failed to produce a witness.

But regardless Im not disputing voted fraud isn't much of a problem, unlike some conspiracy theorists I think that all in all our voting system is pretty fraud free as a whole, hanging chads notwithstanding, I do equally disagree that there would be any discernible amount of people being barred from voting if an ID requirement proving who you are existed.
It just smacks of being draconian that with virtually everything of importance that a person does in today's world their word isn't good enough but when it comes to electing our government officials it is.

Either way we'll just have to see what the senate does when they reconvene.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by UKyank

I should specified failed to produce a witness.

Again, witness of what? They had witnesses who were registered voters who didn't have the necessary ID. The problem was the courts said it wasn't clear how hard it would be for these witnesses to get those IDs. In the context of a facial constitutional challenge, that may be the right question to ask. But in the context of a policy debate, it does NOT imply that no individuals would be affected.

But regardless Im not disputing voted fraud isn't much of a problem, unlike some conspiracy theorists I think that all in all our voting system is pretty fraud free as a whole, hanging chads notwithstanding, I do equally disagree that there would be any discernible amount of people being barred from voting if an ID requirement proving who you are existed.

Just a reminder, but in PA there is already an ID requirement. The question is whether a much stricter ID requirement (requiring a specific form of ID we know many registered voters currently don't have, for every voting occasion) would end up barring some otherwise qualified citizens from voting.

Personally, I think it is inevitable at least some of that would happen. How much exactly is hard to know--it could be anywhere from "only" a few thousand in PA to tens of thousands or more. But since on the other side we basically have zero instances of the relevant kind of fraud, it is extremely likely the number of otherwise qualified citizens barred from voting will massively outweigh the instances of fraud prevented.

And I don't want to get partisan about this, but it isn't a mystery why Republican elected officials in general, and Tea Party types in particular, support these measures (whereas Democrats generally do not). They certainly believe it will prevent a lot of votes from actually being cast, and they think they know which party will benefit on net. Maybe they are wrong, but I think it is more likely they rightly know it will help them, even if they don't know by exactly how much.