Important article about new voter ID law (Republic, Penn: crime, bars)

[BrianTH]

Apparently a large number of eligible voters may be unaware of the new law:

In Pa., Voter ID Law Already Changing The Electoral Landscape | TPM2012

So please talk with the people you know about the existence of the new law, and ask them to help spread the word. Regardless of your political persuasion, eligible voters should not be excluded from participating in the upcoming election by a lack of awareness of the new requirements.

[GarlicBreath]

I guess dead people can't vote anymore.

[julian17033]

I'm a moderate democrat and I cannot fathom as to why someone who would care enough to actually vote would not have a valid photo ID.

I am in full agreement with the new law.

My agreement with the law comes from the same place as my anger at the illegal alien problem and the desire to exercise my 2nd amendment rights.

[Hopes]

Guess this means I need to change my registration to my married name to match my ID.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by julian17033

I'm a moderate democrat and I cannot fathom as to why someone who would care enough to actually vote would not have a valid photo ID.

I am in full agreement with the new law.

My agreement with the law comes from the same place as my anger at the illegal alien problem and the desire to exercise my 2nd amendment rights.

The number of actual people committing "voting fraud" is so vanishingly small compared to the number of real citizens who will essentially be denied the right to vote over a technicality.

That said, although this was pushed by Republicans in the state, I'm not entirely sure it's to the benefit of them. Yes, generally speaking, blacks are far more likely to not have valid photo ID than whites. But the elderly are also much more likely to not have valid voter ID (and generally vote more Republican and in high numbers), which would suggest the two will cancel each other out.

[Velvet Jones]

Originally Posted by eschaton

The number of actual people committing "voting fraud" is so vanishingly small compared to the number of real citizens who will essentially be denied the right to vote over a technicality.

Please provide any evidence to back up this claim. When you had precincts in Philly reporting 109% voter turn out something doesn't add up.

[BrianTH]

I don't want this thread to be an argument about the merits of the law. The important fact to note is that there are an estimated 758,000 registered voters in PA who may not yet have the necessary ID:

Voter ID law may affect more Pennsylvanians than previously estimated - Philly.com

Again, regardless of your political persuasion, I would hope we could agree that if a citizen of PA is otherwise eligible to vote, mere lack of awareness of this new law should not result in them being prevented from voting in the upcoming elections. So please just spread the word.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Velvet Jones

Please provide any evidence to back up this claim. When you had precincts in Philly reporting 109% voter turn out something doesn't add up.

Like I said I don't really want to argue about the merits of the law, but briefly:

There are many possible kinds of illegal electoral behavior. However, the specific kind of behavior that this law seeks to prevent--a person actually showing up at the polls to vote and deliberately impersonating another person who is a registered voter--is in fact essentially non-existent. There have been several court cases and studies on the subject.

Here is a good review on this subject, if you are really interested:

http://brennan.3cdn.net/c176576c0065..._gxm6ib0hl.pdf

But to repeat, regardless of how one feels about the law, I would hope we could all agree that every otherwise eligible voter should know about and understand the new requirements, and be given every opportunity to comply.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Velvet Jones

Please provide any evidence to back up this claim. When you had precincts in Philly reporting 109% voter turn out something doesn't add up.

I don't know about our state, but Texas went looking for cases of voter fraud after the 2008 elections. Out of 13 million voters, only five cases were found. Since 2002, only 50 cases in total have been prosecuted to conviction.

While actual cases may be higher than this, it will be a rare election that will be close enough that such actions will swing it - particularly because most real voter fraud seems totally unorganized, meaning random people on either side of the political aisle canceling each other out.

But these sort of rules to me in order to combat crime seem about as sensible as locking up innocent people who are somewhat suspect to ensure every potential murderer is behind bars. A punishment which will, no matter what, fall harder upon the innocent than the (attempted) guilty is a cruddy punishment.

[Velvet Jones]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I don't want this thread to be an argument about the merits of the law. The important fact to note is that there are an estimated 758,000 registered voters in PA who may not yet have the necessary ID:

Again, I would love to see where this stat comes from. I'm a card carrying member of the ACLU and have been so for a long time, but this is one area I strongly disagree with them on. You can get a state issued ID for free if you meet the requirements, there should be no excuse for not having one. How does someone who participates in today's society NOT have a valid ID. You need an ID for virtually everything. I shutter at the thought of people who are so detached from society that they don't have an ID, yet are eager to go out an cast a vote to decide the future of this state and the nation. If you're too lazy or incompetent to get an ID then you should spare the rest of us from you're likely completely ignorant vote.