Alabama illustrates the problem with voter ID laws

[soundforbjt]

I don't. I believe:

1. The integrity of our government by the people, for the people is dependent upon the integrity of our elections.
2. In light of #1, we need to protect the integrity of our elections by tsking action to ensure there is no voter fraud.
3. The nature of in person voter fraud prevents us from ensuring there is no voter fraud by relying upon post-election activities.
4. Therefore, we need pre-election preventive measures.
5. Voter ID laws are a stronger preventative measure than registration and signature and provide a substantial benefit by doing a better job of fulfilling our obligation in #2. They also reduce the potential cost of investigating post-election allegations of voter fraud.
6. Requiring somebody to bring an ID when they vote is a negligible burden that is vastly outweighed by the benefits in #5, especially in light of #1.
7. Problems related to people obtaining an ID are better resolved by making IDs easy to obtain, which is a benefit that pays for itself, and/or drafting the law to permit the use of forms of ID that are already easily-obtainable.

What plan do you have for mail-in ballots which are far easier to make fraudulent?

 

[Screech]

2. In light of #1, we need to protect the integrity of our elections by tsking action to ensure there is no voter fraud.
3. The nature of in person voter fraud prevents us from ensuring there is no voter fraud by relying upon post-election activities.

Repeating something untrue an infinite number of times does not make it true. This is another one of those threads (like the obama not compromising one) where I really wonder if people on "the right" actually believe what they post or are simply posting these viewpoints because they feel like their side should be argued for even in the absence of any supporting evidence whatsoever.

Pro tip: as has been described by myself and eskimospy and others, figuring out if in person voter fraud happens is REMARKABLY easy. You know who has, namewise, cast a vote, you know if anyone 'voted twice', and you can go back and ask people who have been listed as having voted if they actually voted. Done. Of course, it turns out that in person voter fraud practically never happens and republicans would never want to make that publicly known, and so they will never *actually* investigate it.

 

[soundforbjt]

Repeating something untrue an infinite number of times does not make it true. This is another one of those threads (like the obama not compromising one) where I really wonder if people on "the right" actually believe what they post or are simply posting these viewpoints because they feel like their side should be argued for even in the absence of any supporting evidence whatsoever.

Pro tip: as has been described by myself and eskimospy and others, figuring out if in person voter fraud happens is REMARKABLY easy. You know who has, namewise, cast a vote, you know if anyone 'voted twice', and you can go back and ask people who have been listed as having voted if they actually voted. Done. Of course, it turns out that in person voter fraud practically never happens and republicans would never want to make that publicly known, and so they will never *actually* investigate it.

And IF it happened with any negligible amount, there would be documented proof of it as evidence for the need of voter ID laws. They have nothing to show and make weak arguments to protect their stance.

 

[MovingTarget]

This is why I almost want Alabama and other states to go the other way and remove all ID requirements for voting outright. If you think it's an impossible burden to show a free-ID then you shouldn't be required to show utility bill or anything else as that's equally if not more burdensome. In-person Voter ID doesn't exist, so any amount of time and effort spent is too much.

Honestly, the people up in arms about this aren't advocating to go ID-less. What we want is one of the following options:

1) Pony up the money to make getting the photo ID easy and free of hassle. That means keeping the DMVs open in each county and adding sattelite offices beyond what we had prior to the photo-ID law. It also means adding hours of operation to those offices around election time. At this point, many offices don't even have the funds to stay open during regular business hours, much less when people are actually off work.

2) Drop the new photo ID requirement and go back to what we had prior. Previously, we still had to have ID, but it did not have to be a photo ID. The list of acceptable proof to vote was much wider. Hell, the state would even send you a voter ID card in the mail prior to the election that would tell you your polling place and had to bring with you. That system worked just fine. If anyone complained that they didn't receive theirs despite being registered, or if a registered voter's name had been crossed off by the time they came to vote, it could be investigated while a provisional ballot was cast. In-person voter fraud had been a non-issue for decades even with my state's history of disenfranchisement. No evidence exists that it was a problem needing to be fixed. We have a saying for situations like these - "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

 

[MovingTarget]

The only reason there's an additional burden is because your side is adamantly opposed to spending money or resources getting them IDs. Because again these aren't real people who could be helped by having an ID, they're just abstract votes for your team.

Putting his comments aside, thats not how those that are Left in Alabama view the situation. You have to understand that our state has so little in the way of taxes that most government agencies can barely keep the lights on, much less do anything useful like provide services to citizens. The GOP in this state is run by those that make the tea party candidates look like liberals. They control a supermajority of both houses of the legislature, the governorship, the lt. governorship, and our ENTIRE state supreme court.

The left here has been screaming that our taxes are too low. They are - and not in some abstract sense. We've been closing offices that provide vital services such as those at the heart of this thread's subject. Our court system, already overburdened, does not even operate five days per week even in our second most populous county. Our state parks, loved by both sides of the aisle with equal zeal, are in danger of ALL shutting down completely. Our prisons are so overcrowded that we continually run the risk of federal takeover because of those conditions. Rural and indigent hospitals, nursing homes, and other social service centers are closing left and right. The legislature has even had the gall to take money from the education budget (separate from the general fund and typically suffering yearly funding woes itself) and re-appropriate the BP settlement fund for non-coastal uses to plug the budget deficit. But raise income, business, or property taxes to pay for it? Nope, nope, and nope says the GOP.

You see, its much bigger than finding some better way to spend the money. We would happily spend the money to be sure that nobody was disenfranchised. Those causes that AtomicPlayboy listed are worthy, but you need to have a functioning government to spend it on those things in the first place. What it would cost to implement a truly equitable system for photo voter ID is a drop in the bucket compared to what it would take to allow the government as a whole to do what it is tasked to do in the first place. We aren't wasteful in how our state government operates - everything to cut had been cut to the bone years ago.

Alabama is on the verge of becoming a failed state. This disenfranchisement is a symptom of that. The left has seen this coming from miles away, but we aren't the ones in the driver's seat. We aren't even co-piloting as equal members of the legislative and governing process. We are strapped to the top of the vehicle, along for the ride.

 

[Jhhnn]

I don't. I believe:

1. The integrity of our government by the people, for the people is dependent upon the integrity of our elections.
2. In light of #1, we need to protect the integrity of our elections by tsking action to ensure there is no voter fraud.
3. The nature of in person voter fraud prevents us from ensuring there is no voter fraud by relying upon post-election activities.
4. Therefore, we need pre-election preventive measures.
5. Voter ID laws are a stronger preventative measure than registration and signature and provide a substantial benefit by doing a better job of fulfilling our obligation in #2. They also reduce the potential cost of investigating post-election allegations of voter fraud.
6. Requiring somebody to bring an ID when they vote is a negligible burden that is vastly outweighed by the benefits in #5, especially in light of #1.
7. Problems related to people obtaining an ID are better resolved by making IDs easy to obtain, which is a benefit that pays for itself, and/or drafting the law to permit the use of forms of ID that are already easily-obtainable.

You fail to demonstrate that the voter fraud boogeyman is a threat to electoral integrity. You can't even show that exists to an appreciable degree outside the imagination of so-called Conservatives.

You hypothesize that it's hard to detect despite more than a decade of right wing do gooders & honest officials everywhere pouring enormous effort into it. Not only do you base your belief on fantasy, you also ignore countervailing evidence.

There is a much simpler explanation for the paucity of evidence in support of your position, namely that significant in person voter fraud simply does not occur.

Righties go on as if they believe there's some vague, vast & implausible plot by their opponents to win elections through voter impersonation as if such a thing were even possible. It's not. It's ridiculous. It couldn't possibly work & anybody with a lick of sense knows it.

We seek to win by other means entirely & believe that the greater the participation the greater our chances of victory. Win or lose, we want every eligible person to vote & we defend their right to do so without unnecessary impediments.

We're not this guy-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPsl_TuFdes

 

[trenchfoot]

Putting his comments aside, thats not how those that are Left in Alabama view the situation. You have to understand that our state has so little in the way of taxes that most government agencies can barely keep the lights on, much less do anything useful like provide services to citizens. The GOP in this state is run by those that make the tea party candidates look like liberals. They control a supermajority of both houses of the legislature, the governorship, the lt. governorship, and our ENTIRE state supreme court.

The left here has been screaming that our taxes are too low. They are - and not in some abstract sense. We've been closing offices that provide vital services such as those at the heart of this thread's subject. Our court system, already overburdened, does not even operate five days per week even in our second most populous county. Our state parks, loved by both sides of the aisle with equal zeal, are in danger of ALL shutting down completely. Our prisons are so overcrowded that we continually run the risk of federal takeover because of those conditions. Rural and indigent hospitals, nursing homes, and other social service centers are closing left and right. The legislature has even had the gall to take money from the education budget (separate from the general fund and typically suffering yearly funding woes itself) and re-appropriate the BP settlement fund for non-coastal uses to plug the budget deficit. But raise income, business, or property taxes to pay for it? Nope, nope, and nope says the GOP.

You see, its much bigger than finding some better way to spend the money. We would happily spend the money to be sure that nobody was disenfranchised. Those causes that AtomicPlayboy listed are worthy, but you need to have a functioning government to spend it on those things in the first place. What it would cost to implement a truly equitable system for photo voter ID is a drop in the bucket compared to what it would take to allow the government as a whole to do what it is tasked to do in the first place. We aren't wasteful in how our state government operation - everything to cut had been cut years ago.

Alabama is on the verge of becoming a failed state. This disenfranchisement is a symptom of that. The left has seen this coming from miles away, but we aren't the ones in the driver's seat. We aren't even co-piloting as equal members of the legislative and governing process. We are strapped to the top of the vehicle, along for the ride.

Sorry to hear what you have to say. And isn't it really sad that the only folks suffering from these "austerity campaigns" are the ones least able to afford it, while the power brokers and the politicians they own like pet chihuahua's are living the life of country gentlemen happy and content to keep things just the way they are.

 

[Jhhnn]

Sorry to hear what you have to say. And isn't it really sad that the only folks suffering from these "austerity campaigns" are the ones least able to afford it, while the power brokers and the politicians they own like pet chihuahua's are living the life of country gentlemen happy and content to keep things just the way they are.

More than that. They're willing to have the situation deteriorate even further & to use it against oppositional groups.

Lemons? Use 'em to serve lemonade to your friends.

 

[woolfe9998]

Part and parcel of what I said earlier in the thread about the psychology of voter behavior being such that people believe their votes do not matter, is the fact that there is very little incentive to commit voting fraud.

The voting fraud of old style city level machine politics was a wide scale, funded effort to stuff ballot boxes or intimidate voters in certain districts (or even pay them) not to vote, or to vote in the corrupt candidates favor. This sort of systemic fraud is very difficult today because there are too many safeguards and too much scrutiny of political candidates and their campaigns. They still have it a lot in developing nations, but not so much here anymore.

That leaves voting fraud at the individual level, where people take initiative to try to vote more than one time. Given that one vote has an infinitesimal impact on elections, two votes doesn't mean much more. How many people will risk committing a felony to cast more than one vote? Even if the chance of being caught is fairly low, it isn't worth the risk to even the stupidest person.

There is virtually no evidence of voter fraud in this country because it isn't happening to any great degree. This fact is not surprising because there is no good reason to do it. The cost-benefit calculus is way off for this sort of behavior.

I honestly can't fathom that anyone believes these ID laws have any purpose other than to suppress dem voter turnout. I don't understand why it's even under discussion. I understand that both sides are drinking Kool-Aid all the time, but on this you guys have it squirting out of every orifice. The people who made up this lie to cover for the reason they're doing it must be laughing over the fact that there are this many people gullible enough to actually believe it.

Psst: now, turn on your thinking cap for a moment and consider this. Why is it that voter ID laws suddenly became a priority on the political right after a black democrat was elected as POTUS in a year with record African-American voter turnout? Was this "voter fraud" that you speak of not an issue in 2006, 2004, 1992?

 

[Roflmouth]

Righties go on as if they believe there's some vague, vast & implausible plot by their opponents to win elections through voter impersonation as if such a thing were even possible. It's not. It's ridiculous. It couldn't possibly work & anybody with a lick of sense knows it.

It could and does easily work since liberals spend all day lying about nonexistent people who don't have or can't get photo IDs. They absolutely hate people having to prove who they are since it undermines their chances to steal elections.

 

[Roflmouth]

Sorry to hear what you have to say. And isn't it really sad that the only folks suffering from these "austerity campaigns" are the ones least able to afford it, while the power brokers and the politicians they own like pet chihuahua's are living the life of country gentlemen happy and content to keep things just the way they are.

You're free to donate some of your hard-earned money to help those "suffering" from austerity campaigns (as opposed to those actually suffering from expanding government overreach). Or is it only with other people's money that you're so generous?

 

[Roflmouth]

Honestly, the people up in arms about this aren't advocating to go ID-less. What we want is one of the following options:

1) Pony up the money to make getting the photo ID easy and free of hassle. That means keeping the DMVs open in each county and adding sattelite offices beyond what we had prior to the photo-ID law. It also means adding hours of operation to those offices around election time. At this point, many offices don't even have the funds to stay open during regular business hours, much less when people are actually off work.

2) Drop the new photo ID requirement and go back to what we had prior. Previously, we still had to have ID, but it did not have to be a photo ID. The list of acceptable proof to vote was much wider. Hell, the state would even send you a voter ID card in the mail prior to the election that would tell you your polling place and had to bring with you. That system worked just fine. If anyone complained that they didn't receive theirs despite being registered, or if a registered voter's name had been crossed off by the time they came to vote, it could be investigated while a provisional ballot was cast. In-person voter fraud had been a non-issue for decades even with my state's history of disenfranchisement. No evidence exists that it was a problem needing to be fixed. We have a saying for situations like these - "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

None of the above. I have to suffer through dealing with the incompetent idiots at the DMV every four years, so the lazy and apathetic will as well. Whining constantly instead of getting off your ass doesn't mean you get rewarded with my tax money.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

I think I'm the only person enjoying the irony of the vast swaths of Conservative Evangelical Christians dedicating their lives and promising their eternal souls to a thing they have never met, spoken to, seen, or heard, and by any rigorous evidentiary requirement doesn't exist...

But if you wanna vote while black, you're going to need to fill out this form in triplicate, which you can only get two counties over, in an office that's open for 16 hours a week, etc...

But no, there's no racism in Alabama.

 

[trenchfoot]

You're free to donate some of your hard-earned money to help those "suffering" from austerity campaigns (as opposed to those actually suffering from expanding government overreach). Or is it only with other people's money that you're so generous?

OK, I'll bite. Who, pray tell, are those who actually suffer from expanding gov't overreach?

Oh wait, I already know the answer. It's those poor poor Corporate giants that are addicted to those corporate welfare checks they get that greases those Spacely sprockets and Cogswell cogs that keeps the gears of industry humming along and keeps those SuperPac billions of $$$$ rolling in to those over-stuffed campaign coffers, amirite?

Just imagine how many solid platinum toilet seats those monies saved from those tax cuts got for those sorry destitute broke ass CEO's and CFO's and Wall Street moguls. Man-oh-man I feel so sorry for those guys for having to use plain 'ol solid gold seats for so long.

And damn that gov't overreach for preventing criminal big businesses from creating even more environmental disasters than they've already let loose, and from preventing even more Enron scandals that ruined the lives of thousands of investors and employees.

Fuck'in overreaching gov't assholes should have simply let those other criminal businesses like Enron police themselves and get away with those little harmless crimes instead of prosecuting them and unfairly ruining their reputations.

I understand how "gov't overreach" is preventing businesses from straying outside the law to be more profitable, but I like having gov't inspectors inspecting foods being imported from foreign countries. I like having "gov't overreach" being able to prevent China from poisoning the dinnerware we buy from them with lead and arsenic like they had. I like "gov't overeach" preventing businesses from cutting corners to build the bridges we drive over and the planes we ride in, and they would if given the chance.

It's a miracle that we can get our gov't to do anything at all that protects the public from greed-driven profiteers considering most of our politicians are corrupted through and through and owned by those very morally and ethically bankrupt businesses that our "overreaching gov't" is supposed to provide protection from.

I "donate" my tax dollars every year to the gov't and expect a return on my investment in the form of better roads, safer foods, better schools, and those essential public services that any good "overreaching gov't" is expected to provide their citizens.

Instead I see my tax dollars being spent on unnecessary wars that reaps huge profits for big business, I see my tax dollars being allocated to big corporations, the very rich, big oil, Wall Street banksters etc. etc. in the form of tax cuts, subsidies and tax code loopholes instead of being allocated back to me and the millions of other middle class and poor folks that have been scammed into bearing the ever increasing load we are being burdened with via the powerful few who steadily increase their grip over the body politic that you apparently seem to think is the way things are supposed to be.

Me being generous with other people's money? It's the very rich that's generously helping themselves to other people's money, and the kind of attitude you're showing me is just helping them being even more generous to themselves at everybody else's expense.

Damn, I've managed to generate another long winded post. My apologies. No one should suffer from my own kind of "overreach".

 

[shira]

We all know for sure that if you increase the burden even slightly for members of a large population to do something beneficial, you will surely discourage at least SOME people from continuing to do the beneficial thing. It's absurd to argue that no one will be discouraged. It's the old supply/demand curve; increase cost even slightly and you'll reduce demand (unless you're dealing with something "inelastic," such as the demand for the essentials of life).

With voter ID laws, the demand (for "eligibility to vote") is highly elastic, because the benefit to the individual of voting is actually pretty small; pretty much everyone knows that their individual vote is not going to make THE difference in the outcome. Thus, if you increase the burden of voting, you're going to discourage a lot of people from voting. So to argue that adding an ID requirement won't discourage voters - a siginficant number of voters - is just the denial of reality.

Legislators know all of this for sure before they pass these laws. So in effect they're saying "Discouraging a significant number of people from voting is less important than stopping voter-ID fraud."

But Ironically, the same elasticity of the demand for voting that causes ID laws to be highly effective in discouraging voting is also what makes voter-ID fraud so rare in the first place: there's virtually no incentive for individuals to engage in voter-ID fraud. Think of the potential benefit (essentially zero; your one fraudulent vote will have no effect on an election's outcome) and the potential cost (if you get caught, you'll be subject to criminal liability). So why do it at all?

But let's give those legislators one last chance. Mr or Ms Legislator, please document the fraud you're going to prevent with this law.

Crickets.

 

[woolfe9998]

We all know for sure that if you increase the burden even slightly for members of a large population to do something beneficial, you will surely discourage at least SOME people from continuing to do the beneficial thing. It's absurd to argue that no one will be discouraged. It's the old supply/demand curve; increase cost even slightly and you'll reduce demand (unless you're dealing with something "inelastic," such as the demand for the essentials of life).

With voter ID laws, the demand (for "eligibility to vote") is highly elastic, because the benefit to the individual of voting is actually pretty small; pretty much everyone knows that their individual vote is not going to make THE difference in the outcome. Thus, if you increase the burden of voting, you're going to discourage a lot of people from voting. So to argue that adding an ID requirement won't discourage voters - a siginficant number of voters - is just the denial of reality.

Legislators know all of this for sure before they pass these laws. So in effect they're saying "Discouraging a significant number of people from voting is less important than stopping voter-ID fraud."

But Ironically, the same elasticity of the demand for voting that causes ID laws to be highly effective in discouraging voting is also what makes voter-ID fraud so rare in the first place: there's virtually no incentive for individuals to engage in voter-ID fraud. Think of the potential benefit (essentially zero; your one fraudulent vote will have no effect on an election's outcome) and the potential cost (if you get caught, you'll be subject to criminal liability). So why do it at all?

But let's give those legislators one last chance. Mr or Ms Legislator, please document the fraud you're going to prevent with this law.

Crickets.

Are you agreeing with my posts #103 and #384 or is this just a "great minds think alike" moment...

 

[trenchfoot]

I forget what year election it was , or maybe it was the first year that the Repubs started pulling those voter ID laws on the folks that tend to vote Dem, but I recall how it backfired on the Repubs as it hardened the resolve of those that felt they were being targeted by those laws and made an extra effort to get to the polls to let the Repubs know their scam wasn't going to work.

Good on them.

 

[Roflmouth]

I forget what year election it was , or maybe it was the first year that the Repubs started pulling those voter ID laws on the folks that tend to vote Dem, but I recall how it backfired on the Repubs as it hardened the resolve of those that felt they were being targeted by those laws and made an extra effort to get to the polls to let the Repubs know their scam wasn't going to work.

Extra effort which idiot liberals insist nonexistent disenfranchised voters are incapable of expending. Better luck next time.

 

[Roflmouth]

I think I'm the only person enjoying the irony of the vast swaths of Conservative Evangelical Christians dedicating their lives and promising their eternal souls to a thing they have never met, spoken to, seen, or heard, and by any rigorous evidentiary requirement doesn't exist...

But if you wanna vote while black, you're going to need to fill out this form in triplicate, which you can only get two counties over, in an office that's open for 16 hours a week, etc...

But no, there's no racism in Alabama.

I wasn't aware that black voters were subjected to more paperwork and other requirements than white voters in Alabama. Go ahead and provide your evidence for this whopper right here ------------>

 

[trenchfoot]

Extra effort which idiot liberals insist nonexistent disenfranchised voters are incapable of expending. Better luck next time.

And may your wishes for a non-existent middle class come true for you too.

<--------ayyyyyyyy, I'm a poet and didn't know it.

 

[ivwshane]

I wasn't aware that black voters were subjected to more paperwork and other requirements than white voters in Alabama. Go ahead and provide your evidence for this whopper right here ------------>

Subject to more paperwork? No but they are disproportionally affected negatively by these policies. That's kind of what the voting rights act was for, you know, to stop local politicians from enacting laws that disproportionally affect minorities.

 

[Roflmouth]

Subject to more paperwork? No but they are disproportionally affected negatively by these policies. That's kind of what the voting rights act was for, you know, to stop local politicians from enacting laws that disproportionally affect minorities.

No the VRA was enacted to stop actual disenfranchisement, not the make-believe kind that liberals invent when blacks have to follow the same requirements as whites. Like I've been saying, liberals should work out their idiotic beliefs that minorities are too stupid to do what everyone else does, it just isn't healthy.

 

[HomerJS]

It could and does easily work since liberals spend all day lying about nonexistent people who don't have or can't get photo IDs. They absolutely hate people having to prove who they are since it undermines their chances to steal elections.

There are plenty of stories of elderly people who have been voting for 50+ years who all of a sudden are running into roadblocks.

Unlike righties lying about non-existent voter fraud.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuOT1bRYdK8

Even when proof stares you in the face keep denying. CBD.

 

[Cozarkian]

and you can go back and ask people who have been listed as having voted if they actually voted. Done.

As you recognize, unless you actually go back post-election and ask every person whether they actually voted, you won't be able to detect successful in person voter fraud.

Do you really think that is more efficient than a voter ID law in effect?

 

[MomentsofSanity]

As you recognize, unless you actually go back post-election and ask every person whether they actually voted, you won't be able to detect successful in person voter fraud.

Do you really think that is more efficient than a voter ID law in effect?

Uhh no asking is not the only way. There are records. It's not difficult to review and determine instances where someone voted twice. Or where someone arrived at the poll to vote and were told that they already had. The GOP has spent millions reviewing years of elections looking for just that and found essentially nothing (I say essentially because what was found was determined to be poll worker/clerical error in just about every instance).

Unless of course you're implying that this large scale in person voter impersonation is so organized and effective that not once has a person shown up only to find out they already voted.

Oh. I can also share the examples of Republicans who wanted to show how easy it was to vote twice and ended up getting arrested for election fraud if that helps.