Alabama illustrates the problem with voter ID laws

[fskimospy]

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?

We already covered this, what you're saying is completely untrue.

If people are impersonating other voters you will invariably end up with situations where an individual is recorded as having voted twice, or election workers will report someone coming in and trying to vote as someone who has already voted.

Even if that never happened you still wouldn't have to go ask every person who voted, you would just use statistical sampling techniques to catch them at a MUCH lower cost than any voter ID plan. Like, a small fraction of the cost.

Seriously, the idea that you can't catch in-person voter fraud is ridiculous. Now that we know catching it is very very possible, shouldn't step 1 be to see if it's happening before passing laws like this? Wouldn't that be the rational thing to do?

 

[CitizenKain]

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.

Aww look at you, repeating rightwing talking points like a good little uneducated puppet.

 

[fskimospy]

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.

Blacks and whites often had to follow the same requirements before the Voting Rights Act too. In those cases, just like in today's cases, it was quite easy to craft 'neutral' rules that only ended up affecting minorities.

I don't think you have a strong grasp on this issue.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I'd like to know what is an acceptable number of legitimate votes turned away vs fraud votes prevented.
I'm at 1 to 10 (fraud) I'd be comfortable with that ratio. Obviously it can't be effective at 1 to 1.

What is the right number.

For the record I don't think in person voter fraud is worth the resources and money spent to prevent it at this time there seems to be next to no in person voter fraud.
I am very comfortable with ID required to vote but everyone needs to easily & conveniently be able to get one. This includes old people whose licenses have expired because they don't drive, an option for someone to vote if their ID was lost or stolen, an option for someone who lost their license for a DUI or similar, the person who just turned 18 the day of the election and anyone else who is eligible to vote and doesn't have an ID for any other condition. Plus it needs to be rolled out with minimal cost.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

I wasn't aware that black voters were subjected to more paperwork and other requirements than white voters in Alabama.

You aren't very good at English. Is it not your first language?

 

[werepossum]

People here would (and effectively have) argue that even if Alabama opened a DMV on every street corner that would still present too much a burden. They're not arguing from good faith, they won't even concede validating voter identity is a valid state interest.

Probably, but at the moment Alabama is seeing serious reductions in access, so we're closer to the left's position than the right's.

That's not the standard. The standard is that an action leads to corruption or the appearance of corruption. My evidence that unlimited donation money in politics leads to the appearance of corruption are large numbers of polls that show Americans think just that.

See? My position is based on evidence. Now it's your turn to embrace positions based on evidence! When will you start?

Various states require photo ID at tons of different times and they are not in any way uniform, nor should they be. If photo ID is necessary to prevent in-person voter fraud then provide evidence that in-person voter fraud is happening at meaningful rates. After all as a conservative, surely you would be strongly against laws that aren't based in evidence. Who wants extra unnecessary laws?

lol @proggie "evidence". If we all say we believe something is happening, that is evidence that it is happening.

Assuming there is little actual in person voter fraud, there are several enormous benefits to a well-written law. First, at minimal to no cost it protects the integrity of the system by implementing measures to prevent or limit the potential for future actions that would violate the foundation of our government.

Second, it reduces the risk of political attacks on the confidence of election results through allegations of voter fraud. It is far less costly to prevent fraud then to launch an investigation to determine whether fraud occurred.

Third, a well-written law would result in more people with IDs.

With a well-written law, the burden in obtaining an ID is a net benefit because now the person has an ID. The law would literally pay for itself in terms of cost/benefit wuthout any need to include the benefit of preventing voter fraud in the analysis.

Very well said. This requires more access though, not less.

 

[Ausm]

You aren't very good at English. Is it not your first language?

Most likely went to the same school as Kevin McCarthy.

 

[MovingTarget]

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.

So, basically, your thoughts boil down to either "I've got mine, screw you!" or "If I can't have my business handled efficiently by the DMV, you can't either!" It is awfully nice of you to demean poor people, minorities, and the elderly as lazy and/or apathetic as well. Moochers wanting "your tax dollars" as a reward? Good job there! You hit all the talking points! Gold star!

/golfclap

Once again, your claims do not line up with reality. Alabama is faced with soon having a state of approximately 4.8 million people spread out in ~52k square miles with only 4 open DMV offices. Thats an average of 1.2 million people served by a single office, under the assumption of a perfect division of resources and load. Thats one office per 13 thousand square miles! Even if I were to ignore all your other claptrap, the logistics of that do not compute. As time goes on, many more will be disenfranchised. Your experience at the DMV, likely in another state with a much higher level of government service, does not serve as any sort of analog to this situation for comparative purposes.

Note: These numbers come from Alabama's entry on wikipedia, and are rounded in my calculations. I'm not invested in this enough at the moment to give it a proper analysis.

 

[fskimospy]

Probably, but at the moment Alabama is seeing serious reductions in access, so we're closer to the left's position than the right's.

lol @proggie "evidence". If we all say we believe something is happening, that is evidence that it is happening.

Lol. That's the standard for corruption the Supreme Court uses. Who knew they were such a bastion of progressives, haha.

Congrats on saying yet another dumb thing.

 

[soundforbjt]

lol @proggie "evidence". If we all say we believe something is happening, that is evidence that it is happening.

Isn't that exactly what the people making voter ID laws are doing?

 

[nickqt]

Isn't that exactly what the people making voter ID laws are doing?

Projection by conservatives onto anyone they don't identify as belonging to their tribe is how they operate on a day-to-day basis without hating themselves. I'm sure moonbeam could explain it a lot more eloquently than I can, but there it is.

 

[shira]

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

I guess the latter, though the two sets of ideas overlap rather than expressing exactly the same thing.

The point I was mostly trying to point out was that it's absurd to believe - as righties claim they do - that making it more difficult to vote will have no effect on voting. Even if voting were an extremely important aspect of living, this would be true. But the fact that voting is pretty much a "meh" for most people is an indication of just how effective voter-ID laws will be in suppressing votes.

 

[nickqt]

I guess the latter, though the two sets of ideas overlap rather than expressing exactly the same thing.

The point I was mostly trying to point out was that it's absurd to believe - as righties claim they do - that making it more difficult to vote will have no effect on voting. Even if voting were an extremely important aspect of living, this would be true. But the fact that voting is pretty much a "meh" for most people is an indication of just how effective voter-ID laws will be in suppressing votes.

Paul Weyrich answered this question 35 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw

You can google who Paul Weyrich is.

 

[wetech]

Didn't read through the 9 pages of replies to this article. But, I'm not sure these closures are part of some vast minority voter suppression scheme. Taking 10 minutes of looking at census data vs the list of closures shows the following:


- The closed offices served 16% of the total population.
- Affected 15% of the total black population
- Affected 16% of the total white population.
- Were serving the bottom 1/3 of counties by total population, with a few exceptions. 2 served counties ranked 7th and 15th by population. Those 2 counties are 90% white.

 

[trenchfoot]

Didn't read through the 9 pages of replies to this article. But, I'm not sure these closures are part of some vast minority voter suppression scheme. Taking 10 minutes of looking at census data vs the list of closures shows the following:


- The closed offices served 16% of the total population.
- Affected 15% of the total black population
- Affected 16% of the total white population.
- Were serving the bottom 1/3 of counties by total population, with a few exceptions. 2 served counties ranked 7th and 15th by population. Those 2 counties are 90% white.

That's some interesting stats. Would help if you provided citations.

Also, the fact of the matter is that a large percentage of the black vote has been affected by the closures. It would help your position if you would also cite what Alabama has done to mitigate the damaging effect their closures have caused in the way of requiring ID for voting, of which a driver's license is the most popular, and one of the easier ways to acquire an ID, and coincidentally, one way that has been made more difficult particularly for a region of the state where the majority of blacks reside.

You should also provide stats and other evidence that prove that Alabama has made up for the "unfortunate circumstance" of suppressing the black vote BEFORE the 2016 vote happens, and not actions that will be put into effect AFTER the 2016 elections.

 

[Jhhnn]

So the problem isn't with ID laws in general, it is with the acceptable forms of ID and ease of getting them. That's fine. Convince a liberal state to pass an exemplar law that creates ease of access for obtaining the required ID.

Heh. Any ID that the Right would consider acceptable will be hard to get & maintain, at least for some people.

Because voter fraud must be avoided at all costs, just like all encounters with the boogeyman.

First, show me the fraud in the current system, then we'll have something to talk about that exists outside of fevered right wing imaginations.

If voter fraud were gasoline, you couldn't come up with enough of it to drive a pissant's motor scooter halfway around a dime.

 

[wetech]

That's some interesting stats. Would help if you provided citations.

Also, the fact of the matter is that a large percentage of the black vote has been affected by the closures. It would help your position if you would also cite what Alabama has done to mitigate the damaging effect their closures have caused in the way of requiring ID for voting, of which a driver's license is the most popular, and one of the easier ways to acquire an ID, and coincidentally, one way that has been made more difficult particularly for a region of the state where the majority of blacks reside.

You should also provide stats and other evidence that prove that Alabama has made up for the "unfortunate circumstance" of suppressing the black vote BEFORE the 2016 vote happens, and not actions that will be put into effect AFTER the 2016 elections.

http://alabama.us.censusviewer.com/client


you can filter on race, and add all counties, then dump into Excel.

 

[trenchfoot]

http://alabama.us.censusviewer.com/client


you can filter on race, and add all counties, then dump into Excel.

OK. Thanks for the link. I'll check it out.:thumbsup: