As a Republican how do you defend voter suppression?

[Socio]

Excuse me, but why else would the courts have stricken down various Repub/ALEC sponsored schemes?

They've been set aside because the potential for disenfranchisement is obvious & glaring, entirely & callously contrary to the principles of inclusive Democracy.

Eligibility requirements for Medicaid are immaterial, a red herring in the discussion at hand.

As a voting rights advocate, my goal is for every mentally competent citizen 18 & older to voluntarily turn out & vote in every election, every time. I want all of us to have the wind at our backs to get there, not to place obviously unnecessary obstacles in anybody's way, regardless of their politics. The process should accommodate & encourage all citizens to take part, to be involved, to fulfill their civic duty.

Strict voter ID requirements are an authoritarian power play. People who are willing & able to play the authoritarian game in order to vote are obviously more likely to vote for authoritarian candidates, which is the whole point of the "Voter Fraud" scam in the first place.

I look at it this way, there are more than 50 million immigrants (legal and illegal) in the US:

http://cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-population


If just 20% of them are voting in our elections they can swing elections from Local to POTUS!

Remember how close the 2000 election turned out? In Florida, the deciding state, Bush beat Gore by just 537 votes! That could have easily been decided by foreign voters, we must take every measure possible to make sure that does not happen.

Here is an example;

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/06/voter-fraud-florida_n_1944744.html

The Florida Department of State on Friday confirmed that it has forwarded complaints about alleged voter registration fraud against the Democrats and two other groups to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The groups are the Florida New Majority Education Fund and the National Council of La Raza/Democracia USA.

With the National Council of La Raza/Democracia being implicated it is not a stretch to assume it involved registering immigrants to vote in our elections.

Thus strict voter ID requirements are NOT an "authoritarian power play", they are a absolute necessity!

 

[soundforbjt]

I look at it this way, there are more than 50 million immigrants (legal and illegal) in the US:

http://cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-population


If just 20% of them are voting in our elections they can swing elections from Local to POTUS!

Remember how close the 2000 election turned out? In Florida, the deciding state, Bush beat Gore by just 537 votes! That could have easily been decided by foreign voters, we must take every measure possible to make sure that does not happen.

Here is an example;

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/06/voter-fraud-florida_n_1944744.html



With the National Council of La Raza/Democracia being implicated it is not a stretch to assume it involved registering immigrants.

Thus strict voter ID requirements are NOT an "authoritarian power play", they are a absolute necessity!

Don't you think that some "illegals" already have fake photo ID's? Again, if it was such a rampant problem, why can't those in support show proof of the supposed wide spread need? There's far more proof of fraud using absentee ballots & by the counters of ballots, why aren't they complaining about that?

 

[Jhhnn]

Thank you for being the one level headed dem in this thread (if you are a dem?). Too bad more party pullers can't be less partisan. It really shows what people are all about when they go against common sense ideas like these.

Nice innuendo.

The problem with common sense is that it's not common.

What's happening is quite exclusionary, by design.

Obviously, millions of Americans live their lives w/o the kind of ID Repubs want or verification needed to get it. They do just fine w/o it. Their circumstances vary a lot, so it's impossible to list them all.

Just as obviously, in person voter fraud is vanishingly rare- otherwise there would be a lot more documented cases of it.

What we have is a solution in search of a problem, indicating that the solution isn't about the stated problem at all, but rather something else. We also have a lot of lame justifications wrt the solution, based on the erroneous assumption that the problem actually exists in the first place.

Eaglekeepers' ridiculous assertion that a dead person voting is just as bad as a citizen being denied the right to vote sums the whole thing up rather nicely.

The perfect is the enemy of the good, and anybody with real common sense knows that.

 

[nehalem256]

Don't you think that some "illegals" already have fake photo ID's?

So your argument is that obtaining photo IDs is such a burden that even illegals can get them?

Again, if it was such a rampant problem, why can't those in support show proof of the supposed wide spread need? There's far more proof of fraud using absentee ballots & by the counters of ballots, why aren't they complaining about that?

If requiring photo ID is such a problem why cant liberals show proof of it being a problem in states that already have such a requirement.

 

[Paratus]

So your argument is that obtaining photo IDs is such a burden that even illegals can get them?




If requiring photo ID is such a problem why cant liberals show proof of it being a problem in states that already have such a requirement.

First prove current voter registration and identification methods are inadequate.

 

[trenchfoot]

It's in the simple logic of this controversy that the answers can be found: The Repubs could just as easily have made their "voter fraud" laws much more amenable to the needs of the disadvantaged, the minorities and the poor. They chose to do exactly the opposite and are sticking to it in lock-step nationwide despite many courts rejecting their ploys.

Every excuse the Repubs have come up with to explain away this "curious" lack of consideration for this large segment of the population when they authored these suspiciously identical laws have been lame, diversive and buried in nonsensical minutiae that defy the common sense bread and butter 1+1=2 logic nearly every one of us is born with.

These discriminatory laws must be wiped from the books and made an example of as a line we dare not cross. When a small minority can fashion for themselves all manner of statute that gives them dictatorial power over the majority, well, it's time to get constitutional on their asses and call them out for the treasonous scum they are.

 

[Jhhnn]

I look at it this way, there are more than 50 million immigrants (legal and illegal) in the US:

http://cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-population


If just 20% of them are voting in our elections they can swing elections from Local to POTUS!

Remember how close the 2000 election turned out? In Florida, the deciding state, Bush beat Gore by just 537 votes! That could have easily been decided by foreign voters, we must take every measure possible to make sure that does not happen.

Here is an example;

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/06/voter-fraud-florida_n_1944744.html



With the National Council of La Raza/Democracia being implicated it is not a stretch to assume it involved registering immigrants to vote in our elections.

Thus strict voter ID requirements are NOT an "authoritarian power play", they are a absolute necessity!

OooH! Xenophobic fearmongering! Extrapolation from facts not in evidence with innuendo! OMFG! It's a Conspiracy!

You're so fucking lame that it defies the imagination.

An individual immigrant has nothing to gain from voting illegally, and everything to lose, like being imprisoned & then deported. I'm sure it happens in rare instances, and I'm equally sure that very, very few people are quite that stupid, yourself excluded.

 

[spittledip]

Nice innuendo.

The problem with common sense is that it's not common.

What's happening is quite exclusionary, by design.

Obviously, millions of Americans live their lives w/o the kind of ID Repubs want or verification needed to get it. They do just fine w/o it. Their circumstances vary a lot, so it's impossible to list them all.

Just as obviously, in person voter fraud is vanishingly rare- otherwise there would be a lot more documented cases of it.

What we have is a solution in search of a problem, indicating that the solution isn't about the stated problem at all, but rather something else. We also have a lot of lame justifications wrt the solution, based on the erroneous assumption that the problem actually exists in the first place.

Eaglekeepers' ridiculous assertion that a dead person voting is just as bad as a citizen being denied the right to vote sums the whole thing up rather nicely.

The perfect is the enemy of the good, and anybody with real common sense knows that.

That wasn't an innuendo, I was flat out stating that you guys are completely paritisan. Quite frankly, this whole thing annoys me not b/c i am afraid of illegals voting or dead people voting or anything else. It annoys me b/c it only makes sense that people prove who they are in every instance of government-related activities. If you are saying "this is me", you need to prove it in the most convincing way possible that is currently reasonable. I have no horse (or should I say pig? People race pigs, don't they?) in this race as I think both Romney and Obama are no good. I just don't get how people should not be made to prove how they are in the most reasonable way possible. Picture IDs are used for so many other things, why not this?

Also common sens is not common, true, but only b/c people push aside common sense to support their own ideologies and to justify their lifestyles.

 

[buckshot24]

That's still one more link then you have ever provided!

You aren't paying attention then.

 

[cybrsage]

Remember, dems support voter suppression in the form of voter registration. Don't let them fool you when they pretend to be against voter suppression. They are just liars.

 

[buckshot24]

It's what you believed in the first place, and no amount of reason or evidence to the contrary will cause you to re-evaluate. It's what's wrong with conservative followers in general, their unshakable faith in lies they believe quite fervently. Your leadership depends on it, exploiting it every chance they get.

You're being manipulated because you deny the possibility that you are. For the propagandists of the Right, it's like taking candy from a baby.

Is the air too light up there in Denver? You make all of these assumptions and then rail against them as if they are true. You're doing the exact same thing with these voter IDs as you are accusing me of. You're pathetic.

 

[cybrsage]

Why isn't this number known already? If voter ID laws have been passed that just had to be in place this year why don't they know the impacts I the laws already?

If this was a reasonable law passed to combat voter fraud they would know that number already from previous elections. But it's not it was to let Romney win PA as stated by the author of the law.

Maybe some of our pubs on this site have forgotten their history. A group of early Americans threw a bunch of tea into Boston harbor protesting taxation without representation. I think it was called the tea party....

November is coming.....

Tell me, do you support voter registration?

 

[monovillage]

As a troll how does OneOfTheseDays defend starting a troll thread and never posting in it?

 

[blankslate]

Republicans deny voter suppression might even happen.

It's worth it to get the perhaps dozens of people who have committed in person voter impersonation even it it might keep 100s of thousands of legitimate eligible voters from voting.

If those 100s of thousands of people wouldn't typically vote for a republican... so much the better.

 

[WHAMPOM]

Honestly this is perhaps the most sickening and disgusting thing I've ever seen in my lifetime in regards to politics.

If the Democratic party EVER engaged in practice like this, I would drop support for them in an instance. I could NEVER in good conscience vote for a party that was so blatantly and actively trying to suppress minorities and lower income folks from voting.

And please, for the love of God, don't give me this BS about voter fraud. We know from statistics that voter fraud hovers around something like .000001%. It is a statistical non-factor in every sense. These voter ID laws and attempts to restrict early voting are nothing more than an attempt by Republicans to stifle the minority and low income vote, that is always predominantly Democratic.

This is something we should all be in unison against as Americans. This is treason.

Voter suppression was invented by the "Democratic" party, it was "Democratic" Southern (Dixiecrats) politicians that passed State Laws to suppress Southern Black voter rights for eighty years following the Cival War. (took them ten years to pass the laws, but they got Black voters removed from the voter list." After the DEM Party grew some nuts in the Sixties, the "southern democrats" joined the Republican Party where we see their expertise at work today.

 

[marvdmartian]

OP, how do you defend people who had to show some form of ID to sign up for their social assistance programs (welfare, food stamps, section 8 housing assistance, etc), but who suddenly don't have any photo ID to show, to be able to vote??

 

[Arkaign]

OP, how do you defend people who had to show some form of ID to sign up for their social assistance programs (welfare, food stamps, section 8 housing assistance, etc), but who suddenly don't have any photo ID to show, to be able to vote??

Marv, how do you defend actual voter fraud such as this :

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_new...stration-worker-charged-with-voter-fraud?lite



This is such a partisan issue it's insane.

 

[monovillage]

Marv, how do you defend actual voter fraud such as this :

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_new...stration-worker-charged-with-voter-fraud?lite



This is such a partisan issue it's insane.

We don't and we're glad he got busted. How do you defend electoral voter suppression like I have to endure in California?

 

[soundforbjt]

OP, how do you defend people who had to show some form of ID to sign up for their social assistance programs (welfare, food stamps, section 8 housing assistance, etc), but who suddenly don't have any photo ID to show, to be able to vote??

Some form of ID does not equal Photo ID.

 

[Lanyap]

Marv, how do you defend actual voter fraud such as this :

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_new...stration-worker-charged-with-voter-fraud?lite



This is such a partisan issue it's insane.

Maybe we need to wait until the investigation is complete.

Colin Small May Have Thrown Out Voter Forms Because He Made A Mistake

Media reports have suggested that Colin Small, the 23-year-old Pennsylvania man charged with destroying voter registration forms in Harrisonburg, Va., may have been part of a larger voter suppression effort by the Republican Party. Small was a contractor for the Republican Party of Virginia, where his job was to follow up with voters whose registration forms were incomplete, and hand in those forms to the registrar within 15 days.

But a source close to the case against Small says the young field worker missed the deadline to return eight voter forms, and then, panicking, appears to have thrown those eight forms in the trash.

According to the source, Small would have gotten fired for missing that deadline.

While Harrisonburg swung slightly Democratic in the 2008 election, Small's job was to follow up with voters who were potential Republicans. In all likelihood, the forms he allegedly threw in the dumpster would have belonged to Republican voters.

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/wa...own-out-voter-forms-because-he-made-a-mistake

 

[Paratus]

Tell me, do you support voter registration?

Of course I do. As a democrat I want as many citizens to vote as possible. And judging from the lack of in person voter fraud and reasonable identification requirements voter registration works very well.

So why change it in an election year?

If this was really about fraud the following would have been done:

• Perform a study to determine if in person voter fraud was a problem
• If it was, craft a potential response
• Evaluate the impacts of the new law during the next election cycle
• Tweak the proposal to reduce negative consequences like disenfranchisement
• Implement the law for the next election allowing voters plent of time to meet the new requirements

Instead we rushed to change the laws to fix a problem that doesn't exist.

I answered your question now you answer mine:

Do you support the government spending money crafting laws to fix problems that barely exist?

 

[Arkaign]

We don't and we're glad he got busted. How do you defend electoral voter suppression like I have to endure in California?

I don't either. I'm not a Democrat or a Republican I was just pointing out that it seems that this is almost 100% a partisan issue, not about right or wrong for most, but not all people.

 

[trenchfoot]

I don't either. I'm not a Democrat or a Republican I was just pointing out that it seems that this is almost 100% a partisan issue, not about right or wrong for most, but not all people.

The Repubs made this a partisan issue by authoring these obviously discriminatory and exclusionary voter disenfranchisement and suppression laws that are specifically targeted at voters that lean toward the Dems. These facts are undeniable and various municipal and state courts agree. So the larger issue is not so much one of partisanship but how these blatantly crafted voter disenfranchisement laws violate the true intent of our Constitution in all manner of devious "technically legal" ways.

When it comes down to protecting and upholding the tenets of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, partisanship is a moot point and only a matter of concern soley because the Repubs took upon themselves to pass these sham of an excuse laws of which they cannot even prove in the courts of law their legality yet are still insisting to implement them in every way possible, defying logic, the courts and our Constitution with malice and arrogance.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

I feel so suppressed. I had to show a photo ID when I registered to vote the first time in 1976 (Virginia) and again when I registered to vote after moving to Texas in 2008.

 

[chowderhead]

Where is the effort put into absentee voting fraud? Most of the cases of election fraud deal with absentee ballots and voter registration. Why am I hearing crickets regarding absentee voters potentially voting in two places?