Originally Posted By Yookeroo Voter suppression: OK because they're not targeting only black voters; other groups are being targeted too! Your are really trying hard to defend voter suppression. Maybe the most anti-American tactics available. It's pretty despicable stuff that you're defending. You're really not coming out looking great here.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox ^^ Agreed. And I'm still waiting for someone who is defending voter I.D. laws to also defend the reduction or elimination of early voting. Here are the facts: The Republican politicians who have pushed through voter I.D. laws are the same ones who advocate for the reduction or elimination of early voting. WHY??? What does one have to do with the other? Why do the Republicans who defend voter I.D. laws tooth and nail also defend reducing or eliminating early voting? BECAUSE THEY WANT TO RESTRICT THE VOTING BY THOSE GROUPS THEY DON'T WANT VOTING! Early voting is the hallmark of the "Souls to the Polls" organized effort by church leaders across the country, especially African-American church leaders and their congregations. Church members hop on a bus after services on Sunday to go vote (mostly for Democrats, natch), then head back to the church for Sunday potluck dinner afterwards. What a terrific time-honored institution... that the Republicans hate with a passion. For obvious reasons. Hence the discontinuation for early voting on Sunday in Republican controlled counties across the country. And this has what to do with voter fraud? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But please. Go ahead and defend the individuals who pushed through voter I.D. laws who also pushed through early voting reductions as if the motivation for one has absolutely no connection to the motivation for the other.
Originally Posted By KongKongFuey Funny how the ones whom you feel are being disenfranchised don't care at all but you can barely take it acting like cooked crabs and all, probably because you know that their apathy or a lack of interest in voting hurts your chances of seeing more democratic victors. Your motives are just too transparent to hide.
Originally Posted By Yookeroo "Not sure I would even want to come out looking great in this crowd." A crowd that is pro people being allowed to vote? What an awful crowd.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Funny how the ones whom you feel are being disenfranchised don't care at all> Of course they do. They are part of the fight in every state where these efforts are taking place. You really shouldn't talk about things you don't know anything about.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Still no one who's defending voter I.D. laws will criticize the Republicans for restricting/eliminating early voting. I'm hearing crickets. As usual. And what about Paul Weyrich? Why won't anyone defending voter I.D. step up and criticize Weyrich's argument that voting *must* be restricted in order for Republicans to win? And that voter I.D. laws have nothing to do with Weyrich's goals? Probably because you don't have a leg to stand on. And you know it.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I will. Restricting early voting poses a real hardship on people... especially the elderly. I wish they would head in the opposite direction and allow online voting. There should be some way to do it and still be secure. Of course for a system like that to work positive identification would be even more important, so I suppose you wouldn't like that.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I know I no problem with ID if it's free and equally available to everyone. Like... a signature. Which is how my state does it. Online voting is an interesting idea, but boy would they have to institute some serious safeguards against hacking.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox So what if a 93-year-old veteran who has voted his entire life is turned away at the polls because his drivers license, a valid form of acceptable I.D., has expired? Does this veteran cease to be who he was all those previous decades he voted? Apparently he does in Texas: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/10/27/3584645/texas-voter-id-pollworkers/">http://thinkprogress.org/elect...workers/</a> Texas Election Judge Had To Turn Away 93-Year-Old Veteran Due To Strict Voter ID Law by Emily Atkin Posted on October 27, 2014 at 9:08 am Updated: October 27, 2014 at 10:45 am <> HOUSTON, TEXAS — In the six days that early voting has been underway in Texas, election judge William Parsley on Sunday said he has only seen one potential voter turned away at his polling location, the Metropolitan Multi-Services Center in downtown Houston. “An elderly man, a veteran. Ninety-three years old,” Parsley, an election judge for the last 15 years, told ThinkProgress. “His license had expired.” Under Texas’ new voter ID law, one of the strictest in the nation, citizens are required to present one of seven forms of photo identification to vote. The identification can be a Texas-issued driver’s license, a federally-issued veteran’s ID card, or a gun registration card, among other forms. Licenses can be expired, but not for more than 60 days. The man Parsley said he had to turn away was a registered voter, but his license had been expired for a few years, likely because he had stopped driving. Parsley said the man had never gotten a veteran’s identification card. And though he had “all sorts” of other identification cards with his picture on it, they weren’t valid under the law — so the election judges told him he had to go to the Department of Public Safety, and renew his license. “He just felt real bad, you know, because he’s voted all his life,” Parsley said. As of Sunday evening, almost 137,000 Harris County voters had cast early in-person ballots. Those ballots were cast just days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state’s controversial voter ID law, crafted to prevent in-person voter fraud, could be implemented for the election. That ruling also came with a fiery dissent from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said voter fraud was not a real problem in Texas and that the law seemed “purposefully discriminatory,” making voting harder for low-income, minority, and elderly populations. Indeed, as Ginsburg wrote, “there were only two in-person voter fraud cases prosecuted to conviction in Texas” from 2002 until 2011, while at the same time it’s been estimated that the law could disenfranchise approximately 600,000 mostly black and Latino voters. With the voting process in such early stages, it’s hard to say how many people will be affected this time around. But poll monitors in Houston say they’ve already encountered problems with some registered voters not being allowed to cast their ballots. “We had a voter show up with her Mississippi ID, and it’s a valid ID with a picture and name,” said Marianela Acuña Arreaza, the Texas coordinator for VoteRiders, a non-profit that helps people obtain their voter ID so they can vote. “Her name matched her voter registration, but it’s not one of the IDs that the law requires.” “She was offered a provisional ballot, but she refused,” Acuña Arreaza continued. “She came out and told the poll monitors.” In partnership with Common Cause, another non-profit that lobbies for voting rights, Acuña Arreaza is organizing and dispatching poll monitors in Houston who seek to help people who are turned away at the polls. From the time early voting started in Houston, Acuña Arreaza said she’s seen about 10 cases of registered voters not being allowed to vote — a number that was less than she expected, but “still too many.” Acuña Arreaza and Parsely are both hopeful that the voters turned away for early voting will be able to get some form of acceptable ID by Election Day. But one thing that worries Acuña Arreaza is that the process of getting turned away can sometimes be so embarrassing that people get dejected — they don’t want to come back, and they don’t want to tell anyone what happened. “We try to encourage people to come back, but what we’re worried about is that we may just lose that ballot as a whole,” she said. “A lot of people are ashamed of being rejected, and they just don’t want to talk about it. We have so many cases, but not everyone wants to come out and speak about it.” Parsley, however, said the process of some people getting rejected at the ballot always happens in Texas, mostly because of how often state the voting laws are amended and changed. So far, he said, the amount of rejections haven’t been more than normal. “At this location [in Downtown Houston], the people rejected are a drop in the bucket. Maybe a tenth of a percent,” he said. “If we were near an old folk’s home, maybe that’d be a different story.” <> If the license is found to be genuine and the photo and the voter presenting the license are the same person... why does the fact that the license is a few years too old change the proof that this voter is who he claims to be? Why should a valid drivers license not be allowed if it expired a few years ago because the senior holding the license is too old to drive now? I thought the license was to prove identity. In this case, it did. The election judge did not dispute this fact. But the official was forced to turn this 93-year-old veteran away because the law clearly states that the I.D. cannot be expired. It has to be current. So no voting for the veteran. Which is precisely what the Republicans want, given their very public admission that they're working to privatize Social Security and Medicare. Exactly what the vast overwhelming majority of American seniors do not want! Congrats, Texas GOP! You managed to thwart another "undesirable" voter who might have cast a ballot for a candidate who wants to strengthen SSA and Medicare, not weaken it.
Originally Posted By TP2000 I brought this topic to life after it sat unloved for 10 days, with my comment about pandering liberal racism. But after all these posts no one has successfully answered my question... Why can't a black person living in Chicago or Detroit or South Carolina or Oregon (there are a few in Oregon! I've dated them!) go get a picture ID from a government agency to use in their adult lives? Why can't that happen for a black person? And why can't that black person then show that ID on Election Day, just like they show it at Macy's to buy a shirt, or the Trader Joes clerk to buy some wine, or the Amtrak agent to board a train? No one seems able to answer why a black adult can't be expected to get a government-issued ID card of one type or another to live their lives. And the story of the visiting Brazilians expressing wonderment why this would be any sort of an issue at all is priceless. Thanks all for sharing!
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Because somehow it is racist for them to have to do the same damned thing that whites do every day. It is nothing but far left talking points.
Originally Posted By EdisYoda Let me tell you a little story about when I moved to the Atlanta area and had to get a new license. At the time, I didn't have a car so my roommate had to drive me. I didn't have a job at the time, so not an issue for me, but it was for my roommate. The closest place to get a license was in the northern part of the county near the Sheriff's training grounds. I was told it would take several hours, and that was an understatement. We got there at 8am to get in line for the opening at 9am. When we got there approximately 50 people were already in front of us. We waited in line to get a number, so that we could show our supporting documentation and get another number to have that information taken. We then were given another number to take the written test. Once the test was passed, we were given another number to take the drivers test. After that was done... guess what... another number to get my picture taken. After that it was cake. Oh, one other thing, they closed promptly at 5, regardless of if people were in line or not. I got my License at 4:58pm. Now, I understand that in the 14 years that have passed since I went through that attrocity, things have gotten better, and it's easier to get a license. But still, it took me 8 hours to get a drivers license on a weekday, because they didn't open on weekends. I was lucky that I didn't have a job, but my roommate had to miss a full day of work. What about those poor who may be working 2 jobs just to make ends meet? It's not always as easy as some might think.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip But Edis... are you white? I kind of assume so. It is tough for EVERYONE. And it can be made much better. Ironically, in good old liberal Minnesota, it always took me at least two hours to get a license. They had unbelievably few license offices for a city the size of Minneapolis. Here in Redneck SW Missouri, I have never waited more than 10 minutes. The state has outsourced license bureaus and they have far more of them than they had in Minnesota and they provide far better service. I'm sure state employees weren't real happy about that, but whatever...
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<No one seems able to answer why a black adult can't be expected to get a government-issued ID card of one type or another to live their lives. >> If they don't have the money to spare to get something that they don't need simply to cast a vote, why should they waste their money getting one? And while we're at it... no one arguing in favor of voter I.D. laws seems to be able to define what a "poll tax" is and why it is illegal. Forcing someone to get an I.D. that is not free, or forcing someone to get a free I.D. that requires documentation that isn't free is the equivalent of a poll tax. You are forcing citizens who are barely getting by, living hand to mouth, to spend a significant chunk of their low cash reserves on acquiring an I.D. that is not completely 100% free to get. Just so they can exercise their constitutional right to VOTE. Making. Someone. Spend. Money. In. Order. To. Exercise. Their. Right. To. Vote. Is. A. POLL. TAX. It does not matter a whit whether or not they can afford to pay for the document copies and/or the I.D. card. IT. IS. ILLEGAL. TO. LEVY. A. POLL. TAX. IN. ORDER. TO. VOTE. P-E-R-I-O-D
Originally Posted By EdisYoda I am Road Trip, but that wasn't the point. The point was that it's not always as easy as some people might think to get ID. If I had missed the closing time, I would have had to come back another day, and that would have taken at least another 2 hours. My roommate wouldn't have been able to take another day off for at least a week. On another note, when I was applying for a passport (pre 9-11) I had to get a copy of my birth certificate which I had never had a copy of. At the time, I lived in Boston, and was born in California. I had to wait about a month to get it, and at the time, was fairly easy by mail. However if I had to go in person to get it, it wouldn't have happened. In some states, the only way you can get a copy is in person. Again, NOT an easy thing to do.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip The poverty RATE for Blacks in the U.S. is without a doubt higher than that for whites. Yet in absolute numbers, there are far more poor whites than poor Blacks. Somehow they figure out a way to vote, or if they don't; nobody gives a rat's ass about them. Probably because as residents of Arkansas, Kentucky, etc. they would vote Republican and you guys would prefer they don't vote anyway.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <But after all these posts no one has successfully answered my question...> Several people did - you just didn't like the answers. Bottom line is that making people jump through hoops for something that is supposed to be a basic right is wrong. Making them pay for a basic right is unconstitutional. Doesn't matter if it doesn't seem like a hassle or a particularly high sum of money to someone to whom, well, it's not. Unconstitutional is unconstitutional. You were told this, and also provided links that demolished the usual arguments you posited again in #71, some of them written by the guy who originally laid the legal groundwork for these voter ID laws. He now sees the reasoning is bogus, they amount to a poll tax and voter suppression, and he calls it out for what it is. And all to solve a non-problem. In-person voter fraud is not a problem. Disenfranchising 100's of thousands of perfectly legal voters IS a problem. Also, while we're on "nobody answered my question," nobody actually DID answer my question: what's wrong with using a signature? That's a). harder to fake than an ID b). Free. Of course, it's that last part that GOP operatives don't like, because the whole POINT of these laws is not to prevent a problem that doesn't exist, but to suppress votes.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>It is tough for EVERYONE.<< So it's a poll tax, but it's hard for everyone! It's the new separate but equal.
