Discussion for article #234586
One day poor minorities so far removed from mainstream life they lack a photo ID will realize they’re not supposed to participate in elections. Next on various state’s agenda: Devising onerous, expensive, byzantine, Kafkaesque policies for obtaining a photo ID. Which SCOTUS will dutifully rule are perfectly common sense and legal.
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The Supreme Court ruling is an endorsement of voter suppression.
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Drip, drip, drip.
Seriously, our efforts from here forward should be to fund all well-trained groups to do true direct outreach–going to the homes if necessary–to educate all eligible voters (within target groups, of course, home-bound, shut-ins, low-income, single-parent, etc.) about the voting laws of said state and to get them properly registered and ID’d. There also needs to be a strong effort from within each state to petition the state to allow certain voter outreach groups to be state-certified to properly ID the person, etc. (take pictures, process them through the DMV, whatever agency, etc.).
Seriously, it appears these are the laws of the land – utilize them in our favor. It may take a cycle to really get ramped up, but if the efforts are targeted to all poor people properly–and well-funded–the results should show up the following two year-cycle. Don’t waste anymore time fighting what is already lost. I’ve already started chatting up some of the very people I’m talking about here in my own building of low-income people.
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“common sense step toward reducing election fraud” also a common sense step (at least to the GOP) toward requiring government ID cards, basically SS with pictures, what better way to control the people, or discriminate, or suppress. It all comes to trickle down effects, for this “smaller non-invasive government” political party.
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Still more proof that there was no difference between Bush and Gore.
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I know – I’ve asked a few people this in the past, people who support strong “Voter ID”: Won’t the government then have a much-easier task than already at keeping tabs on us all, if everyone who wishes to vote must register, fingerprinted and photographed? Blank stares, mostly.
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I would dispute your “also” since it’s not a step towards reducing election fraud. It is simply partisan-motivated voter suppression. The type of voter fraud this legislation purports to prevent is virtually non-existent.
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“Still more proof that there was no difference between Bush and Gore.”
Presuming that is sarcasm, you really need to move on. And stop blaming Nader voters. Blaming .1% of the population for not agreeing with you, when another 47% doesn’t agree with you either, seems incredibly presumptuous and narrow.
Cartoonist Sack pretty much nailed it:
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As dumb as it is to allow it, this does seem like something States have the power to do. As it is very indirect discrimination in many respects. That said, the best way to undue them is to kick those supporting it out and change the law.
I imagine that is possible in Wisconsin and some other states.
No, the Nader voters really did enable W to become president. And they knew that that was likely to happen.
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While I do not agree with NCSteve here, I must stick up for him. I found many of his posts, over the many months I’ve been reading, to be pretty insightful and/or got me to thinking about another angle at which to view a topic, subject or movement.
Again, I personally see a big gulf between GWBush (the whole Bush Klan Family) and Al Gore. Their policies would diverge in many meaningful ways. Additionally, Mr. Gore seems a pretty empathetic sort of a guy – someone who can at least put himself in another person’s shoes. Bush was either too religiously rigid or acted/pretended to be too stupid to get any nuances.
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and that there is really no difference between the two major parties . . .
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Proving fringe Leftists can be as much or more dangerous under certain circumstances than fringe wingnuts.
It’s time to accept that requiring IDs is not in itself discriminatory, if they are really available to all. Back in the 1960s, the civil rights movement undertook a huge campaign to register black voters. Today, we need a similar campaign to make sure that all voters in states requiring photo IDs have them, and to mount legal fights where the classification of IDs shows that they cannot have been required for the reasons put forth as justification–such as those states that won’t accept an ID issued by a state university, but will accept a firearms ID. Those voter-ID campaigns can easily morph into get-out-the-vote drives.
In other words, it’s time to make lemonade.
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The simple and most obvious thing to ask in the face of such a law is, So you made a government ID a requirement to vote – how many hundreds of thousands or even millions don’t have such an ID? Is this good policy when so many are without?
States devise ID requirements that on their face seem fair. However, dig deeper and problems arise. Several states require either a passport (which only 1/3 of citizens possess) or a valid birth certificate. Statiticians and actuaries variously estimate as much as 7% of the populace does not have their original birth certificate, with a not insignificant number of that 7% facing very difficult challenges in procuring one were they to try. Many elections need only remove a small fraction of voters to swing victory to the side excluding the opposition from the polls. The GOP knows this. They have multiple think tanks, private funders and the media to back their ID restrictions. On the left are there Koch Brother counterparts kicking in hundreds of millions (billions?) to sway elections? Fox News is the #1 watched nightly news, railing hourly against the dangers of “The Others” in our midst. Who counters that effectively? Face it, hate, fear and suspicion sell. They’re easy emotions to manipulate and use for generating contributions. Do hope, faith and a sense of fair play do the same? I think not. They’re not visceral enough, they don’t animate people like pure blood sport does.
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Since it only takes 4 to grant cert, one must conclude that one or more of the Sane Four are OK with it.
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Only astoningishly gullible fools truly believed that there was no meaningful difference between Gore and Bush, since there wasn’t a particle of evidence in their respective careers to indicate that. Forget Florida and the hanging chads: if the 22,198 Nader voters in New Hampshire had instead cast their votes for Gore, the state’s 4 electoral votes go to Gore and Florida is a non-issue. Which means that two right-wing jurists like Alito and Roberts aren’t put on the Supreme Court, which means there’s no Citizens United. Which, in a wonderful instance of cosmic irony, is a decision which will be a lasting monument to Nader’s colossal vanity and ego.
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