Voter ID laws

[Dirty Penguin]

I'm not sure how it's done in most jurisdictions but in mine all I need is my voters registration card, tell them my address and they match it to their raster and viola. If I try to vote again I go directly to jail. Since everyone who is a registered voter has a voter card how about they get carved a nominal fee of about $10 get a voter ID card wither picture on it. Situation solved...

 

[Harmonious]

I'm not sure how it's done in most jurisdictions but in mine all I need is my voters registration card, tell them my address and they match it to their raster and viola. If I try to vote again I go directly to jail. Since everyone who is a registered voter has a voter card how about they get carved a nominal fee of about $10 get a voter ID card wither picture on it. Situation solved...

That makes sense to me.

 

[Revoltingest]

I'm not sure how it's done in most jurisdictions but in mine all I need is my voters registration card, tell them my address and they match it to their raster and viola. If I try to vote again I go directly to jail. Since everyone who is a registered voter has a voter card how about they get carved a nominal fee of about $10 get a voter ID card wither picture on it. Situation solved...

Sounds good to me.
But how do they react when a penguin who looks like Curious George comes in to vote?

 

[Alceste]

Actually, I've decided that it doesn't matter what I come up with. You will never be satisfied. You've made up your mind, and nothing I bring that is contrary to your view will ever be good enough.

I don't need to bang my head against a brick wall. It will serve no purpose other than to give me a headache.

It does matter what you come up with. The quality of your evidence matters. The relevance of your evidence matters. The credibility of your evidence matters. It's not ping pong. It's not just a matter of "Find something that seems to contradict her evidence and smash the ball back!" Believe it or not, I can be convinced. I am often convinced. I change my mind about various subjects all the time in the light of new evidence.

What I can't be convinced by is anecdotes and conjecture. In order to know whether the Voter ID laws are necessary, we need to know the answer to two factual questions: 1. Is the problem of live voter fraud significant enough to distort the results of an election, and 2. Will the distorting effect of disenfranchising voters without ID be greater or less than the distorting effect of live voter impersonation fraud.

Since these are questions of fact, you can opine until you're blue in the face and I will never, ever be convinced. If you show me one scrap of evidence that contradicts the study that found only ten documented cases in twelve years, or the other study that found five million Americans have been disenfranchised, you can potentially change my mind.

"Screw poor people" is one way to approach the issue (I'm looking at you, Revoltingest ). If that's your position, then of course there's no point debating the subject.

 

[Alceste]

I'm not sure how it's done in most jurisdictions but in mine all I need is my voters registration card, tell them my address and they match it to their raster and viola. If I try to vote again I go directly to jail. Since everyone who is a registered voter has a voter card how about they get carved a nominal fee of about $10 get a voter ID card wither picture on it. Situation solved...

Isn't there some kind of law against making people pay to vote?

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Sounds good to me.
But how do they react when a penguin who looks like Curious George comes in to vote?

They're intrigued by my sexy disposition...:flirt:

 

[Revoltingest]

They're intrigued by my sexy disposition...:flirt:

I should've known.....it's so obvious!
When I vote, they just spray a lot of air freshener.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Isn't there some kind of law against making people pay to vote?

That could be a sticky point. I don't see it as paying to vote but I see how it could viewed that way.

 

[Poisonshady313]

Isn't there some kind of law against making people pay to vote?

I raise that same question in my first post in this thread... but in a different way:

As for a poll tax... what if a person doesn't live within walking distance from their polling place. Is the cost of bus fare/train fare/cab fare/gas it takes to drive to vote considered a poll tax?

I'm fairly certain you cannot show up to vote in the nude. Is the cost of clothing considered a poll tax? Are nudists being disenfranchised for this very reason?

How about voting by mail... is the postage required to send the ballot considered a poll tax?

And as for paying for the ID, here's something else I brought up...

People so poor that they cannot afford a photo ID probably require government assistance... which they cannot receive without a photo ID.

Do poor people have to pay for their EBT card?

If not, what's this nonsense about poor people being disenfranchised?

If it's the case that different states have different system for receiving government benefits, government checks are also considered valid ID in several of these voter ID states.

If we're talking about people who aren't necessarily poor... they're just your average Joes that don't have ID cuz they don't wanna.... in many of those states, a paystub, bank statement, or utility bill can qualify as valid ID.

And someone raised a point about how many of these people without ID are actually registered voters anyhow...

So for all the squawking done over people being disenfranchised, how many people are REALLY going to be disenfranchised? It sounds like they'd have to put forth a tremendous effort in order to NOT have some sort of valid identification to vote.

 

[freethinker44]

I'm not sure how it's done in most jurisdictions but in mine all I need is my voters registration card, tell them my address and they match it to their raster and viola. If I try to vote again I go directly to jail. Since everyone who is a registered voter has a voter card how about they get carved a nominal fee of about $10 get a voter ID card wither picture on it. Situation solved...

Or, since this is the 21st century now and it cost as much to print a picture as it does to print words on paper, why not lose the fee because it doesn't cost 10 dollars to put a photo on a card. To add a photo to current voter registration cards would add a total of 15 seconds to processing time and 0 dollars for materials.

Fees are a pet peeve of mine. Most services people charge fees for don't cost anything at all, including labor most of the time. I recently moved to NY state and I swear there are fees to pay fees.

 

[Revoltingest]

I recently moved to NY state and I swear there are fees to pay fees.

I think there's a fee just to complain about meta-fees.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Or, since this is the 21st century now and it cost as much to print a picture as it does to print words on paper, why not lose the fee because it doesn't cost 10 dollars to put a photo on a card. To add a photo to current voter registration cards would add a total of 15 seconds to processing time and 0 dollars for materials.

Fees are a pet peeve of mine. Most services people charge fees for don't cost anything at all, including labor most of the time. I recently moved to NY state and I swear there are fees to pay fees.

I can agree to this.

A free voter ID card with picture.

It's perfect.

 

[Poisonshady313]

I can agree to this.

A free voter ID card with picture.

It's perfect.

Someone will find a reason why they can't have their picture taken, and people like Alceste will worry about those people being disenfranchised.

That may never happen... but someone somewhere will be disenfranchised if anybody does anything different when it comes to voting.

 

[Alceste]

That could be a sticky point. I don't see it as paying to vote but I see how it could viewed that way.

If such a law exists, it's more a question of how the courts see it. If such a law exists and my job was to find a way to issue voter ID that didn't violate any laws, I wouldn't chance it.

 

[Alceste]

I can agree to this.

A free voter ID card with picture.

It's perfect.

It's getting there. If you have to make a completely arbitrary, pointless change to voting rules, you might as well make it free.

How do you propose the picture be obtained?

 

[Dirty Penguin]

How do you propose the picture be obtained?

Not sure. I got my voter card from the DMV. When I got my passport I went somewhere that takes pictures for passports then I took those pictures with me to the post office to get my passport.

 

[Alceste]

Not sure. I got my voter card from the DMV. When I got my passport I went somewhere that takes pictures for passports then I took those pictures with me to the post office to get my passport.

OK, so the DMV needs to be repurposed / retrained to supply free picture photo voter ID cards. Done!

* Alceste delegates a civil servant to try to accomplish this in a week or two.

Next question, how will the government communicate to all their eligible citizens that they must obtain a free photo voter ID card to participate in the November election?

 

[Apex]

OK, so the DMV needs to be repurposed / retrained to supply free picture photo voter ID cards. Done!

Actually, they already do this in quite a few places. During the last election, there were constant radio commercials in my town telling everyone that you could get a basic photo ID card from the DMV completely free.

 

[gnomon]

I have to say that Alceste is winning me over.

Namely that even though my own personal experience in dealing with State has given me a poor view of people who cannot obtain a simple ID, until Georgia passed a ridiculous law this year, the fact that showing evidence that Voter ID laws is actually necessary is winning me to her point of view.

Specifically, where is the evidence! My State did such a poor job in communicating the necessary requirements for obtaining a driver's license or even renewing a license that I find Alceste's argument against bureaucratic inefficiency and the actual problem of voter fraud to be more convincing.

 

[Alceste]

I have to say that Alceste is winning me over.

Namely that even though my own personal experience in dealing with State has given me a poor view of people who cannot obtain a simple ID, until Georgia passed a ridiculous law this year, the fact that showing evidence that Voter ID laws is actually necessary is winning me to her point of view.

Specifically, where is the evidence! My State did such a poor job in communicating the necessary requirements for obtaining a driver's license or even renewing a license that I find Alceste's argument against bureaucratic inefficiency and the actual problem of voter fraud to be more convincing.

Thanks, gnomon!

I've worked for a government myself. I've been one of those public servants who had to organize tens of thousands of employees to comply with the latest whim of this or that lawmaker. Beyond any other consideration, passing a law today that is supposed to be fully implemented next week is an absolutely ridiculous target. There's a process involved.