At last, long overdue, but we get some truth and honesty from someone inside this political party, calling their "Voter ID laws" what they really are and that is voter suppression.
Most assuredly un-American. It's shameful. We need to rise up, speak out against this and overturn these efforts and soon as possible.
Posts
5 comments:
Checking ID takes a few seconds--it takes longer to check the book to see if I'm a registered voter. "long lines" is a red herring--if there are lines, the delay that I've witnessed has always been due to people waiting for a voting machine, the time spent checking ID is during that wait adding no time to the total.
It appears to me that Democrats want low information and lazy voters--the tiniest bit of inconvenience is "voter suppression" even when it applies to all equally.
I'm not saying we should add difficulty for the sake of difficulty, (unlike many liberals and gun rights) but getting an ID as long as it is free and no more difficult than absolutely necessary is not unreasonable for the potential trouble it avoids.
It has been proven, time and again, state after state, there is virtually no true voter fraud, first. Second, the ID's that have been called for have had costs. Third, it's just a way to disenfranchise the poor, the physically-challenged, the elderly and minorities, repeatedly. This Republican Senator calls it all for what it is. And it truly is and has become a new "Jim Crow" law, of a sort. It's shameful. It truly is un-American.
Hardly anyone exists without some form of legitimate ID--the number of people inconvenienced even slightly is tiny. Isn't an ID required to collect welfare benefits, Medicaid or Medicare? As a matter of principle a free ID should be available. Saying this disenfranchises 'the poor' is gross exaggeration--at worst it mildly inconveniences the poor, the only people it actually disenfranchises are the extremely lazy and apathetic.
How do we know that there's little fraud rather than significant fraud with little of it being detected? "I'll buy you an election, but not a landslide" attributed to Joe Kennedy. Honest elections are worth a lot of inconvenience. ID is a minimal amount of inconvenience.
You are now basing your entire comeback on this subject on your heartfelt, sincere opinion. It's shameless. It's shameful. You aren't remotely basing it on any research or facts or studies of any kind.
You ask me "How do we know that there's little fraud rather than significant fraud with little of it being detected?"
I know from studies and research and facts:
"Myth of Voter Fraud"
https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/voter-fraud
And the following article and link is from the last election:
"'Born and raised' Texans forced to prove identities under new voter ID law"
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/27/texas-vote-id-proof-certificate-minority-law
600,000 Texans--Americans--were disenfranchised in this last election. That's just not American at all.
You're better than this. I feel sure of it. You can be. You should be. I've given you more credit than this, than that of going by your heartfelt opinion instead of facts and research.
Don't base things on your deep seated feelings. Let's deal in facts.
Your statement that "...the only people it actually disenfranchises are the extremely lazy and apathetic" is nothing but opinion and based on no studies whatever.
"Pennsylvania admits it: no voter fraud problem"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/pennsylvania-admits-it-no-voter-fraud-problem/2012/07/24/gJQAHNVt6W_blog.html
If I'm reading right, the studies saying low fraud rates are based on prosecutions for fraud, not the same as actual fraud rates. The same logic would say that we shouldn't need background checks for commercial gun purchases, based on how few people are prosecuted for failing the check.
I don't think vote fraud is particularly common in most areas, but I also don't believe that there are very many people without acceptable ID and who can't get one with reasonably little effort. We also need to look at absentee ballots and ways of securing them, probably a bigger issue than in person vote fraud.
If the story of the man in Texas isn't distorted, there's at least an isolated problem--but that's not the same as saying 'no ID should ever be required'. There are quite a few potential solutions to this that could make sure nobody as wiling as the man in the story would be turned away, while still maintaining adequate safeguards.
Post a Comment