mrjonno wrote:Isn't a fake id possible conspiracy to commit fraud depending on the circumstances.

Well ya, which is why a person who actually is conspiring to commit fraud is more likely to actually obtain a fake id. Thus a voter id law really only discourages people who want to cast a legitamite vote.

mrjonno wrote:
Nothing wrong in principle with ID to use public services but it needs to be extremely easy to obtain (and free)
More pissed of that I need to spend £80 ~ $100 to get a passport. I need this to even leave the UK

The only reason to require ID to use public services is if you believe many people who might look to use said services aren't or shouldn't be entitled to do so.

mrjonno wrote:ID cards could be used for a lot things, you shouldn't have to carry one but its not unreasonable to request it for accessing public services and voting

It's mandatory over here to have an ID card from of identification, which can be a drivers license or passport, with you from the age of 14.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

mrjonno wrote:ID cards could be used for a lot things, you shouldn't have to carry one but its not unreasonable to request it for accessing public services and voting

It's mandatory over here to have an ID card from of identification, which can be a drivers license or passport, with you from the age of 14.

The advantages and disadvantages of compulsory ID at all times is a different matter to requiring it to access public services or voting.
I'm a little uneasy about being legally required to carry around ID but have no concerns about having it to vote

On to the second article, entitled "Inside conservatives’ Hail Mary plan to win the presidency forever". GASP! It's those GOP assholes trying to steal the country!!!!

Well, not exactly.

Most blue states are "winner take all" in the electoral college. This has given the Dems a built in advantage in states like New York and California, known as the "Blue Wall", because urban voters outnumber rural voters and the Dems routinely take the big cities. The GOP wants to change that, and make it a proportional split of the EC votes. Specifically, they want to proportion the votes by congressional district, which makes sense because the number of electoral votes is equal to the number of congressional districts. Instead of trying to "rig the election, the GOP wants to make it MORE fair.

The Democrats are butthurt because their vote-grabbing set up is on the chopping block. Big FAIL for article number 2, it's propaganda.

mrjonno wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

mrjonno wrote:ID cards could be used for a lot things, you shouldn't have to carry one but its not unreasonable to request it for accessing public services and voting

It's mandatory over here to have an ID card from of identification, which can be a drivers license or passport, with you from the age of 14.

The advantages and disadvantages of compulsory ID at all times is a different matter to requiring it to access public services or voting.
I'm a little uneasy about being legally required to carry around ID but have no concerns about having it to vote

You need to present identification when voting as well, but just like the general law on identification, this can be done with a passport of driverslicense as well.

Article three is interesting and makes some very valid points. It's about the prevalence of white males in prosecutorial roles in all the states. As one would probably expect, it's far in excess of their actual population percentages. This skews the justice system in areas from charging to sentencing, leading to racial disparities. Like I said, interesting and valid points, though I'm sure there are arguments on both sides (witness BLM).

However, the tie to election "rigging" on a national scale is tenuous at best.

I'll give it a 6 out of 10 for their reporting on the actual issue of minority representation in the D/A offices, but otherwise - propaganda.

The fourth article is essentially about gerrymandering. Yeah, that's a problem on both sides, and the subject of the article, Corrine Brown, was a Democrat who benefited from it. She was also one of the most corrupt legislators ever elected in the State of Florida.

I'm actually unsure what the point of the article was.

The last article is about software used to analyze voting trends.

In what alternative universe is that "rigging" an election?

So all in all a load of codswallop.

laklak wrote:Article three is interesting and makes some very valid points. It's about the prevalence of white males in prosecutorial roles in all the states. As one would probably expect, it's far in excess of their actual population percentages. This skews the justice system in areas from charging to sentencing, leading to racial disparities. Like I said, interesting and valid points, though I'm sure there are arguments on both sides (witness BLM).

However, the tie to election "rigging" on a national scale is tenuous at best.

I'll give it a 6 out of 10 for their reporting on the actual issue of minority representation in the D/A offices, but otherwise - propaganda.

Kind of ironic that they would use prosecturors as an example of election "rigging" given that it's one of the more common democratically elected positions in the US and the solution would probably be to take it away from the voters and make it an appointed position.

Voter ID laws are AT BEST solution in search of a problem - as others have noted, in-person voter fraud (the only sort which could be stopped by ID requirements) is so rare as to be utterly inconsequential - literally a maximum of a few tens of votes per billion.

But that isn't really the purpose of those laws - as many investigations have demonstrated, and many personal statements and e-mail discussions have revealed, the primary purpose of those laws is to suppress the vote - particularly that of minorities, young people, and others perceived (with decent evidence) to be more likely to vote for a Democratic Party candidate.

This isn't speculation - this is hard fact. That is the only reason those voter ID laws were enacted - they're just like the carefully crafted "literacy tests" and poll taxes of the pre-Civil Rights Era. Silence the minority vote and you can accomplish even more than gerrymandering does.

Weaver, do you support voter registration? In every state I've checked (12 so far) it requires a photo ID to register to vote, even if no ID is required at the polls.

Over here you're automatically registered, but to cast the actual vote, you first need to provide identification.

laklak wrote:Weaver, do you support voter registration? In every state I've checked (12 so far) it requires a photo ID to register to vote, even if no ID is required at the polls.

There are many States which require no photo ID to register - because, in compliance with Federal laws, they allow people to register while receiving a driving license - which, of course, cannot require a photo ID because it is a primary photo ID issuing site.

You only have to have two forms of identification to get a DL - usually a birth certificate and something else. Then they issue a photo ID.

NY State doesn't even require that - voter registration can be accomplished with many non-photo ID means:

-DMV Number(driver's license number or non-driver ID number);
-Last four digits of your social security number; or
-Copy of a valid photo ID, current utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, government check, or some other government document that shows your name or address.

This seems to be quite sufficient - BECAUSE, once again, there simply are not any significant numbers of cases of people fraudulently voting in person - OR fraudulently and purposefully registering to vote.

I honestly do not see how requiring ID to vote is discriminatory. It's pretty much impossible to function in the modern world without ID of some sort. You can't drive, open a bank account, cash a check, rent an apartment, buy almost anything online, get a job, sign up for unemployment or government benefits, enroll in Obamacare, etc etc etc. I question how many people who don't do ANY of those things above are going to bother to turn out to vote.

It appears from online comments here that many European countries require ID to either vote or register to vote, or both. IS that also discriminatory, or is that true only in the U.S.?

At the moment only 7 states require photo ID, according to Wiki. However, all allow a provisional ballot and accept alternative ID, an affidavit, or other form of identification except Georgia, which will allow the provisional ballot but you must later present photo ID.

So I'm not seeing a giant conspiracy to disenfranchise minority voters, it's a tempest in a teapot.

So I'm not seeing a giant conspiracy to disenfranchise minority voters, it's a tempest in a teapot.

Was it North Carolina where the GOP out and out admitted they based their voter id law on what would most disenfranchise minorities?

Don't know, but NC does not require ID to vote at the moment. That could change.

NC only isn't because a Federal court won't let them implement their carefully crafted law - which relied upon research to determine precisely which measures would result in the greatest number of minority voters disenfranchised.

It's fine to claim that everybody "needs" an ID for ordinary life - but it isn't really true at all, particularly in urban areas.

It really is undeniable (well - FACTUALLY undeniable) that these laws were crafted deliberately to disenfranchise minorities and younger voters. The evidence is absolutely clear, across many States and over nearly a decade of attempts to push these laws.

Here's a good summary of the Voter ID laws which have been struck down recently, and the reasons they were.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... er-id-laws

laklak wrote:Don't know, but NC does not require ID to vote at the moment. That could change.

Well that's the difference between Scalia being dead or alive isn't it.

Something for those who clam that "third world countries" don't have the problems the United States does in voting...

unless someone has become interested enough to make careful and direct observations of the voting in an area, there's no way to know whether things are going "smoothly" there or not.

The USSR held regular elections throughout it's history, and we never heard a PEEP about them not going VERY smoothly. Of course, no outside observers were ever allowed to look, so who knows.

In the nations where voting HAS been carefully monitored, such as Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam, plenty of problems were observed.

Again, it seems to be in the nature of humans, to try try try again to do things the right way, and when that fails, to cheat.

Another thing to note: of all the states where the GOP gained the power needed to be able to gerrymander the voting districts, they NEVER changed the "winner takes all" rules.

Therefore any claim that the Republican Party is the party of Fair Elections, and that the Democrats are the only people obstructing a change to proportional voting, is a lie.