Neo Confederates in TX Now Try try to use ID ruse to keep women from voting

There's a guaranteed paper trail and millions of dollars and the full investigative and subpoena power of the DOJ, FBI and dozens of state and local law enforcement bodies have been devoted to this issue.

Other than a handful of innocuous or borderline cases - with a good number of the cases being Repubs engaged in fraud, despite that the witch hunt was overwhelmingly designed to find one type of voter only - nothing has turned up at all.

So basically you're saying unless we develop invisible alien crop circle detectors - we can't really rule out aliens making crop circles, because the invisible aliens haven't shown themselves yet and are unlikely to do so.

 

You have documented one vote out of 129 million. Feel free to document more.

 

You lost me after burdensome voter ID laws. How hard is it to get your lazy ass off the couch and get an ID card?

 

If you're in parts of rural Texas, it takes over 250 miles to get to a DPS office. And even if you're in the city and you don't have a car, you're at the mercy of the bus schedule (provided it comes to you). And even then, its a pain in the butt.

So if you're going to subject people to those kind of challenges, you should justify it. I've yet to hear of a justification for those kind of barriers.

 

After mine expired, it took quite an effort to get another. I had to get a new SS card (mine was misplaced in a move), to do that I had to get a new birth certificate from Arizona, and all told I had to take three days off of work. It was a manageable process for me as my DPS and SS offices are within 10 miles of my house, but for someone in rural Texas or someone who doesn't have paid time off, the process could easily prove difficult enough that the person might choose not to vote instead. This is what the GOP is trying to combat: Democratic constituencies voting.

 

If I'm voting as other people who I know won't go vote, how are you going to prove that? The people at a polling station are never going to recognize me.

In my family alone I could vote for my brother, uncle, father in law and brother in law because I know none of them will vote.

 

Doesn't voter id poll extremely well?

 

How could you be sure none of the poll workers or poll watchers would know your brother, uncle, etc? Or the people in front or behind you in line that might overhear? And would you be willing to risk jail time for that extra vote or two?

And if you WERE willing to risk jail time for an extra vote - if it was that important - would needing a fake ID really be the thing that stops you?

 

Come on, are you kidding? I've never recognized a single poll worker or been at the voting station with people I knew or who knew me.

If you live in a small community with a single voting station maybe that would be the worry, but I doubt many of us in a city would have anything to worry about.

 

The odds aren't high - but they exist. The poll workers generally live in the same general area as the people in the precinct. You have no idea who your various family members know. Are you willing to take that chance for an extra vote? And would needing a fake ID or needing to do it be absentee ballot be showstoppers for you?

But on a larger scale, if this was actually happening, all it takes is 1 person to get caught for the evidence of this type of in-person voter fraud. Yet there are no examples anywhere. All the examples of voter fraud we have are the type that voter ID wouldn't stop. Why focus all this effort on a law to fight theoretical voter fraud while not doing anything to stop the actual few examples that we know happen (even though it's still in tiny amounts).

 

I disagree with you about it being next to impossible to catch people from voter fraud.

But even if I can't show you that it wouldn't be that difficult it doesn't make a point. It doesn't show that voter fraud is wide spread. There isn't proof of that, and alleging crimes like these are occurring without proof doesn't carry any weight.

But we can look at statistics of federal agencies, law enforcement, the justice department etc. and see that it isn't a statistical problem. I get that you're arguing the difficulty of gathering accurate data on the issue. But nobody has shown anything conclusive showing the data and statistics or flawed either.

I think I trust the full weight and resources of the FBI, Justice Department, and law enforcement to have a better idea if voter fraud is a real problem.

 

Still haven't seen an argument about why forcing people to pay what amounts to a poll tax - paying to access long-lost marriage licenses, birth certificates, new IDs, travel expense to far-flung DPS offices, etc. - to utilize their God-given right to vote (something many of you would argue, seeing as it's in the Constitution and we know how certain strains of one ideological side think that's a divine document), despite the only instances of in-person voter fraud being statistically insignificant is a matter of concern.

The burden of proof is not on those of us who oppose Voter ID. It's on you to demonstrate significant, widespread documentation of in-person voter fraud. This is the type of accusatory behavior y'all have loved to indulge in, conveniently, since 2008 ("Now I'm not saying Barack Obama is a Kenyan, I'm just wonderin' why he won't show us his birth certificate!").

 

You haven't heard it because there isn't one. Its a naked attempt and nothing more; nobody worth talking with actually believes this garbage; witness the sad spectacle of justtxyank attempting to go through the motions and carve out nonexistent middle ground.

The people pulling the strings know what this is for. The ironic thing is that they're going to hurt a demographic that increasingly is their stronghold (poor and unsophisticated) as the red States get left behind.

 

Actually I've had poll workers recognize me a couple of times. Just my experience but some of the older residents in my neighborhood volunteer at the polls.

 

Unless it's a coordinated effort, in which case the chance of being caught is probably pretty high, it seems voter fraud isn't worth the effort on an individual level. What is there to really gain? A few people voting multiple times isn't at all likely going to change the outcome. There is however, plenty to lose for them. It's not surprising that there aren't any evidence of wide spread fraud.

I'm not against voter ID. I think it's fine and should be phased in over time in a way that does not disenfranchise any person. So yes, we should have voter ID or better yet, an overhaul of the voter system to make it fast, effective and even less vulnerable to fraud than an ID check. A way to electronically recognize citizen (finger print scanner, facial scanner, whatever) so that we can just go vote at anytime, bypass a need to register ahead of time, wait in long line for manual ID check, or voter in particular places. The system can on-the-fly, register a voter as voted and thus not allow additional vote.

 

I discuss a topic reasonably instead of attacking anyone or using ridiculous alien analogies and yet I'm the sad spectacle and not worth talking to.

I hate coming to this board without being logged in and being forced to see the dripping-with-douche posts from certain people that would otherwise be on the ignore list.

 

You might be discussing it reasonably, but your are still recommending a solution to a problem that does not exist.

 

The problem I recommend a solution to was the political debate, not the actual voter fraud. I've never claimed there was voter fraud. I have no reason to believe there is. I only said that I think it would be hard to prove.

Here is what I've said:

1) Voter fraud is hard to prove in my opinion (unless as someone else said it was a large scale coordinated effort)
2) Getting an id is not a crazy burden (as long as it was phased in over a lengthy period of time)
3) Republicans want voter id laws to suppress the votes of those they think will vote against them.

These three positions make me a sad spectacle.

 

Hopefully this pity party works out for old justtxyank.

He seems to not understand the root of the issue: Despite considerable investigation, there is still *no* empirical evidence that voter fraud exists on a scale even remotely close to that suggested by its proponents - there is a boatload of intuitive evidence suggesting why this is so (it's a dumb crime to commit with no tangible reward).

Requiring more evidence that something doesn't exist, when no evidence of its existence has been presented, is a silly exercise and a logical fallacy that only an idiot would engage in. it doesn't matter the tone - arguing in favor of a solution, that doesn't solve a problem, that you can't show exists is inherently in fact ridiculous - hence the ridicule.

That's of course, not even considering that the admitted goal of the sponsors of these voter suppression laws is, in fact, voter suppression, and that they don't even prevent the hypothetical harm that has not been proven to exist.

1) Voter fraud is not hard to prove at all in the forms that are suggested by the proponents of the "voter fraud is an issue" lobby - it's not an opinion, it's simply fact. If dead people are voting, it will show in the records. If people are voting twice, it will show in the records.

The records by and large don't show this. Fact.

2) Is irrelevant, because we don't pass laws simply because they "are not crazy burdens" - rather they are to solve some sort of problem (ideally, doing more good than harm); You're smart enough to know this. Which is why I am so be-saddened by the spectacle thereof

3) So you admit that the whole thing is a farce, but you're still arguing that it may exist because it's undetectable (it's not) and not a ineffective laws against them are not a crazy burden (and apparently, are ok?) Those 2 positions are hard to reconcile. Sniff. More sadness. And it doesn't really solve "the political debate"

There's no debate on this issue. One side is right, and one is wrong, and both sides know it.

Hope I didn't ruin your peek - somebody please quote this for me just in case he resists temptation.