The results are in: Voter ID Fraud a myth - but we knew that

ITT: People who hate Obama and, therefore, support any Republican proposal trying to dance around the obvious fact that this whole debacle was designed solely to reduce the number of potential votes for the Democratic party.

 

You know what's lazy and dishonest? Trying to trot out all this talk about constitutional amendments and an evolving Constitution, while owning it halfway.

If you want to make a legal argument, prepare to back it up when challenged. There are judicial arguments to be made for both sides. You were served with the arguments for one side. The fact that you cannot do anything more than dither on about a hypothetical change of laws and evolution, without stipulating one good judicial or legal reason (instead relying on some casual inference to "open borders") tells me you have very few arguments for the other.

Which is too bad, because voter ID laws will be challenged in both Federal Appeals courts and the Supreme Court, and in quite a few cases they will not pass muster.

 

I am enjoying the irony of conservatives arguing for more bureaucracy and that such bureaucracy isn't burdensome. I can only guess that most of you haven't been to the DMV, DPS or whatever it is called in your state recently.

 

So are you saying then that you are for an evolving view of the Constitution?

 

I think you know that we in MN aren't required to have a voter registration card when we vote, for now at least. I would be fine with what you suggest except I am wondering how that will be paid for.

 

You can talk about the past all you want. Talking about what we might need in the future and/or what might be the value of protecting the integrity of voting rights is not just dithering, but I'm not surprised that you characterize it that way.

One: you do realize that only talking about the past limits the future, right? Two: why are we limited to only talking about it in terms of judicial arguments? How about some simple "this would be good and it might be needed, what do you think?"

I'm surprised that you think the issue of "open borders" is casual and vague. Google the term; you'll get lots of hits. Did you already forget that you made a post which included references to Senatorial discussion?

I didn't own anything halfway. I may not understand it all but I bet I'm well into the upper half of the US population in understanding these issues, so deal with it. I'm all too happy to learn what I can give time constraints.

 

What else can you say after all those amendments? I'm more about the spirit of the document than the letter of it.... but that only seems obviously necessary after all those amendments.

 

A Pennsylvania court today ruled that it would not stop the implementation of the PHOTO ID law that the Pennsylvania legislature passed. This is great news for the 74% of Americans and 60% of Democrats who support safeguarding the integrity of the voting process.

 

I am not clear on what you are saying. The amendment process was built into the Constitution from the beginning and even strict Constitutionalist for the most part recognize the amendments as essential inseparable parts of the Constitution. Are you saying that you don't like that there have been so many amendments and want to adhere to the spirit of the constitution?

What I am asking you is that are you accepting what is commonly considered an evolving view of the Constitution that it is more open to interpretation than a stricter reading of it?

 

Good to see that you are ready to learn.

The first thing you should learn is that if you want to make a legal argument, it has to be based on some principle. It's not good enough to say "I want my laws to be x". I can tell you that federal appeals courts have a very mixed record when it comes to voter ID laws. Perhaps you should research why, before you advance any argument about a hypothetical future.

I characterize what you are doing now as dithering, because quite honestly, you have not advanced a solid legal or empirical argument as to why voter ID laws should be allowed to stand.

If you wanted to make an argument about "this is right, we should do it", well don't invite queries into why or how the Constitution might proscribe voter ID laws. And start looking up empirical facts that demonstrate the need for such laws.

 

My earlier comment was that amendments prove the need for evolution of the Constitution. Adherence to the spirit is of paramount importance. The world changes so will the constitution, but not everyone will neither agree upon the value of all those changes nor on the best way to address them.

"Not all progress is in a straight line."

 

Don't celebrate too early.

 

It can be a problem though. What if the fraud existed in a local election where the size is much smaller?

We have one, and I don't know who is complaining. It would make me feel uncomfortable otherwise. We can never truly measure voter fraud, since it is easy to get away with on a small scale. A local election would certainly be at a higher risk than a national election, which would statistically be near impossible to change.

I want something more than the information available about in the phone book, on facebook, public records, or spokeo.

Sometimes perception is as important. Having never voted without my ID, I can't compare it, but it wouldn't feel right to me. Here is my name and address, let me vote.

 

Hey, wake up! This is a message board not some committee of the US Congress.

I think that protecting the integrity of the voting process is a sufficient principle thta we can discuss it here.

Why be limited by what some court of appeals decided forty years ago?

I know you only bring that up when it suits your purpose.

Can you summarize why I said we need voter ID laws?

 

I have, and not as bad as people make it out to be. In Georgia you can go to the DMV for your voter ID, but you can also go to the registrar's office

Voting is part of a bureaucracy.

 

Because that is how the United States of America works. And if you don't know that, I strongly advise you to research your own country's judicial system.

This might not be Congress, but if you're going to advance a legal argument and want an honest discussion about it, you better have some legal facts. Otherwise, you're just dithering. Which is fair enough, since this isn't a court, this isn't your job. But if you don't want to advance a legal discussion about the topic, don't start it in the first place.

 

Since when is your or my mind only allowed to roam within the confines of some ruling of some federal appeals court somewhere?

We are changing nothing here. We are just talking. Good golly, Miss Molly!

What about the first laws? There were no ruling precedents upon which to write them.

I've advanced the legal discussion by noting that illegal immigration is run amok and voting privileges for our citizens needs to be safeguarded. I know that is not complex enough for you... :grin:

Here's an irony that looms up: the left is okay with hosting all these illegals and the burden they put on our schools and healthcare but they throw a fit over the minor expense of some kind of voter ID or is that just a dishonest argument to keep voting "rights" vulnerable?

 

Some well intentioned folks are arguing for voter ID laws to insure the "integrity" of the voting process. I respect their views, and can understand that they see it as a logical thing to do, with a caveat. Don't think that by doing so that you are preventing voting fraud. Why? Because it doesn't exist. The amount of "voting fraud" is so tiny in number (1/15,000,000 has been mentioned, and my own opinion is that it isn't that much), that for all practical purposes to think it influences elections is nonsensical. It is far more likely that fraud would be committed using computer hacking to get into voting data bases to change vote totals. That's where people should be concerned, and whether one has a photo ID or not (and many voters do not. Lots of people don't drive. My 21 year old son chooses not to have a drivers license. Go figure!) won't change that.

There is only one reason that the GOP has worked so hard to push the red herring of "voter fraud." To suppress the vote. I'll repeat that, and others have already mentioned it. To suppress the vote. To make voting harder to do for millions of Americans. Why? That's already been explained. Do some digging and free your mind.

 

So long as you don't seek to advance your discussion to examine the issue with any depth, I suppose your intentions have been well-met.

You called my arguments lazy and dishonest---

I'm pretty sure right now your arguments fall under at least one of these categories.

I'll keep it mind that you like to debate in platitudes for next time.

 

Voting fraud does exist and there are many many documented cases of it. But that's not the only reason why the overwhelming majority of the American public wants to safeguard the integrity of the voting process -- a big part of it is because there is a vulnerability in the system -- a loophole that is very easily exploitable. That loophole is that ineligible voters, or voters voting more than one time, can say they are someone else, and vote. If you have to present ID, it closes this loophole.

Let's disregard the many examples of voter fraud and look at an analogy: The_Conquistador's house has never been broken into. There is no evidence that it has been broken into. I keep my gate and doors locked at night, and turn my security system on, keep my dog loose, and keep ammo in several guns strategically positioned around the house, because that eliminates a vulnerability to a break-in. Same principle with Voter ID. Close the gap in the security and safeguard the system.