Voting discussion thread II

[DzynKingRTR]

View attachment 58335

I think the argument is they don't have the money to get a $20 ID.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

I think the argument is they don't have the money to get a $20 ID.

And paying to vote, takes us back to the days of the poll tax.

Again, if the Republican Party was serious about voter ID, you have to do it once in your life and the federal government pays to issue the identification card to you.

 

[DzynKingRTR]

And paying to vote, takes us back to the days of the poll tax.

Again, if the Republican Party was serious about voter ID, you have to do it once in your life and the federal government pays to issue the identification card to you.

What I want to know is where the hell are the people that don't have any form of ID? How do you have a job? How do you have a place to live? How do you pay for stuff? Do you have a bank account? Because you need ID for all of that.

I guess they don't work, live with friends/family, have no credit cards or bank account. Personally if I had a friend/family member living in my house that didn't work, definitely didn't pay rent, and just sponge off me, they would have no vote in how I lived and worked.

 

[Bamabuzzard]

And paying to vote, takes us back to the days of the poll tax.

Again, if the Republican Party was serious about voter ID, you have to do it once in your life and the federal government pays to issue the identification card to you.

Yep, which is what should happen. The government pays for it. As important as voting is, a voter ID should be required. As a society, we require ID for A LOT less important things than voting in elections.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

What I want to know is where the hell are the people that don't have any form of ID? How do you have a job? How do you have a place to live? How do you pay for stuff? Do you have a bank account? Because you need ID for all of that.

I guess they don't work, live with friends/family, have no credit cards or bank account. Personally if I had a friend/family member living in my house that didn't work, definitely didn't pay rent, and just sponge off me, they would have no vote in how I lived and worked.

The things you are saying are what make Democratic objections to every single proposed form of voter ID laughable. When President Obama was in town, you had to show ID to get into his fundraiser.

Wasn’t that racist?

And that the Democratic Party has botched their responses for far too long on voter ID is correct. There were at least two or three other ways they could’ve handled it besides going with their favorite accusation.

However, that does not justify what the Trump party is trying to do, either.

 

[arthurdawg]

Yep, which is what should happen. The government pays for it. As important as voting is, a voter ID should be required. As a society, we require ID for A LOT less important things than voting in elections.

So... In Alabama you have to present ID to vote. Requiring a driver's license is a poll tax, which is banned by the Constitution. Therefore, you can apply for and obtain a free voting ID card from the state. That being said, obtaining said card requires a trip downtown, time off from work, and a ride to get there amongst other things. For some people this is a burden that effectively prevents them from voting.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

So... In Alabama you have to present ID to vote. Requiring a driver's license is a poll tax, which is banned by the Constitution. Therefore, you can apply for and obtain a free voting ID card from the state. That being said, obtaining said card requires a trip downtown, time off from work, and a ride to get there amongst other things. For some people this is a burden that effectively prevents them from voting.

I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea of “well, it’s undue burden to go to town for an ID to vote but it’s NOT an undue burden to have to drive to the polling place and actually vote.”

 

[arthurdawg]

I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea of “well, it’s undue burden to go to town for an ID to vote but it’s NOT an undue burden to have to drive to the polling place and actually vote.”

I don't really know how many people are actually affected this way and it doesn't seem like that much of a bar, but I can't speak for them.

I do feel that voting should be made straightforward for all eligible voters, without the efforts to make it more difficult and to suppress the voters who you feel won't support your party.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

What I want to know is where the hell are the people that don't have any form of ID? How do you have a job? How do you have a place to live? How do you pay for stuff? Do you have a bank account? Because you need ID for all of that.

I guess they don't work, live with friends/family, have no credit cards or bank account. Personally if I had a friend/family member living in my house that didn't work, definitely didn't pay rent, and just sponge off me, they would have no vote in how I lived and worked.

How many of those required you to present a birth certificate?

 

[PaulD]

How many of those required you to present a birth certificate?

Or if your name has changed since you were born (marriages, divorce), more documentation is needed. Each certified document has a cost and may need to be obtained from different states. I was born in Ohio and my wife was born in Tuscaloosa. Because her parents didn't know to give her my last name back then, she'll also need a marriage certificate. (To complicate things, our daughter was born in Oklahoma and our son was born in Texas.)

I think voter ID is a solution in search of a problem, but I can live with it if we can make it easy logistically and financially.

 

[DzynKingRTR]

How many of those required you to present a birth certificate?

To get the ID to begin with I needed it.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Or if your name has changed since you were born (marriages, divorce), more documentation is needed. Each certified document has a cost and may need to be obtained from different states. I was born in Ohio and my wife was born in Tuscaloosa. Because her parents didn't know to give her my last name back then, she'll also need a marriage certificate. (To complicate things, our daughter was born in Oklahoma and our son was born in Texas.)

I think voter ID is a solution in search of a problem, but I can live with it if we can make it easy logistically and financially.

My wife carries her passport and a copy of our marriage certificate to fly until we can get a "real" driver's license...

 

[PaulD]

My wife carries her passport and a copy of our marriage certificate to fly until we can get a "real" driver's license...

Alabama, like our current state Georgia, doesn't issue driver's licenses which document citizenship, only residency. (In fact, none of the states in which I've had licenses do that.) While I have a retired military ID which ought to prove residency, my wife's card doesn't do that as I could have married a non-citizen.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

I don't really know how many people are actually affected this way and it doesn't seem like that much of a bar, but I can't speak for them.

Nah, that's fine, I've gotten used to the moving of the goalposts by the partisans (note: not you) on the voter ID thing and sometimes the same words have a different meaning, if I can steal and twist Led Zeppelin's words here.

I'm not opposed to the CONCEPT of voter ID. It isn't "racist", it isn't "an undue burden", and the reality is that there is neither rampant voter fraud NOR voter suppression (it's an easy claim to say, "well, we would have won but they kept our people from voting." We have documentation that happened in (for example) Jim Crow days. Amazingly, we don't have video in this era of the ubiquitous phone of cops herding black voters away from precincts in the name of white supremacy, but sorta like the Loch Ness Monster and the faith healer raising all them dead folks, it supposedly still happens. (It doesn't - "so let's change what we mean by it". There are also provisional ballots and nowadays elections don't JUST occur on Election Day; the last two Presidential elections, I voted on a SATURDAY).

Both are just forms of "well, we won it but they stole it." About the ONLY redeeming quality to Donald Trump's made up horse crap about stolen elections is he does have the stones to actually SAY it rather than hide behind verbiage. He's still full of it, but at least he says it.

I do feel that voting should be made straightforward for all eligible voters, without the efforts to make it more difficult and to suppress the voters who you feel won't support your party.

I absolutely agree with this, and the GOP has made their problems with minority voters worse on this constantly. As I've said repeatedly, where the Dems have dropped the ball here is to knee jerk respond with the pretense that ANY requirement of showing ID - even at the initial stage - is somehow racist or an undue burden is hilarious coming from a party requiring such for Social Security benefits. Where they've had years to be able to take the offensive on the issue is to say they're "for" some form of it but minimize it (as I did above) or to turn the question around with, "Can you give a specific example?" I say this last because I've voted in the South, Texas, and California, and I don't recall a single time I did not have to show ID to vote. That alone tells me there's not this huge problem of Mexican illegals walking into a polling place and claiming to be John Smith (who has registered at more hotels than any man in history), being handed an already punched ballot for the Democrats and casting it.

My mother was born in Alabama in 1946. She only got a birth certificate about seven or eight years ago so she could get a passport. (Technically, Mom was born in Georgia - right across the line - but I digress).

=================================

Btw, I'm in a saucy mood this morning so let me handle another Republican childish whine.
Two of them.

=================================

1) "Well, California was a Republican state and then in the 1986 amnesty, Reagan let in all the illegals in a deal with Congress, and the Republicans haven't carried California since 1988."

Fact check: mixture

Reagan did sorta get conned in the amnesty deal (do you see a fence along the border of California that will do anything?), but California as "a Republican state" is at least a bit of an exaggeration. Reagan as California governor was an anomaly as a hard right conservative. California had some quirks in their election laws PRECISELY because they were on the cutting edge of progressivism, and most California insane ideas have their roots in a guy named Hiram Johnson. I mean, Earl Warren was a Republican governor of California (he actually ran in a cross filing system as both R AND D in 1942), but he was no hard right conservative. Pat and Jerry Brown were Democrats, and George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson were boring, middle of the road Republicans. (Remember - the 1962 California electorate REJECTED Richard Nixon for Pat Brown).

But "illegals voting in California" didn't have a damn thing to do with California turning blue. Bush only beat Dukakis by about 3.5 points in 1988, and Bush had a booming economy and no war. Ford only beat Carter by 1.5 in 1976. Even native Californian and former Senator Nixon himself only beat Humphrey by 3 points in 1968. California DID "lean Republican" at the Presidential level for a lot of years - it used to be a swing state. It swung harder to the left with huge numbers of (yes) legal voters in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, and big cities are almost always Democratic because Democrats will build stuff and raise taxes to pay for it.

2) "Republicans used to carry Oregon but in 1988 they went to mail-in ballots and the GOP hasn't carried the state since."

I say again - Oregon was NOT "a Republican state", it was a swing state. You know, like Pennsylvania still is today. Ford beat Carter by less than 2,000 votes FIFTY YEARS AGO, before the mail-in ballots. That state has an independent streak, so much so that George Wallace and Hubert Humphrey's combined ballot total in 1968 was more than Nixon. Oregon was more of an "Eisenhower Republican" state. But as Reagan ticked off environmentalist voters (and they are all over Oregon) and Portland got much bigger, the state gradually shifted. But remember: enough Oregonians voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 that Gore's win of less than 7K votes was not certified until November 28. (That was forgotten in all the hullabaloo over Florida).

Despite all the whining about party and state shifting, it wasn't "just" the South that moved. 32 states voted for a different party for President in 2024 than they did in 1968 - and 26 states voted for a different candidate than they did in 1976.

 

[crimsonaudio]

How many of those required you to present a birth certificate?

Don’t most forms of state ID require a BC (or equivalent: eg passport)?

 

[arthurdawg]

Nah, that's fine, I've gotten used to the moving of the goalposts by the partisans (note: not you) on the voter ID thing and sometimes the same words have a different meaning, if I can steal and twist Led Zeppelin's words here.

I'm not opposed to the CONCEPT of voter ID. It isn't "racist", it isn't "an undue burden", and the reality is that there is neither rampant voter fraud NOR voter suppression (it's an easy claim to say, "well, we would have won but they kept our people from voting." We have documentation that happened in (for example) Jim Crow days. Amazingly, we don't have video in this era of the ubiquitous phone of cops herding black voters away from precincts in the name of white supremacy, but sorta like the Loch Ness Monster and the faith healer raising all them dead folks, it supposedly still happens. (It doesn't - "so let's change what we mean by it". There are also provisional ballots and nowadays elections don't JUST occur on Election Day; the last two Presidential elections, I voted on a SATURDAY).

Both are just forms of "well, we won it but they stole it." About the ONLY redeeming quality to Donald Trump's made up horse crap about stolen elections is he does have the stones to actually SAY it rather than hide behind verbiage. He's still full of it, but at least he says it.

It is easy to type in a quick throw away comment on an interweb board that uses any one of the many logical fallacies!

I'm fine with voter ID, but at the least it should come with plenty of options and time for people to make sure they have sought it out. You can't make it cost money due to the Constitution banning poll taxes, and money is time, so it has to have provisions for that. The whole problem with the SAVE act is that they wanted to ramrod it through in the last few months before the midterms, because they calculate it will disenfranchise women over men, and women tend to vote Democratic. That is ridiculous... I would say the SAVE act if enacted would need a lead in time of an election cycle and you would have to address the time and cost. You'd need some type of provisional ballot for those who are eligible to vote and don't realize the new requirements until they arrive at the polling place (seriously, lots of people live under big rocks out there), which would be a logistical issue. My whole rambling point being fine, do what is needed, but you simply can't use any of this as a tool to disenfranchise eligible voters.

And again... As you point out... I have yet to see any evidence presented of any form of voting fraud that results in anything more than a few hundred compromised votes per year. And these illegal votes aren't all blue and red either. Election integrity needs to be maintained, but it is up to the states, not the feds, and any major changes are going to be expensive, so why do it when there isn't a currently identifiable problem?

Whew... I need to get more coffee down... Rambling!

 

[selmaborntidefan]

It is easy to type in a quick throw away comment on an interweb board that uses any one of the many logical fallacies!

I'm fine with voter ID, but at the least it should come with plenty of options and time for people to make sure they have sought it out. You can't make it cost money due to the Constitution banning poll taxes, and money is time, so it has to have provisions for that. The whole problem with the SAVE act is that they wanted to ramrod it through in the last few months before the midterms, because they calculate it will disenfranchise women over men, and women tend to vote Democratic. That is ridiculous... I would say the SAVE act if enacted would need a lead in time of an election cycle and you would have to address the time and cost. You'd need some type of provisional ballot for those who are eligible to vote and don't realize the new requirements until they arrive at the polling place (seriously, lots of people live under big rocks out there), which would be a logistical issue. My whole rambling point being fine, do what is needed, but you simply can't use any of this as a tool to disenfranchise eligible voters.

And again... As you point out... I have yet to see any evidence presented of any form of voting fraud that results in anything more than a few hundred compromised votes per year. And these illegal votes aren't all blue and red either. Election integrity needs to be maintained, but it is up to the states, not the feds, and any major changes are going to be expensive, so why do it when there isn't a currently identifiable problem?

Whew... I need to get more coffee down... Rambling!

I actually agree with all of this.

But it might be because I don’t drink coffee…..

 

[Bamabuzzard]

So... In Alabama you have to present ID to vote. Requiring a driver's license is a poll tax, which is banned by the Constitution. Therefore, you can apply for and obtain a free voting ID card from the state. That being said, obtaining said card requires a trip downtown, time off from work, and a ride to get there amongst other things. For some people this is a burden that effectively prevents them from voting.

Not necessarily directed at you, but it's not like we're asking people to roof a house in the middle of July. We're simply asking the government to not only require, but pay for and facilitate getting citizens voter ID cards. We can put a man on the moon and an object on Mars. I don't think getting citizens voter ID cards is that big of a mountain to climb.

 

[CrimsonJazz]

The face you make when you’ve been calling election integrity racist then the Democrats steal your election at 3:30am.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2087544691629641777

The “Bernie-Bro” version of Hong supporters have been screaming for roughly a day now and it has been interesting to watch.

 

[CrimsonNagus]

I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea of “well, it’s undue burden to go to town for an ID to vote but it’s NOT an undue burden to have to drive to the polling place and actually vote.”

Polling locations are far more localized and in many communities and neighborhoods across a city or town.

Voting ID locations are more limited. There is only 1 location per county in this state, not 1 location per city/town, 1 per county. There are 5 exceptions. Baldwin County has 3 locations, one each in Fairhope, Foley, and Bay Minette. Talladega County has 2 locations, one in Talladega and one in Sylacauga. Barbour County has 2, Clayton and Eufaula. Chambers County has a location in LaFayette and Lanett. Montgomery has 2 locations; both are downtown: the Secretary of State Office on Dexter Ave and the county registrar on Washington Ave.

This means that most people, especially people who live in rural areas, have much farther to travel to get a voter ID or driver's license compared to their polling locations.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just that it is harder for some to get to these locations than to their polling locations.

I really do not have much of an issue with Alabama's voter ID law, and the state does offer a free ID. Look, it might be a burden, but there are many burdens in life, many things that require you to visit offices of some kind to get things done. It's just part of life. Sometimes effort has to be made if you want something. You can actually request a mobile ID unit come to your home on the website: https://www.sos.alabama.gov/alabama-votes/voter/request-mobile-unit. I have no idea if this works, but it is there as an option.

But...

With that said. I do wonder one thing. If you have no ID, you are still allowed to vote if 2 election officials sign an affidavit saying you have been positively identified. If they will do that, why not have the option to apply for the free ID at the polling locations as well? Have applications and an election official there to check for the required documents, then let them vote a provisional ballot as if 2 election officials had signed the affidavit. I think this should be allowed.