On the surface, these new laws are attempts to solve a problem that does not exist. Below the surface, they are attempts to impose a poll tax to keep poor people from voting.

They are stupid laws that are intended to subvert the democratic process, and the people who promote them should be ashamed of themselves.

Silly Jesus: I guess I just place greater importance on establishing that people have a modicum of intelligence before they have a hand in determining the future of the country.

Seems like there are a few things to consider:

1) this is a republic -- we vote for people that make our laws. that generally allows for smarter people to be in the real position of power compared to the unwashed masses, the senate being smarter than the house.

2) the line drawn on intelligence seems to only have been drawn in the past to oppress certain minority groups. even with good intent, apartheid for instance: "they just aren't ready to govern themselves"

3) what happens when the test eliminates you -- because I don't see anything in immigration test that proves intelligence. I'd like people to have a rounded education and even a degree -- maybe post doctorate. I'd also like them to be a land owner -- that would prove they have skin in the game.

Me thinks it would be better to require the intelligence from the office holder.

AurizenDarkstar: FloydA: Silly Jesus: FloydA: Silly Jesus:

I think that there should be some standard. Up thread I proposed the U.S. Citizenship exam as a standard.

Would one of the questions on that exam cover the 24th Amendment?

Sure, why not?

OK. If someone answered that question wrong, should they be denied the right to vote?

Silly Jesus seems to be calling for a return to the days of poll taxes and literacy tests. At least that's the belief I'm getting from him based on his previous comments.

Yep. I'm setting him up.

The beauty of it is that even though I have explicitly sated that I'm setting him up, the set up is still going to work. At this point he either has to (A) concede that his opinions are contrary to established law, (B) argue against the Constitution or (C) just run away and come back to make the same claims in the next thread.

The extreme right wingers claim to love this country so much, but it's amazing how little they actually know about it.

SpikeStrip: thought voter id's were free. and don't they allow for all sorts of proof of id?

If they want to make these laws acceptable, the IDs would have to be free- but not just "kind of free," absolutely free, including no postage to mail in a request, no bus or taxi ride across town or gas for your car to go pick it up, nothing.

The 24th Amendment is entirely unambiguous about that.

If they want to issue voter IDs with photographs (the only way that this type of law could prevent any sort of voting fraud), they'll have to send the photographers around to everyone's homes, and provide the IDs to everyone, completely free of charge.


The thing is, even if they did that, they wouldn't prevent any significant voter fraud, because falsely voting under someone else's name cannot be done in sufficient numbers to sway an election without getting caught. The only kind of voter fraud that can actually sway elections involves fraudulent vote counting, which voter IDs won't prevent.

So not only are these laws anti-democratic and massive wastes of taxpayer money, they won't actually solve any real problems. As usual, it's election year grandstanding designed solely to convince the rubes that "something is being done to stop the bad people." The tragedy is that the rubes will fall for it again.

This is the equivalent of preventing 5 million people from going to the beach because there might be a shark attack.

We should make it as easy as possible to vote.

What gets me is states trying to shut down the organizations that do voter registration drives with over-regulation. It's like tin-pot dictators in 3rd world countries shutting down NGO's that advocate for democracy. How can we stand for this shiate going on in our country, in this day and age?

also I bet there will be absolutely no conservative outrage over regulations ... on voter-registration organizations .. because minorities.

trying again

Silly Jesus:
In the past such systems were used to disenfranchise primarily blacks.

primarily minorities, Chinese, Irish, Italians -- but in africa the blacks were not the minority. Great Britain also thought the residents of India were not ready to vote when they invaded.


If it was instituted now, and the goal of the person instituting it was racist in nature, how effective do you think that their cunning plan would be?

It's very hard for someone to argue that intelligence tests would end up discriminating against blacks (like in the olden days) and not sound as though they are predicting that blacks will do poorly on said tests. Hell, that's exactly what they're saying.

If you are of the mindset that minorities will score equally well on the tests with everyone else, then why bring up the past as a talking point when arguing against such tests?

Kind of a Catch 22.

you think that minorities means blacks.

I think minorities means those that are 1) easily disenfranchised because they lack numbers, or 2) have uncommon traditions that concern the majority. First generation immigrations, Chinese, Koreans -- Muslims being a good example of #2.

Yes, i do believe an intelligence test would be abused -- and abused immediately.

Silly Jesus:

I think that there should be some standard. Up thread I proposed the U.S. Citizenship exam as a standard.

Would one of the questions on that exam cover the 24th Amendment?

Silly Jesus: Again, not saying that this isn't the case, but I'd like to see a study that shows just how many people are unable to vote due to these restrictions. A theoretical one was posted upthread, but I would be curious to see some citation verifying that as many people are being disenfranchised as is being claimed.

I'd like to see a study showing just how rampant voter fraud is in America.

FloydA:
The thing is, even if they did that, they wouldn't prevent any significant voter fraud, because falsely voting under someone else's name cannot be done in sufficient numbers to sway an election without getting caught. The only kind of voter fraud that can actually sway elections involves fraudulent vote counting, which voter IDs won't prevent.


In 2007, the Brennan Center released The Truth About Voter Fraud, the most extensive analysis of voter fraud claims to date. The report finds that most allegations of fraud turn out to be baseless-and that of the few allegations remaining, most reveal election irregularities and other forms of election misconduct, rather than fraud by individual voters.

It's 50 pages but well worth the read if you care about this issue.

Nick Nostril: And yet, there's a 99.9999999% chance that Amercun's will put another goddamn millionaire (or billionaire) in the driver's seat this fall.

/ stupid farking coontry.

so vote republican?

obama wasn't a millionaire until his book sold well (a book he actually wrote himself, by the way - not ghost-wrote like most political "biographies.")

mitt, on the other hand, was the privileged son of a governor and corporate CEO who was born into money. not quite the same thing.

i'm not saying mittens wasn't good at his job. clearly if you get a $20m/year "retirement," you're good at what you do. unfortunately, mitt's job was to buy companies, fire the workforce, and send their jobs overseas to make them profitable.

Ah, more of this "you have no right to vote" crap. Yeah, elections for Senators and the President used to be very indirect, and barely traceable to the general white male property-owning public. But a number of Constitutional amendments and state laws later, and you have a right to vote. If there was no fundamental right to vote (which can be regulated i.e. felons) then there would be point to laws prohibiting interference with voting. By creating a legally sanctioned situation protected from interference, states have created a right to vote governable by time, place and manner, as other rights (like speech) are. The question over an 'explicit right to vote' is an academic exercise in navelgazing. And yes, the SCOTUS did explicitly say that Bush v. Gore could not be used as precedent. Probably with very good reason. So any attempt to conjoin proposed voter registration restrictions with such navelgazing is pure bullshiat--no one proposing such restrictions is citing or arguing from the basis that there is no fundamental right to vote. Because they might be dumb but they aren't stupid.

Silly Jesus: FlashHarry: this is 100 percent designed by republicans to disenfranchise democrats. it has nothing to do with voter fraud -- something that rarely, if ever, happens.

yes, there is always some voter registration fraud, which inevitably happens when you hire people to register voters and pay them per registration. you report the "mickey mouse" registrations and then throw them out. this is what acorn did, and it was shut down for it.

this is simply a semi-legal way for republicans do do their usual thing of posting notices in urban areas saying, "make sure your rent is paid or you can't vote!" or "make sure to vote on november 7th!" when the vote is on the 6th. that sort of thing.

basically, they're lying, cheating farking scumbag assholes who hate america.

How about we have a minimum standard for voting so that people who think that their rent is tied to the presidential election don't get a say in determining who the most powerful man in the world will be?

McDonald's has higher standards.

I propose the U.S. citizenship test as the standard. Are you smart enough to vote?

How about discarding anyone that thinks supply-side economics works? Those tards are the greatest threat this nation has ever faced.

cptjeff: namatad: 3) would end the bull shiat which currently happens with ballot box stuffing and not enough polling booths and farked up hours and not enough election judges.

Three ballots are mailed to a house. How do you know that one person doesn't fill them all out? How do you prevent somebody from going around and swiping them out of people's mailboxes?

Having a shiatload of ballots, many of which, due to lack of voter interest, will be unused, floating around is a recipe for disaster.

They have this covered already in Washington with a two-envelope system and a signature. Doesn't seem too hard to extend this to other states.

Via Infinito: Free RFID chips for all citizens will solve the voter fraud problem!

/not really serious

LOL
how about doing all voting by mail?
1) would make a paper trail
2) using encryption, you could check that your ballot was received and tabulated.
3) would end the bull shiat which currently happens with ballot box stuffing and not enough polling booths and farked up hours and not enough election judges.
4) would make recounts a shiat ton fairer and cheaper
5) would standardize ballots
6) would be resisted by both parties

Step 1: Republicans pass laws to "reduce voter fraud".
Step 2: Registered Democrats still allowed to vote.

This is why I stopped voting for the Republicans. Unbelievable.

** looks at voter registration card **

Um, yeah there IS already a voter ID system in place. fark these asshats for wasting money and time on a problem that doesn't exist.

SpikeStrip: thought voter id's were free. and don't they allow for all sorts of proof of id?

The problem is it disenfranchises the poorest and least mobile among us. If you are homeless or lack transportation getting to the place that issues voter ids could be an insurmountable obstacle. And what criteria are they using to issue the voter id? If you dont need any other form of id to get them whats the point? How is that better than showing up with no id at the polls?

I would argue that having an official voter id - with no other form of id required to get it - would allow for greater incidence of fraud and identity theft.

FloydA: On the surface, these new laws are attempts to solve a problem that does not exist. Below the surface, they are attempts to impose a poll tax to keep poor people from voting.

They are stupid laws that are intended to subvert the democratic process, and the people who promote them should be ashamed of themselves.

That implies they are capable of feeling shame.