Photo ID required!

[Coito ergo sum]

National Review and Heritage? Don't think for a minute I'm going to give that stuff a shred of weight.

Why not? It is sourced and footnoted, and states specific examples of prosecutions, department of justice action, and congressional investigations and grand jury investigations.

Why should we give any weight to the folks who claim that it isn't an issue? Who are YOUR sources, Ian?

I thank you for making your own argument look as biased the people behind this issue, which I suppose it is.

You are sounding biased, Ian, not me. If you'll look at my post, I gave the author's credentials and his affiliation. That isn't a secret. Read the fucking articles and check out the citations to the primary source material.

Coito, get new sources!

I would be happy to if you will.

If a source of information has an agenda to push

You mean, like yours?

before they've reported or written anything, they are not to be trusted no matter what "facts" they lay out in front of you.

Nonsense. Well, if you want to take that route, then you have no sources either.

I'll let you list your unbiased sources.

If I was making a point and tried to back it up with articles from the Center for American Progress and MoveOn.org, what would you think of my rebuttal?

If they cited authority for factual positions, I would look at it. If it was typical Moveon crap like "Patreus Be-Tray-Us" and wild unsubstantiated allegations, then I would disregard it as nonsense.

But, the author of the article I cited doesn't go off on wild tangents and he doesn't make outrageous, ad hom claims, and he doesn't even twist the data. He cites examples, and provides source material. Was there a Congressional investigation into Sanchez' victory over Dornan? Yes. Did that investigation find that there were non-citizens voting for Sanchez over Dornan? Yes. Did that same Congressional investigation find that they could not verify the number of illegal non-citizens may have voted? Yes. Is it possible that that election was tipped by illegal votes? Absolutely. It was only a couple hundred votes difference after THE ILLEGAL VOTES THEY FOUND were taken into account - and the Congressional investigation simply did not have a way of finding out if illegal aliens were voting.

The author did not raise alarmist rhetoric about that incident -- he explained it, and cited sources which can also be verified.

There were several other concrete examples discussed in the articles I quoted. The facts about Chicago are well known independent of this author's article, and you know it.

Your claim was that it doesn't happen, or that if it does it is so isolated and sporadic that it isn't an issue. I think the author's article, at a minimum, raises legitimate evidence that your position may not be tenable.

Now - you haven't cited a source. You've merely proclaimed that the issue is not an issue. Let us see what your sources are, Ian. And, then we can argue about bias if you want.

[Coito ergo sum]

Task force Chairman Vernon J. Ehlers, RMich., said investigators hadfound concrete evidence of 748 illegal votes by noncitizens, not enough tothrow Sanchezs victory into doubt. He and other Republicans said theresults nonetheless show that Dornans challenge was not frivolous and thatthe GOP was not unfairly targeting Hispanic voters.

http://articles.cnn.com/1998-02-13/poli ... LLPOLITICS

You think those 748 were the only ones?

Those were LEGAL non-citizens voting. You think that there were no illegals voting? And, those are the folks that the committee had no way to track.

At a bare minimum, when almost 80% of the margin of victory constitutes illegal votes. There is a problem.

It's not uncommon for House races to be decided by under 1,000 votes.

To say it isn't a problem is proven wrong by the Sanchez investigation. Even though she kept her seat, the number of illegal votes in that district - remember - this is not nationwide, that was in one, single House race -- that is a legitimate problem.

And, when you don't have to prove even CITIZENSHIP to get a voter registration card - that is a problem.

[Ian]

Well, as long as one source which cites data is as good as any other...

http://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/ ... ud-america
http://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/ ... h-it-again
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ ... _laws.html
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ ... 10111.html
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ ... _oped.html
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ ... er_id.html
http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/
http://scottwalkerwatch.com/2011/05/19/ ... ion-audio/


EDIT: That graphic doesn't seem accurate, you say? Okay, but then try this on for size: in Texas alone, there are 600,000 registered voters who do not have a photo ID. The number of alleged cases of voter fraud in Texas over the last two general elections: four.

So, voter fraud isn't nonexistent. But trying to deal with this pressing "problem" is like trying to swat a fly with a shotgun. Sure, they'll get the fly, but what's the real damage that's going to be done?

[Tyrannical]

Well, as long as one source which cites data is as good as any other...

http://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/ ... ud-america
http://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/ ... h-it-again
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ ... _laws.html
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ ... 10111.html
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ ... _oped.html
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ ... er_id.html
http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/
http://scottwalkerwatch.com/2011/05/19/ ... ion-audio/

You don't take those silly lies of no voter fraud seriously do you? Any spy should know seek and ye shall fine

But we have a new weapon to catch the illegal voters, and I have to say it is damn clever. Cross referencing voter registration with jury excuse forms claiming not a US citizen

http://patdollard.com/2012/02/mass-vote ... -election/

A local Florida station invented an unprecedented way to check for voter fraud: jury excusal forms. NBC2 compiled a list of jury excusals based on not being a citizen of the United States and compared it to a list of registered voters in two counties. They discovered almost 100 illegally registered voters, many of whom had voted multiple times. “I vote every year,” one woman told NBC2, despite the fact that she is not a US citizen. The woman had told the court that she couldn’t serve on a jury because she wasn’t a US citizen, but she doesn’t seem to have a problem voting like one.

So in just two counties, they found 100 just from jury excuse forms. If that was extrapolated based on percentage of people called for jury duty, you could be looking at over a 1000 from those two counties. Should be pretty obvious how close Al Gore came to stealing the election on the votes of illegals.

Amazing how a TV station can reveal more of the truth than corrupt and incompetent government employees.

[camoguard]

Also, the Brennan Center for Justice says more of the same.

Summary

* Fraud by individual voters is both irrational and extremely rare.
* Many vivid anecdotes of purported voter fraud have been proven false or do not demonstrate fraud.
* Voter fraud is often conflated with other forms of election misconduct.
* Raising the unsubstantiated specter of mass voter fraud suits a particular policy agenda.
* Claims of voter fraud should be carefully tested before they become the basis for action.

I don't really see the need to make any changes to a system that appears to be working as intended with regards to fraud.

[MrJonno]

Still find it hard to believe illegal immigrants would be stupid enough to vote (or even that they would want to)

[Coito ergo sum]

Well, as long as one source which cites data is as good as any other...

http://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/ ... ud-america
http://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/ ... h-it-again
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ ... _laws.html
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ ... 10111.html
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ ... _oped.html
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ ... er_id.html
http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/
http://scottwalkerwatch.com/2011/05/19/ ... ion-audio/

That is fair enough, and deserving of a response.

1. It's not that any source is as good as another, it's that a fact is not wrong because someone you don't like says it. The data is the data regardless of the mouth it comes out of. If you are saying "that source has provided false data," or "that source has provided deceptive data" then that is one thing. Certainly, the bias of a source is always a consideration when evaluating claims, though.

2. The chart you displayed is bollocks. A pie chart comparing "actual vote fraud" and "Republican lies." The chart is a nonsense, and you obviously know it.

3. When they say "voter fraud," the "fraud" word is chosen purposefully because it is narrower than just people "illegally voting." Fraud requires proven "intent." So, it's not just illegals voting -- to be fraud they have to be intentionally voting with the knowledge that they aren't legally entitled to do so. Moreover, when they discover voter registrations, they don't assume that they all went and voted. So, unless they catch someone who they know actually went and voted, then that illegal registration isn't counted as "voter fraud."

4. In reviewing your links, a common allegation is that it "might be" difficult for the elderly, blacks, and hispanics to get drivers licenses or equivalents state ID. Such persons "might" not be able to "navigate the bureaucratic minefield" associated with drivers licenses and IDs. None of your sources provides any data to that effect. No proof. No examples. Nothing. It doesn't seem to me something worthy of being assumed that a black man can't manage to get an ID. I'd like some evidence for that. I note that you have dismissed all of the evidence I cited giving examples of not only actual fraud, but also illegal registrations, and other voting IMPROPRIETIES. At least, however, I provided evidence. Do you know of any real evidence that black people and hispanics are just not able to fill out drivers license applications or apply for state IDs?

I'm going through your sources, and I will respond more.

[Coito ergo sum]

On the issue of minorities being "disenfranchised" because of having to get an ID. Seven or eight states enacted voter ID laws. In those states, Ian, has it been shown that blacks and hispanic voting went down? Elderly voting went down? If they were unable to comply, it would follow that fewer would vote because they would have been prohibited.

[maiforpeace]

Studies show that as many as 11 percent of eligible voters do not have government-issued photo ID. That percentage is even higher for seniors, people of color, people with disabilities, low-income voters, and students. Many citizens find it hard to get government photo IDs, because the underlying documentation like birth certificates (the ID one needs to get ID) is often difficult or expensive to come by.

http://www.brennancenter.org/content/se ... y/voter_id

What kind of evidence do you need, if there none in the first place?

[Coito ergo sum]

Studies show that as many as 11 percent of eligible voters do not have government-issued photo ID. That percentage is even higher for seniors, people of color, people with disabilities, low-income voters, and students. Many citizens find it hard to get government photo IDs, because the underlying documentation like birth certificates (the ID one needs to get ID) is often difficult or expensive to come by.

http://www.brennancenter.org/content/se ... y/voter_id

What kind of evidence do you need, if there none in the first place?

Notice the use of the word "eligible voters." What that study involved were not necessarily eligible voters. It was a study of any adult of voting age who responded to the survey by Opinion Research Corp. It does NOT, moreover, test whether they don't have IDs because it is difficult to get them. They just don't have IDs. To suggest that they would be inhibited from voting because of an ID requirement would need a survey of people who would want to vote, but wouldn't because of the ID requirement.

There is such a study: http://www.american.edu/spa/cdem/upload/csae080109.pdf

Voter IDs Are Not the Problem:
A Survey of Three States

Moreover, we ought to be able to use states that recently enacted voter ID laws as an actual, real world test case. Did the states that enacted voter ID laws lose voter participation from any particular groups? If they didn't, would that not be a pretty solid indicator that requiring an ID is not stopping people from voting?

Also, if it is discriminatory to require a photo ID for voting, is it any less discriminatory to require photo ID to get a mortgage? They are now required on the financial provisions of federal law governing mortgages.

How about when a bank requires a photo ID to cash a check? Isn't requiring that discriminating against blacks and hispanics? And, the elderly?

How about a photo ID to get certain medications like Claritin-D? Is it making it harder for certain groups to get necessary and beneficial medications?

How can you even be supportive of a photo ID as a requirement to drive a car? If the requirement of getting IDs is, in fact, more burdensome on blacks and hispanics, then how can one possibly argue that requiring a photo ID to drive a car is not likewise discriminatory against blacks and hispanics? If it is, in fact, more of a burden for blacks and hispanics to get drivers licenses, then it is more of a burdern. Period. Isn't that a violation of equal protection every bit as much as if one requires the ID not just for driving but for other activities?

[Coito ergo sum]

Update on my review of Ian's links. So far, they're all restating the same thing: the Brennan Center's analysis. So, another point is - listing 5 or 6 sources repeating the same underlying sources stuff is not evidence. We'll look in more detail at the actual assertions, once I get through all the links.

[maiforpeace]

Seems to be a big conundrum here...if people are citizens already, why do they need to get a photo ID too? If you can't get a photo ID without a birth certificate, then what's the use of citizenship, if you can be granted citizenship without a birth certificate?

[Coito ergo sum]

The fact that voter fraud is a serious problem has been acknowledged by the US Supreme Court --

“

onfidence in the integrity of our electoral processes
is essential to the functioning of our participatory
democracy. Voter fraud drives honest citizens out of the
democratic process and breeds distrust of our
government. Voters who fear their legitimate votes will
be outweighed by fraudulent ones will feel
disenfranchised. ‘[T]he right of suffrage can be denied
by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen’s
vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free
exercise of the franchise.’”

Purcell v. Gonzalez, 127 S.Ct. 5, 7 (2006) (per curiam) (unanimous decision with J.Stephens concurring - so that means even the most liberal Justices were in full agreement with the per curiam (by the court) decision in Purcell). So, it isn't just people who don't want photo IDs that have a dog in this hunt. Everyone else has a dog in the hunt, too.

Apparently, it was considered a strong enough problem that the Carter-Baker Commission was formed to investigate the matter - ONE example of what the Carter-Baker Commission found was that in the 2000 Washington gubernatorial race, a state judg determined that 1,678 votes had been illegally cast. Elections are very often, especially lately, that close. The Carter-Baker Commisison also found that since October 2002 the U.S. Department of Justice has launched more than 180 investigations into election fraud that have resulted in charges against 89 individuals and 52 convictions.

Famous examples of concrete voter fraud:

Tammany Hall
Kansas City's Pendergast Machine
Lyndon Johnson's race against Coke Stevenson in 1948
Mayor Richard Daley's Chicago Machine

There are books about it: Tracy Campbel's book, "Deliver the Vote: A History of Election Fraud - 1742-2004, (2005) (noting that the American political process has been “deeply corrupted . . . for over two hundred years” and that voting fraud “is a deeply embedded culture within American politics that considers cheating fully justifiable”).

Then there is the Dornan-Sanchez race where investigators turned up evidence of at least 784 illegal votes cast by noncitizens, see Hearing on Non-Citizen Voting Before the Comm. on House Admin., 109th Cong. 2 (2006) (testimony of Dan Stein) - the evidence DISCOVERED nearly accounted for the entire difference in the election. Nobody looking at that thinks for a second that the only improper votes cast were the ones discovered, and it would be painfully naive to think so.

In Texas, a city councilwoman was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for registering noncitizens to vote and then facilitating noncitizen voting by tampering with government documents. See Former Port Lavaca Councilwoman Briseno to Serve Five Years in Prison for Voter Fraud. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1856131/posts.

People were indicted for voting multiple times in the 2006 election - http://www.edinburgpolitics.com/?p=8

People like the Beeville, Texas resident who pleaded guilty to casting ballots for her deceased mother. http://www.setexasrecord.com/news/202316-
refugio-county-commissioner-pleads-guilty-to-electionfraud-scheme

I can give many, many more examples, which are out there, and in the record. The Supreme Court acknowledged many of them in Crawfor vs. Marion County, a 6 to 3 decision, which upheld voter ID requirements in principle because of the significant state interest in an honest voting system.

So, what evidence do you need, indeed? I pose that question back at you, maiforpeace. Do these things not matter?

[Coito ergo sum]

Seems to be a big conundrum here...if people are citizens already, why do they need to get a photo ID too? If you can't get a photo ID without a birth certificate, then what's the use of citizenship, if you can be granted citizenship without a birth certificate?

You don't necessarily need a birth certificate to get a photo ID. You can get one with a naturalization certificate or a passport.

You tell me? Why do we need a photo ID to drive a car? And, if getting a photo ID is discriminatory against blacks and hispanics, then they are being discriminated against under the law relative to driving cars.

If the discrimination argument is really true, then the current system of requiring drivers licenses to drive cars must, ipso facto, be likewise discriminatory. Isn't it? If not, how is that possible? On what basis is it not discriminatory or unduly burdensome?

[maiforpeace]

Where did I say that voter fraud doesn't matter?

I just think that nitpicking the on the poor, elderly and Hispanics is a misplaced area of concern...I'd rather have a discussion about Diebold and that kind of fraud...to this day that hasn't been cleared up really, has it?