New Voter ID Laws And The 2012 Elections
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-06-11/new-voter-id-laws-and-2012-elections
Last week county election officials in Florida said they would stop looking for possible ineligible voters because the data base they were using was outdated and inaccurate. The U.S. Department of Justice also had ordered the state to stop the purge on the grounds that it was taking place within 90 days of an election. State leaders in Florida have vowed to find another way to remove ineligible voters from their rolls. The skirmish in the state of Florida is just one of many elsewhere around the country: Last year new voter ID measures were introduced in thirty-four states and they passed in four. Four other states tightened existing ID rules. Please join us to talk about ongoing partisan battles over voter rights.
Guests
Wendy Weiser
director, Democracy Program, Brennan Center for Justice
Hans Von Spakovsky
senior legal fellow, Heritage Foundation and manager of Civil Justice Reform Initiative
Doug Chapin
director, Electionline.org at the University of Minnesota
Comments
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I will keep this simple. Let's call this what it is. It's a republican tactic to rid the voter rolls of minorities, independents and democrats. It makes sense from this standpoint that they have targeted the county(s) in Florida with a higher number of these people. I have read that they seldom find one non-citizen because that person does not want to show up in the system.
Candy in Arlington Texas
ecgberht wrote: "One shred of evidence that that is the objective."
"I don't want everyone to vote," Paul Weyrich, Founder of ALEC.
Your assumption that people that don't own land must therefore be homeless and dependent upon The State is ludicrous and lacking the logic you claim to seek. Millions of people rent homes, condos, apartments etc. I guess it is pure coincidence that the people that tend to not have required ID are poor and non-white, and they tend to vote "d".
Hey KadeKo, was there a point in there somewhere?
Florida voter registration is racial profiling. My white, blond, son went to the Voter Registration office in Duval County to replace his voter registration card. He gave them his name only and they replaced his card. He did not have to show any ID, or prove his citizenship at all. He brought 3 pieces of ID with him and did not have to show any at all. I can not believe this would happen if he was not white.
Rick Evans wrote:
"SS# yes, photo ID, NO" There's no need to show a photo ID to open an online brokerage or bank account. SS# yes, photo ID, NO."
Don't add words to what I wrote I said I.D. not photo I.D.!
An SS card would get you the photo I.D. to vote.
Rick Evans wrote: . "How does a photo ID prove citizenship'
Many state issue i.d.'s do prove citizenship, no one said it was full proof.
A social security card is not a photo ID and no I did not have to produce my driver's license to sign my lease or close on my mortgage.
Guess, what illegal immigrants buy houses. If they are using fake photo IDs to buy houses, as you assert, how would a photo ID prevent voter fraud?
"You had to show I.D. when you opened your bank account to accept direct deposit and to allow ATM activity. "
WRONG. There's no need to show a photo ID to open an online brokerage or bank account. SS# yes, photo ID, NO.
Arkus, you asked "What state requires dna samples? What state requires tests for alcohol?"
ANSWER: Florida. Rick Scott pushed through Legislation that required dna samples in the form of urine to test for drugs/alcohol
It should be noted here: Rick Scott's wife makes MILLIONS off of that testing.
@ecgbehrt:
Read it again, slowly. I typed it slowly just for you.
Freedom rocks wrote:
"Your assumption that people that don't own land must therefore be homeless and dependent upon The State is ludicrous and lacking the logic you claim to seek. "
Well, I would agree if that was indeed my "assumption" and what I wrote. Unfortunately, it is a strawman and not what I said at all. Please read more carefully:
"I will say though, that there was logic to the original plan that only property owners could vote. Property owners have a vested interest in well-run efficient government and a successful society that maintains property values, etc. We have something less than that today. What is the vested interest of someone who has no home and no job and whom the government supports? Answer: only himself.
Would I recommend a return to 1776? Not at this point, but I see the logic in it."
"What is the vested interest of someone who has no home and no job and whom the government supports" is not the same as "people that don't own land must therefore be homeless and dependent upon the State."
See the logic in that, Freedom?
Rick Evans, a Social Security card or number is far more intrusive into your life than a drivers license. So you agree then that a photo I.D. is not that big a deal.
Thank You!
KadeKo wrote:
"Read it again, slowly. I typed it slowly just for you."
Read: I am unable to make my point clearly.
Between 2002 and 2006, the DOJ’s efforts resulted in only 86 convictions out of nearly 200 million votes cast, a rate of 0.0000004%.
In Minnesota, which has been at the center of the Right’s search for voter fraud, a report by Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota found that a grand total of 26 people were convicted of voter fraud in 2008 — all because they were felons who mistakenly voted. In other words, “nine ten-thousandths of one percent (0.0009%) of 2008 voters were convicted of fraud” in Minnesota.
"Voting as a liberal. That's what kids do,"-New Hampshire Speaker William O'Brien. New Hampshire House Republicans are pushing for new laws that would prohibit many college students from voting in the state - and effectively keep some from voting at all.
“African Americans and Hispanics were asked to show ‘picture ID’ more often than Whites — 70% for African Americans, 65% for Hispanics, and 51% for Whites.” -A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology examining why an estimated 23.2 million registered voters did not cast ballots in 2008.
The Brennan Center reports that while eight percent of voting age white citizens don’t have a current, government-issued photo ID, the number jumps to 16 percent for Hispanics and 25 percent for African Americans. In addition, those earning less than $35,000 per year are more than twice as likely to lack proper ID as those with higher incomes. According to a University of Washington study, “[I]ndividuals who are racial and ethnic minorities, foreign-born, of a lower socioeconomic status, and are younger all are less likely to have a driver’s license,” which is “the primary valid form of identification accepted for voting purposes.”
“Over time, unfounded fraud allegations influence voting policy by shaping voting rules and procedures in a way that inhibit the democracy-expanding potential of voting rights movements.”-"The Myth of Voter Fraud", Lorraine C. Minnite.
As a US-born citizen, I am regularly asked for identification whenever I apply for a job, open a bank account or a credit card, or other mundane situations where the institution requires ID. Every time I vote, I am asked for identification to prove my identity before I vote. This is never a problem for me, since I have valid ID. Why should it be any different for any other voter? As far as I know, every legal citizen can easily obtain valid ID documentation.
"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."
Quote by Paul Weyrich, cofounder of the Heritage foundation
I find that the number of people found in one voting area of Florida came up with 40 who were not citizens. My question is , how many people were screened to achieve this number?
Also, if 12 people were successfully proscecuted from 2000 to 2005 out of ALL of Florida; why should I fear that the outcome of an election would be swayed if not found? I believe that the " hanging chad " had a much larger effect ; questioning how we vote than who votes would be more important.
As a US-born citizen, I am regularly asked for identification whenever I apply for a job, open a bank account or a credit card, or other mundane situations where the institution requires ID. Every time I vote, I am asked for identification to prove my identity before I vote. This is never a problem for me, since I have valid ID. Why should it be any different for any other voter? As far as I know, every legal citizen can easily obtain valid ID documentation.
Indiana's picture ID law was NOT upheld in the Supreme Court. The Court ruled, that as the law had not been put into effect at the time of the argument, the potential harm cited by the plaintiffs could not be proved. If the law later proved to cause discrimination, the court would overturn the law.
No harm, no ruling. See if they follow that position on the Affordable Care Act!
Dave
ecgberht , you gave two choices,
1: people with land
2: "... someone who has no home and no job and whom the government supports".
The gist of that is that if one has no land, one is homeless. You made no other options available.
It's important to remember that all the old ways of keeping almost all black people voteless in the South were on paper fair and reasonable-seeming. Their application never was.
Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Roosevelt T. Franklin are at the Pearly Gates. St Peter comes out and says, 'You gotta pass a test to get in. Now, Teddy, sir, how do you spell "cat"?'
---'C-A-T'
'You're in. Franklin, sir, how do you spell "dog"?
---'D-O-G'
"I don't like you, but you're in.'
The two Roosevelts walk in. St Peter turns to the remaining Roosevelt, smiles, and says, 'You! Boy! How do you spell "honorificabilitudinitatibus"?'
Stopping voter fraud is a laudable endeavor. Unfortunately, there's very little voter fraud and when the REPUBLICANS promoting ID laws, voter purges, registration restrictions have been asked to give actual examples of voter fraud, they can't provide examples and simply spout their focus-group tested statements about stopping voter fraud.
Caging and other techniques are being used by REPUBLICANS to target DEMOCRATIC voters because REPUBLICANS know they are a minority of the voters and they cannot win without cheating.
Here in Texas, my neighbor is an election judge. He lost his wallet. Because he didn't have an acceptable photo-id, he would no longer be able to vote with his voter registrations card. He could run the polls and determine who could vote and even have people arrested at the polls if they disobeyed his directions at the polling place, but he couldn't vote.
He went to get a new state id so he could vote. It took over 6 hours and he had to use his birth certificate, voter registration card, and his vaccination record from when he was a child in the 1950's.
Imagine a hotel housekeeper or gardener in the same situation. Is he or she going to take 6 or 7 hours off from work and lose that pay to get a new id that is only needed to vote - especially when that loss in pay could mean no food on the table for their family the next week?
This attempt to restrict voting to people who support one party is traitorous and those who are doing it are traitors spitting the grave of every person who has shed blood to defend our freedoms.
This is all a political issue - the Republicans are using a diversionary tactic to move the focus from election fraud, where the real problem is, to voter fraud. Thinking rationally, how many individual voters committing voter fraud would it take to swing an election? But it has been proven that election fraud, the manipulation of votes by privately owned electronic voting machines is possible. These machines have switched votes, broken down, and have been shown to be easily hacked.
Arkus Duntov wrote:
"Whats with you people anyway. I put plenty of facts up there and all I get in return is made up garbage and hyperbole."
Really? You are presented with the fact from LibVet about 7 legitimate cases of voter fraud in over 150 years of Indiana voting history, and your response is (to paraphrase) "We just didn't catch all the evil-doers".
Let assume that Indiana caught only 1% of the voter fraud. That would mean there were 700 cases of voter fraud that occurred in Indiana over 150 years. If we assume there were, on average 1 election every 2 years, that would mean that there was 8 cases of voter fraud per election (by election I am including local, state and national). I am not a political expert with knowledge of all the results of every Indiana election over the last 150 years, but I am willing to bet that extremely few of the elections were decided by 7 votes or less.
If you want do the math for the 7 confirmed cases as representing 0.1% of the the actual cases, then the number goes to 80 votes per election spread out over the elections in that cycle. If you go to 0.01% the we are at 800 and still I would argue a statistically insignificant number when hundreds of thousands to millions of votes are cast.
I'm sorry if I have insulted you,I wasn't trying to, but these seem to be facts. I will reiterate LibVets comment, "A solution in search of a problem"
I spend the winter in the south. I have heard "winter visitors" brag about voting by absentee ballot in their home state and also voting locally at their winter location. Will these laws find them as duplicates? BTW, I am quite sure they are voting for conservative candidates.
Colleen
Paul Weyrich, one of the founders of the Heritage Foundation, stated in 1980 that the Republicans don't want more people to vote, that quite frankly their influence goes down when more people vote. You can watch his speech on youtube.com. This is a strictly political issue.
NC-TOm wrote:
"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."
He can say what he likes. By the way, his statements about how elections take place in this country is accurate. Most people don't care enough to vote. It's a travesty.
Gerald Fnord wrote:"It's important to remember that all the old ways of keeping almost all black people voteless in the South were on paper fair and reasonable-seeming. Their application never was."
Why is it important to acknowledge this in this conversation? voter I.D. laws are color blind! you wouldn't be trying to race bait would you?
The Voting Rights Institute has studied the impact of photo ID laws using the actual costs incurred in Indiana and Georgia—the two states that have implemented photo ID laws—and considered the cost estimates from 17 states where photo ID laws were introduced this year.
In 2011, Republicans have advanced photo ID legislation in at least 35 states. The report concluded that if these 35 states enact a photo ID law, they collectively will spend at least $276 million, and possibly as much as $828 million, in the first four years alone.
Over four years, Indiana's strict voter ID law cost taxpayers more than $10 million just to issue new IDs. Estimates by other states projected additional implementation costs of up to $25.2 million in North Carolina over three years, $16.9 million in Missouri over three years.
$276,000,000 - $828,000,000 to fight .00009% of invalid votes cast. My bad, I thought lots of people were concerned about too much government regulation costing taxpayers too much money. I guess if it is to limit teacher pay they are concerned, but if it is to limit .00009% of invalid votes, it should be a major concern.
I think Republicans are pushing new laws & policies to reduce voter participation because the 2000 general election proved that they can help republican candidates.
A lot of talk 11 years ago was about the ballot counting process and the close count in Florida. What received much less attention was the fact that many legitimate voters were kept from casting ballots in Florida.
Has any study estimated how many ballots were not cast in Florida in 2000? If they had been cast, perhaps the count would not have been as close as it was.
Sounds to me that a) fraudulent voting is very rare b) voter ID laws do exclude potential voters from the lists of eligible voters c) few of those excluded voters were ever going to vote in the first place.
1) Republican Indiana Secretary of State convicted of Voter Fraud in February of this year.
2) Indiana Gov Mitch Daniel's decided to keep the convicted Secretary of State in office governing Indiana elections.
Facts 1) & 2) here speaks VOLUMES and proves GOP don't give one dang about stopping voter fraud.