Saturday, May 12, 2012
On Voter Fraud/ID
I'm sorry, but I think that both sides have probably engaged in some exaggeration here; the right in terms of the amount of voter fraud and the left in terms of the possible voter suppression resulting from these voter ID laws. I mean, yeah, there probably have been some dead people who have voted and, yeah, there probably will be some inconvenience due to voter ID laws but, come on, enough already with these constant, wearisome battle lines...........................................................................................And it isn't as if this were a purely intractable problem, either. Chris Matthews, for instance (and in one of his increasingly rare moments of lucidity) suggests that, for those people who don't have a picture ID on the day of voting, we take their picture (at the polling place) and file it away. In an even better idea, Ohio's Republican Secretary of State, Jon Husted, suggests that, for those people who don't have a picture ID on the day of voting, we simply ask them for the last 4 digits of their Social Security number. Hell, folks, even I had a reasonable suggestion. When people register to vote, we take their damn picture then and "grandfather" everybody else in.............................................................................................I mean, I know that both sides would probably prefer to continue demagoguing on this issue FOREVER but enough is enough is what I'm thinking.
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37 comments:
As this should reduce the very real problem of voter fraud with very little inconvenience, I support it.
I've yet to see proof that voter fraud is a "very real problem".
Jerry Critter: I've yet to see proof that voter fraud is a "very real problem".
It's not. dmarks has been duped by the Rightwing fictions and fabrications concerning ACORN.
Gentlemen, these reporters up in New Hampshire went into a polling station masquerading as dead people and were able to vote because there isn't an ID (of any kind, apparently) requirement there. Look, I'm willing to concede that this probably isn't an epic problem but even if it happens just a couple of dozen times per election cycle, if we can prevent it by simply asking people for the last 4 digits of their Social Security number, I'm all for it.
GOP controlled Idaho takes voter
fraud very seriously, though we have none. We must present photo
ID and state loudly which party
we support. Only rumors, but it is said that dems will shortly be forced to wear a sewn gold donkey
on their chest...other will be encouraged to wear pistols....
I agree, BB Idaho, some of these laws in fact have gone too far (the one in Texas is especially egregious - they'll accept a gun license but not a college ID). But giving people a photo ID WHEN they register and asking for the last 4 numbers of a person's SS # for those who are already registered but without a photo ID - those conditions aren't all that unreasonable, in my opinion.
Seems somewhat akin then to a national ID?
I think that Matthews is in favor of that, too.
Don't we have more pressing problems than to pass laws to prevent non-issues?
Jerry Critter: Don't we have more pressing problems than to pass laws to prevent non-issues?
This is a very pressing problem as far as Republicans are concerned. They need to disenfranchise as many Democrats as possible to give Mitt Romney an edge in the upcoming election.
The only Democrats who have to worry are the ones who aren't actual voters.
IMO, it is an attempt to disenfranchise certain of the legitimate citizen voter population. As Forbes notes, the
fraud issue is baseless and trumped up. (Wisconsin, we recall,
miraculously came up with 11,0000
GOP votes at the very last minute to swing their last judicial election)....ugly.
The last 4 numbers of the SS #, Jerry - asking for that is too much of a burden?
Not if it is a solution to a problem. Now all we have to do is find the problem.
According to Artur Davis (a former DEMOCRATIC Congressman from Alabama), there's a lot of voter fraud that takes place in the rural parts of his state and that it's usually one black candidate trying to screw over another one.......The way that I see it, 95%+ of the people probably already have a pictured ID. With them, their isn't a problem. For the rest, we take the last 4 digits of their SS # to ensure that there isn't any hanky-panky. Nobody gets hurt and everybody who doesn't have an agenda should in fact be happy.
Here's the video of those reporters masquerading as dead people being allowed to vote in New Hampshire. I believe that there's a similar one from Vermont, too - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-uVhhIlPk0
So, Will, is your position that voter fraud is a significant problem and that it must be addressed in order to make our election free and fair?
The much bigger problem is election fraud and disenfranchisement of people legally entitled to vote. And we're not even having a discussion regarding this much larger problem.
I'm completely opposed to addressing the virtual non-problem of voter fraud while the larger problem of election fraud is completely ignored.
We need to go back to paper ballots, return voting rights to felons who have paid their debt to society, and make it EASIER (not harder) for people to vote by extending early voting, etc...
If Republicans were on board with those reforms I'd be willing to compromise regarding their reforms. But they would not be, because their goal is not to prevent voter fraud, it is to drive down the number of people voting.
Like I said, Jerry, I think that both sides have probably exaggerated the problem in an effort to get some political mileage. I still say give the last 4 #s of your SS # and nobody gets hurt or inconvenienced.......And another thing that this Davis guy said was that he never had a single African-American citizen ever complain to him about this picture ID issue, not one. Is he lying?
So, in other words, you don't think voter fraud is a significant problem. Then, why are you even talking about a solution to something that you don't think is a problem.
Because I think that whatever we can do to ensure the integrity of an election that doesn't put an undue inconvenience on the voters we should absolutely do it.......Did you watch that video? Anybody CAN commit voter fraud if they really wanted to. What do you say that we make it so they can't. "Your last 4 numbers of your Social Security #, sir." What's so bad about that (considering that 95% of the voters it wouldn't even apply to)?
Well, let me ask you this. To work, someone has to check that the number is valid. How do you decide who gets checked, who does the checking, who pays for the people doing the checking? I could give any four numbers and unless there is a procedure in place to check the number, it will have no impact on the election or on voter fraud. It seems to me that it is simple...and ineffective. It is just something more that you have to do that solves no problem.
It's like making people wear garlic around their necks to keep the vampires away.
Only the people without a pictured ID get checked, Jerry. And the people who do the checking are the same people who check the ID, the people at the voting station. The person's SS # are in a data base and could be checked on the spot or later if a computer isn't available.......Now, let me ask you. You don't think that there should be any identification AT ALL, that any person can come off the street and say that they were whoever?
The system we currently have in place works perfectly fine. There is virtually no voter fraud. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I can't believe that you're objecting to even this virtually ultra-nonburdensome mechanism. And pople think that the right is recalcitrant. And what about what Artur Davis said about voter fraud in the rural sections of Alabama and the video in which virtually anybody can come in off the street n vote for a frigging DEAD PERSON!! You're dismissing these things as well?
Yes, I am dismissing these things. You can't get 100% compliance on anything. I'll take 1 out of a million happenings.
Progressives want to regulate virtually every aspect of American life but want absolutely zero safeguards when it comes to ensuring a clean voting process. So, let me ask you again, you don't think that there should be ANY ID requirements (even non-pictures IDs) for voting?
The existing safeguards are working just fine. No one at all is talking about "absolutely zero safeguards". I dont know where you are getting that.
Also, speaking of safeguards, what are you going to do about identity theft when you open up confidential personal files to thousands of poll workers so that they can verify SS numbers?
That's why it's just the last 4 numbers, Jerry. And in New Hampshire, there were clearly zero safeguards in that the poll-workers there didn't ask for ANY identification. The reporters posed as dead people and were allowed to prance right in. No problem with that?......And you're suddenly NOW all afraid of big brother? The feds already have all your information and it hasn't bothered you up to this point.
It is not big brother. It is thousands of poll workers accessing your data. Any database with the last four numbers has the first five numbers as well.
Show me all the people prosecuted for impersonating dead people at the voting booth. I keep saying this, it is not a problem. There is election fraud, but it is not by individuals voting.
Well, if it was successful, they wouldn't prosecuted, now would they (in some of the states, these dead people stay on the rolls for quite some time, I gather)? That's number 1. Number 2 would be that "thousands" of poll workers would NOT be accessing your data. They would be inputting the last 4 digits and only later would the numbers be verified by the Secretary of State's office. You do in fact trust them, don't you? And since we're asking for proof here, where is your proof that voter ID laws disenfranchise people? Nonpartisan studies from the Universities of Delaware, Nebraska, and Missouri and American University have all shown that voter participation does NOT go down after the enactment of these laws and in some instances participation goes up. Not that I'm necessarily in favor of these laws, mind you, but when I put forth a sensible compromise and it gets summarily rejected, what's fair is fair.......Oh, and, for the record, every time that I punch in at work now, I have to enter the last 4 digits of my Social Security # and give them my hand print. Yikes, huh?
OK, number 1, then show me cases that were not successful and thus were procecuted. Or are you really saying that it is not a problem because there are no prosecutions.
Number two, lets say they find out two days later that a person gave them an invalid last four SS number. The person has already voted. Since the vote is private and there is no record tying a vote to a person, how do you determine what vote was invalid? The only way it works is for the SS number check to be done BEFORE the person votes, not after. Hence, the poll workers, thousand of them, must be able to access SS number databases.
My argument is that they are not necessary, not that they disenfranchise people.
As far as I know, nobody's ever tried to break into my apartment. I still lock the door before I leave for work, though.............And there's got to be a way that the "thousands" of poll workers can input the last 4 numbers and and it can either come back valid or invalid. In the high-tech information age, it doesn't seem like that would be rocket-science.
Glad to see that your existing home safeguards are working...as are our existing voting safeguards.
Not in Alabama, Jerry, not in Alabama. And, please, keep in mind, the last 4 digits of the SS # would only apply to those 5-10% of voters currently absent an ID. Everybody else skates right through.
In the 2008, over 69 million votes were cast. 5 to 10% is about 3.5 to 7 million people, not an insignificant number.
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