1. Do you favor Photo ID requirements for voters? Why or Why not/
Some sort of id to prove you are who you say you are. It almost seems like common sense.

2. Will the law insure that voter fraud is minimized or prevent voters from casting ballots – give examples to defend your position.
To a certain extent yes, but hitting the electronic voting machines and changing the vote totals would yield a better result.

3. Will this decision lead to the same requirements in other states? Should it?
Not in the near future, probably by 2020. Yes.

1. Do you favor Photo ID requirements for voters? Why or Why not/

Yes I do. I voted early this year for my primary becuase I won't be able to get away form work to vote on Tuesday. And all they asked for was my address and street name. It always amazes me that that is the only line of defense against voter fraud. I don't buy the argument that people will be disenfranchised by photo ID requirements. If someone is civic minded enough to even register and vote then I just don't think it makes any sense to think they wouldn't be able or willing to get a state ID. Also I don't think there are many people walking around without state ID's. It seems like you would have to go out of your way to live in this society without a government issued ID. How do you get utilities, a bank account, or even a job without a form of picture ID?


2. Will the law insure that voter fraud is minimized or prevent voters from casting ballots – give examples to defend your position.

Without a doubt yes. At the very least it will deter people from trying to skew elections via fraud. Not one election year goes by without a story about how the dead or voting or precincts where there are 120% turn out. This is just the least deterrent a state can do.

3. Will this decision lead to the same requirements in other states? Should it?

I hope so. North Carolina sure could use it.

Are you talking about this link? http://www.florida2000election.com/

Seriously? You are putting that website forth as a source??? Who is behind that site (there is no contact information given)? That kind of site only adds to the feeling that it was a conspiracy.

Everything is sourced in that link. I am assuming you didn't bother to actually read the pages otherwise you wouldn't look so foolish. Care to try again?

Another point in this discussion to make is how many homeless people are there? Are we going to limit our nation's elections integrity for a minority? When I say a minority, I am not talking about a group that makes up 25% of our population. This group doesn't even make up 10% of our population. Would you believe that this group makes up less than 1% of the population? Yep! Even though the Census Bureau doesn't keep statistics on the homeless population, an organization called National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) did a survey and found that in a given night there are 744,313 homeless people in this country. If I did the math correctly, that is .25% of America's estimated population. Furthermore, it is estimated that 27% of the homeless population are under the age of 18. My calculations tell me that you support stopping our nation's voting systems integrity from improving based on less than one percent of the nation's population. Though I am not discounting this group as people, I don't see the value in stopping this type of law based on such a small percentage of people. In reality, what (and I am asking as you work with this group) percentage of homeless people vote? How many people will it actually affect?

With key words like : Steal Florida, Election theft, stolen election. I don't think thats a good site to source an argument.

[/quote]
With key words like : Steal Florida, Election theft, stolen election. I don't think thats a good site to source an argument.
[/quote]

Good point...I won't argue with bold face out of context.

trumpetplayer: Off topic: But the link isn't from a credible news organization or journalist. In fact, the writer of the site does not publish their identity at all to lend to their credibility. Without an author, there's no assurance that the source does not have a vested interest in the Republican party. The site even goes as far as to give a staunch critique on a movie based upon only a trailer. That would never been acceptable as an academic source and therefore I cannot say it's credible. This is not an attack on you, merely the source you presented.

On-Topic: In assessing the homeless population shouldn't the number be lower, or does that account for teenage and criminal homeless population. I know, that sounds really harsh.

Off Topic: Interesting. So, if someone wants to remain anonymous, write a paper and sources it to credible, sound sources, it must be ignored? I am assuming therefore, you have never attended a major university. No disrepect, but I cannot see where your reasoning here makes any sense.

The numbers I quoted were all inclusive from that study. 744,313 is all homeless in a given night. I also found that it is estimated that 27% of that number is under the age of 18. Since the Census Bureau doesn't actually keep track of the number of homeless, all we can go on is estimates.

Yeah, no disrespect intended, I'm sure.

What major university did you graduate from that allowed you to source biased, secondary sources like your website? It's no more credible than if someone had cited the movie "Fahrenheit 911" while trumpeting that the movie offered - what was the phrase - "much more truth and much less controversy"?

There is a good reason that responsible journalists and writers don't do their work anonymously. Anonymous work has zero credibility.

University of Illinois, before the internet. It's quite apparent that you have not been to a major university, there is no problem with that. Here let me enlighten you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anony...published_works

The author may have good reason to remain anonymous. After seeing the way liberals act to anyone defying the party line I can see that, especially if they are still in college.

Here are some of the sources in the main part of the piece that you fail to even acknowledge.

http://www.uselectionatlas.org/

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/election...tion_night.html

"Al Gore wins the state of Florida and its 25 electoral votes. It gives him the first big-state momentum of the evening."
Peter Jennings of ABC

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/s...robe/index.html

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/cont...000/gore_5.html

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/s.../13/recount.tm/

On and on and on.


Now the part you have concentrated on in it's ENTIRETY and IN CONTEXT..hard word for liberals I know.



Where was he wrong on his assumptions? And notice this wasn't part of the piece done on the rest of the election. But hey, if a few die hards want to believe the DNC mantras and not live in the real world I cannot help you.

U. of Illinois? Here's a coincidence - Illinois was my safety school. (I didn't need it.)



Let me enlighten you - we were discussing the effects of anonymity on the perceived credibility of a piece of "journalism." The Wiki page you referenced primarily lists anonymous works of fiction. It doesn't really support your position. If you were trying to compare the author of that website to Michael Scheuer, well, that is quite a stretch. Michael Scheuer was a qualified guy who withheld his name from a book because of his position. The book still had to go through editors and sources had to be checked. But any goof can put up a website with basically zero supervision.

If you want your points to be taken seriously, use primary references. And try not to be such a jerk about it when you post.

John, it's ok. I wasn't offended by trumpet's comments. When you live in my world, you develop a thick skin. Let's all just drop the source issue. Let just get back on topic by saying that that Voter I.D. thing, does leave the door open for abuse by certain states who might want to discourage certain groups from voting for less than scrupulous reasons. I think it's a good idea that needs to be kept strictly in check. Otherwise it might lead to something moreover like a National I.D. card.

Well we have your ANONYMOUS word on that don't we?



Hmm jerk, nice. Love you too man.

So let me get this straight, I reference a web site that cites sourced information and you claim its not jounalism. I would like to know WHERE I ever claimed it was? Why do liberals need to CONSTANTLY bait and switch? So now, rather than have to debate the FACTS of a website you, no offense because you are definately not alone, like a good little soldier, turn it into an attack on the author and me for some reason. Please also notice, you didn't even acknowledge again the sourced material given as valid material.

So everyone understands what you are saying. What he is saying is that you cannot use news articles or data as source material. So if HE were grading YOUR paper that you wrote, and it was an anonymous work, you would fail because of that. How very interesting. I will not sidetrack this any more that it has been but thank you for enlightening me.


Back to the topic:

Would a National ID card be a bad thing? I don't think it would work because elections are considered a State's responsibility to carry out if I am not mistaken as written in the Constitution. Wouldn't that require a State ID to make it work in their system?

And with up to 20 million illegal aliens we need a National ID card. Certainly if we are going to implement universal healthcare – even at the state level we need to have a secure ID – as Canada does.

Our Constitution guarantees us privacy not anonymity.

Which states would want to discourage which groups for which reasons, and what does requiring someone to show an ID have to do with it? I don't want you to think that I just drop in and not contribute, but your statement is very bold, and vague.


I do agree with your statement about privacy not anonymity, however I don't know if we need a National ID. I think there should be national standards in regards to state IDs, which I think there are. Afterall, if you get pulled over in Florida, and you have an Alaska driver's license, they can pull up your records. Why do we need another system that allows that?

"States" was the wrong word. Groups who would like to increase a parties' chance of winning might see this as a way to discourage the homeless or low-income voters from doing so.

Now we go back to the conversation as to how showing an ID discourages people that are legal to vote. Feel free to share with us why you think a state issued ID is discouraging people from voting. I am also interested in learning which groups you are referring to. The same argument could be made that the Democratic party would like to make it easier for illegal aliens to vote by not requiring a photo ID.

Because some people cannot for one reason or another, cannot/will not/don't want to obtain a valid form of I.D. I did not say I was against this measure, I just stated that some of the people who bought this up might have had an ulterior motive for doing so and therefore we must be careful not to go too far. I think your second point is valid which are one of the reasons I liked this measure in the first place to better ensure the fairness of an election process while not going overboard and slipping back into violating any civil rights as a citizen

1. I'm opposed to Photo ID requirements. And one good reason comes from a poll worker: I usually work at the polls on election day. When voters ask me why we don't require them to show ID to vote I tell them that Americans are not required to "carry papers." We, the People are in charge here and we do not have to prove to anyone that we are citizens.

The idea of showing identification before being allowed to vote sounds simple, but often the intrusion into our freedom are. ANY law that makes it more difficult to vote is a law that needs to be overturned.

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the decision, said Indiana has a valid interest in protecting 'the integrity and reliability of the electoral process."

But a law that disproportionally punishes the elderly and the poor lacks integrity. The New York Times wrote in an editorial:

It is chilling to think that state legislators and election officials would intentionally try to make it harder for Americans to vote, but they always have -- with poll taxes, literacy tests and gerrymandering. There was a time when the Supreme Court regularly struck these restrictions down. In 1966, it held Virginia's $1.50 poll tax unconstitutional. In 1972, it ruled that Tennessee’s one-year residency requirement for voting violated the Constitution.

Now the Supreme Court has switched sides. This week, it upheld a harsh Indiana voter ID law that could disenfranchise many poor, elderly and student voters. The ruling will make it even easier for other states to block voters' access to the ballot box.

If the courts won’t protect voters, Congress has to. The Constitution, in Article 1, Section 4, gives Congress broad authority to set the rules for federal elections. It should use this power to set minimum voting rights standards that would apply nationwide and ensure that all eligible Americans could vote.

Voter registration rules are the place to start. Federal law should hold organizations like the League of Women Voters harmless if they make good-faith mistakes while registering people. There should be a federal voter registration form, usable in any state, and uniform regulations so Ohio could not throw out forms based on paper thickness and Florida could not bar voters, as it now does, from fixing small errors on a form within a month of an election.

Congress should also regulate voter challenges at the polls. Parties and candidates often use bad-faith challenges as a dirty trick -- to intimidate voters or to slow down voting in certain neighborhoods. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, has a good bill that would require challengers who are not election officials to sign an affidavit stating why they believe a specific voter is not eligible. link

2. These laws were created to fix a "problem" that really isn't. Republican controlled state legislatures like these bills because they're aimed squarely at making voting more difficult for like Democratic voters.

The Indiana law, adopted by the Republican-controlled legislature in 2005 without a single Democratic vote, is regarded as the strictest in the country. It requires a voter to present a photograph as part of an unexpired document issued either by Indiana or the federal government, a requirement that in most cases can be satisfied only by a current driver’s license or a passport. The state's motor vehicle agency provides a free photo ID card for people who do not drive, but obtaining it requires a "primary document" like an original birth certificate or a passport.

Would-be voters without proper identification may cast a provisional ballot that will be counted only if they appear within 10 days at a county clerk's office and present acceptable photo identification or, alternatively, swear either that they are indigent or that they have a religious objection to being photographed.

The Indiana law was challenged in separate suits filed by the Indiana Democratic Party and by another group of plaintiffs that included elected officials and community groups. The plaintiffs argued that the state had failed to justify a requirement they said would place a special burden on thousands of eligible voters in Indiana who lack driver’s licenses, a group that disproportionately includes the poor, the elderly and people with disabilities.

The plaintiffs lost, both in Federal District Court in Indianapolis and in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago. Writing for the 2-to-1 majority at the appeals court, Judge Richard A. Posner agreed with the plaintiffs that the law would have the greatest impact on people who were "low on the economic ladder and thus, if they do vote, are more likely to vote for Democratic than Republican candidates." While that fact gave the Democratic Party standing to sue, he said, it did not make the law unconstitutional. link

Seems pretty obvious this is just more of the same old "keep the po' folks poor and away from the ballot box," garbage. Back in the day, it was White Southern Democrats disenfranchising impoverished Blacks. Now it's White Northern and Southern Republicans disenfranchising impoverished Blacks. The names change, but running the game doesn't.

3. Other states are picking up on this type of pernicious voter suppression such as Missouri, but not without being challenged:



The League of Women Voters of Missouri strongly opposes the constitutional amendment, HJR 48, which would require voters to obtain and show a government-issued photo ID before exercising their constitutional right to vote.

Research shows that photo ID requirements encourage racial and ethnic discrimination at polling places, prevent eligible voters from participating, and limit turnout. Genuine instances of impersonation at the polls are rare, and the costs of this proposed solution to an unproven problem are great.

In 2006 the Missouri Secretary of State estimated that almost 240,000 Missourians of voting age, including about 16 percent of our seniors, don't have a state-issued photo ID. The burden of obtaining one falls hardest on elderly, low-income, minority or handicapped people, who often lack the required documents (birth certificates or marriage licenses) needed to obtain ID. A photo ID requirement would disenfranchise the very people who must work the hardest to vote at all.

Missouri should be in the business of encouraging full participation, not impeding the right to vote. The Legislature should oppose the voter ID requirement and instead focus on improving poll worker training and ensuring our elections are more efficient, secure, accurate and re-countable.

Jo Sapp
President, League of Women Voters of Missouri

link

Voter I.D. laws are inherently discriminatory, disenfranchising and anti-Democratic.

How is showing an ID making something as simple as punching out a chad on a voting ballot harder?


Anything besides your opinion or that of the NYT to support how showing an ID punishes anyone?


Seriously, why does every debate turn racial to you? IDs are to disenfranchise the black community? I thought it was to disenfranchise the poor. Now it is a racial issue.


Quite the bold statement. You seem pretty passionate about it. Anything of substance to back this up?

Now that Indiana has set this law, the state has made available free IDs to those that are indigent. This way, if you can't afford the ID, you can get one for free.

MSNBC wrote an interesting article about this issue back in January.

Some highlights:

You ask a lot of questions, scubatim. It's one of your less endearing and more tiresome traits. Someone makes a remark you disagree with or dispute its veracity, but instead of presenting a counter argument, you try to slowly bleed the poster to death with a thousand little paper cuts.

Why does every debate turn racial to me? WHAT DEBATE? YOU aren't debating.

You're just sitting there with a baffled look on your mug and expecting me to enlighten you when I just provided no less than three sources to support my argument. Then you come back with a off-the-wall remark like "Anything of substance to back this up?

If the New York Times, a quote from the president of a local chapter of the League of Women Voters and directly quoting an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court isn't "substantial" enough for you, scubatim, I kind of consider this to be your problem and not mine. Sorry i f I don't feel a need to search for sources you do consider of "substance."

Just for the sake of clarification permit me to point out the obvious: I'm not here to provide you with the answers to all of life's questions. Do your own research. I do mine. Don't expect me to do yours as well. We don't have that kind of relationship.

However, I will answer one of your questions.

why does every debate turn racial to you?

Every debate doesn't turn racial to me. That's your hype, not my reality. But I don't shy away from recognizing the racial component in a debate when it's there either. If that offends you, annoys you or angers you---I really do not care.

Voter suppression is historically directed to disenfranchise poor people in general and Black people specifically. I'm not going to waste the bandwidth giving you chapter and verse of how it works. Google "voter suppression" and have a party. It was practiced throughout the era of Jim Crow segregation in the South and it is still practiced to this day in the South and in the North as well, only now instead of White Southern Democrats its now typically done by White Southern and Northern Republicans.

Government-mandated I.D. cards are a creeping form of privacy invasion. This is not apartheid South Africa where pass cards are required. Voting should be made easier, not more difficult. As I said before this is a cure in search of a malady.

The law is aimed at alleged fraudulent voting by unregistered or noncitizen voters. Republicans insist that these voters pose a major problem, despite the fact that every systematic study of the question has concluded that this kind of fraud--called "voter impersonation"--is all but unknown in the United States right now. In fact, authorities in Indiana could not point to a single case of voter impersonation in the state's history. link

Voter fraud does occur. No one is suggesting it doesn't. But it doesn't occur nearly as much as the strange "glitches" that happens every time Americans go to vote only to find they have gone to the wrong precinct and nobody told them where the right one is, there aren't enough machines available or too many are broken, don't record the votes cast correctly and other irregularities that are not the fault of the voter.

Which is a point of which the NAACP concurs.

In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Indiana's voter identification law, the most restrictive in the nation. The American Civil Liberties Union's case, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board -- consolidated with Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita -- was an appeal of two lower court decisions that upheld the state's law requiring voters to present government-issued photo IDs in order to vote. The ACLU, NAACP and others argued that the Indiana law creates an unconstitutional burden on voting rights.

"As the dissent notes, Indiana's law will sadly but predictably have its greatest impact on tens of thousands of voters in any state who are poor, elderly, belong to racial minorities, or have disabilities," said NAACP Interim General Counsel Angela Ciccolo. "Many of whom are less likely to have or carry a photo ID or have the means to secure such an identification."

"Mandated photo ID programs would create a modern-day poll tax for voters throughout the country," said NAACP Washington Bureau Director Hilary Shelton. "This is both discriminatory and inconsistent with historic policies to eliminate poll taxes. Even if states provided everyone of voting age an ID at no charge, they could not guarantee that every poll worker would apply the mandates in a fully equitable manner."

Such ID requirements also do nothing to address many of the actual, documented problems of election and voter fraud which continue to plague the electoral process and our democracy, including the improper purges of voters, distributing false information about when and where to vote, stuffing ballot boxes, and tampering with registration forms, most of which are perpetrated by corrupt election officials, not voters. link

I know this comes from the NAACP and the other link from The Nation, but I'm not racking my brain trying to convince you of anything or search for the source you find has sufficient "substance," scubatim. That would be presuming your mind is open to the opposing point of view and that is a presumption I don't choose to make.

What I would like to see is if you can make the case that voter fraud is such a massive problem it demands states take action to protect the sanctity of the electoral process.

More likely though your only response with be another question like, "Who, me?"

Asking questions is a bad thing? Oh, look, another question! You are just tired of people not bowing down to your position. Asking questions is a very valid use of this site. Questioning someone is substansive. Get used to people not agreeing with you and making you provide more than an editorial from the NYT. If it is so tiresome, don't reply. I don't have to provide a counter arguement. I have already gone down this road with other members, so I refuse to repost my points. If you decide not to read the thread, that is your problem.


Everyone here will tell you an op-ed is not a credible source. You would tell me that if I used one. Get over it. Something substansive would be a paper proving that using an ID would be disenfranchising. You can't do that because there is no evidence. Only opinion.


I have done mine. I am asking you questions pertaining to your position. This means that you have not substansively supported your position. Go back through my posts and you will find plenty of actual numbers and research. Still waiting to find out from your side exactly how an ID card disenfranchises the poor and the black community. Funny how it is only the black community and not the Asian community as well.


Again, you claim that this makes voting harder, I ask you to tell me how that is. I also want you to tell all of us how having some form of photo ID is an invasion of privacy. I would venture to guess that everyone on this board has some sort of government issued ID. It apparently isn't such a big deal to have a government issued ID, until this came up. I know you hate when someone disagrees with you and asks you to do something more than to just make bold claims, but that is why we are here. Just because you said so doesn't quite cut it.

I would agree that it is really hard to prove someone has voted that wasn't supposed to. We haven't had anything in place to provide that protection. Until we do, no one can prove that it isn't happening either.


I think we can agree that the ballots and the counting of the ballots could use an overhaul. What does this have to do with showing an ID? If you live in a community that the local news organizations (newspapers et al) don't publish the polling places days ahead of time, maybe you should find out why. I also would wonder how this is something that comes out of the "Great Right-Wing Conspiracy". Does the Republican Party alone decide polling places?



Yeah, you are right. I am the one that is closed to opposing viewpoints. You are wide open to other positions, right? The point is that I can't prove that millions of illegal immigrants are voting for Democrats because there isn't a system in place to ensure that it isn't happening, but at the same time you can't prove that they aren't. I would think that the liberals that are so opposed to this type of system would actually be willing to allow it just to prove to those damned Republicans that nothing sinister is going on. For some reason, they aren't willing to do that. Since there is a greater possibility that the integrity of our already corrupt voting process can be and is being abused, this type of law would help prevent the further degredation of the process. If all states had laws such as this, it would be interesting how blue the blue states really are.

Actually, it's your problem. I have read the entire thread. You've posted at least ten times in this four page thread. In that time you've hotlinked to four--count 'em--four other sites. One story from Seattle about ACORN and voter registration fraud. A link to the state of Indiana in how to get a I.D. and two links dealing with the homeless.

Everything else was just blah, blah, blah.

Asking questions isn't a bad thing. Unless that's all you do (and it is). Or if the questions have already been answered and you don't like the answer so you just want to be argumentative. Yes, I'm afraid you do have to provide a counter argument unless you're just another lurker or you're here to say, "Me too" and tag along to others who do bother supporting their points.

But PLEASE don't repost your points. Going through them once was tiresome enough.



Everyone here will tell me an op-ed is not a credible source? Really? And you know this...how? Did you take a poll? Did you send PMs to every member of the board? How do you KNOW what "everyone" will tell me, scubatim? Go ahead and tell me. This ought to be good.

While I'm waiting, editorial pages and columnists are quite credible. That is one reason they give out Pulitzer Prizes for best commentary. That is also a reason most newspapers have them in the first place. Of course, I've only been around journalism for only 17 years, so what do I know? Certainly not as much as you...

By the way, don't rack your brain trying to tell ME what I would tell YOU. You've got a full-time job trying to figure out what you know without trying to figure me out too.



You've asked. I've answered. I have substantial sources for my position. You just don't happen to like them. That is a "your problem" and not a "my problem." As I said, it's not my job to find out what sources you consider substantial.

You can wait from now to doomsday if you like.



Read my previous posts. It's all there. I don't hate when someone disagrees with me. Why would I hang around here if that was the case? What I hate is someone like you who either can't read or can't understand because it doesn't fit into your narrow concepts.

What I hate is being bored by repeating myself endlessly to satisfy someone like you who isn't looking or interested in the other point of view. You just like to squabble.



I would agree that it is really hard to prove someone has voted that wasn't supposed to. We haven't had anything in place to provide that protection. Until we do, no one can prove that it isn't happening either.

That's ridiculous. The problem DOESN'T EXIST. How do you prove a negative? You're going to create a huge new data bank of government I.D.'s across the country with 50 states coming up with 50 different set of rules and regulations to prevent something that happens so rarely in Indiana, there's no example of it ever happening! Jeezus scubatim, apply a little logic will ya? Do you still have a bomb shelter in your backyard too?



Hallelujah! The first ray of light shines through the darkness.



First, most people don't take the daily newspaper. A lot of people don't watch the six o' clock news either. Second, the Republican Party doesn't alone decide polling places. But they do seem to be the ones spending the most money, time and effort in making voting harder, not easier.



You want to try and rephrase that paragraph in English? Right now it doesn't make a bit of sense.

This silly idea is why we have 20 million illegal aliens in this country – some of whom can easily VOTE. So they get to vote for people like Dems who will allow them to hide here, take Americans jobs, and use our services. Then their kids, many of whome join criminal gangs, are American citizens that we have to deal with.

Real smart idea.

Those non-biased, factual links support my position. Your opinion sources are only that. Opinions. Not facts. Just supply facts, and maybe you will have a stronger argument.


That is all I do? Prove it. Go through all of my posts and tell me that in every one, all I do is ask questions that have already been answered.


Tiresome to read opposing viewpoints. Nice.


You are right, not everyone. You obviously think opinion articles are factual, credible sources. I was wrong. You are right. Thanks for clearing that up.


Sure, for commentary, but for factual arguments? Newspapers also have comic strips. Are those good quality factual sources? Oops, another question to counter your argument!


Oh, now we are going to try to make me look less intelligent than you. Nice debate form! Keep up the good work!


That's fine. If you don't want to use fact based articles or research papers and the like, you don't have to, I guess. That just shows the credibility of your argument.


So are you saying that I am illiterate, or have a low cognizance level? Another one of those damned questions! And to accuse me of being narrow minded. How open minded are you? Damn those questions that keep coming up!


No, I just would rather debate with facts, not opinions. I am funny that way.


Ok, prove to me that everyone that has voted in the past are legal citizens with the right to vote. Oh, and are not already dead. That is asking you to prove something that isn't a negative.


Yep, at 30 years old, I put one in my backyard the day I was born!

No one is pushing for some new voter ID card. All that is being asked is that everyone has either a drivers license (they already exist!!) or a non-drivers license ID (they already exist too!!) These would be perfectly sufficient, and no new data bases would have to be created since it is already and existing system. Why don't you try some logic?


There is the one question that you have not answered. How is it that showing an ID makes voting harder? It seems pretty easy to me. Open wallet, pull out small piece of plastic, hand to poll volunteer, take back from volunteer, put small piece of plastic back in wallet, close wallet. This isn't nearly as hard as punching a hole in a ballot. That actually takes a tool, and could injure someone!


Sorry, next time I will use smaller words.

Just an update. Last year the State Department estimated 27 percent of Americans have passports. New passports cost about $100, expedited passports cost $160. Now, some states have taken the "logical step" in the quest to make sure you're you by drafting laws requiring proof of citizenship to vote.


Even though the same body that wants to raise the bar isn't keen on providing free identification it doesn't seem to bother Mr. Hearne. I guess we should leave it to activists and NGOs to make this happen. If they fail, oh well?

Interesting story but lets remember that if this were true the SC might have voted differently since they could not come up with even one person who wanted to vote and was denied because of the picture ID requirement.

And in addition if there is anything we need in this country is proof of citizenship ID. With 20 million people walking around “undocumented”. How does “swear under oath” mean anything if the ID is phony? How would the state know?

Is this the fallacy of no proof equals proof or shifting the burden of proof? Maybe it's a hybrid of both.


Oh I don't know. By fighting ID fraud, maybe?


What's to stop passport forgeries, Ted? Perhaps we should make super extra dooper sure you're you by giving blood samples to state and federal authorities and encrypting a special DNA bar code on your papers.

The “new” passports are hard to forge. And I agree that biometric ID would be the best but the interest in this is low in Congress. They are busy on their pork projects and they win no votes by identifying illegal aliens lesly.

Creating a “fake” passport is beyond the means of the majority of illegal aliens but some states still hand out licenses which can then be used to register to vote.