The WSJ's John Fund suggests there's a little more to the story of the "disenfranchised" nuns who could not vote on Tuesday because they lacked adequate IDs.
the story turns out to be much more complicated. The nuns had all been told earlier that they would need an up-to-date ID to vote. But none of them had asked to be taken to get an ID, and some flatly said they did not want to. Then on Election Day the nuns all showed up to vote.
They could have been given provisional ballots, which would have counted if they had shown up at a county clerk's office within 10 days to show an ID or sign an affidavit testifying to their identity.
The nuns would have none of it. According to the Associated Press, they told Sister McGuire that they were not interested in getting an official state ID. She decided it was futile to offer them a provisional ballot. She says it would have been impossible for them to get them to a motor vehicle branch--the nearest one is two miles away--within the allotted 10 days after the election.
But if their mobility is restricted, the Indiana law provides other ways in which they could have voted. Nursing homes can get a waiver of the ID requirement for residents to vote. And any Indianan over 65 is automatically eligible to cast an absentee ballot.
Related Posts (on one page):
- What About Those Nuns?
- Effects of Voter ID in Indiana Primary:
It's still a lot better than "um, yeah, I'm, er... THAT guy on the voting rolls!"
This is not a good result, and I cannot fathom why the average libertarian (not to be confused with a Libertarian) can support any official hoops that must be jumped through before one may exercise his or her right to vote.
.
That probably depends on the American. I hold a number of rights to be at least as fundamental, and at bottom, maybe moreso. Ballot box isn't the end of the line.
Yes, the right to vote in a fair election. I suggest that being allowed to vote in a rigged election is a meaningless right.
How about the right not to have your vote cancelled out by a fraudulent vote?
I can't speak for libertarians, but there seem to be a number of justifiable "hoops that must be jumped through" to vote, including (1) using a proper ballot or voting machine, (2) properly completing the ballot or using the voting machine, (3) voting on the proper day (or within the proper period for early and absentee votes), and (3) voting at the proper location. One cannot just stand on the roof and yell one's vote towards the polling place.
In other words, there are numerous and justified "official hoops that must be jumped through."
I am OUTRAGED! And I DEMAND compensation!
CATHOLIC STUDIES DEPARTMENTS at all major universities! REDUCED 'standards' for tenure and promotion! NOW!!!!
Illegal aliens + voter fraud
"Indianan"? I've lived practically my whole life in Indiana and I can't remember anyone using the term "Indianan". The online dictionaries include the term, but it's very obscure in actual usage. "Hoosier" May not make a lot of sense, but I'm surprised that Mr. Fund doesn't know the more proper term.
Sorry for the rather irrelevant distraction.
Only people who have never talked with real nuns would make a claim like this.
Most seemed to go out of there way to avoid using any term, since they clearly didn't want to say "Hoosiers." For what it's worth to those who care, WE who live in Indana NEVER call ourselves anything other than Hoosiers.
Let us have an end to this lingusitic imperialism!
So you have to show ID to vote, unless you meet certain criteria. That makes perfect sense. I mean, there's no possible way anyone could commit fraud using absentee ballots, now is there.
The sisters that I know are more likely to be found handing out condoms at Gay Rights rallies.
if there are so many exceptions in the tax code, why do we need taxes at all?
And to think I was worried that the losing side in the next voter-ID-required elections would have to just accept the results as legitimate.
At any rate, these laws probably prevent more legitimate votes than they prevent fraudulent votes and so are, on the balance, bad public policy (though that doesn't make them unconstitutional). Anyone ever hear a compelling version of Blackstone's ratio for votes? Certainly is better to let one fraudulent vote go through than to prevent 10 legitimate voters from voting!
Yeah. Nobody can be anything but mushily sympathetic to nuns--unless there's something unpleasant the RCs are doing.
Best group for making a statement I can imagine. But, as you pointed out, they went too far.
Nobody blames the jailer when a prisoner goes on a hunger strike. They just pretend to. Same here. The nuns turned down too many options available to the rest of the voters to make a solid case.
I'm a libertarian who knows that both Obama and/or McCain will continue to screw up this country, yet neither will really make my life more or less miserable. Secure in that knowledge, I value the 21st amendment far more than the right to vote.
Agree, except for the "probably" part.
Pardon the rant, but do these ladies ever stop to think that people DIED for their right to vote? That we fought a war to get that right, a few more wars to preserve it (arguably), another war to get it for blacks, and, of course, a decades-long campaign (which included torture and imprisonment) for women to get that right? So people fought, died, risked their lives and their families for their right to vote, and they can't be bothered to either show ID or sign a bloody affidavit, when they live in a country where 1 in 25 people are here illegally, and a lot more people are not eligible to vote?
I'm glad that they disenfranchised themselves.
/rant
It isn't a requirement that every possible avenue to prevent election fraud be closed before the legislature address voter ID requirements. That is a ridiculous argument, well really it is no argument at all.
Agreed, the number of people who were legally entitled to vote but could not vote because of the Indiana ID Act remains at zero.
That depends on how you interpret the cases where someone was from or lived in a different State where they were registered to vote and then tried to vote in Indiana's election. While I'm sympathetic to the case of some college students who are going to school in Indiana and decide they want to vote there, the fact that they didn't cast a provisional ballot and then get their ID legally changed within the 10 day period suggests that it's likely they wanted to be able to vote in both places.
Uh, sorry, but there is no right to vote in the Constitution. It is a privelege granted to those who are eligible.
Instead of garnering sympathy for changes in the law or its enforcement, what they may have inadvertently accomplished to make the point that the law's requirements and the accommodations it makes are more than reasonable.
It's almost as if you really have to want to be disqualified from voting to be affected.
That's some vote suppression I must say.
Is this true? If so, the Republicans are going to have one hell of a time winning this election.
My understanding was that college students from out-of-State can change their legal residency to their dorm address (or wherever they're living while attending school) and then vote in local elections. So she could in fact become a resident of Indiana while attending school there but she would have to change it and she didn't take the steps to do so (even with a 10-day window).
Bush got 1,479,438 votes in Indiana in 2004. No doubt many of the 300,000 plus "new" voters are people who are voting in the Democrat primary because the Republicans already have their nominee. Some people do so to commit mischief (see Limbaugh, Rush) and others because it gives them a chance to have greater influence with their vote by having a say in who one of the party's presidential nominee will be -- even if they don't plan to vote for them in the general election.
Of course, the utility of voting in either IL or MA is close to zero, so I don't bother but that's entirely beside the point ;-).
Even a libertarian can recognize that their own vote is diminished if appropriate 'hoops' are not in place to ensure that others are not voting more times than is their share. That is, I will suffer some inconvenience in casting a ballot to ensure that it is not a free for all with others stuffing the box with contrary votes unfairly negating my vote.
That's news to me. I seem to recall from Civ Pro that State citizenship is based on residence and residence is based on the location of your primary domicile.
Strange post. Technically, we don't even get to vote for Obama/McCain, only for our state electors. And most elections don't involve the presidency at all.
But you value the amendment that empowers your state legislature to keep the state dry of intoxicating beverages?
On first reading I was struck by the statement that it would be "impossible" to get the nuns to the DMV within the allotted time. On further reading I think what the poll worker nun may have been saying was that it would be impossible to convince the other nuns to go within the allotted time. Because they were insistent on making a political statement here.
PLR replied: "But you value the amendment that empowers your state legislature to keep the state dry of intoxicating beverages?"
Er... No, he values the amendment which _repealed_ that one. I think you're incriminating yourself -- better plead the 21st. ;-)
Also, the DOJ has cracked down very hard on state AGs that attempt to prevent students from voting based on bogus arguments that they are not residents (if they are residents of anywhere, it's the state of their school, not their home state, since they spend more time there).
Well, believe me, I know South Bend. And the probelm with your statement: The route from SMC to the DMV on McKinley Ave does NOT present any water to walk on. Which is the root of ALL of these problems.
PS--As a Catholic, I am somewhat offended by the tactical use of elderly sisters for the sake of political grandstanding.
SHHHH!
THAT'S why we are trying to suppress the nun-vote.
Perhaps you can place this quote:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." (emphasis supplied)
This is the part I don't follow. Why did she think it was impossible, and what right did she have to withhold the provisional ballot?
The phrase in question only meant to emphasize that, in the wake of the Civil War, the Federal government was not stripping citizens of the right to state citizenship but creating a system of dual Federal/State citizenship that has bedeviled law students for a while (and thankfully kept law profs off the streets so they can't do any serious harm).
Great idea. Have the election official who lives with the nuns swear that they are who they say they are.
Voter ID - a solution in search of a problem.
Some libertarians don't think anyone should vote. So regulation of such would be irrelevant.
I dislike other uses of ID but I find that I hardly ever have to present one. Since we don't cash checks any more and since I don't get stopped by cops much, I don't use my ID much. Even my building pass is an RFID bearer instrument that could be used by anyone to enter the building.
hey, if you feel neglected, maybe i could change that.
i'm from the government and i'm here to help!
Not per se. These nuns are mostly over 90 years old. I don't know about you, but all my relatives were essentially immobile by the time they hit 90. Hey -- maybe they could go to the DMV by ambulance -- that's how my relatives went places.
me 2. coffins are generally restrictive to movement
nun.
I think you are confusing your religious hatreds. "Cabals" are composed of "Jews."
A group of Catholics with posh law degrees is called a "country club."
The 21st Amendment repealed that authority, but specifically left intact the power of a state to prohibit
The 18th Amendment also gave Congress and the states power to enact "concurrent legislation" for enforcement. This was repealed too, I guess, but that would not affect the pre-existing power of states to enact Prohibition, which as mentioned was reaffirmed.
Hoosier: As to "cabals", the "Cabal Ministry" under Charles II (Lords Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale) had no Jews and two Catholics. It was subsequently a generic term for intriguers of all sorts: in Candide, Voltaire mentions the "canaille cabalant" of Paris.
Great question and good point. It seems to me that if a RealID is too hard to get for voting purposes, it's likely that a lower requirement must be established, in much the same way that you can vote with either a driver's license (hard to get) or a free ID card.
I wonder, though... If your birth cert is missing, can you register to vote? I don't remember. Don't you have to demonstrate citizenship somehow? If the RealID requirements are merely to establish citizenship, it's possible that they could be upholdable even for voting purposes.