The State of Missouri may adopt a state constitutional amendment requiring proof of citizenship for voting. As the New York Times reports, the stated purpose of this requirement is to prevent voting by illegal immigrants and other non-citizens.
Voting experts say the Missouri amendment represents the next logical step for those who have supported stronger voter ID requirements and the next battleground in how elections are conducted. Similar measures requiring proof of citizenship are being considered in at least 19 state legislatures. Bills in Florida, Kansas, Oklahoma and South Carolina have strong support. But only in Missouri does the requirement have a chance of taking effect before the presidential election.
In Arizona, the only state that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote, more than 38,000 voter registration applications have been thrown out since the state adopted its measure in 2004. . . . More than 70 percent of those registrations came from people who stated under oath that they were born in the United States, the data showed.
Already, 25 states, including Missouri, require some form of identification at the polls. Seven of those states require or can request photo ID. More states may soon decide to require photo ID now that the Supreme Court has upheld the practice. Democrats have already criticized these requirements as implicitly intended to keep lower-income voters from the polls, and are likely to fight even more fiercely now that the requirements are expanding to include immigration status. . . .
Measures requiring proof of citizenship raise the bar higher because they offer fewer options for documentation. In most cases, aspiring voters would have to produce an original birth certificate, naturalization papers or a passport. Arizona and Missouri, along with some other states, now show whether a driver is a citizen on the face of a driver’s license, and within a few years all states will be required by the federal government to restrict licenses to legal residents.
Critics say that when this level of documentation is applied to voting, it becomes more difficult for the poor, disabled, elderly and minorities to participate in the political process. . . .
Supporters of the measures cite growing concerns that illegal immigrants will try to vote. They say proof of citizenship measures are an important way to improve the accuracy of registration rolls and the overall voter confidence in the process. . . .
From October 2002 to September 2005, the Justice Department indicted 40 voters for registration fraud or illegal voting, 21 of whom were noncitizens, according to department records.
Welcome to the next round of debate and litigation over voter identification.
Gee--only citizens voting. That sounds awfully radical to me. (close sarcasm)
The I-9 form allows proof of citizenship by a combination of photo ID and Social Security card. If you already have your social security card, that wouldn't be that burdensome, I suppose. But if you're retired, or haven't applied for a job in 10 or 20 years, you may not have one, and you'd have to wait weeks or months to obtain a duplicate from the SSA.
In sum, there are significant differences in how burdensome it is to obtain a photo ID versus proof of citizenship. I would oppose such a requirement for voting.
More noise in the system is bad. Less voters, and a higher signal to noise ratio, is good. Our world is simply too complex, and spin/advertising too coercive, to be encouraging as many people to vote as possible.
What's scary is that, at the end of the day, some people strongly believe they will be the one to benefit from the "uninformed" vote. From the looks of it, it appears to be the Democrats. I don't know why that is, as anyone who would vote for Bush suffers from a lack of information, at the very least.
Proponents of so-called anti-voter-fraud measures are just plain lying when they say they are trying to protect the integrity of the system. They really just want to exclude legitimate voters who tend to vote the other way.
At least BruceM is honest about his goal.
Refusing to require some sort of proof of citizenship in order to vote, devalues citizenship. It is saying to everyone that it doesn't matter whether you just killed 10 people while illegally crossing the border, we will take your vote in our democracy just as seriously as we do its citizens. We don't care. If we don't care, why should you care?
Spoken like someone who assumes that he himself falls into the ranks of the informed.
-- I daresay that the birth-cert requirement won't succeed, because it threatens to incommode too many middle-class white people who have driver's licenses but can't readily lay hands on their birth certificates.
Gee, someone should ask Senator Obama how tough it is for him to show proof of citizenship? And Senator McCain...
Tougher to vote, easier to run...
I agree with PatHMV - Unlike photo ID requirements, which avoid constitutional problems by providing state ID free, no state requirement to prove citizenship to vote can do so. It will impose a far more than de minimis burden on a large number of people - such as everyone born outside of the state imposing the requirement, since they will have to pay their home state to furnish a birth certificate.
Still looking for widespread evidence of voter fraud, by the way.
If that is indeed the case, why do we not require people to prove they are citizens in order to vote?
Any argument to the contrary just strikes me as intellectual laziness.
But what am I thinking? I am not a lawyer.
Oh, and BTW, the I-9 form is not to require proof of citizenship to be able to work in the US - it simply confirms that you have a legal right to work in the country.
Yes. Exactly. I would support requiring all voters in a given year to show a valid personal property tax receipt for the prior year. If you don't own any property and so didn't pay taxes? You're probably lazy, stupid and uninformed as well as poor; stop pretending you understand politics and get a job. :P
The right to work is as fundamental, if not more so, than the right to vote, and yet, despite the terribly heavy burden of proof of citizenship, people still manage to find jobs.
Also, the only reason we have to do it by amendment to the state constitution is that the state supreme court held a voter ID law unconstitutional a few years back. And yet Missouri's entrenched legal culture has the gall to wonder why we're trying to change the judicial appointment process...
And I'm well aware of what the I-9 form is for. Since I am a citizen, I discussed what it requires ME to do. What it requires of green-card holders is not relevant to me.
I'm for positive proof of the right to participate in the voting process. It seems to me a little overwrought to continue to imply that proving the person's right to vote is equivalent to the poll taxes and reading tests of decades ago. There is certainly no shortage of people or organizations that would be willing to pursue litigation against a state that was engaging in such activity (unlike decades ago)
I think the easiest way to enact this would be to require proof of citizenship at the time of issuance of the state ID (drivers license or other) with appropriate annotation then made. That way, a person would only need to go through the inconvenience of proof once, and the right to vote status could be confirmed at the polls simply by viewing the ID.
My own birth certificate, for example, isn't held by the county or the state. It's held by the hospital where I was born. And I get copies from the hospital. And even those copies aren't anything glorious...they're Xerox copies that may or may not include a raised seal, depending on who made the copy.
Every nation has an obligation to its citizens to ensure that people who work in the country have a legal right to do so. If not, then why have borders at all? If you are not willing to enforce the laws for something as simple as work visa requirements - why bother to enforce the rules about who meets the legal requirements to vote? Why not just say that ANYONE can be elected president - why limit it to natural-born citizens?
And, as I stated before, there is no citizenship requirement to be able to get a job in the US. There is however, a requirement that you can prove you are here legally to be employed. Just because the federal govenrment does not have the manpower or cajones to enforce the laws does not make them any less valid.
Thoughtful-- Again, for many elderly voters, you aren't just making it "tough" on them. You are irrevocably taking away their right to vote.
And none of this changes the fact that this is a "solution" in search of a problem that doesn't exist, but that is convenient for demagogues to claim exists.
You need to think before you start throwing spurious analogies around. The federal government requires airlines to examine your papers before you go to the DHS checkpoint at security in every airport in the US. Then the TSA demands you to show your papers. I do that at least twice per month. And the right to travel freely within the US is a fundamental right. You have the burden to prove who you are every time you want to travel by air.
So I do not think that asking once every 2 years (for congressional elections is all that onerous.
In the 1790's, very few people could vote, even among white men. The fetish for "democracy" is a very recent invention.
The 18th century government wasn't held in check by voting; it was held in check by the First and (especially) Second Amendments. The government didn't throw its weight around and then say "shut up, this is democracy, people voted to give us this power, remember?" They knew that people had the ability to rise up and overthrow them if they overstepped their bounds.
These days I have trouble thinking of any things government wouldn't try to do, especially once they claim that they are doing it in the name of "democracy" (which is pretty much a tautology, because the government sees itself as the embodiment of democracy).
But what they are arguing is that they do not want to prevent non-citizens from voting. Every activity in life has requirements. If you are unwilling to meet those requirements, then you signal your indifference to participate in that activity.
Simple enough.
All of you who raise hackles over this cannot possibly have any justification for your argument other than you want illegal voting because you believe those will be votes for your side.
I've voted in Missouri every year since 1978, and twice so far in 2008.
However, my passport expired last October and I haven't gotten around to renewing it. My birth certificate (a flimsy piece of paper easily forged) is here in my office somewhere, I believe.
Unlike cjwynes, I want Missouri citizens to be able to vote. I am entirely comfortable that most non-citizens will be deterred by the prospect of federal jail time, as they have always been.
There was some confusion about the date and year my grandfather was born. When it came time for social security his sister wrote a statement attesting to his birth date. A similar mechanism would be appropriate for voting.
Old census records also indicate place of birth, which for most of us establishes our citizenship. If someone had problems getting a birth certificate, it would not be difficult to look at old census records to confirm citizenship at the time their voter ID is issued.
Most people should have at least one copy of their birth certificate anyway. There are many times it's needed.
I do not live in Missouri, and I want Missouri citizens to be able to vote.
I also do not want Missouri residents who are not citizens to be able to vote.
Why is that so difficult to understand?
Or are you with that ACORN outfit who was shown to be behind massive voter fraud in 2004?
If the voting board had any sense, an expired passport would be an entirely valid proof of citizenship.
I realize that assumption may be fallacious.
ChrisIowa... Old census records are not made available until something like 70 years later. Currently, the most recent census records available are from 1930.
K. Dackson... Yes, I don't terribly care for having to produce my ID to the government at the airport, either. But I put up with it because of the particular dangers of air travel these days.
A state-issued photo ID is a reasonable requirement, because it allows law enforcement to prove that someone voted in a particular election, if that's necessary to establish that the person voting was committing a crime in doing so. That's all that's necessary.
The proof of citizenship requirement puts a burden on ME because of the illegal actions of SOMEONE ELSE. Should we ban all guns because some people break the law with them? Of course not.
My position has nothing to do with wanting non-citizens to vote. Find 'em and throw 'em in jail or deport them, that's fine with me. Give ICE access to the voter registration records so they can look for illegal immigrants. Station ICE agents at polling places in areas with high numbers of illegal immigrants. All that's fine with me. If you continue to assume that people opposed to your "papers please" approach are in favor of non-citizens voting, you're going to continue to sound like an idiot.
If you read my brief comment above once more, you'll perhaps appreciate I was attempting to point out the irony of things getting tougher for blacks and the elderly trying to vote at the same time we are seeing the first black Presidential candidate (I'm guessing) as well as the oldest Presidential candidate competing for the office.
But, to take up the substance of your concern, please list for me the names of any elderly person you know turned away from the voting booth. I think this is largely, as someone said above, a solution in search of a problem. The "elderly" are one of this country's strongest voting blocks. I'm in my early 50s and have already begun to get the bulk-mailed solicitations from the AARP.
And yet somehow free markets seem to work remarkably well, even with all those poor and/or stupid people spending their money -- voting with their dollars -- so foolishly.
And yet somehow free markets seem to work remarkably well, even with all those poor and/or stupid people spending their money -- voting with their dollars -- so foolishly.
This assumes that their birth was recorded, which is not universally true. In lieu of a birth certificate, the Social Security Administration used to accept Baptismal or other religious certificates, Family Bible entries, Other family record book entries, Federal Census records from the decade following their birth, Poll-tax records, Draft registrations, Form SS-5 "Application for a Social Security Account Number, and Affidavits executed by siblings.
As someone who isn't a resident of Missouri, I don't think it's much of my business how Missouri decides its own voting laws.
If they want an extremely strict voter ID requirement, they should do that.
If they want any warm body that shows up at the poll to be able to vote, they should do that. Yes, even if they want illegal immigrants to be able to vote, that is Missouri's decision.
But what they are arguing is that they do not want to prevent non-citizens from voting.
Who said this? I haven't heard anyone argue this? Have you been reading the same blog I have?
Every activity in life has requirements.
So therefore all state imposed requirements are therefore acceptable to us? There's plenty of state imposed requirements (i.e. laws) that are unreasonable.
If you are unwilling to meet those requirements, then you signal your indifference to participate in that activity.
How so? It's merely the result of a person making cost-benefit analysis. I might be really interested in voting, but the prospect of spending countless frustrating hours hunting down a birth certificate to do so might outweigh the value I get from voting. Particularly when the frustrating hunt is a result of beauracracy ineptitude, and not my fault.
Leaving aside that, very likely, the relevant providers would be overwhelmed were *everyone* to suddenly want a copy of their birth certificate all at once.
And I shudder to think of my birth certificate's authenticity being scrutinized by the little old ladies at the polling booth.
We're en route to having a national requirement for DL's to include citizenship status ... if anyone's going to start requiring proof of citizenship, let it wait until that ID element comes online.
This began to change shortly before the Civil War, when the Know Nothing agitation began against immigrants (mostly Irish). Not long after the Civil War, most states instituted residency and/or citizenship requirements for voters.
One other factor as well: there were essentially no immigration restrictions in those days, so there were no "illegal" immigrants.
Second, this seems to me to be making the electorate do the work of the state. In my experience a SSN is asked for on voter registration forms. Why can't the state cross-reference those with Social Security records to verify an applicants citizenship?
There were more immigration restrictions in those days than today, simply because getting to America was so much more difficult and time-consuming.
Excellent question... but heaven forbid the beauracracy makes itself work a little harder when they can simply push that burden onto its citizens.
This is EXACTLY the argument which liberals made against voter ID. The answer is still no.
In my experience a SSN is asked for on voter registration forms. Why can't the state cross-reference those with Social Security records to verify an applicants citizenship?
This seems to undermine your claim that proof of citizenship requirements constitue a poll tax.
If you can't distinguish and recognize the difference between a state imposed burden and a economic burden then you have little business posting at this website.
If only there were some way to know months in advance when an election was going to take place.
Ideally, your SS card would have biometric ID on it for this to work.
Hillarious. The people arging against ID are claiming that state imposed burdens ARE economic burdens, and so constitute a poll tax.
The point stands that "immigration" to America was more difficult in the past than it is today.
How dare those dastardly Republicans support voting only for citizens? Next thing you know, those bastard right- wingers will say that the Constitution has an individual right to bear arms and that it permits the death penalty.
If you had restricted your comment to local elections, you might have had a half a decent point. But Missouri elects candidates to national level, and their electoral votes count just as much as those of other states. So the matter of barring illegal votes is very much a subject worthy of national debate.
Apart from that utilitarian argument, there's the philosophical question to consider. Although I'm a big fan of federalism and states' rights, I would still say there are some minimum restrictions that should be enforced on a national level. Ensuring only US citizens vote in the US, in every state and at every level, seems to be a bedrock principle of national sovereignty that carries an overriding interest over the state's whims. I would go so far as to support a Constitutional Amendment to explicitly state this if necessary, although I suspect the current Constitution probably covers it well enough (but IANAL).
Would an opponent of voter ID please explain to me why it is that so many of these "poor, older, rural etc. americans" can seem to come up with both photo ID and proof of citizenship to get their social security card and medicare cards (as well as wading through one hell of an onerous 20 page application).
I think that fact alone would at least eliminate the "onerous and expensive meme" being brandished by opponenets of voting "obstacles" as least as it pertains to the group they seem to most concerned about. Older Americans seem to rise to this challenge quite nicely (as well as vote). Of course, that was the greatest generation--the baby boomer may have considerably more problem.
Well, this one is easy, at least:
"About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow sister because they didn’t have state or federal identification bearing a photograph."
From: FOX News
More noise in the system is bad. Less voters, and a higher signal to noise ratio, is good. Our world is simply too complex, and spin/advertising too coercive, to be encouraging as many people to vote as possible.
What's scary is that, at the end of the day, some people strongly believe they will be the one to benefit from the "uninformed" vote. From the looks of it, it appears to be the Democrats. I don't know why that is, as anyone who would vote for Bush suffers from a lack of information, at the very least."
I agree! Reinstate the poll tax! And how'bout an IQ test before voting too!!!! Yee hah! I LIKE this disenfranchizement thing!!!
1) Very limited verification of identity. PRO: minimal burden to voters. CON: more illegit votes; trust reduced about election outcomes.
2) Stringent verification. PRO: vastly reduces illegit votes. CON: potentially excessive burden to obtain ID.
3) Stringent verification with a program to implement free ID cards. Essentially, every citizen would have one, and no one else would.
In my mind, the third option combines the PROs of the first two without incurring the CONs. Why not have this option? I imagine there are some libertarian concerns, but like it or not, we've been running around with SSNs for a few decades now.
cubanbob... I can't see how you've proved the argument is specious, people obviously can obviously afford to devote a greater amount of their time and effort towards seeking an entitlement that directly affects them then they can afford to direct towards voting. People tend to be more interested in putting bread on the table then determining their next round of governmental leaders... go figure.
5.12.2008 12:12pm"
They could could also get jobs. But since they have the time to apply for "entitlements" they can find the time to get the required ID for a voters registration card. Its not like they have anything more important to do with their spare time like getting a job. Besides did not the Clinton Administration pass The Motor Voter bill where people can apply for a voters registration card at the welfare office or the DMV? Its not like the "entitled" ones have to go far out of their way. The founders were right. Voting should be restricted to taxpayers.
In general, the claim isn't that some voters are incapable of jumping through the hoops required of them to vote; it's that some voters will choose not to do it. Voting isn't particularly important to a lot of people.
These laws put barriers in front of certain people voting, so they make it less likely those people will vote. I accept your argument that they could vote if they really wanted is valid, but unlike supporters of Voter ID laws I don't think that means very much. If there was a 12 hour long line at my polling booth at the next election I wouldn't vote. I think even though I technically could have voted, I would have been disenfranchised by this. Likewise, while no doubt most voters can meet the requirements with a voter ID law with no extra effort, some can't, and some people will decide not to vote because of it.
I don't have any illusions about convincing you, but you could convince me voter ID laws were a good idea rather easily. If there was credible evidence suggesting that the number of fraudulent votes prevented was even of the same order of magnitude as the number of legitimate votes prevented I wouldn't oppose voter ID laws.
The nuns' story has been debunked thoroughly. They were making a statement by refusing to take the steps necessary to vote.
Anyone who has ever dealt with a government bureaucracy knows there is no such thing as taking care of something with just "a simple phone call."
Note that birth certificates are not photo ID, so you'll need both a birth certificate and a photo ID and suppose you're a married woman so the two names don't match? Is that woman then going to have to produce a third piece of documentation showing that she got married and changed her name? And if she can't happen to lay her hands on that piece of paper from, say, 20 or 30 years ago, is she going to be prohibited from voting in the name of preventing voter fraud?
So, it has to be evidentiary proof of "widespread" violation or it's not a problem? And who, then, would engage in a "widespread" investigation? I'm sure you would cheer Homeland Security agents stationed at polling places and "investigating" every voter. There is plenty of voter fraud evidence. Think of the various incidents as samples and do a statistical extrapolation.
As for acquiring proof of citizenship: Even if it poses a problem, it need only do so once if the accepted proof is good indefinitely. This is not some difficult problem that has to be solved every year. Even a citizen's driver's license, if good for 10 years or so, does not pose an onerous burden. To see an argument that, in essence, citizenship is not a valid requirement for voting is to see a one-world, open-border advocate trying to justify an idiotic, anti-American worldview.
If there was credible evidence suggesting that the number of fraudulent votes prevented was even of the same order of magnitude as the number of legitimate votes prevented I wouldn't oppose voter ID laws.
Couple of questions.
What would constitute such credible evidence, in your mind?
What is the number of legitimate votes prevented by ID laws? You must have the numbers, or you could not be making this argument.
If anything, it was easier to walk across the border from Mexico to Texas in 1848 than it is today.
It was, of course, harder for Europeans to get here, but your response doesn't really meet the issue. We don't test non-citizens today based on how much they paid to get here or what their net worth is. We just don't let them vote at all.
In posting this, I can't help but regret that's it's necessary for me to do so. Ah, the internet.
The word "disenfranchised" does not mean what you think it does. It means that you do have have the right to vote, not that you found it too difficult.
Yes and no. Yes, it was probably physically easier to walk across the border. No, because you could get shot for trespassing in those days. The fact is that there was no large scale immigration across the southern border until recently. Nothing has changed physically that would account for differing patterns of migration. What has changed is that laws in the US are now vastly more favorable to illegals, and confer on them rights equal to, and sometimes superior to, those of US citizens.
It was, of course, harder for Europeans to get here, but your response doesn't really meet the issue.
My response meets exactly that issue.
We don't test non-citizens today based on how much they paid to get here or what their net worth is. We just don't let them vote at all.
We DO let them vote. Or, as the topic of this post relates to, we do absolutely nothing to stop them from voting. The debate here is whether we should stop them from voting.
I'm not sure why there is any debate at all over the question of whether we ought to prevent illegal immigration, but that's a different question.
As another commenter noted, it's hard enough correcting mistakes in government bureaucracies today; why create yet another one and make it even harder? It's bad enough on the rare occasion when the SSA prematurely declares someone dead. What happens when you can't get a job because some clerk misclassified you? My aunt was once prohibited from taking the GRE exam because her middle name on her ID didn't quite precisely match up with the name the company had down for her. Imagine what your life could be like when you need permission from the government (in the form of a government-issued card) to work, vote, or do anything else.
1. those individuals who do not have birth certificates because their births were not recorded and were born before the 1930 census. These individuals would have been eligible for Soscial security and Medicare before 1996, so they may have been grandfathered into the system based on pre-existing records, such as baptismal certificates.
2. individuals who cannot afford the cost of birth certificates or copies of naturalization papers. The Indiana law provided free ids to people who were poor. Here, many Missouri residents were born outside of Missouri, so they would need subsidies to get birth certificates or naturalization papers.
3 individuals who cannot obtain copies of birth certificates or naturalization papers in a timely way.
When Congress passed legislation restricting SSI benefits based on immigration status, many of these prolems occurred, with the result that there were changes in law to protect these individuals.
Having once worked as a file clerk for INS, I am sure that it would take months for individuals to get copise of their naturalization papers, especially if thousands requested copies.
How does open border translate to anti-American? Some would argue that relatively open borders, along with other freedom, is an essential feature of what is praiseworthy about America . . .
However, you conflate the two burdens to be similar and seem to state that therefore the state imposed immigration burdens is somehow justified by previously existing non-state imposed economic barriers.
This is not an immigration thread, so I'm not going far down this road, except to note that the logic of your position is that anyone who wants to come to the US has a "right" to do so.
Regardless of whether you are liberal, conservative, or (especially) libertarian, this is a suicidal position.
The state exists to place "barriers" on certain activity. Barriers on the movement of outsiders into the state is very high on the to-do list. That's the essence of what makes a state a state.
Good grief! If America has "open borders" then in what sense does America even exist? The definition of a country is that it DOES have borders.
an essential feature of what is praiseworthy
Only if you're a believer in socialism.
We don't need to add to it. We simply need to get the government to use the vast amount of information it already has in a more sensible and practical fashion.
And yet you are willing to allow your vote to be cancelled by someone who is not qualified (by right of citizenship) to vote? How....strange.
Consider that the requirement of providing ID at the airport puts a burden on you because of the illegal actions of someone else. Yet you are willing to put up with that much more frequently than once every other year.
I am all for voting rights. For the people who are eligible to vote.
Adam J:
You really need to read between the lines. All the talk about undue burden is from people who want votes to count because it benefits their interests.
Gee, you want to drive a car? Get a license. Can't be bothered? Tough beans. You want to see a concert? Go buy tickets. Can't be bothered to actually purchase them? Tough beans. Not every activity is government regulated. Live with it.
As for your argument that it may take countless hours, I suggest that the hours you are afraid of wsting are more valuable to you than the ability to exercise your right to vote. How sad.
Dan Weber:
What the unbeliever said. I do not care about Missouri's rules for its state and local elections. How they determine who votes for persident has a bearing on my life, and as such it is a matter of my concern.
People being caught in large numbers committing voter fraud would work. My understanding is that there are at most a few cases where this is proven each election cycle in the entire country, which isn't enough to convince me voter fraud is a large problem.
Of course, voter fraud is difficult to catch, so the lack of convictions doesn't convince me it isn't a problem.
The best way to get convincing evidence of voter fraud given that people aren't convicted for committing it would problem be to audit a random sample of votes. I imagine it would be possible to track down, say, 10,000 randomly selected people who had ballots cast in their name on election day and verify with them if they had actually voted. There are obviously all sorts of practical difficulties with such a study, but it could provide convincing evidence of whether or not voter fraud is a problem.
I have no idea how many legitimate votes are prevented. From Econ 101 I have an intuition that by making voting, and voting fraud, more expensive a Voter ID law will reduce both. How much it will reduce either by depends on all sorts of empirical factors I really know nothing about.
I don't think that anyone who imagines that "disinfranchisement" means whatever he feels like it meaning has any business commenting on a law site.
The word "disenfranchised" does not mean what you think it does. It means that you do have have the right to vote, not that you found it too difficult.
Look up the terms "de jure" and "de facto."
Gee, if that were true (which it isn't), wouldn't it become really easy for non-citizens to establish completely fraudulent identities?
It amazes me that someone would believe that the 34,000 applications thrown out in Arizona are seen as evidence of 34,000 non-citizens trying to register to vote. Wouldn't Occam's Razor, not to mention the stiff criminal penalties for illegal registration, suggest that most of these 34,000 were actual citizens whose paperwork was defective?
Once again, throwing poor people off the rolls is a feature, not a bug. Personally, I could live with mandatory Federally-issued ID at birth, but that's just me.
And how, exactly, do you think that these large numbers of people can be caught, absent any means to detect vaote fraud at the individual level?
There is abundant evidence that large scale vote fraud takes place, where is cannot be traced to individul voters. For instance, it's not all that unusual for more ballots to be cast than there are voters registered to vote in some places. If that's not overwhelming evidence of vote fraud, then nothing is.
The best way to get convincing evidence of voter fraud given that people aren't convicted for committing it would problem be to audit a random sample of votes.
See above. We don't need to do this to see the evidence of vote fraud. It's right there before your eyes.
I know what the terms mean. And other neither one is having to stand in line to vote disenfranchisment. Not being able to vote because your absentee ballot gets lost in the mail is not disenfranchisment. Not being able to make it to the polling place because of the weather, or because of a domestic emergency, is not disenfranchisment.
Whatever liberals may think, "disenfranchisment" is not a magic talisman which they can invoke to get whatever they want.
"Gee, you want to drive a car? Get a license. Can't be bothered? Tough beans. You want to see a concert? Go buy tickets. Can't be bothered to actually purchase them? Tough beans. Not every activity is government regulated. Live with it."
What's your point to this statement? I thought we are talking about government regulation. I'm okay with government licenses like drivers licenses when they provide a service (in this case ensuring competency), but what about when licenses are used merely for economic protectionism? Should we say "tough beans" and allow the license to continue? Or maybe, just maybe, we should not have the license because it presents an undue burden with little corresponding benefit.
I'm trying to debate the justification of a specific voter regulation, and the basic crux of your argument is "tough beans" and if you don't want to deal with the burden then you don't have the right to vote. As you said, "how sad."
Gee, and I thought we should strive for a efficient government that doesn't allow citizens with limited resources to be disinfranchised from government. How silly of me.
Nor I you, especially when you ask me to demonstrate something that cannot be demonstrated absent photo ID/citizenship laws in all fifty states.
Ultimately, it is a matter of choice. You prefer not to wait 12 hours in a line--the only person that dienfrancised you was you. People who don't choose to vote don't have to jump through the hoops; people who don't want social security and medicare dont have to jump through those hoops. I don't see the harm in either. quite frankly.
Those that talk about undue burden want everyone - whether they can legally do so or not - to vote. I do not see proving that you are to be able to cast a vote (a right of citizenship), an undue burden. It protects MY rights to ensure those that cannot legally vote do not do so.
What you thought about government regulation is a fabrication of your narrowness. My point was that every activity - government regulated or not - has some burden associated with it. If you do not want to meet those burdens, you can't play. Simple as that.
Yes, if someone (such as those nuns of fame and glory) does not want to make the effort to meet even the minimal requirement of proving they are a citizen to vote, then yes, TOUGH BEANS.
You have the right as long as you are willing to get the ID that says you can. And if that is too tough, then maybe you aren't mature enough to vote.
I don't understand this. If you can't demonstrate that voter fraud is a problem now, how would you be able to do it after voter ID laws are passed everywhere?
I guess disenfranchised is an unfortunate term, because it means different things to different people. By it, I just mean "deprive someone of their right to vote". I'm not necessarily suggesting there should be a legal remedy.
For example, another poster said earlier that if there was a snowstorm which kept people from voting those people wouldn't be disenfranchised. I would say they would be disenfranchised, but by the snowstorm, not by the government. I don't think they should necessarily be able to have their vote counted, but I do think they are disenfranchised.
So, if for unexpected reasons beyond anyone's control there is a 12 hour line at my polling booth I think I'd be disenfranchised, but I'd agree with you that I shouldn't have any legal remedy. On the other hand, if all the polling places in heavily Republican neighbourhoods had 12 hour lines and there were no lines in heavily Democratic neighbourhoods I think we'd both agree that would be a problem.
I find this attitude puzzling. Why should it be costly to vote? Isn't it intrinsically bad to make it harder for people to vote? Now obviously lots of rules that make voting more difficult are justified, but wouldn't we be better off if everyone was perfectly knowledgeable and honest so we could get rid of them all?
And in Missouri, you may need to prove you are a citizen to be eligible.
And if you disagree with the 'right to vote', see http://www.house.gov/jackson/VotingAmendment.htm.
Jesse Jackson, Jr. says you do not have a right to vote!!
"What you thought about government regulation is a fabrication of your narrowness." Is this english? What is narrow about thinking some government regulation is inefficient, actually that's something that anyone can agree on, liberal or conservative.
"My point was that every activity - government regulated or not - has some burden associated with it. If you do not want to meet those burdens, you can't play. Simple as that." A naive point of view if you ask me. Many government regulated burdens are unnecessary &inefficient, we shouldn't just accept these burdens, we should challenge them. The scary thing about governmental regulated burdens on voting is that it can limit our ability to challenge them, by preventing us from using our most powerful tool to do so, ability to vote the bums out of office who would do so.
"And if that is too tough, then maybe you aren't mature enough to vote." Or maybe I have a number of other more serious obligations that would conflict with spending a large number of hours jumping thru government hoops, like feeding my children &keeping my job.
Your argument is spurious. The government has an obligation to protect MY rights. Just as the government has an obligation to protect YOUR rights. If it is protecting MY rights, it is protecting YOUR rights. Or did you miss the class on "equal protection under the law"?
But you want the government to allow anyone, without regard to citizenship status, to dilute your most powerful tool. But requiring people to prove they are eligible to vote strengthens us as a nation. But you appear to be too partisan or naive to understand that.
And if you have other things that are more important to you than jumping through a large number of hoops (i.e., getting a freaking ID card) to ensure that your vote is as legal as the next person's, that is your judgement. Immature, but it is your right to be immature.
You want the right, but not the responsibility.
If it keeps people with your attitude from voting, then it has got to be a good rule.
States have no federal requirement to use any kind of voting to decide how its electoral votes are allocated. They could just decide to have their governor pick them.
This is one of the reasons I don't like people trying to make the Presidential vote a popular vote.
Keep in mind, by arguing for Missouri's rights to control their own voting system, I'm also arguing that they can make (nearly) whatever stringent requirements on voting that they want. I might not like Indiana's voter-ID law, but I think Indiana should be able to do what it wants. States' rights applies even when I disagree with them.
That's either very silly, assuming you don't believe it, or deeply paranoid, assuming you do.
Nobody is proposing that our ability to "throw the bums out" be restricted. Given the complete unwillingness of the voters to use that power I can't imagine why the politicians would want to make such a restriction even if they could.
Whatever the reasons, when the state of Arizona finds some 30K plus people on the rolls who shouldnt be, that to me is evidence of the potential for fraud, and suggests to me it is the validity of the underlying voter rolls that keep the system honest. Those voter rolls can really only be checked when voters apply for a ballot.
I take your points about disenfranchsised. And I think the trend to toward absentee or vote by mail (as in Oregon) go a long way to reduce the burdens of going to the polls. That to me is progress (assuming the underlying rolls are accurate).
Ultimately, it appears to me we are disagreeing on what the costs of voting are or should be. I am guessing you would, as a matter of policy, try to reduce those "costs" as low as possible to encourage voting; As you might guess, I would try to keep those costs somewhat higher. You have every right to ask why, and I would respond by pointing out the magnitude of the number of illegal immigrants in this county makes the citizenship requirement more pressing (and that is irrespective of what party these folks might vote for). Were we assured that all voters were citizens by virtue of residing in the boundaries of the US, then by all means reduce the costs. In my view your position simply overlooks the fact that there are some 20 million illegal/undocumented aliens in this country as others have assumed that the existing laws are of sufficient deterrent to prevent them voting.
I do thank you for your civil arguments--much appreciated, and I have enjoyed the interaction. I understand where you are coming from, and hope you understand where I am.
SIG537, I can't remember ever hearing about a situation where there were more votes cast than there were registered voters.
Really? I guess you don't follow the news much.
I couldn't find any accounts of that happening with a quick Google search. I agree with you, though, that if that's not unusual then there is abundant evidence of large scale voter fraud.
Let me help you. Google the phrase "more ballots cast than voters registered". There IS abundant evidence of large scale voter fraud, as detected by this measure. Obviously this can only detect really severe cases. It's pretty suspicious if even 95% of registered voters vote, given how many invalid names are normally on the rolls due to deaths, relocations, etc.
The report indicates 5,300 more ballots were cast than voters recorded, and it cites 1,305 unenterable on-site registration cards in Milwaukee as a possible reason for this voter gap.
Some of the onsite cards didn't have addresses in Milwaukee. Some weren't signed, and some didn't even have names.
The task force says it believes one way to eliminate the possibility for fraud, or the appearance of fraudulent voting, is to eliminate on-site or same-day voter registration all together, or government-issued identification like a photo ID or social security card.
I'm pretty sure Adam never took any classes on any aspect of the law.
That's either very silly, assuming you don't believe it, or deeply paranoid, assuming you do.
No, what I said is basically fact. You are free to disagree that voter ID doesn't equal voter disinfranchisement. However, I can't see how you could disagree that voter disinfranchisement restrict our ability to vote the public officials that create disinfranchisement out of office.
After all, to disagree with this undermines your very argument for voter ID, since the justification for the voter ID burden is to prevent the disinfranchisement of legal voters caused by illegal voters.
I'm pretty sure Adam never took any classes on any aspect of the law.
Ah, one of the last refuges of poor debaters, attack the person's expertise. Next comes ad hominem I suppose. I don't know why you would add your two cents after K. Dackson displayed a complete misunderstanding of the meaning of Equal Protection. You're also wrong, I'm a practicing attorney.
I skimmed the report, and it seems like it found all sorts of clerical errors with the election, which created the possibility of fraud, but no actual evidence of fraud. (Aside from possibly issues with homeless people voting, although it wasn't exactly clear from the report if what they did was improper.) I didn't see any instances of fraud in the report which could be fixed by requiring voters to show ID, did I miss something?
This is so preposterously ignorant that I can only conclude you decided to make shit up and pass it off as fact.
If you want to participate in a discussion, show some intellectual honesty and stop dodging the issue. The point is that now we have laws which prohibit non-citizens from voting. In the past, including the early days of the republic, we did not.
The whole claim that there exists some large pool of "illegal immigrant voters" strikes me as nonsensical on its face. Anyone familiar with recent immigrants (I live in LA) knows that they avoid most contact with government authorities because they're worried about being deported. It's laughable to suggest that they register to vote in large numbers.
The Social Security system has proved to be inaccurate. There are too many persons with identical numbers. The cross-reference suggestion could work, but it would take more effort to handle the replicate number cases.
"The nuns' story has been debunked thoroughly. They were making a statement by refusing to take the steps necessary to vote."
Evidence, please.