Someone Explain to Me How Voter IDs are racist?

[Montmorency]

It's like this:

It's racist (in the sense you people are using the word) because 1/3 of the South is black, 90% of blacks vote Democrat, and black turnout has consistently been rising recently to reach white turnout.

In fact, for the South overall, blacks are at least 20% of all voters, meaning they make up anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of Democratic voters in the South.

These laws affect in-person turnout, but the vast majority of whites use mail-in/absentee ballots while virtually-no blacks do. Suddenly, blacks become the majority of the voters actually affected.

This is black suppression, nothing less. Any Democrat whites caught up are just icing on the cake. The fact is, legislation that would equally sweep up both blacks and whites would be both extremely difficult to formulate, and undesirable - at least you have a chance at 'swaying' those poor whites.

[Ironside]

Let's say some people decide to follow pre-Roman Celtic religion, or decide that they'd like to own slaves. Merely that 100% of them would fall foul of the bans on human sacrifice doesn't mean that this law is biased against them, merely that their practices are against modern society.

If groups want to have knives under the beds of their children due to their culture a ban doesn't make this aimed against them.

If the laws are introduced as a response, rather than preexisting, then they're aimed. Whatever this aiming are good or not depends on the goal of the law.

These laws are to further restrict the number of people that votes, or officially to expensivly stop an almost non-existant problem.

The US voting laws in general are very restrictive. Voting is done on a workday. The voting places are way too few, creating hour long voting queues. The proposed laws would create a need to, in practice, pay for a specific ID for voting and the offices that fixes this has notoriously short working hours (like a few hours one day a month in some cases).

I think the racist accusations would been lower if it weren't for the Jim Crow laws, that if fairly applied would've restricted voting to something like 0.1% of the population.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Make what you will of this.

The first Tuesday of November being a work day is probably NOT a relevant factor. Numerous states, by the way, have shifted to a system of "Early voting" that effectively extends the election to 2-3 weeks.

[HoreTore]

Make what you will of this.

The first Tuesday of November being a work day is probably NOT a relevant factor. Numerous states, by the way, have shifted to a system of "Early voting" that effectively extends the election to 2-3 weeks.

You can't prove that by looking at the turnout of the unemployed, as that group is known for a much smaller turnout than the employed.


And why you yanks still haven't been able to introduce a standardized voting system across the entire nation baffles me.

[Vincent Butler]

Many Hispanics are socially conservative and deeply invested in the catholic church. Am I wrong in saying that?

They may be socially conservative, I don't know, I think they tend to be more morally conservative, being catholic. That is totally subjective, of course. They don't go for conservatives, at least not as a whole. According to this site, Hispanics went for Obama over Romney 71%-27%. I saw a stat here that Cuban-American voters have been shifting Democrat. Anyway, I have no problems with a voter ID law. If you are a registered voter, you should have a Voter registration card. That should be enough, especially if you have a photo ID to go with it. If they required a Voter registration card (mine is not photo), that should cover it. That really should be better than photo ID, because it shows that you are registered to vote. Still, you should be required to show proof of who you are. Otherwise somebody could go in and vote, let's just say under my name, (somebody actually tried it as Eric Holder, and had he wanted to, he would have gotten away with it, heard that on the radio), but they could claim to be me, and if ID is not required, he votes in my place, and I just lost my vote. Then they could go somewhere else and try the same thing with somebody else, and steal their vote too. So ID, either photo or voter registration, is a good idea. And you won't convince me that enough minorities who are registered to vote don't have ID's as to make it an issue. It is just a ploy to increase the opportunities for those minorities who can't legally vote, aka illegal foreign trespassers, aka illegal immigrants, to vote illegally, because they will by and large vote for the welfare state, aka the Democrat Party. And those are illegal immigrants of any ethnicity, illegal for any purpose.

[Kadagar_AV]

National ID card, bring it when you go vote where you are registered, problem solved.

Here in Sweden one costs around 20-30usd and are legit 5 years, so it's an annual fee compared to a hamburger meal or so. Geez, how hard can it be?

Heck, I even voted in Sweden when I lived in Austria... From Austria. This really isn't rocket science.

[Vincent Butler]

National ID card

That is opposed here because it seems too totalitarian, Europeans it seems do have a different view of government than Americans. I don't need to have my papers. One more way for the government to keep track of us. Really, the voter registration card should take care of the ID problem at the ballot box. You get it when you register to vote, just show it when you do vote. Simple. And how many registered voters don't have driver's licenses? Not many, I would think. The extra ID is just added verification that you are who you say you are, so that your name lines up with your face.

[Kadagar_AV]

That is opposed here because it seems too totalitarian, Europeans it seems do have a different view of government than Americans. I don't need to have my papers. One more way for the government to keep track of us. Really, the voter registration card should take care of the ID problem at the ballot box. You get it when you register to vote, just show it when you do vote. Simple. And how many registered voters don't have driver's licenses? Not many, I would think. The extra ID is just added verification that you are who you say you are, so that your name lines up with your face.

What's totalitarian about it? I don't mean the ID card should be tracked from space or inserted in your neck...

It's a small plastic card that you show when you need to prove your identity. It has your picture and birth date on it.

Heck, you don't even HAVE to have it. It's just a simpler way of ID than passports. Are passports totalitarian?

This from a guy from a country who force 80 year olds to remove their flip flops at the airport

[Husar]

It's funny when you think about it, our new ID cards also have an RFID chip for electronic ID purposes whose security is doubtful and that isn't offered anywhere.

When we get a passport (which is also a valid ID AFAIK) it also has our fingerprints etc. on a chip, because deus USA vult.

It's basically cool if everyone outside the USA lives in some kind of totalitarian state of total surveillance but don't you dare ask a US citizen to carry a card with his name and photo on it, that would be totalitarian in the land of freedom and democracy for all (inside its borders).

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/what-ar...hould-you-buy/

[Ironside]

Make what you will of this.

The first Tuesday of November being a work day is probably NOT a relevant factor. Numerous states, by the way, have shifted to a system of "Early voting" that effectively extends the election to 2-3 weeks.

Someone is profiting from it. Buissness gets crazy when a new holiday is suggested. And voting day is a loss of working hours.

I take it some people don't get payed for the time it takes to vote? That's a relevant factor if it does. Extending the time for being able to vote is a significant improvement, I agree.

Vincent, yes someone could "steal" your vote without an ID system. Thing is, we can count those. If you get there and your vote is stolen, are you just going to say "huh, never mind then" and go home? Or rise hell so the news gets hold of it?
To have an influence on an election, we're talking 10.000+ or larger cases of this, so it's not enough with a few articles, the newspapers would be swarmed with this every election.

So, we can conclude that any such frauds are made by people who knows who will vote or not. That information can only be gotten through asking the people if they'll vote or not. And any large scale of that is impossible.

It's much, much easier to regulate that the voting boxes are a black box system and the only "paper trail". Then you manipulate from there. You don't even need a conspiracy, only a fanatic programmer.

It's not a stupid idea in theory, it's just the way it's formed in the US that makes it expensive and voter restrictive.

[Ronin]

being european to me it's simply bizarre that would could vote without presenting valid government issued ID.

on the other hand, its pretty clear to me that the people pushing for this in the United States that are pushing for this are doing it mostlyfrom a cynical perspective that it will make it harder for people that vote for the other side to actually vote.

so I´ll go with GAH!

[Husar]

Here we get a little card at home that allows us to vote. Last time I did so, I wanted to ID myself at the polling station, but they said the card was enough. Now the card only has my name written on it, does that mean that Merkel is most likely not my legitimately elected President?

[Vincent Butler]

What's totalitarian about it? I don't mean the ID card should be tracked from space or inserted in your neck...

It's a small plastic card that you show when you need to prove your identity. It has your picture and birth date on it.

Heck, you don't even HAVE to have it. It's just a simpler way of ID than passports. Are passports totalitarian?

This from a guy from a country who force 80 year olds to remove their flip flops at the airport

OK, I thought you meant it was mandatory. Here, for most people, a driver's license serves the same purpose. As to the eighty year old people being searched...I agree, ridiculous.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...And why you yanks still haven't been able to introduce a standardized voting system across the entire nation baffles me.

It's part of the antiquated "each state is its own sovereign entity" stuff the founders shackled us with.

[Kadagar_AV]

I think there should be some threshold to voting.

Merely making it out of your mothers vagina doesn't really qualify you to organize a nation.

[Vincent Butler]

It's part of the antiquated "each state is its own sovereign entity" stuff the founders shackled us with.

Thankfully.

[Ironside]

I think there should be some threshold to voting.

Merely making it out of your mothers vagina doesn't really qualify you to organize a nation.

Such a treshhold is always a horrible idea. It's literally gaining power by excluding groups with weak, unpopular voices that are merely tolerated today.

Add that even the few politicians that can be called really skilled are disagreeing on how to organize a nation. So it's a question that's so complex that none has the answer.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I think there should be some threshold to voting.

Merely making it out of your mothers vagina doesn't really qualify you to organize a nation.

At the outset of our Republic, voters were restricted to those owning property of some sort: x value of land, x book value of business, # of employees, etc. Oh, and they had to have a penis -- or at least no one who questioned whether or not they possessed said male appendage.