Voter ID
In certain circles, you just say the words "voter identification" and you elicit certain yowls of disenfranchisement, racisim and on and on until it seems just by the mention you have transformed into some hideous monster. This is rather disengenuous on many levels, the least of these is the disenfranchisement argument. In several of the states that have tracked voter participation before and after there have been increases in voter participation across the board. A few of the states have separated out who the participation encompassed discovered that the greatest increase in participation was among minorities. It is rather odd in a day and age where ID's are required for things from alchohol purchase to airline flights that there should be objection to asking for ID to influence the course of not only your own life but for the 3,000,000 other citizens.
Some would say that it wouldn't make that much difference, I strongly disagree! Take the election of a Senator from one state and let us see how it affected every single citizen of the united States of America. This one Senator from an upper middle western state was hotly contested, under review and very, very close. I'm speaking of the election of 'Senator' Al Franken of Minnesota. He was declared the winner by the smallest of margins. He was the deciding vote in the US Senate for the "Affordable Healthcare Act" aka Obamacare. In recent months it has come to light that over 1000 people (felons) voted illegally in the Senate race, a race that was declared with a margin under 300 votes. As of today over 100 have been convicted of voting illegally.
A fraudulant vote disenfranchises all citizens.
Voter Identification: The True Costs
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/313053/getting-it-wrong-voter-id-hans-von-spakovsky
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Comments (26)
Tony51203
I see nothing wrong with it and a whole hell of a lot of positives to go with it.
August 11, 2012ThisandThat
Funny that even going to the NAACP convention requires a photo ID; so is the NAACP being racist? The only reason to oppose voter ID laws is because you are stuffing the ballot box with votes from: illegals; felons; the dead; pets; etc. Check out rottenacorn.com to see voter fraud in action.
August 11, 2012livelonger
1000 felons are PURPORTED to have voted; however, IDIOTS PURPORTING aren’t the same as having actual numbers. The PURPORTING is done to convince readers that the vote would have made Franken lose if there weren’t at least 312 fraudulent votes in his favor.
The other silly idea is that EVERY race everywhere that will be done is going to be by a close margin.
HOWEVER, after investigation:
“Minnesota law requires authorities to investigate such leads. And so far, Fund and von Spakovsky report, 177 people have been convicted — not just accused, but convicted — of voting fraudulently in the Senate race. Another 66 are awaiting trial. “The numbers aren’t greater,” the authors say, “because the standard for convicting someone of voter fraud in Minnesota is that they must have been both ineligible, and ‘knowingly’ voted unlawfully.”
That means that at least 243 votes of the 312 margin of Franken’s victory were fraudulent."
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/capitol/was_al_franken_elected_by_vote_fraud_Ige4Z6HxpXOmCgKlpmgyZM#ixzz23EAzM1nh
Republicans are too FLIPPANT about requiring voters that have voted for decades being required to drum up birth certificates when they never had them before, and having to go long distances in rural areas several times, or having people in large cities who use public transportation that never needed a license to go get an ID. All that to solve a problem without a real cause.
We will see if all the people inconvenienced because they are expected to be felons in every town of the US are only Democrats, so it will let Republicans win by tricks and sneaks.
August 11, 2012SEC
Over 1000 were identified and 117 have been convicted that is about half of the so called winning margin!
August 11, 2012livelonger
No – the Minnesota Majority – actually a GOP very small minority, said the identified 1099 felons, but they really didn’t. The prosecutors looked into it and convicted only 117, and 66 are awaiting trial, which means not all might be convicted.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/news_cut/archive/2008/10/minnesota_majority_under_the_m.shtml
“Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is asking prosecutors to look into a phone call that Larry Johnson of St. Paul got from a woman questioning him about his voting record. According to Ritchie, who held a news conference this afternoon, the woman said she was working with Jeff Davis, who heads Minnesota Majority.
This is the group that I mentioned last week was claiming many of the new voter registrants gave addresses that had empty lots.
What is Minnesota Majority? It contends Minnesota school children are being indoctrinated into homosexuality, and it also questions the Republican values of former Democrats such as Norm Coleman and Joe Lieberman.
The group and Ritchie have been exchanging letters in the last week over the vacant-lot claims.
It has — or had — ties with former Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer, who was a consultant with the group. Kiffmeyer also comes up as part of another group — Minnesota Voters Alliance — which was in the news today for demanding photo IDs when voting. She’s on that group’s advisory board. She’s currently running for the state Senate House and may be best remembered for a warning she sounded (as quoted here in the Washington Post) about terrorism at the polls:
Critics of the warnings point to Minnesota Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer’s effort to raise terrorism awareness as an example of how election security measures could chill turnout. Kiffmeyer® gave local election officials fliers that warned voters to watch for unattended packages, vehicles “riding low on springs” and “homicide bombers.”
Bombers may have a “shaved head or short hair,” “smell of unusual herbal/flower water or perfume,” wear baggy clothes or appear to be whispering to themselves, the flier warned. Several local election officials were outraged over what they saw as an attempt to discourage voting with excessively dire warnings and stereotyping descriptions that could single out voters from specific religious, racial or ethnic groups for harassment. They refused to distribute the fliers. August 11, 2012SEC
Never specified a party! I know how they’ve voted however the beneficiary of the vote (D) defeated a well liked® incumbent!
August 11, 2012livelonger
Yeah well, the GOP tactic is to find some whack job group of a few people saying something to agree with, then publishing it as if it was significant so others can jump on a bandwagon as if the majority was thinking the same. the usual.
August 11, 2012SEC
Why are you so invested in the Democrat line?
August 11, 2012ThisandThat
Like Mitt Romney’s taxes? Like something being wrong with Mitt Romney being a Mormon? Like Mitt Romney being at Bain when outsourcing occurred? Like Mitt Romney’s healthcare plan in Mass. being the same as Obamacare? The Democrats are far better at spreading disinformation and obscuring the truth. So much for a transparent presidency.
August 12, 2012livelonger
I’m not. If Republicans actually practiced being Christians and came up with methods to feed and heal the poor as Christ said to do, I’d vote for them, as they tend to pay attention to local matters better.
However, as the national GOP and libertarian leadership complains about providing food to the unemployed and wants to make sure that medical costs continue to skyrocket, and banks continue to rip off the public, I have no other choice but to vote for people that make laws to provide food and health care for the poor. That isn’t Boehner, McConnell, and Ryan. Romney will say anything and change it the next minute.
August 12, 2012SEC
We do, we don’t bruit it about and we don’t force those that don’t agree with us to pay into the effort!
August 12, 2012livelonger
If you do (whatever it is you do) something to make sure that the great number of unemployed had food, instead of trying to make sure noone ever eats again, and you have a plan that will keep the elderly from poverty, and you have a plan to make sure that those with low pay have medical care then tell us about those plans.
The half methods that Ryan has planned to deprive those who hadn’t those helps before Obama made them, his plans to increase military spending by cutting the ‘safety net’ needs some details told to counter the accounting that shows they will create a further depression.
August 12, 2012SEC
Charity is not a government function! And if you’d took time to look beyond the Democrat koolade to look at the internals you’d see that the “heartlessness” that the Democrats sling about is not true. In any definition a system which FORCES another to work for the benefit of another is slavery!
August 12, 2012livelonger
Ya Ya. Try to convince the entire world that it isn’t a function of their governments to make sure that the citizens have enough to eat. If you can convince every government of the world that they’ve always been wrong, then you have something going. You might try to convince everyone that the ‘safety net’ laws pieced together over the past century is something nobody ever wanted, You can tell others that you lack of caring about everyone but yourself is charity, but few believe you.
August 12, 2012SEC
It is a function of the government to provide a safe and secure environment in which to prosper it is not the governments role to feed, cloth and house.
August 12, 2012livelonger
Yup, in your mind the population of a nation should stand by and watch 40 million people live like the millions did during the Depression, many of them dying from exposure and starvation. Not that you think it’s Christian to ignore the handicapped, starving and sick, you just don’t care and think everyone should turn a blind eye. The rest of the world has disagreed with you for millenia.
August 12, 2012livelonger
AH, pardon me if I’m slow to catch on. So according to Brn2 and SEC, the Departments of Health, Education and Welfare, Department of Agriculture, hadn’t existed before 2009, and were snuck in by a Muslim.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_welfare_state
August 12, 2012SEC
Stop being snide! The were placed their with good intentions by people either in times of distress or plenty who had faulty understanding of the Constitution and governments purpose.
August 12, 2012livelonger
OR
August 12, 2012maybe they knew much more of the history of the world and what governments were always about before the industrial revolution when agriculture became less of the occupation of the world, so industrial country leadership could ignore food and health care for their populations.
mrmacq
“Bombers may have a “shaved head or short hair,” “smell of unusual herbal/flower water or perfume,” wear baggy clothes or appear to be whispering to themselves, "
what?
August 12, 2012Tibetan monks?
jillsthoughts
LOL, I went there too…
August 12, 2012Delmarva
Voter fraud? I wasn’t aware that there was a voter fraud epidemic……..Wait…..The is no epidemic. There is no voter fraud to be concerned about due to the fact that the cases are so few and far between. Here are the facts.
August 12, 2012“New database of US voter fraud finds no evidence that photo ID laws are needed” Headline…Here is the link to the truth: http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/11/13236464-new-database-of-us-voter-fraud-finds-no-evidence-that-photo-id-laws-are-needed
brainstormer
I like to think the voting system that exists today is fine:P Cuz when you speak in terms of “Voter ID registration” or checks, I think of some military coo from a sci-fi movie in which soldiers in black or white stand before lines of citizens with bar codes on their necks or wrists and scan them one by one as they pass to do some government task. But, you make a good point about sneaky double votes.
August 12, 2012livelonger
I’m not that paranoid; so I like the idea of voter ID. However, I think the local authorities can be required to look at people without ID in their records to help them establish an ID, instead of making access to ID difficult. There’s no good reason why people who voted for over 50 years should be disenfranchised, when they can clearly be seen to have been considered valid for decades. Those few cases can be referred for review when they come up AFTER they vote.
August 12, 2012jillsthoughts
I have argued that same issue. And if the government really wants everyone to have an ID picture, they should have a camera waiting at the booths to get those pictures, and also send out “volunteers” to take pictures of those with absentee ballots. Is the government really willing to go to those lengths for the couple hundred possible fraudulent votes? Would they put their money where their mouth is?
Minnesota is putting this to a vote this fall. We’ll see how it all shakes down. We also get to vote on gay marriage, so I expect a pretty big turnout.
August 12, 2012mrmacq
im finding this all rather funny and perplexing
how it works up here is
they send out a card
determined by the last census and your tax return
(you wont be on the census without the tax return)
and all thats required is that card to vote
“i live at such and such avenue-or no current address”
oh wait
August 12, 2012theres a ton of people down there that dont want to give info to the gov?