Far more sophisticated than my idea, and the requisite head scan could also incorporate electroencephalography to register right- and left-brained orientations in one-step voting. Other than accommodating those absentee-minded ballots, what could be simpler?
Apparently a lot of conservatives didn't read Orwell's book 1984 or the history of the Nazis or the former USSR..... they seem to embrace tyrannical government whenever it suits their political agenda.
The Scylla and Charybdis passage of ID cards that the radical rightists need to negotiate is, to port, disenfranchising the most vulnerable Americans, a prospect at which they blithely scoff as they tack sharply to starboard, the slippery sloped shore of a national identity card. Some are proposing upgrading virtually-universal Social Security cards, incorporating portraiture and scannable data. Of course, such a citizen chit could serve multiple applications, such as determining whether each firearm purchaser is a homicidal maniac and/or violent criminal, a matter of far more import to society than deciding whether some goober is attempting to impersonate his twin brother who fell in a well.
They are comforted by additional layers of state bureaucracy like fluffy blankets on a midwinter's night, even as they boast that they are wont to shed their long johns and brave their frosty repose au naturael.
Why? Oklahoma state elections, 2006 Margin 0.020846% Vote difference 2 Total votes 9,594 After a recount Republican Todd Thomsen beat Democrat Darrel Nemecek by two votes for the Oklahoma House of Representatives seat in its 25th district.[29][30][31] And a whole list of them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ection_results You have yet to prove any additional bureaucracy nor any hurdles, now where is your evidence of sufficient numbers of people denied their voted because of voter ID laws. What is silly is your claiming all these hurdles and impairments when over half the states have such laws and have no such thing. Sure you are by not supporting simple commons sense measures to insure the person voting is the person registered in that name. That is after the fact IF you can catch it which is difficult at best. So do you support a HUGE new bureaucracy that will take the voting list after the election is complete and track down every person it shows who voted and insure that was indeed who voted under that name? Else how do you insure there was no fraud. And spare me we have penalties if they do, we have penalties for rape and it still occurs, we have penalties for stealing and it still occurs and yes we have penalties for vote fraud as in falsely submitting absentee ballots and it still occurs. The ID's in use are quite difficult to fake and the poll watchers are trained in observing them. And again do you supporting having to show an ID when you register? Yes or no? - - - Updated - - - Why would you support that when or current forms of ID work perfectly well?
Really it "often" happens, how often, give us the link. And no those ballots are not counted once the county clerk is notified of the death. A distinction without merit. ROFL yes that poll worker knows all 9,000+ voters and could weed out the 2 illegal votes in the race I cited. There are about 10,000 in the town I live in and not once in my thirty years of voting here have I ever personally known a poll worker and I know LOTS of people in my town. Talk about a red herring. It doesn't have to be a major election. But let's take a recent election, a Presidential election. The 2000 election which was in the end determined by one state, Florida. The vote difference in the entire state was just over 500 votes. There are 67 counties in the state of Florida, just one city, Miami-Gardens, has 40 voting precincts. You would only have to have one person cast a fraudulent vote in a mere fraction of those thousands of voting princincts to have changed not only the outcome in the precinct, not only in that county, not only in the state, but the entire election nationwide. While there were claims of voter fraud including votes by felons, deceased voters, and double voters there wasn't a single claim of voter impersonation fraud that a Voter ID Law would address in an election where over 2.7 million votes were cast. With over 2.7 million votes and not a single case of voter impersonation being identified what are the odds against voter impersonation fraud? The closest major election for governor with millions of voters casting ballots and absolutely no need for a voter to show ID when voting. Yep just one fraudulent vote, one single voter impersonation in a mere fraction of the voting precincts and you sway the election. It doesn't have to be "widespread" as those who oppose ID claim. There is no evidence of voter impersonation fraud ever affecting any electorial process ever in the history of the United States.[/QUOTE]
Yes, so how did your "couple of dead people casting a vote" sway that election? You have shown nothing that would suggest that happened and, apparently, actually thought you could get away with it. You propose your bureaucratic demands, and yet fail to show where there has ever been an actual problem that flashing your picture IDs at poll nannies - legit or fake - would redress, even if it actually existed.
. "To me, it looks more like Lawrence Welk - or Kate Smith, maybe - but if you say that's you, well, you should know!" The more one thinks about it, why pretend that an easily-faked, chintzy ID flashed at some insouciant poll nanny addresses a real problem? Why not get serious! Why not upgrade the already extant Social Security cards with holographic similitudes of one's physiognomy and coded personal data that could be readily checked against a universal registry to actually verify identity? You would thereby, not only prevent Darryl from easily impersonating his twin brother Darryl that fell in a well, but readily nail those with outstanding warrants, unpaid parking tickets, child support delinquency, suspected terrorists, and fugitives secreting overdue library books! Not to mention exposing homicidal maniacs and/or violent criminals attempting to purchase firearms? Don't leave home without it! (We'll know! if you do.)
You can contact a person if you have their name and address, you don't need their phone number. If the person who voted is dead you check the postmark on their absentee ballot to see if they mailed it before they died. In person voting by dead people, when checked out, invariably turns out to be clerical error. People should be required to demonstrate they live in the precinct. A utility bill is sufficient for this. Voter ID laws are way out of proportion to the problem, since there is no problem, and the fact that it will definitely inconvenience tens of thousands of voters for no valid public purpose. We know it's a law designed to suppress minority voting, GOP leaders have admitted this. That's not a valid public purpose.
That isn't really a response to the post that you quoted. I merely questioned Kurmudgeon's assertion that there are armies of people voting five times each. Obviously, in a case with a margin of 2 votes, you wouldn't need this alleged fraud army. Yes, it is entirely possible that Thomsen won by just three fraudulent votes.
Well yes it did. And that is just one election, as I showed earlier just a couple of fraudulent votes in just a fraction of the voting precincts in Florida 2000 where the margin was just over 500 votes could have swayed the election nationally. That it is not "widespread" is just a canard of the left to make sure we don't increase the integrity of our election system.
The claim that since it is not "widespread" that there would have to be millions of fraudulent votes we don't need voter ID. I showed otherwise, that just a handful of fraudulent votes could sway and election. And nor do they have to be "dead" a simple case of someone moving away and their name remaining on the ballot and someone knowing this voting in their name. That being said "Some recent examples of elections in which actual fraudulent votes were cast on behalf of dead people ...........The mayoral election in Miami in 1997 was nullified by a judge because of widespread fraud, including a number of established cases of fraudulent votes cast in the name of dead people. Election inspectors looking at the 1982 gubernatorial election in Illinois estimated that as many as 1 in 10 ballots cast during the election were fraudulent, including votes by the dead.[1]" http://ballotpedia.org/Dead_people_voting And http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Dead-and-Still-Voting-177286281.html And http://www.infowars.com/voter-fraud-dead-people-cast-over-950-ballots-in-south-carolina/ Now show where the 33 states which do have voter ID had to create this bureaucratic monster you claim or do you think you can get away with that canard. The state I live in had state ID's BEFORE we began voter ID, it is part of the DMV just as in other states, no huge bureaucracy needed.
Where was such a claim ever made and who made it? Of course, theoretically, just one fraudulent vote could alter the outcome of a presidential election, but you have not been able to cite a single instance where, in the realm of reality, the flashing of your picture IDs, faked or otherwise, have ever achieved such a result. How would a faked ID flashed at a poll nanny prevent such a theoretical scenario, anyway?
There wasn't even one claim of voter impersonation fraud in Florida related to the 2000 presidential election. While other forms of election fraud could have occurred that would have affected more than 500 vote (e.g. duplicate voting by 500 registered voters sending in an absentee ballot and also voting at the polls) the "Voter ID Laws" would not have prevented those from happening. Voter ID laws only address Voter Impersonation at the Polls and no other form of election fraud. What part of Voter Impersonation at the Polls is a non-existant problem do people fail to understand? If the problem doesn't exist, and it doesn't exist related to voter impersonation, then there is no rationalization for a law that won't prevent a problem but that would disenfranchises million of US citizens denying them their Right to Vote. The Voter ID laws are identical in all respects to the racist Jim Crow voting laws in the South prior to the Civil Rights Movement. Anyone that supports them is either extremely ignorant or an outright racist.
Great, show that this is happening!!!! Give us some statistics on the number of cases where this has actually happened. For example how about the number of convictions for someone impersonating another voter at the polls. We know that convictions would only represent a percentage of the cases but surely you can provided some statistics related to actual convictions that would reflect that a greater problem exists. You need to stop addressing "all forms of election fraud" with "voter impersonation fraud" because first is a very large group with the second is virtually a non-existant group. BTW The only person that would know that a person was on the registration rolls and would know that the person had moved would be a friend of the person that moved and also worked at the election board that controls the voter registration files. Not only would that person have to know that the person was still registered, that they'd moved, but also which polling location they were assigned to and they would also have to be "criminals" intent upon corrupting the election and willing to serve time in prison and/or pay huge fines to make a singular fraudulent vote. The only people that I know of that might be this stupid are Republicans. LOL
I don't know but it should be the same penalty as the voter fraud eliminating Sunday voting, same day registration, reducing or eliminating early voting, closing polls early, closing polls in minority areas making them travel two hours one way to vote, eliminating or reducing parking spaces in areas where minorities are likely to vote, shutting down bathroom facilities in long lines where predominantly minorities vote, making it harder for college students to vote by moving polling places off campus, and the list goes on and on. The penalty should be at least the same.
Scroll back. Are you denying the claims of the left that since voter fraud especially ID are so rare and that it would have to be widespread we should not have voter ID? Going on record here saying you have never heard that argument or made it yourself? You even engaged in it here "Where is your evidence for sufficient numbers of dastards risking fine and imprisonment to each cast a single bogus ballot to pervert any election" But HEY if I misread you my apologizes, glad you agree it doesn't have to be widespread to effect a close election which is all the more reason to have proper ID laws in place.
How do you possibily catch them so you CAN prosecute them? No I don't, you need to start addressing both. No they wouldn't. And with the current shambles of voter registration by filling out cards and giving them volunteer workers who to say someone can't registre multiple names and vote under them since they will not be asked for an ID at the polling place. And then who would you catch them and how would you know who for whom they voted?
I don't recall ever hearing your claim that "there would have to be millions of fraudulent votes." I suspect that you made that up, but if anyone else had ever made such a claim about your "millions," I'm sure you will provide a link to it to avoide being nailed as having made that up. Have you explained how a phony ID would be distinguished from a legitimate ID by the average, untrained poll nanny? How about those multiply-applicable, coded Social Security cards to serve as a national identity card, encoded with facial similitudes and personal data instead of those easily faked low-tech picture IDs - a far better bureaucratic imposition for the problem you have yet to show exists. Certainly, they would be helpful in preventing homicidal maniacs and violent criminals from blithely purchasing firearms with no safeguards to prevent it. .
Texas obtained indictments for four possible cases of voter impersonation fraud so obviously there is a way for government to do this. I don't know what the results of the trials have been (i.e. convicted or not) but we do know that these four cases spanned four election cycles between 2004 and 2010 so it averages out to one case per election cycle in Texas. On the other hand most states that have passed Voter ID laws cannot cite any examples of voter impersonation ever occuring in their state. Voter registration fraud has nothing to do with Voter Impersonation or the Voter ID laws.
Because it wasn't MY claim, I refuted it. But's let review what YOU have said "Since voter fraud is very rare and has not impacted elections, there is no rational reason to alter the existing penalties:" "As I had noted, organising sufficient numbers of criminals willing to risk fine and imprisonment to each cast a phony vote is the equivalent of trying to get rich by counterfeiting pennies - except that the latter scheme is far more likely to be kept secret." "The notion of legions of illegal voters reminds me of the story " "Now, look where the "vast voter fraud" conspiracists " Once again, it doesn't have to be widespread or "vast" or in "legions", it only has to be rare to sway a close election. Same way they do it now and they would be trained just as poll workers are trained now in the 33 states that have voter ID and the 50 states that sell alcohol and tobacco and guns and use credit cards and have welfare offices and a host of other things. Where did you get the ID that modern ID cards are not worth the paper and plastic they are printed upon? I have no problem with a national ID card that could be used for SS and passport and TSA and welfare application and yes voting. How about you? Yes an gun purchases. You DO support ID for gun purchases don't you?
Didn't say impossible, but if I fill out a motor voter card under a false name and send it in and then go to the polls where they do not ask for ID and vote, how would they catch me? If my brother dies and I go vote in his name where they do not ask for ID how do they catch me? My neighbor who is out of town or move last month. And how do you know who they voted for? They are one in the same, so if you do not have a photo ID requirement to register and you do not have one to vote how do you stop it, how do you know if is or is not happening and whether it affected an election. That's why we should have this common sense easily implemented non-suppressible measure in effect nation-wide and why it is moving to that.
That we know of but as an example of a close election where a small fraction of a percent in just a few of the voting precincts could have swayed the entire national election. Yes and it wouldn't have taken many and just a few of the polling places to sway that election. It doesn't have to be widespread and in droves. What don't you understand about the "problems" that have been cited? And no one can say for sure how bad the problem is because it is almost impossible to detect. They are nothing of the sort.
