Photo ID required...

[il Padrino Ute]

Progressives claim that requiring photo ID in order to vote is oppression, yet if you want credentials in order to get into the Deomocrat convention this week, you must present state issued photo ID.

Any of you progressives here care to comment?

[FMCoug]

Progressives claim that requiring photo ID in order to vote is oppression, yet if you want credentials in order to get into the Deomocrat convention this week, you must present state issued photo ID.

Any of you progressives here care to comment?

They don't want the riff raff in their convention. All they need to know is to vote for whatever has a (D) by it. Actual speeches, issues, etc. would be confusing.

[calicoug]

Progressives claim that requiring photo ID in order to vote is oppression, yet if you want credentials in order to get into the Deomocrat convention this week, you must present state issued photo ID.

Any of you progressives here care to comment?

Sure. I take Pennsylvania legislators (like the Majority Leader in the video below) at their word:

[YOUTUBE]EuOT1bRYdK8[/YOUTUBE]

As to your specific question, I don't have a right to attend the DNC. I do have a right to vote. There shouldn't be barriers to the right to vote that, according to several estimates, may result in as much as 9% of Pennsylvania voters being disenfranchised this November.

In PA, the state conceded in court that it had no recorded reports of voter fraud, that it had no investigations into voter fraud, and no prosecutions for voter impersonation anywhere on record. So what are they really trying to protect against? The prior law required documentation of voter identity (something tying that person to the address they said they lived at). The law now requires a picture ID that is valid at the time of the election- something many people (primarily poor people- who tend to vote Democratic) don't have.

As the Majority Leader noted, I'd guess they want to protect against an Obama win in PA.

[Moliere]

I'm pretty sure the fact there has been no reported voter fraud is not a good argument against tighter controls. I'm no fan of photo ID laws, but Dems need to stop pushing that justification.

[pellegrino]

I'm what you'd call a progressive, but I'm not really against the idea of requiring photo ID to vote. I'd like to see the federal government take concrete action toward restoring integrity to our elections, but I don't think that it has to be with photo ID. I'm not worried so much about voter fraud at the ballot box with dead people voting etc. Rather, I'm concerned about who is in charge of the voting machines, what the algorithms are for counting the votes and how those machines are handled before, during, and after the counting process. With the prevalence of computer voting you don't need to have an actual person come in and vote for your candidate, you just need to buy access to the machines' algorithm.

[Uncle Ted]

I'm what you'd call a progressive, but I'm not really against the idea of requiring photo ID to vote. I'd like to see the federal government take concrete action toward restoring integrity to our elections, but I don't think that it has to be with photo ID. I'm not worried so much about voter fraud at the ballot box with dead people voting etc. Rather, I'm concerned about who is in charge of the voting machines, what the algorithms are for counting the votes and how those machines are handled before, during, and after the counting process. With the prevalence of computer voting you don't need to have an actual person come in and vote for your candidate, you just need to buy access to the machines' algorithm.

Diebold voting machines can be hacked by remote control

It could be one of the most disturbing e-voting machine hacks to date.

Voting machines used by as many as a quarter of American voters heading to the polls in 2012 can be hacked with just $10.50 in parts and an 8th grade science education, according to computer science and security experts at the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The experts say the newly developed hack could change voting results while leaving absolutely no trace of the manipulation behind.

[...]

Debold is the brand of the machines used where I vote.

Nearly every year around election time I write the election board pointing out studies like this and making the simple suggestion of adding a printer to the machines so there is a hard copy on how I voted. With a print out I could review the print out to make sure it is how I voted. Then I could place the print out in the locked box so the voting process could be easy audited, if needed. To date I still haven't even received any kind of a response to my suggestion.

[kccougar]

Debold is the brand of the machines used where I vote.

Nearly every year around election time I write the election board pointing out studies like this and making the simple suggestion of adding a printer to the machines so there is a hard copy on how I voted. With a print out I could review the print out to make sure it is how I voted. Then I could place the print out in the locked box so the voting process could be easy audited, if needed. To date I still haven't even received any kind of a response to my suggestion.

That's the way our local machines work. There is a printed roll that passes by a window where you can view the printed record.

[New Mexican Disaster]

I'm pretty sure the fact there has been no reported voter fraud is not a good argument against tighter controls. I'm no fan of photo ID laws, but Dems need to stop pushing that justification.

Why?

[oxcoug]

Why?

Well, there actually are clear instances of voter fraud, w/ pretty obvious consequences:

1,099 felons voted illegally in MN's Franken-Coleman Senate race.

It was decided by 312 votes.

Franken was the decisive Senate vote in passing the ACA.

That's far from being the only one but it's the most recent one with the most stunning consequences.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/york-w...rticle/2504163

[calicoug]

I'm pretty sure the fact there has been no reported voter fraud is not a good argument against tighter controls. I'm no fan of photo ID laws, but Dems need to stop pushing that justification.

Exactly. That's why I'm also in favor of passing laws to eliminate tiger threats in suburban America.

[wuapinmon]

Well, there actually are clear instances of voter fraud, w/ pretty obvious consequences:

1,099 felons voted illegally in MN's Franken-Coleman Senate race.

It was decided by 312 votes.

Franken was the decisive Senate vote in passing the ACA.

That's far from being the only one but it's the most recent one with the most stunning consequences.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/york-w...rticle/2504163

Franken's vote counts just like the other 99. The only Senate vote that can be "decisive" is the Vice President's.

[New Mexican Disaster]

Well, there actually are clear instances of voter fraud, w/ pretty obvious consequences:

1,099 felons voted illegally in MN's Franken-Coleman Senate race.

It was decided by 312 votes.

Franken was the decisive Senate vote in passing the ACA.

That's far from being the only one but it's the most recent one with the most stunning consequences.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/york-w...rticle/2504163

How would voter id have fixed those problems? Isn't that a problem of purging the rolls? And the bigger theoretical questions is why felons should not be eligible to vote especially after they have served time?

The Sec. of State here in New Mexico made the elimination of voter fraud here a centerpiece of her campaign, and then alleged that she believed that there were up to 64,000 cases of voter fraud. Eventually she narrowed that down to a total of 19 cases. To me, it seems that the down side of disenfranchising voters (which there is high degree of confidence will happen) outweighs the cases of voter fraud that may be out there.

[calicoug]

Well, there actually are clear instances of voter fraud, w/ pretty obvious consequences:

1,099 felons voted illegally in MN's Franken-Coleman Senate race.

It was decided by 312 votes.

Franken was the decisive Senate vote in passing the ACA.

That's far from being the only one but it's the most recent one with the most stunning consequences.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/york-w...rticle/2504163

Are you under the impression voter ID laws would have done something to catch the felons? Do you think their ID denotes them as felons?

They weren't accused of pretending to be someone else. They were accused of voting when state law forbade them from voting. That's an issue of recordkeeping with the state- not of fraud by a voter. And why do you assume they voted for Franken? Couldn't it just as easily be that Franken should have won by an extra 1,000 votes?

I have to agree with New Mexican Disaster too- I don't understand the rationale for stripping voting rights from felons who have served their time.

[calicoug]

By the way, Ox- how do you feel about Ohio's efforts to shut down early voting in the 3 days before the election (except for servicepeople)? It's pretty obviously designed to target blacks who voted on Sunday after church for Obama in 2008.

Does it bother you that the Ohio Secretary of State actually pushed for precincts in Republican areas to have longer voting hours and precincts in Democratic areas to have shorter voting hours (he used his power to break ties for county boards of elections to expand voting hours in Republican areas and restrict them in others)? Is it concerning that Doug Priesse, a close advisor to Kasich and chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party, explained the reason for such disparity by saying: "I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine"?

Does this seem to you to be a legitimate exercise of power?

Republicans have successfully pushed minority voters away from their party. Now, as minority voters make up a larger percentage of the voting population, the GOP is left with only one option to win: find ways to prevent their votes from being counted.

That's a pretty lousy "strategy." Lindsey Graham seems to have noticed:

The demographics race we’re losing badly. We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.

[old_gregg]

It's pretty obviously designed to target blacks who voted on Sunday after church for Obama in 2008.