President Trump: Making America Great Again...

[Uncle Ted]

Those are meant to disenfranchise voters and manipulate the vote in a similar manner to gerrymandering. A regular ID/voter registration is sufficient. Idaho used to have registration at the polls, but they got rid of it. Wonder why.

I am guessing those damn nazi skin heads up there were abusing it.

If someone doesn't have a valid government issued ID card how do they even function? Libs like to argue that voter ID suppresses the minority vote. If that is really the case then why are they not arguing to get rid of the ID requirement for buying alcohol/cigs, opening a bank account, applying for food stamps/welfare/medicaid/social security/unemployment, to drive/buy a car, get on an airplane, get married, purchase a gun, applying for hunting/fishing license, by a cell phone, etc? The government is suppressing the minority's rights to buy a gun! Come on you Dems... don't let Drumpf suppress the minority's right to buy guns!

[Eddie]

So some dems talking about 2016 means election security is not an important issue to be concerned with for the future? Would it hurt the GOP in the senate to come up with their own bill? That don't even want to do that. Also whether or not voting machines were hacked or not last time doesn't mean there aren't some hostile nations out there that would love to do it. Other than from a purely crass and very cynical political motivation I don't understand the resistance against the federal govt. helping the states make sure their election systems are as secure as possible. It could easily harm both parties.

Sorry - I'm not sure where you got this from - if you're stating that as a question to me (since this post was in response to me). I've never said election security isn't important and/or isn't an issue. I simply said that it was more than just Hillary and friends saying that Trump was illegitimate.

I think that more SHOULD be done to secure elections - including some means of making sure that the people voting are the ones who should be voting. There are so many things you can't do i this country without some form of ID - I can't imagine that we can't come up with a way to get an appropriate ID into the hands of everyone who is eligible to vote.

As far as social media meddling, I'm not sure how exactly you secure that and keep people from other places from posting whatever they want to post. I just don't know enough about that stuff, and get that there is a fine balance between censoring speech vs censoring people who don't have the right to get involved - such as during elections.

[imanihonjin]

The real premise of my argument is that elected officials of any party should care if foreigners are fucking with our election process.

I'm not here to defend democrats or republicans. I hate them both most of the time. That's why I vote Libertarian so much. That doesn't mean I think Congress should never do anything. If one side or the other I think is working toward something I think is correct then the rational choice is to support it. Most of the time over the last few decades I've more Republicans more than democrats when I have voted for one or the other.

But right now you seem to just want to have a petty partisan bullshit argument about whether dems really care sincerely enough or not. Maybe it's as crass for you as not caring because you think the foreign influence helps the party you care about more. If that's true you're just proving my case for why both major parties suck.

Or maybe you really don't think it's a problem or any kind of actual threat whatsoever. Fair enough if that's honestly your view, I guess, as much as I think the evidence doesn't support it.

Then why not just say that instead of saying that you think that 90% of dems are just concerned with protecting the legitimacy of elections? It comes across as you defending their outrage and pretending that they are doing it for noble purposes. This is demonstrably false. If you want to be outraged that a foreign power meddled in our election then, so be it, no need to peddle falsities to get you there.

Do I like what the Russians did? No, I do not. However, based on what has been reported to date, I don't see anything to cause grave concern. Their level of involvement is far less than what the US has done in other foreign elections and no evidence has been presented to suggest that an illegitimate vote was cast in connection with their efforts. Why am I supposed to be outraged that they took to social media to promote whatever bullshit they wanted to promote?

[BlueK]

I am guessing those damn nazi skin heads up there were abusing it.

If someone doesn't have a valid government issued ID card how do they even function? Libs like to argue that voter ID suppresses the minority vote. If that is really the case then why are they not arguing to get rid of the ID requirement for buying alcohol/cigs, opening a bank account, applying for food stamps/welfare/medicaid/social security/unemployment, to drive/buy a car, get on an airplane, get married, purchase a gun, applying for hunting/fishing license, by a cell phone, etc? The government is suppressing the minority's rights to buy a gun! Come on you Dems... don't let Drumpf suppress the minority's right to buy guns!

In ND most of the natives there actually have drivers licenses. But many, because they live on the reservation just didn't have a physical address on file which is what was required to get the type of voter id the new law said they had to have. And PO box addresses in the nearest town which most used didn't satisfy the requirement. There are reasonable eligibility and id requirements, and there are others that don't pass the smell test when it comes to determining if their main purpose is really about security or if it's really just designed to make it much harder than it needs to be for someone to vote.

[imanihonjin]

People should care that Trump welcomed Russian influence and interference and multiple people in his campaign made and worked to make contact with Russians.

Investigators were also stonewalled by individuals who refused to cooperative with the special counsel and staff who got rid of electronic communications (just like shady Hillary).

That should be a massive scandal. Instead Trump is treated as the biggest modern day martyr by his fans and partisans.

I couldn't give two craps about Trump.

[imanihonjin]

In ND the natives there actually drivers licenses. They just didn't have a physical address on file, which is what was required to get the type of voter id the new law said they had to have. And PO box addresses in the nearest town which most used didn't satisfy the requirement. There are reasonable eligibility requirements and there are others that don't pass the smell test when it comes to determining if their main purpose is to make it much harder than it needs to be for someone to vote.

So it is your contention that ND republicans knew that Native Americans had drivers licenses but that they did not have a physical address on those licenses and that they could keep them from voting by making it a requirement to have a valid current physical address on a D.L. for that to be a valid form of identification (ignoring for the moment that there were other ways of proving ID other than a DL)?

Amazing.

[imanihonjin]

In ND most of the natives there actually have drivers licenses. But many, because they live on the reservation just didn't have a physical address on file which is what was required to get the type of voter id the new law said they had to have. And PO box addresses in the nearest town which most used didn't satisfy the requirement. There are reasonable eligibility and id requirements, and there are others that don't pass the smell test when it comes to determining if their main purpose is really about security or if it's really just designed to make it much harder than it needs to be for someone to vote.

Okay, so I looked into this terrible ND law that supposedly disenfranchises people. In ND, voter registration is not required, so it is kind of important to verify people who are just walking in to vote are legitimate voters.

If people had an address on the DL that was not their physical address or was otherwise incorrect, all they had to do was visit a website or call a toll free number to update their address. They didn't need to get a replacement for their DL as this information was automatically updated to voters record and would be correctly reflected when they showed up to vote. The state offered to work with the tribes so that the tribes could funnel voter information, such as name, DOB, physical address and tribal ID number and the voter record would be reflected to verify these individuals. Free non-D.L ID were offered to anyone who wanted one and this would satisfy the ID requirement for voting purposes.

What else could possibly be done. It is as if any requirement at all would be too cumbersome.

[Uncle Ted]

In ND most of the natives there actually have drivers licenses. But many, because they live on the reservation just didn't have a physical address on file which is what was required to get the type of voter id the new law said they had to have. And PO box addresses in the nearest town which most used didn't satisfy the requirement. There are reasonable eligibility and id requirements, and there are others that don't pass the smell test when it comes to determining if their main purpose is really about security or if it's really just designed to make it much harder than it needs to be for someone to vote.

That racist Drumpf hates the Red Man! He only want them to have bows and arrows. We need to drop the ID requirement for gun purchases now!

[BlueK]

Okay, so I looked into this terrible ND law that supposedly disenfranchises people. In ND, voter registration is not required, so it is kind of important to verify people who are just walking in to vote are legitimate voters.

If people had an address on the DL that was not their physical address or was otherwise incorrect, all they had to do was visit a website or call a toll free number to update their address. They didn't need to get a replacement for their DL as this information was automatically updated to voters record and would be correctly reflected when they showed up to vote. The state offered to work with the tribes so that the tribes could funnel voter information, such as name, DOB, physical address and tribal ID number and the voter record would be reflected to verify these individuals. Free non-D.L ID were offered to anyone who wanted one and this would satisfy the ID requirement for voting purposes.

What else could possibly be done. It is as if any requirement at all would be too cumbersome.

what was the real problem this was trying to fix? Was there an issue with Native Americans sneaking in from Canada so they could vote? The libertarian in me makes me skeptical of new government regulation solutions looking for a problem. It also makes me frequently amused at how often Republicans who talk about liking limited government only really mean they like it for some things.

At the very least, I found this man's perspective interesting. Even if the state's intentions were as pure as the driven snow, I think I can understand his distrust of it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...=.f5820289977d

[imanihonjin]

what was the real problem this was trying to fix? Was there an issue with Native Americans sneaking in from Canada so they could vote? The libertarian in me makes me skeptical of government regulation solutions looking for a problem.

At the very least, I found this man's perspective interesting.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...=.f5820289977d

I already stated the problem, and it should be easy for you to spot because, as you have previously indicated, you are really worried about protecting the legitimacy of our elections. ND does not have a voter registration. If you want to vote, you just show up to the polls and show, at that time, that you live in ND and within the district you are trying to cast a ballot in.

Edit: I could not read you article as I have already reached my free limit. Please tell me that this man addressed the state bending over backwards to make it as easy as possible for people to be able to vote while also providing some sort of validation that they were legitimate voters.

[frank ryan]

In ND most of the natives there actually have drivers licenses. But many, because they live on the reservation just didn't have a physical address on file which is what was required to get the type of voter id the new law said they had to have. And PO box addresses in the nearest town which most used didn't satisfy the requirement. There are reasonable eligibility and id requirements, and there are others that don't pass the smell test when it comes to determining if their main purpose is really about security or if it's really just designed to make it much harder than it needs to be for someone to vote.

I’m surprised Ted is unaware of how things are done on tribal lands. They don’t have physical addresses. They haven’t needed it. It’s a power grab for sure.

[BlueK]

I already stated the problem, and it should be easy for you to spot because, as you have previously indicated, you are really worried about protecting the legitimacy of our elections. ND does not have a voter registration. If you want to vote, you just show up to the polls and show, at that time, that you live in ND and within the district you are trying to cast a ballot in.

Edit: I could not read you article as I have already reached my free limit. Please tell me that this man addressed the state bending over backwards to make it as easy as possible for people to be able to vote while also providing some sort of validation that they were legitimate voters.

the state bending over backwards to try to solve the issue of having created a barrier in the first place? LOL.

The article actually points out all the work and expense his tribe went through to try to meet the government's requirements to make it possible for its members to meet the requirements. It didn't seem to me that it was the state that did much bending, according to what he said.

[Uncle Ted]

LOL. Drumpf tweets right before the debate that we should immediately pass voter ID laws:

Embedded Tweet

My prediction: one of the questions tonight's/tomorrow's debate will be about voter ID laws. The Dem candidates all will come out against any such laws even though 4 out of 5 people are for them. Take it to the bank. The Dems are so dumb.

[Uncle Ted]

I’m surprised Ted is unaware of how things are done on tribal lands. They don’t have physical addresses. They haven’t needed it. It’s a power grab for sure.

Yeah, we only went to the reservation to get fireworks and other illegal stuff... didn't spend much time there.

[Moliere]

what was the real problem this was trying to fix? Was there an issue with Native Americans sneaking in from Canada so they could vote? The libertarian in me makes me skeptical of new government regulation solutions looking for a problem. It also makes me frequently amused at how often Republicans who talk about liking limited government only really mean they like it for some things.

At the very least, I found this man's perspective interesting. Even if the state's intentions were as pure as the driven snow, I think I can understand his distrust of it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...=.f5820289977d

LOL!


So you are for reasonable voter ID laws, except for when they are reasonable.