E. J. Dionne on Republicans’ efforts to disenfranchise younger voters in 2012:
In Texas, for example, the law allows concealed handgun licenses as identification but not student IDs. And guess what? Nationwide exit polls show that John McCain carried households in which someone owned a gun by 25 percentage points but lost voters in households without a gun by 32 points.
Predictably, the media is ignoring most of this and the Supreme Court is upholding it all.
stuckinred
Meanwhile Mika is blown away by how totally popular Rick Perry is. I wish I was sitting right under the X in Texas. . .
RosiesDad
I get Dionne’s point but I also recognize that a concealed carry permit is a government-issued id card while a school id often is not.
I recognize that voter fraud is not a significant problem but the fact is, it’s not that difficult to get a legal photo id for voting purposes if that’s what is required to vote. Yes, it might require an hour or two of your time but so what? The notion that it is too difficult for some people to produce the required documentation to get a valid id seems to me to be too much hand-wringing. But maybe I am missing something.
DPirate
Gun permits like that require a background check, and there are not-Americans in schools.
EDIT:Removed illegal immigrants
Nancy Irving
How do they justify requiring ID at the polls when no ID is required to vote absentee/by mail?
RosiesDad
Carry permits require a government issued photo id–a drivers license, military ID or passport–or that you provide secondary ID and documentation: birth certificate, social security card or W-2 or 1099 plus address verification documentation (mortgage payment stubs, lease, utilities bill, bank statement, etc.).
Anya
@RosiesDad ~ ~ I personally don’t understand why is our side making the voter ID requirement as though it’s the end of the world. Yes, the Republicans are doing this to disenfranchise voters, but why don’t we stop all this handwringing and start educating voters about these requirement. Why do we act as though it’s hard to get a valid ID?
RosiesDad
@Anya: Totally agree; that was the point of my comment.
@Nancy Irving: They make you jump through enough hoops to get an absentee ballot that the perceived likelihood of fraud is pretty low, I think.
Davis X. Machina
Maine is ending same-day voter registration after 38 years, thanks to a new GOP bill, despite no creditable instances of fraud, and a tradition of being first, second, or third in the nation in voter turnout throughout that period.
The state association of town clerks and other bods whose intolerable paperwork load was cited as the other reason for the law said in testimony that they didn’t need the measure.
Also, no absentee voting on the Monday or Friday prior to an election.
The almost 60,000 new voters who registered on election days in ’06 and ’08 apparently voted the wrong way.
Starfish
The old and the poor do not have things like a drivers licenses because they don’t have things like cars. Furthermore, getting a drivers license requires money in addition to however many hours of your time in your state.
Even the state issued IDs that are not quite drivers license do require time and money to acquire.
Registering to vote is needlessly complicated for students. Can they register where they live 9 months of the year, or do they register in their home districts. What type of ID would be sufficient for students who would like to vote?
amk
Obama campaign team better start spending a part of his cashcow now helping his students, blacks, latinos and other melanin challenged get their voter ids. They have got time on their side … for now. Fighting later in courts would only line up the packets of lawyers while the vote bleeding would continue into a hemorrhage.
Console
The only extra hoop to jump through to get an absentee ballot is that you have to have an out of county address to mail the absentee ballot to and a signature.
If you don’t know, don’t fuckin assume.
RosiesDad
@ Starfish
Time yes, money no.
@Console
I read the requirements for absentee ballot in Indiana on the state website, including the application form. There are different classes of absentee ballots (ie. Away traveling, disabled and unable to travel to polling place, etc.) and there are different rules that apply to each. Beyond that, I’ll stand by my statement that there are enough hoops for absentee ballots that the risk of voter fraud is greatly reduced.
hell's littlest angel
Most people — really, most people in this former land of liberty — seem to think requiring photo ID to vote is no big deal. But the real point is to eliminate same-day registration, scale back early voting, and restrict activists from running registration drives — that’s where the vote-suppression gold is.
Next, I expect to see militiamen at the polls demanding: papers, please.
Sam Dobermann
Students need to go en mass to get concealed carry permits. Then they would have valid id for voting — and scare the poop out of the Republicans.
yeah, I know it would be harder, although in some states it wouldn’t be much harder. In AZ you don’t need any permit for concealed carry. But then you would have no ID.
Any rate, public universities ARE governmental organizations so their ID should be valid. Some students should get with ACLU to sue to try to get it set aside. Try to file in a jurisdiction with “liberal” judges.
Now voter registration groups need to check if people have proper ID and arrange to bus or car pool them down where ever to obtain one. This little stupid cost the State of Georgia several million dollars. Good thing the states aren’t broke.
Hypnos
What’s this voter registration bullshit anyways? In Italy you receive your electoral card automatically when you turn 18 and that’s what you vote with. Turnout is 85%.
Unfortunately half of those vote with their ass and elect Berlusconi, but that is another matter.
Phyllis
@RosiesDad: South Carolina: $5.00 fee for ID Card; Georgia: $20.00 fee for ID card; North Carolina: $10.00 fee for ID card.
Also, in those states, the only places one can get an ID card is at DMV offices. In South Carolina, there is one office per county; no satellite sites. If you can’t get to the DMV, you can’t get an ID card.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
It makes my head hurt.
RosiesDad
@Starfish: I was wrong about no money. Texas charges $16 for a State ID card that is valid for 6 years. (As compared with $25 for a drivers license.) They are $13 in Indiana.
JPL
Hynos, In the US if you are man who turns 18 you must register with Selective Service System but that’s it.
jaywillie
In related news, MO Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed GOP voter ID legislation:
Console
Also, I don’t think people that live outside of Texas have any serious idea of just how big a place this is. We aren’t just talking students, there’s disabled people that live over an hour from the closest DMV-equivalent in Texas. I mean there’s literally counties in Texas that don’t have DMV’s (well, DPS’s is what they’d be). The problem is literally the law. Not merely educating voters. Hell, i’m now unable to vote because I still have an out of state license… nothing happened to my eligibility, and my license is good enough to FUCKING DRIVE IN TEXAS, but I can’t vote with it? Why wouldn’t I fight a law like that?
Also, the elderly is exempt from the Texas voter ID law. I don’t see how that’s remotely constitutional.
Console
I can get an absentee ballot just by saying I’m not going to be in Lubbock during voting… but I can’t vote in person because my out of state license no longer counts.
What hoops?
It’s enough that I work for the government and have to deal with Kafkaesque bullshit all the time (speaking of… I have a government photo ID that can get me in any federal aviation administration building but that isn’t valid for anything else government related). But it seriously annoys me to have to deal with it in my personal life.
John Puma
To see what the manufactured “voter fraud” hysteria is meant to cover up see the last few days of posts at http://www.bradblog.com
In case you don’t have time here is what is being covered up:
The ongoing, grand old tradition of the grand old party = ELECTION FRAUD
Ben Cisco
Cole,
FYWP is devouring my posts in Chrome; I did a test in FF4, then got an error when I tried to edit it. Please check okbye.
Joyce
I live in Texas and it takes me a few minutes to renew my state issued ID. Other than the DPS employees, I am usually the only person in the office. But, I do remember when my parents had to take literacy tests and pay a poll tax to vote. If our white neighbors protested, they were threatened with police action. That was when the state was controlled by Democrats (Dixiecrats). But the Dixiecrats all became Republicans, including Rick Perry.
kdaug
Ding.
Here’s a fun game. Overlay the map of Texas on the northeasters.
(Hint: Stretches from from Maine to the Virginias and west to Michigan).
~200 miles from Dallas to Austin. Same as NYC to Boston.
stuckinred
880 miles from Port Arthur to El Paso.
honus
also, please keep in mind that a student ID is not used as proof of registration, citzenship, or any right to vote, it is required only as some proof that the person who is attempting to vote is actually the person who is already registered. Therefore a photo student ID should be sufficient, since utility bills, etc, are accepted as proof of residency and they are not government issued either.
jinxtigr
If somebody shows up demanding to vote, and the identification they give you is a concealed handgun permit, are YOU gonna tell them they can’t? ;D
honus
and if you think it’s easy to get an alternate DMV ID card, you obviously haven’t tried to do anything a DMV office lately. Here they are understaffed (except now they have an armed security guard, thanks to homeland security; there’s always money for intimidation) the hours have been cut back, rural offices closed and it takes forever to do anything. You have to bring a birth certificate to get an ID card. Getting an ID can take hours, or even days if you forget something when you get to window after waiting 45 minutes or so.
Console
@ honus
Yeah, speaking of kakfaesque bullshit, it’s the height of absurdity that the documents you can get a photo ID with or even register to vote with aren’t good enough to actually vote.
kdaug
Ain’t called the DMV here, honus. (Also ain’t called a DUI, for reference.)
gene108
Compared to other democracies, America has pathetically low levels of voter turn out.
If anything, we should be doing more to encourage more people to vote and get involved.
Republicans are doing the opposite, which is staggering, when you consider maybe 30% of the voting age population voted in 2010 and 60% voter turn out in a Presidential election year is considered high.
Voter fraud is a non-existent problem, but the real problem in our democracy is the lack of voter participation. What are they trying to gain by compounding the problem of low voter turn out needs to be made an issue.
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
[email protected]:
Not 100% for the bigger cities; I live in Greenville SC, and there are at least 2 locations for getting licenses.
That said, the lines and challenges mean it’s basically a lockout for many folks; if you work 8-5, good luck getting an ID without taking time off from work.
Violet
Republicans don’t WANT to encourage voter turnout because if more people turned out, the Republicans would most likely lose a lot more elections.
@ Console: Aren’t you required to get a drivers license in the state you’re residing in after a certain amount of time? Are you saying you are registered to vote in Texas but don’t have a TX driver’s license? If you are registered, you must have been living where you are for some time. Shouldn’t you get a driver’s license too?
snoey
>I’ll stand by my statement that there are enough hoops for absentee ballots that the risk of voter fraud is greatly reduced.
1997 Miami mayor’s race had massive absentee fraud.
Jay in Oregon
I think what people are missing is that it’s not about how easy, or how cheap, it is to get a state-issued ID. It’s also about throwing as many roadblocks as possible between a person and their Constitutional RIGHT to vote.
So say you do take a day off from work, scrape together the documentation to get a State ID or driver’s license? All you need is for some poll-watcher to decide that your ID isn’t sufficient for some reason and make you vote on a “provisional ballot” that may never get counted.
The past couple of elections have shown that the GOP will doing everything and anything they can to prevent the “wrong” kind of people from voting. The fewer people that vote, the more their votes count.
kay
I don’t think the media are ignoring it. The NYTimes actually does a consistently good job with voting issues, and there was a PBS piece on the state suppression laws last week, which I didn’t see but will watch and link to.
The problem is television news. MSNBC and CNN are as bad as FOX. They don’t understand the mechanics of voting, or the laws around voting, or even the difference between registering to vote and voting. They get it profoundly and completely wrong, over and over, and they frame it exclusively in the language of conservative lawyers, in other words, as a privilege and not a right.
That’s just inaccurate. It isn’t true that voting is a privilege, not legally, not conceptually (for ordinary people), not no way. But all television news presents it that way. They track the exact language of the Federalist Society, and the Federalist Society is promoting propaganda.
Ben Cisco
Yup. The point that is here to be made is that requiring monies to be expended in order to vote, regardless of amount, is tantamount to a poll tax which is currently still illegal.
__
Not that that is going to stop the NeoConfederates from trying.
AAA Bonds
Look, no offense, but a student ID often isn’t considered to be a picture ID under the law – and as someone who’s worked in an office that makes them for students, I’d say that’s good, because there aren’t a lot of safeguards (other than opening up a bank account which is usually linked to swipe IDs nowadays).
Really, all it would take to make a fake one, even in the high-tech place I went to school, would be to convince an 18-year-old employee to do it. I think one might have a harder time getting a utility to cook up a fake power bill or something.
I know in my university town, the only place a student ID is good off-campus is to get discounts at movie theaters, etc.
Violet
@kay: Dems should be blasting the media with “Voting is a right” and “Voting is your right” etc. Get someone to make a video with “Voting is your right” as the earworm refrain. Doesn’t matter if it’s dumb. Get it out in the popular culture. Then make sure everyone knows it’s Republicans who want to take away your rights. Republicans want to take away your rights. Republicans don’t want you to vote. Say it, say it, say it. Over and over again.
kay
Wanted to add that the NYTimes does a good job with voting issues, except for their ridiculous ACORN coverage, which was fact-free, uninformed garbage.
They later walked it back, with an editorial that no one read, and they never admitted they got played. But they did. And I think the editorial they ran later, after the media smear job, is an admission they got played.
AAA Bonds
@Jay in Oregon:
I also want to note as a poll worker: redirecting registered voters to provisional ballots is a genuine concern, for sure, but let’s please not dissuade people from filling out provisional ballots with unclear language like this.
I run into multiple people every election day in my small precinct who have to fill out provisional ballots, often because they’re still registered in counties elsewhere in the state.
The provisional ballot system, in my state at least, is pretty progressive, and it’s a benefit to candidates seeking working-class votes (as wealthier people have more time to identify and correct these sorts of errors).
It really breaks my heart when someone doesn’t even try to fill out a provisional ballot – of course, I’m not allowed to try and convince them otherwise as a poll worker.
kay
I agree. I try to do it. It’s easy, because it’s in the constitution, despite the absolutely shameful propaganda that conservative lawyers are pushing, it’s IN THERE.
The opinion that sealed the fate for access to voting came out out of Moderate Mitch Daniels’ Indiana. Justice Kennedy knows nothing about how ordinary people live, so made up a bunch of stuff and based his opinion on that. Justice Kennedy thinks everyone in this country has a bank account and a driver’s license. He needs to get out more. Particularly because the justice system he’s a part of pulls many, many driver’s licenses for things related to income, like insurance or an inability to pay onerous re-instatement fees.
If he doesn’t know that, we have a problem.
AAA Bonds
@Violet:
I agree with this completely.
Republicans regularly make voter fraud an issue, as the conservative party in America (and in many Latin American countries!) always has.
The liberal party usually makes disenfranchisement an issue in response. In my experience, this is often empirically correct: the right-wing party usually makes no bones about its efforts to limit the number of Election Day voters from among those allowed to vote under the law.
But for some reason, nowadays, the liberal party in the United States has decided that immigration issues make the topic too sensitive – while what they should be doing is hammering the Republicans in nearly every precinct for these efforts.
The Republicans will of course counter with illegal immigration. But there’s no reason for Democrats to let them frame the argument that way: Democrats can easily explain how Republican efforts will prevent citizens from voting.
Svensker
An elderly friend in NJ had to go to the DMV recently. Because of all the budget cuts, there’s only one office now open (instead of 3). She waited in line for 4 hours, standing, then got to the head of the line and was told they were closing. When she asked if she could get a number or a pass or something to start at the head of the line the next day, she was told, no, suck it up. But the armed guards at the DMV made her feel much safer while she waited.
But, hey, Goldman has its money and those wars are simply fabulous, so stand in line, citizens. Your government has more important things to do than worry about you.
amk
@ 38. kay
cable teevee news is not msm. Most americans still get their news from the three majors. Cable teevee blowhards are for partisan blowhards on both left & right.
Gretchen
Besides the fee to get the photo id, you need a birth certificate, which also costs money. So $15-25 for the birth certificate, plus $15-25 for the photo id, plus time off work if the DMV is only open 8-4, is a substantial cost for someone making $8 an hour.
kay
The three majors do a terrible job, too. My local Ohio station was running the whole FOX spiel. There are county boards of elections. It’s not like they have no access to “experts”. They don’t need the Sec of State. They could ask a pollworker.
It’s surreal, because voting is local, and a lot of people act as pollworkers. A lot of people understand the mechanics of voting. It’s like reality versus fantasy.
Snarki, child of Loki
There needs to be some disreputable-looking folks hanging around outide of lilly-white suburban polling places.
Not threatening, oh no. Just complementing people on the cars they drive up in:
“Oh, yeah! That’s one NICE SUV! Mmm Hmm! Nice and shiny, I bet you take good care of that beautiful machine. You ever think of trying out some spinners on that baby?”
Make sure there’s some video of the ensuing police riot, though.
Citizen_X
It’s in there FOUR TIMES. There are FOUR amendments to the Constitution–the 15th, giving blacks, including ex-slaves, the right to vote; the 19th, giving women the right to vote; the 24th, eliminating poll taxes; and the 26th, giving 18-year-olds the right to vote–that begin with some variation of “The right of citizens of the United States to vote.”
It is absolutely NOT a “privilege.”
kay
What they’ve done, really successfully, is compare voting to things that are not rights but are instead privileges. They’ve made the two things comparable.
One hears it all the time: “I need a photo ID to cash a check”. But that isn’t a valid comparison. Rights can’t be burdened in the way that privileges can be burdened, or, even more ludicrously, commercial transactions like cashing a check.
Those two things are not the same. But conservative lawyers have made them the same, by making nonsensical comparisons over and over and over.
gene108
Most people don’t vote or care to vote. You aren’t going to get the mass outrage needed to effect change, by saying people are going to lose their “right” to vote.
For most people, they just don’t care.
Voter apathy is a huge problem in this country.
piratedan
if we held the right to vote as dear as some of our brethren hold the right to bear arms this discussion would be moot, we can’t touch/limit/restrict semi-automatic handguns with 30 round clips because that would inevitably lead to them taking away our gun rights, but we can certainly throw up as many hurdles as we can to prevent people from voting. Remember that these guys are also breathlessly proposing poll tests and poll taxes too to “verify your americanness”.
gene108
There’s a Constitutional amendment that prevents poll taxes. It would be hard to create a direct poll-tax again. We’re sort of safe on that count.
Right now the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prevents literacy tests. If that didn’t get renewed and / or it was repealed, states would be free to reintroduce literacy tests.
That’s the bigger risk, in terms of potential disenfranchisement.
Moonbatman
All non-profits organization and unions should be able to issues IDs that are valid as identification for voting.
Except any organization that is part of the vast Reich wing conspiracy such NRA, Cato, The Heritage Foundation and anything supported by the Koch brothers.
Peace Out. The Power is Yours. Free Crystal Mangum
ruemara
Here’s the question I don’t see answered. What’s the plan? Who’s organizing a fund to help people get voting ID paperwork done? Who’s pulling together to get registration and id drives going, say a regular 2x a month, rides to the DMV with up to 10 other people in the neighborhood to get things done. Funding campaigns is nice but what about funding voters? Who’s doing that? It was done before ACORN, it can be done again.
Plus, what gene said. People do not connect the dots and make time to vote.
ericblair
There’s a class-related thing here, too: if you’re a white collar worker, especially a more senior one, taking time off of work just means telling your boss and going. When you’re working a minimum-wage shit job, trying to take time off of work can often mean don’t bother coming back.
Hill Dweller
It’s not just the voter ID. Several states, all republican controlled legislatures, are making it virtually impossible to have large scale registration drives. Florida, for example, requires organizations registering voters to turn in their names within 48 hours or face a significant fine per name. After decades of registering voters there, the League of Women Voters say they will stop because of said fines.
In Texas, they passed a law preventing anyone that isn’t a Texas citizen from registering people to vote.
Then you have the shortening of the early voting period in various states.
This is about voter suppression, pure and simple.
bjacques
Thanks ericblair for the simplest explanation of why “Real ID” laws are onerous. The $15-25 fee for a driver’s license is a bite, but it’s nothing compared to lost work hours or possibly job.
If the Teabaggers are quietly getting their voting eligibility in order, we really ought to be doing the same, in order to nullify the advantage they think they’ll get from this ploy.
Likewise, national organizations should get busy devolving operations to the state level *yesterday*
Get mad but also get even.
kay
I heard a hispanic activist in Texas, and her theory is that voting becomes precious and valuable when it’s threatened or denied. If we know one thing about conservatives, it’s that they’re radicals, and they often over-step, right off a freaking cliff.
There’s some historical validity to what she said, but I don’t know. I just thought it was an interesting take. Too, if we’re panicked and contacting them earlier in order to comply with the ever-changing new voting test demands of dishonest conservative lawyers, we’re contacting them, and that’s outreach.
grandpajohn
Georgia has a free voter identification card that can be obtained. If I remember correctly this was not part of the original law, but the DOJ refused to accept it with the 20 dollar fee and made them change it, so they came up with a free card for voting purposes
Console
@ violet
Yes, I’m technically required to have a Texas driver’s license after 90 days of residency. But getting one entails me getting my car registered and inspected in Texas. I’d rather just use my NC license.
Tonal Crow
@JPL:
In recognition of which I propose the “Service and Citizenship Act”, under which both genders must register for Selective Service, and when they register, they receive an ID card that, when combined with a utility bill, student ID, or other similar easy-to-obtain evidence of residence, entitles them to vote in their jurisdiction of residence.
Let’s see Republicans object to enfranchising potential future draftees.
Sheesh
Jay #37
We should also remember that absentee and provisional votes aren’t even counted under “normal” conditions. This means, if there is enough disenfranchisement at the polls (all the poor, young, brown, or otherwise ended up having to vote provisionally, or absentee) that the at-the-polls results don’t trigger an actual count of all votes then MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
(Provisional votes will only give those voters X amount of days to get right with their ID too — meaning more expense, more time off work, more transportation, more hassle, i.e. mission accomplished: a provision ballot is as good as disenfranchisement.)
In any state with new voting laws it should be a standing order by any candidate to demand a recount regardless of the margin of the vote that Tuesday.
Sheesh
Hahaha, bullshit. Anyone with a printer, a sheet of paper, and a blank window-envelope or knows someone willing with said could fake a utility bill. (That’s a pretty low bar to commit fraud!) Poll-workers (volunteers) aren’t calling customer service, or keeping your bill on file in case of fraud. They just compare the fact you are holding it with your name and address on it against the voter roll with your name and address on it.
Face facts: VOTER FRAUD is not a problem that needs fixing. Fixing non-existing problems costs money.
So not only are they intentionally fucking over anyone that doesn’t traditionally vote Republican, they are screwing everyone else that uses government in their states for any other purpose because the budgets for the costs of enacting these changes came from somewhere. That money sure as hell won’t be from raising taxes on their buddies or floating more loans, right?
Of course, here I am at the end of yet another thread once everyone is gone.
Bill Aire
You libes DISGUST me.The only way you can win is by cheeting,there is case after case of voter fraud perpetuated by Libs ie ACORN well you aint gettin away with it in 2012 .Me and my fellow patiots are gonna see to it.No more black panthers at polling places ,Finding lost ballots in trunk,s of cars,paying homeless people crossing state lines NO MORE
Bill Aire
The reason the liberal democrats do not want to have to provide a ID to vote is because they cant win unless they cheet,How sad is that?
Bill Aire
How many times have we heard of Dead people voting,Im a Libertarian This has to stop,and if someone gets caught punished