A Wisconsin judge on Monday struck down the state’s voter identification law less than a week after another judge temporarily stopped it, complicating plans for state officials who want the law in place for the upcoming April 3 presidential primary. Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess issued the permanent injunction, finding the law unconstitutional because it would abridge the right to vote.
I’m madly in love with this injunction, granted, but reading the language the judge chooses here, I’m really struck by how conservatives have managed to change the whole way we talk about voting. We’ve somehow wandered very, very far from the idea that voting is a right.
From the Wisconsin judge, yesterday (pdf):
Article III is unambiguous, and means exactly what it says. It creates both necessary and sufficient requirements for qualified voters. Every United States citizen 18 years of age or older who resides in an election district in Wisconsin is a qualified elector in that district, unless excluded by duly enacted laws barring certain convicted felons or adjudicated incompetents/partially incompetents. The government may not disqualify an elector who possesses those qualifications on the grounds that the voter does not satisfy additional statutorily created qualifications not contained in Article III, such as a photo ID.
Compare this next section to what we hear now from Republicans on voting:
As our Supreme Court stated 132 years ago: “The elector possessing the qualifications prescribed by the constitution is invested with the constitutional right to vote at any election in this state. For the orderly exercise of the right resulting from these qualifications it is admitted that the legislature must prescribe necessary regulations as to the places, mode and manner, and whatever else may be required to insure its full and free exercise. But this duty and right inherently imply that such regulations are to be subordinate to the enjoyment of the right, the exercise of which is regulated. The right must not be impaired by the regulation. It must be regulation purely, not destruction. If this were not an immutable
principle, elements essential to the right itself might be invaded, frittered away, or entirely exscinded, under the name or pretence of regulation, and thus would the natural order of things be subverted by making the principle subordinate to the accessory.If the mode or method, or regulations, prescribed by law for such purpose, and to such end, deprive a fully qualified elector of his right to vote at an election, without his fault and against his will, and require of him what is impracticable or impossible, and make his right to vote depend upon a condition which he is unable to perform, they are as destructive of his constitutional right, and make the law itself as void, as if it directly and arbitrarily disfranchised him without any pretended cause or reason, or required of an elector qualifications additional to those named in the constitution. It would be attempting to do indirectly what no one would claim could be done directly.
…For that reason no right is more jealously guarded and protected by the departments of government under our constitutions, federal and state, than is the right of suffrage. It is a right which was enjoyed by the people before the adoption of the constitution and is one of the inherent rights which can be surrendered only by the people and subjected to limitation only by the fundamental law”
No right is more jealously protected by the departments of government! Wow. Sounds important. He’s not talking about the right to buy beer, obviously, so voting must be…different than buying beer, somehow.
But, here’s how Republicans would have us think about voting, today:
House Speaker Kurt Zellers said that voting is not a right, but a privilege Wednesday evening,the Star Tribune reports. Zellers is not the first conservative to make that claim during the debate over voter ID which is heating up the Minnesota Legislature. Republicans and voter ID advocates have compared showing identification for voting to everything from cashing a check to boarding a plane to buying cigarettes.
“When you go to even a Burger King or a McDonalds and use your debit card, they’ll ask you to see your ID [to be] sure it’s you,” Zellers said “Should we have to do that when we vote, something that is one of the most sacred — I think it’s a privilege, it’s not a right. Everybody doesn’t get it because if you go to jail or if you commit some heinous crime your rights are taken away. This is a privilege.”
He backed off his statement a bit on Thursday evening: “I understand voting is a right in the Consitution,” Zellers said. “I misspoke. It’s not a privilege.”
Zellers statement mirrors one made by former Sen. Norm Coleman earlier this year at a tea party voter ID conference.
“Some places require an ID to cash a check at McDonald’s; if it’s good enough for McDonald’s it should be good enough for one of the greatest privileges that democracy affords, and that’s the right to vote,” said Coleman.
At the Minnesota Capitol, during hearing on voter ID last month, the right to vote has been compared to many things that are privileges.
“Maybe you can explain to me how we would know how many people were drinking underage if we never ID’d then,” Sen. Ray Vandeveer of Forest Lake said, noting that the same could be said about voting.
In his testimony, Minnesota Majority’s Dan McGrath compared the voting process to banking. “How fast do you think your bank accounts would empty if someone could access your account on the say-so of a friend?” he said, referencing Minnesota system of allowing neighbors to vouch for voters who don’t have IDs.
The Minnesota Voters Alliance’s Andy Cilek said voting with voter ID is the same as boarding an airplane. “I would argue this is no different than taking an airplane,” he said. “How many people would fly on an airplane if we didn’t make sure the people on that plane were who they said they were in the terminal at their destination?”
In their zeal to enact voter suppression laws, Republicans have managed to fundamentally change not only the way we talk about voting, but how we think about voting. It’s a real shame. They’ve already taken something from all of us, whether or not these laws survive court challenges, because they changed the way we talk and think about voting. That’s a loss. They made voting the equivalent of “cashing a check at McDonalds” by repeating false comparisons, over and over and over. We should not have let them get away with it.
Bulworth
Great job, Kay. Thanks.
I guess everything is a “privilege” in GOP wonderworld, except the ability of religious corporations to impose their sexual ideals on everyone, which apparently is a “right”.
Martin
Ultimately the GOP is going to have to answer the question: “Which is worse – a minor degree of voter fraud or a minor degree of voters being denied the act of voting? Both distort the outcome equally, but only one violates a right. Why did you choose to violate that right?”
KG
I use my debit card/credit card to pay for almost everything. I would say that at most, 40% of the places I buy stuff at with those cards actually check my ID.
As for the privileges bullshit, last I checked, the “privileges and immunities” of citizenship are also protected by the Constitution. Too bad they don’t read it all that much.
Cris (without an H)
That’s a good comparison. Not only do we allow too many people to fly, but we’re even allowing those people to fly. You don’t want me to have to sit next to one of those people, do you?
Dr. Squid
No. They don’t.
Steve
There is not some kind of national consensus that voting is a precious right, which has a lot to do with why voter ID polls so well. Go talk to your conservative neighbor who isn’t part of any conspiracy to disenfranchise Democratic voters, and he’ll probably say that it’s fine to have reasonable rules and if you don’t follow them then it’s your fault you don’t get to vote. He may even be in favor of an IQ test or what have you. But these are honest opinions, not partisan talking points. Some people just think differently from us.
There are groups in this country who have shed blood for the right to vote, most notably black people. Women had a long struggle. Immigrants who know something about the state of democracy around the world tend to prize their right to vote. But to the typical conservative white male, it’s something you take for granted. There’s no reason they should regard it as especially sacred and for the most part they don’t.
KG
@Cris (without an H): wait, I’ve read that question three times. When did we start checking IDs when people got off the planes?
And I’m old enough to remember flying pre-9/11 when you could walk into an airport, up to the gate, buy a ticket in cash, and show a flight attendant an ID that they’d glance at. I recall being on full flights all the time.
KG
@efgoldman: I’m in Cali, and usually the only places that I do are the ones who are aware enough to look at the back of my card and see no signature, so they ask for ID. But actually, the more I think about it, the 40% is probably high.
HelpThe99ers
The obligatory Charlie Pierce reference, quoting LBJ:
I’d ask the Minnesota Voter’s Alliance one question: how many people were killed in America for the right to fly?
Steve
@efgoldman: I don’t know of any such jurisdictions. But it is a violation of the Visa and MC merchant agreements to require ID.
shortstop
@Martin: No. The way you’ve worded it inadvertently gives credence to the winger lie that there is significant voter fraud. There isn’t. No one has been able to document that this even goes to double digits.
There are significant numbers of voters, however, who will be disenfranchised by voter ID laws.
I understand your point, but this isn’t the way to make it.
mai naem
This bit with republicans going after the right to vote makes me really angry. The racial crap with Obama pisses me off but this is actually taking away the right to vote. It’s a pity the Dems can’t come up something ridiculous to stop your typical Repubs from voting. Like, say, tell Boehner he’s too orange to be a real human being and deny him the right to vote. Fuckers. Hope they all DIAF and I rarely say that.
kay
Efgoldman, it’s the WI constitution, not federal.
Culture of Truth
Yeah those kids at the drive-thru are real sticklers.
Zifnab
I’ve felt for a while that Dems were missing a key opportunity to pivot on voter fraud concerns and increase registration rather than decreasing it. Why are we not making voter registration automatic at every point of contact with the government?
Get a new driver’s license? We’ll register you.
File your taxes? We’ll register you.
Pay a fine? Registered.
Sign a marriage license? Registered.
Update your mailing address? You’ve just been registered to vote.
Enroll in school? We’ll have you on the rolls the day you turn 18.
This is so ridiculously simple. We have technology to handle this, and – if anything – a higher degree of registration will help prevent voter fraud by eliminating instances of double-registration or dead people on the voter rolls.
This seems like common sense stuff. And Dems should be pouncing all over it. If anyone objects, just scream “Voter fraud!” until they go away.
jl
@Dr. Squid:
They lie about everything, as DeLong says. I have never been ID’d when using a debit card, and rarely for a credit card, except when buying booze.
I don’t mind being ID’d when buying booze. It is flattering to a forty something dude sporting tuck and roll physique and allows me a few seconds of fantasies of my uncanny youthfulness (\self snark tag here). But I would be extremely pissed if I was arbitrarily ID’d at a polling place.
Kay: thanks for your important posts. My only quibble is that I am not sure what you mean by ‘we’. Who is this ‘we’. Me? I tell anyone who will listen that the GOP voting suppression efforts are dangerous, and can rattle history and Founders words, and other stuff I done read in books, and in the news.
I assume by ‘we’ you mean cowardly Democratic politicians? Or do you mean our worthless corrupt corporate media? They will have to be forced to report history and facts of the matter, only as far as they are forced to by complaints from listeners.
Culture of Truth
If you take an airplane someone is going to notice.
jl
@Zifnab: I think reactionaries, especially white reactionaries, worry that the ignorant and foolish will swamp the vote.
When I meet some one like that, I tell them that Jefferson once said (I think in an address to a local group, don’t have reference but it was in book on history of voting in US) that even fools have a right to vote. So, the reactionary vote will remain safe and unimpeded with voting reform.
Voting suppression and manipulation is as old as democracy, unfortunately. It has been a very useful tool for maintaining race and class power structures in the US. I sometimes think, as in other areas, their projections alarm the GOP base, the certain self styled better classes of people really fear that one of their traditional tools for winning elections will be turned on them.
But, they really do not have to worry, I will defend any fool’s right to vote, even the reactionary deluded GOP primary voters I hear spouting rubbish on the news every election day this year.
WaterGirl
@Zifnab: I love this. All of it.
Culture of Truth
Thing must be… different in Wisconsin.
jl
@Culture of Truth:
When I was there, one thing I remember about Wisconsin was that no one ever ID’d me for anything regarding booze.
In CA, I think I will be 80 before I can buy booze and not get carded.
If someone could figure out how to pair the right to drink and the right to vote in Wisconsin, people would flood the streets with outrage.
Bubblegum Tate
The wingnuts I know (who call themselves “Constitutionalists”) outright state that they believe voting is a privilege, not a right.
Ash Can
Won’t all those private, commercial airline companies be surprised when they find out we all have a constitutional right to avail ourselves of their services?
mdblanche
A thought occurs to me. 132 years ago would be 1880. So while the Supreme Court was giving its high-minded opinion the Wisconsin judge quoted, millions of people were being deprived of their right to vote. And the Supreme Court didn’t actually do anything about that until their grandchildren’s time. I think I know which judge I’d rather have hear my case.
Saying the right thing is good.
Doing the right thing is better.
feebog
@ Martin:
You are comparing apples and mangos here. First, I would aruge that, in terms of legitimate votes cast vs. fraudulent votes cast, the word minor is not applicable. perhaps negligible or infintesimal would serve.
Second, a “minor” degree of voters being denied the right to vote, is not “minor” when you are talking about five million people across the country being denied access to the voting booth. That is a very large, very significant, portion of the voting populace. The number becomes even more signicant when you consider that many elections are decided by just a few percentage points.
Roger Moore
@jl:
They should look in the fucking mirror, then. It isn’t the minorities and lefties who have trouble identifying the President’s religion and birthplace. The only way the right wing wins elections is by ensuring that the ignorant and foolish swamp the vote of the intelligent and well-informed.
Chris
@jl:
FTFY. They may define them as “the ignorant and foolish,” they may even believe that’s why they’re not qualified (though they’re much more likely to overtly complain about the poor voting, because they vote themselves free lunches, argle bargle job creators, etc). But somehow the people they consider “ignorant and stupid” always seem to line up with their racial, religious and class prejudices.
Not to mention the fact that I can’t imagine any context in which the ignorant and foolish would’ve swamped the vote more than they already have.
Cris (without an H)
I love the implication, in this mangled garble, that we’re not trying to stop underage drinking, we’re just trying to keep track of it.
dedc79
Thanks for the updates on this issue. It’s not getting nearly the coverage it should, even though laws like these, if allowed to stand, may very well decide the next election.
The GOP/Tea Party “coalition of freedom”‘s first order of business was to cement its own power by disenfranchising the opposition.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Zifnab:
Except if you move to another state to go to college, you are a resident of that state. And Texas – thanks to the judge for blocking the voter ID law here – tried to make it so that you couldn’t use your school ID as a valid ID and that a school couldn’t have voter drives.
Roger Moore
@jl:
This must be a different part of California than the one I live in. To my mild disappointment I didn’t get carded when I bought booze for the first time on my 21st birthday, and the trend of not being carded has continued with only the rarest exceptions ever since. About the only places I ever get carded are clubs that give hand stamps and supermarkets with the self-checkout scanners. Everybody else looks at me, mentally says “not a cop”, and takes my money.
jl
@Roger Moore:
IIRC, you are down in Orange County or there abouts? They are lax in Lotus Land.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I should say, thanks to the DOJ.
Zifnab
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
At which point you should be automatically enrolled over there. This isn’t hard.
kay
@Steve:
Well, obviously, and I wasn’t alleging any “conspiracy” on the part of voters.
Look, conservative leaders and voter fraud hucksters are deliberately conflating the words “right” and “privilege”. Coleman uses them both in ONE SENTENCE.
While I understand that many people may not consider this a “right” what am I supposed to do with that?
They’re wrong. The fact that they’re wrong harms other people.
I don’t know that 600,000 or 2.5 million or whatever the current claim is will be disenfranchised, but I’m actually not willing to accept X amount of collateral damage in the pursuit of the bogus prevention of “voter impersonation fraud”.
I’m perfectly willing to attempt to persuade them.
Schlemizel
@Martin:
What “minor degree”? I have yet to see any evidence of any actual voter fraud & absolutely none that would indicate any organized attempt to affect the outcome.
Their entire meme is a lie, their framing is bogus. Please don’t suggest otherwise.
jl
I am in favor of compulsory voting, as is done in Australia.
All election systems for federal office in the US had adopted the Australian Ballot (secret vote with confidential paper ballot filled out the voter) by the 1890s.
The Australian Ballot has served us well, and I think compulsory voting will serve us well too.
I remember readin’ in one o them thar high faylootin’ history books that Madison discussed the advantages and disadvantages of different voting systems. Particularly the in person, pledged and sworn public vote which was in wide use (which Madison felt was liable to bribery) versus a secret paper ballot (which IIRC was more of a mid Atlantic contraption in those days) which he felt was liable to fraud.
Madison felt the dangers of fraud were less.
As I remember, Madison was quite dispassionate in his discussion.
And of course Hamilton was insistent on franchise for popular election of House to be as wide as possible. Hamiltion was no lib, he feared that unless the mass of people could and would vote, sooner or later people would take to the streets.
Anyway, I think I would feel more at home and comfortable discussing these issues with the Founders than the modern GOP, who betray the spirit of the US in their purely partisan and dishonest voter suppression schemes.
kay
@Steve:
The laws get more and more restrictive with each pass. In 2006, Indiana and Georgia were the voter suppression leaders. The Wisconsin and Texas laws are much more restrictive than those.
You see the problem, I’m sure. It’s going to be difficult to vote the suppression folks out which is what the judge was talking about 132 years ago. He saw that too. Hard to remove them if you can’t vote!
Schlemizel
@jl:
In the past I used to travel all the time for work. I never once saw a white guy asked for ID with a credit card. Twice I was at businesses behind a black guy who was asked & when it was my turn – nope, just the card thanks.
Wifyie & I were on vacation in Vegas, went to the buffet for dinner one night, the black family in front of us was asked for ID to go with credit card and my wife was concerned as neither of us had an ID with. I told her they wouldn’t ask us because we were white. She got mad at me until they took our card without a peep.
This is post-racial America.
Snarki, child of Loki
Okay! So it’s a-okay for a state to require 7 different government-authenticated photo IDs in order to buy a gun?
Schlemizel
Anybody know about this WI judge? I seem to recall at the time this case landed in his lap that word was he was a “Walkerite” and prone to making decisions favorable to the GOP. Is that true? If so this win is even sweeter.
Steve
@kay: I think we have to craft our arguments carefully because we face an uphill struggle on so many of these issues, like voter ID. Your average white American – or, heck, your average nonwhite American who is accustomed to regularly showing their ID – is a very tough sell for the message that ID requirements are a voter suppression tool. That puts us in a tough spot. Publicizing stories of elderly veterans and nuns being turned away from the voting booth is helpful for our cause, but I still have no idea how we ultimately move public opinion in a major way.
You and I come from the same place on this issue, but this post was sort of written as though there was once a golden age in America where we all understood how sacred the right to vote is, and somehow we lost that due to a bunch of Frank Luntz talking points. I don’t think that golden age ever existed. An awful lot of people take voting for granted and I don’t know if we could ever change that view.
Schlemizel
@Snarki, child of Loki:
OH! HEAVEN TO BETSY NO! Guns are a scared right that that no government body can ever be allowed to get between them and the people who love them dearly.
jl
@Schlemizel: I agree. I am not aware of any evidence that there is any significant voter fraud that could effect elections. In the US it is on the scale of tens of votes, I think.
Now, fixing the vote count after honest votes are cast, or voter suppression, or registration fraud for money, that is another matter. But those things are not prevented by asking individuals to present arbitrary IDs at the polling place.
The Supreme Court could not find any evidence of voter fraud, so cooked up some kind of hypothetical nearly vanishingly small zero percent risk of a fraudulent vote rule to justify their very bad and IMHO incompetent or fraudulent ruling that opened the door to this flood of voter suppression laws.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Zifnab: You’re right, it shouldn’t be hard. Texas tried to make it hard, and I suspect other states will try to as well.
TK-421
This has been going on for awhile, but the origin of this latest assault goes back to the US Attorney scandal back in 2006-2007. The Bush Admin & Republicans politicized the DoJ by purging those US Attorneys unwilling to pursue mythical “voter fraud” prosecutions in advance of the 2004 and 2006 elections.
But, you know, holding Republicans accountable for that way back when was icky and inconvenient. So here we are.
Redshift
@Zifnab:
You would think so (and I used to), but it doesn’t necessarily work out well. I don’t know about other states, but in Virginia, motor-voter has been a bust because DMV offices do a very poor job of handling voter registrations. When we’re doing voter registration, we actively discourage people from registering at the DMV, because chances are they’ll lose it and the voter will think they’re registered when they’re not.
It seems like a great idea, but adding this job that’s very important for the voter but unrelated to local government employees’ main job doesn’t seem to have worked out well.
Omnes Omnibus
Just a factual note here: This case is entirely based on Wisconsin law. Every reference to a Constitution, Supreme Court, law, or court case is Wisconsin specific. The case will not ever go to the US Supreme Court. Tryto bear this in mind while discussing this.
jl
@Steve:
When I argue with people about it I bring up the fact that ID fraud at the polls is NOT a significant source of fraudulent elections.
I point out that focusing on a non issue is a distraction from other election and registration fraud that is far more dangerous and prevalent, that is run by politicians and corporations (messing with honest votes after they are cast, and registration and petition fraud for money).
I also point out, bluntly when I am speaking within my club, that just because they are white and middle class does not mean that the powers of be will not come after them some day. Witness voter suppression schemes that hit the elderly or the disabled, either by design or by accident.
priscianusjr
I am a registered voter in a particular assembly district and election district. They have my name and a copy of my signature on the list of registered voters, and when I go to the polling place, all I have to do is sign in. I am not registered at Macdonalds, with one particular Macdonalds location designated as the only one I am permitted to buy meals at because I live in that particular Macdonalds District and having my name and signature on hand when I show up. The comparison is so utterly bogus.
Rafer Janders
@KG:
What the hell? I would say far less than 1% try to check. And to those that ask, I politely but firmly decline to show my ID, explaining to them that that asking for my ID is a violation of their terms of service with the issuing bank, and that for security reasons I will not show my ID. If they persist, I tell them we can’t do business and walk out.
Roger Moore
@jl:
That’s Los Angeles County, thank you very much; Pasadena (CA-29, CA-27 after redistricting) to be specific. I am emphatically not in Reaganland.
LGRooney
So, the rhetoric we were sold about the nonstop wars we have been fighting since 1941 is false? Shit, we’re not freeing people around the world for democracy but so they can eat at McDonald’s? Of course, that clarifies quite a lot of our foreign policy and who actually controls it but it still runs counter to the stuff I bought into earlier.
So, the next time my wife says I can’t eat BK because the doctor said my cholesterol was abysmally high, I can call the cops on her for violating my rights?
jl
@Roger Moore: Everyone behaves themselves in Pasadena. Why ever card anyone?
Martin
@shortstop:
There’s no other way to make it. Any statistical argument should have been won decades ago. It wasn’t. The right is looking for a moral argument, not a bean counting one – “We should not tolerate cheating” is their pitch. That’s what you need to field. The way to field a charge like that isn’t to say “Oh, there isn’t much cheating, its okay.” You’ll lose that at every turn, and we are losing that with the voters. The way to field a charge like that is to say “You’re right, we should not tolerate cheating, but you’re going to take the rights away from vastly more people than you’re going to stop from cheating – and that’s far worse.” If they want to raise the statistical argument, then let them – we have the facts on our side. Stop being afraid of that. Fight them on their terms.
Gretchen
I have literally never been asked to show an ID to use my debit card. Never.
celiadexter
I wonder if this judge is getting death threats yet…
Martin
@Roger Moore:
Dude. I had to drive past your house to get to the Reagan Library from the OC. Don’t be dumping his body in our landfill, mmmkay?
bago
Holy Feck! You fixed the CDN issue! I can read this site again without a proxy!
pseudonymous in nc
The GOP has already declared who it regards as “ineligible voters”.
Canada has a national electoral registration database that it shares with the provinces through codified data-sharing agreements.
If you consider registration and ID a problem, the answer is a Big Federal Database Of Everyone. Except the GOP doesn’t want a Big Federal Database Of Everyone.
pseudonymous in nc
@Martin:
Not against people who regard “voting while black” or “voting while a student” as “cheating”.
Alternatively, you say “well, the only way you solve this problem effectively is to have proactive state and federal registration, an authoritative and a free national ID card. So, are willing to sign up for that, or are you just prepared to support disenfranchising laws that don’t actually solve the problem you claim exists?”
Gretchen
@Culture of Truth:
Things actually are different in Wisconsin. I was at a fish-fry with my 19-year old twins, and was informed that as long as they were with their parents, they could drink. Uncle Tony noted that it didn’t seem as if this were their first beer.
Ben Cisco
@Zifnab:
Love this. And it IS simple, and would be effective. Which explains why the right doesn’t want it. Doesn’t explain why it isn’t pushed by Dems more, though.
Ben Cisco
@jl:
Given NeoConfederate voting tendicies, you’d think they knew this already.
kerFuFFler
@HelpThe99ers:
Great point!
flukebucket
@Gretchen:
Same here. I have never been asked for ID when using a debit card. And since I am an old man it freaked me out when I realized that I could whip that card out and slide it through the gizmo and get whatever I wanted and nobody asked me for any ID or to sign anything. My kids laughed at me.
Southern Beale
No they don’t! I’ve never been asked to show my ID when I used my debit OR credit card. And I have “See ID” written on my card instead of a signature. 90% of the time they never ask and that’s because 90% of the time you’re using a self-service swipe machine and the clerk doesn’t even touch your card. That’s utter bullshit.
But yeah we hear these comparisons all the time and the thing is, here in Tennessee our Voter ID law is so obviously slanted in the direction of wingnuts as to which forms of ID are acceptable. A gun permit is fine! But if you live in public housing and have a picture ID which you get from the local police department? NO WAY!
They’re obfuscating the issue even more, as if ANY form of ID used for all of these other transactions if fine for voting. I have a picture ID I got when I volunteered at the state women’s prison here. It meets all the requirements: it has my picture on it, it’s issued by the state, I had to get fingerprinted for it, for god’s sake. But can I vote with it? Nope.
Southern Beale
And just as an aside on the gun permit thing, I often thought if volunteers went door to door in the projects trying to get every person of color a gun permit so they can vote, the Tennessee GOP would reverse its decision on that score so fast your head would spin.
rikyrah
thank you for update KAY.
BrianM
@priscianusjr:
I’ve been wondering about that. That’s the way it is in my Illinois town: I sign something, give it to the next ballot person, she checks it against the record. Are there states where no signature is required?
If there’s no signature required – if you can just waltz in and say “I’m Mitt Romney from 124 Sugar Daddy Lane, and I’d like to vote” – I can see where impersonating a voter could be made reasonably low risk, but a signature seems like a cheap, effective way to push fraud from just labor-intensive to labor-intensive and risky.
Surely IDs don’t replace signatures, do they? If I were planning on having my crew of people each vote once at each precinct in town, teaching each of them 20 signatures seems a lot harder than getting each 20 fake photo ids.
Have any of the voter-suppression people described how the fraud they’re fighting is supposed to work?
Tonal Crow
To adapt an oft-cited maxim:
Why are Republicans promoting slavery?
Nutella
Even when we win in court if the wingnuts change the dialogue we have lost. This article is a good discussion of that problem.
How we describe things has an emotional component that has an enormous effect on how seriously we view an issue. The emotional component is what gets people to act. There have been numerous reasoned takedowns of Komen’s business practices and Limbaugh’s nasty speech but the thing that got people riled up was the emotional shock of seeing them slap PP and Fluke around.
Roger Moore
@jl:
You do realize there are several institutions of higher education in Pasadena, don’t you? Now, I’ll admit that Caltech and the Fuller Theological Seminary aren’t the kind of party schools you’d expect to produce a ton of underage drinkers, but you can’t trust those Art Center students.
Tonal Crow
@Nutella:
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. We must produce and promote rhetoric that reaches others’ emotions, not just their rational minds.
Roger Moore
@Southern Beale:
Wow. I’d love to see somebody do that just to see wingnut heads explode.
Bmaccnm
@Rafer Janders: I think your PIN serves as ID. The only place I’ve ever been asked for ID to use my debit card is Goodwill. I let it go without a hassle.
catclub
@BrianM: “Have any of the voter-suppression people described how the fraud they’re fighting is supposed to work?”
I think underpants gnomes are involved. Also,
…. 3.Profit!
Annelid Gustator
Wait, who cashes checks at McDonalds?
retr2327
“I would argue this is no different than taking an airplane.” You do realize where this analogy goes if unchallenged, don’t you? Take off your shoes, go through a full-body scanner, and consent to a search of your luggage and anything else in your possession if you want to vote. Oh, and for you sluts out there? A transvaginal probe as well, no doubt.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Thank you Kay, as always. Can we all remind all our friends and family to push back on this as well. Voting is a right. Cashing checks, using credit cards, and flying on airplanes are privileges. They are not the same.
Davis X. Machina
@BrianM: Are there states where no signature is required?
I’ve never signed anything at a polling place, not to vote, just the paperwork to register the first time I voted in the jusridiction, an exception being signing the envelope when sealing an early/absentee ballot.
Registered at one time or another in Massachusetts, Maine, Georgia, and North Carolina, since 1976.
BonnyAnne
thank you so much for the update, Kay. I don’t have anything clever to contribute, but I read each and every post you put up about voting rights in America, and frankly this is the ONLY place I hear about it.
It’s hideously important. keep it up!
Mnemosyne
@Davis X. Machina:
Really? California is the only place where I’ve done in-person voting, but what happens is that I walk up to my precinct’s table where two poll workers sit with two books. I give them my name and they look me up in both books. I sign my name in one book and they cross my name off in the other book to indicate that I came in and voted.
How do other states do it?
artem1s
everything must be reduced to a commodity to be bought or sold with these people. voting gets you something for nothing. you just have to show up and do it. surely it must be evil.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Unfortunately, the die seems to have been fully cast. I mean, two Congressmen propose a bill to move voting to the first full weekend in November, and a decent majority of responses I read is ‘STOP THE ILLEGALS!!’ ‘Dems just want all their shiftless bums to vote!’ ‘FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD!’ and all other host of bullshit. This is why the GOP always seems to fucking win on every fucking thing, even when they lose: the conversation is ALWAYS in their goddamn favor, and when it isn’t, they change it so we’re always fucking using their language.
Tonal Crow
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik: Which is why we’ve got to work our asses off to change the rhetoric in our favor. Remember: addressing voters’ emotions works. Addressing their intellects, not nearly so much.
BTW, this does not mean that we have to adopt the Republicans’ practice of lying and bullshitting. Honest rhetoric can still be excellent rhetoric.
PIGL
@Martin: Why would you be supposing that the all-but-non-existent fraud and wide-spead disenfranchisement would both distort the outcome equally?.
Tonal Crow
@PIGL:
I suspect an undiagnosed case of Boboitis.
kay
Steve, to clarify, sorry I was so short with you, and I know we agree on this.
Maybe you’re right. Maybe I get so het up about this because I know what women had to do to vote, so I actually DON’T take it for granted.
Anyway, I know we’re on the same side.
LongHairedWeirdo
@efgoldman:
It’s not illegal. It’s typically against the cardholder agreement. The store has an agreement with the credit card company, and it usually precludes requiring anything but your signature for identification. It’s a complicated dance because it determines who pays if fraud occurs.
Lojasmo
@Snarki, child of Loki:
When gun purchases are restricted to the first Tuesday after the Monday after the first full week in November you can bitch. Until then, shove it.
Rafer Janders
@LongHairedWeirdo:
Exactly. Remember, when you pay with a card, you are not paying the store — the bank pays the store, and then you pay the bank.
kideni
@Schlemizel: You may be thinking of Mac Davis (don’t get hooked on him), the Waukesha County judge who ruled on a case that the Republicans brought to try to make the Government Accountability Board do their work. He ruled in the Republicans’ favor on shaky grounds, and his ruling has since been overturned. (That ruling and its overturning actually didn’t have much effect on anything; the GAB has been giving the petitions extra scrutiny and is wrapping up their work.) Davis is indeed a strong Walker supporter (attends/hosts fundraisers, that sort of thing).
Niess is a Dane County judge, appointed by Jim Doyle, a Democrat, and he’s ruled against Democratic interests as much as Republican ones, but that doesn’t make a difference. It really doesn’t matter what any judge’s background is if they rule against the Fitzwalkerstan regime. The judge who ruled against the law last week (a different suit) was appointed by Republican Tommy Thompson and has received no end of grief. The Republicans went after Flanagan since he signed a recall petition (as if that shows more bias than holding a fundraiser for someone before you in court), but Niess didn’t, so they can’t get him on that. They’ll just condemn him because he’s in Dane County.
JR in WV
My experience voting isn’t typical, because I live in a rural area. The elderly volunteers who man the polls have seen me every election for 35 years (or so).
I don’t really know all their names, they may know mine, because they take turns finding me in the book, and watching me sign. Then they tear off a little slip I take to the voting booth.
There, another poll worker uses a dongle to start up the computerized voting machine. [ I was once really leary of electronic voting, as a software guy, I know how easy it is for there to be mistakes/crimes embedded into software ! ]
But our voting machines print a running activity report, so you can look and see what the machine thinks you have done.
Then I leave the voting machine booth, and give the slip of paper to another poll worker, who slips it onto a string with a needle. Secrecy of voting would be an issue, but there are several machines.
Voting fraud in my W Va county is pretty much restricted to county “machine” politicians. Once I took a neighbor over to vote late in the evening, having voted myself early in the AM to get more work done at the house. Tommy went in to the school, it was nearly dark.
I saw a guy I knew [he ran a garage I got work done at sometimes] parked in a truck down the parking lot, and walked down to shoot the breeze. I asked if there had been a lot of voters that day, and he said not too many.
Then he pulled a cardboard box out from under the seat in his truck, and pulled out a bottle of inexpensive whiskey! Here, he said, you can have this, I don’t need it any more.
I said I had already voted, and he said, the election is really over now, help yourself!!
So I did. We drank it back at the farm, and I called the US attorney the next day. Over the following
2035 years many politicians in the county have pled guilty to many voter scams, lately absentee ballots are a faveAnd the prosecutors have even got wise to put in the plea agreements that the newly minted felon swears to never seek elective office again!
They have to resign, too, before they make their plea!
Crooks, you have to be careful, they have so much brass!
Tonal Crow
@JR in WV:
Most voters won’t do that. Also too, the machines can be programmed to selectively “fail” (say, in Democratic-leaning precincts), to drop candidates from the ballot, to rearrange the ballot, to increase or decrease the difficulty of selecting candidates, to skip or add review screens, to add delays so as to lengthen lines, etc. etc. etc.
Either we kill electronic vote-casting, or it kills our democratic republic.
Nylund
Since the Tea Party types love the founding fathers so much, maybe someone should remind them that none of them ever had to show a photo ID in order to vote.