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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/7/2008 6:32:13 AM | I still stand firm on my belief that no one has the right to vote, but that is beside the point.
I agree, this does constitute a poll tax, in my opinion. Minnesota DOES NOT give out free ID's to people. South Dakota DOES NOT even have a photo ID that is not a Driver's License, which means that there is a possibility of a bunch of blind people out there running around with Drivers Licenses. These also costs money.
Do I think there is a problem out there? One that is so nominal it doesn't really make a huge difference. Is the election system that has been instituted perfect? By no means. And as a conservative, I also have no idea on what to do. No matter what you do, you are always going to have people out there trying to cheat the system. That is just part of human nature. Why else would there be so many people hacking into the Department of Defense website so often? | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/7/2008 7:48:25 AM | I used to be a conservative/Republican...but I have a particular problem: I have principles and personal moral standards.
When I learned how caging works, and how the GOP has been doing it IN SPITE of a Supreme Court injunction against it in 1987, and how the GOP rigs elections in far too many states, I jumped ship. I'm still dissatisfied with the Dems, but I rest easier at night. I, along with many, many other current and former military enlisted and officers are leaving the GOP like rats scurrying from a sinking ship.
When I saw how the GOP blithely and, yes, smugly and arrogantly ignores that one of the reasons the USA is a GREAT COUNTRY is because of the personal sacrifices of the common man and woman; Herr Himmler Rove and the other Radical Reich smirk and probably view this attribute as "quaint." We are a commons, like it or not, and as such we are compelled to do the right thing for each other and our nation. Greed and salacious behavior are outside of these moral principles, yet seem to be embraced by the wealthy to the extent that they might as well have translated "Greed and Pillage" and emblazoned it on the GOP coat of arms, if there was such a thing.
Voting is a right in this country. Doesn't matter what if you think it's a right or a privilege, it's what the Supreme Court rules the Constitution means. Fraud is clearer, however. Democrats often get their teats in a wringer because so much of THEIR legislation ends up being caught up in the Law of Unintended Consequences; if that is their fault, I'll take it any day over the "yeah, but how does it benefit my bank account" Republicans.
Voter ID is a poll tax. If you think it through for just a minute, you can see that the driver's license system could be easily corrupted. | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/7/2008 8:30:33 AM | Again, I think if you went back to the beginning of this thread, you would see how I, and many other lawyers and political professionals come to the conclusion that voting is not a right but a privilege granted to the citizens by the states. I'm not going to rehash this argument. I've made my feelings known.
I am pretty sure I agreed with the poll tax, so I don't know why you are bringing that up as an issue.
I think if you look at Voter Fraud and issues with elections, you would find that there are issues with both Democrats and Republicans. Unethical people on both sides of the aisle are willing to lie, cheat, and steal their way to the top or to get into power. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Both Jefferson and Machiavelli have said that people from time to time must throw those in charge of the state out, be it they both argue it for different reasons and by different means, but in the current situation and the current state of affairs, I would think this would be very relevant.
Also, as far as the problems with the GOP goes, again, I think if you looked, you would see there are voter fraud cases on both sides of the aisle. And many of the original values that the GOP stood for are long gone. Let me remind people it was the GOP who supported many of the Civil Rights Acts and many of the anti-discrimination laws that were passed in the late 60s and early 70s. The current form of the GOP doesn't reflect true conservative views. The current GOP represents religious right views, or those of the neo-conservative.
I do believe that people make mistakes. I believe that humans, by nature, are cruel, lazy, and greedy individuals, but I also believe that they can overcome these issues. I believe that there is a place for government in people's lives, but it isn't to protect them from themselves. If a person is stupid enough to fall for a "deal that is too good to be true," then they deserve to be taken advantage of. That is why the current market is failing is because people were too stupid to realize what they were getting into.
I also don't believe the government has the right to get into people's lives in regards to things like abortion and gay marriage, or several other issues. I consider myself a true conservative, not a neo-conservative or a religious right conservative.
But I'm sure by this point I am way off topic.
Anyway, back to the original. Voter fraud happens across the board, be it Democrat, Republican, Communist, Libertarian, or Green. How do we deal with this? I'm not exactly sure. The photo ID requirement isn't the answer. I do believe it is a poll tax. I know there are many other issues, like those American Citizens who are oversee who can't vote because of certain issues. There are also many issues with the disabled, senior citizens, and countless other groups. I also don't believe it is a big enough issue that we need to invest millions of dollars into it. It's kind of like Global Warming to me. There is no need for the hysteria that people are experiencing.
But here is a radical idea. If we are so afraid of voter fraud, there is this great organization that the United States all but demands goes into other countries to monitor their elections. If we are so scared, why don't we invite them into our country to monitor our elections? Yeah, that's right, ladies and gentlemen, I am suggesting that we allow the United Nations, which is set up to deal with democratic societies and ensure democracies run with transparency and free and fairness, to come into the USA and oversee our elections. | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/7/2008 8:48:58 AM |
But here is a radical idea. If we are so afraid of voter fraud, there is this great organization that the United States all but demands goes into other countries to monitor their elections. If we are so scared, why don't we invite them into our country to monitor our elections? Yeah, that's right, ladies and gentlemen, I am suggesting that we allow the United Nations, which is set up to deal with democratic societies and ensure democracies run with transparency and free and fairness, to come into the USA and oversee our elections.
good post Ez and I like the idea of a "third" party coming in to watch our elections but I dare say you will find much support for it because so many people are so paranoid about the UN.
Thanks for being an honest old school conservative. I thought you guys had all been caught in the mutant NEOCON virus. I read your points on rights to vote and I do think you are right strictly speaking on the wording of the constitution, however, I see the right to vote as being one of those inalienable rights and part of our inherent rights for determination of our happiness and liberties.
I guess its whether you believe rights come from within or from without..... lord help those who believe they come from without, for they are serfs. | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/7/2008 9:07:43 AM |
If we are so scared, why don't we invite them into our country to monitor our elections? Yeah, that's right, ladies and gentlemen, I am suggesting that we allow the United Nations, which is set up to deal with democratic societies and ensure democracies run with transparency and free and fairness, to come into the USA and oversee our elections.
Several of the monitors commented that they would not have certified the 2000 election.
Its not the ID part to me..... If those states passing these laws also offered N/C ID and or same day registration it would be fair and very acceptable to me. In Colorado you will spend several hours to get an ID... Lost wages... daycare... transportation.
Voting on Sunday or create a Holiday, is voting really that meaningful and important in this country.
The real question is voter turn out important??? | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/7/2008 9:19:34 AM | ^^^^^ Ezzee, that is a GREAT idea, and I'd support it 150%. Just as long as the entity overseeing elections is securely insulated from bribery from GOP AS WELL AS Democratic power brokers.
Voting on Sunday or create a Holiday, i[f] voting really that meaningful and important in this country. Absolutely. There are those, however, especially neo-cons, who firmly believe that the LAST thing they want is massive voter turnout. Then, again, I'm reminded of a quote from political activist Emma Goldman: "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."
It's true, a corrupted, broken and cynical system cannot be changed by using its very processes to fix itself. As a consultant in the area of organizational development/complex business systems development, I know this for a fact. | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/7/2008 10:22:30 AM | | I love the idea of having a national holiday to vote, or doing it over a weekend or something like that.. I think that is a great idea and one that hasn't been tried here. The more people we get to vote the better, in theory. I just worry then about the idea of the growing trend of the celebritization of the government officials that we have already started to see and have seen for the past 40 or 50 years. | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/7/2008 10:30:36 AM | I think the holiday/weekend idea is fantastic and would send the message to the hoi poloi just how important voting is. I think Schadenfreudian is correct too that the "right" wouldn't like the response so much.
I'm going to start pushing this idea around more to my legislators. I know its not new but it would be a great thing to have. | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/7/2008 10:39:34 AM |
I love the idea of having a national holiday to vote, or doing it over a weekend or something like that.. I think that is a great idea and one that hasn't been tried here. The more people we get to vote the better, in theory.
Voter reform is so needed. Instant run off. Same day registration. uniform ID requirements. (states rights bull it was done requiring vote machines) a working Justice dept. Public Funded Elections. It is immoral to spend over a BILLION dollars to run for one office... 80 miles from the USA there are people eating MUD.
I don't really think this is a Dem-Repub thing. Voting should be easy and fun. | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/8/2008 7:07:12 AM | Making it a requirement to have a photo ID to vote is not the same as a poll tax, say that is as absurd as saying not allowing people to contribute to any campaign is hindering free speech because a financial contribution is the same as free speech, it's b.s. I don't expect everyone to agree that a photo ID to vote is a good thing but don't get carried away, a poll tax? That's funny. As for people being turned awy in Indiana because of old expired ID's that's probably just liberal spin. Look, we could have the perfect voting system and some would still cry foul. I think ID's should be provided for free to those who can't afford them.
Illegal alien voting is a big problem, but the governments at all level don't do anything about it because government doesn't want to look like a big bad white racist government. Every election my wife and I vote in we see these illegals voting and she knows they're illegal because most of these are the same people who show up to her IRS office and try to get tax credits they don't qualify for because they are illegaly here. Yes, many of these illegals do vote because they want a liberal government who will make it easier for them to get benefits they don't deserve or to turn the other cheek when they break the law. When all that is required is a utility bill with a name and address on it anyone can vote.
And yes, illegal aliens are entitled to a tax refund if they work. | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/8/2008 7:13:42 AM |
Look, we could have the perfect voting system and some would still cry foul.
....agreed but you must look at the scale of how many people are crying fouls these days. It is unprecedented in my lifetime.
...why didn't you guys say something to the poll workers if you saw illegals trying to vote or even call the cops? Call the media so we can document these stories...otherwise its just more urban myth created by fear mongers. (not calling you a fear monger, just like some back up to a claim) | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/8/2008 7:40:47 AM |
Illegal alien voting is a big problem
Prove it...... Prove you see it.... if you are so concerned you report it to the poll watchers...
If you are too afraid to talk to a liberal Dem you have a GOP watcher too.
It is then documented and provable......
I can say every time I vote I watch a guy give the poll work $200 bucks and they hand him 200 ballots....
Money is speech and Walmart is a person.....
The ID's are not free so it is a poll tax....
Heres your liberal spin......
You can always tell a 98 year old to run down and get a copy of their Birth Certificate.........
Indiana nuns lacking ID denied at poll by fellow sister By DEBORAH HASTINGS – 1 day ago About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow sister because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph. Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow members of Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote. The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway. "One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, 'I don't want to go do that,'" Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives. The convent will make "a very concerted effort" to get proper identification for the nuns in time for the general election. "We're going to take from now until November to get them out and get this done. "You can't do this like school kids on a bus," she said. "I wish we could." Late Tuesday, Secretary of State Todd Rokita was unapologetic. "Indiana's Voter ID Law applies to everyone. From all accounts that we've heard, the sisters were aware of the photo ID requirements and chose not to follow them," he said in a statement released by his office. Elsewhere across the pivotal state, voting appeared to run smoothly, despite the fears of some elections experts that the Supreme Court's recent refusal to strike down Indiana's controversial photo identification law could cause confusion at the polls. Indiana's photo ID law is the strictest in the country. The Republican-led effort was designed to combat ballot fraud, said supporters, who also have acknowledged that no case involving someone impersonating a voter at the polls has ever been prosecuted in Indiana. The state's American Civil Liberties Union sued, calling the law a poll tax that disproportionately affected minorities and elderly voters, those most likely to lack such identification. On April 28, the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 that the law did not violate the Constitution. In a primary expected to draw record numbers, a voter hot line set up by the secretary of state's office mostly received calls concerning precinct locations, spokeswoman Bethany Derringer said. But a group of voting rights advocates that established a separate hot line reported receiving several calls from would-be voters who were turned away at precincts because they lacked state or federal identification bearing a photograph. One newly married woman said she was told she couldn't vote because her driver's license name didn't match the one on her voter registration record, said Myrna Perez of the Brennan Center Justice at New York University's law school, coordinator of the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hot line. Another woman said she was turned away from casting her first-ever ballot because she had only a college-issued ID card and an out-of-state driver's license, Perez said. "These laws are confusing. People don't know how they're supposed to be applied," she said. According to the New Voters Project, sponsored by Student Public Interest Groups, about a dozen college students at Notre Dame, Butler University and Indiana University said they were told at the polls they didn't have the right form of identification. Angela Hiss, a 19-year-old sophomore at Notre Dame, presented her Notre Dame ID card and her Illinois driver's license. Poll workers did not inform her that she could have cast a provisional ballot, she told project staff monitoring her polling place. In some counties, polling locations ran short on ballots as voters flocked to Indiana's first meaningful presidential primary in 40 years. Indiana's largest, Marion County, had to print several thousand extra Democratic ballots because of increased demand in traditionally Republican voting areas, said Angie Nussmeyer, spokeswoman for the clerk's office. "Primaries are very quiet, and I think the turnout we might see today probably rivals some of our general elections," she said. In southern Jackson County, at least one precinct ran short of ballots and an electronic backup system failed. Poll workers made copies of ballots and planned to hand-count them, which was expected to delay results there. Several precincts in northwestern Porter County, where Barack Obama was expected to do well, also ran out of Democratic ballots, and a judge ordered polls to stay open an additional hour. Nancy Zondor of Chesterton said she went to vote at her Porter County polling site about 4 p.m. only to be told she would have to wait or come back for a Democratic ballot. She said she had to leave without voting to drive to her son's track meet. "I was aggravated, for sure, it's a big election," said Zondor, who planned to vote for Obama. "I just always vote in every election and want to." Since the Supreme Court decision last month, advocacy groups have fretted that people showing up to vote in Tuesday's primary would not understand their rights, which include being able to cast a provisional ballot and obtain a proper ID within 10 days so that ballot would be counted later. Sean Greene, of the nonpartisan electionline.org, was monitoring precincts in the Lafayette area of Tippecanoe County. "It's going pretty well," he said, despite long lines. "Most of the people I've seen today are prepared and used to this. They have their IDs out already." That thought was echoed in South Bend, where Elizabeth Bridges, 63, said half of the people working in her voting precinct were family members, but still she showed her ID. "I think the law is a good thing because a lot of people are crooked," she said. Associated Press Writers Tom Murphy, Tom Coyne and Ryan Lenz in Indiana contributed to this report.
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/8/2008 7:45:43 AM | Lether:
That is a blatant LIE!
Illegals don't vote! Demonstrate ONE CASE where one illegal alien was trying to vote!
You are also LYING about seeing illegal aliens voting; because you would have pointed them out! So, there would have been a record of it in the media. Nice try!
Illegal aliens DON'T VOTE EVER! It is a lie! | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/8/2008 8:39:38 AM | Thank you bob0colo for posting that article.
I think that this is only the tip of the iceberg and what was reported. I wonder how many other cases were not reported. There are probably thousands of cases that were not reported, which is sad.
Again, I am not against the ide aof making a system that will make voting a better system and try to eliminate fraud, but photo IDs are not the answer. Eliminating college students, newlyweds, and people who don't drive from voting? Well, let me tell you, that's a winning system. | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/8/2008 8:42:18 AM | | How would that eliminate college students,people who don't drive and newlyweds from voting? You can get a state ID...without having to get a drivers license and they are less expensive... | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/8/2008 8:43:54 AM | | WIthout trying to insult your intelligent status too much, have you read the article that bob0colo posted, or are you just flying off from left field on a wild goose chase that you can't back up and are making S.W.A.G's on this topic? | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/8/2008 8:55:47 AM | | yup I du n red it....... there is nothing to back up, I live in Indiana and know how easy it is to get a State Issued Id card....I have one..... | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/8/2008 9:01:37 AM | . "there is nothing to back up, I live in Indiana and know how easy it is to get a State Issued Id card....I have one....."
don't nun's wear Burkas?
Were you born in a log cabin and your name written in a bible the day you was bored....
How much does an ID cost???
If you have to have one it should be free.... | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/8/2008 9:06:02 AM | | sorry if i missed this but doesn't the law say drivers license? not just photo ID? i think, if i'm correct that this might be the point, in regards to indiana, that you might be missing insolent. | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/8/2008 9:08:09 AM |
Were you born in a log cabin and your name written in a bible the day you was yeah, I think that probably covers about what 90 % of those without ID...lol
If you have to have one it should be free.... You have to have car insurance if you drive, should that be free too? | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/8/2008 9:13:48 AM | Thats gets back to the founders.... The real Constitution
You must own a car to vote .... OR Proof of Insurance....
I like it... | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/8/2008 9:30:19 AM | I always underestimate the power of the right wing's talking points to sway and keep the dittoheads on topic.
Never mind that Illegal Aliens don't vote, never mind that Nuns were prevented from voting, never mind that this doesn't help the real voting fraud issues.
It is like trying to teach a brick to read! | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/8/2008 9:35:40 AM | A poster above said: Illegal aliens DON'T VOTE EVER! It is a lie!
How do you know that? With millions of illegal aliens in the country it seems unlikely there were no illegals who ever voted. There have to be some who voted considering the articles I posted earlier in this thread which describe how easy it is for an illegal to vote if they wanted to. Granted, the democrats don't care and don't complain about the fact that its easier than most people think for illegals to vote, because illegals are more likely to vote democrat(because on average, democrats are more likely to be weaker on illegal immigration than republicans) than republican, thats why republican politicians complain about it and democrat politicians don't. According to this cnn article, it was documented that 624 illegals voted in a very close election in california. http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/02/13/cq/sanchez.html Here is some more info from a member of the house judiciary committee http://judiciary.house.gov/OversightTestimony.aspx?ID=777 | |
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| Photo ID required to vote, good or bad Posted: 5/8/2008 9:39:10 AM | | Nuns are subject to the laws just like the rest of the Citizens of the US...it sucks that some couldn't vote, but it is our responsibility to make ourselves aware of the laws that apply to what we endeavor to do....like I said how can you say conclusively that Illegal aliens don't vote or have never voted? | |
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