Republicans Attacking the Rural Areas?
This is kind of funny in a not-funny way. Voter ID has always been a scam designed to suppress voting by the poor and elderly, and pushed by Republicans as a way to restrict suffrage under the cover of solving the virtually non-existent problem of voter fraud.
Over at Show-Me Progress, though, Clark did a little analysis of the potentially disenfranchised, and it turns out that the rural areas have a much higher percentage of the targeted population than the urban areas. Not only are the rural areas hurt worse by percentages, they represent a higher absolute number, as well.
It appears that voter ID laws may actually be beneficial to Democrats. But don't go looking to see this analysis sway the Dems to start favoring efforts to restrict the right to vote. For Dems, some values are more important than self-interest. Like the right to vote.
I appreciate Clark's work on the issue, and hope that it another attack on poor and elderly suffrage in the next Missouri General Assembly. The Republicans should oppose it for self-interest, and the Democrats will oppose it because we are the true party of values.
Labels: voting
posted by Dan at 7/14/2008 07:36:00 AM
15 Comments:
"we are already required to present some sort of identification"
For the purposes of voting, you can become me, by simply pulling my utility bill out of the trash.
Anyone presenting a utility bill as their only form of identification should be photographed and fingerprinted. Their vote will not be tallied until such time that their identity can be verified.
That's the spirit, Mr. Republican! Maybe we should put ankle bracelets on them, too! Or hold them in a camp until the AUTHORITIES can verify their right to vote!
Far better to suppress thousands of potential poor and elderly voters than to allow the unproven possibility that someone claim to be Eric Clark.
How does a photograph and fingerprint suppress voters?
That's the spirit, Mr. Republican! Let's increase the hassle of voting as much as we can for people we don't really want to vote!
Why should I mind being shoved into a line to be lined up against a wall and photographed like a common criminal? Why should I mind surrendering my fingerprints to the authorities? If I'm voting, I'm presumed guilty, right?
The more we can make the voting process make us feel like we are in a police state, the better!
Of course, creating all these additional hurdles to voting will cost money - maybe we should impose a poll tax to pay for them . . .
"Why should I mind being shoved into a line to be lined up against a wall and photographed like a common criminal?"
Because voting is not anonymous blog commentary.
I do love how getting your picture taken has evolved into being "shoved into a line" and "lined up against a wall"
If that's what happened when you got your driver's license, I'd change facilities. That's not the way it was for the rest of us.
I thought the argument was that it was too difficult for those without photo IDs to get a birth certificate, or to get to the place to get their ID.
When given an alternative that presents no cost to the individual voter, and can be performed in minutes at the polling place, you want to insist that they will be made to feel like a criminal.
No right to vote includes a right to do so as whoever you want to claim you are. If establishing the identity of the voter does not present an undue burden, it is constitutional.
I have provided exclusionary fingerprints on multiple occasions. Many jobs (including mine) that involve a high level of security require fingerprints as well as an FBI background check. I was never made to feel like a criminal.
When John McCain wins the election by 2000 votes in Florida, and you find that 25,000 votes were cast by those whose only form of identification was a utility bill, I'm sure you'll be the first to desire verification of those voters’s identity.
I don't think that our founding fathers had being fingerprinted and photographed as the only way one could vote. Plus there are over 250,000 adults in the Kansas City area who function at the lowest literacy level and are considered functionally illiterate. If they can't read the forms they can't get a driver's license. If they can't get a driver's license in your world they can't vote. That sound a bit like a certain time period we act like never existed.
Same goes for seniors or poor who are blind, who can't read or who can't access the centers to get their license or can't provide their birth certficates for a large number of reasons that couldn't be considered their fault.
This is America. Everyone has a voice not just those who could afford to buy a car, education or healthcare.
Anon 1:37
Lame excuse. Keep trying. We need the laugh.
The Show Me Progress study only predicts possible disenfrachisement of less than 250,000 voters. Less than 10% of those are from Clay, Jackson and Platte Counties. Therefore, 90% of the blind, illiterate, and poor people you speak of would not be effected by a voter ID, let alone, photograph and fingerprinting.
Let's throw out the need for any kind of identification. People should just be able to say who they are and where they live; like they did when this country was founded.
"For Dems, some values are more important than self-interest."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
(Pause for breath)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Thanks Dan. I needed a good laugh. This from THE party of vote fraud: Exhibit 1, the Chicago machine. Where the dead vote. Early and often.
Good to see a student of Ancient History posting on the internet. He'll probably next claim that the Republicans are friends of the blacks, because Lincoln freed the slaves.
How does a photograph and fingerprint suppress voters? Wow. Is this America still?
¿Cómo funciona la fotografía y las huellas dactilares reprimir los votantes?
I appreciate the link, Dan, but Republicans are doing this completely out of self-interest. It would affect rural Missourians disproportionately, true, but it would affect Democrats in rural areas much more than Republicans.
As I said in my post, Wes Shoemyer probably wouldn't be in the Missouri Senate right now if the Voter ID bill were in place in 2006.
Only a republican would think 250,000 people in just one state not being able to vote is a good thing for America.
freaking losers.
Well, anon11:27, those 250K voters might mostly be Dems, who can't be trusted to know what's best for them and the country; and one or two of them might try to vote fraudulently, maybe, we think. Well worth the cost, if you're Republican.
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