A New Voter ID Question

[MajGenl.Meade]

Uh oh Meade, now you've done it-done went and made Ms. Smartypants look silly. The punishment is severe-she will no longer grant you an audience. Have you a crying towel?

This one gets lots of use

[Gob]

Oh goodie for you, Meade! You got my goat! You must be so proud of yourself!

Hey, Meade got a goat! Can I have some milk for making goat cheese Meade?

[MajGenl.Meade]

I always thought it wrong that Jeff Chandler played Goatcheese. So, no. No more white stuff

[TPFKA@W]

@w, you're on my ignore list too and I don't read any posts of yours that are in any way responsive to mine; I know they'll only be mean and cuntish and I don't want to go that road with you anymore.

Just thought I'd do you the courtesy of letting you know that, because your mean & cuntish posts directed at me aren't achieving the desired goal of hurting my feelings, you might want to save your time and stop proving to others here what a vile bitch you can be when somebody puts your panties in a twist.

Eat a Snickers! You can't be practicing law on an empty stomach, not that you would.

[Lord Jim]

If you ever get a magic wand, ask for a brain.


yrs,
rubato

If you ever get a trip to The Wizard, ask for a brain, a heart, some courage and a ride back to Kansas...

Frankly, you could use all four...

Lord Jim wrote:
"... Oregon, Colorado and Washington now mail a ballot to every registered voter, inviting fraud on a massive scale)


Imaginary secret voter fraud, but MASSIVE! MASSIVE!

Rube it's already been established that the registration rolls are full of non-citizen, non legally qualified "voters"...

The debate has been about how many of them are actually voting, (and persuasive evidence has been presented on this point too; one local television channel in South Florida with limited time and resources uncovered 100 after a just few days of investigation)

Obviously sending a ballot to every single one of these registered non-citizens "invites fraud on a massive scale"...

I fully understand why this doesn't matter to you rube...

It's because you are a person of low scruples and integrity, (who unlike 58% of the members of your own party that polling indicates don't want non-citizens voting in our elections) you are perfectly happy to have them do so because you know that non-citizens vote mostly for your party...

The integrity and legitimacy of the electoral process is completely disinteresting to you; you're a "ends justify the means" kinda guy...

I get that...

[Lord Jim]

Big RR:

I think we philosophically differ here and there is not much we can do to bridge the gap.

Well, I think we can agree on that...

I just don't see the benefit in trying to press gang people (legitimately, legally qualified people) into voting who have no interest in doing so, ( to the point that they can't be bothered to take advantage of all the resources available now to make it extremely easy).

I don't see how that could possibly improve the quality of our democracy...

One of the features of our particular form of republican-democracy is the right not to vote...("compulsory" voting, which some Western countries have adopted, would never pass Constitutional muster here...)

I don't see how having people who have no interest in, or knowledge about, candidates or ballot issues, voting on them in any way enhances the value of the democratic process....

Any more than training a troupe of chimpanzees to pull levers or pin-punch ballot cards would represent an improvement...

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

"If you have not bothered to spend any time learning anything about any of the candidates or issues, please do not vote... (regardless of whether you agree with me philosophically or not; that's not the issue)

You're just mucking up the electoral process with your ignorance; please do not do so. Just fire up another fattie, crack open another brew, and stay home...."

Thank you for not voting...




And also as I have said before, I practice what I preach on this:

Here in TCTUTKHBDTMDITSAF, in every election cycle, we are presented with a veritable cornucopia of offices to vote for, and local and state ballot initiatives to vote on...

If I haven't spent any time looking at the issues involved in an initiative; I don't cast a vote on it...

If there's a vote for an office and I haven't done due diligence and learned anything about the candidates, I don't cast a vote on that either...(This comes up most frequently in my case with elections for the School Board...and I feel somewhat guilty about it, because even though neither of my children are in the public school system, I realize that the quality of the public schools affect the quality of life for everyone in the community and the state, whether you have children in the public school system or not... )

It would be easy for me in a lot of these cases to simply look at the "profession descriptions" offered on the ballot, (If one says "small business owner" and the other says "community activist" guess which one I'd pick? )


But unless I've made at least some minimal effort to learn something about the individuals involved, I don't cast a vote...

I don't want to muck up our democratic process with my ignorant, uninformed votes on candidates or issues I know nothing about ...

And I don't see the value in encouraging anyone else to do so, either....

[MajGenl.Meade]

Is it safe?

[Big RR]

Well Jim, we are at an impasse here; but I did want to point out one thing--I am not in any way endorsing compulsory voting. Everyone should have the right not to vote, but everyone wh is a qualifed voter and wants to vote should have an easy opportunity to do so. To me, that's the essence of any democratic form of government.

[MajGenl.Meade]

everyone who is a qualifed voter

... and proves they are a qualified voter etc. etc. eetc.

[Gob]

--I am not in any way endorsing compulsory voting.

It's never done me any harm!

[Lord Jim]

Well Jim, we are at an impasse here

Indeed....

That's how civilized, mature, educated adults operate...

Agree to disagree and move on...

[oldr_n_wsr]

--I am not in any way endorsing compulsory voting.

It's never done me any harm!

Do you have compulsory voting or compulsory "showing up at voting place"?
I thought one only had to sign in (and then could opt out of actually voting).

[Econoline]

From the other thread:

While it is commonly understood that voting is compulsory for Australian citizens, in practice you are required only to present yourself at a voting booth and have your name marked off the roll. Because casting a ballot is done in secret, it is impossible to tell in a particular case whether a valid vote has actually been cast. A voter may have deposited a blank ballot paper in the box, for example.

[Gob]

Oh they do much better than just put blank ones in!!

[rubato]

Compulsory voting is no more offensive or morally difficult than compulsory jury service. It is an obligation of the citizen and while you may acquit your debt just by showing up, in either case you do still have to show up. And showing up is a concrete way of admitting the importance of the act.


Interesting that no one has been intelligent enough, or honest enough, to respond to my arguments above. Not surprising. But it reveals.


yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Interesting that no one has been intelligent enough, or honest enough, to respond to my arguments above.
yrs,
rubato

Well, that's nice language about econo and wesw who agreed with you. I think it was econo

[Econoline]

Georgia County Admits To Illegally Disenfranchising Voters
BY ALICE OLLSTEIN AUG 26, 2015 8:00AM

Fulton County, Georgia admitted to illegally disenfranchising and misleading voters in the 2008 and 2012 elections in a settlement this month. For more than two dozen violations of state law — including improperly rejecting eligible ballots and sending voters to the wrong precincts — the county will pay a fine of $180,000. To make sure the problems do not continue in the future, the county has promised to spend an additional $200,000 on new training software for their poll workers.

Voting rights advocates who focus on the region, including Julie Houk with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, praised the Secretary of State for investigating the violations but questioned whether the punishment fits the crime.

“What’s going to happen to that money?” she asked ThinkProgress. “How is the state going to use it? Is it wise to make the county pay a very large civil penalty in light of the economic crunch many of these counties are in? I wonder why a settlement couldn’t have been reached to set aside the money for remedial training to make sure the issues don’t happen again.”

The county, which includes Atlanta, has a heavily African American voting population and leans progressive, voting overwhelmingly for President Obama in 2008 and 2012. As detailed in the new settlement, county elections officials misinformed the precincts of who was coming to vote and when, failed to provide absentee ballots to voters who requested them, and failed to put voters who registered on time on the rolls, among other violations. The head of Fulton County’s elections office was fired last year, which she credits to her refusal to cover up the improper purging of voters in 2012.

“We’re happy that the [settlement] is over and we’re able to move forward,” Erica Pines with the Fulton County Democratic Party told ThinkProgress. “We want our voters, many of whom are minorities who’ve experienced a history of disenfranchisement, to remain confident in our elections system and not fear there’s going to be some type of issue when they go to the polls.”

Yet the problems facing voters of color in Georgia are not confined to Fulton County. When neighboring DeKalb County, another stronghold of African American Democrats, opened an early voting location in a popular mall, Georgia State Senator Fran Millar (R) publicly lamented that “this location is dominated by African American shoppers and it is near several large African American mega churches.” He later added, “I would prefer more educated voters than a greater increase in the number of voters.”

Last year, during a tight race for an open Senate seat, more than 40,000 newly registered voters — most of them young, low-income, and black — vanished from the rolls. When voting rights groups sued the state and several counties to force them to process the registrations, the Secretary of State instead accused the groups of committing voter fraud — a move the NAACP and other civil rights groups saw as an attempt to scare them away from future voter registration drives.

A subsequent investigation found just 25 confirmed forgeries out of more than 85,000 forms—a fraud rate of about 3/100ths of 1 percent.

At the same time, the state has enacted policies that disproportionately burden voters of color. In 2006, Georgia enacted one of the country’s earliest and strictest voter ID laws. In 2012, the Secretary of State purged thousands of voters from the rolls a few months before the presidential election, and this year the state’s Director of Elections resigned after her office mistakenly canceled the registrations of hundreds of thousands of voters.

“There’s no question there were significant problems in Fulton County, but they’re being singled out,” said Houk. “The Secretary of State seems to have an inconsistent way of handling these issues.”

Over the past few years, the state has also cut the number of days of early voting from 45 to 21. Lawmakers unsuccessfully attempted earlier this year to further slash the available days to 12.

“Our state legislature is so far to the right that they’re introducing legislation every year to reduce early voting, which hurts in particular the minority community,” said Pines. “We always encourage early voting because if there’s a glitch or problem, we can take care of it prior to Election Day.”

Investigations by the Lawyers Committee and other groups say those glitches and problems are likely to continue. Georgia is one of a small handful of states to have a “exact match” system in which even a minor difference between the information on someone’s voter registration form and their DMV or Social Security records can result in their form being thrown out.

“People were rejected because there was a hyphen in their last name on their form, but not in the state records,” said Houk. “They were rejected for applying using their common name, like Tom versus Thomas. This happened to quite a few people in 2014.”

The state is also implementing a controversial policy that requires voters to provide proof of citizenship in order to register for state elections. A similar proposal in Kansas that would give voters 90 days to prove their citizenship is being challenged by lawmakers and civil rights groups. The Georgia law gives voters only 30 days.

“It’s an unnecessary deadline that prejudices people who may not have access to the proof they need,” Houk said.

"40,000 newly registered voters vanished from the rolls"??? Cancelled registrations of "hundreds of thousands of voters."???

I anxiously await any proof of fraud by voting rights advocates on anywhere near this scale.

In the words of one famous Georgian who knew a thing or two about voter fraud...

It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.

— Joseph Stalin

[Econoline]

Georgia County Admits To Illegally Disenfranchising Voters
BY ALICE OLLSTEIN AUG 26, 2015 8:00AM

Fulton County, Georgia admitted to illegally disenfranchising and misleading voters in the 2008 and 2012 elections in a settlement this month. For more than two dozen violations of state law — including improperly rejecting eligible ballots and sending voters to the wrong precincts — the county will pay a fine of $180,000. To make sure the problems do not continue in the future, the county has promised to spend an additional $200,000 on new training software for their poll workers.

Voting rights advocates who focus on the region, including Julie Houk with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, praised the Secretary of State for investigating the violations but questioned whether the punishment fits the crime.

“What’s going to happen to that money?” she asked ThinkProgress. “How is the state going to use it? Is it wise to make the county pay a very large civil penalty in light of the economic crunch many of these counties are in? I wonder why a settlement couldn’t have been reached to set aside the money for remedial training to make sure the issues don’t happen again.”

The county, which includes Atlanta, has a heavily African American voting population and leans progressive, voting overwhelmingly for President Obama in 2008 and 2012. As detailed in the new settlement, county elections officials misinformed the precincts of who was coming to vote and when, failed to provide absentee ballots to voters who requested them, and failed to put voters who registered on time on the rolls, among other violations. The head of Fulton County’s elections office was fired last year, which she credits to her refusal to cover up the improper purging of voters in 2012.

“We’re happy that the [settlement] is over and we’re able to move forward,” Erica Pines with the Fulton County Democratic Party told ThinkProgress. “We want our voters, many of whom are minorities who’ve experienced a history of disenfranchisement, to remain confident in our elections system and not fear there’s going to be some type of issue when they go to the polls.”

Yet the problems facing voters of color in Georgia are not confined to Fulton County. When neighboring DeKalb County, another stronghold of African American Democrats, opened an early voting location in a popular mall, Georgia State Senator Fran Millar (R) publicly lamented that “this location is dominated by African American shoppers and it is near several large African American mega churches.” He later added, “I would prefer more educated voters than a greater increase in the number of voters.”

Last year, during a tight race for an open Senate seat, more than 40,000 newly registered voters — most of them young, low-income, and black — vanished from the rolls. When voting rights groups sued the state and several counties to force them to process the registrations, the Secretary of State instead accused the groups of committing voter fraud — a move the NAACP and other civil rights groups saw as an attempt to scare them away from future voter registration drives.

A subsequent investigation found just 25 confirmed forgeries out of more than 85,000 forms—a fraud rate of about 3/100ths of 1 percent.

At the same time, the state has enacted policies that disproportionately burden voters of color. In 2006, Georgia enacted one of the country’s earliest and strictest voter ID laws. In 2012, the Secretary of State purged thousands of voters from the rolls a few months before the presidential election, and this year the state’s Director of Elections resigned after her office mistakenly canceled the registrations of hundreds of thousands of voters.

“There’s no question there were significant problems in Fulton County, but they’re being singled out,” said Houk. “The Secretary of State seems to have an inconsistent way of handling these issues.”

Over the past few years, the state has also cut the number of days of early voting from 45 to 21. Lawmakers unsuccessfully attempted earlier this year to further slash the available days to 12.

“Our state legislature is so far to the right that they’re introducing legislation every year to reduce early voting, which hurts in particular the minority community,” said Pines. “We always encourage early voting because if there’s a glitch or problem, we can take care of it prior to Election Day.”

Investigations by the Lawyers Committee and other groups say those glitches and problems are likely to continue. Georgia is one of a small handful of states to have a “exact match” system in which even a minor difference between the information on someone’s voter registration form and their DMV or Social Security records can result in their form being thrown out.

“People were rejected because there was a hyphen in their last name on their form, but not in the state records,” said Houk. “They were rejected for applying using their common name, like Tom versus Thomas. This happened to quite a few people in 2014.”

The state is also implementing a controversial policy that requires voters to provide proof of citizenship in order to register for state elections. A similar proposal in Kansas that would give voters 90 days to prove their citizenship is being challenged by lawmakers and civil rights groups. The Georgia law gives voters only 30 days.

“It’s an unnecessary deadline that prejudices people who may not have access to the proof they need,” Houk said.

"40,000 newly registered voters vanished from the rolls"??? Cancelled registrations of "hundreds of thousands of voters."???

I anxiously await any proof of fraud by voting rights advocates on anywhere near this scale.

In the words of one famous Georgian who knew a thing or two about voter fraud...

It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.

— Joseph Stalin

[MajGenl.Meade]

...and not just once, apparently