Trump's chances of winning Wisconsin just got lower

[Sorenroy]

Christ, I've helped a friend obtain hers after she lost hers. Took all of about half a day to get it done. I helped drive her to where you need to go. If you're too lazy to get your ID you shouldn't vote. If a dude with a disability can get *HIS* so can you.

Your anecdote totally proves the point we're all trying to make. As kind as it is for you to take time out of your own life to help a friend, not everyone has you. Also, if your working two jobs just to pay for rent and get your kid through school, and the only times the DMV is open is during your work hours, what are you going to do? It's not about being lazy, and as your anecdote proves, it is difficult for someone to get an ID in certain circumstances.

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I don't see you citing any survey.

From your own source:

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Junk Poll!

OK, two things here: 1) Clearly you found the survey (or at least it's results) by looking through the link, 2) The NAACP report from 2008 was supplemental to the findings. In fact of the other surveys they site (not just for one additional question in a later survey) questioned 4,500 and 10,000 people respectively.

Then why did only 185 million people actually vote?

Where are you getting this number from? We have a 2012 results map on this site.

It's good to see that only three percent of white Americans are too lazy to get their photo ID!

We don't even need a law to keep 25 percent of black people voting. Well, all 4 of them that they managed to poll, they found that Cletus didn't get his. It's an epidemic.

Just.... stop.

As others on this thread have said, there is little to no voter fraud being committed around the country, so effectively the half-implimented system right now that forces people to spend time and money to get an ID only functions as a form of mild voter suppression (whether intended or not). If you need an ID to watch an R-rated movie, or buy alcohol, or go to the bank, or anything else: fine, but none of those things are the fundamental rights on which to build our democracy. If you want to make the argument around photo IDs about laziness, so be it, but even then, you still have the right to vote, even if you spend every moment of the rest of your live sitting on the couch watching cable.

[Sorenroy]

Look, it's not complicated. The idea that voter ID is preventing any significant number of fraudulent votes is based on nothing more than nonsense memes found on right wing websites. Actual voter fraud almost never happens in large enough numbers to affect even local elections, let alone state or federal ones. Add in the fact that elections are largely staffed by volunteers and managed in hundreds of local precincts that vary in how they manage/store ballots, if the GOP was actually worried about the validity of the vote, they would fund more modern equipment, paid poll workers, and standardized voting equipment/procedures.

I did my PhD dissertation on voting laws. Voter ID is entirely, 100% about making it harder for reliable Dem voters from voting. Any suggestion otherwise is partisan nonsense.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/state-failing-on-voter-id-b99694134z1--373569201.html

http://www.tmj4.com/news/local-news/grothman-voter-id-law-will-help-eventual-gop-nominee-win-wisconsin

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/28/republicans-admit-voter-id-laws-are-aimed-at-democratic-voters.html

I would love to read your dissertation if you have it up somewhere.

[Sorenroy]

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Such as?

I'm glad that you literally only pick out the one thing you can argue about from everyone's replies. No, really, I am. Why concede a point when you can dismiss your opponents arguments, or better yet, just ignore them? For some reason you seem to think that because in your situation no one had an issue, no one will ever have an issue. Like I already said, giving up a day at work is not an option for a some people; waiting four hours while you get your ID processed is not an option for some people; paying ten bucks to get someone to drive you to a DMV to wait for a while is not an option for some people, or, alternately, some people may be to lazy to undergo that process. When we already lag behind most developed countries in voter turnout, it is important to make sure that everyone willing gets out and votes.

Even if voter ID requirements only stopped 1,000 people from voting (in fact it is much, much more), voter ID requirements would have done much more harm then good in terms of keeping bad votes out and good votes in. If the people like you who are obsessed with voter fraud really wanted to fix the "issue", it would be far more helpful to put more money into new voting infrastructure or into fixing the security flaws in e-voting.

Also, if I was someone really trying to sneak in enough ballots to change an election, there are other ways to do it then voting in person. Many states allow for remote voting by the disabled or otherwise handycapped. If I was smart and trying to manipulate the election, I wouldn't step foot in a precinct once.

[Sorenroy]

So let's do this one more time for both IDS Ex-Speaker Ben Kenobi and Seriously?:

First of all, before we start this, only 130 million people voted in 2012, not 185 million. In fact, the website you are on right now has a tab in the upper left called "Election Results" that will tell you that exact thing.

Secondly, I do not think anyone on this forum is saying that voter ID laws will stop tens of millions of voters from casting their ballots. What we are saying is that it might stop some people from voting. And guess what? That's enough. In fact, even if five people out of our 130 million didn't vote because of our voter ID laws, voter ID laws would have a net negative impact. And do you know why? Because out of over one billion ballots cast, only 31 include "credible incidents" (ie: not even all proven) of voter fraud.

And if that's not enough, here's a second article that shows just how dumb these photo ID requirements are. According to Politifact, getting hit by lightning is more likely then finding voter fraud in Texas by a factor of 13 to 1.


But let's not stop there, because even if there was a large issue with voter fraud, photo voter IDs likely wouldn't stop it. Going back to the first article, it says this when talking about Wisconsin's voter ID requirements:

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In fact the article goes on to say that "requirements to show ID at the polls are designed for pretty much one thing: people showing up at the polls pretending to be somebody else in order to each cast one incremental fake ballot".

Now if the goal was actually to catch fraud, or end situations that can lead to lost or missing ballots, there's a lot of things missing. For example, the article lists the following (I paraphrase): absentee ballots, vote buying, coercion, fake registration forms, wrong addresses, and ballot box stuffing. None of these are covered by making people who vote in person have a photo ID.


And guess what? Someone is paying money to get you an ID card. Either you pay it to whomever you get it from, or taxpayers pay for you to get it. When every single cent counts because we can't raise taxes, you would think that such an ineffective system would be crossed out immediately... that is unless the goal of voter IDs was never to make sure the scant cases of fraud were caught and rather, as Wiz the Wis points out, that the whole thing was done for political purposes.


And, finally, I'll leave you with this:

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