SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights Act

N&P: Discuss governments, nations, politics and recent related news here.

Moderators: Alyrium Denryle, Edi, K. A. Pital

Simon_Jester
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 30165
Joined: 2009-05-23 07:29pm

Re: SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights Act

Post by Simon_Jester »

Purple, this is in the context of a Voter ID law being said explicitly to be meant to give that state's presidential votes to the Republican candidate.

I don't know how to make it more explicit.

Purple wrote:As someone from Europe I often think that some of your American views on things are strange and confusing. And this case is no different. Honestly I don't understand what the problem is with just having a proper state issued ID with your birth date, picture and all as these people intended. We do that in Europe and have been doing it for god knows how long. It's not only about voting but everything else. But even without that what's wrong with being required to show a non falsifiable ID to vote?
If you do that FIRST, set up the laws so that people can't be punished for taking a day off work to get their ID card renewed, and wait five or ten years for everyone to actually get one of those IDs...

Then there is nothing wrong with it.

In the US as it stands, people who make very little money are often greatly penalized for taking time to get their ID card renewed. No system of universally accepted and mandatory ID cards exists right now, so lots of people just don't have one. And even if we did have such a system, it would take time to get it working.

So instead of giving their citizens that time and support to make sure everyone has an ID, the state here is simply mandating that you can't vote unless you have one of the existing types of IDs. But it was never a legal requirement that you have one of those IDs before, so this is essentially imposing a new condition on people. They're not allowed to vote, even if they were before, unless they have IDs that they weren't legally required to have.

And no decent amount of time or resources is being supplied to make this happen, so it's effectively a tax on voting. Which is unconstitutional in the US because you can't just require that poor people not vote.
Having a single centralized ID system has many benefits and absolutely no flaws. And while yes it seems that the implementation in this case was badly planed and generally botched there seems to be a number of people here who honestly believe that it was not incompetence and inexperience but an actual republican conspiracy to manipulate elections. Something that quite honestly sounds like a bond villain plot rather than something that happens in the real world. And it's not just here. The internet seems to be honestly full of Americans who believe in this conspiracy theory.

So seriously is there anything to it? Or is it just the usual paranoia about having a government at all?
The Republicans have repeatedly shown that they do want to reduce voter turnout in areas where minorities and the poor live. For example, during the 2000 election of George Bush, the Republicans distributed fliers in African-American neighborhoods telling them the wrong date for election day. Something like "Make sure you vote on November 8!" when the election was on the 5th.

There is no explanation for that other than "I'm trying to get a few of my opponent's voters to accidentally miss their chance to vote."

And this is not a unique incident, though it's not an area I spend vast amounts of time researching.

At the same time we have the thing called "gerrymandering," which is its own whole subject of research. Look into that too, it's more evidence.

So yes, there are grounds to believe that at least SOME Republican politicians are consciously looking for ways to make sure poor people, students, and ethnic minorities can't vote. Or that their votes are neutralized and meaningless.

Purple wrote:
Serafina wrote:Excluding people from voting is bad enough - it only gets worse when you consider that its disproportional poor people and minorities who don't have picture-ID and are thus excluded from voting.
That's the thing that confuses me most thou. The fact that people read the first part and the second part and thus conclude that the whole thing is actually a republican conspiracy to exclude minorities.
If the state actually wanted to do this, they should FIRST spend a few years and a few billion dollars publicly advertising the new national ID card. They should have mobile stations operating out of vans that drive to various neighborhoods to take people's pictures and get their applications for the ID card taken care of. They should behave in all ways as if they want to get people to have these IDs.

Making it difficult to get an ID and then requiring an ID to vote simply acts to stop people from voting if they can't do the difficult thing. There is a limit on how hard people should be expected to work to exercise the right to vote, especially if the bulk of their energy is being spent purely on survival.
This space dedicated to Vasily Arkhipov
User avatar
Purple
Sith Acolyte
Posts: 5233
Joined: 2010-04-20 08:31am
Location: In a purple cube orbiting this planet. Hijacking satellites for an internet connection.

Re: SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights Act

Post by Purple »

Simon_Jester wrote:Purple, this is in the context of a Voter ID law being said explicitly to be meant to give that state's presidential votes to the Republican candidate.

I don't know how to make it more explicit.
Of course it can. It can actually say how that law is supposed to do it. I have been hearing a lot of more plausible explanations for this. Like for example the talk on the internet about this being to prevent illegals from voting and stuff like that. Supposedly people believe that the democrats are getting illegals to vote for them. Now I don't buy this particularly either. But it seems like a plausible alternative.
Purple wrote:If you do that FIRST, set up the laws so that people can't be punished for taking a day off work to get their ID card renewed, and wait five or ten years for everyone to actually get one of those IDs...
Why so long? Seriously. Where I am you have to go get your compulsory national issued ID when you turn 18 or something. And you have to renew it regularly. You don't get 10 years to dilly dally. And when the time comes to renew it after X years (I forget how many) you don't get a day off or anything. Certainly not mandated by the state. And no one sees anything wrong with this. Its your duty to do it and you go do it.
In the US as it stands, people who make very little money are often greatly penalized for taking time to get their ID card renewed. No system of universally accepted and mandatory ID cards exists right now, so lots of people just don't have one. And even if we did have such a system, it would take time to get it working.
That I know about. I think everyone does. And that is something I find deeply disturbing. Seriously it is outright one of the more insane things I can think off. Well that and half of your other laws that I have heard about. No offense.
So instead of giving their citizens that time and support to make sure everyone has an ID, the state here is simply mandating that you can't vote unless you have one of the existing types of IDs. But it was never a legal requirement that you have one of those IDs before, so this is essentially imposing a new condition on people. They're not allowed to vote, even if they were before, unless they have IDs that they weren't legally required to have.
And I really don't see a problem with this. So it's a new condition. Every condition has to be new at some point. How long was the interval between the condition being issued and the elections?
And no decent amount of time or resources is being supplied to make this happen, so it's effectively a tax on voting. Which is unconstitutional in the US because you can't just require that poor people not vote.
I find this to be a rather roundabout and insane interpretation of the word tax. No one gave me money to get my ID. Hell I had to pay some fees IIRC.
The Republicans have repeatedly shown that they do want to reduce voter turnout in areas where minorities and the poor live. For example, during the 2000 election of George Bush, the Republicans distributed fliers in African-American neighborhoods telling them the wrong date for election day. Something like "Make sure you vote on November 8!" when the election was on the 5th.
Wow, that is evil and I did not know about it. But again it is at best circumstantial and only proves that the republicans can be up to no good. I guess it counts as a character witness or something.
At the same time we have the thing called "gerrymandering," which is its own whole subject of research. Look into that too, it's more evidence.
That's actually one of the reasons why I think the theory is far fetched. The republicans have shown that they have much more effective methods of manipulating the vote.
So yes, there are grounds to believe that at least SOME Republican politicians are consciously looking for ways to make sure poor people, students, and ethnic minorities can't vote. Or that their votes are neutralized and meaningless.
Yes but is it evidence that they did so in this particular case.
If the state actually wanted to do this, they should FIRST spend a few years and a few billion dollars publicly advertising the new national ID card. They should have mobile stations operating out of vans that drive to various neighborhoods to take people's pictures and get their applications for the ID card taken care of. They should behave in all ways as if they want to get people to have these IDs.
Why should they do any of this? No one drove a wan to my house when I got my first ID. I had to walk to the police station my self to even learn what steps I needed to take. Than again where I am from you know in advance that you do have to do this when you turn of age. So I can agree with you that they should have put more money into advertising. But I still find your notion of actually driving to peoples homes to be an absurd waste of money.
Making it difficult to get an ID and then requiring an ID to vote simply acts to stop people from voting if they can't do the difficult thing. There is a limit on how hard people should be expected to work to exercise the right to vote, especially if the bulk of their energy is being spent purely on survival.
How was it made difficult beyond long lines (which you can expect any time a lot of people have to get anything done) and not giving people a privileged status to reward them for doing it (which no one in the world does anyway)?
It has become clear to me in the previous days that any attempts at reconciliation and explanation with the community here has failed. I have tried my best. I really have. I pored my heart out trying. But it was all for nothing.

You win. There, I have said it.

Now there is only one thing left to do. Let us see if I can sum up the strength needed to end things once and for all.
User avatar
Rogue 9
Scrapping TIEs since 1997
Posts: 18683
Joined: 2003-11-12 01:10pm
Location: Classified
Contact:

Re: SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights Act

Post by Rogue 9 »

Purple wrote:And I really don't see a problem with this. So it's a new condition. Every condition has to be new at some point. How long was the interval between the condition being issued and the elections?
A couple of weeks.
It's Rogue, not Rouge!

HAB | KotL | VRWC/ELC/CDA | TRotR | The Anti-Confederate | Sluggite | Gamer | Blogger | Staff Reporter | Student | Musician
User avatar
General Zod
Never Shuts Up
Posts: 29211
Joined: 2003-11-18 03:08pm
Location: The Clearance Rack
Contact:

Re: SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights Act

Post by General Zod »

Of course it can. It can actually say how that law is supposed to do it. I have been hearing a lot of more plausible explanations for this. Like for example the talk on the internet about this being to prevent illegals from voting and stuff like that. Supposedly people believe that the democrats are getting illegals to vote for them. Now I don't buy this particularly either. But it seems like a plausible alternative.
Would you like to try again?

Image
"It's you Americans. There's something about nipples you hate. If this were Germany, we'd be romping around naked on the stage here."
User avatar
Purple
Sith Acolyte
Posts: 5233
Joined: 2010-04-20 08:31am
Location: In a purple cube orbiting this planet. Hijacking satellites for an internet connection.

Re: SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights Act

Post by Purple »

Rogue 9 wrote:
Purple wrote:And I really don't see a problem with this. So it's a new condition. Every condition has to be new at some point. How long was the interval between the condition being issued and the elections?
A couple of weeks.
Suddenly the conspiracy theory got far, far more believable. Yea, a few weeks is way too short even assuming a functioning system. It should have at least been a few months.
It has become clear to me in the previous days that any attempts at reconciliation and explanation with the community here has failed. I have tried my best. I really have. I pored my heart out trying. But it was all for nothing.

You win. There, I have said it.

Now there is only one thing left to do. Let us see if I can sum up the strength needed to end things once and for all.
Simon_Jester
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 30165
Joined: 2009-05-23 07:29pm

Re: SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights Act

Post by Simon_Jester »

Purple wrote:
Simon_Jester wrote:Purple, this is in the context of a Voter ID law being said explicitly to be meant to give that state's presidential votes to the Republican candidate.

I don't know how to make it more explicit.
Of course it can. It can actually say how that law is supposed to do it. I have been hearing a lot of more plausible explanations for this. Like for example the talk on the internet about this being to prevent illegals from voting and stuff like that. Supposedly people believe that the democrats are getting illegals to vote for them. Now I don't buy this particularly either. But it seems like a plausible alternative.
I refuse to believe that political decision-makers are operating on such shitty information that they believe this. I can grant that random morons think it, but if I were a Republican politician I'd want accurate, factual data on who is voting for the Democrats and why. And then I'd know damn well that illegal immigrants sneaking into voter lines aren't my problem.0
Purple wrote:If you do that FIRST, set up the laws so that people can't be punished for taking a day off work to get their ID card renewed, and wait five or ten years for everyone to actually get one of those IDs...
Why so long? Seriously. Where I am you have to go get your compulsory national issued ID when you turn 18 or something. And you have to renew it regularly. You don't get 10 years to dilly dally. And when the time comes to renew it after X years (I forget how many) you don't get a day off or anything. Certainly not mandated by the state. And no one sees anything wrong with this. Its your duty to do it and you go do it.

...
In the US as it stands, people who make very little money are often greatly penalized for taking time to get their ID card renewed. No system of universally accepted and mandatory ID cards exists right now, so lots of people just don't have one. And even if we did have such a system, it would take time to get it working.
That I know about. I think everyone does. And that is something I find deeply disturbing. Seriously it is outright one of the more insane things I can think off. Well that and half of your other laws that I have heard about. No offense.
Purple, do you not see the contradiction there?

If poor people pay a heavy price in fees and time lost off of work to get an ID card, then HELL YES there is something wrong with the system when having that card is a precondition for allowing citizens to vote.

Also, do you not get that we'd be implementing this national ID card system over a period of time and THAT is why it would take several years? Heck, just designing the card takes time; it's not something you can improvise in a crude or careless way, if we're talking about a mandatory federal ID database.
So instead of giving their citizens that time and support to make sure everyone has an ID, the state here is simply mandating that you can't vote unless you have one of the existing types of IDs. But it was never a legal requirement that you have one of those IDs before, so this is essentially imposing a new condition on people. They're not allowed to vote, even if they were before, unless they have IDs that they weren't legally required to have.
And I really don't see a problem with this. So it's a new condition. Every condition has to be new at some point. How long was the interval between the condition being issued and the elections?
Intelligently designed laws allow a period of time consistent with the scale of the problem. In this case, the problem is "poor people don't have ID and can't take time off to get it because of our shitty labor laws." That's a hard problem to solve, which takes considerable time and effort, and the effort is not being put in because (perhaps like you) the people passing this law don't give a damn whether poor people have a right to vote or not.
And no decent amount of time or resources is being supplied to make this happen, so it's effectively a tax on voting. Which is unconstitutional in the US because you can't just require that poor people not vote.
I find this to be a rather roundabout and insane interpretation of the word tax. No one gave me money to get my ID. Hell I had to pay some fees IIRC.
Right. And if having the ID is a necessary condition of having a right to vote, then you are paying what in the US is called a "poll tax." Such taxes are explicitly against the Constitution in the US, because of the history we have of poll taxes being used to block African-Americans from voting.

If the US had a high enough minimum wage, a functioning welfare system, and labor laws that required employers to give useful amounts of time off, none of this would be a serious problem. But we don't. And the same politicians who want to make sure we don't are the ones pushing these ID laws.
The Republicans have repeatedly shown that they do want to reduce voter turnout in areas where minorities and the poor live. For example, during the 2000 election of George Bush, the Republicans distributed fliers in African-American neighborhoods telling them the wrong date for election day. Something like "Make sure you vote on November 8!" when the election was on the 5th.
Wow, that is evil and I did not know about it. But again it is at best circumstantial and only proves that the republicans can be up to no good. I guess it counts as a character witness or something.
My point is that there is an ongoing pattern of conscious voter suppression methods, by a very wide variety of means, practiced to a large extent by Republicans across the country.

Claiming that the voter ID laws fit into this pattern is hardly out of line given all the other stuff that does.
At the same time we have the thing called "gerrymandering," which is its own whole subject of research. Look into that too, it's more evidence.
That's actually one of the reasons why I think the theory is far fetched. The republicans have shown that they have much more effective methods of manipulating the vote.
Except that there are elections in which gerrymandering makes no difference. In a presidential election you can gerrymander all you like; it won't matter, because the state's electoral votes go to whoever won the majority of votes for that state. The only way to win is to mobilize thousands more voters for you... or to suppress thousands of voters for your opponent.
Why should they do any of this? No one drove a wan to my house when I got my first ID. I had to walk to the police station my self to even learn what steps I needed to take. Than again where I am from you know in advance that you do have to do this when you turn of age. So I can agree with you that they should have put more money into advertising. But I still find your notion of actually driving to peoples homes to be an absurd waste of money.
It's more like "van with ID scanner equipment stops in the parking lot of the public library." Not house to house, neighborhood to neighborhood, to allow easy walking-distance access for people who don't have automobiles or an overabundance of time to get one.

At the moment, the primary form of state ID in America is the driver's license, or equivalent ID cards also issued by the state motor vehicles administration. Their facilities are separated widely and are often placed on the outskirts of metropolitan areas, to keep land costs down. Ironically, it is very hard to go get a driver's license if you don't have access to a car...

And if we're talking about a whole new type of ID, then hell yes we need to put in some effort informing everyone that they'll need it, setting up facilities to process 300 million people quickly, and making those facilities accessible to the old, the handicapped, and the poor.
Making it difficult to get an ID and then requiring an ID to vote simply acts to stop people from voting if they can't do the difficult thing. There is a limit on how hard people should be expected to work to exercise the right to vote, especially if the bulk of their energy is being spent purely on survival.
How was it made difficult beyond long lines (which you can expect any time a lot of people have to get anything done) and not giving people a privileged status to reward them for doing it (which no one in the world does anyway)?
Long lines make it difficult only if the department handing out the IDs is underfunded. Which sometimes they are, just as a district may get only one polling place for many many voters if the state administration is trying to suppress turnout in that district.

Physical locations for getting IDs may be made remote, so that they're artificially hard to get to if you don't have a car.

Fees may be made high, and may be accepted only in specific forms (a favorite would be requiring a money order or certified check, which makes it more work to pay the fee).
This space dedicated to Vasily Arkhipov
User avatar
Saxtonite
Padawan Learner
Posts: 385
Joined: 2008-07-24 10:48am
Location: Chicago, IL, USA

Re: SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights Act

Post by Saxtonite »

Purple wrote:AHonestly I don't understand what the problem is with just having a proper state issued ID with your birth date, picture and all as these people intended.
There are religious groups who cannot do that because of their ideas on engraven images. Some Mennonites believe as such for example
We do that in Europe and have been doing it for god knows how long. It's not only about voting but everything else.
There is lingering disdain for the whole "do you have your papers" thing in the US.
Having a single centralized ID system has many benefits and absolutely no flaws.
There is a strong disdain for central government running very 'personalized' things such as ID. You see the same thing with gun laws, etc.
The internet seems to be honestly full of Americans who believe in this conspiracy theory.
The us democratized before being unified, and someone mentioned that MIGHT be a reason you see such things - other than the questionable actions of the government.

Arent there similar anti-EU conspiracy theories?
"Opps, wanted to add; wasn't there a study about how really smart people lead shitty lives socially? I vaguely remember something about it, so correct me if I'm wrong. Frankly, I'm of the opinion that I'd rather let the new Newton or new Tesla lead a better life than have him have a shitty one and come up with apple powered death rays."
-Knife, in here
User avatar
PhilosopherOfSorts
Jedi Master
Posts: 1008
Joined: 2008-10-28 07:11pm
Location: Waynesburg, PA, its small, its insignifigant, its almost West Virginia.

Re: SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights Act

Post by PhilosopherOfSorts »

Simon_Jester wrote: At the moment, the primary form of state ID in America is the driver's license, or equivalent ID cards also issued by the state motor vehicles administration. Their facilities are separated widely and are often placed on the outskirts of metropolitan areas, to keep land costs down. Ironically, it is very hard to go get a driver's license if you don't have access to a car...

They sometimes have really crappy hours, too. For example, the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) office in my county is only open on Thursdays, 9 AM to 4 PM. The next closest one is thirty miles away, in the neighboring county, and its open on Thursdays and Saturdays.

Convenient.
A fuse is a physical embodyment of zen, in order for it to succeed, it must fail.

Power to the Peaceful

If you have friends like mine, raise your glasses. If you don't, raise your standards.
User avatar
Questor
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 1601
Joined: 2002-07-17 06:27pm
Location: Landover

Re: SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights Act

Post by Questor »

OK, anti-Voter ID people, can I ask a question?

Required reading: http://travel.state.gov/passport/ppt_ca ... _3926.html

Passport Card Official Cost:$55 first time, $30/10 years renewal
Places can be applied for (In Person): Every post office, many civic centers, many libraries. there's a link to the list on that page (a few clicks deep) that I can't seem to copy right on my phone. It's extensive, and actually seems more so in less well to do areas.

What say we make the passport card free, (Costing $13bn first year, 750mn a year thereafter. Max). Does this deal with the arguments related to availability and poll taxes?

(I actually have other issues with Votor ID laws, but the idea that there is no National, 100% acceptable ID available is crazy for other reasons. As for saying that they'd write the law to not allow it, they're welcome to try, even the most conservative possible court would laugh at that.)
User avatar
General Zod
Never Shuts Up
Posts: 29211
Joined: 2003-11-18 03:08pm
Location: The Clearance Rack
Contact:

Re: SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights Act

Post by General Zod »

Questor wrote:OK, anti-Voter ID people, can I ask a question?

Required reading: http://travel.state.gov/passport/ppt_ca ... _3926.html

Passport Card Official Cost:$55 first time, $30/10 years renewal
Places can be applied for (In Person): Every post office, many civic centers, many libraries. there's a link to the list on that page (a few clicks deep) that I can't seem to copy right on my phone. It's extensive, and actually seems more so in less well to do areas.

What say we make the passport card free, (Costing $13bn first year, 750mn a year thereafter. Max). Does this deal with the arguments related to availability and poll taxes?

(I actually have other issues with Votor ID laws, but the idea that there is no National, 100% acceptable ID available is crazy for other reasons. As for saying that they'd write the law to not allow it, they're welcome to try, even the most conservative possible court would laugh at that.)
If you want to introduce a national ID, it should be done for its own reasons. Not some bullshit smokescreen about preventing a nonexistent problem.
"It's you Americans. There's something about nipples you hate. If this were Germany, we'd be romping around naked on the stage here."
User avatar
Alyrium Denryle
Minister of Sin
Posts: 22224
Joined: 2002-07-11 08:34pm
Location: The Deep Desert
Contact:

Re: SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights Act

Post by Alyrium Denryle »

OK, we could have state-mandated new student ID designs, which would be compliant with the standards we'd expect from a valid state ID card. I honestly had not thought of that.

It's certainly possible, though it would probably cost quite a lot of money and result in a lot of complaints from universities. Then again, so many universities use the student ID as a form of debit card that it's probably just as well to make them hard to fake anyway...
It actually would not cost that much. It might require getting new blanks, putting some holographic things on them if they want to get REALLY fancy. If not, the pixelated things on the back should work. Other than that though, the ID is just a card that is printed upon. All that would be needed is to add space for an address, expiration dates, that sort of thing. The new cards could simply be phased in, with all new cards using the updated design. Done.
And while yes it seems that the implementation in this case was badly planed and generally botched there seems to be a number of people here who honestly believe that it was not incompetence and inexperience but an actual republican conspiracy to manipulate elections. Something that quite honestly sounds like a bond villain plot rather than something that happens in the real world. And it's not just here. The internet seems to be honestly full of Americans who believe in this conspiracy theory.
It is not a conspiracy theory when it is the stated intention of the legislatures who enact these laws to do exactly that. To specifically target people who tend to vote for the other party.
That quote is extremely vague. But I guess there has to be some sort of broader context that actually explains it right? I mean it does not exactly say how the act is supposed to do that or even what it is supposed to do.
OK. Here is the deal. Many people dont have personal vehicles or passports. In fact, most of the urban (poor) population of many major cities relies on public transportation and dont know how to drive a car. So they dont have a drivers license, which is the primary form of photo ID in the country. Said license also costs money, and there is a history of poll taxes being used to keep poor people from voting. That is issue #1. Stemming from that is the fact that poor people often work multiple jobs, and the government offices that provide ID--including free Voter ID etc--have restrictive hours that prohibit people who cannot take time off work (remember, most poor people in the US have no benefits, including sick days, personal leave time, or vacation time. At all). So they can simply never go and get ID.

These poor people vote overwhelmingly Democrat. The Republicans know this. So they craft laws to keep those same poor people from voting. Which is why republicans refer to Voter ID laws helping their candidates win elections... because if the other party's voter base gets kicked out of the ballot box...
And this is not a unique incident, though it's not an area I spend vast amounts of time researching.
It happens All Over The Place. In Arizona, they sent out two fliers. One English Language, which had the proper election date, one spanish language (to spanish-speaking majority neighborhoods, and to hispanics on their various lists) with the wrong date. The fliers were otherwise identical.
Why so long? Seriously. Where I am you have to go get your compulsory national issued ID when you turn 18 or something. And you have to renew it regularly. You don't get 10 years to dilly dally. And when the time comes to renew it after X years (I forget how many) you don't get a day off or anything. Certainly not mandated by the state. And no one sees anything wrong with this. Its your duty to do it and you go do it.
The biggest problem is that they put these laws in place immediately before elections. It has nothing to do with illegal immigrants or voter fraud. The amount of either in the US is miniscule. It is, in fact, several orders of magnitude smaller than the number of people they prevent from voting...which is why they actually do it.
I find this to be a rather roundabout and insane interpretation of the word tax. No one gave me money to get my ID. Hell I had to pay some fees IIRC.
Yeah. But Europe does not have a history of states and local municipalities using taxes, fees, and intentionally impossible literacy tests administered only to minorities, to keep black people and other "undesirables" from voting.
Why should they do any of this? No one drove a wan to my house when I got my first ID. I had to walk to the police station my self to even learn what steps I needed to take. Than again where I am from you know in advance that you do have to do this when you turn of age. So I can agree with you that they should have put more money into advertising. But I still find your notion of actually driving to peoples homes to be an absurd waste of money.
The problem comes when you are just implementing such a system. A new standardized ID would require that hundreds of millions of people get it by a set date. Many of those people lack transportation, or have no capacity to take time off work. Remember, this is the US. The land where employees get treated like shit. In order to ensure that everyone got such an ID, the initial implementation period would need to take this into account.

In europe, you have precisely 1/365th of 18 year olds (plus whatever the renewal interval is) needing to make it to a government office each day, and they have better access to public transportation, and can take time off work to do so.
How was it made difficult beyond long lines (which you can expect any time a lot of people have to get anything done) and not giving people a privileged status to reward them for doing it (which no one in the world does anyway)?
Take the city I live in. There is exactly 1 place to get an ID. It is in the center of town. This is a city of 375 thousand people, spread over 250 square KM. There is no public transportation. None. No buses. No trains. This is not a budgetary issue either, it is done for a variety of political purposes. There are also, I might add, no bike lanes and the existence of sidewalk is patchy at best. Most of the other suburbs of the Dallas-Fort Worth area are similar in this respect.
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/
Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences


There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.

Factio republicanum delenda est
User avatar
Alyrium Denryle
Minister of Sin
Posts: 22224
Joined: 2002-07-11 08:34pm
Location: The Deep Desert
Contact:

Re: SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights Act

Post by Alyrium Denryle »

I left this out. Purple, most of the above post was addressed to you.
Purple wrote: That's actually one of the reasons why I think the theory is far fetched. The republicans have shown that they have much more effective methods of manipulating the vote.
1) Why have one method of manipulating a vote when you can have two?

2) There are different types of elections. Gerrymandering works for elections that are specific to a district. For example, the US House of Representatives elects members who represent specific regions within a state. The state legislature controls what those regions are. So, if one party can manipulate the regional boundaries, they can make sure they always have a majority in the delegation to the US House. The same goes for the state legislature. However, Voter Suppression is still useful, because it gives you extra assurance. That way, if your candidate starts talking about "Legitimate Rape", the people from the other party whom that fuckup might motivate to get to the poles--which may affect your election chances--cannot vote anyway. You stack the deck more. The same rules apply to the State Legislatures.

3) There are also elections that are Statewide votes. The state Governor, US Senate, US President. There, Gerrymandering wont work because everyone in the state is voting on the same thing. There are no boundaries to manipulate. You have to use Voter Suppression.

There are also a LOT of statewide plebiscites in the US. State Constitutional Amendments, Bond Measures, in many cases Tax Increases. In addition, there are also Initiatives, which are Plebiscites called for by the population. Lastly, any time the legislature deems a given piece of legislation too politically risky to vote on either way--but one side wants it and the other does not--they will tend to refer it for a plebiscite. In these cases, voter suppression is also important, because Gerrymandering wont work.
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/
Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences


There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.

Factio republicanum delenda est
Simon_Jester
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 30165
Joined: 2009-05-23 07:29pm

Re: SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights Act

Post by Simon_Jester »

Alyrium Denryle wrote:
OK, we could have state-mandated new student ID designs, which would be compliant with the standards we'd expect from a valid state ID card. I honestly had not thought of that.

It's certainly possible, though it would probably cost quite a lot of money and result in a lot of complaints from universities. Then again, so many universities use the student ID as a form of debit card that it's probably just as well to make them hard to fake anyway...
It actually would not cost that much. It might require getting new blanks, putting some holographic things on them if they want to get REALLY fancy. If not, the pixelated things on the back should work. Other than that though, the ID is just a card that is printed upon. All that would be needed is to add space for an address, expiration dates, that sort of thing. The new cards could simply be phased in, with all new cards using the updated design. Done.
Two other awkward problems.

The minor one is certification. Not all "universities" can be trusted to print a driver's license-equivalent ID card, if you ask me. What you need is something like an accreditation process. But it would have to be state-run and state-affiliated, because the certification it provides is legally binding on the state.

[Side note: I had a university ID before I was old enough to vote, and I know I'm not the only one. Not a hard problem to get around, just print the birthday, but there it is.]


The major problem, though, is that a lot of people who are perfectly legal voters aren't covered by this; at best it helps a relatively small fraction of people who can afford to go to college but don't have a driver's license.
This space dedicated to Vasily Arkhipov
User avatar
Alyrium Denryle
Minister of Sin
Posts: 22224
Joined: 2002-07-11 08:34pm
Location: The Deep Desert
Contact:

Re: SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights Act

Post by Alyrium Denryle »

The minor one is certification. Not all "universities" can be trusted to print a driver's license-equivalent ID card, if you ask me. What you need is something like an accreditation process. But it would have to be state-run and state-affiliated, because the certification it provides is legally binding on the state.
Well sure. There are a lot of ways around that. Many universities have post offices and bank branch offices. The infrastructure requirements for that are not terribly difficult.
The major problem, though, is that a lot of people who are perfectly legal voters aren't covered by this; at best it helps a relatively small fraction of people who can afford to go to college but don't have a driver's license.
While this is an issue, many of the voter ID rules are specifically designed to exclude students. Out of state students often vote in the local elections for example, and reside in the state for four or more years, but never change over the driver's license. For example, to get a TX driver's license I have to have a vehicle registered in the state. Many college students simply dont. TX just implimented a voter ID law. Do the math on who this will exclude.
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/
Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences


There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.

Factio republicanum delenda est
Post Reply