What to do when you don't believe you can legitimately win elections

[Michael Tee]

<<The only reason to cross reference would be in the case of a challenge.>>

Some interested politicians might have another reason to cross-reference - - they might be wondering who their friends are.

<<I wouldn't be adverse to a disinterested third party doing the cross referencing. >>

BT, there's no way you can get around it.  Once the voter's name is on the ballot, the ballot is no longer secret.  The "disinterested third party" is a political animal like everybody else.  What he or she knows is for sale or can be given away gratis to an interested party.  Democracy depends on a SECRET ballot - - not a ballot that's secret to all but a "disinterested" third party. 

[BT]

Then we as a nation need to decide whether a secret ballot is more important than protecting against voter fraud.

Is it better for society for a party to steal an election or devise a way to protect against it. Secret ballots are a new invention anyway. We only adopted the Australian model in the late 1880's.

[Michael Tee]

<<Then we as a nation need to decide whether a secret ballot is more important than protecting against voter fraud. >>

That's a bullshit dilemma.  There's no reason why you can't have both.  Retinal scans or fingerprinting are the obvious answers.  You just don't want to admit that the real purpose of the photo ID proposal has nothing at all to do with voter fraud.

[_JS]

Evidence?

Sauerbrey / Glendening election, Maryland, 1998

Nearly 3,000 dead people voted for the Democrat.

So one instance proves Sirs blanket statement correct?

And regarding your "map" of Washington. It is very misleading. Perhaps this will help:

[Amianthus]

So one instance proves Sirs blanket statement correct?

You asked for evidence. You didn't say how much is required. Perhaps you should phrase your questions a bit better. There are other cases available. Maryland and Illinois, several elections in both cases, spring to mind. I just provided a recent one.

And your map does not clarify. Most of the voting districts in that state have a Republican slant. That does not lead to the state being a "heavy Democratic state," as was claimed.

[Plane]

What is so difficult about obtaining photo ID? Is it any more onerous than signing up for services from ICCHI?

It isn't.  But without such, it's much easier to get the same person to vote multiple times, even if they're dead.  And surprise, they nearly all vote Democrat.  Go figure

Evidence?

But they've precious little evidence to prove that point, being unable to produce even one Indiana voter who couldn't cast a ballot because of the photo ID law. The same lack of evidence was present in similar cases in Georgia and Washington state.""

To a Republican this is the evidence of what we have suspected strongly for a generation , The Democratic Vote is 15% fiction, and a real system of preventing cheating would result in the "tragedy "of Republican landslides.

[Plane]

<<Then we as a nation need to decide whether a secret ballot is more important than protecting against voter fraud. >>

That's a bullshit dilemma.  There's no reason why you can't have both.  Retinal scans or fingerprinting are the obvious answers.  You just don't want to admit that the real purpose of the photo ID proposal has nothing at all to do with voter fraud.

If you think that getting 100% of the people who wish to vote an ID card is tough ,when 90% or better of them already have one , Imagine how much tougher it is to order fingerprinting or biometric data collection of 100% of them when less than 30% of them are already in system.

Fingerprinting everyone is not popular at all , it is a political nonstarter from both sides of the asile.

[_JS]

What is so difficult about obtaining photo ID? Is it any more onerous than signing up for services from ICCHI?

It isn't.  But without such, it's much easier to get the same person to vote multiple times, even if they're dead.  And surprise, they nearly all vote Democrat.  Go figure

Evidence?

But they've precious little evidence to prove that point, being unable to produce even one Indiana voter who couldn't cast a ballot because of the photo ID law. The same lack of evidence was present in similar cases in Georgia and Washington state.""

To a Republican this is the evidence of what we have suspected strongly for a generation , The Democratic Vote is 15% fiction, and a real system of preventing cheating would result in the "tragedy "of Republican landslides.

 

Let's just all start making up numbers with no factual basis.

[Michael Tee]

<<Fingerprinting everyone is not popular at all , it is a political nonstarter from both sides of the asile.>>

Good, that leaves retinal scans.  There is nothing at all to prevent retinal scanning stations to be opened tomorrow for all voters wishing to present themselves, with mobile vans picking up the slackers at home and campaign workers shepherding the last of the flock to be scanned or to be home when the scanner van stops by.

<<If you think that getting 100% of the people who wish to vote an ID card is tough ,when 90% or better of them already have one , Imagine how much tougher it is to order fingerprinting or biometric data collection of 100% of them when less than 30% of them are already in system.>>

Baseless speculation on your part.  You have not referred to a single specific problem relating to retinal scans at local stations or through mobile visiting units.  The problems with certain sectors of the population getting photo ID were very clearly outlined in specific detail in the ACLU brief, excerpts from which were posted here, but you can offer not even one specific obstacle to the retinal scanning alternative.  Your comparisons between getting photo ID and being retinally scanned are apples and oranges - - totally irrelevant.

[sirs]

To be bluntly honest & PIC, it should be the responsibility of the person voting to do the leg work of getting the ID, or in Tee's upside down world, getting retinally scanned (simply to vote   ).  It should not be tax paying dollars of Government vans going to people's houses and picking up the lazy folks to take them to vote.  We've been doing it for over 2 centuries now, taking ourselves to vote.  If someone needs a ride, then can ask a friend, or a neighbor.  Enabling and facilitating laziness doesn't accomplish anything, ......outside of the apparent implication that the lazy would vote Democrat.....if someone could lift their arm for them.  That remote really tires a person out

[Michael Tee]

The ACLU indicated that the groups most directly impacted by the photo ID requirement were the blacks, the elderly, the homeless  and the poor.  For a long time they went to the polls and voted or not as they saw fit.  Now a new obstacle has been set in their path to the polling booth, poll taxes having been declared unconstitutional.  Because of alleged fraud by others, on a level which has never been quantified except episodically, these already disadvantaged folks are being asked to run an obstacle course to the polling booth which it seems from the material in the ACLU brief, many of them will not complete.

Make no mistake about it - - the demand for voter photo ID does not come from any of the groups most likely to be disenfranchised by it.  But as victims of the demand, THEY are expected to put themselves to the additional effort, all to satisfy the fears of those who claim to be worried about voter fraud.  OF COURSE, if the legislation is enacted, those who have asked for it have no concern about the difficulties faced by the target groups.  Let them, the victims of the leglislation, try their damndest to get the photo ID.  With no help at all from anyone in a position to help them.  Least of all from a government that is spending half a trillion dollars and thousands of Amerikkkan lives so that Afghans and Iraqis can vote.  For U.S. citizens to vote, of course, they should not lift a finger.  Isn't that really the whole point of the legislation?  To make it as hard as possible for the target groups to vote?

sirs, thank you for your most illuminating post.  Once again you have managed to demonstrate exactly why we should be concerned about this transparently undemocratic disenfranchisement attempt by showing in exquisite detail how  it is intended to operate and what its actual objectives are.  I think maybe I have misjudged you - - possibly you are a closet liberal after all.

[sirs]

No problem, Tee.  I enjoy demonstrating just how both flawed your premise is, and how enabling for precisely the type if chicanery you keep claiming really isn't a problem.  But of course it's not a problem, when it's favoring democrats.  But if it dares to favor Republicans, let's say those deadlines for oversea military folk, the ones fighting for this country, sacrifing so much, they can be disenfranchised to the nth degree, as far as your concerned.  and strange theng, many are poor, and minority.  But that doesn't register with you, since they're the wrong type of poor & black

[Michael Tee]

<<But if it dares to favor Republicans, let's say those deadlines for oversea military folk, the ones fighting for this country, sacrifing so much, they can be disenfranchised to the nth degree, as far as your concerned.  and strange theng, many are poor, and minority.  But that doesn't register with you, since they're the wrong type of poor & black>>

Fascinating.  And where exactly did I come out and declare that it was OK to disenfranchise military personnel?  In which particular hallucination or fantasy of your many thousands of hallucinations and fantasies would that one have occurred?

BTW, just so we're straight on a few other facts as well, they are not "fighting for this country."  They are fighting for oil.  Their so-called "sacrifices" are about on a par with the "sacrifices" of bank robbers shot by police in the course of a robbery.  I'm sure it's very painful, sometimes lethal, but that is what can happen and should happen when you set out to break the law, be it the domestic criminal law or the law of nations.

[sirs]

<<But if it dares to favor Republicans, let's say those deadlines for oversea military folk, the ones fighting for this country, sacrifing so much, they can be disenfranchised to the nth degree, as far as your concerned.  and strange theng, many are poor, and minority.  But that doesn't register with you, since they're the wrong type of poor & black>>

Fascinating.  And where exactly did I come out and declare that it was OK to disenfranchise military personnel?  

Ahh, so you did have a big beef when the Dems tried to pull that on our military personel, in the 2000 elections.  Ahh, your huge silence during that ploy, and continued false claim of stolen elections was registered by myself as supporting such an effort at disenfranchising our military.  My apologies since you obviously now are on record as having been opposed to that effort.

BTW, just so we're straight on a few other facts as well, they are not "fighting for this country."  They are fighting for oil. 

Well, that's one continously applied invalid opinion, but thanks for playing

[Michael Tee]

<<Ahh, so you did have a big beef when the Dems tried to pull that on our military personel, in the 2000 elections.  >>

Wrong again, sirs.  I had no beef since the objections to military votes that breached the deadline were well-founded.  There was no evidence of any conspiracy to disenfranchise them, the deadlines were generous and known in advance to all military personnel.  None of whom would have been at a disadvantage because of homelessness, advanced age, etc.

<<Ahh, your huge silence during that ploy, and continued false claim of stolen elections was registered by myself as supporting such an effort at disenfranchising our military. >>

Well, obviously, you registered wrong.  No such effort to disenfranchise the military was ever demonstrated.  Like any other citizen of your great (or, more accurately, once-great) country they are subject to laws that ought to be applied when there is no evidence of unfairness.

<<My apologies since you obviously now are on record as having been opposed to that effort.>>

Almost correct, sirs.  Your apologies are due, not because I opposed "that effort," but because there was no effort to oppose.