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Comment by fortythirteen | Hacker News Reader

A completely biased report. Yes, gerrymandering is insane in NC, but it's actually pretty well distributed between both parties. Raleigh is gerrymandered to the Republicans and Charlotte and Fayetteville are for rigged for the Democrats. The rest of the state is pretty much full-on red, so the majority Republican legislature truly reflects the state as a democratic-republic.

NC has Voter ID laws, which were a huge part of the x/100 score given. Literally every other developed country (and most undeveloped countries) in the world require ID to vote, but somehow it's "undemocratic", among other outrageous things, if you try to do it in the U.S.

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It’s odd and telling to me that you criticize the repeal of voter ID laws without actually mentioning why they were declared unconstitutional. They were repealed after North Carolina Republicans were shown in court to have investigated the ways in which minorities voted, the types of ID’s they carried, and then issued laws with ‘surgical precision’ to affect said voters, then went on to brag about their effects on the ‘Obama coalition’. If you are having a hard time understanding why they were declared unconstitutional I’d encourage you to read the court decision that declared them so, it does a good job of laying out the steps North Carolina Republicans used to specifically target and disenfranchise minority voters.

From the court decision [1]:

> But, on the day after the Supreme Court issued Shelby County v. Holder, 133 S. Ct. 2612 (2013), eliminating preclearance obligations, a leader of the party that newly dominated the legislature (and the party that rarely enjoyed African American support) announced an intention to enact what he characterized as an “omnibus” election law. Before enacting that law, the legislature requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices. Upon receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans. In response to claims that intentional racial discrimination animated its action, the State offered only meager justifications. Although the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist.

That does seem pretty damning when you read their justification

[1] http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/nc-4th.pdf

Voter ID laws themselves were not declared unconstitutional, the extra actions by the Republicans were. I see no effort from Democrats to offer any option on how to secure our elections, which is especially damning considering they've spent the whole last year falsely claiming that they were "hacked".

Active election fraud is almost exclusively in the favor of the Democratic party. I can't remember the last time someone on the right was arrested for fraudulently filling out registrations forms, or when >100% of the registered voters in a district voted for the Republican candidate, as happened as recently as the 2016 presidential election in Detroit in the favor of Clinton.

The problem isn't voter ID. It's two sides using it as a way to unfairly benefit their interests. One side pre-emptively and the other actively during the vote. Both are wrong, but Voter ID itself isn't.

> Active election fraud is almost exclusively in the favor of the Democratic party. I can't remember the last time someone on the right was arrested for fraudulently filling out registrations forms

How about for actually fraudulently voting someone else's ballot. (Ironically, after publicly making your exact argument about voter fraud being exclusively a Democratic thing.) [0]

Or voting twice because of Republican voter fraud claims. [1]

Or ballot-box stuffing. [2]

All from the 2016 election.

[0] https://www.salon.com/2017/03/22/former-colorado-gop-chairma...

[1] https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-court...

[2] https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/gydkk3/the-face-of-voter...

> Active election fraud is almost exclusively in the favor of the Democratic party. I can't remember the last time someone on the right was arrested

A nice key word there, arrested.

Especially given that multiple members of Trump's electoral team, even his own family, were found to have violate electoral law and fined.

I get it though, they were just "confused" and making "honest mistakes".

> A nice key word there, arrested.

Given the Republicans arrested for voter fraud (yes, the kinds that actually affect the vote count) in the 2016 cycle, the more key phrase seems to be “I can't remember”.

It's not that it didn't happen, repeatedly and recently, it's just that fortythirteen doesn't remember it, perhaps because it clashes with a preconceived worldview.

I think you lack a grasp of the issues. Failing to fill out an FEC form properly and registering dead people to vote are two different things. The former doesn't even affect the vote count.

Quit playing for your side and accept when you've read a valid point.

Given that there have been less than 4 instances of people arrested for "registering dead people to vote", your spin of things of this as a "hugely Democrat issue" is mountains out of molehills.

> The former doesn't even affect the vote count.

Some of the people mentioned in my example _were_ shown to have voted twice.

> Quit playing for your side

My side? I'm a US permanent resident, I'm not eligible to vote. That doesn't make me blind to the fact there are huge issues with the system here, and fault to be found on both sides of the aisle.

Each of the frauds identified in [0] in the 2016 cycle, for which Republicans were criminally charged, affected the vote count.

“Quit playing for your side”, indeed.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16118842

> I can't remember the last time someone on the right was arrested for fraudulently

I can, it's this https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-court...

You seem to be making several different points here, so lets unpack your claims.

>Voter ID laws themselves were not declared unconstitutional, the extra actions by the Republicans were.

Wrong, North Carolina's Voter ID laws were declared unconstitutional as they were used to “target African-Americans with almost surgical precision.”[0]

>I see no effort from Democrats to offer any option on how to secure our elections,

Are you saying the Secure Elections Act[1] doesn't have Democratic sponsors?

[1]https://www.lawfareblog.com/assessing-bipartisan-secure-elec...

>which is especially damning considering they've spent the whole last year falsely claiming that they were "hacked".

Democrats were 'hacked', unless you are claiming that John Podesta, Colin Powell, and the DNC didn't have email accounts that were broken into. I think your strawman claim is that democrats are maintaining that vote counts were altered, which again is a strawman - no one serious is actually making that claim, it would seem you're trying to claim a fringe view as a mainstream (strawmanning).

>Active election fraud is almost exclusively in the favor of the Democratic party.

That's the typical claim, yes. Your comment is interesting though, since you seem to want to limit the discussion to 'active voter fraud', as opposed to methods that indirectly lead to unfair elections - like voting laws designed to disenfranchise minorities with 'surgical precision'. If we expanded the scope of the discussion, we'd see you're arguments conveniently leave out those methods that Republicans have been using for the past 30+ years.

>I can't remember the last time someone on the right was arrested for fraudulently filling out registrations forms, or when >100% of the registered voters in a district voted for the Republican candidate, as happened as recently as the 2016 presidential election in Detroit in the favor of Clinton.

You mean those precincts where workers miscounted voters? Didn't the Republican Secretary of State say they were errors, and in any case didn't affect the outcome in the state? Seems like you're fishing.

>The problem isn't voter ID. It's two sides using it as a way to unfairly benefit their interests. One side pre-emptively and the other actively during the vote. Both are wrong, but Voter ID itself isn't.

It seems like you're closing your argument with 'both sides', and in any case 'both sides' aren't having their voter id laws thrown out in court because they are explicitly being used to drive disenfranchisement.

[0]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/us/politics/voter-id-laws... [1]https://www.lawfareblog.com/assessing-bipartisan-secure-elec...

> Literally every other developed country (and most undeveloped countries) in the world require ID to vote

Well, the UK doesn't. And most other developed countries have proper national mandatory ID systems where everyone has an ID. People would complain a lot less about the ID requirement if the ID was equally easy to get for all voters, which it isn't.

> People would complain a lot less about the ID requirement if the ID was equally easy to get for all voters, which it isn't.

This is the nub of it. The way to disenfranchise people "legitimately" is to

1) insist on the voters having an Id and

2) make it hard for some people to get the necessary Id.

Longer discussion here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHFOwlMCdto "these restrictions tend to disproportionately impact African-American and Latino voters"

> if the ID was equally easy to get for all voters

Who in this country is unable to get an ID? More specifically, who in NC is unable to get an ID?

Those who can’t make it to the middle of nowhere DMV. Texas was particularly egregarious about this, at the same time they made voter ID required, they closed down DMV offices in poorer democratic areas. Heck, the reason IDs are so contentious in the first place is that southern states have abused them in the past to suppress minority voting rights.

While I don't disagree that that's part of the overall strategy, I have a hard time believing that someone can't find the time once to get an ID every four years. Poor people living literally in the middle of nowhere in a state like Texas work it out, so why can't people in the city?

It's rather convenient that the Democrats are always against any measure that would make elections less easy to rig, and provide no active solutions to improve the situation.

Have you ever been poor? Have you ever been poor and had kids?

It's not as simple as taking a 15 minute drive to the DMV and waiting in line. Many of these people lack access to proper transit systems to get to these places. At least where I live, the DMV is open during normal business hours which may be impossible to get to without taking time off of work. Many of these people are paid hourly which makes this a financial decision as well. It's really hard to miss an hour of work when that could be food or rent.

It's really hard to come up with a solution when large swaths of the country or totally opposed to anything that slightly resembles a national ID. While I agree that we could probably be doing something, it's not as simple as telling everyone to go to the DMV.

Thank you for making this post. I've never been pro-ID laws, but I've never really seen the issue with them when implemented in a fair way.

I've thankfully never been in that situation, and I think you've done a great job explaining the issues with the a voter ID system to someone like myself who wouldn't see any issue with it.

Yes, I have been poor. I worked for minimum wage and could only get around by bus until my twenties and still had an official ID. Have you, or are you assuming what it's like to be poor from the outside?

If my comment was a little ad hominem, I apologize.

I watched my parents struggle growing up. My dad worked in a steel mill. My mom cut hair and cleaned businesses after work. I never saw them not busy. They made a ton of sacrifices to keep a roof over my head and food on the table.

Getting an ID would not have been a simple task for them. We lived in public housing and we walked almost everywhere. I watched them struggle to get by every day and to hear someone say "just do something" really makes me upset. It's not that simple. Their life was planned down to the minute. Work, walking me home, second job, making dinner, managing finances down to the penny, etc.

All that I am saying is, it's not that simple. People are in some really shitty situations despite doing everything right. Making it harder for these people to vote (who already have trouble finding the time to get to the polls) is just fundamentally wrong in my opinion.

Wait, are you claiming you grew up in poverty and still got an ID before you struck out on your own (I was young, worked for minimum wage, got around by bus, but I was far from poor considering my family background)? Did you grow up in a trailer in the middle of the boonies way off some highway somewhere? Did you burn your trash in your backyard in a barrel?

I mean, there is, I was young, living on my own, getting around by bus poor, and then there is poor poor.

I didn’t have a valid state ID for ten years. I had a passport, but why do I need a state ID if I’m not driving?

There are many reasons why people can’t or won’t get state IDs, even if you can’t fathom it. Until we have mandatory federal IDs (which, incidentally, Republicans are usually against because...facism or something), making them required for a civic duty is just dumb and unfair.

You can get a state ID that's not a driver's license. I don't how you can get much of anything without an ID. In my experience you cannot bank, get a credit card, rent, setup utilities, get a cell phone, get car insurance (obviously requires a license), or fly (passports do work) without a state ID. What do you for those things without a state ID? Have your parents sign for everything?

Yes you can. Pay $100, provide your birth certificate, you can get a passport!

But...uhm, what if you don't have your birth certificate lying around somewhere? What if its like California, you have to pay $50 and wait in line for a few hours? Or what if you try to get a state ID and they want a utility bill to pay your residence?

There are billions of little things.

You can do a lot without an ID card. You can even fly with evidence of identity that doesn't require an ID. You can actually bank as long as you know your SS# and can provide another form of identity (e.g. birth certificate). You might not be able to get a credit card, but those are rich people problems.

Anyways, there is an entire world that you and I are not very familiar with.

> against any measure that would make elections less easy to rig

Is there any evidence that this is happening, in a way that voter ID would prevent?

Apparently not : https://thinkprogress.org/kris-kobach-voter-fraud-findings-e...

Nope. The idea that it's a necessary "measure that would make elections less easy to rig" is a bogus talking point.

"It's not hard to get" is the other fallacy, which is subject to huge selection bias "because I found it easy and so did all the people that I know". Many comments here exhibit that, and I can't tell if they're made in good faith or not.

Note that I said "equally easy", not "possible".

This is what I don't get. In my state at least, MI, it costs $18 for a 4-year license (less for just an ID). Sure, you might have to wait a couple hours depending on the location of the SOS (DMV), but that's one day every few years.

If people are actually concerned that requiring a state ID to vote will disenfranchise the poor, then compromise and make IDs free or discounted based upon income.

>If people are actually concerned that requiring a state ID to vote will disenfranchise the poor, then compromise and make IDs free or discounted based upon income.

But that's the thing. What if the people pushing to require a state ID want to disenfranchise the poor?

That "what if" isn't good enough without concrete evidence. I need an ID to do many more mundane things than vote. Why is voting, which is an important civil duty, the one thing that should not require proof of identity?

> "what if" isn't good enough without concrete evidence.

I refer you to this comment, which you should have seen by now. Court case, concrete evidence. No frivolous arguments please.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16116107

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16115954

> Why is voting, which is an important civil duty, the one thing that should not require proof of identity?

Are you saying that it might be abused? But is it actually abused, in reality? Your "what if" isn't good enough without concrete evidence. Enough double-think.

> I refer you to this comment, which you should have seen by now. Court case, concrete evidence. No frivolous arguments please.

There are a lot of comments in this post so I did not see that. In this case, it does appear that the NC legislature did intentionally act maliciously to affect who could vote. That being said, I still stand by my position that an ID should be required to vote, and that it should be easy acquire an ID.

> Are you saying that ... it might be abused? But is it actually, in reality? Your "what if" isn't good enough without concrete evidence.

I'm saying that not requiring an ID makes it easier for voting to be abused. I doubt it's abused much because it would be too fragile and require too much orchestration, but I don't think it's nonexistent. I think it's one of many safeguards to help ensure that elections are legitimate.

> Enough double-think.

I fail to see how I'm being logically inconsistent. I simply asked for evidence which you did provide. Most of the time people mention vague events without any citations.

> I think it's one of many safeguards to help ensure that elections are legitimate.

Requiring voter Id, while making it not trivial to get voter id, has pros and cons. The pros are theoretical, as you say "I doubt it's abused much", and the cons are actual. That alone should indicate that it's a bad idea.

The position that "an ID should be required to vote, and that it should be easy acquire an ID" is logical and defensible, except when that's made out to be the actual situation. The problem that it solves is theoretical, the abuses of it are manifest.

It would also be abused "Papiere, Bitte"

> the majority Republican legislature truly reflects the state as a democratic-republic.

The governor race in 2016 went 49%-48.8%, yet 2/10 representative sent to Washington are Democrats. Why do you think this is representative?

That isn't quite true -- Raleigh (Wake county) is pretty reliably blue as are large parts of northeastern NC (which is about as rural as it gets). Also, a gentle reminder that square miles don't get to vote -- people do.

Voter ID laws are consistently shown to disadvantage poor minority voters -- especially when coupled with the strategic closure of DMV offices and an increase in fees -- as surprise we've seen here in NC.

Not that I disagree, but I think states that require IDs for voting are required to give non-driving IDs away for free. The trouble is getting to the office in the first place.

And being able to produce the qualifying documents for the ID. There’s a non-trivial number of people (usually older, lower income) that do not possess, nor have ever needed to possess before, a birth certificate.

Hell, I was one of those people before I needed to get a passport (I guess I had it when I got my first DL, but it must have been with my dad or something). Thank god Oregon will mail one to you easily, if I was Californian the process would have been in for much more hurt (as I found out with my son!).

> The rest of the state is pretty much full-on red

> so the majority Republican legislature

I get that this is the system, but it's an inherent problem of the system.

If (arbitrary numbers) 5M people live in three cities and they voted Democrat (leaving aside the Raleigh issue for now), and 1M people live in the rest of the state, there is no credulous interpretation of how you can come to a conclusion that

"the majority of the state is Republican"

other than to acknowledge that your system is not about 1 person, 1 vote, but 1 unit of land, 1 vote, and it unfairly awards people who own large tracts of land, or live in undeveloped areas. Yes, yes, I get that this was to allow country folk to feel represented.

But be clear, in no way is the state truly "majority Republican" other than in terms of square miles, regardless of who does or doesn't (because huge tracts of federal land, national parks and the like, get lumped into these rural districts) live there.

The UK (which is -- at least for the moment -- usually considered "developed") doesn't require ID to vote.

I live in NC and have voted twice (last 2 years) and have not been asked for any ID, nor did I see anyone else get asked.

Selective application of the rules is also a tool. In the area where you vote, did you notice a substantial percentage of the voters being poor or ethnic minority? If not, no need to check the ids.

The UK doesn't require ID to vote.

Relevant:

https://youtu.be/odB1wWPqSlE

I know, I know, down vote me because it’s not PC to point out that leftist thinking is racist.

Complaints about voting break the HN guidelines, and so does ideological flamebait and race-baiting. Please don't do any of these things here, regardless of ideology.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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