Comment by BoiledCabbage | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BoiledCabbage | Hacker News Reader

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Will pull up the quote I remember, but a few additional examples showing it is by design beginning early last decade. And well known what the effects are, and it's intentional to win elections.

From 2012:

> House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R), who said even more clearly in a 2012 speech that voter ID would help Romney carry his state.

> "Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania: done," Turzai said while listing his legislature's accomplishments.

From 2016:

> "We battled to get voter ID on the ballot for the November '16 election," Schimel told conservative host Vicki McKenna on WISN (1130 AM) on Thursday.

>"How many of your listeners really honestly are sure that Senator (Ron) Johnson was going to win re-election or President Trump was going to win Wisconsin if we didn’t have voter ID to keep Wisconsin’s elections clean and honest and have integrity?"

It is well established that voter ID is not preventing any form of widespread in person voter fraud because there is essentially none. Even the president's own commission couldn't find anything of note. But it is extremely effective at suppressing voting of certain groups. For example Texas where valid forms of Id were military Id and concealed carry permits (thinks more likely held by republicans), but invalid forms were state employee photo IDs and university photo IDs (things more likely to be held by those voting democratic).

From prior studies voter roll purges like Crosscheck, eliminate 200 false positives from voter rolls for every 1 true positive. So instead of stopping it, it was rolled out nation wide.[3]

Or just check out wikipedia.[4]

[1] https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2018/04/13/atto...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/07/re...

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/20/this-...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_Unite...

I understand that you equate voter ID with voter suppression. However, when you say someone's "on the record," you ought to use their own words. Those politicians went on the record for supporting voter ID.

I suppose if you want to give them credit for dogwhistling rather than just saying it straight up, that’s one thing. But in the face of such thoroughly established research about the low incidence of voter fraud, one is left with the conclusion that those still hawking the theory are either deluded or malicious.

I love the term "dogwhistle". It basically translates into "even though you didn't say X, I know you actually meant X".

Absurd. Maybe we should just call it "mind-reading"?

For an ID to be used for voting in most states it has to have the following info

Name Address Photo And critically an EXPIRATION DATE

Texas Handgun licenses has all 4, University ID's and Employee ID's lack an expiration date thus are not elibible as a valid form of ID

That is not Voter Suppression

Further if you happen to not have one of the 7 Accepted forms of ID (which is unlikely given all the different circumstances that a person needs to have one of these to get a job, open a bank account, fly on a plane, rent an apartment or 1000's of other thing that you need an ID for) the State of Texas Also allows you to fill out a declaration of why you do not have said ID, and use a Utility Bill, Bank Statement, Government Check, PayCheck or Birth Certificate to vote. [1]

This hardly sounds like an unreasonable burden to vote

[1]https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/forms/id/poster-11x17-...

It is voter suppression if it makes voting significantly harder for certain subsets of the population. Voter id laws tend to disenfranchise poor people.

This always seems like a Red Herring. In what way does is "disenfranchise poor people", the ID's are Free, most states the locations to obtain said ID are widely distributed and no harder to get to than a grocery store or any other store, and in the event there is an actual reason one could not get one then there are alternatives to the official ID that can be used

Seems to me the only disenfranchisement is people that can not legally vote in the first place

Just by the pure fact that you have to invest time and effort to get the necessary documentation, voter ID laws introduce another barrier that will disproportionately affect poor people that might not have the option of just not going to work for half a day to clear the necessary bureaucratic hurdles.

If you want voter IDs; that's fine. And if you can really just walk to any grocery and get a voter ID, that's fine too. But let's take Iowa's planned voter ID law of 2007 as an example; this requires a drivers license or a passport or a US birth certificate. If you don't have such documentation (and surprise; poor people are more often lacking such documentation) then you have to invest time and effort.

You seem to think that voter impersonation seems to be a problem. It has been shown that this is not the case[0]. So, what problem exactly are voter IDs supposed to solve?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_impersonation

>> you have to invest time and effort to get the necessary documentation

you have to invest time and energy into everything in life (including voting itself), this is not a valid argument at all in my opinion.

If you can not invest the very small amount of time and energy needed to get an ID, then you certainly are not investing the time and energy to research and understand the people you are voting for and/or the initiatives that appear on the ballot

>But let's take Iowa's planned voter ID law of 2007

I am not sure what the "planned" law in 2007 was, nor do I really care what is was since you use the terminology of "planned" I assume it did not actually pass. Looking at the actual law of Iowa[1] any voter that does not have a Drivers License is automatically mailed a voter ID card when they Register to vote, and Iowa also allows for Election Day Registration for which you can use an Existing ID or Proof of Residency [2] such as Residential lease, Utility bill (including a cell phone bill), Bank statement, Paycheck, Government check or other government document

So again I do not find this law, that is actually on the books to be burdensome

Can you point to an Actual law, on the books today and activity enforced, that has the burdens you claim to be sure deterrents to raise to the level of suppression or are you just reading too many NYTimes stories about the evils of Voter ID to actually research the topic yourself?

>>You seem to think that voter impersonation seems to be a problem

Point to any statement I have made that says or even implies that? Every other interaction I have with the government requires ID I fail to see why Voting should be exempt from this requirement.

[1] https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/voterinformation/voterIDfaq.h...

[2] https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/voterinformation/edr.html

> So again I do not find this law, that is actually on the books to be burdensome

You might consider yourself privileged, then. Because there is extensive research about the costs that are associated with voter id laws[0].

> or are you just reading too many NYTimes stories about the evils of Voter ID

NYT is fine, although not my favorite. I prefer The Intercept.

> Point to any statement I have made that says or even implies that?

It was my impression, that's why I wrote "You seem" instead of "You say [...]" or "You write [...]".

So; what is the problem do you want to solve with voter ids?

[0] https://today.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Ful...

>>You might consider yourself privileged

This is all subjective and not even really worthy of response as the entire concept of "privilege" is itself political.

Every single person in the US would be considered privileged by people in nations with extreme poverty (living on less than $1 per day).

The "costs" your study talks about has been mitigated in any number of ways I have outlined in at least 4 comments now. you seem to simply want to ignore these things to push your political cause, that is fine but I am not going to keep addressing the same point over and over again

>NYT is fine

NYT is political biased to an extreme degree to authoritarian and collectivist ideologies and has been for decades though the last few years or so it is gotten a lot more bias dropping even the appearance of subjectivity as the bias as spread from its isolated section of the opinion pages to the actual "news" reporting

>So; what is the problem do you want to solve with voter ids?

it is not a matter of solving a problem. The need for ID happens in all facets of life and fail to see a compelling reason that voting should be excluded from this. You need an ID for all manner of other government and private interactions, you need an ID to rent a car, open a bank account, stay in a hotel, collect government / social services, and a whole host of other things

It is implausible to me that a large number functioning adult in modern society does not have any of the forms of ID allowed under Voter ID laws, and to the extent that a person does not have said ID the solution is to make obtaining an ID easier and less costly not to simply prohibit voter ID.

You believe Voter ID laws disenfranchise poor people, I think poor people not having access to an ID is far far far more likely to disenfranchise them, therefore providing easier and greater access to ID's for the poor, disabled and other groups will in the end be a net positive for people not a negative

> Every single person in the US would be considered privileged by people in nations with extreme poverty (living on less than $1 per day).

I agree. I therefore propose we limit this discussion to the US (and possibly western/central Europe).

> NYT is political biased to an extreme degree to authoritarian and collectivist ideologies

That's interesting. What make you think that? According to Media Bias/Fact Check[0] the NYT is considered center-left, hardly the of domain authoritarian ideologues. What do you think?

> you seem to simply want to ignore these things to push your political cause

You makes me curious! What do you think my political cause to be?

> The "costs" your study talks about has been mitigated in any number of ways I have outlined in at least 4 comments now.

If there is no need for voter ids, every cost related to them is an unnecessary barrier for the populate to fulfill its obligation to vote an thus to participate in democracy. Yes; the costs are mitigated to a degree, but as you agree yourself; why bother at all, especially if they risk to weight especially on poorer people that might otherwise be discouraged to vote?

> The need for ID happens in all facets of life and fail to see a compelling reason that voting should be excluded from this.

That's a strange formulation. But anyway; I fail to see why an ID should be necessary for most facets of life, as you put it. Why should it?

> You believe Voter ID laws disenfranchise poor people, I think poor people not having access to an ID is far far far more likely to disenfranchise them [...]

So why erect further barriers rather than removing the need for an ID in all these cases? Especially a government-issued ID?

Thanks for this interesting exchange so far!

[0] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-times/

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