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I favor voter id law...
2012-Sep-26, Wednesday 01:44 pm... but not for the reason you might think.
The conservative Republican party is pushing voter identification law in jurisdictions throughout the USA. The fear-based argument for the change is that our democracy is imminently endangered by voter fraud. This claim is absurd. During the last decade, there are only 10 documented cases of in-person voter fraud in the whole country. These laws are clearly NOT about fraud.
These laws are about voter disenfranchisement. People who tend to lack identification (poor, immigrants, racial minorities, and women who change name after marriage) also tend to vote for the liberal Democrat party, so disenfranchisement on this factor will favor the Republican party. And they know it. Republicans are pursuing voter barriers so enthusiastically that they are removing Democrat members of an election board and submitting fraudulent signatures on a ballot petition, themselves providing a more immediate threat to democratic process than the voter fraud they claim to abhor.
I favor voter identification laws anyway, because they offer a conveniently slippery slope to national id cards, which circumvents the traditional Republic opposition to big government. As a computer programmer, I have wished for 20 years that the U.S.A. had a national id number for each citizen. It would simplify and improve so many business processes! Instead, we rely on less secure and less reliable means of identifying people. Unfortunately, religion prevents us from getting one. It's the familiar old conspiracy theory that "number of the beast" assignments by the "big brother" government will spawn the antichrist and bring the apocalypse. Pay no attention to the evidence that many countries use national id without self-destructing in hellfire. It amuses me that Republicans can't see how their own fears manipulate them. They worry so much about voter fraud today that they'll implement identification processes that would normally trigger their fear of government-antichrist-takeover tomorrow.
Oh well. I'll take the improvements as I can get them. Voter id laws require documentation to participate in a democratic process that every citizen should join. Technically, voting is an optional activity and not a requirement, but it's just not the same kind of voluntary process as driving a vehicle or purchasing alcohol (both of which require identification). Mandating voter id for acting as a democratic citizen is just one short step away from issuing government id to all democratic citizens just for living.
Bring on the voter id laws! We can temporarily mitigate their flaws while pursuing this great bipartisan opportunity for national id.
The conservative Republican party is pushing voter identification law in jurisdictions throughout the USA. The fear-based argument for the change is that our democracy is imminently endangered by voter fraud. This claim is absurd. During the last decade, there are only 10 documented cases of in-person voter fraud in the whole country. These laws are clearly NOT about fraud.
These laws are about voter disenfranchisement. People who tend to lack identification (poor, immigrants, racial minorities, and women who change name after marriage) also tend to vote for the liberal Democrat party, so disenfranchisement on this factor will favor the Republican party. And they know it. Republicans are pursuing voter barriers so enthusiastically that they are removing Democrat members of an election board and submitting fraudulent signatures on a ballot petition, themselves providing a more immediate threat to democratic process than the voter fraud they claim to abhor.
I favor voter identification laws anyway, because they offer a conveniently slippery slope to national id cards, which circumvents the traditional Republic opposition to big government. As a computer programmer, I have wished for 20 years that the U.S.A. had a national id number for each citizen. It would simplify and improve so many business processes! Instead, we rely on less secure and less reliable means of identifying people. Unfortunately, religion prevents us from getting one. It's the familiar old conspiracy theory that "number of the beast" assignments by the "big brother" government will spawn the antichrist and bring the apocalypse. Pay no attention to the evidence that many countries use national id without self-destructing in hellfire. It amuses me that Republicans can't see how their own fears manipulate them. They worry so much about voter fraud today that they'll implement identification processes that would normally trigger their fear of government-antichrist-takeover tomorrow.
Oh well. I'll take the improvements as I can get them. Voter id laws require documentation to participate in a democratic process that every citizen should join. Technically, voting is an optional activity and not a requirement, but it's just not the same kind of voluntary process as driving a vehicle or purchasing alcohol (both of which require identification). Mandating voter id for acting as a democratic citizen is just one short step away from issuing government id to all democratic citizens just for living.
Bring on the voter id laws! We can temporarily mitigate their flaws while pursuing this great bipartisan opportunity for national id.