Hoist with their own petard: Texas voter ID law

And if every state did that, there'd be no need for all this uproar.

Yep, saw that. Only 39% of Americans have a passport. Fee is $140.00. Seems like a circuitous way to prove you're eligible to vote.

I did not say "all Southerners" anything. A certain percentage of Southerners were born at home, not in a hospital, with a midwife assisting, not a doctor, in states that only required the midwife to fill out a form saying whether it was a live birth or a stillbirth.

The assumption there is that all Americans have a driver's license (which would be a photo ID, wouldn't it?). But approximately 20% do not.

Gara

Garamet changed things up, not you. She went from someone not having a birth certificate to a southener not having a birth certificate. Don't ask me. I was just giving a way to get a picture ID from the feds without needing a BC. I also gave some for my state later.

The only reason some of those aren't good enough in the eyes of the state is that technically when I give you something with a picture on it my neighbor shouldn't be able to come in using the same identification and use it to vote for me. A social security card for instance does not have a picture on it so I could use it to vote or my best friend could and who would know.

Everyone in a state that mandates it must show Picture ID in order to vote. It does not matter in most places what that ID is as long as it is state or federally issued. This is not another department. It's getting a license at the DMV/Tag agency.

Don't need a car to have a drivers license and no matter how much you squeal over it getting a birth certificate is not that hard. You just have to stop being a lazy ass and go do it.

There maybe a handful of people in the country without one at this point. Certainly not enough to not require ID to vote.

You wanted a way to get a picture ID without a BC. I gave it to you.

I have also pointed out how you can get an ID in my state without a BC. That paper that says there was a live birth with the year and parents would work, as long as you had some other papers to go with it.

As to the last thing. If you take live birth paper + $ + other papers to DMV = State picture ID. Not hard but it does take effort. Are you saying we should not ask some effort of those we want to vote?

If they can't expend a little effort to get the proper ID around to prove they are who they say they are in order to vote, will they even go to the poll?

And if they don't want to expend that energy but say you should come to me so I don't have to leave my house, are you gong to send someone to their house in order to get their vote?

Many people will go out of their way to help those who want to vote get registered and get the proper ID. Why don't these 20% use their services?

Unless you happened to be born in a state that didn't issue birth certificates. As has been posted numerous times in this thread.

Approximately 11%. As has also been mentioned upthread.

By getting a passport. As I say, a pretty circuitous route to have to prove you're an American.

In your state. But the State of Texas can't even seem to verify the citizenship of its own legislators.

Hmm, maybe there should be some overarching federal legislation to make the process uniform across all of the states...

Or, you know, if you're a poor kid who was passed around in foster care from a young age and don't really know for sure which state you were born in, what your parents' full names are on your birth certificate, and you're not even really sure what your birthday is. Or any other depressingly common scenario that might make it difficult for a poor or disadvantaged person to get a birth certificate.

Also states do charge for birth certificates, which makes the whole matter a poll tax if you require them for voter ID.

Again this is just a bullshit argument.

You can get a birth certificate. You might have to jump through some hoops but it can be done.

And the argument that since states charge for birth certificates it makes it some sort of poll tax is unbelievably stupid. Only a leftist could come up with something so dumb. Is the gas I paid for to put in my car a "poll tax" to get to the polls? How about my clothing? I can't vote naked so I need to pay for clothing. Is that a poll tax? How about bus fare? Is that a poll tax? Take a bicycle? Well I still had to pay for the bicycle. Is that a poll tax?

If it will give you an aneurysm, yes, to all of those.

Especially if it doesn't exist. It's the John Castle Unified Theory of Magic and Unicorns.

From that hotbed of liberalism the AARP:

http://www.aarp.org/politics-societ...012/voter-id-laws-impact-older-americans.html

It is, but it's never been enforced. The practicality of it is dubious at best.

Still, I would like to see it happen. Voter fraud and intimidation are tantamount to treason.

It is one way. You don't like it.... There are other ways as well to get ID. Which I went into repeatedly. Why don't you do some research now and tell me how Texas goes about it.

I also said something about the Texas middle name thing being changed.

Defiantly something to think about and be taken into consideration.

You do not have to have a birth certificate, you do have to have other forms of ID.

I do know that for a passport someone who has known you for more than two years can attest to you being who you say you are.

How is my state more progressive in regards to ID and how you obtain it, than some of the others. At least that is the way it is being argued here.

That would be great.

I will say unless you find no other use for ID it can not be truly considered a poll tax as it is not used exclusively for that. One is also not paying for the ID every time one wants to vote.

For those that do not drive but drink how do they show they are 21 and old enough to drink?

Actually, you don't have a right to drive, so it's not a reasonable comparison.

And there's a reason it hasn't been seriously considered. The people most concerned about voter ID aren't really concerned about voter ID. If they were, they would propose something along those lines, something that would actually work and pass Constitutional muster.

The point of the thread is that Texas just change its law to require photo ID, and the outcome was that several of its legislators got tangled up in the new legislation.

Your post also assumes that people live and die in the state where they were born.

This actually concerns me quite a bit. This entire ID business is predicated on the idea that we can irrefutably document citizenship. And yet we still can't prevent fraud (if that's the intent) because somebody can lie about knowing the person.

Yep.

South Carolina, for one. See Post #132.

Wow, I didn't even think about that. Another indicator of the classicism involved in the "need" for photo IDs, considering that the 39% of Americans who do have passports are, for the most part, People Like Us™

Guess you've not been paying attention these last couple of years. When a state or collection of states gerrymander to stack the federal legislature we are all effected. Same goes when they work to exclude demographics they are hostile towards from voting.

Indeed. The estimates I've seen are that given the extreme Republican gerrymanders in place Democrats would have to win the national vote by about 6% to take back the House.

Oh, I have, I'm just not going to burden my life with what's going in states I'll never live in. I'm involved in local politics enough to have a hand on the issue around here.

Life is short, I only have enough outrage to hold onto lest I get fatigued.

But you are ignoring that it has an impact in every state, whether or not your own participates.

So a couple of facts, and then a question.

1) Voting is public record.

No, HOW you voted isn't public, but the fact that you voted is. Sometimes it costs to get access to voter records, sometimes it is free, but it is available. This is a fact. Go check your own state and you will see. This is how parties, pollsters, campaigns target people. EVERYONE in the political sphere has it, its studied sliced and diced 19 different ways.

2) In person voting fraud is not a problem.

It simply doesn't happen to any extent that would throw an election. Does. Not. Happen. If it did it would be caught. See point 1.


So considering that in person voter fraud is NOT a problem, why the push for it?