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Post by ShivaTD on May 12, 2014 14:28:11 GMT
With this, you have breezily dismissed the author's assertion that the authorities "lack the time and resources" necessary to pursue such matters, "at the expense of other criminal investigations." You are certainly correct, however, that voter fraud is multi-faceted; and that voter impersonation is merely one of those facets.
The State Board of Elections does have enforcement authority related to our elections and can require law enforcemnt to address probable violations of the election law. To claim that the State Board of Elections has no enforcement authority is a straw man because we know that it does. There is the known fact that claims of voting irregularities are generally thousands of times more than the actual cases of voter fraud so we get very large numbers of allegations related to very few actual cases of election fraud. We also know that many cases of voting law fraud, such as registrations of fictious persons, don't result in election fraud. Just because someone registers Micky Mouse doesn't mean that Mickey Mouse is going to show up to vote.
Yes, voter impersonation at the polls is a form of election fraud but documented cases of it are so rare as to be insignificant. Statistically the odds against it actually happening are far less than being struck by lightening. Most of the states passing Voter ID laws have no documented evidence of voter impersonation at the polls ever occurring. It's that rare.
Why create a law that doesn't address a problem but that can lead to millions of US citizens being denied their Right to Vote?
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Post by pjohns1873 on May 13, 2014 1:02:43 GMT
With this, you have breezily dismissed the author's assertion that the authorities "lack the time and resources" necessary to pursue such matters, "at the expense of other criminal investigations." You are certainly correct, however, that voter fraud is multi-faceted; and that voter impersonation is merely one of those facets.
The State Board of Elections does have enforcement authority related to our elections and can require law enforcemnt to address probable violations of the election law. To claim that the State Board of Elections has no enforcement authority is a straw man because we know that it does. There is the known fact that claims of voting irregularities are generally thousands of times more than the actual cases of voter fraud so we get very large numbers of allegations related to very few actual cases of election fraud. We also know that many cases of voting law fraud, such as registrations of fictious persons, don't result in election fraud. Just because someone registers Micky Mouse doesn't mean that Mickey Mouse is going to show up to vote.
Yes, voter impersonation at the polls is a form of election fraud but documented cases of it are so rare as to be insignificant. Statistically the odds against it actually happening are far less than being struck by lightening. Most of the states passing Voter ID laws have no documented evidence of voter impersonation at the polls ever occurring. It's that rare.
Why create a law that doesn't address a problem but that can lead to millions of US citizens being denied their Right to Vote?
I do not share your assumption--i.e. that voter-ID laws necessarily disinfranchise "millions of US citizens." Not if documentation is provided by the state at no charge (which is a discussion that we have been having). |
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Post by ShivaTD on May 13, 2014 10:44:20 GMT
I do not share your assumption--i.e. that voter-ID laws necessarily disinfranchise "millions of US citizens." Not if documentation is provided by the state at no charge (which is a discussion that we have been having).
We also return to the simple fact that the government doesn't provide the documents free of charge to the person and it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to do so all to provide for a Voter ID card that doesn't address any identifiable problem. The proposal is that we should spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to address a non-existant problem. The problem driving the taxation and spending is the "Voter ID Law" and not voter impersonation at the poll because voter impersonation at the polls is virtually non-existant.
What rational is there for this tax and spend proposal?
I'm not a fan of the government creating a problem that requires taxation and spending to mitigate the effects of the problem. If we had a problem with voter impersonation at the polls we could rationalize the hundreds of millions of dollars in government spending necessary to address it but that problem doesn't exist.
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newsman
Scribe
Posts: 37 
Politics: Independent
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Post by newsman on Jun 3, 2014 16:50:37 GMT
Conservatives in general believe in their own version of a nanny state. Theirs is just an irresponsible, abusive and neglectful nanny.
The social conservatives want to make medical decisions for others and tell women what they are allowed to do with their own bodies. They also support the big government "War on terror" including the worst excesses of abusive big government in history, such as Gitmo, torture, preemptive war, etc. They absolutely turned their backs on the Constitution in their support of these crimes.
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