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[Reelya]

I'm not going to just take it on faith that voter fraud is so incredibly "minor" as our party (Democrat) says it is.

This is ridiculous, a name is not a suitable unique identifier.  And yet we still identified so many cases of dead people voting.  It's happening.

I'm not really sure what you're saying here.

Voter impersonation in person at a polling station is a non-existent crime. Because you need to line up, risking a $5000 fine and 5 years in prison and a felony conviction. Per vote. And those extra votes are only going to count if the election comes right down to the wire. The chance of e.g. 1000 extra fraudulent votes changing an election outcome is minuscule. And yet you'd need to find e.g. 1000 people willing to risk prison over it. Not gonna happen.

Voter ID at polling stations ONLY deals with the most implausible possible scenario of mass vote rigging.

And yeah, all those cite cases of dead voters fell apart on scrutiny.

[mainiac]

What is the penalty for fake drivers license? I never had one. Does anything happen after the bouncer 86s you?

[smirk]

It varies by state. In Illinois, for example, it's a felony. And I think theirs is one of the harsher laws.

In practical terms nothing bad really happens to you; generally the bouncer confiscates your ID and... disposes of it? Or sells it on, maybe, I dunno. And that's that, unless you're being enough of an ass for them to call the police. It's one of those laws that is quite selectively enforced.

[Frumple]

Depends on the state. Max consequences looks like felony charges. Probably a fair amount like speeding or drinking underage -- ends up hinging a lot on who and where you are, and who caught/processed you.

And ninja'd, but eh.

E: Not sure how much it'd help for voting, though. At least where I'm at you swipe your license instead of a vote critter checking it or whatev'. Fake wouldn't help much.

[mainiac]

Something something JFK joke about election rigging.

[Rolan7]

Nnn okay I guess I'm not quite gone yet, but at least Mainiac and me are okay.
I just have to respond to one last thing, sorry...

So, a. Most laws designed to prevent voter fraud are, in point of fact, racist. They can very well be racist and elitist at the same time, it turns out. Don't get me wrong, I find the 'disproportionately affects people of color' line to be quite tiresome. But that don't mean it's false. I looked at one of the old literacy tests they would give people in order to choose who could vote. And it was them choosing. Those things are goddamned confusing, and I got a 800 in the reading SATs, so at the very least it'snot me being thick about it. Voter fraud is not a common issue in the US. And reasons can overlap. Blacks tend to be democratic, so it's an easy way to consolidate voting blocks. Is it Ku Klux Klan style racist? No, probably not. It's still intentionally blocking minorities. Keeping out other poor folks is just icing on the cake.

...No
Disenfranchising the poor isn't racist, even though black people are more likely to be poor.  It's not targeting any race, it's targeting the poor.  In this case, people so poor they can't pay $15 every 4 years OR qualify for any of the situations where they don't have to pay.

Just for illustration, if everyone in poverty lost the right to vote?  More white people would lose that right than black people.  All I'm saying is that poor white people exist, in fact there are a fucking lot of them.  Many in my family, so sorry if I take this just a little personally.

Disenfranchising the uneducated was the same.  It targeted the uneducated.  Lots of people were uneducated, lots of white people.

Is it wrong to disenfranchise the poor?  Yeah, so let's call it what it is instead of inventing a racist conspiracy.  It's a conservative conspiracy against Democrats.

It ain't a conspiracy. You can't target black people specifically, we have laws against that. You can get away with finding things that affect them more than people who aren't black, though. Gerrymandering is the anti-democrat bit. There's plenty of poor people who vote Republican, after all.

Rolan, do you have personal experience with this while living in the American South? Because America has a goddamned history. MLK was only 50 years ago. If you're saying it's not targeted at blacks because it doesn't only target them, you're mistaken. You may as well say it's impossible to n racist; sure, banning raw fish consumptin affects Japanese restaurants proportionally more than white restaurants, but it does affect both, so really this is targeted at fishermen. I mean, leaving aside the way the law is implemented. Who they ask for ID. How much difficulty the beauracracy makes about getting it. Whether that decide your interpretation of the literacy tests is acceptable. Jim Crow laws aren't in debate. Yes, white people can also get tucked over by them. Individuals are not statistics. Black people get fucked over more than white people. Including, iirc, within the category of poor people. "Trailer trash" tend to have cars and live in semi-rural areas. They don't have population densities that can justify forcing four+ hour long waits to get those IDs when you need to work two shifts to make the rent, and pick up the kids from daycare. Just as one possible mechanism to give you an idea of how it can happen.

Banning raw fish -> Sushi restaurants is not the same as Requiring ID -> Black people.  Nothing is stopping black people from getting an ID, except in some cases poverty.  So the issue is poverty.
White people "can" get tucked over by these things, yes, it happens *more* unless you go by capita.  And it's correlated with poverty, not race.
And... I'm sorry??  "Trailer trash" who live in rural areas have better access to services?  *Really*?  I got my ID in downtown Raleigh and got it renewed in flipping Durham, there wasn't any 4 hour line.  More like an hour.  Comparable to what a fortunate "trailer trash" with a vehicle might spend driving to the local DMV, based on visiting my cousins.  And yeah, somewhat southern US (North Carolina).  Not even West Virginia.

But it doesn't matter whether these presumably white "trailer trash" have worse access than the inner-city people I guess you're implying are essentially all black.  That's a matter of geography and infrastructure, the ancient difference between urban and rural life.  Not race!  Race is *absolutely* irrelevant to those problems.

Seriously...  Inner cities have long lines, so there's a conspiracy specifically against black people?  I can't even respect that.

Republicans cheat by gerrymandering, not by demanding a ~$15 proof of ID every 4-6 years.

In case you didn't notice, that second map is zoomed out significantly compared to the first one. Wonder who is hurt more by having to drive completely across town to obtain valid id for voting? Certainly it isn't a problem for folks who already have a valid driver's license and vehicle, so who does that leave?

What is this, the 19th century?  Is it such an epic hurdle to catch a ride or take a bus?  Minorities are allowed on buses, trust me, and not everyone pays.  I paid $2.50 to travel between Raleigh and Durham in high school, this is in-city.
In fact, my daily bicycle ride to my last high school was longer than the distance between those stations, so cry me a fricken river!

Maybe that person who carpools to multiple jobs so they have no time, has no bike or car of their own, no one in their local community willing to drive them (church especially), and is incapable of walking a couple of hours, might need to call the local young Democrats and ask for a freakin lift.

I'm not going to just take it on faith that voter fraud is so incredibly "minor" as our party (Democrat) says it is.

This is ridiculous, a name is not a suitable unique identifier.  And yet we still identified so many cases of dead people voting.  It's happening.

I'm not really sure what you're saying here.

Voter impersonation in person at a polling station is a non-existent crime. Because you need to line up, risking a $5000 fine and 5 years in prison and a felony conviction. Per vote. And those extra votes are only going to count if the election comes right down to the wire. The chance of e.g. 1000 extra fraudulent votes changing an election outcome is minuscule. And yet you'd need to find e.g. 1000 people willing to risk prison over it. Not gonna happen.

Voter ID at polling stations ONLY deals with the most implausible possible scenario of mass vote rigging.

And yeah, all those cite cases of dead voters fell apart on scrutiny.

How exactly are they going to catch you without any reliable identification?  And we know it happened.  People do it.  We just don't know the scale.
Also it's kinda the opposite:  The votes will count *unless* the election comes down to the wire.  Stuff the ballots enough, and there won't be scrutiny.

[smjjames]

And again, there are so many other things that are much more likely to affect elections, like malfunctioning voter machines or hacked machines. Sure, voter ID sounds like a nice solution on paper, but the reality is that it is being used in ways to disenfranchise voters and we would need to make voting mandatory in order to get it to work in a fair way.

[Grim Portent]

Do US states not require people to register for voting with their name and address? 'Cause that seems to work just fine over here for identifying people when they come to vote with no id required, you just look out for anyone claiming the same name at the same address.

Assuming you have any decent level of organisation and standardisation for the procedures involved I can't really see why asking people their name and address and checking their name off on a voter registry list wouldn't work in the states.

[Rolan7]

And again, there are so many other things that are much more likely to affect elections, like malfunctioning voter machines or hacked machines. Sure, voter ID sounds like a nice solution on paper, but the reality is that it is being used in ways to disenfranchise voters and we would need to make voting mandatory in order to get it to work in a fair way.

Some electronic voting machines are vulnerable to being picked open and hacked, yeah.
Has that ever been shown to actually happen?  Not that I can find.
Have dead people's votes been used?  Yes.
Have non-citizens been arrested for voting?  Yes.

[mainiac]

Rolan, could you please acknowledge that in multiple states the state legistlatures deliberately tailored the laws to target black people?  You are talking about hypotheticals.  For the tenth or so time, let me please lay out the plan:

Step 1) Make a rough draft of the ID law
Step 2) Seek out data to find what measures would deliberately target Blacks, Natives and Latinos.
Step 3) Change the rough draft towards the measures researched in step 2

Like you are talking about hypothetical but this is what the courts say happened in actual facts...  The courts did not find any of the bullshit you talked about was a problem.

[smjjames]

Do US states not require people to register for voting with their name and address? 'Cause that seems to work just fine over here for identifying people when they come to vote with no id required, you just look out for anyone claiming the same name at the same address.

Assuming you have any decent level of organisation and standardisation for the procedures involved I can't really see why asking people their name and address and checking their name off on a voter registry list wouldn't work in the states.

The specifics vary by state though, and you're also supposed to bring the mailed pamphlet with you, at least in California.

[Reelya]

Rolan, Voter impersonation doesn't just let you "stuff the ballot box" with made-up names. Every name needs to be tied to a social security number, name, date of birth, place of residence etc.

So say the fraudsters get a big list of every registered voter. How do they narrow that down to a list of "registered voters who don't intend to vote"? That would require a ridiculous level of research to pull off without ever accidentally having the "same person" vote twice.

So forget "dead voters" because that's a red herring: proven false. If voter impersonation was a big thing then there should be constant reports of double-voting: the "same person" voting twice.

[Rolan7]

Actually, taking a step back...
Voter fraud probably isn't a statistically large problem.

I just don't think it's unreasonably expensive to require ID, and it has nothing to do with race, but...
It's probably not a big deal.
And heck, a lot of Democrats probably throw up their hands and fail to vote because of it.  Not for any good reason, but still.

Rolan, could you please acknowledge that in multiple states the state legistlatures deliberately tailored the laws to target black people?  You are talking about hypotheticals.  For the tenth or so time, let me please lay out the plan:

Step 1) Make a rough draft of the ID law
Step 2) Seek out data to find what measures would deliberately target Blacks, Natives and Latinos.
Step 3) Change the rough draft towards the measures researched in step 2

Like you are talking about hypothetical but this is what the courts say happened in actual facts...  The courts did not find any of the bullshit you talked about was a problem.

...  What part of "require an official state ID" could be tailored to target Natives and Latinos, much less Blacks.
No, the courts did NOT say that it targets minorities.  It says that they're disproportionately affected.
Which is true, because minorities are disproportionately poor.
And voter ID laws do dissuade poor people, even though they really shouldn't.

Well Rolan, we know it's limited since you need all the details of a registered voter, but you also need to know that they're not going to also vote.

How many cases do we actually have of the same person voting twice? That should be easy to count since they cross your name off their copy of the rolls when you vote.

Meh I don't care anymore.  More than 0, but it's probably not worth worrying about.  Statistically.

[Reelya]

Well 25% of black americans lack the needed ID according to research. lacking ID is a big problem. the scale of that far outweighs the potential for turning up at polling stations pretending to be another registered voter.

But like I said: double voting is a barometer which would indicate people pretending to be other people. If groups are organized enough to be making fake voter registrations / social security fraud to avoid detection through double-voting, they're organized enough to get fake IDs anyway.

[mainiac]

Ffs. Do explicit quotes not count?