Media Meltdown and also Media Bias 101

[chasfh]

17 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

There is little need for any system of proof beyond the person's attestation because impersonating other people is just not an effective form of voter fraud. What few cases of voter  fraud there are come mostly from people registering where or when they are not legal voters. ID at the poll gets you nowhere against that if the person is already on the rolls but shouldn't be.

This is a really underappreciated argument against the efficacy of voter fraud as a potent weapon to steal elections: it's just too damn succeed doing so at a granular level.

How do paranoid people actually believe that someone could effectively go from precinct to precinct on Election Day impersonating other people in order to steal their votes in their place? How many could a single person even manage to pull off? Six? Eight at the most? That's nowhere near enough to swing an election that's starting out tilted against you to go your way. Doing that would take a person literally all day long to accomplish.

And how many people would you have to enlist in such a scheme to have any chance of swinging an election in a particular jurisdiction away from a sure Republican winner to the Democratic side? Hundreds? Thousands? And multiplied by how many jurisdictions to steal a whole congressional district, or senatorial race, or presidential election? And how could you keep such a conspiracy quiet, never to be found out? They odds against pulling off something like that are so astronomical that it barely rates trying to even seriously calculate it.

The whole idea of voter fraud of this type is just so illogical that it crumbles at the merest examination. This is why the concept bottoms-up voter fraud is literally no threat to elections. To cheat at winning elections, you'd need to do it at a scale massive enough to swing the election. Doing so requires top-down elections fraud, the kind people with institutional connection can arrange through dodgy tactics such as mid-term redistricting, or the kind of onerous voter requirements that favor people of means over people without. Elections fraud that neutralizes votes, or that invalidates the ability of a qualified eligible voter to even vote in the first place.

[ewsieg]

15 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

It's a fairly apt metaphor, but the difference is that your house being broken into isn't a matter of Constitutional rights (granted that's cold comfort if it happens to you, but it is what it is 😉 ), so Constitutional practice demands that there be a actual showing of need before *any* burden is imposed, and for my money the SCOTUS has just been plain been wrong on this issue in letting any state require it - and certainly in any absence of a positive mandate that the state undertake provision of ID to everyone. But in the grand scheme of things to me it's not the hill to die on that something like Gerrymandering or CU are (and that CU should be to more people.)

Even rights afforded to us by the constitution have been ruled time and time again to have limits.  I can't scream 'fire' in a crowded theater and states can put limitations on fire arm purchases/use.

I feel like you guys are looking at my argument like I disagree with you 100% and I'm some dumb hick that thinks voter ID will fix everything wrong with society.

I want you all to think of every argument you've ever used against a physical ID card for voter verification and for the purposes of this post, assume I concede every point to you.  (Except that ID's are nearly impossible for minorities to obtain, I can't go that far, but I'll still concede it is a barrier)

Here is another fact that I believe you all will agree with:

Where republicans can control the state laws, they are going to have laws which support a physical, government issued, ID card.

With that, we have two competing solutions:

1) Ensure all citizens are fully brushed up on every aspect/study associated with voter (and election fraud) so they can all join hands and sing Kum Ba Yah as they vote out all republicans, making every state Blue.  If that fails though, which will be tougher to do in part because your refusing to play the election 'game' based on the current laws on the books, it turns into nothing more than a soap box talking point to score political points which likely will never become actual law.

2) Play the game the way it's currently designed, which is annoying I'll grant you, but 1) if successful, you eliminate that barrier.  Additionally as I have pointed out, there are many more benefits of having government issues ID.  So even if you don't end up changing the rules to the game, you are at least improving the lives of people.

 

 

[CMRivdogs]

5 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

 

Here is another fact that I believe you all will agree with:

Where republicans can control the state laws, they are going to have laws which support a physical, government issued, ID card.

 

Which is all fine and dandy until it comes time to actually set up the process of issuing the cards. Dollars to donuts they will make the process so burdensome for minorities and poor people to be able to obtain that in reality it becomes a barrier to those to vote. I.E lack of facilities and/or staff to facilitate registration and issuance of ID's. 

[oblong]

I think its a form of privilege to not understand that many people just don't do well or have the ability to deal with bureaucracy.   What if they don't have a car or access to transportation?  Or missing required documentation, like birth certificates. What if they have trouble reading or writing?  Maybe they have anxiety around people.  Maybe they don't know where to go an ID.  Maybe they're afraid because they didn't pay a ticket years ago that they'll get arrested. The list goes on.

These people still have the right to vote.

 

[ewsieg]

6 minutes ago, oblong said:

I think its a form of privilege to not understand that many people just don't do well or have the ability to deal with bureaucracy.   What if they don't have a car or access to transportation?  Or missing required documentation, like birth certificates. What if they have trouble reading or writing?  Maybe they have anxiety around people.  Maybe they don't know where to go an ID.  Maybe they're afraid because they didn't pay a ticket years ago that they'll get arrested. The list goes on.

These people still have the right to vote.

What's your solution then?  Just bitch about it?   This is really all I'm saying.  You can bitch about how it's 'not right' and stomp your feet, or you can make it a part of your party platform that you will promote AND provide services to help people get a voter ID which not only eliminates that first barrier to vote but also gives them additional access to the benefits, both within the government (more representative juries) and personal (checking accounts).  

You could do this WHILE still complaining that it's stupid that it's something you have to do in terms of voting.

[oblong]

9 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

What's your solution then?  Just bitch about it?   This is really all I'm saying.  You can bitch about how it's 'not right' and stomp your feet, or you can make it a part of your party platform that you will promote AND provide services to help people get a voter ID which not only eliminates that first barrier to vote but also gives them additional access to the benefits, both within the government (more representative juries) and personal (checking accounts).  

You could do this WHILE still complaining that it's stupid that it's something you have to do in terms of voting.

I'm not bitching about it.  I'm saying let them vote.

It's not my job to provide your solution.

[chasfh]

15 minutes ago, oblong said:

I'm not bitching about it.  I'm saying let them vote.

It's not my job to provide your solution.

THANK you. Exactly right. This is a ****ing social media forum, for god's sake. Why are we being tasked with providing solutions, and then begin criticized when we are deemed not to have adequately satisfied the task?