XML FeedsAmazing Voting Court Case in Pennsylvania Starts Today
By Burr Deming on Jul 25, 2012 | In News, Policy | 15 feedbacks »
Not since Jim Crow days in the remnants of the old Confederacy has such an effort been made to use the full force of government in preventing legitimate voters from casting ballots in free elections. The ostensible reason has been that an avalanche of voter fraud needs to be prevented by requiring new IDs not easily available to a large number of people.
Free IDs have been made available, but the documentation needed for those IDs have posed a hardship. The offices that can issue the non-driver IDs are accessible in 20 minutes or half an hour - by car. Those who are licensed to drive don't need the new Ids. Those who take a bus will often ride for hours in the summer heat, just to find out if their documentation will be acceptable to some clerk.
Opponents say that preexisting laws have been more than adequate. Penalties are harsh, including criminal jail time and heavy fines. Any election advantage of in-person fraud is slight. IDs have been required that are available to pretty much everyone. All have combined to form an effective deterrent. The previous system has always worked, and there is no reason to think it won't continue to work.
Proponents have insisted that fake voters represent a clear and present danger to free elections. Only a small number of legitimate voters, less than one percent, would be affected. The Governor was adamant about the justice of the requirement as he signed the law.
I am signing this bill because it protects a sacred principle, one shared by every citizen of this nation. That principle is: one person, one vote. It sets a simple and clear standard to protect the integrity of our elections.
One voter who would be denied the right to vote, 93 year old Viviette Applewhite has been active all her life. She marched with Martin Luther King in the face of brutal racial resistance. She is not just another story. She considered the artificial obstacles and decided to sue. A Pennsylvania law firm, the ACLU, and other organizations and individual voters have joined with her in that suit.
The state trial begins today. The state and the plaintiffs have filed court papers. The position of Viviette Applewhite and her allies is clear.
- There have been no in-person voter fraud cases in the past in Pennsylvania.
- There is no danger of in-person voter fraud in the next election.
- The measure would keep a very large number of the elderly, minorities, and students from voting.
It would be unfair to present only one side in the legal dispute. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has filed its position as well. That legal position of Pennsylvania is this:
- There have been no in-person voter fraud cases in the past in Pennsylvania.
- There is no danger of in-person voter fraud in the next election.
- The measure would keep a very large number of the elderly, minorities, and students from voting.
If both sides sound like the same side, there is a reason. Both sides not only agree on the essential points, the filings took the form of a joint stipulation. In fact, Pennsylvania joined Viviette Applewhite and friends in filing it with the court.
So everybody agrees the law isn't needed. The law won't be needed anytime soon. The law will keep a very large number of legitimate voters from exercising a basic right in a free republic. They will not be permitted to vote. The exact number affected is still a point of contention. Pennsylvania says between 9 and 10 percent of legitimate voters will be turned away, told they cannot vote. Viviette Applewhite and the ACLU calculate the percentage will be much higher.
So if both sides of the suit, Viviette Applewhite and Pennsylvania, agree that no purpose will be accomplished by the requirement, and if both sides agree that the basic rights of a lot of legitimate voters will be violated, and if both sides have filed legal documents saying just that, why keep the law?
The reason may only be found outside the hallowed halls of justice. If you give to Republicans in Pennsylvania the assumption that some of the motives of Jim Crow days are absent: that racism is not the reason, that keeping "those people" down is not the motive, that reserving basic rights for those deserving by reason of wealth or privilege is not at the core, what remains?
What remains was articulated by the Republican leader of Pennsylvania's state House of Representatives, Mike Turzai. Speaking before a cheering partisan audience, not suspecting his words were being recorded, he revealed the core case for using government to choose which voters get to choose government. He listed the restriction as a major accomplishment. "Voter ID," he boasted, "which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done."
Such is today's conservative vision of free debate in a democracy. Such is the current state of contemporary conservative thought.
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15 comments
Buy alcohol
Buy cigarettes
Apply for welfare
Apply for food stamps
Cash a check
Purchase a firearm
Make any large credit card purchase
Open a bank account
Rent an apartment
Be admitted to a hospital
Get a marriage license
Flying commercially
Driving
Renting a car
Getting a mortgage
Getting a passport
And God knows what else I have missed.
Yeah, requiring an ID for voting is obviously racist and politically motivated. Never mind the fact that just the other day I saw another story in the mainstream media that had found a group in Virginia that was trying to register dead people, children, and even pets with pre-filled out voter registration cards sent to various "citizens". Yeah, there is obviously no reason for concern here. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...
Actually, there was no attempt in Virginia to register dead people, children, or pets. Forms were sent from a flawed mailing list, kind of like the list Florida is trying to use to purge voters.
There have been silly registrations turned in, in conformity to laws that make it illegal to discard bogus forms rather than turn them in. Those laws were written to prevent tricking people into thinking they were registered, then throwing away the applications: a practice a few conservative activists can no longer use in minority neighborhoods.
About your list: When penalties on pretty much any practice become so harsh they are wildly disproportionate to any benefit, a photo ID becomes unneeded. That would include pretty much anything on your list. That is also why Pennsylvania had to file a stipulation that in-person voter fraud has never happened in the state and that there was no prospect that it would happen.
The harm that would occur, turning away legitimate voters, telling them they cannot vote, is regarded by conservatives in Pennsylvania as a benefit. At least that's what they say publicly.
But thanks for the list and the comment about pets and children.
Asking voters to prove that they are eligible to vote by using a valid photo ID maintains the integrity of democratic institutions. For me, that's reason enough. Why isn't it reason enough for you?
We do not need to assume there is zero in-person voter fraud. There is none. Massive efforts have been devoted to documenting such fraud, without success. That is why lawyers for Pennsylvania filed court documents saying there is no in-person voter fraud.
Many voters have no photo IDs. Pennsylvania, in defending the new requirements, still had to admit that more than 9 percent of legitimate voters will be denied the right to vote.
I am for maintaining the integrity of democratic institutions by ensuring the basic right of all legitimate voters to exercise their right to vote. Why is that of no concern to you?
Asking voters to prove that they are eligible to vote by using a valid photo ID maintains the integrity of democratic institutions."
If there is no voter fraud, then stricter laws will solve only one problem: the appearance of corruption. (In fact, they will not solve that problem, since suspicion will persist.) At the same time, however, they make legitimate voting more difficult for some citizens. If you still support stricter laws in this scenario, then you are either claiming that addressing the appearance of corruption is more important than those citizens' votes or denying that we will lose those votes.
If conservatives wish to address this imaginary problem, then they ought to work with liberals to make sure that the stricter laws do not also cost us any votes. One side wants X; the other wants Y. Perhaps the two need not be mutually exclusive.
However, if conservatives are truly serious about addressing fraud in elections, then they ought to focus on other types of election fraud, as Burr suggested some time ago.
Burr, simply because, absent a valid photo ID, how will anyone determine who a legitimate voter is?
We might go with what works about a hundred percent of the time. There are a lot of systems of identification. They vary from state to state. But what holds it all together have been penalties so harsh that they are wildly disproportionate to any benefit of individual in-person fraud.
The number of people killed by lightning outnumber the those who have attempted voter fraud.
The main reason conservatives want to make it harder for large numbers of people to vote is that they simply do not want those legitimate voters to cast ballots. Depriving people of this basic right is not a drawback, it is the only benefit.
Why does this not trouble conservatives at all? Why does it not trouble you?
I can empathize with your lack of familiarity with alternate, workable, forms of identification. I have lost count of the times I have remarked on one topic or another: "You could take my knowledge of that, fit it into a mosquito, and still have room for a Republican's heart."
In this case, I can help you. A fairly comprehensive list of the many forms of identification with which you are ignorant has been compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
As you know, or at least I think you know, the combination of reasonable identification with extreme penalties for attempted fraud has worked so well that it is more likely that any stranger you meet will be killed before November by a grizzly bear than that that same stranger will attempt to vote fraudulently. Other, happier, comparisons have been made with winning million dollar lotteries. Those comparisons are also accurate. In person voter fraud simply does not happen.
Let me know if I can help you further in expanding your knowledge of this important area of basic rights.
Oh! Here's the information you need to bring you up to speed:
http://www.ncsl.org/legislatures-elections/elections/voter-id.aspx#Details
I don't believe you will find anyone who is opposed to the acceptance of photo ID. Other forms of identification should be accepted from those who do not have photo IDs.
All this time we've been arguing when it turns out you have no problem supporting the requirement of a photo ID to vote. I'm glad we've straightened that out.
Other forms of identification should be accepted from those who do not have photo IDs.
If there is fraud, then we have a reason to take measures to stop it. If those measures threaten legitimate voting, then we have a reason to take measures to protect those votes.
If there is disagreement, it should be over (1) whether or not there is fraud and (2) what to do to save legitimate votes.
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