Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

I believe Canada has as strict or stricter ID reqs than most in the US. I do not know if Canada allows early voting or provisional voting which entirely moors the issue. The US practices are, by Western standards, permissive.

I also find it remarkable that the response to fraud is to say look at the documented examples while the response to ID is look at the intent. The actual numbers of voters who cannot and do not vote because of ID laws is infinitesimal because humans are somehow competent enough to obtain an ID, figure out how to vote early (permitted in NC) and, in the worst case, cast a provisional ballot. I believe there is no state that refuses to allow a provisional. In short, people aren’t invalids.

It’s a remarkably commonsense rule. It’s certainly not a uniquely American idea. Far from it.

Finally, I don’t know how much fraud takes place. My guess with current laws, very little. I am, however, very confident that massive voter fraud has occurred in the past and probably as recently as 1960.

Unlike progs, I do not infantalize people based on race or party affiliation.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Just a reminder that just about everything in Geezer's last post is a lie, has never been proven, will never be proven, but he'll keep repeating this stuff till he croaks. I've gone over this bullshit 20% statistic multiple times before

But hey, let's go down this stupid road yet again. Geezer's garbage statistic comes from ONE academic study that he been widely criticized for extrapolating huge assumptions from a very small sample size.

In the poll 339 people identified themselves as non-citizens; of those 38 said that they had voted.

It is from this and this alone that cons (hereafter "con-men") like Geezer have been spreading the lie that it's been "proven" that 10-20% of illegals vote. All the Far Right and Alt Right talking points on this subject derive from this single survey.

So some points:

1) Con-men like Geezer aren't satisfied to use the term 'non-citizen', because some of those folks are here legally, so they've modified the stat a bit to make it about 'illegals'. That's more inflammatory. Riles people up better.

2) Of those 38 non-citizens who claimed to have voted do you know how many were ever verified to have actually done so? 5. So 33 out of 38 marked the wrong box or didn't understand the question. Which might be expected from folks who aren't native English speakers.

The Snopes link explains it better than I can. Read it. This is the bottom line:

1) In a group of 339 self reported non-citizens, 27 claim to have voted; and
2) In a group of 140 verified non-citizens, 11 may have voted.

To believe Geezer's stat you must believe that no one marked a single box wrong, that many of the non-citizens are liars, and you can extrapolate from 5 verified illegal votes to claim that 3-5 million people (or even more!) are voting illegally.

https://www.snopes.com/illegal-immigrants-2008-election/

https://cces.gov.harvard.edu/news/perils-cherry-picking-low-frequency-events-large-sample-surveys

[The Oracle]

Da Liar

[Kapture1]

Non-citizens arent supposed to vote

[Dr. Strangelove]

Non-citizens arent supposed to vote

No. They aren't. No one's even disputing that! But based off of ONE STUDY, that was only ever to produce 5 verified illegal votes, conservatives (mainly the Alt Right) have concocted a narrative that millions and millions are voting illegally every year. THERE's NO PROOF. There's just a damn survey that's been pretty well debunked.

The Harvard study I posted interviewed the same group of about 20,000 individuals in 2010 and 2012:

In 2012, we re-interviewed 19,000 people who had been respondents for the 2010 CCES. We asked them the same question about citizenship status as we had asked them in 2010. Of these 19,000, 121 had claimed to be non-citizens in in 2010. In 2012, 36 of the 121 had changed their response and to “citizen.”


Additionally, 20 people who had clicked on the “citizen” option in 2010 changed to “non-citizen” in 2012. Thus, it is clearly the case that a small share of respondents were mis-clicking on response options to that question in at least one of the two surveys (about .3 %).

Read the Harvard article to understand more about misclassification.

It's also worth noting that the author of the original study (Richman) later revised his estimate on illegals voting to be anywhere from 38,000 to 5.7 million votes. That's an enormous range and, frankly, an admission that the underlying data isn't terribly reliable or conclusive.

And I'll repeat: After Richman did his survey and his study, and then started verifying respondents claims, he was only ever able to find 5 people who voted illegally. Out of 19,000.

I shouldn't have to prove massive voter fraud (on the scale of millions) doesn't exist. You guys should have to prove it DOES.

[Ghengis Jon]

... If the proponents of the former wrongly believes it suppresses black voter turnout and the proponents of the latter believes that it keeps black population in check, I try not to let those misguided racist drafters from making me reject things I support out of spite.

Although there are racist elements of all stripes in this country, I think that race clouds the real issue. I think the laws are intended to target the poor, regardless of color. It just so happens, for a number of reasons, that AAs make up a disproportionate percentile of the poor. In today's political environment, the 'poor' demographic is not terribly likely to vote for the party that proudly boasts of wanting to slash SNAP, welfare, Medicaid, and a raft of other programs. I suspect that as a whole, the poor as a voting block turn out in fewer numbers than the comparatively affluent. But it's a winning is everything and losing to those (fill in the blank)s is worse than death atmosphere. I think the drafters of the contentious voter ID laws may or may not harbor racial feelings - its more eff the poor and if a bunch of (fill in the blank)s suffer in bigger numbers, so be it. Yeah, maybe I'm being a tad cynical, but look at the polarization and the willingness to stake out extremist positions for no other reason than they can.

[Ghengis Jon]

As far as voter ID needs to be used to fend off hordes of illegals, well, that's a hallucination of Trumpian magnitude. I have a challenge for the esteemed right wingers at the board, in particular those that are Michigan residents. We are blessed with ethnic diversity in this state. Huge Polish, Chaldean, Greek, Norwegian, Mexican and Albanian populations. (Damn Nords, I married one) Bound to be scads of illegals lurking. Show me a dozen instances of the 4.5 million votes cast here that were voter fraud by illegals. Help me see the error of my ways.

[SeattleLionsFan]

(1)Certainly, you don't believe that only a handful of illegal votes are cast. I personally KNOW more than a handful of illegals who routinely vote. Polls indicate 20% of illegals vote, and I believe those who self-identify as illegal and as voting. And this is nothing new. Chicago has been ruled by machine politics for so long that"vote early, vote often.." is just how it is.

(2) Voter registration laws are indeed TARGETED to affect certain blocks. Those would be children, illegal immigrants, and non-citizens (legally in the country).

I've voted in the same place since 1976 and I've been asked for my driver's license every time in accordance with Michigan Law. We now find out that Jon just has this peculiarity which the poll watchers recognize and accommodate. When he leaves, they look at each other and say, "Dammed fool!" just like we do around here.

I knew there had to be more to Jon's story than that he voted without ID in MI. Now Fruit will jump in and say that fruit has only had to show ID the last two elections.

Give the "check-in" persons a break. They ask for everyone's ID even if they know you so that they do not appear to discriminate when a person unknown to them comes in and wants to vote.

1) voter ID laws aren't intended to prevent one type of voter fraud. In person voter fraud. There are very very very few examples of this happening. I try to base opinions on facts and not some perceived facts.

2) The laws are not targeted at people who aren't allowed to vote. They are specifically targeted to surpress legal and valid voters. Look at North Carolina. Maybe they should be targeted as you indicate, but they aren't.

[froot loops]

The guy was arguing about only granting what he perceived to be net taxpayers the right to vote, you are better off head butting a wall than talking this subject with Da Geezer.

[iam416]

Again, can we get specific numbers as to how many AAs are too dumb to comply with Voter ID laws? The progs are playing this bullshit double standard game where the specific numbers matter for fraud but not one lick for suppression.

There are 33 ID laws in force the US. All Constitutional. If any of them was ACTUALLY suppressing votes on a racial basis they’d be dinged ASAP. In fact, if any was passed with the intent to suppress AA votes they’d be unconstitutional - as was the case with in NC. We have 33 laws passed with no provable racial animus that do not suppress the vote rendering SLF’s arguments Geezer-esque.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Don't think it was mentioned but two things related to Sessions today:

1) The DOJ is 'taking another look' at Hillary's email server.

2) Sessions announced he's rescinding Obama's marijuana order. Which presumably means he could order federal agencies to enforce federal drug laws in states that have legalized it. Cory Gardner (R-CO) seemed plenty pissed today and claims Sessions pretty much lied to his face during confirmation that he wouldn't lift this order. He's also now threatening to block all DOJ appointments. Sessions has always favored tougher sentences for dug users as a way of solving addiction problems and isn't shy about saying marijuana should be re-criminalized everywhere. Trump, on the campaign trail, was a lot closer to the Gardner/Obama position than Sessions.

Total speculation: Trump's been screaming for Sessions to do #1 for a while. Could Sessions have made a bargain here? I'll scream from the rafters that Hillary's under investigation again if you stand aside when I go after weed?

[froot loops]

Is Corey Gardner surprised Sessions would lie?

[Ghengis Jon]

I've voted in the same place since 1976 and I've been asked for my driver's license every time in accordance with Michigan Law. We now find out that Jon just has this peculiarity which the poll watchers recognize and accommodate. When he leaves, they look at each other and say, "Dammed fool!" just like we do around here.

Geezer, I'm not particularly accommodated, I'm just recognized in a small community. The poll watchers are the same ones election after election and many are patients of my wife. For the longest time I thought my name was That's Dr T's Husband.

[Kapture1]

[Dr. Strangelove]

Again, can we get specific numbers as to how many AAs are too dumb to comply with Voter ID laws? The progs are playing this bullshit double standard game where the specific numbers matter for fraud but not one lick for suppression.

There are 33 ID laws in force the US. All Constitutional. If any of them was ACTUALLY suppressing votes on a racial basis they?d be dinged ASAP. In fact, if any was passed with the intent to suppress AA votes they?d be unconstitutional - as was the case with in NC. We have 33 laws passed with no provable racial animus that do not suppress the vote rendering SLF?s arguments Geezer-esque.

I'm slowly coming around to your way of thinking on voter ID"s. But then, respectfully, you continuously throw around prog as an epithet (and I hope you won't deny that's what you do) and don't remotely drum up the same scorn or ire when claims are made that millions of illegal aliens vote every year. Which makes it hard to sympathize with your argument, to be honest

But I AM coming round to your way of thinking.