Nicias wrote:Ok, maybe I should rephrase, show me significant voter fraud in the 20 years.
I have no obligation to show anything, and even a single instance of fraud is sufficient reason to protect the integrity of the voting system by requiring a photo id. It is almost impossible to prove fraud when there is no voter id, and voter fraud (of any type) occurs most often when one party controls a particular district (and therefore the pole workers) and do things that no one ever finds out about. To say there is no voter fraud in the US is ridiculous.
In posts above, I have heard people claim that someone who is poor and holds down 3 jobs doesn't have time to get a photo id once every 5 or 10 years. I wonder how people get those jobs, because one must have a government issued photo id (along with other doc) on the first day at work to prove that one is either a citizen, or a non-citizen who has a valid work visa to work in the US.
The US Supreme Court decides whether the voter id laws are constitutional or not. In Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181 (2008),
the US Supreme Court held by a vote of 6-3 that an Indiana law requiring voters to provide photo IDs did not violate the Constitution of the United States. Certain other voter id laws in other states have been struck down by the US Supreme Court or lower courts. So as long it meets certain criteria, the basic concept of a voter id law is permissible.
Justice John Paul Stevens (a liberal on the court) wrote in the majority opinion that the burdens placed on voters are limited to a small percentage of the population, and were offset by the state's interest in reducing fraud:
"The relevant burdens here are those imposed on eligible voters who lack photo identification cards that comply with SEA 483.[SEA 483 is the Indiana election law at issue in Crawford.] Because Indiana’s cards are free, the inconvenience of going to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, gathering required documents, and posing for a photograph does not qualify as a substantial burden on most voters’ right to vote, or represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting. The severity of the somewhat heavier burden that may be placed on a limited number of persons—e.g., elderly persons born out-of-state, who may have difficulty obtaining a birth certificate—is mitigated by the fact that eligible voters without photo identification may cast provisional ballots that will be counted if they execute the required affidavit at the circuit court clerk’s office. Even assuming that the burden may not be justified as to a few voters, that conclusion is by no means sufficient to establish petitioners’ right to the relief they seek."
So if people want to argue that state id cards should be free, or that provisional votes be allowed, that is OK with me. It is not OK with me (and the US Supreme Court) to ban voter id laws completely as a matter of principle.
Your objection has been dismissed. Please see Rusty on your way out.