Monday, April 23, 2012

“ALL VISITORS MUST SHOW ID.”

Rob Bluey at Hot Air:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is currently blocking implementation of voter ID laws in South Carolina and Texas, claiming such measures are “unnecessary,” discriminatory and would make it harder for minorities to vote. 
But if you’re planning to visit Holder’s office in Washington, D.C., you better bring a photo ID. The Department of Justice has two armed guards stationed outside its headquarters to check IDs of anyone who wants to enter — employees and visitors. 
Holder’s politically motivated crusade against voter ID laws has the support of liberal advocacy organizations ranging from the Center for American Progress and Media Matters to the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Advancement Project.
Each of these organizations has criticized photo identification for voting, yet they require it to enter their Washington, D.C., offices as well. There’s even a sign in the building of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law: “ALL VISITORS MUST SHOW ID.”

Holder is able to block laws in South Carolina on Texas because they are subject to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, a civil rights-era law that gives the Department of Justice authority over voting changes. It remains unclear if those states will be able to enforce their laws for this November’s election. 
“The Obama-Holder Department of Justice has launched an all-out war on voter ID and other measures,” former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell said upon launching a new initiative called Protect Your Vote. “Although Holder’s actions are purported to prevent African-Americans from being disenfranchised, in reality they serve as a crass political attempt to ensure his boss gets re-elected this year.” 
Liberals have long trotted out false arguments about voter ID laws, claiming they suppress the vote among those individuals who do not have photo identification. But a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court case upholding Indiana’s voter ID law revealed there was no such hardship. Opponents of the law were unable to produce a single plaintiff who could plausibly claim inability to get a photo ID. In addition, states with longstanding voter ID laws, such as Georgia and Indiana, have actually experienced an increase in turnout of minority voters.
For rare voters who genuinely have difficulty obtaining valid photo ID, we could certainly fund programs to make such ID available free of charge.

But this isn't really about protecting voting rights. This is about facilitating voter fraud.

Voter fraud is the oxygen on which grass-roots Democratic Party politics thrives, and they will fight like cats getting a bath against measures to ensure integrity in voting.

32 comments:

  1. Another big lie brought to you by the right-wing lie machine.

    Despite numerous politically motivated investigations, very few instances of voter fraud have ever been demonstrated, and of the instances of voter fraud that have made it into the news it’s always some right-winger, like Romney claiming he lived in his son’s basement so he could vote for Brown, or the little Breitbart wannabes that intentionally commit voter fraud to expose the “problem”.

    What this is really about is disenfranchising Democratic voters.

    -KW

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    1. "Despite numerous politically motivated investigations, very few instances of voter fraud have ever been demonstrated..."

      How many are acceptable to you?

      Think of it this way, KW. Each time a person votes illegally, it negates to ballot of a person who voted legally. So if candidate A brings in a hundred voters who shouldn't be voting, candidate B needs to get an extra hundred voters (legitimate) just to win the election.

      It would be like stopping your voters on the way to the polls with a billy club and threatening them not to vote for their preferred candidate. Oh wait, that happened in Philadelphia in '08. The point is that one instance of voter fraud disenfranchises one legit voter, and that's one too many.

      TRISH

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    2. "...or the little Breitbart wannabes that intentionally commit voter fraud to expose the “problem”."

      I assume you're talking about the courageous James O'Keefe. He didn't commit voter fraud. He posed as Eric Holder's to get his ballot just to show how ridiculously easy it is. When they were about to give it to them he said that he would feel better if he went back to his car to get his ID. He didn't take the ballot, didn't vote with it, and thus didn't commit voter fraud.

      I find it funny that you put "problem" in scare quotes as if it's not. I can see how voter fraud wouldn't be a problem at all for you because it benefits your side.

      JQ

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  2. Hello KW,

    According to the Colorado Sec of State, there are 12,000 non-citizens registered to vote in that state. Five thousand of them actually cast a ballot in 2010.

    http://michellemalkin.com/2011/03/31/colorado/

    This is about disenfranchising Democratic voters? How would that be? Aren't poor, uneducated people guaranteed GOP voters?

    Anyway, it's about "disenfranchising" people who are voting illegally. And you're right, they DO vote Democratic time and time again!

    Did you see how close the 2010 Senate race was in Colorado?

    TRISH

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    1. Can you provide a link to the actual study that found 5,000 non-citizens voting? Your link goes to Michelle Malkin's site, which obviously had nothing to do with the study.

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    2. Actually, I can't find it. I have to make dinner.

      I can point you in the direction of news story after news story. Perhaps the study itself isn't posted on the internet.

      Are you saying that you don't believe me?

      How many illegally cast ballots are acceptable to you, Oleg? I guess I mean to ask, how many people must have their votes negated before you think it's a problem?

      TRISH

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    3. No, I don't believe you, Trish. More precisely, I don't think the information you have is trustworthy. These articles don't even come from news outlets but directly from politicians or political partisans. Take them with a grain of salt as do I.

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    4. So you don't believe the Colorado Secretary of State?

      And if he were a Democrat? And if he were claiming that Coloradans are being disenfranchised?

      Here's one from a new outlet.

      http://nation.foxnews.com/illegal-aliens/2011/03/31/5k-non-citizens-voted-colorado-elections

      You simply won't believe it no matter how much evidence is presented to you.

      TRISH

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    5. Trish,

      The Fox News article mentions the study in passing. I would like to see what exactly the findings were. Republicans say one thing about them, Democrats say something entirely different. The Hill reports:

      Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-Texas) raised doubts about the reporting, noting that the study itself said it was based on inconclusive data and that it was “impossible to provide precise numbers” on how many people who were registered to vote in the state were not citizens.

      Who do I trust?

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    6. "Who do I trust?"

      The Democrat.

      I suppose my question for you, Oleg, is how many cases of voter fraud is too many?

      Considering the fact that not a single plaintiff could be found who could claim that the voter ID laws disenfranchised him, I think we can safely conclude that there is no problem in that regard. No one is being denied the right to vote, except people who don't actually have that right.

      JQ

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    7. Hey Oleg,

      If the state provided an ID, at taxpayer's expense--what you liberals call "free"--to citizens who plead poverty, then would you support a voter ID law?

      JQ

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    8. I don't know, JQ. Will be voting in November for the first time in my life here.

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    9. He "doesn't know" if he would support such a law.

      HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW?!

      The problem of poor people not being able to afford IDs can easily be solved, thus revealing it to be a bare bones objection.

      What it shows is that even in one hundred percent of voters had IDs, some people would still oppose voter ID laws, because the lack of an ID was never the issue.

      Here's the issue: voter ID laws would do what they are designed to do--to cut down on voting by people who have no legal right to do so. And that's a real problem when you depend on those people to put you over the top.

      The Torch

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  3. KW,

    Why then won't Holder allow people into his building without an ID? What if a poor, non-ID carrying citizen needed the services of his department? Would he leave them on the street and deny them justice?

    Certainly.

    Because he knows that his arguments about ID laws being discriminatory are bullshit. He's just lying because his party can't win without cheating. That's why they make cheating as easy as possible. Because they're cheaters.

    The Torch

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  4. "What if a poor, non-ID carrying citizen needed the services of his department?"

    DoJ doesn't serve individual citizens. That's not how the agency works, has ever worked, or was ever intended to work.

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    1. Okay, so a poor non-ID carrying citizen would never need to go there and turning them away would be no problem.

      Hey, I needed an ID to enter the federal building in my city. The federal building houses the social security administration. It's probably the most popular office in the whole building because so many people are there to file claims that they are disabled and thus can't work.

      The ID requirement doesn't appear to be keeping anyone out. See, when there's a welfare check involved, they somehow magically find an ID.

      But seriously, can you explain why the government is turning away poor people at is federal building? What if a poor person needs their services? Hm?

      Can you just drop the pretense and admit that this is a whole lot of bullshit? The "poor people don't have ID's" argument is refuted by the fact that Democrats oppose even bills that would provide free ID's for people who supposedly "can't afford" them.

      A state ID in my state is $15 and is valid for three years. The poor people I know have iPhones, manicured nails, and satellite dishes. They eat takeout more than they eat in their own kitchens.

      The Torch

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  5. @KW:

    [Despite numerous politically motivated investigations, very few instances of voter fraud have ever been demonstrated, and of the instances of voter fraud that have made it into the news it’s always some right-winger, like Romney claiming he lived in his son’s basement so he could vote for Brown, or the little Breitbart wannabes that intentionally commit voter fraud to expose the “problem”.]

    Pretty amazing. Voter fraud is an epidemic-- there are organizations that are primarily voter fraud enterprises-- ACORN is a good example. Voter fraud is endemic in many large cities run by Democrat political machines-- St Louis, Chicago, New Orleans, Washington DC, Newark, Boston, ... . Are you actually claiming that voter fraud doesn't occur in... say... Chicago, where the Democrat party is basically organized crime. The recent governor of Illinois is currently in the federal pen for trying to sell a Senate seat. People have pointed out the being elected governor of Illinois (or various Democrat party plums) means you have a greater chance of going to prison than if you kill someone.

    [What this is really about is disenfranchising Democratic voters.]

    We just want to disenfranchise the dead ones.

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    1. Egnor: Pretty amazing. Voter fraud is an epidemic

      That's a pretty baseless assertion. Your better informed fellow Republicans at least have the temerity to acknowledge that

      There may be very little vote fraud; there may be a great deal. In the absence of a photo-ID requirement, we just didn’t know.

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    2. Do you honestly think that voter fraud in Chicago is rare?

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    3. I don't know. I have never been to a voting place. However, from what I have seen in the press, there is scarce evidence for voter fraud on a massive scale.

      And it's not just the press. Christian Schneider, a senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute whose NRO piece I linked, acknowledges that. You insist otherwise. The burden is on you to make a case. Don't ask me rhetorical questions. You make the assertion. You support it.

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    4. Do you honestly think that voter fraud in Chicago is rare?

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    5. Scarce evidence for voter fraud on a massive scale?

      I don't understand what you mean by a "massive scale", and I don't care. There is no acceptable level of voter fraud, just as there is no acceptable level of voter intimidation.

      Let's talk voter intimidation fro a moment. Not black on white voter intimidation, because the administration gives that a wink and a nod and I bet you do too. But white on black voter intimidation. Can we both agree that it should never happen? Would it need to be on a "massive scale" for you to start caring?

      Try this on for size: Voter intimidation only happened a few thousand times last year, which is really a pittance and therefor everyone should just take a chill pill. I don't care if the Colorado Sec of State says that it happened five thousand times in his state last year. I don't believe him because he's a Democrat. Move along, move along.

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    6. Also...

      ACORN and voter fraud: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124182750646102435.html

      Just google around for all of three minutes, Oleg.

      Now, you're convinced that there's "no evidence" of "voter fraud on a massive scale," which is a bullshit smokescreen. No amount of evidence will change your mind.

      Please provide me evidence that voters in states that require ID have exhibited voter disenfranchisement on a massive scale. I don't believe this a problem and the burden of proof is on you to prove it.

      Politics is a very ugly sphere. People cheat. I won't say that only one side cheats because that would be incorrect. But one side seems obsessed with blocking any effort to curtail cheating, which ought to give you an idea of who's cheating more. The preponderance of cheating is on which side?

      The Torch

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  6. oleg:

    There are some arguments that are so idiotic that they don't deserve a detailed answer. Your argument that voter fraud is rare is one such argument. I'm merely trying to establish beyond doubt that you think that voter fraud in cities such as Chicago-- where the Democrats use the expression "vote early and vote often" on election day-- is rare.

    You don't deserve a detailed reply. You deserve derision.

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    1. You don't have a detailed reply. All you got is bluster. You sound confident in your posts, but when probed a little deeper, you run away like a little girl.

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  7. I might be naive (after all, I have yet to vote in an election), but your very confident pronouncements on the subject are at odds with what experts say. Here is a recent article at NPR reporting on efforts of the Tea party to uncover electoral fraud:

    But Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine, says there's hyperbole on both sides of this debate. He's the author of a forthcoming book, The Voting Wars.

    Hasen doubts that millions of voters will be intimidated or blocked from the polls, as some have claimed. But he also says voter fraud is almost nonexistent. He's worried about the impact of all the charges and countercharges.


    I guess Rick Hasen, Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science at UC Irvine, deserves your derision, too? Who died and put you in charge? :)

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  8. @oleg:

    We can discuss specific instances of voter fraud. There is massive documentation.(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124182750646102435.html), (http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/23/the-voter-fraud-hall-of-shame-milwaukee-voter-fraud-conviction-makes-acorn%E2%80%99s-2010-total-at-least-15/), (http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/04/where-theres-smoke-theres-fire-100000-stolen-votes-in-chicago), (http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/50925)

    So are you asserting that voter fraud (in Chicago and elsewhere) is rare?

    Why do you have such difficulty answering such a simple question?

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    1. "Who died and put you in charge?"

      A Chicago voter.

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    2. I'll go through your "massive documentation," but I am not optimistic seeing that your links go to places like Daily Caller and Don Surber (seriously, Mike?).

      While I am doing that, why don't you tell us what you think of Rick Hasen, who is unquestionably an expert on the subject of electoral law. Do you simply disregard his opinion in favor of Don Surber's (LOL)?

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  9. Getting the data to prove to Oleg that there is voter fraud would involve actually determining which voters are legit and which are not. And that would involve some verifiable evidence of eligibility to vote. Which the Dems, at all costs, will not permit.

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    1. David,

      Are you saying that Egnor does not have the goods to prove it? But he sounds so confident! Apparently the two of you need to sort it out.

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