Arizona voter ID law withstands SCOTUS challenge

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

http://elections.us.reuters.com/top/news/usnN20250933.html

 

This is certainly good news for other states who are trying to get the same thing done and strikes a pretty hard blow against voter fraud.

[NorthSideSox72]

http://elections.us.reuters.com/top/news/usnN20250933.html

 

This is certainly good news for other states who are trying to get the same thing done and strikes a pretty hard blow against voter fraud.

As long as AZ has some way to give out free ID's, I am 100% OK with this. Just as long as we aren't charging for a right.

[Balta1701]

http://elections.us.reuters.com/top/news/usnN20250933.html

 

This is certainly good news for other states who are trying to get the same thing done and strikes a pretty hard blow against voter fraud.

Actually, it really doesn't strike a hard blow against voter fraud at all, and just recently we were given the evidence to be able to say that with something to stand on.

 

As part of the "Help America Vote Act" passed after the 2000 debacle, the government actually undertook a study of where and how voting fraud actually happens. The large majority of vote fraud actually is either related to coercion or is related to problems with the absentee balloting process, while it appears that the type of vote fraud that these sorts of measures would try to stop is almost non-existant. Link.

 

If stopping voter fraud were actually the goal, then the easiest way to do it appears to be the elimination of absentee ballots, because they make bookkeeping errors, double voting, and coerced voting much more likely. Clearly though, that's not a reasonable solution to my eyes, because just like this type of bill, it will wind up denying many more people their right to vote.

 

The reality is that all these measures do is make voting more complicated, harder for people to accomplish, and especially tend to disenfranchise the low-income voters who either aren't as informed about the new laws or who are less likely to have the required ID's. It's throwing the baby out with the bathwater - tossing out potentially thousands of legitimate voters to make sure the handfull of illegitimate ones don't vote.

Edited October 21, 2006 by Balta1701

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Actually, it really doesn't strike a hard blow against voter fraud at all, and just recently we were given the evidence to be able to say that with something to stand on.

 

As part of the "Help America Vote Act" passed after the 2000 debacle, the government actually undertook a study of where and how voting fraud actually happens. The large majority of vote fraud actually is either related to coercion or is related to problems with the absentee balloting process, while it appears that the type of vote fraud that these sorts of measures would try to stop is almost non-existant. Link.

 

If stopping voter fraud were actually the goal, then the easiest way to do it appears to be the elimination of absentee ballots, because they make bookkeeping errors, double voting, and coerced voting much more likely.

 

The reality is that all these measures do is make voting more complicated, harder for people to accomplish, and especially tend to disenfranchise the low-income voters who either aren't as informed about the new laws or who are less likely to have the required ID's.

 

 

I fail to see how reaching into your wallet and pulling out a SS card ( which are issued to everybody ) or a drivers license makes voting more complicated. You present your ID, they check your name off on the roster, you vote. Its not like they're asking for a 1st born child here. In states that are overrun by illegals like Arizona ( thanks to the utter failure of the government to correct the problem ) protecting the validity of elections demands such a law.

 

For people to fret about whether low-income people are going to be disenfranchised due to not having the ID kind of rings hollow as nearly all of them of voting age have some form of ID. Also to say that certain people will not be able to vote because they didn't know they needed ID also isin't that strong. If someone in this apathetic nation of ours is motivated enough to vote then they surely watch the news and can read signs posted outside polling places.

 

Another point. How does the absentee voting system cause double voting and coersion? Seems to me that if you are mailed an absentee ballot your name should be checked off on the roster as having recieved one. Additionally, how does a person who votes absentee find themself subject to intimidation when you are voting from somewhere other than the polling place?

[Balta1701]

Another point. How does the absentee voting system cause double voting and coersion? Seems to me that if you are mailed an absentee ballot your name should be checked off on the roster as having recieved one. Additionally, how does a person who votes absentee find themself subject to intimidation when you are voting from somewhere other than the polling place?

Double voting - people vote Absentee and then show up at polling places. According to that report, it's much more common than people voting who aren't citizens, and is much more likely to wind up working because most poll-workers don't have immediate access to enough detail of information and training about how to dela with it. Secondly, absentee voters are much more likely to be subject to intimidation because it's possible for their ballot to no longer be kept secret - someone else can get their hands on it once its outside of the voting booth.

 

Its not like they're asking for a 1st born child here. In states that are overrun by illegals like Arizona ( thanks to the utter failure of the government to correct the problem ) protecting the validity of elections demands such a law.

. As I believe the report I cited shows, this is simply not true. In theory it sort of makes sense, but even without these sorts of laws, it's already illegal to vote as a non-citizen, and the government has had high rates of success in both catching and prosecuting people who have attempted to vote while not being citizens. This law is simply an overreaction to a hypothetical problem. If there were actually evidence out there that the problem were real, then these laws might have more usefulness, but the reality is that the non-citizen-voting problem simply doesn't exist. Edited October 21, 2006 by Balta1701

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Double voting - people vote Absentee and then show up at polling places. According to that report, it's much more common than people voting who aren't citizens, and is much more likely to wind up working because most poll-workers don't have immediate access to enough detail of information and training about how to dela with it. Secondly, absentee voters are much more likely to be subject to intimidation because it's possible for their ballot to no longer be kept secret - someone else can get their hands on it once its outside of the voting booth.

 

. As I believe the report I cited shows, this is simply not true. In theory it sort of makes sense, but even without these sorts of laws, it's already illegal to vote as a non-citizen, and the government has had high rates of success in both catching and prosecuting people who have attempted to vote while not being citizens. This law is simply an overreaction to a hypothetical problem. If there were actually evidence out there that the problem were real, then these laws might have more usefulness, but the reality is that the non-citizen-voting problem simply doesn't exist.

 

 

Again, read the post. If you are mailed an absentee ballot then your precinct or district or whatever should track that and if you try to show up and vote again, if they are doing their jobs, they should catch you and turn you away.

 

As for the intimidation, I really, REALLY doubt that some political machine is going to send goons to harass you about a vote you already cast. Id really like to see documentation of someone being harassed over an absentee ballot and then you have to prove to me that it's more of a problem than that same political machine having those same goons hanging around the polling place and bothering voters. You have a big hill to climb to successfully make that argument.

[Texsox]

At least in this neck of the woods the greatest voting mischief is with absentee ballots. Buying votes is common enough that only the largest and most blatent abuses are fought over. We've had elections where four or five percent of the votes are absentee and 99% of them come in for one candidate. Imagine in a race with 5,000 voters than 700 or 800 are absentee and 670 vote for one hard working candidate who "got out the vote".

[BHAMBARONS]

I agree with this decision our state has been overran with illegals and if you don't have a license/ID including school ID's If you don't have that any 2 forms of non photo (CC/SS Card/Voter Reg card) that will also work. All polling places will have what is acceptable ID and what isn't posted on all locations so I don't have any problems with this.

[EvilMonkey]

WhileTex and Balta may have problems with absentee voting in their areas, apparently New Mexico has a problem with fraudulent voter registration,possibly as high as 20% of the entire registered voting population.

 

http://www.abqjournal.com/cgi-bin/print_it...4nm10-28-06.htm

Saturday, October 28, 2006

GOP Sues for List of Migrants' Licenses

By Tim Korte

The Associated Press

The Republican Party filed a lawsuit Friday seeking an emergency hearing to force state officials to disclose names of illegal immigrants who have obtained New Mexico driver's licenses.

The suit was filed in Bernalillo County and assigned to state District Judge Theresa Baca, who was out of her office until Monday— the earliest a hearing could be scheduled.

For months, GOP officials have sought to check the list of driver's licenses against voter registration rolls to measure potential voter fraud.

In July, Republicans asked for the information but were given 150 pages of blacked-out lists.

Ken Ortiz, state Motor Vehicle Division director, said Friday his agency hadn't been served with the lawsuit, so he couldn't respond directly.

However, he repeated the MVD's position that the agency already has answered the GOP request by providing requested names. He said MVD officials redacted most of the list— except ZIP codes— to comply with federal privacy laws.

"We provided everything we are eligible to do under federal law. Per federal law, we have to redact certain information," he said.

A 2003 New Mexico law lets foreign nationals present a passport, a federal tax identification number or a consular identification card to apply for a license. Supporters say the measure has lowered the number of uninsured motorists.

The Republicans also complained Friday that their open records requests were rejected by state officials, citing executive privilege.

"We've been stonewalled at every turn ... under the veil of executive privilege," said Nina Martinez, state GOP secretary.

She said the administration is misapplying New Mexico's open records law, adding that executive privilege applies only to the decision-making process involving the governor and members of the governor's staff.

"Once a decision is reached, the decision becomes a public record," Martinez said. "The records we requested are the names of roughly 30,000 illegal immigrants who have received New Mexico driver's licenses. It is public record. It doesn't apply as executive privilege."

The Republicans also said the integrity of the election could be called into question by 201,713 voter identification cards that GOP officials said were returned to the Secretary of State's Office as undeliverable.

GOP officials asked Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron to require that voters whose cards were deemed undeliverable must present a state-issued photo identification before being allowed to vote.

Vigil-Giron has said that about 1.1 million voter ID cards were sent to registered New Mexico voters.

Voters whose cards were returned by the Post Office were placed on inactive status, but Vigil-Giron said federal law mandates that those people retain rights and can still vote early, by absentee ballot or on Election Day.

"This does not make rational sense, that one in five cards would be returned as undeliverable by the Post Office," Martinez said. "This is a major problem. ... Unfortunately, until we have the data we can't compare it to the voter registration rolls."

 

Oh, and Missouri has a problem with voterregistration, too.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/kmbc/20061102/lo_kmbc/10214492

[mr_genius]

i'm not suprised. i knew this stuff was happening.

 

it's total bs that it's allowed to happen.

 

thanks for the update, it's definately something to watch.

Edited November 3, 2006 by mr_genius