It's Still A Poll Tax, Part Trois.

The voters showed that guy what they thought of his ideas.

BTW - Zeke birth certificates and social security cards cost much less than that. Proper ID is proper ID (although you need a picture ID to cash checks at a bank - so even if you are making just $10,000 a year you probably still have a picture ID)

 

That person making 10k a year also needed to show an ID to get hired for that 10k a year job. You don't give people enough credit Zeke, I don't judge people by their income, or think they are somehow unable or willing to make that "journey" for an ID.

 

Sure did!

-raise taxes
-give illegal immigrants drivers licenses
-provide discounted in-state college tuition to the children of illegal immigrants
-set aside affordable housing for illegal immigrants

That's a can't miss winning formula here in Mass.

 

You know what, Chris?

I've been poor. Both as a kid and as an adult. Not the bullshit poor we whine about on here, but actual government cheese poor.

I've lived in a major city without a car. Have you?

I've worked cash paying day labor. Have you?

I've lived among people who had neither the time nor the education to navigate the bureacracy of the US government for food stamps, let alone to vote. Have you?

This is a law designed to fix a problem that isn't there. It's a redneck poll tax, pure and simple.

And you have no defense other than to tell me that I'm in for a reality check? Take a minute and figure out that maybe reality isn't your right-wing blogs, either.

You show your ignorance of the working poor over and again on this thread, and you don't even realize it. You need picture ID to cash a check at the bank, eh? Ever drive through a poor neighborhood and see signs that say, "Checks Cashed"? Why might that be? You also need an account at a bank to cash a check there, most of the time. So banks create shell corporations and open Payday Loan centers and check-cashing windows in the poor neighborhoods instead of banks, then take a huge cut when the process the payment.

People need ID to get hired for a job? Yeah, for a desk job. Not to cut grass or detassle corn or do day construction or work on fishing boats or any of the other thousands of things that poor people do to survive. You show up, you get in the truck, you work, you get cash. Or didn't you read about that in your econ textbook.

You also know nothing about this case, but if you did, you would know that the people who brought the suit made a very convincing case the first time around that the law would be a burden on the poor and minorities. But I'm sure you'll get around to reading that, some day. There's also the fact that other states have more permissive election laws than Georgia and it works fine. As I've said numerous times before, Minnesota will allow almost anyone to vote at almost any polling place, and then checks some things out after the election. But any ID will let you vote on election day, in the right combination. Student ID and utility bill, fine. SS card and utility bill in same name, fine. No ID, get a voter in that precint to vouch — under penalty of perjury — that you live in that precint, and they'll take your ballot and check at election day. Voter turnout is always high, and no one seems to have much of a problem with the system. Would it be more convienent if everyone had a standard form of identification? Sure. But people with any amount of civic sense at all realize that voting is much more important that convienence.

I know you'd be happy if all the poor people would go away. It would make your belief system work logically, and that would be a weight off your shoulders, I'm sure. Put simply pretending they aren't there — while it is the Republican way — doesn't mean they aren't there.

Oh, and it can be argued that the Constitution says a lot of things. Only one of which is the founding principle of the nation.
Which is, in case you missed it on bullshit right-wing harpy day at blog school, the right to vote.

 

You need an ID to pick up government cheese too.

 

Zeke - BTW at the time of the signing of the Constitution most states limted voting to either professionals or property owners (and they probably all had ID's)

 

A time to which you'd love to return, I know. Why not just say you don't want to let black people vote, and get it over with?

 

Whatever doubts I might have about requiring photo ID to vote are absolved by the knowledge favoring it puts me on the other side of the great divide from Fenian. So thanks for that.

 

In Tip O'Neill's autobiography he tells of one of his first races in which his opponent is known for stuffing the ballot boxes. The day before the race, the guy (I forget his name, let's call him Joe McCheat) bumps into Tip and announces that he'll vote for himself 25 times, and there's nothing he can do about it. Come election day, Tip goes to the voting precinct (same as Joe's) and identifies himself as "Joe McCheat", and votes. McCheat enters the precinct a bit later, tries to vote as himself, is told he already voted, he throws a fit and is thrown in jail. He loses, too.

It's a cute antedote, but I don't think I want a future where it's that easy to do something like that. And if we make it easier to get into the voting booth, we're also making it easy for the bad guys to manipulate what goes on in it. There has to be a way to protect the sanctity of the process without making an undue burden for the voter. A picture ID doesn't seem to be the latter.

 

Thanks for calling me a racist but I was just pointing out that your point about the Constitution wasn't historically accurate.

Facts are important when trying to state your case. I will, however, say I respect your feelings. Does that make you feel better? Would you like some cocoa?

 

Meat -- What's wrong with taking the vote provisionally and checking it out before the tally is certified? Certainly, in the United States of America, that's a better option than turning people away at the polls.

And if this case, or any of the Republican backed Voter ID laws, were really about fraud, why do none of them focus on absentee ballots, where WE KNOW most of the cheating takes place? Anyone want to try that one out?