New GOP efforts to make it harder to vote

[Aldebaran]

I gave two example above of cases where real Americans had the proper paperwork, but it was deemed unacceptable.

My great aunt also had some issues with getting ID in her lifetime (and my mom struggled to get her death certified) because her county's records office burned down in the 1920s taking her birth certificate with it.

Sure, there are some exceptions. But it's no reason to lower the standard of security for the entire country just because it's somewhat more difficult for certain people in special circumstances. My brother had a fire at his apartment building where he ended up losing everything, although I think he managed to save his wallet and DL, but his birth certificate was lost. He managed to get it replaced.
If a person places a high enough regard for their vital paperwork, they should put it in a safe deposit box, or a fireproof safe. Those can protect much more than just vital papers as well. Taking digital images of their papers to store elsewhere is another idea.

 

[Aldebaran]

Anyone else hear a dog whistle?

Only dogs can hear a dog whistle.

 

[KCfromNC]

Now you're taking the fact that the ID is free and trying to add a cost to it by making up scenarios where someone had to put out a few dollars to do something else before they got their free ID.

Yes, I typically look at how things work in reality.

 

[KCfromNC]

Only dogs can hear a dog whistle.

Kinda sad when even dogs are smart enough to see through the tactic used by that post.

 

[Opdrey]

If the assumption is that minorities are the ones without paperwork, and too poor to afford to get a driver's license (let alone a car), then it makes sense that the DMVs in those areas would be underutilized.

It also helps that those would be the places where the minorities would have to go to get a "voter ID" if such laws passed. So it's win-win for Alabama.

The internet's usefulness (especially email) is what started the downfall of the USPS.

Agreed, the USPS is a victim of technology. It's also a victim of a strange system of oversight by the US government. They are wholly responsible for making their money but the US government can effectively keep them from running their business to that end. Also the US government has the USPS fund its retirement for a zillion years.

 

[Pommer]

Also the US government has the USPS fund its retirement for a zillion years.

I thought I had heard that this provision was axed recently?
(Well the ball has started its roll, anyways.)

 

[Aldebaran]

Kinda sad when even dogs are smart enough to see through the tactic used by that post.

Who are you referring to as being a dog?

 

[Opdrey]

I thought I had heard that this provision was axed recently?
(Well the ball has started its roll, anyways.)

Excellent news.

I understand that the USPS by and large is not as important to the daily lives of many of us not living in rural and remote areas, but the USPS is absolutely critical to the US as a means of ensuring that information and materials flow to EVERYONE regardless of income or location.

 

[SimplyMe]

Excellent news.

I understand that the USPS by and large is not as important to the daily lives of many of us not living in rural and remote areas, but the USPS is absolutely critical to the US as a means of ensuring that information and materials flow to EVERYONE regardless of income or location.

It is also one of the major issues in terms of the Post Office making money. As service becomes worse, fewer people in urban areas will use USPS; while people in rural areas still are forced to depend on them. Since delivering in urban areas tends to be much cheaper than delivering to rural areas, not to mention the extra costs to deliver to Hawaii and Alaska, costs go up as you lose the urban markets.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Sure, there are some exceptions. But it's no reason to lower the standard of security for the entire country just because it's somewhat more difficult for certain people in special circumstances.

Please, tell me where I said that.

My brother had a fire at his apartment building where he ended up losing everything, although I think he managed to save his wallet and DL, but his birth certificate was lost. He managed to get it replaced.

Good for him. Fortunately he was able to afford to replace those documents. And fortunately he was able to save his DL - because replacing your birth certificate without one is rather difficult.

If a person places a high enough regard for their vital paperwork, they should put it in a safe deposit box, or a fireproof safe. Those can protect much more than just vital papers as well.

So, more money? And if you use a safe deposit box, further inconvenience, because now you need to go two places when you need to provide your birth certificate for something.

Taking digital images of their papers to store elsewhere is another idea.

Useful for personal reference, but not legally acceptable as ID in most situations.

Ultimately, even someone who does everything right can still run into a situation where they don't have the required documents. And my only argument is that money should not be a barrier to voting. I'm in favor of the concept of voter ID. The problem is that recent implementations have placed monetary barriers on a fundamental civil right, and in some cases (see North Carolina), have been found to have been deliberately designed to disproportionately affect minority voters. The solution to this - in my mind at least - is to implement a national ID system that's free of charge and is available at convenient locations that are open at reasonable hours. Furthermore, there should (at minimum) be subsidies available to help people obtain copies of vital records like birth certificates.

 

[tz620q]

Pick one from here.

This is mainly an opinion piece that does not back up their claims with any hard facts. Voter suppression cannot be framed using the 2020 election as the normal. Courts changed the voting process to make temporary accommodations for the pandemic. Unless we plan to have a pandemic during every election from now on, the states election legislation is the previous standard. So changes to law must be viewed relative to what was lawful before. We can go down that road with comparisons; but it is very complex and I will not engage against opinions alone. Would you like to proceed?

 

[KCfromNC]

This is mainly an opinion piece that does not back up their claims with any hard facts.

That's not true. The second sentence of the article has a footnote to hard facts.

Didn't bother checking for more since that's enough to prove this claim is a falsehood.

 

[tz620q]

That's not true. The second sentence of the article has a footnote to hard facts.

Didn't bother checking for more since that's enough to prove this claim is a falsehood.

This is what they said about Georgia's new law:

"Georgia passed S.B. 202, a restrictive omnibus law that criminalizes passing out water to voters waiting in line. The law also politicizes the state’s board of elections and grants the board new powers to remove professional election officials and seize control of election administration in specific jurisdictions, which could lead to partisan influence in the election certification process. Moreover, partisan actors sought to review the election results in Fulton County because of false allegations of fraud, despite the fact that state election officials conducted a statutory audit that led to a full hand count along with two machine counts.

Georgia has high-profile elections for secretary of state and governor in 2022. One candidate for secretary of state has repeated false fraud claims and voted not to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, while two candidates for governor have explicitly stated that they would not have certified the results of the 2020 election had they been in office at the time."

Everything in bold above is purely opinion, hyperbole or not on the topic of the law that was passed. They cannot debate the legality of the law, so they try to disparage it with the most ludicrous of non sequiturs. If the most restrictive thing in the new Georgia SB 202 bill is that it punishes people for handing out water too close to the polling station, then it is not really that restrictive of a law. I don't know about you; but I have never stood there in line to vote going, "Man, I wish some candidate would think about handing out water in these lines. That would really get my vote."

I will keep going on this as long as I feel there is more to learn to combat opinion pieces like this. Saying I have used falsehoods will not stop the truth coming out. Truthfully, I don't care where this leads as long as it is based on fact and not fan fiction.

 

[KCfromNC]

This is what they said about Georgia's new law:

"Georgia passed S.B. 202, a restrictive omnibus law that criminalizes passing out water to voters waiting in line. The law also politicizes the state’s board of elections and grants the board new powers to remove professional election officials and seize control of election administration in specific jurisdictions, which could lead to partisan influence in the election certification process. Moreover, partisan actors sought to review the election results in Fulton County because of false allegations of fraud, despite the fact that state election officials conducted a statutory audit that led to a full hand count along with two machine counts.

Georgia has high-profile elections for secretary of state and governor in 2022. One candidate for secretary of state has repeated false fraud claims and voted not to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, while two candidates for governor have explicitly stated that they would not have certified the results of the 2020 election had they been in office at the time."

Everything in bold above is purely opinion, hyperbole or not on the topic of the law that was passed.

I'd expected everything to have been in bold type if the original claim were true that it "doesn't back up their claims with hard facts". It reads like we're now hearing quibbling about the number of facts used, not that the number is actually zero.

 

[tz620q]

I'd expected everything to have been in bold type if the original claim were true that it "doesn't back up their claims with hard facts". It reads like we're now hearing quibbling about the number of facts used, not that the number is actually zero.

A hard fact is when they actually do the comparison between previous voting laws in states and the new bill and show the result. An opinion is when they use nebulous claims like this:

"Between January 1 and July 14, 2021, at least 18 states enacted 30 laws that restrict access to the vote.
(unsubstantiated opinion)
These laws make mail voting and early voting more difficult,
(more difficult than what - this a comparison without stating what is being compared) , impose harsher voter ID requirements,
(again a comparison without showing the relevant facts)
and make faulty voter purges more likely
(again, this is an opinion on voter purges and not fact)
, among other things. More than 400 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions."

Truthfully this whole puff piece was trying to sell the Federal Voting Rights Act that is dead now. So this argument is kind of moot. The states had the right to change their election laws and did. The act of federalizing election laws failed in Congress and would have failed in the courts if it had passed. So if you want to actually see some valid comparisons of past and new state election laws, it is a decent field to look at. Want to do the work or not?

 

[essentialsaltes]

Situation hasn't improved.

Vote-by-mail rejections are testing integrity of Texas Republicans’ voting law

How'd it go in the primary?

Voting Rights Groups Sue Texas for Failure to Disclose Records Related to Voter Purges

'It's just a mess': Texas election officials and voting rights advocates face mounting challenges under new restrictive voting laws - CNNPolitics
In one of the state's largest counties, mail-in ballot applications have been submitted to the wrong office.
Bexar County Clerk Lucy Adame-Clark told CNN that she has been receiving hundreds of applications to vote by mail -- an unusual occurrence for an office that hasn't handled voting in over two decades.
Bexar, home to San Antonio, is handled by the elections administrator and not the clerk.

Texas counties reject unprecedented numbers of mail ballots ahead of March 1 primary under restrictive new law

Federal judge blocks Texas authorities from prosecuting officials who encourage mail-in voting - CNNPolitics

Thousands of Texas ballots rejected as new voter ID law causes confusion

Rejected mail ballots, confused voters: Texas’s restrictive new law casts shadow over primary

Retired gym teacher John Lengers would have preferred to cast his ballot by mail in Tuesday’s primary. But he chose not to risk it under Texas’s new election rules, which require voters to include an identification number on their ballot envelope that matches their registration record.

“I’m losing my eyes,” said Lengers, 75, a Democrat whose macular degeneration made it difficult for him to read the touch-screen voting machine Tuesday morning at Bayland Community Center, southwest of downtown. “It would have been a heck of a lot easier to sit at the kitchen table and fill out a ballot.”

By late Tuesday, S.B. 1′s biggest impact appeared to be with mail balloting. County election officials across Texas have been reporting for days that they were rejecting as many as a third of the tens of thousands of mail ballots that have been streaming in for several weeks ahead of Election Day, with the overwhelming majority of them lacking the newly required identification number.

 

[essentialsaltes]

How'd it go in the primary?

Pretty bad in Harris County.

Harris County election chief resigns as political parties demand answers over fumbled vote count
Republicans are suing and Democrats want a full review after Harris County missed deadlines to have its votes tallied and failed to count 10,000 ballots in its initial returns.

The new law, new voting machines, a new elections official in a newly created elections official office, and some late night staff errors marred the count and prevented them from meeting the statutory 24 hour deadline for initial results. It looks like there will be no problem with the final results being correct and accurate. But the Democratic Party wants answers, the Republican Party is suing, and the election chief (D-appointed) has resigned.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Texas threw out mail votes at an abnormally high rate during the nation’s first primary of 2022, rejecting nearly 23,000 ballots outright under tougher voting rules that are part of a broad campaign by Republicans to reshape American elections, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

 

[cow451]

Texas threw out mail votes at an abnormally high rate during the nation’s first primary of 2022, rejecting nearly 23,000 ballots outright under tougher voting rules that are part of a broad campaign by Republicans to reshape American elections, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

Not the Texas "smart grid"?

 

[Pommer]

Texas threw out mail votes at an abnormally high rate during the nation’s first primary of 2022, rejecting nearly 23,000 ballots outright under tougher voting rules that are part of a broad campaign by Republicans to reshape American elections, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

But the rejection rate was higher in counties that lean Democratic (15.1%) than Republican (9.1%)

Anybody else smell a lawsuit?