Last night, some silly Rightwing dude calling himself “Geraint Roberts” on Facebook, posted a comment on an item on BRAD BLOG’s Facebook page, in which he purported to ask “Questions for American Leftists on the subject of voter ID”.
As is our usual, courteous custom (when time allows), we quickly answered his questions.
As most of his “questions” are the same talking points we’ve seen of late, used by tons of either duped or disingenuous Rightwingers in hopes of justifying GOP voter suppression with polling place Photo ID restrictions, you may find both his questions and our brief answers to them, as posted in full below, interesting and/or helpful…
“Questions for American Leftists on the subject of voter ID”
While I can’t speak for “American Leftists”, I’ll try to answer your questions as an American.
“1. Can you name countries where ID is not required to vote?”
Can you name countries where ID is required to vote, but NOT supplied to every voter in the nation, as is the case in the U.S.?
Moreover, you do realize that ID is required for registration by every voter in the U.S. in all 50 states under federal law (HAVA), right? ID is also required for voting in a majority of states without a problem. It’s only those Republican-run states where they have implemented very strict types of state-issued Photo ID (which they know millions of largely Dem-leaning voters don’t have) where it is a problem.
You knew all of that right? If you did, why would you be asking these silly questions?
“2. Why is the requirement to show ID an impediment to voting?”
It isn’t. The requirement to show a very specific TYPE of state-issued Photo ID that many largely Dem-leaning voters don’t have is, however, an impediment to some 21 million legally registered voters who do not own that type of very narrow, state-issued Photo ID. That, of course, is exactly why Republicans are attempting to require it. (For example, a state-issued gun license is fine for voting in many states where the GOP is trying to suppress the vote with these laws. But a state-issued student ID is not fine for voting in those same states. Now why would that be the case?)
“3. Is the requirement to show ID when boarding an aircraft an impediment to travelling?”
It is not a requirement. The commercial airlines are not about to turn away some 30 million paying customers. See TSA’s page on that here: http://www.tsa.gov/traveler-information/acceptable-ids
You’re welcome. Don’t feel bad. You’re not the only one who has been played for a sucker by the GOP on these issues.
“4. Does a requirement to show ID reduce the possibility of voter fraud?”
ID or state-issued Photo ID? You *really* need to learn the difference. Presuming you are talking about state-issued Photo ID then, no, it doesn’t. While there is only 31 known cases of polling place impersonation that *might* have been deterred by polling place Photo ID restrictions, out of more than a BILLION votes cast over the past 14 years, as judges have found in case after case, FAR MORE perfectly legal voters stand to be disenfranchised by such laws.
To quote U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman when finding WI’s Photo ID law in violation of federal law and U.S. Constitution: “The defendants could not point to a single instance of known voter impersonation occurring in Wisconsin at any time in the recent past…. It is absolutely clear that [WI’s polling place Photo ID restriction] will prevent more legitimate votes from being cast than fraudulent votes.”
“5. If a person does not have the knowledge and know-how to obtain ID, does it follow that they may not have the knowledge and know-how to vote?”
Nope. “Knowledge and know-how” has nothing to do with the ability to afford the documents required to obtain state-issued Photo ID, with the ability to afford the time off work to go get it, or the ability to even get to the office where one is available (if they can afford it.) Remember, these folks do not have drivers licenses. In some places in TX, for example, it’s a 250 mile round trip to the nearest DMV if you can afford all of the above.
As to “knowledge and know-how to vote”, poll tests are unconstitutional. Also, good news for you, no knowledge or know-how is needed to vote, otherwise, you’d never even be allowed inside the precinct, based on the lack of both you’ve revealed here.
“6. I read in a leftist critique that Voter ID may disenfranchise students; does this imply that students are too ignorant or incompetent to obtain ID?”
No. And also, I’ve bet you’ve never read anything actually “leftist” in your life.
“6a. I read in the same critique that racial minorities may be prevented from voting by ID requirements. How is it that you regard one race as inherently more able to obtain ID than another; isn’t this premise inherently racist?”
No. I’m sorry if you don’t care for math and stuff, but if a larger percentage of minorities do not have the ID required to vote, they will be disproportionately burdened by such laws. That is in violation of both the federal Voting Rights Act, as well as the U.S. Constitution. Are you unfamiliar with these things? If so, why should you be allowed to vote?
“7. Can you explain how it is that a normal, functioning human being in America is unable to obtain ID?”
I’ve already spoken to the costs above. As well, I’ve spoken to the issue not being about “ID”, but the very specific types of ID that would be required under these GOP voter suppression laws. But if one is required to have a birth certificate to obtain one of those IDs, and no birth certificate exists for that person, that is just one way a “normal, functioning human being in America is unable to obtain” one. If you’d read ANY court case about any challenge to any Photo ID restriction in the nation, you’d already know these things.
You are *so* lucky that poll tests are now unconstitutional, chief.
“8. Given that countries such as Germany, UK, Spain, Belgium, France, Greece and Italy require ID to vote, do you regard them as engaging in discrimination and suppression?”
If Rightwing extremists such as yourself would agree to supply every voter in the nation with a Photo ID, as those nations do, nobody would have any problem with it being required for voting.
Feel smarter or dumber now? If you’re smart, you now know how you’ve been duped by the Rightwingers who continue to hoax you and attempt to undermine American Constitutional values.
You’re welcome.
We answered those questions very quickly, and Facebook doesn’t make it easy to add links to text, as we would normally do, so that folks could independently verify our information. So we left a lot out. Therefore, if you have any specific questions, please feel free to ask them in comments below. As “Geraint” knows, we’ll do our best to answer them.
UPDATE 10/1/2014, 1:50pm: Geraint has now offered a very brief reply to my response! You’ll be shocked to learn that instead of offering a substantive rebuttal or saying something like: “Thanks. I didn’t realize how misinformed and lacking knowledge on this topic that I was until you finally answered the questions for which I’ve been seeking answers,” he responded as follows, along with my subsequent response to his…
“Your responses are predictable – I had noted them from a brief internet search prior to posing the questions. Perhaps others on the internet learned them from you.”
By “predictable”, you mean accurate and independently verifiable? If so, why did you embarrass yourself by asking such silly questions in the first place? If, on the other hand, by “predictable” you mean inaccurate in some fashion, you have completely failed to identify even a single inaccuracy.
“They appear vapid, however, and hardly account for the passion on this issue from the left.”
Yeah, you know those on “the left” and how they are so silly when they get passionate about protecting core Constitutional values that so many have fought and died for in this country (and others) over so many decades. Silly “left”.
As to the “vapid” part, I guess, by that you mean accurate and independently verifiable, since you completely failed to identify even a single inaccuracy.
“If you are to be taken at your word, your real concern appears to be the lack of state-issued ID … so why not make that the focus of your activism?”
a) I am not an activist, I am a journalist. b) So, I see. You are suggesting that instead of preventing the criminal from robbing the bank, we should notify every customer of the bank and have them take their money out before they are robbed by the criminal. Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of such a simple plan!
“I’ve no wish to trade insults and epithets with you … I acknowledge your pre-eminence in that arena …”
Thanks. But I can’t take full credit. Your lack of knowledge and know-how make it *incredibly* simple.
“but I will point out an interesting irony: You obviously know a ‘Rightwing extremist’ when you see one, yet you don’t seem to know yourself (‘I cannot speak for American leftists’)”
Ouch! You are calling me an “American leftist” again! That smarts!
By the way, please don’t let folks like Allen West (R-FL), Joe Miller (R-AK), Ron Paul (R-TX), and so many of the other Rightwingers, conservatives and Republicans whose right to a fair election I have fought for in dozens of articles over the years know that I am an “American leftist”. I suspect it would break their hearts.
Wanna keep whiffing? I can do this all day.
Why do you hate the U.S. Constitution and American values so much? Don’t worry, though. I’ll keep fighting to protect them, even if you clearly don’t give a damn about either.
Sigh…
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Beayooooootifully handled!!!
Just a wee correction there re UK Voting. I have never been required to present an ID, photo or or otherwise when I vote since I started voting decades ago. A voting reminder is posted to every eligible voter at their registered address but it is not needed to actually vote. The presenting voter vocally or with a pointer confirms name and address on the voter list for that voting station and is then given the ballot. As for now all votes are on anonymised private paper ballots and are actually counted by real humans in person under witness. I am required to periodically verify my registration but that requires no photo ID just my National insurance number. There are dark suggestions that “Computer voting may yet come about but there is no point and no need . Voting is about people not machines or digits and so it must remain.
Steve Lane @ 2:
Thanks for clarifying that point. As you can tell, I was trying to not go too far into the specific weeds with him, so I simply allowed for the stipulation that those countries required Photo ID to vote, in order to point out that, unlike this country, they all have national ID systems (which Republicans in this country have fought against for decades.)
Sounds like your National insurance number is somewhat akin to our Social Security number, and while that does not include a Photo ID card, the card is allowed for use when registering to vote in all 50 states, as I recall, under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and in those states which require ID to actually vote — except for those Republican states where they’ve now severely limited allowable ID to very specific, state-issued ID that they know many (Dem-leaning) voters don’t have. In those states, your social security may be good enough for registering to vote, just not good enough to actually cast a vote.
And, yes, glad to see your nation is still civilized enough to continue on with far more reliable and verifiable hand-marked and hand-counted paper ballots too!
Thanks, Steve Lane @2.
It’s hard enough to keep up with bogus right wing propaganda (aka “talking points”) that pertain to U.S. elections, let alone generalizations that American right spews about foreign elections. Refreshing when someone who has participated in a foreign election (in your case, the UK) chimes in to set the record straight.
There are instances in which the U.S. would do well to follow the examples provided by other nations, such as:
Following the lead of the German high court by applying Democracy’s Gold Standard by mandating hand-marked, paper ballots that must be publically hand-counted at each precinct on Election Night before the ballots and the tally is communicated to a central tabulation headquarters.
Instead of buying into the GOP’s coordinated, oligarchic efforts to make it harder to register to vote, harder to cast a vote and harder to count votes, we should follow the lead of nations like Australia, that treat voting as a civic duty, as opposed to simply a right, by way of compulsory voting.
Finally, if dupes like Geraint, are really interested in a viable democracy, they would insist on elections that are fully publicly funded, eliminating the appalling circumstance in which a tiny class of billionaires and their corporations can deceive and drown out the voices and aspirations of ordinary citizens by way of unlimited private and corporate funding of elections.
And, of course, while we’re at it, given that, as James Madison aptly observed that “knowledge will forever govern ignorance,” we should include, in those changes, media reform that, at a minimum, brings back the Fairness Doctrine so that the commercial message is no longer the only message we receive over our public airwaves.
Democracy is predicated upon the consent of the government. Consent is meaningless if it is not “informed.”
Brad: The photo causes me to wonder. We see where dupes like Geraint have placed their heads, but are their eyes open or shut?
How can photo IDs prevent voter fraud, when you can buy machines that create photo IDs? Try googling “buy color photo id card printer.”
In the interest of preventing voter fraud, Republicans should start acting to make those printers illegal.
Disappointed there was no mention last month of the Scottish independence referendum – hand marked, hand counted paper ballots – delivered to 32 Council centers which announced their results (including postal ballots) ASAP through the night.
Scroll down for the Clackmannanshire clip to hear how all 32 results were reported, including rejected ballots!
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29263022
Rick H. @7 wrote:
It is virtually impossible to cover every example of election integrity in any single article.
But that’s the value of a comment section.
Thanks for your informative comment on Scotland.
Despite my fear of sounding like a clickbait headline from one of the mainstream sites…
EPIC TAKEDOWN, Brad. 🙂
Republicans: If you give them books, they’ll just eat the covers.
Yet another false equivalency to disspell:
Conservatives don’t read, and when they do, they certainly don’t read anything that disagrees with them.
And when they do *that* (usually by accident), the computer runs the algorithm for “DEFEND PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS AND IGNORE NEW INFORMATION”.
How do I know all this? Come to Thanksgiving at my house in about 6 weeks.
Rick H. said @ 7:
The sad truth is that when things go well, they rarely get nearly enough coverage in the media! The same is true here, unfortunately, and perhaps even more so here since our resources are so few. And even more so right now, as we’re dealing with any number of messes in the run-up to our own November mid-terms.
That said, I should also add that I actually was keeping my eye on the counting in Scotland, due to some concerns that folks were noting. As far as I could tell, however, those concerns weren’t particularly well founded, particularly given the details you cite of just how public the entire affair was. And, even with those concerns, unless I can substantiate them in some way, I am loathe to shout “FRAUD!” as so many often do. That’s a very serious charge, so I am actually quite careful when/if I make such charges.
Finally, I’ll note that the public counting of hand-marked paper ballots was fantastic, though there was room for improvement. Counting publicly at the precincts, versus the central headquarters at each Council center, would have been preferred and much more difficult to game. Moreover, observers weren’t allowed particularly close to the counting in those huge counting areas they were using. There were one or two other improvements that I’d have recommended (not that anyone asked me.) But, overall, it was certainly head and shoulders over the 100% invisible “counting” we do in most U.S. elections!
The congratulations from Brad’s fan club are a little misplaced, cheering the take down by a professional activist/journalist of an average ‘dude’ with a day job and family, watching the Left destroy civil society.
The UK (my native homeland), by the way, does not have National ID, contrary to statements above.
I will admit, I was surprised to learn that the real issue for the left is the desire for a National ID, and that, apparently, the furor would die down if only states would issue such a document. Then, it would seem, the left would have no problem with being required to produce their ID to vote.
Hmm.
Last point: why is Brad placing my name in inverted commas? “Geraint Roberts” and “the guy calls himself Geraint Roberts”? That’s too funny!
Do liars assume everyone else is lying?
Geraint Roberts kept embarrassing himself @ 12 with…
You. Are. Darling, Geraint! Desperate, sad, confused, misinformed. But darling!
As you know, since I told you in a previous comment on Facebook, and since a BRAD BLOG commenter noted it as well, that issue has already been discussed. While, unlike yourself, clearly, I have no prob admitting an error, this one was actually a stipulation for purposes of shortening the conversation with you, given the amazing number of errors and inaccuracies you managed to pack into your initial comments (as well as the ones you later deleted, out of embarrassment, presumably?)
Wow. Are there no words you aren’t willing to purposely misinterpret just to justify your errant positions? I don’t recall discussing a “desire” from “the left” or anybody else for National ID. Rather, as is well documented, the Republican Party has long fought against National ID whenever it has been presented, under the Rightwing extremist notion that it would be used somehow to round up wingnuts, or whatever nonsense they are frightened of. If you are unfamiliar with those facts, I’m sorry.
The bigger point, however, was that if there WAS a National ID, akin to most of countries you cited where big government state-issued Photo ID is required to vote, nobody would have a problem with presenting it. It is *only* because some 20+ million legally registered voters don’t have the TYPE of ID now required by Republicans for voting in many places that folks object to the disenfranchising restriction.
Yes, some of us don’t like it when rights are stolen from us, particularly when it is for nothing more than the need for one political party to retain and/or obtain and/or abuse power. Sorry to hear you support the idea of a fascistic big government stealing rights from the people. I don’t.
Again, I don’t know who this “left” is that you keep speaking of. But, you are correct (finally), if everyone was ABLE to produce such a document, if the requirement didn’t result in disenfranchising voters in our representative democracy, then nobody would have a problem with it. That’s correct.
You never noticed that Republicans love purple ink on the finger in Iraq, but never call for it here? Never noticed that they don’t call for reasonable protections such as affidavits signed by voters without ID? That they never suggest that those w/o Photo ID have their photo taken at the polls or some such, so if they were found to be guilty, rather than presumed innocent, they could be rounded up and arrested? Never noticed that Republicans don’t call for solutions to their pretend problem that *wouldn’t* keep largely Dem-leaning voters from voting? Never noticed, chief?
Don’t think about that too hard though! You may miss a few crucial minutes of Fox “News”! Better get back there right away! (So sad.)
Because I have no idea who you are. Yes, I actually confirm stuff before I write it or speak it. Try it sometimes. It’s fun to actually know what the hell you’re talking about.
I wouldn’t know.