Texas passes voter ID law

@parados,

Here's a real eye-opener. Anybody know this was coming?

The REAL ID Act became effective nationwide on May 11, 2008. Florida began issuing REAL ID compliant credentials after January 1, 2010. The new credentials have a single gold star in the upper right corner of the card, as shown in the sample license example on the left.

Your current Florida license or ID card will continue to be valid as identification for federal purposes until December 1, 2014 for individuals born after December 1, 1964 and December 1, 2017 for everyone else.

After the 2014 and 2017 dates, Federal agencies will no longer accept a driver license or ID card unless it is Real ID compliant. This means you will not be allowed to board commercial flights or enter federal facilities unless you have a REAL ID compliant document.

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@panzade,

Does one still need photo ID to get through security at airports? I always make sure I have mine, but what if you left it at home or forgot your purse in the cab or something?

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@panzade,

This will do more to combat voter fraud if used properly than requiring IDs at the polls will.

Part of REAL ID is that all drivers licenses are linked to a national database. This will allow cross referencing voter registration between states. It will also allow registration to be checked against that database for eligibility.

The biggest issue is not who shows up at the polls but who registers to begin with.
PDF of voter fraud study

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@Irishk,

Quote:

Does one still need photo ID to get through security at airports? I always make sure I have mine, but what if you left it at home or forgot your purse in the cab or something?

You still can go through however they are going to do some heavy duty screening of you to say the least.

Can you picture otherwise being trap in some strange city because you lost your wallet with your ID.

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@Irishk,

http://www.expectdelays.com/cblog/archives/352-How-to-Get-Through-Airport-Security-if-you-Lose-your-Drivers-License.html

Friday, July 11. 2008
How to Get Through Airport Security if you Lose your Drivers License
A major fear of many air travelers is what would happen at the airport if one has lost their drivers license or other form of ID. A search of the TSA's website turned up scant information on this subject. While more details may be there somewhere, one would think this would be easy to find for the panic-stricken traveler who discovers that their ID, drivers license or passport has gone missing moments before a flight. We have found some information on the web that might help as well. Note that this information would likely only help for domestic travel. If you are traveling internationally and have lost your passport / visa, these tips would probably not help and you would need to get a replacement.
If you lose your ID before boarding a domestic flight, you will still be able to travel on your flight, according to two recent articles siting a TSA source, and the TSA website. According to the articles, you show up for your flight early to allow extra time, and explain your situation to the TSA agent at the security checkpoint. They will have you fill out some paperwork, and then you may be subject to additional interviews and search / screening, but you will probably be on your way in a relatively short time.

It may also be helpful if you have some additional forms of ID, such as a photo credit card, or photocopies of your drivers license or passport. These will not substitute for your real ID, but may help expedite the process.

A recent posting (June 23, 2008) on the TSA website does somewhat address this issue without giving the specifics:

TSA Announces Enhancements to Airport ID Requirements to Increase Safety
Beginning Saturday, June 21, 2008 passengers that willfully refuse to provide identification at security checkpoint will be denied access to the secure area of airports. This change will apply exclusively to individuals that simply refuse to provide any identification or assist transportation security officers in ascertaining their identity.

This new procedure will not affect passengers that may have misplaced, lost or otherwise do not have ID but are cooperative with officers. Cooperative passengers without ID may be subjected to additional screening protocols, including enhanced physical screening, enhanced carry-on and/or checked baggage screening, interviews with behavior detection or law enforcement officers and other measures.

Under the law that created TSA, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, the TSA administrator is responsible for overseeing aviation security (P.L. 107-71) and has the authority to establish security procedures at airports (49 C.F.R. § 1540.107). Passengers that fail to comply with security procedures may be prohibited from entering the secure area of airports to catch their flight (49 C.F.R. § 1540.105(a)(2).

This initiative is the latest in a series designed to facilitate travel for legitimate passengers while enhancing the agency's risk-based focus - on people, not things. Positively identifying passengers is an important tool in our multi-layered approach to security and one that we have significantly bolstered during the past 18 months.

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@parados,

Quote:

The biggest issue is not who shows up at the polls but who registers to begin with.
PDF of voter fraud study

The biggest issue is not to stop anyone with a right to vote from voting as had happen in Florida to thousands of people who was falsely tag as being felonies not allow to vote.

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@BillRM,

If you bothered to read my link, you would see that they addressed that issue. In 2000 in MO when the GOP, Led by Congressman BOND accused massive fraud...

Quote:

It would take an FBI investigation in which all of the registration and voting records from the St. Louis
City Elections Board for the month preceding the election were subpoenaed before the facts could
emerge.61 Once that investigation was completed, to the surprise of many, Bond included, the Justice
Department threatened the Board with a lawsuit for abusing the voting rights of thousands of eligible St.
Louis voters by illegally purging their registration records in violation of the NVRA.

So, the issue wasn't voter fraud in MO, it was preventing eligible voters from voting.

1 Reply

@parados,

The real purpose of these current laws in my opinion is to block eligible voters by the thousands from voting not to block a few hundreds ineligible voters from voting.

The GOP is on the wrong side of demographics tends and instead of trying to court these growing non-white European groups they are trying to block them from the voting booth.

A poor short term solution at best.

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@parados,

panzade wrote:

After the 2014 and 2017 dates, Federal agencies will no longer accept a driver license or ID card unless it is Real ID compliant. This means you will not be allowed to board commercial flights or enter federal facilities unless you have a REAL ID compliant document.

parados wrote:

This will do more to combat voter fraud if used properly than requiring IDs at the polls will.

Part of REAL ID is that all drivers licenses are linked to a national database. This will allow cross referencing voter registration between states. It will also allow registration to be checked against that database for eligibility.

So okay, REAL ID incorporated into a drivers license will reduce voter fraud and is GOOD. It's sort of a super ID. Requiring ID (other than REAL ID) prevents people from voting, amounts to a poll tax, and is BAD.

Do I correctly understand your position?

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@roger,

REAL ID isn't set up to be used to prevent voter fraud.

If it was it would allow the database to check for multiple voter registrations such as snowbirds that vote in their home state and the state they spend the winter in. REAL ID doesn't create the IDs that people carry. It just sets a standard and a national database that the information for those IDs will be stored in. The states still issue the IDs and can charge or not depending on how it applies to voting. REAL ID would also eliminate the ability of states to purge their voter database based on faulty information.

I doubt you will see anyone pushing for the use of REAL ID data in voting because it would actually allow people to vote without worries about their identity.

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@parados,

This is what you said, referring to Panzade's statement on REAL ID:

Quote:

This will do more to combat voter fraud if used properly than requiring IDs at the polls will.

Now, you tell us:

Quote:

REAL ID isn't set up to be used to prevent voter fraud.

If it isn't going to be used for voting, and no ID is going to be used for voting, I'm really having trouble connecting the two statements. Seriously.

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@roger,

roger wrote:

This is what you said, referring to Panzade's statement on REAL ID:
Quote:
This will do more to combat voter fraud if used properly than requiring IDs at the polls will.

Now, you tell us:
Quote:
REAL ID isn't set up to be used to prevent voter fraud.

Yes, it isn't yet set up to use for voter fraud and probably won't be which is why I is used the word "if".

Quote:

If it isn't going to be used for voting, and no ID is going to be used for voting, I'm really having trouble connecting the two statements. Seriously.

REAL ID is not an ID. It is merely a standard for IDs that includes a national database for the information on the IDs. I think that is why you are confused.

1 Reply

@parados,

You apparently didnt read my link about how easy it is to get an ID in Texas.
There is no way its a burden on anyone.
You are just using that as a smokescreen.

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@mysteryman,

Quote:

You apparently didnt read my link about how easy it is to get an ID in Texas.
There is no way its a burden on anyone.
You are just using that as a smokescreen.

Right now we have a small percents of the citizens registering and voting so any added burden is going to cut that numbers down even more.

As the burden is going to fall on the poor that do not already as a matter of course have such IDs it will effect that group and not others.

In my opinion that is the whole idea of those laws not to cut down on voter fraud but to cut down on the poor voting.

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@mysteryman,

Easy to get it means nothing under the law if it costs something. If someone doesn't have $16 then they can't get the ID which turns it into a poll tax.

Texas gets around that by allowing people to sign an affidavit instead of presenting an ID.

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@mysteryman,

It's not very easy for someone like me to understand all this tohu wa bohu.

Here, you get registered at birth and the town/city sends you at election time your voting papers (for postal voting and voting in the polling place), if your 16 resp 18 years old at that date.

The poll workers get lists on the morning of election day, updated the day before (thus those, who moved, have died, voted by post etc are eliminated).

Voters present their voting card - that's it. (They may show their ID-card as well, if totally unknown to poll workers.)

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

This is the key decision of the Supreme Court that Bill was too lazy to look up and Parados refuses to understand; by way of background you should keep in mind that poll taxes (fees required in order to vote) are illegal unless necessary to combat voter fraud as clearly stated here (see bold text)

Quote:

CRAWFORD ET AL. v. MARION COUNTY ELECTION
BOARD ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 07–21. Argued January 9, 2008—Decided April 28, 2008*
After Indiana enacted an election law (SEA 483) requiring citizens voting
in person to present government-issued photo identification, petitioners
filed separate suits challenging the law’s constitutionality.
Following discovery, the District Court granted respondents summary
judgment, finding the evidence in the record insufficient to
support a facial attack on the statute’s validity. In affirming, the
Seventh Circuit declined to judge the law by the strict standard set
for poll taxes in Harper v. Virginia Bd. of Elections, 383 U. S. 663,
finding the burden on voters offset by the benefit of reducing the risk
of fraud.
Held: The judgment is affirmed.

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/07-21.pdf

Remarkably, the majority (6 to 3) decision was written by an extremely liberal justice, Justice Stevens - see also comments on previous pages here.

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@High Seas,

And this ruling prove that those laws are not design by their authors to interfere with the right to vote by legal voters instead of preventing fraud in what way or manner?

All if prove is that a legal challenge fail not that those laws are not an outrage.

Oh and once more that the Federal courts had fail to protect the voters as in blocking the Florida recount.

Or in allowing companies including foreign companies to pump unlimited funding into elections.

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@High Seas,

Sure High Seas..
But you fail to include THIS part from the ruling.

Quote:

Because Indiana’s cards are free, the inconvenience of going to the Bu-
reau of Motor Vehicles, gathering required documents, and posing for
a photograph does not qualify as a substantial burden on most voters’
right to vote, or represent a significant increase over the usual bur-
dens of voting.

Quote:

No photo identification is required in order to
register to vote,3 and the State offers free photo identifica-
tion to qualified voters able to establish their residence
and identity.

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/07-21.pdf

The state provides FREE IDs in the case in Indiana which gets around the poll tax issue. The court never ruled on requiring purchasing an ID in order to vote. They ruled on having to go get the ID.

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@parados,

The ruling runs 65 pages as you would know if you had read my link - so the only "failure to include" here is yours. The part I quoted answers your question.

1 Reply

Texas passes voter ID law

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