Pa PASSES VOTER "PHOTO- ID" LAW

It seems that you've found a kindred soul, Beth.

Two persons aren't allowed here in a voter booth. If someone needs help, she/he may ask one of the poll workers for assistance.
We certainly wouldn't count such a vote as you have described.

Here they do allow it. I have gone into the voting booth with my mother because she required assistance with the levers. I also have filled out the paper ballot for her at the polls because she has difficulty with her right hand.

People with disabilities might object to the privacy of their vote being violated by the presence of a stranger, like the poll worker, where they don't have the same objection to a trusted family member or friend helping them.

That is interesting. But we have secret elections here ... (poll workers are kind of "sworn in")

No, that's not true, I did answer the question-- my answer was...


And, as I pointed out, evidence of voter fraud is no longer an issue in Pennsylvania in terms of defending the voter ID law--both sides at the hearing challenging the law stipulated to the fact that there is no widespread evidence of voter fraud.

What you don't understand is that the state doesn't have to demonstrate a compelling need for the law. They can simply claim they are trying to improve the integrity of the voting process--just as they would do with new types of voting machines and ballots.

So voter fraud is a non-issue in Pennsylvania, so is a legal need to justify the law. Those things were settled at the recent hearings challenging the law. Re-hashing these things is meaningless.

... and it's a criminal offence:



Edit: I've looked up the laws again: it can be someone else than a poll worker. But in this case, the helping person acts as a kind of assistant poll worker for that single moment, can only act to what the voters orders him to do etc .
Since poll workers have to watch this procedure, it doesn't seem to happen often. (Here in our place, we've got four larger senior's homes and five groups of disabled. ......)

I see no reason why your fear, uncertainty, and doubt about vaporous claims of in-person voter fraud should be persuasive in any manner.

The harm done by stopping thousands of valid voters from voting by anyone calculation is far far far worst then the perhaps having a few illegal votes. Take note of the word perhaps.

That is except to people like you Firefly that seems to think that the poor should not be voting in any case and this is a wonderful excuse to take their rights to vote away from them.

The far right GOP tea parties seems to wish to get into power and maintain that power once in at any cost including the very foundation of the claims and ideals that the US government get if power from the consent of the govern.

There is however no logical reason to respect the laws and to feel any moral obligation to obey such laws when you are part of a group that been locked out of the political process by one trick or another.

In this case the trick is no secret as it had been stated as such by some of the GOP lawmakers who passed the bill in the first place. The main purpose of this trick is to get Romney into the Whitehouse.

Now during the Roman republic period at least 800,000 people was killed in a civil war over who had the rights of Roman citizenship.

The funny/sad part is that after all those deaths and whole cities being burn to the ground the powers to be grant the citizenships rights that could had been granted to start with.

Yes we are model to a great degree after the early Roman Republic but still do we need to make all the same errors they did that in the end ruin their Republic?

Except I'm not making any claims in that regard--I just personally feel some sort of voter ID should be required at the polls. And I'm not trying to persuade anyone on that score.

And the state of Pennsylvania made no claims about voter fraud in defending this law at the recent legal hearings challenging the law.

In terms of the Pennsylvania law, both voter fraud and a compelling need for the law are now non-issues--these things were effectively settled at the recently concluded hearings. You want to keep harping on these things, go right ahead, but it's meaningless in terms of whether the law will or won't be upheld or implemented.

Either the law conflicts with provisions of the Pennsylvania state constitution or it doesn't--and that challenge will continue to play out in the courts, since both sides have said they will appeal a decision by the hearing judge they don't favor--and either the law conflicts with federal voting rights acts, or it doesn't, and so far there isn't real evidence that it does violate those laws because the data seems extremely muddled, too muddled to be reliable.

The GOP is going to continue to engage in out and out partisan warfare, whether by using voter ID laws, or by using obstructionist tactics in Congress, and, as long as they don't overstep the bounds of law, they will continue doing these things--they want Obama out of office. And, as long as other people keep voting these Republicans into positions of power, the end is not in sight.

Maybe, we should all have an ID for a license to breathe; makes as much sense.

And all the gullible ones chant, we are the best in the world and let them.

Since when can't poor people get valid ID?

How many poor people don't drive because they can't afford to obtain a driver's license?

Hell, illegal aliens get driver's licenses.

Most of these states with ID laws charge nothing for valid ID and SC even set up a free transportation service. I think something like 20 people took them up on it.

Y'all make much about voter fraud being overblown, and then you blithely over blow the "burden" poor people carry in obtaining phot ID.

One would think you believe poor people to be helpless morons.

If they can manage to get to a polling place on Election Day, they should be able to get to someplace that will give them a photo ID for free.

We'll just note that that's getting a little carried away, CI.

Most poor do not drive or need a driver license because they can not afford a car and the insurance and the upkeep and so on............

Hell most of them do not have bank accounts and use ripped off check cashing places, money orders and have no real access to credit using paid day loans at hundreds or thousands yearly percent interest and so on.

When I would cycle to work for enjoyment a few times a week the 17 miles to work I would pass a great numbers of people with cheap bikes that I have a feeling would had been happier in a car if only they could afford it.

Now in the Miami area I know of no DMV office off hand that is convenience to public transportation or easy to get to without a car.

So you wish someone that barely earn enough to keep a roof over his head and perhaps work two jobs to get the paperwork together and spend hours and money getting to a DMV for the right to vote alone?

Voting suppression is voting suppression no matter how dishonest you wish to be to state otherwise.

In security circles, it is a truism that there are three things that will validate your identity. Something you know, something you have, and something you are.

I would suggest that the best way to prevent voter fraud would be to gather biometric data on everyone who's registered to vote, and then check the biometric data at the polling place.

Fingerprints or a DNA sample would also work.

Do you know how long it takes to do a DNA test? If you get 500,000 people to vote, when and where do you perform the DNA tests?

maybe we can get them to drop a sperm sample...

this is theater of the absurd.

When you start with an absurd premise, it usually ends up the same way.