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Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

nytimes.com

231–240 of 244 posts

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Let's strike that shit down. Make sure ID requirements are even across the board. Seems like a pretty tractable problem.

Designing a system where people in power take actions that cause them to be less likely to remain in power is probably one of the most intractable problems in political science. It's why the U.S. has first past the post, why gerrymandering is a problem, and why voter ID laws are racist.

So to be clear, we can’t have common sense non-racist voter ID laws because the Republicans won’t allow it (and defeating entrenched interests is hopelessly intractable, so why bother), but somehow there will be more political will for no voter ID requirements at all?

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the cost is not inherent to the ID itself: a piece of paper doesn't have to cost anything. We also have passport cards, which is the credit-card sized version of the passport, and only works for travel to Mexico/Canada (but is still a national ID). >they can't be used with a database to determine the person's local residence. You know, I can Google my name and get my current address out of public databases (T…

> It's less than trivial. It's doable, but it's certainly not trivial. And no, it's not just "a slip of paper" it's far more than that when you consider all the human, bureaucratic and technical infrastructure, systems and support that would have to be behind it. Sure, there are trashy and unreliable online aggregators like mylife and their ilk that can provide all kinds of dubious info. I am talking about something…

>It's doable, but it's certainly not trivial. And no, it's not just "a slip of paper" it's far more than that when you consider all the human, bureaucratic and technical infrastructure, systems and support that would have to be behind it.

I've considered that, and nope, still trivial

    SELECT address FROM voter_addresses WHERE passport_number = {number}
The concept of "pulling up a record" perhaps was non-trivial in the 1950's, but not in 2019.

If you were referring to the cost of the passport itself - yes, it requires infrastructure, and this is exactly what the taxes are for. It's an essential component of being a citizen, the extra fees are highway robbery.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your linked source is talking about an entirely different issue. It's a court ruling that shut down North Carolina voter ID and early voting laws, in part because the defense of those laws included that that literal quote about it making harder for black people to vote. > All we know is that some Republicans are biased, just as all people have biases. When 'some' is enough to control a state legislature, and simila…

> When 'some' is enough to control a state legislature, and similar things happen across the country ( https://www.npr.org/2018/10/23/659784277/republican-voter-su... ), it's a logical conclusion. I don't see how it follows that a state legislature's cupidity directly translates to a national party's intentions. That's a bridge too far. If there's a smoking gun, such as a leaked internal memo, I would agree totally.…

If you doubt dozens of leaks, hundreds of exposés, archival records, court documents, and diaries from the operatives who coordinated the nationwide disenfranchisement campaigns:

What measure of proof do you require?

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Designing a system where people in power take actions that cause them to be less likely to remain in power is probably one of the most intractable problems in political science. It's why the U.S. has first past the post, why gerrymandering is a problem, and why voter ID laws are racist.

So to be clear, we can’t have common sense non-racist voter ID laws because the Republicans won’t allow it (and defeating entrenched interests is hopelessly intractable, so why bother), but somehow there will be more political will for no voter ID requirements at all ?

No the point is that there are other voting reform laws that will have an actual effect on improving representation and don't have the practical effect of preventing black people from voting. I'm suggesting the problems we have with voting rights in this country are not caused by failing to require ID at polling stations. I'm not opposed to voter IDs in a theoretical sense, it just seems like either a unimportant or disingenuous thing to do first.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#235
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am still baffled at the election system in this country. It's not an accident, it's designed to be this way, for the last 15+ years, at least. People in certain states, in a certain party, know their way to victory is to disenfranchise a certain other party's members.

For some literal quotes on the topic: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/some-republicans-ackno... > "Do we need to start messaging ‘widespread reports of election fraud’ so we are positively set up for the recount regardless of the final number?" > I was in the closed Senate Republican Caucus when the final round of multiple Voter ID bills were being discussed. A handful of the GOP Senators were giddy about the r…

I've seen uncountable articles from reputable news organizations. Is it that people have their head in the sand or think it's just fake news? Because if the people that vote for GOP candidates are OK with this, then they are completely alien to me. Maybe we should split into two nations, one for people who think this is disgusting and one for those who don't.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immigration enforcement is easy. Jail every CEO and executive team that hires undocumented immigrants, and fine the company or individual $100 per hour of work from undocumented labor. If you have a threat of jail time or bankruptcy, you won't hire undocumented workers. If you are a farmer who uses undocumented workers, same thing. Put the onus on wealthy citizens for doing the wrong thing and have real consequences.…

So assume a spherical cow and immigration enforcement is "easy". Don't let that get in the way of actually responding to the objection regarding tracking of the residents of the US. But tell us how you really feel.

That tracking is already being done. It is just poorly coordinated. Social Security is not a national ID. Hell, many men have a number due to "Selective Service" (AKA the draft that hasn't happened since Vietnam). Three companies have our entire address history unless we don't have credit cards. Our phone numbers are tied to us and our GPS is tied to our phones. The vast majority of us are tied to biometrics due to Real ID. We are all tracked when it matters.

We already lost that battle. And we are tracked when we register to vote.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as it isn't used to disenfranchise people from a single vote, there's no problem. Now, things get complicated and we would have to do work to get it right in that we have inconsistent rules on residency in terms of students and temporary housing, and we have a significant number of people who don't want to see a national registry of citizens (see issues with using SSN as a national ID) but there's nothing spe…

In Germany and Europe (UK is outliner) you pay a fee for ID card, but it's valid for 10 years or so and cost is around 20-30 euro. Really don't understand what's the panic about in America, you don't have to do and pay it every year.

Germany hasn't had an issue with making it more difficult for minorities to vote since WWII. This was an attempt from last year: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/us/randolph-county-georgi... - It took a fair amount of protesting to stop it.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> blue states like Michigan Both houses of Michigan's state legislature have been Republican-controlled since 2011. Not much of an example of the Dems controlling voter rolls at the state level there.

The governor is the primary responsible party for executing a court mandate, not the legislature. Is the governor republican?

It was a republican between 2011 and 2019.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Snyder

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's less than trivial. It's doable, but it's certainly not trivial. And no, it's not just "a slip of paper" it's far more than that when you consider all the human, bureaucratic and technical infrastructure, systems and support that would have to be behind it. Sure, there are trashy and unreliable online aggregators like mylife and their ilk that can provide all kinds of dubious info. I am talking about something…

>It's doable, but it's certainly not trivial. And no, it's not just "a slip of paper" it's far more than that when you consider all the human, bureaucratic and technical infrastructure, systems and support that would have to be behind it. I've considered that, and nope, still trivial SELECT address FROM voter_addresses WHERE passport_number = {number} The concept of "pulling up a record" perhaps was non-trivial in th…

> I've considered that, and nope, still trivial

    > SELECT address FROM voter_addresses WHERE passport_number = {number}
Dude, there's a lot of stuff to do before getting to that select statement!

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latter is where Voter ID laws tend to bite. They make it difficult for certain communities to obtain an ID via a variety of underhanded tricks. What you typically see is a Voter ID go into effect, and then whoops, the state budget is too tight this year so we're closing down a whole bunch of DMV locations and restricting hours on the rest.

For example, there's that one DMV that's open only four days per year (!), with the closest alternative being 20 miles away and only open 7 to 5 two days a week (have a fun time managing that if you're a working stiff without a car). https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2016/feb/19/...

Is that inherent to voter ID systems, or could you imagine a world where ID issuing authorities are required to keep better hours? Perhaps we could check out Europe’s model to see how they keep their voter ID systems from regressing into a racist dystopia?
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