PA trial run for voter ID requirement - today, primary. I'm not showing one.

[HopeHoops]

The law doesn't go into effect until November, but they're using today as a trial run to see how voters "adapt" to it. I'm going to tell them my license is in my wallet, in my back pocket, and no I'm not going to produce it. I have a right to vote anyway (at least today). I'll work hard to get that shit reversed before November, but I sure as shit plan on protesting it today.

[RDANGELO]

1. I would tell them I didn't have one.

That would promote the idea that the law isn't working. I would tell them that I didn't have one because I haven't even heard of it. Especially if I was white. Have they been doing any public informational adds on this.

[Lugnut]

2. This is ridiculous.

All the poll workers in my precinct are my neighbors. We've all known each other for almost 50 years and I've voted in every election. What a stupid law.

[noel711]

3. I told the local election judges that I had my ID

BUT I was openly protesting having to show it.
They didn't make us show it, just warned us.

I again told them I protested having to justify
one of my civil rights.
Anyone can conceal and carry a firearm,
but legal citizens who pay taxes have to
prove who they are.
Somethings not right.

[Spoonman]

4. The firearms comparison FAIL

To conceal and carry a firearm in most states requires showing your ID numerous times, a significant background check, finger printing, training, and testing.
(you are also required to carry both your state issued "ID" for driving and concealed carry).
In addition, when you purchase a firearm you are required to show your ID, submit the Federal form, and pass the federal background check (NICS).

I see nothing wrong with showing an ID to vote.

Want to write the county a check to pay your property taxes? - You will show your ID
Get pulled over by the police for speeding - You will show your ID
Board an airplane - You will show your ID

Realize that the right to vote in this country has a value that many died for, and many around the world continue to struggle and die for.
When you assign something a value of 0 it is worth nothing!

Show your ID and think of it as the admission price to the voting booth.

[meow2u3]

6. So you like a return to poll taxes, I see

Do you mean to tell me you have no problem with preventing people from voting just because they can't afford to get the documentation necessary to get a photo ID? That's exactly what your argument entails: disenfranching poor voters just for being poor, female, elderly, disabled, young, or of a minority group.

Photo ID laws are backdoor poll taxes because even if the ID itself is free, the documentation necessary to get one costs money that goes to state coffers, i.e., a tax by another name. Also, Pennsylvania is a right-to-vote state; the state Constitution states that no one may interfere with a citizen's right to vote. A photo ID law interferes with the affirmative right to vote. Read, pal.

Legally, it's a fallacy to compare driving with voting. Voting is a citizen's right; driving is a privilege. The burden of proof is supposed to be on the government to prove you or I are not citizens; photo ID laws also operate on the false premise that you're not a citizen until you prove otherwise--guilty until proven innocent.

[Spoonman]

8. Horse shit

they can't afford to get the documentation necessary to get a photo ID? That's exactly what your argument entails: disenfranching poor voters just for being poor, female, elderly, disabled, young, or of a minority group.

That argument is ludicrous and grasping at best. It cost you to fill out a voter registration card (stamp or gas to the registrar's office).
I guess those costs are de facto poll tax too!

Photo ID laws are backdoor poll taxes because even if the ID itself is free, the documentation necessary to get one costs money that goes to state coffers, i.e., a tax by another name. Also, Pennsylvania is a right-to-vote state; the state Constitution states that no one may interfere with a citizen's right to vote. A photo ID law interferes with the affirmative right to vote. Read, pal.

If the ID is free, how in the hell do you equate that to a tax? You do understand "free" don't you?

The burden of proof is supposed to be on the government to prove you or I are not citizens; photo ID laws also operate on the false premise that you're not a citizen until you prove otherwise--guilty until proven innocent.

Really?
Once again..... Horse Shit
Try arguing that with immigration at the airport!
Proof of citizenship is YOUR responsibility!

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. The supporting documentation is not free

I just went through getting all the documentation I need for a drivers license renewal. It cost $62.

That's a poll tax.

[spinbaby]

13. Exactly

My son just paid $49 to get an out-of-state birth certificate mailed to him to get a passport.

[Daniel537]

16. There is actually no constitutional right to vote.

http://www.salon.com/2006/09/21/no_right_to_vote/

Its the reason why states can make laws like voter ID and denying felons voting rights.

[noel711]

7. Sorry pal.... voting, as well as 'right to bear arms' is constitutional..

As one of the bestowed rights of citizenship.

Check writing, driving a car,
boarding a plane... not so much.
Writing a check, driving, flying are a privilege,
and there is the expectation of having some $$$
to do so. Needing ID to do any of such
is to guarantee that you are 'covered'
either financially or according to the law have
fulfilled some kind of training or expectation of identification.

My 'right to vote ID' covered, affirmed when I registered to vote;
my registry is apparently in my township's voter log of registration.
THAT is the point of entry, NOT at the polling place

The local judges are members of my community,
who know me coz I vote regularly and we are neighbors,
which is the point of local voting precients.
There is an element of trust therein.
To have a neighbor, who I've known personally for 10 years,
(who I have visited in their backyard, worshiped with them,
joke with them in the local post office,
enjoyed photos of their childchildren, and comforted them when
their mother died...) ask me for my ID is insulting,
and degrades my trust in my community and the system.
Frankly they are embarrassed to ask but do because they must.

To say that using my ID as the price to pay for voting
is also an insult. ADmission?
Admission? Another poll tax?
Isn't that illegal?

[Spoonman]

9. Fail

As one of the bestowed rights of citizenship

Address the facts I outlined in reference to purchasing a firearm.

YOU WILL BE REQUIRED TO PRESENT A VALID ID!

In addition, you will pay a federal tax on that firearm, and possibly state and local sales tax.

The Federal tax being 11% (popularly know as the Pittman-Robertson tax).

OMG, a tax on your constitutionally guaranteed right!

I'll ask you your own question - Isn't that illegal?

[noel711]

14. Yes, you present an ID when you purchase a firearm...

And when you register to vote also.
YOu show proof of ID when you register to vote.

NO one is required to buy a weapon.
It is a privilege.
The tax is on the purchase of the item,
NOt the right.. but on the purchase.
You get something in exchange,
just as the buyer of a vehicle pays a tax,
and on other purchases. YOu get something in return.

IN voting you purchase nothing.
It is a privilege to vote, no purchase required.
A vote is not a purchase, but an expression, a voice,
but you get no item in return.

Go ahead, call me fail again.
I don't care.
In your eyes, my opinion is a fail.
We disagree.
Too bad. I don't care.
What I do care about is this bogus notion that
citizens must identify themselves. must prove who they are
(again!)proof in order to cast a ballot.
That is bogus, and must be altered.

I really take issue with you issuing imperatives to me.
"ADDRESS THE FACTS I OUTLINED."
Who are you to demand I respond to your request?
My husband doesn't speak to me that way.
We are both members of this community;
we do not issue dicates to one another.
We discuss things respectfully, even if we disagree.

I want to be shown where there is vast voter
fraud, especially in my tiny rural township.
What justifies this bogus legislation?
This is just wrong.

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. +1000

[meow2u3]

5. I had to show one anyhow

I had moved in September and didn't vote last November. Federal requirement, thanks to the so-called Help America Vote act.

[proverbialwisdom]

10. This is voter suppression.

http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/voting_law_changes_in_2012

[img][/img]

PUBLICATIONS: Voting Law Changes in 2012

By Wendy R. Weiser and Lawrence Norden
10/03/11

Ahead of the 2012 elections, a wave of legislation tightening restrictions on voting has suddenly swept across the country. More than 5 million Americans could be affected by the new rules already put in place this year — a number larger than the margin of victory in two of the last three presidential elections.

In October 2011, this report was the first full accounting and analysis of this year's voting cutbacks. Click below to read an up-to-date summary of both the bills that have been proposed and the legislation that has been passed since the beginning of 2011.

Download the Report (PDF): http://brennan.3cdn.net/92635ddafbc09e8d88_i3m6bjdeh.pdf

Read Voting Law Changes Summary: http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/2012_summary_of_voting_law_changes/

Download the 2011 Appendix (PDF), a compilation of potentially vote-suppressing legislation proposed in the 2011 legislative sessions: http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/2012_summary_of_voting_law_changes/

Download the Overview (PDF), a four-page summary with key findings: http://brennan.3cdn.net/34876f1cabd6d0e252_kwm6id7l7.pdf

Read the Executive Summary:

Over the past century, our nation expanded the franchise and knocked down myriad barriers to full electoral participation. In 2011, however, that momentum abruptly shifted.

State governments across the country enacted an array of new laws making it harder to register or to vote. Some states require voters to show government-issued photo identification, often of a type that as many as one in ten voters do not have. Other states have cut back on early voting, a hugely popular innovation used by millions of Americans. Two states reversed earlier reforms and once again disenfranchised millions who have past criminal convictions but who are now taxpaying members of the community. Still others made it much more difficult for citizens to register to vote, a prerequisite for voting.

These new restrictions fall most heavily on young, minority, and low-income voters, as well as on voters with disabilities. This wave of changes may sharply tilt the political terrain for the 2012 election. Based on the Brennan Center’s analysis of the 19 laws and two executive actions that passed in 14 states, it is clear that:

•These new laws could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012.
•The states that have already cut back on voting rights will provide 171 electoral votes in 2012 – 63 percent of the 270 needed to win the presidency.
•Of the 12 likely battleground states, as assessed by an August Los Angeles Times analysis of Gallup polling, five have already cut back on voting rights (and may pass additional restrictive legislation), and two more are currently considering new restrictions.

States have changed their laws so rapidly that no single analysis has assessed the overall impact of such moves. Although it is too early to quantify how the changes will impact voter turnout, they will be a hindrance to many voters at a time when the United States continues to turn out less than two thirds of its eligible citizens in presidential elections and less than half in midterm elections.

This study is the first comprehensive roundup of all state legislative action thus far in 2011 on voting rights, focusing on new laws as well as state legislation that has not yet passed or that failed. This snapshot may soon be incomplete: the second halves of some state legislative sessions have begun.

View the Report.

http://futuremajority.com/node/14035

Sorry Young Voters - No Voting for You in 2012


The Brennan Center released a report on the impact of all of these state Voter ID laws and restrictions on voting that have been popping up all over the country. Their findings? We're screwed. There's really no sugar coating this. We're screwed.

"State governments across the country enacted an array of new laws making it harder to register or to vote. Some states require voters to show government-issued photo identification, often of a type that as many as one in ten voters do not have. Other states have cut back on early voting, a hugely popular innovation used by millions of Americans. Two states reversed earlier reforms and once again disenfranchised millions who have past criminal convictions but who are now taxpaying members of the community. Still others made it much more difficult for citizens to register to vote, a prerequisite for voting.

These new restrictions fall most heavily on young, minority, and low-income voters, as well as on voters with disabilities. This wave of changes may sharply tilt the political terrain for the 2012 election. Based on the Brennan Center’s analysis of the 19 laws and two executive actions that passed in 14 states, it is clear that:

•These new laws could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012.
•The states that have already cut back on voting rights will provide 171 electoral votes in 2012– 63 percent of the 270 needed to win the presidency.
•Of the 12 likely battleground states, as assessed by an August Los Angeles Times analysis of Gallup polling, five have already cut back on voting rights (and may pass additional restrictive legislation), and two more are currently considering new restrictions."

Some states have worked to eliminate Election Day Registration (EDR). We here at FM have long been advocates of EDR because it helps young people who tend to be more transient than older people who are more established and can afford to buy a house.

Voting rights advocates have long praised EDR. Because it has existed in some states for nearly forty years, there is a substantial record of its benefits. States with EDR have consistently had higher turnout than states without, and the top five states for voter turnout in 2008 were all EDR states. There is also evidence that EDR specifically increases turnout among young voters. . . .

Opponents of repeal also pointed to the benefits of EDR, including increased registration among the young and those who moved shortly before Election Day, greater voter turnout, and greater convenience for voters. Montana Secretary of State Linda McColloch argued that since its passage in 2006, 19,000 people registered to vote on Election Day in Montana, and that the repeal attempt ran “counter to the core freedoms of our democracy ... If you support freedom, and you support democracy, you cannot support a bill that will turn your neighbors away at the polls.

In a Democracy, why would you want to take away participation in that process? For that, you'll have to ask the GOP, because they seem to be at the helm of passing these more restrictive bills. EDR is one thing, but the voter ID laws are taking the imaginary problem of voter fraud and turning it into a farce.

"Opponents maintain that photo ID laws exclude large swaths of the electorate, since 11% of citizens— and an even greater percentage of low-income, minority, young, and older citizens—do not have state- issued photo IDs. They argue that photo ID requirements are similar to a poll tax, whether or not the IDs are offered for free, because to obtain the necessary IDs citizens must produce documents that cost money, like passports and birth certificates."

According to the ED of the Brennan Center 5 million voters will be hurt by these laws. FIVE MILLION VOTERS. In the NY Times he remarks that both the 2000 and 2004 elections were decided by less votes than that.

[MrSlayer]

15. My committee people are going to ignore this law.

We all know each other for years, no one is going to check our identification. It's a stupid and unnecessary law.

[HopeHoops]

17. I voted. I refused to show the ID which I admitted was in my back pocket.

I also told them I trusted they were keeping tabs on how many of us protested in that manner.