Absentee ballots burned in the NC GOP office fire

[Belize]

So wait, by firebombing the office, they stopped potential voter fraud?

Good guy anarchist...? I guess...

[Gaaz]

This topic was chewed trough almost a year ago. Dit the wagon move anywhere? Nope.

You can also watch an Adam Ruins Everything episode concerning US Voting laws.
Also worth mentioning

[GennGreymane]

Voting in this country should require an ID, period. Any argument contrary to that is just complete and total bullshit. All voter ID cards should be subsidized at both the Federal and State level. Every person that is 18 and a certified American citizen should be able to obtain a Voter ID card free of charge from their state election board. Period, end of story, not open for debate.

The biggest problem people seem to have with it is usually how its done
Usually after any law requiring ID to vote is made, all of a sudden, DMVs are closed down in "certain" communities.

[poser765]

Question for you, though. Why the fuck do you care? You are a Canadian. It doesn't effect you one bit.

Why the fuck do YOU care? Even as an American the occurrence of voter fraud is so insignificant it's hardly worth wasting time on. Why are you so passionate about this?

[Deleted]

100% agree. We need voter ID. 1 Person, 1 ID, 1 vote.

As someone from a country where it is taken for granted that you need an ID to vote: Yeah. It does make sense.

[Ripster42]

From what I know, it's not illegal or untoward to have blank absentee ballots. During get out the vote drives people can go door to door and ask if you'd like to request an absentee ballot, and then give them to you on the spot.

Also, stop derailing the topic with voter id laws. This has nothing to do with voter id laws.

[Ghostpanther]

Voting in this country should require an ID, period. Any argument contrary to that is just complete and total bullshit. All voter ID cards should be subsidized at both the Federal and State level. Every person that is 18 and a certified American citizen should be able to obtain a Voter ID card free of charge from their state election board. Period, end of story, not open for debate.

100% agree. With millions of illegal immigrants here, this is even more important. Can not understand why any one would be opposed to a simple voter ID which any citizen can provide. Unless they support illegals voting. :P
In Ohio, there are several ways to prove who you are other than a photo ID. But something needs to be provided to prove you are who you say you are.

[GennGreymane]

Until there's any attempt to actually do that, you can't bring it up to defend voter ID laws in their current form.

And in case you were wondering why North Carolina's voter ID law was struck down--

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/ar...-black-voters/

North Carolina’s bill extended beyond requiring a state-issued photo ID at the polls. The law cut early voting days and banned same-day voter registration, eliminated straight-ticket voting, which allows voters to choose all candidates from a single party by checking one box; and introduced more restrictions on casting provisional ballots. It prohibited pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds, who previously were allowed to indicate their intent to vote when applying for a driver’s license. The law also allowed for more poll watchers and made it easier to challenge voters or their ballots.

The court said that in crafting the law, the Republican-controlled general assembly requested and received data on voters’ use of various voting practices by race. It found that African American voters in North Carolina are more likely to vote early, use same-day voter registration and straight-ticket voting. They were also disproportionately less likely to have an ID, more likely to cast a provisional ballot and take advantage of pre-registration.

Then, the court, said, lawmakers restricted all of these voting options, and further narrowed the list of acceptable voter IDs. “… [W]ith race data in hand, the legislature amended the bill to exclude many of the alternative photo IDs used by African Americans. As amended, the bill retained only the kinds of IDs that white North Carolinians were more likely to possess.”

I am quoting Yugi with a severed arm to reinforce my argument of how voter ID is always called reasonable, while everything around it makes it absolute BS.

[kaelleria]

I'm sure disenfranchising millions of people is worth it!

[GennGreymane]

100% agree. With millions of illegal immigrants here, this is even more important. Can not understand why any one would be opposed to a simple voter ID which any citizen can provide. Unless they support illegals voting. :P
In Ohio, there are several ways to prove who you are other than a photo ID. But something needs to be provided to prove you are who you say you are.

Well, the problem is not the ID themselves (as many seem to restrict the discussion to)
It ignores how it is done. Forcing IDs, but then closing down DMVs are blocking ways to vote that were fine prior (until certain demographics are seem more likely to vote early) is not reasonable.

[Ripster42]

As someone from a country where it is taken for granted that you need an ID to vote: Yeah. It does make sense.

You need an id here too. It's just that the ID isn't a photo id because the state doesn't want to pay for it, and we require that voting not cost anything.

[Ghostpanther]

Well, the problem is not the ID themselves (as many seem to restrict the discussion to)
It ignores how it is done. Forcing IDs, but then closing down DMVs are blocking ways to vote that were fine prior (until certain demographics are seem more likely to vote early) is not reasonable.

Not aware of all the other states, but in Ohio, it seems to work fine how we do it. But you can not just walk into a voting place and not provide some voter ID information. And that is something which every state should be doing as a min.

[GennGreymane]

Not aware of all the other states, but in Ohio, it seems to work fine how we do it. But you can not just walk into a voting place and not provide some voter ID information. And that is something which every state should be doing as a min.

If it was limited to that, no one would see it as much of an issue. But you may run into other issues in other states, for example on Long Island, its common to have a drivers license (basically ID) because basically everyone drives. However if you live in Queens or Brooklyn, you may not have one as driving is not as common there, and dont even get me started on the city. DMVs are also incredibly crowded and close rather early, and for Americans in general, missing work suuuuccckkkkssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss sssssssssssssssssssssss. Especially to wait at a DMV.

But when I turned 21 I was mailed my new drivers license. Should be how its done. Problem is we restrict the conversation to "get an ID, problem solved" but then you look a bit deeper at the cases of where many states adopted this policy.... as one poster I quoted noted, they tend to block off people from voting in the same bill. In other states, they will close down DMVs in certain communities once IDs are required. Also student IDs are not accepted as valid, but NRA cards are..... Geeeee...... I wonder why.....

[boyzma]

All states should do it the way we do here in Oregon. We don't go stand in line for hours in crappy weather to go into a little booth and mark a piece of paper. It's vote by mail ONLY. Has worked fine for years upon years. We should be getting our ballots soon.....mark them, put them in our "secrecy" envelopes, put those in the main envelope, sign the back and badda bing badda boom, slap a stamp on it, or drop it off in a ballot box and done. They check signatures and validate them at the main ballot collection center. They usually know who the state has chosen as soon as the first results start coming in on election day. Very little fraud here.

[Deleted]

Even in our 3rd world country, Croatia, we have voter ID. Thats a common sense to do. 1 fraud vote is already an attack on democracy.

Croatia must be a fascist hellhole.

[Deleted]

You need an id here too. It's just that the ID isn't a photo id because the state doesn't want to pay for it, and we require that voting not cost anything.

We need photo IDs as well, and getting them (usually) costs money. Seems like Socialist Europe is more restrictive there ;3

[Deleted]

In the UK we don't need ID and we have no issues regarding possible voter fraud because frankly the Risks are too high, the punishments are high and the rewards are just not going to happen in your favour.

It's funny that the two outliers in western society, the UK and the US, both with dysfunctional election systems, have no voter ID.
It's almost like there is some correlation here.

- - - Updated - - -

We need photo IDs as well, and getting them (usually) costs money. Seems like Socialist Europe is more restrictive there ;3

Here is socialist Europe, we just say fuck the poor.

[kaelleria]

All states should do it the way we do here in Oregon. We don't go stand in line for hours in crappy weather to go into a little booth and mark a piece of paper. It's vote by mail ONLY. Has worked fine for years upon years. We should be getting our ballots soon.....mark them, put them in our "secrecy" envelopes, put those in the main envelope, sign the back and badda bing badda boom, slap a stamp on it, or drop it off in a ballot box and done. They check signatures and validate them at the main ballot collection center. They usually know who the state has chosen as soon as the first results start coming in on election day. Very little fraud here.

There's very little fraud anywhere... Most of the supposed "fraud" is actually clerical errors. When you're looking at 35 cases in 834 million you're talking about .0000042% of votes cast.

If anything voter ID laws have actually suppressed turnout.
http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/665966.pdf

[NED funded]

I'm sure disenfranchising millions of people is worth it!

I love vox

[Sunseeker]

There's very little fraud anywhere... Most of the supposed "fraud" is actually clerical errors. When you're looking at 35 cases in 834 million you're talking about .0000042% of votes cast.

If anything voter ID laws have actually suppressed turnout.
http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/665966.pdf

Well, that's the point, so working as intended.