Question

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One of Today's hot Political topics is some states' measures to restrict voting. What historical precedents do we have for such efforts, in the South and elsewhere? Why were/are some people concerned about this?

Answer 1

Good heavens, there are no states that seek to restrict voting. What you have is a few states who are trying to restrict voting FRAUD by asking that people show a photo ID (which you can generally get for free from the state) before voting.

The only people who are "concerned" about this are people who want to be able to commit voting fraud. There's a long tradition of that within the Democratic Party, unfortunately. It's said that the Daley Machine in Chicago was responsible for putting John Kennedy over the top in the election of 1960 by "voting the dead," meaning some thousands of votes were "contributed" (through corrupt local officials) from voters who were still on the registration rolls, but who were actually dead.

And in case you think this is just old news, there is good evidence of minor voting fraud in the 2008 election for Minnesota Senator that was won (or "won") after many recounts and court challenges by Democrat Al Franken by 312 votes out of about 2.9 million cast. And, indeed, it's not hard to see why someone might cheat if twisting a few hundred votes out of millions can make the difference between being a Senator and not.

It's true few people think that huge, widespread voting fraud -- meaning millions of bogus votes -- is likely in the United States. But considering we have had some very consequential elections hinge on a few hundred votes, it's unbelievable that some people think it's asking too much to show photo ID before you cast a ballot. But that's America. Odd place.

Answer 2

Carl is right, there is no restriction on voting against any citizen of the United States. Everyone is constitutionally guaranteed the right to freely cast their ballot for whoever they want to choose for office. The current issue is not like what had faced the United States, particularly in the South, during the sixties when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 made it illegal to bar anyone from voting...period. Before then, however, things were pretty rough if you were black.

Although the 15th Amendment said that everyone was free to vote, a number of Southern states did what they could to make it difficult for African Americans to actually do so through a number of measures that, on the surface, seemed absolutely normal to everyone else such as making a literacy test part of the registration process.

But there was more to it than that. Thanks to segregation and the limited educational opportunities that blacks were given in the South, the tests were pretty unfair even to people that actually had a decent level of education. Other methods, such as beatings, threats, and other general unpleasantness also worked to keep the black voter from registration. Even after the Act was passed, isolated incidents continued to be problems.

So now let's fast forward into today. A large number of states have passed voter ID laws that require a photo ID and additional paperwork for someone to vote. Basically, more proof that they are who they say they are which wasn't needed before.

That said, the Republicans that support the law argue that, on the surface, there's nothing wrong with requiring voter ID to prevent fraud. The Democrats, on the other hand, charge that it's just another method of disenfranchisement - like the literacy test - especially when no fraud has actually been discovered and put to the courts in the past few years to actually need them.

Why would they say that? Their argument focuses again on certain minorities (particularly blacks and Latinos) a number of which may not actually have a government issued photo ID such as a driver's license or a passport. It's not just the elderly that might be affected simply because they may no longer drive. You might be surprised that there are people in their 20s that don't have a driver's license, either, because they live near to where they work or use public transportation. They just never saw the need to get a car.

It might seem a trivial thing to have a government issued photo ID, but the sad reality is that there are people who are unable to get the kind of papers and IDs that the new laws require, whether because they think it's a hassle or are perhaps living in the kind of poverty that makes it difficult to get the needed photos or papers. They might not even know about the new laws at all until they get there.

And this is on top of problems that are already part of the system. I remember seeing a young lady who had just moved from another state rushing in to register to vote in 2008 but couldn't because she needed a current state ID to do it. She'd have to back to her own state to vote if she wanted to participate even if she had come in from halfway across the country.

Estimates indicate anything from a few hundred thousand to nearly a million people within the United States may be prevented from voting because of the tighter restrictions.

So when the point is made that several hundred votes may turn the tide of an election, that's the truth. When George W. Bush and Al Gore ran against each other in 2000, Florida's electoral votes went to Bush by a margin of only a few hundred votes (and that's after a controversial recount decision that went all the way up to the Supreme Court). Those electoral votes were all that were needed for him to win as President. It was so incredibly close.

Now imagine how much more weight that carries when you multiply those few hundred by a few hundred thousand, and you might see why the new laws are sparking such a debate today especially in the divisive political atmosphere lingering around them.

Additionally, saying that the Democrats have a "tradition" of fraud should also go hand-in-hand with Nixon and Watergate. Disparaging one party can't be done without the other - though I'd prefer to leave it to the students to decide who to support on their own without any bias. Members of both parties have done questionable things as people are wont to do.

Answer 3

I dunno, Cap. It's going to be very difficult making a logical comparison between poll taxes and literacy tests and having to show photo ID. A poll tax or literacy test clearly do disenfranchise someone who you could argue ought to be able to vote, because he's mentally competent, not a criminal, and over 18. There's nothing the best will and effort in the will will do to overcome a barrier like that.

But a photo ID merely enforces an existing provision of voting law, which is that you have to be who you say you are, and prove it, to vote. Currently, you do that by signing your name when you vote, and in theory the Secretary of State can compare that to your voter registration card and disqualify your vote if the signatures don't match. Using a photo ID instead is just moving into the 20th (let alone the 21st) century, and suggesting that the same way people open a checking account or board an airplane should be how they establish their identities to vote. In what way can asking for a photo ID disenfranchise someone who is competent to vote, legally able to vote, and is willing to exert some very minimal effort to vote (having to go to a state office to get a photo ID once in his adult voting lifetime)?

It makes no sense to argue that because some people might be inconvenienced by having to go to the local DMV and get a photo ID to vote, and those people will be more likely black than white, poor than rich, that this is discriminatory.

Because it would then also be true that not having the polling station in your own garage is equally "discriminatory": after all, you need to find out where the polling station is -- read the paper, turn into the news, ask somebody, surf the Web -- you've got to find out the polling hours, you've got to walk there, take the bus, or drive, and then you have to figure out the instructions on the ballot and cast it. That's all at least as much inconvenience as getting a photo ID, and no doubt it is more discouraging to black, poor and elderly voters than to white, rich, and young voters. That is, after all, why turnout among those voters is often lower.

But no one suggests that forcing voters to travel to polling locations or read ballots and follow directions is "discriminatory," even though it hits the poor and elderly harder. So you need something more than the fact that poor or elderly people will find it harder to get photo IDs.

That the Democratic Party has a long and rich history of voter fraud is historical fact, not opinion. Tammany Hall. Boss Tweed. The Daley Machine. The Pendergast Machine in KC. The Flynn Machine in New York. Machine politics in general. Huey Long. I mean, I can't even think of an example of a Republican machine - can you?

The Republican Party has less of a tradition of voter fraud not because it's any purer, morally speaking, but simply because its roots and its strength do not lie in dense urban and immigrant communities, which is where machine politics and voter fraud have always flourished. They (the Republicans) have their own faults.

Answer 4

It might be a simple act to get a photo ID from the perspective of someone with means, but to people that do not have the means to do so (financially or physically), it merely creates another barrier to the voting booth that did not exist before. Granted, it's the 21st century, but it's just a strawman argument to gloss over the economic reality of part of population living below what is considered 'acceptable.' Not everyone has broadband, but should they be penalized for failing to keep up with technology?

That it rides atop the existing requirement to prove who you are ignores the draconian method by which hundreds of thousands of special cases that will be left behind when the voting starts. Checking accounts and boarding an airplane are privileges that not everyone enjoys regardless of how advanced society appears on the surface. The poorer sectors among minorities are being singled out precisely because of this, as the Democrats will argue, since despite their relatively low turnout in the recent battle for the House and the Senate they were big supporters for their run at the Presidency in 2008.

Renewing a passport, or getting one in the first place, requires a number of risks (original birth certificate, additional paperwork, time, money, etc.) that the public bus driver won't drill you for when you take the ride down to the local polling station. The same with a state issued ID such as a driver's license, especially if you happen to have moved recently into a new state. Students may be able to get away with university issued IDs in some cases, but not all. Paperwork can be lost (home burns down, lost in a move, dog ate it). I know another story where someone has been delayed in attending university because they can't prove who they are thanks to a lost birth certificate. That's only one example in a very small corner of the country. As I've mentioned before, others simply don't see the need for a photo ID like a driver's license at all simply because they have no use for a car. Hard to believe, but they're out there. The system isn't perfect. But neither is waving a giant stick at the problem.

And volunteers and officials are available at polling stations to help understand the instructions on filling out the ballots, so that's hardly even comparable to failing to have a photo ID - which those same poor and elderly may not have. At least they're not testing them on whether they are literate or asking them for an additional fee for voting, so that's progress.

As for machines, the Republicans have also proven that they can play political hardball in urban areas as well as the Democrats whether or not they sought to rely on their own history of voter suppression such as with Operation Eagle Eye in the sixties. Still, Pennsylvania's Republican machine in Delaware County, Philadelphia, John J. "the Senator" McClure, New York's Nassau county, or Utah's Sevens, while not as blatant as Tammany Hall (which, incidentally, was brought down by both Republicans and Democrats), shouldn't paint every member of the party as heartless proponents of big business and discrimination as Tammany Hall had with every Democrat for fraud.