Statistikhengst
Diamond Member
- Banned
- #61
I realize that there are those who will be inconvenienced by requiring voter ID. However, all citizens should have some form of ID. For those who don't, we should provide a "free" national ID. If 70% of Americans want voter ID, it indicates that the majority of both Republicans and Democrats are in favor. We need to get with the times, voter ID is common practice elsewhere. I believe the U.S. and Canada are two of the only few civilized countries that fall behind on this.My only concern is to eliminate or attempt to eliminate voter fraud. Requiring voter ID will not entirely eliminate voter fraud, however it will have a significant impact. Below is an article that describes issues Florida is having with voter fraud, however I'm sure these issues are not just present in Florida.
Non citizens caught voting in Florida in large numbers
Nobody wants voter fraud. Nobody.
That being said (and I have stated this many times before), voter fraud is so miniscule, it doesn't even come close to tipping the scales.
I did this analysis of voter fraud in Ohio almost exactly one year ago, based entirely on the statistics put out a Republican Secretary of State:
Statistikhengst's ELECTORAL POLITICS - 2013 and beyond: EXACT voter-fraud statistics out of Battleground OHIO
...number of fraud cases / total votes cast in Ohio in the 2012 presidential election = fraud percentage
135 / 5,590,931 = 0.0024%. That is a little over 2 1000th of one percent! Or, to be exact: 24 10,000ths of one percent.
That's it. Not 2/10ths of a percent, not 2/100ths of a percent, but rather 2/1000th of a percent.
The numbers speak for themselves.
Not only that, a number of those cases were cases of elderly people who accidentally voted twice and turned themselves in to make sure that the one vote was removed.
I will say that again: a number of those cases were cases of elderly people who accidentally voted twice and turned themselves in to make sure that the one vote was removed.
The fraud was spread pretty evenly between RED and BLUE counties in the Buckeye state.
We see these horror stories ever so often, but when pressed to actually provide documentation, it's usually crickets.
In Ohio, however, the justice system goes very agressively after voter fraud, and correctly so. Bravo to Ohio for doing this.
But again, that statistic is a drop in a bucket that is so small, you can even hope to see it.
To try to disenfranchise millions and millions and millions of legal voters, people who have a right to vote, for avoiding 0.0024% fraud? Nope, not the way the Right wants to do it.
There you go. Bingo.
I agree.
That is EXACTLY what the Right doesn't want. Say "national ID card" and watch them writhe in agony and scream "socialism" until the Messiah arrives.
We are the ONLY nation in the first World to not have a national ID card. It's just crazy.
While some Righties are having horrible wet-dream like nightmares over a national ID and the black helicopters and such, other nations have done it with great sucess for a long time.
Not only that, having a national ID card (which, BTW, should be absolutely identical to the first page of a standard passport, this has advantages that people don't see right away) would take away the argument that the poor cannot afford. In that case, if poor people don't get an ID card, then indeed it is their own fault.
A national ID card eliminates the problem of many senior citizens who were born at a time when in many states, birth certificate records were badly kept, or maybe not kept at all. Also for senior citizens who no longer drive.
I have been saying on many threads that I am absolutely 100% for voter ID, but the standards should be uniform across the Union and there should be a national ID card - btw, this would also eliminate voter fraud that could happen over state borders into another state.
Voter ID: YES.
Voter suppression: NO.