BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax

Subject: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: GUEST,Fantasma
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 05:35 PM

Our illustrious Supreme Court is at it again.

From AP, one hour ago:

Supreme Court says states can demand photo ID for voting

By MARK SHERMAN – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — States can require voters to produce photo identification, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, upholding a Republican-inspired law that Democrats say will keep some poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots.

Twenty-five states require some form of ID, and the court's 6-3 decision rejecting a challenge to Indiana's strict voter ID law could encourage others to adopt their own measures. Oklahoma legislators said the decision should help them get a version approved.

The ruling means the ID requirement will be in effect for next week's presidential primary in Indiana, where a significant number of new voters are expected to turn out for the Democratic contest between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 06:33 PM

A key consideration cited in reports on the decision was that Indiana provides IDs free of charge to the poor and allows voters who lack photo ID to cast a provisional ballot and then show up within 10 days at their county courthouse to produce identification or otherwise attest to their identity.

There apparently was no argument that obtaining the available ID was an "excessive burden."

Other states that have attempted to impose similar photo ID requirements don't necessarily provide a free (or even low cost) alternative ID form, some don't provide for contesting a disallowed vote, and some have proposed rather complex requirements for what might meet their laws.

The court left the door open for additional challenges if/when anyone can make a valid claim of difficulty in voting as a result of a similar law. Proposed ID laws in several states appear "more suspect" than the one that's permitted by this decision.

This decision, from what has been reported, doesn't seem too far out of line, but I'll try to read the whole thing (especially the dissenting opinions) before reaching final conclusions.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: GUEST,Fantasma
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 06:40 PM

It is a completely outrageous decision.

The State of MN has some of the most liberal voting laws in the nation. One can register and vote at the same time, on the day of the election, without a photo ID. One need only provide proof of a valid address in the district you are are voting in (usually a utility bill) or bring someone to vouch for you being a resident of the district, who is a registered voter.

This creates outrageous barriers to inclusive participation in the voting process.

But then, what did we expect from the corporate annointed and appointed court?

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 07:51 PM

To begin this post, I'll say that I'm an adopted Hoosier (47 years ago), so I've been watching this law and the litigation.

I don't approve this law, because its effect is likely (despite the free ID and delayed identity proof) to suppress the voting rates of the aged and the poor, who statistically are more likely to vote Democratic. The push for drivers license ID to vote was predominantly by the Republicans, and looks to me like blatant dirty politics.

The argument given in favor of the restriction was specious. It was "to prevent voter fraud", despite the fact that there has NEVER BEEN a single verified case in Indiana of individuals voting by pretending to be someone else, or any other type of fraud which would be arguably prevented by requiring the driver ID.

On the other hand, I came to Indiana at age 30 from Minnesota, where I grew up, and despite feeling a sort of proprietary interest in things Minnesotan, I read Fantasma's report of Minnesota's approach with a feeling of disquiet. That's WAY too loose and sloppy, methinks.

Oh, well, despite all the abundant evidence to the contrary, dirty politics was not invented in Indiana.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 08:41 PM

Hell, you ain't seen nothin' 'til you've been to Illinois!

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: GUEST,Fantasma
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 09:27 PM

No shit, Rapaire! I began my voting life in Illinois in the King Richard and Tricky Dick era.

We had a saying then that still applies--vote early, often, and on behalf of your dead uncles!

And people think the electorate is cynical now?

BTW Dave, seeing as you are a native son, let me assure you--voter fraud ain't much of an issue here precisely because of the system of checks placed upon same day registration here, and elsewhere.

Those votes that are cast using same day registration are verifiable after the vote takes place.

In fact, they've just found a 26,000 vote clerical error in PA--that is why the count ain't official until they count a whole mess of times.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 09:49 PM

Hell, the governor of Illinois flies home to Chicago from Springfield each night in a state-owned plane, on the state's money. Illinois was the state that got the Supreme Court of the US to approve patronage appointments. People in Idaho ask me how come I know how to play politics as well as I do, and I just tell them I was born and raised in Illinois -- and they immediately understand.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: open mike
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 10:32 PM

all the better reason to vote with an absentee ballot

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: GUEST,Fantasma
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 07:43 AM

Gee, and for all the screaming and hollering that has gone on about Supreme Court stolen votes and Diebold debacles, none of the usual suspects around here apparently gives a shit about people's actual voting rights.

What a surprise.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 08:29 AM

In Indiana, if you don't have a driver's license you can not vote unless you have a birth certificate and cooberating proof of identity. You could also file for a certificate of indigency which takes many weeks and an address (which makes no sense at all.

This law was passed by a republican patriots and currently unchallenged by democrats in the Indianan legislature.

The elderly and the too poor to drive arte clearly the ones who are given these expensive hurdles to jump, if they want to vote.
It is an oblique poll tax of sorts but effective none the less.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Wesley S
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 09:07 AM

I wish I could agree but I'd like to see a some sort of control on who gets to vote. It sounds like all I need to do is get an old utility bill out of my neighbors trash in order to use his vote. If it's a hardship to go and pick up a free ID then why wouldn't it be an equal hardship to make it to the voting booth? What's next? Voting by phone? Would that be convenient enough? I just don't see whose rights are being trampled on here.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: GUEST, Fantasma
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 09:18 AM

No, you can't use an old utility bill, you can use a current one, so long as you have a registered voter to vouch for you.

The Secretary of State's office verifies your residence AFTER you vote. If you aren't eligible, your vote isn't counted.

It is simple, and has served the state well for decades with no voter fraud cases. None. Zero zip zilch.

Voter fraud isn't the problem it once was because of all the bureacracy's automated tracking systems. It isn't that easy to commit voter fraud in that way anymore.

Besides, this whole voter ID crap is a subterfuge to keep y'all from noticing who buys and pays for our politicians.

Campaign finance and lobbying are what is corrupting our system, not ghost voting in Gary.

Remember, "those" people live in Gary, and you wouldn't trust "those" people to be honest in the polling place, now would you? That is EXACTLY what and how the Republicans want you to think.

The Republicrats aren't trying to keep Bubba in southern Indiana out of the polling booth, now are they?

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Wesley S
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:48 AM

Anyone can steal a utility bill out of a mailbox. That's not secure. And then getting a registered voter to show up with you? How many times can this same registered voter vouch for other people { yeah - I'm vouching for the 37 folks standing behind me who are planning to vote for the guy I support}? If that's a simple plan for you we'll just have to agree to disagree.


I think you're making mountains out of molehills. Less than half of the folks eligible to vote are going to vote anyway. The minority is again going to decide what the majority is going to have to live with because as usual - the majority just don't care. We'd have better voter turnout if the folks at American Idol handled the election. Probably more honest too.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: GUEST,Fantasma
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 11:04 AM

But there are checks and balances, Wesley. Why didn't you read that part of the post?

You can use a utility bill that is current, so long as you have a voter registered in your precinct along with you to vouch for you.

Those votes are then set aside, and residency is verified after the election is over.

That is why election counts are always unofficial on the day. It isn't a burden to the state to do it that way, because they count the votes about 80 bazillion times before the results get certified. It is during that process that the illegal votes get weeded out.

I also mentioned that the state of Minnesota has been voting with these liberal voting laws for decades, without any problems. We are considered one of the cleanest voting states in the Union, and we have some of the highest voter turnout in the nation, election after election. We take it all very seriously here.

This decision, like all these "jump through hoops" barriers to voting are intended to do one thing only: suppress voter turnout.

Why are the Republicans so eager to surpress voter turnout? Because in the US, there a whole lot more voters who are registered as Democrats than there are Republicans.

Hence, the tendency for the Republicans to always be tinkering with ways to supress voter turnout, especially in Democratic strongholds, like Gary.

It doesn't matter if you like the MN law, thank god. We've had it for a long time, and your opinion, and the regressive Republicrats across the nation, haven't been able to take away our voting rights in MN.

Yet.

No thanks to people like you, of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Wesley S
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 11:18 AM

Wow - one little disagreement about a process and now I'm the one trying to take away your voting rights? Do you know how silly that sounds when you go on the attack like that?

I was born in Minneapolis by the way.I've got relatives all over the state. Edina, Hibbing,ect. Your voting rights are safe from me. So just chill a little bit.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: GUEST,Fantasma
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 11:40 AM

No, I don't think I need to chill a bit. You are trying to make it out that the voting laws in MN are too loose, when there is decades worth of proof to the contrary.

Which begs the question, why focus on MN's excellent voting laws and history of controlling voter fraud, when that isn't even the topic of the thread?

Methinks thou dost protest too much.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Amos
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 11:51 AM

The false issue being presented is that the nation's elections are being corrupted by large numbers of voters who are sneaking into polls under false ID and voting illegally.

I think this is a total strawman, a bogeyman. The real isse, as Fantz states, is that there are too many registered Democrats and it makes the Republicrats uncomfortable to think about being ruled by the voice of the majority. After all -- where would the elite be if they lost their leverage and political control? Horrors.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Alice
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 11:52 AM

There has been no proof of voter fraud in Indiana. This law is totally unnecessary and just makes it more difficult for people to vote.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Wesley S
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 11:56 AM

You argue in a very silly way. Might I point out that you are the one who mentioned Minnisotas laws in the first place? I didn't.

OK - I see no problem with asking folks to get a photo ID of some sort in order to vote. If that's too high a mountain for them to climb then I can't imagine making their way to a voting booth on election day is going to be any easier. And I think it would be a more secure way of making sure that the person involved { regardless of the nameless state they live in } is a registed voter.

And since these cards are FREE may I point out that the title of your thread is inaccurate? Not to mention inflamitory?

So - What's the color of the sun on your planet?

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 12:00 PM

The dept of homeland security decided to not allow new yet legal immigrants to vote this year.

Troops who vote by absentee ballot have their votes disallowed since their address is technically overseas but are instructed to put their home military training base as their residence. Since they are not at that base any longer their usually democratic votes are not counted.

A young former judge Rhenquist used to send home black voters from the polling place when they could not present proof of citizenship to his satisfaction.

This is an old tactic that is being refined more today than people realize.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 12:17 PM

We have same day registration/voting here in NC, with no ID required. I like it this way. I hope they don't ever change it. I also really like that I was able to vote in the primary for either party even though I am registered as unaffiliated .

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 12:23 PM

Doesn't anybody remember Lyndon Johnson, who used to brag about all the dead people who voted for him in so many elections. If it doesn't cost the voter anything to obtain a photo ID, there's no way it can be called an obstacle for voting.

                The funny thing to me is, the same people who complain about the electronic voting machines (a concern I share by the way) are the ones who complain about making sure voters are who they say they are.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 12:25 PM

I should revise what I said a bit. The same day registration/voting is only for the early voting, but not on the day of the election. People who show up to vote on the day of the election need to already be registered. I also don't know what personal information or documentation is required for registration here because I let them register me for voting when I went to get my NC driver's license, and I have been unable to find that information on the govt's website.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 12:33 PM

I'm not anywhere near as concerned about voter fraud as I am about election fraud. And I'm not anywhere near as concerned about voter fraud as I am about laws that suppress legitimate votes. I'm definitely not in favor of voter fraud, but I think they do a good job of preventing that here in this state. I've found the kinds of documentation that are accepted here in this state and they look adequate to me. If you steal someone else's utility bill to register, they will be able to check that against their database to see if someone else at that address has already registered.


Accepted forms of Identification

    * NC Drivers License
    * bank or bank-card statement
    * electric, gas, phone, water, or cable bill
    * paycheck, paycheck stub, or W-2 form
    * Student ID and school document with you address
    * A document from a government agency, such as car registration, tax bill, hunting license, Social Security, Medicare or Medicade card or letter, Military ID, Passport, or any other letter, invoice, ect. from a government agency

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 12:49 PM

"It is simple, and has served the state well for decades with no voter fraud cases. None. Zero zip zilch."

Fraud doesn't usually show up until results are questioned. In Alaska most of us had no idea how thick the miasma of corruption was until the first whistle was blown.

"It isn't a burden to the state to do it that way, because they count the votes about 80 bazillion times before the results get certified."

Frankly that doesn't sound all that efficient.

Donuel, I wasn't aware that "new yet legal immigrants" are able to vote at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 07:10 PM

Illegal ones vote all the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 07:15 PM

Rig, I doubt that assertion and would appreciate some documentation. I worked in Elections for some years. Your implication that 'illegal' votes are counted is off the mark.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 07:24 PM

You know, there is something very easy that could be accomplished if the Repubs would go along with it but they won't... That would be that when a voter registers that a photo voter ID card is issued... End of problem... But the Repubs have resisted such an idea because it would mean that more folks would be able to vote... They have resisited every attempt to make voting easier...

(But, Bobert, the states run the elections...)

Fine, just have piccure voter ID cards for any election where a federally elected folks are running... I can live with that...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Alice
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 08:15 PM

My son is 20 and doesn't own a car. He doesn't drive and won't be getting a driver's license any time soon. He can't afford a passport, paying for college and rent and food is as much as he can handle.
My neighbor stopped driving over 20 years ago. She lives on a small fixed income. She can't afford a passport.
I know of disabled people who may be able to get a ride to the polls, but again don't have a driver's license.
It is not easy for a poor person without transportation access, an elderly person or a disabled person to get through the hoops of passport pictures, etc., as well as paying all the costs.
The idea that it is "easy" for everyone to get a photo ID is just BS.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 08:22 PM

Most states, Alice, have a 'non-drivers' license, I think. I know Alaska does. However a person arriving at the polling place might not have arranged for that. I think Bobert's idea about taking a photo at the polling place is a good one.

If all the state is trying to do is avoid fraud it would be easy to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 08:32 PM

That ain't exactly what I'm talkin' about, Eb...

Everyone has to register to vote prior to voting... You can't juts show up and vote anywhere but Cook County, Illinios (lol)...

So here's how it works... You go to register and when you do you are issued a voter registartion card with a pic on it... Simple...

No fuss, no muss...

(But, Bobert... Here you go again advocating a system that superceeds the state's authority to run their own elections...)

Fine, let anyone off the street vote in state and local elections but for elections where the elected candidate is gonna be paid outta federal tax dollars, a federal election voter card with the pic...

Most states will fall into line and just use these cards for all elections... IT's really purdy simple... The Repubs hate this idea... But thebn again, they hate anything that is simple when it comes to voting except gettin' simpleton NASCAR dads to vote for them every 4 years...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Alice
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 08:40 PM

For the same reason Montana is protesting the "real ID" card - it is the huge cost that the state cannot afford to pay to set up photo facilities at all necessary locations and the costs of printing and processing cards.
It's not so simple as taking a picture, folks! It all costs money!
AND there is no proof of voter fraud related to not having photo ID's.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Alice
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 08:51 PM

http://www.in.gov/sos/photoid/exempt.html

Above, Indiana voting ID exemptions.
I vote by absentee ballot, never knowing if I'll be in town on election day or if it will be -40 degrees in November... looks like voting absentee ballot is the best way in Indiana... so how does that meet their goal of "avoiding voter fraud" if all you have to do is get an absentee ballot?
It's BS. Indiana doesn't have a problem of people voting who are not the person they say they are.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Alice
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 08:57 PM

This is from the ID exemptions page link in my previous post.
"Also, if you qualify to vote absentee-by-mail or absentee-by-traveling board, and you chose to vote as such, you are not required to present photo ID."

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 09:13 PM

To insert a bit of humor here:

Lyndon Johnson's Victory in the 1948 Texas Senate Race: A Reappraisal,
Dale Baum, James L. Hailey, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 109, No. 4 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 595-613
doi:10.2307/2151840

"Six days after the 1948 Texas senatorial runoff election, enigmatically amended returns produced what the winning candidate, Lyndon Baines Johnson, humorously referred to as his "87-vote landslide." … Accounts by historians of LBJ's razor-thin victory have invariably converged on the Thirteenth Precinct in the South Texas town of Alice in Jim Wells County, where 202 Mexican—American voters, some of whom were deceased or had been absent from the county on election day, reportedly lined up in alphabetical order at the very last minute to cast their ballots overwhelmingly for Johnson."

A more complete version of the story appears at Pp 657 – 666 in Uncle John's 4-ply Bathroom Reader, ©1991 The Bathroom Reader's Institute, Barnes & Noble. Hired gunmen, Texas Rangers, Federal Marshalls, a Supreme Court Justice, and a particularly notorious member of "Texas landed gentry" who may have later "assisted" Texas Governor Connoly's election, reportedly were involved.

It's sort of a tradition in some places?

John

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 09:55 PM

That wasn't really voter fraud. That was election fraud, and it looks to me like even photo IDs wouldn't have prevented him from stealing the election, just as it hasn't prevented illegal purging of voter rolls, and other kinds of election fraud and malfeasance from taking place. If people really want to ensure a free and fair election, we need to clean up the process from the top down, not the other way around.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 09:57 PM

Well, Alice... Here in Virginia everyone who registers to vote is issued a "Voter ID Card"... Throwin' ion a pic wouldn't be that great a cost compared to the lousy and corrupt voting sytem that wer now have...

I thought that the US was the beakon of democracy but now, all of a sudden, it ain't affordable??? Such a system would cost less than a day in Iraq and make our system, ahhhhhhh, transparent....

Hooray for democracy!!! And voting rights...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 09:58 PM

It wouldn't make our system transparent, Bobert. See my post above yours.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Alice
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:07 PM

"throwin on a pic"
you've gotta be kidding
wake up to what that process would really cost

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: pdq
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:09 PM

Oh, that Lyndon Johnson. As Thurgood Marshall said:

                "they just don't make 'em like that anymore"

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: GUEST,Fantasma
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:14 PM

In Minnesota, you can just show up, register to vote & vote on the election day.

You can register and vote on election day, and it has been this way for decades.

How many of you have EVER heard about voting irregularities in Minnesota?

If the system has been working really well here for decades, why can't it work well throughout the US?

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:23 PM

Why, pdq, that looks like a conspiracy theory webpage.   ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: pdq
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:25 PM

I heard the sound clip. It is a fact. The man speaking was Jeremiah Wright. Do your research, please.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:40 PM

Trying to make a distinction between "voter fraud" and "election fraud" is a pretty pointless exercise, I think.

                     I think there is quite a bit of information that proves Loretta Sanchez won her first election with the votes of a number of illegal aliens. These are people who didn't just show up on a whim. They had to be organized and directed by somebody.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: pdq
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:48 PM

Ooops! Wrong thread. Yes, it is a conspiracy theory webpage. Much of what is there is fact, though. I posted "The Miracle of Alice" here several years ago. I heard the stories decades back while I was living in Texas. I cannot find a site that has exactly what I heard, so I posted one that was "a good read". I do believe that Lyndon was either behind the Kennedy assasination or, at the very least, knew The Mob was going to do it and let it happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:50 PM

Ain't about smellin' coffe or roses... After the bogus elections that the US has pulled off we oughtta put our money where our mouth is and have honest elections...

Period...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:50 PM

I can't tell if you are addressing me with your 29 Apr 08 - 10:25 PM post, pdq. Your post immediately follows mine, but it doesn't seem to address any part of my post, or even be about the subject of this thread.

Just in case you were responding to my post, my comment about the conspiracy theory web page was in reference to the page you linked to about LBJ. And I was being facetious.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: pdq
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:55 PM

As I said 10:48 , my fault. I thought you were responding to my quote from Jeremiah Wright concerning AIDS. I was on the wrong thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: TIA
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 02:41 PM

I think there is a big distinction between voter fraud and election fraud. One is perpetrated by voters (whether organized or not), the other by those who count the votes or set up the voting system. There is no evidence of the former, and overwhelming evifence of the latter. In fact, the Indiana law IS the latter.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 02:52 PM

The states seem to be able ot afford photos on their drivers licenses. When something is budgeted for, it becomes routine.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Alice
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 03:01 PM

I want my taxes going to other more important priorities, like the schools. Where do you think the money comes from?

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Wesley S
Date: 01 May 08 - 08:56 AM

Taxpayers. And a few of them even vote.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: Grab
Date: 01 May 08 - 11:05 AM

One can register and vote at the same time, on the day of the election, without a photo ID. One need only provide proof of a valid address in the district you are are voting in (usually a utility bill) or bring someone to vouch for you being a resident of the district, who is a registered voter.

In other words, MN has voting laws which if applied in Zimbabwe or other Third World states would be universally derided as unfair and an invitation to corruption and ballot-stuffing.

Let's think of what engineers call the "abuse cases". Let's suppose there is a pool of people who'd happily countersign votes from people they knew weren't allowed to vote, as a first condition for corruption. This corrupt state's police force or military will do nicely. Now, what else do we need? Well, can you easily fake a utility bill? Or if utility bills are unfakeable, can you get someone within the utility company to print you off a thousand? Either way, job done.

Then the check against the Secretary of State's records. Well, which records are those? and what are they checking for? If it's just for duplicates, I can print up a thousand utility bills for fictitious houses on Nowheresville Drive, Nosuchtown, MN and there ain't any way you'll spot it.

Let's remember that high voting figures don't necessarily mean that a high number of people went to the polls.

And let's suppose that everyone in MN is fundamentally honest, and they really *don't* have any problems yet. They've still done the electoral equivalent of leaving the front door ajar. Whether there actually is any abuse is immaterial to the fact that it's *open* to abuse.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Time to Pay Your Poll Tax
From: CarolC
Date: 01 May 08 - 11:56 AM

Sorry, pdq. I guess we crossposted.