You say that as if reversible shirts aren’t a thing.
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I did too. But there are documented examples of how fucked up it can be to get the required ID paper work in some places, including very small windows of opportunity, repeatedly coming back with different forms, etc.
It disproportionately affects the very poor and especially older fixed income people. John Oliver has a pretty good piece documenting some examples.
Combined with the fact that the documented amount of fraud is extremely low, I don’t see the point. Add the point that for what ever reason, they think it’s just Democrats, but I don’t see why there aren’t Republicans voting for their dead Aunt or what ever.
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Fashion industry sponsored fraud! Smells like the Hollywood Elite have their stank all over this.
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Hmm - not a bad idea. Think how many thousands of dollars you would save on “I Voted” stickers.
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This. You have to still register to vote. You can’t just walk in and vote. You have to do it in the proper district too.
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And as an added bonus we might keep alt-right conspiracy theorists away from the polls because they’d inevitably claim that the ink was laced with a secret chemical that lets the government track you via satellite or turns you gay or something.
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And quite a few communities have tried to manipulate that situation too, to keep students (more likely to be progressive) from being able to vote from their school address. Even if you live in your own apartment, there are aspects in which parents still have some tax benefits and/or you’re on their health insurance, so the argument is that your “permanent address” is at your parents’ home. Which may be too far away to travel to on the day, and may not have easy absentee ballot options, especially if you don’t realize the problem until you show up at the polling place you went to last time with your voter card issued for that precinct only to be told “tough luck, we changed the rules since then”.
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Serious question: wouldn’t that mean the person in question was a criminal, and perhaps loses civil rights (such as voting) for life? I mean, we do that here in the U.S., in certain states and for certain crimes.
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Not every country disenfranchises its felons. But in Iraq or Afghanistan? Your hand was more likely to have been blown off in violence. Also, I’m not familar with the Iraqi and Afghani civil laws, but amputation for theft is, IIRC, not prescribed. There are countries where that happens (and it might happen in parts of Afghanistan under tribal law) but I don’t think Iraq did it under Saddam and I doubt they took it up as a new practice.
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Prevents voter fraud and depression? Win win!
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Took 5 reads to finally figure out your meaning and revise my reply.
I concur…
Actually, they did. Sorta. I know at least one video I saw where a hand was surgically amputated under Saddams orders for some reason. Though this was like 15 years ago so it is possible the source was wrong. Though I don’t think it was a standard punishment for thieves.
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I think of it more as a “law of diminishing returns” kind of thing-- I do think voter fraud exists (and sure enough there is always a case of one person voting twice someone can point to as evidence), but is it really worth it to effectively erase thousands of legitimate votes in order to insure against a handful of fraudulent votes?
As they say “better that ten guilty men go free, than one innocent man go to prison.”
When you look at how many people in this country don’t even vote, making it hard to vote seems pretty damned counterproductive to the democratic process.
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Well, if we’re talking about what Saddam himself ordered to be done to political enemies and scapegoats, I’m sure amputations weren’t the worst of it.
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Surgically, none the less. A kinder, gentler dictator.
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For one thing, the more legitimate votes there are, the less that any hypothetical individual voter fraud (the only kind voter ID laws could possibly do anything about) would matter.
For another… it’s not worth it for someone to go through all the work needed to purposefully commit voter fraud just to add a couple of extra non-deciding votes onto the numbers. Adding a few votes to the numbers without changing the final decision can have an impact, but it’s subtle, and for a fraudster there’s too much risk with not enough reward there.
But for an individual voter, though, there’s no risk. Sure, you probably won’t be the deciding vote, but if you don’t vote then your opinion won’t be counted at all. Individual votes do matter - perhaps not as much as some would like them to, but more than not at all.
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I am happy to accept it is due to privilege - we are a robust democracy and rich country however here in Australia, everyone shows ID to vote, it has been that way since I have been voting ?1996 and it is simple and just routine. As others have stated we have had more controversies with vote boxes or counted votes going missing in the count process and this is more of a weakness than at the writing in a box step.
8% of u.s. households have no bank account. (ca. 30 million people)
5% of u.s. households have no vehicle (ca. 16 million people)
26 million adult americans have no credit cards.
how big does the number need to be?
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Yes, this happened to me when I was a student. A group of us had to go and talk to the registrar and provide some testimony that we were planning to stay in the area (upstate New York) after graduation. This allowed us to vote in the presidential election. I guess I was convincing, since I was allowed to vote. But I moved anyway.
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Indiana, along with its State Police, are currently working frighteningly hard to “prove” that large-scale voter fraud is real and happening in the state. The police suddenly started closing down voter registration groups all over the state, under the guide that the forms being used were somehow illegitimate. There’s a whole lot of opaqueness about these actions, with only state authorities offering very vague explanations. Thousands of Hoosier voters may find themselves having to cast provisional ballots on election day, due to their names somehow appearing on “fraudulent” registrations.
The whole action smells to high heaven. That Indiana’s Governor happens to be Trump’s running mate doesn’t make it smell any better.
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