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General => General Discussion => Politics => Topic started by: SmartyPants on June 27, 2013, 10:15:48 PM

Title: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: SmartyPants on June 27, 2013, 10:15:48 PM
The Supreme Court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is unconstitutional because the coverage formula is based on voting data over 40 years old.  This is great news for the South.  If the court ruled the other way, then it would mean that the voting problems 40 years ago can simply never be forgiven, and that we Southerns must be eternally stigmatized because of the actions of our grandparents and great-grandparents.

The South is no longer run by the racist Democrats that supported Jim Crow back in the 1960s.  We have make great strides since the civil rights movement, and we should be recognized for it.  Just look at the data (http://www.businessinsider.com/voting-rights-act-chart-proof-outdated-john-roberts-vra-struck-down-section-4-2013-6) that shows the increased voter participation among blacks.  For example, in 1965 only 6.7% of African Americans voted in Mississippi, while in 2008 Mississippi had greater voter participation than any other state.  In fact, many of these states including Mississippi had greater percentage of black voters than white voters.

The data needs to be updated to include states that have more issues with voting discrimination.  For example,  Illinois is one of the states that the law treats as fit to exercise control over elections, yet it was among six uncovered states that lost more voting discrimination lawsuits than five of the covered states.  While the South doesn't have any of America's top 10 most segregated cities (http://www.salon.com/2011/03/29/most_segregated_cities/slide_show/10), Obama's home town of Chicago (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/31/chicago-most-segregated-c_n_1244098.html) is the most segregated city in the United States.
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: CraigStern on June 27, 2013, 11:12:39 PM
Quote from: SmartyPants on June 27, 2013, 10:15:48 PMThe South is no longer run by the racist Democrats that supported Jim Crow back in the 1960s.

Nope; now it's run by racists with different political affiliations. Numerous states that the DOJ was blocking from moving ahead with racially discriminatory voting laws under Sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act have now pushed ahead with those laws anyway in the aftermath of the decision, knowing full well that these laws will disenfranchise minority voters. For instance:

http://projects.nytimes.com/live-dashboard/2013-06-25-supreme-court#sha=88a62b0c2 (http://projects.nytimes.com/live-dashboard/2013-06-25-supreme-court#sha=88a62b0c2)
http://www.scag.gov/archives/9396 (http://www.scag.gov/archives/9396)
http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/06/alabama_photo_voter_id_law_to.html (http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/06/alabama_photo_voter_id_law_to.html)
http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-news/2013/06/voting_rights_act_ruling_clear.html (http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-news/2013/06/voting_rights_act_ruling_clear.html)

From the Brennan Center for Justice (http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/voter-id):

"Studies show that as many as 11 percent of eligible voters do not have government-issued photo ID. That percentage is even higher for seniors, people of color, people with disabilities, low-income voters, and students. Many citizens find it hard to get government photo IDs, because the underlying documentation like birth certificates (the ID one needs to get ID) is often difficult or expensive to come by."
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: SmartyPants on June 28, 2013, 01:30:07 PM
If voter ID laws are racist, then Mexico, Canada, and the vast majority of America is racist.   Far left liberals claim that Texas is discriminating against Latinos by requiring everyone to prove they have the right to vote when voting, yet Mexico (http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-01-22/mexico-national-voter-ID-cards/52779410/1) has been doing the same exact thing for the last two decades.  Our friends from the north must also be racist, because Canada (http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=ids&document=index&lang=e) also requires ID for their elections.  A poll found that 70% of Americans (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75300.html) say they support voter identification measures "to stop illegal voting," so that must mean that vast majority of Americans are racist too.

The southern states aren't the only ones who want Voter ID laws in order to prevent voting fraud, yet we were the only ones who have to ask permission from race-baiting Eric Holder in order to change any election law.  A few of the non-southern states that have voter ID laws are racists states such as Rhode Island (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kevin-mooney/2012/10/11/rhode-island-democrats-disprove-media-myth-voter-id-racist), Indiana (http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=900005561633&Supreme_Court_Upholds_Indiana_Voter_ID_Law&slreturn=20130528134723), Oklahoma (http://www.kxii.com/home/headlines/Oklahoma-new-voter-ID-law-in-effect-177054541.html), Wisconsin (http://news.yahoo.com/wisconsins-voter-id-law-constitutional-appeals-court-rules-211252345.html), and Obama's birth date of Hawaii (http://www.honolulumagazine.com/Honolulu-Magazine/August-2012/Hawaiis-Voter-ID-Law-Apparently-No-Big-Deal/) (unless you think he was born in Kenya (http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/06/28/wh-applauds-use-of-id-cards-for-voter-registration-in-kenya-78780) who also has voter ID laws).
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: ArtDrake on June 30, 2013, 06:41:28 PM
This is a relevant and honest [if loaded] question posed to anyone who finds themselves in this thread and qualified to answer it -- SP, it may be you if you are familiar with the case; CS, it may be you because of your profession.

In what way does the implementation of voter ID laws not contradict the precedent set by 383 US 663, Harper v. Virginia Board of Education -- specifically, that "a state violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution whenever it makes the affluence of the voter or payment of any fee an electoral standard. Voter qualifications have no relation to wealth" ?
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: SmartyPants on July 01, 2013, 02:06:56 AM
The voter-ID laws don't contradict the Twenty-fourth Amendment as long as the government doesn't charge for voter-IDs.  If a state government charged a fee for a government ID and required citizens to have a government ID in order to vote, then the state's "fee" would be considered a "poll tax".

Despite the false claims from Obama and Holder, voter-ID laws are considered constitutional. In 2008, the Supreme Court already upheld Indiana's landmark law requiring citizens to show that they are the person they claim to be by showing government ID before casting a ballot in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board.  But, to ensure that those without driver’s licenses or passports are not disenfranchised, Indiana provides free ID’s to everyone who applies for one. The Court upheld this law, with the primary opinion written by liberal Justice John Paul Stevens:

Quote from: Justice John Paul Stevens"The relevant burdens here are those imposed on eligible voters who lack photo identification cards that comply with SEA 483. Because Indiana's cards are free, the inconvenience of going to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, gathering required documents, and posing for a photograph does not qualify as a substantial burden on most voters' right to vote, or represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting. The severity of the somewhat heavier burden that may be placed on a limited number of persons—e.g., elderly persons born out-of-state, who may have difficulty obtaining a birth certificate—is mitigated by the fact that eligible voters without photo identification may cast provisional ballots that will be counted if they execute the required affidavit at the circuit court clerk’s office. Even assuming that the burden may not be justified as to a few voters, that conclusion is by no means sufficient to establish petitioners’ right to the relief they seek."

Yet Eric Holder has blocked all the voter-ID laws in the South. Holder argues that the South's laws are different from Indiana’s because the South is subject to additional federal oversight under the Voting Rights Act.  While Holder claims his actions are focused on protecting voting rights, in reality him and Obama are just trying to use race in order to unjustly demonize Republicans.  Why else would Holder's NAACP speech likened efforts to combat voter fraud to Jim Crow laws used by segregationist Democrats?
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: ArtDrake on July 02, 2013, 01:49:25 AM
You know, secondary identification -- the things you need to present in order to get a valid means of identification for the purposes of voting -- can also cost money. In that case, regardless of whether a state government has made the primary identification free, the whole process ends up costing people money.

Is there really sufficient evidence of voter fraud to justify voter ID laws? I mean, most of the fraud I hear about comes from the actual machines being tampered with, not from illegal voting.
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: SmartyPants on July 02, 2013, 01:28:35 PM
I pretty sure that you get your social security card and birth certificate for free.  With those you should be able to get any type of government ID.

I honestly don't know much about voting fraud outside my home state of Texas.  In the Lone Star State, we have had over 300 accusations and over 50 conventions of voting fraud.  In my opinion, those cases of voter fraud are of a enough reason to make voter fraud more difficult.  The voter-ID laws are not much of a burden on residents.  In fact, most Texans (including me) registered to vote while they were getting their driver's license.  Since public transportation is almost nonexistent in the state of Texas, everyone needs a car and driver's license to travel.  The only significant number of people who don't have government IDs are the elderly.  Luckily for the elderly, their preferred voting method, voting my mail, doesn't require a photo ID.
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: ArtDrake on July 02, 2013, 03:09:43 PM
In Texas, birth certificates cost $22.00 from the Texas vital records office. You are correct in that social security cards [and their replacements, it would seem] are free.

50 confirmed instances of voter fraud in a state with a voter turnout of nearly 8 million says 0.00062548% incidence rate, contrasting with whole percentage-point differences in the ability of individuals with lower socio-economic status [a group which is disproportionately composed of minorities] to vote. Twenty-two dollars could seem frivolous to someone living paycheck-to-paycheck, especially if they don't place that much faith in the system to begin with; I think we should be doing all we can to make voting as easy as possible.

I suppose even if you put to the side the potentially discriminatory aspects of voter ID laws, whether the conjectured impact they will have on voter fraud justifies the extra trouble remains a font of debate.
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: SmartyPants on July 02, 2013, 04:26:28 PM
Texas Department of Public Safety has a list (http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/internetforms/Forms/DL-57.pdf) of all the documentation that can be used to get a free Election Identification Certificate.  One of these include voter registration card.  If you can't get a voter registration card, then you aren't voting anyway.

Requiring Photo ID Has Little Effect on Voter Turnout, MU Study Finds (http://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2008/0102-voter-id.php):
QuoteJeffrey Milyo, professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Missouri and the Hanna Family Scholar in the Center for Applied Economics at the University of Kansas, notes that overall voter turnout in Indiana actually increased after the implementation of photo ID. His study evaluated the effects of photo identification requirements by comparing county-level turnout in Indiana in the 2002 and 2006 mid-term elections, since the current ID law was not in place in ‘02.

“Previous studies have examined the effects of voter ID laws more generally, but none of these separately analyzes the effects of so called ‘mandatory photo ID’ on turnout in Indiana,” Milyo said. “I examined a variety of models on voter turnout. After controlling for several factors that influence county-wide turnout, there is no consistent or statistically significant evidence that the photo ID law depressed turnout in counties with greater percentages of minority, poor or elderly voters. Contrary to conventional wisdom, turnout in Democratic-leaning counties actually increased in the wake of the new photo ID requirements, all else constant.”
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: CraigStern on July 02, 2013, 11:03:52 PM
You also have to consider that there is a very real economic cost to getting these IDs apart from the up-front fee; you're talking about spending hours in line at the DMV during a work day. If you're living on the edge and getting paid hourly, you very well might not be able to afford that.
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: SmartyPants on July 03, 2013, 08:21:58 AM
Illegal immigrants, the only people paid less than minimum wage, have found time to get driver's licenses in some states.  Voters in poverty stricken countries like Kenya (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/1/obamas-evolution-on-voter-id/) and Mexico (http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/jul/1/picket-mexicos-poll-workers-ask-voters-photo-id-po/) have also found time to get their government-issued IDs.  It is not unreasonable to ask American citizens to go to the DMV every decade in order to get an ID, so that the government can better ensure the integrity of our elections.

Back to the topic of the Outdated Voting Rights Act: Shouldn't the judicial branch be the ones who decide what voting laws are constitutional instead of elected officials, like Obama, who have a political agenda?
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: CraigStern on July 03, 2013, 12:08:27 PM
Quote from: SmartyPants on July 03, 2013, 08:21:58 AMShouldn't the judicial branch be the ones who decide what voting laws are constitutional instead of elected officials, like Obama, who have a political agenda?

Not necessarily; it's the political branches, after all, that have the power to amend the Constitution. The courts are merely an interpretive body.
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: SmartyPants on July 03, 2013, 08:20:16 PM
Yet the Voting Rights Act gave Eric Holder the power to block electoral laws that don't benefit Obama by "interpreting" them as unconstitutional.

Here is a question for y’all.  Do you see the South as so inherently racist that its residents can never be forgiven for the actions of past generations?
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: ArtDrake on July 04, 2013, 01:15:06 AM
First of all, I live in the South and still acknowledge that it has various local government leaders who would be subject to discriminatory tendencies.

Second, did you mean residents? Because the houses don't need to be forgiven.
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: SmartyPants on July 15, 2013, 03:36:42 PM
The South does have a few local governments with racist leaders, but so does the North, East, and West.  Did you not read through the list of the most segregated cities?

Since every past crime is a permanent stigma for future generations, maybe New England should have been covered under the Voting Rights Act for past discrimination against the Irish.
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: ArtDrake on July 16, 2013, 06:05:16 PM
These ****** cartoons are the last straw. I'm out.
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: SmartyPants on July 16, 2013, 07:50:12 PM
The fake, overblown outrage is unnecessary, because there is nothing controversial or offensive about those political cartoons.

All the cartoons illustrate valid reasons for Voter ID laws:

Title: 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington
Post by: SmartyPants on August 29, 2013, 05:53:24 PM
Recently, we had the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington.  It was time to celebrate the progress our country has made.  No longer are bathrooms, restaurants, or schools segregated as "whites" and "colors".  No longer are certain people forced to sit at the back of the bus.  No longer are black men getting lynched, and then the perpetrators gets away due to a racist, all-white jury.  No longer are minorities intimidated at the polling booth. No longer is racism rampant among our country.

The series of speeches celebrating the 50th Anniversary shows how outdated the voting rights act has become.  During the celebration, the civil rights speakers claim that the major problems of racism today are Stop and Frisk and the death of Trayvon Martin.  Stop and Frisk is a police policy used in New York City, while Trayvon died in the state of Florida. Neither of these states are covered by the Voting Rights Act.
Title: Re: 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington
Post by: CraigStern on September 04, 2013, 09:28:00 AM
Quote from: SmartyPants on August 29, 2013, 05:53:24 PMThe series of speeches celebrating the 50th Anniversary shows how outdated the voting rights act has become.

You just named a bunch of different things that have nothing do with voting rights. As we covered before, a number of states are still trying to suppress minority voter turnout (http://sinisterdesign.net/forum/index.php?topic=1266.msg45995#msg45995).

There's been quite a bit more than that as well, which I didn't even get into before. Some prominent examples that journalists happened to catch: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression#2008_presidential_election (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression#2008_presidential_election)
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: SmartyPants on September 04, 2013, 06:59:52 PM
Quote from: CraigStern on September 04, 2013, 09:28:00 AMThere's been quite a bit more than that as well, which I didn't even get into before. Some prominent examples that journalists happened to catch: Voter suppression@2008 presidential election (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression#2008_presidential_election)
Your post further proves my point.  The states that had allegations of voter suppression were Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Maryland, and Florida.  Other than Georgia, none of the eight states with voter allegation were in the South.  Clearly, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is outdated and needs to be updated to represent current trends.   I don't know why anyone would oppose updating the formula that determines what areas currently have problems with voter suppression.   Maybe those up North want to look down on the South as inherently more racist, while they deny that northern states like Illinois (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/the-racial-divide-among-u_n_583995.html) and New York (http://www.thenation.com/blog/175732/ending-stop-and-frisk-keeping-racism#) have their own racial problems.
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: CraigStern on September 05, 2013, 01:06:43 PM
Yeah, I don't necessarily oppose updating the formula--in fact, I think it should be extended to cover the entire country. Still, striking the law down in the interim is a disaster for voting rights. IMO Congress needs to act, and quickly.
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: SmartyPants on September 05, 2013, 07:29:53 PM
The law needs to be struck down in the interim, because Congress would never get around to updating it otherwise.  Congress had multiple chances to update the formula, but they have been too lazy to do so.  The last time congress actually put the effort into updating the formula was 1972.

I disagree that we should extend preclearance to the entire nation.  Preclearance would be an unnecessary burden on the local, state, and federal government.   In Texas, the vast majority of the preclearance requests are trivial requests such as moving a polling place from a church to a school.  That means we have to wait for the slow, federal bureaucracy to approve the request before we can do any simple task that deals with voting.  Areas without any recent history of voter suppression should not be put through such a burden.  Also, the courts are perfectly capable of dealing with cases of voter discrimination.  I would also prefer the court system to rule what is voter suppression instead of an executive branch that is prone to put politics before rule of law (http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20120620/AGENCY04/306200002/Administration-won-8217-t-hand-over-8216-Fast-Furious-8217-documents).

Voter suppression clearly isn't much of a problem, because no one in Congress feels this is enough of a priority to even talk about.
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: CraigStern on September 05, 2013, 11:31:57 PM
Quote from: SmartyPants on September 05, 2013, 07:29:53 PMAreas without any history of voter suppression should not be put through such a burden.

What areas would those be? (Hint: probably not Texas (http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/6_5_3.html).)

Quote from: SmartyPants on September 05, 2013, 07:29:53 PMVoter suppression clearly isn't much of a problem, because no one in Congress feels this is enough of a priority to even talk about.

Your faith in the competency of members of Congress to focus on things based on their actual importance to the nation is both touching and naive. :)
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: SmartyPants on September 06, 2013, 01:30:09 PM
Quote from: CraigStern on September 05, 2013, 11:31:57 PM
Quote from: SmartyPants on September 05, 2013, 07:29:53 PMAreas without any history of voter suppression should not be put through such a burden.
What areas would those be? (Hint: probably not Texas (http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/6_5_3.html).)
Your evidence of voter suppression is even more outdated than the formula used by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. You can't claim that Texas still has voter suppression, because there was voter suppression during the Reconstruction period.  This is the same time period that anti-Irish and anti-Italian sediment lead to corrupt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_County_Democratic_Party) political machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall) in the North.  I wouldn't claim that Boston, Cleveland, New York City, Philadelphia, and St. Louis have issues with corruption due to having corrupt political machines during the late-18th century and the early-19th century.

Quote from: CraigStern on September 05, 2013, 11:31:57 PM
Quote from: SmartyPants on September 05, 2013, 07:29:53 PMVoter suppression clearly isn't much of a problem, because no one in Congress feels this is enough of a priority to even talk about.
Your faith in the competency of members of Congress to focus on things based on their actual importance to the nation is both touching and naive. :)
Did you miss how I complained that Congress has been too lazy to update the Voting Rights Act since 1972?  Also, I never said anything about Congress doing anything about this issue.  I said congress is not talking about the issue of voter suppression. Even though nothing is getting done about gun control, members of Congress constantly talk about it.  On the other hand, voter suppression isn't a big enough issue to even to talk about.
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: CraigStern on September 07, 2013, 02:21:27 AM
History of voter suppression implies that it's in the past. If you want something current, look at Texas's voter ID law.
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: SmartyPants on September 08, 2013, 02:03:02 PM
Voter ID is internationally accepted policy to combat voter fraud.  Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, and many other countries use Voter ID.  The myth that Voter ID is racist was created by Democrats for political reasons.  States like Texas that use Voter ID to ensure the integrity of the electoral system should not be burdened by preclearance from inefficient, politicalized federal government.

In Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, liberal Justice John Paul Stevens ruled that the Voter ID laws are constitutional because it is not a unrealistic burden of the voters:
Quote from: Justice John Paul Stevens"The relevant burdens here are those imposed on eligible voters who lack photo identification cards that comply with SEA 483. Because Indiana's cards are free, the inconvenience of going to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, gathering required documents, and posing for a photograph does not qualify as a substantial burden on most voters' right to vote, or represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting. The severity of the somewhat heavier burden that may be placed on a limited number of persons—e.g., elderly persons born out-of-state, who may have difficulty obtaining a birth certificate—is mitigated by the fact that eligible voters without photo identification may cast provisional ballots that will be counted if they execute the required affidavit at the circuit court clerk’s office. Even assuming that the burden may not be justified as to a few voters, that conclusion is by no means sufficient to establish petitioners’ right to the relief they seek."

There are flawed surveys with questionable data collection techniques that say there might be disenfranchised voters in the future, while studies of past elections that use voter ID laws (http://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2008/0102-voter-id.php) show little effect on voter turnout.  The states that already had voter IDs showed no signs of voter disenfranchisement, yet liberals keep pushing a false narrative in order to demonize Republicans as racists.
QuoteJeffrey Milyo, professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Missouri and the Hanna Family Scholar in the Center for Applied Economics at the University of Kansas, notes that overall voter turnout in Indiana actually increased after the implementation of photo ID. His study evaluated the effects of photo identification requirements by comparing county-level turnout in Indiana in the 2002 and 2006 mid-term elections, since the current ID law was not in place in ‘02.

“Previous studies have examined the effects of voter ID laws more generally, but none of these separately analyzes the effects of so called ‘mandatory photo ID’ on turnout in Indiana,” Milyo said. “I examined a variety of models on voter turnout. After controlling for several factors that influence county-wide turnout, there is no consistent or statistically significant evidence that the photo ID law depressed turnout in counties with greater percentages of minority, poor or elderly voters. Contrary to conventional wisdom, turnout in Democratic-leaning counties actually increased in the wake of the new photo ID requirements, all else constant.”
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: CraigStern on October 25, 2013, 08:19:08 AM
Want to see a Daily Show interview with a GOP executive committee member from North Carolina about their new voter fraud law? I think you might find it enlightening: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-23-2013/suppressing-the-vote (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-23-2013/suppressing-the-vote)
Title: Re: Outdated Voting Rights Act
Post by: SmartyPants on January 17, 2014, 09:13:57 PM
It looks like they might finally update the Voting Rights Act (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/16/voting-rights-act-2014_n_4611113.html?utm_hp_ref=politics).

The Daily Show has such a blatant liberal bias that they might as well be the entertainment wing of the Democratic party, so I wouldn't take what they call "reporting" seriously..