Do you see the logic?

oldman said:
This is true, however, I think there are requirements to get a ballot and in some states one of the requirements is to have an ID. I really don't have a clue how it all works, but I do know that the people at the voting registration office just doesn't hand anyone a ballot. If that were the case, I could walk in in a hundred times and get a ballot and then sit down with a phone book and do the deed, if you know what I mean. I think this is where the worry comes in that some states may change their rules in which to acquire a mail in ballot and then all of a sudden, they have more people voting than registered and then what do we do?

To me, at least, I'm a Libertarian, so I have no dog in this fight.
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I cannot imagine allowing ANYONE to vote without showing an ID, and I can't imagine that anyone with a valid ID would think that is a problem.
 

StarSong said:
I've seen zero actual evidence offered that proves voting by mail has a concerning level of fraud.

Absentee ballots have been available in the US for over 100 years and are used by US troops, ex-pats, some elderly, some disabled folks, and people who are traveling during election day.
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Keep in mind that absentee ballots are handled differently than mail in ballots. Absentee ballots are mailed directly to the individual that has proven his/her eligibility to vote through proper ID requirements. Mail in ballots are sent out by the millions to addresses. These ballots can be collected out of the mailboxes, bought, traded, reproduced, etc.

But, whatever suits the masses, then so-be-it.
 
Where I live you have to be registered to vote but no ID is required at the polls on election day.

The poll workers check the rolls to see if you are listed and compare your signature to the photostat on the paper roll. This year's signature will become next year's verification.

It would be possible for someone to beat you to the polls and vote with a forged signature but it would only skew the votes by one so it would not be a very efficient way to tamper with the elections.

I would think that similar checks could be put into place to ensure that only one absentee ballot was cast even if that individual vote was suspect.

I'm sure that there will be some bumps to work out like there is with any change but I don't believe that we have to worry about politicians, terrorists, or foreign governments skewing our election results.

Like most changes that we deal with the difficult part is adjusting our attitude to the change.
 

Aunt Bea said:
Where I live you have to be registered to vote but no ID is required at the polls on election day.

The poll workers check the rolls to see if you are listed and compare your signature to the photostat on the paper roll. This year's signature will become next year's verification.

It would be possible for someone to beat you to the polls and vote with a forged signature but it would only skew the votes by one so it would not be a very efficient way to tamper with the elections.

I would think that similar checks could be put into place to ensure that only one absentee ballot was cast even if that individual vote was suspect.

I'm sure that there will be some bumps to work out like there is with any change but I don't believe that we have to worry about politicians, terrorists, or foreign governments skewing our election results.

Like most changes that we deal with the difficult part is adjusting our attitude to the change.
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But, like I posted, absentee ballots are treated much differently than mail in voting. I think California just did a mail in voting election. The state sent out millions of ballots to mailboxes or anyone with an address. If someone was following the mailman, they could have easily stolen the ballots or bought the ballots or even duplicated the ballots. Also, with absentee balloting, many states require a reason as to why the voter cannot attend a polling place and ID. There is a difference.

My mom and dad always considered going to the polls as a big day for them. They wore red, white and blue, except when dad had to wear his uniform. Then, they would come home and watch Cronkite to get the results.
 
So
Butterfly said:
I haven't heard of anywhere mailing out mail-in ballots to anyone who wasn't already a registered voter and who has filled an application for an absentee ballot.
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Some states do not require the voter to request a mail-in ballot. They automatically get one in the mail.
 
I have been having to show my ID all my life for the most mundane things... buying alcohol, writing a check, and sometimes in conjunction with using a credit card, etc. I have no problem showing PROOF of my identity at the polling place, as I have for all the years I've voted in Texas. Why any reasonable person would object to that minor "inconvenience" is a mystery to me.
 
C'est Moi said:
I have been having to show my ID all my life for the most mundane things... buying alcohol, writing a check, and sometimes in conjunction with using a credit card, etc. I have no problem showing PROOF of my identity at the polling place, as I have for all the years I've voted in Texas. Why any reasonable person would object to that minor "inconvenience" is a mystery to me.
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My main problem with the voter ID laws is that they put an economic barrier up for some people. If they were enacted with provisions for low income people to get IDs without having to pay for the ID and in some cases pay to get a copy of a birth certificate or for those who don't have birth certificates to pay for documentation that is sufficient to get an ID then I would be OK with that. Another economic barrier is having to take time off work or pay to travel to where they can get an official ID. But I have yet to hear of a voter ID law that also addresses the potential economic barriers.

Another problem I've heard of is that some states restrict the forms of ID that are allowable. I believe it was South Dakota that stopped accepting tribal membership cards that had been sufficient for many years. They forced native Americans to get IDs which required a street address including street number when they often do not use such methods for addresses on tribal lands.

I do agree that this is a small subset of people, but until their problems are addressed I see voter ID laws mainly as efforts to prevent certain people from being able to vote rather than preventing fraud.
 
In this day and age it's really a waste of time and money to cobble together a new paper-based mail-in voting process.

We file our income tax, apply for Social Security benefits, complete the census, Medicare, all online but we still don't have a way to vote electronically for those that are able.
 
asp3 said:
My main problem with the voter ID laws is that they put an economic barrier up for some people. If they were enacted with provisions for low income people to get IDs without having to pay for the ID and in some cases pay to get a copy of a birth certificate or for those who don't have birth certificates to pay for documentation that is sufficient to get an ID then I would be OK with that. Another economic barrier is having to take time off work or pay to travel to where they can get an official ID. But I have yet to hear of a voter ID law that also addresses the potential economic barriers.

Another problem I've heard of is that some states restrict the forms of ID that are allowable. I believe it was South Dakota that stopped accepting tribal membership cards that had been sufficient for many years. They forced native Americans to get IDs which required a street address including street number when they often do not use such methods for addresses on tribal lands.

I do agree that this is a small subset of people, but until their problems are addressed I see voter ID laws mainly as efforts to prevent certain people from being able to vote rather than preventing fraud.
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Sorry, but that "economic barrier" argument is a crock. Most adults in this country have some kind of ID because it is necessary in the daily scheme of things. If a potential voter can take time off and travel to VOTE, then why not to obtain the necessary ID to do so?
 
C'est Moi said:
Sorry, but that "economic barrier" argument is a crock. Most adults in this country have some kind of ID because it is necessary in the daily scheme of things. If a potential voter can take time off and travel to VOTE, then why not to obtain the necessary ID to do so?
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Because some folks have no way to travel, i.e., elders who have no car, or are ill, etc., people who live on tribal lands who have no easy access to get a state issued ID. And some folks cannot afford to pay the fee for a state issued ID. And then you have the homeless, who have no fixed place of residence and can't get a state issued ID for that reason. Being homeless or poor or ill does not negate your right to register to vote and to vote.

You may think it's a crock, but having to present state issued ID IS a problem for some folks. Once a person has legally registered to vote, no ID should be required at the polling place. The poll workers can check on their documents that you are a registered voter and whether or not you have already voted. IMO requiring a valid state-issued ID at the polls is just a way to prevent the under privileged from voting and is a thinly veiled poll tax.
 
Butterfly said:
Because some folks have no way to travel, i.e., elders who have no car, or are ill, etc., people who live on tribal lands who have no easy access to get a state issued ID. And some folks cannot afford to pay the fee for a state issued ID. And then you have the homeless, who have no fixed place of residence and can't get a state issued ID for that reason. Being homeless or poor or ill does not negate your right to register to vote and to vote.

You may think it's a crock, but having to present state issued ID IS a problem for some folks. Once a person has legally registered to vote, no ID should be required at the polling place. The poll workers can check on their documents that you are a registered voter and whether or not you have already voted. IMO requiring a valid state-issued ID at the polls is just a way to prevent the under privileged from voting and is a thinly veiled poll tax.
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How does one "legally register to vote" with no ID?
 
C'est Moi said:
Sorry, but that "economic barrier" argument is a crock. Most adults in this country have some kind of ID because it is necessary in the daily scheme of things. If a potential voter can take time off and travel to VOTE, then why not to obtain the necessary ID to do so?
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Voting shouldn't be easy for just most eligible voters, it should be easy for *ALL* eligible voters.

Once again I have no problem with voter ID laws as long as there are provisions and programs for low income and otherwise impacted individuals to get acceptable voter ID identification at low or no cost.
 
C'est Moi said:
How does one "legally register to vote" with no ID?
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There are a fair number of people who have been legally registered to vote for years who didn't need to provide any sort of special identification to do so. And many of them have been able vote without ID for many years before these voter ID laws were enacted.
 
You need an ID to purchase alcohol or cigarettes, open a bank account, apply for social security, apply for a job, apply for unemployment, drive a car, rent a hotel room, get married, buy a gun, apply for welfare or food stamps, get into a federal building, get married, and drive a car. But you shouldn't have to have one to vote? Gimme a break. That dog won't hunt.
 
Many states have online registration, which all states should enact. I agree that voting should be made as simple as possible. The voting part is fairly easy for most, but getting registered can be a challenge for some. I think the government used to allow you to register when you filed your income taxes, didn't they?

I have also noticed voter registrations being done at schools and other public spots in order to get people out to vote.
 
Butterfly said:
I haven't heard of anywhere mailing out mail-in ballots to anyone who wasn't already a registered voter and who has filled an application for an absentee ballot.
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I don't think people should have to show ID every time they want to vote. Register once with some ID or name, address & last 4 of SS, and you should be good to go. Mail in voting would solve that problem. The ballot comes right to the mailbox of registered voters.

Agree, @Butterfly, ballots are only sent to registered voters. Some states are moving toward sending them to all registered voters this fall due to the uncertainty of C-19's future trajectory.

From Yolo County, CA, this is typical of how mail in ballots are processed (from https://www.yoloelections.org/voting/how-vote-by-mail-ballots-are-counted):

Vote By Mail (VBM) ballots are counted in the same way as other ballots; only the advance processing is different.
When VBMs arrive in the Elections Office the signature on each envelope is checked to make sure that the person who signed the envelope is the same person who is registered. After the signatures are verified, the ballots (still in their envelopes) are sorted by precinct and stored until processing begins.
Ten business days before Election Day, we begin processing the VBMs. The ballots are removed from their envelopes and placed in precinct-specific bags ready for scanning.
The first vote counts that are announced on election night are the VBM ballots that were processed and scanned the week before Election Day.
VBMs returned to polling places are not included in the election night results because they must processed before they can be scanned and counted. Before we process these ballots, we first verify that the voters who submitted them did not also vote at a polling place in Yolo County.
These votes are tallied and the totals reported when everything has been checked. This process is usually finished several weeks after the election.
 
I think more people are likely to vote with a mail-in vote. Too many people have been staying home on election day.
 
asp3 said:
There are a fair number of people who have been legally registered to vote for years who didn't need to provide any sort of special identification to do so. And many of them have been able vote without ID for many years before these voter ID laws were enacted.
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So to get a voter registration no ID required??? That doesn't even make any sense. No wonder illegals and dead people can vote nowadays. Isn't anyone TIRED of voter fraud?
 
C'est Moi said:
So to get a voter registration no ID required??? That doesn't even make any sense. No wonder illegals and dead people can vote nowadays. Isn't anyone TIRED of voter fraud?
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There are multiple studies which show that the incidence of voter fraud is very low. I don't have any links to them but if you search you can probably find them.

If you have any links to credible reports of people not eligible to vote doing so I'd be willing to look into those. The one I know of that was prosecuted was a felon who incorrectly thought she was allowed to vote.

Removing dead people from the registration has always been an issue. That seems to be something that needs to be handled by the registrar of voters. However I do agree that anyone using a dead person's ballot should be charged and tried of voter fraud.

What I am tired of is voter suppression. It has many forms. For example some areas close a lot of polling places in low income areas so that they have many more voters to process than other areas which causes long lines and long waits to vote. There are also the ones where students who are eligible to vote are given incorrect information on how or where they are supposed to vote. Along the same lines of the closing of polling places are the ones where polling places are moved to areas not served by public transit making it difficult for people without personal transportation to vote. Another is having the voter registration exactly match what is on file for their ID (which is usually a driver's license) even if the voter registration is wrong due to incorrect entry with no option to have a provisional ballot until the difference can be cleared up. These have been well documented and although I don't have the links now I'd be willing to find them so that you could check them out yourself.
 
asp3 said:
...What I am tired of is voter suppression. It has many forms. For example some areas close a lot of polling places in low income areas so that they have many more voters to process than other areas which causes long lines and long waits to vote. There are also the ones where students who are eligible to vote are given incorrect information on how or where they are supposed to vote. Along the same lines of the closing of polling places are the ones where polling places are moved to areas not served by public transit making it difficult for people without personal transportation to vote. Another is having the voter registration exactly match what is on file for their ID (which is usually a driver's license) even if the voter registration is wrong due to incorrect entry with no option to have a provisional ballot until the difference can be cleared up. These have been well documented and although I don't have the links now I'd be willing to find them so that you could check them out yourself.
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Voter suppression is a misnomer; every American (with only a few exceptions) has the right to vote. Stand in line? Boo-hoo, I've stood in line many times to exercise my right to vote. People who are physically unable to stand in line get special consideration by poll workers so that they don't have to.

If students can't figure out how and where to vote, they have no business voting in the first place.
 
In most state anyone over 65 is qualified for a mail-in ballot. No other reason needed.

Covid 19 cases keep increasing across the country. Do nothing and watch the numbers grow. Maybe we could hit a million dead by the end of the year. Don't worry, that's mostly elder folks....oops, that's us isn't it?
 

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