[Tfug] A really, really interesting job opportunity...

[keith smith]

Ok, so people who can't get their act together, or have checked out of society, are the reason we want to forgo requiring an ID at the polls?

Your response is interesting.  Basically what it says is Dems are less prepared and therefore want less accountability. 

Why stop there?  Drivers are probably impacted in much the same way.  Poor, ethic, and young are adversely effected by traffic laws.  

To say that someone that cannot get an ID card should vote does not work.  It says we are not requiring personal responsibility.

Not being ready has consequences at every level.  So should not being ready when you go to the booth.  If you really want to vote get your act together.

I vote and it is important to me.  My wife and I prepare.  We do research on who and what is on the ballet.  We have our ID (required for driving) and our voter registration with us and we check that we are ready before we leave home.

When we moved from Tucson to Chandler one of the things we did was fill out the paperwork so we were registered in Maricopa County.  

This stuff is not rocket science.  It just takes a little effort.

We need to get back to a place where people are held responsible for their actions.  You want to drive a car - get a drivers license and insurance and act responsibly.  

Want a job, act responsibly and take responsibility or be unemployed.  

Want to vote, get an ID and get your voter registration taken care of in advance.  If someone is not able to take responsibility then they need to suffer the consequences.  

------------------------

Keith Smith

--- On Tue, 4/17/12, Jim March <1.jim.march at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Jim March <1.jim.march at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Tfug] A really, really interesting job opportunity...
To: "Tucson Free Unix Group" <tfug at tfug.org>
Date: Tuesday, April 17, 2012, 9:05 AM

Quoting Ken Smith:

>>Let's stay on track.  Please educate me on how requiring an ID at the polls adversely effects anyone.<<

I'll be honest, I'm torn on this issue and don't really know which side to support.  Here are the arguments from each side, as they would be stated by somebody honestly believing what they're saying.


DEMOCRATIC PARTY POV:

Lower income and minority people are more likely to not have their paperwork in order.  Simple as that.  Elderly voters are another factor, and women are less likely to have paperwork in order because they usually change their names after getting married.  Another block of voters affected is students who move into the state to go to school and based on court rulings are allowed to vote here...but due to the recent move, they may not have their paperwork locked down tight at the time of voting.


If it's not obvious yet: the female, student and minority voting blocks all tend to lean Democratic.  So any suppression of that vote, to even a small degree (5%?) can be enough to swing elections in a Republican direction.


Here in Pima County the issue is particularly severe out on the Tohono O'Odham and Pascua Yaqui nations, where some of the older folks *never* got their paperwork 100% straight as they tried as hard as they could to have more or less nothing to do with white culture.  For understandable reasons...fr'instance, the last organized hunt for stray Apaches happened in the 1930s close to Tucson (and the Tohono O'Ohdam helped hunt the Apaches in one version of the story I've heard).


So, from this point of view, every time you tighten "voter ID" laws you're suppressing the Dem vote more than the GOP.

REPUBLICAN POV:

There really is some level of "voter fraud" going on.  To what degree is unclear.


Part of what's muddying the waters is the trend to do paid voter registration drives among minority, student and lower-income voting blocks.  Groups like Acorn and various Unions pay bounties to people to get new Democrats signed up.  They're supposed to go out and get new signatures from real new voters (or convince people to switch parties) for between $5 and $8 q head, typically.  Inevitably, some of those signature gatherers get greedy and start creating new voter reg forms with either made-up names or pick names and addresses out of a phone book...just to get paid.


Proof of this sort of thing turns up all the time.  It really happens, for some value of "a lot".  The question is, is there a second step?  Does somebody connected with Acorn or the like actually know who the new fake voters are so they can actually vote their ballots?  THAT is a lot harder to define.  To some extent, yeah, it happens.  I have no idea how often.


The other question is, are individuals doing vote fraud?  Illegal aliens signing up to vote, citizens voting multiple times (in one jurisdiction or multiple)?  Again: yeah, it does happen.  I just don't know the amount of it and neither does anybody else.


JIM'S POV:

Look...what we have here is claims of "retail voter fraud" balanced by claims that trying to eliminate it acts as an overall vote suppression factor.

Here's what I know: to successfully rig an election with "retail vote fraud" requires a large number of attackers acting in concert.  To successfully rig an election by rigging the central tabulator requires an attack team size as low as TWO.  Sometimes just one.  You rig the MS-Access database or the like at the central tabulator.  If you're really doing it right, you also take the .PS or .PDF ballot definition files off the same box, take them to your garage at home or wherever else you've stashed a good modern $5000+ laser printer that can print new blank ballots and you literally create fake ballots to match the electronic vote rigging you did.  And then do a paper swap.  Your attack team size is still very small.


That's what I focus my attention on, as I think it's the more dangerous possibility.  This has me allied with Dems more often than Repubs, despite that whole "I don't leave home without a 357" thing :).


Sigh.

Jim


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