This year, the elections results in Ohio won't be controversial or end up in court like they did in 2004- not with secure programs like this in place!
UPDATE: Lest you think I was overreacting to the shenanigans in Ohio, watch this video and tell me that if the election is close, it won't wind up in the Supreme Court again.
8 comments:
Got any thoughts about this "non-partisan" (cough cough) Get-Out-The-Vote activities Joel?
Well, here's what CNN's Dobbs thinks.
Homeless citizens shouldn't be allowed to vote?
People who can't prove identity, citizenship, or residency shouldn't be allowed to vote, no. Every other state in the union has a waiting period to allow time to verify the registration and establish residency... what's to prevent someone from wandering from shelter to shelter, town to town, voting at each place with the no-background-check-instant-register-and-vote system?
"Every other state in the union has a waiting period to allow time to verify the registration and establish residency"
I'm pretty sure that there are a number of states that have same day registration and voting.
Theoretical--philosophical--question here; is it more important to protect every citizen's right to vote, or to ensure that no one who shouldn't vote votes? Which will you accept some sacrifice of to ensure the other?
I'm not suggesting that there's no risk. I'm suggesting that given homelessness data and such, the evidence strongly suggests that disenfranchisement is a significantly larger problem than gangs of homeless voters roaming from place to place voting repeatedly. In a democracy, the ideal is that every citizen votes.
Restrictions should thus be limited to those that are necessary--and which demonstrably do more good than harm. We KNOW that there are huge numbers of homeless citizens. We know that a staggering percentage of them are veterans.
Simply because they've lost their homes, we should refuse to allow them to vote? How is that appreciably different from things like requiring a certain level of property to have the franchise?
I'm not arguing that non-citizens should have the right to vote. But we accept all kinds of proof in all sorts of settings. How are you suggesting people PROVE citizenship? I've registered repeatedly to vote, and the form has asked me to affirm/swear that I'm a citizen, but no one has ever asked for proof.
The vague fear that hordes of non-citizens are voting is... well... fearful. Hell, we can't even get a lot of citizens to vote...
Ogre, no one is afraid of "gangs of homeless voters roaming from place to place voting repeatedly." What they are afraid of- with some justification, as people have been convicted of doing this in the past- is party hacks rounding up busloads of homeless with bribes of cash, booze, cigarettes, and driving them from polling place to polling place to vote repeatedly. That IS a real risk.
"How are you suggesting people PROVE citizenship?" Well, for the staggering percentage of them that are veterans, it's pretty easy; there are records, you know. Provided there's time to check them, of course.
"Simply because they've lost their homes, we should refuse to allow them to vote?" Homeless shelters are valid addresses from which to vote. But without a waiting period, what's to prevent jane Doe from registering at multiple sites? You can't run a computer crossreferrence without time to enter them into the system.
"How is that appreciably different from things like requiring a certain level of property to have the franchise?" Ummm, renters, adult children living at home, houseguests- AND people living in shelters are all non-property owners allowed to vote; what's wrong with residency requirements? Should voting be open to any human being who wanders in without question?
Let's put it this way: if this election is as close as the last few, do you want videos of community organizers running busloads of drunk homeless voters into the polls setting off an orgy of lawsuits like Al Gore started? Do you want us going through that whole thing- and worse- AGAIN?
Somehow... I doubt that there are many examples of busloads of drunk people being delivered to vote... again and again. And those videos would provide sufficient evidence for some nifty felony convictions... and yes, challenges to certain vote tallies.
Some? Sure.
Just like I think there are a number of (far easier) hacks of the voting systems....
But the question is, really--which is a larger problem? All those homeless vets and others who are real, and who are almost certainly nearly all citizens, who aren't allowed to vote because... well, they don't have fixed residences (anymore). With the evidence right now of teams whose job it is to use foreclosures to deprive people of their vote--because they aren't residents there, anymore (not that they're residents of some place else), I think that problem looks larger.
Right now, you could show up with a valid driver's license and even a passport--and be refused the right to vote because while you were a US citizen AND a citizen of the state... you were foreclosed on and became homeless.
The obscenity of using the economic meltdown to deprive people of their vote is staggering. Particularly when we (by law) grant homeless kids the RIGHT to remain in the school they were in/would be in were they still living in their former home. Your kids can go to school there--and you can't vote in that location. That's warped.
"Right now, you could show up with a valid driver's license and even a passport--and be refused the right to vote because while you were a US citizen AND a citizen of the state... you were foreclosed on and became homeless."
Nonesense. Utter rubbish. Unless they committed suicide when foreclosed, they're still living SOMEWHERE... and Ohio accepts your friends or parents basements, and homeless shelters as a residence. Evidently, Ohio no longer has a length-of-residence rule, either, judging by the same-day-voting.
Even states that have length-of-residency rules like mine, you can still vote (live or absentee) in your prior home precinct if you moved after the cut-off date, (There are forms and afidavits for each situation) as long as you were still in Indiana. The only way you could be disenfranchised is if you moved BEFORE the cut-off date and didn't change your registration... which would be YOUR fault.
"The obscenity of using the economic meltdown to deprive people of their vote is staggering."
No, the obscenity is making the claim. If you moved- for whatever reason, forclosed or not- and didn't change your registration, you couldn't vote- that has been the case for centuries, through good times and bad, and doesn't have a damned thing to do with the economic meltdown. The only people deprived of the right to vote are those who don't care enough to make the effort.
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