Voting ID, the problems it purports to solve, and the problems it might create

Malor wrote:
Sen. Franken won by a few hundred votes, less votes than the last number of convicted and pending trial fraudulent vote counts that I posted.

Right. And if you implement an ID system, then you would turn away thousands of legitimate votes. So that election would have been decided by not counting valid votes you don't like.

How is getting rid of tens or hundreds of bad votes worth losing thousands of good ones?

The Republicans just don't want "people like that" voting.

Also note, and you keep constantly ignoring this: THESE LAWS WOULD NOT HAVE STOPPED BAD VOTES. They would have probably gotten a small percentage, because some of the bad voters wouldn't have had ID. But most of them would be able to produce ID, because being eligible to have ID is NOT THE SAME AS BEING ELIGIBLE TO VOTE.

Again: having an ID is not the same as voting eligibility. They are different things.

At this point, rosenhane, if you keep arguing for voter ID, then I can only presume that you really do want to stop poor and black people from voting. And you're just engaging in cognitive dissonance to ignore all facts involved. If you still support voter ID, knowing what you know, then you are deliberately trying to stack the deck in favor of the party you prefer, by trying to shut legitimate voters out of the polls.

This. Completely. There has never to my knowledge been a study that we have had a fraud problem that voter ID would solve. It's a statistically insignificant drop in the voting bucket. There is absolutely no question that the voter ID push is about keeping people on the margins of society from voting. In a democracy, you ask your citizens to vote. Not just the ones capable of taking the time to get an ID. I would take Phoenix Rev's grandmother as a prior example; she never needed an ID, so she doesn't get to vote? How does that make sense?

Besides, if I'm worried about voter fraud, I'm far more concerned with the capacity of electronic voting systems to be manipulated than whether or not some marginal fraction of a percent of voters might conceivably be non-citizens.

KingGorilla wrote:

Hey, I found some fun pictures:

At least one error is obvious to me. Pennsylvania is displayed as requiring photo ID. It does... as of the upcoming election in November. It did not in 2010.

Oh, thought that had a header, guess that was a seperate pic. The Map of states and ID laws is from 2012.

2010 was just the most recent national election.

Correlation does not mean causation.

mudbunny wrote:

Correlation does not mean causation.

No but it does mean correlation and that's still worth discussing.

SixteenBlue wrote:
mudbunny wrote:

Correlation does not mean causation.

No but it does mean correlation and that's still worth discussing.

There are 4 different things it _doesn't_ account for. They are, in order of relevence:

Change in voter turnout before and after ID laws.
Average travel distance to polling place (Which is why Nebraska's turnout is so low, incidentally, they're working on it.)
Fraud levels (Ideally before and after)
Median income of voters before and after would also be interesting.

Outside of that, we have no point of comparison. I can say with some measure of certainty that voter turnouts in different states are quite different... and that says almost nothing, outside of the fact that, shockingly, factors around voting are different in different states.

It does, and I apologize if I came across as implying that it isn't worth discussing.

Voter ID laws are not, in isolation, disenfranchising. As I mentioned previously, Canada has them, and our voting numbers are very similar to those in the US. The problem comes about in the implementation of those laws. Too short lead time, extremely narrow range if IDs they are non-trivial to obtain by the poor or disabled, etc.

mudbunny wrote:

It does, and I apologize if I came across as implying that it isn't worth discussing.

Voter ID laws are not, in isolation, disenfranchising. As I mentioned previously, Canada has them, and our voting numbers are very similar to those in the US. The problem comes about in the implementation of those laws. Too short lead time, extremely narrow range if IDs they are non-trivial to obtain by the poor or disabled, etc.

Just to clarify something with regards to the Canadian ID law. From what I can tell, it's virtually identical to the ID law in Minnesota which is labelled on the map that KingGorilla posted as "no ID law". That's how different it is from the ID laws we're talking about.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
mudbunny wrote:

It does, and I apologize if I came across as implying that it isn't worth discussing.

Voter ID laws are not, in isolation, disenfranchising. As I mentioned previously, Canada has them, and our voting numbers are very similar to those in the US. The problem comes about in the implementation of those laws. Too short lead time, extremely narrow range if IDs they are non-trivial to obtain by the poor or disabled, etc.

Just to clarify something with regards to the Canadian ID law. From what I can tell, it's virtually identical to the ID law in Minnesota which is labelled on the map that KingGorilla posted as "no ID law". That's how different it is from the ID laws we're talking about.

From my understanding the law is to be on the November ballot, and is not in fact presently ratified.

The data is interesting. Stricter ID laws do not seem to really chill out voters. On the same note the kind of "fraud" that the photo ID laws intend to prevent is exceedingly rare. You can count the convictions for voting under a false ID on 2 hands. And what does happen is that the voting process comes at a greater cost to taxpayers as more people, more technology is needed to vote. But it fails to assault the deeper and more pervasive issue of buying voters, selling ballots, misinformation or disinformation campaigns to steer people away from the polls.

I would think that people opposed to ID laws would spend time better targetting lobbyists, PACs, and Super PACs that launched mailer campaigns, phone campaigns, even misrepresented themselves as involved with the polls to tell people the wrong date to vote, getting people to the wrong precinct, etc.

What we suffer from in the US is that we have too many damned elections. Many cities, counties will have ballots in the spring. We have primaries in the spring. We have federal elections every 2 years, with mid terms getting perhaps half of the turnout as a presidential election. A presidential turnout is 80-90 percent typically, that is damn good. 50 percent ius huge for any other election. Major changes to local and state law can be called up in spring, or fall, or special election. In certain years, polls will be open 4-5 times a year.

Here is where I come down. We all have a SSN, this is good enough for me to file my taxes with an E-signature. Why can we not get e-voting? I do not think people would argue that the IRS works admirably under those circumstances, fielding hundreds of millions of filings.

KingGorilla wrote:
iaintgotnopants wrote:
mudbunny wrote:

It does, and I apologize if I came across as implying that it isn't worth discussing.

Voter ID laws are not, in isolation, disenfranchising. As I mentioned previously, Canada has them, and our voting numbers are very similar to those in the US. The problem comes about in the implementation of those laws. Too short lead time, extremely narrow range if IDs they are non-trivial to obtain by the poor or disabled, etc.

Just to clarify something with regards to the Canadian ID law. From what I can tell, it's virtually identical to the ID law in Minnesota which is labelled on the map that KingGorilla posted as "no ID law". That's how different it is from the ID laws we're talking about.

From my understanding the law is to be on the November ballot, and is not in fact presently ratified.

I was referring to the law as it currently is. This post is almost exactly what the current law is.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
KingGorilla wrote:
iaintgotnopants wrote:
mudbunny wrote:

It does, and I apologize if I came across as implying that it isn't worth discussing.

Voter ID laws are not, in isolation, disenfranchising. As I mentioned previously, Canada has them, and our voting numbers are very similar to those in the US. The problem comes about in the implementation of those laws. Too short lead time, extremely narrow range if IDs they are non-trivial to obtain by the poor or disabled, etc.

Just to clarify something with regards to the Canadian ID law. From what I can tell, it's virtually identical to the ID law in Minnesota which is labelled on the map that KingGorilla posted as "no ID law". That's how different it is from the ID laws we're talking about.

From my understanding the law is to be on the November ballot, and is not in fact presently ratified.

I was referring to the law as it currently is. This post is almost exactly what the current law is.

The main difference seems to be I believe you can vouch for as many people as you want in Minnesota , the main difference is that in MN a single person is not limited by the number of people they can vouch for, and that fact is why it is listed as No ID, because the person being vouched for need never present an ID. As long as I'm willing to swear that you live in the district you get to vote; as long as you swear that I live in your district, I get to vote there.

So now you're down to "well, because you can come up with weird exploits to get around the law, that means the law isn't important"?

Is that really the best you can do?

I really don't think you're arguing in good faith anymore. I think you really do want to suppress valid votes.

Malor wrote:

So now you're down to "well, because you can come up with weird exploits to get around the law, that means the law isn't important"?

Is that really the best you can do?

I really don't think you're arguing in good faith anymore. I think you really do want to suppress valid votes.

What sort of weird exploits do you mean? Like robo calling people and telling them to vote on Wednesday? or maybe directing them to the wrong place to vote? How about telling them that they can't vote in the recall election because they didn't vote the first time?
How about bribing homeless people with cigarettes to vote for their guy? Or blatant violation of minimum propaganda distance from a polling station, or voter intimidation?
Going in and fudging a couple of votes is nothing relatively speaking to those violations that are much more likely to get you caught. Those examples are almost all from allegations in the last couple of years.
I happen to take the decision about which way the country is going to go very seriously, I also support reforms of the way the votes are counted. Both should be subject to verification to make sure the count is both accurate and fair.

rosenhane wrote:

I happen to take the decision about which way the country is going to go very seriously

Well that's convenient that you take your vote so seriously because I and most of the people I know just vote for whoever gives us the most packs of smokes.

Seriously though, are you trying to imply others don't take their vote as seriously as you? It might just be because I'm posting late at night and It's past my bedtime, but that's how your post comes across to me, at least.

I take my vote seriously enough that I don't want to even risk others losing theirs over some concocted paranoia. Just sayin'.

Also: not fixable by requiring picture ID to vote.

rosenhane wrote:

Those examples are almost all from allegations in the last couple of years.

This is a significant flaw in the argument you're putting forward.

In completely unrelated news, some people say Malor dresses hobos up in suits and persuades them to run for office in an attempt to undermine the government.

Spoiler:

Intended as a gently humorous way to point out: citations needed, and something more substantial than allegations will help your case, as will problems which would be prevented by more stringent voter ID laws.

Great point, Stengah. Amended my post.

In completely unrelated news, some people say Malor dresses hobos up in suits and persuades them to run for office in an attempt to undermine the government.

Hey, they're perfectly good suits, and I think they're just as qualified as many of our serving representatives.

IMAGE(http://drmcninja.com/mcninja-images/rb-campaignprint-lg.jpg)

Lucky Wilbury wrote:
rosenhane wrote:

I happen to take the decision about which way the country is going to go very seriously

Well that's convenient that you take your vote so seriously because I and most of the people I know just vote for whoever gives us the most packs of smokes.

Seriously though, are you trying to imply others don't take their vote as seriously as you? It might just be because I'm posting late at night and It's past my bedtime, but that's how your post comes across to me, at least.

Yes, some people don't take their vote as seriously as I do, I'm willing to bet I vote more often than most people. I missed one election in the last decade and that was simply because it was a local election, I had just moved into town and knew nothing about any of the candidates.

PoliticsPA wrote:

“We are focused on making sure that we meet our obligations that we’ve talked about for years,” said Turzai in a speech to committee members Saturday. He mentioned the law among a laundry list of accomplishments made by the GOP-run legislature.

“Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it’s done. First pro-life legislation – abortion facility regulations – in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”

Hypatian wrote:
PoliticsPA wrote:

“We are focused on making sure that we meet our obligations that we’ve talked about for years,” said Turzai in a speech to committee members Saturday. He mentioned the law among a laundry list of accomplishments made by the GOP-run legislature.

“Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it’s done. First pro-life legislation – abortion facility regulations – in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”

So basically another Royal Masset moment.

Royal Masset, the former political director of the Republican Party of Texas[/url]]requiring photo IDs could cause enough of a dropoff in legitimate Democratic voting to add 3 percent to the Republican vote

Edit to add: I don't think it's a coincidence that Eric Holder, who has been quite good on Voter ID (regardless of what you think of his tenure at DoJ generally), is being raked over the coals right now for the Bush-sponsored "Fast and Furious" program. If the GOP can force him out, not only does Obama have to spend political capital on another nomination fight, but the Department of Justice is far more likely to be idle or ineffective in preventing the voter disenfranchisement that many of these laws seem intended to bring about.

Well a bit back Dimmer, I showed some maps. States with strict, moderate, or no ID laws did not seem to show a significant changes in voter turnout. In much the same way strictness of gun laws does not seem to show any significant correlation to gun related crime.

My concern is that these laws do nothing to attack the fraud that can truely taint an election-buying votes, selling votes, disinformation campaigns. Each election we have concentrated phone, mail, web campaigns lying to voters about the day or time polls open to cause ignorant or poorly educated voters to miss out on voting. Common ones are false campaigns telling people their poll location is moved, or the election date is moved. In my opinion, this is the REAL fraud we should be concerned with. People voting under a fake ID is so rare as to be nonexistant.

It seems to me that rather than fighting a largely pointless law, the focus should be on getting the correct information out to the public.

Uh. I'm afraid those maps didn't show anything of the sort. You may recall I said something when you posted them.

First: It showed 2012 voter laws and 2010 voter turnouts, as I recall. The turnouts displayed on the turnout map were from before recent changes in law which were represented on the law map.

Second: Even without that problem, it had no information about how the voting laws or the voter turnouts had changed compared to other years. You can't just compare different states within the same year, you need to compare the same states across different years.

Those two problems were the ones I remarked on at the time, and either of them alone makes the maps useless to support any argument at all. But there are more problems.

Third: Even if it did show an apparent relationship, it would be indicative of correlation but not necessarily causality. (i.e. Even if it showed states the implemented voter ID laws having decreased voter turnout after the law changed, that would not be sufficient evidence to support the notion of myself and others that voter ID laws suppress the vote. It would be enough evidence to suggest that further investigation was absolutely necessary, however.)

Fourth: Even if the voter ID laws have a chilling effect on voting in certain segments of the population, I would not expect that to be visible in the voter turnout counts for the population as a whole. The assertion is not that voter ID laws make everybody less likely to vote. The assertion is that it makes it more difficult for certain segments of the population to vote, discouraging those segments more than others and suppressing their vote. The turnout could double and that could be happening at the same time.

KingGorilla wrote:

Well a bit back Dimmer, I showed some maps. States with strict, moderate, or no ID laws did not seem to show a significant changes in voter turnout. In much the same way strictness of gun laws does not seem to show any significant correlation to gun related crime.

My concern is that these laws do nothing to attack the fraud that can truely taint an election-buying votes, selling votes, disinformation campaigns. Each election we have concentrated phone, mail, web campaigns lying to voters about the day or time polls open to cause ignorant or poorly educated voters to miss out on voting. Common ones are false campaigns telling people their poll location is moved, or the election date is moved. In my opinion, this is the REAL fraud we should be concerned with. People voting under a fake ID is so rare as to be nonexistant.

It seems to me that rather than fighting a largely pointless law, the focus should be on getting the correct information out to the public.

I agree that voter ID laws do nothing to solve a statistically-nonexistent problem, while requiring additional expenditures to do so, and simultaneously ignoring a larger threat to the accuracy and transparency of our elections - in fact, I've been making variations of this argument for some time.

The same wikipedia article your voter ID laws map was from included the following passage:

A commonly cited study by New York University's Brennan Center claimed that 11% of the United States population is of voter age, but lacks government-issued photo IDs.[24] A paper in the Harvard Law and Policy Review, “ID at the Polls: Assessing the Impact of Recent State Voter ID Laws on Voter Turnout”(PDF), compares changes in voter turnout between 2002 and 2006 as related to three voting requirement categories – photo ID needed, non-photo ID needed and no identification needed. Key study findings include: 1). “Non-photo ID laws [are] associated with a 2.2% point decline in turnout, and photo ID laws are correlated with a 1.6% point decline.” In a related analysis, the author found a 1.1% decline in turnout in states with strengthened photo ID laws between 2002 and 2006.

Emphasis added.

(It's also probably worth noting that voter turnout for Presidential elections in the US hasn't been north of 80% since 1876).

Pennsylvania Voter-ID Law Could Disenfranchise Up To 750,000

The impact of Pennsylvania’s new Voter-ID law could be much wider-reaching than the state’s Republican officials claimed when passing the bill, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

In fact, over 758,000 registered voters in Pennsylvania — representing 9.2 percent of the state’s 8.2 million registered voters — do not have photo identification cards from the state Transportation Department, based on a comparison between voter registration rolls and the Transportation Department database.

I have two questions for those who support Voter ID laws:

1) Do you believe that Voter ID laws will cause some legitimate US voters to not be able to vote due to not having an ID?

2) What is the acceptable ratio of prevented fraud votes to legitimate voters unable to vote due to not having an ID that is acceptable to you? Is preventing 1 legitimate voter from voting acceptable if it prevents 100 fraud votes? If it prevents 10 fraud votes? If it prevents 1 fraud vote? If it takes the loss of 10 legitimate voters to prevent 1 fraud vote?

But what I am seeing, writ large is a drop of as much as 60 percent comparing Mid Term and Presidential elections in many states, and as much as 90 percent when it is a separate local election. And then we have the appalling turnout in primary elections.

If your goal is turnout, not having so many elections at so many other times, or allowing for online voting seems to tackle the concerns more than Voter ID does.

It seems to me that essentially hiding elections should be higher on the totem poll.

edit: I misread your first sentence, and thought you were asking people who DIDN'T support Voter ID laws, instead of people who DID. I'll leave this reply up, but you weren't actually asking me. Sorry!

1) Do you believe that Voter ID laws will cause some legitimate US voters to not be able to vote due to not having an ID?

Yes. This is absolutely guaranteed to happen.

2) What is the acceptable ratio of prevented fraud votes to legitimate voters unable to vote due to not having an ID that is acceptable to you? Is preventing 1 legitimate voter from voting acceptable if it prevents 100 fraud votes? If it prevents 10 fraud votes? If it prevents 1 fraud vote? If it takes the loss of 10 legitimate voters to prevent 1 fraud vote?

A rejected good vote is exactly equivalent to an accepted bad one. So, if you prevent even 1.000000000001 good votes for every bad vote you stop, then the idea should be scrapped.

Since the number of bad votes being cast is so vanishingly small, there's no demonstrated need for changes in ID laws surrounding voting at all.

The best way to think about it, though, isn't in terms of absolute numbers of good versus bad votes, but in terms of error rates. If the error rate in your counting procedure is, say, 0.1%, then worrying about voter fraud is pretty stupid, since your counting problem is a couple of orders of magnitude larger.