for voter fraud.
Instead of investigating Russian corruption of our election, Twitler doubled down on the lie that half of America’s undocumented voted for Clinton causing him to LOSE the popular vote to a WOMAN !!!!!!!
So, the idiot wants to purge the voter rolls of immigrants, the dead AND his daughter, Tiffany, who is double registered in NY and PA. His Treasury Secretary nominee Mnuchin is double registered in NY and FL.
” Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.” MARK TWAIN
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Please share widely!
The fact that people are registered in two different states is not a big deal. Making it a big deal even to show GOP hypocrisy will only move us closer to giving them an excuse to purge voter rolls and make it HARDER for people to vote.
It is OK for people to still be registered at old addresses. We should be erring on the side of including people, not stopping them from voting.
It should not be OK if they are voting in more than one place — but there’s no evidence that this happens in any appreciable amount. It does not scale! It’s hard enough to get people to vote once!
…that registering in one place cancelled previous registrations. Seems to me in this information age it would be easy for every jurisdiction’s voter information be linked so when they put a name into the system, with SSN or other unique indentifier a message would appear saying, “This individual is already registered at… Would you like to replace this existing registration with a new one?” Click yes and problem solved.
Typically if you move within a state, they cancel your previous registration, but if you move states, your new state has no ability to cancel your old registration.
…is that in 2016 it shouldn’t be that hard to get the databases of the several states to “talk” to each other.
Do you really want someone from Texas to have the ability to purge the Massachusetts voter rolls?
…just the ability to know if there’s a duplicate. If you are worried about someone in TX fraudulently registering MA residents there to take them off MA rolls then the safeguard would be for the original state to contact the voter to verify that he moved. The other option would be for the voter to do his own online registration and if he is previously registered have a message appear saying, “You appear to already be registered at… Are you sure you wish to change it?”
We do not require unique identifiers for voter registration. This is usually framed in terms of racism, suppression, etc. But it causes other problems as well. For example, you can declare a homestead declaration or residential property tax abatement on multiple homesources by registering in more than one place, especially in other states. Clerks cannot check other registrations and declarations because they cannot ‘talk’ to one another in the way you describe.
Really you can be registered in all 50 states provided you have an address there – it is only illegal to VOTE in more than one. It amused me that Fred is pushing this, because it applies to half the college kids at BU and Harvard, his next generation voters. And anecdotally (but plausibly) some of them vote absentee too. Some even brag about it.
Like we do for selective service. Seems like a great way to ensure everyone registered is a citizen voting in the right place and to automatically register every American without making them buy photo IDs or jump through hopes. It’s what Australia does with far higher participation rates.
It won’t happen, too many minorities will vote for the GOPs taste, and too many Bay Staters for Bill Galvin (who to his rare credit-is strongly challenging Trump on the fraud point).
National identifier, leading to dictatorship, privacy concerns about individual municipal databases, etc. I always assumed it was to facilitate things like dual student voting.
But, hey – if you would support it it would make lives easier for clerks and end property and excuse tax evasion by the rich. The most famous local example is Rose Kennedy dying in Florida where she hadn’t set foot in years while sitting on her poach in Hyannis port, but this is a common tax avoidance scheme.
But be prepared to be attacked for voter suppression for demanding a social security number.
The idea of a single national identification number was one of the more contentious aspects of the original social security program. BOTH parties shared that concern.
One of the promises made to resolve that conflict was that the then-new social security card would never be used for identification purposes. That’s why the card explicitly said “Not for identification” for most of its history.
My late parents, each born in 1924, repeatedly told me during my childhood in the 1950s and 1960s that there were several hallmarks of tyranny (they cited Hitler, Stalin, and
khrushchev) that every American should always resist regardless of politics:
– A national ID number or card
– National, rather than local, police
– Authorities being allowed to arbitrary demand “papers”
I am, frankly, not sure these concerns are far off the mark. My parents lived through WWII, I did not. I do know that such concerns were passionately offered by Republicans during the cold war.
In my opinion, each of us faces a FAR larger threat from the abuse by government authorities of the hypothetical national ID program than we face from the non-existent (except in the delusions of the current President and his minions) “issue” of voter fraud.
Opposition to a national identifier, leading to dictatorship, was a universal feeling shared by BOTH parties during most of the period since social security was created.
…ways a national ID would make life easier rather than scarier. You shouldn’t have to produce it on demand except for very specific activities which everyone knows what are, but we all have SSNs and the vast majority have driver’s licenses so I just can’t get worked up about it. The only thing we might need to be more vigilant about is fraud, identity theft, and the like.
I would be more inclined to agree with you before this administration, though I have concerns even there.
Regardless, my main point is that opposition to a national ID was not partisan.
… that is assumed unless a small class of restrictions is held. The default position is that citizens are voters.
Appropriate administration of voting is a RESPONSIBILITY of government that, in no way, should impinge, infringe or otherwise make any demands upon the voter.
The administration, by the government, does not — can not — supercede the entitlement of the franchise. That’s putting the cargo before the cart, before the horse…
…that if my government can find me to get me to register for the draft, it can find me to get me to register to vote. Or if you know where I live and that I turned 18, just register me, though the default would be unenrolled and if I wanted to choose a party that’s on me.
If
-It only applies to voting
-In exchange for national automatic voter registration
-Federalized standards for elections and election enforcement
-It’s totally free
Exactly
You are being unfair to Fred. He’s merely pointing out not only the hypocrisy of the Mirfak that all of these people in the White House our care registered all over the place, but specifically the fact that in trumps statements he himself called being registered in two or three states something terrible. It’s for critical on its face. That’s what Fred was pointing out, and it is unarguable..
not dual registration. I couldn’t agree more.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
It’s easy to say national voter ID is a compromise I’m willing to make when you are a middle-class person with the means to travel, to accumulate the necessary documentation, and to pay for such an ID. It’s completely unnecessary. Beyond the complete lack of necessity for this, it does real damage both to our democratic system in terms of voter suppression of minorities, the elderly, and students, and does real harm to individual people who can no longer vote.
I refuse to make the poor or elderly pay for an ID. The civil liberty argument about SSI numbers Tom brought up is rather quaint considering everything else that’s being tracked by Big Data.
I am saying you could devise a system that is fraud proof while using it as an opportunity to maximize voter participation. It’s calling their bluff.
You can’t both ‘call their bluff on such a bogus issue and simultaneously ” “refuse to make [them] pay”. They have to ‘pay’ as soon as you require it. They have to get somewhere. They have to find time when they’re living paycheck to paycheck. They have to feel confident enough to walk alone into an office and sound like they know what on earth they are supposed to say when maybe they are shy, or maybe they are mentally ill, or maybe they are intimidated. Or maybe they are illiterate.
It comes in the mail like a T card. This isn’t hard. If ACA can send me my health card in the mail so can an empowered nationalized election commission with a simple voter ID card. My wife just got her new Social Security card in the mail for free. Granted, if the issue is really fraud and access (which it isn’t) the GOP would already have proposed such a simple program.
I know they are doing this to restrict voters-hence call the bluff and get concessions like automatic registration and federal standards that make it easy to vote. An ID makes it harder only if it’s expensive and kafkaesque to require-as it is today.