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Originally Posted by dinopoker
No, but before you pass a bunch of measures that target your opponents' supporters you should be able to provide at least a couple of examples of occasions where it's actually happened. So far, of all the people who have voted in the past elections, literally hundreds of millions of people, provable fraud has happened in like 0.007% of cases.
In other words, "No, but yes".
My point was that even if there's no evidence that significant voter fraud exists, the fact that it might be happening undetected or could happen in the future is a reason to take measures against it, much like how you don't plan for terrorist attacks solely on what attacks have already happened. That's not to say that those measures couldn't go too far (and we could argue that the current legislations have), but it's a debate worth having. Giving zero weighting to any circumstance we don't have evidence of happening doesn't make for smart cost-benefit analysis.
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Illegal immigrants can get ID if they want it. Hell, all you have to do is go to a liberal state such as New Mexico and presto, driver's license. Somehow that hasn't opened the floodgates for illegals to start voting, though.
The scenario in which widespread voter fraud might occur would probably involve a level of organisation that currently does not exist. Perhaps a future politician will be corrupt enough to orchestrate an extensive voter fraud in order to be elected. We could relying on prosecuting him after the fact, but prevention has a number of advantages.
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What about the idea that the burden of proof should be on a naysayer to prove that someone isn't eligible to vote, rather than on the person to prove that they are? Why is that such a horrible idea in the land of the free?
Because it's much easier for people to get ID than it is for polling operators to do background checks on everybody.
Imagine applying the same logic to alcohol sales. How would you ever "prove" someone was underage? Hire a private investigator to hunt down their birth certificate?
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It should be the easiest thing to do in the country. Otherwise how can you truly call it a democracy?
How easy? Should there be fifty polling locations on every block? Should voters be granted courtesy limousine rides to the polls? Should every voter be paid $1,000 compensation for their time?
No matter what you do, some voters are going to be naturally "disenfranchised". If you don't support the above proposals, you implicitly accept that there are trade-offs between ease of voting and other factors. Again, this doesn't mean that the trade-off implied by Voter ID legislation is fair, just that we should at least recognise the nature of the trade-off.
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LOL at the notion of Republicans doing anything for reasons other than strategic.
Unlike Democrats, who are pure of heart?
I don't believe for a minute that Democratic politicians opposing these bills have no partisan considerations in mind. They might still oppose them if there was no net partisan impact, but I'm quite sure their level of opposition is significantly enhanced by their selfish interests. (It's the same but vice versa for Republicans).
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Yet that is the direct result of the policies. What are we supposed to think?
That we evaluate policies by looking at more than some of the costs and consider whether there be situations where the benefits exceed the costs, even if they don't in these particular cases.