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It’s odd and telling to me that you criticize the repeal of voter ID laws without actually mentioning why they were declared unconstitutional. They were repeale

It’s odd and telling to me that you criticize the repeal of voter ID laws without actually mentioning why they were declared unconstitutional. They were repealed after North Carolina Republicans were shown in court to have investigated the ways in which minorities voted, the types of ID’s they carried, and then issued laws with ‘surgical precision’ to affect said voters, then went on to brag about their effects on the ‘Obama coalition’. If you are having a hard time understanding why they were declared unconstitutional I’d encourage you to read the court decision that declared them so, it does a good job of laying out the steps North Carolina Republicans used to specifically target and disenfranchise minority voters.

plandis 9y ago
From the court decision [1]: > But, on the day after the Supreme Court issued Shelby County v. Holder, 133 S. Ct. 2612 (2013), eliminating preclearance obligations, a leader of the party that newly dominated the legislature (and the party that rarely enjoyed African American support) announced an intention to enact what he characterized as an “omnibus” election law. Before enacting that law, the legislature requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices. Upon receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans. In response to claims that intentional racial discrimination animated its action, the State offered only meager justifications. Although the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist. That does seem pretty damning when you read their justification [1] http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/nc-4th.pdf http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/nc-4th.pdf
fortythirteen 9y ago
Voter ID laws themselves were not declared unconstitutional, the extra actions by the Republicans were. I see no effort from Democrats to offer any option on how to secure our elections, which is especially damning considering they've spent the whole last year falsely claiming that they were "hacked". Active election fraud is almost exclusively in the favor of the Democratic party. I can't remember the last time someone on the right was arrested for fraudulently filling out registrations forms, or when >100% of the registered voters in a district voted for the Republican candidate, as happened as recently as the 2016 presidential election in Detroit in the favor of Clinton. The problem isn't voter ID. It's two sides using it as a way to unfairly benefit their interests. One side pre-emptively and the other actively during the vote. Both are wrong, but Voter ID itself isn't.
- FireBeyond 9y ago
  > Active election fraud is almost exclusively in the favor of the Democratic party. I can't remember the last time someone on the right was arrested A nice key word there, arrested. Especially given that multiple members of Trump's electoral team, even his own family, were found to have violate electoral law and fined. I get it though, they were just "confused" and making "honest mistakes".
  - fortythirteen 9y ago
    I think you lack a grasp of the issues. Failing to fill out an FEC form properly and registering dead people to vote are two different things. The former doesn't even affect the vote count. Quit playing for your side and accept when you've read a valid point.
    - FireBeyond 9y ago
      Given that there have been less than 4 instances of people arrested for "registering dead people to vote", your spin of things of this as a "hugely Democrat issue" is mountains out of molehills. > The former doesn't even affect the vote count. Some of the people mentioned in my example _were_ shown to have voted twice. > Quit playing for your side My side? I'm a US permanent resident, I'm not eligible to vote. That doesn't make me blind to the fact there are huge issues with the system here, and fault to be found on both sides of the aisle.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      Each of the frauds identified in [0] in the 2016 cycle, for which Republicans were criminally charged, affected the vote count. “Quit playing for your side”, indeed. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16118842 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16118842
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > A nice key word there, arrested. Given the Republicans arrested for voter fraud (yes, the kinds that actually affect the vote count) in the 2016 cycle, the more key phrase seems to be “I can't remember”. It's not that it didn't happen, repeatedly and recently, it's just that fortythirteen doesn't remember it, perhaps because it clashes with a preconceived worldview.

plandis 9y ago

From the court decision [1]: > But, on the day after the Supreme Court issued Shelby County v. Holder, 133 S. Ct. 2612 (2013), eliminating preclearance obligations, a leader of the party that newly dominated the legislature (and the party that rarely enjoyed African American support) announced an intention to enact what he characterized as an “omnibus” election law. Before enacting that law, the legislature requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices. Upon receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans. In response to claims that intentional racial discrimination animated its action, the State offered only meager justifications. Although the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist. That does seem pretty damning when you read their justification [1] http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/nc-4th.pdf http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/nc-4th.pdf

fortythirteen 9y ago

Voter ID laws themselves were not declared unconstitutional, the extra actions by the Republicans were. I see no effort from Democrats to offer any option on how to secure our elections, which is especially damning considering they've spent the whole last year falsely claiming that they were "hacked". Active election fraud is almost exclusively in the favor of the Democratic party. I can't remember the last time someone on the right was arrested for fraudulently filling out registrations forms, or when >100% of the registered voters in a district voted for the Republican candidate, as happened as recently as the 2016 presidential election in Detroit in the favor of Clinton. The problem isn't voter ID. It's two sides using it as a way to unfairly benefit their interests. One side pre-emptively and the other actively during the vote. Both are wrong, but Voter ID itself isn't.

FireBeyond 9y ago
> Active election fraud is almost exclusively in the favor of the Democratic party. I can't remember the last time someone on the right was arrested A nice key word there, arrested. Especially given that multiple members of Trump's electoral team, even his own family, were found to have violate electoral law and fined. I get it though, they were just "confused" and making "honest mistakes".
- fortythirteen 9y ago
  I think you lack a grasp of the issues. Failing to fill out an FEC form properly and registering dead people to vote are two different things. The former doesn't even affect the vote count. Quit playing for your side and accept when you've read a valid point.
  - FireBeyond 9y ago
    Given that there have been less than 4 instances of people arrested for "registering dead people to vote", your spin of things of this as a "hugely Democrat issue" is mountains out of molehills. > The former doesn't even affect the vote count. Some of the people mentioned in my example _were_ shown to have voted twice. > Quit playing for your side My side? I'm a US permanent resident, I'm not eligible to vote. That doesn't make me blind to the fact there are huge issues with the system here, and fault to be found on both sides of the aisle.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    Each of the frauds identified in [0] in the 2016 cycle, for which Republicans were criminally charged, affected the vote count. “Quit playing for your side”, indeed. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16118842 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16118842
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > A nice key word there, arrested. Given the Republicans arrested for voter fraud (yes, the kinds that actually affect the vote count) in the 2016 cycle, the more key phrase seems to be “I can't remember”. It's not that it didn't happen, repeatedly and recently, it's just that fortythirteen doesn't remember it, perhaps because it clashes with a preconceived worldview.