2 ms·

> No because proximity to a Post Office isn't a reasonable criteria for suppressing a persons right to vote. In rural areas, one often has to travel a long dis

> No because proximity to a Post Office isn't a reasonable criteria for suppressing a persons right to vote. In rural areas, one often has to travel a long distance to reach a post office or DMV. In urban or suburban areas, while the distance may vary, on average it is significantly less. So, if requiring someone to go to a government office to receive ID to vote suppresses the vote of people who live far away from that office, you'd expect that to produce more voter suppression in rural areas than in urban or suburban areas. But, since rural areas tend to skew Republican and urban areas tend to skew Democratic (with suburban areas being more mixed/swinging), this would seem to suppress Republican voters much more than Democratic ones. Does it follow therefore that Republicans would be primarily suppressing the vote of their own voters? If that's true, why should Democrats be upset about such a self-inflicted wound on their political opponents?

mulmen 4y ago
Requiring Voter ID enables suppression. Specifically by making it harder for some people to vote. Consider the example of the polling station bus being targeted. Those people could have complied but because of their race were prevented.
- skissane 4y ago
  > Consider the example of the polling station bus being targeted. Those people could have complied but because of their race were prevented. I take it you are talking about the incident you mentioned in another comment, in Louisville, Georgia, in 2018, in which African-American senior citizens got on a bus to take them to an early voting center, and then told to get off the bus and it didn't take them there? (Did they end up voting in that election? Did the organisers find another way to get them to the polls?) I don't fully understood what happened in that case, but from what I've read of it, it sounds like the bus was owned by the county, and someone objected to using a county-owned bus for a trip organised by a political advocacy group which was de facto running a GOTV operation for a single political party, and that led to the bus trip being cancelled at the very last minute. That rule – (implicitly or explicitly) partisan political groups can't use county-owned resources at election time – in itself doesn't seem inherently unreasonable. Possibly it was being enforced in a biased way, but a single incident by itself can't demonstrate bias in the application of a rule. (And even if you had evidence that Jefferson County was indeed applying that rule in a biased manner, how do you determine whether that bias is racial or political?) So, I really don't think this particular incident is a clearcut example of "voter suppression".
  - mulmen 4y ago
    The retirement home belongs to the county. I see no claim the van does. I don’t know the details either but I can’t find any evidence to support your claims. That is one example of literally dozens on that page alone. Many of them more concrete, with convictions.
    - skissane 4y ago
      > The retirement home belongs to the county. I see no claim the van does. So, yes, having read some more, it sounds like bus in question belonged to the activist group rather than the county. Still, what I don't quite understand here is – they got on the bus, did someone from the county force them to get off the bus? Ask them nicely? Threaten them with something if they didn't? Exactly what happened is rather unclear. > I don’t know the details either but I can’t find any evidence to support your claims That's the thing – neither of us really knows what happened at that event. I was just speculating based on incomplete knowledge – much as you are. I'm not aware of any clear, detailed and independent account of what actually happened. But, you seem to be citing this as an example of a pattern without knowing much about what really happened–which is a rather questionable approach. > That is one example of literally dozens on that page alone. Many of them more concrete, with convictions. I'm reading that Wikipedia page, who has a conviction for voter suppression? * In 2006, in Wisconsin, four Democratic campaign workers, from John Kerry's presidential campaign, were convicted of slashing tires of Republican Party vehicles to stop them from driving voters and poll workers to the polls in the 2004 election, and sentenced to 4-6 months jail * In 2011, in Maryland, a Republican campaign manager was sentenced, albeit to no actual jail time (probation, community service, home detention, and a suspended sentence), for having placed fake calls to Democratic voters (the majority of whom were African-American) to try to trick them into not voting in the 2010 Maryland gubernatorial election. Despite this tactic, the Republican candidate still lost by 10 points. Those are the only two mentions I can find on that page of anyone actually being convicted of voter suppression (and in neither case changing the outcome of the election). Is there something else I'm missing, or when you speak of "convictions" do you only mean those two cases?
      - 4y ago

mulmen 4y ago

Requiring Voter ID enables suppression. Specifically by making it harder for some people to vote. Consider the example of the polling station bus being targeted. Those people could have complied but because of their race were prevented.

skissane 4y ago
> Consider the example of the polling station bus being targeted. Those people could have complied but because of their race were prevented. I take it you are talking about the incident you mentioned in another comment, in Louisville, Georgia, in 2018, in which African-American senior citizens got on a bus to take them to an early voting center, and then told to get off the bus and it didn't take them there? (Did they end up voting in that election? Did the organisers find another way to get them to the polls?) I don't fully understood what happened in that case, but from what I've read of it, it sounds like the bus was owned by the county, and someone objected to using a county-owned bus for a trip organised by a political advocacy group which was de facto running a GOTV operation for a single political party, and that led to the bus trip being cancelled at the very last minute. That rule – (implicitly or explicitly) partisan political groups can't use county-owned resources at election time – in itself doesn't seem inherently unreasonable. Possibly it was being enforced in a biased way, but a single incident by itself can't demonstrate bias in the application of a rule. (And even if you had evidence that Jefferson County was indeed applying that rule in a biased manner, how do you determine whether that bias is racial or political?) So, I really don't think this particular incident is a clearcut example of "voter suppression".
- mulmen 4y ago
  The retirement home belongs to the county. I see no claim the van does. I don’t know the details either but I can’t find any evidence to support your claims. That is one example of literally dozens on that page alone. Many of them more concrete, with convictions.
  - skissane 4y ago
    > The retirement home belongs to the county. I see no claim the van does. So, yes, having read some more, it sounds like bus in question belonged to the activist group rather than the county. Still, what I don't quite understand here is – they got on the bus, did someone from the county force them to get off the bus? Ask them nicely? Threaten them with something if they didn't? Exactly what happened is rather unclear. > I don’t know the details either but I can’t find any evidence to support your claims That's the thing – neither of us really knows what happened at that event. I was just speculating based on incomplete knowledge – much as you are. I'm not aware of any clear, detailed and independent account of what actually happened. But, you seem to be citing this as an example of a pattern without knowing much about what really happened–which is a rather questionable approach. > That is one example of literally dozens on that page alone. Many of them more concrete, with convictions. I'm reading that Wikipedia page, who has a conviction for voter suppression? * In 2006, in Wisconsin, four Democratic campaign workers, from John Kerry's presidential campaign, were convicted of slashing tires of Republican Party vehicles to stop them from driving voters and poll workers to the polls in the 2004 election, and sentenced to 4-6 months jail * In 2011, in Maryland, a Republican campaign manager was sentenced, albeit to no actual jail time (probation, community service, home detention, and a suspended sentence), for having placed fake calls to Democratic voters (the majority of whom were African-American) to try to trick them into not voting in the 2010 Maryland gubernatorial election. Despite this tactic, the Republican candidate still lost by 10 points. Those are the only two mentions I can find on that page of anyone actually being convicted of voter suppression (and in neither case changing the outcome of the election). Is there something else I'm missing, or when you speak of "convictions" do you only mean those two cases?
    - 4y ago