House of Eratosthenes

An attack on the right to vote is underway across the country through laws designed to make it more difficult to cast a ballot. If this were happening in an emerging democracy, we’d condemn it as election-rigging. But it’s happening here, so there’s barely a whimper.

What’s got Dionne upset is identification. Proving that you’re you when you vote. Which means proving you are eligible to vote, and that you’re voting once only.

Problem? Dionne says so, for two reasons: Hey, the fraud is no big deal therefore we should ignore it — and, the corrective measures are “not neutral,” they’ll have different extents of change on different demographics. I think that’s it…

The laws are being passed in the name of preventing “voter fraud.” But study after study has shown that fraud by voters is not a major problem — and is less of a problem than how hard many states make it for people to vote in the first place. Some of the new laws, notably those limiting the number of days for early voting, have little plausible connection to battling fraud.

These statutes are not neutral. Their greatest impact will be to reduce turnout among African Americans, Latinos and the young. It is no accident that these groups were key to Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 — or that the laws in question are being enacted in states where Republicans control state governments.

It seems to me that Dionne’s points answer each other. If fraud is not that big a deal and we can just ignore it without suffering a consequence, then all the hand-wringing and worrying about invalidating votes among this-or-that race or national origin, likewise, should be much ado about nothing. The depressing effect on the Obama vote, likewise, will be insignificant. If it isn’t insignificant — in fact, if it tilts the playing field in such a way that The Great One loses His bid for re-election when He otherwise wouldn’t — then that would mean the corrective measures are overdue, in fact it would suggest that His Holiness never should’ve been elected in the first place.

Dionne needs to go off somewhere and get his talking points straight.

Hat tip to William Teach, who adds,

Democrats know that requiring ID would only solve some of the issue: people can easily spoof with fake IDs or with their regular ID. What they want to accomplish with this line is to set it up so that when Obama loses, they can blame the GOP, saying that Obama lost not because of his being the most incompetent president ever, but for their “racist” and “anti-democracy” voting policies.

Anyone with a long-term memory that is working and active, will see immediately that Teach is right. For the last twenty years, give or take — certainly for the last ten or eleven — there is a great hue & cry about “stolen elections” whenever the democrat loses, in elections national, regional or local.

When the democrat wins, even by a tenth of a percent, these same loud angry voices proclaim “The People Have Spoken!”

Making voters prove they are who they say they are, thereby ensuring voters only vote once, is unfair to democrat candidates therefore we shouldn’t do it. You know, I wonder who falls for this sort of argument. I’d say if that person is a so-called “moderate” then he should just drop the label, get off the fence — over on their side, which is where he is anyway. Come clean. Work your fingers to the bone trying to get more democrats elected, in some position where you’re supposed to be doing that.

Because if Dionne’s protest carries weight with you, you’d probably be happier doing that anyway.

As noted, this is not new. Whenever Democrats win it is “The people have spoken!” and “Mandate!”. Any Republican wins are met with allegations of fraud, voter disenfranchisement, or pandering to racism or whatever.

The most interesting thing here is the Dionne is nervous this far out. It’s a roundabout type of candor but a telling one. Things are a mess and he knows it. He can see that things are not going to get better under the current management.

Mark my words; if Obama is defeated and the economy turns around liberals will credit Obama. They’ll say that all his hard work took time to kick in.
- Duffy | 06/20/2011 @ 08:41
Can someone please explain to me ONCE AND FOR ALL exactly what is “discriminatory” about being asked to show ID before casting a ballot?

Or why “their greatest impact will be to reduce turnout among African Americans, Latinos and the young?”

Why? Why is that? Nobody seems particularly concerned about this problem when asked to show ID to buy gun-related items, alcohol, to board an aircraft, or to provide proof that one is indeed eligible to operate a motor vehicle.

This Dionne character just kind of prattles along, assuming his audience already agrees with the premise that it is “racist” to be asked to show ID at the polls. I want to know why that would be, because I haven’t got a clue. And furthermore I’m sick of never being provided with the answer to this question, every time the subject arises.

My suspicion is that the Democrats are planning to commit massive voter fraud in the next election, like they do in every election. You know, with the registration of millions of “voters” who are in fact ineligible to cast ballots, the “invalidation,” loss, or destruction of valid ballots, ceaseless court challenges, and other “irregularities.”

I won’t even rehash the shenanigans they pulled in Minnesota and Washington to get Griegore elected governor or Franken elected Sentator…much less the fiascoes in 2000 in Florida or 2008 in Illinois.

I suspect that as with everything else they do, this “racist” stuff is a smokescreen. Too bad for them that millions of Americans aren’t falling for it. Seeing them get their clocks cleaned at the polls last year was reassuring evidence that democracy still works in this country. (And yes, I know we’re a “republic.”)
- cylarz | 06/20/2011 @ 09:21
I am pretty haughty about my avoidance of political matters, but this is where liberals do me a favor. Because adhering to good sense is not an intrinsically political thing. It is an every day human thing. It is a matter of recognizing the need and finding a way to teach people that it is simply not productive to live your life like an idiot. No matter how many Republicans it keeps out of office. In fact, this helps demonstrate that the chief strategy for blocking Republican victory is abandonment of sensible reasoning. Easy to see this from here:

1. Conservatives seek honest victory by proposing sensible solutions to actual problems.
2. Liberals seek any kind of victory by applying irrational conditions to those sensible solutions in order to make them appear useless against what they want you to believe isn’t an actual problem, anyway.

It’s how you get this idea that you can talk an Iranian despot out of his psychosis, or that you can stop being killed by Muslims by giving them a wider berth. Or that asking for proof of US citizenship prior to doing something that requires US citizenship is racist or unfair.
- Andy | 06/20/2011 @ 10:58
It seems to me that Dionne’s points answer each other. If fraud is not that big a deal and we can just ignore it without suffering a consequence, then all the hand-wringing and worrying about invalidating votes among this-or-that race or national origin, likewise, should be much ado about nothing.

You know, I’m not much of a Republican… but using “Republican” as a stand-in for “conservative” more generally, I really do wish they’d get it straight. Are we drooling, NASCAR-watching, cousin-poking sub-morons, or are we evil geniuses who rig everything behind the scenes like the Stonecutters? I mean, either way I’m good, if you know what I mean and I think you do (I have some very attractive cousins)… but I’d sure like to know which end of the Great Conservative Spectrum O’ Evil I’m missing out on. Did I forget to send in my membership dues or something?

Oh, and I just love how these voter ID laws “disenfranchise” African-Americans… by which of course they mean poor, urban African-Americans. Ummm, guys: if you’ve ever lived in a big city, you know that the urban proletariat is the most documented group in the history of ever. You know all those social programs you keep telling us need more and more (and more and more and more) funding? Medicaid, food stamps, housing projects, Head Start, the whole shebang… They all come with ID provisions. And, of course, there’s the whole “racial profiling” thing — to hear y’all tell it, urban blacks are harassed by cops at least fifteen times a day. All that harassment generates paperwork (otherwise, how would we know they’re being profiled?).

What I’m getting at is that everybody down there should have enough paper on them to print a Stephen King novel. Proving their identity at the polling station should be zero problem.
- Severian | 06/20/2011 @ 14:44
Democrats know that requiring ID would only solve some of the issue: people can easily spoof with fake IDs or with their regular ID.

Democrats often use this strawman argument on this subject.

Turn it back on them. Hey, why do we need driver’s licenses in the first place, then? I mean, people can easily fake them. So we won’t know if that’s really you anyway. Screw it.

And you know, while we’re at it, what’s with gender quotas anyway? It’s sexist to ask, and really, who’s going to check? That would be an invasion of privacy. You got something against really masculine women? So my voice is low. And really, who is to say what my gender really is since I get to choose anyway? I’m a woman because I said so, now hire me to balance your gender ratio.

And what about that? If I can choose my gender, why can’t I choose my race? Who are YOU to tell me I’m not a black woman trapped in a white man’s body? Ridiculous? Who’s to say what’s ridiculous? Don’t judge me!

E.J. Dionne has never seen a Republican he can’t rationalize into a black-eyed demon, or a Democrat caught red-handed that he can’t rationalize into a victim. It’s what he does. I can’t stand reading his columns. He’s right up there with Krugman and Dowd.
- philmon | 06/21/2011 @ 07:02

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Republicans Are Rigging the 2012 Election AlreadyMonday, June 20th, 2011

Republicans Are Rigging the 2012 Election Already
Monday, June 20th, 2011