Voter ID Solutions
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I like reading articles by Florence Gilkeson. A local writer of many years, she brings insight from a lifetime of experience in the South. But I am disappointed in her approach and handling of the voter photo ID issue.
She jumps to the answer that requiring voter photo ID is tied to an attempt by whites to disenfranchise blacks. Why would she use the race card to support her opinion? Why not leave race out and list the reasons it is a bad idea and let us readers decide?
To support her position, she reviews the history of the South’s methods to keep certain people from voting. Those methods are long gone. It is racist and demeaning to suggest that older blacks can be manipulated in 2011.
The opportunity for voter fraud is enhanced when you don’t have to show any form of ID. A registered voter is issued a voter registration ID card to prove it. A voter should be required to present that card when voting.
No one is disenfranchised these days. A voter is provided a provisional ballot if there are legitimacy questions. Hours are spent reviewing the provisional ballots. Showing a voter registration card, with or without photo, would go a long way to reduce this waste in the vote-counting process.
A simple solution starts by issuing photo voter ID cards to all new registrants and those needing new cards because of address or name change. A concurrent approach entails having photo ID capability at the early voting precincts. At check-in, you surrender your old voter registration card for a new photo ID. The early voting precincts currently have banks of check-in computers in use. How difficult would it be to add photo capabilities?
Jerry Montgomery
Pinehurst
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Comments
Darkwing 2 years, 3 months ago
Instead of a photo voter registration card, which will cost money, simply require the current card plus driver's license, state ID, or military or school ID. The photo id ensures that the voter is the person named on the registration card, with no new costs incurred.
JER 2 years, 3 months ago
As outlined in the letter from Mr. Montgomery, if you are registered to vote, you have a voter registration card and you are in a data base that lists your name, address, party affiliation and poling place. When you go to vote on election day, your name is checked off the master list as you enter to receive your ballot. I would like to hear, via this thread, how many of you have showed up to vote and been told you have already voted. I would also like to know how having a photo ID would effect absentee ballots. So where is the problem that a photo ID would fix? We have many railing against big government and demanding spending cuts to balance the budget yet these same folks are pushing for more government involvement and more spending with their demands for a photo ID that will solve a non-existent problem. I am not saying that voter fraud does not exist in some form. What I'm saying is that the problem is so minuscule that wasting time and money on photo ID's makes no sense. Now if you proponents can show us where voter fraud is a major problem that effects the outcome of elections and show specific instances that back up your claims, then I'm sure the rest of us would be more than willing to listen with an open mind.
Darkwing 2 years, 3 months ago
Y'all don't seem to have an open mind, after all. You want voter fraud? One recent case is Al Franken. Look it up. Just don't go through Moveon.org, because they won't include the background of Soros' Secretary of State project.
Other instances have been reported, often related to ACORN about out-of-state canvassers filing illegally for voter registration, and voting, sometimes at several polling places, before returning home, where they may have also voted, by absentee ballot.
For absentee ballots, the solution is simple: require that they be notarized.
native 2 years, 3 months ago
JER, Well said...
and as far as absentee ballots go...I understand that they are only counted if they would make a difference in the final outcome...(If the number of absentee ballots is a lot more than the final count difference ) and even then, they are verified..one vote for one person. If it ain't broke...why should we spend money to fix it.
Someone give us a "for instance" in North Carolina were we have had voter fraud...............
This subject needs to be put on the back burner, or better yet burned.
JER 2 years, 3 months ago
So the $10.00 charge for the DMV ID is not a "cost"? In that case, Chief, would you please mail me one hundred $10.00 bills. I'll even give you the stamp for you to mail them so it won't "cost" you anything.
JER 2 years, 3 months ago
Your responses continue to reveal the person you really are. Maybe they could get a job like you had. You know, a government job. Oh, wait a minute, your against people having government jobs NOW. My responses continue to reveal the person I am too.
JER 2 years, 3 months ago
Franken was elected to the Senate by a margin of 312 votes. His victory was contested by his opponent, the Minnesota Supreme Court reviewed the results and unanimously agreed that Franken was the winner. George Soros is a wealthy financier who supported the Franken campaign as well as other liberal candidates. He was not a founder of the Secretary of State Project but was a contributor to its causes. As you see, Darkwing, there is nothing in your example that constitutes "voter fraud". You then follow up this "proof" with the even more aloof statement of "other instances have been reported" and vague references ACORN. Please provide the specifics to these other instances showing where there were fraudulent votes cast. Also, you'll need to provide the specifics on which of the 312 votes were fraudulent in the Franken election and how having a picture ID would have eliminated them. What is very clear from your comments is that you absorb all your intelligence from Faux News and their frequent contributors.
eastern65 2 years, 3 months ago
And every time the votes for Franken came up short, they "found" more uncounted ballots in a car trunk and were allowed to use them. And every time the majority of the "found" votes were for Franken. Really????????????????? honest election results.
JER 2 years, 3 months ago
Jimmie, thanks so much for that "big brother" advise. I have never visited the Daily Kos website, just as I never visit any of the websites spewing right wing stuff. Both sides have websites that provide absolutely no usable knowledge in solving our problems. I came up with the "Faux News" all by myself and do not use it to entertain the readers. I use it to show my disgust in how it presents what should be news. I also use the term "BSNBC" on occasion for the same reasons. I have yet to assign one for CNN because I feel in most cases, they do try to present the news in a straightforward manner. When a network constantly brags that it has the lions share of viewers, I look at it from the standpoint that those viewers have only one side of the story. So to show my appreciation for you looking out for my reputation here on these threads, here is some advise for you: Watch all networks and get a more balanced view of the facts. Also, read more than just one newspaper and stay away from those websites that preach hate. Try hanging out in the middle. It's fun and you get twice as many people to disagree with you. In conclusion, I leave you with a bad joke I invented many years ago: Next time you're outside, point up in the air and say, "Look, up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane (then, wiping your hands across your face say), "It's a bird!"
JER 2 years, 3 months ago
jimmie, I watch all the "news" networks as well as the left, right and center leaning cable networks and I read at least four different newspapers on a regular basis. I believe this gives me a much better understanding of some of our most perplexing problems because I can see what all sides have to say about them. It's a lot easier to pick up on the "bias" that each particular source presents. As they say, everyone is a "special interest" and that is true with news presentation as well. Since I don't sit and watch Fox 24/7, maybe I am missing the part where liberals and conservatives have a reasoned debate. What I see is a bunch of talking heads all trying to out shout the others. Regardless of what network I'm watching, I'll turn the channel the minute everyone is talking at the same time. In my view, Fox does this more than the others. Bill O'Reiley, for example, will have a guest with an opposing viewpoint on his program. He will ask a question and then continually interrupt his answer because it's does not agree with O'Reilley's viewpoint. O'Reilley defends this lack of etiquette claiming that it's "his style". The guys on BSNBC do the same thing when they get a guest with an opposing viewpoint. Lawrence O'Donnell is bad for going off on guests that don't share his views ( O'Reilley, O'Donnell...maybe it's in the O' genes). And I don't listen to any of the political talk radio slime balls. These folks are involved strictly for the monetary gain. I have used this comparison many times before because I think it is relevant in the discussion about popularity: More people watched the Jerry Springer Show than watched Masterpiece Theater. That was not a reflection on the quality of Jerry Springer's product, it was a reflection of the utter ignorance of his audience. We have seen what happens when folks blindly follow a charismatic figure with a high popularity rating. A guy in 1930's Germany comes to mind.
JER 2 years, 2 months ago
I would not expect any other response from you, jimmie.
fugitiveguy 2 years, 3 months ago
Only if you found a box of ballots under Al Frankens bed would the libs concede that voter fraud is a potential problem in this country but then again they would probably say they were put there by Michelle Bachman or even GWB.
JER 2 years, 3 months ago
I'll agree that there is wide spread voter fraud in this country when you can produce individual, specific evidence of it. Whining about one of your candidates loosing a close election is not proof. Do you have evidence of "a box of ballots under Al Frankens bed" or is that just a figure of speech to help make your pointless point.
fugitiveguy 2 years, 3 months ago
You would think a common sense measure such as voter ID would recieve strong bipartisan support but no, the libs have to make it a "faux" discrimination issue if I may borrow one of their favorite witty words.
JER 2 years, 3 months ago
Please provide this thread with a list of people who went to the poles and were told they had already voted. Provide us with evidence that someone who was not authorised to vote actually voted. Would it not be using "common sense" to have facts on which to base your claim that a photo ID card was needed? I have said absolutely nothing about this subject that would lead you to believe this has anything to do with a "discrimination issue". In my view, it has to do with more government involvement and cost. I have a photo ID and have no objection to showing it to anyone who asks to see it.
fugitiveguy 2 years, 3 months ago
By its very definition, "common sense" issues are cut and dried and do not require "lists of names" or reams of data to point out a potential problem. As I indicated before, if there ever was an issue that should have had bipartisan support it was this one. Of course, it is the Democrats and liberals who oppose it, the party of Accorn, the party most closely associated with election fraud/theft. Don't believe it, "google" election fraud and democrat, then do the same with election fraud/republican. Twice as many hits for the big "D"
JER 2 years, 3 months ago
Which is it, fugitiveguy? In one breath you call it a "potential problem", then proceed to say we should look up all the evidence of voter fraud. Hits on Google does not make your case. And then there is your Acorn reference, which is supposed to be your proof by simply saying Acorn. If common sense issues are cut and dried there should be no problem providing examples.
fugitiveguy 2 years, 3 months ago
Where was your cries for evidence in 2000 when whiner in chief Al Gore was shouting to the rafters about the one million black people in Florida who were disenfranchised by their vote not getting counted. Of course, not one single person stepped forward as an example.
JER 2 years, 3 months ago
Gore didn't need an extra one million votes. He already had the lead in the popular vote. It was not voter fraud that cost Gore the win.
JER 2 years, 2 months ago
Or, to be precise, the system we use to elect a president.
fugitiveguy 2 years, 3 months ago
JER-you would make a great fiction writer.
JER 2 years, 3 months ago
I'm the only one of the two of us speaking with facts.
fugitiveguy 2 years, 2 months ago
"He already had the lead in the popular vote."
Which means nothing, of course its not fair when its not to your advantage. BTW, how did Gore do in his home state, I guess he won overwhelmingly there didn't he?
fugitiveguy 2 years, 2 months ago
"It was not voter fraud that cost Gore the win."
Please enlighten us as to what did cost Gore the win. Perhaps the TN results?
nothingspecial 2 years, 2 months ago
JER, once again here is the list of examples of less than honest voting behavior;
http://www.truethevote.org/the-road-to-rigged-elections
Fugitiveguy is so right when he says some things are just common sense. So funny how that argument is the one some try to rip the most. Imagine anyone relying on common sense anymore? :-)
fugitiveguy 2 years, 2 months ago
nothingspecial-excellent link, after reviewing this I fully expect that JER and Co will agree that this simple, free, common sense step of showing a picture ID when you vote will do much to insure the integrity of our elections. I look forward to them joining conservatives in supporting this measure.
JER 2 years, 2 months ago
The only folks bringing up racism is your crowd, jimmie. How does that old saying go? "The lady doth protest to much, methinks." Your racist fixation is starting to fit this old Shakespeare quotation from Hamlet.