Joe Doakes from Como Park writes in re Al Sharpton’s Strib op-ed:
Civil Rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton writes in the Star Tribune to oppose Voter ID because 1 in 4 Blacks, 1 in 5 elderly and 1 in 6 Hispanics don’t have the proper credentials and apparently can’t get them.
Oddly, others can.
The Ramsey County Elections office is next door to the Property Records room where deeds are stored and I spend a fair amount of time working with real estate. I have seen an endless parade of Asian voters the past two weeks. They’re showing up by the van-load. They have guides who speak English directing them to the right office. Older folks are assisted by younger ones. They’re showing up to register and to vote absentee for the primary.
I’ve also seen a few Black immigrants, Somalis or Ethiopians from the way they dress and talk. No “American” Blacks, though. None of the people whose pants are stitched to their underwear, whose caps are on sideways, who have time in the afternoon to prowl the streets looking for 14-year-old girls in Frogtown and who learned to talk from rap videos. Those people can’t seem to make it to the Voter Registration Office.
Plainly, this is not a cultural thing. It’s not a matter of White and Asian people being conscientious and law-abiding while recent illegal immigrant Hispanics (and Blacks whose families have lived in this country for generations) are neither conscientious nor law-abiding.
Plainly, it’s just racissss. And that’s a crying shame.
Joe Doakes
Como Park
And I’ll add that it’s not even a matter of Afro-Americans and Latinos not being conscientious or law-abiding so much as it is the DFL, Sharpton, and their camp-followers in the Media wanting you to believe it; to believe that Black, Latino, elderly and young voters are just too stupid to handle bringing an ID to the polls.
We know better. Right?
Polling shows that a fairly decisive majority of Minnesotans agree, and support Voter ID. The left’s response – other than chanting “Disenfranchisement” and “Racism” – is to claim that the process of getting a free ID is juuuust toooo complicated for voters. And since their strategy does seem to involve trying to win over “low-information” voters – people they can gull into thinking Mitt Romney is a felon who hasn’t filed taxes, that Bain killed a woman, that they’re out of work in 2012 because of what George W. Bush did (or really didn’t) do in 2007), that would be a concern.
As Joe points out, many groups – groups that actually take democracy seriously – are making the logical connection; they’re getting their people registered. Expect not a few legitimate groups across the political spectrum to extend their ‘Get out the Vote” efforts to getting voters registered as well.
Clearly, for the DFL, it’s easier to manufacture bogus votes than to get their low-information rank-and-file to vote legitimately.
So let Angryclown make sure He understands you Teabillies correctly. Before an American can vote, it’s OK to require him to file a form with the government, which will take at least a couple of weeks to process. Then the citizen has to produce a government-produced ID on voting day. If the person fails to follow these steps, he won’t be allowed to exercise his right to vote. On the other hand, if a person is buying a gun, waiting periods are un-Amurican.
Conservatives favor making the process of getting an ID much, much faster.
Waiting periods aren’t so much “un-American” as they are pointless. The information that used to take five days to get together is now all found in a thirty-second call to the NICS. All of it. There is no more! No criminal has been denied a gun in five days that wouldn’t, for the past 15 years, have been denied in under a minute on NICS.
The only purpose for a five day waiting period is to allow liberal governments to harass people they don’t like, for…
…oh, yeah.
Kinda like the waiting period to vote. Harassing voters is OK, cause it’s hard for you to win elections otherwise. Angryclown hasn’t seen much action by you “conservatives” to make it easier to get ID.
Angry Clown has a point. It takes a lot of effort to get a driver’s license or free state ID – take time off work, drive to the government office, find a place to park, pay for parking, stand in line – all this to prove you’re a person entitled to vote.
It’d be better if those busy people could have a one-time registration. How about a chip? Works for my dog. Update your voting preference on-line. Then you could use the “express” voting lane – walk through, Beep, you just voted Straight Ticket Democrat. Grab a biscuit on the way out and your civic duty is done.
Don’t pee on the floor as you leave, though. That’s just nasty.
.
Nonsense, Clown. We worry legitimately about “straw purchasers”; why, the Administration just ran a huge sting on the subject! Perhaps you’ve heard!
We don’t want fraudulent voters any more than we want fraudulent gun owners. Isn’t the right to vote just as important as the right to own a gun?
Clownie is right. Democrats don’t want to harass voters at the poll. They want to save that for after they get in office.
How do these people (democrats, that is, not blacks), get social services without ID? The fact is, they’ve got ID, but they’re using their “disenfranchised” cloak as a means of gaming the system in case they have a close election and have to generate voters from thin air – which, historically, they have done with deft aplomb.
As Big Stink notes, if Democrats really cared about the poor and minorities, they’d be working to make sure they had ID so they could take part in their society. Apparently, since they’re not doing this, but are working against requiring ID to vote, we can infer that Democrats care about getting the votes of the poor, but not the poor themselves.
As much as citizens have a right to vote, the people have a right to know (with a high degree of certainty) that the process has integrity.
You can’t have an election with integrity without knowing that
a) people haven’t voted more than once (dye-stained fingers?)
b) every vote actually came from someone who is eligible to vote
Sorry, but your right to vote is “subject to reasonable regulations” in order to maximize integrity.
Evan,
Absolutely.
And DFLers know that; you need to prove your identity to vote in their caucuses!
Because you sure don’t want vote fraud there!
Just like you teabag loonies, proposing more government regulation to solve a non-existent problem. For the handful of actual cases of voting fraud that exist, it seems to Angryclown that a felony prosecution is an appropriate remedy. But then you extremist types aren’t actually in favor of deregulation when it comes to other people.
From Bill Frezza at Forbes Magazine, 8/8, comes this entry: “The fact that 243 people have already been convicted or are awaiting trial on voter fraud underscores a persistent concern that, despite their small share of the vote, ineligible ballots can actually swing results.”
They’re talking about Minnesota voters convicted of, or awaiting trial for, voter fraud, Dog-Doo. What part of “fraud” confuses you?
What’s the big deal, Angry Clown? Democrats think that people who can’t plan 30 days ahead, who for one reason or another can’t produce a photo ID, or who can’t be left alone with sharp objects should make up a greater proportion of the electorate. Conservatives don’t.
It’s not about any person’s right to vote, it’s about what kind of government Democrats want versus the kind of government conservatives want.
angryclown paraphrased:
It is way way, uber, mondo difficult to get an ID, even though most folks are required to manage and maintain them for any number of reasons. We should probably bend over backwards to make sure that folks who can’t manage to acquire an ID, in months or even years of time, get to decide our countries direction. Make it easy for them, like checking a box indicating you want a free lunch, or accepting a few smokes for a favor.
Stink: Your statistics are as soft as your head. That number is barfed up by some idiot writing an opinion piece. No time frame or geographical limitation is given. No definition of terms. Partisan bullshit numbers, in other words. Get back to Angryclown when you got something.
Trojan Man: Voting is a right, you half-wit.
festeringjester: No, it is not, you twit.
http://www.justice.gov/osg/briefs/2000/0responses/1999-2062.resp.html
No one has an absolute right to vote. QUALIFIED people have a right to vote. Voter ID ensures that only QUALIFIED people are voting.
Angry Clown is trying very hard to convince himself that keeping idiots from the polling place is racist! RACIST!
Bozo- “Voting is right, you half-wit.” Really? But doesn’t one have to be 18 years of age to vote? And what would one use to prove he/she is 18?
The only thing that makes voting a “right” is the 14th amendment. !4th amendment jurisprudence is pretty sloppy. Liberals love the 14th because you can jab just about anything into it. It Want to preserve the traditional role of marriage? Why, that’s against the 14th amendment! You say you are a homosexual man who wants to take a group of teenage boys on a camping trip? The 14th amendment is your friend!
AC:
Let’s simplify the debate: asking for a photo ID would be what I would expect if you ever got off your medication and wanted to buy a gun. Why wouldn’t a similar restriction be placed on AC when he straps on his ideology and enters the voting booth?
You can always tell when AC is losing an argument. He starts calling people “half-wits”, or “moron” or whatever.
Must be a family thing.
Correct, Terry, the right to vote is guaranteed by a part of the Constitution that isn’t the Second Amendment. As a result, Angryclown realizes none of you loonies actually support it.
The 2nd amendment is one of the first 10 amendments to the constitution we Americans call “The Bill of Rights”. It is quite clear.
The 14th amendment is a hash. It was intended to make sure that ex-slaves and their descendants were given equal protection under the law. It was not intended to give homosexuals the right to marry, or give birth right citizenship. If the 14th means that homosexuals have the right to marry, what does it not mean? How could a law forbidding polygamy or incest not be found unconstitutional on 14th amendment grounds?
Mr. Clown- Why are you having such a hard time understanding a simple concept? The right to vote, as said above, is not absolute. Being an American citizen, being alive (i know you guys hate that one), being 18 years of age and living where you say you do all are required. An ID goes a long way to assure all that. And yet you get the vapors over it and puss out with “you don’t support that right.” Lame
No rights are absolute, jimf. That doesn’t mean you’ve just proved there’s no such thing as a constitutional right. Instead, you’ve merely demonstrated that you’re rather slow. It has long been a puzzlement to Angryclown that Mitch associates himself online with people who are so much less intelligent than he is. Slim pickings in the Twinkie Cities, perhaps.
No right is absolute, but some rights are inalienable.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
“No rights are absolute, Jim.” Yes, that’s what I was saying. “That doesn’t mean you’ve just proved there’s no such thing as a Constitutional right.” What??? There are constitutional rights that have qualifiers, like being 18, alive, ect., ect., like I said. ID helps assure those are met. And you dis-proved what i said…How?
Cute names are a great substitute for a good argument. Right angryclown? 😉