158869947/do-voter-id-laws-
http://articles.cnn.com/2008-
04-28/politics/scotus.voter.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/
itsallpolitics/2012/08/17/
Of all developed democratic nations, the US is probably the one where it's hardest to vote. In the last few elections, conservatives have tried to make that process even harder (presumably for some voting blocs that lean Democrat). They claim that it's meant to prevent fraud and tampering, but there is pretty much zero evidence of in-person voting fraud in the last couple decades (most fraud cases have involved mail-in ballots). They respond to that by saying one fraudulent vote is one too many. But in order to stop that one fraudulent vote, how do you justify disenfranchising dozens or even thousands of legit voters? Faux News and others have done a great job implanting the idea in Americans' minds that voter fraud by the left is rampant. Dead people, illegals, and felons are on the voter rolls, etc. Well as we saw in FL 2000, that wasn't the case at all, and in fact authorized voters were being mislabeled as felons.
What are they so afraid of? If their candidates are better, and their ideas are superior, then no need to play games - the voters will validate their cause. Or if they think the voters are dumb and don't know what's best for them, then spend the corporate billions to blitz the airwaves with propaganda and get out the vote as insurance. Both parties are doing that plenty. But now they have to go one step further and block unfriendly voters from exercising their American rights? That is unacceptable. The GOP is supposedly the party of freedom, liberty, and small government. Then why are they so hardcore about enacting these new bureaucratic laws that undermine some people's liberty? They want to be the populist party instead of the elitist party, but moves like this reveal their true colors. Heck we have so much gerrymandering and don't even allow winner-by-popular-vote in many cases, precisely to be undemocratic. But is this a gov't "of the people, by the people, and for the people" - or something else? By the way, that quote was from a certain Republican president during the Civil War.
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Can you imagine who would be elected of we didn't have a system that disenfranchised voters? That's why the Republicans are so afraid. They complain about fraud and want to require govt issued ids but they can't point to any cases where this has been a problem.
Also, why not vote on Sundays (like in France which has much higher turnout) or make election day (at least for presidential) a holiday?
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Yeah I agree. Voting is already so inconvenient here (and many Dem-leaning voters like students and the poor don't participate as it is), that the voter ID stuff is almost a joke. In some nations voting is mandatory (that probably wouldn't fly here). But at least in other places, the voting window is like a month, and/or voting day is on a weekend as you said. There is NO good reason voting should occur on a Tuesday (in the winter) here, with so much at stake. I know there is some law stating that employers must give workers unpenalized time off to vote, but that is probably not practical for many hourly lower-wage jobs (again, poorer minorities who may lean Dem). So the system is already so whack and undemocratic as it is, these new laws are just salt on the wound. I don't understand why there isn't more outrage over this. If only the ACLU and NAACP speak out, then the issue appears liberal and partisan, not a matter of rights and liberty that it truly is.
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