Stuff you just can't make up

Our system is quite different.
We have universal compulsory voting for all over 18. There is an electoral roll that is maintained for national, state and local government elections. You don't need ID to vote but your name is crossed off the copy of the roll where you vote. These are checked later, and apparently multiple voting is exceedingly rare, never severe enough to affect outcomes. There is a potential for some abuse with postal votes, in that some candidates will do the rounds of retirement villages harvesting the votes of the infirm and befuddled. Once again not overly common.

Daryl wrote:Our system is quite different.
We have universal compulsory voting for all over 18. There is an electoral roll that is maintained for national, state and local government elections. You don't need ID to vote but your name is crossed off the copy of the roll where you vote. These are checked later, and apparently multiple voting is exceedingly rare, never severe enough to affect outcomes. There is a potential for some abuse with postal votes, in that some candidates will do the rounds of retirement villages harvesting the votes of the infirm and befuddled. Once again not overly common.

I think our registration process could use some work but I am against mandatory voting. When you talk to the people who don't choose to vote, most of them are completely clueless regarding the candidates, the issues etc. If you force them to vote, it won't be a well thought out decision. They'll vote for who their friends tell them to or who has the best TV ads or blind party voting etc because they don't care. You can force people to vote but you can't force them to care.

To add to Daryl, the fine for not voting is around the $50.00 mark and it's fairly easy to get out of.

biochem wrote:I think our registration process could use some work but I am against mandatory voting. When you talk to the people who don't choose to vote, most of them are completely clueless regarding the candidates, the issues etc. If you force them to vote, it won't be a well thought out decision. They'll vote for who their friends tell them to or who has the best TV ads or blind party voting etc because they don't care. You can force people to vote but you can't force them to care.

I'd be very surprised if knowledge about politics strongly correlates with voting or not-voting. Given the amount of tribalism in politics (US and Canadian), I doubt most people make well thought out decisions on who to vote for. That's why half the people vote for the wrong party

biochem wrote:

gcomeau wrote:If anyone still wants to try arguing the GOP is obsessed with voter ID out of some virtuous concern for election integrity and not out of a desire to suppress the votes of legal voters, you have zero credibility left.

This is NOT some isolated incident...

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/ ... s-voter-id

Apparently these locations processed about 5% of the state drivers licenses, so it cost more to keep them open than they were worth.

First... according to who?

Second, who cares what percentage of driver's licenses they processed??? If it's the only DMV office for a rural low population county it probably processes a very small percentage of the overall state applications relative to a location in the middle of the biggest cities. But if you close it those 5% of applications they were processing were for people that now have to drive for hours to reach the next closest location (which, of course, is exactly the point of closing them). The offices are there to provide a service to the region, not to take some equal load of statewide processing for no rational reason.

Plus

http://sos.alabama.gov/alabama-votes/voter/voter-id

State of Alabama website - voter ID rules and mobile ID center schedule

They seem to be trying to switch to a mobile system which includes a request form to have the mobile unit show up at events or make home visits. So it seems easy enough for black communities to address. Just hold an event or two or three in these counties. Plus every country has a registrars office where a voter ID could be obtained.

The bigger impact is likely to be on black teenagers in rural counties who want a drivers license.

Also this was implemented in 2014. Looking at the 2016 presidential election.

National black turnout was roughly the same as in 2004 when Obama was not on the ballot (Obama caused a surge in black voting). I can't find hard numbers on % of eligible black voters who voted in Alabama in 2016 but multiple commentaries refer to a return to historic norms and that Alabama followed the national trends.

Given how easy it is to get registered even without the DMV (go to the local registrars office, hold an event, have them come to your house), the more serious negative impact is the difficulty in getting first time drivers licenses.

There are associated hurdles with all of the alternative IDs as well, in cost, time, documentation required, etc...

The point is never that people *can't* get the IDs. The point is to make it more onerous and inconvenient, and in ways that whenever possible impact a group you are targeting to greater degree than your own voters, and have that depress turnout within specific demographic groups.

Which is the entire point of voter ID laws in the first place because as has been demonstrated UNENDINGLY there is no actual fucking voter fraud of a type that these laws prevent. Instances of voter fraud that involve voter impersonation are something like a one vote in 32 million event.

http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017 ... bts-ac.cnn

These laws serve no purpose whatsoever EXCEPT to make it harder for people to vote. And certain people in particular. To the extent they have limited effect, a lot of that is because the minority groups that see this happening get so pissed off they put in extra effort to get registered and vote and counteract the effect, but that doesn't change the motivation of the law and what the people passing them are ridiculously obviously trying to accomplish.

https://www.google.com.au/amp/amp.timei ... love-fumes


Aparently, even the dogs.

Roy Moore announcing that he was going to ride a horse to the poling booth, and actually doing so.

But aparently not knowing how to ride a horse.

Statistically (Which means you can take it for what you want and these are just the rough numbers) 20% of voters will always vote Republican, and 20% of voters will always vote Democratic. It wouldn't matter if a dog was running or a corpse. They will vote party lines in any election. From mayor to president. It has absolutely nothing to do with their knowledge of the issues being discussed, the candidates or anything else. Just the party involved.

Also worth noting is that almost half of all votes received by either major candidate are actually negative votes. In other words they voted the way they did only because they disliked the other guy.

I feel that it can be rather conclusively stated that people are all too often ignorant or indifferent to both the political issues at hand and their associated party's stance on them, given their voting actions.

Down here in Oz, it's closer to 80% who will vote the same every election.

I would love to see the US implement a program in which each voter receives an IRS form good for an income tax deduction as they leave the polling place after voting. I think this would work better than mandatory voting with penalties for non-participation. It rewards those who choose to participate in our democracy.