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Monday, May 12, 2014

More Voter ID Thoughts

Our last discussion regarding voter ID requirements in which 2 lefties agreed that  "If you are entitled to or have a right to something from the government you should be required to prove your eligibility for that entitlement or right."

 However, Wayne's last words of that discussion left a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth.  "Why do we know or think we know how much voter fraud there is? Do we take exit polls? 'Excuse me sir. Who did you vote for for Senator? Were you eligible to vote in this election?'"


This reasoning, it seems to me,  could be used to justify pretty much any action whatsoever.  We don't know for sure that people aren't doing something and therefor we should assume they are and make the laws more intrusive and demanding just in case? 

Here is the part that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  What level of certainty do we require and how far do we go to get it?  Today it's a picture voter ID.  OK, fine.  But who among us thinks that will provide 100% certainty that there is no voter fraud?  If we base our answer on our inability to see how much fraud is NOT going on then I can't see how a picture ID adds any material level of confidence.  Picture IDs can be faked by those motivated to do so and therefor we should, under Wayne's reasoning, assume that a large number of people are acquiring fake IDs in order to vote illegally.  So then what's the next level of certainty that we will require? And more importantly how aggressive and intrusive will the next level be?  I don't know.  It may be argued that I'm just being paranoid.  But I think that is a lousy argument and flies in the face of history.    

So, what do I believe we should do?  I have no reason to be unhappy with the current system in spite of the fact that it put a Republican majority in the House.  It's a two way street.  Does that mean that I am in favor of voter fraud?  No, it does not mean that.  It means that I fear the trade-offs if we take action to push for 100% certainty that there will be no voter fraud.  It means that I think that the current system, while not perfect by any means, more times than not gets it right.

So, I must change my pledge to Wayne that I made in the last round of this discussion and say,  "If you are entitled to or have a right to something from the government you should be required to prove your eligibility for that entitlement or right, but only to the extent that the proof does not allow additional intrusion by the government in to the lives of law abiding citizens."  

However if the only argument Wayne is putting forth is that voters should be required to show a picture ID in order to vote, then OK.  If that would satisfy everyone then I would gladly join him in being in favor of it. And my arguments outside of the picture ID realm are irrelevant to the discussion.

8 comments:

  1. We are agreed on a goal of avoiding “additional intrusion by the government in the lives of law abiding citizens”. Hmmm, sounds like a conservative refrain to me.

    Government issued picture ID works for me.

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  2. I think that Bruce and I would write very similar voter ID laws. Based on what he has said before he might be a bit more worried about excluding a legitimate voter, but it would be close.

    But we sure get crossways over words.

    I noted that ID opponents claim that there is no (or very little) fraud. I argued that we don't know how much voter fraud there is and made no assumption about it at all.

    Bruce says. "This reasoning, it seems to me, could be used to justify pretty much any action whatsoever. We don't know for sure that people aren't doing something and therefor we should assume they are and make the laws more intrusive and demanding just in case? "

    Really? A lack of information could justify any action whatsoever?

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  3. Perhaps I misunderstood Wayne's comment about not knowing how much voter fraud is taking place as a leg of his argument that we need additional or different voter ID laws. It would not be my choice as an argument in favor of an action, and if I have misrepresented it as any part of Wayne's argument I do gladly apologize because, IF it can be used as an argument for this action, in what case would it NOT be considered appropriate? So I am certainly happy that Wayne was not using that as any portion of his argument and render my apologies.

    But, if not knowing is not a supporting leg of the argument, and we don't really have any evidence that voter fraud is taking place to any material degree, then what is the problem? I have asked, in these discussions, for examples of where in this country voters were previously allowed to vote on the honor system, i.e., not required to show some sort of evidence that they are who they say they are, and the lack of any responses leads me to believe that perhaps none on the blog are aware of any. If Wayne's concern is that voters be required to prove that they are legitimate, and voters all over the country are already required to show some evidence that they are, then what exactly is the problem? There, it seems to me, is where the slippery slope lies. Because if the problem is that some are arguing that the type of evidence currently required is not reliable enough get us to 100% certainty of a fraud-free election system then, then what are the options. Pictures? OK. But when the discussion comes up again that we don't know how many vote with a faked picture ID what is next?

    As with all laws, the only way to approach 100% compliance with any certainty, is with a police state-type of set up . A nice tie-in with the Animal Farm discussion earlier. Conversely, the only way to avoid a police state is to be satisfied with some level of uncertainty about noncompliance. As Donald Rumsfeld taught us, democracy is messy. I agree with him.

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  4. The only argument I made there was that we don't know how much voter fraud there is.

    Using a lack of info as grounds that "could be used to justify any action whatsoever" was your argument which you tried to put into my mouth.

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  5. I am not sure who introduced the concept of 100% assuredness but I would not think that possible. What I would like to see is reasonable assuredness.

    My concerns over voter fraud are not that it is wide spread or that x% of voters are ineligible. My concern is that voter fraud might occur in high concentrations, under orchestration, in very tight elections on a spot basis. I am not implying that the following examples involved voter fraud, but I am suggesting that if voter fraud were involved it could have changed the outcome.

    Examples of tight election contests: The presidential election of 2000 was decided by 537 votes, 2008 Al Franken defeated Coleman for the US Senate in Minnesota in a recount by 312 votes, and infamously LBJ defeated Stevenson for Texas Senator by 87 votes in 1948 (how different would the world have been if LBJ had lost?).

    If a voter fraud detection system were in place that would catch punctuated instances of voter fraud I would feel much better. This is possible in the real world.

    Today I made a credit card charge at a CVS in Atlanta (my home is Dallas). Within 10 minutes my wife received a phone call from the fraud division of Discover to verify the charge was legitimate. Anomalies are detectable.

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  6. Yes the 100% maneuver is a nice example of a straw man which is easily destroyed.

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  7. WOW! "Maneuver" and "destroyed". Powerful images. Let me just make one thing clear. I only brought up the 100% certainty, not as a possibility, or even a realistic goal, but as a point on a certainty line to which changes in voter ID laws seek to move TOWARDS. That is just a clear logical fact. We are not comfortable with our current position on the certainty line so we want to move closer to the 100% certainty point. We are here on the certainty line and we want to be closer to the 100% point of certainty on the line. CLOSER. I hope that is clear. I'm talking about CLOSER, meaning that the distance between our current point on the certainty line and the 100% certainty point decreases by some distance.

    Now that I have defined my terms, the important part of this to me is, as we move closer to that 100% certainty point there is a point on that certainty line which I believe is dangerous for the country to cross. I don't know exactly where it is. I'm not that smart. I, and most of us, would probably only recognize it in hindsight. But I am smart enough to know that the line exists. And that is the source of my, and probably the left in general's, discomfort with blanket statements like "If you are entitled to or have a right to something from the government you should be required to prove your eligibility for that entitlement or right," Intuitively we know that in principle that statement is logically correct. But we also see that the "prove" part of this statement could be easily abused. And so again I say, I think that the current system, while flawed, gets it right most of the time. I think I would rather hold than take new cards that could be worse than the ones I'm holding. The ones I've got don't seem all that bad to me.

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  8. In this post Bruce says: So, I must change my pledge to Wayne that I made in the last round of this discussion and say, "If you are entitled to or have a right to something from the government you should be required to prove your eligibility for that entitlement or right, but only to the extent that the proof does not allow additional intrusion by the government in to the lives of law abiding citizens."

    This, of course, cancels the “pledge” because if the government requires someone to prove something it must intrude more than if it doesn’t require it. When I applied for social security I spent two days in that office filling out forms for my proof. I am pleased that they did intrude and I hope they don’t hand out SS benefits without a similar intrusion for every applicant who shows up.

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