Poll: Majority of Republicans believe Trump is President right now

[pondwater]

It is an unnecessary burden to voting that does virtually nothing to reduce the already-miniscule amount of voting fraud in the US.

If tens of thousands of legitimate voters will be prevented from casting their ballots due to a lack of approved photo ID, the onus is not on me to prove why photo ID should not be required to vote; the onus is on you to prove why disenfranchising that many legal voters is necessary.  And a couple dozen alleged cases of voter fraud out of hundreds of millions of votes cast is not anywhere close to sufficient justification.

You're always so vague with your positions, I wonder why LMFAO...

So you're not claiming it's illegal or unconstitutional. You're just claiming that it's a burden. Is that correct?

[Spider-Dan]

You're always so vague with your positions, I wonder why LMFAO...

So you're not claiming it's illegal or unconstitutional. You're just claiming that it's a burden. Is that correct?

I'm not being vague at all.

Placing an unnecessary burden on the ability to exercise your rights (for example: your right to vote, as mentioned in several cited amendments) is itself unconstitutional, and therefore illegal.

You may place an extra burden on the ability to exercise a right if that burden is judged to be necessary, but given that the rate of charged (again, not convicted, merely charged) cases of in-person voter fraud is significantly less than 0.00001%, requiring photo ID to vote does not meet the bar of a necessary burden.

[Spider-Dan]

Maine, just to clarify: I'm not saying that AL had too many or not enough DMVs before; I'm saying that following up the passage of a voter ID law with the immediate closure of dozens of DMV offices primarily in counties with high minority populations is too cute by half.  It's obviously no coincidence.

If an ID to vote gets put into place how does this impact mailed ballots, or early ones?

This is part of the problem: voters who are permitted to mail in their ballots do not have to present photo ID when casting their ballot.  And it's notable that no Republican politicians want to ban vote-by-mail; they just want to make sure that only deserving people can do it. I leave it to the reader as to whom will be deemed worthy.

I think Dave spoke to this when he mentioned the signature.  I voted absentee this year and mine had to match my driver's license.  So, really, same / same.  Right?

I can't speak to ME, but in CA, the signature on your ballot has to match the signature on your voter registration form, not the signature on your driver's license.

[ArtieChokePhin]

It is an unnecessary burden to voting that does virtually nothing to reduce the already-miniscule amount of voting fraud in the US.

If tens of thousands of legitimate voters will be prevented from casting their ballots due to a lack of approved photo ID, the onus is not on me to prove why photo ID should not be required to vote; the onus is on you to prove why disenfranchising that many legal voters is necessary.  And a couple dozen alleged cases of voter fraud out of hundreds of millions of votes cast is not anywhere close to sufficient justification.

Miniscule my ass.  If you only knew how widespread voter fraud has been and can actually be.  And this was before they had mail in ballots. 

[ArtieChokePhin]

This is part of the problem: voters who are permitted to mail in their ballots do not have to present photo ID when casting their ballot.  And it's notable that no Republican politicians want to ban vote-by-mail; they just want to make sure that only deserving people can do it. I leave it to the reader as to whom will be deemed worthy.

Only military who are deployed overseas and U.S. citizens who have an established residence in a state but are overseas for whatever reason during the election time should be allowed to vote by mail.  Nobody else.  No exceptions.

[pondwater]

You're talking in circles again. I can play that game too.

It is an unnecessary burden to voting that does virtually nothing to reduce the already-miniscule amount of voting fraud in the US.

Banning so called "assault weapons" is an unnecessary burden to the right to bear arms that does virtually nothing to reduce the already small percentage of "assault weapon" deaths in the US.

the onus is not on me to prove why photo ID should not be required to vote; the onus is on you to prove why disenfranchising that many legal voters is necessary..

The onus is not on me to prove why "assault weapons" should not be banned based on cosmetic features; the onus is on you to prove why disenfranchising that many legal gun owners is necessary..

I'm not being vague at all.

Placing an unnecessary burden on the ability to exercise your rights (for example: your right to vote, as mentioned in several cited amendments) is itself unconstitutional, and therefore illegal.

So you don't just think that voter ID is unfair burden, you are actually claiming that voter ID laws are illegal and unconstitutional?

[Spider-Dan]

Miniscule my ass.  If you only knew how widespread voter fraud has been and can actually be.

If only Trump's DOJ knew how widespread voter fraud has been, maybe they would have gotten a significant number of convictions to show for it!

In-person voter fraud is virtually non-existent.  Out of the last 500 million votes cast in federal elections, I don't think there's even been 100 convictions for in-person voter fraud (the kind of fraud that verifying photo ID would prevent).

Only military who are deployed overseas and U.S. citizens who have an established residence in a state but are overseas for whatever reason during the election time should be allowed to vote by mail.  Nobody else.  No exceptions.

...what?

What justification do you have to say that a US citizen with "an established residence" in Cleveland MAY NOT vote by mail from Cincinnati, or from Phoenix, but MAY vote by mail from Mexico?  That doesn't make any sense!

If you think voting by mail from outside the country(?!) is safe & secure enough to be allowable, every citizen INSIDE this country should be allowed to vote by mail with no excuse.

[Spider-Dan]

Banning so called "assault weapons" is an unnecessary burden to the right to bear arms that does virtually nothing to reduce the already small percentage of "assault weapon" deaths in the US.

The onus is not on me to prove why "assault weapons" should not be banned based on cosmetic features; the onus is on you to prove why disenfranchising that many legal gun owners is necessary..

You make a strong argument for the protection of essential rights!

So since voter fraud is even less of a problem than violence from the types of guns designated as "assault weapons" in the 1994 law, after we have strictly regulated those (and other) kinds of semi-automatic firearms - adding a regrettable but necessary burden on the exercise of our constitutional rights in the name of public safety - we can then move on to any other regrettable but necessary burdens on our right to vote (in the name of election integrity).

So you don't just think that voter ID is unfair burden, you are actually claiming that voter ID laws are illegal and unconstitutional?

I think that any legal obstacle judged to be an unfair and unnecessary burden on the exercise of our constitutional rights would be itself unconstitutional and therefore illegal.

Now, do I think the Republican-appointed Supreme Court (as currently comprised) would rule that these voter ID laws are an unnecessary burden?  No, I do not.  So at the end of the day, it's constitutional (and legal) if they say it is.

[pondwater]

You make a strong argument for the protection of essential rights!

So since voter fraud is even less of a problem than violence from the types of guns designated as "assault weapons" in the 1994 law, after we have strictly regulated those (and other) kinds of semi-automatic firearms - adding a regrettable but necessary burden on the exercise of our constitutional rights in the name of public safety - we can then move on to any other regrettable but necessary burdens on our right to vote (in the name of election integrity).

Hell Spider, if you can't even explain how or why cosmetic features make a firearm more dangerous, then your argument falls flat on its face. If you want to ban something that restricts someone's rights, then you at least need a logical reason to do so.

I think that any legal obstacle judged to be an unfair and unnecessary burden on the exercise of our constitutional rights would be itself unconstitutional and therefore illegal.

Now, do I think the Republican-appointed Supreme Court (as currently comprised) would rule that these voter ID laws are an unnecessary burden?  No, I do not.  So at the end of the day, it's constitutional (and legal) if they say it is.

They already have said voter ID is constitutional and legal.

(Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd, 553 U.S. 181, 128 [2008]) By a vote of 6 to 3, the Court upheld the law, concluding that the photo I.D. requirement was closely related to Indiana's legitimate state interests in preventing voter fraud. The slight burden the law imposed on voters' rights did not outweigh these interests, which the Court characterized as "neutral and nondiscriminatory."

That's why I'm not sure why this is even a discussion. Voter ID is legal, constitutional, and nondiscriminatory according to SCOTUS. You're welcome to your opinion. However once SCOTUS rules against your opinion, it renders your opinion wrong.

On the flip side, I don't hear many reasonable people on the right calling to end ID and background checks for firearm purchases because they have already been decided by the courts. We already have common sense firearm laws on the books that only need to be enforced. Now we need to enact common sense voting laws.

[Sunstroke]

Miniscule my ass.  If you only knew how widespread voter fraud has been and can actually be. 

You should definitely educate us on this then... I'm assuming you have some mother lode of evidence that nobody else on the planet seems to have.

Of course you do... 

[Spider-Dan]

The Oklahoma City bombing killed 168 and wounded hundreds more with fertilizer. It doesn't really matter the weapon if a person is crazy and wants to do it they will find a way.

In point of fact: sale and transport of ammonium nitrate-based fertilizer is now regulated due directly to the OKC bombing.

I also didn't want to let this gem pass without comment:

Look up voting records for Roberts who was nominated by current Democrat George Bush and you'll see he sides with the liberal judges quite often.

No, George W. Bush is not a "current Democrat."

The fact that you apparently define who is and is not a "Republican" solely by their level of fealty to Donald Trump is yet another reason why your claims of reluctant support for him ring so hollow.

[Spider-Dan]

Hell Spider, if you can't even explain how or why cosmetic features make a firearm more dangerous, then your argument falls flat on its face.

In the hopes of ending this recurring tangent: features such as the ability to accept a telescoping stock do not themselves necessarily make a firearm more deadly.  These are features that are used as an indicator of the type of firearm that is usually more deadly in total with all features considered.  This is why the law in question regulated weapons with "two or more" of features from a specified list; not because adding a bayonet mount to a rifle with a threaded barrel immediately made it more deadly, but because the combination of those features were common to more deadly rifles.

You should be familiar with this kind of logic in regulation because we already see it all the time.  For example, there are many financial regulations that prohibit a combination of actions that are individually unremarkable (and legal), but can be done in concert to facilitate (say) money laundering.  This is also how laws against insider trading and other forms of corruption work: you have a list of indicators, and when there are multiple indicators present at once, it is taken to mean something greater than the individual components.

So looking at a list of indicators and saying, "What makes this one thing dangerous?  OK, then what makes this next one thing dangerous?" misses the point.  They are used in concert to indicate a more dangerous whole, which is exactly why two or more features were required from the list.

That's why I'm not sure why this is even a discussion. Voter ID is legal, constitutional, and nondiscriminatory according to SCOTUS. You're welcome to your opinion. However once SCOTUS rules against your opinion, it renders your opinion wrong.

I didn't know you were such a strong advocate for abortion rights!  After all, SCOTUS ruled that access to abortion is a constitutional right many decades ago, rendering everyone on the right who opposed abortion wrong.  So why is it even a discussion?

[ArtieChokePhin]

You should definitely educate us on this then... I'm assuming you have some mother lode of evidence that nobody else on the planet seems to have.

Of course you do...  

Look no further than the 1997 City of Miami Mayoral Election.  And don't get me started on Chicago and Detroit.

[pondwater]

In the hopes of ending this recurring tangent: features such as the ability to accept a telescoping stock do not themselves necessarily make a firearm more deadly.  These are features that are used as an indicator of the type of firearm that is usually more deadly in total with all features considered.  This is why the law in question regulated weapons with "two or more" of features from a specified list; not because adding a bayonet mount to a rifle with a threaded barrel immediately made it more deadly, but because the combination of those features were common to more deadly rifles.

You should be familiar with this kind of logic in regulation because we already see it all the time.  For example, there are many financial regulations that prohibit a combination of actions that are individually unremarkable (and legal), but can be done in concert to facilitate (say) money laundering.  This is also how laws against insider trading and other forms of corruption work: you have a list of indicators, and when there are multiple indicators present at once, it is taken to mean something greater than the individual components.

So looking at a list of indicators and saying, "What makes this one thing dangerous?  OK, then what makes this next one thing dangerous?" misses the point.  They are used in concert to indicate a more dangerous whole, which is exactly why two or more features were required from the list.

That's the silliest thing that I've heard this year. A rifle could have all of those cosmetic features of a so called "assault weapon" and it is no more dangerous than a semi automatic hunting rifle because they functionally do the same thing.

I didn't know you were such a strong advocate for abortion rights!  After all, SCOTUS ruled that access to abortion is a constitutional right many decades ago, rendering everyone on the right who opposed abortion wrong.  So why is it even a discussion?

We're not discussing abortion so I'm not sure why you even brought it up. But just to humor you, in my opinion I don't think abortions should be used as a form of birth control by irresponsible people. Otherwise, I really don't give a shit either way. Currently it's the law, so I'm good with it.  Furthermore, even though I disagree with the premise. I'm also OK with showing my ID and background check when I pick up my 9mm commander length 1911. Because it's the law.

Voter ID is legal, constitutional, and nondiscriminatory according to SCOTUS. All of which refutes your whole premise when you use the words illegal, unconstitutional, and discriminatory. The law was written and legally passed by state legislature and backed up by SCOTUS?  Just admit it, your side lost the fight, move on to the next battle. Now go ahead and send the "assault weapon" nonsense thru SCOTUS and let the chips fall where they may.

[Spider-Dan]

Look no further than the 1997 City of Miami Mayoral Election.

https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-voter-fraud-20170125-story.html

At the time, Mayor Joe Carollo was seeking a second term and faced a challenge from Xavier Suarez, the city’s first Cuban mayor, who had served in the 1980s and was waging a political comeback. That November, Suarez defeated Carollo in a runoff election. Yet something was amiss.

Carollo’s campaign, heeding tips from local political operatives, claimed that absentee ballots in the runoff were forged and even paid for by representatives of the Suarez campaign. An investigation found nearly 400 fraudulent absentee ballots were cast by, among others, dead people and felons.

So this one time, nearly a quarter-century ago, there were almost 400 (but: not quite 400) fraudulent absentee ballots in an election!  It is notable that they were absentee ballots, because absentee ballots would not be affected at all by a law requiring photo ID when voting.

From later in that article:

Indeed, Levitt recently conducted a comprehensive report into voter fraud that is widely cited by scholars. He found 31 credible instances between 2000 and 2014 of voter impersonation out of more than 1 billion votes cast. He examined ballots from every federal election in that time frame.

Sounds about right.