Voter ID in NC

North Carolina passed a voter ID law once before; Federal courts struck it down. So the legislature came up with a proposal designed to avoid the courts' problems with the idea, and passed it again for a voter referendum. Voters approved it by a 55% count. The governor, a Democrat, vetoed the bill anyway.

Now, both houses of the North Carolina legislature have overridden the veto. Voter ID is once again the law of the state.

Naturally, within minutes of the veto override, a new lawsuit was filed against the new law.

Why are people so dead-set against the idea of proving that you're really the citizen who is entitled to cast a particular vote? I'd have to prove that I was really the guy called up for jury duty, or to serve if I were drafted, or for any other citizenship duty. The most obvious answer is fraud; we keep being told that it's not about fraud, but access. Yet the people who supposedly can't access the ID-obtaining mechanisms of state bureaucracy are disproportionately likely to successfully access the welfare-obtaining mechanisms of state and Federal bureaucracy. I'd think they could manage the one additional process.

In which case, I'm inclined to think it really is chiefly about enabling fraud. Lots of fraud. Lots more than they'd like to admit, and indeed lots more than they'd like us to imagine.

7 comments:

MikeD said...

I don't know. I go back and forth on this one. I absolutely believe there are those on the left who 100% object to voter ID because they see it as an attempt to get the camel's nose into the tent in order to slowly implement voter suppression (much the same way we clearly see bans on bump stocks and 20 round magazines as a step towards gun confiscation). But I also believe there are those who whip up that fear in order to cover for their vote fraud as well.

Likewise, I am sure there are extremists on the Right who would (given the chance) attempt to disenfranchise legal voters who would vote for Democrats. A small minority, to be sure, but they surely exist.

So for me, the issue comes down to "do the positives (less voter fraud) outweigh the negatives (possible disenfranchisement)". And for a voter ID requirement, I'd say no. As it stands in this country, you are required to present a picture ID for MANY things (to include being a passenger on an airplane, attending the Democratic National Convention, buying cold medicine, etc) that the claims that this is too great a burden on minorities are laughable. And the potential to severely reduce voter fraud is high. So I favor the law. What I do not favor is assuming that everyone who disagrees with me is solely motivated by protecting fraud.

Grim said...

I don’t doubt that there are “some” on the left who sincerely believe etc. I know some who sincerely believe that in the same way they studiously believe every article of faith in the PC canon. I just can’t believe that the leadership of what calls itself the “Democratic” party is so dead set on defying the clear and repeated will of the majority for that reason.

E Hines said...

I just can’t believe that the leadership of what calls itself the “Democratic” party is so dead set on defying the clear and repeated will of the majority for that reason.

I can believe that some (much?) of the leadership of what used to be the Democratic Party believed for that reason. But that party (small 'p') no longer exists. What's extant today is what I've been calling for some time the Progressive-Democratic Party--because I can no longer tell the difference between that Party (capital 'P') and the Party of Herb Croly, he of the position that I've cited a time or two before: To be sure, any increase in centralized power and responsibility, expedient or inexpedient, is injurious to certain aspects of traditional American democracy. But the fault in that case lies with the democratic tradition; and the erroneous and misleading tradition must yield before the march of constructive national democracy…. [T]he average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities as a democrat.

This is the position and attitude of the Party's other founders, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson (although the latter, I suspect, would have whole heartedly approved of Voter ID for all the reasons the current crop projects onto Republicans), and of the Party's current leadership and leadership-in-waiting: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Corey Booker, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillebrand, Amy Klobuchar, and on and on.

These personages actively disregard the will of the people precisely because they view us as ignorant, Bible-toting, gun-clinging, racist, misogynist, homophobic denizens of flyover country, and particularly their view of women who can't be Conservative; they're only voting as their husbands instruct them to do (they've never met Elise, or Texan99, or my wife, or....). In fine we're all, those worthies of the Progressive-Democratic Party proudly insist, morally and intellectually inadequate to serious and consistent conception of [our] responsibilities as...democrat[s]. And so not to be taken seriously except as our numbers make us dangerous.

A pox on that and them. I aim to misbehave. Have been for a while.

Eric Hines

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I think that Democrats believe that the least discouragement of black and poor voters cause many to cower in fear and stay away. They can't come out and say that they think black and poor voters are unmotivated or cowardly, so they continually try to whip up frenzy that some conservatives are this close to putting on hoods and threatening uppity blacks, or running poor whites out of town.

That is, unfortunately, the kindest interpretation. I believe there are other Democrats who suspect that there actually is widespread fraud at least in some places. They don't want to give up that unfair advantage, because they believe that the Republicans have so many unfair advantages that it is cheating to pick only on them. Classic victim - and actually classic criminal and antisocial attitude.

E Hines said...

I think that Democrats believe that the least discouragement of black and poor voters cause many to cower in fear and stay away. They can't come out and say that they think black and poor voters are unmotivated or cowardly....

Woodrow Wilson, when asked by a black journalist why Wilson was resegregating the Federal government and favored segregation generally, said that blacks should be grateful for the protection of segregation since they were unequipped to compete in a white world. And that white world rather than American world was an extension of Wilson's disdain for federal democracy, democracy generally, and our Constitution.

Today's (Progressive-) Democrats are just that, less openly. At least Wilson had the integrity to be open about his bigotry and his contempt for mere citizens.

Eric Hines

Ymarsakar said...

Every ginned up, bought, necromancer dead corpse vote will be counted. The infamous "American elections" that matter.

The Republic died a long time ago. It'll take Americans some time to accept that tragic fact of life.

wolfwalker said...

Assistant Village Idiot: No, I think the kindest interpretation is that many Democrats honestly believe what they're saying, and haven't figured out that their position is based on bad assumptions.

One of the things I've noticed about liberals is that many of them tend to think it's still the 1930s. Back then, there actually was a legitimate reason to oppose voter ID laws. It may even be still valid today, in limited circumstances. Everywhere I can think of, in order to get the voter ID card (driver's license or whatever), you have to prove citizenship. For natural-born US citizens, that means a valid birth certificate. In 1930, a pretty substantial percentage of people, especially minorities, didn't have such a thing. They were born before the era of universal government recordkeeping, so they didn't have an official birth certificate. Or they had one, but it was lost long ago for some reason. No birth certificate = no way to prove you're a citizen. No proof of citizenship = no right to vote.

Of course there are ways around this problem, but liberals reject them because each such alternative requires the person to _work harder_ for it. At some point the process does indeed become a serious burden.