Voter fraud and voter disenfranchisement

Disappoint.

Well, this is the main reason for arguing for automatic voter registration. This is the one front that the Tories haven't attacked yet (but they were attacking via the voter ID angle). The original law was that you needed to prove you actually lived in the area of the polling station, and with computer technology we were able to hand out voter cards to everyone. In Canada only two people aren't allowed to vote: the officer in charge of the election and his deputy.

Proving residence is good enough to me. Voter ID is bullshit.

Things you can use to vote:

• Your automatically sent out voter ID card, based on your last residence reported to Elections Canada (or the equivalent agency in your country)
• Utility bills in your name at the residence
• Any government issued ID such as health cards, driver licence
• Another person who proved residence vouches for you under oath

And for people who argue that "it's easy to get a driver licence", it's not. If blowing a day off work loses you your job, then it's too hard.

Especially when you have GOP fraudsters having three DM Vs in red districts and one open once a month in blue areas. There is no way anyone can convince me that this sort of thing isn't objectively unfair.

The thing about voter purges is that they're not bad in and of themselves, if you are just purging dead/illegal voters. However, you have to dot your i's and cross your t's, and the Florida purge was nothing short of sloppy.

I don't even understand the concept of a voter purge, and the name itself is worrisome enough.

Every fiscal year people do taxes, they report their residence. There's your voter list. Prisons have their populations, there's the other part of your list. The only people I can reasonably understand being missed out are the homeless, but worse case scenario we have them say an oath at the polling station that they this is the only time they are voting and done.

There's no reason to restrict voters at all. Everyone should be allowed to vote. If people concerned about the quality of a vote, get people more education/informed about policies, politics, economics or what have you. Banning people from voting is the most idiotic solution to the problem.

I've never earned enough money to have to report my taxes, so if you just go by IRS claims, you're leaving out a LOT of legitimate voters.

Also: Felons aren't legally allowed to vote.

edited 13th Jun '12 3:20:28 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

IRS is crappy is what I'm saying. You don't need to file a tax return. They have to figure out if the government should give you money as well. Okay, so I guess it's just the American bureaucracy is poorly designed in general. And I think you've missed the point. The up-to-date address for the easy to use mailed out voter cards, not for putting you on a list of voters. Everyone can vote. There is no list.

Also, felons should be allowed to vote and I realise that they are currently banned but that's just stupid. Heck this is half the reason why minority groups represent most of the purged voters. You arrest them on stupid things and then ban them from voting after.

edited 13th Jun '12 3:25:28 PM by breadloaf

Well, the law is what it is, and in the US, there's such a "BE TOUGH ON CRIME!" attitude you're never going to get them to institute a "Oh BTW you can vote even if you're a felon" policy.

Depends on the state. Some only restrict voting rights if you're currently incarcerated, whereas some restrict voting rights permanently if you're a convicted felon.

Bah, the country is just voting itself out of being able to vote.

Necroing to bring the topic from the 2012 elections thread again, and this time to ask a question:

Why disenfranchise felons?

It's a loss of rights, along with other freedoms.

I think someone told me that whether or not they can vote once out of jail actually differs from state to state, though.

it does.

But the question I have is, why keep them from voting after released?

Some people think that they have not been keeping up on current events. Other believe that they would vote for someone that would fit their ideals.

I presume it's a "three strikes and you're done" sort of thing. Felonies tend to be quite serious, and I guess in some places they feel there should be permanent punishment.

I don't think the issue of whether felons should get back the vote actually comes up much, though. The felons are usually more interested in getting their lives back together in some fashion, and voting isn't a necessity to live. Not quite sure how to bring this up in a serious arena of vote reform, really.

I don't think there should be any permanent punishment. Perhaps during incarceration and probation, though.

As I've said in 2012 elections thread, I'm wondering if voting regulations (i.e. ID) can be handled directly in either the time of voting registration, or the time of voting.

edited 17th Jul '12 7:03:25 PM by abstractematics

Same day registration would be fucking fantastic if we could get out the equipment so people who work the event could check things like social security numbers. And if we could stretch out voting over more than one fucking day.

I'm of the opinion that voting rights should be suspended while one is incarcerated or on probation, and immediately restored upon completion of a sentence.

Likewise.

Agreed. The disenfranchisement efforts are just more evidence for one of those few real slippery slopes: if you want to get away with denying people rights, you'll start by denying them to criminals, whom no one wants to defend. (I think the sequence is criminals, then immigrants, then local minorities, then unpopular political demographics, and then the citizenry at large.)

If you get caught speeding and can't afford to pay the fine, you shouldn't be screwed out of throwing your democratic chip into the pot just because the day you're thrown into debtors' prison happens to be voting day.

There's also a vicious cycle to that. Critics of a given law are obviously more likely to break it. Which can get them thrown in jail. Which deprives them of the ability to vote for a politician who would want to change said law. Which ensures a continual status quo of bullshit laws.

In theory, selectively depriving people of voting rights based on qualifiers like that may look like a good and obvious idea, but on examination it seems to me to cause a hell of a lot of problems and not provide anything substantial as a benefit other than the need for some people to feel morally superior to others.

Thought I'd post this report for discussion purposes.

I find another problem with it is it reinforces the idea that "criminals are bad people and whatever they did, I would have done the right thin in that case, so they dont deserve the rights I get"

@Karkadinn: To be fair, ensuring that the laws are only made by the law-abiding is something the proponents of felon disenfranchisement laud. It's a perfectly consistent position, even if I disagree with it; after all, the consent of the underclass is not necessary to run a functional government.

For certain generous definitions of what one considers 'functional,' anyway. The harshest states for criminal-voting currently are Kentucky, Virginia and... Florida.

Yes, Florida.

I'm ambivalent about felons voting. It would seem that, unless your crime is directly related to the exercise of your franchise, there is no relationship between your criminal record and your ability to vote. I suppose there's the perceived danger that a criminal would vote for someone likely to be soft on crime, or for someone who is an actual criminal.

In fact, I think I get the source of the concern. There is a social contract (cue booing from conservatives) that we all abide by. At a very basic level, you follow the rules in exchange for protection and support from the community. If you reject the rules, the community reserves the right to kick you out — to deny you that protection and support. Voting is both a right and a privilege of being a member of the community, so a criminal would by nature lose that right.

By inference, a rehabilitated criminal who is allowed back into the community should get the right back or be allowed to earn it back in some fashion.

As for the wider issue of voting rights vis-a-vis fraud and ID's, I'd say that a universal federal ID system with electronic database support is the most obvious and efficient method of serving both concerns.