There’s a lot to unpack here so I’ll try to concisely address what you’ve wrote.
Republicans believe the lie they have been told. So you can’t go back and say that because they believe the lie there must be some truth to it. That extremely illogical. Think about what you’re saying. Republicans as a talking point say “election fraud”. Their supporters believe that it’s a real issue because they are being told that. So now it has to be fixed because the lie took hold. That’s asinine at best and stupid at worse. The overall proof that it’s stupid is you site Heritage as the source that in 2022 63 instances of voter fraud existed. Millions of votes cast, 63 instances of fraud. Let’s think about that and take out the hyperbole. That’s not a problem that’s fixed by changing and shortening early votes or removing weekend or late night voting. Surely that’s not solved by reducing mail in voting or requiring IDs. Making all those changes have nothing at all to with stopping the very few actual instances of voter fraud.
It’s a silly position to take that things like stopping people from providing water to folks in line to vote is intended to prevent fraud. Or having late night hours somehow prevents fraud. Or purging voter registration rolls. Or shortening early voting period and not having Sunday voting prevents fraud. You’re smarter than what you wrote so I’ll leave you to ponder the real question, what’s it designed to effect?
I personally have no issue with ID requirements but with 63 out of millions of votes being the problem, it’s likely just an unnecessary artificial hurdle. But overall I believe simple is better. Any reasonable ID should be allowed. Why eliminate student IDs issued by colleges but allow hunting licenses? If you can’t see the difference on the surface of who that constituency might adversely affect, well, I don’t know what to tell ya but willful blindness comes to mind. That isn’t the only instance but if you take a second to look at accepted IDs vs not accepted forms of ID it might be enlightening.
Maybe if republicans quit spreading unfounded and unsupportable lies to their constituents, including through Fox News the RNC and formerly Trump propaganda arm, they be less likely to believe lies. Why does a large number of republicans believe the elections are rigged. Because they are being fed the lie and we know republicans generally aren’t the sharpest tools in shed. Shit, look at republican elected officials in congress Boebert Green Gosar Gohmer, all profound idiots. And that’s just off the top of my head. The republican constituency gets flood with falsehoods and since they only hear what they want to hear from the echo chamber (Fox Newsmax Breitbart etc) the falsehoods are reinforced as truth and facts. What did that lead to “election fraud” “election stolen”.
Your assertion that because people believe a falsehood repeated ad infinitum by people they believe that laws should be passed to assuage their fears is crazy. How about stop telling the lie. Put the real facts out there and tell the truth. Election fraud doesn’t exist in any amounts that require changes in the voting laws. The elections were stolen. There were no dumps of votes in boxes under tables and voting machines weren’t hacked. That’s where republicans can start and stop with all the attempts to limit the vote.
Interestingly you should read the 63 instances from 2022 (they they actually cover a longer period of time. Most are republicans (not surprisingly). I only found two that would be maybe stopped by some of the measures sought to prevent fraud. The instances of felons voting - NOPE, someone trying to affect their own local election - NOPE. Now there were some republicans that voted for their dead parents and spouses. could that be stopped. I suppose but guess what, that subset of the 60 is even smaller. All the other instances were people setting out to effect some small local election through fraud. None of which would have been prevented by making voting more difficult.
Republicans should apply the same logic to voting that they do to gun laws. Why make changes to the laws when there are laws on the books. And the instances that do occur can’t be stopped with more laws anyway so why create more restrictions for the honest voters.
Originally Posted by 1blackman1
Good post counselor. It didn't change my mind, but good post. I'd use a different "guns" analogy. You historically have had a large number of American citizens who were willing to go to war with the government if it attempted to confiscate their firearms. There are some Republicans who feel the same about election fraud. If you can assuage their fears in ways that don't disadvantage Democrats, and that actually decrease the costs of holding elections (e.g. shortened election hours and days) then what's the problem?
You're the lawyer, not me, but there must be a hell of a lot of laws out there that not only address non-issues, but also fuck people over. Laws against possession of a certain substance we're not allowed to discuss here are an example. And there are a ton more examples in the book Three Felonies A Day. So, OK, from that standpoint, I don't see the wisdom in a law that puts someone in prison because he's an ex-felon who voted. But otherwise if you can half assed placate one side in a very divided country without disadvantaging the other side, I don't see the harm, regardless of whether that sounds silly to lawyers.
There are actually 1227 criminal convictions in the Heritage database. The 63 in the table I linked to were 2022 CONVICTIONS, and yes, many of the crimes occurred in prior years.
Looking over the first 30 records in the table, I see two instances where fraud would have changed the outcome of an election if the perpetrator had gotten away with it, and both were Democrats (Kathy Funk and Isaac Galvan). I'd have to give the award for the most brazen violations to a couple of villains in your state, Tangipahoa parish, who were paying people $20 a piece for their votes.
And while I vehemently disagree with your assertion that Republicans are stupider and more prone to election fraud, I can see how you could get that impression from the table. There were too many cases of some yahoo voting for his great Aunt because he wanted Trump to win.
I really don't see how the measures that you and Eccieuser have brought up, like shortened election hours or election days, fewer drop boxes, eliminating mail in voting, or allowing voting with any old ID would disadvantage Democrats.
I'm not necessarily saying I agree with all those measures, just that they don't preferentially hurt Democrats.
A higher % of Democrats are unemployed (based on the 2016 Cooperative Election Study -
https://cces.gov.harvard.edu/), and a higher % of the elderly are Republicans (
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...-and-religion/). Thus if your argument is that the workingman and workinglady and the elderly won't have an opportunity to vote with shortened hours or shortened days or without mail in ballots, it should disadvantage Republicans more.
As to voter ID, I made a fake university ID card when I was in high school, to buy beer and go to X-rated movies, and it worked. It absolutely makes sense to use standardized ID's that election workers can verify are real. I don't see how anyone can survive in this day and age without a drivers license or other state ID anyway. Looking at your state of Louisiana, I see it accepts "a driver's license; a Louisiana Special ID; LA Wallet digital driver's license; or some other generally recognized picture ID that contains your name and signature." And furthermore, "Voters who do not have accepted ID may vote by completing a voter identification affidavit." I imagine most states have similar requirements.
In any event, as you previously pointed out, if anything, the way the Republican and Democratic Parties have used these issues in their propaganda campaigns has had the effect of encouraging Democrats to vote while discouraging Republicans. If this is some kind of Republican conspiracy, it has backfired.
As to your contention that Republican voters and Congressmen are dumb asses who believe everything they see on Fox News, that works both ways. I could equally say the same thing about Democrats and MSNBC. AOC, Maxine Waters and Hank Johnson have said some things every bit as stupid as the Republican Congressmen and women on your list.
