Investigation launched after dead people are registered to vote in Harrisonburg

[wolfie]

Without mail ballots the working poor would never get a say. Even if they declared National Voting Day a Federal Holiday the working poor would till not be able to vote without a mail in ballot. Just ask how many of them have to work on Christmas because enough middle class assholes (those that are not that all are) demanded shop owners keep open coffee shops, restaurants, and grocery stores forcing people who can't afford to tell their boss "Hey but I have to vote too I need the day off" if they want to keep their jobs.

In Canada, this is how we handle it: polls are open from 8 AM to 8 PM. By law, employers must give their workers 3 hours clear to vote (i.e. a worker's schedule on election day must either start 11 AM or later, or end 5 PM or earlier). Also, there are advance polls (days known well before the election). This should give the working poor enough time to get to the polling station.

[s_stabeler]

also, voter ID laws can screw over people if delays in getting a particular ID- and it should be noted that IIRC, it's usually recommended to apply 3 months before your old one expires to get a replacement before the old one expires, meaning that someone applying for a photo ID now probably wouldn't get it in time for the presidential election- mean they don't get the ID until after the election.

[mjr]

It's exactly what we are talking about. The Republicans only want to make legal IDs that cost money.

I can see where they're coming from, but even as someone who is conservative leaning on most things, I disagree with it. Because honestly, I have no issue chipping in an extra $5 or whatever into a program that helps the less fortunate get a photo ID.

Maybe it comes down to that poster I saw one time that said something like "None of us is as dumb as all of us".

The point of the poster, I believe, is that sometimes an individual making a decision is much better than a "groupthink" one.

[jackfaire]

In Canada, this is how we handle it: polls are open from 8 AM to 8 PM. By law, employers must give their workers 3 hours clear to vote (i.e. a worker's schedule on election day must either start 11 AM or later, or end 5 PM or earlier). Also, there are advance polls (days known well before the election). This should give the working poor enough time to get to the polling station.

That would be a good solution if it could be enforced. Employers have a record of ignoring pesky things like the law or letting employees know they have rights and it's not something other people tend to remind workers of either.

FMLA Family Medical Leave Act is not taught in school at least not high school. Nor has any job that i Have ever had held a meeting on it to educate employees about what it is an how it works. I didn't even learn it was a thing until I worked for a company that deals in Short Term Disability and I learned all about FMLA

Basically the leave act is supposed to protect your job if you need to take time off for your own illness or if you have to handle the illness of a family member you have legal responsibility for.

Employers, Retail ones especially, will tell their employees that sick days can and will count as occurrences even if the company doesn't actually count them because FMLA won't let them. They then tell employees "after X amount of occurrences you will be let go"

Retail stores will usually actually do so. This is in complete violation of the law. The law no one tells the employees about as while it may have changed since it's not been a mandatory part of orientation.

In fact it would be ridiculously easy for a small business owner to casually find out who various employees are voting for and then affect their vote by scheduling them for a double shift to prevent them from voting.

The fact businesses so readily already flout existing laws with no penalties simply by not educating employees I am not sure how well a law guaranteeing shifts like that would work in the long term.

[Gravekeeper]

http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...linton-214297?

We needs voter ID laws to tamper with the election? >.>

[mjr]

I'm just gonna go ahead and drop this here...

http://www.lifezette.com/polizette/b...ia-localities/

[Lachrymose]

And I'll just leave this here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeZette

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Ingraham (just a tad bit biased, it seems)

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/13/148518...st-voter-fraud (yes, it's NPR, but it explains the origins of the Virginia Voters Alliance. )

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Ok, and here is the actual report. I like the fact it looked like the cover came from Print Shop Pro.

Quick math: Discovery of 1000 illegal voters. total number of voters in only 1 of the 8 counties: Alexandria - 148,000. Percentage of illegal voters - .006% (and that's me being nice and not adding the population of the remaining 7 counties.

So here's the rub: Voting systems themselves can cause an error rate of around 2%. So your study is of a possible graft of .06% which means realistically at no point can anyone ever claim an election was stolen by those votes. Flat out, if we have no other irregularities that is well below the regular error threshold. If you have a closely contested election, other larger factors actually have a larger impact. Any election in VA (that has about 2.2 million voters in those counties) decided by less than 44,000 votes is within that error margin. And then that's assuming all illegal voting is going to Democrats. Now we have to factor in how many "poll watchers" intimidated people out of voting. How many poor areas had understaffed polling places leading to error and non-voting. I guess what I'm saying is, people can choose to die on this hill, but it's an awfully tiny one.

By comparison - in Texas, approximately 37% of legal Hispanic-surnamed residents lack proper ID as do 17% of African American voters. If I extrapolate that to the demographics of Texas (38.8 % Hispanic/12.5% black) that means 14% + 2% of the population is potentially disenfranchised. So no, I'm not taking the "illegal alien" voter problem seriously since its apparent cure is to throw up massive hurdles for almost 1 in 5 voters. It's substituting a statistically insignificant problem for a statistically significant one (which is why the Supreme Court is striking these down.)

[Gravekeeper]

Quick math: Discovery of 1000 illegal voters. total number of voters in only 1 of the 8 counties: Alexandria - 148,000. Percentage of illegal voters - .006% (and that's me being nice and not adding the population of the remaining 7 counties.

You're telling me a story that begins with "Bombshell" on a website run by dubious pundits might not be telling the whole truth?

Well, colour me shocked.

[Greenday]

You're telling me a story that begins with "Bombshell" on a website run by dubious pundits might not be telling the whole truth?

Well, colour me shocked.

That doesn't sound right. Why would not legit sources have to make up crazy BS and use exclamatory words to grab attention just to get views?

Wait...

[Rusty Shackleford]

You have to do the same before getting behind the wheel of a car.

A car is not a constitutionally protected right. I shouldn't have to purchase a license to buy a gun, just like, right now, one does not need ID to vote.

[Kheldarson]

A car is not a constitutionally protected right. I shouldn't have to purchase a license to buy a gun, just like, right now, one does not need ID to vote.

Here's the thing. Any constitutional right is allowed to have reasonable limitations placed upon them. For instance, the government can step in and punish you for libel, slander, some forms of hate speech, and a slew of other forms of speech. But we still have free speech. These are considered reasonable limitations because there's no undue burden on individuals or society, and, in fact, it protects society better.

In the case of guns, gun restrictions are not an undue burden. The cost of a license is negligible to the cost of the gun, i.e. if you have money to shoot, you can prove that you can shoot safely. It also has the bonus of saying that we're being sure that deadly weapons aren't being put into unsafe hands (a societal benefit). There's no undue burden.

In the case of voting, courts have said that ID is reasonable as long as there is no undue burden. However, the laws that keep being pushed don't meet that threshold. In the case of voting, undue burden is met when you disenfranchise more of the population than you would prevent in fraud.

Comparing gun licensure to voter ID is comparing apples to oranges. They have different requirements for reasonable limitation.

[jackfaire]

A car is not a constitutionally protected right. I shouldn't have to purchase a license to buy a gun, just like, right now, one does not need ID to vote.

This proves my point not yours.

Do you know why driving a car is not a constitutionally protected right?

Cars didn't exist when the constitution was first drawn up and so when cars were invented we just invented a bunch of laws to govern them.

Do you know why the right to bear arms is in the constitution?

Because most people in the 13 original states used guns for food. This has changed I can go buy a steak at the grocery store instead of having to grab a rifle to go kill some animals for my family to eat.

It's still in the constitution because no one has seen the need to remove it. Funny thing is no one wants to. What people want to do is take the spirit of the 2nd Amendment and apply it to modern day.

See it was included on the understanding that the people with guns KNOW HOW TO USE THEM in modern day since guns aren't necessary to food collection people don't know how to use them.

A license is being asked to be made mandatory so that we can ensure people know how to use them which is in keeping with what the 2nd Amendment.


"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."


A Well Regulated Militia is made up of people that know how to use the firearms they have. There is nothing in the 2nd Amendment that says "And they don't have to know how to use them"

The license isn't about "or you can't have a gun" it's about "proving you can be part of a well regulated militia"

If you can prove to me that since the founding fathers first initiated voting that it has since become something as immediately deadly as cars or guns then sure we can argue that licensing for it and licensing for a gun are the same. Until then you can argue that no one knew how to use a gun in the time of the founding fathers and thus being required to know how to use one now shouldn't be a thing.

It's the only thing that would make sense.

[s_stabeler]

point of fact- actually, the right to bear arms was because until the invention of police, it was down to individual citizens to haul criminals before the judiciary. Indeed, at the time, there was a legal requirement for UK Citizens to own arms- not merely the right, but you could be arrested if you didn't own weaponry. It wasn't for hunting food, but so that if an army was needed, you didn't need to worry about arming them- they already owned weapons.

[jackfaire]

point of fact- actually, the right to bear arms was because until the invention of police, it was down to individual citizens to haul criminals before the judiciary. Indeed, at the time, there was a legal requirement for UK Citizens to own arms- not merely the right, but you could be arrested if you didn't own weaponry. It wasn't for hunting food, but so that if an army was needed, you didn't need to worry about arming them- they already owned weapons.

My apologies but the point stands that at the time it was an expectation that those people knew how to use their arms. That expectation can no longer be held.