Voter ID scrapped in NC.

originally posted by: diggindirt
a reply to: Gryphon66
You can believe it's a myth all you like. I've actually seen the evidence that it happens in my county.
Back in the early '90s I was going through voter rolls in an attempt to determine who voted in which precinct. I was looking for an honest person to run for a county office.
Imagine my surprise when I came upon my aunt's name still on the voter rolls. She'd been dead since 1982 and yet had voted in every election. When I brought it to the attention of our county clerk? His answer was, "Huh, I guess that was a mistake." To me it seemed like more of a miracle than a mistake.
I pointed out this miracle to some other concerned folks and we went through the books again. We found at least twelve instances of dead people voting in the years after they had died. Did anyone investigate that? Nope. But we did elect a new county clerk who promised to purge the voter rolls of dead people.

That's just the thing, I don't "believe" anything; my position is based on the best facts I can gather, which are not, by the way, personal anecdotes of a dozen voter anomalies in Podunk County USA.

You say you found your aunt's name on the voter roll. How did you find that her name was used to vote after her death? Where, at what time, in which election? What procedure did you use?

Further, why would knowing who voted when and where help you discover an "honest" candidate?

I find your personal anecdote less than compelling without additional corroborating evidence.

originally posted by: buster2010
a reply to: network dude

My question is, why is this even a thing? You must have an ID to cash a check, to buy beer, to buy cigarettes, to drive, to rent an apartment.

Perhaps if you were to learn the difference between a right and a privilege you would understand.

Only americans should have the right to vote in the US. This is to prevent POSSIBLE fraud is all. And the ID's are free. W e have to have ID's to purchase a gun too and THATS a right as well isnt it?

originally posted by: MotherMayEye
I am an 'Unaffiliated voter and I don't have confidence in the security of our election systems. Why should my voice be shut out because the GOP sucks?

I am also an unaffiliated voter. But the GOP is the party that pushes all the Voter ID laws. They admit they do it to disenfranchise Democratic voters.

Also, I feel disenfranchised

And I feel disenfranchised

And I also feel disenfranchised

If you vote, you are not disenfranchised, no matter how you feel! You have your voice. The people caught in the nets of voter ID laws are the ones who are disenfranchised.

a reply to: Gryphon66
You do know how voting is conducted?
You go to the polls.
You are asked your name.
The poll worker finds your name in the voter registration book.
You sign your name on that book.
That book is public record, available to anyone who wishes to examine it.
I, Jane Public, obtained copies of that book from the county clerk's office and found my aunt's "signature" next to her name in every election held after her death. Others found the same for members of their family who had arisen from the grave to vote. All were Democrats.
It ain't rocket science if you have just a basic knowledge of civics.

originally posted by: Teikiatsu

originally posted by: buster2010
a reply to: network dude

My question is, why is this even a thing? You must have an ID to cash a check, to buy beer, to buy cigarettes, to drive, to rent an apartment.

Perhaps if you were to learn the difference between a right and a privilege you would understand.

So I shouldn't need an ID to buy a gun.

You need the id for the background check to make sure you have not had any felony convictions.

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
If you vote, you are not disenfranchised, no matter how you feel! You have your voice. The people caught in the nets of voter ID laws are the ones who are disenfranchised.

And if you attempt to vote at your polling place and they tell you that you have already voted, what are you?

originally posted by: buster2010

originally posted by: Teikiatsu

originally posted by: buster2010
a reply to: network dude

My question is, why is this even a thing? You must have an ID to cash a check, to buy beer, to buy cigarettes, to drive, to rent an apartment.

Perhaps if you were to learn the difference between a right and a privilege you would understand.

So I shouldn't need an ID to buy a gun.

You need the id for the background check to make sure you have not had any felony convictions.

But I have a right to a gun.

originally posted by: buster2010

originally posted by: Teikiatsu

originally posted by: buster2010
a reply to: network dude

My question is, why is this even a thing? You must have an ID to cash a check, to buy beer, to buy cigarettes, to drive, to rent an apartment.

Perhaps if you were to learn the difference between a right and a privilege you would understand.

So I shouldn't need an ID to buy a gun.

You need the id for the background check to make sure you have not had any felony convictions.

if its a right Why do we need a backround check?

a reply to: diggindirt

Others found the same for members of their family who had arisen from the grave to vote. All were Democrats.

Oh damn look at this hard hitting anecdotal evidence!
Guess that settles that.

originally posted by: Teikiatsu

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
If you vote, you are not disenfranchised, no matter how you feel! You have your voice. The people caught in the nets of voter ID laws are the ones who are disenfranchised.

And if you attempt to vote at your polling place and they tell you that you have already voted, what are you?

THEN you might have a case, but as I said, if you vote, you are not disenfranchised.

And we don't have a constitutional right to PURCHASE a firearm. We have the right to keep and bear (own and carry) one.

a reply to: MotherMayEye

But I think those in charge of 'investigating' have conflicts of interest that cause investigations to not even happen.

And I think you are wrong.
See how that works out?

You found one case, congratulations, that doesn't prove diddily squat.
OJ got away with murder, does that mean that murder investigations really don't get investigated??

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic

originally posted by: Teikiatsu

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
If you vote, you are not disenfranchised, no matter how you feel! You have your voice. The people caught in the nets of voter ID laws are the ones who are disenfranchised.

And if you attempt to vote at your polling place and they tell you that you have already voted, what are you?

THEN you might have a case, but as I said, if you vote, you are not disenfranchised.

And we don't have a constitutional right to PURCHASE a firearm. We have the right to keep and bear (own and carry) one.

YEah funny thing bout that....to OWN ONE you have to BUY ONE or MAKE ONE. Its implied in the Amendment you are to be able to aquire a weapon.

a reply to: Sremmos80
It was right there in the official record sir. Still is there. In three voting precincts we found a dozen dead people voting in elections.

No investigation. If the authorities don't investigate, they won't ever find any voter fraud. See how that works?

Just for your info; that clerk later was sent to prison but it wasn't for overlooking voter fraud, it was for stealing taxpayer funds---corruption ran rampant. It took citizens going to the state auditor to bring down their little corrupt empire.

a reply to: diggindirt

Got some links to back all that up?

Because again that is just all heresy.
Can anyone show how the investigations that have been done on voter fraud were really done like you all kept saying?
Maybe you can answer all the questions Gryphon66 asked you at the top if the page..

originally posted by: Teikiatsu

originally posted by: buster2010
a reply to: network dude

My question is, why is this even a thing? You must have an ID to cash a check, to buy beer, to buy cigarettes, to drive, to rent an apartment.

Perhaps if you were to learn the difference between a right and a privilege you would understand.

So I shouldn't need an ID to buy a gun.

Voters should have to get a background check and mental health evaluation first and wait 3 days.

a reply to: Sremmos80

How can there be a link when the investigation was never done?
Let me explain. We reported the problem. We showed the clerk the obituaries of the people whose names and signatures were on the voting rolls---after they had died. The clerk said, "Huh, that was a mistake."
I answered the questions. Do you have a problem with reading comprehension or do you actually not know how the system works?
The people looking through the records KNEW the people who had died and came back and voted. My aunt's name was there with a signature next to her name for nearly ten years after she died. It is a very small precinct, where everyone knows everyone else. There was no "mistake" since every poll worker knew the woman who came back from the dead. It was the same with the others, small precincts where the only poll workers were Democrats.

When no investigation is pursued, those in charge can claim that no improprieties occurred. See how that works?

IF you don't know how the system works, perhaps you shouldn't try to argue with those who do.

originally posted by: diggindirt
a reply to: Gryphon66
You do know how voting is conducted?
You go to the polls.
You are asked your name.
The poll worker finds your name in the voter registration book.
You sign your name on that book.
That book is public record, available to anyone who wishes to examine it.
I, Jane Public, obtained copies of that book from the county clerk's office and found my aunt's "signature" next to her name in every election held after her death. Others found the same for members of their family who had arisen from the grave to vote. All were Democrats.
It ain't rocket science if you have just a basic knowledge of civics.

Ah yes, Civics. That's your go-to complaint. As usual, when you don't have a reasonable response, you go with the personal insults.

I see you didn't answer my question honestly, because there wasn't an answer, unless you are claiming that in Podunk USA (or wherever it is you're from) there is only one polling record or "book" for every election presumably over the course of several years.

I simply don't believe your story as related. Perhaps I didn't make that clear. Even so, is your town so small that 12 votes would make a difference in any election? If it's that small, how is it that the person at the polling place didn't recognize that it was not your aunt was voting? Are you claiming that these folks had fake ID? Have you had any other indication that your "aunt's" identity was stolen?

Why didn't you report these irregularities to your State Attorney General? Or the Federal Elections Commission? Wasn't there an article in the Podunk Daily Herald about such a horrible circumstance in such a small town where everyone knows each other???

Too many questions on such a simple claim.

a reply to: Gryphon66
You are perfectly free to believe whatever you wish. I simply don't care what you believe or don't. So there's that.

Yes, twelve votes in some races will make a difference in an election, particularly in local races. Several races in the last election were decided by less than 10 votes.

Have you really never seen election books? Each precinct has one. It's that thing you sign when you go to vote. Go down to your local clerk's office and ask to see them. They can explain them to you. If you wish, they will provide you with copies of said books---these days they're on disk---back in the early '90s we had to pay the copying costs to have them copied.
We only had about 18k registered voters in our county at that time. A nonpartisan group of people got together to try to find candidates for a few local board positions. These are county boards, fire protection district, school district, water district, etc. Votes for these board members are done by geographical areas, that is to say, the eastern fire district gets to vote for people from their district and the western district votes from folks from their area. In order to know who was eligible to run in which district, we needed to know which precinct contained their polling place.

A group of people with serious concerns about corruption in local government, no political ambitions, just the wish to see our elected officials guarding our tax money as closely as they guarded their own wallets came together because of our shared concerns. When we attempted to present our concerns to our elected officials they treated us as subjects. They refused to answer our questions and even refused to comply with our Open Records requests. My local representative literally patted me on the head and told me, "Now Missy, you just go on home and tend to your business and let us take care of county business." He did it in front of a crowd of about 100 people who had also come for answers. Honestly, I was in a state of suspended belief. I'd never in my entire adult life been treated in such a manner. By the time I could recover and take a look at the crowd around me, I realized he had done what I never could have---exposed his real self.

We had already seen a lot of evidence that there was widespread corruption in local government but our studies of the voting books confirmed it. That discovery just firmed our conviction to scour the eligible candidates and support those who viewed public office as service to their community rather than a road to riches.
It took several years to get the corruption out. Some were just voted out of office. Some got by with paying fines but they no longer hold office. Some of our evidence got passed along the State Auditor. He put some folks in jail.

We were not "political" people at that time, just voters wondering how our elected officials were getting by with breaking the law whilst we had to mind our every move or face fines or jail. What started out as half a dozen people asking questions over coffee and wondering what we could do that would make a positive difference grew to over 200 people with similar concerns when we held our third public meeting.

Now you may scoff at a gathering of 200 people but the local good ole boys didn't. Scared the stink out of them.
As it turned out, they had reason to be frightened. It took literally hundreds of hours of pouring over county records of all kinds to see and connect the dots.

At that time our entire slate of elected officials was Democrat. Republicans were scarce. I was still a Democrat in registration. This investigation was one of many reasons I left the party to become independent. Throwing off the party mantle allowed me to work with the sincere people of both parties---even find common ground with both parties on local issues.

The polls workers were almost 100% Democrat at that time. With just over 1k registered Republicans, it was terribly difficult to find Republican poll workers. That was my first push politically---to go to the Republican party and urge people to get involved in being poll workers so a balance could be found. Then I appealed to independents to do likewise to fill in the blanks left on the Republican side.

At the same time some of us were going over the voter rolls, others were going over the budgets and contracts the Attorney General had ordered them to provide to us. Even a quick read through those documents showed why they didn't want us to see them....

It was long, hard work. Some folks got their jammies in a twist when the corruption was exposed but far, far more people thanked us for our efforts. Both parties attempted to recruit several of us to run for office. They simply couldn't believe that we could become so involved in local affairs without some political motive. Good governance was our only goal. The politicos simply didn't understand that despite the fact that we had all declared that we didn't want these jobs. We all had jobs with which we were perfectly content.

Eventually good people stepped forward. Now we even have a couple of Republicans in local government. We learned that if we elect honest folks who are interested in service rather than climbing, they will run a tight ship. And they don't mind answering the voters' questions.

In answer to your question about my aunt's ID being stolen---no, nobody stole her ID. The Democrats working the polls knew her and they knew she was dead when somebody signed that book and voted. Only they know who that was. I don't because I wasn't there. It was fraud with the cooperation of someone at those polling places. Those twelve cases we found were spread over three voting precincts. While I have my suspicions about who allowed the fraud, I have no proof. I just know that twelve people rose from the dead to come to the polls. Such devotion.

We solved our voter fraud problem by having a balance of party members at the polls. We solved our local government corruption problem by using due process, freedom of speech and assembly, and then the voting booth. We all learned a lot and learned to appreciate the work done by elected officials.

In the years since that civil revolution, some of our members have retired from their profession and have entered public service in various ways. Some of us do so on a volunteer basis. Some have been elected to local office. We work the polls. We sponsor candidate forums. We provide rides to the polling places. All because we believe in the system and know that the only way it can work in our favor is to keep an eagle eye on those we elect to represent us.

We don't always agree on everything. We only have to agree on one thing---that we want what is best for our county as a whole and we're willing to work until we find the solution to our problems. The people running our county presently are not politicians. They are not looking to move up to the next rung of the ladder. They are happy to be public servants.

a reply to: network dude

I'm pretty neutral on voter ID. On the one hand, there have been an extremely small number of cases of voter fraud that an ID would stop over the years, but on the other hand I can't really give a reason why there shouldn't be an ID under our current system. I don't really buy the disenfranchisement argument, because if you're mobile enough that you can get to a polling station to use that ID you're mobile enough to get an ID in the first place.

On the other hand, it's a solution to a non existent problem, that creates another layer of government and on that basis I don't see why we should implement it.

John Oliver's episode on voter ID from a year or two ago was pretty good, and I think it brought up a good point. Just like with gay people who want anti gay laws, and child molesters that are hard on sex crimes, the politicians that most vocally support voter ID laws do so because state legislatures are notoriously corrupt and they all push each others voting buttons in a big game of who can screw over the most people. They get accustomed to that environment and think that's how voting is in real life when it really isn't.

originally posted by: ketsuko
Most of the people they claim are being disenfranchised are likely on public assistance.

How do they access that without ID?

Public assistance doesn't ask for ID. It runs pretty much entirely off of Social Security, bank account numbers, and mailing addresses. Verification is done through back end systems (which all ultimately rely on the SSN provided) and not handing the case worker an ID.