Voter ID laws in Wisconsin are *gasp* disenfranchising eligible black voters

I can remember a teacher handing one of those out in sixth grade.

Sorry - not buying what you are selling. I have worked in, for, or with the federal government on a daily basis for over 30 years now so far. They don't "single out" minority groups when they hatch their wacky schemes when it comes to requirements, procedures, paperwork, etc. That said state governments have their own hoops to jumps through and "t"'s to cross and "i"s to dot. If it's a pain in the ass/difficult for whatever reason it's not because of the color of your skin. If you have documented specific facts about your right to vote being infringed upon that are not mired in myth, opinion or rumor share, them with your nearest democratic party member in any position of leadership, then stay on top of them and your situation.

They have their own voting base to help out. Should they help out someone who has a 90 percent chance of voting for the opposition? If democrats do this, please give examples. However "helping out" and "hindering" are not the same thing. Thus if you have specific examples of republicans hindering the minority right to vote I would share them with a lawyer trying to make a name for themselves.

Yes, racism & discrimination is bad. Thanks for pointing that out! So please tell me how every fucking person needing the same level of documentation/difficulty to vote is evil & racist. Is it more difficult for some individual people (due to no fault or intention of the government?) yes it is. This is 2016...2012....2008....and voting doesn't really get more difficult. You the voter need to adapt or quit whining and find somebody to help you. Fuck the democrats have been in charge for quite a few years now so why the fuck are you waiting until right now to realize you are caught short?

To some people everything is an obstacle! You can offer to explain every single requirement, give them places and people to help fix any errors in any documents, pick them up at their home to take them to the voting locations, carry them into the voting booth and it's still too many hoops to jump through. Personally I feel (and have said this) that even violent felons in prison for life should still have the right to vote because they are a US citizen and should have a hand in the process that can change things so others might not end up in prison. I'm such an evil scheming conservative! I should grow a handlebar mustache just so I can twirl it.

If you live in BFE you need a license to drive and buy alcohol at the least.

To me it would seem that with a really good public transit and a neighborhood bar where everyone knows your name are decent reasons for never getting a drivers license.

Did you have to do it in 10 minutes, and one question would cause you to fail the whole thing?

Or maybe they still believe we live in a Republic.

Let's assume you're correct and there is no intent to actually disenfranchise blacks and poor people.

The end result is still the same: for one reason or another, some people just cannot get the paperwork together and are thus prevented from voting. Either it takes them weeks and months to go through the procedure, or they've never had the necessary paperwork, or it's since been lost/destroyed.

I agree that it ultimately falls upon oneself to have the drive to go through the process, but it's ludicrous to blame someone for not getting their ID because of how cumbersome the process can be. Voting is a fundamental right to any well-functioning democracy, and we shouldn't require otherwise eligible citizens to jump through so many hoops to exercise the right to vote.

And as such, enabling citizens to vote is essential.

You have got to love conservative reasoning. You can either believe that local governments and law makers, mostly Republican, who have a pretty well documented history of denying minorities their basic civil rights are still working to disenfranchise minorities by making it difficult for them to vote in a manner that was highly criticized and easily predictable, or you can believe that thousands of black people are just simply too lazy or too stupid to fill out the forms properly or in a timely manner. And you wonder why we think you're all a basket of deplorable racists.

That would actually be Democrats who denied people the right to vote.

Requiring you show ID at the voting booth is no different or worse then any other country on the planet.

When other countries have the well documented history of trying to keep minorities from voting, come back to me.

Irrelevant.

Just because we have a bad history from Democrats disenfranchising blacks doesn't mean we cut off our nose to spite our face. Using your logic we can never do anything in the future because we've done bad things in our past to black America.

Show ID to vote. It's not hard.

Not for you or me, but for quite a few, and for fairly common reasons, not so easy. Look, if vote fraud were an actual documented problem, I'd favor taking the risk of disenfranchising some people against the risk of tolerating fraud. But ther problem is there just isn't any evidence. So we have a policy purportedly aiming to address a problem that doesn't exist, that creates a new problem. Setting aside questions about motivation, voter ID laws do more harm than good, so how can you support that?

Not for anyone.

Why don't you leftists put your money were you're mouth is and pony up to help all these phantom people instead of waiting until the last moment every four years to whine about it?

People have been actively fighting it ever since these laws passed. That's why some have been over turned. You are a liar when you claim there is no negative consequence. Such lies are the reason that people conclude you rightist assholes are deplorable racists.

Part of the reason for huge voter turn out in 2008 was because Obama and their aides reached out to the places conservatives would not and helped to get people registered to vote, including a 106 year old woman whose parents were born into slavery. They also provided rides to the polls for the primary elections as well as the main election. That is why history red states like Virginia went blue.

Again, Zombie demonstrates why the GOP is seen as the Party of No: no ideas, no solutions, nothing except to veto anything the Democrats offer up. You don't even try.

I would be perfectly fine with requiring IDs to vote if (1) such IDs were automatically issued and free; and (2) voter registration was also automatic (e.g. initiated concurrently with issuance of the ID).

Ideally, everyone should be required to vote (even if that means just voting for a throway candidate), but we're a far way away from mandatory voting.

Obviously. But you first make sure everyone has ID, and only once you've done that, you require it for exercising a basic right. When you skip that first step, you show that your intention is voter suppression rather than prohibiting fraud.

I would love for things to be simple and easy - but being government ran we cannot always expect that. And since we won't likely get that simple and easy method, this could be an opportunity for political parties (democratic party for the most part) to promote how they actually care by helping folks and making sure cameras are rolling when they do it (why not get some mileage out of it?). And of course the voters would benefit. Who knows why this hasn't occurred?

Here's the thing: If you can't figure out how to get an ID in four years, I'm not sure I want you voting on who leads the free world and controls our nuclear arsenal.

Shit, if an ID was required, and you called the local Democratic campaign headquarters asking for help, they'd send someone to you and literally hold your hand until you had an ID. The problem is, that they won't give IDs to illegal aliens and dead people.

Are you sure about that?

Volpone too easily admits the reason for these laws is vote suppression. He's right, it's about keeping undesired voters away from the polls. Of course, if we got to select who votes based upon who some of us don't want to participate, I'd design a system that permanently bars any Trump voter from ever again touching a ballot.

For goodness sakes it is NOT that difficult. I got an ID when I was in my teens and all that was required was a birth certificate and social security card.The fact that this has been a cornerstone of the voting process for generations and is now somehow a "poll" tax or an attempt to "disenfranchise" people is typical liberal bullshit.

But let's play along with this fantasy and take away the ID requirement. What are poll workers suppose to ask for now to prove that the person standing in front of them is the registered voter they claim to be?

Now explain how you'd have gotten one if you didn't have a birth certificate.

How many people in this day and age don't have one?

Helping to register voters and offering rides to the polls is not a new concept. It's been standard procedure by both parties for as long as I can remember.

The high turnout in 2008 was due to the economy tanking, Bush being blamed for it and Obama being a charismatic candidate.