Vote Veto
"The Myth Of Voter Fraud" by Jeffrey Toobin, it said on the cover of The New Yorker. Great, I thought. For years now, a lot of people--especially the left on Ohio and Florida--have been vastly exaggerating these claims. It's about time that someone took them on.
Imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be a hit job against voter ID. Worse, while giving (one-sided) arguments against voter ID, it turns out Toobin accepts, apparently as a matter of course, the damaging paranoia about other kinds of voter problems.
PS The comic highlight of Toobin's piece is when he describes Demos as a "nonpartisan research insitute." Peruse their website and decide for yourself how nonpartisan they are.
PPS For an interesting discussion of related legal issues, check out Stubborn Facts.
posted by LAGuy @ 1:14 AM
5 Comments:
So the gist of the pro-ID argument is:
1. there's no evidence of actual disenfranchisement, just conjecture;
2. there's similarly no evidence of actual fraud, just conjecture;
3. a state gov't can rationally ignore conjecture (1) and base a new law on conjecture (2), at least until you show me an actual person who was disenfranchised.
I'll buy that. I don't like it, but I can live with it. Though it still smacks of a poll tax until you tell me poor people can get a waiver of all the fees required to get appropriate ID.
I have no position on voter-ID. I just didn't like Toobin's selective, partisan summary of the situation. By the way, there is evidence of actual fraud.
In Illinois? I thought Tobin said there had never been a conviction under the existing voter fraud statute.
You're asking someone to show that there's been voter fraud in Illinois?
Sorry, meant to say Indiana, the state whose law is being challenged. I'm relying on this from Toobin: "Indiana...legislators said they were aiming to stop 'voter impersonation,' which was already a crime in the state; in the entire history of Indiana, the number of prosecutions for this offense has been zero." If not criminal convictions, what is your basis for saying there is evidence of actual fraud?
Post a Comment
<< Home