Framing: wrongly disenfranchised voter vs. "vote dilution" via voter impersonation

[roseBudd]

The Indiana Voter ID law is premised on the belief that though voter fraud is not prevalent, any legitimate voter is suffering from the effect of vote dilution and that protections against such are a worthwhile goal.

So how does disenfranchisement stack up against "vote dilution"

Disenfranchisement causes to an individual the loss of his or hers total one vote, or 100% of their vote.

A single act of voter fraud resulting in so-called "voter dilution" in comparison is the loss of 1 divided by all the votes cast in that state. This very small fraction of less than 1 vote would seem to indicate that the disenfranchised voter suffers greater harm than the voter who has been "diluted"

If the SCOTUS rules anything like they did last year I expect voter suppression to become institutionalized in America.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/election2008/story/19982.html

Ohio, Florida laws could dampen Democratic voting
By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Ohio and Florida, which provided the decisive electoral votes for President Bush's two razor-thin national election triumphs, have enacted laws that election experts say will help Republicans impede Democratic-leaning minorities from voting in 2008.

Backers of the new laws say they're aimed at curbing vote fraud. But the statutes also could facilitate a controversial Republican tactic known as ``vote caging,'' which the GOP attempted in Ohio and Florida in 2004 before public disclosures foiled the efforts, said Joseph Rich, a former Justice Department voting rights chief in the Bush administration who's now with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.

Caging, used in the past to target poor minorities in heavily Democratic precincts, entails sending mass mailings to certain voters and then using the undelivered letters to compile lists of voters for eligibility challenges.

As the high-stakes ground war escalates heading into next year's elections, Republicans have led the charge for an array of revisions to state voting rights laws, especially in key battleground states. Republican political appointees in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division have endorsed some of these measures.

[ClassWarrior]

1. Here's the way to frame it...

Corrupt Rape-Publicans are trying to take away people's votes again.

NGU.

[roseBudd]

6. Many middle class Americans cannot imagine the lives that the poor lead

They can't imagine why a poor person who doesn't have any photo identification and no birth certificate wouldn't immediately hop on a bus to go to the Board of Health to obtain a copy of their birth certificate...

SARCASM ON

so they can not fly to Jamaica or Mexico for vacation

SARCASM OFF

And then hop another bus to go to the DMV & pay another fee just so they can add one vote to a candidate that is more likely to make the lives of our poorest citizens a little more bearable.

Honestly, to a poor person, what is the value to them of casting a vote. If it involves spending time & money that they don't have, for that measly hope that it might make their lives better, I don't doubt that voter participation will decline measurably among low income people.

[wildeyed]

2. Makes me want to throw up.

Voter fraud? They need to prove it first. I have yet to see any proof that the so called voter fraud that these laws are being enacted to thwart actually occurs.

[mod mom]

3. Why hasn't Tim Griffin and others associated w this (Schlozman, VonSpakovsky

had to face charges-VonSpakovsky will also be voted on by the senate for a position on the FEC (he was lumped together with 3 Dems -who Schumer and Reid want confirmed-although they went unendorsed) These folks should be in jail!

[L. Coyote]

4. WHAT? " vote caging,'' which the GOP attempted in Ohio and Florida in 2004 before public disclosures

That should read:

"before voter caging illegally altered the course of world history, installing Bush in 2000."

We have caging list evidence in the 2004 e-mails. Let us NEVER forget that voters were ALSO illegally purged in Florida in 2000 using the felon lists.

[roseBudd]

5. The problem is people are more susceptible to believing in voter fraud than they

are to acknowledging that poor people don't have photo ID and don't seem to understand the almost unsurmountable logistics that wouldbe required to get all eligible voters Voting IDed just so they can vote.

The root inequity behind voter ID laws are that people who drive cars don't have to do anything besides register & show up to vote.

People who don't drive and may not currently have any identification with their photo on it, do have to take additional steps and expenditures, in addition to registering & showing up.