I don’t understand why someone would argue with a requirement to show an ID before you can vote. I think we can all agree that voting is a pretty important thing. Certainly it’s more important than picking up something curbside at Home Depot. But, I have to show my ID before the nice person at Home Depot will give me my 75 feet of nylon cord, and I can vote without having to prove to anyone who I am.
Maybe the reason for the disagreement is because we’re assuming we all believe the basic premise that voter/election fraud is bad. We’re only assuming that the other side believes that election fraud is bad. But that’s probably because they pitched such a hissy fit for four years about “Russian collusion” that never actually happened.
Until we all agree that there is a problem, and what the problem is, we can’t possibly agree on a solution for said problem. That’s the first hurdle we need to get past. But, so we can continue, let’s assume that we all agree that voter/election fraud is bad because it would be un-American to believe otherwise.
So, if we’re going to ensure everyone who votes is lawfully able to do so, we need a way to be certain everyone who is voting should be voting. The obvious answer is to show an ID. It doesn’t need to be any more difficult or complicated than that.
The next argument is that voter ID requirements may block some rightful voters from voting and it’s better to let some people cheat than it is to disenfranchise even a single voter.
I say that election fraud is worse than voter disenfranchisement. The average voting rate in the U.S. is about 55%. Sometimes it’s a little higher, sometimes it’s a little lower. The point is, barely more than half of the people who can vote will vote. If someone who should be able to vote is somehow blocked from doing so, at worst, there’s only a 60% chance that they’ll even care.
But every single fraudulent vote cancels a vote that someone else lawfully made.
The Democrats want us to believe that black people, and other minorities, are too stupid to be able to figure out how to get an ID. Hey, those are their words, not mine. We’ve been told that the Internet is too complicated for them to use to find the nearest DMV.
Hold on a second, if minorities have such a hard time understanding how to get online, why are we giving them free smartphones? And, for you Liberals out there, here’s another clue: Anybody playing Candy Crush on their free cell phone has already figured out how to get online.
Let me tell you something, my dad is almost 89 years old. He grew up in a house that had no indoor plumbing and no electricity. If he can figure out how to use his smart phone and use the Internet, then pretty much anyone can.
While I’m talking about my dad, I’ll segue to my next point. The people who are most likely to suffer from any new requirements are the elderly. Pretty much any change you make will be difficult for many of them to navigate through.
If you wanted to argue that voter ID is an unreasonable barrier for old people, I might listen. So, why aren’t people talking about that? I’ll tell you why, because old people aren’t sexy. I don’t mean that in a Rue-McClanahan-Golden-Girls sort of way. What I’m saying is that there is nothing to be gained politically by defending the elderly. It’s more politically advantageous to make this a race issue than to admit it might be a problem for old people of every color.
The last argument I’ll touch on is that the voting processes vary from location to location and that voter ID laws could be used to give one side an advantage over the other. I agree, but the solution to that is simple. What we need to do is to stop allowing the states and localities to determine how their election processes work. The election process should be defined at a Federal level and the same rules should apply to everyone regardless of where they live. Problem solved. I’m surprised it hasn’t already happened. You could argue that allowing the Feds to define the voting process could set things up for more fraud. I don’t think we’d see more fraud. I think we’d have the same amount of cheating we have right now, it would just be easier to see.
Anyone with even half a functioning brain can see that requiring people to prove they’re allowed to vote before they vote is a good idea. Anyone who dumber than a rock will believe that making sure the right people vote is less important than making sure the right person is picking up their string at Home Depot.
Those arguing against voter ID want you to think that this is a race issue. But it’s not. They’ll point to statistics showing that places that require voter ID tend to lean more Conservative. That may be true. But the reason isn’t because voter ID’s stop Liberals from voting, it’s simply because requiring an ID to vote makes it harder for the Democrats to cheat.
