YGBSM.
Posted on 10/14/2014 9:33:21 AM PDT by centurion316
We are now three weeks to Election Day, which means we are deep into another round of the voting wars—the ceaseless legislative, legal and regulatory battle over which Americans can vote, and when and where and with what paperwork they must do so. Here's a modest proposal: How about we finally call off the fight?
Forget it, you say. There is no way the Republican Party and conservative movement, which have invested so much time and effort in restricting the franchise to serve partisan ends, are going to give up now. But what if there are some good reasons why it might actually be in their interest to do so? Consider:
1. The voting wars are a costly, bureaucratic nightmare.
Conservatives claim to disdain bureaucratic waste and costly litigation—which is exactly what the voting wars have devolved into. Every few days, it seems, brings a new court ruling on a state’s voting laws, often reversing another ruling of just a few days or weeks prior. This back and forth is not just hard to keep track of—it is also causing no end of bureaucratic disarray, which comes at a price to the taxpayer. -SNIP-
2. The absence of voter fraud is becoming impossible to deny.
Liberals and civil libertarians have long argued that the threat of voter fraud cited to justify voter ID laws was wildly overstated, and that the only real effect of such laws would be to reduce voting by racial and ethnic minorities and young people who lacked the necessary identification. But there was just enough empirical haze around the laws, and their central claim was sufficiently intuitive ... for many neutral arbiters to go along with the laws, as did the Supreme Court with its 2008 ruling ... upholding the voter ID requirement in Indiana.
-SNIP-
(Excerpt) Read more at newrepublic.com ...
YGBSM.
Alex MacGillis - The New Republic? We don’t know that for sure. Let’s see some ID.
Texas’ voter ID law is back online again.
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