Posted on 03/20/2016 5:16:03 AM PDT by Kaslin
On Friday at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, President Obama said: “We’re the only advanced democracy in the world that makes it harder for people to vote.
“It’s sad,” he said. “We take enormous pride that we're the oldest contingent democracy, but we systematically put up barriers and make it as hard as possible for our citizens to vote.”
But how hard is it to vote? President Obama told SXSW it is “much easier to order pizza or a trip” than to vote. That is objectively not true.
Thirty-five percent of states have no requirement voters show ID to vote, another 25 percent accept secondary “proof” such as a utility bill to prove residency and who you are. Only 20 percent of states have a strict photo ID requirement to vote.
Beyond not protecting the sanctity of a person’s vote through requiring them to prove they are themselves – hardly a barrier in the 21st century – absentee voting and early voting have made it easier than ever to vote. Too easy, in fact.
To vote absentee used to require providing a verifiable reason you couldn’t vote on Election Day. No more.
In 1978, California instituted a “no excuses” absentee ballot process. “The law repealed the requirement that voters show or claim that they were sick, out of town, or otherwise unable to come to the polling place in order to use an absentee ballot,” according to John Fortier’s book “Absentee and Early Voting.”
Now, 27 states allow “no excuses” absentee voting, which expanded to more than 30 percent of the vote in 2008.
In 37 states, polls now open days or weeks early. This should raise the question: How easy do we have to make it to vote?
Voting wasn’t difficult to begin with – go to your polling place on Election Day and cast your ballot. Simple.
Sometimes there were lines, but lines weren’t considered unjust or disenfranchising. Waiting was a part of life before the immediacy of the microwave and Internet.
Is waiting now a bridge too far? A violation of rights? Of course not.
But to say as much, to suggest returning to a “day of” voting method, would be viewed as akin to advocating a poll tax. This all ignores the serious problems with early voting, not least of which are information changes.
Once a ballot is cast, it’s cast. New information in the weeks leading up to Election Day – scandal, change in position, anything – will not bring that ballot back from the box.
Voting is a measure of the public’s will at a given time. If that given time is changed or extended, it perverts the true measure of that will.
Another problem with early voting is a fact of nature: People die.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, 2.6 million Americans died in 2013, which works out to 7,115 deaths per day. Today, 34 states and the District of Columbia offer early voting, with many offering voting 30 days of more before Election Day (Wyoming is 40 days). The law of averages dictates many people who vote early die before Election Day, but because ballots are anonymous, they count. They should not.
Elections can be decided by a few hundred votes, some by as little as one. Jokes about Chicago aside, the law of averages dictates people who have died have been difference makers in who our elected officials are. This should not be.
Fraud, too, is a real problem, and it doesn’t have to be rampant to swing an election. Stories of trusted government officials stuffing ballot boxes are common, as are stories of people showing up to vote being informed their ballot had already been cast and studies suggesting illegal aliens have voted in large numbers.
There is a lot of talk about making voting easier, but perhaps it’s time we shift the discussion to protecting the sanctity of the vote. Doing away with early voting would be a good step in that direction, as would returning the requirement to show cause for voting absentee and proving you are who you are when you do vote.
Voter fraud may or may not be rampant, but when so many races come down to a few votes, it doesn’t have to be. Ensuring ballots were accurately cast by people eligible to do so should be our top priority.
If you can’t or won’t get off your butt and get in line assuming you’re physically able to vote then too bad.
We make it too easy. Election day should be a national holiday, with everyone sought out if invalid or otherwise unable to go poll, and all others with the opportunity to poll.
Require ID. Vote on that day, nothing else counts.
Military should be mustered to vote and their votes taken and COUNTED that day.
Election fraud should be treated as sedition.
Voting is a surrogate and civilized substitute for war. No other civic duty is as important.
ID to vote, no early voting, back to paper ballots.
How easy? I am sure that the progressive left is working to the ultimate ease - the party will vote for you. What could be simpler?
Paper ballots? How antique.
In addition to agreeing with Mr. Hunter, there are a couple of things in his column that bother me.
1) “President Obama told SXSW it is “much easier to order pizza or a trip” than to vote. That is objectively not true.”
Is Mr. Hunter calling the President of the dis Unites States a liar?
2) “According to the Centers for Disease Control, 2.6 million Americans died in 2013, which works out to 7,115 deaths per day.”
My God, is this true? Why hasn’t Congress at the minimum held hearing into this?
President Obama said: “We’re the only advanced democracy in the world that makes it harder for people to vote.
Well there’s your problem right there, even the president doesn’t know we are a representative republic, not a democracy.
Sometimes it’s about the complaining, not the solving of the problem.
It’s sad,” he said. “We take enormous pride that we’re the oldest contingent democracy,
Idiot is a Constitutional lawyer and President for 7 years and does not knw the United States is not a democracy..
Before career politicians, there was little reason to cheat.
I don’t trust electronic voting...just feel it can be too easily manipulated.
Continuing to help spread Abion Wilde’s important post ...
TRUMP BALLOT SECURITY PROJECT
Committee to Restore America’s Greatness PAC
FR Posted 3/19/16 by Albion Wilde
The Trump Ballot Security Project (TBSP) was formed when the main stream media reported dozens of voting irregularities in the Texas Republican primary. This ultimately totaled over 600 reports in at least six counties including Dallas County and Travis County.
In virtually every case votes cast for Donald J. Trump were tallied for Senator Marco Rubio. The TBSP established a Toll Free number to collect further reports of voter irregularities.
Almost immediately there were over 300 complaints from Oklahoma. Only a week later the Kansas and Maine Caucuses brought hundreds of more complaints including claims of double voting by supporters of Sen. Ted Cruz.
Now we are focused on Arizona, Utah, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and California. To the extent possible, we are attempting to place trained poll watchers in those counties with a recent history of voter fraud.
The Trump Ballot Security Project is committed to investigating all complaints of voter fraud. In the event a pattern can be determined, the seating of these delegations can and will be challenged before the Credentials committee of the Republican National Convention.
We have dispatched lawyers and election law experts to all of the states mentioned above to investigate and document voter fraud. NOTE The Trump campaign is not currently devoting resources to this important function.
TBSP is a project of the Committee To Restore America’s Greatness
CONTACT 1-855-245-4634 TO REPORT IRREGULARITIES OR VOTER FRAUD.
‘Thirty-five percent of states have no requirement voters show ID to vote, another 25 percent accept secondary ‘proof’ such as a utility bill to prove residency and who you are. Only 20 percent of states have a strict photo ID requirement to vote...’
[snip]
The objection to voter ID by blacks is that it’s racist, claiming that some blacks may have born at home or other place and didn’t get a birth certificate, possible. But that’s few and far between especially as the elderly pass away. It can’t be racist because far more whites could have born without a birth certificate, many more whites lived on farms and rural areas and were probably born at home.
So objecting to voter id is just another cry for voter fraud. And if you can’t make the effort to get correct id, to bad then don’t vote.
1. Register at least a month before the election.
2. Show your ID.
3. Apply your signature to the roll sheet.
4. Mark your ballot
5. Leave.
Good grief! That is not hard. If anyone still cannot comply, show her to me, and I will drive her around to all the proper places; because there can’t be more than one of these creatures out there.
Yes, its not really about voting at all. Its about consolidating power, and once that’s achieved the leftist program to expand voting rights will be sharply curtailed and eventually eliminated. The state knows best.
What’s the point of being a citizen anymore? Its seem you have more right if you’re not.
One-year residency requirements before one could vote used to be common.
Simply showing drivers license is not enough. I am a naturalized citizen and I got my drivers license many years before I became a citizen. I showed my US Passport when I registered.
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