Should All Votes Count, Equally?

At the expense of voter suppression. I think denying the ability to vote for those who have a constitutionally guaranteed right to do so is far worse than folks trying to vote twice or dead folks voting. It is crazy how in Iraq and other places they have better voting systems than we do. Blue ink on the thumb after you vote. Everyone in the country votes. The end.

 

The Great Compromise's bicameral legislature is what allowed the Constitution to be agreed upon.

 

No affirmative Constitutional right to vote exists.


http://democracyjournal.org/magazine/28/the-missing-right-a-constitutional-right-to-vote/

 

For the sake of asking, what's the alternative?

 

It's implicitly mentioned in the Constitution but it's not an explicit, affirmative right. Not as an American citizen.

 

I'm not sure why, but my guess is that it allows the government some wiggle room in case of (X) event... I still believe that the popular vote (on a national level) is a sham perpetrated to create the illusion that "The People" have some shard of say so....

 

A photo ID law doesn't deny anyone the right to vote. Go get the photo ID. Go vote.

 

Normally I agree with you on political matters, but this is one area where our opinions diverge. I'm content with the electoral college system. I also believe the 17th amendment was a mistake, but I don't feel as strongly on this.

 

Exactly. I don't hear the same concerns with the suppression of "travel", "drinking", "smoking / having a chaw" "R-rated entertainment" "currency exchange" when requiring a photo ID before boarding a flight, purchasing alcohol, buying tobacco, seeing an adult-rated movie, cashing a check or depositing money.

At the heart of the argument is a person who believes that the poor and minorities simply will not sufficiently care enough to vote if it required a photo ID to do so.

One illegal or impermissible vote is one too many.

 

In Wisconsin, folks had to wait in line for hours to get an ID in a dwindling number of locations that are conveniently nowhere near the poor parts of town. Not everyone has transportation or a work schedule to accommodate that. If you want to pay for a service that goes door to door and makes ID's in the back of a vehicle for them, okay. Otherwise, this is voter suppression.

 

Show me the constitutional right to fly. Just link it, I'm not familiar with that one.

I thought you were all about the law? Shouldn't it be up to you to change the constitution and remove voting as a right? Isn't that what you usually say about matters of law?

One legal person kept from voting is one too many.

 

That's why you start offering IDs now, but don't require presenting them to vote for a good couple of years. If you can't get it in that amount of time, you just didn't try.

 

Nah, that sounds like trying to make it harder than it needs to be. Why not register folks to vote the same way we register folks for the draft when they're 18?

 

I imagine because no one wants to wait 100 years to make the ID mandatory.

 

I don't understand why every male can be registered for the draft in this country, but not everyone to vote.

 

1. Every male in the country probably isn't registered.

2. People are interested in the law being effective now, not after everyone over the age of 18 is dead.

 

You would think that modern humans would be able to figure something out with the world wide interwebz.

 

1. Kinda hard not to be. You'd have to be actively avoiding it.

2. Gotta start somewhere.

 

Unless you're a Georgia football player, nobody seems to have any trouble making it down to the DMV to get their drivers license, and if you live in a place like Georgia, they're never conveniently located... Which may explain why they never seem to have one....

 

You're just wrong. Plenty of people don't drive at all. Not everyone lives a lifestyle that requires a car.