The Associated Press's Mark Sherman, as noted by Jim Taranto at Best of the Web, "reports on a pending Supreme Court case in a way that seems to give both sides their due, but in substance does not."
Here are the first three paragraphs of Sherman's report (bolds are mine):
The dispute over Indiana's voter ID law that is headed to the Supreme Court in January is as much a partisan political drama as a legal tussle.
On one side are mainly Republican backers of the law, including the Bush administration, who say state-produced photo identification is a prudent measure intended to cut down on vote fraud. Yet there have been no Indiana prosecutions of in-person voter fraud — the kind the law is supposed to prevent.
On the other side are mainly Democratic opponents who call voter ID a modern-day poll tax that will disproportionately affect poor, minority and elderly voters — who tend to back Democrats. Yet, a federal judge found that opponents of the law were unable to produce evidence of a single, individual Indiana resident who had been barred from voting because of the law.
Taranto's complaint is fine, as far as it goes, in that Sherman cleverly limits his comparison to Indiana law, when he (Sherman) probably knows full well that:
- Opponents of voter ID laws are, as far as I know, unable to produce evidence of a single, individual Indiana or non-Indiana US resident who has been barred from voting because of the law.
- Proponents of such laws are able to find plenty of example of "in-person" voter-registration and vote-casting fraud in states other than Indiana. A simple Google search on "ACORN vote fraud" (without the quotes) confirms that. Several related posts are here, here, and here.
The further quarrel I have is with Sherman's characterization of voter-ID backers as "mainly Republican." This totally ignores the fact that a bipartisan commission headed by Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican James Baker III came out in favor of Voter ID verification in their September 2005 report (2-page PDF here).
In fact, in May of 2006, as the debate over immigration reform and its possible effects on the voting process heated up, John Fund noted that "the biggest surprise was that 18 of 21 commissioners backed a requirement that voters show some form of photo identification."
"Mainly," schmainly, Mr. Sherman.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters
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Comments Policy
}}---> Of course it's partisan
December 31, 2007 - 19:51 ET by Cool ArrowLiberals have been finding ways to pollute ballot boxes for years.
Who are we to stop them?
I ♣ My Seal
What are you talking about?
December 31, 2007 - 19:59 ET by GregEWhat are you talking about? A liberal vote is pollution.
}}---> Poll-uters
December 31, 2007 - 20:03 ET by Cool ArrowOK, you caught me. (sort of)
What I meant was the Liberal Poll-uters are going below and beyond in theie efforts to further poll-ute.
Does that get me off the hook?
I ♣ My Seal
Next
December 31, 2007 - 20:04 ET by Jerry MackThe next thing on the Dims list is to say that if this is upheld by the supreme court many fire fighters and police officers will be laid off.
Weird, you'd think liberals
December 31, 2007 - 20:11 ET by wiwfWeird, you'd think liberals would appreciate bigger government and a "poll tax" nowadays!
The Rocky Mountain Collegian: Illustrating Idiocy
Don't forget women and children hit hardest.
December 31, 2007 - 20:15 ET by kgDon't forget women and children hit hardest.
Oooops
Minorities, convicts, and illegal aliens hit hardest.
kg, you left out "corpses"
January 1, 2008 - 15:18 ET by MikeBkg, you left out "corpses" from your list. Corpses have been known to vote Democrat for as long as I can remember. If voters are required to show a photo ID, corpses will be completely disenfranchised, and Democratics can't have that.
"A communist is someone who reads Marx. An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx." Ronald Reagan
What a surprise.
December 31, 2007 - 20:30 ET by motherbeltWhat a surprise. Republicans are cast as worried about voter fraud, Democrats as worried about the poor, the elderly, and minorities. (Women and minorities hardest hit?)
Exactly what IS is that prevents those three groups from having a proper ID? I think the answer to that question would be very interesting.
Let's face it, the Democrats aren't worried about those groups, they don't want anyone looking too closely at voters, period. (Felons and illegals hardest hit?)
PS kg.... GMTA!! I saw your last line when I posted my comment!
Update 19:16..
I just read my "Best of the Web" email, and Taranto also quoted another section from Sherman:
The Supreme Court, which famously split 5-4 in the case that sealed the 2000
presidential election for George Bush, will take up the Indiana law on January
9, just as the 2008 presidential primaries are getting under way.
Taranto then asks:
The connection between Bush v. Gore and the Indiana case is . . . what
exactly?
IMO, Sherman is trying to imply that since the Court sided with Bush in 2000, they will side with Republicans in this case.
Or, it could just be that for Democrats, it ALWAYS goes back to the 2000 election.
They're looking for ways to
December 31, 2007 - 20:17 ET by rbosqueThey're looking for ways to stuff ballot boxes. Acorn was indicted of voter fraud a couple of weeks ago.
Poll tax my ass!
December 31, 2007 - 20:24 ET by Clear thinkerAnyone with a clear head knows that the system is gamed, and the Voter ID will help to gamers to a minimum.
You would think Dems would come up with better excuses. Then again, how can you blame them, cheating is the only way they can get elected.
Rush Limbaugh stated that of the top 5 Republicans running for the presidency, only one was a true conservative. http://www.fred08.com/
Why should a teensy
December 31, 2007 - 20:44 ET by BlazerWhy should a teensy little thing like the rule of law or producing valid identification to prove your identity and citizenship stand in the way of voting?
Dead people have right's too dammit !
"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious. "
- Ben Kenobi on Liberals, and the MSM.
If liberalism "works" the
December 31, 2007 - 20:57 ET by wiwfIf liberalism "works" the way they believe it does (remember it doesn't), then we wouldn't have these convicts, aliens, and minorities in the red when it comes to getting "hit hard."
Liberals put them in these positions!
The Rocky Mountain Collegian: Illustrating Idiocy
oops
December 31, 2007 - 20:58 ET by wiwfdouble post, BALEETED
The Rocky Mountain Collegian: Illustrating Idiocy
It's just another bogus argument.
December 31, 2007 - 21:26 ET by pbthinkerLast year, when Georgia's law was shot down, the PB Post had an editorial, claiming the same things. The one problem, Florida already has a law. When I brought that up, I never received an answer from them. The difference is that, in Florida if you don't have proper ID, you can file a provisional ballot and have your ID verified later.
The biggest irony is that photo ID's are required for many things, in this society. Voting is one of those things where we should know who is casting the ballot, why are Liberals so against this? There can only be one answer, it screws up their plans to vote early, vote often.
Democrats: Specializing in "high tech lynching" since 1987.
if you don't have proper
December 31, 2007 - 21:35 ET by motherbeltif you don't have proper ID, you can file a provisional ballot and have your ID verified later.
pb, whenever I see that, I wonder: how does that work? Whose job is it to verify the ID? How long do they have to do it? HOW do they do it? It just seems so....nebulous.
I agree with you about needing ID for many things. In my comment above, I wondered exactly WHY those groups can't manage to have a proper ID? Don't you think the Democrat answer to that question would be very interesting?
The usual answer
December 31, 2007 - 21:51 ET by Chaitealoveris that the poor don't have the means to get to the DMV [or wherever] to get the ID, even if it's free. They seldom go on to explain how they get anywhere else.
Chai
“There are no hopeless situations; There are only men who have grown hopeless about them.”—Clare Boothe Luce
Good point Ctl. The poor
January 1, 2008 - 15:24 ET by MikeBGood point Ctl. The poor can manage to get to the grocery store, to the bank, to the loan company, to the liquor store, to the pawn shop and anywhere else they want to go. Some of them even manage to find a way to get to the friendly neighborhood drug dealer. So, why can't they get to their County Election Board or DMV? Sounds like BS to me.
"A communist is someone who reads Marx. An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx." Ronald Reagan
Photo ID for cold meds
December 31, 2007 - 21:54 ET by SouthernRootsWashington passed a law a couple of years ago that requires photo ID to buy certain cold meds - as a fight against meth production.
What would you want to bet that the same people allegedly disenfranchised by ID at the polls, are the same ones that would want to buy cold meds?
I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them. - J.B. Books (John Wayne)
Indiana Too
December 31, 2007 - 22:31 ET by timzankHere in Indiana, you can vote with a provisional ballot and produce proof later also. There are no barriers, the freakin' I.D. is free at ANY Indiana BMV. The dems here are just pissed cuz they can't run the bus down the alleys on election day passin' out ripple and picking up "voters" to drag by the polls.
What polls?
December 31, 2007 - 21:33 ET by SouthernRootsBy November, Washington will be almost 100% mail-in ballots. Because of the mail-in, there is no ID checking at the polls anymore. Any ID checking now has to be at the registration point and even here, there are issues with that requirement. Looking at the registration requirements vs. how the laws are actually enforced shows that it isn't too hard to put in a false registration and get a ballot.
State law specifically requires that the voter register their address where they "abide" (live). For hundreds of registrations in King County, where the voter "abides" is in a private post-box. Washington law also requires that challengers must prove where someone lives, not just that they don't live where they say they do. Since challengers couldn't prove where the post-box voters lived, and proving that people can't live in a post-box wasn't enough, the (dem) KC Elections Director refused to cancel these registrations or make the voter re-register at their true address.
As we discovered in the 2004 gubernatorial, once any kind of illegal ballot makes it into the pool being counted, the game is over. The governor's race was decided by 133 votes. Over 1,600 were acknowledged to be illegal, but because it couldn't be proven how the illegal ballots were voted, the "results" stood.
All legally registered voters should have the opportunity to vote legally.
All voting systems that want to retain the trust of the electorate should have as many safeguards as possible against fraud. Proper ID at registration, or the polls (if you're lucky to have them) isn't too much to ask for.
I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them. - J.B. Books (John Wayne)
80% support voter ID -- yup, very partisan.
December 31, 2007 - 22:06 ET by Gary HallOh, ya bet ya. 77-80% support photo voter id laws -- very very partisan indeed. Ha~
I have that ole sneaking suspicion that the most of the media is reluctant to even conduct this poll, as they don't want to know how the voters actually feel on the issue.
And Tom -- Happy New Year to you and yours. (;~> Gary
Well, I guess that means
January 1, 2008 - 08:50 ET by motherbeltWell, I guess that means that 77-80% of voters in the country are Republicans?????
}}---> Way to go Gary
January 1, 2008 - 09:03 ET by Cool ArrowMay we all do such a great job in the coming year to cut through the bovine defacation as surgically you just did.
I ♣ My Seal
Cool A & Mother B
January 1, 2008 - 13:29 ET by Gary HallThanks. Hidden in the obvious there, is a two front war, by the media in concert with their polling and other mainstream polling. Other than the resistance to ask straight questions in a survey on a major issue, we get this effort, approaching push polling, where they instead ask the softie questions around the social cause edges of the issue - and never see the questions shifted to such that they would support the real wish of the majority. Instead of the question: "Do you support an overall large reduction in both legal and illegal immigration to the US" [results would show a strong majority have historically, and still currently support this view], we get, "Do you agree that US businesses generally have benefited from cheap labor from immigrants and that the need to guarantee that these helpful folks do no have their civil rights violated?"
Here's the question you would never see in a national poll, which is very strange, because if the leftist greenie media was even true to itself, this would indeed be their larger angle. Ready? Fire! "The Father of Earth Day, the late Sen/ Gaylor Nelson (D), said that it is the massive "population boom represents a profound failure in our nation's pursuit of environmental quality. Every environmental goal has been delayed because of this failure." Understanding that most of the out of control population growth in the US will not only bankrupt the country's entitlement obligations and create congestion beyond what is bearable, this growth fuels the capitalism and economic growth which makes achieving a reduction in greenhouse gases unattainable. Slashing both legal and illegal immigration to the US would be the most effective and immediate policy to stop global warming (tounge in cheeky) because of the US. Would you support such a policy?
While President Bush's immigration plan was too week for the actual view of most Americans, it was way to the right of what the MSM wanted - open borders - and just like SS reform, they [the media] killed the discussion, and the utilized unethical polling to pull it off.