The New Poll Tax ?

"BUT, note I said we are not SUPPOSED to be a mobocracy."

OK, Doug, two questions.

1. What makes you think that we're a mobocracy?

2. What makes you think that you, personally, should have the right to vote? In other words, explain why you're not a member of the mob of which you appear to be so fearful.

I submit to you that the current voting structure is well in line with what the Founders intended for a number of reasons, primary among those are that property ownership rates are FAR above what they were in Colonial times, and that the average American, even those who did not complete high school, today far exceed the educational levels contemplated by the Founders.

"If voting truly is a right....then why can't 14 year old citizens vote? Why can't 10 year old citizens vote? Why can't 5 year old's vote? The left, via one of the amendments Mr. Irwin quoted has already rolled it back to 18. Why not 16 or 13 or 5? If voting is a right, then it should be the right of all citizens? Correct?"

Why?

Because even the Founding Fathers recognized that no right is always absolute. The age of majority, the age at which an individual becomes fully and legally cognizant in society, has been a legally recognized concept as far back as Babylonia over 3,000 years ago. It was a recognized part of English Common Law as early as 800 A.D.

Trying to frame your argument in those terms is ludicrous.
 
"There is no provision in the Constitution for people to vote more than once in the same election, nor for dead people to vote, nor for non-citizens to vote, nor for citizens to vote in races outside their place of residence, nor for people to go vote for someone else who chooses not to vote, .... you get the picture."

And your point is?

The Federal Government, in the Constitution and subsequent U.S. Code, gave the states great leeway in determining how individuals will vote.

Note that in some states, such as Wisconsin, women had the right to vote at the state level as early as the 1870s.
 
Antipitas said:
Voting is a right as enumerated within the Constitution. Period. End of Story.
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Do you think that deserves a little description before the Period? Like, voting is a right for our citizens, or voting once per election is a right. Something along those lines.
 
I'm probably poor copmpared to many of you and I have very little disposable income. I'm not on welfare but my income is limited to my VA disability from Vietnam. Should I have to pay to vote I doubt I would do it. I've voted a solid Republican ticket since I first voted for Nixon in 1968 - I contined doing this until 2004. I might learn slow, but eventually I do learn and in 2004 I voted Libertarian. I doubt I've voted to take away any more of your money.
 
CDH said:
But no, a national ID card is a step in the wrong direction. However, EVERY non-citizen SHOULD be required to carry a "national" ID card at all times or their temporary visa should be revoked.
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That doesn't work unless everyone can be stopped and forced to present his papers. You cannot require certain classes of people to carry papers. They can claim they're not in the class you think they are, and then what?
 
Doug.38PR
Senior Member

Join Date: 01-18-2005
Posts: 1,593

Personally I have no problem with voter ID or a poll tax. Voting isn't a right, it's a privilege. We are not supposed to be a mobocracy. If you can't afford to pay a poll tax then you probably don't need to be voting. If you can't speak american then you shouldn't be voting. If you can't read and write, you probably don't need to be voting. If you can't properly identify yourself indicating that you are a citizen and resident of the State of ________ via a birth certificate or some other documentation, then you should not be voting.

I am not for National ID card either. Not for State Id's either. I think the Feds should have as little on us as possible. Don't trust them. Birth certificate's on public record are all the ID needed. __________Voting is a privilege?,so we are a dictator-ship then? who decides what is responsible voting? everyone votes the way you want or they can't vote?.I thought the U.S. was bringing Democracy to the world?.:rolleyes:
 
FYI

America is not a democracy it is a democratic republic in which the rights of individuals are supposed to be shielded from popular vote and the government. Those rights are guaranteed to us by the Constitution and the BOR.

Voting would then be a guaranteed right just like the right to bear arms. You folks do believe that the right to bear arms is an individual right that is above popular vote and the government?

So if you are saying that voting is not an individual right then you can make the same argument that the right to bear arms is not an individual right. The BOR is not a shopping list we can pick and choose from.

So then under that same argument that the poll tax is legal the federal goverment should be able to have a $10,000 excise tax on each firearm you own. If you dont have the money you shouldnt be able to own firearms.

When a person beleives that its okay to disenfranchise certain groups from inalienable rights in the end he only disenfranchises himself from his rights.
 
Thank you, Mike

It was Mike Irwin who said:
"Take special care to note the language of the 24th Amendment."

I find it difficult to accept that seemingly intelligent members of this august forum would wish to exempt a segment of society from voting solely because they're poor.

To some folks 10 bucks is a considerable sum. Many families in my area of the U.S. earn 10,000 per year or less. And note that I said "earn", that income is NOT derived from government handouts. They're way too proud to accept handouts.

They don't have insurance of any kind so if they get sick enough, they die. Sometimes being poor is a death sentence in the good 'ol U.S.of A.

Without insurance of any kind, they don't drive so they walk, and walk proudly, to the polling place and vote for the candidate of their choice. After all, they are Americans.
 
The Federal Government, in the Constitution and subsequent U.S. Code, gave the states great leeway in determining how individuals will vote
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The Voting Rights Act and Supreme Court took some of that away and told the states what was legal and not legal. Some of the states abused that "leeway".
 
Maybe there are better ways to insure accurate elections other than picture i.d., like biometrics. Until we have some way of determining whether folks are voting more than once in the same election, then we're going to have voter fraud. In my humble opinion, almost all of that fraud occurs in the Democrat base.

The requirement for positive i.d. has no relationship to the old poll taxes, except in the minds of those who promulgate voter fraud. Positive i.d. is a genuine attempt to have honest, fair elections. The folks pushing for positive voter i.d. aren't trying to preclude blacks from voting. There are more poor whites than there are poor blacks. There are no groups representing poor whites that are concerned about voter i.d. Dealing with massive voter fraud is frustrating, and there are some folks in some legislatures trying to fix the problem.

Folks who make $10,000 or less don't die from lack of medical assistance, unless they volunteer to do such. Any such folks taken to a Hill-Burton hospital will receive medical care at taxpayers' expense.
 
You have to present id to buy liquor, to rent from BlockBuster, to rent a car, and many other mundane chores. Why would a free photo id be unconstitutional if required to vote? It's not a poll tax, and you have years to obtain one. Right now, people can bring in a gas bill as proof that they are registered to vote. If you think that this doesn't encourage voter fraud, you've never been near a large city.

We lived near Baltimore. The democratic party there was famous for sending buses into the poorer parts of the city, gathering the locals, feeding them, and GIVING THEM ID. In Baltimore, an average of 15% of the votes cast were done so by dead people, people in jail, people in Intensive Care in hospitals, and people in Mental wards. Why? They were able to provide proof of residency and name with a simple bill from the address.

I believe that those not restricted by law have the right to vote. I see zero problems with requiring them to provide picture ID to exercise that right.:)
 
A requirement to present an ID when voting is equivalent to a poll tax? That is 1) an extremely poor and inaccurate analogy and/or 2) a deliberate attempt to associate old racist disenfranchisement of black voters with this proposal.

You can only vote once per election. Without some sort of positive ID there is no way to enforce that rule.

Now, if you want to argue about what TYPE of ID should be used, that would be a reasonable and valid discussion.
 
FYI....

This is now law.......

Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you'll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service. Practically speaking, your driver's license likely will have to be reissued to meet federal standards.
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now here is the good part

The Real ID Act hands the Department of Homeland Security the power to set these standards and determine whether state drivers' licenses and other ID cards pass muster. Only ID cards approved by Homeland Security can be accepted "for any official purpose" by the feds.
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so no big deal ill pay the state some money and renew my DL....not so fast there

need to bring a "photo identity document," document your birth date and address, and show that your Social Security number is what you had claimed it to be. U.S. citizens will have to prove that status, and foreigners will have to show a valid visa.
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You will have to prove that you are a US Citizen. I wonder if the INS vans will be nearby to transport those who can not prove citizenship or get the required documents.

Acording to a recent article issued by the Texas Deaprtment of Public Safety a new Drivers Liscense will cost about $104.00 to renew to meet the new federal standards. I bet a state ID card will cost about the same due to the standards.

So this all sounds pretty harmless? right?

now lets look past the forest into the trees and see what lurks there.

now in conjuction with the National ID laws we have these voter ID laws being passed by states.

We know in Texas the cost of this federally mandated ID will be over $100.00. Keep in mind you will need this to go to the poll to vote in person. Which means that to vote each poor person will have to cough up around $100.00 for one of these cards in Texas. At this present time it all seems so harmless and innocent doesn't it?

Some problems in Georgia with the law

On top of that, the state recently reorganized the Department of Motor Vehicles, paring down the number of offices. After the reorganization, there were no DMV offices in Atlanta, a city with a wide black majority. The closest station is at least nine miles away. Fewer than 60 of the state's 159 counties have DMV offices.
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State officials countered that they were providing a single vehicle, known as the GLOW bus, to traverse the state, providing applications and licenses to those with the proper documents. Critics expressed disbelief that one bus could accommodate the needs of so many potential voters.
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So now instead of some poor folks we may be adding some elderly who dont drive nor live near an office. I believe you have to go in person with the required documents to get the digital ID.

some food for thought.......

The new law’s supporters say its purpose is to deter fraud. But there is little evidence of “imposter voting,” the sort of fraud that ID laws are aimed at, in Missouri or anywhere else. Groups in Missouri that want to suppress voting have a long history of crying fraud, but investigations by the Justice Department and The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, among others, have refuted such claims in the past. If the Legislature really wanted to deter fraud, it would have focused its efforts on absentee ballots, which are a notorious source of election fraud — and are not covered by Missouri’s new ID requirements.
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Eghad, I personally would appose a National ID card for voting or other reasons, I am not sure about all States but here in the State of Missouri we are issued a Voter Registration Card when we registar to vote or move into a new voting area and that card is what is used to ID us at the Polls, when we go to vote the card is presented to the People at the voting table it is checked against the Registar and then we sign our name next to the list and then we also initial it in another place, not fancy but seems to work.
 
Kelly J:

While I agree with you about the National ID thing, I'm of the impression that it is still quote possible to "stuff the ballot box" using the paper, non-picture, voters registration card like you describe (even though it is better than nothing at all). Problem is, there's nothing to say that the person voting is the person who is registered. Hence, you end up with people making up fictious people and then voting for them, or registering the dead and having proxies vote for them, etc. The "purple ink finger" thing that has been done recently in freed Afghanistan and Iraq is a step in the right direction, sans picture ID's, because it pretty well makes it impossible for 1 person to vote multiple times. But even that can be gamed, since it is still possible for those not elligble to vote to acquire forged access to the register and still vote -- meaning that doesn't do anything about making sure that felons or illegal aliens aren't voting illicitly. Only a strictly enforced registry and state issued picture ID's can help with that, and even then it just makes it more difficult, not impossible, to game the system.
 
OK, Doug, two questions.




I submit to you that the current voting structure is well in line with what the Founders intended for a number of reasons, primary among those are that property ownership rates are FAR above what they were in Colonial times, and that the average American, even those who did not complete high school, today far exceed the educational levels contemplated by the Founders.
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I agree with your first statement in that property ownership rates are higher than in Colonial times. The Founding Fathers primarily wanted property owners to be the ones able to vote. But, with that in mind, they (particularly the Jeffersonians) wanted more and more people to own their own land as the country grew and expanded west and be able to excercise the privilege of voting. Those who own property have more weath and have more at stake and have more responsibility and are far more likely to vote responsibly. But they in no way dreamed of having an absolute democracy where every warm body out there has a right to vote.
The Education part of your comment I disagree with. Just go read any writings from back then. Those men expressed themselves from important historical and legal documents to letters home from the front by plain soldiers and you see they were able to express themselves in letter far better than most high school graduates today can (thanks to our public education system) Even in the "backcountry" people generally kept up with current events and most in fact could read an write (some had their own way of spelling things "Our cumpany fot the Yankees today. It wus a bitter sit to see" or they might have spelled things more in common with the old English than Webster's Dictionary (like they would use Honour instead of Honor). Take a glance at the political and legal and letters of men like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or John C. Calhoun or Jefferson Davis Far better writing skills than most educated men today.

1. What makes you think that we're a mobocracy?
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Perhaps not 100% democracy. But every day we move in this direction as voting is expanded, restrictions are rolled back and voting is made easier. The latest example I can think of is the Motor Voter bill back in 1993 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Voter Of course we have mentioned in here the move to do away with the electoral college. You don't have to read or write, you don't even have to speak English....and de facto, you don't even have to be a citizen because it is so easy to be able to vote now.

2. What makes you think that you, personally, should have the right to vote? In other words, explain why you're not a member of the mob of which you appear to be so fearful.
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Well, it's not a question whether I should have the privledge to vote. Each state should be able to decide for itself what qualifies it's citizens within to vote. Basic requirements used to kinda fall under: you should be able to at least write your name in English, you should be able to read and write, you should be a taxpayer, you should be able to speak English and demonstrate a basic knowledge and understanding of the history and the Constitution and of course you must be a citizen of a state within the American Union. Requirements should be up to states to decide, and a Poll Tax would be another prudent requirement or banning people from voting who are living on welfare or other public assistance would be another. I could pass these requirements
 
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Eghad, it wasn't the DMV that was issuing the Voter IDs. The state required each county to have a place set up to issue them, on demand. In Georgia, the counties are no larger than the distance a man had to travel via horseback from his home to the county seat. That is why Georgia has 179 counties.

The idea that Missouri has had little voter fraud is fine, but I live in Georgia. The local paper, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, unearthed widespread fraud in the Atlanta area with only a cursory investigation. Most large cities have this problem. Seems the dead there are famous for exercising their constitutional right of voting.

Voter registration has become a sore point. Why anyone would have a problem presenting ID, especially when it's free, smacks more of collusion than freedom.

By the way, veterans in Georgia also get free driver's licenses.

The use of the race card, and the "how do we" idiocy, is shameful, but understandable. With nothing else to use, it's fast becoming the last refuge of the incompetent on that side. Look at McKinney.:barf: :barf:
 
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