gdanaher wrote:All you fine 30 somethings can get a drivers license in an afternoon. Even less time if you live in town. For those who don't live near a DPS office, it can take longer. Less than half of all Texas counties have a single DPS office, and of those that we have, many are open only one or two days a week and none of them on a weekend.
With all due respect, I'm not 30, I'm a few months shy of 60......and the DPS will
MAIL you the ID if you'll take the one day out of the next 180 between now and November to go get it taken care of. You don't have to go pick it up. Now, before you object, I'd be willing to bet that DPS has already put procedures into place to assist people who can't just up and drive there any time they want to.
Consider the amount of time between elections. The next one isn't until November—6 months from now. The next one after that is a couple of years later. Surely a person who lived in such a removed location could find the time on one day out of 180 days to drive to the nearest DPS office and get it handled?
Simplistic rhetoric is not the answer....you're right about that......but neither are dismissive answers which automatically do away with any means of preserving the electoral process. Several things ARE undeniable:
1. The electoral process IS compromised. The state of Florida uncovered something like 22,000 (!)
DEAD voters just a week or two ago. South Dakota and New Mexico are famous for dead people voting. Ditto NYC and Chicago. And I don't know where you get your facts, but illegals DO vote. I once actually had an illegal alien tell me he voted and laughed about it because we're so stupid. How can that be, you say? Because wherever we have motor-voter laws, anyone applying for a driver's license can also register to vote. That's how
he got registered.....so don't tell me illegals don't vote. They maybe don't
all vote, but
some do vote, and that's a fact; it pollutes the electoral process, and that too is a fact.
2. Anywone who denies that voter fraud is a problem is either A) in denial, or B) perfectly OK with voter fraud. Neither (A) nor (B) is acceptable. The person in denial is not in possession of his or her faculties and should not vote themselves since they're not responsible for making an informed decision. The person for whom fraud is acceptable is a person of low character. I would like to think that the members of this board fit niether description.
3. Voter ID
would solve this problem....for the most part. You're always going to have ID theft, but it's not like credit card theft where a thief in New York can use a credit card number stolen from a resident of Texas. A Texas voter ID will be usable only in Texas. In fact, it would be very easy to simply place an indexing mark on a TDL stating that the person is
qualified to vote (or not), just like our CHLs are marked SA or NSA for "semi-automatic" and "no semi-automatic." A TDL (or state issued ID card) could be marked with a "V" or "NV" indicating whether the bearer may "Vote" or "No Vote." Registration can be handled by mail and doesn't require a trip from you. It would be very easy for DPS to provide the election board with a numerically sorted electronic list of TDL numbers bearing a "V." When a registration application arrives in the mail for processing, the clerk simply puts in the provided TDL/ID Card number and the compooter-machine tells the clerk right then and there if this person may register to vote or not. If they cannot, then their application is forwarded to the DPS and an arrest warrant is issued against that person for voter fraud. See that? 5 minutes, and I came up with a way to fix the system. This is NOT rocket science.
4. So, while I don't want to reduce the argument to simplistic sound bites, you have to ask yourself the following questions: Am I in denial? Are these facts about document massive voter fraud just made up out of whole cloth and if I cover my ears and shout nanny nanny nanny they'll go away? Is the electoral process worth preserving? And here's the BIG question: "If I agree that the system needs to be repaired so that unqualified people don't vote, and I don't want to see voter ID because it is inconvenient, then what ideas do I have that will fix the system and still meet my needs?" If you can't answer that last question with a good idea, then you're perfectly OK with a broken system, and that makes you part of the problem.
So, are you going to be part of fixing it, or are you going to kick your responsibilities as a citizen for preserving the process down the road for next generations to handle........when it might be too late because Texas is no longer part of the U.S. and belongs to Mexico again? If it is a matter of physical disability, then isn't somebody already helping you with these kinds of needs?
I truly don't mean to be flip and disrespectful, but I'm just not going to let arguments against voter ID stand without being challenged, if and unless I hear such a person offer and alternative solution........because
solutions are called for, not just vetoes. Just sayin'.....
