As you know, the best Tweeter in the SC House is Nathan Ballentine. His counterpart in the Senate is Harvey Peeler. And while it might be a stretch to call anything coming out of our General Assembly avant garde, Harvey’s Tweets at least strain at the bounds of the usual prosaic expressions one expects from a Republican legislative leader.
Kudos to him for this offering this morning:
I think the saying “at the end of the day” has reached the end of the day !
Thank you, senator, for reminding us that we no longer have the perpetrator of that particular verbal tic to kick around any more!
And now, it’s a great day in South Carolina!
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The Mark Sanfords of the world say, at the end of the day, the Harvey Peelers of the world can lay to rest any verbal tic they wish, but verbal ticks take stronger stuff….
What is this “Tweeter” thing of which you speak, and why is it important?
This is HUGE. From The State’s editorial page:
“Suspend judgment on dead-voters
FOR TWO weeks, supporters of our state’s new voter identification law crowed that they had been vindicated by the announcement by Gov. Nikki Haley’s Department of Motor Vehicles director that nearly 1,000 dead people had cast ballots. It was an extraordinary, and deeply disturbing, claim that finally seemed to provide the evidence supporters had never bothered to present that we need such a law.
Or not.
It turns out that at least some of those people weren’t really dead, and some of them didn’t vote. We don’t know how many, because Kevin Shwedo hadn’t provided Election Commission Director Marci Andino with his list by the time she took her turn before a House subcommittee last week. But she said that she had found no indications of fraud among the 20 names she received from the attorney general’s office, which appropriately ordered an investigation based on Mr. Shwedo’s claim. What she found instead were stray marks on voter lists that made it look like people voted when they didn’t, people who cast absentee ballots early and then died before Election Day, a Sr. listed as voting when in fact it was a Jr. ”
A gigantic deal was made out of this when it first broke and my comment was something like, “This is not big deal”. That’s when I thought there was a possibilty that dead people were actually voting. Now that it seems unlikely that there really are any dead people voting it is a genuine scandal or at least gross incompetence. Supporters of this picture ID law look ridiculous now that there is no significant abuse to point to. Once again the Republican party has duped people into believing their nonsense. And again the intellectually lazy people of this state buy all this nonsense. Too bad because our state will continue to slip further down the ladder of prosperity and health. And it’s all because the state is run by the ultra conservative and ultra wrong GOP.
Okay, bud, how about giving us a list of people who would be impacted by the voter id law? Then we can also prove that there is no vote suppression going on.
I have yet to see evidence of a single voter who does not have the ability to acquire an id. They are as rare as the dead voters.
The voter ID law was a solution without a problem. If we already had a law dating back 100 years that required a picture ID then there would not be a need to repeal it. But since there isn’t a law there is also no need to implement one. My biggest beef with the whole thing is that it focuses on wrong issue. The elephants in the room are (1) the electral college and (2) electronic voting machines that don’t have a paper receipt. Include these things in a reform package and then we can talk about picture IDs. Until that happens I’m hopeful that the courts will shoot down the obviously partisan picture ID law.
@ bud-
1) What’s wrong with the Electoral College? Should we also do away with the direct election of Senators?
2) What good would a paper receipt do?
The poll workers zero out the machines when they open, and post the receipt showing them zero’ed out on the door of the polling place. At the end of the day, the same precinct workers print out a paper receipt with a tally of the votes and post that on the precinct door or wall as well. It also shows any undervote that might have occured. No mess, no fuss. A paper receipt would do an individual no good. Someone can still tamper with the ballot box intentionally, or human error could still foul up the tabulation and reporting.
If you really want to do something to improve the voting around here, let’s eliminate party line voting and make folks choose each candidate individually. Let’s even go one further, and remove individual’s party affiliations from the ballot.
@Bud
So you don’t know anybody either who would be impacted by showing their id.
How is it that everyone can talk about this “problem” but can’t find anyone who would be impacted?
I had to show my id to vote two weeks ago. If you have to show SOMETHING, why is it a big deal to show an id?
Its really difficult to get a fake id. Ask any teenager. They never have them. So that’s why when I show my id at the Publix, they don’t have to scan my drivers license. And they don’t have to train their staff to scan the id, or have software to verify the id, nor report any violations. No impact at all. I can’t wait until they start having scanners at the polling place, or even just some cranky poll operator who says “Hey, this looks like a fake ID”.
But hey, I, like Doug, appreciate passage of laws to solve non-problems. What else will lawmakers do, if they don’t pass useless legislation.
Silence. What’s wrong with the electoral college? Simple – George W. Bush. But before you call me a hyperbolic partisan the exact opposite came very close to occuring in 2004 when John Kerry came close to winning Ohio along with the election in spite of having far fewer popular votes.
As for the paper receipt, it’s pretty obvious that an electronic machine can easily be tampered with. A voter really doesn’t know who he voted for. But with a receipt he can look at it and deposit into a voting box for later verification. In the event of a close, or disputed election the paper copies would serve as the official vote tally. Tampering would be far more difficult that way.
Doug, you completely miss my point. There was no need for an ID. It was politics by the Republicans plain and simple. There was no problem that needed correcting. So why make it harder for people to vote?
@Bud
Harder for whom???? You have yet to identify a person who would be impacted by doing exactly what the rest of us do without any concern many times a day?
These phantom people apparently don’t bank, visit doctors, utilize government services like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, drive, have electricity or water. But they vote like crazy…
We need Voter IQ far more than Voter ID.
As I recall, it was about 80-100 thousand people affected by passage of Doug’s worse than useless law.
Here’s one, since that’s all you asked for…
http://www.heraldonline.com/2011/06/05/3122123/john-english-63-or-64-years-old.html
That’s the kind of people affected. So it does have an impact. Nikki Haley can drive the guy all the way from Rock Hill, but the guy was so stupid to be born poor, he is SOL. He is probably one of the folks sucking the very lifeblood of our democracy.
More impact? Enforcement. So how do we verify that the newly required picture ID is actually a real id? Why, let’s train the Poll Workers on what a Passport should look like, a GI card, a non-driver ID card, a Tribal ID card, etc., So, there’s additional training on how to tell real from fake, or real from invalid (there is a difference). So, to be really sure, we probably need some sort of verification technology. No impact there, as we trundle it to the local city park office or VFW post. Oh, its not working… Who do they call now? Oh, I remember the number was around here somewhere.
But that’s the libertarian way. Pass some laws because we imagine problems without evidence and then tell other people that they have to prove there is a problem with the law, then scoff at paying taxes to enforce said worse than useless law. But I am clueless.
How about we come up with some other things that may be problems, like the potential for feral cats swarming the polls.
Sigh. Doug just doesn’t get what I’m saying. I’m not going to try again. There is just some sort of wall between Doug and rational discussion. Sigh, (again)
@Bud
I get what you are saying 100%. You believe voter id will suppress votes. I don’t.
Personally, I’d like to see a poll tax reinstated. No pay-no vote. Of course, I’d like to see only the landed gentry voting….
Aw, c’mon Silence–can’t we get 3/5s of a vote for black people?
Correction: black men
@Doug, but what about Tim’s point that it’s not actually a problem that needs fixing, so why are they wasting time and our money fixing it?
I understand why you’d disagree with Bud, but I’d think you would be more amenable to Tim’s point.
@ Kathryn – If my history serves me correctly, the Yankees didn’t want to count black men at all, while it was the southerner who wanted the slaves enumerated…. Of course a few extra seats in congress would have been in the southerner’s interest…
I actually meant a “Pole Tax” though, not a “Poll Tax.” In a pole tax, it is only the patrons of adult-oriented nightclubs who are taxed.
@Susan
As I said, we already have to show id to vote. Every adult SHOULD have an id in order to participate in society. In the case cited in the link Tim provided, we have a man who apparently can drive, get disability checks, etc. without an id. How is that possible? It also points to the futility of dealing with government bureaucrats. If there is an issue with getting an id, fix that.
In this case, the guy WANTS to get an id but can’t. The government should help him resolve that issue.
Silence,
That would be one way to get some funds out of the Governor’s Mansion.
Tim points out the cost of this legislation. I’m trying to make the point that it was unnecessary. If we had ALWAYS required a photo ID then a requirement to get rid of it would also have been unnecessary. Granted that’s not a particularly grand point to make but it seems like when there is nothing broken it does harm to try and fix it. Even if it’s just a little harm.
@ Silence–and persons from Poland…
@Doug, If we already have to show id to vote, then why do we need another law about it?
The point raised was that we don’t need to spend resources on a problem that doesn’t exist, which is generally a stance you’re in favor of. I don’t see why you’re against it in this case.
@ Kathryn – This is South Carolina, I’m sure the state legislature can carve out an exception for actual persons from Poland, if there’s not one already.
Where is the cost estimate? If they are already checking ids what is the extra cost?
People need ids if they want to participate in society. If this is the impetus, great.
The government has made it a policy to keep him from getting an id. That’s your law, Doug. Him and about 80 thousand other people. Now they are threatening to take away his DL. What agency does Doug suggest come swooping down on its white horse to rescue him? Isn’t this the same government that is trying to prevent him from driving or casting a vote, the very reason for passing the law in the first place? Maybe we need another agency that is set up to assist people with difficulties like this. But I know, it has no impact, costs nothing to enforce, and is basically a benign stipulation with no other intention that to solve problems that don’t exist. He is just some minor collateral damage.
If there is a real problem with the voting system, its those who actually run elections, and any supporter of Ron Paul should direct their ire at situations like Iowa’s caucus ‘misplacing’ 8 precincts, not trying to make some poor fellow’s life miserable.
Setting the voter thing aside — Doug’s right.
This is like the issue of whether to require children whose language is something other than English to learn the tongue of this land.
If you don’t, you condemn them to marginal status, if they indeed stay here.
So… we’re moving beyond libertarianism, and into the realm of MAKING people do things for their own good — get IDs (preferably, a national ID that could be used for multiple purposes) or to learn English. I’m all for both.
That’s all good, Brad. What about the people who can’t get them? How is it Doug is right, when he wants to require birth certified ID’s, but people can’t get them? I know you are with Doug in support of a new agency designed to get id’s for all people who can’t get id’s, solving the imagined problem of massive voter fraud that does not exist. And you support the training and equipment to verify ids. We should also probably require that all voters have DNA. Not a test, just proof that they are indeed human beings. Oh, the problem doesn’t exist, but it seems like it might be a problem someday, when robots queue up to vote.
aw, c’mon, Tim–this state has nothing against id–it’s superego that is challenged here.
Actually, Tim, I am neither for nor against the ID thing. As I’ve written many times over the years, it’s just something Democrats and Republicans love to fight over, and neither side convinces me. The Repubs don’t convince me that there’s a big problem to address, and the Dems don’t persuade me it would be the end of the world, either.
I was agreeing with Doug on a narrow point — that yeah, people would be better off, in life in general, with good ID. And I was sort of ribbing him there, because the idea of making people do stuff because it’s for their own good doesn’t really fit with his libertarianism. But as a communitarian, I’m all for it.
No disagreement about people should have proper ID’s either. I am pretty sure that the folks who can’t get them would love to have them.
It’s not about doing things for their own good – it’s about being able to participate in society. If people want to go through life as second class citizens, they can make that choice there is a price to be paid. How does this man get a disability check without being able to prove who he is? But, again, beyond voting, how can a person have any interaction with government services without a valid id? Mr. English WANTS an id – he is just fighting the bureaucracy in getting it.
And let’s be clear about this – currently, Mr. English from the news story is not having his vote suppressed. And if he can get the id he wants to get but can’t due to government bureaucracy, he probably won’t have any problem with showing it to vote. So where is the voter suppression in this case? There isn’t any. There’s red tape blocking him from doing what he wants to do.
“currently, Mr. English from the news story is not having his vote suppressed.” Uhm, okay, so we agree then that currently he is not having his vote surpressed. But that’s because the law is not in effect yet, so I guess we also agree that if the law is in effect, then yes, his vote is being surpressed, because the operative word you use is “currently”. We are both fine here.
“And if he can get the id he wants to get but can’t due to government bureaucracy, he probably won’t have any problem with showing it to vote. So where is the voter suppression in this case? There isn’t any. There’s red tape blocking him from doing what he wants to do.”
I have read through this a couple of times and the I guess I am too clueless to see that its not completely self-contradictory.
I will try once more. “If he can get the id he wants, but can’t get the id he wants, he won’t have any problem showing it to vote.” I can only assume this is a massive typo, rather than a Monty Python quote.
He is about to lose his drivers license. I don’t know how he gets a disability check, but what’s that got to do with him being able to vote? You want to add a bureaucratic nightmare, and a hefty legal bill to his life, all to support a law enforced by a government that is indifferent, if not hostile, to resolving his problem, and somehow blame him for not wanting to improve his life. All to protect the voting process from something that isn’t a problem, but you just think it sounds like a good idea, then encourage him to just show up at the polls with what, a reem of rejected forms and a nice letter from his deacon? But maybe you are right, I guess, no one would ever think of using bureaucratic red tape as a means of voter suppression.
“The government has made it a policy to keep him from getting an id.”….Tim
This statement is blatantly FALSE and I am calling you out on it.
Before you use an example like the one you linked, check it out in its entirety. There were (4) columns about the problems Mr. English was having concerning his birth certificate and you need to read all of them.
Point – the column you referenced was published on June 5, 2011. On June 7, 2011, Mr. English was given his driver’s license. Then, on June 22nd, in a court hearing, the judge ordered a birth certificate with the date, January 19, 1947 be issued to Mr. English. He took a copy to DHEC in Columbia to obtain his birth certificate. He couldn’t get it because he did not have the proper paperwork. Another column was written with a total slant in favor or Mr. English.
Mr. English did not take a “certified” copy of the order as required by DHEC due to protection policies for citizens against identity theft. Once the proper copy was presented, he was issued a birth certificate. This took place on June 24th, the final column was printed in the Herald on June 26, 2011. A time period of 21 days from the original column to the final one.
Rep. Mulvaney and the state senator from York, a Republican and Democrat worked together to bring this about once they were notified of the problem.
The other point that was missed in all of this is that Mr. English had moved back to South Carolina a few years ago. He had a valid driver’s license from Pennsylvania. When you move to South Carolina, the law requires you to apply for a South Carolina license within a 90 day grace period.
So, if Mr. English had followed the law as the rest of us have to, he would have probably resolved the problem much sooner. I have to deal with state bureaucracy at some point, so does Doug, Brad, and everyone else I know who lives in this state. Why should Mr. English be granted special consideration other than the circumstances of his birth?
There were no voter suppression or racial overtones associated with your example, it was another example of red tape – period.
Today, Mr. English is free to drive the highways and byways of South Carolina with a driver’s license with his photo on it. He can vote if he has registered if he wishes. He has a birth certificate due to the efforts of elected officials who were doing their jobs, not trying to deny the man his rights.
The people at DHEC were doing their jobs as well. So, please tell us where the “policy” is written that purposefully denies any citizen their rights. If you want to object to the Voter ID law, do so on the grounds of it being just another Gordian’s Knot of red tape all of us have to contend with.
@Tim
Do you disagree that he WANTS to get an id? Do you disagree that if he had the id, he would have a problem with showing it to vote?
The issue isn’t voter suppression, it is a poorly run government system for distributing id’s to people with special cases. That problem should be fixed – or do you think Mr. English should just drop his attempt to get a drivers license? His problem has nothing to do with voting.
I’ll go with Gordian Knot. But in this case Doug and Bart are the ones arguing to make it knottier. Those of us who believe in pragmatism above all else continue to see the photo id law as nothing more than a GOP attempt at voter suppression. It goes against their publicly stated position of favoring less government intervention. But then again principals are easily jettisoned when confronted with an opportunity to push their true agenda: the attainment of a national Plutocracy of the rich, by the rich and for the benefit of the rich.
Bart, I am humbled have been so called out, truly.
The statement is true, unfortunately. He can’t have a valid ID. Operative word is “valid”
SC DMV Requirements.
ALL APPLICANTS MUST PROVIDE THE FOLLOWING ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS: Documents not in English must be translated by a qualified translator. The translator must have a letter of verification from their employer on letterhead qualifying them as a translator. The translation must be made on DMV Form 4030 Translation Document.
• Proof of U.S. Citizenship/Proof of Identity (see specific requirements below).
• Proof of Social Security Number.
• Proof of S.C. Residency.
• Liability insurance information from company licensed to do business in S.C. (not required for Beginner’s Permit or Identification Card)
If he can’t get the first one, nothing else matters. No ID. His old DL from Pennsylvania works for 90 days, then he still has to come up with this list. He now has a temporary ID only. Frankly, if we can’t prove he is a citizen, we should probably deport him somewhere, but where to?
but this is just one guy. Rinse and repeat 80 thousand times in SC. but we have at least solved a problem that didn’t exist.
Doug, I have said time and again in this thread I want him and everyone who needs and deserves one to get a valid ID. Here is a simple solution, stipulate if you get 3 sworn affidavits from citizens who swear they know him and knew him for most of there lives, and that they know him to be a naturally born citizen, this allows a judge to say on-or-about this date at this time he was born here. Something like that. Then require all citizens in this state to have some sort of picture id. I am cool with that. What we are discussing here ain’t that.
Not to be an aggregator, but might be interesting reading
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/02/why-dont-millions-of-americans-have-id-.html
Oh, and the Cato Institute (it even trumpets an NPR story)…
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/photo-id-laws-mean-some-wont-vote/