Rorschach wrote:
The threats that politicians bring up about too MANY people voting seems to me both suspect in intent and also based on absolutely ZERO facts.

I don't think thats what you are referring to here, however. (Right?)

No, I'm referring to things like this, and this. (Yes, the first link is Red and the second one is Blue.)

Wait, poor people move more frequently? I'd say young people move more frequently. But either way, is there anything to back up this statement?

Its the specific conclusion made in one of the references used in this Rolling Stone piece:

We estimate that simply changing residence exposes voters to a 6% chance of being disenfranchised. Youth, the poor, and minorities are disproportionately affected... As noted in national studies, those Americans who move more frequently are more likely to be subject to registration errors (and also provisional ballot rejection). These include youth, those who rent rather than own homes, African Americans and Hispanics, and the poor. In Cuyahoga County, we estimate that each move brings about a 6% chance of disenfranchisement through registration error. The national data on groups that move more frequently is consistent with our findings of a nearly twofold rate of provisional ballot rejection in precincts with over 90% black populations compared to those that are 10% black
or less.

Um, all local governments suck and lack resources. And all local governments govern over a certain amount of poor people. (Even like, the O.C.)

Have you ever been to the O.C.? I know you haven't been to Marsha Blackburn's district. These governments actually do have more money then relatively poorer communities in the same region. Money is not evenly distributed across municipalities in the United States. Municipalities raise money through property taxes. Wealthy ones usually have better schools and better infrastructure, which, in turn, makes them more attractive, which raises the property costs, which results in greater revenue.

The example poorer community I link above isn't organized as it's own municipality because it can't exist on its own on the basis of it's own property taxes and needs subsidy from the rest of the city. The results are abundantly clear in terms of the infrastructure in the city, and any resident of Nashville will tell you that. No, the people who work in the government there don't have the same budgets for operating things like elections, as well as schools, roads, busses, and everything else that local governments do.

Whether you think this is fair or not is totally irrelevant to this conversation. This is obviously a long term reality of the system that we have and its not a specific part of the some evil plan on the part of the GOP to steal the 2004 election!

I assume this is a reference to lack of decent education in poor areas, but again, do you have anything to back this up? Are poor people really less likely to register to vote than other groups? I mean, taking out the people that are disenfranchised through criminal activity? B/c it seems to me that Kennedy is suggesting that they registered and came out in large numbers, understood the process, but were turned away because of arcane and ambigous policies that were designed to make it especially cumbersome to vote.

I'm just not sure that blaming the poors is a valid position in this case.

The point of my arguement was that you should look critically at Kennedy's conclusions. I'm not "blaming the poors." I'm indicating that there are many reasons that poor people may end up being disenfrancised that relate to their circumstances and have nothing at all to do with some conspiracy by the GOP. I think that's an extremely reasonable conclusion. I think its also reasonable to assume that people with poor education and labor jobs may have more trouble dealing with beaurocracies then people with high education who often actually work in a beaurocracy. That's also, I think, an extremely reasonable conclusion. One of his references refers to a problem with absentee ballots for people living abroad. It says:

Respondents who were generally more satisfied with their voting experience were:
• male with an annual income of $51,000/year or higher
• their primary reason for living abroad was for personal preference or partnerships
• between the ages of 55 to plus 75 years of age
• and they had lived overseas for more than 10 years.

Those respondents who were less satisfied with the registration and voting experience were:
• female with an annual income of up to $25,000 to $50,000
• their primary reason for living abroad was for studying
• between the ages of 18 to 34 years of age
• and they had lived overseas for less than 6 years

These groups of people are dealing with the exact same process. What do you draw from that? That women are inherently dumb, or that the GOP is involved in a conspiracy to steal an election? A more reasonable conclusion then either of those might be that people who are older and have been living abroad longer are obviously going to have less trouble with the remote voting process then people who just left the country. Should we make the process easier to deal with? Of course, and thats what this report advocates. It doesn't however, turn this into an accusation of malfesance on the part of evil Republicans. Kennedy does that, and uses this as proof!

Is there a reason to suspect that some of the rules put in place in Ohio are unreasonable and designed to disenfranchise particular people? Yes! There is! However, this article rolls up EVERY example of voter disenfrancisment and calls it all a big strategy and thats just stupid!

Quoting Mother Jones Magazine, a right wing rag with a long history of promoting Republican victory at all cost:

Yet it remains far from clear that Bush stole the election... Ohio would have given Kerry the presidency by the same unholy route that Bush traveled in 2000 and that led so many Democrats to urge, rightly, the abolishment of the Electoral College. Third, the skeptics' position is weakened by the one-sidedness of their arguments and their know-it-all tone. They have a plausible case to make, but they act like it's a slam dunk and imply that anyone who doesn't agree with them is either stupid, bought, or on the other side—not the best way to win people over.

UPDATED RE: Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 Election Stolen?