Post Racial America: Voter ID and driver's license office closures black-out Alabama's Black Belt

[RavenSky]

A comprehensive investigation of voter impersonation finds 31 credible incidents out of one billion ballots cast

There's a lot more than that, it just doesn't get caught. The thing is it's people voting absentee ballots in place of the rightful voter that can no longer do so.

Even if that were true, voter ID laws are not going to help that

 

[fromderinside]

There's a lot more than that, it just doesn't get caught. The thing is it's people voting absentee ballots in place of the rightful voter that can no longer do so.

While you're at it why not show us those facts that tell us Raygomics worked, that Obamacare would cause our medical system to collapse, and that we've been having run away inflation for the past six years. Oh and that Obama is weak while Putin is riding to victory by having to take over fighting in Syria while is economy is in Obama collapse because he tried to do the same in the Ukraine.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

A comprehensive investigation of voter impersonation finds 31 credible incidents out of one billion ballots cast

There's a lot more than that, it just doesn't get caught.

You can't possibly provide any evidence for this statement.

 

[Underseer]

Why am I not surprised to find the usual rightists making excuses for this?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There's a lot more than that, it just doesn't get caught. The thing is it's people voting absentee ballots in place of the rightful voter that can no longer do so.

You're in the "no documented evidence" camp?

What I'm saying is that the real issue with vote fraud isn't going to be caught by ID requirements as it doesn't take place anywhere near the voting booth.

 

[Axulus]

To confuse the places where one obtains a drivers license and where one obtains a voter id card in AL is pure ignorance.

The application can be presented to your local board of registrars, which is something that every county in AL has:

http://www.alabamavoterid.com/getFreePhotoVoterID.aspx

http://www.sos.state.al.us/vb/election/all.aspx?trgtoffice=Board of Registrars

 

[GenesisNemesis]

You're in the "no documented evidence" camp?

What I'm saying is that the real issue with vote fraud isn't going to be caught by ID requirements as it doesn't take place anywhere near the voting booth.

So you would agree that the ID requirements are completely ineffective?

 

[Trausti]

I think there's a bit of sophistry here. I don't live in Alabama, so I'll assume some of the facts stated in the opinion piece as true.

Well, that is mighty white of you

It says that 29 of the driver license offices are slated for closure; 12 to 15 of these are purportedly in Alabama's "black belt." Okay. But this means that 14 to 17 of these closures would be in the predominately white counties of Alabama - or that the predominately white counties will be greater affected by this than the predominately black ones. Oddly, that doesn't seem to be a concern of the author.

Then there's the insinuation that this is some Republican plot to deny voting rights. Yet, the closures are not a directive of the Republican legislature but a budgeting decision by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency.

This agency is apparently Alabama's all-encompassing law enforcement organ, for which driver's licenses are are but a small function. The news release indicates:

During transition and the first two quarters of 2015, ALEA examined the core functions of each legacy agency and determined the Driver License system was inefficient and archaic. In July, Secretary of Law Enforcement Spencer Collier announced a series of technology-based improvements which will result in more efficient service and shorter wait times for citizens of Alabama including Online scheduling, Online driver license renewals, Self-serve kiosks, Digital licensing for smart phones, and Statewide equipment upgrades.

“Currently, ALEA maintains 75 Driver License district and field offices across the state but budget allocations do not cover costs and we operate with an $8.2 million deficit,” said Secretary of Law Enforcement Spencer Collier. “During the 2015 Regular and First Special Sessions, the Legislature proposed General Fund budget cuts ranging from 22% to 47% cut from ALEA’s Fiscal Year 2015 appropriation. Should the Legislature pass devastating budget cuts, it will be necessary for the Licensing Division to close Driver License district and field offices statewide.”

http://www.alea.gov/Home/wfFlyerDetail.aspx?ID=2&PK=3937bf74-dbf3-4edc-9b45-540d614c49c7

The news release notes that ultimately the goal is to have 12 driver licenses offices statewide. This is not unreasonable. Alabama is a small state with 67 counties. That a particular county does not have a driver license office is not a hardship if an office is ten to fifteen minutes away in the next county.

Attempts to stir the racial pot are not warranted.

Uh huh

AL.com’s John Archibald asserted in a column on Wednesday that the U.S. Department of Justice should open an investigation into the closings.

“Because Alabama just took a giant step backward,” he wrote. “Take a look at the 10 Alabama counties with the highest percentage of non-white registered voters. That’s Macon, Greene, Sumter, Lowndes, Bullock, Perry, Wilcox, Dallas, Hale, and Montgomery, according to the Alabama Secretary of State’s office. Alabama, thanks to its budgetary insanity and inanity, just opted to close driver license bureaus in eight of them.”

“Every single county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of registered voters will see their driver license office closed. Every one,” Archibald explained. “But maybe it’s not racial at all, right? Maybe it’s just political. And let’s face it, it may not be either… But no matter the intent, the consequence is the same.”​

https://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/al...-in-counties-with-75-black-registered-voters/

NOW, because things don't happen in a vacuum or outside of historical narrative

It was Alabama that brought the country the Voting Rights Act (VRA) because of its brutality against black citizens in places like Selma. “The Voting Rights Act is Alabama’s gift to our country,” the civil-rights lawyer Debo Adegbile once said

And it was a county in Alabama–Shelby County–that brought the 2013 challenge that gutted the VRA. As a result of that ruling, those states with the worst histories of voting discrimination, including Alabama, no longer have to approve their voting changes with the federal government.

...

This is the very type of voting change–one that disproportionately burdens African-American voters–that would have been challenged under Section 5 of the VRA, which the Supreme Court rendered inoperative. “The voices of our most vulnerable citizens have been silenced by a decision to close 31 license facilities in Alabama. #RestoreTheVOTE,” tweeted Congresswoman Terri Sewell from Selma.

Approximately 250,000 registered voters in Alabama don’t have a driver’s license or acceptable form of voter ID. In the last election, a 93-year-old World War II veteran was turned away from the polls because of the new law. Only 41 percent of Alabamans voted in the 2014 election, the lowest turnout in the state in 28 years.

http://www.thenation.com/article/al...-rights-act-once-again-gutting-voting-rights/

The new voting laws appear to be having a directed effect, and this latest action will in all likelihood affect African American disproportionately.

Now I believe you when you say you do not live in Alabama. But you don't have to act like you are brand new to ever hearing about Alabama.

You haven't made any substantive point or rebuttal other than to show you're a racist. "Well, that is mighty white of you." Really? To believe that things don't happen unless they accord with your preferred historical narrative is akin to religion.

 

[Axulus]

Why am I not surprised to find the usual rightists making excuses for this?

They aren't excuses. The OP is completely misinformed. These closures have zero impact on one's ability to obtain a voter id card has every county continues to have a spot to submit the application.

Pointing out factually incorrect information is not an "excuse" unless you are blinded by ideology.

 

[Axulus]

What I'm saying is that the real issue with vote fraud isn't going to be caught by ID requirements as it doesn't take place anywhere near the voting booth.

So you would agree that the ID requirements are completely ineffective?

The ID requirements probably reduce the number of incidents of voter fraud and are thus effective from that standpoint, but the crime is so infrequent and of such little concern that to burden the public with paperwork and spend all these resources on processing the paperwork issuing the voter id cards is asinine.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

To confuse the places where one obtains a drivers license and where one obtains a voter id card in AL is pure ignorance.

Oversight might be a better word. Alabama has a process for being able to go to a single location in an entire county to get a free voter ID. On the other hand, I'm confused why someone can't get a driver's license in the county they live in. The driver's license is the most common form of ID. On the surface, it looks like the State is restricting access to a common method of getting a state recognized photo ID.

 

[Axulus]

To confuse the places where one obtains a drivers license and where one obtains a voter id card in AL is pure ignorance.

Oversight might be a better word. Alabama has a process for being able to go to a single location in an entire county to get a free voter ID. On the other hand, I'm confused why someone can't get a driver's license in the county they live in. The driver's license is the most common form of ID. On the surface, it looks like the State is restricting access to a common method of getting a state recognized photo ID.

That's a good question. I have no idea. The locations closing down are apparently "satellite" offices, which were extra locations for convenience, that are closing down for claimed budgetary reasons. Do these counties have very low populations?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Why am I not surprised to find the usual rightists making excuses for this?

They aren't excuses. The OP is completely misinformed. These closures have zero impact on one's ability to obtain a voter id card has every county continues to have a spot to submit the application.

It does have an impact. It doesn't eliminate the ability to get a voter id card, but it certainly has an impact.

Pointing out factually incorrect information is not an "excuse" unless you are blinded by ideology.

So how far do some people have to drive... err... be driven to get a drivers permit then a license?

 

[Axulus]

They aren't excuses. The OP is completely misinformed. These closures have zero impact on one's ability to obtain a voter id card has every county continues to have a spot to submit the application.

It does have an impact. It doesn't eliminate the ability to get a voter id card, but it certainly has an impact.

Pointing out factually incorrect information is not an "excuse" unless you are blinded by ideology.

So how far do some people have to drive... err... be driven to get a drivers permit then a license?

I agree there is an impact on other things such as ability to obtain driver's license. I don't know much about these counties that don't have such an office. Is the population really sparse? Are there neighboring counties that aren't too much further to drive for a large portion of the population in these counties?

Here is what the state is saying about it:

The 31 satellite locations handle less than 5 percent of driver license transactions, according to ALEA.

"With the new budget cuts passed by the Alabama Legislature for fiscal year 2016, and with our limited personnel, travel has been eliminated to these part-time satellite locations," Collier said in a news release.

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/09/state_announces_to_close_becau.html

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It does have an impact. It doesn't eliminate the ability to get a voter id card, but it certainly has an impact.

Pointing out factually incorrect information is not an "excuse" unless you are blinded by ideology.

So how far do some people have to drive... err... be driven to get a drivers permit then a license?

I agree there is an impact on other things such as ability to obtain driver's license. I don't know much about these counties that don't have such an office. Is the population really sparse? Are there neighboring counties that aren't too much further to drive for a large portion of the population in these counties?

Here is what the state is saying about it:

The 31 satellite locations handle less than 5 percent of driver license transactions, according to ALEA.

"With the new budget cuts passed by the Alabama Legislature for fiscal year 2016, and with our limited personnel, travel has been eliminated to these part-time satellite locations," Collier said in a news release.

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/09/state_announces_to_close_becau.html

Interesting article. Oh, we didn't mean to close the offices, we thought the administrations would fire themselves.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What I'm saying is that the real issue with vote fraud isn't going to be caught by ID requirements as it doesn't take place anywhere near the voting booth.

So you would agree that the ID requirements are completely ineffective?

When have you ever seen me supporting the stupid voter ID measures?? I know it's just voter suppression garbage, not a real issue.

 

[Derec]

The closure will not affect ability to get voter ID because all county registrar offices will continue to issue IDs, according to Alabama SOS office.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

In the USA you really have an area called the "Black Belt"? That cracks me up a little. Do they all do karate?

 

[fast]

Not that I believe the 'voter fraud' idea for a moment (you don't have to show ID to vote in Australia and voting here is compulsory), but has there actually been any documentation of this 'voter fraud', ever? I don't mean as an abstract possibility, but some kind of documented evidence?

This post just opened my eyes as to why so many people dislike tipping. Now if I can see the jury duty connection, I'll have it!