You ever sit in the Palm Beach County DMV on Congress Ave? People are born, live and die in there before they get to the counter! Thank God we don’t live them any longer.
LOL. Had to renew my non-DL here in NYC. Took more than three hours! At the express location. Didn't realize you could set up an appointment in advance. I nearly gave up since I have a passport and passport card and an NYS ID via a state educational institute. But I'd rather have two convenient forms of ID that I can carry on me at all times and not my passport unless I'm traveling outside of the country.
I understand it will soon be necessary to carry a US passport for flights from some states within the US:
The Real ID Act: What Is Going On? The Real ID Act of 2005 is a piece of legislation that insisted that state-issued IDs and similar forms of identification are more than adequate to meet the minimum security standards now set by the United States federal government. The problem is that the act itself had an extension that expired on October 10, 2017, meaning that it is no longer valid and could pose significant travel issues depending on where you live and where you might be headed. As of January 9, 2018, the following states had Real ID Act extensions that expired in October:
Washington
Kentucky
South Carolina
Missouri
Pennsylvania
Montana
Oklahoma
Maine
In order to get past a TSA security checkpoint at an airport in any of these states, another form of identification will likely be required beyond your state-issued ID. This means that you’ll need a passport, a permanent resident card/green card or a valid military ID. This is true for ANY commercial flight that you may be taking.
At least 17 states had extensions for an additional year and several of them have asked for an additional extension beyond October 10, 2018. There are other acceptable forms of ID and a passport card is one of them. If you have a US passport, it would be foolish to not also obtain a passport card at the same. It's a mini passport that can fit in your wallet.
To the best of my knowledge, NYS DLs and non-DLs are compliant and I have a passport and passport card.
Yeh, that's true. But irrelevant to the voter suppression stuff going on: the ID act that triggered this was a result of tightening from 9/11 -- not from politician's efforts to suppress votes from demographics unfavorable to them.
Basically, this mess is caused by bureaucratic bungling rather than political chicanery.
Bull. Several courts have ruled that the changes were done with precision to suppress votes among certain demographics, while protecting the types of IDs among others. At least three pols said so outright. All from the same party. Many of the extreme changes happened right after the US Supreme Court struck down or modified key provisions of the Civil Rights Act with the Shelby County decision. The dissenting justices -- with Ruth Bader Ginsburg the most vocal and adamant -- predicted that voter suppression would result. And it most certainly has. But Roberts has been trying to limit the rights of the same constituencies for decades and succeeded. The Roberts Court hasn't seen a civil right they wouldn't like to trample on.
The Real ID Act has been a slow, tedious and financially burdensome boondoggle.
Yes, despicable voter suppression via ID chicanery has been actively going on.
Yes, the Real ID Act has been a burdensome boondoggle.
No, that doesn't mean that they are one in the same.
For instance, it requires PA to replace its driver's licenses with ones less easily forged. But, you don't need a driver's license of any type to vote in PA. Yes, they are issues. But they are separate issues.
My bad: misread the last line of your previous post. Thought you were arguing that there is no voter suppression.
The Real ID mess needs to be cleaned up and can assist in ending voter suppression. As a result of the mess, I'm all for a Federal ID. Since we already have the infrastructure at Post Offices where people can apply for a passport, one should be able to go to their local PO to apply. Fed IDs should be available at a relatively low fee. It should be free for SS recipients and the indigent and last for ten years like passports.
That article recently about the 17 year old that hacked the MySql databases in voting machines in a training exercise in a few minutes and was able to change the numbers or even delete them was the scariest thing I've read in a long time. Time to go back to all paper ballots, pigeons for mail me thinks!
Why is it the scariest thing? The systems were built by people who don't know what they are doing. The scariest thing is that instead of using PhotoID to verify a person voting and keep a paper proof for a vote, people still have troubles accepting even basic validation of the voter. I would not expect DBs guarded better than the existing system.
Why do you assume that our very hackable voting machines were built by people who "don't know what they are doing?" Aside from the fact that these machines are often 15+ years old and from before hacking was popular, they may well have been designed to be hackable -- or at least manipulated.
The machines used here in PA can be hacked but, by design, they are totally impossible to verify or recount. Whatever count comes out of that machine is what you get. Period. No bank in the world would have bought these things to track its cash. But PA bought them to count our votes! And, once they were implemented the state has gone from Democratic to Republican control -- which is not a surprise since the machines were designed and built by a Republican leaning company.
We need to treat our votes the same way that a bank treats its cash: double checks everywhere plus random audits...
I assumed that because based on facts, that is what is save to assume. 15 years ago a concept of security was not really important. And if states/counties kept the machines without updates so long, that should be the real "collusion", because that is just criminal - knowingly using the machines that allow criminals and foreign agents to influence the most important thing of any democracy. Actually, it would be nice to treat voting systems as a lot more important, and not just as e-cash transfer systems. But, it is probably too much to ask.
That article recently about the 17 year old that hacked the MySql databases in voting machines in a training exercise in a few minutes and was able to change the numbers or even delete them was the scariest thing I've read in a long time. Time to go back to all paper ballots, pigeons for mail me thinks!
Why is it the scariest thing? The systems were built by people who don't know what they are doing. The scariest thing is that instead of using PhotoID to verify a person voting and keep a paper proof for a vote, people still have troubles accepting even basic validation of the voter. I would not expect DBs guarded better than the existing system.
Why do you assume that our very hackable voting machines were built by people who "don't know what they are doing?" Aside from the fact that these machines are often 15+ years old and from before hacking was popular, they may well have been designed to be hackable -- or at least manipulated.
The machines used here in PA can be hacked but, by design, they are totally impossible to verify or recount. Whatever count comes out of that machine is what you get. Period. No bank in the world would have bought these things to track its cash. But PA bought them to count our votes! And, once they were implemented the state has gone from Democratic to Republican control -- which is not a surprise since the machines were designed and built by a Republican leaning company.
We need to treat our votes the same way that a bank treats its cash: double checks everywhere plus random audits...
I assumed that because based on facts, that is what is save to assume. 15 years ago a concept of security was not really important. And if states/counties kept the machines without updates so long, that should be the real "collusion", because that is just criminal - knowingly using the machines that allow criminals and foreign agents to influence the most important thing of any democracy. Actually, it would be nice to treat voting systems as a lot more important, and not just as e-cash transfer systems. But, it is probably too much to ask.
No, hacking and vote fraud have been with us long before these machines came out.
And, even back then, no bank in the world would have let them into their building to count their cash. So why would we have let them into our polling places to count our votes?
What we don't know for sure is whether it was done out of utter stupidity or to provide a way to fix elections. We had a chance to find out in 2016 -- but the winning party blocked all recounts and audits of the votes. So, maybe that tells you all you need to know about the 2016 election and these voting machines.
Comments
The Real ID mess needs to be cleaned up and can assist in ending voter suppression. As a result of the mess, I'm all for a Federal ID. Since we already have the infrastructure at Post Offices where people can apply for a passport, one should be able to go to their local PO to apply. Fed IDs should be available at a relatively low fee. It should be free for SS recipients and the indigent and last for ten years like passports.
Actually, it would be nice to treat voting systems as a lot more important, and not just as e-cash transfer systems. But, it is probably too much to ask.