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Romney makes big push in Iowa

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Interesting note on the Iowa Republican caucus: Those voting in the caucus will not -- repeat, will NOT -- need a government issued photo ID.

The makeup of Iowa Republicans who attended the last caucus was 97% white. Perhaps this is the main reason why voter ID is deemed to be necessary..

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"he's the most electable candidate to challenge President Barack Obama"

If this be true, we'll have 4 more years of Obama and decline.

"The makeup of Iowa Republicans who attended the last caucus was 97% white"

Yeah? The makeup of black voters who voted for Obama was around 99%.

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Amazing how when a Republican electorate is 97% white, as it is in Iowa, voter ID isn't considered necessary.

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Amazing how when a Republican electorate is 97% white, as it is in Iowa, voter ID isn't considered necessary.

What is even more amazing is that Iowa's population demographic is 94% white to go along with it.

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Yabits, Do you have a problem with whites? I think that every state should pass a law stating that if you aren't in the country legally, you cannot get a drivers license or vote.

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If non citizens including illegal aliens were allowed to vote, the white man would be crushed and made a slave within the country he built.

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Ah, Romney - "the guy who fired your father." Republicans must be ecstatic, or not: why is the guy who has been campaigning for president for six years only garnering 25% in national polls?

His inevitable choice and the unhappiness Republicans clearly share about it indicates the bankruptcy of the GOP.

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Yabits, Do you have a problem with whites?

If I have a problem with anyone, it is with hypocrites. Like when the Republicans were out of power in Congress and they whipped up this contract on America, in which they wanted to enact term limits. Then, when their party controlled Congress, they never made the slightest effort to push for it. Not the slightest effort.

And so it goes with the Republicans of Iowa. Seems if voter ID is such a serious issue, the party should be setting an example in each and every primary and caucus: elections whose process and procedure they entirely control.

If non citizens including illegal aliens were allowed to vote, the white man would be crushed and made a slave within the country he built.

In the past seven years, out of millions upon millions of votes cast in the entire United States, less than 100 cases of voter fraud have proven to have had any validity. Kind of makes your statement sound like loony tunes.

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And so it goes with the Republicans of Iowa. Seems if voter ID is such a serious issue, the party should be setting an example in each and every primary and caucus:

They tried to in Iowa last April your talking point failed to mention that.

A proposal to require Iowa voters to produce identification at polling places appears unlikely to become law this year.

House File 95 went to the Senate State Government Committee after being passed by the House in January.

Because it failed to win the panel’s approval by Friday’s deadline for committee action, it’s unlikely the bill will advance any further this year.

“It’s dead,” said Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz, who made voter identification a cornerstone of his 2010 election campaign.

It was the Democrats that killed it.

Sen. Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, the Senate majority leader, said the voter ID measure died in large part because of the opposition of county auditors.

“This proposal that we have seen so far does not appear to solve a problem that actually exists in the state of Iowa,” he said. “Tell me what the problem is ... and show me one place in Iowa where you can prove voter fraud.”

Schultz said he knew of no prosecuted cases of voter fraud in Iowa that would have been prevented by requiring voters to show identification.

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110402/NEWS01/704029858/1009

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The only method to win the president campaign 2012 is the tone of war against Iran!

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A proposal to require Iowa voters to produce identification at polling places appears unlikely to become law this year.

Whoa there. Just because a statewide initiative failed doesn't mean that Republicans are prohibited from requiring it for their intra-party elections. That is, if they truly believed in it in principle.

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Whoa there. Just because a statewide initiative failed doesn't mean that Republicans are prohibited from requiring it for their intra-party elections. That is, if they truly believed in it in principle.

With no state law on the books the Republicans if they required it in Iowa on their own accord would be open to an ACLU lawsuit for discrimination and disenfranchisement. Any results from the Republican caucuses would be declared null and void and would not certified by the State of Iowa as legitimate for the general election ballot.

No sane Party would ever open themselves up for such folly including the Democrats if Obama was facing a primary challenger this year.

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Requiring voter ID for a primary is like neutering a mule: nature has already taken care of the problem. The situation changes when Democrats are allowed to vote, as in a general election.

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The situation changes when Democrats are allowed to vote, as in a general election.

Agreed under Federal law passed in 2002..............

The Help America Vote Act (Pub.L. 107-252), or HAVA, is a United States federal law which passed in the House 357-48 and 92-2 in the Senate and was signed into law by President Bush on October 29, 2002. Drafted (at least in part) in reaction to the controversy surrounding the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Almost two million ballots were disqualified in the 2000 election because they registered multiple votes or none when run through vote-counting machines.

Now means that to vote in a Federal election...............

HAVA requires any voter who registered by mail and who has not previously voted in a federal election to show current and valid photo identification or a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows the name and address of the voter. Voters who submitted any of these forms of identification during registration are exempt, as are voters entitled to vote by absentee ballot under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act.

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His inevitable choice and the unhappiness Republicans clearly share about it indicates the bankruptcy of the GOP.

And the historic low ratings our Dem-controlled Congress receive show that the rot infects both parties.

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sailwind, your (most likely Wikipedia-copied) post makes no sense at all. Disqualified votes were overwhelmingly due to antiquated ballot technology - and welcome the the Bush version of the '90s, rather than the Gore one. Also, State law trumps Federal law regarding voter registration laws, so your second paragraph is not going to help Grandma, who is registered to vote but lacks a photo ID.

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With no state law on the books the Republicans if they required it in Iowa on their own accord would be open to an ACLU lawsuit for discrimination and disenfranchisement.

The laws on the books enable the various political parties to establish their own rules for who can participate in non-general, party-specific caucuses and primaries. If the Republican Party of Iowa decided to require a photo ID for all caucus participants, the only way an ACLU or anyone else would even think of initiating a lawsuit is if there was a Republican plaintiff.

So rather than leading by principle and example, what the Iowa Republicans are demonstrating is that, when a group is nearly all-white and conservative, a completely different set of rules and principles applies.

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And the historic low ratings our Dem-controlled Congress receive show that the rot infects both parties.

Yes, and the ratings have gotten ever-lower after the infection of the Tea Party rabble.

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State law trumps Federal law regarding voter registration laws, so your second paragraph is not going to help Grandma, who is registered to vote but lacks a photo ID.

Understand the if Grandma is racist and hasn't registered Granny can't vote. It does seem that really would help the 'racist' Republicans to get a another vote though in their favor.

Yabits,

So rather than leading by principle and example, what the Iowa Republicans are demonstrating is that, when a group is nearly all-white and conservative, a completely different set of rules and principles applies.

Iowa is nearly all white and just not conservative. Do you have a problem with whites being in the majority in the state?

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Iowa is nearly all white and just not conservative. Do you have a problem with whites being in the majority in the state?

Let's break that down, so as not to confuse readers.

The vast majority of Iowans are white. That is true. Next: I would suspect that close to 100% of those Iowa voters who identify with the Republican party would, if they had to pick between two labels, would consider themselves "conservative" as opposed to "liberal."

And so we are dealing only with the subset of Iowans who actively support conservative goals and the Republican Party. "Active" in the sense that they are motivated to attend the upcoming Republican caucus.

Being associated with liberals and Democrats over the decades, I have come to know that if we think a law, rule, or principle is good for the entire country, we also naturally feel it is good for us and will practice it immediately, if for no other reason than to set the example. If the predominantly white supporters of the Republican Party in Iowa were either smart enough or principled enough to hold themselves to the same rules as they want to foist on the rest of the nation, it would go a long way towards dispelling the notion that VoterID laws are primarily targeted at black Americans and other minorities -- nothing but a fundamentally discriminatory ploy (like a poll tax) to disenfranchise those voting groups who don't support Republicans.

The fact that Republicans in a predominantly white state like Iowa don't really care about the integrity of voting in their state (enough to require showing an ID) sends the message that "If you're white, you must be alright." After all, when Iowa conservatives like a Steve King get on their high horses and preach to others about the integrity of the electoral process and don't care to follow it themselves, it does reveal their complete and utter hypocrisy. (In other words, their sheets are showing.)

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The fact that Republicans in a predominantly white state like Iowa don't really care about the integrity of voting in their state (enough to require showing an ID) sends the message that "If you're white, you must be alright." After all, when Iowa conservatives like a Steve King get on their high horses and preach to others about the integrity of the electoral process and don't care to follow it themselves, it does reveal their complete and utter hypocrisy. (In other words, their sheets are showing.)

Guess that explains why Herman Cain was leading in the polls in Iowa before the Media lynching and he suspended his campaign.

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Guess that explains why Herman Cain was leading in the polls in Iowa before the Media lynching and he suspended his campaign.

I understand. I think anyone who supported that unqualified idiot has every right to feel bitter and sarcastic.

Your use of him as a token does prove something. How otherwise to explain why Republicans anywhere bowed down to the "Media" and ceased their support for Cain?

But you can't address the point about Republican hypocrisy in Iowa for not requiring any form of voter ID for their own party caucus. At least, you can't address it without bringing up something completely unrelated and irrelevant like Cain, or totally false and off-the-wall like the ACLU. I get it: Republicans should not be leading by example, or adhering to rules they would push on other people.

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But you can't address the point about Republican hypocrisy in Iowa for not requiring any form of voter ID for their own party caucus.

Iowa law doesn't require it. For the Republicans to do it on their own would require Iowa to de-facto deem a voter I.D law that they have REJECTED to have passed anyway and sanction the voting result as legitimate. To put bluntly Yabits you want the Republicans in Iowa to not follow their own laws of their state and endorse BREAKING them. Yet you call people who are following the law of their own state hypocrites and racists to boot.

Sad yabits, very sad.

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To put bluntly Yabits you want the Republicans in Iowa to not follow their own laws of their state and endorse BREAKING them. Yet you call people who are following the law of their own state hypocrites and racists to boot.

What is sad is how wrong those statements are. Such are the falsehoods that conservatives have to use as their foundation. It's why I had to reject the modern Republican Party entirely. (There's no honor there at all.)

For Iowa Republican caucus-attendees to be required to show proper ID would not be in violation of any Iowa state law. In fact, Iowa state law requires that the party chairperson and secretary certify the eligibility of each caucus voter -- but does not specify the method for doing so. The method for certifying voters in a party caucus is left completely up to the party leadership. Therefore local party officials could have easily adopted the requirement that each Republican caucus attendee show photo ID -- and so demonstrated their loyalty to principle.

As a great man once pointed out: There are two types of people who never amount to much: Those who can not do what the law requires and those who can do nothing else. Those who excuse, apologize for, and raise false issues in order to defend the Republicans' lack of acting according to principle fall into the latter category.

Which raises the question: If it's not against Iowa state law, and it could (for sake of argument) ensure the integrity of the voting system, why won't Republicans adopt the requirement for a proper ID for their intra-party activities, as they are so dead-set on forcing it on the general population?

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In fact, Iowa state law requires that the party chairperson and secretary certify the eligibility of each caucus voter -- but does not specify the method for doing so.

Garbage......Iowa state law requires that a person casting a ballot be legally to registered to vote and can only vote in the precent they have registered in. That is the certification process already completed. It is specified by Iowa law.

Since only eligible voters by Iowa's definition as having already registered with the State can cast a legal ballot without having to show further proof shows there is a SPECIFIC method for doing it.

The Republican party is following Iowa law and you are totally wrong on this.

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Garbage......Iowa state law requires that a person casting a ballot be legally to registered to vote and can only vote in the precent they have registered in. That is the certification process already completed.

Oh, no it's not. When a person actually shows up at a caucus there may be a name that matches theirs on the list of eligible voters, but the very Republicans pushing for VoterID laws claim that the person who actually is showing up may be an impostor.

Since only eligible voters by Iowa's definition as having already registered with the State can cast a legal ballot without having to show further proof shows there is a SPECIFIC method for doing it.

You really don't get it, do you? Yes, there is a specific method, but the Republicans who are pushing for VoterID laws claim that the method is inadequate to root out impostors. A method that requires a a photo ID, they claim, will better ensure the integrity of the process.

The Republican party is following Iowa law and you are totally wrong on this.

I never claimed that the Republicans were not following Iowa law, only that they are not practicing, via their intra-party processes, what they are preaching to others. ("Do as we say, not as we do," is their message, loud and clear.) It is your claim that a Republican party board that wants to enact rules for its own intra-party elections that included the requirement of a photoID as being in violation of Iowa law that is totally wrong. The party can certainly enact steps and rules it deems necessary to better ensure the validity of the electoral process for its own internal elections.

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It is your claim that a Republican party board that wants to enact rules for its own intra-party elections that included the requirement of a photoID as being in violation of Iowa law that is totally wrong.

Apparently you have never heard of Individual Privacy act laws.

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Apparently you have never heard of Individual Privacy act laws.

The people who know anything about privacy laws know that they don't apply in cases of being asked to show a photoID for various situations, which would include purchasing alcohol, getting a prescription filled, boarding an aircraft, and civic functions such as jury duty.

Your claim/implication that the Republican Party would be in violation of privacy laws if they required voters at a Republican caucus to furnish a photoID is totally wrong.

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Your claim/implication that the Republican Party would be in violation of privacy laws if they required voters at a Republican caucus to furnish a photoID is totally wrong.

Then kindly explain why there has to be a Voter I.D law passed in the first place and on the books before voters are LEGALLY required to furnish a photo I.D.

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Then kindly explain why there has to be a Voter I.D law passed...

It's very simple: For general elections, a change to the rules has to be agreed upon by a plurality of the legislators who represent all the electorate and not just one party.

But the Iowa Republican caucus is not a general election. No non-Republicans take part in the Iowa Republican caucuses. The party, therefore, has extremely wide leeway to set its own rules for participation. The Republicans want to make VoterID laws binding on Democratic voters, but they won't employ them for themselves when they've got every opportunity to do so.

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The Republicans want to make VoterID laws binding on Democratic voters, but they won't employ them for themselves when they've got every opportunity to do so.

Kindly explain if Iowa does not have a Voter I.D law on the books at the present time and to participate in the Republican caucuses and be able to cast a ballot one's only requirement is to be a previously duly and legally Iowa registered Republican voter in the caucus precinct. That if the Republicans did in fact request it and if a person failed to provide it that they could legally deny that person his or right to vote after they had already been duly registered by the State as an eligible voter.

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...and to participate in the Republican caucuses and be able to cast a ballot one's only requirement is to be a previously duly and legally Iowa registered Republican voter in the caucus precinct.

Yes, but the Republican party could easily make the showing of a photo ID a requirement for their caucus. A voter in Iowa is not legally required to to register for any party. But those Iowans who might consider themselves conservatives, and who refuse or neglect to register as Republicans, are not allowed to vote in the Republican caucus, even though they are eligible voters in all other respects.

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But those Iowans who might consider themselves conservatives, and who refuse or neglect to register as Republicans, are not allowed to vote in the Republican caucus, even though they are eligible voters in all other respects.

That's why they are called "Independents"............

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