MLB Sucks BIG TIME!

I'm not trying to start an argument. I responded to you because unlike some others, you seem like an intelligent, reasonable person. With some people I perceive no possibility of opposing views being considered, and I don't waste my time talking to them. We've already amicably agreed to disagree on other matters -- how you can consider baseball to be boring is an utter mystery to me!

It's not restrictive. Any government has a legitimate interest in ensuring that elections are conducted properly, including safeguarding against voter fraud. Indeed, the government not only has a legitimate interest, it has the obligation to its own citizens to do that.

Governments have legitimate interests in "restricting" elections in other ways. Some places have gone to same day registration. Show up at the courthouse with some proof of residency, say, a rental contract you just signed the day before, and you can vote immediately. My state, Kentucky, does not have same day registration, and I'd vote against it if it was ever proposed. Brand new residents could of course make informed choices for a presidential election. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul are both nationally known figures, so those newbies could assume themselves informed for senatorial elections -- although they probably wouldn't know enough about their opponents for those assumptions to be justified. But for other elections, the only persons whose interests are served by same day registration are the newbies, who have the dubious thrill of feeling involved in their new communities' civic lives as they vote for the candidates with the nicest sounding names. Waiting periods between registration and voting don't ensure voters will educate themselves, but they do ensure voters have at least a minimal opportunity to do so.

The other part of the Georgia law that people seem to be getting cheesed off about is the ID requirement. Some point out that other states don't have such a requirement but instead check the signatures on ballots against those on file for drivers' licenses or other ID. That strikes me as a dubious system. In some cases the signatures will obviously match, in some they obviously won't. But what about borderline cases? The people making those determinations, county clerks and such, aren't trained handwriting experts. Kentucky does it this way, and I wish we'd go to using ID numbers instead, for this reason. We already have to enter ID numbers when requesting absentee ballots online, so why not use them on the ballots themselves?

On the other hand, requiring an absentee voter to enter a SSN or driver's license number seems to me a pretty good system. It's unlikely anyone else would know or have access to those things, other than perhaps the voter's immediate family. If I have a sprained hand, my signature might look quite different than the one on my ID, but "111-22-3333" is still going to be unambiguous.

Does this impose some sort of unreasonable demand? No. Quite the opposite. Using the same ID that one would routinely present when purchasing beer is such a trivial requirement that calling it an undue burden is laughable. There's not even an issue of financial cost; in Georgia one can get an ID suitable for voting for free -- https://dds.georgia.gov/voter-id

Of course, some on the left are crying that this system is Racist (Patent Pending). Their answer to everything, it seems. But this only makes sense if one takes the insulting position that blacks are generally too stupid to be able to find the ID numbers on their drivers' licenses. Makes one wonder who the real racists are.

So there's the situation. Georgians have ample opportunity to vote and can easily do so. They are asked to verify their identities, which it is perfectly legitimate for the state government to demand. The method by which they're asked to do it is perhaps the easiest way imaginable which adequately and unambiguously serves that purpose.

And yet Biden and others like him are not only complaining, but are doing so in the most inflammatory language imaginable, capitalizing (intentionally, I believe) on regional prejudices and frictions. If the state in question were Wisconsin instead of Georgia, I doubt they'd be screaming about "Jim Crow."

I agree, the right has its share of cranks. Sean Hannity at his worst can be quite hilarious. But on this issue, if you want to criticize someone for overreacting, I believe you're facing the wrong direction.