Sort of both. Rationally, rigging the voter rules with difficult id requirements to prevent "voter fraud", gerrymandering etc, is one way (the only way?) for Republicans to compete when they are becoming more and more a minority party.
This also connects to the long history of keeping (mainly) blacks from voting that was addressed in the 60s by the Voter Rights act. Now people of a certain persuasion are exercised because a black guy won the presidency. Obviously, he couldn't possibly have done so without cheating. So the issue has become a real priority.
The Voter Rights act forced some states with a history of discrimination, mainly in the south, to get pre-clearance of any change in voting rules. That provision just got challenged and the Supreme Court struck down it down as no longer being relevant; because we've made so much progress. (I'm not making this up. That was Chief Justice Roberts reasoning)
The old rule allowed looking at the discriminatory effect of voter rules. In the remaining parts you must prove discriminatory intent. That's why you can now introduce non-flagant measures; which is what's happening. Maybe the NSA spies could look into that.
]]>I too doubt soulless bureaucrats are a common as people think. I do think that the logic of "we can't have another disaster on my watch," leads in the direction of "do what ever is possible, deal with the legalities later." NSA has a very expansive view of what is legal. And the NY Times has an article this morning on the ideological bent of the FISA court judges leading them to approve of almost everything requested. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/us/politics/robertss-picks-reshaping-secret-surveillance-court.html?hp&_r=0
It's fear-driven feature creep
]]>"It really does make sense to breed a totally separate group of people just for the purpose of creating feel-good news and enough bad behavior for diverting gossip.... It’s a win-win. Except for the price, although a monarchy would still be way cheaper than cotton subsidies. "
bobh
]]>http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/daniel-kahneman-on-the-trap-of-thinking-that-we-know/
Result: We're as smart as we need to be until we're not. And even then we may not recognize that we're wrong. Witness the recent exploits of the world financial community. They must be really stupid.
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