Politics

Photo ID for Voting: Required or not?

Voter identification laws add an extra level of protection against voter fraud by matching ID cards to the registered voter’s documentation at polling locations. The Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, wrote that, “state prosecutors had won about 50 convictions related to…election fraud” (Savage, 191). At first glance, voter fraud may seem to be a nonissue compared to the number of total voters, but because of the difficulty in catching voter fraud due to false identification it leaves polling stations not knowing if someone is committing fraud.

The Rhetorical Ideal

Scholars have discussed the validity, the use, and the definition of Rhetoric for centuries. Plato believed Rhetoric to be an art of mere flattery within the the realm of politics. Aristotle took the idea of Rhetoric and built a foundation based upon three primary principles: ethos, logos, and pathos. Edwin Black further evaluated the ethics involved in Rhetoric. As the discussion continued towards the modern day, the theories of Kenneth Burke were introduced and additionally explored by Richard Vatz and Lloyd Bitzer. Both Bitzer and Vatz have widely different views on what is called the rhetorical situation.