The GOP War On Voting

I don't see how it's possible to take the position that anti-fraud measures aren't required because widespread fraud does not exist while simultaneously crying fraud when elections don't go your way. For example - Florida 2000, Ohio 2004, even the recent Wisconsin recall. It seems inconsistent to view every exit poll irregularity with suspicion and go over software and counting procedures with a fine tooth comb but just assume a random guy walking into a voting booth is a white hat.

NormanTheIntern wrote:

I don't see how it's possible to take the position that anti-fraud measures aren't required because widespread fraud does not exist while simultaneously crying fraud when elections don't go your way. For example - Florida 2000, Ohio 2004, even the recent Wisconsin recall. It seems inconsistent to view every exit poll irregularity with suspicion and go over software and counting procedures with a fine tooth comb but just assume a random guy walking into a voting booth is a white hat.

But is that comparable? Haven't there been studies showing that voter fraud (people that aren't supposed to vote, are voting) is extremely small?

KrazyTacoFO wrote:
NormanTheIntern wrote:

I don't see how it's possible to take the position that anti-fraud measures aren't required because widespread fraud does not exist while simultaneously crying fraud when elections don't go your way. For example - Florida 2000, Ohio 2004, even the recent Wisconsin recall. It seems inconsistent to view every exit poll irregularity with suspicion and go over software and counting procedures with a fine tooth comb but just assume a random guy walking into a voting booth is a white hat.

But is that comparable? Haven't there been studies showing that voter fraud (people that aren't supposed to vote, are voting) is extremely small?

Yup. You could just read this thread, but at the risk of repeating myself:

Dimmerswitch wrote:

A 2004 Ohio study showed voter fraud like that was 0.00004%. The Wisconsin vote fraud investigation (warning, PDF) MattDaddy linked to in the other discussion I mentioned upthread found that mistakes and fraud by election workers were a far more significant issue.

If ensuring accurate, transparent election results is the goal (and I agree that's a worthwhile goal) - investing money in procedures for election officials & an auditing process are much better places to put resources towards than Voter ID laws.

There's no assumption there that we get rid of existing procedures; just that they seem to be sufficient and that adding new ones could be used for partisan purposes. Especially since we have a statement to that effect by a representative of one party.

Dimmerswitch wrote:
KrazyTacoFO wrote:
NormanTheIntern wrote:

I don't see how it's possible to take the position that anti-fraud measures aren't required because widespread fraud does not exist while simultaneously crying fraud when elections don't go your way. For example - Florida 2000, Ohio 2004, even the recent Wisconsin recall. It seems inconsistent to view every exit poll irregularity with suspicion and go over software and counting procedures with a fine tooth comb but just assume a random guy walking into a voting booth is a white hat.

But is that comparable? Haven't there been studies showing that voter fraud (people that aren't supposed to vote, are voting) is extremely small?

Yup. You could just read this thread, but at the risk of repeating myself:

Dimmerswitch wrote:

A 2004 Ohio study showed voter fraud like that was 0.00004%. The Wisconsin vote fraud investigation (warning, PDF) MattDaddy linked to in the other discussion I mentioned upthread found that mistakes and fraud by election workers were a far more significant issue.

If ensuring accurate, transparent election results is the goal (and I agree that's a worthwhile goal) - investing money in procedures for election officials & an auditing process are much better places to put resources towards than Voter ID laws.

I agree with this, what I was asking was if the Florida recount had to do with voter fraud involving illegal voters, or if it was a different beast altogether. I don't remember too much about what the controversy was (I didn't give a crap about politics at the time).

I don't see how it's possible to take the position that anti-fraud measures aren't required because widespread fraud does not exist while simultaneously crying fraud when elections don't go your way

There's a difference between fraud by voters and fraud by election officials.

The Florida recounts were all about the counting, not voter fraud. Remember the hanging chads?

If ensuring accurate, transparent election results is the goal (and I agree that's a worthwhile goal) - investing money in procedures for election officials & an auditing process are much better places to put resources towards than Voter ID laws.

Exactly. But accurate results are the LAST thing Republicans want.

KrazyTacoFO wrote:

I agree with this, what I was asking was if the Florida recount had to do with voter fraud involving illegal voters, or if it was a different beast altogether. I don't remember too much about what the controversy was (I didn't give a crap about politics at the time).

Yeah, I was more responding to NormanTheIntern's post. Yours ended with a question, which made for a better segue.

I'm assuming that the "crying fraud" NormanTheIntern is referring to in Wisconsin has to do with the concerns raised about Kathy Nickolaus in the state Supreme Court election and the state Senate recalls this year. I did a highlights-reel post for Ulairi here (it's too long to quote, and is kind of a derail, but does cover why reasonable people could be concerned about the potential for misbehavior on her part).

Malor wrote:
I don't see how it's possible to take the position that anti-fraud measures aren't required because widespread fraud does not exist while simultaneously crying fraud when elections don't go your way

There's a difference between fraud by voters and fraud by election officials.

This is what I was going to say, and voter IDs can not fix this problem. I have done poll watching here in Chicago where you would think I would get plenty of chances to stop voter fraud, but the only time I have seen anything serious is when some guy "helpfully" tried to bring in some absentee ballots. Absentee ballots could only be delivered by the post office at that time.

The voter fraud BS was started as a false equivalency to all of the complaints Democrats had in Florida and Ohio. Fox viewers bought in hook, line, and sinker.

Malor wrote:
I don't see how it's possible to take the position that anti-fraud measures aren't required because widespread fraud does not exist while simultaneously crying fraud when elections don't go your way

There's a difference between fraud by voters and fraud by election officials.

[/quote]

That's true, but the end result is the same, so why apply two sets of standards when it comes to making sure the results are accurate? You guys seem to be laying out a framework where a voting problem has to be proven widespread before corrective action is appropriate, so where's the evidence that election official/evil diebold computer chip fraud is a massive issue? That PDF about the Wisconsin 2004 suggests incompetence rather than fraud, and actually suggests getting rid of same day voter registration and clamping down on at-polling station identification checks, so i don't really think that citation backs up any of the arguments I'm reading here.

If ensuring accurate, transparent election results is the goal (and I agree that's a worthwhile goal) - investing money in procedures for election officials & an auditing process are much better places to put resources towards than Voter ID laws.

Exactly. But accurate results are the LAST thing Republicans want.

To be fair, it's not like we tried to decide a national election by selectively recounting counties already in our pocket, but okay.

Malor, you realize there's 55 million registered republican voters. Are you seriously going to continue this meme about how republicans are evil?

I'm about an inch from just never taking you seriously again.

Maybe it's just me, but when I hear someone complain about Democrats or Republicans, I always assume they're talking about the leaders of the parties, not the rank & file.

I think this may be off topic and could use a different thread, but I was thinking about gerrymandering today. And boy do I dislike it (Democrats and Republicans are both in the wrong when it comes to this).

Stengah wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but when I hear someone complain about Democrats or Republicans, I always assume they're talking about the leaders of the parties, not the rank & file.

Doesn't matter, the rank and file support the leadership. If someone wants to name specific individuals or policies that's fine, I just get weary of the "Republicans are evil/facist/nazi" and Obama/Democrats are "commie socialist secret muslims".

KrazyTacoFO wrote:

I think this may be off topic and could use a different thread, but I was thinking about gerrymandering today. And boy do I dislike it (Democrats and Republicans are both in the wrong when it comes to this).

Love to see that thread. Gerrymandering is flat out undemocratic.

bandit0013 wrote:
Stengah wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but when I hear someone complain about Democrats or Republicans, I always assume they're talking about the leaders of the parties, not the rank & file.

Doesn't matter, the rank and file support the leadership. If someone wants to name specific individuals or policies that's fine, I just get weary of the "Republicans are evil/facist/nazi" and Obama/Democrats are "commie socialist secret muslims".

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/1...

It's about Maine's current bout of gerrymandering, but there's no reason to limit it to that.

NormanTheIntern wrote:

That's true, but the end result is the same, so why apply two sets of standards when it comes to making sure the results are accurate? You guys seem to be laying out a framework where a voting problem has to be proven widespread before corrective action is appropriate, so where's the evidence that election official/evil diebold computer chip fraud is a massive issue? That PDF about the Wisconsin 2004 suggests incompetence rather than fraud, and actually suggests getting rid of same day voter registration and clamping down on at-polling station identification checks, so i don't really think that citation backs up any of the arguments I'm reading here.

There is very good evidence that individual vote fraud is so rare as to be statistically nonexistent.

There is good evidence that (through malice or incompetence) the actions of election workers do have an impact.

Improving procedures for election officials & an instituting an auditing process would address the potential impact from election clerks regardless of their intent or competency levels.

I'm not sure how it's two sets of standards to argue that efforts would be better-spent on addressing the problem that actually exists, as opposed to the one which has been shown to be less likely than being struck by lightning.

That's true, but the end result is the same, so why apply two sets of standards when it comes to making sure the results are accurate? You guys seem to be laying out a framework where a voting problem has to be proven widespread before corrective action is appropriate, so where's the evidence that election official/evil diebold computer chip fraud is a massive issue?

No, you've got it a bit backwards. Voter fraud is proven not to be a problem. It's not that we don't know the truth of the matter. We DO know the truth of the matter. There are so few fraudulent votes that out of 250 MILLION people, you can expect just 1,000 bad votes... and those votes will be scattered all over the country. And that's assuming I didn't get my math wrong.... I may be claiming too many fraudulent votes.

Counting errors, on the other hand, are happening all over the goddamn place. They happen in every election, just about. We get all these recounts all the time, and they often come up with noticeably different totals.

So, to sum up: it's proven that there's not a significant problem with voter fraud. It's proven that there is an ongoing problem with counting inaccuracies.

Ergo, we should be working on improving our counting methods and auditing. If you ACTUALLY want accurate elections, that's where the focus needs to be.

If, on the other hand, you want to keep poor people out of the polling stations, we should continue doing exactly what the Republicans are doing.

And bandit keeps dodging this, but he knows perfectly well this is what's happening, and has already said it's a good idea.

Malor, you realize there's 55 million registered republican voters. Are you seriously going to continue this meme about how republicans are evil?

I'm about an inch from just never taking you seriously again.

With the way you keep dodging facts to support your narrative, I think I'm already there with you.

And when I refer to the Republicans, I mean to the party leadership. It's very difficult to talk coherently about fifty plus million people. It's quite easy to talk about an organization that is as well-organized and disciplined as the Republican party.

bandit0013 wrote:
Stengah wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but when I hear someone complain about Democrats or Republicans, I always assume they're talking about the leaders of the parties, not the rank & file.

Doesn't matter, the rank and file support the leadership. If someone wants to name specific individuals or policies that's fine, I just get weary of the "Republicans are evil/facist/nazi" and Obama/Democrats are "commie socialist secret muslims".

I think you're a bit off there that there's no notable difference between the rank and file of a party and the party leaders. I know many people who are registered Republicans who can't stand the way the current crop of Republican leaders are behaving. They still consider themselves Republicans, but are just as opposed to the current tactics the Republican leaders are using as non-Republicans are.

@ Malor

250 million people don't vote. 250 million people aren't even registered to vote. 130 million voted in the 2008 election.

You're concerned about counting errors yet most forms of electronic voting are shunned. Paper ballots are a bad idea, easily corruptible. Machines with bad code are too, but would be much easier to selectively audit than recounting tens of thousands of ballots by hand multiple times every time there's a concern.

And no, I'm not dodging the argument that people are being kept out of the polling stations. I've challenged you repeatedly to find any court case, etc that shows that anyone has been disenfranchised. I guess I can repeat until I'm blue in the face that the SCOTUS case in Indiana was unable to find a single disenfranchised voter but you're just going to keep spouting that meme regardless. On top of your unverified claim, you are now accusing me of dodging an issue which I have addressed repeatedly in this thread. I don't know how to debate someone who is clearly not on the same plane of reality as me. Yet, I will summarize one more time:

- It is reasonable to expect people to provide proof of identification to preserve the sanctity of the vote. Admittedly, known cases of fraud are relatively small, yet I believe that in order to protect democratic elections reasonable precautions should be taken. You keep ranting about "only a thousand fraudulent votes" etc while you ignore the fact that some elections are won or lost by a very thin margin. You ignore the fact of Florida 2000, Ohio 2004, and Al Franken's election being disputed based on counting irregularities whether it's fraud, miscount, or in some cases attempts by the opposite party (both D and R have done this recently) of trying to get ineligible votes counted.

- On the other hand, even though there are KNOWN cases of fraud and miscounting, you have absolutely no shred of evidence of any disenfranchisement. None. Zero. Nada. And yet I'm the one dodging the issue. On top of this, every time you get riled up you demonize Republicans. You're coming off like a partisan shill, which makes just about any argument you make suspect, especially when you toss in numbers that aren't valid and claims which can't be backed up by any data.

I'm done with you. Next please.

bandit0013 wrote:

- On the other hand, even though there are KNOWN cases of fraud and miscounting, you have absolutely no shred of evidence of any disenfranchisement. None. Zero. Nada. And yet I'm the one dodging the issue. On top of this, every time you get riled up you demonize Republicans. You're coming off like a partisan shill, which makes just about any argument you make suspect, especially when you toss in numbers that aren't valid and claims which can't be backed up by any data.

I'm done with you. Next please.

Well, I don't find absence of evidence to be compelling evidence of absence here, but I've already said that I'm willing to set that aside for the purposes of our discussion in-thread. I'm even willing to set aside the statements from supporters about the intent of the legislation, though I find them damning and repugnant.

The best-case for you here seems to be that the ALEC-written voter ID laws do nothing to solve a nonexistent problem, while requiring additional expenditures to do so, and simultaneously ignoring a larger threat to the accuracy and transparency of our elections.

Oh, one thing that Chicago Democrats are relatively infamous for in some of the inner city districts is going through the voter rolls after the polling stations are closed and voting for the people that didn't show up. You can find a lot of info on that if you go digging, unless you want to keep pretending that all voting issues come from one party.

Having computerized voting that actually could be turned off when voting was complete would go a long way towards addressing the biggest form of polling station fraud (voting in absentee / discarding or losing votes)

@ Dimmer

I respect your argument. I would like to see better technology in place for controlling and verifying the polling place as well. I'm just a very strong proponent of IDs so what I criticize the WIS plan for is using the same as a paid one causing this "don't talk about it controversy" and really charging for IDs at all. They should be compulsory and earmark funded by a small sales tax or something.

bandit0013 wrote:

@ Dimmer

I respect your argument. I would like to see better technology in place for controlling and verifying the polling place as well. I'm just a very strong proponent of IDs so what I criticize the WIS plan for is using the same as a paid one causing this "don't talk about it controversy" and really charging for IDs at all. They should be compulsory and earmark funded by a small sales tax or something.

It would make sense to have better technology for monitoring and auditing polling places. However: as I keep repeating, while I think there is a reasonable case to be made for general ID reform (and furthermore that some amount of voter ID could be incorporated into that), that's not what the ALEC-written laws we're discussing in this thread actually do.

They're bad laws.

They're laws that, at best, waste money on a statistically insignificant problem. Your one-year odds of dying due to "Hanging, strangulation, and suffocation" are roughly the same as the chance of you committing individual vote fraud. The one-year odds of drowning are far higher than the chance of you committing individual vote fraud.

bandit0013 wrote:

Oh, one thing that Chicago Democrats are relatively infamous for in some of the inner city districts is going through the voter rolls after the polling stations are closed and voting for the people that didn't show up. You can find a lot of info on that if you go digging, unless you want to keep pretending that all voting issues come from one party.

Having computerized voting that actually could be turned off when voting was complete would go a long way towards addressing the biggest form of polling station fraud (voting in absentee / discarding or losing votes)

I have NEVER seen something like this happen. I am not saying it is impossible, but I live in the "inner city" and it has never happened when I, my mother, my father or anyone I know has poll watched in a number of wards.

bandit0013 wrote:

@ Malor

250 million people don't vote. 250 million people aren't even registered to vote. 130 million voted in the 2008 election.

You're concerned about counting errors yet most forms of electronic voting are shunned. Paper ballots are a bad idea, easily corruptible. Machines with bad code are too, but would be much easier to selectively audit than recounting tens of thousands of ballots by hand multiple times every time there's a concern.

And no, I'm not dodging the argument that people are being kept out of the polling stations. I've challenged you repeatedly to find any court case, etc that shows that anyone has been disenfranchised. I guess I can repeat until I'm blue in the face that the SCOTUS case in Indiana was unable to find a single disenfranchised voter but you're just going to keep spouting that meme regardless. On top of your unverified claim, you are now accusing me of dodging an issue which I have addressed repeatedly in this thread. I don't know how to debate someone who is clearly not on the same plane of reality as me. Yet, I will summarize one more time:

- It is reasonable to expect people to provide proof of identification to preserve the sanctity of the vote. Admittedly, known cases of fraud are relatively small, yet I believe that in order to protect democratic elections reasonable precautions should be taken. You keep ranting about "only a thousand fraudulent votes" etc while you ignore the fact that some elections are won or lost by a very thin margin. You ignore the fact of Florida 2000, Ohio 2004, and Al Franken's election being disputed based on counting irregularities whether it's fraud, miscount, or in some cases attempts by the opposite party (both D and R have done this recently) of trying to get ineligible votes counted.

- On the other hand, even though there are KNOWN cases of fraud and miscounting, you have absolutely no shred of evidence of any disenfranchisement. None. Zero. Nada. And yet I'm the one dodging the issue. On top of this, every time you get riled up you demonize Republicans. You're coming off like a partisan shill, which makes just about any argument you make suspect, especially when you toss in numbers that aren't valid and claims which can't be backed up by any data.

I'm done with you. Next please.

ex·trap·o·late
verb \ik-ˈstra-pə-ˌlāt\
ex·trap·o·lat·ed ex·trap·o·lat·ing
Definition of EXTRAPOLATE
transitive verb
1
: to infer (values of a variable in an unobserved interval) from values within an already observed interval

Malor never claimed that 250 million people voted. He said that [size=20]IF[/size] 250 million people voted [size=20]and[/size] we experienced the same levels of voter fraud that was experienced in Wisconsin, only approximately 1,000 fraudulent votes [size=20]would[/size] have been cast.

1,000 out of 250,000,000. That is such an infinitesimally small amount that spending the kind of money required to lessen it is absolutely not worth it. It's even more of a waste when you add in the additional costs of revamping how voter identification is conducted and not make it more of a burden.

Stengah wrote:

1,000 out of 250,000,000. That is such an infinitesimally small amount that spending the kind of money required to lessen it is absolutely not worth it. It's even more of a waste when you add in the additional costs of revamping how voter identification is conducted and not make it more of a burden.

How about the 100,000 votes in the Chicago Governor's election in 1982?

Filled with Citations and actual court findings for your pleasure. And oh, lookie, it was all Democrats. Whodathunkit.

Additionally, in this article, I love the reference to the "5,217 "students" who were registered to vote at a polling place located within the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who listed as their resi­dence an on-campus dormitory that housed only 2,600 students". Though I'm told there's nothing like that going on in Wisconsin, that there might be 10 fraudulent votes. Does anyone have any count on the number of ineligible votes that get tossed in elections? Every one of those that gets through is a corruption of the legal process.

Here's another pretty famous case where a Democrat won by voter fraud.

Names of deceased persons and felons were found on the rolls, and dozens of additional votes were counted from voters living outside the district.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation investigated aspects of the election, and District Attorney Bill Gibbons obtained 37 indictments, 35 of which are felonies, against three Shelby County poll workers for alleged election fraud.

But really, there's no reason to worry here. GOP is just scaremongering. Besides, she only won by 13 votes before the investigation. Surely if there's only a small amount of fraud going on it won't impact an election right? I mean, when dead people are voting and people not in the district are voting, why would we want a current identification? Surely it's just to disenfranchise poor people.

Worth quoting in full is the final comment of the Chicago grand jury's report on its voter fraud investigation:

Every vote that is fraudulently manufac­tured disenfranchises the legitimate voter and makes a mockery of our political pro­cess. Vote fraud is like a cancer, and it must be treated so that it will not destroy our con­stitutional right to vote, the basis of our American heritage

/Still waiting for someone to show evidence of actual disenfranchisement over obtaining ID.

In Wisconsin-a state that John Kerry won by only 11,000 votes-the technique of running com­parisons between the voter registration list and other databases was employed in a 2004 investiga­tion of possible voter fraud in Milwaukee.[61] The Milwaukee Police Department's Special Investiga­tions Unit, working with the U.S. Attorney's Office, the local district attorney, and the FBI, used Google databases, motor vehicle records, telephone direc­tories, Assessor's Office records, and U.S. Postal Service records to investigate allegations of voter fraud. They uncovered a variety of problems:

5,217 "students" who were registered to vote at a polling place located within the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who listed as their resi­dence an on-campus dormitory that housed only 2,600 students;

At least 220 ineligible felons who had voted;

370 addresses that were not legal residences in the city;

Residents of other states (such as a voter from Chicago) who registered and voted in Milwaukee;

Numerous staffers from out of state who were working for the Kerry campaign or the Environ­mental Victory Campaign, a political action committee, and who illegally registered and voted in Milwaukee;

Hundreds of homeless individuals registered as living at office buildings, at store fronts, and in multiple locations who were "able to vote in different districts and, by sheer number, could have an impact on a closely contested local election."[62]

I mean really, why would Republicans be interested in verifying eligibility?

Pop Quiz: How do you keep the voter registration rolls reliably updated if people aren't required to keep a current address and ID with the state?