David Blue’s post below motivated me to get off my rear and do a post on voting.
I have been bitching for a long time about the mechanics of voting. That’s because at root, I believe that the act of voting and the spinning plates of government we erect on top of that act are the secret sauce that makes America exceptional.
We spent a lot of focus on the horrible, awful, truly bad decision to handle voting with poorly-built computer terminals. My biggest problems with them were twofold: first, that they present the opportunity to steal elections wholesale, rather than retail – i.e. a very small group of people can commit meaningful fraud; and second that fraud is impossible to detect on the systems – which means both that we can’t readily defend against a small-group attack, and that in this hyperpartisan age, no one will trust that the results haven’t been hacked – we can’t demonstrate fairness and accuracy.
And when people’s trust in the results collapses, we get a collapse of the legitimacy that the whole spinning-plates-thing depends on.I think that we will see the low tide on the issue of machine voting in this election, and that slowly we’ll see the junk machines get junked, and begin to move to transparent, auditable systems for collecting and tallying votes. We’re not done here, by any means, but I think that the tide is moving in the right direction.
I’m wrestling with how much to be concerned about the rest of the voting ‘system’ – the process from registration to voting to tallying to auditing. And with the news about the terrible job ACORN is doing is delivering high-quality registrations, it’s worth some time to muse on this issue.
So let me start with some framing comments and thoughts.
First of all, I’m no Bruce Schneier. But I do read his work, and I stayed in a Holiday Inn once, so I assume I can talk about security issues with a straight face. Second, I absolutely believe that every election we are likely to have will have some measure of error and fraud in it. People are involved, a lot is at stake, and the systems and machines used were built by people as well. But I think that we can agree on three serious goals that any system ought to meet: It ought to be impossible to steal enough votes to effect a state or national election without involving thousands of people – which makes an effective conspiracy really unlikely; It ought to be apparent on audit that some kind of problem exists (again, absent a massive conspiracy); and finally, and most important, the protections against fraud ought to be as electorally neutral as possible – i.e. we ought to be thoughtful that our election protection and election auditing systems don’t have a built-in bias that itself effects the outcome of the election.
It seems to me that we’ve got three likely areas for fraud in our electoral process. The first is in the process of registering and voting. There’s a long and honorable tradition of “voting early and often” as it’s been said, and in many voting communities run by political machines, being dead is no excuse for not being a supporter. There’s accusation that Mayor Daley (the dad) defrauded Richard Nixon out of the Presidency by manipulating the vote in Chicago.
The act of casting and counting votes remains a vulnerability. In New York, lever-operated mechanical voting machines could be tampered with by putting a pencil lead in the gears. In Seattle, multiple recounts and the sudden appearance of a box full of votes elected a Democratic governor. In San Francisco, boxes of ballots were found in the Bay.
And none of this takes into account the kind of systematic error that can be triggered benignly – as by a Democratic election official designing hard-to-understand ballots in Florida in 2000.
I continue believe the major focus ought to be on the voting and counting arenas, because (as I’ve said) it is plausible that a criminal conspiracy small enough to remain secret could dramatically, fraudulently, and untraceably change the outcome of an election.
But today, we have another issue, and I’m struggling to learn enough to decide how significant it really is, and that is the issue of registration and voting fraud by voters.
It is a two-edged sword, and it is a particularly sensitive issue because – unlike fraud that takes place at the counting level, which is in principle neutral between the parties, this issue does have impacts electorally. That’s because – to draw a sweeping generalization – the people who are good at filling out forms and detailed paperwork, and who are likely to have fixed addresses and lots of documentation tend to be more Republican. That means that efforts to manage electoral fraud that rely on paperwork, fixed addresses, and documentation tend to impact likely Democratic voters. This means that hyperpartisan Democrats are happy to see laxer standards on all those fronts, and hyperpartisan Republicans want to see tighter standards.
Ideally, there is some kind of magic knob we could set dispassionately that would be at the exact point where fewer good registrants are kept from voting and more illegitimate registrants are kept from voting. The question is – do we have that today? The answer is unclear.
I’ll take on one extreme Brad Friedman, who I’ve discussed this with but not at the length it really requires. Brad’s argument, simply is that there is no vote fraud. There are registration errors, a minor amount of registration fraud by low-paid workers for ACORN – which ACORN catches in its internal checks, and GOP political operatives who are hellbound to disenfranchise as many poor, minority voters as they possibly can.
I’ll agree with Brad on #1 and on #4. I have to kneejerk reactions on #2 and #3, and they come from Friedman’s uncritical acceptance of ACORN’s statements and the absolute confidence with which he takes them on faith. Brad doesn’t take the positions of election officials on faith; why should he uncritically accept that of ACORN? (that’s a rhetorical question)
But Brad raises the issue that even if ACORN were to be fraudulently registering tens of thousands – what does it matter? Registrations are irrelevant to election outcomes, only actual votes matter. And for it to be a problem, tens of thousands of people would have to make visits to polling places and cast ballots. Brad suggest that this isn’t an issue, since under HAVA, all first-time voters who have not registered in-person at the registrar’s office are required to show ID.
Looking at the Los Angeles County Registrar’s site supports Brad’s position:
Is identification required to register? …top
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA), enacted by Congress in October of 2002, states that individuals registering to vote for the first time in the state/jurisdiction, must provide either a valid California driver’s license or state ID card number. Applicants who do not have either can provide the last four digits of their Social Security number. If the voter provides a driver’s license or state ID number when he/she registers to vote, and the number can be matched to a state record, then the voter will not be required to show ID when he/she votes.
Otherwise…
and
What form of identification is acceptable at the polls for voters whose status is new? …top
STANDARDS FOR PROOF OF RESIDENCY WHEN PROOF IS REQUIRED BY HAVA
As indicated in FAQ #2, HAVA requires that certain voters are required to show proof of identity in order to vote.
The Secretary of State has adopted regulations, pursuant to Elections Code section 14310 (e), that specify what documents may be used to prove a voter’s ID. The Office of Administrative Law approved these emergency regulations on January 28, 2004.
(Click here for a link to Section 20107 of Article 7 of Chapter 1 of Division 7 of Title 2 of the California Code of Regulations.)
Important points to note include:
1. The regulations are required to be “liberally construed to permit voters and registrants to cast a regular ballot. Any doubt as to the sufficiency of proof or a document presented shall be resolved in favor of permitting the voter or new registrant to cast a regular ballot.”
2. Any voter who is required to provide ID but is either unable or unwilling to do so must be advised that he or she may vote a provisional ballot.
3. A voter can prove his or her identity with an original (or copy) of:
A. “A current and valid photo identification” — This means “a document prepared by a third party in the ordinary course of business that includes the photograph and name” of the voter. These documents can include a:
- Driver’s license or ID card of any state
- Passport
- Employee ID card
- ID card provided by a business
- Credit or debit card
- Military ID card
- Student ID card
- Health club ID card
- Insurance plan ID card
B. A voter can also provide proof of ID with the following documents that do not include a photo of the voter, if that document includes both the name and residence address of the voter. The document must be dated subsequent to the date of the last general election, unless the nature of the document is permanent.
- Utility bill
- Bank statement
- Government check
- Government paycheck
- Document issued by a government agency
- Sample ballot issued by a government agency
- Voter notification card issued by a government agency
- Public housing ID card issued by a public agency
- Lease/rental statement or agreement issued by a government agency
- Student ID card issued by a government agency
- Tuition statement or bill issued by a government agency
- Insurance plan card issued by a government agency
- Discharge certificates, pardons, or other official documents issued to a voter by a governmental agency in connection with resolution of a criminal case, indictment, sentence, or other matter
- Public transportation senior discount cards issued by a governmental agency
- ID documents issued by government homeless shelters and other government temporary or transitional facilities
- Drug prescription issued by a government doctor or other governmental health care provider
- Property tax statement issued by a government agency
- Vehicle registration or certificate of ownership issued by a government agency
So, on one hand, there are requirements for identification, and Brad is absolutely correct in his claims. On the other, this presents some pretty obvious exploits, as they say in the technology security space.
Let me suggest one.
I show up at the registrar and register as “Brad Friedman.” I explain that I have no ID, so I’m assigned a state ID number, or I’m registered by am ACORN volunteer who enters the SSN that I give them. I give an address where mail can actually be received…say, a laundromat where I work.
Now, I have to show ID when I show up to vote – I’m assuming that there is some indicator on the big sheet they list the names on, and that the poll workers are conscientious and catch it. So let’s agree that I have to show ID.
Well, the sample ballot that I received is the ID I need…the system is self-proving, i.e. the fact that I got a sample ballot means that I’m entitled to vote.
Now I’m not suggesting that this would actually work – although it’d be fun to try. Nor that it has happened at a scale that influences elections. There are absolutely concerns – reports that Milwaukee’s turnout was greater than the number of registered voters, the Indiana 105% voter registration figures – but those concerns are no more valid claims that elections have been stolen than the concerns about voting technology are valid claims that elections have been stolen by Diebold.
And I’d love to hear from people and do some research into how we would know- retroactively – that fraud like this had been committed. Because I can’t think of a way.
I’m not losing any sleep over it, because in reality, the amount of effort that would have to go into actually creating phantom voters and having real people walk in and vote on their behalf at a level to tip a state Assembly race, much less a Presidential race, is so great that I can’t see it working.
But just like losing a book of checks ought to be OK because your signature is needed on each one before it can be cashed, having all these ‘phantom’ registrations is bad as well.
But I’ll also suggest that a combination of phantom registrations and lax handling of ballots by politically-appointed election officials is a plausible risk. If I can go in and ‘create’ votes either electronically or in the old-fashioned Chicago way (and that’s not a dig at Obama, just a comment on the kind of politics we’re discussing) of manipulating ballots and election documents centrally, then we are looking at real risk.
And I think it’s evident that if McCain loses by a close vote, with the deciding votes in big cities where there are strong ACORN or other registration irregularities, some rabid Republicans will echo the rabid Democrats who claimed that Diebold stole Ohio, and we’ll – again – be living with election results that are more clouded than they ought to be. And I’m just tired of that.
Now I’ll disagree with Brad on one other point. From my conversations with him, I think it’s fair to suggest that his criterion is that no one who is entitled to vote should be denied that right, period. And that’s a genuine value to have; the problem is that if doing that means that 10 people get to vote fraudulently, what’s the impact? In the criminal justice system, I think it’s reasonable to set the standards so that no innocent person is likely to be convicted. I wonder if that’s a good standard to apply to elections.
As an aside, I would urge everyone who is concerned about voter fraud, and who is eligible to do so, to volunteer to work in a polling place on election day.
The system only works if people who are determined to be neutral show up and ensure that the polls are operated in a neutral fashion.
In this “April 2007 blog post,”:http://seanet.com/~jimxc/Politics/April2007_3.html Jim Miller provides a number of examples of recent US elections that may have been decided by “registration fraud.”
A few years back, my group hired an English scientist. When she got her driver’s license, the MVA clerk was insistent that she register to vote under “Motor Voter”–the form is right here, and easy to fill out! The clerk was unfamiliar with the idea that foreign nationals don’t participate in American elections.
bq. what does it matter? Registrations are irrelevant to election outcomes, only actual votes matter.
But this is circular… English Jane didn’t register, because she didn’t intend to vote. If she had had the desire, she could have, and then she would have cast an actual vote. I don’t think that she would have been caught. If she had been, punishment would have been a wrist slap.
bq. That’s because – to draw a sweeping generalization – the people who are good at filling out forms and detailed paperwork, and who are likely to have fixed addresses and lots of documentation tend to be more Republican.
But similarly, the people who are tempted to illicitly register may tend more Democratic. If so, each hyperpartisan side would have legitimate grounds for concern.
“If something’s not worth doing well, it’s not worth doing at all.” Taking Brad Friedman’s concerns about any risk of disenfranchisement being unacceptable to its conclusion, why vet registrants at all? Why not restrict the process to initialing a box that says, “I declare that I’m qualified to vote (and I acknowledge that nobody may cross-check to see if that’s true).”?
AMac: I think it’s pretty clear that there’s a tradeoff. There is no system we can design which will both have zero fraudulent voting and zero disenfranchisement. What we have to do is understand (a) what the balance of fraud and disenfranchisement is in each system we are considering, and (b) decide what balance we’re willing to live with.
But it would be much easier to do this if we could openly admit that any system we design will probably have both some level of fraud and some level of disenfranchisement, and that we’re looking for the optimum level of both.
I have a crazy idea. If an election is within a predetermined “margin of error”, we decide the election with a coin flip. The margin of error should be small enough that coin flips are rare, but large enough that a small group can’t game the election. There will always be some level of errors, fraudulent or otherwise, and this solution would concede that some elections are basically ties.
A.L., I guess the answer to your last question is if the price of making sure everyone votes is to allow ten fraudulent votes for every questionable, but ultimately legitimate vote, then what benefit have you given the one that has not been compromised by the ten? If the one votes for Obama and the ten vote for McCain, his desired result has not been advanced.
What has been advanced is the one voter feels that the process is more legitimate than if he had been turned away. The prospect that his one vote would decide the election was always so infinitesimally small as to be non-existent. But legitimacy is the primary principle to be advanced through the elections.
But if the one voter might feel the process legitimized by his vote being accepted, there are thousands on the sideline looking at the process as delegitimate. Our political class is not treating the electoral process as important.
I would make two points. The first is on fraud. Let us suppose that I had been caught in the past with lists of stolen credit card and owner information. Let’s further say that many of those credit card numbers had been used fraudulently, and it had been determined that I personally had used at least one of them fraudulently, but not that I was the one who fraudulently used all of the numbers that were so used. Now, let us suppose that a few years later I am caught with a bunch of stolen credit card numbers. One of those credit card numbers is yours. Are you concerned? If so, are you also concerned about election fraud? If not, then why is it that you value money more than freedom?
OK, that was a bit harsh, rhetorically, but hopefully it gets the point across.
The second is on the tension between disenfranchisement and legitimacy. There’s certainly a class I/class II error issue: the more controls you put in place to prevent fraudulent voting, the more likely it is that valid voters will be unable to vote. The main requirement of elections is that they be seen to be fair, such that they confer legitimacy upon the election winners, such that there is no need to resort to violence to win power. I really cannot see an argument against requiring identification for in person votes, provided that the state is willing to provide identity cards (upon receipt of proof of identity and residence) for free. That’s basically what I need to get a library card; surely a stolen vote is more critical and potentially costly than a stolen book? It seems that would provide the legitimacy required, while removing any real barriers to registration and thus minimizing the problem of disenfranchisement.
Just for the record, Nixon lost the 1960 election by more than the electoral votes of Illinois. (His partisans claimed he was also defrauded in Texas.)
_”Now, I have to show ID when I show up to vote – I’m assuming that there is some indicator on the big sheet they list the names on, and that the poll workers are conscientious and catch it. So let’s agree that I have to show ID.”_
Ok- here’s where the rubber meets the road. Im not ok with assuming that.
I’m deeply suspicious of assuming things like this, particularly when it varies by state, _most_ particularly when the justice department has had to “go after”:http://www.mcclatchydc.com/staff/greg_gordon/story/16563.html the states to follow through on HAVA law on a number of occasions, because its not being adheared to. Then it ends up in court.
I’d like to see some real data about these mechanisms. IS there an indication on voter rolls that ID needs to be shown (never assume something simple like this to be the case, its the government we are dealing with). Is ID being systematically asked for and the legal requirements held to.
And I’m also deeply suspicious of assuming that polling places aren’t working actively to defraud campaigns. Its easy to say you cant keep a conspiracy of hundreds or thousands quiet, but how do you explain the last investigation of “Chicago”:http://www.heritage.org/Research/Legalissues/lm23.cfm voter fraud, with a Grand Jury that found wholesale fraud being perpetrated in every way you could think of, up to and including poll workers, watchers, and captains simply casting multiple votes.
This HAPPENED, hundreds of thousands of votes WERE manufactured. There hasnt been anything close to that kind of investigation since. Why should we assume wholsale fraud by thousands isnt commonplace, forget plausible.
Here is the loophole- pollwatching. Is it being done? Are there really republicans pollwatchers in across the board democratic districts? Do we assume so, or do we know? And what are the rules for challening ballots? HAVA gives us this (Illinois state law, for one has the same provision):
_”1. The regulations are required to be “liberally construed to permit voters and registrants to cast a regular ballot. Any doubt as to the sufficiency of proof or a document presented shall be resolved in favor of permitting the voter or new registrant to cast a regular ballot.â€_
Isnt that a get out of jail free card, basically invalidating the rest? IE- here are all the deliniated requirements, but feel free to ignore them in favor of the voter?
In illinois a ballot can only be challenged if a majority of the judges agree. 3 judges are from the countys prevailing party, 2 are from the minority party. Guess who wins?
_and that’s not a dig at Obama, just a comment on the kind of politics we’re discussing_
We might as well take a dig. Obama is where he is today because he challenged the “incumbant’s petition”:http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/29/obamas.first.campaign/index.html for having names of voters who weren’t properly registered or who printed their names instead of using cursive.
Now this was consistent with an approach that says “rules are rules,” but not with an approach that bends the rules in favor of allowing “the people” to decide at the polling booth.
All we can ask for in transparency and the minimal good faith effort for voters to be proved eligible. Im perfectly willing to go with paper ballots, state provided ID cards, and even the ink dipped finger and call it a day. But that just isnt going to be allowed to happen any time soon.
In the meantime we really need to find ways to investigate voter fraud on a regular basis, since it simply isnt done now in any systematic fashion. Assuming all is well is really just refusing to see how the sausage is made.
I _really_ will be interested to see how many of the names ACORN collected in their mortgage activities wind up double registered. If there is a conspiracy, that may be the smoking gun.
IS there an indication on voter rolls that ID needs to be shown (never assume something simple like this to be the case, its the government we are dealing with). Is ID being systematically asked for and the legal requirements held to.
Speaking only for Santa Cruz and San Mateo Counties in California, both of which I have worked in a polling place in at some point since HAVA was passed, yes. There is a clear indication in the roster of voters in the same place that it is noted that someone can’t vote in precinct because they have an absentee ballot.
Poll workers are trained to do this, and I have asked for ID. I of course cannot speak to whether other poll workers do it, but certainly we are told to.
And I’m also deeply suspicious of assuming that polling places aren’t working actively to defraud campaigns.
So go volunteer to work in, or monitor, a polling place. Even if you aren’t on a precinct board, polling places are by law open to the public, and you can hang out and watch all day.
Are there really republicans pollwatchers in across the board democratic districts?
I’ve worked in a polling place in almost every election since 1992, in mostly Democratic districts; i’ve only seen poll watchers a few times, and then they were explicitly there to watch how we dealt with people wanting minority language ballots.
Why are the Obamaists now out to destroy the life of Joe the Plumber?
Obama is indulging in too many banana-republic behaviors.
1) Voter fraud.
2) The Fairness Doctrine/efforts to silence pro-US outlets.
3) Personal destruction of laypeople who merely ask questions.
Obama will win the election. Obamaists will go too far, and provoke a backlash from pro-US people.
I guess stealing votes is something liberal illuminati don’t see a problem with. How can Ivy-Leaguers condone a company that steals votes? Or is it something socialist find okay to do, and have done for years, but just now getting caught at?
I don’t see how voting machines became a Republican thing. My memory is that the push for machines was a result of Democratic pressure after the 2000 election and the Florida vote problems. I was perfectly happy with the punch cards myself, but no, we had to go spend good money on a system that Democrats soon disavowed because they lost the next election too. It’s like the Washington election, the Democrats want to keep screwing with things until they win.
Leftists are generally against Democracy, whether in Iraq or America. They know that when people are allowed to vote, leftists policies only pass by rare fluke.
bq. My memory is that the push for machines was a result of Democratic pressure after the 2000 election and the Florida vote problems.
You’re memory is deficient. There was no push for “machines” but a way to hold verifiable elections. The Republicans perverted the process, taking advantage once again of a situation to further their own cause, in this case giving voting machine contracts to Republican-operated Diebold, for example.
Just one of many examples of the Shock Doctrine.
C’mon folks – Ms. Know and GK – vote ‘management’ to be euphemistic has been around as long as there have been votes. It’d be fun to read about Athenian elections (in the back of my mind, I seem to recall some tumult about voting back in Athens…), and leftists hold no special standing on this issue – Mayor Daley, anyone? Boss Curley? Boss Tweed?
Let’s look at things as they are, not as our prejudices tel us they ought to be.
A.L.
Vista, the push for machines was driven by county registrars, who were under pressure from the costs involved in multlingual ballots and voting support for the disabled. I’m sure all kinds of people climbed on the gravy train once it was out there, but absent some evidence that I haven’t seen yet, the notion that the voting machine fiasco was a conspiracy by rightists – like the owner of Sierra Systems, Hugo Chavez – is just as delusional as the notion that leftists hate democracy and subvert it at every chance.
Actually, it’s the same delusion, as seen from the other side.
A.L.
#4 from Foobarista:
bq. _”I have a crazy idea. If an election is within a predetermined “margin of error”, we decide the election with a coin flip. The margin of error should be small enough that coin flips are rare, but large enough that a small group can’t game the election. There will always be some level of errors, fraudulent or otherwise, and this solution would concede that some elections are basically ties.”_
Dear Foobarista: your crazy idea is crazy. 😛
That would create a terrific incentive for the weaker side in the election to push it by any means into the margin of the coin flip, and for the stronger side to prevent that. So there would be as much mistrust and lawyering as ever, and in addition political fights over where the margin of the coin flip should be.
There’s no way around the need for reforms for clean elections.
And I think the best way to achieve some worthwhile reform is to press reasonable ideas, such as the purple finger check I suggested, simultaneously and with no regard to who benefits most from each one.
I think the left may succeed in forcing anti-fraud reforms, the same way they have unwitting begun to force immigration reforms: by forcing the country to react to their own extreme standards.
It is obvious (though not yet openly stated) that the extreme left sees fraud as politically justified. In particular, they refuse to accept that illegals and felons should not be allowed to vote. They are further frustrated by encountering potential urban recruits who refuse to register – because they are illegals, have outstanding warrants, or just exercising their genuine American right to hate all politics. Shouldn’t there be some extra votes cast for all those people who are “unfairly” excluded from the process?
BTW, the answer to your question is obvious. The right to cast a legitimate vote for Jones is completely destroyed if it means Smith is entitled to ten fraudulent votes. If it’s come to that we should stop allowing people to vote and start selling them indulgences.
I think the best reform is to get rid of the electoral college (yes, I know Gore would have won in 2000 on pop. vote).
There are advantages to the electoral college, but by abolishing it, the concept of ‘swing states’ goes away, and the margins will always be on the order of 500,000 votes or more. Much harder to steal the election.
A vote in California would, in fact, be as important as a vote in Ohio or Nevada.
More so, because no one would spend a dime campaigning in Ohio or Nevada. they’d campaign in the ten major urban centers, and no one would care what the rest of the country thought or did.
I’ll pass – I like the Electoral college. Those founder guys were hella smart.
A.L.
“I think the left may succeed in forcing anti-fraud reforms, the same way they have unwitting begun to force immigration reforms: by forcing the country to react to their own extreme standards.”
Indeed. That is why the left will suffer the same figurative fate as their ideological bretheren : Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
AQI was supported by average Sunni Iraqis at one time, under the banner of ‘Muslims against infidels’. But when AQI started to kill those very Iraqis in markets and schools, then the moderates turned on AQI with the backing of the Surge, and AQI was finished.
Similarly, everyday Democrats tolerate the hard left under the unifying umbrella of Bush-disapproval. Once Obama wins and the hard left interpret that as a mandate for allowing NAMBLA members to become public school teachers, defending a school shooting where the environmentalist gunman says it was necessary to reduce the human footprint of green house gases, and start harassing the families of US troops who are in combat overseas, then everyday Democrats will react.
The hard left will mirror exactly the same fate as AQI, for the same reasons.
GK –
The electoral college might be our last best hope against The Total Society, so you’ll have to pry it out of my cold dead fingers, etc.
BTW, not to get the whole Joe Plumber thing going, “but this is effing funny.”:http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/correction-1.html Though Obama amass 500 electoral votes and be deified by the Senate, I will not trade places with Andrew Sullivan.
I love a good conspiracy theory! Now it’s true, this one is a bit more likely than some others that i have heard but s conspiracy theory non the less. But who would really benefit from this? The leftist illuminati? Of course they would be at the heart of it. But in this election who’s on their side? Of course Bush benefitted last time from the voter conspiracy and this time it’s seems like Obama will? How do these conspiracies so easy hop the aisle? I’m just not sure i buy it.
You know, with all the interesting ideas posted here for preventing and detecting voter fraud, there’s one I’m surprised not to have seen: Mandatory audits. I would like to see 10% of the polling places randomly selected for a manual recount. Every election. No thresholds of “closeness” to debate over. Just do it, no matter what the results.
(Naturally, this assumes use of a system that produces a voter-verified paper trail to use for recount. Telling the computer to spit out the same number again is NOT a recount.)
David – Secretary Bowen (bless her) has actually supported a similar idea (smaller %) for some time.
Look folks, again let me ask – make the case that this is a problem (or not) and suggest how we would know – how we would audit – for voter fraud (as opposed to tabulation fraud).
A.L.
The Ohio Sec. of State admitted today to sitting on 200,000 ‘zombie ballots’ [all absentee, no matching SSN, no matching Oh DL number] that she [apparently…] wants very badly to be counted.
Who needs Diebold when you have ACORN at beck-and-call…
Anyone care to guess how many other surprises are awaiting us…
PS-Bush won Ohio by 118,457 votes.
PPS-if the Electoral College is scrapped by anything less that a Constitutional Amendment, I WILL raise the Black Flag…and I don’t think I’ll be alone when that happens.
#4 and #19, re: settling deadlocked elections by coin flip – Actually, if I’m not mistaken at least one state (South Dakota) does something like this. Several years ago some election there ended in a flat-footed tie, so it was settled by what amounted to a single hand of five-card [game that tripped the spam filter the first time I tried to post], sans betting; both candidates simply got dealt five cards from a standard deck, and the one with the best hand was declared the winner.
Well, good for her!
Though I see compliance is a “little iffy”:http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/mcr_feb08.htm
bq. Counties listed below that are not underlined have failed to submit their County 1% Manual Tally Report for the February 5, 2008, Presidential Primary Election, to the Secretary of State as required by Elections Code section 15360(e).
To respond to your question…
This _is_ a problem, simply because uncertainty is undermining faith in the system. Just the fact that it would be so hard to detect that fraud is enough reason for concern, whether or not the fraud is actually occurring.
What to do about it? Best I can come up with is requiring state-issued ID to vote, coupled with the purple finger. But not just any purple dye – it would have to be fluorescent, and quickly absorbed deep enough into the skin to not be removed without removing skin with it. That would, alas, be incompatible with absentee ballots, but I would be willing to give up my lazy voting habits for a purple finger.
“And I think the best way to achieve some worthwhile reform is to press reasonable ideas, such as the purple finger check I suggested, simultaneously and with no regard to who benefits most from each one.”
I like purple fingers, it would at least prevent the
Vote often part of the
Vote early and often mantra.
Or maybe an optical finger print scanner, tied into a database?
If the same finger print shows up in the system, during or after the election more than one time, send it to the FBI and let them go looking for the owner.
#31:
bq. Or maybe an optical finger print scanner, tied into a database?
Please don’t suggest that in public, someone might hear you. Can you imagine the “mission creep” of that system?
_Here is the loophole- pollwatching. Is it being done? Are there really republicans pollwatchers in across the board democratic districts? Do we assume so, or do we know?_
A Democratic friend of mine was a pollwatcher in the 2004 election here in Seattle. As she told her story, there were two Democratic pollwatchers and no Republicans at her precinct. When a questionable situation came up requiring the pollwatchers from each party to sign as witnesses, she was nonchalantly asked to sign on the “Republican” line, which she nonchalantly did. Nobody batted an eye at this. (I was appalled.)
I’m not saying that this was an instance of fraud, since I don’t know the details of the underlying situation. But when nobody at the polling place gives a damn about the rules (because they’re all of one party and everyone who tries to vote there is of the same party), it easily could have been.
“The electoral college might be our last best hope against The Total Society, so you’ll have to pry it out of my cold dead fingers, etc.”
Please elaborate. I want to hear the rationale.
“they’d campaign in the ten major urban centers, and no one would care what the rest of the country thought or did.”
Why? The ten major urban centers already go 80% Democratic, yet the rural areas that go 60-65% Republican still outnumbered the Democratic votes in 2004 by 3 million.
Party slant is already heavily corelated to population density. Why would the Republican candidate campaign only where he knows he won’t get more than 20% of the vote?
Keep in mind that there are many solid blue states that are such because of just one major city, therebly nullifying the entire rural population. Illinois and Pennsylvania are among blue states that would be solidly red if merely the one high-density urban county were excluded.
[Spam. Deleted. Banned. –NM]
GK,
Without the electoral college, where the votes are doesn’t matter, so it’s most efficient to go to where the most votes are. Note the demographics: the 10th largest metro area in the US is San Jose, with 1.8 million or so people. Which is right around that of West Virginia, the 37th largest state. In other words, campaigning in just the top 10 metro centers is reaching as many voters as campaigning in 13 states.
But even more importantly than that, and on topic even, it drives up fraud. In heavily Republican states like TX or AK, or in heavily Democratic areas like Chicago and New Orleans and NY and CA, where one party essentially controls all the rules of voting, wouldn’t it make sense that you would suddenly see that party getting every vote it can, by hook or by crook? Both the hook and the crook parts are remarkably easy in single-party jurisdictions.
_”Look folks, again let me ask – make the case that this is a problem (or not) and suggest how we would know – how we would audit – for voter fraud (as opposed to tabulation fraud)”_
I’ll point again to the Chicago debacle of the early eightees and turn the question around. How do we no this isnt a problem? No, a rampant crisis?
I don’t think the majority of precincts have much if any corruption, but it wouldnt take many of the high density districts playing games to throw a state like Missouri or Ohio. Can anyone tell me why I should have faith in a system with no transparency and a history of rampant corruption?
Bryan,
I honestly have to disagree with your statement, but I’m quibbling over details. It could really be argued that what the poll worker did was fraud, since she did knowingly misrepresent who she was in the process of signing that line. I will agree that there isn’t enough information presented to determine if the underlying issue was fraudulent.
_”So go volunteer to work in, or monitor, a polling place. Even if you aren’t on a precinct board, polling places are by law open to the public, and you can hang out and watch all day.”_
Not in “Illinois”:http://www.elections.state.il.us/Downloads/ElectionInformation/PDF/pollguide.pdf
“Other individuals allowed to remain in the polling place include the following:
• Voters while voting.
• Minor children accompanying their parent or guardian into the voting booth.
• Representatives of the election authority.
• Representatives of the State Board of Elections.
• Representatives of the office of the State’s Attorney and the office of the Attorney General acting in their official capacities.
• Law enforcement officers acting in their official capacities.”
_”By majority decision, the judges have the sole power to allow or disallow a challenge to a voter, to cause removal of unauthorized pollwatchers and to limit the number of pollwatchers in the polling place.”_
Judges are partisan operatives selected in a 3:2 ratio according to the prevailing political party of the County.
My concern is for districts without a functioning Republican Party, like Obama’s old district. There could well be NO republican poll watchers, considering they have to be drawn from the district. I couldnt just show up there with a pad and pencil and watch the election.
his criterion is that no one who is entitled to vote should be denied that right, period. And that’s a genuine value to have; the problem is that if doing that means that 10 people get to vote fraudulently, what’s the impact?
The impact is the winner of an election is not the person supported by a majority of the voters, it’s the candidate with the most unethical supporters.
FWIW, I think fraudulent votes are more destructive than wrongly denied voters. Both cost a candidate a single vote, but a wrongly denied voter knows he’s been denied and has some recourse. A provisional ballot can be cast, ID can be retrieved. Even in the worst case, they know better for the next time.
But the person who’s vote is canceled by an fraudulently cast ballot never knows what happened and has no opportunity to make it right.
_”But the person who’s vote is canceled by an fraudulently cast ballot never knows what happened and has no opportunity to make it right.”_
Moreover the greater the suspicion about the honesty of elections the more ‘silent disenfranchised’ will sit out elections. Transparency is critical but it has been systematically obscured over the years. Whats worse, the guy who doesnt get to vote because he didnt follow the rules exactly or the guy who doesnt vote because he has no faith in our system of government any more. I’d say the latter is a far greater danger to our society.
#39 from Mark Buehner:
bq. _”My concern is for districts without a functioning Republican Party, like Obama’s old district. There could well be NO republican poll watchers, considering they have to be drawn from the district. I couldnt just show up there with a pad and pencil and watch the election.”_
There are parts of the country that are a political monoculture, where anyone with a Republican bumper sticker is taking a foolish risk of having their car keyed, and anyone who puts up a Republican lawn sign is at risk of having their property stolen or destroyed, either in Democrat orders or – worse – because that side of politics feeds on and creates a culture where we don’t tolerate your kind around here.
Locals might be poorly advised to be poll watchers for the wrong side, in places like that, or might fear that that would turn out to be the case. They still have to live with their neighbors, presumably, or they would have moved already, and people will have seen their faces.
I don’t think police supervision would work, as things are, because it would imply a partisan effect by potentially scaring away felons who might be expected to vote consistently for a particular party.
Maybe the right solution is: police supervision to allow safe Republican poll watching in districts of hate, and allow felons to vote?
I think the idea of barring felons from voting is questionable anyway. As I understand the law (and please any lawyers correct me), an 18 year old girl can under the strictest rigor of law become a felon by giving her 17 year old boyfriend the time of his life. California sex laws are truly bizarre, and oppressive for young people, and felonies are far too easy to come by.
David I think we need to rethink our election laws federally- going state by state just isnt going to ensure the kind of daylight we need.
I understand how a lot of these laws and procedures developed. Sure- in 1955 you wouldnt want 30 unnamed white guys lurking in a polling place blacks were getting into for the first time. The rationale of organizing everything to prevent voter intimidation or disenfranchisement made sense 50 years ago.
But over the years it has become apparent that the laws that protect against these things are also quite useful in turning certain polling places into partisan havens. The system has been utilized towards partisan ends in many ways- i think of sympathetic judges in St Louis ordering city polls kept open late while operatives drive around picking people up to go vote. The desire to register every vote is admirable, but if those extra votes cancel out the votes in another district that didnt have the same opportunity, is it truly just?
Somehow the idea has become the Voting is the ends, and not the means. The goal is representative government, not voting for its own sake. I don’t know if that sentiment is shared in all political quarters. I suspect there is a pragmatic impulse behind that misapprehension. It always seems to help one party.
I can’t reconcile the view that a voter’s right to cast a ballot is inviolable with the attitude that voter fraud doesn’t matter. If it’s held sincerely, it’s a testament to how a person can hold two completely contradictory ideas at the same time without having their heads explode.
I couldnt just show up there with a pad and pencil and watch the election.
Wow.
That’s just … wrong. Elections should be a completely public, transparent process.
San Mateo County has this irritating tendency of putting multiple polling precincts together in one building. One election, there were five of us in the same building, a school resource building; voters had to come in and figure out which table was the right one to go to.
After the polls closed, as we were tabulating ballots, etc, the inspector (ie, the head of the precinct boards) for one of the other precincts closed all the doors; she was cold.
The building is not illuminated from the outside and has no windows; once the doors are closed, there’s no way to know anything is going on indoors.
I told her to stop it, and argued that under state law we were required to remain open to the public, and that under the circumstances the only way to do that was to leave at least one door open so people could see something was going on.
She argued.
I called the county elections office. They agreed with me.
The doors stayed open. (Nobody came in, but that wasn’t the point).
As I understand the law (and please any lawyers correct me), an 18 year old girl can under the strictest rigor of law become a felon by giving her 17 year old boyfriend the time of his life
Not true.
Penal Code Section 261.5(b) says:
Any person who engages in an act of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor who is not more than three years older or three years younger than the perpetrator, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
To be a felony, there has to be at least a three year age difference.
aphrael, thanks twice: for your correction on the law, and for what you did in upholding correct procedure in the election.
I am a democratic idealist, and I believe that on this issue, anyone acting properly anywhere helps all of us everywhere. The great enemy of democracy is cynicism: the attitude that we might as well get in for our share of the advantages that accrue to election cheats, because “everybody does it”. No, everybody doesn’t screw up the rules, and every time anyone plays it straight by the book and sets the right example, it helps.
Sounds like we’re near neighbors, aphrael.
San Mateo county used to have a highly efficient optical mark sense ballot system, and always had its returns posted before the neighboring counties. Then they switched – for unknown reason – to computerized voting machines. Since then I’ve requested a mail-in ballot in private protest, but it does cause me to miss the precinct scene and all the intangibles you can pickup there.
Tim Oren: I almost always vote absentee because I’m never assigned to work in the polling place where I would vote, and going to some other polling place to vote takes too much time.
But here’s a secret the county elections office would rather not be bruited about: every polling place in the county has paper ballots. They’d prefer that you use the machines, but they’re required by law to have the paper ballots there.
Said ballots are optical-scan. They are put in a box and then fed through a centralized optical scanner at the receiving station.
So you can go vote on optical scan ballots in your polling place; you just have to insist to the precinct board that you want to vote on paper. They will have been instructed not to offer … but if you insist, they are required to give you the paper ballot you request.
Quoth Mr Blue:
bq. I think the idea of barring felons from voting is questionable anyway…. and felonies are far too easy to come by.
Wrong on one, right on two. 🙂
A felony used to be strictly a crime so heinous it deserved killing or banishment of the guilty party. Then they added a softer option: loss of all property. This was the “kinder, gentler” side of common law.
The other thing that could happen as punishment was something called “working a corruption of blood”, which has a rather seasonable Halloweenish sound to it, but basically meant the felon’s issue (heirs) would also be punished in some way for the felon’s crime(s). The US specifically got rid of the latter.
Blood might not be corrupted any more, but the term “felony” sure got corrupted. Now, here, it basically means anything that could get you a year or more of jail time. So:
* You can be a felon for owning too much vegetable matter.
* You can be a felon for failing to file a tax return.
* You can be a felon for carrying a screwdriver in your pocket.
It has gotten truly bizarre.
I don’t think letting convicted felons vote is appropriate unless it’s appropriate to restore all their other rights, including Second Amendment ones.
Under all that, I think the concept of “felony” has gotten horribly diluted but there’s not a chance in hell of reeling that back in short of installing a whole new government.
Re: #50 from Nortius Maximus…
Thanks! I was trying to say something like that with my off the cuff and thus badly chosen example on California sex laws. But you said it much better than I would have even if my one example had been detail perfect.
Re: #50 from Nortius Maximus:
bq. _”I don’t think letting convicted felons vote is appropriate unless it’s appropriate to restore all their other rights, including Second Amendment ones.”_
That makes sense, but I think a lot of “felons” should have all their rights restored.
Re: #50 from Nortius Maximus:
bq. _”Under all that, I think the concept of “felony” has gotten horribly diluted but there’s not a chance in hell of reeling that back in short of installing a whole new government.”_
Then this is a dead end from the point of view of restoring integrity to election procedures, and we should turn to other ideas.
Let me go back and annoyingly keep asking the same question – if there was this kind of fraud, how would we know?
A.L.
You select a random sample of people listed as voters, and follow up on them in detail, to confirm that they really did vote, and really were qualified to do so.
Of course, every time I’ve heard of anybody attempting this, it was shut down amidst screams of “voter intimidation”.
As I remarked in the thread below, the fundamental problem of doing ANYTHING about ballot fraud is that _incumbents_ have a say in whether or not anything gets done, and by definition, fraud either wasn’t bad enough to cost them the election, and maybe WAS bad enough to WIN them the election.
So why should they consent to doing anything about it?
Here are my proposals:
Fundamental reform 1: Replace all elections officials with a national election corps, _randomly_ assigned to different precincts each election. This would prevent conspiracies.
Fundamental reform 2: Compromise the secret ballot by adding a tracking number to each ballot, (You could use some kind of third party registry to make abusing this harder.) so that when you determine a particular ballot was cast illegally, _you can remove it from the count_.
Fundamental reform 3: A strict ID requirement to vote, and spend whatever it takes to see to it that every _qualified_ voter gets one.
But none of this is going to happen: Ballot fraud takes place in those political monoculture areas, it makes safe seats safer. No incumbent would permit anything to be done to stop it.
I am going to tell you, that the vote is dead. Free elections are dead. Killed by Democrats, through ACORN and Obama’s fraud machine.
Various voting machines, and ballots are not the problem. Fraudulent voting registration IS, however.
The way Obama/ACORN have already stolen this election, is through the following: register Obama supporters up to 27 times in phony registrations. Vote 28 times, the first through the legit registration, the other 27 times or so through the phony registrations, for Obama. This includes phony, out-of-state people flooding into swing states, and playing the Race Card (nearly all the fraudsters are Black) to intimidate White voters, officials, etc.
Thus, Blacks who make up 12% of the population form the MAJORITY through VOTING FRAUD.
This will NEVER change, and in fact OH has found 200K fraudulent registrations, which the Democratic Secretary of State has sued successfully to get into the system where the votes cannot be checked, to allow Obama to STEAL the Ohio vote.
America is still about a 50-50 nation, the big swing to Hard Left Marxist Democrats and Racial Black Nationalist-Separatist agendas by Obama and his Raila Odinga type forces (goon squad intimidation) is due to FRAUD.
Fraud that is only going to get worse once Dem supermajorities institute same-day registration and voting.
So it’s going to be a question of brute force/strength in voting fraud. The Republican response eventually will be to confront the Farrakhan-Nation of Islam/ACORN Black fraud and goon squad with their own thugs and goons. Instead of nice middle class guys like say, Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee, you’ll have your own, angry, White Middle-Working class guys who are the only ones discriminated against, heading their own thugs (probably drawn from organizations like the Hells Angels, just as Obama’s thugs come from the Nation of Islam).
That’s how it works. Keep bringing a gun to civic meeting, and eventually they turn into shoot-outs. Since other people can get guns too.
Dems wanted to thug it up, and they succeeded. Killing about 200 years of Democracy.
The silence is deafening A.L.
Ever feel like Wile E Coyote? As long as you don’t look down you stay in the air? I’ve come to the conclusion that’s how our voting system works. What we can’t afford to be is introspective. And so we aren’t.
Let me go back and annoyingly keep asking the same question – if there was this kind of fraud, how would we know?
We wouldn’t.
In California, I’m really only allowed to ID first-time voters. Other voters, when they show up, they don’t get asked for ID unless someone challenges them.
And if they had falsified ID, how would I know, as a precinct worker?
You *might* be able to catch it through post-voting queries, but even then, it’s not clear; the same thing that would allow you to register at a fake address would allow you to register with a fake phone number.
Wanna know why there are no audits, studies, and investigations that might tell us if we have a problem?
We have “perfect examples”:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aAYOYsAX8sQs&refer=home happening right now.
_”Republican voter-fraud accusations “seek both to suppress the vote and to unduly influence investigations and prosecutions,” wrote Robert Bauer, general counsel for the Democratic presidential nominee. He made the statement in a letter to Mukasey and special prosecutor Nora Dannehy, who is looking into the nine U.S. attorney firings in 2006.”_
Any attempt to make sure voters are eligible or fight fraud is met with these charges instantly.
I guess $800,000 buys a lot of registration fraud. One would hope that Obama would have some integrity, enough to at least criticize ACORN for what it’s apparently doing in his name. But instead he’s sending out a surrogate to trash anyone who dares point the finger or has the temerity to investigate.
But Diebold is a big problem. Glad we got that straight.
Here’s fraud. (link)
bq. _”Today, news out of New Mexico, the state GOP looked at information for 92 newly-registered voters in one district, and found 28 had “missing or inaccurate Social Security numbers or birth dates. In some cases, more than one voter was registered using the same Social Security number. In others, people who the Republicans said had no Social Security number on public record were registered.” All of these are of individuals who have already cast ballots in the June New Mexico state legislative Democratic primary.”_
I pointed to this post in a recent post on my blog in response to a query from Brendan Loy.
I think it could be detected retroactively determining that were not, in fact, Brad Friedman and that your SSN doesn’t match. But that requires scouring the database in ways that I believe were just ruled out of bounds in Ohio (IANAL, so I’m probably misunderstanding the case).
But as Mark Buehner at #8 pointed out, your mechanism isn’t the most likely one. I belabor the obvious in my post:
I come late to the party, but that hasn’t ever stopped me before. So many good points above.
The Electoral College is a good thing for several reasons
#1 – it requires that a candidate have a broad base of support among many areas of the country, not just in large metro areas with lots of votes, but also in many states.
#2 – it manufactures a larger mandate by giving the winning candidate in each state those extra 2 votes for senators – we more often talk about how many states then how many popular votes the winner has (and if you want to talk about W, I want to talk about Clinton who only had a plurality the first time out – thanks Ross.)
#3 – it means we have 50 state elections, and that means it is harder to corrupt the entire process.
Now, to AL’s question – is voting registration fraud a problem?
Yes.
I know data is not the plural of anecdote, but…
#1. I still recall when we had tax override elections in California (before Prop 13) – our school board at the time did one and it passed by 12 votes (in a city of 150,000+). One vote does count in that kind of situation.
#2 When at Cal I used to work the voter tables on election day as a Judge. With that many students someone was always doing voter registration drives and students moved almost every quarter. That meant that students could very easily end up registered at multiple locations. I still recall when several people I know and who were active in political causes (weren’t we all – the difference with Cal is that being politically active meant going to a demonstration, at Davis it meant you worked for the Speaker, but I digress). In my heart I knew then and I know now that they had been going around to where ever they had been registered in the past and voting as often as they could get away with. To my shame I did not insist they use a provisional ballot. I was young and foolish, what else can I say.
Yes,m this was before the new laws, but as we have seen, as implemented in California, that only means I have to produce my gym card and then only the first time I ever vote in that county. If I don’t tell them about my earlier registration when I fill out the new card, they won’t delete my old registration.
The lesson from this (and the other comments above) – is that yes, this can be a problem.
Having lots of suspected fraudulent registrations undermines the legitimacy of the system (i.e., creates as much distrust) almost as much as having a lot of suspected fraudulent votes.
I personally think we should have the same requirements for voter registration as we have for gun ownership – the second is at least _expressly_ in the Bill of Rights. The Constitution sets no objective limits on voter registration and qualifications (yes, I know about Art I, Secs. 2 and 4. – but that relates to Congress; the President is elected by the Electors, and the states have the power to decide how they are selected – Art. II, Sec. 1).
The State GOP of New Mexico conducts a search for voter fraud.
Now that’s an unbiased source! I’d like to know how this search was conducted. How, for example, was it known which was the correct birth date? Was it just assumed that the voter registration form was wrong? If you re-click that link, you’ll see that it is updated. The GOP’s “evidence” (I use the word loosely) included a “fraudulent” ballot cast by “Duran Duran”, which they assumed was a fake name. Turns out, there is a Duran Duran right in the Albuquerque phone book. Real hard to find. The GOP clown show didn’t bother to check, but then, accuracy is not the issue here. The issue is to show how we were winning at the front until the Jews hiding in Berlin stabbed us in the back. Oh, sorry, wrong why-we-lost conspiracy theory. The intention is to delegitimate the upcoming Obama Administration, and if they are very lucky to thwart voter registration and participation drives enough to salvage the election, which appears, I am glad to say, unlikely.
As to how we would know if fraud occurred: first, voters who use the names of dead people or people who are known to have moved away can be caught by signature checks. Even if the criminal could not be identified, we would at least have a handle on the scope of ballot fraud. Second, voters are required to have a street address. I realize that street address can be a little shaky here; homeless people in California are allowed to use the corner where they usually sleep. But, really, what happened to the precinct captain system? As long as you can have one volunteer who knows the people in the neighborhood, you can at least get an idea of who voted (public record) and compare it to who your neighbors are. There’s one Republican family on our block. They could do this for their party, if it were really necessary and not just so much hooey. Oh, and if their own moved-away twentysomething son weren’t still, himself, on the rolls—which I am sure is more likely to be a failure of his previous registration to be cancelled when he re-registered elsewhere. This would not compile a list of who was casting the fake votes, but if the problem were really so widespread—you’ll note that the potential mismatches in Ohio have now automagically morphed into surely fraudulent votes in the work of our neo-Nazi commenter above—you’d find some traces somewhere. (And this doesn’t even begin to mention how amazingly successful the conspiracy of silence has been: even at a time that Mafia guys rat each other out, the tens of thousands of Democratic multi-voters have stayed perfectly underground.)
These Ivy-League illuminati back all these new gadets with voting. I say we take things back to how they were in the old days. That way socialist aren’t in the position to steal votes!
Blatant pro-GOP registration fraud by nationwide group paying by the signature. No, this is not a joke link.
Projection, isn’t that the word?
AJL #65 —
Interesting link, but… signal to noise, again. That LA Times story doesn’t indicate what most readers of this thread would understand “Blatant pro-GOP registration fraud” to mean. Other folks should click on the link and judge for themselves.
Assuming the reporting is straight (not something to do casually with an anti-Rep or pro-Dem story in the LA Times), this is the most relevant part —
bq. Some [of these voters] also report having their registration status changed to absentee without their permission; if they show up at the polls without a ballot they may be unable to vote.
How many is “some”? The article doesn’t say.
We’ll see if the straightforward, obvious interpretation of this account holds up, as it gains attention over the next couple of days.
#65. What do you expect. You’re trying to establish the principle that voter registration fraud doesn’t matter and shouldn’t be investigated, what makes you think it won’t become a bipartisan sport?
And if, as you clearly believe, Republicans are more unethical than Democrats, it stands to reason that they will be more willing (and therefore likely to be more effective) at exploiting the fraud.
I still can’t wrap my head around the argument that voter registration fraud doesn’t matter and shouldn’t be investigated. Just because you believe the fraud will benefit you this election cycle doesn’t mean it will remain that way into perpetuity.
#63 – Godwin’s Law.
RE: #23. With all due respect, it will not be the average Democrat who objects to extreme vote fraud, or extreme Left Wing positions being imposed thereby. They will consider themselves the beneficiary, because they will have “won”. It will be whatever remains of the Conservative movement, in or out of the Republican Party, along with the unaffiliated; who will decide that the system is irremediably broken. The problem with pushing the system to that point is that politics is by definition a way of settling things non-violently. IF the game is perceived to be rigged, why play by the rules? Since Democrats LIKE having thugs attack anyone who does not agree with them, LIKE molotov cocktails being used on Republicans’ homes, LIKE computer hacking and fraud against anyone who opposes them, LIKE vandalism against Republicans as the norm; it is not likely that the ultimate response is going to stay non-violent. At that point, electoral politics becomes moot. Before that point, the Constitution will have already become moot, and the traditional way of settling political conflicts will return. That is where we are going when we can no longer trust in the validity of the election process. And right now, I’m operating on the assumption that a sizable fraction of the votes cast for Democrats are not valid. They have spent too much time and effort making it obviously so.
Re: #68 & #63: oh those naughty neo-Nazis. – Godwin’s Law.
#54 from whiskey:
bq. _”I am going to tell you, that the vote is dead. Free elections are dead. Killed by Democrats, through ACORN and Obama’s fraud machine.”_
That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange æons even death may die.
#70: Here’s to the prospect of those unbekannte Aeonen passing quickly while the vote sleeps, dreaming its strange dreams… Perhaps they will only seem like a few decades to it.
I’d like to throw in another point here, and it doesn’t just apply to the USA.
One argument against a secure voting system is that it would unfairly discriminate against those who aren’t good at filling in forms and following procedure. The key word here may well be “unfairly”. If someone isn’t capable of filling in a few forms, then how the heck is he going to be capable of understanding the issues about which he is supposed to be voting?
Thus, somewhat complex voting security procedures are a form of voting qualification by the back door; and that’s fine by me. I have always been in favour of voter qualification – perhaps a literacy requirement. Perhaps a Heinleinesque one.
#70, when last seen here whiskey was singing the praises of the extreme-fringe British National Party. Neo-Nazi is an accurate description of the BNP, and by extension, to its supporters.
_”first, voters who use the names of dead people or people who are known to have moved away can be caught by signature checks.”_
Caught by whom? The partisan election judges at the polling place? Or after the election? Who is investigating? Where are the signature experts the FBI had to call in to Chicago in the 80s? Signatures are quite subjective things. Whats the mechanism and when does it take place and by whom?
_” Second, voters are required to have a street address. I realize that street address can be a little shaky here; homeless people in California are allowed to use the corner where they usually sleep. But, really, what happened to the precinct captain system? As long as you can have one volunteer who knows the people in the neighborhood, you can at least get an idea of who voted (public record) and compare it to who your neighbors are.”_
Thats ridiculous. I don’t think i know a single one of my neighbors by name and maybe a handful by sight. Thats great in Mayberry but in 2008 people just dont know their neighbors anymore. And again, you are assuming the partisan election workers have some incentive to challenge votes.
_”There’s one Republican family on our block. They could do this for their party, if it were really necessary and not just so much hooey.”_
Thanks for volunteering them. I’m sure being the one republican family in some 99.999% democratic districts like Obama’s in Chicago would be a great opportunity to earn the ire of your neighbors by challenging votes. Assuming you could do it, which you can’t (see my notes on Illinois law above).
Again- NO VOTES can be challenged in Illinois without a majority of judges, and the judges are 3:2 partisan operatives. We’ve seen how this works in Florida.
I find it quite ironic, and also sad, that my neighborhood in Berzerkeley is more like Mayberry than whatever corner of Real America Mark posts from. Why, we even have a phone tree for natural disasters.
One: I would be in complete agreement with a law to require random audit of signatures. I understand that these records are available, at least in some states, for third-party audits.
Two: Pity that there aren’t any Republicans left in those Obama districts, although in fact his particular district must have a number of libertarians from the U of C economics faculty. If only the GOP woman’s club didn’t put Obama’s face on a fake food stamp, along with fried chicken, ribs, and watermelon, they might not have this problem.
Three: As I read Section 17-9, challenged voters are required to present ID to the election judges or to vote provisional ballots. IANAL.
_”Why, we even have a phone tree for natural disasters.”_
Good for you. Living in such an insolutated, monocultural, elite commutity has its privaledges.
_”I would be in complete agreement with a law to require random audit of signatures.”_
Excellent. Who conducts them?
_”Pity that there aren’t any Republicans left in those Obama districts, although in fact his particular district must have a number of libertarians from the U of C economics faculty.”_
Those that havent been run out ala Dan Dezner. And i think you are mistaking districts, or maybe i wasnt clear. The UIC, Bill Ayers, big money district, and the Reverand Wright, working class districts are not to be confused.
_”As I read Section 17-9, challenged voters are required to present ID to the election judges or to vote provisional ballots.”_
Ah, ‘challenged’ being the relevant term. By Illinois law, only active voters, election judges, and poll watchers (as well as security etc) are allowed by law in the polling place.
According to the “Illinois Election Poll Guide”:http://www.elections.state.il.us/Downloads/ElectionInformation/PDF/pollguide.pdf
_”By majority decision, the judges have the sole power to allow or disallow a challenge to a voter, to cause removal of unauthorized pollwatchers and to limit the number of pollwatchers in the polling place.”_
I’m a little late to the discussion here, but vote fraud can happen much more easily than this discussion assumes. I have 100% confidence that I could vote four times (once in each precinct of my town) armed with nothing more than my high school yearbook and the phone book. At the polling place, you simply state your name, then a poll worker finds your name on a list, then reads your address and asks you if it is correct. “Yes” is the answer, of course. And then you get a ballot.
I really have no idea what prevents someone from claiming to be me, and voting in my name before I have a chance to get to the polls. Or what would prevent me from voting in the name of people I can safely assume to be non-voters.
Frankly, it blows my mind that there aren’t more safeguards in place and the arguments against safeguards such as an ID check–and the fact that anyone would even WANT to argue against such safeguards–leave me speechless.