{"id":1926,"date":"2008-10-16T19:44:17","date_gmt":"2008-10-16T19:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2008-10-16T21:14:20","modified_gmt":"2008-10-16T21:14:20","slug":"voting_fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=1926","title":{"rendered":"Voting Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Blue’s post below<\/a> motivated me to get off my rear and do a post on voting.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

So let me start with some framing comments and thoughts.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Looking at the Los Angeles County Registrar’s site supports Brad’s position:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong><\/font>Is identification required to register?<\/strong> …top<\/a><\/p>\n

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.
\nOtherwise… <\/em><\/p>\n