Possible fraud in the US Election system

On October 31 2012 08:53 nennx wrote:
As far as I know its only certain voting machines in certain states, but yeah, it could effect the elections.

On October 31 2012 09:04 Imzoo wrote:
Hey Bush have been elected twice.But he didn't win because of machine ...

On October 31 2012 08:36 Lmui wrote:
Secondary confirmation of the statistical anomaly I posted earlier. It did seem pretty impossible at the time and some people, BluePanther especially tried to refute it but didn't have a concrete reason. This article elaborates further and suggests that it has occured starting only in 2008, only for republican candidates and is only ever in favour of republican candidates.

On October 31 2012 10:15 Denzil wrote:
that really astounds me, how comes theres not a bigger shitstorm about this?

On October 31 2012 09:17 Fyrewolf wrote:


Highly Debatable. There were similar issues with electronic voting machines during his first election.

On October 31 2012 10:15 Denzil wrote:
that really astounds me, how comes theres not a bigger shitstorm about this?

On October 31 2012 10:15 Denzil wrote:
that really astounds me, how comes theres not a bigger shitstorm about this?

On October 31 2012 10:20 Sermokala wrote:


Democrats don't want to give the republicans ammo to pass though voter ID. With the republicans doing this they literaly show why there should be voter id for a vote.

Its literaly a win win situation for them. By hook or crook reps get an advantage of votes. Classic electioneering.

On October 31 2012 10:22 heliusx wrote:


How would a ID change what the op claims?

On October 31 2012 10:24 Mr. Nefarious wrote:
You guys are believing garbage with no citations. I have a degree in Political Science from a major University and pretty much all worthwhile studies with credible, non-partisan funding have found there is basically no truth to this. The cases of this happening have been extremely minimal as well as extremely rare. With all the money and interest in politics these days it's pretty much impossible to get away with. Both sides have their fingers on the trigger waiting to bring down a shit storm on the other party at the first wiff of foul play. This voting fraud non-sense has as much credibility as the people that believe the earth is flat.

On October 31 2012 10:21 SgtCoDFish wrote:


Because this is more than likely conspiracy theorist horseshit with no basis in reality. If it actually IS true, (smart) people will notice and a shitstorm will promptly ensue.

I'd argue that most non-US countries in the developed world would probably prefer to see an Obama victory (not basing that on any research, but it certainly seems that way), so if there's shenanigans their media will absolutely hop on it and rip the shit out of the US. Plus the left-leaning/Democrat media in the US itself.

4 random websites does not constitute proof of electoral fraud. Let's wait and see what reputable newspapers/websites have to say.

EDIT: More than likely they will have nothing to say because this is utter tripe.

On October 31 2012 10:22 heliusx wrote:


How would a ID change what the op claims?

On October 31 2012 10:27 Complete wrote:
The graphs in that report don't make any sense.

lol.

On October 31 2012 10:29 Simberto wrote:


I very much hope that they don't want to link registered votes to that ID. That would be insane. There is a reason why all democratic countries have secret voting.

Requiring an ID to vote is not really a problem, but apparently americans don't like it. It's not like it is that big of a deal either way, and it especially does not have anything to do with this as far as i can tell.

On October 31 2012 10:29 Simberto wrote:


I very much hope that they don't want to link registered votes to that ID. That would be insane. There is a reason why all democratic countries have secret voting.

Requiring an ID to vote is not really a problem, but apparently americans don't like it. It's not like it is that big of a deal either way, and it especially does not have anything to do with this as far as i can tell.

usually the requiring an ID thing would be fine, but often it's bundled with "copy of birth certificate, and 2 forms of Government issued picture ID".

because passports, drivers licenses, and Govt IDs all require money and require you to go out of your way in some manner to acquire them, as well as requiring the birth certificate it disenfranchises many voters with a bias toward disenfranchising, the poor, the young, and those who live in large cities (no need to drive there oftentimes), and those groups all tend to vote rather democratically.

On October 31 2012 10:36 MstrJinbo wrote:


I live in a state with a ID voting law. Nobody records who you vote for. You just show your ID to the poll volunteers and they check your name off a list so no one else can vote under your name.



wait. what state do you live in that requires that?

On October 31 2012 10:22 heliusx wrote:


How would a ID change what the op claims?

On October 31 2012 10:37 Sermokala wrote:
Er I'll just defer to what prince said a few posts up.

On October 31 2012 10:41 Craton wrote:

It wouldn't.

At all.

The lack of a "shitstorm" probably is because none of the links are reputable sources.

On October 31 2012 10:50 Perscienter wrote:
The American approach to voting machines is so naive. How do you want to ensure the secrecy of the vote?

On October 31 2012 10:26 Sermokala wrote:


It would be a lot harder to rig votes if they required every person to have an ID to vote. People would be able to check off who voted and when in the election records.

On October 31 2012 10:56 Adron wrote:
In Holland we voted the good old way, by pencil, the last time because of the concerns that voter anonymity is not 100% secure, and hacking the voting machines has been proven to be a cinch.

Personally, i prefer the pencil, since it somehow conveys more meaning to my vote. But thats just some psychological stuff.

On October 31 2012 11:06 TheTenthDoc wrote:


They do this without IDs...

On October 31 2012 11:09 Probe1 wrote:
This has been brought up every (election) year since the inception of electronic voting machines. Widespread fraud is yet to be conclusively proven despite many investigations.

BluePanther sufficiently destroyed the credibility of the few conspiracy websites linked. BluePanther 1 Crappy links 0.

On October 31 2012 10:41 heliusx wrote:

Yeah but your first post implied republicans get away with supposed voter fraud because of no ID. I still don't understand how a voter ID would prevent a computer program from "flipping" 10% of the votes as this op suggests. There is no way in hell an ID would ever be linked to how you vote.

On October 31 2012 11:20 Sinensis wrote:


It has been proven that electronic voting fraud is (1) easy (2) not traceable. Voting machines don't use encrypted data and the software they use is publicly available. Electronic voting machines used extensively in previous elections have been recalled before for being extremely vulnerable.

But you're right it's never been "proven" on a widespread scale.

On October 31 2012 10:17 BluePanther wrote:
WHY THIS IS FALSE (with proof)

I posted this in the other thread, but I'll copy it over here since you couldn't keep this contained in the relevant thread:

Please remember that I do volunteer election work (legal) on partisan elections for some Republicans in the State of Wisconsin, which was one of the states accused of cheating in that report.



You're asking me to disprove something that didn't happen. It is hard to do that. I also believe when you throw around these kinds of accusations, it's YOUR job to PROVE that it happened. And correlations are not PROOF. Like I said, the author of that study noted that in Wisconsin, we've had that same trend. But I pointed out that we use paper ballots, and that the machines only count. When there is a recount, they count the paper ballots. Just recently we had a huge election scandal. A Democrat won the election for a spot on our Supreme Court. A clerk in a large (and very Republican) Milwaukee suburb failed to submit a large group of votes until the day after the election which swung the results in favor of the Republican candidate for Supreme Court. Obviously, hell was raised and a recount commenced to verify the results.

See: http://waukesha.patch.com/articles/latest-report-to-gab-shows-waukesha-county-recount-628-completed
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/122443704.html

They used a partial hand recount in this Supreme Court election (which was hugely partisan) where the Republican won by a miniscule amount. He still won after the recount. About 1/3 of the counties in the state were required to recount the ballots BY HAND. There was no suggestion of wildly varying vote totals nearing the 10% your conspiracy theorist alleges. The mistakes were well within reasonable changes to the total, and nobody accused anyone of stealing the election.

Here are the historical counts as this whole debacle unfolded so you can see these changes from a machine count to a hand count:
http://gab.wi.gov/elections-voting/results/2011/spring

You are chasing a ghost. Our machines are not rigged. And this is proof (at least in a single example). Where is YOUR proof?

On October 31 2012 11:20 Sinensis wrote:


It has been proven that electronic voting fraud is (1) easy (2) not traceable. Voting machines don't use encrypted data and the software they use is publicly available. Electronic voting machines used extensively in previous elections have been recalled before for being extremely vulnerable.

But you're right it's never been "proven" on a widespread scale.

On October 31 2012 11:47 Lmui wrote:


I've tried to phrase the title as neutrally as possible. Wisconsin is one of the states that had the lowest variation, it's entirely possible for it to be up to statistical error there. Here's a reddit link to a pure stats standpoint. The numbers in the two pdfs I posted are correct, the only thing to discuss is whether or not they agree or warrant an investigation and whether or not the conclusions within the pdfs are correct.

http://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/123pt7/would_rstatistics_care_to_critique_the/

researching it a bit more

/r/statistics point of view. I highly recommend that you read through it. It has points both for and against the possibility of fraud. The top comments say that it is definitely anomalous but without further information on correlations between precinct size and urban/rurality among other things, it's difficult to say for certain.

Rather interesting link in there as well

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Connell

I think that it does warrant investigating, at the very least to disprove the paper.

On October 31 2012 10:17 blinken wrote:


I think Americans stopped caring what their rulers did long ago.

On October 31 2012 11:47 Lmui wrote:

I barely got any reaction in the general election thread. Half a dozen posts from one person was all I got. It has been frontpaged on reddit a few times which is why it's so interesting to me.

On October 31 2012 11:48 Probe1 wrote:

Dude I don't know how this isn't like, on Reuters! Unless it's not "real".

Seriously, don't believe every sensationalist muck of a website you see. You've been had.

On October 31 2012 11:55 BluePanther wrote:


Reddit is mostly teenagers who have no clue how the real world works. They are also extremely liberal and are dying for any bit they can dig up on those sleazy rich republicans who scam elections. Of course a sensationalist conclusion backed by a report that has an appearance of legitimacy would be well received by them.

But then again these are the same tards who championed KONY 2012.

On October 31 2012 11:58 Probe1 wrote:
Look, maybe you should research something on your own instead of letting others (in this case reddit) do it for you before plopping a whopper on us.

On October 31 2012 12:01 Lmui wrote:


The areas on TL I visit are the general election thread and league of legends. Pretty much the same on reddit (frontpage + /r/leagueoflegends) Although reddit I'd admit isn't altogether reliable, reading the first hundred comments and the most controversial comments gives a good idea of what the facts behind something is. For example, top comments in the /r/politics is generally republican bashing/obama praising but if you go down a bit (sometimes a lot) you find gems for the other side as well. That's how I found the /r/statistics link that gave other rationale behind the trend. I have taken the liberty of linking your rebuttal at the top of the OP.

On October 31 2012 12:10 Skirmjan wrote:
this thing reminds me of an old simpsons video (2008)
+ Show Spoiler +

do you guys really use vendi.. err voting machinges like that? (i googled "USA presidential election voting machine")
that doesn't sound really safe, also sounds kinda unnecessary, really...

here, there were lots of concerns about electronic data report, which can be double checked tho, and such a machine would raise a shitstorm

Why have they been adopted in the first place? Economic reasons?

On October 31 2012 14:44 Ryalnos wrote:
Why the hell do people assume that the Democratic party with its vast resources and numerous, intelligent personnel who care a whole lot more than you do would not have noticed and prosecuted such fraud?

The Democratic party is not a power underdog here.

Seriously, it's like you guys assume the Republicans are some shady evil dudes and the Democrats are the innocent, naive good guys. What the heck - other than their political platforms they operate the same way.

Why are we even giving this the time of day? It's like that idiotic thread about a '$ 43 trillion fraud' that turned out to be some whiners complaining about the bailouts.

On October 31 2012 17:10 plated.rawr wrote:
Wether there is fraud going on through abuse of your voting system or not, this shouldn't be a partisan issue for any side - ensuring the voting system has as little leeway as possible for fraudulent activities should be priority for ANY political party.

That the voting machines might be easilly rigged is a flaw which both current parties should be working to have changed, since even if there's no fraud going on, the possibility is still there, and therefore should be eliminated. Same thing with how the US allows voting without ID - if you cannot guarantee a person's identity, you cannot guarantee that the person doesn't move from area to area, voting for his friends, family and colleagues who might be too lazy to vote, or who haven't had a chance yet, and thus skew both the voter percentages, and the outcomes, as well as giving one person far greater (of course, still insignificant, but still greater) say in the outcome of the vote.

Also, why the hostility against international monitoring of the voting system? This is regular procedure in (most?) european countries at least, and is a display of mutual trust rather than an implication of expected foul play. Also, it adds legitimacy to the vote to the international community. Would not greater security and greater legitimacy be a win for any party involvted?

I dunno. Having worked with norwegian voting system the last decade, the descriptions of the american system baffles me. It seems very easilly exploitable, and hard to trace. I would not trust such a system.

On November 01 2012 03:29 CptBeefheart wrote:
Loled because our votes don't count for shit except to make the canidates feel liked. Electoral college decides who is pres.

On October 31 2012 12:14 Sinensis wrote:


I've never been to reddit. All the research I've done on voting machines has been school related.

On November 01 2012 04:05 Acritter wrote:
There are well-documented cases from this year already of Democratic voter registration forms being destroyed. This is not something unexpected from the party of cheating.

On November 01 2012 04:42 Sanctimonius wrote:
It's not the first example of Republican vote-rigging allegations this election, and frankly it annoys me that it isn't more over the news. Any instances of suspected rigging should be investigated fully. Mind you I don't expect that, since Bush was able to 'win' and everyone just kinda forgot that in reality Gore did.

On November 01 2012 04:39 Grumbels wrote:
The republican party is trying to manipulate the outcome of the election by scaring away voters and such already. I wouldn't put it past them to try and rig the voting machines also, but it's unlikely. This thread certainly hasn't convinced me.

On November 01 2012 04:53 BluePanther wrote:


It's funny, because if you replaced "republican" with "democrat", this statement would actually be true.

On November 01 2012 04:53 BluePanther wrote:


It's funny, because if you replaced "republican" with "democrat", this statement would actually be true.

On November 01 2012 04:58 Grumbels wrote:

You should get out of the FOX-News bubble or whatever you're into.

On November 01 2012 04:44 DeepElemBlues wrote:


How did Gore really win?

It's sad that this old fantasy just won't die. Gore lost Florida. He lost the electoral college. The New York Times and the Miami Herald did their own statewide recount of Florida in 2001 and guess what, Bush won. Get over it already.

On November 01 2012 04:42 Sanctimonius wrote:
It's not the first example of Republican vote-rigging allegations this election, and frankly it annoys me that it isn't more over the news. Any instances of suspected rigging should be investigated fully. Mind you I don't expect that, since Bush was able to 'win' and everyone just kinda forgot that in reality Gore did.

On November 01 2012 04:58 Grumbels wrote:

You should get out of the FOX-News bubble or whatever you're into.

On November 01 2012 05:03 BluePanther wrote:


Maybe you missed the election fraud story out of Florida?

I LOVE IT WHEN FOREIGNERS TELL ME HOW I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT AMERICAN POLITICS. The internet is the only place where someone would say something that stupid.

On November 01 2012 05:00 Sanctimonius wrote:


Am I wrong in thinking that Gore won the popular vote? And that the Supreme Court threw out all of the votes in Florida and handed the Electoral College votes to Bush?

This is, of course, ignoring the fact the Electoral College is an outdated and archaic device which reduces the chance of real democracy in this country.

On November 01 2012 05:06 Grumbels wrote:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/169642/republicans-boast-about-voter-suppression-tampa-ground-shifting

I don't want to get into a petty argument, but republican attempts at voter suppression this election are pretty obvious.

On November 01 2012 05:06 BluePanther wrote:


You're wrong. The Supreme Court told Gore he couldn't cherry-pick which districts he could get a recount in. Gore then conceded. Later studies have shown that Bush would have won a general recount, something that Gore's team likely knew at the time.

Popular vote means nothing. We are a Federation, not a pure democracy. Who wins the popular vote is irrelevant to the presidency, which is something Americans learn in their first civics class.

On November 01 2012 05:08 BluePanther wrote:


None of the quotes in that story are in context. That is such partisan drivel it hurts to read it. The author weaves in his own narrative and then gives snippets to justify his narrative.

On November 01 2012 05:06 BluePanther wrote:


You're wrong. The Supreme Court told Gore he couldn't cherry-pick which districts he could get a recount in. Gore then conceded. Later studies have shown that Bush would have won a general recount, something that Gore's team likely knew at the time.

Popular vote means nothing. We are a Federation, not a pure democracy. Who wins the popular vote is irrelevant to the presidency, which is something Americans learn in their first civics class.

On November 01 2012 05:19 Grumbels wrote:

"Voter ID which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the State of Pennsylvania... Done!"

In what world are you living where republicans aren't trying to discourage certain groups from voting?

On November 01 2012 05:26 BluePanther wrote:



Look, I know you live in a shell where you only ever hear one side of a story. That's great. I do election law in the United States, where I volunteer my time to ensure we have fair elections. I have an intimate knowledge of how we do our elections in my state, and I would never put partisan interests above a fair election.

Believe it or not, we're not one of those countries (as of now), where parties put winning ahead of fairness.

On November 01 2012 05:26 Sanctimonius wrote:


I would suggest that popular vote means an awful lot, since it would suggest that the majority of the country wants one person over the other. Just because you learn about the electoral college in civics class does not make it particularly democratic. It had a purpose a century or two ago, but in todays world all it does is make voting complicated and runs the risk of disenfranchising voters.

Looks like I may have been wrong about Gore winning Florida, but then, maybe not. if people are still arguing about it today it would suggest that the votes were not looked at closely enough at the time and the Courts simply handed it to Bush when they should have been re-checking votes.

On November 01 2012 05:29 BluePanther wrote:


It still is relevant. I'm a Wisconsinite first, an American second. Just like someone would call themselves a German first, and a European second. I don't understand why people on the other side of the lake don't get the fact that we're not some uniform entity. I have very little in common with Americans from the south, even ones that are part of the same political party.

On November 01 2012 05:28 HunterX11 wrote:


Election officials genuinely preventing voter fraud and vote rigging doesn't mean politicians don't attempt voter suppression and things like voter caging. I mean voter caging even leaves a paper trial so you can't deny it exists.

On November 01 2012 05:36 BluePanther wrote:


You call it voter suppression, I call it preventing voter fraud. You call it disenfranchisement, I call it ensuring fairness for those who actually live in that district.

There is a difference between outright voter fraud and challenging tainted votes for the other side. Because both sides do this, it becomes a wash. And if you honestly don't think both sides do this, you are living under a rock. They do. This isn't some "dirty Republican trick." In fact, you might understand the Republican concerns over ballot stuffing given the history of the Democratic Party (Tammany, Tweed, etc.).


Even then, challenged voters still get to cast provisional ballots.

On November 01 2012 05:42 HunterX11 wrote:


Both sides do it, but Republicans benefit more from it. Also, I think challenging votes is perfectly fine, it's challenging voters that I find odious since unlike the latter, it really does result in legitimate voters not voting. Not everyone knows about provisional ballots (including election officials), and deliberately scaring voters for example with billboards threatening them with jail for improper voting is the opposite of what we need which is more awareness of voters' rights.

On November 01 2012 05:36 BluePanther wrote:


You call it voter suppression, I call it preventing voter fraud. You call it disenfranchisement, I call it ensuring fairness for those who actually live in that district.

There is a difference between outright voter fraud and challenging tainted votes for the other side. Because both sides do this, it becomes a wash. And if you honestly don't think both sides do this, you are living under a rock. They do. This isn't some "dirty Republican trick." In fact, you might understand the Republican concerns over ballot stuffing given the history of the Democratic Party (Tammany, Tweed, etc.).


Even then, challenged voters still get to cast provisional ballots.

On November 01 2012 05:45 BluePanther wrote:


The only reason Republicans could possibly benefit more from it is if Democrats were cheating more. That's such a terrible argument I don't even know where to begin with it...


And threatening people with jail is voter intimidation, and it results in a jail sentence... Those things get investigated and prosecuted. Stop living in conspiracy theory world.

On November 01 2012 05:35 leveller wrote:
Especially hilarious considering all the republican effort to suppress voters and make it harder to register and harder to vote... Because of "voter fraud". What a bunch of scumbags.

On November 01 2012 05:46 Grumbels wrote:

It's amazing that someone who does election law would cheer on voting suppression efforts. It's like a doctor cheering on tobacco commercials.

On November 01 2012 05:51 HunterX11 wrote:


No, the reasons Republicans benefit more is because the groups most easily disenfranchised, the poor and minorities, tend to vote Democratic.

This is real life, not some conspiracy



The fact is that voter fraud is vanishingly rare (because of safeguards people like you are a part of) and voter suppression far more common--and the response is to step up anti-fraud measures that increase voter suppression (and don't even do anything substantial against fraud) as a consequence! This is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what one would do if democracy were the goal.

On November 01 2012 05:54 BluePanther wrote:



Or maybe I actually understand how it works on a practical level instead of just making assumptions based on biased media reports that I receive from halfway around the world? You don't see me commenting on the validity of Dutch elections do you? Why? Because I know jack shit about about them.


Certain individuals slapped the tag "voter suppression" onto certain actions that actually create valid elections in the hope that it evokes certain emotional resentment to those actions. It's political persuasion.

On November 01 2012 05:54 BluePanther wrote:



Or maybe I actually understand how it works on a practical level instead of just making assumptions based on biased media reports that I receive from halfway around the world? You don't see me commenting on the validity of Dutch elections do you? Why? Because I know jack shit about about them.


Certain individuals slapped the tag "voter suppression" onto certain actions that actually create valid elections in the hope that it evokes certain emotional resentment to those actions. It's political persuasion.

On November 01 2012 05:57 BluePanther wrote:


I see absolutely nothing wrong with that first billboard, and I don't speak Spanish so I can't comment on that second billboard.

Telling people it's a crime to commit fraud isn't intimidation. That's merely a reminder that they shouldn't scam the election.

On November 01 2012 05:58 HunterX11 wrote:


The tag "voter suppression" is slapped onto certain actions undertaken with the deliberate intent of suppressing voters. That's a bad thing. Sure, it's emotional, but only in the sense that it is emotional to prefer democracy over oligarchy or some other non-democratic system.

On November 01 2012 05:57 BluePanther wrote:


I see absolutely nothing wrong with that first billboard, and I don't speak Spanish so I can't comment on that second billboard.

Telling people it's a crime to commit fraud isn't intimidation. That's merely a reminder that they shouldn't scam the election.

On November 01 2012 05:58 Grumbels wrote:

You realize that you're telling me that "All the media are wrong. Trust me, I have secret information." I'll continue to believe media reports about this.

On November 01 2012 06:02 BluePanther wrote:


But you overlook that it's intent is to suppress only illegal votes. Democrats dislike these rules because they are the overwhelming beneficiary of illegal votes.

On November 01 2012 06:03 Bigtony wrote:


The first billboard is intimidating as it will only serve to scare off people from voting - people who don't know better but are completely innocent will be afraid in case they commit voter fraud 'by accident.' It wont deter people who actually want to commit voter fraud.

The second says 'if you want to vote, you have to show this.' Which is probably a falsehood designed to deter hispanics from voting.

On November 01 2012 06:05 BluePanther wrote:


My point is that there is no partisan relation to that first billboard. For all we know it was posted by a Democrat in a Republican neighborhood. To declare it as "partisan voter suppression" is absolutely ridiculous. If you honestly believe that is voter suppression, I'm not going to bother listening to you anymore. It's so disingenuous.

On November 01 2012 05:57 BluePanther wrote:


I see absolutely nothing wrong with that first billboard, and I don't speak Spanish so I can't comment on that second billboard.

Telling people it's a crime to commit fraud isn't intimidation. That's merely a reminder that they shouldn't scam the election.

On November 01 2012 06:02 BluePanther wrote:


But you overlook that it's intent is to suppress only illegal votes. Democrats dislike these rules because they are the overwhelming beneficiary of illegal votes.

On November 01 2012 06:07 Tewks44 wrote:


I never understood the uproar for making voters have photo IDs. If you're 18 or older you should have a photo ID. If you don't have a photo ID you should get a photo ID. It's a quite simple concept. If you can't legally obtain a photo ID you shouldn't be voting in the first place. There are so many other times where I have to verify my ID, I'm actually kind of surprised the ID verification process has been so slack to begin with.

On November 01 2012 06:06 HunterX11 wrote:
You might not know, but the actual Republicans in power and the people working for them do.

On November 01 2012 06:09 BluePanther wrote:


You mean me?

On November 01 2012 06:06 radiatoren wrote:

That is a bit thin. I would think that it will reduce the number of people voting because it speaks to fear of going to jail.

It is kind of the same as the "there will be no border to Mexico if you vote for x". Sure the partisan strawman is expected to pick up some votes, but its primary role is to intimidate people from voting for x.

Fear about voter fraud is per definition non-partisan, but its effects will clearly be some of the less partisan people will stick to the couch! And that is intimidation, though not of the illegal kind.

On November 01 2012 06:10 HunterX11 wrote:


No, I don't mean you. I mean people working to influence turnout.

On November 01 2012 06:05 BluePanther wrote:



My point is that there is no partisan relation to that first billboard. For all we know it was posted by a Democrat in a Republican neighborhood. To declare it as "partisan voter suppression" is absolutely ridiculous. If you honestly believe that is voter suppression, I'm not going to bother listening to you anymore. It's so disingenuous.



PA has a voter ID law. It's not at all a falsehood. At worst, I would say that they are reminding people to bring their ID's on election day so that they don't get turned away for forgetting.


Neither of these billboards are voter intimidation.

On November 01 2012 06:08 HunterX11 wrote:


The whole point of the voter ID laws is to discourage the people without IDs from voting, most of whom vote Democratic. It's not the government's business to decide who should or shouldn't vote, and requiring identification to register but not at the polls works perfectly fine. Again, suppression is the larger problem, so the solution...more suppression!

On October 31 2012 10:17 blinken wrote:


I think Americans stopped caring what their rulers did long ago.

On November 01 2012 06:12 Bigtony wrote:


You said you didn't see anything wrong with it when the billboard's sole intention is to discourage people who are permitted to vote from doing so by scaring them into thinking they could get arrested or go to jail. That's voter intimidation. If you honestly believe that wasn't its intention, I'm not going to bother listening to you anymore. It's so disingenuous.

On November 01 2012 06:13 bonifaceviii wrote:
There was some random statistic I heard/saw somewhere in the cacaphony of voter-enfranchisement-related media that 11% of eligible voters don't have a valid government-issued photo ID in the states.

I have no idea whether I even heard it correctly or where it came from, but that seems like a fucking crazy number. Someone tell me it's wrong.

On November 01 2012 06:18 lowreezy08 wrote:
who cares, the electoral college votes for the next president, not "the people", which is dumb as fuck.

On November 01 2012 06:10 BluePanther wrote:



I think you misunderstand voter intimidation. You can't honestly say that publicizing "if you vote for x, that's a vote for y" is illegal.

On November 01 2012 06:13 ShatterZer0 wrote:
I blame the electoral college. The all or nothing of votes per state bullshit shouldn't exist. It's like silencing a possible 49% of the population of 25+ million people in a single state!

On November 01 2012 06:12 Bigtony wrote:


You said you didn't see anything wrong with it when the billboard's sole intention is to discourage people who are permitted to vote from doing so by scaring them into thinking they could get arrested or go to jail. That's voter intimidation. It's definitely not strong enough to be illegal, but it's certainly intimidating. If you honestly believe that wasn't its intention, I'm not going to bother listening to you anymore. It's so disingenuous.

On November 01 2012 06:17 farvacola wrote:

Aren't you white, middle class, and in Wisconsin? I only ask because these are the sorts of factors that might work into a possible fear of voter problems.

On November 01 2012 06:12 Bigtony wrote:


You said you didn't see anything wrong with it when the billboard's sole intention is to discourage people who are permitted to vote from doing so by scaring them into thinking they could get arrested or go to jail. That's voter intimidation. It's definitely not strong enough to be illegal, but it's certainly intimidating. If you honestly believe that wasn't its intention, I'm not going to bother listening to you anymore. It's so disingenuous.

On November 01 2012 06:21 farvacola wrote:

Do you think every state has the same ID provision structure, and can you see how pushing for uniform ID requirements would be far less divisive given less proximity to a major election? Also, Pennsylvania's ID law is on hold for this election.

On November 01 2012 06:27 BluePanther wrote:

As for the PA voter ID law -- I don't know enough about that to comment. I just knew they had passed one. Without more information as to when the billboard was posted in regards to the litigation and the judge's order, I can't really comment on that billboard. It could very well have been posted when that law was in effect but before the judge put it on hold.

On October 31 2012 10:17 blinken wrote:


I think Americans stopped caring what their rulers did long ago.

On November 01 2012 06:33 Grumbels wrote:
BluePanther, I'm confused, I can't tell whether you are genuinely naive or whether you're deliberately misrepresenting facts. Surely, even if you yourself are the image of good, the republican lawmakers that promote these measures don't share your concerns, that much is obvious. When just before an election you make a law that will give your party an electoral advantage and then you brag about how now you're going to win the election, when your party has a history of actual voter suppression, - if all of that is a coincidence, it's still bad form by the republicans for not being more mindful of how all of this looks in the public.