In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On June 06 2015 08:22 GreenHorizons wrote: So maybe when the cases we do have are generally a few people faking a few hundred votes at most and the worst consequence was possibly Al Franken winning a seat that he kept without allegations of fraud, are compared to what is being discussed about policing and the justice system where people are being killed, imprisoned, abused, tortured, harassed, their rights violated etc... on the scale of hundreds and thousands and more. Families destroyed, futures lost, innocent people on death row. Government officials trying to illegally import illicit drugs to try to kill prisoners.
Considering the available evidence and known consequences, does it really make sense to be more concerned about voter id than to be concerned about the corruption and abuse throughout the criminal justice system and beyond?
No. But I do think your problem is much more difficult to solve than purging registration lists a few months before every election.
On June 06 2015 08:40 kwizach wrote:
On June 06 2015 07:44 cLutZ wrote: Possibly, but it is also undetectable, and the only evidence we have is that it is 97% effective when attempted.
Uh what? If that kind of voter fraud is virtually nonexistent, which it is, that statement is meaningless. The actual impact of those voter id laws are voter suppression, so their net effect is clearly negative.
You actually don't know its virtually nonexistent because, like I said, its virtually undetectable. Here is the simple procedure: 1. Obtain voter registration list. 2. See which registered voters have not voted in the past 2 elections. 3. Walk in, vote (97% chance you will not be caught, 0% chance you will be prosecuted, according the the only sting operation we know of), walk out. Assuming someone followed that procedure, how would we even know they committed fraud? Whats the mechanism?
You would think then that it would be an issue republicans showed some sign of taking seriously right? Other than Rand Paul I don't think any of them have said anything of substance about those issues, that while difficult to solve, are by all accounts clearly a more important problem.
Is the presumption that purging the list will stop more fraud than it will either by accident or design prevent legitimate voting?
I certainly think so that its an issue any politician should be taking seriously. I think that a ton of establishment Republicans don't really think there are votes to be had, so they expend their pandering in other directions. For instance, Jeb is big on pandering towards Hispanics.
If a Republican got 25, 30, 40% of the Black vote in a statewide campaign running on those positions (some have, none have gotten that), some in the establishment might pick them up, but really the demo is being written off because there seems nothing that maintains core values that appeals to them.
As to the purging, It probably would cause disenfranchisement of legitimate voters if you implemented it quickly and particularly without notice. I think procedures could significantly mitigate that sort of effect. However, an easy middle ground that wouldn't disenfranchise any mildly engaged voters would be simply purging registrants who did not vote in the previous election. Since looking at voters who didn't vote in the previous election and voting for them is (IMO) the most logical way to commit voter fraud, this should be reasonable to most people.
Also, I'm an engaged voter, so I do have a bias against those who are not, which I readily admit.
On June 06 2015 08:22 GreenHorizons wrote: So maybe when the cases we do have are generally a few people faking a few hundred votes at most and the worst consequence was possibly Al Franken winning a seat that he kept without allegations of fraud, are compared to what is being discussed about policing and the justice system where people are being killed, imprisoned, abused, tortured, harassed, their rights violated etc... on the scale of hundreds and thousands and more. Families destroyed, futures lost, innocent people on death row. Government officials trying to illegally import illicit drugs to try to kill prisoners.
Considering the available evidence and known consequences, does it really make sense to be more concerned about voter id than to be concerned about the corruption and abuse throughout the criminal justice system and beyond?
No. But I do think your problem is much more difficult to solve than purging registration lists a few months before every election.
On June 06 2015 08:40 kwizach wrote:
On June 06 2015 07:44 cLutZ wrote: Possibly, but it is also undetectable, and the only evidence we have is that it is 97% effective when attempted.
Uh what? If that kind of voter fraud is virtually nonexistent, which it is, that statement is meaningless. The actual impact of those voter id laws are voter suppression, so their net effect is clearly negative.
You actually don't know its virtually nonexistent because, like I said, its virtually undetectable. Here is the simple procedure: 1. Obtain voter registration list. 2. See which registered voters have not voted in the past 2 elections. 3. Walk in, vote (97% chance you will not be caught, 0% chance you will be prosecuted, according the the only sting operation we know of), walk out. Assuming someone followed that procedure, how would we even know they committed fraud? Whats the mechanism?
Here's a thorough 2007 report on voter fraud in the U.S. - its conclusions? That it's a vastly overstated problem which is virtually non-existent in reality.
This New York Times editorial pretty much nails it on the recent voter id laws passed by Republicans:
Similar laws have been aggressively pushed in many states by Republican lawmakers who say they are preventing voter fraud, promoting electoral “integrity” and increasing voter turnout. None of that is true. There is virtually no in-person voter fraud; the purpose of these laws is to suppress voting.
In Texas, where last week a federal judge struck down what she called the most restrictive voter ID law in the country, there were two convictions for in-person voter impersonation in one 10-year period. During that time, 20 million votes were cast. Nor is there any evidence that these laws encourage more voters to come to the polls. Instead, in at least two states — Kansas and Tennessee — they appear to have reduced turnout by 2 percent to 3 percent, according to a report released last week by the Government Accountability Office.
Voter ID laws, as their supporters know, do only one thing very well: They keep otherwise eligible voters away from the polls. In most cases, this means voters who are poor, often minorities, and who don’t have the necessary documents or the money or time to get photo IDs.
In her remarkable 143-page opinion in the Texas case, Federal District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos found that the law violated both the Equal Protection Clause and the Voting Rights Act, and that by forcing registered voters to track down and pay for qualifying documents, it functioned as an “unconstitutional poll tax.”
Most striking of all, Judge Ramos found that the rapid growth of Texas’s Latino and black population, and the state’s “uncontroverted and shameful history” of discriminatory voting practices — including whites-only primaries, literacy restrictions and actual poll taxes — led to a clear conclusion: Republican lawmakers knew the law would drive down turnout among minority voters, who lean Democratic, and they passed it at least in part for that reason. Judge Ramos’s finding of intentional discrimination is important because it could force Texas back under federal voting supervision, meaning changes to state voting practices would have to be preapproved by the federal government. (Texas appealed the ruling; a federal appeals court is now considering whether to put it on hold until after the election.)
[...]
You actually didn't answer my posed question. Just avoided it by citing a study that wouldn't catch someone who engaged in the acts I previously described.
Also your study contains the following proven falsity based on things I've already posted (we know an entire W.V. election was changed because of a voter registration scheme).
Indeed, we are aware of no recent substantiated case in which registration fraud has resulted in fraudulent votes being cast.
On June 06 2015 08:22 GreenHorizons wrote: So maybe when the cases we do have are generally a few people faking a few hundred votes at most and the worst consequence was possibly Al Franken winning a seat that he kept without allegations of fraud, are compared to what is being discussed about policing and the justice system where people are being killed, imprisoned, abused, tortured, harassed, their rights violated etc... on the scale of hundreds and thousands and more. Families destroyed, futures lost, innocent people on death row. Government officials trying to illegally import illicit drugs to try to kill prisoners.
Considering the available evidence and known consequences, does it really make sense to be more concerned about voter id than to be concerned about the corruption and abuse throughout the criminal justice system and beyond?
No. But I do think your problem is much more difficult to solve than purging registration lists a few months before every election.
On June 06 2015 08:40 kwizach wrote:
On June 06 2015 07:44 cLutZ wrote: Possibly, but it is also undetectable, and the only evidence we have is that it is 97% effective when attempted.
Uh what? If that kind of voter fraud is virtually nonexistent, which it is, that statement is meaningless. The actual impact of those voter id laws are voter suppression, so their net effect is clearly negative.
You actually don't know its virtually nonexistent because, like I said, its virtually undetectable. Here is the simple procedure: 1. Obtain voter registration list. 2. See which registered voters have not voted in the past 2 elections. 3. Walk in, vote (97% chance you will not be caught, 0% chance you will be prosecuted, according the the only sting operation we know of), walk out. Assuming someone followed that procedure, how would we even know they committed fraud? Whats the mechanism?
You would think then that it would be an issue republicans showed some sign of taking seriously right? Other than Rand Paul I don't think any of them have said anything of substance about those issues, that while difficult to solve, are by all accounts clearly a more important problem.
Is the presumption that purging the list will stop more fraud than it will either by accident or design prevent legitimate voting?
I certainly think so that its an issue any politician should be taking seriously. I think that a ton of establishment Republicans don't really think there are votes to be had, so they expend their pandering in other directions. For instance, Jeb is big on pandering towards Hispanics.
If a Republican got 25, 30, 40% of the Black vote in a statewide campaign running on those positions (some have, none have gotten that), some in the establishment might pick them up, but really the demo is being written off because there seems nothing that maintains core values that appeals to them.
As to the purging, It probably would cause disenfranchisement of legitimate voters if you implemented it quickly and particularly without notice. I think procedures could significantly mitigate that sort of effect. However, an easy middle ground that wouldn't disenfranchise any mildly engaged voters would be simply purging registrants who did not vote in the previous election. Since looking at voters who didn't vote in the previous election and voting for them is (IMO) the most logical way to commit voter fraud, this should be reasonable to most people.
Also, I'm an engaged voter, so I do have a bias against those who are not, which I readily admit.
Well then ... I'm not sure if how purging has been done (mostly by republicans) is well known to you?
In Mississippi earlier this year, a local election official discovered that another official had wrongly purged 10,000 voters from her home computer just a week before the presidential primary.
In Muscogee, Georgia this year, a county official purged 700 people from the voter lists, supposedly because they were ineligible to vote due to criminal convictions. The list included people who had never even received a parking ticket.
The infamous Florida purge of the year 2000—conservative estimates place the number of wrongfully purged voters close to 12,000—was generated in part by bad matching criteria.
Purges rely on error-ridden lists. States regularly attempt to purge voter lists of ineligible voters or duplicate registration records, but the lists that states use as the basis for purging are often riddled with errors. For example, some states purge their voter lists based on the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File, a database that even the Social Security Administration admits includes people who are still alive. Even though Hilde Stafford, a Wappingers Falls, NY resident, was still alive and voted, the master death index lists her date of death as June 15, 1997. As another example, when a member of a household files a change of address for herself in the United States Postal Service’s National Change of Address database, it sometimes has the effect of changing the addresses of all members of that household. Voters who are eligible to vote are wrongly stricken from the rolls because of problems with underlying source lists.
Voters are purged secretly and without notice. None of the states investigated in this report statutorily require election officials to provide advance public notice of a systematic purge. Additionally, with the exception of registrants believed to have changed addresses, many states do not notify individual voters before purging them. In large part, states that do provide individualized notice do not provide such notice for all classes of purge candidates. For example, our research revealed that it is rare for states to provide notice when a registrant is believed to be deceased. Without proper notice to affected individuals, an erroneously purged voter will likely not be able to correct the error before Election Day. Without public notice of an impending purge, the public will not be able to detect improper purges or to hold their election officials accountable for more accurate voter list maintenance.
Bad “matching” criteria leaves voters vulnerable to manipulated purges. Many voter purges are conducted with problematic techniques that leave ample room for abuse and manipulation. State statutes rely on the discretion of election officials to identify registrants for removal. Far too often, election officials believe they have “matched” two voters, when they are actually looking at the records of two distinct individuals with similar identifying information. These cases of mistaken identity cause eligible voters to be wrongly removed from the rolls. The infamous Florida purge of 2000—conservative estimates place the number of wrongfully purged voters close to 12,000—was generated in part by bad matching criteria. Florida registrants were purged from the rolls if 80 percent of the letters of their last names were the same as those of persons with criminal convictions. Those wrongly purged included Reverend Willie D. Whiting Jr., who, under the match ing criteria, was considered the same person as Willie J. Whiting. Without specific guidelines for or limitations on the authority of election officials conducting purges, eligible voters are regularly made unnecessarily vulnerable.
Insufficient oversight leaves voters vulnerable to manipulated purges. Insufficient oversight permeates the purge process beyond just the issue of matching. For example, state statutes often rely on the discretion of election officials to identify registrants for removal and to initiate removal procedures. In Washington, the failure to deliver a number of delineated mailings, including precinct reassignment notices, ballot applications, and registration acknowledgment notices, triggers the mailing of address confirmation notices, which then sets in motion the process for removal on account of change of address. Two Washington counties and the Secretary of State, however, reported that address confirmation notices were sent when any mail was returned as undeliverable, not just those delineated in state statute. Since these statutes rarely tend to specify limitations on the authority of election officials to purge registrants, insufficient oversight leaves room for election officials to deviate from what the state law provides and may make voters vulnerable to poor, lax, or irresponsible decision-making.
So far it looks like Republican purging has stopped a lot more legitimate voters than it did fraudulent ones, so if integrity of our voting is what matters, they should of been way more focused on doing legitimate purges than they were on solving a theoretical problem of voter id, right? They/we know their purges are actually causing tangible problems with identifiable victims while they have no such data on voter id.
I totally agree with that sentiment. Which is why it should be done according to a law that specifies how it should be done, not in some sort of ad hoc process. Something like: (Insert exceptions for special elections for all these) A: Six months prior to any general election, the rolls shall be purged of all names. or B. Six months prior to any general election, the rolls shall be purged of all names of register voters who failed to vote in the previous general election.
On June 06 2015 10:13 cLutZ wrote: I totally agree with that sentiment. Which is why it should be done according to a law that specifies how it should be done, not in some sort of ad hoc process. Something like: (Insert exceptions for special elections for all these) A: Six months prior to any general election, the rolls shall be purged of all names. or B. Six months prior to any general election, the rolls shall be purged of all names of register voters who failed to vote in the previous general election.
So then it makes sense why people would be skeptical of the notion that the intentions were to uphold the integrity of voting when such basic preventative measures weren't even considered, let alone applied?
To me it seems either they were too incompetent to see the obvious problems with what they were doing and the party should be scolded, or they were maliciously ignorant in their efforts and the party should be scolded. But what shouldn't happen is trying to pretend that they didn't screw up significantly with their approach and actions regarding voter registration and id laws (as has largely been the case here and otherwise [not saying you specifically]).
What definitely shouldn't have happened/be happening is people celebrating id laws and purges when they were ignorantly done at best, and willfully negligent or outright corrupt at worst.
On June 06 2015 08:22 GreenHorizons wrote: So maybe when the cases we do have are generally a few people faking a few hundred votes at most and the worst consequence was possibly Al Franken winning a seat that he kept without allegations of fraud, are compared to what is being discussed about policing and the justice system where people are being killed, imprisoned, abused, tortured, harassed, their rights violated etc... on the scale of hundreds and thousands and more. Families destroyed, futures lost, innocent people on death row. Government officials trying to illegally import illicit drugs to try to kill prisoners.
Considering the available evidence and known consequences, does it really make sense to be more concerned about voter id than to be concerned about the corruption and abuse throughout the criminal justice system and beyond?
No. But I do think your problem is much more difficult to solve than purging registration lists a few months before every election.
On June 06 2015 08:40 kwizach wrote:
On June 06 2015 07:44 cLutZ wrote: Possibly, but it is also undetectable, and the only evidence we have is that it is 97% effective when attempted.
Uh what? If that kind of voter fraud is virtually nonexistent, which it is, that statement is meaningless. The actual impact of those voter id laws are voter suppression, so their net effect is clearly negative.
You actually don't know its virtually nonexistent because, like I said, its virtually undetectable. Here is the simple procedure: 1. Obtain voter registration list. 2. See which registered voters have not voted in the past 2 elections. 3. Walk in, vote (97% chance you will not be caught, 0% chance you will be prosecuted, according the the only sting operation we know of), walk out. Assuming someone followed that procedure, how would we even know they committed fraud? Whats the mechanism?
Here's a thorough 2007 report on voter fraud in the U.S. - its conclusions? That it's a vastly overstated problem which is virtually non-existent in reality.
This New York Times editorial pretty much nails it on the recent voter id laws passed by Republicans:
The Big Lie Behind Voter ID Laws
[...]
Similar laws have been aggressively pushed in many states by Republican lawmakers who say they are preventing voter fraud, promoting electoral “integrity” and increasing voter turnout. None of that is true. There is virtually no in-person voter fraud; the purpose of these laws is to suppress voting.
In Texas, where last week a federal judge struck down what she called the most restrictive voter ID law in the country, there were two convictions for in-person voter impersonation in one 10-year period. During that time, 20 million votes were cast. Nor is there any evidence that these laws encourage more voters to come to the polls. Instead, in at least two states — Kansas and Tennessee — they appear to have reduced turnout by 2 percent to 3 percent, according to a report released last week by the Government Accountability Office.
Voter ID laws, as their supporters know, do only one thing very well: They keep otherwise eligible voters away from the polls. In most cases, this means voters who are poor, often minorities, and who don’t have the necessary documents or the money or time to get photo IDs.
In her remarkable 143-page opinion in the Texas case, Federal District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos found that the law violated both the Equal Protection Clause and the Voting Rights Act, and that by forcing registered voters to track down and pay for qualifying documents, it functioned as an “unconstitutional poll tax.”
Most striking of all, Judge Ramos found that the rapid growth of Texas’s Latino and black population, and the state’s “uncontroverted and shameful history” of discriminatory voting practices — including whites-only primaries, literacy restrictions and actual poll taxes — led to a clear conclusion: Republican lawmakers knew the law would drive down turnout among minority voters, who lean Democratic, and they passed it at least in part for that reason. Judge Ramos’s finding of intentional discrimination is important because it could force Texas back under federal voting supervision, meaning changes to state voting practices would have to be preapproved by the federal government. (Texas appealed the ruling; a federal appeals court is now considering whether to put it on hold until after the election.)
[...]
You actually didn't answer my posed question. Just avoided it by citing a study that wouldn't catch someone who engaged in the acts I previously described.
Also your study contains the following proven falsity based on things I've already posted (we know an entire W.V. election was changed because of a voter registration scheme).
Indeed, we are aware of no recent substantiated case in which registration fraud has resulted in fraudulent votes being cast.
First, the study is from 2007 and obviously does not cover specific events that happened afterwards. Second, your example was a primary election and the absentee ballot fraud got detected - the report addresses this kind of voter fraud. Please explain to me how the kind of voter id laws addressed in the report would have prevented your case from happening.
With regards to your question, I'm not opposed to asking for an ID as long as the procedure to get one is free and does not require any effort from those that need to receive one. The entire point is that the voter id laws that Republicans are passing have a negative effect on voter turnout, indicating that the procedures they require people to go through do require too much effort for some people. There is no evidence that the kind of voter fraud addressed by these laws is a systemic problem in any way, shape or form (it is, as I said, virtually nonexistent) while voter turnout reductions do happen and on a way more massive scale.
On June 06 2015 08:22 GreenHorizons wrote: So maybe when the cases we do have are generally a few people faking a few hundred votes at most and the worst consequence was possibly Al Franken winning a seat that he kept without allegations of fraud, are compared to what is being discussed about policing and the justice system where people are being killed, imprisoned, abused, tortured, harassed, their rights violated etc... on the scale of hundreds and thousands and more. Families destroyed, futures lost, innocent people on death row. Government officials trying to illegally import illicit drugs to try to kill prisoners.
Considering the available evidence and known consequences, does it really make sense to be more concerned about voter id than to be concerned about the corruption and abuse throughout the criminal justice system and beyond?
No. But I do think your problem is much more difficult to solve than purging registration lists a few months before every election.
On June 06 2015 08:40 kwizach wrote:
On June 06 2015 07:44 cLutZ wrote: Possibly, but it is also undetectable, and the only evidence we have is that it is 97% effective when attempted.
Uh what? If that kind of voter fraud is virtually nonexistent, which it is, that statement is meaningless. The actual impact of those voter id laws are voter suppression, so their net effect is clearly negative.
You actually don't know its virtually nonexistent because, like I said, its virtually undetectable. Here is the simple procedure: 1. Obtain voter registration list. 2. See which registered voters have not voted in the past 2 elections. 3. Walk in, vote (97% chance you will not be caught, 0% chance you will be prosecuted, according the the only sting operation we know of), walk out. Assuming someone followed that procedure, how would we even know they committed fraud? Whats the mechanism?
Here's a thorough 2007 report on voter fraud in the U.S. - its conclusions? That it's a vastly overstated problem which is virtually non-existent in reality.
This New York Times editorial pretty much nails it on the recent voter id laws passed by Republicans:
The Big Lie Behind Voter ID Laws
[...]
Similar laws have been aggressively pushed in many states by Republican lawmakers who say they are preventing voter fraud, promoting electoral “integrity” and increasing voter turnout. None of that is true. There is virtually no in-person voter fraud; the purpose of these laws is to suppress voting.
In Texas, where last week a federal judge struck down what she called the most restrictive voter ID law in the country, there were two convictions for in-person voter impersonation in one 10-year period. During that time, 20 million votes were cast. Nor is there any evidence that these laws encourage more voters to come to the polls. Instead, in at least two states — Kansas and Tennessee — they appear to have reduced turnout by 2 percent to 3 percent, according to a report released last week by the Government Accountability Office.
Voter ID laws, as their supporters know, do only one thing very well: They keep otherwise eligible voters away from the polls. In most cases, this means voters who are poor, often minorities, and who don’t have the necessary documents or the money or time to get photo IDs.
In her remarkable 143-page opinion in the Texas case, Federal District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos found that the law violated both the Equal Protection Clause and the Voting Rights Act, and that by forcing registered voters to track down and pay for qualifying documents, it functioned as an “unconstitutional poll tax.”
Most striking of all, Judge Ramos found that the rapid growth of Texas’s Latino and black population, and the state’s “uncontroverted and shameful history” of discriminatory voting practices — including whites-only primaries, literacy restrictions and actual poll taxes — led to a clear conclusion: Republican lawmakers knew the law would drive down turnout among minority voters, who lean Democratic, and they passed it at least in part for that reason. Judge Ramos’s finding of intentional discrimination is important because it could force Texas back under federal voting supervision, meaning changes to state voting practices would have to be preapproved by the federal government. (Texas appealed the ruling; a federal appeals court is now considering whether to put it on hold until after the election.)
[...]
You actually didn't answer my posed question. Just avoided it by citing a study that wouldn't catch someone who engaged in the acts I previously described.
Also your study contains the following proven falsity based on things I've already posted (we know an entire W.V. election was changed because of a voter registration scheme).
Indeed, we are aware of no recent substantiated case in which registration fraud has resulted in fraudulent votes being cast.
First, the study is from 2007 and obviously does not cover specific events that happened afterwards. Second, your example was a primary election and the absentee ballot fraud got detected - the report addresses this kind of voter fraud. Please explain to me how the kind of voter id laws addressed in the report would have prevented your case from happening.
With regards to your question, I'm not opposed to asking for an ID as long as the procedure to get one is free and does not require any effort from those that need to receive one. The entire point is that the voter id laws that Republicans are passing have a negative effect on voter turnout, indicating that the procedures they require people to go through do require too much effort for some people. There is no evidence that the kind of voter fraud addressed by these laws is a systemic problem in any way, shape or form (it is, as I said, virtually nonexistent) while voter turnout reductions do happen and on a way more massive scale.
It's hard to look just at turnout since Obama brought millions to the polls who otherwise didn't vote. But it is clear that the laws going back to at least 2000 have resulted in 10's of thousands of legitimate voters being unable to vote, probably a lot more.
The more reflective aspect is the 8+ hours some voters had to wait in line and how there was no effort to resolve those types of issues in many of these states so concerned about vote integrity.
On June 06 2015 08:22 GreenHorizons wrote: So maybe when the cases we do have are generally a few people faking a few hundred votes at most and the worst consequence was possibly Al Franken winning a seat that he kept without allegations of fraud, are compared to what is being discussed about policing and the justice system where people are being killed, imprisoned, abused, tortured, harassed, their rights violated etc... on the scale of hundreds and thousands and more. Families destroyed, futures lost, innocent people on death row. Government officials trying to illegally import illicit drugs to try to kill prisoners.
Considering the available evidence and known consequences, does it really make sense to be more concerned about voter id than to be concerned about the corruption and abuse throughout the criminal justice system and beyond?
No. But I do think your problem is much more difficult to solve than purging registration lists a few months before every election.
On June 06 2015 08:40 kwizach wrote:
On June 06 2015 07:44 cLutZ wrote: Possibly, but it is also undetectable, and the only evidence we have is that it is 97% effective when attempted.
Uh what? If that kind of voter fraud is virtually nonexistent, which it is, that statement is meaningless. The actual impact of those voter id laws are voter suppression, so their net effect is clearly negative.
You actually don't know its virtually nonexistent because, like I said, its virtually undetectable. Here is the simple procedure: 1. Obtain voter registration list. 2. See which registered voters have not voted in the past 2 elections. 3. Walk in, vote (97% chance you will not be caught, 0% chance you will be prosecuted, according the the only sting operation we know of), walk out. Assuming someone followed that procedure, how would we even know they committed fraud? Whats the mechanism?
Here's a thorough 2007 report on voter fraud in the U.S. - its conclusions? That it's a vastly overstated problem which is virtually non-existent in reality.
This New York Times editorial pretty much nails it on the recent voter id laws passed by Republicans:
The Big Lie Behind Voter ID Laws
[...]
Similar laws have been aggressively pushed in many states by Republican lawmakers who say they are preventing voter fraud, promoting electoral “integrity” and increasing voter turnout. None of that is true. There is virtually no in-person voter fraud; the purpose of these laws is to suppress voting.
In Texas, where last week a federal judge struck down what she called the most restrictive voter ID law in the country, there were two convictions for in-person voter impersonation in one 10-year period. During that time, 20 million votes were cast. Nor is there any evidence that these laws encourage more voters to come to the polls. Instead, in at least two states — Kansas and Tennessee — they appear to have reduced turnout by 2 percent to 3 percent, according to a report released last week by the Government Accountability Office.
Voter ID laws, as their supporters know, do only one thing very well: They keep otherwise eligible voters away from the polls. In most cases, this means voters who are poor, often minorities, and who don’t have the necessary documents or the money or time to get photo IDs.
In her remarkable 143-page opinion in the Texas case, Federal District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos found that the law violated both the Equal Protection Clause and the Voting Rights Act, and that by forcing registered voters to track down and pay for qualifying documents, it functioned as an “unconstitutional poll tax.”
Most striking of all, Judge Ramos found that the rapid growth of Texas’s Latino and black population, and the state’s “uncontroverted and shameful history” of discriminatory voting practices — including whites-only primaries, literacy restrictions and actual poll taxes — led to a clear conclusion: Republican lawmakers knew the law would drive down turnout among minority voters, who lean Democratic, and they passed it at least in part for that reason. Judge Ramos’s finding of intentional discrimination is important because it could force Texas back under federal voting supervision, meaning changes to state voting practices would have to be preapproved by the federal government. (Texas appealed the ruling; a federal appeals court is now considering whether to put it on hold until after the election.)
[...]
You actually didn't answer my posed question. Just avoided it by citing a study that wouldn't catch someone who engaged in the acts I previously described.
Also your study contains the following proven falsity based on things I've already posted (we know an entire W.V. election was changed because of a voter registration scheme).
Indeed, we are aware of no recent substantiated case in which registration fraud has resulted in fraudulent votes being cast.
First, the study is from 2007 and obviously does not cover specific events that happened afterwards. Second, your example was a primary election and the absentee ballot fraud got detected - the report addresses this kind of voter fraud. Please explain to me how the kind of voter id laws addressed in the report would have prevented your case from happening.
With regards to your question, I'm not opposed to asking for an ID as long as the procedure to get one is free and does not require any effort from those that need to receive one. The entire point is that the voter id laws that Republicans are passing have a negative effect on voter turnout, indicating that the procedures they require people to go through do require too much effort for some people. There is no evidence that the kind of voter fraud addressed by these laws is a systemic problem in any way, shape or form (it is, as I said, virtually nonexistent) while voter turnout reductions do happen and on a way more massive scale.
It's hard to look just at turnout since Obama brought millions to the polls who otherwise didn't vote. But it is clear that the laws going back to at least 2000 have resulted in 10's of thousands of legitimate voters being unable to vote, probably a lot more.
A lot more than that. See the NY times editorial I referred to earlier.
On June 06 2015 08:22 GreenHorizons wrote: So maybe when the cases we do have are generally a few people faking a few hundred votes at most and the worst consequence was possibly Al Franken winning a seat that he kept without allegations of fraud, are compared to what is being discussed about policing and the justice system where people are being killed, imprisoned, abused, tortured, harassed, their rights violated etc... on the scale of hundreds and thousands and more. Families destroyed, futures lost, innocent people on death row. Government officials trying to illegally import illicit drugs to try to kill prisoners.
Considering the available evidence and known consequences, does it really make sense to be more concerned about voter id than to be concerned about the corruption and abuse throughout the criminal justice system and beyond?
No. But I do think your problem is much more difficult to solve than purging registration lists a few months before every election.
On June 06 2015 08:40 kwizach wrote:
On June 06 2015 07:44 cLutZ wrote: Possibly, but it is also undetectable, and the only evidence we have is that it is 97% effective when attempted.
Uh what? If that kind of voter fraud is virtually nonexistent, which it is, that statement is meaningless. The actual impact of those voter id laws are voter suppression, so their net effect is clearly negative.
You actually don't know its virtually nonexistent because, like I said, its virtually undetectable. Here is the simple procedure: 1. Obtain voter registration list. 2. See which registered voters have not voted in the past 2 elections. 3. Walk in, vote (97% chance you will not be caught, 0% chance you will be prosecuted, according the the only sting operation we know of), walk out. Assuming someone followed that procedure, how would we even know they committed fraud? Whats the mechanism?
Here's a thorough 2007 report on voter fraud in the U.S. - its conclusions? That it's a vastly overstated problem which is virtually non-existent in reality.
This New York Times editorial pretty much nails it on the recent voter id laws passed by Republicans:
The Big Lie Behind Voter ID Laws
[...]
Similar laws have been aggressively pushed in many states by Republican lawmakers who say they are preventing voter fraud, promoting electoral “integrity” and increasing voter turnout. None of that is true. There is virtually no in-person voter fraud; the purpose of these laws is to suppress voting.
In Texas, where last week a federal judge struck down what she called the most restrictive voter ID law in the country, there were two convictions for in-person voter impersonation in one 10-year period. During that time, 20 million votes were cast. Nor is there any evidence that these laws encourage more voters to come to the polls. Instead, in at least two states — Kansas and Tennessee — they appear to have reduced turnout by 2 percent to 3 percent, according to a report released last week by the Government Accountability Office.
Voter ID laws, as their supporters know, do only one thing very well: They keep otherwise eligible voters away from the polls. In most cases, this means voters who are poor, often minorities, and who don’t have the necessary documents or the money or time to get photo IDs.
In her remarkable 143-page opinion in the Texas case, Federal District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos found that the law violated both the Equal Protection Clause and the Voting Rights Act, and that by forcing registered voters to track down and pay for qualifying documents, it functioned as an “unconstitutional poll tax.”
Most striking of all, Judge Ramos found that the rapid growth of Texas’s Latino and black population, and the state’s “uncontroverted and shameful history” of discriminatory voting practices — including whites-only primaries, literacy restrictions and actual poll taxes — led to a clear conclusion: Republican lawmakers knew the law would drive down turnout among minority voters, who lean Democratic, and they passed it at least in part for that reason. Judge Ramos’s finding of intentional discrimination is important because it could force Texas back under federal voting supervision, meaning changes to state voting practices would have to be preapproved by the federal government. (Texas appealed the ruling; a federal appeals court is now considering whether to put it on hold until after the election.)
[...]
You actually didn't answer my posed question. Just avoided it by citing a study that wouldn't catch someone who engaged in the acts I previously described.
Also your study contains the following proven falsity based on things I've already posted (we know an entire W.V. election was changed because of a voter registration scheme).
Indeed, we are aware of no recent substantiated case in which registration fraud has resulted in fraudulent votes being cast.
First, the study is from 2007 and obviously does not cover specific events that happened afterwards. Second, your example was a primary election and the absentee ballot fraud got detected - the report addresses this kind of voter fraud. Please explain to me how the kind of voter id laws addressed in the report would have prevented your case from happening.
With regards to your question, I'm not opposed to asking for an ID as long as the procedure to get one is free and does not require any effort from those that need to receive one. The entire point is that the voter id laws that Republicans are passing have a negative effect on voter turnout, indicating that the procedures they require people to go through do require too much effort for some people. There is no evidence that the kind of voter fraud addressed by these laws is a systemic problem in any way, shape or form (it is, as I said, virtually nonexistent) while voter turnout reductions do happen and on a way more massive scale.
It's hard to look just at turnout since Obama brought millions to the polls who otherwise didn't vote. But it is clear that the laws going back to at least 2000 have resulted in 10's of thousands of legitimate voters being unable to vote, probably a lot more.
A lot more than that. See the NY times editorial I referred to earlier.
Oh yeah a lot more than that in general, I was just referring to people who couldn't vote as a result of either ignorant or malicious behavior beyond their control, not merely people who would be blamed by some here for their inability to obtain proper documentation of their identity within an allotted time.
People who had done everything right but had their voting rights yanked out from underneath them by politicians for little/no apparent reason and without the semblance of basic precautions to protect them.
While saying it was for the integrity of the system.
On June 06 2015 10:13 cLutZ wrote: I totally agree with that sentiment. Which is why it should be done according to a law that specifies how it should be done, not in some sort of ad hoc process. Something like: (Insert exceptions for special elections for all these) A: Six months prior to any general election, the rolls shall be purged of all names. or B. Six months prior to any general election, the rolls shall be purged of all names of register voters who failed to vote in the previous general election.
So then it makes sense why people would be skeptical of the notion that the intentions were to uphold the integrity of voting when such basic preventative measures weren't even considered, let alone applied?
To me it seems either they were too incompetent to see the obvious problems with what they were doing and the party should be scolded, or they were maliciously ignorant in their efforts and the party should be scolded. But what shouldn't happen is trying to pretend that they didn't screw up significantly with their approach and actions regarding voter registration and id laws (as has largely been the case here and otherwise [not saying you specifically]).
What definitely shouldn't have happened/be happening is people celebrating id laws and purges when they were ignorantly done at best, and willfully negligent or outright corrupt at worst.
I agree with all of this, in principle. But what you are actually doing is judging Republicans as inherently evil (intentionally suppressing voters) without imputing the same level of evil to Democrats (intentionally making it easier for them to commit voter fraud).
All the other stuff is fine that you other guys brought up. Free IDs for everyone. However, I disagree that voting should be made trivial in effort. Showing a modicum of interest in voting more than a day, week, month, etc before polling day (provided there is notice) is not asking too much.
On June 06 2015 10:13 cLutZ wrote: I totally agree with that sentiment. Which is why it should be done according to a law that specifies how it should be done, not in some sort of ad hoc process. Something like: (Insert exceptions for special elections for all these) A: Six months prior to any general election, the rolls shall be purged of all names. or B. Six months prior to any general election, the rolls shall be purged of all names of register voters who failed to vote in the previous general election.
So then it makes sense why people would be skeptical of the notion that the intentions were to uphold the integrity of voting when such basic preventative measures weren't even considered, let alone applied?
To me it seems either they were too incompetent to see the obvious problems with what they were doing and the party should be scolded, or they were maliciously ignorant in their efforts and the party should be scolded. But what shouldn't happen is trying to pretend that they didn't screw up significantly with their approach and actions regarding voter registration and id laws (as has largely been the case here and otherwise [not saying you specifically]).
What definitely shouldn't have happened/be happening is people celebrating id laws and purges when they were ignorantly done at best, and willfully negligent or outright corrupt at worst.
I agree with all of this, in principle. But what you are actually doing is judging Republicans as inherently evil (intentionally suppressing voters) without imputing the same level of evil to Democrats (intentionally making it easier for them to commit voter fraud).
All the other stuff is fine that you other guys brought up. Free IDs for everyone. However, I disagree that voting should be made trivial in effort. Showing a modicum of interest in voting more than a day, week, month, etc before polling day (provided there is notice) is not asking too much.
I don't think of it as 'evil' I just don't think like that in general. It's just dishonest and ineffective at best.
Well see, a difference is that 'making it easier to commit voter fraud' (AKA increasing participation) has the added benefit of not restricting legitimate voters and increasing democratic engagement.
Whereas voter id laws and restricting voting access and/or purging (as was done) has no discernible benefit for our democracy or elections.
If republicans want to blame the disenfranchising of 10's of thousands and more people as just poor planning and execution that's fine, but then you can't be surprised when people don't trust republicans around such topics. Particularly the republicans who don't think anything significantly bad happened as a result of those actions.
I don't actually mean to single you out GH. I find all your positions eminently reasonable on this subject. Its just a pattern of argument I often see amongst liberals. Like when we had the discussion of Capitalism vs. Democratic decision-making where certain people assume(pretend? argue?) that people are greedy and/or stupid when making market choices, but become benevolent in the voting booth.
On June 06 2015 11:01 cLutZ wrote: I don't actually mean to single you out GH. I find all your positions eminently reasonable on this subject. Its just a pattern of argument I often see amongst liberals. Like when we had the discussion of Capitalism vs. Democratic decision-making where certain people assume(pretend? argue?) that people are greedy and/or stupid when making market choices, but become benevolent in the voting booth.
No problem I found you surprisingly reasonable on this issue too. I'm not sure any conservatives here or elsewhere find themselves positing a similar position as you are. Maybe that's just to much media from me and there are republicans/conservatives here and elsewhere saying more or less what you're saying but I haven't heard/seen them.
Rather than take the angle of "I haven't seen it, so it must not be happening" as some here and elsewhere typically do about other issues I'd just simply ask are there other conservatives/liberals here or elsewhere that would/have come to similar conclusions as cLutZ and I regarding these issues?
Man, when you ask questions like that it's really, super obnoxious.
For the millionth time, I support a long "lead-in" time for ID laws. I am also in favor of making them either free, or using other ID (such as a driver's license). Of course in states where non-citizens (in some cases even illegal immigrants) can have a form of identification, a license either wouldn't work or it would have to be specially marked in some way.
That being said, if you can't find the time to get an ID in the 4+ years in between a law's passage and it's implementation, then I don't really feel sorry for you. Never mind that such a situation is quite rare.
On June 06 2015 11:31 Introvert wrote: Man, when you ask questions like that it's really, super obnoxious.
For the millionth time, I support a long "lead-in" time for ID laws. I am also in favor of making them either free, or using other ID (such as a driver's license). Of course in states where non-citizens (in some cases even illegal immigrants) can have a form of identification, a license either wouldn't work or it would have to be specially marked in some way.
That being said, if you can't find the time to get an ID in the 4+ years in between a law's passage and it's implementation, then I don't really feel sorry for you. Never mind that such a situation is quite rare.
On June 06 2015 11:31 Introvert wrote: Man, when you ask questions like that it's really, super obnoxious.
For the millionth time, I support a long "lead-in" time for ID laws. I am also in favor of making them either free, or using other ID (such as a driver's license). Of course in states where non-citizens (in some cases even illegal immigrants) can have a form of identification, a license either wouldn't work or it would have to be specially marked in some way.
That being said, if you can't find the time to get an ID in the 4+ years in between a law's passage and it's implementation, then I don't really feel sorry for you. Never mind that such a situation is quite rare.
On June 06 2015 11:31 Introvert wrote: Man, when you ask questions like that it's really, super obnoxious.
For the millionth time, I support a long "lead-in" time for ID laws. I am also in favor of making them either free, or using other ID (such as a driver's license). Of course in states where non-citizens (in some cases even illegal immigrants) can have a form of identification, a license either wouldn't work or it would have to be specially marked in some way.
That being said, if you can't find the time to get an ID in the 4+ years in between a law's passage and it's implementation, then I don't really feel sorry for you. Never mind that such a situation is quite rare.
See what I mean cLutZ?
What are you referring to in particular?
The parts of the discussion you are ignoring. I don't really see a reason to discuss it between us based on how you joined the conversation.
If you want to say something about the people who were struck off voter rolls without notification for no legitimate reason for example, then maybe there is something to talk about, if not I don't really see one.
On June 06 2015 11:31 Introvert wrote: Man, when you ask questions like that it's really, super obnoxious.
For the millionth time, I support a long "lead-in" time for ID laws. I am also in favor of making them either free, or using other ID (such as a driver's license). Of course in states where non-citizens (in some cases even illegal immigrants) can have a form of identification, a license either wouldn't work or it would have to be specially marked in some way.
That being said, if you can't find the time to get an ID in the 4+ years in between a law's passage and it's implementation, then I don't really feel sorry for you. Never mind that such a situation is quite rare.
See what I mean cLutZ?
What are you referring to in particular?
The parts of the discussion you are ignoring. I don't really see a reason to discuss it between us based on how you joined the conversation.
If you want to say something about the people who were struck off voter rolls without notification for no legitimate reason for example, then maybe there is something to talk about, if not I don't really see one.
Then maybe you shouldn't continually pose these broad "anyone of X group want to chime in on this" kinds of questions.
I do find it amusing however that you think there are a large people in favor of disenfranchisement. As if it's a question you have to ask.
On June 06 2015 09:41 Simberto wrote: So, is voter fraud the new bogeyman to get people in line? This one is even more ridiculous than terrorism.
Who are these supposed fraudulent voters, that care so much about the result of an education that they are willing to commit a felony to still not change anything at all, but do not care enough about the democratic process to NOT do that? The people who are so bad at statistics and so invested in a cause that they are willing to commit a crime with a definitve negative expected value of the result, who altruistically sacrifice themselves for their cause without any positive result whatsoever?
The reason that there is barely any voter fraud isn't that it is hard to do, which appears to be what clutz is arguing against. There is simply no incentive whatsoever to commit voter fraud, nothing gained for the individual. And even if they exist in non-neglectable amounts, they STILL don't matter unless they for some reason flock to one side of the spectrum.
Do not get me wrong, i find the whole US system of voter registration to be very weird, and am not quite sure i understand how it actually works. It just smells distinctly funny when the "small government" people suddenly want more complicated laws in one specific case, and that just "accidentally" might help them in elections in the future by making people who would vote against them less likely to vote.
The history is generally that the Democrats's political machine is the one that goes across the line into voter fraud. It's probably best known with Chicago in the 60's election, the dead miraculously casting votes and the adage 'vote early, vote often.' In the 2008 election people at ACORN were caught engaging in voter registration fraud, so it's not like this stuff is entirely in the past.
I sincerely doubt that fraud is widespread enough to really shift an election, but I do think there's enough to make it a reasonable discussion topic. I say the same for Citizen's United decision. I don't think that's being used to bribe (as some claim), but it may need to go simply because of appearances.
On June 06 2015 11:31 Introvert wrote: Man, when you ask questions like that it's really, super obnoxious.
For the millionth time, I support a long "lead-in" time for ID laws. I am also in favor of making them either free, or using other ID (such as a driver's license). Of course in states where non-citizens (in some cases even illegal immigrants) can have a form of identification, a license either wouldn't work or it would have to be specially marked in some way.
That being said, if you can't find the time to get an ID in the 4+ years in between a law's passage and it's implementation, then I don't really feel sorry for you. Never mind that such a situation is quite rare.
See what I mean cLutZ?
What are you referring to in particular?
The parts of the discussion you are ignoring. I don't really see a reason to discuss it between us based on how you joined the conversation.
If you want to say something about the people who were struck off voter rolls without notification for no legitimate reason for example, then maybe there is something to talk about, if not I don't really see one.
Then maybe you shouldn't continually pose these broad "anyone of X group want to chime in on this" kinds of questions.
I do find it amusing however that you think there are a large people in favor of disenfranchisement. As if it's a question you have to ask.
The broad question was about whether conservatives came to the same conclusions cLutZ and I did. You left out the core of our discussion.
I wouldn't call it "in favor of disenfranchisement" I would say they are willing to turn a blind eye or divert attention to other aspects rather than admit there was clearly a problem with at minimum how they were going about these restrictions.
As for Citizens United, that's also funny in context of the uproar over the Clinton foundation.
EPT
