Voter Fraud Committee

[zeke4ahs]

Just another week on Trump world, where it is absolutely impossible to keep up with the daily news he makes. Haven't seen discussion here of the Election Fraud Committee that he is setting up. Even though there is no indication of any serious problems, besides scattered incidents, we are going to waste time and money to try to substantiate Trump's baseless claims of millions of illegal voters. And even better , the vice chair of the committee, Kris Kobach, has been sued and lost four times by the ACLU for voter suppression.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

I am thrilled. It is time to have a full investigation and end the charade. Ohio did an investigation and found 82 cases. Great, let's but Adam and Jamie on this commission because I am sure the commission will be mythbusters.

 

[UncleMark]

I am thrilled. It is time to have a full investigation and end the charade. Ohio did an investigation and found 82 cases. Great, let's but Adam and Jamie on this commission because I am sure the commission will be mythbusters.

They'll end up finding a bunch of dead people still registered and a bunch of people like his daughter registered in more that one locality and declare that they've found massive fraud.

 

[RBB89]

They'll end up finding a bunch of dead people still registered and a bunch of people like his daughter registered in more that one locality and declare that they've found massive fraud.

How will they celebrate in the rose garden this time? Hookers and blow? Zima?

 

[tigerchump]

What a waste of time.

 

[wiede]

Just another week on Trump world, where it is absolutely impossible to keep up with the daily news he makes. Haven't seen discussion here of the Election Fraud Committee that he is setting up. Even though there is no indication of any serious problems, besides scattered incidents, we are going to waste time and money to try to substantiate Trump's baseless claims of millions of illegal voters. And even better , the vice chair of the committee, Kris Kobach, has been sued and lost four times by the ACLU for voter suppression.

Mr. Steve Bannon was cleared of this- largely because FL doesn't have a good definition of the concept of domicile.

You know, the guy that was registered in NY state and FL- and he didn't live at the address he provided as an official address for voter registration purposes in FL. The home in the Miami area was vacant.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...r/30/steve-bannon-voter-fraud-charges-florida

There is no doubt that voter fraud happens- but happens very little. So little that it's statiscally insignificant.

The answer is to aggressively punish all forms of voter fraud- not suppress voting. Which is the sole intended purpose of this action by the Trump team. Just look at who he named to lead it.

Just another "red herring" by team Trump to throw people off the ongoing investigations into he and his team. The FBI has some dirt on him, and firing Comey only made them more determined to uncover the rest of it.

To that last point, a little known investigative agency that deals with money laundering/financial crimes (can't remember the acronym) just turned over their investigation results to the Senate committee that's investigating the Russian interference in this election. And released a very interesting statement- one that hints at team Trump colliding with the Russians.

There's a great reason he never released his tax returns folks. I think within the next year or two, we'll know why he didn't release them- because he'll be forced to release them via subpoenas.

 

[crazed_hoosier2]

Just another week on Trump world, where it is absolutely impossible to keep up with the daily news he makes. Haven't seen discussion here of the Election Fraud Committee that he is setting up. Even though there is no indication of any serious problems, besides scattered incidents, we are going to waste time and money to try to substantiate Trump's baseless claims of millions of illegal voters. And even better , the vice chair of the committee, Kris Kobach, has been sued and lost four times by the ACLU for voter suppression.

As I've long said, I don't really know what the extent of voter fraud is in the country. And I don't think anybody else does either.

The whole "there is no indication of any serious problems" doesn't cut it -- it doesn't even come close to cutting it. And there's a very simple reason for this: many jurisdictions have virtually no mechanisms in place to detect voter fraud. As such, it should come as no surprise at all that they've produced little evidence of it happening.

It's akin to a driver of a car without a working speedometer claiming ignorance of his speed upon being pulled over. "Officer, I had no information that I was speeding." And, of course, he'd be technically correct.

In other words, lack of much evidence that something is happening does not prove that it isn't happening. That would only work if there are sound mechanisms in place to spot it -- and, in most places, there aren't. Moreover, I doubt this blue ribbon commission is going to be able to produce much, either -- for the very same reason.

I've come to think that what we need to do is use fingerprints. The technology exists to do that today. Disney World started using it a few years ago to crack down on illicit transfers of unused days on multi-day park tickets. And, from what I understand, it's been quite successful. When you first use your park tickets, they capture your fingerprint. Each successive time somebody attempts to use that ticket, they take a scan -- and they know instantly and definitively if it's the same person who originally used it.

Just start collecting fingerprints as people show up to vote. Associate one print with one registration -- and allow states to Xref against a central, national voter database. If anybody tries to vote twice, vote in two places, or vote in somebody else's place...the ballot goes provisional for further investigation.

Something like that would represent a sound mechanism to guard against voter fraud. And it wouldn't even have to rely on somebody producing an official photo ID.

 

[crazed_hoosier2]

There is no doubt that voter fraud happens- but happens very little. So little that it's statiscally insignificant.

How do you know this?

And, before you answer, read my post above -- and be prepared to say how a relative lack of evidence that X is happening is dispositive that X rarely happens.

We don't have the foggiest clue how often it happens -- because all that most places have in place to detect it are voters' signatures....and a bunch of retired septuagenarians glancing at them. Of course that doesn't create much evidence that it's happening. We shouldn't expect it to.

Now, I'm not saying that anybody can prove that it does happen a lot. That would be just as unsupportable. But until and unless we put sound mechanisms in place to detect it, I'd say we'll never have a very good idea how often it happens.

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

As I've long said, I don't really know what the extent of voter fraud is in the country. And I don't think anybody else does either.

The whole "there is no indication of any serious problems" doesn't cut it -- it doesn't even come close to cutting it. And there's a very simple reason for this: many jurisdictions have virtually no mechanisms in place to detect voter fraud. As such, it should come as no surprise at all that they've produced little evidence of it happening.

It's akin to a driver of a car without a working speedometer claiming ignorance of his speed upon being pulled over. "Officer, I had no information that I was speeding." And, of course, he'd be technically correct.

In other words, lack of much evidence that something is happening does not prove that it isn't happening. That would only work if there are sound mechanisms in place to spot it -- and, in most places, there aren't. Moreover, I doubt this blue ribbon commission is going to be able to produce much, either -- for the very same reason.

I've come to think that what we need to do is use fingerprints. The technology exists to do that today. Disney World started using it a few years ago to crack down on illicit transfers of unused days on multi-day park tickets. And, from what I understand, it's been quite successful. When you first use your park tickets, they capture your fingerprint. Each successive time somebody attempts to use that ticket, they take a scan -- and they know instantly and definitively if it's the same person who originally used it.

Just start collecting fingerprints as people show up to vote. Associate one print with one registration -- and allow states to Xref against a central, national voter database. If anybody tries to vote twice, vote in two places, or vote in somebody else's place...the ballot goes provisional for further investigation.

Something like that would represent a sound mechanism to guard against voter fraud. And it wouldn't even have to rely on somebody producing an official photo ID.

Well put.

 

[toastedbread]

As I've long said, I don't really know what the extent of voter fraud is in the country. And I don't think anybody else does either.

The whole "there is no indication of any serious problems" doesn't cut it -- it doesn't even come close to cutting it. And there's a very simple reason for this: many jurisdictions have virtually no mechanisms in place to detect voter fraud. As such, it should come as no surprise at all that they've produced little evidence of it happening.

It's akin to a driver of a car without a working speedometer claiming ignorance of his speed upon being pulled over. "Officer, I had no information that I was speeding." And, of course, he'd be technically correct.

In other words, lack of much evidence that something is happening does not prove that it isn't happening. That would only work if there are sound mechanisms in place to spot it -- and, in most places, there aren't. Moreover, I doubt this blue ribbon commission is going to be able to produce much, either -- for the very same reason.

I've come to think that what we need to do is use fingerprints. The technology exists to do that today. Disney World started using it a few years ago to crack down on illicit transfers of unused days on multi-day park tickets. And, from what I understand, it's been quite successful. When you first use your park tickets, they capture your fingerprint. Each successive time somebody attempts to use that ticket, they take a scan -- and they know instantly and definitively if it's the same person who originally used it.

Just start collecting fingerprints as people show up to vote. Associate one print with one registration -- and allow states to Xref against a central, national voter database. If anybody tries to vote twice, vote in two places, or vote in somebody else's place...the ballot goes provisional for further investigation.

Something like that would represent a sound mechanism to guard against voter fraud. And it wouldn't even have to rely on somebody producing an official photo ID.

Well put.

No it's not. North Carolina did an autopsy and found 400 illegally cast votes out of milions of votes. It's a complete waste of $, time, and resources. Nor do I trust the person running it (Kobach). The only waste, fraud, and abuse here is this witch hunt.

https://www.google.com/amp/jamiedup...igation-finds-little-voter-fraud-in-2016/amp/

I do support strong voter ID laws if there is a free ID available to those who cannot afford one at a reasonable time + place.

 

[MrBing]

Just another week on Trump world, where it is absolutely impossible to keep up with the daily news he makes. Haven't seen discussion here of the Election Fraud Committee that he is setting up. Even though there is no indication of any serious problems, besides scattered incidents, we are going to waste time and money to try to substantiate Trump's baseless claims of millions of illegal voters. And even better , the vice chair of the committee, Kris Kobach, has been sued and lost four times by the ACLU for voter suppression.

There should be no voter fraud and there should be no voter suppression. The problem is that some politicians appear to want voter suppression while claiming they're after voter fraud. Find a way to eliminate voter fraud without voter suppression I'm in.

 

[crazed_hoosier2]

No it's not. North Carolina did an autopsy and found 400 illegally cast votes out of milions of votes. It's a complete waste of $, time, and resources. Nor do I trust the person running it (Kobach). The only waste, fraud, and abuse here is this witch hunt.

https://www.google.com/amp/jamiedup...igation-finds-little-voter-fraud-in-2016/amp/

I do support strong voter ID laws if there is a free ID available to those who cannot afford one at a reasonable time + place.

Again, you're saying that they turned up little evidence of something happening -- in the absence of a serviceable mechanism to determine if that thing is happening.

These datapoints are completely useless without such a mechanism in place, toasted. It is most certainly not proof that it's not going on. It's just proof that we have no reliable way of knowing.

Well, in this day and age, I don't think it would be terribly hard or prohibitively expensive to implement such measures. Personally, I don't much buy the complaints about a free government-issued photo ID creating a substantial burden to vote. But it's about the best we've been able to muster.

Heck, Apple is notoriously strict about their security -- and even they have found an inexpensive way to use fingerprints to reliably identify users.

 

[toastedbread]

Again, you're saying that they turned up little evidence of something happening -- in the absence of a serviceable mechanism to determine if that thing is happening.

These datapoints are completely useless without such a mechanism in place, toasted. It is most certainly not proof that it's not going on. It's just proof that we have no reliable way of knowing.

Well, in this day and age, I don't think it would be terribly hard or prohibitively expensive to implement such measures. Personally, I don't much buy the complaints about a free government-issued photo ID creating a substantial burden to vote. But it's about the best we've been able to muster.

Heck, Apple is notoriously strict about their security -- and even they have found an inexpensive way to use fingerprints to reliably identify users.

I don't know that. Are you an expert on voting autopsies? In fact you can look at data like percentage of votes cast v registered voters and so forth. And compare with historical trends. Any serious fraud would be obvious.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Again, you're saying that they turned up little evidence of something happening -- in the absence of a serviceable mechanism to determine if that thing is happening.

These datapoints are completely useless without such a mechanism in place, toasted. It is most certainly not proof that it's not going on. It's just proof that we have no reliable way of knowing.

Well, in this day and age, I don't think it would be terribly hard or prohibitively expensive to implement such measures. Personally, I don't much buy the complaints about a free government-issued photo ID creating a substantial burden to vote. But it's about the best we've been able to muster.

Heck, Apple is notoriously strict about their security -- and even they have found an inexpensive way to use fingerprints to reliably identify users.

What is the commission going to do that states haven't? NC and OH have conducted investigations. Are the states going to round up voters and interrogate them? It seems this is being setup as no possible way it could be proven that voter fraud is very small, the answer will be we just didn't investigate it properly.

 

[crazed_hoosier2]

There should be no voter fraud and there should be no voter suppression. The problem is that some politicians appear to want voter suppression while claiming they're after voter fraud. Find a way to eliminate voter fraud without voter suppression I'm in.

Fingerprints, Bing. Fingerprints.

While I think it borders on absurd to say that requiring a (free to obtain) government-issued photo ID to vote amounts to voter suppression, I think a system using either fingerprints (or retina scans) would be both less burdensome on voters and more useful in preventing and detecting voter fraud.

 

[toastedbread]

Fingerprints, Bing. Fingerprints.

While I think it borders on absurd to say that requiring a (free to obtain) government-issued photo ID to vote amounts to voter suppression, I think a system using either fingerprints (or retina scans) would be both less burdensome on voters and more useful in preventing and detecting voter fraud.

Then you are raising the issue of government invasion of privacy. I'm sure the libertarian Rs would love that. And what is the cost of such systems? And do we have the technical capabilities? Staff at voting locations have enough trouble reading IDs.

Why are we spending precious resources on a non-existent problem. I would be much more concerned about someone hacking the voting system/machines itself.

 

[UncleMark]

The whole "there is no indication of any serious problems" doesn't cut it -- it doesn't even come close to cutting it.
[...]
In other words, lack of much evidence that something is happening does not prove that it isn't happening.

The burden of proof is with those making the positive claim that voter fraud is a problem which needs addressed. Those who doubt the claim cannot be expected to prove the negative.

 

[toastedbread]

What is the commission going to do that states haven't? NC and OH have conducted investigations. Are the states going to round up voters and interrogate them? It seems this is being setup as no possible way it could be proven that voter fraud is very small, the answer will be we just didn't investigate it properly.

Marvin, you can quite easily tell if there is fraud. Anyone with a basic understanding of statics could decipher fraud.

i.e. if historically turnout in a district is 60%, but suddenly it jumps to 90% there is a major problem.

 

[crazed_hoosier2]

I don't know that. Are you an expert on voting autopsies? In fact you can look at data like percentage of votes cast v registered voters and so forth. And compare with historical trends. Any serious fraud would be obvious.

High-level data analysis wouldn't tell anybody much of anything. Turnout jumps all over the place every election cycle.

Again, I'm not saying "Voter fraud is happening all over the place!" I think that's just as stupid as saying "It's barely happening at all!" Nobody has a really good idea, IMO.

I'm saying "How in the hell would we know if all we're using to verify a voter's identity is a volunteer taking a quick glance at hundreds or thousands of signatures in a day?"

 

[crazed_hoosier2]

The burden of proof is with those making the positive claim that voter fraud is a problem which needs addressed. Those who doubt the claim cannot be expected to prove the negative.

That's plumb stupid right there, Mark.

Extending that logic, why even register voters? Why even have them sign anything? After all, nobody's proven anything about voter fraud happening. As such, there's no need to do anything at all to verify identity.

Right?

No, not right.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

High-level data analysis wouldn't tell anybody much of anything. Turnout jumps all over the place every election cycle.

Again, I'm not saying "Voter fraud is happening all over the place!" I think that's just as stupid as saying "It's barely happening at all!" Nobody has a really good idea, IMO.

I'm saying "How in the hell would we know if all we're using to verify a voter's identity is a volunteer taking a quick glance at hundreds or thousands of signatures in a day?"

One of the claims in that millions of Hispanics are voting illegally. IF what is happening, it was expected that voting inside Hispanic voting areas would be higher than outside. It is suspected that Mr. Sanchez isn't showing up to a voting precinct pretending to be Mr O'Malley. They don't see this happening.

If there is massive voter fraud, in the millions like Trump suggests, the people doing it are damn smart not to trigger any alerts.

 

[crazed_hoosier2]

Then you are raising the issue of government invasion of privacy. I'm sure the libertarian Rs would love that. And what is the cost of such systems? And do we have the technical capabilities? Staff at voting locations have enough trouble reading IDs.

Why are we spending precious resources on a non-existent problem. I would be much more concerned about someone hacking the voting system/machines itself.

Every iPhone since the 6 has a fingerprint scanner. So that part of it can't be all that expensive.

Again, you have absolutely no basis upon which to call this a "non-existent problem." With the safeguards we have in place now in most places, we don't know the extent of it. And it's very much in our interest to put reasonable safeguards in place.

Here's the thing: it's hard to escape the suspicion that there are some people who don't want us to have those safeguards in place. It's not a matter of cost or privacy or "voter suppression" or anything of the like. I gather these people, like me, suspect that it goes on more than we know...but, unlike me, don't want anything to prevent it from continuing.

 

[toastedbread]

High-level data analysis wouldn't tell anybody much of anything. Turnout jumps all over the place every election cycle.

Simply not true. You can compare with other precincts.

 

[crazed_hoosier2]

One of the claims in that millions of Hispanics are voting illegally. IF what is happening, it was expected that voting inside Hispanic voting areas would be higher than outside. It is suspected that Mr. Sanchez isn't showing up to a voting precinct pretending to be Mr O'Malley. They don't see this happening.

If there is massive voter fraud, in the millions like Trump suggests, the people doing it are damn smart not to trigger any alerts.

Well, I think Trump's claims -- like many that he makes -- have been absurd. I'd be shocked to find the number to be anywhere near "millions."

But, quite frankly, he has just about as much basis in making those claims as those who say that it rarely happens.

I'm telling you: nobody knows, because there's not much in place to reliably detect it when it happens. If we put such measures in place and we find that it rarely happens, then that would be a much different scenario than what we have right now.

 

[crazed_hoosier2]

Simply not true. You can compare with other precincts.

What kinds of trends would we expect if similar levels of fraud happened in all the cycles compared? You seem to be suggesting we'd see a significant change between, say, 2016 and 2012. Well, what if it's been happening at a relatively consistent level for many years?

We need something that reliably lets us know the following things:

1) Somebody who casts a vote (in person or absentee) is who they say they are
2) That person is eligible to vote and registered to do so in the precinct where they are attempting to vote
3) They are voting only one time in only that election precinct

Doesn't seem to insurmountable for a nation that put somebody on the moon. If we put such a safeguard in place, we don't have to worry about Kris Kobach and his commission -- and we can also tell people who swear they know just how much (or little) it goes on to shut their pieholes.

 

[toastedbread]

What kinds of trends would we expect if similar levels of fraud happened in all the cycles compared? You seem to be suggesting we'd see a significant change between, say, 2016 and 2012. Well, what if it's been happening at a relatively consistent level for many years?

We need something that reliably lets us know the following things:

1) Somebody who casts a vote (in person or absentee) is who they say they are
2) That person is eligible to vote and registered to do so in the precinct where they are attempting to vote
3) They are voting only one time in only that election precinct

Doesn't seem to insurmountable for a nation that put somebody on the moon. If we put such a safeguard in place, we don't have to worry about Kris Kobach and his commission -- and we can also tell people who swear they know just how much (or little) it goes on to shut their pieholes.

So they show up and vote under someone else's name? or how does it work exactly? And there are thousands of people doing this in a single precinct?

 

[SuperHoosierFan]

Just another week on Trump world, where it is absolutely impossible to keep up with the daily news he makes. Haven't seen discussion here of the Election Fraud Committee that he is setting up. Even though there is no indication of any serious problems, besides scattered incidents, we are going to waste time and money to try to substantiate Trump's baseless claims of millions of illegal voters. And even better , the vice chair of the committee, Kris Kobach, has been sued and lost four times by the ACLU for voter suppression.

Kris Kobach is a total racist piece of shit. He and his people go around purging black sounding names from the voter rolls.

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

Fingerprints, Bing. Fingerprints.

While I think it borders on absurd to say that requiring a (free to obtain) government-issued photo ID to vote amounts to voter suppression, I think a system using either fingerprints (or retina scans) would be both less burdensome on voters and more useful in preventing and detecting voter fraud.

The counter-argument for using biometrics will be rooted in security and identity protection. A nationwide database of voter biometrics would become the newest holy grail of hacking targets.

 

[crazed_hoosier2]

The counter-argument for using biometrics will be rooted in security and identity protection. A nationwide database of voter biometrics would become the newest holy grail of hacking targets.

Is that really a true counter-argument, though?

Why aren't we moving commerce/banking back offline? They get hacked all the time. But I don't see any effort to go back to mechanical cash registers and handwritten bank ledgers.

I suspect there would be all kinds of arguments made against such a thing. Personally, I'd be inclined to read most of them as actually just being a plea in favor of the status quo.

And why would somebody be so tethered to the status quo?

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

Is that really a true counter-argument, though?

Why aren't we moving commerce/banking back offline? They get hacked all the time. But I don't see any effort to go back to mechanical cash registers and handwritten bank ledgers.

I suspect there would be all kinds of arguments made against such a thing. Personally, I'd be inclined to read most of them as actually just being a plea in favor of the status quo.

And why would somebody be so tethered to the status quo?

Commerce and banking details can be changed. New cc numbers, new accounts, etc are all possible. New fingerprints and retinas are not.

It's not so much a counter argument as perhaps a barrier to entry.

 

[crazed_hoosier2]

Commerce and banking details can be changed. New cc numbers, new accounts, etc are all possible. New fingerprints and retinas are not.

It's not so much a counter argument as perhaps a barrier to entry.

Then don't associate the biometrics with people's personal data -- but only with a separately maintained voter registration number.

I hear what you're saying -- and I'm not saying it's not a valid concern. Of course it is. But it seems like something that can be sufficiently mitigated without sacrificing the core purpose.

I'm not aware of smartphone/fingerprint-based payment systems from Apple and Google having yet been successfully hacked. And that's probably because they were designed to operate securely in today's hack-crazy world, not the bygone one. It's the older (and far larger) systems that seem to always be compromised.

One distinction they have is that they don't give merchants anything but a single-use key attached to that one transaction. No account data or personal data is left behind.

 

[Fro]

It should be that you automatically get a free government-issued ID card unless you opt-out, and that is linked to everything and automatically registers you to vote.

If you update your information to the IRS or Medicare or the Social Security Administration or the state DMV or SNAP, that ought to update your information everywhere (and that should be a two-factor authentication system to change anything).

 

[UncleMark]

That's plumb stupid right there, Mark.

Which part? The part that since there might be/could be/it's possible there's voter fraud that we should upend the registration system just in case, even though the claim hasn't been substantiated? Or that those who doubt the claim should prove the negative?

 

[Cajun54]

No it's not. North Carolina did an autopsy and found 400 illegally cast votes out of milions of votes. It's a complete waste of $, time, and resources. Nor do I trust the person running it (Kobach). The only waste, fraud, and abuse here is this witch hunt.

https://www.google.com/amp/jamiedup...igation-finds-little-voter-fraud-in-2016/amp/

I do support strong voter ID laws if there is a free ID available to those who cannot afford one at a reasonable time + place.

According to the report there were 508 illegal votes found of which 441 were by suspected active felons. Interesting side note was that by party affiliation there were 326 Democrats, 91 Republicans, 4 Libertarians, and 87 unafiliated. Only 41 were legal non-citizens. Only 2 were voter impersonation votes.

It is a small number considering the millions of legal voters but there could be a situation where it could swing a state into the hands of bad choice. Its all hypothetical but suppose for example that a candidate for POTUS needed NC's 15 electoral votes to win the election and the difference in the vote totals were close enough that the illegal votes could swing the election for a particular candidate. Think Trump as and example. In reality it might not be a total waste of money, time and resources. Who is to say?

 

[crazed_hoosier2]

Which part? The part that since there might be/could be/it's possible there's voter fraud that we should upend the registration system just in case, even though the claim hasn't been substantiated? Or that those who doubt the claim should prove the negative?

The attorneys who represented the late State Rep. Bill Crawford in his lawsuit against Marion County Election Board regarding Indiana's Voter ID requirement made this argument (namely that the state had to demonstrate a rampant volume of voter fraud in order to justify the statute in question, weighed against the degree of burden imposed). And it was cited by Justice David Souter...

...in his dissent.

The court's point was that the state's interest in preventing voter fraud is compelling enough to warrant a minimal burden such as the one created by the Indiana statute. The burden to prove what they were legislating against would grow with the burdens placed on voters. But the court found (something that seems obvious to me) that the burden of obtaining a free ID is not significantly different than the burden to either register or even vote.

But back to what I've been saying -- and I should point out, again, that I make absolutely no claim as to the level of voter fraud occurring...and am deeply skeptical of anybody who does make any such claim -- of course we can't demonstrate how much of it is going on....because we don't have any reliable way of knowing how much is going on.

That doesn't preclude us from enacting safeguards to deter it, though. And of course those safeguards should not present an undue burden on anybody (at least, anybody who is genuinely eligible to vote...we should hope that it would create burdens on anybody who isn't eligible to vote).

 

[cosmickid]

How will they celebrate in the rose garden this time? Hookers and blow? Zima?

Speaking of "Hookers and Blow", I couldn't resist...

 

[Ladoga]

So they show up and vote under someone else's name? or how does it work exactly? And there are thousands of people doing this in a single precinct?

IT doesn't take thousands. There are - as of the November election, 4,829,243 registered voters in 5382 precincts in Indiana. That means there re only 897 registered voters per precinct on average. Make average turnout in a Presidential year about 60% and your looking at, on average, about 600 voters per precinct. It doesn't take thousands. Every cycle ther eis a need to increase the number of precincts in growing areas and we have a legislative commission looking at contracting the number of precincts by consolidation in place where population is declining.

 

[twenty02]

It should be that you automatically get a free government-issued ID card unless you opt-out, and that is linked to everything and automatically registers you to vote.

If you update your information to the IRS or Medicare or the Social Security Administration or the state DMV or SNAP, that ought to update your information everywhere (and that should be a two-factor authentication system to change anything).

This makes a lot more sense than fingerprinting tech at every precinct. Every ID card has a bar code already on it now. Scan those cards....database can verify you are eligible and you've only voted once.

 

[crazed_hoosier2]

This makes a lot more sense than fingerprinting tech at every precinct. Every ID card has a bar code already on it now. Scan those cards....database can verify you are eligible and you've only voted once.

I don't have a problem with it.

But many people claim -- speciously, IMO -- that obtaining a photo ID (even if it's free) is too great a burden for some voters. Well, everybody already has a unique set of fingerprints.

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

I don't have a problem with it.

But many people claim -- speciously, IMO -- that obtaining a photo ID (even if it's free) is too great a burden for some voters. Well, everybody already has a unique set of fingerprints.

It is a great burden for some voters. A very small number of voters, to be sure, but still a non-zero number. The real problem, which you adamantly insist on ignoring, is that state legislatures run by Republicans are passing voter ID laws designed to target Democrats. They don't care about cracking down on absentee ballot fraud. Why? Because Republicans vote absentee.

The issue has always been that this is a partisan ploy dressed up to look like genuine concern over our electoral system.