North Carolina Voting - and Consistency

[JimL]

Then two minutes later...





JimL you never disappoint.

I don't know Sparko, are you delusional or what? Perhaps you can point out the contradiction you are seeing in what I said.

[Mountain Man]

yip yip yip snarl snarl yip

[Sparko]

I don't know Sparko, are you delusional or what? Perhaps you can point out the contradiction you are seeing in what I said.

I said that you guys routinely dismissed or minimized any claims at voter/election fraud by democrats. You said no you didn't do that, then turned right around and did it two minutes later in response to Ox's post.

[JimL]

I said that you guys routinely dismissed or minimized any claims at voter/election fraud by democrats. You said no you didn't do that, then turned right around and did it two minutes later in response to Ox's post.

You must have serious reading comprehension problems my friend.

[Starlight]

But the normal Democrat refrain is that voter fraud doesn't really exist. It's just some Republican conspiracy theory.

What about the oft-repeated claim that there is no such thing as voter fraud? Now all of a sudden it is a problem because a Republican seems to be behind it, but all those cases where democrats were committing fraud it was just something small and aberrant and made no difference in the election, or was just an invention by conservatives?

Okay, as Roy has tried to explain to you, there are two very different types of ways of affecting election outcomes.

One is done by a voter trying to be sneaky, and involves voting twice (or more), or voting under an alias. As Trump puts it:

Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again.

Or as one poster on this site alleged to me "half the cemetery votes", meaning that people come in and vote in the name of dead people (largely an impossibility given people get removed from the electoral role after they die, and a claim that dead people had voted was debunked when they found what had happened was the old people had cast their mail-in ballots early and then themselves died prior to election day).

The Republican idea is that such fraudulent behavior on the part of sneaky voters is so serious and widespread that voters should need to show ID to prove they are who they say they are and can thus only vote once and under their real name (the part where people can get around this by fake IDs is usually ignored).

I agree that if such fraud was rampant, steps would need to be taken. So how rampant is it? Well the Heritage Foundation has a database of every single such instance they can find in the US in the last 40 years and the rate works out to be 1.2 votes per state per election cycle. Since very very few races ever come down to a single vote, it's probably safe to conclude that voter fraud of this type has never affected the outcome of any race in modern US history. A margin of victory of <100 votes is generally considered tiny and pretty rare, and voter fraud wouldn't even affect that sort of race. In any election there are typically several ballots that are ambiguous where it's hard to discern the voter's intention, so in the case where it did indeed come down to one vote, even subjective decisions about a few ambiguous votes could override the fact that some sneaky voter might have changed their hat in their car and voted twice.

And the "solution" the Republicans propose to "solve" this "problem" which doesn't seem to have ever affected any election outcome, is voter ID. But the trouble with that is it just so happens that around 25% of African Americans in inner-cities don't happen to own photo-IDs and thus couldn't vote, and they pretty reliably vote democratic. And while, it would be theoretically possible, if somewhat expensive to go to the trouble of trying to get them all valid photo-IDs (assuming Republicans didn't close all such issuing centers in black areas, as they are want to do), there will always be some, because there always are, who don't bother, because it's too much effort, because they're too busy working or haven't got the time or the money, or can't easily get transport to the issuing place, or because they're sick etc. And so, even if your effort to get everyone ID is excellent, and well-funded, etc, there will always be some who don't end up getting them and who don't vote as a result of not getting one. Could be only a few thousand people, could be a million people nationwide. And so, your "solution" to literally 1 bad vote per state, ends up preventing literally thousands of people per state who have a valid right to vote from casting their votes. Disenfranchising a thousand to stop one, is not a solution, it's a problem.

So voter fraud isn't a problem, and voter ID isn't a solution.


But there's a totally different type of election fraud, called Electoral Fraud. And this is when election officials involved in conducting the election itself take actions that can affect large numbers of votes. e.g. "My vote counting machine just happened to creatively count the votes, how sad, never mind". Or "what giant pile of ballots I had? That fire over there? That's just for roasting marshmallows." Or "look at this giant pile of ballots I found, all Totally Legit, just please don't check that all the signatures are identical".

Because the number of votes that typically need to be changed to affect the outcome of an election is typically pretty large (typically in the tens of thousands), actually changing the outcome of an election involves changing a very large number of votes, and thus typically requires systematic effort by a group involved in conducting the election because only they have access to the votes in such large quantities. Voter Fraud where an old lady who votes a second time because she forgot she voted the first time contributes only one vote different to the outcome (assuming she's not caught, which she usually is) and thus has virtually zero effect because one vote is such a tiny amount. But Election Fraud, where the election officials have large-scale access to ballots and counts, allows them to change the numbers by the thousands or hundreds of thousands necessary to secure a different outcome.

This is why electronic voting in particular is so dangerous because it allows Electoral Fraud on a grand, grand scale. Whoever has programmed (or, potentially, hacked) the electronic voting machines can make the final count say whatever they feel like. They essentially have access to all the ballots.


...and that, in a nutshell is why Voter Fraud where a nasty voter tries to scam the system by voting twice and wearing a disguise, isn't interesting or relevant, why voter ID is a stupid "solution" to prevent it because it itself is a bigger problem than what it solves, and why Electoral Fraud by the officials conducting the elections and/or voting machine manufacturers and/or hackers into those machines are the actual threat to the integrity of elections. And that is why the Republican party's tendency to purge voter rolls in order to prevent thousands of people voting (i.e. pretty much electoral fraud on the Republican's part IMO), while they yell "look over there instead! There might be some voter somewhere casting one extra vote!" (voter fraud) is so galling to me. They commit the big crime to steal the election while trying to distract with claims that someone somewhere might be committing a tiny crime that won't matter.

[shunyadragon]

You can get a fake ID in just about any sizeable bar in Texas.

This possible, but over time IDs are changing, and the new IDs will have better technology to avoid fakes.

This problem in NC involves what is called 'harvesting' where well before the election a group swindles people into giving them their absentee ballots and filling them out and filling them. It is practiced with the poor and particularly black voters. It is an old carpetbagger scheme. This has nothing to do with voter IDs.

[Cow Poke]

This possible, but over time IDs are changing, and the new IDs will have better technology to avoid fakes.

Agreed, and audit numbers.

This problem in NC involves what is called 'harvesting' where well before the election a group swindles people into giving them their absentee ballots and filling them out and filling them. It is practiced with the poor and particularly black voters. It is an old carpetbagger scheme. This has nothing to do with voter IDs.

I don't know enough about this particular incident to argue it.

[Bill the Cat]

This possible, but over time IDs are changing, and the new IDs will have better technology to avoid fakes.

This problem in NC involves what is called 'harvesting' where well before the election a group swindles people into giving them their absentee ballots and filling them out and filling them. It is practiced with the poor and particularly black voters. It is an old carpetbagger scheme. This has nothing to do with voter IDs.

The first instance, Dowless, is a known crook in the area. He had no authorization from anyone to do what he did.

[Starlight]

Yeah - I don't understand the Democratic aversion to requiring an ID.

I suggest you read the explanation I wrote for Sparko. But to bullet point:

- The number of people who commit voter fraud is tiny. About 1 illegal vote per state per election, or ~0.0003% of votes cast.
- Voter fraud has probably affected zero election outcomes in US history as a result.
- Getting everyone voter ID would be very expensive (govt bureaucrats paid to issue IDs, people paying to get IDs, advertising spent to encourage IDs, time taken out of people's lives to apply for IDs) and thousands or even millions of people simply wouldn't get them (due to sickness, being busy with work, being elderly, or simply not bothering) no matter how much money was spent.
- So the "solution" to solve 1 bad vote per state per election, ends up suppressing thousands of votes per state per election as people who ought to be able to vote end up not voting because of the requirement.
- A "solution" that is 1000x worse than the "problem" in terms of affecting vote counts is no solution at all, it's a problem.

In the US Voter Fraud isn't a problem. Low turnout is. Elections that are "close" are always a function of turnout. That is why anything that would "suppress" the vote by making it hard for people to vote (voter roll purging, stringent ID requirements, having one or zero polling stations in large neighborhoods creating long lines with ~4hr queues to vote, having election day on a work day where people who work long hours can't make it to the polls etc) are a thousand or a million times more relevant to electoral outcomes than any "voter fraud" ever is.

Electoral campaigns each spend a huge amount of money on 'voter turnout' - visiting, ringing, and txting their voters to encourage them to 'go to the polls' because having a person support you is irrelevant if they don't end up making it to the polls to vote for you. And where polling booths are located, what hours they are open, whether you can vote early, whether you can register to vote on election day, whether you require ID to cast a vote, whether the voter rolls are purged, etc, all become political footballs because by playing with those things the politicians can suppress thousands upon thousands of votes and sway the election. It's those things that sway elections, which the politicians seem to get away with, while trying to distract the public with their absurd claims that voter fraud somehow affects electoral outcomes.

Those things are a major reason why I support the idea of voting being compulsory (people can choose to not vote for anyone, or draw a smiley face on their ballot for all I care, they should simply have to cast one), because it saves billions of dollars in time and money on "get out the vote" efforts and stops politicians playing many dirty tricks to sway elections by suppressing the vote. But lacking that, voting day needs to be a public holiday, and a lot of laws need to be passed to limit the ability of politicians to try and suppress the vote.

[Cow Poke]

- Getting everyone voter ID would be very expensive (govt bureaucrats paid to issue IDs, people paying to get IDs, advertising spent to encourage IDs, time taken out of people's lives to apply for IDs) and thousands or even millions of people simply wouldn't get them (due to sickness, being busy with work, being elderly, or simply not bothering) no matter how much money was spent.

Please provide support for this point, as the infrastructure already exists to issue IDs, and most of us in the US already have them.

[Starlight]

Please provide support for this point, as the infrastructure already exists to issue IDs, and most of us in the US already have them.

Eh? It seems self-explanatory. The issuing of IDs takes time and money. Any advertising campaigns to encourage it would take time and money. Some people wouldn't get them for various reasons. Which part are you struggling to understand?

[Cow Poke]

Eh?

Translation - no source.

It seems self-explanatory. The issuing of IDs takes time and money.

Are you thinking of some special ID other than the multiple IDs that most of us already have? How may adults do you think do not have a qualifying ID?

Any advertising campaigns to encourage it would take time and money.

How much? And why? All of the "get out the vote" campaigns would know the requirement and include that information for free. The press would be promoting it or screaming and complaining about it. What advertising campaign, and how much would it cost?

Some people wouldn't get them for various reasons. Which part are you struggling to understand?

Star, let's dial down the phony condescension, OK? I'm not "struggling to understand" anything -- I'm simply asking you to back up your claim.

[Starlight]

How may adults do you think do not have a qualifying ID?

About 26 million according to surveys. The most common ID is a driver's license and the most common reasons for not owning that are being too old to drive, a college student who isn't yet learning to drive / not wealthy enough yet to own a car, being too poor to own a car, being too sick / having too-poor eyesight to drive, or living in the inner cities and not needing/having a car.

How much? And why? All of the "get out the vote" campaigns would know the requirement and include that information for free. The press would be promoting it or screaming and complaining about it. What advertising campaign, and how much would it cost?

If every get out the vote campaign has to put extra time in their ads to explain voter ID, that costs money because ad time isn't free. If every phone call they make takes extra time because they have to explain voter ID that isn't free because the caller's and callee's time are both valuable.

And it's occurred to me I omitted to consider the extra time taken on election day for people who have to perform the additional check of the voter ID. Again, people's time is money and inefficiency and over-bureaucratizing things costs money/time. (I wonder if it doesn't come across often enough on these forums just what a zealous crusader I am for efficiency and lack of bureaucracy, since I think many Americans bizarrely associate that idea with their right-wing rather than with their left-wing)

And, remember, all of this is in aid of stopping 1 illegal vote per state per election. And, as has been pointed out, if a person really wants to cast that illegal vote, they can probably get a fake ID anyway and still cast that illegal vote.


P.S. In terms of some more concrete numbers perhaps this study is along the lines of what your looking for. It calculates the costs in 3 states of obtaining a voter ID and finds it's around $100-$200 per person by the time all costs are factored in. And cites another study that says increased bureaucracy and litigation costs for the state itself mean "the voter ID requirements could cost the treasuries of voter ID states up to $78 million or more."

[Cow Poke]

About 26 million according to surveys. ...

OK, let's start with this one. I'm "struggling" to find in your study where it says 26 million people don't have qualifying IDs. Please help me out with that.

[shunyadragon]

The first instance, Dowless, is a known crook in the area. He had no authorization from anyone to do what he did.

No one that commits this election fraud has any authorization to do it. Here in NC my inside is the coffee house where the lawyers and other county officials hang out. There are more people involved than Dowless.