Why we need Voter ID laws

[kelpdiver 2]

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He pointed out an instance where a small number of votes turned an election. To say that a small number of fraudulent votes is 'no impact' is therefore illogical.

Potential is not the same thing as actually happening. As mentioned, thousands are dying due to speeding. That is a real result. As I wrote repeatedly, we best use our limited resources on actual problems, not imagined ones.

Are you saying there is no voter fraud?

Matt

pretty much. we got people here posting editorial columns about single convictions here or there. Talk about potential ways it could be done. But still not seeing anything that doesn't smack of political motivations (read: racism or transparent targeting of those who don't vote GOP).

It's a solution in search of a problem.

It's not hard to figure out - you've undoubtably read the earlier posts of mine. I haven't seen replies actually address the real picture either...not much better than wailing about the poor children.

[davjohns 1]

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He pointed out an instance where a small number of votes turned an election. To say that a small number of fraudulent votes is 'no impact' is therefore illogical.

Potential is not the same thing as actually happening. As mentioned, thousands are dying due to speeding. That is a real result. As I wrote repeatedly, we best use our limited resources on actual problems, not imagined ones.

You are arguing a self-fulfilling line. If we do not require ID, it is ridiculously hard to prove voter fraud (the case I linked to included DNA testing of envelopes licked by the culprit). We do not require ID, we therefore can not say conclusively how prevalent it is or what the impact is. So, you conclude there is no impact.

If it is 'silly argument day', I'll give you this...nobody has ever been injured by speeding. It's the sudden impact that should be outlawed. That's what gets them.

I know it just wouldnt be right to kill all the stupid people that we meet..

But do you think it would be appropriate to just remove all of the warning labels and let nature take its course.

[davjohns 1]

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He pointed out an instance where a small number of votes turned an election. To say that a small number of fraudulent votes is 'no impact' is therefore illogical.

Potential is not the same thing as actually happening. As mentioned, thousands are dying due to speeding. That is a real result. As I wrote repeatedly, we best use our limited resources on actual problems, not imagined ones.

Are you saying there is no voter fraud?

Matt

pretty much. we got people here posting editorial columns about single convictions here or there. Talk about potential ways it could be done. But still not seeing anything that doesn't smack of political motivations (read: racism or transparent targeting of those who don't vote GOP).

It's a solution in search of a problem.

It's not hard to figure out - you've undoubtably read the earlier posts of mine. I haven't seen replies actually address the real picture either...not much better than wailing about the poor children.

I guess you ignored my posts of stories involving dozens of convictions AND my invitation to do your own search? I guess the 400,000 fraudulent registrations by ACORN is 'single convictions here and there'?

I know it just wouldnt be right to kill all the stupid people that we meet..

But do you think it would be appropriate to just remove all of the warning labels and let nature take its course.

[kelpdiver 2]

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You are arguing a self-fulfilling line. If we do not require ID, it is ridiculously hard to prove voter fraud

not really - people manage to get caught and convicted for it.

If someone claims to be me at the polls and I show up later, that's a rather obvious sign of fraud. If someone votes but is identified as having died before the election, that's pretty obvious too. These are the bogeyman scenarios that people keep putting out there.

[kelpdiver 2]

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I guess you ignored my posts of stories involving dozens of convictions AND my invitation to do your own search? I guess the 400,000 fraudulent registrations by ACORN is 'single convictions here and there'?

"Busefink also ran ACORN’s fraud-ridden 2008 voter registration drive. In that drive, officials chucked an astounding 400,000 bogus registrations."

IOW, attempted (failed) registration fraud. Never got to the voting phase.

Or not even fraud:

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he remainder are registered voters who were changing their address and roughly 400,000 that were rejected by election officials for a variety of reasons, including duplicate registrations, incomplete forms and fraudulent submissions from low-paid field workers trying to please their supervisors, Mr. Slater acknowledged.

In registration drives, it is common for a percentage of newly registered voters to be disqualified for various reasons, although experts say the percentage is higher when groups pay workers to gather registrations. But the disclosure on Thursday that 30 percent of Acorn’s registrations were faulty was described by Republicans as further proof of what they said was Acorn’s effort to tilt the election unfairly.

As is typical in discussions about ACORN, political bias rears its head.

from Wiki

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ACORN has conducted large-scale voter registration drives since at least the 1980s,[24] focusing primarily on registering poor and minority citizens.[25][26] During the 2008 election season, ACORN gathered over 1.3 million voter registration forms in 21 states. Some of these registration forms were flagged by ACORN's internal auditors for review by election officials. It was estimated by Project Vote that 400,000 registrations collected by ACORN were ultimately rejected, the vast majority for being duplicate registrations submitted by citizens (which is also common at government voter registration services according to reports on the National Voter Registration Act by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission). An unknown number of registrations were fraudulent, but Project Vote estimated that only a few percent were, based on past years and samples from some drives in 2008.[27] No official in states where voter registration drives were conducted have come forward with substantial numbers of fraudulent registrations. It was estimated by Project Vote that 450,000 of the registrations collected by ACORN represented first-time voters, while the remainder were address changes submitted by citizens updating their addresses.[27]

[matthewcline 0]

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You are arguing a self-fulfilling line. If we do not require ID, it is ridiculously hard to prove voter fraud

not really - people manage to get caught and convicted for it.

If someone claims to be me at the polls and I show up later, that's a rather obvious sign of fraud. If someone votes but is identified as having died before the election, that's pretty obvious too. These are the bogeyman scenarios that people keep putting out there.

And evidence shows, has happened.

Matt

An Instructors first concern is student safety.
So, start being safe, first!!!

[kelpdiver 2]

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And evidence shows, has happened.

once, twice, twelve times? I put out a threshold I believe to be meaningful, based on the simple error rate of the voting machines. It remains clear that this is a much more serious problem then rare voter fraud issues.

[DaVinci 0]

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Bush won by those few hundred votes. Are you saying that he won by fraud?

No, I am saying that a few hundred votes matters. You do know that by some recounts Gore won right?

You can try to change the facts, but a few hundred votes DID decide the 2000 election (by as little as 100 votes, by some counts). So your claim that voter fraud has no impact is just not true.

[DanG 1]

I think what kelpdiver is trying to say is that we should first work on the fact that you have to say, "by some counts," because not being able to count legitimate votes is a bigger problem.

- Dan G

[matthewcline 0]

Just a quick google scan showed at least one case in over half the states.

That doesn't seem rare to me.

The laws for an ID and the argument against them is just the same politics, spun for a side.

Matt

An Instructors first concern is student safety.
So, start being safe, first!!!

[kelpdiver 2]

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Bush won by those few hundred votes. Are you saying that he won by fraud?

No, I am saying that a few hundred votes matters. You do know that by some recounts Gore won right?

I don't recall a single FL recount giving the state to Gore. Even with the most favorable of choices, the newspaper group that did the spring counts gave it to Bush in every situation.

Again, as addressed, you're talking about maybes, not actually happened.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Just a quick google scan showed at least one case in over half the states.

That doesn't seem rare to me.

25-30 cases in a country with 100M voters doesn't seem rare?

[matthewcline 0]

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I think what kelpdiver is trying to say is that we should first work on the fact that you have to say, "by some counts," because not being able to count legitimate votes is a bigger problem.

But a different thread topic. A legitimate vote, from the actual voter should be counted, once.

Matt

An Instructors first concern is student safety.
So, start being safe, first!!!

[DanG 1]

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A legitimate vote, from the actual voter should be counted, once.

I agree, but which is the bigger problem, the fact that we know we can't count legitimate votes correctly, or the possibility of a couple of illegitimate votes (which we also can't count correctly) getting through?

- Dan G

[matthewcline 0]

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Just a quick google scan showed at least one case in over half the states.

That doesn't seem rare to me.

25-30 cases in a country with 100M voters doesn't seem rare?

No, since they are multiple votes in one election cycle. Those 100m voters are in the ONE election cycle as well.

Is it a big enough problem to spend millions of dollars and hours/days of time over? Maybe not, but it is big enough to ensure it is stopped.

Are there bigger issues to devote this effort too? probably, but that would be a matter of opinion for some and not for others.

It is simple; prove- you are, who your say, you are, and exercise you right to vote, once, in each election cycle.

Matt

An Instructors first concern is student safety.
So, start being safe, first!!!

[matthewcline 0]

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A legitimate vote, from the actual voter should be counted, once.

I agree, but which is the bigger problem, the fact that we know we can't count legitimate votes correctly, or the possibility of a couple of illegitimate votes (which we also can't count correctly) getting through?

Equal, remember, "every vote counts".

Matt

An Instructors first concern is student safety.
So, start being safe, first!!!

[DaVinci 0]

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I think what kelpdiver is trying to say is that we should first work on the fact that you have to say, "by some counts," because not being able to count legitimate votes is a bigger problem.

Still the delta was less than the number of theorized fraudulent votes. Never forget that the Republican party of FL worked to drop several thousand low income people off the rolls.... (Not claiming the Dems are any better, they tried to drop the military absentee ballots... One of which was mine.)

So an accurate voter ID system would fix many of these issues.

But back to his claim that voter fraud never hurt anyone.... That is just false.

[DaVinci 0]

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I don't recall a single FL recount giving the state to Gore.

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/the-florida-recount-of-2000/

"According to a massive months-long study commissioned by eight news organizations in 2001, George W. Bush probably still would have won even if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed a limited statewide recount to go forward as ordered by Florida’s highest court.

Bush also probably would have won had the state conducted the limited recount of only four heavily Democratic counties that Al Gore asked for, the study found.

On the other hand, the study also found that Gore probably would have won, by a range of 42 to 171 votes out of 6 million cast, had there been a broad recount of all disputed ballots statewide. However, Gore never asked for such a recount. The Florida Supreme Court ordered only a recount of so-called "undervotes," about 62,000 ballots where voting machines didn’t detect any vote for a presidential candidate."

[kelpdiver 2]

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But back to his claim that voter fraud never hurt anyone.... That is just false.

still waiting for any (recent) example to prove such a claim.

[kelpdiver 2]

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A legitimate vote, from the actual voter should be counted, once.

I agree, but which is the bigger problem, the fact that we know we can't count legitimate votes correctly, or the possibility of a couple of illegitimate votes (which we also can't count correctly) getting through?

Equal, remember, "every vote counts".

a 1% counting error out of 100million voters is a million votes.

how many cases of fraud are you willing to claim in a single election? Can you even support 1000 with any real degree of certainty? Even at 100times that, it's still 1/10th the problem, and if 'equal' is the directive we should be spending 91% of our time/money on the machines.

[tkhayes 154]

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/05/world-war-ii-vet-in-broward-on-list-of-potential-noncitizen-voters.html#storylink=cpy

one example of where it is going.....

It's not that there is NO fraud. It is not worth spending millions and disenfranchising perhaps tens of thousands of voters in hopes of stopping a few hundred.

For all the right wingers - just how much of your tax dollars are you willing to spend to make voter fraud go away? An unlimited amount of money? Billions? Trillions? It's a case of diminishing returns.

SHOW ME THE FRAUD and I will show you the money.

If you are still guessing, then I expect the problem is pretty fuckin' small.

[Andy9o8 0]

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http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/05/world-war-ii-vet-in-broward-on-list-of-potential-noncitizen-voters.html#storylink=cpy

one example of where it is going.....

It's not that there is NO fraud. It is not worth spending millions and disenfranchising perhaps tens of thousands of voters in hopes of stopping a few hundred.

For all the right wingers - just how much of your tax dollars are you willing to spend to make voter fraud go away? An unlimited amount of money? Billions? Trillions? It's a case of diminishing returns.

SHOW ME THE FRAUD and I will show you the money.

If you are still guessing, then I expect the problem is pretty fuckin' small.

Come next Election Day, that disenfranchisement could tip the balance in a battleground state like Florida. For those who benefit from it (and I don't mean the common people, even the conscientiously conservative ones), that makes it worth every penny.

Oh! - and the taxpayers get to foot the bill! Jesus H. Christ, what a perfect scam!

[wmw999 2,182]

That's really the question -- how many legitimate voters is it OK to prevent from voting, to prevent illegitimate voters?

Yeah, anyone can get ID. As long as they have time, transportation, money, and a certified copy of their birth certificate. It's a shame that there are a significant number of people for whom that's a problem.

Department stores are not willing to spend $10,000 to prevent $5,000 worth of shoplifting. I don't really think that we should be willing to disenfranchise 10,000 people to prevent 5,000 from voting illegally. It's not as clear a question, but that's really the discussion.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[kelpdiver 2]

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http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/05/world-war-ii-vet-in-broward-on-list-of-potential-noncitizen-voters.html#storylink=cpy

one example of where it is going.....

I'll raise you and say this is the primary motivation behind all of the voter fraud nonsense.

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Broward was following the direction of the state Division of Elections after it forwarded the names of more than 2,600 registered voters to check for their citizenship status. Miami-Dade had the largest contingent while Broward had about 259. Voters have 30 days from the date they receive the letter to provide proof of citizenship or they will be removed from the rolls.

Perfect execution - short notice, puts the burden on the citizen, and worse, is being done AFTER THE PRIMARY. I don't object to an intelligent done purging, but the period between any primary (and esp the 4 year cycle) and the main election should be off limits to voter tampering. By the time a person notices they didn't get a voter information card in the month before the election it may be too late to do anything about it.

This already is a higher degree of voter fraud than the defenders have been able to demonstrate.

[Andy9o8 0]

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Department stores are not willing to spend $10,000 to prevent $5,000 worth of shoplifting. I don't really think that we should be willing to disenfranchise 10,000 people to prevent 5,000 from voting illegally. It's not as clear a question, but that's really the discussion..

No, that's how the discussion is couched - it's a facade. It's really about winning elections. Always has been.