Statistical Tools For Detecting Electoral Fraud

RockDoctor writes "A recent paper published in PNAS describes statistical techniques for clearly displaying the presence of two types of electoral fraud (PDF) — 'incremental fraud' (stuffing of ballot boxes containing genuine votes with ballots for the winning party) and 'extreme fraud' (reporting completely contrived numbers, typically 100% turnout for a vote-counting region, with 100% voting for the winning party). While the techniques would require skill with statistical software to apply in real time, the graphs produced in the paper provide tools for the interested non-statistician to monitor an election 'live.' Examples are discussed with both 'normal' elections, fraud by the techniques mentioned, and cases of genuine voter inhomogeneity. Other types of fraud, such as gerrymandering and inhibiting the registration of minority voters, are not considered."

Comments

Well

[Anonymous Coward]

We can't have that. Who do we call to get this outlawed?

Re:Well

[Chrisq]

We can't have that. Who do we call to get this outlawed?

I'm not sure about that, perhaps we should take a vote on it.

Impossible

[sexconker]

Without tracking who voted for whom, it is impossible to detect any kind of voter fraud (besides more people voting than are eligible) with 100% certainty.

Vote fraudsters would simply rig the vote to some degree under the level of certainty that the statisticians use to watch for fraud.

Re:Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post is proof that you did not even look at the first figure from TFA. The irregularities are very clear in all of the figures.

Re:Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Said the person ignorant about the law of large numbers and statistical analysis.

Re:Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. How about "missing machines" for starters. FL had a few go missing when Bush "won", only for them to turn up a few months later with a "these things happen" from the mayor.

Re:Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Gore lost. Get over it.

Re:Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Gore lost to a coup by the SCOTUS.

Re:Impossible

[phantomfive]

So what? A technique doesn't have to be 100% accurate to be useful. Which is fortunate, because few techniques are.

Re:Impossible

[icebike]

So what? A technique doesn't have to be 100% accurate to be useful. Which is fortunate, because few techniques are.

How is this useful?

Interesting perhaps, but not useful. The party that WON using any detectible vote fraud will not let you change anything, certainly not the outcome and probably not even vote methodology, or credential checking in future elections. In fact they probably won't give you access to voting detail numbers at all once it becomes common knowledge that such analysis is possible.

Re:Impossible

[pod]

Didn't even read TFSummary.

Statistics isn't about being 100%. That's the whole point of trends and probabilities. If there's around 65% voter turnout in an area, within a certain deviation, and one polling station has an 80% voter turnout, that's an anomaly. Usually anything more than 2 standard deviations out is an anomaly, statistically speaking. Nothing implies this is 100% election fraud, or even election fraud at all. It just means something different is happening there.

Re:Impossible

[ceoyoyo]

No, you replied to him.

The OP is absolutely correct. Statistics only works if you have an unbiased sample. If you're up against smart fraudsters they'll cook the numbers to satisfy these statistical tests. Fortunately, most election riggers don't really care if people suspect they rigged the election.

Re:Impossible

[headwick]

If they use closed source black box voting machines, then we know the data they provide is completely trustworthy. How could it be anything else?

Re:Impossible

[Technician]

Signs of this are races that turn out to be very close within 1/2 percent as they stuff just enough to tip the result. Seen an excess of extreme close races lately? The probability of a high percentage of very close races is slim. Seeing many very close races under 1% spread is a statistical indication of rigged elections.

Re:Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

There is Therapy available for you ya know.

Re:Impossible

[phantomfive]

If it keeps Jimmy Carter from ever saying again how great Venezuela's election system is, then it will be worth it.

Re:Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Without tracking who voted for whom, it is impossible to detect any kind of voter fraud (besides more people voting than are eligible) with 100% certainty.

Vote fraudsters would simply rig the vote to some degree under the level of certainty that the statisticians use to watch for fraud.

Well, duh, it's a statistical method to detect fraud, so you can never be 100% certain.

If the fraudsters rig the vote to some degree under the level of certainty the statisticians use, it may not be enough to actually win the district.

Re:Impossible

[metacell]

Interesting perhaps, but not useful. The party that WON using any detectible vote fraud will not let you change anything, certainly not the outcome and probably not even vote methodology, or credential checking in future elections. In fact they probably won't give you access to voting detail numbers at all once it becomes common knowledge that such analysis is possible.

Just because a party won by fraud, it doesn't mean they become dictators for life and can block every attempt to fix the system. Sooner or later another party will win, and the cheating party can't make their manipulations too obvious.

Re:Impossible

[DarwinSurvivor]

Tell that to Steven Harper!

Re:Impossible

[jellomizer]

You know sometimes these things do happen. Having done work with state and local government, I see things like this happening all the time.

Government employment culture is the idea on what you do wrong will hurt you, vs what you do right will promote you.
So there is little effort in telling people how to do things right, and if some one makes a mistake they will keep quiet and hope they don't get caught.

Re:Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't even read TFSummary.

Statistics isn't about being 100%. That's the whole point of trends and probabilities. If there's around 65% voter turnout in an area, within a certain deviation, and one polling station has an 80% voter turnout, that's an anomaly. Usually anything more than 2 standard deviations out is an anomaly, statistically speaking. Nothing implies this is 100% election fraud, or even election fraud at all. It just means something different is happening there.

The whole point of shaking this bee hive is to inject uncertainty to election results. Don't like the outcome? Look at these numbers and claim they stole it. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what the numbers are since, as long as they're non-zero, there's doubt. At least to the general public.

It's a strategy to keep people divided. If you really want to stop voter fraud, secure your ballot boxes, require an id (state id, school id, passport, birth certificate, whatever, something that can be resolved 1:1), and network your polling places and connect to some kind of ACID database.

Re:Impossible

[Applekid]

Signs of this are races that turn out to be very close within 1/2 percent as they stuff just enough to tip the result. Seen an excess of extreme close races lately? The probability of a high percentage of very close races is slim. Seeing many very close races under 1% spread is a statistical indication of rigged elections.

Funny, I take close races more like a sign that people are holding their nose and voting for the lesser of two evils. I mean, you can vote Republican for fiscal conservatism and denying civil rights, or you can vote Democratic for permissive society and economic ruin.

In the end, they're just promises anyway, both sides bring economic ruin and denial of rights, the details are who specifically won't be able to afford anything and which rights get trampled.

People are so scared that the "other side" can win that they can't bring themselves to vote for a 3rd party candidate they really like and who might actually do what they promise, hence the cycle perpetuates.

Re:Impossible

[sexconker]

So what? A technique doesn't have to be 100% accurate to be useful. Which is fortunate, because few techniques are.

It absolutely does have to be 100% accurate when you're ultimately going to use that technique as evidence in a court of law. That's the only end game here if you believe the intentions set forth in TFA. You can't just be 99% or 99.99% sure when you need to beat reasonable doubt on a subject that covers the behavior of large groups of people. Unless you also happen to have video of someone stuffing the damned ballot box, you need to be 100% sure. If you do have such a video, then you don't need the math.

Of course, the true intention of this is to inject FUD into the system and scream "OH MY GOD LOOK AT MY MATH THESE GUYS ARE RIGGING THE ELECTION!" while the other guys scream "NO WE'RE NOT LOOK AT MY MATH! THEY'RE THE ONES DOING IT!!!111".

Re:Impossible

[phantomfive]

It absolutely does have to be 100% accurate when you're ultimately going to use that technique as evidence in a court of law.

What, why do you even think this? Tons of evidence is allowed in a court of law that isn't 100% accurate.

Furthermore, to be more clear, you didn't answer what I said in my comment. I said, a technique doesn't have to catch 100% of cheating instances to be useful. If it only catches 10% it can still be useful.

Re:Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

So what? A technique doesn't have to be 100% accurate to be useful. Which is fortunate, because few techniques are.

How is this useful?

Interesting perhaps, but not useful. The party that WON using any detectible vote fraud will not let you change anything, certainly not the outcome and probably not even vote methodology, or credential checking in future elections. In fact they probably won't give you access to voting detail numbers at all once it becomes common knowledge that such analysis is possible.

Where's that "-1, Dumb as a box of rocks" mod when you need it?

Re:Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

So what? A technique doesn't have to be 100% accurate to be useful. Which is fortunate, because few techniques are.

It absolutely does have to be 100% accurate when you're ultimately going to use that technique as evidence in a court of law. That's the only end game here if you believe the intentions set forth in TFA. You can't just be 99% or 99.99% sure when you need to beat reasonable doubt on a subject that covers the behavior of large groups of people. Unless you also happen to have video of someone stuffing the damned ballot box, you need to be 100% sure. If you do have such a video, then you don't need the math.

Of course, the true intention of this is to inject FUD into the system and scream "OH MY GOD LOOK AT MY MATH THESE GUYS ARE RIGGING THE ELECTION!" while the other guys scream "NO WE'RE NOT LOOK AT MY MATH! THEY'RE THE ONES DOING IT!!!111".

I assume this is a joke or a troll. Just about all forensic evidence admitted at trials has some statistical uncertainty. Gunshot ballistics, DNA profiling, hair and fiber samples, fingerprints, and that's just what I can think of off the top of my head.

Sigh! Heinlein definitely had it right. Oh, and since you surely don't get the reference:
“Anyone who cannot handle mathematics is not fully human, but is at best a tolerable subhuman who has learned to bathe, wear shoes, and not make messes in the house.”
– Robert Heinlein, “Time Enough for Love”

Re:Impossible

[RockDoctor]

It absolutely does have to be 100% accurate when you're ultimately going to use that technique as evidence in a court of law.

No technique of experimental science is 100% accurate ("100" being an integer, not a real number). All techniques have some degree of measurement uncertainty, even if it is very low.

Gerrymandering

[prakslash]

Gerrymandering is not exactly fraud. Intentionally drawing lines to create voting districts in a way such that it favors one political party over another is perfectly legal (although obviously not desired). Gerrymandering can be used for good too such as creating voting districts consisting of mostly Blacks or other minorities so they can elect a (favored minority) representative and have a say in the political process.

Re:Gerrymandering

[Anonymous Coward]

Gerrymandering can be used for good too such as creating voting districts consisting of mostly Blacks or other minorities so they can elect a (favored minority) representative and have a say in the political process.

Why is this considered good? Do you believe that "Blacks and other minorities" can't succeed without help?

If I'm not mistaken, Barack Obama is a "black or other minority" and he won in a country not "consisting of mostly Blacks or other minorities".

Re:Gerrymandering

[aardvarkjoe]

Gerrymandering can be used for good too such as creating voting districts consisting of mostly Blacks or other minorities so they can elect a (favored minority) representative

Whether or not this is ever "good" is debatable, to say the least.

I live in a so-called "majority-minority" district which was considered a lock for a minority candidate since its creation. The incumbent has done such a poor job that he came fairly close to losing the election in 2010. The response? They adjusted the lines to pull extra minorities into his district to ensure that would never happen again.

The message there was clear: your vote counts for nothing. The representative has already been chosen by those who set up the districts.

Re:Gerrymandering

[ClickOnThis]

Gerrymandering is not exactly fraud.

Perhaps, but TFA isn't really about gerrymandering, although it gets a brief mention in the introduction.

Re:Gerrymandering

[Anonymous Coward]

> Gerrymandering is not exactly fraud.

Lamar Smith, District 21: http://lamarsmith.house.gov/district/interactivemap.htm

Re:Gerrymandering

[Charliemopps]

Let's be clear... it is, in fact, fraud. It is not, however, illegal. There are plenty of hateful and immoral things, especially when it comes to elections, that are not illegal. Gerrymandering is clearly one of them. If anything proves beyond a doubt that your vote doesn't really count for anything and our elections are rigged, it's Gerrymandering. It's also, ironically, the reason Ron Paul is losing his district.

Re:Gerrymandering

[ceoyoyo]

If there is a minority (ethnic or otherwise) with interests differing from that of the majority, that minority may be underrepresented in representative systems. If the minority happens to be geographically localized, drawing electoral boundaries appropriately can restore them to a proportionate amount of political power.

The OP possibly could have chosen his words better, but I don't think he meant any harm.

Re:Gerrymandering

[Anonymous Coward]

Gerrymandering is not exactly fraud.

oh, ok, so rigging the outcome of elections is not fraud.

if you cared for minorities, you'd support proportional representation, not gerrymandering.

Re:Gerrymandering

[GreyLurk]

I think that fraud has to include some element of secrecy. Gerrymandering is not secretive, it's practiced openly, and in full public view. The voting district lines are available to anyone who wanders in to your county offices.

Re:Gerrymandering

[shutdown -p now]

The problem with that argument is that it is not-so-subtly segregationist - let the minority have their own small ghetto where they run things, but keep them out of our (much bigger) turf where we do as we want. SAR had a similar arrangement with bantustans during apartheid.

Thing is, if you have an ethnic minority with interests profoundly different from the majority, that's already the sign of a very fundamental flaw in that society, which is not going to be fixed by token gestures

Re:Gerrymandering

[icebike]

If the minority happens to be geographically localized, drawing electoral boundaries appropriately can restore them to a proportionate amount of political power.

However, you must admit that is a pretty big IF.

In a mobile and free nation It is unlikely to be the case that they will localized.

And of course underlying your whole assumption is a disturbing assumption of racism.

Re:Gerrymandering

[bgat]

The problem with that argument is that it is not-so-subtly segregationist - let the minority have their own small ghetto where they run things, but keep them out of our (much bigger) turf where we do as we want. SAR had a similar arrangement with bantustans during apartheid.

Thing is, if you have an ethnic minority with interests profoundly different from the majority, that's already the sign of a very fundamental flaw in that society, which is not going to be fixed by token gestures

Actually, that isn't how it turns out at all: there is no "ghetto" established, as the laws that the prevailing governing body passes will apply to the entire incorporated area (city, county, state, whatever). The key difference is that without the gerrymandering, there will be no voice in that governing body to represent the extreme minority's interests at all. So it's actually anti-segregationist, since it gives the minority a stronger voice than they would have otherwise.

Of course, that's if gerrymandering is done with the public's good in mind. More often, unfortunately, it's used just to strengthen a particular candidate's party. And that party's interests are more often solely the interests of the party itself, and not the citizens of the district the party claims to represent.

Re:Gerrymandering

[shutdown -p now]

The minority should not need a voice to speak for them in the first place. They should be citizens just like any others, with same rights and needs as far as their interaction with the government goes. If they're not, that in itself is segregationalist - it's creating a division along ethnic (or other similarly decorative) lines where none should rationally exist. It only happens when either the government is deliberately discriminating against them (in which case a single representative is not going to do anything useful, and is little more than token gesture), or because that group of people is intentionally segregating themselves from the rest of society, excluding outsiders from their power structure - which is a bad thing and should not be encouraged.

Re:Gerrymandering

[Anonymous Coward]

The minority should not need a voice to speak for them in the first place. They should be citizens just like any others, with same rights and needs as far as their interaction with the government goes.

It's a nice thought, but we have a first-past-the-post electoral system where the majority's candidate wins everything, every time. If you're a minority with a different set of needs and wants, you will always lose out in that system.

Re:Gerrymandering

[mwvdlee]

Assume all majority people vote party X and all minorities vote party Y, both voted in equal proportions and all districts consisted of 51% majority people, party X would win 100% of the districts. Rearranging districts might end up giving party Y a majority of districts.
Neither is good, as both misrepresent the votes. As long as a district system is used, votes are misrepresented as not all votes will be weighed equally.

Re:Gerrymandering

[shutdown -p now]

Why would you need a different set of needs based solely on your ethnicity, though?

I'm not saying that people shouldn't disagree, and certainly proportional representation is far better than FPTP to reflect what the society actually needs. I just don't see why political differences have to go along ethnic lines - and especially why that should be promoted as natural.

Re:Gerrymandering

[Anonymous Coward]

Like it or not, ethnic lines are often community lines, thanks to numerous historical and cultural reasons. It might not matter in theory, but in practice it matters a hell of a lot. Poor representation in government turns these places into ghettoes; lousy schools, broken infrastructure, lack of services all contribute to drive businesses away and spirals the area into depression and crime. Often this is the result of seemingly nice politicians who would protest that they don't have a racist bone in their body, and that may be more or less true; it's just that these "ethnic" communities are not a priority, and so the money always gets spent somewhere else.

  This is all a symptom of the fundamental problem with all government, which is that it takes money and power away from people and gives it to other people who are foolishly expected to wield it on their behalf. I say foolishly, because people never learn any better, no matter how often it's been shown that even if they don't just ignore you and simply wield it on their own behalf, nobody can ever know what you need better than you yourself.

  The only way to make government more reasonable (if you're not going to dismantle the damned thing, which I'd be in favor of) is to bring it closer to the people it's supposed to serve. The fewer degrees of separation, the less "telephone game" there is between the people and their representatives, and more importantly, the less the personal interests of the politician will diverge from those of the people he is supposed to represent, giving corruption less surface area to grow on.

Re:Gerrymandering

[jlechem]

I have to agree with this, here in Utah they re-drew the entire state's districts for the house and congress to skew even more Republic then we already do and to especially screw Jim Matheson. It made all the local news, papers, and even the local NPR but no one I knew hardly gave a shit.

Re:Gerrymandering

[metacell]

Gerrymandering can be used for good too such as creating voting districts consisting of mostly Blacks or other minorities so they can elect a (favored minority) representative and have a say in the political process.

You mean, so the blacks become "equal but separate"?

Re:Gerrymandering

[sFurbo]

If there is a minority (ethnic or otherwise) with interests differing from that of the majority, that minority may be underrepresented in representative systems.

Only if you use winner-take-all voting with no adjusting, and no country would do that, that would ensure a two-party system which would no represent the best interest of the public. Oh, wait....

Or, in other words, fix the problem, not one of the symptoms. The problem is that winner-take-all is not going to be representative, and furthermore that it will encourage the forming of two huge parties, neither of which will have interests coinciding with the public.

Re:Gerrymandering

[metacell]

Actually, that isn't how it turns out at all: there is no "ghetto" established, as the laws that the prevailing governing body passes will apply to the entire incorporated area (city, county, state, whatever). The key difference is that without the gerrymandering, there will be no voice in that governing body to represent the extreme minority's interests at all. So it's actually anti-segregationist, since it gives the minority a stronger voice than they would have otherwise.

That's a horrible way to fix the problem. It's better to have a proportional system, where parties are awarded seats in the government/state/county in proportion to the popular vote. The problem only occurs in winner-takes-all systems in the first place.

If we accept gerrymandering to give certain minorities a vote, we're also giving politicians an excuse for abusing the system to further their own power.

And yes, it's segregationist. Segregation means you separate ethnic groups. Having good intentions or giving the group a stronger vote doesn't change that.

Re:Gerrymandering

[metacell]

It's dishonest, but not fraud. Fraud includes an element of secrecy or misleading, not just rigging the system to your benefit.

Re:Gerrymandering

[Hognoxious]

That's a horrible way to fix the problem. It's better to have a proportional system, where parties are awarded seats in the government/state/county in proportion to the popular vote.

Yeah, it works brilliantly in Italy.

Re:Gerrymandering

[metacell]

Most other European countries have proportional systems, and it works well (as politics goes).

The problem with Italy seems to be widespread corruption and a less-than-serious attitude (like when they voted a porn star into the parliament).

Re:Gerrymandering

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a freaking break, it's fraud. You want secrecy go and ask the average voter what gerrymandering is and most of them will give you blank stares.

You want fraud? Do you understand what recess appointments are and when congress is in recess. There's your freaking fraud. What you want more? I got more.

Re:Gerrymandering

[mdfst13]

You can get the good things from potential gerrymanders without the bad parts. Instead of dividing into districts, use a proportional representation system where people vote for lists of candidates. That way, if minorities prefer to vote for other minorities, they can. If they prefer to vote based on party, they can. If they prefer to vote on some other basis, they can. Essentially this lets voters choose their representatives rather than letting politicians choose their voters.

This also solves the problem of many voters being unrepresented. About 40% of voters vote for the losing candidate. Under the current system, they have to go to the winning candidate for help with government issues. Under this proposal, they could pick the representative who best fit their beliefs. Also, only a very small minority would get no preferred candidate. This would also allow candidates who do not fit traditional party classifications to do better. States like California could send libertarian, socialist, or Green candidates as well as candidates from the traditional parties. Although no single district has a majority of voters who favor any of those ideologies, the state as a whole has enough voters who do so.

The current system leads to gamesmanship. Democrats took advantage of this for decades. Now Republicans are doing the same thing and Democrats complain -- the way that Republicans used to do. Except in states like Illinois, where Democrats still gerrymander while Republicans complain. Or states like Massachusetts, where there is an unrepresented Republican minority but people don't even bother to complain.

Re:Gerrymandering

[Fnord666]

but no one I knew hardly gave a shit.

So everyone you knew at least gave a shit, and did you mean that literally or figuratively?

Re:Gerrymandering

[TFAFalcon]

So why stop at minorities? Create districts where only the educated, green party, libertarians, sharia supporters,....

Once you start rigging districts to give minorities a unified vote, you suddenly have a whole pile of minorities that don't get the same treatment and are discriminated against.

Re:Gerrymandering

[nedlohs]

Or just use proportional representation instead of districts.

Re:Gerrymandering

[TFAFalcon]

So what makes that minority's candidate different from all the other candidates that don't win? Every viewpoint that is not one of the 1 or 2 most popular ones suffers underr-epresentation.

Re:Gerrymandering

[Anonymous Coward]

Any country that takes on massive debt without a plan to pay it back cares more about comfort today at the expense of future generations that will have to sacrifice for this one instead of the other way around (fundamental change)

Re:Gerrymandering

[Anonymous Coward]

It's interesting. In Ohio, the last redistricting was so egregiously gerrymandered that we now have a voter-initiated statewide issue on the ballot (Issue 2) to take redistricting out of the hands of politicians and put it in the hands of a 12-person citizen commission.

The result? We're now being bombarded with political ads claiming that Issue 2 will create a board of unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats who will merrily spend your hard-earned money and you won't be able to do a thing about it! And, of course, these ads never actually say what Issue 2 is all about. They just highlight cherry-picked words and phrases in the ballot language while scary music plays in the background.

Now, I haven't studied all the pros and cons of the issue, but if Big Money is that scared that the thing will pass, I might just vote for it.

Re:Gerrymandering

[Idarubicin]

I live in a so-called "majority-minority" district which was considered a lock for a minority candidate since its creation. The incumbent has done such a poor job that he came fairly close to losing the election in 2010. The response? They adjusted the lines to pull extra minorities into his district to ensure that would never happen again.

Incumbents tend to enjoy advantages in terms of resources and name recognition that can make them inherently more difficult to beat, even in the absence of race politics.

A local challenger can be further hamstrung by platform elements adopted at the presidential, federal, or state level that are unpalatable within a district (or unpalatable to a significant group living within that district).

There's a further vicious circle at work where a party decides that a seat is unwinnable, and therefore doesn't put any resources into recruiting effective candidates or running more than a pro forma campaign, and therefore finds that the seat is unwinnable, and so doesn't put in any effort...

There are at least two routes around the problem. First, find a credible non-minority candidate who can demonstrate an ability to work with groups (majority and minority ethnicities) within the district. Not only does this require time and effort, but it may also require the candidate to butt heads with the state or federal party. Second, the cynical route is for your party to find a minority candidate of its own. You've just told me that the district has lots of them; can't you find any of them who want to represent the (Republican) party locally?

The downside of that second approach is that you can't go blaming race anymore when the party still loses; you might have to start looking at why your policies are so unappealing to the minority population.

Re:Gerrymandering

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yeah. Splitting government into smaller sectors doesn't really fix the problem, but it makes it smaller.

  I'm an anarchist, so I'm in favor of doing away with it entirely as a bad idea that became a failed experiment, but if you're going to accept the idea of government, then splitting it up into the smallest regions you can will minimize the disconnect between the elected politicians and the people they are supposed to represent. A guy who will fix the potholes on your street because he has to drive over them too will represent you better than a millionaire from the next state over, yet he will never represent your preferences as well as you could do for yourself.

Re:Gerrymandering

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi - big Ron Paul fan here - BIG! The gerrymandering/redistricting may have been a factor but he has survived such games in the past. I suspect he wants to retire and/or transition to something else. I hope he stays strong - hell I hope he runs in 2016! (the BIGGEST RP fan!). That said, it would be sad for him to die a fixture in DC (with a nurse feeding him and a campaign aide telling him how to vote) 'cause that's not how he is.

Re:Gerrymandering

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is winner-take-all systems. If, say top 2-3, candidates have proportional representation, gerrymandering would be a lot less effective.

Re:Gerrymandering

[Nethemas the Great]

They aren't a part of society if they are not integrated into it. They are isolationists and should not disproportionately influence a society they chose not to be members of.

Re:Gerrymandering

[ceoyoyo]

I'm not talking about changing electoral lines right before an election, but when they're set up or (very occasionally) changed, they can be drawn to minimize potential tyranny of the majority issues. I'm not saying it's a universally good or bad thing, but it's not fraud and it's not a racist "they can't succeed on their own" motivation as the AC assumed.

The motivation behind drawing electoral boundaries to take into account geographically localized minorities (of any type) is to avoid their proportional political power being reduced through dilution by the majority. For that to be a concern, the particular group has to be a minority. Suppose there is a highly educated, professional neighbourhood next to a lower educated, working class neighbourhood. The population of the professional neighbourhood is greater than that of the working class neighbourhood. Both together justify two electoral districts. You can draw two districts each encompassing half of each neighbourhood, or two districts that each mostly encompasses one of the neighbourhoods.

In the first case the working class in both districts will be outnumbered by the professionals and so may never elect a representative if their views tend not to be shared by the professionals. The professionals will gain a disproportionate share of political power at the workers' expense. On the other hand, in the second case, both the professionals and workers are the majorities in their respective districts and both voting blocs will have political power more proportional to their population.

Re:Gerrymandering

[ceoyoyo]

Many countries that have directly elected representative systems have more than two parties. That seems to be a peculiarity of the US, and is most evident in the direct presidential elections. Also, poorly drawn electoral districts leave the government MORE beholden to the majority, not less. The things you're complaining about stem from the prevailing belief in the US that a vote for anything but the Democrats or Republicans is a wasted vote, and the habit of a large proportion of the population to belong to a political party and vote for that party no matter what. I don't know how those things arose, but it's not the fault of representative democracy.

Re:Gerrymandering

[ceoyoyo]

Actually, in the US at least, minorities tend to be very well (many non Americans find it disturbingly well) geographically segregated. There are black neighbourhoods, white neighbourhoods, hispanic neighbourhoods, rich neighbourhoods, poor neighbourhoods, etc., with little mixing.

You'll have to specify what my "whole assumption" is, and precisely what my "assumption of racism" is. I suspect you've completely misunderstood what I've said.

Re:Gerrymandering

[TFAFalcon]

But isn't it unfair to draw districts for some minorities and not for others? Imagine your scenario, but include that a bit more then half of each neighborhood is white and a bit less then half is black. You can draw the borders to either unify the neighborhoods, or unify the races. Which do you choose? In each case one minority will be left without a voice - either minority defined by race or occupation/education.

Re:Gerrymandering

[operagost]

A properly functioning republic already compensates for "tyranny of the majority" without having to suffer from the meddling and judgment calls of both the corrupt and the well-meaning. After all, if the political process is too flawed to adequately represent the minority population, how is a sympathetic representative going to obtain the power to modify the district? We don't need the political equivalent of busing.

Re:Gerrymandering

[ceoyoyo]

No, my post discusses a common method for improving the equality of political power if you already have a segregated minority (or more than one). I don't think any group says "oh, we should all move into this electoral district together!"

The US DOES have geographically segregated minorities. I'm not American, and I was a bit shocked at how segregated it was when a law student friend of mine pointed out a cool interactive census data browser. I completely agree with you, ethnic segregation is bad.

However, if it exists, intelligent drawing of electoral districts can at least make sure everyone is heard. It's also useful in other circumstances too. For example, the concerns of farmers and urbanites are often different, so electoral districts that don't lump large rural regions in with urban areas are a good idea.

Re:Gerrymandering

[ceoyoyo]

It's definitely not straightfoward. You want to draw the boundaries between political alignments though, not race or income necessarily. So you'd choose the option that kept the most politically similar people together, whether that ended up being the economic division or the racial one.

Re:Gerrymandering

[Anonymous Coward]

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. Sir Winston Churchill

Re:Gerrymandering

[Anonymous Coward]

The OP possibly could have chosen his words better, but I don't think he meant any harm.

Oh, I guess if he didn't mean harm, we should forgive his bad ideas.

/sarcasm

Re:Gerrymandering

[metacell]

It's doesn't need to be intentional. Every politician agrees the debt needs to be repaid (or at least kept from growing), but they can't agree on where to save, so it keeps increasing. In fact, that seems to be how the US government acquired its current debt.

Re:Gerrymandering

[YaddaMinski]

In my ward, I have seen seen more then one time an operative on a walky-talky talking "get more vans over here!"

Re:Gerrymandering

[DirtyLiar]

nobody can ever know what you need better than you yourself.

Not true. The foolish, ignorant, retarded, inexperienced, naive, and stupid often don't know what they need, or what is in their best interest, and could benefit greatly from the advice of someone wiser, more knowledgeable, experienced, cynical and / or smarter.

This is why we have professionals and experts like architects, doctors, teachers and the others that we turn to for help and advice. And we only turn to them when we realize that we are stumped, and that takes self-knowledge. Which the foolish, ignorant...... are less likely to have than most.

And we're ALL foolish, ignorant, inexperienced, naive and stupid in some areas of life.

Actually, in ALL areas of life, at one time or another.

In the best of all possible worlds everyone would know best what they need.

But one thing I can tell you is that we do not live in the in the best of all possible worlds. Not even close.

Re:Gerrymandering

[DirtyLiar]

That hopefully he or she would have a more intrinsic knowledge of the needs of the minority.

Remember, we as a nation, have hundreds of years of experience with overt, unashamed, unblinking racism. And we haven't fully left that era yet. Not only are the repercussions still evident, but there are still living ex-slaves and ex-slaveholders, and their children. Long-held opinions and assumptions are hard to let-go, and prejudice beat into you sometimes can't even be beat out.

To ignore the facts and insist that we live and act as if we were in some kind of ideal world where all this is behind us is to be willfully ignorant.

And willful ignorance is the hardest kind to rectify.

Re:Gerrymandering

[DirtyLiar]

It's doesn't need to be intentional. Every politician agrees the debt needs to be repaid (or at least kept from growing), but they can't agree on where to save, so it keeps increasing. In fact, that seems to be how the US government acquired its current debt.

Clinton left office with a surplus.

The current debt came about by buying more than we can afford in the following years, not though an inability to reduce a nonexistent debt.

Re:Gerrymandering

[DirtyLiar]

Many countries that have directly elected representative systems have more than two parties. That seems to be a peculiarity of the US, and is most evident in the direct presidential elections.

We (in the US) do not have direct presidential elections. If we did, we'd have had several different presidents from the ones we've had. It's widely accepted that Al Gore won the popular vote, yet he did not become President. In fact we've had several Presidents who lost the popular vote. Why?

We have an electoral system where we vote to tell our representatives in the electoral collage how we want them to vote.

THEY are actually under no legal obligation to vote the way we tell them (though that may differ state to state, I don't know), can, and do change votes and coalitions right up till the moment they vote. And whether they decide to cast their votes proportionally with the popular vote, or whether they vote as a 'winner take all' system, is up to States, the parties, and... well... politics.

Re:Gerrymandering

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. The foolish, ignorant, retarded, inexperienced, naive, and stupid often don't know what they need, or what is in their best interest, and could benefit greatly from the advice of someone wiser, more knowledgeable, experienced, cynical and / or smarter.

This is why we have professionals and experts like architects, doctors, teachers and the others that we turn to for help and advice. And we only turn to them when we realize that we are stumped, and that takes self-knowledge. Which the foolish, ignorant...... are less likely to have than most

Yes, but we're not talking about advice. Getting advice from someone knowledgeable in a given field is an excellent idea, but is wholly different than letting someone run your life for you. This is especially a bad idea since no authority is likely to be more good, more wise, or more just than the average run of humans, (and indeed, history shows they are usually much worse -- sociopaths tend to thrive in hierarchical power structures) and no one can be knowledgeable in every field.

  Given a choice between asking experts for advice on how to run your own life, and letting someone who doesn't even know you ask some experts how to run your life for you, the more efficient choice will always be the former. The latter adds nothing but an information problem and an opportunity for the ruling party to pursue its own interests at your expense, i.e. corruption.

Re:Gerrymandering

[metacell]

"Left office with a surplus" means that he reduced the debt during his term, not that it was zero when he left. The US national debt has been trillions of dollars since the 1940's. See graph to the right on this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt#History

But point taken. Clinton was very competent on the issues, despite his embarassing extramarital affairs.

Damn simple

[Anonymous Coward]

When the candidate that least respects individual sovereignty, private property and voluntary exchange wins, fraud is proven beyond any reasonable doubt. People who actually WORK for a living have fewer opportunities to engage in fraud because they are busy WORKING and not engaging in acts to further election fraud.

With apologies ahead of time...

[sacrilicious]

... dare I ask how one pronounces "PNAS"?

Re:With apologies ahead of time...

[ceoyoyo]

Pee NAZ, usually. Not Pee NIS, as you're evidently thinking. Not that A and I ever sound remotely like each other.

Re:With apologies ahead of time...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pronounced "Papers Not Accepted by Science".

Re:With apologies ahead of time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Polytime nondeterministic approximation scheme.

Re:With apologies ahead of time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pee NASS - it's an S, not a Z.

Re:With apologies ahead of time...

[ceoyoyo]

I've never heard anyone pronounce it with an s (like sibilant). It's always with a z (like zip). I suppose some people might do so though.

Re:With apologies ahead of time...

[steveaustin1971]

Exactly how your thinking but with a slightly posh London accent.

Re:With apologies ahead of time...

[onemorechip]

Exactly how your thinking but with a slightly posh London accent.

What, to give it panache?

Re:With apologies ahead of time...

[Hognoxious]

Not that A and I ever sound remotely like each other.

They bleddy well do if you tok likk a Sitt Ifrikken.

Re:With apologies ahead of time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pee NAZ, usually. Not Pee NIS, as you're evidently thinking.

(I feel like Rodney Dangerfield in "Back to school".)

That's what I call my organ, my peenaz. What's this "pee nis" you speak of?

Not that A and I ever sound remotely like each other.

What about like in "tinitis", and "AI research"? Game set and match dude!

Re:With apologies ahead of time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Being a biologist, who has read countless papers in PNAS and heard them discussed in classrooms, seminars, conferences and invited talks in numerous locations in the United States and several in locations in other countries, I would have to say the majority pronounciation uses all the letters: P N A S. That said, the number of jokes about the accronym are not insignificant.

Real fraud

[roman_mir]

Of-course the real fraud is in making people believe that the fact that they are voting in a democratic elections means that they are preventing a 'bad' outcome and are getting a 'good' outcome instead.

The reality of-course is that in order for democracy to avoid a descend into totalitarianism the individuals have to work hard, they have to be educated, they have to be knowledgeable of facts, they have to be learned of ideas, they have to be independent thinkers.

Unfortunately the democracy boils down to the lowest common denominator, most people are ignorant of facts, ideas, they are victims of propaganda of various types.

This type of democracy, which is really mobocracy, inevitably leads to some form of collectivism. Be it socialism or its next logical step - fascism.

It's a logical step, once the socialists realise that they cannot really apply their ideology for international socialism and thus fascism or corporatism takes place, which is enforced by the nationalist ideas - nazism. Idealistic socialists cannot admit to themselves what their real methods have to be in order to achieve their collectivist goals of central planning, thus they get brushed aside and something much more terrible than them comes alone. From Stalinism to Hitlerism and Maoism, all of these 'isms' have something in common - they hate individualism, capitalism, humanism. They promote the ideas of 'higher good', 'social justice', 'common welfare'. Of-course these must come at the expense of individualism, capitalism, real humanism, real ethics, real morals and be substituted by the fake morals of central authority, for who the ends justify the means, after all, it's "for the common good".

So AFAIC the real fraud is the belief that the democratic system in itself is a meaningful system of establishing 'fairness' or 'higher morality' or whatever you believe is actually achieved by democracy. Democracy is a tool and in the system that denies the rule of law above the government and instead promotes principles of 'fairness' that do not necessarily come out of just rules but are decided on case by case model, then this tool is subverted to serve the ideas of centrally planned, nationalistic, discriminatory, anti-individualistic, anti-human and absolutely anti-capitalist power structure.

Re:Real fraud

[digsbo]

You importantly raised the issue of abandoning the rule of law, which has been happening here in the USA with alarming regularity (a purist would say Lincoln was the worst first example, though you could find more before him). I wish I knew the name of it but there was a wonderful 10 minute video that explained the difference between a republic (and its literal translation as the public thing, meaning the rule of law) and how democratic republics are at risk of becoming lawless mob ruled states, as you describe.

Re:Real fraud

[hondo77]

(an idiot would say Lincoln was the worst first example, though you could find more before him).

FTFY.

Re:Real fraud

[digsbo]

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, among other actions, which were in violation of the Constution, and illegal. Therefore, my statement is factually sound. I did not make a value judgment, just a statement of fact - many purists do indeed cite Lincoln as one of the first presidents to grossly violate the rule of law. A better question would have been, "Why?", which is what I've tried to answer here. Your attitude is really uncalled for, unconstructive, and ignorant.

Re:Real fraud

[techno-vampire]

You are aware, I hope, that The Suspension Clause allows for habeas corpus to be suspended "...when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

Re:Real fraud

[digsbo]

The use of it to imprison Copperhead Democrats, who were publicly protesting the war, and not otherwise a threat, except to Lincoln politically, pretty fairly casts doubt, at least, on the legality of his use of it in that case. Habeas Corpus cannot seriously be expected to be legally suspended to violate first amendment rights. What do you think?

Re:Real fraud

[larry bagina]

Don't forget John Adam's Sedition Act.

Re:Real fraud

[techno-vampire]

I'm not saying that all of his actions were properly justified, just that his suspension of habeas corpus wasn't completely (or even mostly) unconstitutional.

Re:Real fraud

[digsbo]

Arguments abound for both views. At least one SCOTUS member disagreed with you. Given the obvious unethical nature, and the tenuous claim to legality, I'll stand by my assertion that purists believe Lincoln acted illegally. I doubt many people could convincingly argue that Bush II or Obama have not acted illegally. http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/vance4.html

Re:Real fraud

[digsbo]

Damn I wish I could edit. Meant to emphasize that the language around suspension clearly indicates only in case of rebellion and public safety. I can't buy for a minute that free speech being exercised qualifies either of those legal standards, hence, it was illegal (the argument in the Vance essay notwithstanding, which I think is needlessly complex, but IANACL).

Re:Real fraud

[dkleinsc]

I'm not sure about videos, but the Federalist Papers point specifically explain how the US Constitution prevents a mob from taking control.

The basic problem, though, is that one man's group of motivated citizens voting for what they think is best for the republic is another man's unruly uneducated mob. If you truly believe that the citizens are incapable of electing not-terrible leaders (or, for that matter, weighing evidence fairly when seated on a jury), then what you're really advocating is some form of dictatorship.

Re:Real fraud

[digsbo]

Or anarcho-capitalism, or minarchism, or libertarian socialism, or constitutional monarchy. There are many forms of government (or non-government, as my list belies). Heck, the Habsburgs* presided over a generally prosperous period as monarchs. And there's no inherent reason you can't have liberal policies under a monarch any more than under a democratically elected minister/parliament.

*The reason they fell was more due to external aggression than any internal problems. It is possible, for example, that had the Austro-Hungarians been victorious, that the world after WWI would have been better off. Impossible to prove, but fun to think about. I envision that world as being more steam-punk oriented, somehow.

Re:Real fraud

[techno-vampire]

I'm certainly not going to argue that there wasn't any abuse, only that in at least some of the cases he was justified. And, to be honest, I don't know what percentage of the cases were questionable.

Re:Real fraud

[cobraR478]

If you truly believe that the citizens are incapable of electing not-terrible leaders (or, for that matter, weighing evidence fairly when seated on a jury), then what you're really advocating is some form of dictatorship.

No, you are not. People are definitely free to make an argument for dictatorships if they so choose, but fearing some of the drawbacks of democracy doesn't require you to advocate a dictatorship. Polybius argued that all of the "basic" forms of government were flawed (rule by one, rule by few, rule by many), and that a government that consists of multiple bodies using all of the basic forms of government would be superior to one of the most basic government. The idea was that all of these different institutions would have their own powers and keep the other institutions in check. He also saw as an example of this (consuls, the senate, popular assemblies).

If you fast forward to the enlightenment, the somewhat related idea of "separation of powers" was developed. The idea here was (again) to have multiple institutions (typically along the lines of executive, legislative, and judicial branches) that each have their own set of powers, where in theory some of those powers are designed to keep the other branches in check. The United States is a pretty good example there (not too surprising as the concepts are related and the people who developed the US constitution mostly had classical educations and modeled the constitution on the Roman Republic to an extent).

The thought behind both of these concepts is that because there are multiple institutions all battling for power, the system won't degrade into a bad, abusive system as quickly as one of the pure forms. Like all forms of government, there are downsides. A big one (that we see in the US today) is gridlock. It can be difficult to get anything done, and that's partially by design (its more difficult to abuse one's power if its more difficult to use it), but there can be pretty serious consequences to that. For example, the budget disaster going on in the US right now.

Re:Real fraud

[Artifakt]

The short form answer is "The Civil War", Lincoln can be considered justified by that view if you accept the argument that "The Constitution is not a suicide pact.", or his actions can be seen as going beyond what was actually necessary to prosecute the war. I've read good arguments either way.

The long answer won't fit here, and I'm not sure it exists. I've taught Root Causes of the Civil War in military OCS classes. I tend to favor an argument that Lincolns actions had more necessity behind them than is generally recognized, but I'd have to base this claim on an analogy with US use of nuclear weapons at the end of WW2, an area subject to similar debate. Reading what some highly placed persons in the Confederate government and the Imperial Japanese government of their respective times wrote makes me of the opinion that both situations were at least partially justified from a purely mathematical analysis of the stated goals, intentions and claims of these government officials, and if anything, Lincoln pushed it less far that Truman. I could also make the same point by comparing non-governmental writers who held positions we might call political pundits, journalists, and such in the two eras. No analogy is perfect, one derived like this is doubly suspect, and a detailed study of just how a single Confederate cabinet post in 1862 matches to Hirohito's closest equivalent advisor in 1942, for example, would probably be a year's research.

I doubt Lincoln's example is that relevant to the current actions of the US. The issue of a declared war with mostly clearly defined goals vrs. a situation where no one seems to have clear victory conditions in mind is one reason not to rely too much on any claim that the US government today is following Lincoln's example.

Re:Real fraud

[Hognoxious]

Don't forget John Adam's Sedition Act.

John Adam? Never heard of him.

Re:Real fraud

[dkleinsc]

Anarcho-capitalism very quickly turns into mini-dictatorships of people with the most cash or most effective military force. For example, in colonial Virginia, plantation owners ran their plantations not significantly different from a feudal manor, acting as absolute ruler over slaves and indentured servants under their control and behaving very much like the nobility of Europe. Or to pick something more modern, in northern Mexico, with the government basically ineffective, the leaders of the drug cartels rule over their territory and personnel with an iron fist.

Minarchism means you have a government, and some body has to be in charge of managing the courts and the police and the army (otherwise, you just have anarchy, with all the drawbacks described in the previous paragraph). You have to pick that body somehow: If you hold an election, it's subject to all the democratic whims you're worried about. And if you don't include some variety of the governed consenting with the actions of the government, then you have an unaccountable person or group of people that will effectively operate as a dictatorship. (This one has to be theoretical, as there's no instance of anyone anywhere being able to create and keep a minarchist government for any significant length of time.)

"Libertarian socialism" is an oxymoron, since the fundamental belief of libertarianism is that the government should not force you to do things with your property that you don't want to do, while the fundamental belief of socialism is that the government should force the rich to use their property to support the poor.

Constitutional monarchy depends on whether the monarch has any real power. If the monarch has no real power (e.g. UK and Denmark), then it's a democracy really, and the views of the (theoretically more enlightened) monarch has no effect on policy, and thus all the problems you describe with democracy kick in. If the monarch has a real say in the functioning of government, then typically the monarch acts as an absolute ruler and any other political body serves to advise and carry out the wishes of the monarch.

Re:Real fraud

[digsbo]

Libertarian socialism is something that was recently introduced to me by an adherent. It's effectively voluntarism, with the twist of communal property. I'm not interested in it, but when I reacted the same way, "That's an oxymoron", the person explained it to me.

Constitutional monarchy can look like a strong executive - NOT legislative - office carrying out the function of seeing the law as written implemented correctly, and acting in the interest of national security in case of invasion. I am somewhat strongly sympathetic to seeing it tried out again. Call me crazy...but one of the Indian guys I worked with pointed out that under the maharaja, only one guy needed to be bribed.

Re:Real fraud

[udachny]

It is an oxymoron, it's an impossible situation. You can come up with all sorts of mental contortions but you can't change the fact. Either the society is libertarian (liberal in the classical sense) or it is not.

A libertarian society cannot have 'communal property', because this demands central planning of some type and this goes directly against the principle of self-determination, it denies the free market. Even if you set it up, within months it will destabilise, people will not agree on things like who and how much is supposed to 'sacrifice' to maintain such a weird concept as 'communal property' within actual free market.

You see, even without the free market but with central planning and with lack of actual due process, lack of real laws, the way things are running today, the system has so called 'common property' but it doesn't actually belong to anybody and thus it's not just neglected, it's abused for the benefit of the special interests, that can buy the politicians who control access to it. The society ends up backing that deal.

So before BP drills in the deep waters, the government sets liability caps of 75 Million USD, which are ridiculously low, given the possible liability lawsuits that can arise from a spill or any other type of disaster. How is it possible to have 'common property' when in fact nobody is the owner of it and nobody actually cares about what happens to it and thus politicians simply sell access to it to the highest bidders, who then use it for whatever and the costs of misuse are dropped upon the tax payers?

You think a libertarian society would not know what this concept you speak of would mean for them? It would mean the beginning of the end of the free market in that system, which is actually the way USA free market ended.

Re:Real fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

The trolls keep trolling. You are a troll and all others in this thread are a troll and you are replying to a troll, you are all trolls.

Re:Real fraud

[dkleinsc]

Constitutional monarchy can look like a strong executive - NOT legislative - office carrying out the function of seeing the law as written implemented correctly, and acting in the interest of national security in case of invasion.

If the monarch has the guns, the monarch is ultimately the one who decides what power the legislative body has and can ignore the laws whenever he pleases. If the legislative body has the guns, then they decide what power the monarch has, if any.

Re:Real fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

You can come up with all sorts of mental contortions but you can't change the fact.

It doesn't take a mental contortion, only a bit of understanding of English.

See, English allows for at least two different interpretations of the phrase "libertarian socialism"

Your reading is a libertarian society with some socialism thrown in

But you can also read it as a socialist society with some libertarianism thrown in.

A libertarian society of course has problems with "communal property", lack of free markets, government telling you what to do, etc.

But a socialist society has no problems with any of those. This society becomes "libertarian socialism" when the society selectively makes (many) parts of it more free.

You think a libertarian society would not know what this concept you speak of would mean for them? It would mean the beginning of the end of the free market in that system, which is actually the way USA free market ended.

Well, you can blame Ford, who instead of following the free market and pay his workers the same as everyone else, and let the turnover sort itself out, he went and paid his workers twice the free market price. He also treated his workers very well with shorter work days. Ford set the precedent in having rich guys paying for the welfare of the poor guys

Ford complained about turnover, well maybe that's because the market isn't ready for cars. Ford then distorted the market and (along with other car manufacturers) bought government power, and turned US away from rail to highways.

Re:Real fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

If the monarch has the guns, the monarch is ultimately the one who decides what power the legislative body has and can ignore the laws whenever he pleases. If the legislative body has the guns, then they decide what power the monarch has, if any.

Try telling that to the people of Iraq and see how far you get. They have plenty of guns...
Hint: US is the Monarch in this case.

and then there's this

[__aaltlg1547]

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-72591227/

Re:and then there's this

[Anonymous Coward]

People we hired to fuck up voter registration fucked up voter registration?! Fraud! Fraud! Photo IDs for every voter!

Aside: Personally, I think the photo ID thing is a fine thing... but the entire concept of voter registration is royally fucked in the brain to start with. If you're not eligible to vote, your driver's license (or free photo ID, paid for with the savings from not dealing with registration bullshit) is marked "NON VOTER" in big letters. Otherwise, you present your photo ID at the voting booth in the precinct the address on your photo ID.

If you move, you request a new license/photo ID. If you don't bother, you may have a long drive back to your voting booth.

Re:and then there's this

[dkleinsc]

Aside: Personally, I think the photo ID thing is a fine thing

I don't:
1. It's solving a problem that doesn't exist. The folks that have been pushing photo ID have been able to come up with approximately 10 cases of somebody pretending to be somebody else and casting a vote at the polls, having a significant impact on a grand total of 0 elections. If you want to cast fraudulent ballots, it's far easier to do so using absentee ballots.

2. If you require would-be voters to pay for their IDs, then this is a poll tax, which was ruled unconstitutional decades ago. If you don't, then this is an unnecessary (see point 1) expense, both for the government budget (and ultimately the people who pay taxes) and for the individuals who have to go get a free photo ID (which is only free if you don't count the transportation to the place to get it and the time to wait for it).

3. The party that pushed through these bills stated quite explicitly their purpose, namely to prevent people likely to vote for the other major party from voting. To quote a state government representative, "Voter ID, which is gonna allow ______________ to win the state of Pennsylvania, done". (I'm leaving the party name blank here to protect the guilty). Acts of these sorts are an anathema to democratic governance.

Re:and then there's this

[daemonenwind]

Let me see if I can help you with some of this.

1. You say the problem doesn't exist. The problem there is, if anyone can just walk in to the poll and say, "I'm Steve Wozniak", and we never ask for any proof that they are who they say they are, how do you prove they aren't Steve Wozniak 3 days later? Add to this the well-documented voter registration quotas Acorn was running, and you have a political organization with a list of registered, fantasy voters. Photo ID, of course, means you can mess up the registered voter rolls all you want and it won't matter. Right now, it matters greatly.

2. I'm not aware of a Voter ID law that doesn't provide for appropriate ID for those who can't afford it, or some other means (like nursing home residents' medical records) as appropriate. That said, you can't open a bank account, get a credit card, drive, drink, get into clubs or buy medicine without photo ID. It seems highly unlikely any significant amount of people really don't have it anymore.

3. Actually, no one is looking for real people to not be able to vote. See point 1. But then, maybe you say this because you like it this way. (I'll leave out party affilitaion of those who don't like what's right/wrong being documented anywhere, to protect the guilty)

Re:and then there's this

[Okian Warrior]

"Voter ID, which is gonna allow ______________ to win the state of Pennsylvania, done". (I'm leaving the party name blank here to protect the guilty).

You made a good case, up until you decided to protect the guilty group.

How can other people believe in the strength of your opinion, when you run from controversy at the slightest whiff of risk?

If you don't believe in your position strongly enough to take a stand, then no one else will either.

Ethics without courage is nothing (cf: integrity).

Re:and then there's this

[DeadCatX2]

1) Think about this for a second. If you want to commit a felony, would you rather commit the felony in person where you can be caught, or would you rather commit it anonymously via absentee ballot?

For example, the special election of Bill Stinson in 1993 in PA was overturned because the election was stolen...with absentee ballots.

2a) You know that "free" ID you were supposed to get? Take PA, where the law was passed in the past seven months (March 2012). That "free" photo ID did not exist until late August! Up until then, they were requiring everyone to get the standard photo ID - the one that costs money and requires a higher burden of proof. Imagine your surprise when you go to PennDOT and try to get your "free" photo ID, after you manage to get a ride there (did you know that something like six counties in PA have no PennDOT facility, and another 13-ish counties have one facility open one day a week?)...only to discover that you actually do need to pay for your ID.

2b) What you need an ID for in modern society is a red herring when it comes to voting. Almost 20% of the registered voters in Philadelphia do not have a state-issued ID! Regardless of this fact, how do you define a "significant" amount of people without ID? If this law ends up preventing more legitimate votes than preventing fraudulent votes, is that significant enough for you?

3) I think you're mistaken when you think "no one" is trying to prevent real people from voting. You know that firm that the Republicans are disowning lately, Strategic Allied Consulting? The owner back in 2004 was caught throwing away registrations from voters who registered Democrat. The GOP knows that in-person voter ID is practically nonexistent, and that elections are really stolen with absentee ballots or just by manipulating the voting machines, like these eight people in Clay County, Kentucky, including a judge.

Voter fraud is real, but in-person voter fraud is very rare (see 1 for why). So if the GOP is really interested in honest elections, why are they focusing on the rarest form of fraud? None of these ID laws would stop any of the documented instances of voter fraud that I have mentioned in this post - at least one of which resulted in an actual stolen election.

Re:and then there's this

[khallow]

It's solving a problem that doesn't exist. The folks that have been pushing photo ID have been able to come up with approximately 10 cases

You contradict yourself in the very next sentence where you claim the problem does exist. It might not be a large problem, but a small problem is not a non-existent problem.

If you don't, then this is an unnecessary (see point 1) expense

So you see no difference between being able to vote and not being able to vote? That makes it something other than unnecessary.

The party that pushed through these bills stated quite explicitly their purpose, namely to prevent people likely to vote for the other major party from voting.

I see you forgot to fill in the blanks. You mean the Republicans want to pass the law to prevent Democrats from exercising certain types of electoral fraud? That does sound pretty damning when you put it that way.

Well, I hope you don't mind another election where the exit polls have this consistent bias compared to the votes counted. If we're to have fair elections we'll have to abandon electoral fraud that happens to benefit our perceived side as well.

Re:and then there's this

[daemonenwind]

1. If no one can prove, or ask me to prove, that I'm not who I say I am, then what's the risk? Hey, prove the world is round. But gather no evidence. Good luck.

So, since you asked, I'd rather commit the fraud no one's going to look at - which is to say, show up at the poll, tell them I'm Snoopy Brown at 123 Any Street, show that that name/address is on the voter roll, vote, and walk away. Or hell, I can walk in, same-day register, cast a ballot that will be counted, and walk away. No one will find me, or even look.

But go on and tell yourself no one would do that. I bet you're her first, too.
Of course, that assumes you actually belive the inane tautology you're pushing. "The only fraud is something NOONE would EVER do, because, like, RISK!!!11!" Lie 1.

2a: "Everyone" was not required to get the "full ID". Even the Huffington Post, home of people who love Voter ID, talks about some confusion, but in the end, "Eventually, she got her card." Change the program on some bureaucrats, expect some confusion. But, in the end, "she got her card". Truth hurts, huh chief. Lie number 2 for you.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/27/pennsylvania-voter-id-trial_n_1920993.html

3. Your example about "OMG EBIL REPUBS ARE TEARING UP REGISTRATIONS!!11! " is from 2 YEARS AGO. And what conclusion was come to from the FBI looking into it? Oh yeah, NOTHING. It's bunk! Lie 3, you're out.

The fact of the matter is, you like your partisan view to have multiple votes per person. It's the same old game people like you play. First, you wanted slaves to "have votes" so their master could vote for them, keeping slavery legal. Now, it's making sure that anyone can go into any polling center in the USA, claim to be anyone at all, and vote. So your point of view (a phrase I use loosely in this case) gets overrepresented. Well, the free ride's coming to an end. Almost every first-world, civilized country requires a photo ID to vote. It's well past time we joined them.

It took war to get people like you on the right side of history last time. Hopefully it won't come to that again.

Re:and then there's this

[metacell]

Too bad I've already posted in this thread, or I'd mod you up. You've done your research well.

Re:and then there's this

[metacell]

Because every time you mention Democrats or Republicans in a thread like this, it tends to deteriorate into an argument about which party cheats the most, drawing attention away from the real issue being discussed.

Re:and then there's this

[riverat1]

The problem there is, if anyone can just walk in to the poll and say, "I'm Steve Wozniak", and we never ask for any proof that they are who they say they are, how do you prove they aren't Steve Wozniak 3 days later?

Why don't you try that and see how far you get. But you'd better do enough research to find a registered voter in the precinct you'll be voting in who isn't likely to be voting otherwise. I'll bet if you tried real hard you could cast 10 or 15 votes that way as long as you don't get caught.

In my state I have to sign my name when I vote and that signature gets compared to the signature on my voter registration. That's plenty of ID for me.

Re:and then there's this

[Anonymous Coward]

Why must you always discriminate against dead people. In Crook county (formally Cook IL.) The dead always vote, Every election dead Democrats vote early and often !
I hear in New Orleans they bury their dead above ground to get them to the polls quicker.

Re:and then there's this

[riverat1]

3. Your example about "OMG EBIL REPUBS ARE TEARING UP REGISTRATIONS!!11! " is from 2 YEARS AGO.

Here's one from right now.

Re:and then there's this

[riverat1]

You contradict yourself in the very next sentence where you claim the problem does exist. It might not be a large problem, but a small problem is not a non-existent problem.

10 cases out of hundreds of millions of ballots cast is equal to zero statistically speaking.

Re:and then there's this

[metacell]

In Socialist North Korea, the politicians you vote for are dead..

Re:and then there's this

[dkleinsc]

If you don't believe in your position strongly enough to take a stand, then no one else will either.

My position is that this is bad behavior, regardless of who's doing it. By not identifying the responsible party, I keep the focus on the actions rather than the actor.

Also, anyone who's really interested can use Google to find it relatively easily.

Re:and then there's this

[__aaltlg1547]

Read before you rant. The story is about fake registrations by a company employed by the GOP.

Re:and then there's this

[khallow]

10 cases out of hundreds of millions of ballots cast is equal to zero statistically speaking.

No it's not. First, that's ten observed cases not ten total cases. Second, there are probably multiple ballots cast per case.

And need I note that most elections do not involve hundreds of millions of ballots? I don't know why people only focus on the presidential election when there are tens of thousands of elections going on during a cycle. Even if the effect is small to "zero" statistically speaking at the national level, it can still be significant in smaller elections.

Re:and then there's this

[TFAFalcon]

Why not have the states (or federal government) issue the IDs for free? The expense will either be minimal or will even reduce costs (no need for voter registration before elections - fewer employees needed)

Re:and then there's this

[DeadCatX2]

1) The risk is that you're standing in front of people who live in the same community as the voter that you are impersonating. The risk is that you can't go back to the same polling station under a different name because they could remember your face.

Seriously, call me a liar if you want, but you know that it's far easier to affect an election using different methods, like absentee ballots, shredding registrations, or manipulating the voting machines. The ultimate point which you dance around so desperately is that all of these known methods of fraud, that have sometimes cost an election, CANNOT BE CAUGHT BY VOTER ID LAWS.

So you're telling me that even though we have almost zero evidence of in-person voter fraud, and we have tons of evidence of other types of fraud, that you still think this is the appropriate path to take? If the Democrats couldn't prove that some regulation was necessary and effective, the GOP would scream bloody murder.

2a) You fail hard at reading, don't you? The voter-only IDs didn't exist until late August. Oh look at the date on that Huff Po piece....September.

Also, you have to wonder, why would the authors of the legislation pass it eight months before the election, and then only make free IDs available two and a half months before the election that requires them? Doesn't that sound at all fishy to you? Unless, of course, you're trying to disenfranchise voters.

3) My example was not about "EBIL REPUBS", Mr. Strawman (and your little Red Herring about slavery, too!). I take it you skipped the piece on Bill Stinson...a Democrat that stole the election.

Allow me to summarize the point again. Voter fraud exists. Voter fraud has stolen elections. But in-person voter fraud is very rare, and you risk becoming a felon, and it just doesn't scale to the size necessary to steal an election. Voter ID laws do absolutely jack shit in stopping the other forms of voter fraud that we CAN prove has happened. It doesn't matter how long ago any example was (Stinson was nearly 20 years ago!), the point is to describe voter fraud that affects elections and cannot be stopped by Voter ID laws.

And the other ultimate point which you totally ignored - assume voter ID laws stop X illegitimate votes, but disenfranchise Y legitimate voters. Is X greater than Y? Because with HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of registered voters in PA who don't have state-issued ID, even if you went with some ridiculously low number like 0.1% of them, that's still thousands of votes...do you really think there are thousands of in-person voter fraud attempts, when there are other much easier and less risky ways to affect elections?

Re:and then there's this

[DeadCatX2]

Too bad voter ID laws won't stop dead people from voting via absentee ballots.

Re:and then there's this

[DeadCatX2]

Thanks. I live in PA so I'm kinda interested in how this is playing out.

Especially interesting is that the PA Supreme Court send the ID law back to the lower court to try again. It was a 4-2 vote.

The 2 were the Democrats, who wanted an immediate injunction. The third Democrat sided with the three Republicans in giving the lower court a second chance...because if he ruled the way he wanted to, it would have split 3-3 and the lower court decision would have held.

Re:and then there's this

[_Sharp'r_]

Because with HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of registered voters in PA who don't have state-issued ID, [...]

Honestly, this makes me suspect fraud much more. There are really hundreds of thousands of legitimate adults registered to vote who don't have an ID?

I'm sure some are real, but it sounds much more like there are people registered who aren't really valid voters. They're maybe real people who actually live elsewhere and have ID elsewhere, but like to also vote in PA, or people who are simply made up completely, but registered to vote.

Most of the voter registration fraud that requiring an ID would catch is people would actually have to prove the name they're voting under exists somewhere other than their imagination and/or that they actually live in the state they're registering in.

Currently, if you have a dozen absentee ballots sent to the same mailing address, someone may notice, but if you register under a fake name using whatever address you want in every district in the state, you'll be able to just walk in and vote as many times as you have the time to travel between the polling places.

You claim that someone is going to notice that "you don't live in the district", but polling place people don't know most of the people they see. If you can walk in and get the Attorney General's ballot as a someone who looks nothing like him, then it's unlikely "people know their neighbors" is a big deterrent.

Polling people are going to be extremely reluctant to challenge anyone's right to vote unless someone else walks in at the same time and claims the same name.

Re:and then there's this

[DeadCatX2]

Have you ever been to Philadelphia? Having a car isn't necessarily a luxury, it's a liability when you have nowhere to park it. If you have no car, and you don't smoke, you have no need for a driver's license. Or maybe you're married and you have no license because your husband does all the driving and buys all the cigarettes and booze.

And I'm not saying that in-person fraud is exactly zero, or that the poll workers will notice. What I'm saying is that there is a much higher risk of being caught committing a felony in person than committing that same felony by absentee ballots or manipulating the voting machines.

Notice how I also provided evidence supporting my assertions that voter fraud does exist, and notice that voter ID laws do absolutely nothing to stop the documented instances of voter fraud. I'm supposed to just trust you that in-person voter fraud is rampant based entirely on hypotheticals, while you just ignore all the other real instances of voter fraud that these laws can't stop?

Also, why would the PA GOP push so hard for voter ID that includes an expiration date? I mean, if you are who you say you are, it doesn't matter if your ID has expired or not...unless you were intentionally trying to prevent students from using their college IDs, because such IDs often do not have expiration dates.

Re:and then there's this

[ngg]

1. If no one can prove, or ask me to prove, that I'm not who I say I am, then what's the risk?

Are you dense? The risk is that the person you are trying to impersonate has already voted and the election officials call the cops. Or that that they will try to vote after you did. Like you say, most people carry ID all the time, so it will be easy for the person you are impersonating to prove who they are and for the election officials to do something about the false ballot. You may not have to provide an ID to the voting officials, but just try that when you're sitting in a jail cell.

If impersonation is such a serious problem, then why don't we ever hear about the little old lady who didn't get to vote because someone voted under her name earlier in the day? Why don't we ever hear about the sketchy homeless guy who sprinted out of the polling station when the election official looked at him funny after noticing that the name he was trying to use had already voted?

Here's the thing: The type of election fraud that voter ID is intended to prevent is REALLY FUCKING EASY to detect. And yet we never hear about it. Haven't you ever wondered why that is? Try applying Occam's Razor: Is this because it almost happens, even without voter ID, or because of some massive big media / big government / big whatever conspiracy to keep the plebs from finding out The Truth? With all the partisan media on both sides, you'd think that someone would have run a story about it by now (and how it's The Other Side who's committing election fraud).

Re:and then there's this

[operagost]

Let's keep it real, to put this stupid thread in perspective: the photo ID costs $13.50.

Re:and then there's this

[operagost]

My wife does not drive, but she wanted a state photo ID so she could-- get this-- VOTE (because you need one to REGISTER) and GET A BANK ACCOUNT!

Re:and then there's this

[operagost]

Dead, committed, or imprisoned people don't show up to vote.

Re:and then there's this

[operagost]

How many guns out of hundreds of thousands in the USA are actually used to kill people, yet how often does the left try to restrict their use?

Re:and then there's this

[DeadCatX2]

...okay...

The point was that even if you have trouble thinking up circumstances where people can get by in modern society without ID, we are talking about millions of people, and some not-insignificant portion of these people will have crazy reasons for not having an ID. They sound ridiculous, and probably are, but it's a fact that they exist.

For example, some elderly people who were born at home may not have a birth certificate. That's why PA had to relax the rules about requiring a birth certificate (...five months after the law passed!) Other people who got married and changed their name can't get an ID because their registered name doesn't match the one on the birth certificate. Again, these are very very small percentages, but a small percentage of millions of people can add up to real votes.

At least my fiancee's brother was honest about why he wants voter ID laws. It has nothing to do with preventing fraud. In his opinion, if you don't have an ID, you mustn't be a contributing member of society, and therefore do not deserve the right to vote. I have a feeling that many people who support these laws feel just like him, but they lack the honesty to admit it and instead use voter impersonation as a pretext.

Re:and then there's this

[_Sharp'r_]

I've been to Philadelphia. Granted, as I've lived mostly in the western U.S., so for maybe a total of a week of my life, but I have been there. 18% of Philly voters not having ID still seems high to me. Do none of them ever get bank accounts? In most states I've checked, you need an ID to get welfare or cash welfare checks, you need it to qualify for income-restricted public housing, etc... Certainly you need it to buy alcohol or cigarettes. You're trying to tell me that 18% of people in Philly are adults that rely on other people to buy their booze?

The expiration date is easily explained by wanting people to actually be current PA residents, not just "have lived there sometime in the past". Not sure that's much of a smoking gun for your explanation. It does make it harder, but then, they're also offering free ids to compensate.

Just because there is a higher risk of being caught by robbing a bank than by doing online identity theft, doesn't mean there aren't bank robbers and doesn't mean we shouldn't take measures against them.

As for "ignoring" the other instances of voter fraud, why do you suggest I'm doing that?

Quite to the contrary, I'm personally in favor of lots of things to control election fraud. Why would being against fraud across the board mean I shouldn't also be against this specific type of fraud?

Personally, I think they should ban electronic voting as anything other than a way to fill out a machine countable piece of paper that a voter can also easily visually verify themselves. I think the counting should be a separate process and the ballots counted should be totaled and matched to the number of signed-in voters in each precinct to ensure stuffing isn't occurring. The counting should be done by machine and then randomly done by hand for specific precincts to verify the machine counts match. Also, each candidate with either the 2nd highest votes or within 30% of the votes of the winner should be able to challenge for a hand count and/or a machine recount. The ballots should be kept under lock and seal (lock and seal from each candidate who desires to provide a lock and seal) until after all appeals have been exhausted... maybe until at least the next election prep is starting.

As for absentee ballots, I think any request for an absentee ballot should also require verifying that address in a state database with a matching address for the address the ballot is to be sent to. I also think that absentee ballots with more than X going to the same address should be proactively investigated by a fraud unit to validate those people actually living there. Set X to some multiple of the max number of adults you'd reasonably expect to live in a particular location. i.e. a two bedroom apartment isn't going to have 50 adults living in it...

I could go on, but you get the point that I am against all the various forms of voter fraud, don't you?

Re:and then there's this

[Anonymous Coward]

2. If you require would-be voters to pay for their IDs, then this is a poll tax, which was ruled unconstitutional decades ago. If you don't, then this is an unnecessary (see point 1) expense, both for the government budget (and ultimately the people who pay taxes) and for the individuals who have to go get a free photo ID (which is only free if you don't count the transportation to the place to get it and the time to wait for it).

Wrong. Poll taxes were originally ruled constitutional. It wasn't until the 24th Amendment was ratified that they became unconstitutional in federal elections. Some time after that the Supreme Court changed their minds and put them under the 14th Amendment.

Re:and then there's this

[DeadCatX2]

And you don't need a photo ID to cast a ballot as a dead, committed, or imprisoned person, from the safety of your own home using an absentee ballot. No need to show up in person to the polls and risk the chance of being caught in the commission of a felony.

Photo ID will NOT stop dead people from casting absentee ballots. So many people just do not seem to get that simple fact. Lots of dead people cast ballots for Bill Stinson, and they were almost all done with absentee ballots.

Re:and then there's this

[Anonymous Coward]

How awful for people to try and protect the integrity of the vote by requiring a voter ID (that could potentially provide an independent database that could be cross verified). It's just such a sham.

Re:and then there's this

[DeadCatX2]

Yes, let's keep it real, indeed.

Consider the average benefits that people on food stamps get. For PA, this is about $128 a month, or about $30 per week, or just over $4 per day. That photo ID could then be considered three days worth of food.

According to the labor department, the poorest 20% of American households manage to squeak by making an average of $10k/year (after income tax, before payroll tax). That's just over $800/month. Could you afford your mortgage or rent on $800/month? There are over 24 million Americans in the lowest quintile who manage to eke out a living with that much income, and for them $13.50 really could be three days worth of food.

This doesn't even get into the part about how the IDs were supposed to be free, but the free ID didn't exist until a couple weeks ago. Or that there are multiple counties in PA with no PennDOT facilities to get these IDs, and that even more counties have one PennDOT facility open one day per week. Do you think these people can just hop on a bus from the middle of nowhere to the neighboring county? Or that they could walk? Certainly they can't drive, since they have no license.

Re:and then there's this

[DeadCatX2]

18% of Philly voters not having ID still seems high to me.

That's state-issued ID that hasn't expired, mind you. Many of them probably have other forms of ID that are acceptable in terms of welfare (lol...I see what you did there) or booze. Not everyone drinks or smokes. If you're married, you probably have a joint account, so you might not need ID if your spouse has it. Or you could be one of the 8% of Americans who manage finances without a bank account. Maybe you're elderly and have no need for a driver's license since you don't drive anymore, so you let it expire without renewal. There are a lot of reasons, who are you to question why someone doesn't need ID?

The expiration date is easily explained by wanting people to actually be current PA residents. [...] It does make it harder, but then, they're also offering free ids to compensate.

First, those free IDs didn't exist until just a few weeks ago. They ameliorate the problem, but it's still troublesome to get to PennDOT to get one, especially if you have no car, you live in a rural area without mass transportation, and/or you live in one of those counties without a PennDOT station.

Second, just because your ID hasn't expired yet doesn't mean you're a current PA resident. You could move the day after you renew your license and your license won't expire for four years. The college IDs that do have expiration dates can be eight years in the future (gotta account for those grad students).

There are other ways to prove that you are a current resident if that's your concern, such as a utility bill, which is perhaps the "gold standard"...and yet you can't use a utility bill to prove residency when going to vote. Besides, in order to use an expired ID to vote where you aren't a current resident, you would have to be registered to vote in two or more counties (unless your goal was only to vote exactly once, where you used to live...is this really a problem?) Why can't the system we currently have detect this dual registration? I remain unconvinced that this "current resident" theory is the reasoning behind the expiration date requirement.

As for "ignoring" the other instances of voter fraud, why do you suggest I'm doing that? [...] I could go on, but you get the point that I am against all the various forms of voter fraud, don't you?

I'll take your word for it that you're against all voter fraud. I have no problem at all with your other approaches for attacking voter fraud, because they don't risk disenfranchising large swaths of the community under the pretext of "protecting the integrity of our elections". Something really stinks when the number of legitimate votes that could be suppressed exceeds the number of illegitimate votes that could possibly be prevented by multiple orders of magnitude, don't you agree?

Now why do you want to go after the least documented, most risky, least effective form of fraud *first*, with voter ID laws? Wouldn't it make sense to triage and prioritize the task of preventing voter fraud by going for the most documented, least risky, most effective forms of fraud first?

Re:and then there's this

[operagost]

SNAP is a special debit card that is used for food, and only for food. The amount of their food stamp benefit is irrelevant to the cost of the ID.

My first apartment cost $425/a month, but that was in 1996. That being said, we're always told by Democrats that all poor people are minorities who live in crime-ridden ghettos, and housing is cheaper there so I imagine there are a lot of people paying little more than I did. My apartment was cheap, but it wasn't a studio (albeit it was old) and it was a nice neighborhood in a nice town.

How cheap is cheap enough for you?

Re:and then there's this

[Anonymous Coward]

Your 3rd point is meaningless since it doesn't say the method by which it would allow Republicans to win PA.

You're taking the statement at face value and not as empty campaign rhetoric and whether or not in-person voter fraud is so infrequent as to not matter is irrelevant. Many GOP voters believe it is widespread even though they cannot prove it and rightly or wrongly, they believe the Democrats use it to their advantage while at the same time believing Republicans would never stoop to such dishonest tactics.

It may be naive of them to believe that, but what if that is actually what they believe?

Take a different issue. Let's say penalties for marijuana were tripled. The people who passed that may very well say "This will eliminate marijuana use in our state!" Do you really think that is going to eliminate marijuana use? Probably not. I don't believe it would, but it makes for good campaign rhetoric and his audience may very well believe that.

Re:and then there's this

[DirtyLiar]

You know your personal insults and name calling just make your argument stronger. O_o

Re:and then there's this

[DirtyLiar]

There are really hundreds of thousands of legitimate adults registered to vote who don't have an ID?

Yes.

They are called "Your Grandparents", and anyone else who doesn't need an ID for anything anymore. If you're stuck in a nursing-home, or even your own home, and can't drive, don't work, don't cash checks, just deposit them, what you need an ID for?

And the elderly won't take kindly to not being allowed to vote. If you haven't noticed, they are some of the most active and loudest political lobbiests.

Re:and then there's this

[DirtyLiar]

My wife does not drive, but she wanted a state photo ID so she could-- get this-- VOTE (because you need one to REGISTER) and GET A BANK ACCOUNT!

Yet, oddly, you don't need one to keep it.

Re:and then there's this

[DirtyLiar]

And yet Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, when listing his accomplishments, said "Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania: Done,"

Sounds like fraud to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5MwuRwQF6A

Re:and then there's this

[DirtyLiar]

SNAP is a special debit card that is used for food, and only for food. The amount of their food stamp benefit is irrelevant to the cost of the ID.

You forget, they may not be able to buy a Voter ID with a SNAP card, but they certainlly could have bought food with that $13.50.

Err?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you cannot Gerrymander on the basis of race. Quiet, you.

http://www.adversity.net/special/gerrymander.htm

Voters' intent

[tomhath]

Al Franken can thank his buddies for making sure the "voters' intent" was judged in his favor by just enough to swing the 2008 Senate race in his favor.

Re:Voters' intent

[hondo77]

His buddies must have included the entire Minnesota Supreme Court, since it was their unanimous decision that rejected his opponent's appeal. But don't let facts stop you from your right-wing conspiracy theories.

Re:Voters' intent

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a violation of "equal protection under the law" because different ballots were treated differently by different voting districts. Just so happened that disqualified ballots from liberal districts were treated a lot more leniently than disqualified ballots from conservative districts.

This is all well documented. The Minnesota Supreme Court refused to intervene because they were using a high malice standard.

That doesn't make what happened right, and I highly doubt that a fair recount would have resulted in the election of Franken.

Re:Voters' intent

[artor3]

Franken won by ~225 votes. Most districts only had 10 or 20 ballots that Coleman was disputing. Is your theory that the omniscient democrats launched a state-wide conspiracy to reject a dozen Coleman votes here, two dozen there, somehow knowing that that would tip the scales?

No, you are just parroting what you have heard from your chosen masters, who have been having a temper tantrum for the better part of four years.

Re:Voters' intent

[khallow]

Is your theory that the omniscient democrats launched a state-wide conspiracy to reject a dozen Coleman votes here, two dozen there, somehow knowing that that would tip the scales?

I've heard a similar theory about casinos. That they try to get you drunk, say via free martinis, in order to get more money out of you. But who really believes that there's an omniscient casino industry out there which launched an industry-wide conspiracy to get you drunk in order to lower your inhibitions and judgment and thereby profit from it at the gaming table?

No you'd just be parroting what you heard from your chosen masters.

In the case above, all it takes for this so-called omniscience is a couple of good polls. That's all you need to see that the race was too close to call. And a state-wide "conspiracy" would be rather easy for a major party to implement.

And the fruits of the alleged conspiracy are that the Democrats would get a senate seat. We have the knowledge necessary to make the "conspiracy", the means to drop votes, and the motive for doing so.

Argument by conspiracy really only works, if the conspiracy is ridiculously hard to do and runs counter to the interests of the alleged members. When it's downhill all the way, one needs far better arguments than "It's a conspiracy theory, therefore you must be wrong."

Re:Voters' intent

[artor3]

You're not making sense. Polls have nowhere near the precision required to predict the outcome of a senate race within a few hundred votes. Furthermore, you are positing that dozens of election officials all conspired to commit a fraud against the American people, which is a far cry from a few casino execs getting their customers to spend more money.

On top of that, if the Democrats have the means to cheat close elections, why only that one? There are plenty of close elections that they've lost.

You believe in this big evil liberal conspiracy because, at the time, you were upset and latched on to the first alternate theory presented, and now you're too invested in it to see reason.

Re:Voters' intent

[Anonymous Coward]

The MAJORITY of judges on the panel were republican. The Surpreme Court knew judges were deciding things in the process ALREADY according to law. There was no sign the republican judges were doing anything wrong and franken won. Coleman lost and played dirty and nasty the whole time. I was involved in the recount process. It was fair, and video taped and highly documented. They pulled every BS dispute to drag things out until a judge got on their case about being so ridiculous and even then they were dicks about it. They'd complain about ballots where somebody WROTE IN Franken! It was clear that they decided if they lost (or that they would lose) they would drag things out for the longest amount of time possible.

Re:Voters' intent

[metacell]

Does it even have to be a coDoes it even have to be a conspiracy? Can't the party members in the individual districts have tried to dispute the votes on their own initiative, without being sure it'd make a difference?nspiracy?

Re:Voters' intent

[khallow]

Polls have nowhere near the precision required to predict the outcome of a senate race within a few hundred votes.

And they don't need to. If the polls are too close to call, then that's an indication that fraud can make the difference.

Furthermore, you are positing that dozens of election officials all conspired to commit a fraud against the American people, which is a far cry from a few casino execs getting their customers to spend more money.

That depends on whether one gets caught or not. This particular fraud seems pretty safe to commit.

On top of that, if the Democrats have the means to cheat close elections, why only that one? There are plenty of close elections that they've lost.

That election is not unique in having accusations of fraud. My view is that there are probably low levels of fraud in most elections. In addition, there looks to me to be evidence that both major parties are engaging in recent elections in larger frauds and corruption.

For example, there has been some suspicious small donor behavior among a few Democrat presidential candidates, Howard Dean and Barack Obama, that has resulted in considerable sums of money being raised for the candidates from untraceable sources (an avenue easily gamed by a rich source wanting to donate large, untraceable sums to a presidential candidate).

Similarly, Romney has consistently won a larger fraction of votes at the end of polling for a large number (perhaps even a majority) of Republican primaries and caucuses than at the beginning (most such elections report preliminary vote totals during the vote tally process). It could be that Romney supporters show up late while usually exactly one other candidates supporters (which has been Paul, Gingrich, or Santorum, depending on state and sometimes local election) shows up early.

Or it could be electoral fraud at the vote tabulation machine level where about 5-10% of votes for one other candidate are tabulated as votes for Romney.

When one sees rather large, suspicious issues crop up without any investigation or repercussion, one wonders what else is going on below the radar. The small fraud alleged earlier in this thread is near trivial compared to what could be going on and isn't investigated.

Re:Voters' intent

[DirtyLiar]

When one sees rather large, suspicious issues crop up without any investigation or repercussion, one wonders what else is going on below the radar. The small fraud alleged earlier in this thread is near trivial compared to what could be* going on and isn't investigated.

*But isn't.

A lack of evidence and prosecutions does not necessarily indicate a lack of investigations. They can also indicate innocence.

There have been investigations, even one's launched and investigated by Republicans, yet they continue to find almost no evidence to indicate voter fraud.

Don't you Remember? Back in 2007 GW Bush even fired a bunch (between 7 and 9) of his own federal prosecutors because:

1) They couldn't find the evidence of Democratic Voter-Fraud that he was sure was there.
2) The only people they COULD find to prosecute for voter-fraud were Republicans.**

**Scroll Down to: Administration rationale unclear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy

And here is "An Analysis of Voter Fraud in The United States" from 2006 that I just happened to find while looking for info on the firings.
http://www.demos.org/sites/default/files/publications/Analysis.pdf

Or, are you saying that the Democrats are successfully conspiring to conduct a massive cover-up of another massive conspiracy to commit fraud, and has been going on for decades? And that in all that time, no one involved in these conspiracies has ever had a change of heart, or a change of party, or let slip the secret to anybody. And that the Democrats are so competent and crafty that they've been able to successfully hide all evidence from the world, and that the Republicans are too incompetent and / or stupid to put it together and gather evidence? You know, it's just too bad there are no Republicans who know how to do the kind of police, detective and intelligence work and "aggressive" military / CIA type interrogations that would be able to uncover this type of conspiracy.

If that's what you truly think, if the Democrats are so competent and so intelligent, and the Republican are so incompetent and so stupid. Maybe you should let the Democrats work their magic competence on the government, and get those incompetent Republicans out of the way.

Fraud

[fm6]

Gerrymandering is the creative drawing of district boundaries to ensure a desired outcome. It's not a good thing, but it's hardly fraud, since there's no disconnect between who got the votes and who got elected.

Intimidating voters is an evil thing — using extortion to influence an election. But once again, not fraud.

Not all evils are the same, which is why we have different laws to cover stealing from a bank with a forged check and stealing from a bank with a gun.

It's those that DON'T you need to worry about

[Anonymous Coward]

All you dumbass Americans should read Greg Palast's book "Billionaires and Ballot Bandidts" to see what a completely broken electoral system you have.

Re:It's those that DON'T you need to worry about

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully I am not dumbass, and have no interest in reading it, now that I know it is a book intended for dumbass Americans.

Good vs Evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the outcome is certain when something can be used by politicians for either Good or Evil. It's statistically proven their choices will not be good.

How does Florida 2000 elections look?

[Anonymous Coward]

That 'voter turnout/votes winner' test - this is well know and statisticians have long used it to show how impossible election results are
For example Mexico 2006, the provinces where the opposition party was strong reported an abnormally low turnout while Calderon's (Govt seeking reelection) was initially believed to be losing, then provinces where he was likely to win, they reported extremely strong turnout, and massive majorities to him. Swinging the election with a statistically impossible last minute swing.

http://www.lalkar.org/issues/contents/sep2006/mexico.php

So how do US election fair?

I can see Russia did the 100% turnout/ vote for Putin thing so common in dictatorships. I wonder what happens when you use these tests against USA?

And what kind of fraud is being used...

[Anonymous Coward]

...to keep Ron Paul off the ballot? Personally, I see it as the 'extreme' kind, the kind people should be in prison for.

Russian elections

[shutdown -p now]

I see they've used the recent parliamentary ('11) and presidential ('12) Russian elections as one of the inputs, and they do indeed show some nice graphs there. Well, good to know that at least there is something good for science coming out of that mess.

cancel Iraq war

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we please cancel the iraq war if we find out Bush was wrongfully elected because of the Florida issues

4 million Democrats without Govt ID

[Anonymous Coward]

There's 4 million people likely to vote Democrat that don't have the Government issued ID card in Pennsylvania alone, a capacity of 100,000 ID cards a month.

It's October, so you go figure whether they can get an ID card in time to cope with this law change!

Republicans 1% are scum for undermining democracy like that. How are Koch brothers any better than Putin's backers?

Re:4 million Democrats without Govt ID

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/despite-voter-id-law-minority-turnout-up-in-georgi/nR2bx/

Funny how reality doesn't match up with your claims. Perhaps reality has a conservative bias? In addition the federal court in Atlanta hearing the voterID law asked for a SINGLE person that was unable to vote due to the law. The prosecutors were unable to produce a SINGLE person of the 800,000 they were claiming.

So keep your lies to yourself from now on.

Re:4 million Democrats without Govt ID

[DeadCatX2]

I'll see your "single person unable to vote" and raise you three more.

www.aclupa.blogspot.com/2012/07/voter-id-trial-day-4-real-people-real.html

Please read those stories about actual real Pennsylvania registered voters who are struggling with this law.

Re:4 million Democrats without Govt ID

[operagost]

You got your way today. A judge upheld the injunction, so voter fraud will be allowed to continue unabated this year.

The law wasn't just passed. It's been MONTHS, and it was reported in papers for a YEAR that a bill was in the legislature and likely to pass, so anyone who took voting seriously could at least try to find out how to get one. Showing up at the last minute and whining that you didn't have enough time is really like that kid who waits to write the five page essay until the night before and, unsurprisingly, gets an F.

How can anyone legitimately object to Voter ID?

[djh101010]

Seriously. The whole point of the law is to make sure people are only voting where they live. In Wisconsin at least, IDs for voting are free. Yet, people cry "disenfranchisement", as if somehow anyone, even someone who has no job, can somehow survive without a state issued ID. Can someone please, without frothing at the mouth and namecalling, help me understand what the actual objections of "Wow, you should be able to prove you're voting where you live", is a problem? Especially when, see previous re: State issued ID cards being free?

Re:How can anyone legitimately object to Voter ID?

[artor3]

Very simple.

The purpose of an election is to determine will of the majority (or at least plurality) of the voting public.

If Alice and Bob are running against each other, and an illegal immigrant casts a ballot for Alice, then the election is biased 1 vote towards her.

But in the same scenario, if one person who was planning to vote for Bob gives up due to long lines, then the election is also biased by 1 vote towards Alice.

The two situations have roughly the same impact, and there's no rational reason to worry about one over the other. So, if you want voter ID laws, you must prove that the number of false ballots that such laws stop exceeds the number of valid ballots that are also stopped.

So where is your evidence of widespread voter fraud? You don't have any, because it doesn't even make sense to commit that style of fraud. If you wanted to steal an election, you would bribe a few dozen people to stuff ballot boxes, not a few hundred thousand to cast false ballots. There's simply no way a conspiracy of such tremendous size could be kept secret.

Re:How can anyone legitimately object to Voter ID?

[thesandtiger]

Does getting the ID require that a person provide any documents that they must pay for? How hard is it for poor people to get those for free, and how much extra work do they need to do to prove they're poor enough to qualify for the free ID or ancillary documentation? Does it require that they go to a particular place during working hours to obtain it and if so does it compensate poor people for their time and travel expenses, as well as contact their employer to ensure that they are not penalized for taking that time? Does it require that they actually have a home address/proof of address in order to obtain one, and if so, how are homeless people handled? How are voters informed of the need for an ID in order to vote, and does it take into account language issues, homelessness issues, and any other obstacle to being informed that disproportionately affects poor people and minorities?

Those are very, very real problems for people who are already on the margins, and those issues act as a massive disincentive for those people to get an ID and the people behind those laws know it.

For you and me, getting an ID is nothing more than hopping in the car, going to the DMV, paying pocket change to get the ID and then being on our merry way. Our employers won't fire us for needing a couple of hours to run that errand. For someone who is on the margin, though, it can be a goddamn epic adventure through bureaucracy that ultimately is confusing, frustrating and ultimately may end in failure and come at a cost far higher than you are aware of.

I do research with participants who are below the poverty line, and believe me, the hoops my participants have to jump through and the extra effort they have to go through to even get to the point where they can jump through those hoops is staggering.

Further, the problem that voter IDs are intended to prevent is not, in fact, a problem: retail voter fraud of the sort IDs would theoretically address is pretty much nonexistent, and is completely dwarfed by wholesale vote manipulation that is either intentional or accidental.

Finally, many voter ID laws allow some forms of ID but not others, and the allowed types of IDs in those states overwhelmingly are owned by people who tend to vote more conservatively, while the disallowed ones tend to belong to people who would skew more towards the liberal demographic.

It's a bullshit issue, it costs way more money to implement than the "problem" it solves costs society and it is intended to limit turnout of those people who most need representation in our society. Anyone who is a fan of voter ID laws is, to be charitable, misinformed at best and actively seeking to disenfranchise others at worst, and they are encouraging costly government intervention where none is needed.

Re:How can anyone legitimately object to Voter ID?

[DirtyLiar]

The only agenda I have is to be treated like a human being.

Why? Human beings get treated like crap, as many people (the loud and obnoxious mostly) spend a good part of their time making up excuses for doing so. ^_^

Latitude

[Anonymous Coward]

This gives 'Latitude' to the Obama Staffers at the White House on Electoral College Engineering.

They Win.

We Loose.

The ignition for a bloody revolution.

XD

American elections

[Anonymous Coward]

For whatever reason, I couldn't access the article. But was there any reason they didn't use a more easily accessible data set, like the Republican and Democrat primaries?

Forget that

[damn_registrars]

Conservative operatives already know the best way to detect fraud (hint: if you are a democratic voter living in a democratic district in a battleground state, you are committing fraud). After all, we all know that voting fraud only comes from the democrats.
,bR> Voting suppression, on the other hand, comes from the republicans. Too bad they don't just cancel each other out.

Voter turnout in Georgia is not %

[Anonymous Coward]

Saying the voter % among minorities is up in Georgia is not the same as saying that Pennsylvania has implemented a voter ID law that requires a government issued voter ID that they don't have the capacity to issue.

Effectively a lot of voters will not be able to vote because they won't have that ID card, are not able to get it in time and NO SURPRISES, that demographic is largely Democrat, and the law was passed by Republicans.

I stand by my comment.
The Republicans 1% ARE scum for undermining democracy like that.

Re:Voter turnout in Georgia is not %

[operagost]

Why is it that Democrats are the only ones affected by this law?

Republican House Leader can help you

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the Republican house leader from Pennsylvania can help you out there:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o32tF-S6K60

Even the Republican House Leader admits the law was intended to let Mitt Romney win Pen State.

They made a list of specific forms of ID that are valid and ones that are not. That list gives a heavily weighted bias to Republicans. So 15 million people need a new government ID in Republican states, those people are mostly Democrat and unaligned voters. They'll have to get this Id from governments under GOP control that haven't invested in the capacity to issue all of those IDs until after the elections.

That's enough to probably win Pen State for Mitt Romney. They know it, that's what it was intended to do. Yet the claim is of 'buses' moving fake voters from state to state. When they've investigated that claim, it's been found to be completely bogus. Misregistrations being so far below statistical significance as to be one of the more ludicrous claim Fox has made.

Frad Detection Algorythm

[Anonymous Coward]

If Precinct is Democrat majority and election judges are Democrats Chance of fraud is very high.

If anywhere near Chicago, Boston, New York, Philadelphia... Hell, anywhere on the eastern seaboard, Fraud is certain.

If people are lined up out the door way past the closing time, they just had a long way to drive from all the other places they voted. Chance of Fraud, 100%.

Re:Frad Detection Algorythm

[mwvdlee]

So basically, if it's like a typical Florida election but Democrats win, it's fraud?

Fixing a problem that does not exist - smokescreen

[bussdriver]

You must be new to politics. Fixing non-existent problems they can't prove exist is a dead give away. duh!

The complex rules and regulations on voting coming from the proponents of Voter IDs are where the true motives become clear-- the devil is in the details. Never trust a politician's summarization. Do you trust marketing claims? Probably, they hire marketing firms to sell you both.

How about this: You have a great popular video game; everybody wants it, but it includes a Sony-like DRM rootkit backdoor into your computer. Some people will install the game and weaken their systems while others will find out about the details and oppose it.

The sole purpose as their moves show is to PREVENT LEGIT VOTERS. It won't outlaw minorities voting, that would be illegal and unpopular-- but it can make sure it is extra difficult and harass demographics that typically vote against them. This is easy for the GOP to do as there are so many minority groups who are against them they can single them out easily. The DFL would as well except they lack such easy to spot targets that do not overlap into their supporters.

Statistical tools???

[superdave80]

...typically 100% turnout for a vote-counting region, with 100% voting for the winning party...

Um, just exactly how much statistical analysis is necessary to declare this fraud?

Re:Statistical tools???

[metacell]

In the USA, the state declares fraud on YOU.

Anything effective will be smeared and banned

[bussdriver]

Exit polling is highly effective as it was being done for decades and still is in many places to detect problems; some even call elections from it and just use the paper as a kind of verification process.

But in the USA, exit polling was smeared so bad and the public so ignorant it was outlawed in no time without much resistance. There is no reason they made such a huge and unjustified move other than current or future corruption plans. I think large enough fraud schemes were at risk of exposure and that is why it was killed.

Any new system that WORKED would threaten corruption and naturally the corrupt would strongly oppose it. Just like real news that keeps citizens properly informed gets whistle blower heroes persecuted and wikileaks...

Re:Anything effective will be smeared and banned

[damn_registrars]

But in the USA, exit polling was smeared so bad and the public so ignorant it was outlawed in no time without much resistance. There is no reason they made such a huge and unjustified move other than current or future corruption plans. I think large enough fraud schemes were at risk of exposure and that is why it was killed.

However, if you can prevent people from voting, then the exit polls will match your expectations and help to legitimize your stolen election. Worked out well in Ohio in 2004.

I love how my original post has been moderated "troll" because it bothers the conservative base here on slashdot.

You mean fake voting

[Nov8tr]

With electronic voting, anyone who actually thinks they are voting is fooling themselves. Its all a scam. The money people control who gets elected. They make a big deal out of it as a subterfuge for what is really going on. The guy who gets "elected" is the guy they wanted in office anyhow. Rep and Dem is two sides OF THE SAME COIN. They take turns being the bad guy like some good cop/bad cop routine. It gives the appearance to the public they are actually doing something. We haven't had a real election in a very long time. Its all a bad joke and the joke is on us. How do you think MASSIVE scale corruption continues in DC? luck? Sorry, welcome to reality 101. I wish it wasn't I really do, but unfortunately it is. Maybe someday we will actually be able to vote and have it matter. But only when money baggers are not allowed to corrupt them all.

Re:Fixing a problem that does not exist - smokescr

[Anonymous Coward]

The sole purpose as their moves show is to PREVENT LEGIT VOTERS.

Oh, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

Fixing non-existent problems

The simple fact of the matter is that we have no idea how bad voter fraud is inside the US. We have no idea because we make no efforts to check for it. However, we do know that the Democratic Party has been using some pretty shady tactics to "register" voters and we do know that there have been some pretty suspicious votes. If Obama manages to win this year with the economy in the state it's in, we'll know we have a voter fraud problem. (Non-skewed polls and economic voting models both point to a Romney landslide.)

Voter ID is, at the very least, trying to solve a problem where we don't know that the people voting are the people who actually registered to vote. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, the fact is we don't know. Voter ID aims to fix that.

It has nothing to do with voter suppression and everything to do with preventing voter fraud - something we currently have no way of even knowing how large a problem it truly is. It's only "nonexistent" in that we make no effort to try and prevent it.

Yeah, right.

[Alex Belits]

So fraudsters will apply the same algorithm to make their fraud plausible. Yeah, very useful, indeed.

Election fraud

[xenobyte]

Disclaimer: I haven't read TFA - my PDF-reader locks up on this document for some reason.

There is one kind of fraud that can never be detected by any means, and that it to alter each vote as they are placed, i.e. identical in every way to the voter having cast his vote elsewhere. Electronic voting machines are perfect for this. A similar technique would be to point a gun at some of the voters head and make them vote a certain way.

"Suffing the ballot boxes" - reminds me of that Blackadder episode with the "rotten borough" with just one voter: Baldrick of course. When he has cast his vote the result is announced: A completely new candidate wins with over 1.000 write-in votes, and one invalid vote (Baldricks obviously) is disregarded. That was clearly a perfectly fine election with no statistical anormalies.

BitCoin for Voting

[Anonymous Coward]

With the advent of other uses of the bitcoin style block chain validation such as NameCoin, which can be piggy backed onto the bitcoin network, I always thought it would make a perfect open validation system for voting. Each district or machine has a hash id that is registered , each voters vote is validated on the bitcoin network and the person is given the block id, and knows his districts hash id, you can then verify your vote counted as you actually voted for, but with anonymity. No worries of tampering with the software, as the client is bound to the bitcoin network verification.

Tullymandering

[AliasMarlowe]

For whatever the "intended purpose", attempts at gerrymandering can backfire. The more extreme the attempted gerrymander, the more disastrous the outcome can be (at least, in a fair election). The result can even be Tullymandering.

How are they going to analysis

[wganz]

cities such as Philadelphia that has more voters than the US Census says it has total residents.

Nothing will happen

[ThatsNotPudding]

Even if fraud was proved, nothing would happen. The GOP-controlled Senate committee tasked with investigating the lies that justified the Iraq War moved to table it until after the election so as to not make it a political football. After the election, miserable excuse for a human Senator Pat Roberts announced they would not be investigating as the past is the past and why bother. And so it goes.

If the election fraud campaign is successful, you really think the victors are going to investigate how they themselves stole the election? Polly Anna

Point 4

[ThatsNotPudding]

4. More and more voting stations are located in suburban areas or on the edge of town to make sure only the well-off can easily get there and to cut down on the riff-raff (the poor, the elderly, the minorites working long slave-wage hours, etc.).

Coda: In Kansas, they decided in an election year - pure coincidence, I'm sure - to finally revamp the computer system for drivers licenses (and state IDs which aren't free) after years and years of delay. My first license renewal was 'lost in the mail' and only recently just received the replacement. I fully expect there will be tens of thousands - maybe even me - that will turned away from the polls because some minor thing is wrong with the new license or ID. The main thing being wrong will be skin color or party affiliation. And as usual in US politics, jack shit will be done about it.

This method will not pick up many issues

[grandpa-geek]

For example, there is very strong evidence that Scott Brown reached the US Senate as a result of election fraud. Details are in http://electiondefensealliance.org/files/BelieveIt_OrNot_100904.pdf That analysis compared the results in machine count jurisdictions and hand count jurisdictions. The usual disparity between hand count and machine count results (based on prior elections) runs around 0.25%. Coakley led in hand count jurisdictions by 2% and Brown in machine count jurisdictions by 5%. That is a 7% disparity. It also turns out that the company operating the machine counts was Republican-connected, and that the ballots were neither saved nor sampled to validate the accuracy of the machine counts. There are numerous ways to tamper with a machine count of paper ballots, especially in a two-person special election.

The method published in the subject paper could not pick up this kind of election fraud.

How is this useful? Of course it is

[Herve5]

For instance, we can prepare a law according to which, if the result of a vote are cheated by more than 10% according to fraud parameter fi from the paper, then this vote is canceled.

And this even could have precise granularity, like the vote is canceled only in the regions where this cheating is detected.

And we also can add, we ban the citizens that handled the vote bureau, not from voting again, but from being bureau delegates for 10 years.

Of course it is useful.
Speaking of which, I'm now waiting for an application worksheet to test my own election here, for which I have all the regional data in a newspaper I kept.

Re:How is this useful? Of course it is

[sexconker]

For instance, we can prepare a law according to which, if the result of a vote are cheated by more than 10% according to fraud parameter fi from the paper, then this vote is canceled.

And this even could have precise granularity, like the vote is canceled only in the regions where this cheating is detected.

And we also can add, we ban the citizens that handled the vote bureau, not from voting again, but from being bureau delegates for 10 years.

Of course it is useful.
Speaking of which, I'm now waiting for an application worksheet to test my own election here, for which I have all the regional data in a newspaper I kept.

Party A is leading in the polls by 3%. Party B is trailing by 3%.
Each party can stuff the ballot to a certain extent. If Party B wants to win the district they can outspend Party A enough to get their tactical fraud to cover the spread.
If they don't think they can beat the spread, they can just egregiously stuff for Party A instead of their own Party. When the analysis comes back it looks like Party A cheated a whole hell of a lot, and the vote is canceled. If you thought incumbents were bad now, wait til you try out your plan.

Why are stats needed?

[JasoninKS]

Why waste all this time on silly things like statistics and facts? According to our own little "darling" Kris Kobach here in Kansas, voter fraud is horribly rampant everywhere, billions of votes are fraudulent, and anyone disagreeing with him is wrong.

Large number probability

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with this type of analysis is that it is guaranteed to very rarely 'catch' innocent people.
So while it can be used to help isolate good targets to investigate it cannot be used as proof of any crime.
For instance, the likelihood of a person winning the lottery twice in their lifetime is astronomical.
However, the likelihood that some person somewhere out of all the lottery winners from all the large lotteries worldwide will win it
twice is there lifetimes is highly likely. ( if given enough winners and lotteries it is in fact all but guaranteed to happen).

So these kind of tools can file 'likely' criminals, but cannot replace hard evidence. worse they can cause discontent and
even rebellion ( in some areas) if there is no further proof of fraud that action can be taken on.

Why go through the trouble of counting?

[Khashishi]

The opinion method seems to be much more robust against statistical attack. What's the opinion method? It's clearly demonstrated in the US Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v96Y8r2UPic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ_ylYNbAlY

P.S. Detecting fraud is easy enough. Making a difference is much more difficult.

Re:Fixing a problem that does not exist - smokescr

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't prove your position; you are the people making the claim so the burden is upon you to prove your claim.
Shady tactics is not indication of wrong doing; smoke does not mean there is a fire. learn some logic.

There are not enough dead people on the voter roles to make much of a difference so that one is out even if they got 100% of them.

I've remembered the stories of GOP politicians getting into office promising to fix the problems and investigating wasting a ton of taxpayer money looking for problems that are not there. They have investigated and each time they come up with squat; it is beating a dead horse at this point they just hype "the problem" because in practice they got jack so even the GOP doesn't bother to investigate their claims anymore! Their solutions are all about creating new poll taxes and new poll exams with the age-old purposes of attacking demographics they view as the enemy. If they valued democracy they would change to appeal to the majority and work to get a majority to vote (since most people don't) instead of discouraging all voting except to a minority who agrees with them (because even a majority of voters is still a minority the way things are.)

VoterID does not aim to fix the problem which does not exist in MOST states. That is the whole point, some GOP members are honest enough to know the real intent while others are too honest so they just lie to themselves and drink the cool aid.

We have same-day instant registration; if the person is found out not only do they get jailed (and we have a few every time) but the person who vouched for them ALSO goes to jail. In contested races these records are gone over in more detail-- even then we still arrest a few every time trying to cheat. They end up following up on questionable registrations every year, the burden is shifted to the person vouching for them. We could get better-- by taking photos of registering voters for example. I knew an immigrant who was trying to illegally vote and asked me; I said no-- afterwards I asked him if he was able to vote-- he said he couldn't get anybody to vouch for him. Most people will not break the law and risk it especially when your identity is totally confirmed so you end up in jail even if the other person is never found.

Cheating here would take thousands of people conspiring in an organized large conspiracy without any leaks, mistakes, or plea bargains. You do realize that registering 1000s of fake people would STILL require those fake people to have to go vote 1000s of times right? In my polling place, we'd easily notice somebody coming back 3-4 times. maybe even the 2nd time. They'd have to travel around all day to spread their fake identities around - so you are still talking a large number of people working in a fairly large conspiracy. Then you have the fact that many registered voters DO NOT VOTE even if you got them registered.

The GOP gets more legit voters thrown off roles or stuck in provisional ballots (even election judges have been victimized) than any hint of DFL ghost voters. We lose over a million legit voters each election cycle due to the GOP games and these are all confirmed rock-solid cases. The DFL on the other hand only has your unsubstantiated claims against them which are never proven. To say the two sides balance out is intellectually dishonest. To say that either side won't cheat if they can get away with it is just naive. I'm sure the DFL tries what it can, but it can't do the kind of shit the GOP does nor is it organized. I've volunteered for both and the DFL is the biggest mess I've ever seen, I wonder how they elect anybody; if they tried what the GOP does they'd fuck it up so bad and we'd all know about it.