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Privacy Watchdog Sues Trump's Election Committee Over Voter Data (engadget.com)
From a report: When the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity sent a letter to all 50 states seeking personal, identifying information on all voters in the US, at least 44 states refused in some part. Trump signed an executive order last May to create this commission while claiming that millions of people had voted illegally. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has taken issue with this request, as well, and has filed a lawsuit accusing the Commission of violating the privacy of American voters. EPIC also asserts that the original request asks states to send the data to a non-secure website, making the data vulnerable to identity theft and financial fraud. Not to mention political agendas. EPIC is also seeking information about "the failure to conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment," and has filed for a temporary restraining order "to block the Commission's efforts."
The Democrats raised the loudest stick about elections being hacked. The Green party even raised millions to go over votes to check for validity across a few states...
Well then lets check, lets check everywhere the full extent of votes really being hacked, of votes really being cast illegally. What is the issue with not checking this? They claim voter privacy but there is no such concern in regards to the federal government which owns all of the results of a national election anyway and is legally free and clear to demand any information it likes.
Pretty obviously there is a lot more voter fraud going on than many would care to admit, and they do not want it uncovered - and here I'm speaking for both parties. This is yet another glimpse of the Deep State disliking being exposed to sunlight.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No one is protecting anything except Trump's fragile ego. This whole Advisory Commission action was set into motion because Trump can't accept the fact that he lost the popular vote to Hillary. Total waste of time and money... plus it apparently jeopardizes voter privacy and security. So don't try to politicize Trump's grandiosity, malignant narcissism, impulsivity, maniacal insecurity, or hypersensitivity to slights & criticism.
In some states after passing such laws, they shut down most of their DMVs. Of course, that wasn't "planned" to disenfranchise in any way.
"If you've done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear"
- Words said before every dark chapter in history, ever.
Trump supporters are even dumber than we thought.
Why are people so resistant to a simple audit I wonder?
Don't know. Why don't you ask the con artist who fought tooth and nail to stop vote recounts in three states by claiming, wait for it, there was no evidence of vote fraud. The exact words used:
"There is no evidence - or even an allegation - that any tampering with Pennsylvania's voting systems actually occurred."
In Wisconsin, the recount and simultaneous audit went forward despite the lawsuits. That would have seemed a perfect time to see about illegal votes but instead, the con artist and his supporters filed suit to stop the process.
As Jill Stein stated in Michigan:
"In an election already tainted by suspicion, previously expressed by Donald Trump himself, verifying the vote is a common-sense procedure that would address concerns around voter disenfranchisement,"
And yet, the con artist didn't want vote recounts, or any checking of the votes. Now he does. Why the change? As stated above, it's simply to soothe his ego that he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. That is it. Nothing more, nothing less. He can't stand it that he received fewer votes than a woman, and it is made worse that it was Hillary.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Yes, but how will Trump make mountain out of molehill if his silly commission is only reporting from data that can be easily checked? Rather, they intended to get their "secret" data, report their Trumped up findings, and then fail to release any data because they'll argue it contains PII including SS numbers.
There are two rules of Trump: (1) he does everything only for himself, (2) he destroys everything he touches.
No. what I'm afraid of is that if they are trying to find large-scale voter fraud they are asking for the wrong data. The data they are asking for looks (to me) like the kind of data you'd want for a voter-targeting database.
All you need to find voter fraud is first name, last name, zip code, and which of the last dozen or so elections they voted in.
If you want to look for undocumented immigrants voting illegally, look in zip codes that (according to the US Census) have a high proportion of undocumented immigrants. Look for changes in voter turnout in those zip codes. If voter turnout in those zip codes is persistently and significantly increasing, you need to collect more data and look more closely, because you might have found evidence that undocumented immigrants are voting.
For multi-voters and dead voters, use the Social Security data. If Social Security only knows about 15 living Gertude Higglesteins but 21 Gertude Higglesteins voted, you have a problem.
Note that a better statistician who had more time could come up with better tests. The point is at this point we need to place upper and lower limits on the prevalence of fraudulent voting. I'm all for an independent look into that. And we can easily do it without creating a big fat juicy database that someone could steal and use for nefarious purposes.
You obviously do not know what you are talking about. Most cases of "Fraudulent use of Absentee Ballots" result from amateur volunteers not knowing that there are very strict rules about how absentee ballots must be filled out and delivered. In fact a huge number of the cases in that document are against (n00b) candidates themselves and many in minor off-year elections because that is where idiots think they can get away with it and it might make a difference. Barely anyone bothers in large elections... there's no way to pull it off.
See, what happens is this: Since ballots are usually counted in precinct, one of the little old ladies making bingo money running the roles, counting absentee votes or serving as a judge for one of the parties, bless their gossipy souls, has a very high chance of having personally known the dead person you try to vote for. The more dead people you try to vote for, the greater the odds she'll call the policeman over from the corner to ask you a few questions, or send one to the address from which the absentee ballot was requested.
So you cannot hang your hat on the number "848", as puny as it is, especially when averaged out over a dozen election cycles.
D.C. political operatives trawling through a giant list of voters are going to make huge mistakes because they lack this local perspective. They'll claim a bunch of dead people voted, and we'll find them mowing their lawns, yet again. And since their only intent is to cause chaos in the first place, they'll care even less. They might as well just pretend they went and got the data themselves and go publish their results now, since they'll make up whatever shit they feel like anyway.
Someone had to do it.
Quite the contrary: voter fraud numbers are miniscule. It's just not a problem.
Successful voter fraud isn't detected. You can't state that it's rare or a "minuscule" problem without at least a basic investigation into the votes cast and counted. Such an investigation would require information the commission is seeking from states. People who like to downplay the possibility of voter fraud sure like to enable it by opposing such checks, opposing voter ID requirements (even if the ID is free and easy to obtain), opposing auditable and securable voting machines (i.e., paper ballots), etc.
Whether you suspect voter fraud or you expect no voter fraud, the best way to start figuring it out is to do what the commission is trying to do.
Registering fake voters, voting multiple times, voting for other people, voting for dead people, etc. is standard fucking procedure in this country at every level. It's such a cliche that it was the basis for a Simpsons episode, and when Lisa decided to prove it, the level of "who gives a shit" was so high that she was simply handed the entire vote record. "Vote early, vote often." isn't just something people say, it's something they do.
When every single step of the game leading up to the election is rigged, do you really think they'd grow a conscience and stop at the sacred polls? Do you really think elections at the national level are any more secure than at the local level? If so, why? The scale of the election doesn't help you here, it hurts you. And you only need to "influence" a handful of states to have an impact. Hell, you can often target a handful of polling places each in a dozen counties to swing the legislative branch.
Yeah, that doesn't wash.
First, every President for the last 40 years has released his tax returns as a matter of good faith.
Second, when Trumpkin was demanding Obama's Birth Certificate (his fucking BIRTH CERTIFICATE! Like someone could get that far in the election without anyone bothering to check that they're a citizen first?!?) he said - more than once - that he would release his tax returns if he got elected. For the last 6 months we've been waiting and he's been pretending he didn't say a thing. To boot, when he's demanding that other people pay "their fair share" he turns around and says, "I use the tax laws to my advantage". At BEST he's a hypocrite.
Third, as has been established many times in this thread, the EXECUTIVE BRANCH doesn't have a goddamned thing to do with elections - this is established in our Constitution (you should probably read it since your President can't be bothered to)
Fourth, the current administration has made no bones about taking personal action against someone that they simply don't like. Do I want my information given to these underhanded douchbags? No, the answer is (and will always be) NO.