Real Voter Fraud

Cycloptichorn wrote:

okie wrote:
There were stories of many people from New York voting in both New York and Florida in 2000, as they had winter residences in Florida. I don't know whatever happened with this, as since it was Democratic votes, the press had no curiosity and therefore it was pretty much totally forgotten.

How do you know they were Democratic votes? Are you assuming that they were? Your partisanaship is really showing, man.

Cycloptichorn

Because thats what I recall the news report said. Besides, New York is heavily democratic so it is perfectly logical. Regardless of the party, it is fraud, and that was my main point.

This thread continues to bring up examples of how easy fraud can occur. For anyone to argue we should simply ignore it instead of doing something about it is mystifying to say the least. If people lose confidence in elections, we are in for bigger problems ahead. I think we have the technical capability to tighten things up, thus to improve voter confidence, so why not use it?

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I agree. Of course, you must also agree that the current crop of electronic voting machines have to go, by those same principles.

Cycloptichorn

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I believe in having a paper copy, or per the type we use it is sort of a card stock material, of every ballot.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

I agree. Of course, you must also agree that the current crop of electronic voting machines have to go, by those same principles.

That is the crux of the problem isn't it? One side is willing to dismiss that vote fraud may be happening by illegal ballots being cast and the other is willing to dimiss that votes aren't being accurately recorded and counted.

But no one seems to be interested in ensuring both issues are fixed so that only valid ballots are cast by valid voters and then that every single one of thos eballots them is accurately counted.

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fishin wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
I agree. Of course, you must also agree that the current crop of electronic voting machines have to go, by those same principles.

That is the crux of the problem isn't it? One side is willing to dismiss that vote fraud may be happening by illegal ballots being cast and the other is willing to dimiss that votes aren't being accurately recorded and counted.

But no one seems to be interested in ensuring both issues are fixed so that only valid ballots are cast by valid voters and then that every single one of thos eballots them is accurately counted.

The problems with the machines are a far greater issue. They have the potential to change legal votes, to a tremendous degree. There is no way to tell afterwards if it has been done or not - a semi-trained hacker can be in and out in less than a minute, with no trail. And that's if the proprietary vote-counting computers which tabulate the initial votes aren't compromised.

You're telling me that you honestly believe there are enough fraudulent voters across the nation to change elections? Maybe. It definately should be looked into. Contrast this to the electronic machine problem, which has every evidence of being able to change elections through the mass numbers it can effect.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

You're telling me that you honestly believe there are enough fraudulent voters across the nation to change elections? Maybe. It definately should be looked into. Contrast this to the electronic machine problem, which has every evidence of being able to change elections through the mass numbers it can effect.

What was the vote margin in FL and NM in 2000? They weren't much! If it weren't for that election the electronic voting machines wouldn't even be being looked at.

Why not just find a way to revamp the entire system fix both problems at the same time?

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I would agree with that assessment.

A system in which an ID card of some sort was inserted to the machine, which would then check against the rolls, tally the votes, and print out a paper ballot at the end (which could be checked at a later date, perhaps) would be ideal.

It also shouldn't be too difficult to supply temporary IDs to those voters who don't currently have a valid one that would work.

Of course, a lot of effort has to be spent on anti-hacking...

Cycloptichorn

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jpinMilwaukee wrote:

Do you have a link to the information that backs up this claim?

It's not my claim, so the only link I have is the one I provided.

jpinMilwaukee wrote:

I don't think we even know how much voter fraud is going on.

Isn't that something you'd want to know before you start advocating solutions to a problem that might not exist?

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joefromchicago wrote:

jpinMilwaukee wrote:
I don't think we even know how much voter fraud is going on.

Isn't that something you'd want to know before you start advocating solutions to a problem that might not exist?

I don't think anybody is denying that there is voter fraud happening (except for you maybe) and I don't think there are efficient ways to find out right now exactly what levels of fraud are actually occuring. The ability to check such things is just one of the reasons a national database and ID would be useful.

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fishin wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
You're telling me that you honestly believe there are enough fraudulent voters across the nation to change elections? Maybe. It definately should be looked into. Contrast this to the electronic machine problem, which has every evidence of being able to change elections through the mass numbers it can effect.

What was the vote margin in FL and NM in 2000? They weren't much! If it weren't for that election the electronic voting machines wouldn't even be being looked at.

Why not just find a way to revamp the entire system fix both problems at the same time?

Agreed. It should be intuitively obvious that if we have the technology to tighten up voting, why not use it? Remember the torture the country experienced in Florida in 2000, which was almost a constitutional crisis?

Cyclops, I agree with you that electronic voting is tenuous without a hard copy to prove what was fed into the machine was counted correctly. And why allow people to vote that cannot show they are a citizen? It is impossible to conduct a perfect election, but I think we can do better than what it is now.

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okie wrote:

There were stories of many people from New York voting in both New York and Florida in 2000, as they had winter residences in Florida. I don't know whatever happened with this, as since it was Democratic votes, the press had no curiosity and therefore it was pretty much totally forgotten.

The New York Daily News had a lengthy article on this sometime back, and it indicated that most of those double votes were Republican, not Democratic. This was not just a "report". This was a lengthy article, with interviews.

Makes sense. People who can afford to have one winter house and one summer house are probably fairly well off-many of them will be in the bracket affected by the Bush tax cuts. So that argument about New York being a Democratic state goes out the window. Just because the state as a whole votes 55% to 60% for the Democratic nominee for President does not mean the people who can afford two homes, one for the summer and one for the winter, will vote the same way. This group will almost certainly vote more Republican than the state as a whole.

The way it works is that these people get an absentee ballot from New York, then go down to Florida before Election Day, where they vote down there.

All of which has nothing to do with illegal aliens, unless someone wants to come up with some statistics about illegal aliens doing well enough to maintain a home in Florida and a home in New York, and then taking pains to get an absentee ballot in New York State before they go down to bask in the Florida sunshine in their winter home.

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jpinMilwaukee wrote:

I don't think anybody is denying that there is voter fraud happening (except for you maybe) and I don't think there are efficient ways to find out right now exactly what levels of fraud are actually occuring. The ability to check such things is just one of the reasons a national database and ID would be useful.

I don't deny that vote fraud happens, I just deny that it is committed very often by voters at polling places. And since voter ID laws only address fraud by voters at polling places, I don't think such laws make much sense.

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kelticwizard wrote:

okie wrote:
There were stories of many people from New York voting in both New York and Florida in 2000, as they had winter residences in Florida. I don't know whatever happened with this, as since it was Democratic votes, the press had no curiosity and therefore it was pretty much totally forgotten.

The New York Daily News had a lengthy article on this sometime back, and it indicated that most of those double votes were Republican, not Democratic. This was not just a "report". This was a lengthy article, with interviews.

Are you referring to this NY Daily News article?:
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/224449p-192807c.html

"The News' investigation also found:

Of the 46,000 registered in both states, 68% are Democrats, 12% are Republicans and 16% didn't claim a party."

There is no stat listed for a breakdown by party of those that actually cast votes in both places.

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joefromchicago wrote:

I don't deny that vote fraud happens, I just deny that it is committed very often by voters at polling places.

How do you know? And what is the harm of making it more difficult for people to fraudulently vote? Not many people rob banks but we still have laws on the book against that. I would hope that a national election that helps decide the direction of our country might be considered important enough to have a few procedures in place to ensure the legitimacy of an election.

joefromchicago wrote:

And since voter ID laws only address fraud by voters at polling places, I don't think such laws make much sense.

Well... where else is voter fraud taking place if not at the polls where people actually vote?

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kelticwizard wrote:

okie wrote:
There were stories of many people from New York voting in both New York and Florida in 2000, as they had winter residences in Florida. I don't know whatever happened with this, as since it was Democratic votes, the press had no curiosity and therefore it was pretty much totally forgotten.

The New York Daily News had a lengthy article on this sometime back, and it indicated that most of those double votes were Republican, not Democratic. This was not just a "report". This was a lengthy article, with interviews.

.....

So keltic, show your article that proves the double votes were mostly Republican. As fishin points out in his linked article: "Of the 46,000 registered in both states, 68% are Democrats, 12% are Republicans and 16% didn't claim a party."

That seems rather overwhelmingly Democrat. It would appear to me that they would not double register unless they intended to double vote, so keltic here is trying to tell us that although there were more than 5 times as many Democrats than Republicans that double registered, that the ones that double voted were Republicans because they are rich and benefit from Bush tax cuts.

Here we are arguing whether better controls are needed for voting, when just one, just one, joefromchicago, just one problem that was identified in Florida where a potential of 46,000 people could have illegally voted, and a difference of just 500 votes decided a national election, and whereas we almost had a constitutional crisis over Florida, you still argue there is no need to do anything about it. Add to this many problems that should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer, I think the answer is obvious. There is fraud that has affected elections, and we need to tighten it up where it is both possible and practical.

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okie wrote:

Here we are arguing whether better controls are needed for voting, when just one, just one, joefromchicago, just one problem that was identified in Florida where a potential of 46,000 people could have illegally voted, and a difference of just 500 votes decided a national election, and whereas we almost had a constitutional crisis over Florida, you still argue there is no need to do anything about it. Add to this many problems that should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer, I think the answer is obvious. There is fraud that has affected elections, and we need to tighten it up where it is both possible and practical.

Just to be clear here, joefromchicago has pretty consistantly maintained that he has been talking about actual voting - not voter registration rolls. The 46,000 people mentioned is a registration issue more than an "actual ballots cast" problem.

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joefromchicago wrote:

jpinMilwaukee wrote:
I don't think anybody is denying that there is voter fraud happening (except for you maybe) and I don't think there are efficient ways to find out right now exactly what levels of fraud are actually occuring. The ability to check such things is just one of the reasons a national database and ID would be useful.

I don't deny that vote fraud happens, I just deny that it is committed very often by voters at polling places. And since voter ID laws only address fraud by voters at polling places, I don't think such laws make much sense.

Better voter ID is obviously just one piece of the puzzle. We need to look at all aspects of this problem and fix it where practical.

fishin, I understand the difference between registration and voting. Obviously, not all fraudulant registrations translate into fraudulant votes, but obviously a percentage do. What that percentage is depends on many factors, but based on a few observations, it is surely not trivial when compared to some vote margins that decide many elections.

It should be pointed out that minimizing fraudulant registrations would help limit fraudulant votes. We should not ignore registrations and just pass it off as insignificant or meaningless.

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jpinMilwaukee wrote:

joefromchicago wrote:

I don't deny that vote fraud happens, I just deny that it is committed very often by voters at polling places.

How do you know?

The substantial lack of any claims of voters attempting to cast fraudulent votes at polling places is a big clue.

jpinMilwaukee wrote:

And what is the harm of making it more difficult for people to fraudulently vote? Not many people rob banks but we still have laws on the book against that. I would hope that a national election that helps decide the direction of our country might be considered important enough to have a few procedures in place to ensure the legitimacy of an election.

The harm is in potentially deterring legitimate voters from casting their ballots.

jpinMilwaukee wrote:

Well... where else is voter fraud taking place if not at the polls where people actually vote?

In courthouses where people register. In living rooms where people vote by absentee ballot. And at polling places where people other than voters (e.g. election officials, vote tabulators, voting machine manufacturers) commit various types of fraud. None of those would be deterred by a law that requires voters to present a state-issued ID at the polling place.

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fishin wrote:

okie wrote:
Here we are arguing whether better controls are needed for voting, when just one, just one, joefromchicago, just one problem that was identified in Florida where a potential of 46,000 people could have illegally voted, and a difference of just 500 votes decided a national election, and whereas we almost had a constitutional crisis over Florida, you still argue there is no need to do anything about it. Add to this many problems that should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer, I think the answer is obvious. There is fraud that has affected elections, and we need to tighten it up where it is both possible and practical.

Just to be clear here, joefromchicago has pretty consistantly maintained that he has been talking about actual voting - not voter registration rolls. The 46,000 people mentioned is a registration issue more than an "actual ballots cast" problem.

I'm glad fishin', at least, is reading my posts.

Voters registering and casting ballots in two or more jurisdictions is a registration problem, not a voter ID problem. I'm all in favor of any measure that eliminates the possibility of voting in two or more places, but a voter ID law is not that sort of measure.

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So you at least agree that fraudulant registrations are a root problem, perhaps more important than the voting? I started this thread, with evidence of significant fraudulant registrations attempted, and I was told by some that it wasn't important because it did not involve actual voting.

P.S. I read your posts.

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