by hilzoy
Josh Marshall points to this article by Richard Hasen, and it’s really good. It’s about an organization called the American Center for Voting Rights, which came into existence in March of 2005, just days before it was invited to testify before Congress. (Curiously, the head of this non-partisan, tax exempt organization neglected to mention that he had been the National Counsel for Bush/Cheney ’04.) Then:
“The group identified Democratic cities as hot spots for voter fraud, then pushed the line that “election integrity” required making it harder for people to vote. The group issued reports (PDF) on areas in the country of special concern, areas that coincidentally tended to be presidential battleground states. In many of these places, it now appears the White House was pressuring U.S. attorneys to bring more voter-fraud prosecutions.”
And now, strange to say, it has disappeared!
“With no notice and little comment, ACVR—the only prominent nongovernmental organization claiming that voter fraud is a major problem, a problem warranting strict rules such as voter-ID laws—simply stopped appearing at government panels and conferences. Its Web domain name has suddenly expired, its reports are all gone (except where they have been preserved by its opponents), and its general counsel, Mark “Thor” Hearne, has cleansed his résumé of affiliation with the group. Hearne won’t speak to the press about ACVR’s demise.”
It won’t be too hard to clean out their offices, though. Here’s a picture (it’s from BradBlog, where it appeared in an article subtitled: “Photos suggest ACVR web developers most likely very very tiny Republicans!”):
In the rest of the article, which I recommend, Hasen connects this to the US Attorneys’ scandal, and explains and rebuts the Center’s arguments about voter fraud. He also provides a lot of links to other work on the topic, e.g. here and here (pdfs). He concludes:
“So Hearne let the organization collapse, and in a bit of irony, a Washington lawyer who bought the ACVR domain name has set it to redirect to the Brennan Center’s Truth About Fraud Web site, which debunks ACVR’s claims of polling-place voter fraud. But despite the collapse of ACVR, the idea that there is massive polling-place voter fraud has, perhaps irrevocably, entered the public consciousness. It has infected even the Supreme Court’s thinking about voter-ID laws. And it has provided intellectual cover for the continued partisan pursuit of voter-ID laws that may suppress minority votes. Just this week, Republican members of the Texas state Senate are trying to push through a voter-ID law over a threatened Democratic filibuster. Their political machinations have already required a Democratic state senator recovering from a liver transplant to show up to vote—and they almost passed the bill when another Democratic senator came down with the stomach flu.
Texas legislators should be ashamed. All of this effort to enact a law that would stop a nonexistent problem. If only there were a way to ensure that spurious claims of polling-place voter fraud could have disappeared with ACVR.”
***
There are some jobs that really make me wonder: how can the person who takes them look him- or herself in the face? Lobbying for Robert Mugabe, for instance, or being one of the scientists paid to come up with studies proving that cigarettes don’t cause cancer. Spending your days trying to make voter fraud look like a serious problem* when it isn’t one, by telling lies, all in order to convince people to pass restrictive voter ID laws because you think that the people who will be prevented from voting as a result are likely to favor your opposition is one of them.
It’s one thing to fight for your convictions. It’s another to try to rig the game in your favor by keeping people from exercising their right to vote. It’s hard to express how furious this sort of thing makes me. I normally hate saying that things are un-American, but this surely is.
* Note: of course if voter fraud exists in appreciable amounts, it’s a serious problem. Voter fraud is never trivial. But it is not a serious problem if it doesn’t exist, or if it occurs only rarely, as the NYT reported that a federal panel studying the issue found.
Depressingly, I can think of only one way of beating back this nonsense – insisting equally stringent requirements be applied to absentee voting as are applied to in-person voting. If we’re going to have partisan vote-suppressing security theater, it at least should cut both ways.
Yeah, that’s pretty bad; It’s not like the Democratic party doesn’t create it’s own phony front organizations, (The AHSA, for instance.) but generally they try for a little more plausiblity. Sounds like this one was a real rush job.
The best arguments in favor of voter ID, IMO, are that due to the lack of ID requirements, we don’t know how much of this sort of fraudulent voting actually occurs, (You can’t find what you’re determined not to look for.) and that it’s not really that much of an imposition. The arguements for going after other forms of ballot fraud are indeed much stronger, but it has never, to my knowlege, been a constitutional requirement that the government attack problems in decending order of seriousness.
Brett: we don’t know how much of this sort of fraudulent voting actually occurs, (You can’t find what you’re determined not to look for.)
Is it your contention, then, that though for years Republicans have claimed that fraudulent voting is a big problem, they have in fact been determined not to look for it? Why do you feel this is?
Interesting. Apparently someone has picked up the rights to that website.
No, it’s my contention that, after years of Republicans complaining about fraudulent voting, Democrats are still opposed to any measure which would make it possible to verify whether or not it’s happening. Not quite the same thing.
For the record, I think in person, impersonation based vote fraud is probably a lot less common than, say, absentee ballot fraud. It’s so labor intensive, after all… But since when have legislatures been obligated to attack problems in a sensible order?
Brett Bellmore | May 22, 2007 at 07:00 AM
Brett, I’m sure that even you can understand that the formation of this American Center for Voting Rights, complete with web page and PO Box, was merely for the purpose of giving undue credibility to the person testifying on behalf of the “organization” when its representative testified before Congress.
No, it’s my contention that, after years of Republicans complaining about fraudulent voting, Democrats are still opposed to any measure which would make it possible to verify whether or not it’s happening.
And it’s your contention that during the years in which Republicans controlled Congress, the Senate, and the White House, they held off from instituting measures to verify small-scale polling place voting fraud because… Democrats opposed such measures? Why do you feel Republicans so held off instituting such measures until they could obtain bipartisan support, when they do not appear to have bothered with bipartisan support for any other measure that they could push through against the will of the minority party?
Incidentally, had you read this from April?
Brett, the author of the linked piece argues that the sort of vote fraud you’re talking about is highly unlikely – it’s an extremely inefficient method of affecting an election. Do you dispute this? It seems to me that as there is no evidence that significant polling-place vote fraud actually occurs, and that there is no real reason to to expect it to occur, there also isn’t much reason to be looking for it.
Unless, of course, the aim is not to actually find anything, but rather to tar Democrats with accusations of vote fraud and give cover to efforts to supress the minority vote. Call me suspicious, but that seems to be a much more likely motive to me.
Brett, if there has to be a constitutional requirement for something before we can complain about politicians failing to do it, then we’d better shut down most political blogs. You of all people shouldn’t be arguing that everything that’s a good idea must be constitutionally mandated.
There are some jobs that really make me wonder: how can the person who takes them look him- or herself in the face?
Can’t you just hear the weaselly excuses, though, if you were to sit them down and ask them how they could do it? Day after day?
I put ’em in the same class as the guy who makes land mines, something that has just as beneficial a purpose.
The moment you accept that you are the Good Guys and the other party is composed of Bad Guys, a world of behaviors is opened to you. Being Bad Guys, the other would obviously cheat, lie, steal, kill, and destroy to beat YOU. And since you’re the good guys, gloves have to come off.
That style of rationalization characterizes the Republican party’s current mindset.
Brett, which of these are Democratic phony front organizations “(The AHSA, for instance.) “?
American Horse Show Association (wasn’t this Brownie’s gig?)
American Hunters and Shooters Association
American Hampshire Sheep Association
Association of Homeschool Attorneys
African Horse Safari Association
These are from the first page of Google results. Not trying to be snarky, I really don’t know what you mean.
“But it is not a serious problem if it doesn’t exist, or if it occurs only rarely, as the NYT reported that a federal panel studying the issue found.”
I still haven’t seen any study design which could reliably detect it when you steadfastly won’t allow verification. Everything comes up as ‘irregularities’ instead of ‘fraud’ because by design we can’t find the people who did it. There were massive ‘irregularities’ in Wisconsin and Washington of precisely the type you would expect to find if people were double voting. But since ID verification is not required, none of those can be registered as verifiably ‘fraud’. They are just ‘mysterious’.
Of course you don’t call unsolved cases elsewhere in the criminal world ‘irregularities’. A woman who is raped was still a victim and a crime still took place even if the rapist is not actually caught.
Democrats win the game in the definition. It isn’t ‘fraud’ until you catch the physical person. If it is a voter whose registration leads to a false or uninhabited address that is an ‘irregularity’. If there are more votes than registrations, that is an ‘irregularity’.
And from a Congressional point of view, Democrats are uncurious about these types of irregularities.
Democrats win the game in the definition.
i’m impressed that how you know that Republicans aren’t using the exact same tactics that you say Democrats are.
“It seems to me that as there is no evidence that significant polling-place vote fraud actually occurs, and that there is no real reason to to expect it to occur, there also isn’t much reason to be looking for it.”
I have always found this a very odd objection. We know for a fact that this type of voting fraud took place in the past. Furthermore, socalled ‘retail’ fraud isn’t the only thing made more problematic by voter ID. When fraud occurs on the ‘wholesale’ level, an ID requirement will make it easier to see whose votes were stolen, how and why by making the ‘irregularities’ more transparent.
When fraud occurs on the ‘wholesale’ level, an ID requirement will make it easier to see whose votes were stolen, how and why by making the ‘irregularities’ more transparent.
when unscrupulous campaign worker Z flips 500 anonymous votes in an electronic voting machine by running a SQL UPDATE command, the voter IDs of those 500 people will help detect and correct this… how ?
“i’m impressed that how you know that Republicans aren’t using the exact same tactics that you say Democrats are.”
Actually I tend to think that they are. I suspect that the major reason we haven’t had any kind of serious election reform is because both sides think they play the cheating game better than the other side.
I’m perfectly willing to provide every legal voter in the United States a tamper resistent card. I would consider any fee for these cards to be illegal under the Voting Rights Act and any method of disenfranchising anyone because the prospective voter couldn’t afford to gather proper documentation to be a further violation of the Voting Rights Act. If the Republicans are willing to pay for such a program, I’ll support them. If not, they should shut up.
Odd. Google hit the jackpot for me, second hit.
Not sure that’s the direction Brett was going in, though.
Once again, I’ve long been a huge anti-fan of purely electronic voting. Squared, if you run Microso~ products on it, including (but not limited to) OS.
Speaking of which, I recently ran into a case where a version of Windows is flying around on military aircraft, performing mission-critical functions. The WTF index of that is very, very high, although possibly not quite as high as if I’d come across a Windows-run nuclear power plant.
Imagine lining up for a weapons delivery, though, and having the airplane go BSOD on you.
Sounds familiar, Slart.
Some lessons we have to learn in increments, if at all, apparently.
There were massive ‘irregularities’ in Wisconsin
Yes, that was pretty neat trick. The Republican legislature cuts the funds needed to conduct proper elections, and then alleges “massive irregularities” when the system failed to cope with an influx of voter registration.
Kvenlander, it’s the “American Hunters and Shooters Association”
Domain name originally registered by the DNC’s public relations firm, offices in the same building as the DNC, board consists of known anti-gunners… It was a little bit less obvious than the American Center for Voting Rights, but not that much, and was exposed for what it was almost immediately. If you’d googled the words, “Democratic front” in addition to AHSA, you’d have found the evidence as the first return.
And I’ve already said I don’t think there’s a lot of in person voting by people pretending to be other people. Which isn’t the same as none, of course. I’d rather they went after absentee ballot fraud, instead.
BTW, both sides correctly think they cheat better than the other side… In the areas where they dominate the system. Since this makes incumbants more secure, why would incumbants want to do anything about organized ballot fraud?
From my link:
I’m not normally any sort of fan of Kevin Drum, but this gave me a chuckle.
There were massive ‘irregularities’ in Wisconsin and Washington of precisely the type you would expect to find if people were double voting.
You cannot have a reasonable argument with someone who posits such junk as a premise.
Funny how for years the Republicans have not been able to bring any criminal cases anywhere to combat this alleged fraud, even though they had complete control of the applicable legal machinery and made it the highest priority to pursue such cases, no matter how bogus. And they did manage to bring related cases in Wisconsin, which were then thrown out on appeal as substantively without merit (one of the rarer grounds for a successful appeal).
It does no good to whine that it is the “lack of evidence” that allegedly prevents prosecution. If this type of voter fraud is occurring to any degree at all (at least hundreds of episodes so that it has some tiny chance of making a difference), it is nonsense to suppose that no instances of it can be detected and prosecuted.
Believing in massive double voting fraud in Wisconsin or Washington has about the same intellectual rigor as believing in UFOs.
“BTW, both sides correctly think they cheat better than the other side… In the areas where they dominate the system. Since this makes incumbants more secure, why would incumbants want to do anything about organized ballot fraud?”
Right, and it is the same way you can predict which party will be talking about gerrymandering at any given point. The winners have incentives to use the corruption rather than fix it. See also the return of earmarks. (And I’m not saying that earmarks are the very worst thing ever, just that you can accurately predict which party will say what about them by noticing which party is in power.) The only time to change such things is right after an election if you can catch the new winners when it is too embarassing to immediately flip-flop and the old winners need something to protect themselves. (This worked for about 6 months in the Newt House of Representatives for instance).
“I’m not normally any sort of fan of Kevin Drum, but this gave me a chuckle.”
Top of the entry: “Guest: Christina Larson”
Bottom of the post: ”
—Christina Larson”
Although I sporadically disagree with, or have a different take from, Kevn, I find him to be a nice, easy-going, sensible, thoughtful, guy, who is occasionally a bit funny, myself.
Brett: “Domain name originally registered by the DNC’s public relations firm, offices in the same building as the DNC, board consists of known anti-gunners…”
Might want to look a little more closely at the initials you’re citing, Brett. Oopsie.
Looks like it’s time for another caffeinated refreshment.
“Believing in massive double voting fraud in Wisconsin or Washington has about the same intellectual rigor as believing in UFOs.”
What is this ‘massive’? 50 people doing it only three times would have been enough in Washington. 25 people 4 times would have been enough.
The ‘irregularities’ in Wisconsin were well above the margin for the winner.
You get dismissive with “massive” when there is no need for “massive” in the argument that the fraud can and does effect the actual outcome of elections.
See also Florida 2000 where the margin and winner depends entirely on which rules you follow for counting. (Which is the single most important reason why it is crucial to make those rules BEFORE the recounting begins, so that what the rules ought to be isn’t clouded by how they will effect the result).
dmbeaster,
Please, you’re insulting UFO believers everywhere. As someone who saw, well not actually saw a UFO, I object.
I was doing my Weston imatation and making senic photographs of the California Coast many years ago. As I discovered while making enlargements, a UFO made an appearance in one photo. I do not claim it was an alien craft, but I surely have no explaination. Which makes it an Unidentified Flying Object. On that basis I believe in UFOs, I’m not gullible enough to take the Republican voter fraud stalking horse seriously.
Seb: “I still haven’t seen any study design which could reliably detect it when you steadfastly won’t allow verification.”
One might, however, accept the Justice Department’s failure to find much of anything despite five years of efforts in lieu of studies, however:
There were no massive irregularities or fraud or whatever in Washington. There was a Republican prosecutor who got fired by the Bush administration because he refused to indite innnocent people in order to create the false impression of widespread problems.
There is evidence of the Republican party faking the existance of vcter fraud. There isn’t evidence of an actual problem, just the insistance that it must exist because it must, it must, it must.
Any approach at voting reform cannot but be considered partial that does not consider a fraudulent vote as strictly equal to a suppressed vote.
In making this equation, of course we have to distinguish between a suppressed vote (i.e., a legal voter who took all the required steps yet was not permitted to vote, or his/her vote was not counted), and a discouraged vote (i.e., one who would have voted but for the marginal hoops through which he/she was required to jump to be able to vote).
However, discouraged votes are bad, too, and though they aren’t as bad as fraudulent votes, the latter is not infinitely worse than the former. Thus surely an enforcement regime that discouraged 1000 voters but only prevented 1 fraudulent vote would be a case of the costs outweighing the benefits.
What is this ‘massive’? 50 people doing it only three times would have been enough in Washington. 25 people 4 times would have been enough.
The ‘irregularities’ in Wisconsin were well above the margin for the winner.
Two points:
1. Of course those sneaky Dems knew the margins would be razor thin, and did just enough vote fraud to tip the scales while remaining below the radar. They also wisely did not use the tactics in areas were the could not overcome the margin without much more detectable frauds. Such masterful planning. And somehow the Republicans slipped up and did not match the Dem double-voting with their own dirty tricks.
Or else raging paranoia about what is allegedly going on. Which is it?
2. Since you believe in fairness and state above that this type of fraud is bipartisan, please identify the elections swung in favor of Republicans by improper double voting.
What, none?
_________________
The phony vote fraud meme from Republicans is so odious and merits scorn because it serves as cover for truly bad voter suppression efforts that do in fact make a big difference in voting — caging (for which the Republicans entered into a criminal consent decree to stop doing it, but it continues anyway); schemes to selectively purge legitimate voters from the rolls; unnecessary alleged anti-fraud measures whose real purpose is to suppress voter turnout.
That is the scandal — not bogus nonsense about the alleged problems of double voting.
Vote fraud in Wisconsin? When? How many? Why did they only find one person who voted illegally even after a huge effort by state and federal folks in Wisconsin?
Sebastian: See also Florida 2000 where the margin and winner depends entirely on which rules you follow for counting. (Which is the single most important reason why it is crucial to make those rules BEFORE the recounting begins, so that what the rules ought to be isn’t clouded by how they will effect the result).
And it’s also crucial not to permit the state government to change the rules or disregard them, as happened in Florida, in order to ensure the state governor’s brother gets all the state’s electoral college votes.
Sadly, the Republican government of Florida did not agree with your clear statement of principle, and that’s how Bush got appointed even though Gore got elected.
Hilzoy, the NYT conclusions don’t match the findings.
“about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.”
is certainly not the same as “virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections”.
That would be like saying that a low rate of convictions meant that a very large percentage of rape victims were lying.
Considering the lack of ID requirements, I can’t really imagine how you would get a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt on the ‘retail fraud’ level without physically following someone from one polling place to another and watching them vote. How would you ever prove that any particular person was the one who was responsible for registrations to an abandoned lot? You don’t have an ID. You don’t have a functional address. You can’t have eyewitnesses. Of course there is no conviction. But that isn’t the same as NO EVIDENCE at all. There is evidence of a very large number of same day registrations in Wisconsin that can’t actually be tracked to any real person. A very large percentage of those were ‘vouch for’ registrations which required no proof of residency other than a registered voter vouching for the voter. Pre-registration required no ID. So there are a large number of votes and registrations which are not connected to any real person in Wisconsin. That is evidence of fraud. Not evidence that will get any particular person convicted–the Wisconsin registration makes tying the evidence of fraud to a particular person almost impossible.
But failure to catch and than convict a rapist is not proof that no rape occurred. Nor would it support a ‘finding’ that no rape occurred.
Seb: “Hilzoy, the NYT conclusions don’t match the findings.
“about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.”
is certainly not the same as “virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections”.”
Actually, considering that the convictions (which is all that matters) were all individuals disparate from each other, there is virtually no evidence of any ORGANIZED effort. The key word being organized.
Seb: you could easily prove that someone was the person who voted using the address of the abandoned lot.
As far as the NYT story, 86 convictions does not indicate the existence of an organized effort, especially when you read about some of those convictions. For instance (from the story):
“Ms. Prude’s path to jail began after she attended a Democratic rally in Milwaukee featuring the Rev. Al Sharpton in late 2004. Along with hundreds of others, she marched to City Hall and registered to vote. Soon after, she sent in an absentee ballot.
Four years earlier, though, Ms. Prude had been convicted of trying to cash a counterfeit county government check worth $1,254. She was placed on six years’ probation.
Ms. Prude said she believed that she was permitted to vote because she was not in jail or on parole, she testified in court. Told by her probation officer that she could not vote, she said she immediately called City Hall to rescind her vote, a step she was told was not necessary.
“I made a big mistake, like I said, and I truly apologize for it,” Ms. Prude said during her trial in 2005. That vote, though, resulted in a felony conviction and sent her to jail for violating probation.”
And:
“Mr. Ali, 68, who had owned a jewelry store in Tallahassee, got into trouble after a clerk at the motor vehicles office had him complete a registration form that he quickly filled out in line, unaware that it was reserved just for United States citizens.”
He was deported as a result. Also:
“In Alaska, Rogelio Mejorada-Lopez, who manages a gasoline station, had received a voter registration form in the mail. Because he had applied for citizenship, he thought it was permissible to vote, his lawyer said. Now, he may be deported to Mexico after 16 years in the United States. “What I want is for them to leave me alone,” he said in an interview.”
And the one I cited earlier:
“One ex-convict was so unfamiliar with the rules that he provided his prison-issued identification card, stamped “Offender,” when he registered just before voting.”
These four examples are around 5% of the convictions in the DoJ’s 5 year effort. I don’t see any organization here at all.
cross-posted with John Miller; sorry.
Sebastian: the NYT conclusions don’t match the findings. “about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.”
is certainly not the same as “virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections”.
If a special panel was appointed to investigate rape cases, and discovered that out of 76 million cases of rape, 120 charges of false testimony had been brought resulting in 86 convictions, that would, in fact, be good evidence that the low rate of conviction in rape cases is not because of false testimony on the part of the chief witness.
As someone else pointed out, there’s a parallel between your insistance that despite there being no evidence of any significant number of late-term abortions in the US, that doesn’t mean there aren’t lots and lots of them and people are covering it up: as you now insist that there could be an awful lot of small-scale unqualified voters/double vote fraud only people are somehow covering it up. (Also, it has singularly failed to do the Democratic Party any damn good.)
Cross-posted with Hilzoy and john miller. Sorry.
“Seb: you could easily prove that someone was the person who voted using the address of the abandoned lot.”
How are you going to find that person? Tell me what proccess you have in mind when you don’t know their name or where they live. It may just be a lack of imagination, but I don’t see an easy way to get there.
“as you now insist that there could be an awful lot of small-scale unqualified voters/double vote fraud only people are somehow covering it up.”
Look at rape statistics from the 1940s and 1950s with the huge spike in REPORTS coming around then and after. The large reason for underreporting them was not an ORGANIZED effort to cover them up or under report them. It was hundreds of cops deciding not to follow up on certain types of cases. It was an inability to collect certain types of what would later be very useful evidence. It was a society and government which tolerated or did not focus on rape. It wasn’t ORGANIZED, but lack of organization is not the same as “did not exist”.
Sebastian: Look at rape statistics from the 1940s and 1950s with the huge spike in REPORTS coming around then and after. The large reason for underreporting them was not an ORGANIZED effort to cover them up or under report them. It was hundreds of cops deciding not to follow up on certain types of cases.
And the reason the women’s movement found this disturbing was because, when women got together and talked to each other, they discovered that in any group of a dozen women, there would be two or three who had been raped. Studies suggest still that far more women are raped than ever report it to the police: that far more men commit rape than are ever convicted of it.
If any significant number of people were voting more than once and routinely getting away with it, we would know about it the same way that we know that so many men commit rape. Your notion that there could be a vast cover-up with no evidence at all and no one talking has a better parallel with the people who think the WTC was brought down by demolition charges or the moon landings were faked.
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
Seb: well, the DoJ probably has a better imagination than I do, but if it’s in a state with computerized voter rolls, one could flag it, the way they do with names on the TSA watch list. Try to vote with that name and address, end up in jail.
It’s much easier to catch people who actually have to walk in, sign their names as living at 101 Vacant Lot (or whatever), and cast a ballot, if you’ve already identified 101 Vacant Lot as a fraudulent address.
And of course for non-computerized districts, just have some law enforcement person hanging around the relevant precinct waiting for the “voter” to appear.
I mean, it’s really not that hard. And by all accounts, the DoJ has been trying.
“It’s much easier to catch people who actually have to walk in, sign their names as living at 101 Vacant Lot (or whatever), and cast a ballot, if you’ve already identified 101 Vacant Lot as a fraudulent address.”
With same day or near same day registration, how do you do all that in advance? These fraudulent addresses don’t (and really can’t with the current registration system) come to light until after the election. But they sure do come to light after the election. So it isn’t as if they aren’t happening.
“I mean, it’s really not that hard. And by all accounts, the DoJ has been trying.”
I know of zero accounts of DoJ hanging around polling places and I rather suspect the Congressional Black Caucus would add that to its list of Voter Rights violations if it did. You seem to be envisioning a system in which someone goes to each registered house to check on it before the vote. That isn’t what happens–the window between registration and vote is too narrow for that. Furthermore, if you are ok with that, we might as well have ID cards, it would be cheaper, more comprehensive and less intrusive.
And don’t even get me started with absentee ballot fraud. (Though that is an area I suspect Republicans might be better at than Democrats).
What is this ‘massive’? 50 people doing it only three times would have been enough in Washington. 25 people 4 times would have been enough.
And if the moon were made of green cheese, we could eat it.
After all this time, you are STILL presuming your conclusion before the facts.
I would take accusation of voter fraud in Washington more seriously if there was a smidgen of evidence for it. I don’t accept as evidence the challenges done by Republican activists which were 30-40% incorrect (i.e., actual, verified legal voters). If you’re alleging voter fraud, you HAVE to do better than that.
Seb: not really. This would only work in states that don’t have same-day reg., but there are enough of those that some conspiracies should have been catch-able. Maryland, for instance, closes off registration about a month before elections.
Second, I don’t think you need to have people go to each registered house. I think this is one of the reasons why God created phone books, and reverse phone directories.
Third, I can’t see how anyone could make a plausible case against people hanging around polling places waiting for someone with a fraudulent address to come in, so long as: (1) they had already identified the address as fraudulent, and (2) you hadn’t done something loathsome like checking only voters in predominantly black neighborhoods. (I’m assuming, based on your invocation of the CBC, that you’re imagining both that the complain would be about discrimination and that the polling place in question would be black. The second assumption is somewhat odd. In any case, though, I would have thought that documented checking of all different kinds of precincts, plus documented sending of people to all (or: some randomly chosen subset of) the fake addresses, would provide a good response to such a complaint.
“Seb: you could easily prove that someone was the person who voted using the address of the abandoned lot.”
How are you going to find that person? Tell me what proccess you have in mind when you don’t know their name or where they live. It may just be a lack of imagination, but I don’t see an easy way to get there.
If these are ‘vouch for’ registrations, why not follow up the person who vouched for them? This doesn’t seem difficult at all, even after the fact.
I mean, Seb: we’re talking about a crime, and one that people have to show up at a predesignated place and time in order to commit. How can it be harder to catch these people than it is to catch, say, rapists, who can strike anywhere?
You don’t have to show intent to alter the outcome of an election or conspiracy or anything, as the pitiable examples in the NYT story show. So why is this supposed to be so very, very difficult?
What is this ‘massive’? 50 people doing it only three times would have been enough in Washington. 25 people 4 times would have been enough.
By the way…if you were to do voter fraud..why on earth would you only do it at this low of a number?????? You’d have to know that the actual margin would be that close, and ahead of time, you’d be very stupid to count on it being that low…you’d make sure you had a margin, in case a few people got caught.
Doing voter fraud this way HAS to be massive, or it’s not going to work or be worth it.
I’m also not sure what your basis is for saying that there were large numbers of votes cast in Wisconsin from fraudulent addresses — when I google for it, I get a lot of blog posts making vague accusations, but I’m not finding my way to anything substantial. Link, if you would?
I’m also not sure what your basis is for saying that there were large numbers of votes cast in Wisconsin from fraudulent addresses — when I google for it, I get a lot of blog posts making vague accusations, but I’m not finding my way to anything substantial. Link, if you would?
Silly LB, the accusation is the only thing that really matters here. Evidence is a technically and indicative of post-1776, pre-9/11 thinking.
“If these are ‘vouch for’ registrations, why not follow up the person who vouched for them? This doesn’t seem difficult at all, even after the fact.”
Sure it is. The vouch for’s have to be registered voters, but if they registered more than a specified time (I’d have to find the old Wisconsin rules again to refresh exactly how long but I believe it was either two or four weeks ahead of time) they didn’t have to show an ID then either. Furthermore due to a non-shocking clerical error, almost none of the names of the people doing the vouching were recorded. So yes, it actually is difficult to follow up on the vouch for’s.
“By the way…if you were to do voter fraud..why on earth would you only do it at this low of a number?????? You’d have to know that the actual margin would be that close, and ahead of time, you’d be very stupid to count on it being that low…you’d make sure you had a margin, in case a few people got caught.”
I think you are confusing Jesurgislac’s X-Files level conspiracy theory with what I’m talking about. Like the rape reporting problem, there isn’t and wasn’t some massive conspiracy. Just lots of little things adding up to a systemic tilt.
And frankly I think this talk about the need to ‘prove’ (and with CONVICTIONS AS THE ONLY STANDARD OF PROOF no less) blatantly ORGANIZED fraud before fixing completely obvious loopholes is silly. Surely no one would argue that we actually have to wait for someone to proveably hack in to DieBold voting machines before we decide to make darn sure that is difficult to do?
Both parties have a demonstrated history of trying to use dead or otherwise ineligible voters to swing elections. Very rarely does this lead to massive convictions. Very rarely is proveable to an iron-clad level that they succeeded in changing the outcome of elections. That doesn’t mean that we should just ignore extremely obvious loopholes. Requiring IDs to vote is NOT antithetical to democracy as practiced in other nations. Making sure that non-citizens don’t vote is practiced almost everywhere. Using IDs to keep people from voting twice is practiced almost everywhere. That fact doesn’t definitively close the question, but it certainly means that it is not utterly ridiculous to suggest it–as seems to be hinted at here.
Seb: I’m in favor of a national ID, fwiw. I’d also be in favor of requiring IDs as things stand now if it was a no-cost, no-disadvantage proposition. However, it isn’t. The more ID you require, the more people who are actually entitled to vote, but who for whatever reason don’t show up with the right number of IDs, you end up preventing from voting. And that is extremely serious — more serious, I think, than fraud (other things equal.) I mean, at non-massive levels fraud dilutes everyone’s vote by a tiny amount; voter suppression, by contrast, takes away someone’s right to vote altogether.
I do not agree that both parties have a proven recent history of using voter fraud. I really don’t. I would be interested in seeing the evidence. I think that technology has made a real difference here — voter fraud would have been a lot easier when you had no easy way of checking what on earth was going on (i.e., no computers), and so with enough completely corrupt districts, in which the voting officials were prepared to let people vote over and over, and the ordinary citizens were unlikely to complain, you could to some extent get away with it. That’s not true now. So I don’t accept Tammany Hall as a relevant precedent here.
There’s also the fact, mentioned in the article (and by me a month or so ago) that if you want to affect an election now, voter fraud is a staggeringly labor- and time-intensive, risky, and stupid way to do it.
So I look at the fact that I am not aware of the “demonstrated history” you describe (at least, not during the last thirty or so years), and the whole idea of using this as a tactic to alter the outcome of elections makes no sense, and a concerted effort to find it has not uncovered any such attempt, and requiring ID would in fact suppress the votes of people who are entitled to vote, and say: nope. Not without further evidence that this is an actual problem that actually needs to be fixed, and that the proposed cure is not worse than the disease.
Using IDs to keep people from voting twice is practiced almost everywhere.
Wha? My state requires that we show IDs to vote, thanks to legislation passed by the voter-suppressing Republicans who control the General Assembly, but ID’s are absolutely unnecessary to keep anyone from voting twice.
When you show up to vote, the officers of election cross through your name in the poll book. It would be impossible to vote twice in that precinct.
And it would be impossible to vote in another precinct because the double registration would long since have been revealed (voter registration applications include social security numbers and date of birth).
So how does the ID come into it?
I’ll agree with Nell. My state (PA) requires that the voter sign his name in the registry book, next to a copy of the signature on file. Once a person signs, it becomes impossible to have another person vote under the same name in that precinct. No ID is required on voting day, but substantial ID is required as part of the registration, including DoB and driver’s license info. So put me in the camp of not seeing substantial benefit where there is no same-day registration in requiring ID, and, as has been pointed out before, substantial harm to the significant number of people who do not have good ID but are eligible to vote.
Seb: “I think you are confusing Jesurgislac’s X-Files level conspiracy theory with what I’m talking about. Like the rape reporting problem, there isn’t and wasn’t some massive conspiracy. Just lots of little things adding up to a systemic tilt.”
However…
” There were massive ‘irregularities’ in Wisconsin and Washington of precisely the type you would expect to find if people were double voting.”
“is certainly not the same as “virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections”.
“So there are a large number of votes and registrations which are not connected to any real person in Wisconsin. That is evidence of fraud.”
So the reason people were talking about massive and organized is because you brought it up.
I’m not going to try to hyperlink all of these because the filter will explode, but:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/oct04/271150.asp
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jan05/294960.asp
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jan05/296408.asp
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/feb05/298205.asp
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/feb05/300449.asp
The DOJ investigation found neither direct proof of fraud NOR any good explanation for why this happend systemically throughout the city.
John Miller, I have no idea how ‘organized’ it was. I know that Wisconsin had a system which was very open to fraud, which had very few checks on fraud, which checks did exist were ignored on a regular basis, and which had a very high number of problems when checked after the fact.
Hilzoy, “I mean, at non-massive levels fraud dilutes everyone’s vote by a tiny amount; voter suppression, by contrast, takes away someone’s right to vote altogether.”
I don’t understand the mathematical difference here. Insofar as voting balances votes against each other and then declares the one with the largest heap “winner”, suppressing a vote has precisely the same incremental effect as adding a fraudulent vote. In the first case it is subtracting a vote from your opponent and in the second case it is adding a vote to your side. It still is a net gain or loss per voter of one vote.
I don’t understand this.
TPM has this about the linkage between the DOJ and ACVR.
None of those links add up to much of anything, SH. The first seems to say that the newspaper was unable to confirm the existence of what a sample would suggest to be 300 addresses — given that you’d expect some incorrectly filled out cards in the absence of any fraud, and that there’s no indication that more investigation wouldn’t have resolved some of those addresses as well, this doesn’t look like anything.
Everything else looks like overblown reporting of sloppy recordkeeping — bad, but neither directly indicative of fraud, or more importantly having anything to do with polling-place fraud by individual voters. If this sort of sloppiness is concealing fraud, the problem is with election workers, not with individual unauthorized voters.
What LB said. I am completely in favor of having more training and more resources available to poll workers. But that’s not at all a problem whose solution is requiring ID. (I mean: especially in the case of the vote/record discrepancy. This can’t be straight voter fraud, as might be the case if WI didn’t have same-day registration. It has to be something more like: people showed up and voted, but the poll worker didn’t write it down. How this failure on the part of the poll worker would be rectified by requiring something unrelated of voters, I don’t know.)
Sebastian’s links re Milwaukee remind me of the similar stories that came out of Ohio 2004 concerning irregularities in record-keeping and tabulations. There was recently a criminal conviction of the registrar somewhere near Cleveland because of fraud in conducting an audit of the vote.
It is important to note that even if you cannot convict someone of the crime of double voting (or other irregularities), it is easy to spot the irregularity after the fact, and therefore determine whether or not there is a problem. No one has even established that it is a problem — forget whether or not there is also enough evidence to start convicting people. More importantly, that there is a problem such that the normal background error rate is favoring one party or the other.
One of the lessons of Florida 2000 was the screw-ball nature of so much of voting procedures, and that there is a basic error rate of 1 to 3 percent depending on the quality control in place. It is not proof of fraud by any means. For the most part, these errors rarely break in a partisan manner. The litigation in Washington concerning the alleged voting irregularities in the 2004 governor’s race resulted in a finding of more improper votes for the Republican, and a net gain in legal votes for the Dem candidate.
Somehow Sebastian remembers that episode as an alleged example in which the Democrat was favored by improper votes.
There is always room for improvement in voting practices, but the Republican voting fraud claim remains entirely fictional, and a cover for odious Republican voter suppression strategies. Those do result in significant partisan skewing of results, and are a far greater evil than the alleged sin they address.
Back when the GEnie network was a going thing, writer Michael Flynn would often post fascinating pieces about his day job, which is statistical analysis and instruction in the same for quite high-powered audiences, like UN arms inspectors and regional trade organizations. One of the things that took me a long time to learn, and I’m not embarrassed about this because it seems to take everyone a long time to learn, is that you can’t perfect counting. Absolutely every means available makes some errors, and the very best methods applied multiple times to the same data will simply generate about the same number of errors in different places. It’s not that Flynn is a radical subjectivist who believes there is no actual answer, it’s just that methodology makes it clear that we can never achieve a perfect knowledge of it.
So yeah, a general error rate of 1-3% sounds unsurprising to me, and not an indication of malice or even incompetence. Bringing it down would likely require national standards and substantial investment in training and material resources, for which I see no howling general demand.
“It is important to note that even if you cannot convict someone of the crime of double voting (or other irregularities), it is easy to spot the irregularity after the fact, and therefore determine whether or not there is a problem. No one has even established that it is a problem — forget whether or not there is also enough evidence to start convicting people. More importantly, that there is a problem such that the normal background error rate is favoring one party or the other.”
Easy? I don’t even conceptually know how you check for double voting among the people you can’t find in Wisconsin. In theory it is quite possible that all 8,000 or so of those votes could have been from the same single person for all the evidence that could be marshalled either way. It isn’t likely to be just one person only because he or she would have had trouble getting to that many polling stations.
“So yeah, a general error rate of 1-3% sounds unsurprising to me, and not an indication of malice or even incompetence.”
1-3%? You can easily get in to the .5% range for simple counting. And for non-existant same day registrations, it appears to be closer to 10%. That is way out of line.
Also… Using ONLY CONVICTIONS as a guide, how many voter supression cases do we have by Republicans?
who’s the party of vote suppression? let the Republicans speak for themselves:
Among Republicans it is an “article of religious faith that voter fraud is causing us to lose elections,” Masset said. He doesn’t agree with that, but does believe that requiring photo IDs could cause enough of a dropoff in legitimate Democratic voting to add 3 percent to the Republican vote. (emphasis added)
who’s Masset?
Royal Masset is the former political director of the Republican Party of Texas.
(h/t LB)
Seb: I wasn’t meaning to imply that ONLY CONVICTIONS counted as evidence; just replying to your earlier point (about studies) by noting that there weren’t any successful cases either.
That said, one reason I think it’s notable is precisely because the DOJ was trying to find them for five years. If the last five years had been years of shocking neglect of voter fraud charges, I wouldn’t conclude anything at all from a lack of convictions.
And it’s also crucial not to permit the state government to change the rules or disregard them, as happened in Florida, in order to ensure the state governor’s brother gets all the state’s electoral college votes.
No idea what you’re talking about, here, Jesurgislac, but I suspect it’s lather, rinse, repeat. Jane, stop this crazy thing!
Hilzoy: I mean, at non-massive levels fraud dilutes everyone’s vote by a tiny amount; voter suppression, by contrast, takes away someone’s right to vote altogether.
Sebastian Holsclaw: I don’t understand the mathematical difference here. Insofar as voting balances votes against each other and then declares the one with the largest heap “winner”, suppressing a vote has precisely the same incremental effect as adding a fraudulent vote. In the first case it is subtracting a vote from your opponent and in the second case it is adding a vote to your side. It still is a net gain or loss per voter of one vote.
I don’t understand this.
Here’s my comment from an earlier thread on this topic:
The difference isn’t mathematical. It’s moral. This is the equivalent of “better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be imprisoned”. The franchise shouldn’t be viewed as a disposable right. It’s the most basic right we have as citizens of a democratic republic, because all our other rights flow from our ability to shape our own government.
Of course, we know that the expectation on both sides of this discussion is that strict voter ID laws will reduce legitimate voter turnout by some amount. As far as I’m concerned, unless enough voter fraud is uncovered to offset this harm, the discussion ends there. What I don’t understand is the proposition that we should disenfranchise law-abiding, flesh-and-blood voters for the sole purpose of chasing phantom fraudsters.
There was recently a criminal conviction of the registrar somewhere near Cleveland because of fraud in conducting an audit of the vote.
To be specific, it was actually the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections — Cleveland is the largest city in Cuyahoga County — where two elections workers were convicted of several negligence charges and sentenced to 18 months in prison. My understanding is that the were really made the scapegoats for something the head of the BOE and the prosecutor’s office told them to do. In any case, the Ohio Secretary of State followed up by firing the CCBOE.
The DOJ investigation found neither direct proof of fraud NOR any good explanation for why this happend systemically throughout the city.
You realize that this kind of puts the kibosh on your theories, right?
“You realize that this kind of puts the kibosh on your theories, right?”
No it really doesn’t. They should have been able to identify the systemic reasons for the unusually high levels of problems. They couldn’t.
They should have been able to identify the systemic reasons for the unusually high levels of problems.
This presumes, however, that unusually high levels of problems were actually found, which is sort of my point. I freely admit I haven’t read the DOJ investigation but it doesn’t, AFAIK, support that claim. [Please correct me if I’m wrong, I’d hate to be more of a jackass than need be 🙂 ] What you’re doing is privileging the JS investigation over the DOJ’s and while there might be good reasons to — basic issues of competence, for example — you haven’t offered any.
And let’s not forget who was pushing the voter fraud allegations in Wisconsin either. Doesn’t mean that there wasn’t any — even Steve Biskupic can be correct/uncorrupt twice a day, I’m sure — but I’d be very reluctant to push this any harder.
I have no idea what “X-Files level conspiracy theory” Sebastian Holsclaw is ascribing to me. JFTR, though, I do not believe that aliens are attempting to change the course of US politics.
Slarti, Sebastian brought up the Florida 2000 election, not me.
Suppression of a vote vs. adding extra votes does have a mathematical difference because the totals change. In other words the weight of the single vote changes. This has of course a greater effect in proportional representation sytems but with a mixture of solid and volatile voting segments it can also influence majority systems (always assuming that cheating is not completely one-sided).
Anarch: This presumes, however, that unusually high levels of problems were actually found, which is sort of my point.
I assume Sebastian means: unusually high numbers of voters were voting for the Democratic candidate(s), which, to a Republican, is a problem.
What Anarch said. Certainly, the sort of sloppiness the JS found is enough to deserve investigation, but the DOJ investigated it, under a lot of pressure to find something suspicious, and didn’t. I’m not sure what “should have been able to identify the systemic reasons” means in that it further excites Sebastian’s suspicions — what is he relying on that excludes poor training and sloppiness as an explanation?
But most importantly, say everything the JS is saying is evidence of genuine purposeful skullduggery. It all involves misconduct (or screwups) by election workers. If the election workers are crooked, then tightening the voter ID requirements isn’t going to do you any good.
I am ecstatic at the prospect of increasing funding for training election workers — hiring more of them to check on each other, improving systems generally. All of that is great, would solve the problems discovered by the JS whether they are nefarious or only incompetent, and wouldn’t discourage a single voter. Using this as evidence that we need higher standards for voter ID, on the other hand, is nonsense.
There are some jobs that really make me wonder: how can the person who takes them look him- or herself in the face?
Like most things, it makes me think of a Simpson’s line, “How do you sleep nights?” “On a big pile of money surrounded by beautiful women.”
“Certainly, the sort of sloppiness the JS found is enough to deserve investigation, but the DOJ investigated it, under a lot of pressure to find something suspicious, and didn’t.”
No, the DOJ found the same things, couldn’t find systemic explanations for it (for example they didn’t find a mistabulating computer, a confusing form, or a misaligned column). The only systemic explanation which they found was that Wisconsin had a registration system which allowed same-day registrations that if gamed properly have no way to tie back to any individual. But that explanation could not have actually led to the vote totals without fraud. Since the SYSTEM kept any particular person from being found, this didn’t lead to any arrests or convictions. But that doesn’t show a lack of fraud. That strongly suggests fraud that couldn’t be tied to a particular wrongdoer. The DOJ found the same circumstances the the JS found. It didn’t lead to arrests or convictions because the nature of the fraud completely obscures individual names and addresses. But the existance of the large number of fake names and addresses (in the 10% range) from same day registrations, is evidence for fraud. We just don’t know who committed the fraud. And really we don’t even know that it was Democrats who committed the fraud, it could have been Republicans.
But I don’t understand how you attribute that to the poll workers. It is certainly possible that the poll workers were to blame, but it isn’t necessary at all. Systemically in 2004, you could register before the election with no ID and then act to vouch for other people with no ID for same day registration. That type of fraud requires no poll worker mistake or negligence and creates a paper trail that leads to no one.
“Suppression of a vote vs. adding extra votes does have a mathematical difference because the totals change. In other words the weight of the single vote changes.”
Not really, adding 1 vote to 100 is a +1% change to the total. Subtracting 1 vote from 100 is a -1% change to the total. If the natural vote totals would be 48 for A to 52 for B. I need to make a total change of 5 votes to swing the election the other way. I could do that with 5 fraudulent votes. The vote totals would then be A-53 B-52. I could do that with 5 supressions. The vote totals would then be A-48 and B-47. I could do that with 3 fraudulent votes and 2 supressions. The vote totals would be A-51 and B-50. In ALL cases, I need to swing 5 votes. There is no ‘fractional’ or ‘dilution’ or other difference in fraud by adding votes when compared by supressing votes.
I see no ‘moral’ difference in the two cases either. In both cases you are attempting to change the otherwise legitimate results of elections. Where the ‘moral’ issue comes in is apparently what counts as ‘suppression’. I will agree that telling people that they should vote on the wrong day is suppression. I will not agree that making minimal identification requirements which need to be fulfilled some time in the next 18 months counts as suppression.
That is a difference in political philosophy. A citizen who is informed enough to vote, even a very poor citizen, can find some time in the 24 months between elections to get properly registered. And if we had even a moderately good ID system (which many here vehemently oppose) it would be even easier to find some time in the 24 months between elections to get properly registered.
Sebastian, the idea that opposing votes can cancel each other is something of a fallacy. Those votes still add to the total and influence the margin. If opposing votes canceled one another, then, to use an extreme example, there would be no appreciable difference between an election that is won 51,000,000 to 49,000,000 (2% margin) and an election that is won 4,000,000 to 2,000,000 (100% margin), since only the votes that pass the post are not nullified.
Much more importantly, though, there is a dramatic difference between voting for a losing candidate and not voting at all. But if you truly believe that a vote cast for the losing candidate is necessarily canceled by one on the opposing side, and is thus cast in vain, then we do have a very stark difference in political philosophies.
That is a difference in political philosophy. A citizen who is informed enough to vote, even a very poor citizen, can find some time in the 24 months between elections to get properly registered.
How is this different than saying that folks who are easily discouraged from voting don’t deserve to vote anyway? We know that Democrats and Republicans alike expect stricter (not minimal, stricter) identification requirements will decrease turnout among Democratic voters. If you mean to suggest that this isn’t, in fact, a harm after all, you’ll need to go into more detail than this.
And if we had even a moderately good ID system (which many here vehemently oppose) it would be even easier to find some time in the 24 months between elections to get properly registered.
Possibly. But are you arguing for strict ID requirements in a hypothetical future world in which such a policy wouldn’t suppress turnout, or in the world as it exists today, when these ID requirements are actually being pushed through legislatures?
Oops, change “100% margin” to “50% margin” above. Editing error.
“If opposing votes canceled one another, then, to use an extreme example, there would be no appreciable difference between an election that is won 51,000,000 to 49,000,000 (2% margin) and an election that is won 4,000,000 to 2,000,000 (50% margin), since only the votes that pass the post are not nullified.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, but for almost all purposes in the US system there is in fact no appreciable difference between those even in the extreme case. Especially for federal elections, the ‘percentage margin of win’ is irrelevant.
“How is this different than saying that folks who are easily discouraged from voting don’t deserve to vote anyway?”
It depends upon your definition of ‘easily discouraged’. Some people will be discouraged from voting unless someone picks them up from their house, takes them out to lunch, delivers them to the polls, waits with them in line, and drives them home. (This is not a hypothetical, some GOTV efforts actually do this). This does not create a government obligation to pick them up from their house, take them out for lunch, wait with them in line and drive them home.
I do not in fact believe that a standardized Voter ID issued by the federal government would IN FACT discourage any appreciable number of actual eligible voters who would have actually voted–Democratic or otherwise. Additionally I don’t believe that it would effect eligible Democratic voters MORE than Republican voters. Rural voters are much more likely to be adversely effected than urban ones, and we all know how the urban/rural split works out.
Now I’m perfectly willing to believe that it will discourage Democratic voters who are not in fact citizens or eligible to vote, but that isn’t a legitimate criticism.
Systemically in 2004, you could register before the election with no ID and then act to vouch for other people with no ID for same day registration. That type of fraud requires no poll worker mistake or negligence and creates a paper trail that leads to no one.
SH – This you haven’t shown any support for. A same-day registrant should have a record of who vouched for them — if there is no such record, that’s a poll worker mistake or negligence (and while you’ve claimed that there’s often no such record, you haven’t linked to anything supporting it, unless I missed it in your earlier links). In the absence of such poll worker mistake or negligence, one could follow up a registrant who gave a bad address by tracking down the registered voter who vouched for them.
If you found a significant number of same-day registrants with bad addresses vouched for by registered voters also with bad addresses, so that the vouching voter couldn’t be contacted, that would be evidence of a problem. But it would be evidence, clearly visible in the standard records that are kept (and if they aren’t, again that’s election worker misconduct). This election was investigated by the DOJ — I’m not seeing anything that claims that any identifiable occurance of a same day registrant vouched for by a registered voter who couldn’t be located happened, much less that it happened in any significant numbers.
But the existance of the large number of fake names and addresses (in the 10% range) from same day registrations, is evidence for fraud.
Are you basing this on the article that said that out of ~16,000 same day registrations, the JS decided ~3000 were suspicious, and of a sample of the ~3000 were able to confirm only 90%? Because 300/16,000 isn’t 10%, it’s less than 2%. And there’s no indication that further research wouldn’t have resolved more of those 300.
Brett, the author of the linked piece argues that the sort of vote fraud you’re talking about is highly unlikely – it’s an extremely inefficient method of affecting an election.
Voter impersonation would indeed be a bit of trouble. But this is really a rather inane objection to make here, isn’t it? After all, Democrats (and Republicans) already spend lots and lots of time and money sending around volunteers, vans, buses, etc., to gather up real voters — which is terribly inefficient, except for the fact that if one side doesn’t do this and the other side does, the other side will have a marginal advantage.
So sending out a few volunteers to vote more than once could be relatively more efficient than sending the same volunteers out to various neighborhoods to give other voters a ride. Oddly enough, there are several dozen reports of Democratic activist groups having created just the perfect conditions for someone to vote twice (i.e., they submitted voter registration forms under false names).
So it’s the perfect setup, without an ID requirement. Register a John Smith at 123 Main St; a Jack Black at 234 Elm St.; and a Joe Blow at 345 Oak St. Have the same volunteer show up at all three precincts to vote. [Again, yes this is inefficient; but not as much trouble as coming up with three additional independent voters from those precincts.]
If there’s no ID requirement, there’s no way for a poll worker to check on whether he’s really John Smith or any of the other identities. Then what will happen? Maybe, if we’re lucky, a news report after the fact will point out, “We identified three voters whose registration forms didn’t match property ownership records for the named addresses.” And then the Democratic party hacks will proclaim in unison, “But that’s not proof of fraud. It could just be an election worker that recorded the wrong address. It could be a typographical error. It could be that the voter moved or changed addresses.”
And so forth. There’s always an excuse.
It’s interesting — the scenario that I described above could just as easily be pulled off by Republicans as by Democrats. The fact that Democrats seem to have zero interest in preventing such a scenario [except for wildly unrealistic suggestions that the DOJ should identify all problematic registrations ahead of time and have someone posted in each precinct] indicates what they really believe about which party does it more.
So sending out a few volunteers to vote more than once could be relatively more efficient than sending the same volunteers out to various neighborhoods to give other voters a ride.
Actually, no. One guy with a van can give say, a dozen people a ride at a time, and can do that, say, ten times a day. The same guy, assuming all the fraudulent paperwork is in, can vote, to be generous, twenty times a day, what with travel time to different polling places and all. Six to one advantage, efficiency-wise, for the legal volunteering there.
And you know? It’s easier to find volunteers to do legal, public spirited work like giving people rides to polling places, than it is to find volunteers to commit crimes.
“Actually, no. One guy with a van can give say, a dozen people a ride at a time, and can do that, say, ten times a day. The same guy, assuming all the fraudulent paperwork is in, can vote, to be generous, twenty times a day, what with travel time to different polling places and all. Six to one advantage, efficiency-wise, for the legal volunteering there.”
That is only true if all those people weren’t going to vote anyway.
John Doe: It’s interesting — the scenario that I described above could just as easily be pulled off by Republicans as by Democrats. The fact that Democrats seem to have zero interest in preventing such a scenario ….. indicates what they really believe about which party does it more.
In Florida in 2000, instead of trying to get small numbers of voters to vote twice, Republicans purged hundreds of thousands of voters demographically likely to vote Democratic from the rolls, and systematically fought against a recount that would have ensured more votes for the Democratic candidate could be legally counted. Republicans have shown zero interest in preventing this from happening again: instead, in 2004 and 2006, the same tactics were used – unsuccessfully in 2006 to turn a Democratic landslide into a Republican victory, successfully in 2004 to turn a narrow Democratic victory into a narrow Republican victory.
Why should Democrats fear that Republicans will mess around with penny-ante electoral fraud when Republicans have a successful track record of actually swinging elections with massive electoral fraud?
My college Republican club would use the Democrat shuttle to take our fraudulent voters to various polling places. That way we could displace the other voters in the van, plus save the gas money for beer. A total win win.
The fact that Democrats seem to have zero interest in preventing such a scenario… indicates what they really believe about which party does it more.
No, it indicates what they really believe about the likelihood and severity of such a problem.
Republicans purged hundreds of thousands of voters demographically likely to vote Democratic from the rolls
Sorry. That should be “tens of thousands”: 57,700 voters purged from the rolls by Katherine Harris before the 2000 election. Vanishing Votes, 2004.
Sebastian: No, the DOJ found the same things, couldn’t find systemic explanations for it (for example they didn’t find a mistabulating computer, a confusing form, or a misaligned column).
Could you provide a link to these findings then, because everything I’ve read has said that the DOJ didn’t find “the same things”, whatever that might mean. Again, not trying to be snotty, I really don’t know what you’re talking about here.
Sebastion Holsclaw: It depends upon your definition of ‘easily discouraged’. Some people will be discouraged from voting unless someone picks them up from their house, takes them out to lunch, delivers them to the polls, waits with them in line, and drives them home.
Does anything I’ve written here suggest that my definition of “easily discouraged” encompasses any of the above silliness?
I do not in fact believe that a standardized Voter ID issued by the federal government would IN FACT discourage any appreciable number of actual eligible voters who would have actually voted–Democratic or otherwise.
Is there a standardized voter ID issued by the federal government at present?
Now I’m perfectly willing to believe that it will discourage Democratic voters who are not in fact citizens or eligible to vote, but that isn’t a legitimate criticism.
Voters which you don’t have any reason to believe exist in any significant numbers. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Jesurgislac: I appreciate the conspiracy theories, but it’s been seven years since the 2000 election (nearly). Granted, the voter list purge was sloppy. But has anyone ever uncovered more than, say, one or two actual people who actually tried to vote and weren’t allowed to do so because of the purge? Answer: No. So the notion that this swung the election is, shall we say, massively unsubstantiated.
Lizardbreath: Actually, no. One guy with a van can give say, a dozen people a ride at a time, and can do that, say, ten times a day. The same guy, assuming all the fraudulent paperwork is in, can vote, to be generous, twenty times a day, what with travel time to different polling places and all. Six to one advantage, efficiency-wise, for the legal volunteering there.
If all you’ve got is one van, it’s more efficient to send out a vanful of ten volunteers to vote six times than to try to fill up the van six times with actual additional voters (some of whom may not vote for your party anyway). That’s the point.
And you know? It’s easier to find volunteers to do legal, public spirited work like giving people rides to polling places, than it is to find volunteers to commit crimes.
In the abstract, yes. In the real world: Saying that people won’t commit voter fraud is like saying that people won’t speed. People will indeed speed, all the time, given that the incentive to do so far outweighs the risk of getting caught. Same here: You and your fellow party flacks are doing your best to make it virtually impossible to catch anyone who double votes. “Come on, it’s for the good of the country, and there’s no way anyone could ever catch us.”
it’s more efficient to send out a vanful of ten volunteers to vote six times than to try to fill up the van six times with actual additional voters (some of whom may not vote for your party anyway).
I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but up here that’s simply untrue. The GOTV van drivers I knew in the 2004 election had basically no respite; they were ferrying people to the polls the entire day. That was the entire point of the GOTV effort in the first place, identifying voters and arranging the logistics so that there’d be no down-time.
As with Sebastian above, if you have a specific allegation of malfeasance I’ll be happy to hear it. Or hell, even a general allegation of malfeasance that’s actually substantiated by much of anything. For now, all you’re doing is declaring, well, the entire Democratic party of being a bunch of criminals for no particular reason I can see (though some I can hypothesize).
“I do not in fact believe that a standardized Voter ID issued by the federal government would IN FACT discourage any appreciable number of actual eligible voters who would have actually voted–Democratic or otherwise. Additionally I don’t believe that it would effect eligible Democratic voters MORE than Republican voters. Rural voters are much more likely to be adversely effected than urban ones, and we all know how the urban/rural split works out.”
Gromit, I know this was mixed in with other stuff, but I believe this may be the crux of our disagreement. Do you have a large number of convictions on voter supression or other evidence AT LEAST AS STRONG AS BEING DEMANDED OF ME that this is a WIDESPREAD problem? Do you have such evidence (same level of evidence) that it will effect Democratic voters more than Republican voters?
Anarch, I’m looking through our previous attempts at this discussion to find the link you’re requesting. I know I’ve cited one of the investigation reports before, but I haven’t been able to find it this time around.
[I’ll add, as a by-the-by, that the only voter fraud I actually witnessed in Wisconsin was a voter suppression effort by the local College Republicans. Singular of data, I know.]
You and your fellow party flacks are doing your best to make it virtually impossible to catch anyone who double votes.
please, continue to lecture us about “conspiracy theories” !
Sorry I changed topics in my head without alerting it through the words. 🙂
I’m asking for widespread evidence of voter supression–but not allegations, we need convictions or other things of the type demanded on the voter fraud side.
I’m asking for evidence that an ID requirement cuts more strongly against Democrats–my hypothesis is that as Republicans are more likely to be found in rural areas and that they are at least as likely to be effected by an ID requirement because it will be more difficult for them to adequately serviced by a government office near to them.
Also it would be nice if we could actually identify say a couple hundred individuals who actually would have voted but did not vote due to a particularly identifiable voter supression tactic.
John Doe: I appreciate the conspiracy theories
What conspiracy theories? Again, I’m not claiming XFiles alien invasion here. I’m bringing up an actual, well-documented instance of the brother of one of the Presidential candidates rigging the electoral system of the state of which he was governor, to ensure that the electoral college of his state delivered its votes to his brother, instead of to the candidate who (as an unofficial recount finally established) the voters of his state actually preferred.
but it’s been seven years since the 2000 election (nearly).
Is there a statute of limitations or something? Is Bush out of power?
Granted, the voter list purge was sloppy.
Sloppy?
57,700 “ex-felons,” were ordered to be removed from voter rolls in Florida by two of Jeb Bush’s proteges. These lists were distributed to counties before the 2000 election with orders to remove the voters named. The lists were compiled, as was finally acknowledged by DBT, if the voter’s name, gender and birthdate nearly matched an ex-felon’s name, gender, and birthdate somewhere in the United States. But race of voter and race of ex-felon had to match.
The lists contained at least 90% false-positives, as you’d expect. DBT proposed using address histories and financial records to confirm the names, but the state of Florida claimed they “didn’t need” the cross-checks.
In 2004, a similar purge was authorized. Even though the state had been ordered to reinstate the purged voters before the 2002 election (which they did not), not repeat the illegal purge of 2000.
But has anyone ever uncovered more than, say, one or two actual people who actually tried to vote and weren’t allowed to do so because of the purge?* Answer: No.
But, in rejoinder: has anyone ever uncovered more than, say, 80 people in the whole of the US who, it’s confirmed, voted illegally in the 2006 election? Answer: No.
Yet you and Sebastian Holsclaw – lacking even the evidence of the DBT “scrub lists” that prove the Republicans in Florida certainly intended to ensure that people who were likely to vote Democratic shouldn’t be allowed to vote – are claiming that nonetheless this is a big problem.
*(People keep repeating this meme, that people who were purged from the electoral rolls and who weren’t permitted to re-register, were nonetheless permitted to vote and their votes were counted. I find this very strange. Can someone link me to this?)
Sebastian: Also it would be nice if we could actually identify say a couple hundred individuals who actually would have voted but did not vote due to a particularly identifiable voter supression tactic.
When, following investigation, the DoJ can’t actually identify a couple hundred instances of fraudulent voting, and yet you claim you know this is a big problem…
As with Sebastian above, if you have a specific allegation of malfeasance I’ll be happy to hear it.
As with Sebastian: Since when do we have to prove specific malfeasance before we can suggest the most minimal precautions?
convictions or other things of the type demanded on the voter fraud side.
On the polling-place fraud side, I’d be happy with a report that indicated that there was any significant number of voters for whom the voter’s address was bad, and the person vouching for the voter also could not be located. I haven’t seen anything of the sort.
In terms of voter suppression, I’m not sure if you’re unaware of, or simply ignoring/disagreeing with the conventional wisdom (as attested to by, for example, the former political director of the Republican Party in Texas) that bureaucratic obstacles reduce voter participation among Democrats, who are poorer and more likely to be minority, more than Republicans. On the specific point that urban populations will find it easier than rural populations to get ID, the proposed Georgia Voter ID would have been available only at drivers license offices, none of which happened to be located in Atlanta.
As with Sebastian: Since when do we have to prove specific malfeasance before we can suggest the most minimal precautions?
Electronic voting? Security? Anyone?
And how about a minimal effort to check to see if the solution isn’t worse than the problem?
Right. And of course there are precautions now — you’re talking about heightening them, and the question is whether the benefits from such heightening are less than the costs.
Since when do we have to prove specific malfeasance before we can suggest the most minimal precautions?
When what you call “the most minimal precautions” look very like systematic efforts to prevent people who are demographically likely to vote Democratic, from being allowed to vote.
And since proving specific malfeasance in this area (*points at the voter purge lists in the Florida elections*) has already been done, you can hardly complain that people want minimal precautions against these systematic efforts.
Seb: for starters, there’s the NH phone jamming scandal, in which several people, including one whose defense was paid for by the RNC, have been convicted. If you’re willing to settle for plain evidence of wrongdoing, as opposed to convictions (I haven’t got time to track down what eventually happened in these cases), try these stories: Virginia, CA, PA, all over, and so on and so forth.
Sure, fine, if you want more precautions against erroneous purges, I’m all for that. I’m not the one demanding that there be a string of “convictions” proving a “massive” and “organized” effort nationwide before I’ll admit that any precautions are necessary.
Lizardbreath: to say there are no drivers license offices in Atlanta is quite misleading, and shows a certain susceptibility to propaganda, or else a certain inability to look up facts for yourself. Use a little common sense: Atlanta is a metropolitan area with 5 million people. Do you really think that 5 million people are without a driver’s license office? No state government is quite that incompetent.
What you didn’t care enough to find out is that when propagandists whine that there are no license offices in “Atlanta,” they’re being very slippery. 1) They are referring strictly to “Atlanta’s” official city limits, which are quite small. The overwhelming majority of people who are said to live in “Atlanta” actually live in one of the surrounding communities.
2) The propagandists are apparently using a very strict definition of “driver’s license office” that excludes the drivers license office in Atlanta itself. Perhaps the propagandists exclude this office because it doesn’t offer road tests. However, there are plenty of nearby offices that do (such as Decatur and Forest Park). (Before making any patronizing suggestions, note that these are largely black communities, and that there are people within Atlanta’s city limits who are closer to Decatur than to the other side of “Atlanta” proper.)
The propagandists linked were Fox News, and their claim that there was no drivers license office in Atlanta such that the required voter ID would be available there is consistent with other coverage I’ve seen of the issue.
Sebastian,
Also, there are also a series of consent decrees, stretching at least as far back as 1981, for the Republicans having engaged in voter suppression.
They are referring strictly to “Atlanta’s” official city limits, which are quite small.
400K+ people live within the Atlanta city limits.
Your faith in Fox News is touching, but it’s still a good idea to check out the facts for yourself. That “fact” is easily debunked just by going to the Georgia DMV’s website (follow links above), and by using a little common sense about the size of “Atlanta” proper.
Thanks, cleek, but notice that I said “small.” Atlanta is about 131 square miles, which would be a square of a little over 11 miles per side. So even if Atlanta were a square (it’s not), and even if you lived smack in the center, the furthest you could live from a neighboring community is about 6 miles.
(Also, if you haven’t noticed: 400,000 < 5 million.)
Hilzoy, most of those allegations are no better sourced or confirmed than the JS articles I cited. Now in point of fact, I’m quite willing to believe them. I fully believe that certain aspects of the Republican party have engaged in illegal or otherwise unethical voter activity.
I further note however, that there have been very few convictions, which under the logic presented in this thread should mean that it isn’t a very serious problem. Do you agree that it isn’t a serious problem? Or do you think that maybe it is really hard to prove?
“I’m not sure if you’re unaware of, or simply ignoring/disagreeing with the conventional wisdom (as attested to by, for example, the former political director of the Republican Party in Texas) that bureaucratic obstacles reduce voter participation among Democrats, who are poorer and more likely to be minority, more than Republicans.”
I’m disagreeing with the conventional wisdom (and supposition by a political director is not evidence). Further it is not a fact that Democratic voters on average are substantially poorer (I’m not even sure if it is correct that they are poorer….we’ve had a large number of recent studies showing Republicans being in poorer and more rural areas than Democrats). Proximity to offices alone makes rural areas much harder to serve with this type of thing, so I see no reason whatsoever to take it as a given that ID cards have to cut against Democrats. Conventional wisdom can be wrong.
Thanks, cleek, but notice that I said “small.”
yes. and your very next sentence was “The overwhelming majority of people who are said to live in “Atlanta” actually live in one of the surrounding communities.”
so now that i’ve given the population of Atlanta proper, we can conclude that it is also “dense”.
the furthest you could live from a neighboring community is about 6 miles.
Far to walk for someone without a car, don’t you think?
Now now, LB: Any right-wing flack who freely admits FOX News are a bunch of propagandists can’t be all bad (:
“Far to walk for someone without a car, don’t you think?”
That is just as true for rural areas, but the distance is MUCH more than 6 miles. And rural areas don’t have good public transportation, even by low American city standards. Atlanta public transport is non-awful. (I used it myself last year from a decidedly non-downtown hotel). And remember you don’t need to get a Voter ID every single week, or even once a month.
I’m not sure whether the median Democrat is or is not poorer than the median Republican, but that’s not really relevant. What is relevant is that poor people are likelier to be Democrats, and that’s well established.
I further note however, that there have been very few convictions, which under the logic presented in this thread should mean that it isn’t a very serious problem. Do you agree that it isn’t a serious problem? Or do you think that maybe it is really hard to prove?
The logic in this thread doesn’t rest purely on there having been few convictions for voter fraud. It also rests on the low absolute numbers being talked about in cases where polling place fraud is suspected — the JS article referred to above was talking about 300 bad addresses. Voter suppression allegations, on the other hand, tend to apply to tens of thousands of people; similarly, more stringent ID requirements affect the entire population, and only need to discourage a small percentage of voters to affect a large absolute number of voters.
(and supposition by a political director is not evidence).
Give me a break. YAAL, and so am I, but we are not in a courtroom. He’s a guy who does this for a living, with no obvious reason for saying what he said if he doesn’t think it’s true. It’s not conclusive, but it’s worth considering. (Come to think of it, I bet I could get him in as an expert on the topic, at which point it would be evidence even in a courtroom. It’d depend on his background, and on the judge, but it wouldn’t be out of the question.)
How absurdly patronizing. How many people do you really think are completely trapped in an inner-city Atlanta home — unable to catch a ride with a neighbor, friend, or relative, and unable to ride MARTA or a city bus?
Honestly, I don’t care. I don’t care if someone should be able to get an ID, or if they would be able to if they wanted it more, or anything of that nature. I don’t accept that overcoming bureaucratic difficulties is in any way a good or useful test for distinguishing desirable voters for undesirable ones. Consequently, if an ID requirement discourages one more voter than it prevents unauthorized votes, it’s a bad thing.
“for” in that last should be “from”.
This is interesting: proving that you are who you say you are is dismissed with a wave of the hand as if it were merely a “bureaucratic difficult[y].”
Seb: “most of those allegations are no better sourced or confirmed than the JS articles I cited.”
The difference, to me, is that the allegations in the JS, if true, are not necessarily evidence of voter fraud. The cards that couldn’t be returned: they mention illegible signatures or missing info as possible reasons. People who were listed as having voted twice, though apparently only one ballot was given to each: ditto.
All of these are signs of a voting system in need of serious work. None is necessarily evidence of voter fraud. In some cases, it’s pretty hard to see how they could be evidence of voter fraud — e.g., the people listed as voting twice. (I would have thought the idea behind voter fraud would be the exact opposite: be listed as having voted only once, but actually cast several ballots. Why someone bent on fraud would try to get counted twice without getting the extra ballot is a mystery to me.)
By contrast, I find it hard to see how calling people up and tell them that it’s a criminal offense if they vote could be anything other than voter suppression. Ditto the repeat robocalls pretending to be from Democratic candidates, but funded by the RNCC.
About convictions: ianal, but would one expect to see convictions yet for offenses from 6 months ago?
That is just as true for rural areas, but the distance is MUCH more than 6 miles.
How many rural voters — hell, rural inhabitants — don’t have vehicles, though?
How absurdly patronizing. How many people do you really think are completely trapped in an inner-city Atlanta home — unable to catch a ride with a neighbor, friend, or relative, and unable to ride MARTA or a city bus?
Absurdly patronizing: Saying that, in order to be able to exercise the franchise, a person should be forced to take a special six-mile trip outside the city they live in, likely taking at least two hours, and possibly inconveniencing a neighbor or friend as well. Lightly dismissing this inconvenience on the grounds that Atlanta city limits are ‘small’.
Not absurdly patronizing: Saying that this is an awful inconvenience to throw in voters’ way, for little apparent gain.
In any case, the sponsor of the law explicitly said that it was directed at reducing black turnout and that all black voters were fraudulent. There isn’t much doubt about the purpose of this bill.
“In any case, the sponsor of the law explicitly said that it was directed at reducing black turnout and that all black voters were fraudulent. There isn’t much doubt about the purpose of this bill.”
The sponsor of the bill is SUMMARIZED into:
“Other documents leaked to the Post summarized remarks made by state Rep. Sue Burmeister (R), sponsor of HB 244, that ‘if there are fewer black voters because of this bill, it will only be because there is less opportunity for fraud. She said that when black voters in her black precincts are not paid to vote, they do not go to the polls.'”
Even construed as badly as you can against Burmeister, she isn’t saying that she is trying to supress black votes. She says she is trying to supress fraudulent voting. And are you objecting to ID requirements IN GENERAL or merely as applied?
“In some cases, it’s pretty hard to see how they could be evidence of voter fraud — e.g., the people listed as voting twice. (I would have thought the idea behind voter fraud would be the exact opposite: be listed as having voted only once, but actually cast several ballots. Why someone bent on fraud would try to get counted twice without getting the extra ballot is a mystery to me.)”
Criminals do really stupid things all the time. That is just a fact.
“I don’t accept that overcoming bureaucratic difficulties is in any way a good or useful test for distinguishing desirable voters for undesirable ones.”
Getting an ID in the modern world isn’t just a bureaucratic difficulty, and even in the cases we are talking about, much less a more streamlined system, it is a one time difficulty–far less than bureaucratic difficulties dealt with by people–even poor people–all the time.
Sebastian: Even construed as badly as you can against Burmeister, she isn’t saying that she is trying to suppress black votes. She says she is trying to suppress fraudulent voting.
She says that she thinks black voters are fraudulent voters. Construed as nicely as you like for Burmeister, she’s claiming black voters aren’t interested in voting for the sake of voting.
And honestly, I’m not in principle opposed to voter ID requirements. You show me a particular law that people I trust with access to good data on the subject assure me will not have the effect of discouraging voters (and again, I don’t care if they are unreasonable to be discouraged — commitment to overcoming difficulties in order to vote, however trivial you characterize those difficulties as, does not indicate that someone is a better or more valuable voter) in numbers greater than the number of unauthorized votes it prevents, and I’m all for it.
Nice try, Matt, but you’re more patronizing than anyone else has managed to be thus far. What you characterize as an “awful inconvenience” is a one-time trip that is much less inconvenient than having to make a weekly trip to Wal-Mart or the grocery store, which almost all poor people manage to do somehow, even if it’s located all of a few miles away. Yes, even the (black) people that you think are so helpless and incapacitated.
Someone else said this once, but it bears repeating: If you’re crying all these crocodile tears over the poor, helpless (black) people who should never, not once in their lives, have to deal with the trauma of traveling a few miles from home all by themselves, when do you ever show this professed concern at any point outside of flacking for the Democratic Party position in the voter ID debate?
These are some seriously helpless people, after all; if they can’t make it to a driver’s license office once in their lives, goodness knows how they are going to get groceries. What are you doing to help these god-forsaken people outside of using them as pawns in this debate?
Even construed as badly as you can against Burmeister, she isn’t saying that she is trying to suppress black votes.
WTF? that’s just crazy.
it is a one time difficulty–far less than bureaucratic difficulties dealt with by people–even poor people–all the time.
…provided it has not to be renewed on a regular base in short intervals. Given some of my own bureaucratic experiences there are cases where one has to prove one’s identity every three months with the current identification (the one to be renewed) not considered valid in itself. Not actually a problem, if there is a long-term identity card as in Germany but absent that…
Riding my old horse again, federal elections should be federalized and a federal standard established thus taking it out of the hands of the conflicted local interests (cf. Blackwell).
when do you ever show this professed concern at any point outside of flacking for the Democratic Party position in the voter ID debate?
Instead of spewing random bile, you might want to indulge in some of that vaunted research you prize so dear and look, I dunno, three threads down.
And since it seems we’re playing showing and tell, perhaps you’d mind showing us any concerns you have beyond flacking for the Republicans — well, flacking for the Republicans and dyspeptically railing against the Democrats — since you’ve shown f***-all of them here.
John Doe’s intimate and encyclopedic knowledge of the day to day life of America’s poor has convinced me. Considering that the former chief Justice of the SCOTUS was an inveterate minority vote suppression practitioner in his youth, as documented but ignored by testimony from the FBI agent involved during his nomination hearing, I’m sure it’s all just SOP and par for the course.
Sorry. It was US attorney James J. Brosnahan.
Harassed minority voters in Arizona.
Several witnesses have stated under oath that Justice Rehnquist harassed minority voters during the early 1960’s. Justice Rehnquist denies he harassed minority voters. James Brosnahan, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Phoenix from 1961 to 1963, said in a statement delivered to Congress that on election day in 1962, he and several assistant U.S. attorneys were assigned the task of receiving complaints alleging illegal interference with the voting process. The group received several complaints from precincts in South Phoenix. The precincts were predominately black and Hispanic. The complaints involved Justice Rehnquist. Broshnahan visited one of the precincts. When he arrived he saw Justice Rehnquist. There were reports that poll watchers had to physically push Rehnquist out of polling places to stop him from interfering with the voting rights of the minority citizens. Alan Dershowitz, Supreme Injustice, Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 242 – 244 n. 37;,
Y’know, when you use quotation marks, it’s generally considered good form to make sure what you’ve put them around is actually a quotation. Matt didn’t say it’s an awful inconvenience, just an inconvenience. As it happens, that’s enough. Vote suppression doesn’t have to actually prohibit potential voters from voting to be effective, it just has to put enough roadblocks in the way that a significant proportion of potential voters won’t clear all of them. Voting being a pretty basic democratic right and all, such roadblocks need to have some pretty damn good justification. I haven’t seen any such justification yet, or any reason to think that vote fraud is sufficiently pervasive to justify Voter ID laws and the inevitable drop in exercise of the franchise.
BTW, you don’t know much about the poor, do you? Here’s a hint – they don’t go to Wal-Mart or the grocery store every week. It’s mostly the lower-middle class that shops at Wal-Mart every week, and the lack of accessible grocery stores is one of the most serious problems for the urban poor. Most of them do without both Wal-Mart and Safeway, and shop instead at whatever happens to be in walking distance.
Sebastian Holsclaw: Even construed as badly as you can against Burmeister, she isn’t saying that she is trying to suppress black votes. She says she is trying to suppress fraudulent voting.
Sue Burmeister wants to eliminate fraudulent voting. Sue Burmeister believes all votes by black people are fraudulent. Therefore, Sue Burmeister wants to suppress the black vote (in her district, at least). This logic seems pretty airtight to me.
And as for whether she was misquoted, Burmeister says that though she doesn’t remember saying “those exact words” the memo is “more accurate than not”.
As for Wal-Mart, there wasn’t one of those inside the Atlanta city limits until fairly recently, either.
“Sue Burmeister believes all votes by black people are fraudulent.”
Even in the ‘misquote’ I don’t see that. Where do you think she says that? The ‘close’ quote is “if there are fewer black voters because of this bill, it will only be because there is less opportunity for fraud.”
‘If’ suggests skepticism about the claim that there will be fewer black voters, and states that if there are, that the number will only be reduced by the fraudulent ones. That isn’t the same as saying that all (or most or many) black voters are fraudulent. And so far as I can tell the embarassment (that she is trying to get plausible deniability from) is on the next sentence anyway, and has nothing whatsoever to do with IDs.
I agree that that conditional isn’t suspect, Sebastian, but the next line sure as f*** is:
She said that when black voters in her black precincts are not paid to vote, they do not go to the polls.
There’s really no way to interpret that except as a plain declaration that she believes all black voters [in her “black precincts”, I guess] are fraudulent.
Seb: I’m not in this particular argument, but if I had to guess which part of B’s quoted remarks makes people think she’s saying that black voters are fraudulent voters, it would be this: “She said that when black voters in her black precincts are not paid to vote, they do not go to the polls.”
It’s restricted to “in her district”, but it seems pretty close to me. (One could quibble about whether paid votes are fraudulent votes, but not, I think, in interpreting a sentence that comes right in the middle of talking about fraud, and seems like a gloss on ” it will only be because there is less opportunity for fraud.”
The only thing I find confusing about that quote is how stricter ID requirements are supposed to catch this supposed vote buying.
Presumably the people being bought are voting under multiple fraudulent names. The efficiency that John Doe was talking about above.
I just found a fascinating data set. I’ll make another post.
“I just found a fascinating data set. I’ll make another post.”
Couldn’t you scribble your notes in the margins of this one?
This. This here is exactly how memes like this get started. To begin with, some reporter (Greg Palast) who apparently cannot bother to familiarize himself with how elections are conducted in Florida makes the following claim:
Where’s the evidence that this order was issued? Well, that’s another thing that Mr. Palast cannot seem to bother himself with, but that’s almost completely irrelevant to the point, which is: supervisors of election have no statutory obligation to the Secretary of State at all, except to supply and certify their results. County supervisors run their own show, and there’s just not much Jeb Bush or Kathleen Harris have to say about the matter, except that Governor Bush can remove a supervisor of election.
Which he’s done, once, for cause. Google it if you like.
Supervisors are required by statute to remove ineligible voters from the rolls, though. Only after making sure that they’re ineligible. I’m not going to cite statute to you, though, Jesurgislac, because that kind of thing doesn’t seem to…take, really. I’ll instead point you to the Florida state statute for 2000…all of it…and let you browse. Maybe it’ll edify.
So, how memes like this get started is: someone invests a lot of forehead sweat in cooking up something really juicy-sounding and outrageous, and it gets gobbled up like candy and repeated. Talk about losing the will to dig deep.
So, back around to Ms. Harris and her purported orders: I can almost believe it, because she’s not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I can’t believe that none of the supervisors of election are familiar enough with the laws that apply to them (there’s really not all that much to read) to tell her to pound sand, and then get on the phone with the rest of the supervisors and have a chat.
Don’t say I never gave you anything.
“Couldn’t you scribble your notes in the margins of this one?
Considering that I so rarely post, I should have written “I found an interesting data set and I’m writing a post about it right this second!”
It is up now. 😉
You passed up my opening to say “I have found a most extraordinary proof of my position, but the margins of this post are too small to contain it!”
Tsk.
Fermat, I’m not.
Look. I’m exactly one of those people who might be disenfranchised should super-strict ID requirements become standard for voting. I don’t have good ID right now, and the process of applying for a new one has been daunting the hell out of me for well over a year now.
Part of the block is the cost (I’m really poor right now), part of it is the shame of having had my wallet stolen AGAIN, which just feels like carelessness, part of it is the fear of a bureaucracy that I just dread is going to belittle me, part of it is having moved and not quite knowing how to go about getting ID in my new state. And, consequently, I’ve put off and put off getting my ID in order. I don’t even know where to start.
Despite all this (and, obviously, the depression that probably caused this situation–a depression with which I am finally dealing, expensively), I am an intelligent, well-informed, opinionated, and dedicated voter. I only vote once per election, no matter how much I’d like to add to my electoral clout. I’d like to think that if an extra-secure ID requirement were added for voting, I’d figure out how to regularise my situation, but then, it’s not as though I’ve been taking any airplanes lately…
“…part of it is having moved and not quite knowing how to go about getting ID in my new state”
Typically, find out where the nearest office of the Department of Motor Vehicles that issues drivers licences are, and visit them with enough time to spare to get through any lines, and bringing whatever documents they require to issue ID, such as two current legitimate photo IDs. That isn’t a problem, is it?
I won’t run through a list of 50 states (nor additional territories), but in Colorado the requirements are:
The document list (and I’m fascinated that the state agency page flashed an advertisement, asking if I wanted to see links to auto insurers, when I clicked the link) is… probably too complicated and lengthy to quote. But, basically, if you don’t already have two good photo IDs, like a passport and another state’s ID, you can use a birth certificate (authentic, not a copy, only), plus your marriage license or passport or military ID, or one of a few other things like that.
Don’t have that? Oh, well.
Of course, to get your birth certificate, you may need to show your photo ID….
Probably the easiest combo for most people would be birth certificate and social security card, but it’s certainly true that hardly all poor people have these at all times, and that getting them started on getting those pieces of paper can be time-and-effort-consuming, and it’s possible that a) other matters may interfere, and that b) other matters, like getting money and food and other immediate necessities, are apt to be a higher priority.
If you mention which state you’re in, I’ll be happy to provide a link to their DMV page (assuming they have one, which they almost certainly do) with info on requirements to obtain ID, and where to go, if you have trouble googling.
But if it’s only for voting, you might want to start with your state’s voting ID requirements. On the other hand, good ID is handy for many reasons, and in a situation where a police officer is questioning you for some reason, could mean the difference between spending a night in jail on suspicion or not. But otherwise it’s helpful for endless reasons.
Anon: Here’s a list with web pages for all the State Secretaries. It’s to help people register, but the SoS offices should also have information about what you need to have in order to vote.
Moving right along: One of the things I love about blogging is that I so often find myself learning the kinds of things that make me go: geez, who knew? Example: Geez, you mean there is such an organization as the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators? And they have a web page that has links to all the Registries of Motor Vehicles (along with other stuff)? Who knew?
Which reminds me: I only just realized a few days ago that the DMV has been sending stuff to my old address, despite my having uncharacteristically remembered to switch my registration to the new one, and one of the things that never got forwarded seems to have been my registration renewal. Oops.
An example of another kind of constraint is very vivid in my mind right now for reasons that’ll become clear: poor people who are ambulatory but sick. I believe Gary’s had bouts of gout. (I pause to check. Yes.) In recent years, so have I, including one right now. Gout is one of many, many, many illnesses that doesn’t always destroy your ability to work, if you’ve got work that doesn’t involve constant time on your feet, regularly moving really heavy loads, and so on – you can hold down a lot of fairly menial jobs with it, and also a lot of office jobs. It just keeps you hurting, weak, and tired all the time, and the stress of that leaves your immune system a target of opportunity for anything making the rounds.
A person with gout could quite easily sort of manage to struggle through regular work weeks, with the help of far more cheap pain killers than is safe in the long run and low-budget aids like hot towels in the evenings, at the price of doing as little as possible outside home any other time. For such a person, that extra two- or three-hour trip really is a damnable imposition, but you’re unlikely to know about it unless they already know you, because people who don’t have much else often take their pride very seriously and would prefer not to admit “I’m not really able to make that trip because of some stupid illness like this.”
That kind of constraint on opportunity for travel would apply to someone struggling without good medical care with the flus of this year, allergies, postponed dental problems, arthritis, heart conditions, lung conditions…a very, very, very long list. And that’s still really just one reason someone might be marginally employable and yet not really set to go at all out of their way.
Under the current law of my state, I can vote, in that I’m a registered in-state resident citizen who pays taxes and utility bills, and fills out voter-ID cards. I vote in every election and have done since I was eligible, missing only one year’s by-election for travel. I do need to get proper ID for many other reasons.
I just wanted to help people understand how it could be that people didn’t have “proper ID” and yet wanted to vote.
(To keep the above rant topical I should add that I intend to do the same thing for the other national and smaller-scale races I can vote in. Gotta find out who’s seriously advocating either peace or justice.)
Slarti: Where’s the evidence that this order was issued? Well, that’s another thing that Mr. Palast cannot seem to bother himself with
I’m sorry, Slarti? Are you saying that the ChoicePoint executives who acknowledge that the list was compiled are lying, or that – having spent $4.3M on compiling a list – Katherine Harris just omitted to send it out to the counties as planned? Or – wait! – that the county supervisors who claim to have received the list with orders to remove the names on it from the electoral roll, they’re lying? (cite
Oh, why I am bothering? This is a familiar pattern: you assert “there is no evidence” and then it turns out your assertion is based on the presumption that all the witnesses are lying. Or some other, equally improbable suggestion.
And I’m accused of fomenting conspiracy theories? Your theory that nothing illegal happened and all testimony to the contrary is just invented, requires a conspiracy of more-than-XFiles dimensions.
So, how memes like this get started is: someone invests a lot of forehead sweat in cooking up something really juicy-sounding and outrageous, and it gets gobbled up like candy and repeated.
Yeah, silly me: when I heard James Lee, vice-president of ChoicePoint (the company into which DBT merged) telling the BBC in February 2000, that the state of Florida had paid him to create a list of black voters to be purged from the electoral rolls, with a massive number of false positives, I believed him! But you tell me he was just “investing a lot of forehead sweat in cooking up something really juicy-sounding and outrageous” – because, yes, Slarti, this did sound outrageous…. and of course, since you’ve got the evidence (right?) that this didn’t actually happen? No list was created? No list was sent to county supervisors? No county supervisors used the list to purge voters? Everyone who directly testified that this happened is just “investing a lot of forehead sweat in cooking up something really juicy-sounding and outrageous” – and you can prove this to me?
Good. Do it. Show me – for example – how you know for certain that, Etta Rosado, spokeswoman for the Volusia County Department of Elections, was just “cooking up something really juicy-sounding and outrageous” when she said:
You know, I’m just going to stop reading right there, because all evidence points to that you didn’t read what I wrote at all. The existence of the felon list has never been in question. It’s required by statute, in fact. The whole purging-felons-from-the-rolls bit is required by statute, if you’d bothered to look.
And, news flash, neither Kathleen Harris nor Jeb Bush nor even any of the various election supervisors have anything at all to do with what’s in Florida Statute, except possibly that Jeb Bush might have actually signed that one into law. Probably not, though: Jeb was sworn in early in 1999; the law was passed in 1998.
Which witnesses might those be?
This is more of the usual making-shit-up kind of thing than characterization of what I actually said. But why should I expect that to change?
I didn’t see the word “ordered” in there anywhere, but we’ll let that slide for the nonce. In other words, though, they violated Florida Statute 98.0975(4), which states:
Seems pretty straightforward to me. Further perusal of that section of code reveals where state law requires the felon list:
Nowhere am I championing the cause of the felon list, nor am I saying it doesn’t exist. It is, though, and to pretend that it’s NOT required by law is to indulge in fantasy.
So far you’ve addressed exactly zero of my points, although you’ve done an admirable job of addressing points of mine that you made up.
Which, it almost goes without saying, you didn’t. Not unexpected, though.
Which witnesses might those be?
The witnesses who testify that Jeb Bush/Katherine Harris purged the Florida electoral rolls of black voters. Which you were, earlier, asserting didn’t happen.
However, since you’ve admitted you know:
Katherine Harris, Jeb Bush’s protege, paid ChoicePoint/DBT to compile a list of black voters who were mostly not felons, and Harris knew this because she had been warned by DBT that such would be the case;
Katherine Harris, Jeb Bush’s protege, sent out these lists of supposed ex-felons to county supervisors, without any warning that the lists would be 90% incorrect;
The county supervisors were required (as you yourself noted) to remove from the registration books by the next subsequent election unless they could themselves determine that the information was incorrect;
And all of this can be verified by witnesses from beginning to end, as you’d know if you ever bothered to dig into it (or even follow the link I provided in my previous comment).
I gather right now you’re standing on the shaky grounds that when the Secretary of State of Florida sends lists of voters to be purged from the electoral rolls to the county supervisors, and the law requires the county supervisors to remove those names from the rolls unless the county supervisors can show that the lists are incorrect, this shouldn’t be described as the the Secretary of State of Florida ordering the county supervisors to remove those names from the electoral rolls.
Again, this is a complete lie. I never asserted anything of the kind.
Can we assume that I’m at least as familiar with the facts in this regard as you are? None of this is new, and it’d save you hundreds of valuable keystrokes in the long run. Maybe thousands.
Who were these witnesses, again? The one you named doesn’t seem to say what you think she says.
Shaky? If you consider the citing of what the statute clearly requires as shaky evidence, I don’t think we’re speaking the same language.
Well, now that we’re relitigating the Florida election:
Jesurgislac would be enlightened to know:
1. Some of the most populous counties in Florida didn’t even use the felon purge list, not even as to actual felons. As the US Commission on Civil Rights admitted, “Former Broward County Supervisor of Elections Jane Carroll testified that she also found the felon exclusion list to be inaccurate. As a result, Ms. Carroll chose not to use the felon exclusion list provided to her office. . . . Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore also decided not to use the felon exclusion list provided by DBT Online.”
2. The claim that the lists were “90% inaccurate” is complete baloney, made up in the feverish imagination of Greg Palast. As Abigail Thernstrom pointed out:
3. Abigail Thernstrom also points out:
4. Finally, if you’re so excited about what supposedly happened to felons in Florida, you should consider the whole picture:
So rest easy, Jesurgislac. Even if you take at face value all of the anecdotes floating around out there about actual people who were supposedly unable to vote in Florida in 2000, they’re outweighed by the number of convicted rapists who voted illegally. That should be a comfort, I guess.
Who were these witnesses, again?
Well, you’re one of them. Unless you change your mind again. You know that Harris paid CBT to produce a list that would be 90% inaccurate. You know that these lists were sent to the county supervisors. You know (you’ve cited the statute) that the county supervisors were then required to remove those names from the electoral roll unless they could show that the names weren’t of ex-felons.
Shaky? If you consider the citing of what the statute clearly requires as shaky evidence, I don’t think we’re speaking the same language.
No: I consider your claiming that this can’t be described as the Secretary of State ordering the county supervisors to remove those names from the electoral rolls to be kind of shaky.
But really, we might just as well summarise this argument (again) as
Jesurgislac: The Florida election thing!
Slartibartfast: No it’s not!
since that does seem to be as far as we ever get.
Sorry, my comment above was to Slarti, long-term opponent: John Doe cross-posted, and I’m not going to bother responding to his comment, though he does make me appreciate Slartibartfast’s good qualities.
You know, repeating the 90% figure ad nauseam doesn’t make it any less of a lie.
Change my mind about what? Have you somehow gotten the impression that I’ve been witness to Kathleen Harris ordering one or more supervisors of election to impliment the felon purge? Because this was what we were talking about: witnesses to Kathleen Harris ordering supervisors of election.
I know that CBT was contracted to the State of Florida (before Kathleen Harris was SecState), but I didn’t know they were paid to corrupt the database almost entirely. This kind of statement would be best accompanied by a cite, in my opinion.
Yes, as required by law. We’ve been over this.
No, I know that the supervisors were required by law to remove felons from the voter rolls, after they had ensured the information was correct.
No: I consider your claiming that this can’t be described as the Secretary of State ordering the county supervisors to remove those names from the electoral rolls to be kind of shaky.
By responding to your comments, I am ordering you to respond to me in turn.
Sure, you might, if you weren’t paying attention. But I repeat myself.
“Even if you take at face value all of the anecdotes floating around out there about actual people who were supposedly unable to vote in Florida in 2000, they’re outweighed by the number of convicted rapists who voted illegally. That should be a comfort, I guess.”
Because I can’t resist a tangent, I note that what’s cited is ““among the felons who cast presidential ballots, there were ’62 robbers, 56 drug dealers, 45 killers, 16 rapists, and 7 kidnappers.'”
Aside from the fact that not all states, or Americans, feel that someone who robbed someone 55 years ago, and who was released 47 years ago, deserves to never vote again, and that not everyone feels that every “drug dealer” who sold an ounce of pot is morally as awful as a murderer, I’m unclear how 16 rapists who have served their time outweigh “all of the anecdotes floating around out there about actual people who were supposedly unable to vote in Florida in 2000” when we take those anecdotes “at face value.” Say what?
This isn’t to say I agree with Jesurgislac, or her ever-charming approach to disagreements.
It’s not clear to me that Jes understands what “witness” means in legal terms. Presumably, by this definition, she is equally a “witness” to what happened in Florida. It’s a tad idiosyncratic as usages go, however. And I don’t recommend going to court in the U.S. as such a “witness.”
Slarti: Sure, you might, if you weren’t paying attention. But I repeat myself.
Indeed you do, whenever the various Republican illegalities in Florida are brought up. There is a point at which “not paying attention” at the level required to pretend that the illegal purge of voters didn’t happen becomes bad faith, but I am kind of resigned to the fact that (for whatever reason) you just don’t want to believe the evidence, and therefore pretend it doesn’t exist.
(Only “kind of”, I admit. But I do try to think of it as just wryly amusing that in the UK, I was better informed about the electoral theft of Florida than someone who was actually living in Florida.)
I would like to know for which party those felons voted. My bet would be that the rapists voted GOP more likely than not 🙁
Interesting. We now have “illegal” defined as “in accordance with the law”.
Good times.
Except for the fact that you’re almost completely ignorant of relevant Florida state law, agreed!
Well, perhaps not ignorant. Maybe more inclined to pay heed to the opinions of others in the matter than to the actual law.
Except for the fact that you’re almost completely ignorant of relevant Florida state law, agreed!
Well, perhaps not ignorant. Maybe more inclined to pay heed to the opinions of others in the matter than to the actual law.
Slarti, you cited the relevant statute that proved my point – when Katherine Harris sent county supervisors lists of voters to be purged that she knew from CBT were largely incorrect, the statute required the county supervisors to purge the names unless the county supervisors could show that the names were not those of ex-felons. Yet you asserted that this could not be described as Harris ordering the county supervisors to purge the names.
If it is considered perfectly legal for the Secretary of State for Florida to provide information she knows to be false to country supervisors, you will have to provide a cite to the legislation that says so.
If you want to argue that Katherine Harris had no notion she was providing the county supervisors with lists to be purged full of people who were perfectly entitled to vote in Florida, but who were demographically likely to vote Democratic, well, you can try to believe that. But at that point, I think we’re well into the bad faith zone.
… Sigh …
Sure. Because the ordering part? That part still seems to be missing.
The law requires a list. Unfortunately, the law does not require the list to be correct, nor does it say anything about error rates. Again, it’s certainly arguable to call it bad law.
I’m not sure why you continue to cite Palast to me; the guy knows nada about the law, or behaves as if he does.
Hilzoy: … Sigh …
Fair enough. Walking slowly away…