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Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

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Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#51

Post by bjelkeman-again »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #37
pjc50 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most countries have centralised voter registration. Often tied to ID and other registration systems.

> Most countries have centralised voter registration Most democracies haven't lasted more than a century. De-centralisation is an annoying but core feature of American democracy. It's wise to be conservative when discussing its dismissal, particularly in respect of something as fundamental as voting.

New Zealand was one of the first countries to offer universal adult suffrage in 1893. Which is a decent definition of a modern democracy. Sweden, where I live, was a bit late and got it voted on in 1919 and the first election in 1921. So just under a century now.

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#52

Post by Amezarak »

s73ver_ wrote: post #40
Amezarak wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you detect this kind of fraud? Historically, whenever states go about trying to verify their voter registration databases, they end up wiping out swaths of real, actual voters for various reasons, which usually makes it a non-starter. I doubt it's very common in a fraud sense (though there are probably a lot of people who aren't supposed to be able to vote who end up voting), but either way, it's a difficul…

No, you were asked first. How would you do it without getting caught? How would you amass that amount of funding, and that number of people, and keep it all quiet?

I'm talking about people voting in their old precinct because they didn't change their address, felons voting in states where they are ineligible, people who don't even know they aren't citizens voting, that type of thing.

There's no funding or conspiracy involved.

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#54

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #51
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most countries have centralised voter registration Most democracies haven't lasted more than a century. De-centralisation is an annoying but core feature of American democracy. It's wise to be conservative when discussing its dismissal, particularly in respect of something as fundamental as voting.

New Zealand was one of the first countries to offer universal adult suffrage in 1893. Which is a decent definition of a modern democracy. Sweden, where I live, was a bit late and got it voted on in 1919 and the first election in 1921. So just under a century now.

I'm not saying centralized voting is incompatible with democracy. (It isn't.) I'm objecting to arguments in the form of "because most countries do X, we should too" when it comes to voting. The sample of old democracies isn't large enough to draw much from alone.

Note that the Voting Rights Act was an act of federal oversight over voting. I fully agree with it. If you get a chance to read its drafting, please do. It's careful, extending only where necessary, defaulting to the status quo wherever possible.

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#55

Post by drzaiusapelord »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #26

Anyone with half a brain knows that these purges are designed to advantage a side not protect the system. I read an article the other day that stated that some America's voting system had essentially been compromised on many levels. It made me think about why so many of our polls have, in the last few years, been so off the mark. Now I'm beginning to think it's not because the polling models suddenly don't work. It i…

The 2016 polling models were pretty good, or at least, as good as they are usually[1]. The problem is, it was a very close race by electoral college standards. Trump ultimately won by 80,000 votes in three states in an election with 136m votes cast[2]. So the 'deciding' votes were just 0.06% of the vote total.

I think we can have it both ways. Voter suppression is being done and we have statistical heats in competitive races due to how poorly designed the Electoral College is. This mix is pretty tough to work with.

Probably more reason to abandon the Electoral College outright. The popular candidate lost even though she have 3m more votes. How can pollsters be expected to work properly with such an irrational system? How can they predict where .06% percent of a vote will swing spread across three competitive states?

[1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-state-of-the-polls-...

[2] http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-election-came-down-to-7774...

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#56

Post by boomboomsubban »

Bud wrote: post #43
munk-a wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an action which legitimately needs to be done. I think the larger issue we need to fix is the partisan entrenchment that lets people justify this being done to further their own agendas. Using targeted disenfranchisement to further your own political goals is quite clearly illegal, we just need to start sending people to jail over it instead of excusing it because the ends justify the means.

This isn't really about "partisan entrenchment"; this is not a bipartisan issue. It's an issue with Republicans. There's no history of any large-scale activity like this from Democrats.

The history of Democrats doing this is so rich there's a Constitutional Ammendment addressing it. The current climate only benefits Republicans purging voters, but both sides manipulate voting to benefit themselves.

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#57

Post by ch4s3 »

wang_li wrote: post #33
ch4s3 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's complete nonsense. The Supreme Court and several district courts have found states like North Carolina to be actively using purges and registration changes for the purpose of disenfranchising voters. Furthermore, if you want to protect the integrity of the vote, registration is the last logical place to start, as in person fraud is vanishingly rare. Only 2 people were charged with doing so in this past electio…

It doesn't get charged often because there are parties that fight tooth and nail to prevent the implementation of processes that would allow the detection of ineligible voters voting. It is shown in every election cycle that there are cases of voters voting who should not be because of their citizenship or felon status or voting in multiple districts. When you say that only 2 have been charged, why is that relevant?…

> It doesn't get charged often because there are parties that fight tooth and nail to prevent the implementation of processes

You're literally fabricating that. Bluntly,you made this up unless you can provide proof to the contrary.

There have been numerous studies that have shown that in person voter fraud is basically non-existent in the US.

Think about the motivation for a moment. Committing this crime has negligible and highly uncertain payoff. The odds that your 1 or few fraudulent votes could tip an election turn on you being able to cast those vostes in precincts that have less than a 1% margin between candidates. If you could even correctly identify those places, you'd still have to go and wait in line in those places, which could take all day. You could be challenged and caught in any one of those locations, and face jail time if you're caught. Even if you accomplish your goal you've still only mustered a handful of votes which likely aren't enough. If you wanted your crime to have any chance of paying off you'd need to conspire with other voters to commit similar fraud, and then you exposure to legal peril is exponentially increased. So you'd have to have some sort of leverage to get these conspirators to actually cooperate and not flip if caught. This would likely be money, and a lot of it. With that kind of cash, why not just run attack ads and bus like minded folks to the polls, both of which are legal and more effective.

Now, if you could get a hold of a few hundred absentee ballots, from say a nursing home... then you might be able to commit a crime that has the intended outcome. Which is interesting, because this is a crime that actually happens, unlike in person voter fraud which is again, non-existent in the US.

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#58

Post by [deleted] »

Amezarak wrote: post #52
s73ver_ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you were asked first. How would you do it without getting caught? How would you amass that amount of funding, and that number of people, and keep it all quiet?

I'm talking about people voting in their old precinct because they didn't change their address, felons voting in states where they are ineligible, people who don't even know they aren't citizens voting, that type of thing. There's no funding or conspiracy involved.

[deleted]

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#59

Post by kafkaesq »

jeffdavis wrote: post #53

The headline is wrong. A 99% false positive rate does not mean the software is 99% inaccurate. That's a statistical fallacy.

It's one "kind" of inaccurate, if you will. They're just trying to simplify.

They also explain exactly what they mean in the caption under the title.

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#60

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Amezarak wrote: post #52
s73ver_ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you were asked first. How would you do it without getting caught? How would you amass that amount of funding, and that number of people, and keep it all quiet?

I'm talking about people voting in their old precinct because they didn't change their address, felons voting in states where they are ineligible, people who don't even know they aren't citizens voting, that type of thing. There's no funding or conspiracy involved.

> I'm talking about people voting in their old precinct because they didn't change their address, felons voting in states where they are ineligible, people who don't even know they aren't citizens voting, that type of thing

These statistically-irrelevant edge cases have been addressed in other [1][2] comments. You're beating a dead, incorrigible horse in the face of documented evidence.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15587942

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15587906

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