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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

#111

Post by bcg1 »

mox1 wrote: post #2

Too add a data point, here is a list of the 10 most common pairs in the United States. https://blogs.ancestry.com/cm/calling-james-smith-10-most-co... I hesitate to guess ethnicity based on names, but I see mostly Caucasian and Latin names (Smith is represented heavily).

It is correct to hesitate to guess ethnicity based on names. Quite sure there are plenty of people of color named Smith and Johnson.

Also, even if these were Caucasian names, the article states that the system disproportionately targets people of color; looking at the 10 most common combinations proves nothing one or another with respect to the assertion in the article.

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

#112

Post by Bud »

jerf wrote: post #72
Bud wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To the best of my knowledge, you are correct that Democrats do not typically purge the rolls. Their strategy is to get dead people to vote, and to bus people around to vote fraudulently in multiple districts. Of course both parties cheat at as large a scale as they can get away with. If nothing else, if you really must conceptualize the Democrats as wholly good without a spot of blemish on them, then how can you beli…

There is, of course, zero evidence of any of the allegations you mention.

But there's ample evidence of voter suppression by Republicans.

You need to focus more on the evidence.

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

#113

Post by Bud »

wang_li wrote: post #90
fencepost wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You claim that there are a significant number of fraudulent votes happening. The corollary of what you're attesting to is that Kris Kobach and many other folks responsible for enforcement of the laws are utterly and completely incompetent. I don't have time to track down where I did the math, but even being very generous with the claims of fraud (assuming that they're wildly overstating) and assuming that Kansas bein…

> You claim that there are a significant number of fraudulent votes happening. If you mean "significant" in the sense of large, then no I did not. If you mean "significant" in the sense of meaningful, then I assert that even one illegal vote cast is significant as it disenfranchises a legitimate voter. One group has found that between 2011 and 2017, 1852 ballots were cast by illegal aliens in Virginia.[1] 1: https://…

The Public Interest Legal Foundation, which you cited, is a right-wing crank group.

https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2017/06/07/right-wing-...

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

#114

Post by sanderjd »

lightbyte wrote: post #73
boomboomsubban wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you referring to the 15th or 17th amendment? Both of those were put in place before political parties switched their ideologies. The Republican Party of the 1800s was the liberal party, not the conservative beast it is today.

Ok, but the claim made above didn't have anything to do with "liberal" and "conservative", it was that the Democratic party has never pursued disenfranchisement policies, which is ahistorical to the point of silliness.

Certainly, the Republican party is currently pursuing disenfranchisement to a shameful degree (and in my opinion voters should send them into the wilderness next year to show that this, and other, behavior is not acceptable), but it's not happening because they're fundamentally less moral than the Democrats. It's happening because they won power soon after a census and while facing a future of strong demographic shifts toward the other side. They have both motive and opportunity to skew the system in their favor.

The Democrats would do the same thing in the same situation. We should be discussing system-level fixes rather than blaming a single party for taking advantage of the current system. The Supreme Court has a chance to start moving this in a better direction this session, and I hope they'll take it.

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

#115

Post by vkou »

wang_li wrote: post #68
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Source? Because every [1] source [2] I find [3] says the opposite. [1] http://library.uwp.ac.id/digilib/files/disk1/13/--publicadmi... [2] http://open.mitchellhamline.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=... [3] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washing…

Your own links say that it happens, but then hand wave it away as not significant. Your [1]: >However, in only 26 cases was there a conviction or a guilty plea by the citizen. From your [2]: >n the state of Washington, for example, six cases of double voting and nineteen instances of individuals voting in the name of the dead yielded twenty-five fraudulent votes From your [3]: >Although Republican activists have repe…

Washington uses mail-in ballots. Obviously, filling in, and mailing a ballot for a dead, comatose, or absentee relative is possible.

When we're talking about voter disenfranchisement, though, we're not talking about mail-in ballots. We're talking about people showing up at polling stations, and being unable to vote.

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

#116

Post by JumpCrisscross »

zo1 wrote: post #105
mikeash wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few people object to the concept of voter ID. They object to its implementation in the US, which is virtually always done to disenfranchise legitimate voters. The fight against voter ID laws is really a fight against voter laws accompanied by biased ID requirements and intentional difficulties foisted on the opposition voters.

How exactly can you have a citizen that is unable to get a government-issued ID? That is a failure of the government. They either have the documents and/or government records to prove that they are a citizen, or they're not a citizen. A law requiring citizens to have IDs to vote is not the problem. The problem is the processes that aren't assisting citizens that struggle to get IDs.

> How exactly can you have a citizen that is unable to get a government-issued ID? That is a failure of the government.

This isn't a prima facie truth. I agree that IDs should not be a challenge to procure. But a reasonable electorate may, as Americans have, choose to prioritize other things.

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

#117

Post by fencepost »

wang_li wrote: post #90
fencepost wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You claim that there are a significant number of fraudulent votes happening. The corollary of what you're attesting to is that Kris Kobach and many other folks responsible for enforcement of the laws are utterly and completely incompetent. I don't have time to track down where I did the math, but even being very generous with the claims of fraud (assuming that they're wildly overstating) and assuming that Kansas bein…

> You claim that there are a significant number of fraudulent votes happening. If you mean "significant" in the sense of large, then no I did not. If you mean "significant" in the sense of meaningful, then I assert that even one illegal vote cast is significant as it disenfranchises a legitimate voter. One group has found that between 2011 and 2017, 1852 ballots were cast by illegal aliens in Virginia.[1] 1: https://…

How about if by "significant" I mean "has enough impact on elections to merit countermeasures that have been statistically shown to disproportionately reduce election participation [oh noes!] by brown people and people with lower incomes (regardless of race)?"

How about if by "significant" I mean "has enough impact on elections to merit countermeasures that cost at least tens of thousands of dollars per fraudulent vote, but probably hundreds of thousands of dollars per fraudulent vote?" Is there truly no more cost-effective way to spend that money on ensuring election integrity? Perhaps with little things like voter-verifiable paper trails that actually allow auditing of results?

Why, it's almost as if the oh-so-unfortunate side effect of minority and poor disenfranchisement is the purpose and "preventing vote fraud" is just the excuse. I'm sure Paul "our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down" Weyrich would have been heartbroken by that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw

I also looked through the report cited and found it remarkably light on actual facts. They make a big point of Maureen Erickson's cancellation for being a non-citizen in 2012 and her providing a Guatemalan address. They also note that she'd voted in 14 elections. Honestly, I'm surprised that they also included that the most recent of those was in 2008, 4 years before her registration was cancelled. So what happened in those intervening 4 years? Did this obviously Hispanic woman get thrown out of the country? Or perhaps she moved, married, emigrated, etc. and stopped voting in the US.

I'd classify that whole report as long on the fearmongering and short on the evidence.

Edit: I decided that was a unique enough name to look up, and lo and behold: "In fact, Todd Erickson said, his wife is an American citizen and while she does work as a missionary in Guatemala, her cancellation from Prince William County’s voter rolls in 2012 was a mistake resulting from the confusing voter registration system." and from the well-known lefty rag the Washington Times no less.

Edit: missing words

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

#118

Post by JumpCrisscross »

pjc50 wrote: post #100
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.

Was America actually a democracy prior to the voting rights act of 1965? (Not trolling, this is a critical part of the issue, the extent to which black people could actually participate in said democracy)

"Stable, prosperous" stands in for "democracy" in most discussions, this one included. Things that look like democracy (peaceful succession, generally non-violent political competition, an electorate too vast to bribe outside policy channels, checks and balances, et cetera) simply have the best track record in achieving this aim.

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

#119

Post by wang_li »

ch4s3 wrote: post #106
wang_li wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the only form of vote fraud. Non-citizens voting is illegal and happens[1]. Does it happen in massive numbers? No idea, probably not. To what extent, though, does it compare to eligible voters who don't have ID, which is a common complaint about voter ID laws, which are struck down in the courts all the time. 1: https://www.justice.gov/file/3835pdf/download

Non-citizens voting is still in person voter fraud. I'm sure it has happened, but it is vanishingly rare, you citation is about 1 person. There is simply no incentive to commit that crime. Even less so if you're a non-citizen, because if you're caught you'll be deported. Very few people commit crimes where they have nothing to gain, a lot to lose, and a high chance of being caught. It is almost a non-issue. There is…

>I'm sure it has happened, but it is vanishingly rare, you citation is about 1 person.

Yes. I found a single link to to illustrate that it does happen, not to quantify how much it happens. Several people have replied saying that it doesn't happen at all. When I link to sources showing it does they switch to saying it doesn't happen enough to matter. Well, a group in Virginia found that 1852 ballots cast by non-citizen voters between 2011 and 2017. Does that matter? Maybe, maybe not. But it's on the same scale as people who would be inconvenienced to have to procure an ID to satisfy voter ID requirements.

Two different surveys have found that ~13% of illegal immigrants from Mexico have registered to vote. Given the impact doing so will have on having their immigration status normalized it doesn't make sense that they would register, but by their own admission they have. Rational or not, it happens.

It seems in every election cycle in King County, Washington people mail in ballots of recently deceased relatives. Again, it makes no sense because it's a deeply blue county and one extra ballot isn't going to swing the election. But they do it.

>There is literally no evidence that in person voter fraud poses a threat to the integrity of US elections either local or national. It is a red herring.

By definition even a single ineligible voter destroys the integrity of an election.

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

#120

Post by fencepost »

taserian wrote: post #97
fencepost wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And odds are high that your provisional ballot was simply tossed unless you contacted your county Board of Elections, probably with documentation to prove that you were allowed to vote and probably within just a few days after the election. What happens with provisional ballots is very highly variable, but quite frequently ends up with them simply being tossed.

Are they tossed because of malicious intent, or because they can't change the outcome of the election? For example, if the outcome of the election has Candidate X ahead of Y by D votes (D = X - Y) and there are less than D provisional ballots to count, is there a reason to count them? (This being for a simple one-post election; if there are multiple posts where proportion of votes allows for a seat being won/lost by…

> Are they tossed because of malicious intent, or because they can't change the outcome of the election?

Highly variable, but I'm pretty sure it's a lot more to do with the laws of the states than with whether there are enough provisional votes to matter. In looking up some things for an earlier comment I saw one mention of persons casting a provisional ballot then having 3 days to bring proof of eligibility to the county Board of Elections and a separate mention (for another state) of the Board of Elections investigating provisional ballots and informing voters if their ballot was discarded instead.

I'd be surprised if anyplace had a law of "you don't have to count them if there aren't enough to change the outcome," but I've been surprised before.

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