Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20% • Hacker News Board

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#91

Post by rtkwe » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #86

josefresco wrote: post #3

"And voting rights groups found an unexplained tranche — around 20,000 people — who had been marked to be purged because of inactivity in future election cycles, but were actually active voters in previous Ohio elections. These voters were in Franklin County, a Democratic stronghold in the state." Aaaand there it is.

This is the real voter fraud. Purging eligible voters from the lists.

Electoral fraud, it's the common phrase and lets you easily distinguish between voters breaking the rules (exceedingly rare by all accounts) and state perpetrated disenfranchisement (happens all over; gerrymandering, poll closures, and mass purges to name a few).

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#92

Post by Spivak » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

pknopf wrote: post #42

biomcgary wrote: post #35

According to the article, moderate Republicans in Ohio insisted on transparency for purging voter rolls. They sent out the proposed list to various voter advocacy groups across the political spectrum, which reviewed the proposed changes and flagged mistakes. 80% were purged correctly. 20% were not. Rather than condemning Ohio, they should be praised for bringing transparency to the process (as long as the mistakes ar…

I still don't think it's a coincidence that the 20,000 were in a democratic strong-hold.

It's not a coincidence but I don't think it's super malicious. it's not because it's a "democratic strong-hold" it's because Franklin county is Columbus, dense, and more populated than the surrounding areas.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#93

Post by kregasaurusrex » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

As a Franklin county resident, I see multiple groups of volunteers who have a big push around August-October to concentrate efforts around the the Ohio State campus and downtown areas to register voters. This includes groups affiliated with campus political organizations, the League of Women Voters, and groups who seek signatures to bring issues to a ballot vote. The extent to which the article describes purging 40,000 Franklin County voters is much more than what I'd expect than people being ineligible to vote for reasons like leaving student voters leaving the state/county (and not updatign their address), becoming deceased, or the recent case regarding the "use it or lose it" rule. In my opinion there should be a formal audit that includes other state data to correct the discrepancies in the spreadsheet of voters to be purged.

Additionally, Ohio voter ID laws themselves can be regressive in harming poorer populations. Many don't have access to a nearby BMV bureau to get an ID, aren't aware of the registration deadline which has already passed, lack utility bills in their name, or can't get a stamp for an absentee vote to be mailed. For the the current and next ballot cycle it's important to allow citizens to voice their opinion at the box and to register with a party for primary votes as well.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#94

Post by vkou » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

biomcgary wrote: post #35

According to the article, moderate Republicans in Ohio insisted on transparency for purging voter rolls. They sent out the proposed list to various voter advocacy groups across the political spectrum, which reviewed the proposed changes and flagged mistakes. 80% were purged correctly. 20% were not. Rather than condemning Ohio, they should be praised for bringing transparency to the process (as long as the mistakes ar…

No, this does not mean every single one of those 80% were not purged correctly.

It means that nobody has found errors... Yet.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#95

Post by zanny » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #65

rdtsc wrote: post #33

> She went online and discovered that her name had also been flagged as an inactive voter. The state was in the process of removing her from its voter rolls. > “I voted three times last year,” said Ms. Miller. I am still baffled at the election system in this country. Every state does its own thing. One state uses paper, other uses some machines which can be easily hacked, some use both. Somehow voter ID is controver…

In Germany every person eligible to vote just gets a letter telling you the day of the vote and your voting station (and a list of stuff being voted on, local elections usually coincide with more important ones). At voting day (a Sunday) you go to your polling station with that letter and photo id and after five minutes you have cast your vote and are on your way. It's dead simple. But it hinges on the state having a…

Meanwhile the NSA records and analyzes every communication (that they can see, at least) you make over the Internet, and has probably megabytes worth of per-person profile information on a large chunk of the world population.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#96

Post by CelestialTeapot » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #33

> She went online and discovered that her name had also been flagged as an inactive voter. The state was in the process of removing her from its voter rolls. > “I voted three times last year,” said Ms. Miller. I am still baffled at the election system in this country. Every state does its own thing. One state uses paper, other uses some machines which can be easily hacked, some use both. Somehow voter ID is controver…

[dead]

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#97

Post by crooked-v » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #33

> She went online and discovered that her name had also been flagged as an inactive voter. The state was in the process of removing her from its voter rolls. > “I voted three times last year,” said Ms. Miller. I am still baffled at the election system in this country. Every state does its own thing. One state uses paper, other uses some machines which can be easily hacked, some use both. Somehow voter ID is controver…

> Why can't they issue free IDs and track every voter in a database and call it a day?

Because the goal of the Republican Party is explicitly to use these laws to suppress the votes of certain demographics, not to actually secure the vote.

For an example direct quote from a court case: https://twitter.com/haroldpollack/status/1051657219899617280

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#98

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

Operyl wrote: post #70

xythian wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most do not. > As of June 30, 2019, a total of 21 states plus the District of Columbia have enacted same day registration (SDR), which allows any qualified resident of the state to go to register to vote and cast a ballot all in that day. http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/same-da... And, same day isn't necessarily the best solution. For example, Oregon does vote-by-mail. This process would make it…

Florida also does easy opt in voting (checkbox) with most DMV requests now too (not sure how long that’s been a thing).

Isn’t that a federal law (the voter motor law)? See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Voter_Registration_...

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#99

Post by dd36 » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

homonculus1 wrote: post #85

dd36 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea would be to equate the two to get rid of voter registration. Really, it’s to demonstrate the absurdity of both positions.

The way you framed it made it appear the opposite.

Yeah, my bad. I don’t have a strong position either way. It just is a very good way to illustrate the hypocrisy of holding one position but not the other.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#100

Post by NelsonMinar » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #33

> She went online and discovered that her name had also been flagged as an inactive voter. The state was in the process of removing her from its voter rolls. > “I voted three times last year,” said Ms. Miller. I am still baffled at the election system in this country. Every state does its own thing. One state uses paper, other uses some machines which can be easily hacked, some use both. Somehow voter ID is controver…

Elections are de-federalized in the US; they are run by each state or, really, each county. That explains a lot of the mess.

The other problem is there's never been a real effort to establish a universal ID in the US. Which means you can't fairly do voter ID, since a lot of people don't have ID for various reasons. The lack of voter ID doesn't turn out to be a big problem; there's basically no voter fraud in the US. But it means there's no proper role of eligible voters, either.

The politics of this can't be ignored. The Republicans have a deliberate strategy of making it difficult for people to vote, and employ that strategy every time cleaning up voter roles or enacting voter ID comes up. They do not operate in good faith.