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

nytimes.com

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

#101

Post by eropple »

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?

In a very real sense: because that would make it easy to vote.

Free IDs are directly inimical to the effort to prevent people from voting. That prevention is a major effort of one major American political party because it's seen as the only way they can win in an increasingly diverse country.

The folks who are against free IDs--who want it to be hard to vote--also get very weird about "databases of people", even though they already exist and corporate entities compile them right alongside governmental ones every day.

I get the desire to assume good faith in this, but we literally have the receipts.

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

#102

Post by davidw »

spamizbad wrote: post #20
not_a_cop75 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How hard is it really for a voter to reregister? You guys are making it sound like it they're taking away driver's licenses or something. All you have to do is hit the website. If you don't have internet access hit a library.

Because this is HN and you're probably young-ish: When you're older and you've set down roots the last time you updated your voter registration was probably a few decades ago. Chances are your polling place hasn't likely changed either. So you know when elections come, you go to your usual polling place, give your name, get your ballet and "pull the lever" so to speak. You're not thinking "Oh I better double-check my…

> The US is strange: It will wring its hands over low voter turnout while also actively making it more difficult to vote.

This all varies by state, too. Here in Oregon all voting is done by mail, and registration is automatic. It's meant to increase turnout and make it easy to vote.

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

#103

Post by biomcgary »

jorblumesea wrote: post #58
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…

What? So, you're willing to engage in unethical activity, with a modicum of lip service to transparency? The entire idea of purging voters rolls is antithetical to voting freedoms and transparency.

It is grossly unethical to purge valid voters in secret, but how is limiting voter rolls to those with a legal right to vote unethical? Should people be allowed to vote and have a say in the government of places they don't live? The reductio ad absurdum of this is allowing the whole world to vote for your local school board.

Transparency and community engagement (through advocacy groups) helps ensure that valid voters are kept on the voter rolls. Don't knock Ohio for trying to take steps in the right direction.

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

#104

Post by maze-le »

mschuster91 wrote: post #51

In Germany we do not have this problem (neither voter suppression nor voter fraud), for a multitude of reasons: 1) everyone has a government-provided ID document: a passport, for German nationals the ID card Personalausweis also works, and for EU nationals (who can vote in municipal and EU elections) their country's ID document 2) the legal requirement to register at the city/region office ("Meldebehörde") where you…

Oh well you know, stuff like this also happens:

https://wahlen.sachsen.de/LW_19.php?wahlkreis=51&_cp=%7B%22t...

-----

State elections in saxony this year. Look at the table underneath the map:

Wahlberechtigte -- eligible to vote -- 1 722

Wähler -- voters -- 2 083 -- 121,0 %

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

#105

Post by seanmcdirmid »

swsieber wrote: post #80
scrooched_moose wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. You can easily move without informing the new state. Millions of college students do it every year. The last move I made was in September so I hadn't changed licenses or filed income taxes yet, so they had no awareness of me yet. Luckily I'm in a fairly permissive state and was able to register with a couple utility bills without any hassle. Some sort of voter registration is a necessity when you can move…

You can still do it automatically for a majority of voters though. Having to register should be the exception, not the norm.

Not everyone is eligible to vote. Heck, I had to correct my wife’s driver license application because she definitely isn’t a citizen, and the question was phrased to be very confusing....

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

#106

Post by Spivak »

jorblumesea wrote: post #58
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…

What? So, you're willing to engage in unethical activity, with a modicum of lip service to transparency? The entire idea of purging voters rolls is antithetical to voting freedoms and transparency.

That's a extreme. Unless you want the government to track every citizen's whereabouts using activity to figure out if you actually still live here isn't unreasonable at all.

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

#108

Post by will4274 »

coryodaniel wrote: post #4

How does the purging actually work? Is there sole evil republican henchman with database access? Is there no oversight into what is actually purged? Trapped behind the paywall.

Purging is a legal requirement in all 50 states. Dead voters, those who've moved, and those who are ineligible (felons) must be removed. Red states like Ohio are criminally over-zealous and remove poor people. Blue states like Michigan are criminally under-zealous and have more voters on the rolls than people living in the state.

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

#109

Post by seanmcdirmid »

SkyBelow wrote: post #84
dd36 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s actually a good argument for registering guns. I have to register for my voting rights, you have to register for your gun rights.

Registering to have, not registering the actual item. Same way you register to have to vote but you do not register the vote itself. In my mind, the difficulty to do both should be equal, as making either more difficult than the other is suppressing the rights of a group to do which ever is more difficult.

Votes are definitely registered at the time they are cast.

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

#110

Post by weberc2 »

wbronitsky wrote: post #47
not_a_cop75 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I update my voter registration sometimes twice a year to match the party I most like at the time, It's always been online - easy peasy. I expect to get downvoted to hell but I also don't get why showing an ID to vote is such a big deal. After all, I have to look up the numbers in my drivers license to vote. Also, how is it hard to vote? Absentee ballots are totally easy to get. If I was blind, I might have to plan ah…

US history is why its a big deal to show your ID to vote. Wikipedia has a great summary of the racist policies voter ID laws were made to enforce, and that voter fraud is "vanishingly rare" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_laws_in_the_United_St...

Maybe voter fraud is "vanishingly rare", but that statement in the wikipedia article only links to a NYT article which says:

> Academic studies have repeatedly concluded that fraud at the ballot box — the sort that photo identification requirements might reduce — is already vanishingly rare.

With no citation.

Anyway, "vanishingly rare" could mean that fewer than 1% of votes are fraudulent, but those fraudulent votes could be concentrated in a handful of key counties thereby having a big impact. I'm not arguing in favor of tougher voter ID restrictions but rather in favor of educated discourse.

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