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Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

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Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#281

Post by bartread »

belorn wrote: post #260
IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system is secure and robust, at least with regards to the mechanics of individual votings. Among the main factors is its distributed nature. You just can't run a scam with senior citizen volunteers in thousands of individual precincts. Then, there are observers. Famous case from this week's election was Republicans complaining that their two dozen(!) observers weren't allowed closer than 6 feet to the ballots. It…

This is a golden opportunity for the left to implement a policy which historically the left has been advocating for and the right been blocking. National Identification. No more social security numbers, no knowledge about a name or a street. Practically every other country in the world has national identification and uses them as the building block for holding elections, social security, health care, licenses, drugs…

The UK doesn't have national identification. The government tried to bring it in a decade or more ago but it was shot down by the successful no2id campaign. The UK also doesn't have a significant problem with electoral fraud: like the US it has robust processes in place to ensure that its (admittedly less than perfect) electoral system is implemented fairly[0], correctly, and with integrity. This doesn't depend on national identification so I'm not sure why you're implying it should be a prerequisite for holding elections.

[0] Fairly within the constraints of its framework: you can obviously argue about first past the post versus alternative vote versus proportional representation versus a collegiate system as being the fairest system, but that's a separate question.

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#282

Post by thu2111 »

btilly wrote: post #224
xyzzyz wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "Chicago political machine" was later shown to have committed voter fraud in 1982. 26 people were convicted[1], and here's the grand jury report[2]. They had been getting away with it, until they didn't. Fortunately, as media reassure us, today voting fraud simply cannot happen: you'd need a whole conspiracy of dozens of people, a real, as one could call it, machine. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Illi…

Fortunately, as media reassure us, today voting fraud simply cannot happen: you'd need a whole conspiracy of dozens of people, a real, as one could call it, machine. This I find impossible to believe. How hard is it to intercept mail-in ballots, sign them, then mail them in? Who knows that you did so? I personally find it very implausible that in both elections that Trump was in he produced results about 3% better th…

That's not the type of problem that usually happens with postal voting. Intercepting votes like that on a large scale would be indeed hard.

But what people do get caught doing quite regularly and not just in the USA are things like:

1. Going door to door and giving people blank ballots, pressuring people to fill them in, right in front of them. As a 'helpful service'.

2. Dominant members of the families taking the ballots from family members and filling them all in themselves. This gets reported a lot in various ethnic minority areas in the UK, for example, where the father is traditionally dominant.

3. Ballots being destroyed or not delivered in swing areas where certain sub-regions are known to be strongly pro one candidate or another.

It's good to hear that some places let you check if your ballot was received, but almost by definition, for that to work you need a lot of people to do that kind of check and then publicly broadcast their findings. In an environment where social media is suppressing discussion of the possibility of voter fraud and the media is polarised, it's not so clear how people would do that reliably, even if enough checked in the first place. And a lot of places you can't easily check - I know I can't in my elections!

As for Trump accusing others of cheating, conservatives in multiple countries have been talking about the problems of postal vote fraud for a long time. This is not new, they care because when it is uncovered it always seems to be tipping the vote for the left. Trump in particular shouldn't be under suspicion here because he has been strongly encouraging his supporters to vote in person, where fraud is much harder to pull off: it's his opponents that strongly encouraged postal voting despite knowing that postal voting is less confidence-inspiring than the ballot box.

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#283

Post by michaelmrose »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #59
maxerickson wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be less democratic (small d) than the current system. Do you have some reason that Wyoming should actually have an equal say with New York or Texas or Florida or California?

Because they are all states that should have an equal say in what president is elected. A republic of states is beholden to the states. Each state is beholden to its population.

Why should all states have an equal say in how the president is elected? Why should the desires of half a million in the lowest state be worth as much as the 40 million in the most populous state. In this context either the 40 million have to give the half a million gifts of tax dollars and policy goals that the minority could never dream of achieving in an actual democracy or they have to give them bullets. Which do you think it would be long term?

Can you name another functional democracy of any variety who gives arbitrarily constructed territories of wildly disparate population sizes "equal" say in the running of things?

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#284

Post by thu2111 »

bartread wrote: post #281
belorn wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a golden opportunity for the left to implement a policy which historically the left has been advocating for and the right been blocking. National Identification. No more social security numbers, no knowledge about a name or a street. Practically every other country in the world has national identification and uses them as the building block for holding elections, social security, health care, licenses, drugs…

The UK doesn't have national identification. The government tried to bring it in a decade or more ago but it was shot down by the successful no2id campaign. The UK also doesn't have a significant problem with electoral fraud: like the US it has robust processes in place to ensure that its (admittedly less than perfect) electoral system is implemented fairly[0], correctly, and with integrity. This doesn't depend on na…

Actual MPs disagree with you about that:

https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/there-is-wides...

"I believe the overwhelming majority of my constituents would be shocked if they knew the extent of corrupt election practices and voter fraud which happen each time there is an election. I want open and lawful elections, upholding the principle that every entitled voter should have one vote, and cast it freely."

The system is wide open to abuse. The article goes into a large variety of schemes. There's a risk that in future the UK may face a similar outcome as the USA. The only way to really fix this is to reign in postal voting significantly to only those who strictly need it - and I say that as someone who votes by post (because I live abroad).

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#285

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #59
maxerickson wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be less democratic (small d) than the current system. Do you have some reason that Wyoming should actually have an equal say with New York or Texas or Florida or California?

Because they are all states that should have an equal say in what president is elected. A republic of states is beholden to the states. Each state is beholden to its population.

"We the People of the United States, ..."

The United States is not a union of separate republics. The method of electing the president is supposed to reflect the sovereignty of the people, with most of the electoral votes being apportioned according to population. The Great Compromise did give the small states disproportionate representation (an extra two electors, independent of population), but most electors are still tied to population.

The Electoral College is an anachronism. The US is far more unified now than it was in the 1780s. People move between states, and believe much more strongly in democracy than they did 240 years ago (e.g., state legislatures appointing Senators would be unthinkable now, as would denying the vote to any adult citizen). If anything, arbitrary state boundaries should play no role in how much of an impact a person's vote has.

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#286

Post by thu2111 »

motogpjimbo wrote: post #267
mschuster91 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then make it free of charge and offer a version for illegalized people to carry.

I'm not American, so this comment confuses me. Why would illegal immigrants be allowed to vote or carry an official government-issued ID?

They wouldn't, it's just deliberate confusion. If an arm of the government knows someone is there illegally they're meant to report them for deportation or other handling, not offer them infrastructure and rights, but in the USA the problem of illegal immigration has reached such scales that a large part of the left basically advocates for giving up on border enforcement of any kind. They don't really campaign directly to abolish borders because it would raise obvious and difficult questions, instead they campaign against enforcement: arguing for a world in which immigration rules exist but anyone who follows them is effectively playing a mug's game.

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#287

Post by michaelmrose »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #219
majormajor wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you believe "population centers directing the country" is a bigger problem than "arbitrary historical boundaries directing the country?" If you replace the euphemism "population centers" with the word "people" you get "the problem of people directing the country"... which doesn't sound like a problem to me compared to the minority direction we have today.

People in population centers tend to think similarly due to a similar environment. What a city desires in the nation's leader does not necessarily align with rural voters. You must see the danger in a few, albeit large, groups having the majority of the population. Say LA and New York decide that a communist leader would be best for the country. How the hell do residents outside the cities stand up against that in an…

The constitution provides hard limits to what anyone can do without overwhelming support and substantial due process. You cannot implement a communist dictatorship within the scope of the current US constitution. The supreme court provides another check as the composition changes slowly.

Your charge could be leveled in reverse and better wielded.

>People in rural areas tend to think similarly due to a similar environment. What a rural area desires in the nation's leader does not necessarily align with city voters. You must see the danger in a few, smallgroups having the majority of the power.

>Say 10 states comprising less than 3% of the population decide that a communist leader would be best for the country. How the hell do residents outside the cities stand up against that in any way but force.

Note the 10 lowest population states really do comprise less than 3% of the US population.

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#288

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

umvi wrote: post #80
TheDong wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal law impacts all citizens. It doesn't just make laws concerning the states. Why should a man in wyoming's opinion on what federal laws I should live under count 70x as much as mine? Why should a minority of the country make a decision that impacts the majority of people?

Well if you believe Wyoming should just be steamrolled by California's desires 100% of the time, why shouldn't Wyoming secede from the union? In fact, why should any "small states" join the union in the first place if they are just going to be steamrolled by California and New York?

Because if they leave, they'll have the pleasure of getting steamrolled by other countries, including the United States.

Fundamentally, you're making an argument against democracy, and in favor of giving people who live in small states greater influence than people who live in large states. A person who moves a few miles across the border from Colorado to Wyoming suddenly sees their vote count for 3 times as much in the Electoral College. It gets even crazier once you start considering how swing states play into this. Your vote makes no difference in most states. But there are a few states where your vote might count, for the sole reason that those states happen to be evenly balanced. It's a ridiculous, irrational system. It was the best that could be negotiated in 1787, but it doesn't make sense in 2020.

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#289

Post by lki876 »

> The first conclusion has to be that I found no evidence of fraud in any of these elections.

Given that people have been convicted of fraud and invalid votes are found, we have learned that either (1) this technique does not find evidence of fraud even when it happens or (2) the fraud that happens is marginal.

(2) seems likely, but given the small margins in some swing states, even a relatively small numbers of fraudulent votes could determine the election.

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#290

Post by michaelmrose »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #149
bfrog wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax revenues which pay for federal services like the armed forces, led by the president, aren't equally contributed by each state. The day that happens is the day Wyoming's vote can be equal to California. It'd also be the day California succeeds from the union.

You dont get to vote on how federal revenues are spent. You already have representatives to do that job. Why should an individual state get more say in who the president should be if we already have congress critters to argue budget?

Because a representative democracy privileges the voice of the many over the voices of the few. For example in the current contest if it plays out as expected the likely winner will defeat the loser by 4 million votes and your methodology would hand the 4 million vote loser the win. Indeed this would become the norm
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