171–180 of 889 posts
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Proof for this claim?
Not a statement on any claims of influence but the amount seems about right. "The couple [Zuckerberg and Chan] awarded $400 million to nonprofits for election assistance" https://www.npr.org/2020/12/08/943242106/how-private-money-f...
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/06/07/...
Just for context it seems The guy he bribed (i.e. the one who actually did the stuffing) was convicted in March 2020. So this isn’t exactly fresh news.
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"Judge of Elections" in PA is an elected position for running the polling place for a precinct on election day. It's an extremely low-level position that only involves work on 2 days of the year. It's not a "judge" in the sense someone who oversees a criminal or civil trial.
I'm surprised it is even elected. I was an election judge when I was 18 in Illinois as part of high school project. You just sign up and attend a 2 hour class. It was fun. The other judge at my poll location was a guy who served in the Wehrmacht during WWII (was conscripted at age 14). But I easily could have stuffed the box. Most people don't vote. At 7:45pm, you could just vote for people who didn't show up. Nobody…
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Certain politicians use the myth of widespread voter fraud to push targeted disenfranchising policies like voter ID requirements and mail-in voting restrictions. Conflating individual voter crimes that might supposedly be stopped by these laws, with election official crimes that have nothing to do with them, would be bad faith debating. So it’s important to be clear about this distinction.
That's a fair point. Though I would argue that improving controls around voters make it easier to detect election fraud. If you can tie each vote to a real person, it becomes very difficult to add an arbitrary number of anonymous votes to a candidate, like how Michael “Ozzie” Myers was doing. If we're looking at it from a cost-benefit perspective, the ability to ensure that election fraud isn't happening (which disen…
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The risk clearly doesn't fit the crime. A risk of being hung for treason is harder to recruit for.
"Treason" is one of the few crimes which is defined in the US constitution. It has a fairly narrow definition which does not include election fraud: >Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in o…
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There is no mention of electronic voting machines. Nothing described in this press release would even require electronic voting machines. They cast actual (fraudulent) votes and then falsified the records in the polling books to match.
> The voting machines at each polling station, including in the 39th Ward, 36th Division, generate records in the form of a printed receipt documenting the use of each voting machine...Demuro would add fraudulent votes on the voting machine Sure there is
They make it sound so simple: Bribe the Judge of Elections who oversees everything. Dilute the vote tallies by using the voting machines to increment the votes for specific candidates. Certify that the fake results are correct. Lie if anybody asks. This person did this with 2 separate judges. Why is it so easy?
As others have pointed out, these "judges" were actually minor, elected election officials, close to being volunteers. They were doing this to make small additions at a local scale. There was no need to add fake voter registrations, to modify vote counting, or to add votes not connected to legitimately registered voters: they just added ballots and records for registered voters they knew weren't going to show up. At a local enough scale, you might simply know, personally, of voters who are out of town, for example.
This doesn't require any major conspiracy at multiple levels. Depending on the organization of the election, it might be possible for a single poll worker to do it on their own. It would be very hard to defend against at higher levels. Most voter ID ideas wouldn't help (short of digital IDs and cryptographic signatures), because it's being done by the people who would be checking the IDs. Having multiple, adversarial officials keeping records of each person coming in could help, but now you've multiplied the number of people you need at each precinct. Contacting people listed as having voted could help, but they could well have been chosen specifically because they would be unlikely to notice or respond. Checking counts and registrations wouldn't help, because the counts and registrations would be valid. Voting technology mostly doesn't matter, and in fact, the method is likely easier with paper ballots.
It is limited in how much of an effect it can have, of course, but in tight races, or down-ballot races where few people actually fill out those races on their ballot, that might be all you need, or you might be interested in just statistically helping your party by making larger numbers of your party's candidates win, rather than helping one particular candidate.
After closing the polls, the paper votes are counted manually (in from of candidates representatives and public in general) by the poll station "vocales".
"Vocales" are citizens (4 in total) randomly selected for each poll, who must operate the poll during the entire day. They must report the results of the counting directly to the central system and sign a certificate, so everything is traceable down to the polling box, and it is very difficult for a candidate to conspire against a fair count. Results are normally available from 1 to 3 hours after closing the polls.
I'm completely against e-voting as I feel that transparency in every election is way more important than efficiency, and I think that it cannot get more transparent than this.
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How many occurred?
Luckily, Justice Department and FBI will likely have no incentives for investigating that given how they actively positioned themselves in the political debate. So we may never find out.
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> For some reason progressives are against voter ID laws. It’s a barrier preventing citizens from exercising constitutional rights. The need isn’t clearly demonstrated to justify the restriction. Voter ID laws have different outcomes based on economic status. It’s especially difficult for poor people to exercise their rights. > People have stopped thinking for themselves. Or maybe someone else thought of something yo…
I think that the progressive default argument on this topic is pretty transparent BS. If it's too hard for some people to get an ID, make it easier for everyone to get an ID. Don't open up elections to an obvious fraud vector.
Standard, universal, free federal IDs are an obvious solution to this that would also solve a shitload of other problems and irritations that come with living in this country, but they're opposed by both sides—more by the Republicans, for a mix of general don't-trust-the-government and religious reasons (to international readers: yes, seriously), but also by many Democrats (largely over a history of absolutely crazy-to-read-about, but very much real, police surveillance and harassment programs targeting civil rights activists).