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Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges
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Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't really solve for all the ways you can rig an election. For example in '2000 Mules' they propose that democratically aligned charities like homeless shelters and elder care homes would gather ballots from their vulnerable populations, fill them out for their preferred candidates, and then have mules distribute those ballots to publicly accessible ballot boxes 3 to 5 at a time. They have some interesting f…
>For example in '2000 Mules' they propose that democratically aligned charities like homeless shelters and elder care homes would gather ballots from their vulnerable populations, fill them out for their preferred candidates, and then have mules distribute those ballots to publicly accessible ballot boxes 3 to 5 at a time. In order for this to actually work, the nefarious operatives would need to forge people's signa…
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Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't really solve for all the ways you can rig an election. For example in '2000 Mules' they propose that democratically aligned charities like homeless shelters and elder care homes would gather ballots from their vulnerable populations, fill them out for their preferred candidates, and then have mules distribute those ballots to publicly accessible ballot boxes 3 to 5 at a time. They have some interesting f…
>For example in '2000 Mules' they propose that democratically aligned charities like homeless shelters and elder care homes would gather ballots from their vulnerable populations, fill them out for their preferred candidates, and then have mules distribute those ballots to publicly accessible ballot boxes 3 to 5 at a time. In order for this to actually work, the nefarious operatives would need to forge people's signa…
In 2020 in Pennsylvania the standard was that a signature existed not that it matched the voter rolls.
The incentive not to closely scritinize signatures when mail in ballots in your county strongly favor your perfered candidate is clear.
"If the Voter’s Declaration on the return envelope is signed and the county board is satisfied that the declaration is sufficient, the mail-in or absentee ballot should be approved for canvassing unless challenged in accordance with the Pennsylvania Election Code.
The Pennsylvania Election Code does not authorize the county board of elections to set aside returned absentee or mail-in ballots based solely on signature analysis by the county board of elections."
Source: https://www.dos.pa.gov/VotingElections/OtherServicesEvents/D...
Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
Election returns centers have a lot of people in it. You'd need a pretty sizeable conspiracy to carry out an attack you describe. At the very least, such a conspiracy would produce some kind of written communications or financial transactions. You'd need pretty good coordination to pull it off, and people are neither psychic nor capable of playing verbal "telephone" at scale.
> Election returns centers have a lot of people in it. In Philly they barred GOP poll watchers from observing the process and they (GOP) had to get a court order to force the center to allow them in...so all it takes is a few partisans at the top of the food chain.
Can you link to evidence of this happening? Because all I could find were stories about how Trump's lawyers argued this was the case, but were forced to admit in court there were poll watchers acting on Trump's behalf:
>Judge : “Are your observers in the counting room?”
>Trump lawyer: "There's a non-zero number of people in the room.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/11/trump-law...
Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges
#365It's weird that you can bribe individual EJ's in Philadelphia like this. In Chicagoland, every polling place has a team of 4-5 judges, and they all have to sign off on the final election result, and all the procedural steps that arrive at that number; every individual vote is recorded in the pollbook. I don't even know how you'd generate fake votes in the first place, even if you bought off all 4 EJs. You can't just…
You are right, you can't make people up, but this has happened throughout history by unscrupulous actors using either very old people or dead people and "casting votes" in their name for certain candidates. I remember seeing a few examples of this firsthand on twitter in MI where a candidate was over 100 years old(and was dead) and voted!
I'm not sure how this attack even works. You can't make up dead people; you have to know who the dead people are. You can't cast votes for random dead people; they have to be dead people from the precinct you're EJ'ing. I buy that you could get 1-2 votes cast this way, but not how you could cast a material number of them. Meanwhile, getting caught just casting 1 such vote is a guaranteed prison sentence. You can't have a vast conspiracy across many dozens of precincts in order to rack up a material number of dead-person votes. It just doesn't make sense.
Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know for a fact that where I vote it is impossible to vote more than once (or close to, Berlin managed to fuck up voting last year for some reason). How is it impossible? Everyone is centrally registered with their primary residence. Based on these records, invitations are sent out prior to elections. With that invitation, or passport or ID, you show up at your voting local (of which there are plenty, the school ju…
> With that invitation, or passport or ID Well you see, having to show ID to vote is considered racist in the US. It’s OK if you didn’t know that, lots of people from other countries are dumbfounded to learn that all you have to do in the US is show up and give the poll workers the name of a registered voter in order to vote.* * Well, in some states you have to show ID. But one political party in particular fights ve…
I followed this discussion in the US quite close actually. Simply because we need to have government ID. It is racist to require it if access to those IDs is, in praxis, limited for the demographics that should have limited access to voting. It is not if you are required to have government ID, and it is very easy to get one. getting a provisional passport for travel, with a validity of 6 months, takes all of one hour tops over here in Germany.
Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
> vote by mail which helps alleviate the latter while, as far as I can tell, not being significantly worse than voting in person for security. How anyone could state this with any particular confidence is beyond me. The truth is, when someone votes by mail, you have no idea who filled in the ballot. How could anyone possibly collect metrics? No one can possibly say what's going on, unless you trust the populace at la…
> How anyone could state this with any particular confidence is beyond me. The truth is, when someone votes by mail, you have no idea who filled in the ballot. How do you know who filled in the ballot at the polling place? All I would need is to show up and know someone else's name and address and I could vote for them. Vote by mail isn't any worse than that and is possibly better because there's a stronger confidenc…
> How do you know who filled in the ballot at the polling place? All I would need is to show up and know someone else's name and address and I could vote for them
Presumably by some kind of voter identification? Like the way most countries do it.
> The poling place is open on exactly one day, and you have to wait in line for your turn. Have to go to work that day? Well, tough shit. For some people this is simple, but for quite a lot of people in overcrowded polling places and inflexible working conditions it is not. The option of a mail in ballot provides a convenience for people less privileged with the ability to make it to a polling place during a sub-24 hour window.
I guess I don't get it. The polling places open at a ridiculously early hour and end at 8. You could have multi-day polling too, that's fine. I don't understand why this is so hard in this country.
> Notice I said option. If filling out a ballot is difficult for you, you can still do it by showing up in person.
No I can't because I live in Oregon, which despite being a high tax state, is unable to conduct even the most basic election.
> Perfect is the enemy of good.
It's not when we have an easy answer to this problem -- have a physical place to vote. I've voted absentee in California, and one year, my ballot got lost there. Do you know what I did? I went to a polling location. In Oregon, because it was COVID, there was no place to get a ballot. EIther you use the byzantine system set up by the state which was too complicated, or tough shit. That's not acceptable. Why aren't these 'voter suppression' tactics used in liberal states not up to questioning? Why is only the motivations of one party suspect? I don't think it is easier to vote in Oregon than any other state, despite what everyone here wants you to believe.
Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges
#368This person is actually a repeat offender with a history of abusing his office. https://www.inquirer.com/news/ozzie-myers-convicted-abscam-p...
The important question: is he an outlier, or the norm?
Here's some anecdata for you... I went to a relatively elite private high school on the east coast. Where I and several other people fixed elections through various methods for clubs and school offices. 2 of 5 people that were in on it now hold public elected office one at the state level and one at the federal level the other three, myself included, do not hold public office.
I believe this behavior is the norm. I grew up around DC and know the types of people that work there and what they're actually like. It's also possible I'm just jaded.
I personally regret doing it and justify it due to peer pressure. 'If so and so is doing it and their uncle is a congressman and their father is an elected judge it must just be how its done.' I'd tell myself.
Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should expect some number of dead people to have voted in every election, totally aboveboard. There's always going to be someone who dies in a car accident on the way back from the polling place. Add early or by-mail voting and the attendant micromorts from a bigger gap between votes being cast and being counted, and you'll see more dead people having cast votes. Older people are much more likely to vote and much…
Just way below the number needed to influence elections. People say this like there are no close elections, or are only talking about Presidential elections (and ignoring Florida 2020), but pretty much every year there are razor thin votes in statewide and congressional races. Good example is Iowa 2nd district in 2020 which was decided by 6 votes: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrat-rita-hart-ends-elec... GOP Re…
It makes sense when you write it that way, but not in reality. There is a risk/reward to doing this. Part of your premise is that you can know when an election is going to come down to 6 votes. But in fact Meeks vs. Hart was newsworthy because results like that are incredibly rare. 99 times out of 100, if you try to juke the election, you're putting yourself at pretty grave legal risk and accomplishing absolutely nothing.
Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges
#370Wonder how much coverage this is going to get.
Especially wonder how much it would get if it was a republican.