Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges • Hacker News Board

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#401

Post by mulmen » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 9:16 PM UTC

adamrezich wrote: post #392

mulmen wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> does this notion solely come from people who live in states with ridiculous taxes on everything? You're missing the point. Why should you need an ID to vote? It doesn't make sense. > $22 is not hard for anyone to save, especially with all the generous welfare programs we have. Please. It is a barrier that exists. Not everyone has $22.00. They still deserve access to their human rights. Welfare doesn't fix this. > h…

> Why should you need an ID to vote? It doesn't make sense. so that only citizens can vote in elections? > Please. It is a barrier that exists. Not everyone has $22.00. yes they do. I know one person who does not have a driver's license or state ID, because she doesn't have a birth certificate (lost it). she was almost unable to take her newborn children home because of her lack of birth certificate. she had ample ti…

> so that only citizens can vote in elections?

This isn't a problem voter ID solves. It is even addressed in the wiki!

> hell, at least around here, if you don't want to work yet still somehow want to vote for some reason

Why should voting be predicated on employment?

> it is very easy to panhandle $22 in a single day,

Wait whaaaat? Why should I have to panhandle to exercise my rights?

> as long as you don't spend it on meth or whatever.

Ah yes "poor people are drug addicts". Nice. Why would people with problems want to vote on ways to solve them?

> and here's where I'm done engaging, have a good day.

I mean these are just things that actually happened. I'm not sure how pointing at reality is partisan.

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#402

Post by jessfyi » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 9:16 PM UTC

lp0_on_fire wrote: post #302

the_snooze wrote: post #273

Earlier 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.

Except the entire process was being recorded and that never happened. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-philadelphia-po...

Love how temp accounts can post partisan hackery (and post a comment noting they have an obvious agenda), so we get to hear all the old, lame conspiracy theories from twitter on hn.

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#403

Post by chki » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 9:17 PM UTC

klipklop wrote: post #372

nostromo wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's two steps to the process: Step one, check the signature, the voter roles, and remove the envelope. Throw the ballot into the bin to be counted. Step two, count the ballot. This ballot now has no identifiable information on it at all. There's no way to verify that a person's ballot was correctly tallied. So if you wanted to ballot stuff, you could do so prior to step two. Recounts wouldn't identify fraud, you'…

I am glad you pointed this out. Few seem to understand that once the envelope is open and thrown away there is no way to verify the ballot being legitimate in many states. It's sad that people think with such a system there is no chance of voter fraud. They will smugly say that a recount confirmed everything was legitimate, etc. Very frustrating that the nuance is lost on them. Ballots need serial numbers that trace…

> Ballots need serial numbers that trace back to a person that we can pick up a phone and confirm their vote when elections are contested.

That would mean that elections are no longer secret. There are many good reasons why elections are secret in most (all?) democracies. It makes it impossible for people to be pressured into voting a certain way or payed to vote a certain way. It also means that you can't be prosecuted for voting a certain way. Giving up all of this would open up so many new avenues for voter fraud.

Edit: This is not necessarily an argument but secret ballots are part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#404

Post by Spooky23 » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 9:17 PM UTC

klipklop wrote: post #372

nostromo wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's two steps to the process: Step one, check the signature, the voter roles, and remove the envelope. Throw the ballot into the bin to be counted. Step two, count the ballot. This ballot now has no identifiable information on it at all. There's no way to verify that a person's ballot was correctly tallied. So if you wanted to ballot stuff, you could do so prior to step two. Recounts wouldn't identify fraud, you'…

I am glad you pointed this out. Few seem to understand that once the envelope is open and thrown away there is no way to verify the ballot being legitimate in many states. It's sad that people think with such a system there is no chance of voter fraud. They will smugly say that a recount confirmed everything was legitimate, etc. Very frustrating that the nuance is lost on them. Ballots need serial numbers that trace…

You have to weigh the good with the bad.

The secret ballot is essential, as compromise of that secrecy enables vote selling and voter intimidation. One of the reasons New York had tabulating machines and kept them was to limit the ability of political machines to interfere with elections at the local level. Tammany Hall operatives and others would retaliate against voters who didn’t do what the machine wanted. (Later those machines aged and became a liability)

There’s no such thing as a perfect process, and while your idea is a worthy way of providing validation, it creates more serious issues that ultimately undermine the democratic process.

If you have any kind of audit background they answer to ensuring integrity is always a same: a well defined process where different individuals are responsible for different parts of the process and are audited to achieve best practices.

The reality is that measures designed to target individual voter fraud are solving a problem that doesn’t exist and are done to suppress turnout.

The actual risk of voting related fraud is pretty obvious - political partisans with the access and ability to intimidate or bypass civil service employees from following the process. As a nation, we should be lauding the courage of the GOP election commissioners in Georgia who risked their careers and perhaps their lives to defy a demented president. Whatever the politics, those are people with integrity.

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#405

Post by gumby » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

jokethrowaway wrote: post #191

gumby wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This person did this with 2 separate judges. Why is it so easy? Apparently this demonstrates the power of the invisible hand of the marketplace.

Very true. And that's why we should decentralise power to the most local entity we can (somewhere between a central government and the individual affected by a choice) and have as few elected officials as possible.

The US tried this with their first constitution which lasted barely a decade. And the the macro scale issues these days are significantly larger than what they had to deal with back then.

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#406

Post by mulmen » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

Georgelemental wrote: post #309

mulmen wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> It’s a barrier preventing citizens from exercising constitutional rights. No, election fraud enabled by lack of voter ID is a barrier that prevents eligible voters from fully exercising their constitutional right to the franchise by diluting the power of their legitimate votes with fraudulent ones.

Voter ID doesn't prevent election fraud. And it is an imperfect solution to voter fraud, which doesn't meaningfully exist because we already have better mechanisms to prevent it.

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#407

Post by gumby » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

xpe wrote: post #344

gumby wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This person did this with 2 separate judges. Why is it so easy? Apparently this demonstrates the power of the invisible hand of the marketplace.

A joke, I'll bet, but that is not what Adam Smith meant.

Most of the contemporary zealous acolytes of Adam Smith would be shocked and angered by what he actually wrote, were they to try reading it.

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#408

Post by roleplayer » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 9:20 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #383

> Beren would [...] cast fraudulent votes in support of Myers’ preferred candidates on behalf of voters she knew would not or did not physically appear at the polls. [...] If actual voter turnout was high, Beren would add fewer fraudulent votes in support of Myers’ preferred candidates. Great, so now this gives extra credence to the "the election was stolen" narrative. Well, I mean it looks like in this case it had a…

> Great, so now this gives extra credence to the "the election was stolen" narrative.

Did you look at the data at all? I am curious if you, individually, even looked at it at all even once

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#409

Post by hamburglar » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #366

xienze wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Precisely. You can’t make something a prerequisite to voting if every voter doesn’t have it. And the US is very much against the concept of a national ID. So you can’t have a national ID requirement.

And as another commenter points out, it’s not that an ID requirement is racist, it’s that the motivations for it, knowing its impact, are racist.

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#410

Post by hef19898 » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

klipklop wrote: post #372

nostromo wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's two steps to the process: Step one, check the signature, the voter roles, and remove the envelope. Throw the ballot into the bin to be counted. Step two, count the ballot. This ballot now has no identifiable information on it at all. There's no way to verify that a person's ballot was correctly tallied. So if you wanted to ballot stuff, you could do so prior to step two. Recounts wouldn't identify fraud, you'…

I am glad you pointed this out. Few seem to understand that once the envelope is open and thrown away there is no way to verify the ballot being legitimate in many states. It's sad that people think with such a system there is no chance of voter fraud. They will smugly say that a recount confirmed everything was legitimate, etc. Very frustrating that the nuance is lost on them. Ballots need serial numbers that trace…

No, because literally every other true democracy on Earth has found a way to keep elections safe and anonymous. You don't need to to be able to trace ballots back to voters actually I'd argue being ablr to do so is deeply undemocratic.

The formula is simple: Central, automatic voter registration, easy access to ID cards (the general one, not a voter Id. You know, the thing most use to identify citizens instead of drivers liscences), easy access to polling stations, no Gerrymandering and paper ballots. That's all you need.