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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

#761

Post by lbriner »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #645
cge wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from everything else, if you're not trying to ensure that a candidate wins, regardless of their popularity, and are instead trying to skew the odds toward a candidate who already has a reasonable chance of winning, election fraud becomes easier and harder to detect. As others have pointed out, these "judges" were actually minor, elected election officials, close to being volunteers. They were doing this to make…

>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. Not exactly. Keep going on this scenario. If voters had to show ID like in Europe, when someone shows up and is denied to vote because “they already voted” it would be an immediate red flag for fraud. With the IDless system, someone could be denied and it does no…

> Not exactly

Yes, exactly.

The ID checks "at the gate" don't help if the people on the inside running the system can just go and add some additional votes, either for people who didn't turn up (which they know about) or if there is no cryptographic proof of attendence then just by going up to the machine, who doesn't know how many voters are expected anyway, and presses the button a few more times.

The truth is that a lot of the system is fundamentally based on trust so it is crucial that people who commit fraud against voting are treated as extreme criminals who are trying to subvert the importance of a democratic vote. Not sure how many people would fiddle it if they risked getting a 30 year prison sentence.

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

#762

Post by Fellshard »

hef19898 wrote: post #281
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'…

And still this never happened in any other democratic country doing paper ballots. Simple reason: If there are more votes in the ballot box then registered voters (ideally this means everyone above voting and eligible to vote) you know someone tempered the ballot box. And having more than one (where I live I'm always puzzled how they find the hundreds of people to monitor the dozens of polling places since we have at…

The number of people who actually vote is often nowhere near the number registered, meaning you have lots of padding with which to work. This idea doesn't pan out whatsoever.

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

#763

Post by Fellshard »

daenz wrote: post #31

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?

It certainly would not be difficult if the judges themselves shared the desire to see votes cast a specific way, I expect.

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

#764

Post by philwelch »

xadhominemx wrote: post #483
telotortium wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously you should only be able to get a mail-in ballot if you request it. But I live in California, and ballots are mailed out to all registered voters. While convenient, it's bonkers to do it at all, let alone in any state that, unlike California, has close elections.

We know it’s not an issue because if people were returning mailed ballots without the knowledge of the intended recipient, there would be a ton of people who would be logged as voting twice (once the mail in ballot and once in person or after requesting and submitting a replacement mail in ballot).

Unless you’re one of the states that doesn’t have in person voting, like Washington.

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

#765

Post by philwelch »

rootusrootus wrote: post #513
tomp wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most other democratic countries (1) require photo IDs for voting, and (2) don’t support postal voting at scale. Either (1) or (2) not being true makes elections way less secure.

If the US would stop using photo IDs as a bludgeon to keep "the wrong people" from voting, everyone could get on board with requiring it. That has always been the real blocker. I do like postal mail. I've yet to see a convincing argument that the coercion risk is substantial enough to offset the other benefits. Voting slowly at my living room table is awesome .

The US doesn’t “use photo IDs as a bludgeon to keep ‘the wrong people’ from voting”.

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

#766

Post by solar-ice »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #495
kortilla wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible that the solutions in other countries are not optimal?

No, every other country outside the US is the best at everything. That's why every American is desperate to make a better life for themselves in the EU, Australia, New Zealand and Canada while the reverse almost never happens.

"According to a Gallup poll from January 2019, 16% of Americans, including 40% of women under the age of 30, would like to leave the United States."

In my experience of talking to said Americans, that many can't is largely a case of restrictive immigration policies in most places Americans would like to move to.

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

#767

Post by philwelch »

rootusrootus wrote: post #640
Izkata wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related, this funny/sad video from 6 years ago about actually asking black people about getting IDs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JGmKHrWKMQ (4 minutes long) Summary: They pretty much all responded "whoever thinks we don't have / can't get IDs is ignorant and probably a bit racist".

Just like white people are authoritative about other white people, if we ask black people for the truth they must be right. Or, you know, not. - 13% of Blacks, 10% of Hispanics, but only 5 percent of Whites lack photographic identification. - 12% of adults living in a household with less than $25,000 annual income lack photo ID, compared to just 2 percent in households with over $150,000 annual income. - 15 percent o…

Photo ID is required in the United States in order to work (Form I-9), obtain housing, drive a car, buy alcohol or tobacco, enter age-restricted venues, purchase firearms, drive a car, go through airport security, and in general, to participate in society. And one of the things I’ve listed is an enumerated constitutional right. So I don’t think it’s an unreasonable requirement for voting. Someone who doesn’t participate in society to such a degree that they already don’t need ID is probably unlikely to be voting in the first place, and it’s somewhat dubious IMO to bend over backwards to specifically court such voters.

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

#768

Post by philwelch »

JoBrad wrote: post #576
rootusrootus wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant brown people, but I expect you know that. Give the FEC the power to issue photo ID for voting. Legislate that it is only valid for that purpose and any other use is illegal. Send out census-style teams to track down every citizen and issue them a card, free of charge. Of course, there are all sorts of problems with this that are entirely self-inflicted. Someone will oppose a national ID, even if we already ha…

Please - we don’t need another single-purpose ID card. Why not just make a single ID card that all privileges that are recognized in all 50 states can be added to? Driver’s license classes, concealed carry, voting, security clearance, donor preferences, etc. everyone has to get a new one every 4 years, and there’s an electronic record for verification of basic info like photo and name when internet access is availabl…

We already use drivers licenses for this.

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

#769

Post by [deleted] »

mgraczyk wrote: post #192
helloguillecl wrote: post #178

I cannot imagine a system more transparent than the one implemented in the country where I come from (and some others as well): 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 th…

It sounds like this is worse than what I've experienced in multiple US jurisdictions. Any of the random nominees can unilaterally discard my vote without detection. In the US, I physically insert my ballot in a sealed counting machine that the poll workers cannot tamper with without detection. Nobody who has access to my ballot knows which vote is mine, so nobody can censor me without detection.

[deleted]

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

#770

Post by skissane »

mulmen wrote: post #695
skissane wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consider the example of the polling station bus being targeted. Those people could have complied but because of their race were prevented. I take it you are talking about the incident you mentioned in another comment, in Louisville, Georgia, in 2018, in which African-American senior citizens got on a bus to take them to an early voting center, and then told to get off the bus and it didn't take them there? (Did the…

The retirement home belongs to the county. I see no claim the van does. I don’t know the details either but I can’t find any evidence to support your claims. That is one example of literally dozens on that page alone. Many of them more concrete, with convictions.

> The retirement home belongs to the county. I see no claim the van does.

So, yes, having read some more, it sounds like bus in question belonged to the activist group rather than the county.

Still, what I don't quite understand here is – they got on the bus, did someone from the county force them to get off the bus? Ask them nicely? Threaten them with something if they didn't? Exactly what happened is rather unclear.

> I don’t know the details either but I can’t find any evidence to support your claims

That's the thing – neither of us really knows what happened at that event. I was just speculating based on incomplete knowledge – much as you are. I'm not aware of any clear, detailed and independent account of what actually happened. But, you seem to be citing this as an example of a pattern without knowing much about what really happened–which is a rather questionable approach.

> That is one example of literally dozens on that page alone. Many of them more concrete, with convictions.

I'm reading that Wikipedia page, who has a conviction for voter suppression?

* In 2006, in Wisconsin, four Democratic campaign workers, from John Kerry's presidential campaign, were convicted of slashing tires of Republican Party vehicles to stop them from driving voters and poll workers to the polls in the 2004 election, and sentenced to 4-6 months jail

* In 2011, in Maryland, a Republican campaign manager was sentenced, albeit to no actual jail time (probation, community service, home detention, and a suspended sentence), for having placed fake calls to Democratic voters (the majority of whom were African-American) to try to trick them into not voting in the 2010 Maryland gubernatorial election. Despite this tactic, the Republican candidate still lost by 10 points.

Those are the only two mentions I can find on that page of anyone actually being convicted of voter suppression (and in neither case changing the outcome of the election). Is there something else I'm missing, or when you speak of "convictions" do you only mean those two cases?

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