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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

#821

Post by IncRnd »

rootusrootus wrote: post #524
mistermann wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one claims fraud doesn't happen. False. I've encountered easily thousands of people who make such claims on the internet. You might then say "No officials make such claims" - here you're technically correct, but somewhat misinformative: the people in such situations have public relations professionals at their disposal, and also tend to have years of experience (or at least observation) of how to do PR. When ele…

Nobody likes to get down to the details of actual fraud events, really. Neither side. Democrats because they don't believe it happens often. Republicans because when it does happen, 9 times out of 10 the perp turns out to be a Republican. This has been the amusing reality for years now. I personally think that fraud of a significant scale in a country with thousands of different voting systems is basically impossible…

> 9 times out of 10 the perp turns out to be a Republican. This has been the amusing reality for years now.

Citation? This article shows 2 out of 2 as Democrats.

This article shows a guilty plea from a Democrat who for years rigged votes with a Judge of Elections and Democrat Ward Leader, Domenick J. DeMuro. Demuro pled guilty in 2020.

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

#822

Post by jwozn »

giantg2 wrote: post #647
groby_b wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dead people on the registration list has of course not much to do with dead people actually casting a vote. Not to mention that many "dead" voters aren't dead, but the SSA fucked up. The Heritage Foundation, which is very much in love with the idea of voter fraud, has been able to find a total of 19 cases since 1997 where somebody used a deceased person's registration to (attempt to) vote. So maybe let's kick the fac…

The point was, in keeping with the context of the story and prior comments, that you didn't have to make up people to be able to ring up votes as an insider. On the larger topic of voter registration, it shouldn't be that hard for them to keep relatively clean rolls. Even if it's not causing an issue, having clean rolls promotes the integrity of and trust in the voting system. I mean, most of the dead people voting i…

Can you provide a citation for the 35 in Philly? Here is every instance of voter fraud in 2016 in Pennsylvania: https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?combine=&state=PA...

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

#823

Post by IncRnd »

sdenton4 wrote: post #817
throwawaylinux wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when it does happen, 9 times out of 10 the perp turns out to be a Republican. Citation, please.

Here's the biggest voter fraud case in decades, perpetrated by republicans: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/bladen-cou...

The ABA keeps a list of current litigation on election law. [1] Election law cases almost invariably come down to nobody wanting or being able to take responsibility. People are aware of issues, but the court cases take too long and the courts rule there is no remedy after the election, the plaintiffs suing have no standing, there is no remedy in law, since the legislature should oversee not the courts, etc. Yet, the legislatures do nothing but talk. Saying there isn't elections fraud all around is incorrect.

[1] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/election_...

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

#824

Post by r00fus »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #748
r00fus wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> France has FPTP For the vast majority of it's existence, the 5th republic has had proportional representation in the legislature (only changed with Sarkozy, who instituted 2-round elections - IIRC). Presidential has been 2-round for much longer, perhaps from the beginning of the 5th republic. Straight FPTP as implemented in many places in the US allows plurality winners (ie, winners that don't get 50% of the votes)…

>For the vast majority of it's existence, the 5th republic has had proportional representation in the legislature (only changed with Sarkozy, who instituted 2-round elections - IIRC). Uh, no. The Fifth has has two round legislative elections since its beginning. The entire reason for it was that the Fourth and Third showed what an overly powerful parliament caused, as well as the relative instability of having only a…

I stand corrected. Apparently proportional representation only happened in the 1986 elections when Mitterrand made that change for that single election [1]. Amusing reading back on what happened vs. what I heard about from others.

Regarding the 3 candidates in 2nd round - yes that's only possible because France allows 3 & 4 candidates to go into 2nd round if they have over 12.5%. This is usually not the case, so 3-rounds are very limited but as you indicate they do present a plurality win possibility.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_French_legislative_electi...

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

#825

Post by cogman10 »

upsidesinclude wrote: post #721
cogman10 wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signatures are, frankly, a bad way to determine if a ballot is valid or not. People's signatures change all the time and there's not exactly a science in determining whether or not two are the same. It's ultimately up to the counter to make that determination. Otherwise, I agree with your point. The reason ballot harvesting is much less of an issue than made out is because there's a vast paper trail with each mail in…

That is quite a statement. Especially considering signatures are the primary way ballots are certified. I don't believe 'signatures change' is reasonable or valid. By the time someone reaches adulthood and has an ID, their mark is likely to be quite distinct. Check your grandmother's signature sometime. My point being, that dismissal is not evidence or fact based, but likely aligns with your opinion. >ultimately up t…

> I don't believe 'signatures change' is reasonable or valid. By the time someone reaches adulthood and has an ID, their mark is likely to be quite distinct. Check your grandmother's signature sometime.

I have my own signature that I can check and I KNOW it has changed significantly over time. Why? Because I don't sign a lot of things! Hell, I hardly write anything down.

There are many, MANY, reasons a signature can change, for example, injury. But beyond that, there's just general drift in the way people write things. [1]

> The comparison can be done trivially by image processing.

No, it can't, because the signature is not exact, even in the best of cases. The software HAS to make allowances in differences and once that happens, we are in the territory of "what is this actually proving?"

Further, signature forgery is a thing. There's a reason banks and CCs no longer even check the signature. It's a relic that proves nothing.

But beyond all this conversation, the current process for states doing signature validation isn't to reach out to the person that cast the vote to verify their ballot, no, instead they mark the ballot as invalid and move on. [2]

Indeed, if the concern was voter fraud, why WOULDN'T you want to reach out to the absentee ballot caster to find out if they actually cast the ballot? Why would "throw it away" ever be the right move?

[1] https://www.thecut.com/2016/09/why-your-handwriting-keeps-ch...

[2] https://electionlab.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2021-07/swif...

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

#826

Post by michaelgrosner2 »

oneplane wrote: post #577
extropy wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The machine prints a paper ballot that is considered the actual vote. Any electronic copy is just a counting optimization. https://www.wired.com/2003/11/e-votes-must-leave-a-paper-tra...

That is how voting with electronics should be. It's great for entertainment/news etc to get early results but ultimately it doesn't matter if it takes a day or two with analog counting. Same day results really don't help with anything.

It doesn't matter until the incumbent uses that delay to his advantage by declaring themselves the winner and trying to lead their followers into believing votes counted after that declaration are fraudulent.

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

#827

Post by shadowgovt »

rayiner wrote: post #779
rootusrootus wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen your posts on HN, I don't buy that you're actually confused. Overt racism at the door to the DMV is not at all how you disenfranchise a group of citizens, especially in modern times. You make sure DMVs in predominantly black neighborhoods have short hours at times most inconvenient, you make sure polling places are understaffed and overbooked, things like that. It insulates you against direct evidence but…

I notice you switched from “brown” to “black” here. Was the switch substantive? But the DMV thing sounds like a QAnon-style conspiracy theory.

In normal times, I would agree with the conspiracy-like-thinking concern. Sadly, these are not normal times.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-01/alabama-c...

When one considers action such as this in light of the GOP being caught red-handed attempting to shape the census questions to deprive states of Congressional representation (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/us/census-citizenship-que...), it becomes, at the very least, suspicious. For at least a short time (politically speaking, maybe half a generation), the GOP has lost the benefit of the doubt regarding its actions being race-neutral and some healthy skepticism is justified.

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

#828

Post by sidlls »

seoaeu wrote: post #672
sidlls wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an incredibly uncharitable read of my comment.

I wasn't trying to be uncharitable. You said that we should have retroactively discarded 100% of votes from specific precincts, so I pointed out why allowing selective invalidation like that is a really bad idea.

No, you uncharitably ignored the majority of my comment in your haste to make a sarcastic response.

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

#829

Post by themitigating »

rvz wrote: post #684
themitigating wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-usa-mules/fact-che... The movie is another attempt to use circumstantial evidence without actually having a proper investigation. Then all the Republicans angry that Trump didn't win will go to forums, like this one, and say "watch 2000 mules" without providing any details because when Trump lost they didn't get what they wanted and can't deal with it.

Quoted post unavailable.

Did Reuters suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story?

The Russian interference in the 2016 election did occur according the Muller report.

"When it comes to 'fact checkers', not even they are honest either and like the media are as manipulative as the actual disinformation campaigns"

How do you know they are equally manipulative? Considering the amount of time some news organizations have been around and the number or stories vs the semi recent introduction of bots

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

#830

Post by Dylan16807 »

dahfizz wrote: post #786
Dylan16807 wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> such as unregistering people who aren't living in that state anymore and checking ID when voting, are themselves election rigging Unregistering has had some serious problems of hitting active voters in the past, though I'm not an expert there. But I can easily say that checking ID, without first making sure valid voters can easily get the needed ID, is unacceptable.

> But I can easily say that checking ID, without first making sure valid voters can easily get the needed ID, is unacceptable. Agreed. The issue is the Democratic solution is to never ID, instead of coming up with a way to easily get people IDs. That makes me rather suspicious of their motives.

I think they do that because nuance gets lost so easily. And some of those laws going through are anti-voter in so many ways that getting lost in the weeds of hypothetical situations weakens the pushback.
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