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Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

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Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#141

Post by masonic »

ch4s3 wrote: post #106
wang_li wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the only form of vote fraud. Non-citizens voting is illegal and happens[1]. Does it happen in massive numbers? No idea, probably not. To what extent, though, does it compare to eligible voters who don't have ID, which is a common complaint about voter ID laws, which are struck down in the courts all the time. 1: https://www.justice.gov/file/3835pdf/download

Non-citizens voting is still in person voter fraud. I'm sure it has happened, but it is vanishingly rare, you citation is about 1 person. There is simply no incentive to commit that crime. Even less so if you're a non-citizen, because if you're caught you'll be deported. Very few people commit crimes where they have nothing to gain, a lot to lose, and a high chance of being caught. It is almost a non-issue. There is…

  There is simply no incentive to commit that crime.
There is exactly the same incentive as that to suppress a vote for the other side.

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#142

Post by masonic »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #36
Amezarak wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you detect this kind of fraud? Historically, whenever states go about trying to verify their voter registration databases, they end up wiping out swaths of real, actual voters for various reasons, which usually makes it a non-starter. I doubt it's very common in a fraud sense (though there are probably a lot of people who aren't supposed to be able to vote who end up voting), but either way, it's a difficul…

> How would you detect this kind of fraud? Voter rolls are public. You can't see how someone voted, but you can see if they voted.

No, all you can see is that somebody claiming to be X voted at Precinct Y using Z method (in-person, absentee, provisional vote).

You have to accept a vote whether that voter appears on your roll or note (if unregistered, a provisional ballot is cast; it's generally not opened unless the sum total of provisionals can sway a race).

You can't challenge a signature for invalidity, and you can't pull that ballot even if it is later found to be invalid.

Even if a fraudulent vote was cast in the name of a real voter, and that real voter shows up later to vote (and has photo ID), his/her ballot turns into a provisional ballot, and the first-cast, bogus ballot is never retracted.

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#143

Post by masonic »

Amezarak wrote: post #27
s73ver_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how are you going to do this on a large scale? Especially without being caught?

How would you detect this kind of fraud? Historically, whenever states go about trying to verify their voter registration databases, they end up wiping out swaths of real, actual voters for various reasons, which usually makes it a non-starter. I doubt it's very common in a fraud sense (though there are probably a lot of people who aren't supposed to be able to vote who end up voting), but either way, it's a difficul…

  they end up wiping out swaths of real, actual voters
Examples?

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#144

Post by Bud »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #128
wahern wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software means one idiot's algorithm can quickly become every idiot's algorithm. That said, the urge to federalize everything is troublesome. Democrats want to protect Alabamians from Alabama, but who's gonna protect us when Alabama takes over the federal government? De-centralization at the very least makes it easier to fix mistakes piecemeal, even if it doesn't prevent everybody from making the same mistake.

One benefit of the electoral college is that it compartmentalizes voter fraud to the state in which it happens. If I'm a corrupt election official in a state that is going to give a presidential candidate a large margin of victory, I have no incentive to risk being caught manipulating vote tallies (for president). If we ever switch to using the national popular vote instead, think we'd see lots of cases of local offi…

You are misusing the term "voter fraud" here. It doesn't mean what you think it means. "Voter fraud" refers only to intentional voting by people who don't have the right to vote, or who are voting more than once.

There basically is no such thing as "voter fraud"; there have only been a few handfuls of cases in the past two decades, out of billions of votes cast. So it's important not to play fast and loose with the use of this term. Republicans are using professional liars to allege that voter fraud is a real thing. It's not.

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#145

Post by Bud »

munk-a wrote: post #88
Bud wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really about "partisan entrenchment"; this is not a bipartisan issue. It's an issue with Republicans. There's no history of any large-scale activity like this from Democrats.

Democrats gerrymander and listen to lobbyists just like republicans, but you're correct that currently this is just an issue of abuse from republicans. Democrats have everything to gain by enfranchising as much people as possible because their voter base is growing faster than the GOP and urban areas tend to have lower turnout and vote more toward Liberals. But if the tables were flipped I'm sure folks would come out…

Gerrymandering and lobbyists are entirely irrelevant to the issue at hand.

What you are "sure of" is just really invented. There's absolutely no evidence in the recent past of Democrats pulling any crap like this. Certainly not as an intentional, national policy initiative designed to disenfranchise others.

Brazile is similarly irrelevant; the very most she is even alleged to have done is to tell someone about debate questions ahead of time, which would only be considered a serious advantage by people credulous enough to believe that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders aren't talented and intelligent enough to handle all foreseeable questions quite well. DWS' actions are similarly entirely irrelevant to a discussion of voter suppression.

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#146

Post by JumpCrisscross »

masonic wrote: post #142
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would you detect this kind of fraud? Voter rolls are public. You can't see how someone voted, but you can see if they voted.

No, all you can see is that somebody claiming to be X voted at Precinct Y using Z method (in-person, absentee, provisional vote). You have to accept a vote whether that voter appears on your roll or note (if unregistered, a provisional ballot is cast; it's generally not opened unless the sum total of provisionals can sway a race). You can't challenge a signature for invalidity, and you can't pull that ballot even if…

> You can't challenge a signature for invalidity

In New York any poll worker can challenge a signature for validity. Those ballots are specially marked and subject to individualised scrutiny.

This thread has got to have the highest-confidence totally-wrong assertions I’ve seen on Hacker News in a long time.

> his/her ballot turns into a provisional ballot, and the first-cast, bogus ballot is never retracted

What do you think happens to provisional ballots? They’re provisional because they’re specially handled. If a double vote occurs on a name, that’s certainly investigates (again, in New York).

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#147

Post by ch4s3 »

wang_li wrote: post #119
ch4s3 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-citizens voting is still in person voter fraud. I'm sure it has happened, but it is vanishingly rare, you citation is about 1 person. There is simply no incentive to commit that crime. Even less so if you're a non-citizen, because if you're caught you'll be deported. Very few people commit crimes where they have nothing to gain, a lot to lose, and a high chance of being caught. It is almost a non-issue. There is…

>I'm sure it has happened, but it is vanishingly rare, you citation is about 1 person. Yes. I found a single link to to illustrate that it does happen, not to quantify how much it happens. Several people have replied saying that it doesn't happen at all. When I link to sources showing it does they switch to saying it doesn't happen enough to matter. Well, a group in Virginia found that 1852 ballots cast by non-citize…

> Yes. I found a single link to to illustrate that it does happen

A single instance is an anecdote, not data. You should not make policy by anecdote.

>Two different surveys have found that ~13% of illegal immigrants from Mexico have registered to vote.

Which surveys? By whom? I've never heard that before, and I follow the issue. I'm tempted to call this an outright lie.

> It seems in every election cycle in King County, Washington people mail in ballots of recently deceased relatives.

Again, that's not in person voter fraud, which doesn't exit as a real problem. That's mail in ballot fraud, which none of the voter suppression laws and purges target. I previously said twice, mail in ballot fraud is the only way voter fraud practically ever happens in the US. You are willfully trying to obscure that fact.

> By definition even a single ineligible voter destroys the integrity of an election.

No it doesn't. The margin of error on counting votes is at a state wide level is often measured in 1000s of votes. A single fraudulent vote is noise statistically. You are lying and pandering to fear to support draconian and ridiculous voter roll purges. You are presenting weak arguments and no real evidence. You are trading in anecdote and fear.

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#148

Post by ch4s3 »

wang_li wrote: post #132
ch4s3 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You own second citation contains the following passage: >ridges removed the five votes from the final count: four for Rossi and one for Ruth Bennett.[32] No evidence was brought before the court of any of the illegal votes benefitted Gregoire.[32] The final margin of victory for Gregoire over Rossi was 133 votes.[33] Rossi did not appeal to the state Supreme Court[34] and the Washington State Republican party settled…

You'll note that I said more general election fraud happens. That was the point of the 2004 election reference. >Even in this case, there is no proof of substantial voter fraud deciding an election. Perhaps not voter fraud, but certainly the fact that there were substantially more improperly cast ballots than the outcome of the election makes it impossible to know which candidate received more votes. The judge's ruli…

> Perhaps not voter fraud

You said it was an example of voter fraud, I guess expecting no one to be familiar with the case or to bother reading the decision. What is your game here?

> substantially more improperly cast ballots

Then fix the ballots and the procedure for casting them. THat's no reason to purge rolls with a 99% error rate in the purging process.

> The judge's ruling does not change reality.

Neither does you nonsense argument. The ruling does however change settled case law. And wishing it away doesn't make in person voter fraud a problem, which it is not.

You are a liar, and you are spinning the truth. You are clearly a shill for the interests that want to purge rightful voters from the rolls. You are an enemy of democracy.

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#149

Post by vkou »

masonic wrote: post #140
vkou wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an issue. People passing laws that disenfranchise voters aren't doing it in states with mail-in ballots. Your examples of voter fraud are in a mail-in ballot state. Please provide equivalent, widespread, impactfull, examples in an in-person voting state. You won't because you can't. Never mind that adding an extra vote to a voting pool does not have the same effect as denying a person the right to vote. Stea…

You won't because you can't. A Freedom of Information Act disclosure showed Chicago had more votes than voters in 2016 elections: 1,101,178 voters, 1,115,664 votes cast[2]. Detroit: voting machines in more than one third of precints recorded more votes than there were voters! In California, 11 counties have more registered voters than voting age citizens. A few other examples: https://www.theepochtimes.com/in-los-ang…

Is this a problem of people voting when they aren't supposed to, or a problem with the voting machines, or the vote counting process?

Unless the level of criminality by members the public in Chicago is truly mind-boggling (Thousands of people casting dozens of votes each), I'd speculate that the problem lies higher up the tree of elected and unelected office. Or perhaps in the counting methodology used to come up with the number of votes, and number of voters. [1]

But your citation is only corroborated by tabloids, so we will never know.

[1] https://www.snopes.com/more-votes-than-voters-in-detroit/

Re: Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

#150

Post by ScottBurson »

wahern wrote: post #76
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It should require federal action Shooting from the hip is a good way to trash a democracy. What you're proposing would allow a single, centralized actor to purge voters from the rolls. De-centralised systems will always have longer, more-idiotic tails. That's the tradeoff for their robust central tendencies.

Software means one idiot's algorithm can quickly become every idiot's algorithm. That said, the urge to federalize everything is troublesome. Democrats want to protect Alabamians from Alabama, but who's gonna protect us when Alabama takes over the federal government? De-centralization at the very least makes it easier to fix mistakes piecemeal, even if it doesn't prevent everybody from making the same mistake.

I've been wondering whether the way the political war in the US will end will be by a devolution of power to the states, with things like abortion rights, immigration policy, drug policy, health care, the social safety net, and maybe even taxation and some trade policies decided at the state level instead of federally. Just a thought, but it has occurred to me.
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