Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20% • Hacker News Board

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#171

Post by andrewla » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

crispyambulance wrote: post #137

andrewla wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is inactive voters are just that, inactive. There is very small risk that some of their names might get used for voter fraud. But every time this is researched, only a handful of incidents are discovered and it takes thousands to swing an election. You claim the risk is small, but I'm not aware of anything that actually supports this assessment. This form of manipulation is nearly impossible to detect in…

> [Voter fraud] is nearly impossible to detect in a meaningful way. If the "victims" of voter fraud truly cared enough, they could audit the voter records for any election. Unless I am wrong, there exists a record of whether or not each person on the rolls actually voted. The intersection of the people who voted with those that are deemed truly inactive would be the extend of the voter fraud (at best). No one seems t…

> If the "victims" of voter fraud truly cared enough, they could audit the voter records for any election. Unless I am wrong, there exists a record of whether or not each person on the rolls actually voted. The intersection of the people who voted with those that are deemed truly inactive would be the extend of the voter fraud (at best).

To be clear -- what do you mean by "truly inactive"? Usually "truly inactive" means they haven't voted. So people who voted are by default not "truly inactive". You would have to take some sort of heuristic estimate of how likely it is that a voter is inactive, and cross that with the voting record, and then attempt to individually contact the voter to verify that they did vote. The quality of such a heuristic would fundamentally affect the results. In other words, the experiment would either confirm widespread voter fraud, or, way more likely, provide no evidence for or against voter fraud.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#172

Post by jcims » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #60

jcims wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a data point as I can’t read the article right now. Franklin County is the largest county in the state and represents 11% of the population.

A policy that harms city-voting more than rural will innately benefit Republicans.

Sure but the only two numbers I saw were 235k and 20k, indicating the set of users removed in Franklin county may have actually been underrepresented (However now that i can see the article the 20k is actually 50% of the set of 40k folks that shouldn't have been on the list, which of course is a different story.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#173

Post by pedasmith » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

biomcgary wrote: post #35

According to the article, moderate Republicans in Ohio insisted on transparency for purging voter rolls. They sent out the proposed list to various voter advocacy groups across the political spectrum, which reviewed the proposed changes and flagged mistakes. 80% were purged correctly. 20% were not. Rather than condemning Ohio, they should be praised for bringing transparency to the process (as long as the mistakes ar…

Good to know your threshold for major fuck-ups is 20%. Would you accept a grocery store that overcharges you 20% of the time? Would you accept a car that doesn't start 20% of the time?

A reasonable process would do a spot-check, discover that they are horrifically off, and then implement a second-level check.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#174

Post by crooked-v » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

jimmywanger wrote: post #157

crooked-v wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why can't they issue free IDs and track every voter in a database and call it a day? Because the goal of the Republican Party is explicitly to use these laws to suppress the votes of certain demographics, not to actually secure the vote. For an example direct quote from a court case: https://twitter.com/haroldpollack/status/1051657219899617280

> Because the goal of the Republican Party is explicitly to use these laws to suppress the votes of certain demographics, not to actually secure the vote. Your linked source is talking about an entirely different issue. Does not prove your point about Republicans using voter id laws to suppress the votes of certain demographics, or that it's a point of the Republican party as a national organization to do that. All w…

> Your linked source is talking about an entirely different issue.

It's a court ruling that shut down North Carolina voter ID and early voting laws, in part because the defense of those laws included that that literal quote about it making harder for black people to vote.

> All we know is that some Republicans are biased, just as all people have biases.

When 'some' is enough to control a state legislature, and similar things happen across the country (https://www.npr.org/2018/10/23/659784277/republican-voter-su...), it's a logical conclusion.

> Also, your source is not substantiated.

It literally links directly to the court judgement.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#175

Post by souprock » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 6:48 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #138

neonIcon wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To do a laundry list[1] of other things that I would consider less important than voting requires an ID, which in turn requires you to go to the dreaded DMV. Is it the duty of the government to provide the ID for these people? Nope. [1]] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/24-things-that-require-a-... Almost every single one of which is either illegal, or very difficult to do without an ID.

None of these things listed are constitutional rights like voting and most of the things listed are more difficult but not impossible without ID.

This one is: "12. Purchase a gun"

On the other hand, unless you are one of the 538 electors, you don't have a constitutional right to vote for the president.

So if "constitutional rights" is the determining factor, it's the ID requirement for guns that you should be fighting against.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#176

Post by weberc2 » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 6:53 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #146

weberc2 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm totally fine with requiring an ID _and_ making it easy for legitimate voters to get one. I don't understand why there are people who are opposed to voter ID requirements (full stop), as though they are inherently racist.

The latter is where Voter ID laws tend to bite. They make it difficult for certain communities to obtain an ID via a variety of underhanded tricks. What you typically see is a Voter ID go into effect, and then whoops, the state budget is too tight this year so we're closing down a whole bunch of DMV locations and restricting hours on the rest.

So require ID-issuing authorities to keep certain hours. This is a trivial problem; I don't understand the compulsion to paint this as a dichotomy--there's lots of middleground between Evil Racist voter ID requirements and no voter ID requirements at all; it's not even a slippery slope.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#177

Post by crooked-v » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 6:56 PM UTC

neonIcon wrote: post #166

slg wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most times people say ID is "required" is because they are lazy and don't want to go through the effort of confirming identity using other means. There are certainly things that do legally require ID like opening a bank account, but others just have a strong preference for ID such as flying which can be done without ID if you are committed to fighting through the difficulties.

I am not sure where you live but in the U.S. flying without an ID of some sort is impossible, and an accepted ID other than a drivers license all have an arguably larger barrier to entry than going to the DMV and paying the ~$10 and an hour+ of your time. That or you are someone with an inordinate amount of resources available to you and are looking at this problem through rose colored glasses.

Consider places like the town where the DMV is only open four days per year, and the closest alternative is 20 miles away and only open two days per week. https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2016/feb/19/...

There are a lot of people for whom the 'small' barrier to entry of dealing with state bureaucracy is much larger than it is in your world.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#178

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 6:58 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #33

> She went online and discovered that her name had also been flagged as an inactive voter. The state was in the process of removing her from its voter rolls. > “I voted three times last year,” said Ms. Miller. I am still baffled at the election system in this country. Every state does its own thing. One state uses paper, other uses some machines which can be easily hacked, some use both. Somehow voter ID is controver…

Such "seams" are needed in the voting system to allow states to disenfranchise people. The country has a very rich and recent history of disenfranchising blacks wholesale, and that history is what guides changes to the voting system today.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#179

Post by crooked-v » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 7:01 PM UTC

weberc2 wrote: post #115

zucker42 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10% of households don't have a computer and 15% of adults don't have a driver's license. Maybe your experiences don't generalize to the rest of the population. Also, many states require you register to far ahead of time and will arbitrarily purge you from the voting roles . So I guess my point is this is more of issue than you're making it seem.

> 10% of households don't have a computer Does this include smart phones? Seems like percent of people with Internet access would be more relevant. I would think public libraries would also provide a lot of coverage here. > 15% of adults don't have a driver's license What's the statistic for adults with any kind of government issued identification? Surely that's more relevant for this debate than the driver's license…

> What's the statistic for adults with any kind of government issued identification? Surely that's more relevant for this debate than the driver's license statistic?

A factor to keep in mind here is that it's an established tactic for Republicans to specifically allow alternative IDs used by whites for voting purposes, while banning alternative IDs used by blacks for voting purposes. A North Carolina law was struck down in 2016 specifically for this reason, for example.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#180

Post by slg » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 7:03 PM UTC

neonIcon wrote: post #166

slg wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most times people say ID is "required" is because they are lazy and don't want to go through the effort of confirming identity using other means. There are certainly things that do legally require ID like opening a bank account, but others just have a strong preference for ID such as flying which can be done without ID if you are committed to fighting through the difficulties.

I am not sure where you live but in the U.S. flying without an ID of some sort is impossible, and an accepted ID other than a drivers license all have an arguably larger barrier to entry than going to the DMV and paying the ~$10 and an hour+ of your time. That or you are someone with an inordinate amount of resources available to you and are looking at this problem through rose colored glasses.

Once again, it is highly suggested you use an ID, but it isn't 100% required.

From TSA's website[1]:

>In the event you arrive at the airport without valid identification, because it is lost or at home, you may still be allowed to fly. The TSA officer may ask you to complete an identity verification process which includes collecting information such as your name, current address, and other personal information to confirm your identity. If your identity is confirmed, you will be allowed to enter the screening checkpoint. You will be subject to additional screening, to include a patdown and screening of carry-on property.

[1] - https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification