Voter intimidation is against the law.
Yes, and? ICE is out there violating the law multiple times every day, in front of numerous witnesses and camera phones. The law isn't going to protect us.
Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections
81–90 of 99 posts
Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections
#82[flagged]
Illegal immigrants are not voting, especially in significant numbers. Meanwhile this exact topic is discussing how our voting system may be directly attacked by effectively a foreign power, after the population was previously swayed by foreign influence in the form of revanchist propaganda highlighting all of America's problems while offering no solution beyond naked fascism red in tooth and claw. It's also utterly d…
> Illegal immigrants are not voting, especially in significant numbers.
How can you know this though?
Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a recent first-past-the-post statewide special election somewhere?
State house elections, 2 of them in Minnesota: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/27/specials-elections-...
Those aren't the kinds of elections that can be interfered with in the way I suggested. Those are district elections.
Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a recent first-past-the-post statewide special election somewhere?
Taylor Rehmet just won a Texas senate seat by 14%. It was a 31% swing from the results in that district in the 2024 elections.
As I said to the other guy, the way that Trump wants to disrupt elections is not applicable to district elections.
Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections
#85Americans have been in a hot civil war since January 2021 and just refuse to realize it.
No, not hot. But yes, we are in one.
Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Illegal immigrants are not voting, especially in significant numbers. Meanwhile this exact topic is discussing how our voting system may be directly attacked by effectively a foreign power, after the population was previously swayed by foreign influence in the form of revanchist propaganda highlighting all of America's problems while offering no solution beyond naked fascism red in tooth and claw. It's also utterly d…
> Illegal immigrants are not voting, especially in significant numbers. How can you know this though?
Well, I'd say the claim is "illegal immigrants are voting in significant numbers, and that's a problem we need to fix". That's the claim that proposes to change the status quo, so that's the claim that needs to supply the evidence.
Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Illegal immigrants are not voting, especially in significant numbers. Meanwhile this exact topic is discussing how our voting system may be directly attacked by effectively a foreign power, after the population was previously swayed by foreign influence in the form of revanchist propaganda highlighting all of America's problems while offering no solution beyond naked fascism red in tooth and claw. It's also utterly d…
> Illegal immigrants are not voting, especially in significant numbers. How can you know this though?
What do you mean? State governments administer voter rolls. One of the general requirements for registering to vote is proving you are a citizen [0]. What is your exact claim here? Going above and beyond to steelman this, I can think of two possibilities:
Is it that illegal immigrants are showing up to polling places and standing in the shoes of actual citizens? And they've managed to be organized enough while doing this that there aren't a bunch of citizens that show up right before polls close being told they've already voted? [1]
Or is it that states are not verifying citizenship, contrary to their plainly-stated procedures and straightforward identity databases? If so, where is the evidence of this? Not occasional instances of fraud, but indications of large-scale illegality on the part of any state?
Or is there a specific claim of something else I have missed?
As I'm always seeing this sweeping general indictment but never any elaboration on what the specific claim it is, it seems like another bit of simplistic FUD that preys on intellectual laziness to undermine trust in our public institutions. And vague half-formed claims like "How can you know this though?" seem right in line with this.
[0] the only exceptions I can find are a few rare municipalities for local elections only (not even state elections!)
[1] and if this was a problem, why would the focus be specifically on illegal immigrants rather than including citizens doing the same thing to vote more than once?
Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
No they can’t, states cannot interfere with federal law enforcement in any way. They can refuse to help (and even that is controversial), but they cannot impede. Remember, it’s not like Trump and ICE are going to be announcing that they intend to interfere with elections, they’ll say it’s legitimate law enforcement against a credible threat, and state interference with Federal law enforcement against “credible threat…
The "act now, justify later" blade cuts both ways.
Who do you imagine would do the “acting” here, i.e. who would be ones actually on the ground arresting ICE officers at polling stations? Local police, the state National Guard? How sure are you they would obey the (textually illegal) orders to do that? Because these are both cohorts who lean heavily pro-Trump; I’m fairly confident they would not.
Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Illegal immigrants are not voting, especially in significant numbers. How can you know this though?
What do you mean? State governments administer voter rolls. One of the general requirements for registering to vote is proving you are a citizen [0]. What is your exact claim here? Going above and beyond to steelman this, I can think of two possibilities: Is it that illegal immigrants are showing up to polling places and standing in the shoes of actual citizens? And they've managed to be organized enough while doing…
I've always assumed it to be #2 combined with indiscriminate mail-in ballots if it were happening. Anecdotally, my non-citizen roommate received a ballot in Seattle. I'm genuinely asking: how do we know this? What is the mechanism by which this is known well enough to be strongly claimed with regularity? For #1, if that were happening, would it be documented somewhere that N people tried to vote and had already voted? If #2, would it be documented somewhere that an audit of verification procedures happened? Where would these be documented?
Re: Steve Bannon Proposes Using ICE in Elections
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean? State governments administer voter rolls. One of the general requirements for registering to vote is proving you are a citizen [0]. What is your exact claim here? Going above and beyond to steelman this, I can think of two possibilities: Is it that illegal immigrants are showing up to polling places and standing in the shoes of actual citizens? And they've managed to be organized enough while doing…
I've always assumed it to be #2 combined with indiscriminate mail-in ballots if it were happening. Anecdotally, my non-citizen roommate received a ballot in Seattle. I'm genuinely asking: how do we know this? What is the mechanism by which this is known well enough to be strongly claimed with regularity? For #1, if that were happening, would it be documented somewhere that N people tried to vote and had already voted…
The reasonable assumption is that mail in ballots are checked after they are mailed in, as they're being tallied. This avoids people voting in person plus mailing in, duplicating ballots, rolls changing before the election, etc.
The only concern I see is that unilaterally mailing out ballots can induce fraud from new residents at the address filling out the ballots for the old residents - drastically lowering the bar from pretending to be someone else at a polling place, or even having to actively request ballots for someone else.
> would it be documented somewhere that an audit of verification procedures happened? Where would these be documented?
That you're asking this as open pondering rather than just straightforwardly researching your own state still feels quite leading. For the states I am familiar with, administering the voting rolls is the responsibility of the Secretary of State. They do generally perform audits, but you have to dig into the specifics of your own state if you want the exact answers of what has been audited - not just handwave vague feelings of how you personally not knowing must imply the worst possibility. This is what I mean about undermining trust in our public institutions.
Specifically for your own example of your non-citizen roommate receiving a ballot, it seems that you should look up what your Secretary of State has to say about the matter. I'm guessing they've got a well-written FAQ page that lays out how such a ballot would be rejected.