Election fraud in the US: what can we do?

[bup]

@Agnostic Pagan

If requiring citizens to pay for an ID in order to vote, would that be considered a poll tax?

So it would seem, Socrates.

[Blalron]

@Agnostic Pagan

A related question that a letter to the editor brought up. If requiring citizens to pay for an ID in order to vote, would that be considered a poll tax?

It’s a poll tax. Calling it a different name doesn’t change what it is. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc… it’s a duck.

[Agnostic_Pagan]

@Blalron

It’s a poll tax. Calling it a different name doesn’t change what it is. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc… it’s a duck.

Then we should have a very interesting case come out of Missouri soon. I know they buried provisions in the legislation about offering assistance for low-income people. Didn’t give those programs any funding… but I wonder if it was enough to cover the Constitutional butts.

[BobLibDem]

From the New York Times

The latest sign that Republicans have an election-year strategy to shut down voter registration drives comes from Ohio. As the state gears up for a very competitive election season this fall, its secretary of state, J. Kenneth Blackwell, has put in place “emergency” regulations that could hit voter registration workers with criminal penalties for perfectly legitimate registration practices. The rules are so draconian they could shut down registration drives in Ohio.
…
This year, Mr. Blackwell’s office has issued rules and materials that appear to require that paid registration workers, and perhaps even volunteers, personally take the forms they collect to an election office. Organizations that run registration drives generally have the people who register voters bring the forms back to supervisors, who can then review them for errors. Under Mr. Blackwell’s edict, everyone involved could be committing a crime. Mr. Blackwell’s rules also appear to prohibit people who register voters from sending the forms in by mail. That rule itself may violate federal elections law.

Of course, Ohio was the scene of the crime in the 2004 presidential election theft. Blackwell may be the most blatant example of partisan election rigging, but there are likely others doing things under the radar. The nation needs election reform and until it comes, I don’t trust the outcomes. From the registration process to thugs intimidating potential voters to black box ballot manipulation there are simply too many opportunities for vermin like Blackwell to do their dirty work.

What the voters can do is make election reform an issue. Write to congressmen, write to the news media and demand that this issue is discussed in the campaign. This will go on until the politicians realize that the people won’t stand for it.

[Steve_MB]

@Agnostic Pagan

I think election reform will require three major changes: 1) Constitutional ban on jerrymandering. It has become absolutely ridiculous. An independent non-partisan (f*ck bi-partisanship) agency should be created for all redistricting nationwide. Pass whatever amendments are necessary, but that is essential to any long-term reform.

Any such “agency” would simply be captured by some interest or other. About the only system that would actually work is one that creates an objective mathematical criterion for “compactness” (e.g. a district must include x% of the land area within a circle that contains the entire district).

2. Follow the Australian model and make voting mandatory. If you don’t want to vote as a form of protest, put a hundred into the kitty.

Fining people for expressing the opinion that the political system is invalid is anathema to a free society.

3. Make it easy as possible to vote. The greatest irony about our current government is that we have upwards of eight months to pay our taxes, but one day to make the decision on how they will be spent. The government should spend at least as much on making voting possible as it does on collecting revenue.

Personally, I’d do away with withholding and have a drop box for your annual tax check right in front of the polls. (That would at least eliminate failure to vote out of simple laziness, since showing up for that part would be mandatory. You could still leave without voting if you’d decided that all the candidates and/or the system generally sucks.)

States should be required to provide a basic ID card at no cost to whoever wants one

Strictly speaking, they already are so required if they require ID documents to vote (as they should, for obvious anti-fraud reasons) – otherwise, the cost of the document would be a poll tax.

[Steve_MB]

@Agnostic Pagan

Then we should have a very interesting case come out of Missouri soon. I know they buried provisions in the legislation about offering assistance for low-income people. Didn’t give those programs any funding… but I wonder if it was enough to cover the Constitutional butts.

It most certainly does not cover their Constitutional butts. The Constitution does not say “no poll taxes unless you means-test them”. It says “no poll taxes”, period.

[BrainGlutton]

@BobLibDem

From the New York Times

My Og! Is that shitstain Blackwell still Ohio’s SoS? :mad:

[BrainGlutton]

@Steve MB

Any such “agency” would simply be captured by some interest or other.

Many countries – e.g., Canada – have a nonpartisan agency to draw electoral boundaries, and to run the elections; and AFAIK, they seem to work well enough without being “captured” by any “interest.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_Canada

@Steve MB

Fining people for expressing the opinion that the political system is invalid is anathema to a free society.

Failure to vote != “expressing the opinion that the political system is invalid.”

[rjung]

@BrainGlutton

My Og! Is that shitstain Blackwell still Ohio’s SoS? :mad:

He’s on the fast track to the White House, don’t you know? Why, just look at what election-rigging has done for Katherine Harris’ political career!