Your equivalence fails for several reasons:
(1) Statements about large groups of people and statements about single individuals are totally different. The level and types of evidence that would or would not convince an objective observer that Ann Coulter had committed voter fraud are vastly different from the level and types of evidence that would or would not convince that same observer that NO ONE had ever committed voter fraud, or for that matter that voter fraud was prevalent.
(2) Statements which are just basically throwaway comments are very different from statements being used as the basis for laws. If you say “there is so much voter fraud that we need to start changing voter ID laws to combat it”, then it’s WAY more important that your point be supported and supportable than if you’re just some guy shooting the shit on the SDMB.
(3) As far as I know, no one claimed that the amount of voter fraud in US elections in general is ZERO, rather that it’s vanishingly small. This of course makes the whole topic much harder to debate, because in addition to collecting evidence of the actual rate of voter fraud, we need to debate what does and does not qualify as “vanishingly small”. Which makes the whole issue much more complicated.
In other words, the claim “we have seen zero convictions for voter fraud, that proves there was never any voter fraud at all” is foolish for several reasons, but they’re not precisely the same reasons that “Ann Coulter wasn’t convicted of voter fraud, that proves she did not commit voter fraud”. But no one made the first statement anyhow.
I disagree. If you accept that voter fraud occurs in a specific case, but is so difficult to prove (or that proving it sufficient for a criminal conviction is so difficult that it won’t be pursued) then that’s precisely the evidence that allows you to say, at least as a prima facie statement, “Voter fraud exists and the lack of criminal convictions is no strong evidence to the contrary.”
You must see this.
Just joking, huh?
No, I don’t agree. Adopting this point allows one to essentially have free rhetorical reign on both sides of any point.
One can certainly say, at this juncture, “I wasn’t serious – I posited Coulter’s guilt because she’s an unpleasant bitch, not out of a good-faith belief in her guilt.” But you cannot simultaneously contend that Coulter was factually guilty, but remains unprosecuted because it’s too difficult to prove these kind of cases, and that the lack of convictions for voter fraud means that few such cases exist.
Plenty of people have claimed ZERO. When called on it, they then acknowledge they meant “a really small number.”
Yes, this adds a measure of uncertainty to the debate. But it doesn’t kill the basic disconnect I identify here in claiming Coulter’s guilty but skating punishment AND that voter fraud must be proven by criminal convictions. You know, as does everyone reading this thread, that both those positions have been advanced here.
That you are capable of identifying a specious argument does nothing to advance your own. Which has at least two essential components, only one of which is the existence of voter fraud. Proving the existence of Bigfoot does not instantly justify nuking the Pacific Northwestern forests in order to exterminate the threat.
Pretending that voter fraud exists in some significant number (that you are loathe to specify) but only appears to be absent due to the difficulty in conviction for the crime is an argument that bends over backwards and bites its own ass. A mighty effort has been made to find such massive numbers, the snark has been hunted, but cannot be found. You can explain away this failure to your own satisfaction but that doesn’t make it so.
If, by chance, you happen to know an intelligent Republican conservative who is not utterly corrupted by cynicism, could you direct them our way? We thought we had one, at one time, but sadly, no.
I’m saying the same thing that happens (presumably) in Ms. Coulter’s case. Why are you willing to believe it in her case but not willing to believe the same problems exist in other similar cases?
The only 2012 vote fraud instances I’ve read about so far involved women in Nevada, Colorado, (and NY, CT, and Fla if Anne is counted). That’s 3 in five states.
200,000 > 3.
I’ve mentioned it before, but perhaps not in this thread - My middle daughter’s best friend, a student at Oberlin in 2004, waited in line in the rain many hours to vote. The Ohio authorities, I’m sure, were aware of the situation. No doubt many anti-Bush votes were never cast as a result. Not just in that area, but in other areas the Teahadists did not like.
https://oncampus.oberlin.edu/source/articles/2012/10/03/voting-and-connecting
I’d like to remind everyone that Bricker isn’t at all honest when it comes to debating issues. He has made several claims in voter fraud threads about how ACORN broke the law.
He never mentions that it was a local office manager, who broke a local law, apparently because the manager didn’t know that the state law was different. That manager didn’t hide what he did, in fact, he publicized it. So it appears that it was a genuine lack of knowledge on his part. ACORN took its lumps for the mistake, and it hardly seemed like a pattern of malfeasance.
But Bricker mentions this, without the context in every voter fraud thread. He knows that by just throwing out a misleading, “ACORN broke the law.” in such a thread he can further the conservative myth that ACORN was responsible for voter fraud.
He’s a dishonest person. And dealing with him like he has any integrity at all is a mistake. He is perfectly happy to win because of cheating.
The point is… It’s funny.
Some Republicans have been going on and on about voter fraud by the “other” side. For example, see anything written by the right about ACORN.
So when examples of possible voter fraud are brought to light - it’s funny as hell when they actually turn out to have been committed by Republicans. Like that lady who tried to “prove” vote fraud was easy to commit and ended up being caught, thus disproving her own thesis.
This is funny.
We point and laugh at it. Because it shows how stupid and ill-informed they are.
If someone can find an example of a person who was bitching about standing in line to vote and complaining about voter disenfranchisement… who subsequently was found to be the person responsible for getting rid of voting machines and causing lineups… Then I will point and laugh at them too.
Yes, but if I suggest there are other cases, ones that don’t make the news and don’t result in criminal convictions, the typical reaction is denial.
I contend that Coulter’s case shows that this is quite possible. Certainly Coulter is in the news because of her celebrity status, and it shows perfectly the difficulty in obtaining a criminal conviction on those facts – facts that people here seem very willing to believe amount to voter fraud from Ms. Coulter.
But there’s a fundamental difference between someone who claims voter fraud attempts aren’t caught, and is then caught, disproving the claim…and a person who is “caught” but remains unprosecuted, proving MY claim that the lack of criminal convictions is no proof of the lack of voter fraud, since it’s so difficult to prove criminal intent.
And of course Lobo makes posts like this, leading the casual reader to assume that there’s only been one instance of an ACORN worker committing criminal acts connected to voter registration and getting convicted for same.
But of course, there are more. Right, Oh Purveyor Of The Truth?
This is also amusing. Reminds me of the scene in the Princess Bride with the Iocane Powder.
How the hell did you get through law school and not learn that demolishing your opponent’s stupid arguments doesn’t make yours any better?
If I were loudly to proclaim that the Loch Ness Monster is Karl Rove’s Mom, it wouldn’t bolster your feeble arguments one iota.
You’re a smug bastard, therefore proud. So how the hell do you shave without looking in the mirror?
If there are it probably doesn’t matter. It has the same effect on elections as almost any other case of voter registration fraud.
None.
I’m not sure whether you understand my point and disagree, or missed my point entirely. So I’ll rephrase it more carefully.
Let’s examine 4 different propositions one might wish to debate for or against:
(1) Ann Coulter committed voter fraud
(2) Ann Coulter did NOT commit voter fraud (at least in the situation under discussion)
(3) No one has ever committed voter fraud
(4) A significant number of people commit voter fraud
My claim is that – ignoring for a second whether we believe these claims to be true or not – the types of evidence we’d need to use to argue for or against the first two are generally very different than the types of evidence we’d need to argue either for or against (4), or for (3). For the first two, since we’re talking about a specific individual, it would be quite easy to come up with a piece of evidence that would immediately if not FULLY settle the issue, at least be very close to convincing all by itself. I can certainly imagine a post that links to a 3 paragraph New York Times article which any reasonable debater would read and would say “yup, you’ve sure convinced me that (1) is true” (same for (2) ). That is almost certainly NOT true for (4). And (3) is an even trickier case, where it’s very easy to prove it false, and extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to prove it true.
Not sure who this was directed at…
Nonsense. Suppose I start a thread tomorrow saying “I believe handguns should be banned, because it’s so incredibly likely that children will find them in their parents’ closet and accidentally kill someone”. Now, that’s not a prima facie ridiculous idea, but if I’m the one proposing the idea, and proposing a restriction of currently-existing freedoms, then it’s incumbent on me to provide some pretty damn good support for my claim. I’d better have some good statistics showing that my claim about accidents is supported… if I just try to wave that away with anecdotes or whatever, I think it would be totally reasonable for people to ignore and deride my claim.
On the other hand, if there’s a discussion about some topic totally unrelated to gun control, but for some vaguely relevant reason I toss out the factoid that lots of kids accidentally shoot someone with their parents’ handguns, and I have some flimsy read-it-somewhere kind of justification for it… well, I haven’t supported my claim very well, but who cares? If someone then starts getting all anal and technical in that thread and wants me to quote chapter and verse as to where my stats come from… well, I think that I’d be pretty justified in just blowing them off.
So yes, if there were another thread as long as this thread in which significant portions of the SDMB liberal hive mind came to a consensus that Ann Coulter either had or had not committed voter fraud, and therefore (something), there would be at least SOME justification for you to come in and compare the reasoning in that thread to the reasoning in this thread and try to draw conclusions. But that’s not at all what happened.
I believe that the primary argument people have been making (and I can’t claim to speak for EVERY argument that anyone EVER made) was a burden of proof one. You, and the people on your side, are claiming that there is lots of voter fraud, and using that to justify your voter ID laws. So YOU should be the ones to provide the evidence. I’d argue that a vanishingly small number of voter fraud convictions is evidence for our side, but not proof. Ann Coulter not being convicted of voter fraud is evidence that she did not commit voter fraud, but not proof.
Nope, people are claiming voter fraud is possible, and therefore one cannot have sufficient faith in the results of elections.
A bunch of lefties came in and claimed that no, if it were happening there would be proof, and the fact that there were very few convictions proved it wasn’t happening. Those same people are now crowing that a Republican is guilty of voter fraud, despite there being no evidence. They are either idiots, hypocrites, or both.
If they wish to believe she is guilty, without proof, they have to believe that there may be any amount of other cases of voter fraud out there that we cannot prove, and if they wish to continue having no voter ID laws, explain how we can have reasonable confidence in an election where there is an unknown amount of fraudulent votes cast, and no way of finding out if they are there.
Instead, they lie about the need for ID being an undue burden on poor and/or minority people. The people, incidentally, whom a mandated, free, ID program would most benefit, regardless of any voting fraud issues. Again, idiots, hypocrites, or both.
It is you who are wrong. My only question is: Are you deliberately lying, or merely stupid? I’ll quote from the A.C.L.U. (despite that I suppose you’ll discredit that “left-wing” source):
But way back in this thread, **Bricker **managed to conflate “allegations of voter fraud” with “convictions or guilty pleas for fraud”. There was some debate concerning assertions that, despite considerable incentive to find such, even motivated Republicans were unable to demonstrate any level higher than negligible for assertions or accusations. Well, substantive accusations anyway, anything above the name calling “We know it’s true!” style. And proponents of voter suppression laws (I’ll call them that, I think this entire thread supports my conclusion) in specific instances even stipulated that no amount of allegations were offered as justification. In other words, “zero” was the stipulated amount. This was offered by us pinkos as evidence that actual voter fraud was essentially nil, based on the logic that if nobody can even find instances that support accusation, the number of *actual cases *must be insignificant.
By manipulating the discussion to substitute “successful prosecutions” for “accusations”, we reached the present, artfully disingenuous, point.
So, tell us, in your estimation, there would be no negative effect on voter turnout for the Dems? None whatsoever? They’re making that up? To what end?
The esteemed Counselor, in a feverish fit of candor, stipulated such quite early on, though he was predictably coy about the numbers. Yes, indeed, some Republican legislators were motivated by a sordid motivation, to lower the voter turnout amongst the poor, elderly, students, etc.
Was he lying?
And what about the Pennsylvania case? When the voter id law was challenged in court, the question of evidence arose. Was there any reliable evidence of the grave threat of voter impersonation? Apparently not.
So, were they lying? Refusing to submit the mounds of evidence right at their fingertips in order to sabotage their own agenda? Seems unlikely, no?
And you? Have you any evidence to offer? Or is this an example of the “faith based” argument? Or are you relying on your spotless credibility to carry the day, and feel no need to stoop to such discredited tactics as an offering of fact?
I suppose it is somewhat useful to disdain any fact based arguments, since you don’t seem to have any such evidence of offer. Nor, apparently, do the advocates of these policies, at least not in Pennsylvania.
“Steophan says it, I believe it, and that settles it.” Yeah. That’ll work.
This is the point, isn’t it? If there are suspicious votes for the Democrats, they must be allowed, as the poor, unfortunate Democrat voters couldn’t possibly get ID even if they wanted to, even if it was offered free.
On the other hand, if a Republican such as Ann Coulter is accused, without proof, of voter fraud, she must be guilty. She’s an idiot, and I’m sure most people who aren’t fanatics would agree with that, but that doesn’t make her a criminal.
The point here isn’t whether or not there is widespread, or even any, voter fraud. Even in the absence of it, providing free ID to poor people is a benefit to everyone, except possibly survivalist nutcases who would refuse anything that came from the government - and I doubt a partisan like you would like to encourage them to vote.
No, the point is you cannot claim Coulter is guilty of voter fraud without evidence, and then claim that no-one else is guilty of it without evidence. That is the hypocrisy and/or stupidity.
If you respond to this post, do at least attempt to actually respond to the contents of it, rather than ignoring it as you did my last one, in favour of a rant based on a complete misrepresentation of Bricker’s views. Although that would require unbiased reading for comprehension, a skill you don’t exactly appear to have mastered.
Better yet, why don’t you see if you can figure out the topic of the thread. Start by reading the ACLU quote I just gave and tell us whether it’s essentially correct or not. Determining if you know the answer to that will tell us whether you have the intelligence and integrity to be worth conversing with.
Or will you follow in the footsteps of Brickhead who refuses to offer an opinion on the issue, just taking little potshots and rejoicing in flatulent legalisms.
In your remarks you seem to delight in whether a “liberal” Doper has forgotten to dot an i or cross a t, while ignoring the real questions. Perhaps that’s how you scored points in your sophomore debating society, but here it just seems so … (Are we in the Pit? OK) … Republican.
So, yes-or-no, is the ACLU comment essentially correct? Cat got your tongue?