Let me state, for the record, that I do not favor any laws that would infringe upon the voting rights of rabid transgendered harpies.
I’m looking at the amount of damage a one person, or a very small number of people, can do. I’m not that worried about large conspiracies, since I believe that they are unlikely to remain secret for long.
In-person voter fraud is expensive in terms of time and risk per illegal vote. How many different poling places can one person get to and vote at in a day, risking being caught by pure dumb luck each time? If the poles are open for 12 hours and it takes an average of 45 minutes for travel, line-up and voting time per vote your single conspirator can cast 15 extra votes. You’d need 9 busy people in a single district to steal the very, very rare election that’s decided by 130 votes. And that’s assuming no one is cheating in the opposite direction. Requiring photo ID makes this kind of scheme even more difficult than it already is.
Fraudulent absentee ballots are a lot easier and less risky per illegal vote. How many illegal votes can you mail-in before election day? Sure you need a whole lot of fraudulent registrations, but you need those for in-person voting too. Even if some of your fraudulent votes are detected, who is going to be able to trace them back to you? Pulling numbers out of my ass, I’d think that one person could swing the 130 vote margin that’d take nine to do in person.
As for electronic voting, how much confidence do voters have in the black-box machines? Could you take a skeptical voter and show him that no fraud or error had occurred with the current machines? Spend the resources you’d otherwise spend on issuing and checking IDs and add on a printer that produces human-readable ballots that the voter can examine before it’s put in a ballot box. If anyone questions the electronic results, crack open the box in front of multiple witness and count the ballots. My voter confidence would be a lot higher knowing that one incompetent/malicious programmer can’t completely and undetectably change the results.
How do you figure? How does having valid ID prevent anyone from voting absentee as well as in person? Polling workers mark voter rolls when a someone votes, whether they are the person they say they are or not. Presumably, absentee ballots are cross checked against the voter rolls; having ID doesn’t change that.
For emphasis:
“If she denied having done that, it would difficult, if not impossible (without Voter ID), to prove she did.”
Voter ID won’t stop the illegal second vote, but it will make it feasible to get a criminal conviction.
Much more expensive than issuing IDs – because it’s inevitable that someone WILL challenge the results; what’s the downside of doing so?
That said, I fully support the initiative to make code for voting machines transparent and auditable.
Might like to have a quick glance at those numbers, since you have them right at your fingertips.
I imagine that it would be incredibly cheap to disallow absentee ballots completely.
What Bricker is missing is that if someone commits in-person voter fraud and shows ID, that hardly means a convictions is a slam dunk.
All the lawyer for the fraudster has to do is say, “Mr. Polling staffer, you checked over two thousand IDs that day. Isn’t it possible that a fake one slipped by, and that my client is innocent?”
Bricker actually came up with a good idea the last time we discussed this. When you show up to vote you could leave a thumb print next to your name on the lists. That would pretty much karate chop in-person voter fraud in one go.
It would increase costs, but only very slightly, and it would be very, very strong evidence.
All of this sure has impacted my voter confidence. These guys have no civic virtue whatsoever, they are perfectly willing to hinder someone’s voting rights for political advantage. They’ve already demonstrated this again and again.
And this is the kind of shit they pull when they are afraid of losing, what are they likely to try now that they are losing? Already trying to tinker with the electoral vote system, to correct the unfortunate disadvantage of not getting enough votes.
So, I can trust these people? I’d like to think so. I don’t think so, but I’d like to.
Yeah, my voter’s confidence in the legitimacy of the election process has definitely been affected. I imagine that those people in Florida who had to stand on line for up to eight hours to vote because Gov Skeletor said so…yeah, I’m gonna guess their confidence has been impacted as well. Just a hunch, mind you.
Way back when we started, I expressed my opinion that what the Forces of Darkness were up to was a little subtle trimming of the voter rolls, slice a way a couple three percentage points off the unreliable voter rolls. But they’ve escalated on every front: crippling voter registration drives, cancelling early voting hours, and now buggering the electoral system. And so far, it ain’t working. Think they’ll just give up?
So, yeah, I have a whole lot less voter confidence than when we started on the Long March. Got lots more reasons. Lots.
What a simple, common sense suggestion! No need for new IDs or a new bureaucracy. Just an ink pad and a 2 cm square of blank space next to the name in the voter roll. Sure to be a powerful disincentive for any person even contemplating in-person voter fraud, as well as a surefire tool for conviction of anyone who actually did so.
Now I’m going to step well back so I am not trampled by the rush of all those Republican lawmakers who were oh so concerned about even the hint of possible voter fraud, or diminution of voter confidence caused by that possibility, all of whom will immediately race to enact this measure. Why, I can almost hear the thunder of their footfalls now.
Can’t I?
<crickets>
Look. The complaint was never about responsible voter ID programs, fairly administered, with democratic intent and with no component of “poll tax.” The complaint has always been about voter ID programs activated at the last moment with the express purpose of disenfranchising legitimate voters for partisan purpose.
A thread of 3200 posts and you still haven’t got that through your thick brick head? I’d pity you for being an imbecile … but I know you’re just a moron who pretends to be an imbecile when it suits you.
We already know how you stand on the thread’s topic: You’re delighted by anything your side does to steal votes, however nasty, as long as you think it might technically be legal. Now you try to deflect discussion to responsible voter ID programs just to try cover your spoor, to try to hide your shit. But you still reek of it. Take a shower and change your pants before you come back.
And the Democrats – they control a few statehouses as well. Have they enacted this measure?
I personally think that the fingerprint idea addresses all the concerns that a photo ID would, and (since it’s my idea) I fully support it.
Except that it is a solution for a problem that, for all practical purposes, does not exist. You could install garden trolls and pink flamingos at all the polling places, and voter fraud would be pretty much zero. Because it already is.
And why should the Dems enable paranoid fantasies by pretending to be solving a problem that not even the Republicans sincerely believe is real?
Ninja’d by 'luc!
Well, it ain’t always about you, Cupcake!
[Moderating]
septimus, altering the contents of a quote box is against board rules. Please do not do this in the future.
No warning issued.
[/Moderating]
This is just another brazen attempt by the Republicans to disenfranchise people without thumbs, who are traditionally a solid liberal demographic.
I’m not going to elevate any right to the level of the right to vote but they do it for much the same reason that Democrats are trying to find a solution to assault weapon murders. To undercut a right that the other side thinks is important.
But, it would repel voters with any sense of taste or dignity or esthetics, therefore, fewer votes cast by fagz. (Unless they’re attracted by the kitsch-camp-appeal.)
That’s absolute horse shit and you know it. Garden trolls can’t be trusted and those flamingos are retards. What you need are genuine lawn gnomes - you can see how brave and stalwart they are here.