# The most important thing you need to know about the voter ID issue . . . **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 29, 2013, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813 "2013-07-29T14:42:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/21 "2013-07-29T16:22:05Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Have any proposals advocated for a fingerprint? I don’t know, and it amazes me that neither side is pushing for this. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/22 "2013-07-29T16:26:16Z")
Because nobody really cares? The Dems don’t care because they know the whole “voter fraud” issue is a chimera, a ruse to provide legitimacy to a repulsive effort to legislate the Republican Party into a more advantageous electoral position. The Republicans don’t care because they know that’s true. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/23 "2013-07-29T16:27:32Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I just gave you an example of three votes changing a US Congressional seat. I think I’ll keep the goalposts right where they are, thank you. Can you show us a case of voter ID fraud(not simple recounting) changing the outcome of an election? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/24 "2013-07-29T16:31:50Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > What about the case in which Sven Amuldsen votes, correctly identifying himself as Sven Amuldsen, but casts an illegal ballot because he’s not a citizen, or a felon without restoration of his voting rights, or has already voted elsewhere? That’s not impersonation, in the sense your quoted author means, but it’s nonetheless a fraudulent vote. Certainly such things happen. With millions of people voting mistakes are bound to occur. Usually none of it is “fraudulent” but rather are mistakes. More, there are, perhaps surprsinginly, not very many of them and the mistakes are often caught and, to my knowledge, have never swayed an election. Most elections that are especially close have recounts and all the votes are scrutinized much more closely. Here is a recent look at this sort of thing: > [@](#): > > **The case of ‘zombie’ voters in South Carolina** > > It turns out the claims of 953 votes by dead people actually involved not one election but 74 elections over a seven-year period. > > So SLED’s investigation centered on 207 votes that allegedly were made by dead people in the Nov. 2, 2010 election — when a total of 1,365,480 votes were cast — after officials concluded that that batch constituted a “representative sampling” of the alleged voting irregularities. (Note that the number of alleged dead votes was less than 2/10,000th of all of the votes cast in that election.) > > The report confirms what the State Election Commission had found after preliminarily examining some of the allegations: The so-called votes by dead people were the result of clerical errors or mistaken identities. > > For instance, sometimes a son had the same name as a deceased father, and poll workers mixed up a dead father with a living son. (This happened 92 times in the initial probe, and then further investigation found seven more examples.) > > In 56 cases, there was “bad data matching,” in which the DMV records had the Social Security of a dead person associated with a living voter. The living voter — with a different name and birth date — properly cast a ballot. Thirty-two votes attributed to dead people were simply the result of too-sensitive scanners. > > In one case, someone cast an absentee ballot before dying; their vote still counts under the law. In two other cases, people requested an absentee ballot, but died before returning it, so no harm was done. In other cases, the wrong voter was marked as having cast a vote, and then the marks were not completely erased. There were several other types of clerical errors, too numerous to mention. In the end, just five votes remained unresolved after extensive investigation. > > SOURCE: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-case-of-zombie-voters-in-south-carolina/2013/07/24/86de3c64-f403-11e2-aa2e-4088616498b4\_blog.html?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm\_twitter\_washingtonpost](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-case-of-zombie-voters-in-south-carolina/2013/07/24/86de3c64-f403-11e2-aa2e-4088616498b4_blog.html?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/25 "2013-07-29T16:33:22Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Sure. But with nothing to compare the signature to, how is that useful? If you suspect Amuldsen, you make him sign his name and compare it to the signature on the precinct’s list. > [@Bricker](#): > > Now, as I’ve said before, we could drop this nonsense about photo ID by substituting a fingerprint. Put your fingerprint next to your printed name – that doesn’t cost you a thing, since God issued you ten of them upon delivery. And it’s even better for building a prosecutable case than a photo ID. I have no objection to that. What’s more, your stained fingertip would serve as an “I Voted” sticker, like the purple ink some countries use. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/26 "2013-07-29T16:34:50Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > [http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05478.pdf](http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05478.pdf) > > a federal jury administrator in one U.S. district court estimated that 1 to 33 percent of the people out of a jury pool of 30,000 over 2 years (about 300 to 900 people) said they were not U.S. citizens; > > Jury pool comes from voter rolls. > [Scores of felons voted illegally](http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2002158407_felons23m.html) If the voting-registration process did not reveal their status as noncitizens or convicts, neither would showing ID at the polls. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/27 "2013-07-29T16:34:54Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I just gave you an example of three votes changing a US Congressional seat. why does that have to be either a massive coincidence or a conspiracy? (Unless you mean that any election being that close is itself a massive coincidence, in which case I agree – but since we have lots of elections, we can pretty well assume such coincidences will remain rare but NOT non-existent). Ugh. It’s frustrating to see you trotting out all of these tired old canards after we went over all of them in excruciating detail. Recall that Sven the Sleeper Vote Fraudster would have had to have been here since 1972 or so in order to avoid having his SS# identify him as a non-citizen. Now you want us to imagine some gang of Svens out there swaying elections. And we discussed your examples of close races. We never found one that was close enough to surpass our agreed upon rate at which in person vote fraud occurs. Here, for example, is you [acknowledging](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15662839&postcount=2801) that the Washington governor’s race did not exceed the rate of .00004%. Despite that fact, you keep bringing it up. Please try to shoot for some sort of consistency that prevents you from un-conceding on these sorts of issues. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/28 "2013-07-29T16:38:36Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I have no objection to that. What’s more, your stained fingertip would serve as an “I Voted” sticker, like the purple ink some countries use. If the goal is to further decrease the number of voters, it’s an excellent idea. The passage of such a law coupled with some timely rumors about what the government will be doing with all those fingerprints, and the voting ranks will be thinned out even more than they are now, which is certainly one of the goals of the Republican Party. You will be losing many more legitimate(but already paranoid) voters than fraudulent voters. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/29 "2013-07-29T16:42:14Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The most important thing you need to know about the voter ID issue is that using “voter fraud” to steal an election is virtually impossible. The Republican Party seems poised to prove you wrong in 2016. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/30 "2013-07-29T16:42:51Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > If the voting-registration process did not reveal their status as noncitizens or convicts, neither would showing ID at the polls. You asked to give you cites for cases where “there could be enough fraudulent votes in one direction to sway an election”. You got it. Don’t move the goalposts. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/31 "2013-07-29T16:43:22Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Ugh. It’s frustrating to see you trotting out all of these tired old canards after we went over all of them in excruciating detail. > > Recall that Sven the Sleeper Vote Fraudster would have had to have been here since 1972 or so in order to avoid having his SS# identify him as a non-citizen. Now you want us to imagine some gang of Svens out there swaying elections. > > And we discussed your examples of close races. We never found one that was close enough to surpass our agreed upon rate at which in person vote fraud occurs. > > Here, for example, is you [acknowledging](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15662839&postcount=2801) that the Washington governor’s race did not exceed the rate of .00004%. > > Despite that fact, you keep bringing it up. Please try to shoot for some sort of consistency that prevents you from un-conceding on these sorts of issues. From the post you just linked to: > [@](#): > > Number of fraudulent votes: 112 > Difference in vote count: 136, which is more than 112. Yes. But that 112 number is not the result of some rock-solid limit. It’s an estimate. I agree it’s likely very close to the actual number of votes; I don’t agree, and never have, that it’s somehow a laser-like precise limit on the possible illegal votes. And of course, the Washington State election results after the recount was a 42 vote margin. Which, even if we agreed that 112 votes, and no more, we bad, COULD have swayed that result. Right? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/32 "2013-07-29T16:44:34Z")
I think the most important thing about the whole voter ID thingy is that it hardly matters any more. In place where the Forces of Darkness have control over the state legislature, like Texas and North Carolina, the Republicans are into a full-court press to shove all manner of voting restrictions into place. Voter ID wasn’t nearly enough, so they have to go after early voting, voter registration drives, keeping polling places open for extended hours, so on and so forth. This is embarrassing for partisan Republicans with enough honesty to be embarrassed. So they keep on about voter id as though that was what it was all about. But that’s yesterday’s news. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/33 "2013-07-29T16:46:39Z")
The question remains: Has voter ID fraud ever actually swayed an election? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/34 "2013-07-29T16:46:49Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I think I’ll keep the goalposts right where they are, thank you. Can you show us a case of voter ID fraud(not simple recounting) changing the outcome of an election? That’s not where you placed the goalposts. Look: > [@Czarcasm](#): > > Then you can justify all this “voter ID fraud” hoopla by giving us your best example of this happening in real life. > Edited to add: If you are saying that there **could be** enough fraudulent votes in one direction to sway an election, than either a massive coincidence or a conspiracy is being implied, I would say. (emphasis on “could be” added by me for…er…emphasis) Now that I have shown you a case in which it COULD have been, you ask for a case where it did. ETA: on re-reading, I gather that’s what you meant at first, before your edit? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/35 "2013-07-29T16:48:53Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > The question remains: Has voter ID fraud ever actually swayed an election? We can’t know, because with no Voter ID, we can’t prove who did and didn’t vote. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/36 "2013-07-29T16:50:31Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > If the goal is to further decrease the number of voters, it’s an excellent idea. The passage of such a law coupled with some timely rumors about what the government will be doing with all those fingerprints, and the voting ranks will be thinned out even more than they are now, which is certainly one of the goals of the Republican Party. You will be losing many more legitimate(but already paranoid) voters than fraudulent voters. My thought is that I’m no felon but I’m pretty sure my old case of theatrical makeup has enough supplies for me to cover up an inked finger, even if it’s indelible, while still maintaining the actual print so unless we also want to ban liquid latex, I’m not sure the inked finger would actually be a deterrent. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Lurker\_Above](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Lurker\_Above](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Lurker_Above)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/37 "2013-07-29T16:50:41Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I just gave you an example of three votes changing a US Congressional seat. why does that have to be either a massive coincidence or a conspiracy? (Unless you mean that any election being that close is itself a massive coincidence, in which case I agree – but since we have lots of elections, we can pretty well assume such coincidences will remain rare but NOT non-existent). If the illegitimate voters vote R:D in the same proportion as the legitimate voters than including or excluding them makes no difference to the results. You can’t just say, for example, 300 illegitimate voters swing the vote totals 300 one way or the other. As a worst-case scenario they _can_, but it would be a massive coincidence/conspiracy. In reality the R:D ratio of illegitimate votes is probably a lot closer to the rest of the population rather than monolithicly for one party or the other. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/38 "2013-07-29T16:52:07Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > I think the most important thing about the whole voter ID thingy is that it hardly matters any more. In place where the Forces of Darkness have control over the state legislature, like Texas and North Carolina, the Republicans are into a full-court press to shove all manner of voting restrictions into place. Voter ID wasn’t nearly enough, so they have to go after early voting, voter registration drives, keeping polling places open for extended hours, so on and so forth. > > This is embarrassing for partisan Republicans with enough honesty to be embarrassed. So they keep on about voter id as though that was what it was all about. But that’s yesterday’s news. That’s a fair point. But I’m surely entitled to support some policies from a political party without being responsible for every bad choice they make. I favor Voter ID, photo identification for voters, issued at no cost by the state, to validate the identity of the people casting ballots. It’s to that plan that I have addressed my arguments and my support. I don’t support any other plan, unless I’ve said I support it. So don’t yell at me for defunding voter registration drives; I express no support for that plan. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/39 "2013-07-29T16:52:50Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > That’s not where you placed the goalposts. Look: > (emphasis on “could be” added by me for…er…emphasis) > > Now that I have shown you a case in which it COULD have been, you ask for a case where it did. > > ETA: on re-reading, I gather that’s what you meant at first, before your edit? Two different sentences, with the first one asking the question where you moved the goalposts, and the second one wondering about how you figured a bunch of fraudulent ID voters could effect the election unless they either all worked together, or all just happened to vote the same way. I don’t know how you managed to synthesize the two sentences into one question, but you are incorrect to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813/40 "2013-07-29T16:53:24Z")
> [@The\_Lurker\_Above](#): > > If the illegitimate voters vote R:D in the same proportion as the legitimate voters than including or excluding them makes no difference to the results. > > You can’t just say, for example, 300 illegitimate voters swing the vote totals 300 one way or the other. As a worst-case scenario they _can_, but it would be a massive coincidence/conspiracy. In reality the R:D ratio of illegitimate votes is probably a lot closer to the rest of the population rather than monolithicly for one party or the other. Is it? Suppose the issue is felons voting without restoration of their rights. Would it surprise you to learn that convicted felons do not vote in conformity with the population at large? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-know-about-the-voter-id-issue/664813.md?page=3)