OT: Elections/Politics thread, part 5

[RobVarak]

Once again, voter registration fraud has to turn into voter fraud for it to affect the outcome of an election.

I've already explained why that is not true. Twice.

[Teal]

Once again, voter registration fraud has to turn into voter fraud for it to affect the outcome of an election.

I've already explained why that is not true. Twice.

You haven't done it til you're blue in the face, though, Rob. Until you do it until you're blue in the face, it won't click. 'Course, it won't click anyway, but you could at least give it the ol' college try...

[Feanor]

Once again, voter registration fraud has to turn into voter fraud for it to affect the outcome of an election.

I've already explained why that is not true. Twice.

Can you link to those two posts or do it again?

[JRod]

Once again, voter registration fraud has to turn into voter fraud for it to affect the outcome of an election.

I've already explained why that is not true. Twice.

You posted a smily face and that by some poor LSAT logic question you think it might happening because voter registration fraud is happening.

For voter registration fraud to turn into voter fraud it has to turn into these people actually voting. Otherwise it's just voter registration fraud that doesn't determine the outcome of the final vote tally.

How is the final vote tally affected by voter registration fraud? Second there isn't a large widespread problem of voter fraud unless you poll the rightwing fear mongering machine.

[Feanor]

Registration fraud is meaningless. It's still going to take a voter to risk committing a felony to vote under false pretenses.

Right-wing screeching over nefarious doings in Ohio (where Freddie Johnson of Cleveland testified that ACORN encouraged him to sign 73 voter-registration forms—all in his own name) overlooks the fact that all 73 registrations would still have allowed Freddie to vote just once. The connection between wrongful voter registration and actual polling-place vote fraud is the stuff of GOP mythology. As Rick Hasen has demonstrated, here at Slate and elsewhere, even if Mr. Mouse is registered to vote, he still needs to show up at his polling place, provide a fake ID, and risk a felony conviction to do so.

Large-scale, coordinated vote stealing doesn't happen. The incentives—unlike the incentives for registration fraud—just aren't there. In an interview this week with Salon, Lorraine Minnite of Barnard College, who has studied vote fraud systematically, noted that "between 2002 to 2005 only one person was found guilty of registration fraud. Twenty others were found guilty of voting while ineligible and five were guilty of voting more than once. That's 26 criminal voters." Twenty-six criminal voters despite the fact that U.S. attorneys, like David Iglesias in New Mexico, were fired for searching high and low for vote-fraud cases to prosecute and coming up empty. Twenty-six criminal voters despite the fact that five days before the 2006 election, then-interim U.S. Attorney Bradley Schlozman exuberantly (and futilely) indicted four ACORN workers, even when Justice Department policy barred such prosecutions in the days before elections. RNC General Counsel Sean Cairncross has said he is unaware of a single improper vote cast because of bad cards submitted in the course of a voter-registration effort. Republican campaign consultant Royal Masset says, "n-person voter fraud is nonexistent. It doesn't happen, and ... makes no sense because who's going to take the risk of going to jail on something so blatant that maybe changes one vote?"

There is no such thing as vote fraud. The think tank created to peddle the epidemic has evaporated. A handful of cases have been prosecuted.

http://www.slate.com/id/2202428/

You're incredible, wco...you really are...

Rather than make a thinly veiled personal attack, maybe you'd like to debate the merits of the arguments presented in the Slate article?


Racially based voter suppression scare tactics like this would be shocking if they hadn't been going on for a hundred odd years. I guess it just has to be expected in this country.

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_up ... hoods.html

An anonymous flier circulating in African-American neighborhoods in North and West Philadelphia states that voters who are facing outstanding arrest warrants or who have unpaid traffic tickets may be arrested at the polls on Election Day.

[FatPitcher]

How about citing some proof so that we don't have to take your word for it...

http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/

The Brennan Center for Justice? Since they they are explicitly aligned with ACORN in that they both want to maximize the vote of the poor, you might want to find something a little more, hmm...

If you want to post some from a non-partisian source or a legitimate news site, please do.

Plus, you're arguing that an absence of evidence is evidence.

Here are some enlightening links:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/lm22.cfm
http://www.kpcnews.com/articles/2008/01 ... 740819.txt
http://www.itchmo.com/deal-reached-for- ... -vote-2696
http://www.nypolitics.com/2008/10/02/go ... a-in-1998/
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/new ... ble_v.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_q ... i_n9460105
http://www.miamiherald.com/522/story/456937.html

[FatPitcher]

First, let me agree with MattK and others. There have been cases of voter fraud. The question is how much voter fraud is there, and it's important to minimize voter fraud, voter intimidation, etc.

With that said...

I'll handle this one.

Your source is biased! And here is some info from mediamatters.org backing me up!

Sigh. If anyone quotes something from mediamatters.org, does that invalidate what they say?

Oh, no, I was just pulling a JRod to emphasize the opposite.

But while we are on the subject, and since you took care to include mentions of Palin/Biden even though that was off-topic, do you really want to introduce concordance counts as evidence of bias? I can't understand why you would include that in your quote unless it was to take a pot-shot at FoxNews' bias, but I think you might be opening the door for a lot of silly data to be flung about attached to accusations of bias at other news organizations.

[FatPitcher]

Once again, voter registration fraud has to turn into voter fraud for it to affect the outcome of an election.

I've already explained why that is not true. Twice.

You posted a smily face and that by some poor LSAT logic question you think it might happening because voter registration fraud is happening.

For voter registration fraud to turn into voter fraud it has to turn into these people actually voting. Otherwise it's just voter registration fraud that doesn't determine the outcome of the final vote tally.

How is the final vote tally affected by voter registration fraud? Second there isn't a large widespread problem of voter fraud unless you poll the rightwing fear mongering machine.

I hear that the rightwing fear mongering machine also intentionally reduces the reading comprehension of its opponents. You're not a troll, you're a victim!

[RobVarak]

How is the final vote tally affected by voter registration fraud? Second there isn't a large widespread problem of voter fraud unless you poll the rightwing fear mongering machine.

Dude, there is no f***in way that I'm going to lay it out for you again.

If you think that is all that I posted on the topic then I suggest you re-read the thread.

I'd appreciate it if you would refrain from snide personal comments like the "LSAT logic" crack. I had a long...long personal attack in response to your latest string of posts ready to go, and I'm more than ready to take the ban to unload it.

But you're really not worth the trouble of a banning.

Feanor, go back a couple pages and you'll see the points I made about registration fraud. It is, after all, illegal for a reason.

[matthewk]

Maybe JRod just stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEJvWnb3 ... re=related

[GTHobbes]

This Palin lady sure is some reformer. If this is the way to reduce government spending...

"Palin children may have traveled on state

ANCHORAGE (AP) — Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business.

The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.

In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters' 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/e ... titialskip

[Jared]

JRod,

Rob laid out how final votes are affected by voter <b>registration</b> fraud; as something <b>different</b> from "you think it might happening because voter registration fraud is happening".

But again, the sheer volume of fake registrations makes it easier to slip bogus absentee ballots into the system as well as fraudulent voters in the non-ID states. The Help America Vote Act requirements are a joke, and fake ID's proliferate like fungus. It fouls up the recount process by making a larger percentage of the ballots provisional and as I said it also messes up the polls.

Now whether you agree with that characterization or not, you are free to bring up. But you don't need to go with the snide "LSAT logic" comments. And FatPitcher doesn't need to post about "pulling a JRod", and now (as I'm writing this thread) mattk is piling on.

It's clear that no one wants to play nice, so it's time that I take away all the toys. Political thread is locked for at least a week, more likely until election day or beyond. I'm sorry for those that like this thread that haven't acted up. But I've tried short-term bans and they haven't worked, and I've tried short-term thread locks, and they haven't worked. I don't feel it's right to give a long-term ban to half of the people that post in this thread (and are otherwise, not dicks in other non-political threads). So unfortunately, this is my only option. Sorry.