Butthole Bandits 7 and a throwback to Jim Crowe

[drone]

As much as I despised the Bush (43) administration, the complaints over the Florida results are just sour grapes. Gore was the Veep for one of the more popular presidents in modern times, with the economy pumping right along, and he couldn't even win his home* state. If he takes Tennessee, Florida wouldn't have mattered. The Dems just blew the election.

* I've said before, that in reality DC is his home. Which was a huge problem with his chances, one the Dems should have taken into account during the primary campaign.

[Fisherking]

There's an awful lot to take away from Bush v. Gore. Our system was unable to let the people speak, even with all the little amendments and additions over the last 200 years to try and emulate direct democracy. The people lost, and the Court went with the reactionary option because, honestly, did you think they wouldn't? Huge lessons to take away from Bush v. Gore. When they write the history books, they'll point to that election on the timeline and say "Right there. That's where it went sideways."

I don’t know how you can say that. Our elections have been going sideways for a long time.

We know there was vote fraud in the 1960 election. It is highly likely that there was enough to make a difference in most elections since then.

We know an awful lot of registered voters don’t vote yet in many states we find voter turnout over 100% and you think it is the people?

The Florida election was much like a Washington State election, some how the more times you count the votes, the more the Democrats seem to gain. It is not that Republicans don’t try it, they just are not very good at it.

It is also a problem in registering people ineligible to vote. Something the Democrats are very apt at. That is not counting the dead, who are always said to vote Democrat.

My self, I think the best way to represent the people’s views is to call up a sample of the population like we do for jury duty, but I am sure that would be manipulated too.

[Lemur]

the complaints over the Florida results are just sour grapes.

Depends on the complaint, doesn't it? If you say, "Bush v. Gore illustrates how poorly we are set up for super-close national elections," well, that seems legit.

It is also a problem in registering people ineligible to vote. Something the Democrats are very apt at.

Indeed, look at all of the damn dirty Democrats cited in this thread, attempting to vote twice, purging the rolls of legitimate voters, illegally disposing of voter registrations, altering ballots, signing fake names in primaries ...


... oh, wait ...

[Fisherking]

So, as I said, the Dems are good at it and the Repubs a’int.

[Lemur]

Well, as I have said, I suspect both parties would sell toddlers into slavery if they thought it would help them win and they could get away with it.

That said ... the Repubs seem to be more obsessed with vote fraud, and they seem to get caught more. This indicates more of a "him who smelt it dealt it" sorta thing.

[Fisherking]

One could say that, except that is the Democrats who actively pass legislation to make it easier for fraudulent votes to be cast.

The whole process needs to be redone. Vote security needs to be taken seriously not winked or snickered at.

Why is it illegal to check voters ID or to purge rolls? Why dose 100% plus voter turn out not void a precincts results rather than just go into the count? Why are we using voting machines which give us no clue as to the legality of the vote cast or even if the votes cast were not tampered with.

Go back to paper ballots in ink with a human tally that is verifiable.

[Lemur]

One could say that, except that is the Democrats who actively pass legislation to make it easier for fraudulent votes to be cast.

You do not give the impression of having read anything in this thread.

The most common and documented avenues for vote fraud are mail-in ballots. The most prosecuted cases are for ... mail in ballots. If you can point to where either the Dems or the Repubs have done jack squat about this, either to protect the franchise or enable bad people to do bad things, put up a source, please. Oh, and there's some reasonable suspicion that there has been a level of hanky-panky with electronic vote tallies, especially the ones where there is no paper trail. This should be surprising to people missing most of their brains, and housecats. Again, show me where the Dems or Repubs are doing anything to address paperless, insecure e-voting on any level.

But I suppose you're imagining large busloads of illegals, lesbians, hippies, and brown people being taken to polls and bribed to vote with the promise of free abortions. Sound about right?

[Fisherking]

Yes, unverified mail in ballots are some of the main tools in vote fraud.

I do have a problem with bringing in non citizens to vote and a complete lack of verification of eligibility in the registration process.

So why do you stoop to attempting to imply racial bigotry or some class prejudice in your end statement.

I think that was rather small and mean spirited of you.

Are you really so narrow minded that you think those who disagree with your mind set must have something wrong with them?

[Lemur]

Yes, unverified mail in ballots are some of the main tools in vote fraud.

Well, if we're going to live in an "evidence" based universe, they appear to be the primary tool for vote fraud. Which makes your next sentence a bit of a doozy ...

I do have a problem with bringing in non citizens to vote and a complete lack of verification of eligibility in the registration process.

And here you go off the rails. Read the thread. Look at the number of in-person vote fraud cases alleged. Note how incredibly rare in-person vote fraud is. Think like an enterprising criminal for two consecutive seconds, and consider how you would go about stuffing a ballot box. I know you heard an angry white guy ranting about this on Fox News, but seriously, think for yourself for a moment.

So why do you stoop to attempting to imply racial bigotry or some class prejudice in your end statement.

Because short of hating the "other," and perhaps repeating what you heard on Rush, I can't imagine why you would make willfully ignorant points that ignore the preponderance of evidence.

Are you really so narrow minded that you think those who disagree with your mind set must have something wrong with them?

I'm fine with disagreement, as you well know. But in the information age, ignorance is a deliberate choice. And if you persist in mendaciously equating the documented and on-record series of vote fraud cases brought against Repubs (and Repub operators) with this nebulous Dem machine that buses people in and "passes laws that make vote fraud possible" (a sentence begging for some back-up if ever I met one) then I'm going to call you out.

Note that I do not suspect either the Repubs or the Dems of acting in good faith. I don't know how many times I have to say it, but either group would kill adorable puppies and offer their bloody hearts to Satan if they thought it would help them win.

But—and this is important—the Dems strategy lies in making it easier for folks to vote in-person, while the Repubs rely on voter suppression. This is a seriously important distinction, and there's plenty of examples to back it up. And—this is SUPER important—neither has made any move at all to address mail-in ballots. So what does this tell us?

That neither group gives a bleeding monkey rectum about vote fraud. It's all kabuki theater. And by repeating the Fox News points, without bothering to source or back up anything at all, or respond to a single in-thread idea, you open your argument up for ridicule.

[Fisherking]

You are off the chart over the top Lemur. Your assumptions are grossly wrong.

My news is much more filtered than that. Rush is not on in Europe but we do have news. Don’t have Fox news either. If it makes it through the spam filters here, I can usually figure there is at least some basis in fact. The only English language news stations we get are CNN International and MSNBC, so I assure you I am not subject to any right wing propaganda, just the left wing verity.

Most of the mail in ballot fraud are not even mailed in…just filled out by corrupt poll workers who are supposed to oversee the process.

But voter turnout drives in prisons and refugee communities is what I have a problem with.

Of course my Google is not the same as yours so there may be some things missed on one end or the other. The web is somewhat unequal in that regard.

I have no problem with making it easier to vote to a point. Once they go so far as to make even ID requirements an issue it has gone beyond that.

And yes both parties are corrupt and I don’t go any easier on the Rs than the Ds. The Rs just tend to be more incompetent on so many levels that they are often laughable and not a real threat.

[Lemur]

But voter turnout drives in prisons and refugee communities is what I have a problem with.

Needs citation, as the wiki folks say. The biggest issue with prisoners, from what I have read, is that they are systematically denied the franchise after they've served their time. Which strikes this Lemur as a terrible idea. In theory, we want to re-integrate as many of them as possible back into society. Doing things like making it impossible for them to vote and/or get meaningful jobs is wildly counter-productive.

I have no problem with making it easier to vote to a point. Once they go so far as to make even ID requirements an issue it has gone beyond that.

Then address the poll tax issue that has been raised repeatedly in-thread.

[Fisherking]

Poll tax has only one function, to discourage voting. There should be no taxes or fees when exercising ones rights.

Its origins was racially motivated just as were the literacy tests.


As to prisoners;
Many states remove their rights permanently if convicted of a felony. I am not saying it is right, only the law. And one often circumvented.

Personally I would agree that their right should be reinstated once they have served their time, if it is actually a corrections process. But they use even flimsier excuses to deprive people of their second amendment rights, don’t they? But I guess that is another thread.

[Lemur]

Poll tax has only one function, to discourage voting. There should be no taxes or fees when exercising ones rights.

Okay, but the most common form of ID in the USA (the driver's license) can cost as much as $80, depending on state.

Most states do not make the alternative State ID free. Those that do, for impoverished residents, often do not tell anyone about the free ID option, or systematically lie about it at the DMV offices.

Requiring an ID for in-person voting is a fine idea ... if you iron out the hi-jinks that turn it into a poll tax.

-edit-

And as I keep repeating, this is a great deal of heat and noise over an aspect of vote fraud that is demonstrably miniscule. Nobody in their right mind is trying to sway elections with fraudulent in-person voting. The people who tried to prove how easy in-person vote fraud was in 2012 are now on their way to prison.

Mail-in ballots and paperless vote machines are the two clear, obvious, logical, and documented ways to stuff a ballot box. All of this attention to in-person vote fraud is ... I dunno, man, "stupid" is the word that comes to mind. It's as though your car is on fire and all you can worry about is re-organizing your glove box to make it tidy.

Many states remove their rights permanently if convicted of a felony. I am not saying it is right, only the law. And one often circumvented.

Needs citation, friend. Again, the most commonly documented problem with purging felons from the rolls (in states such as Florida) is not that the prisoners wind up voting anyway. Can you guess what the actual problem is? I will give you a shiny nickel if you can name it before clicking on this link.

[Fisherking]

So, your argument is the cost of ID?

Is there anyone without some means of identification? Some places used to arrest you for that.

Who cares how they set the standard but if it is required then it can be conditional that the state provides it free. Everything requires your SSN, it is de facto ID.

Mail-in ballots are most often used in recounts so far as fraud goes. And I was not defending blanket roll purges. If some one is to be removed they should be notified of the circumstance and contact information to address the issue.

My problem was with volunteers knowingly registering people not eligible. Most examples I could give are antidotal but I witnessed them, not third hand reports.

My last stateside residence was Washington State, and believe me there is no such thing as a fair election held there. It has been an issue there for most of my life, and that is a long, long time. They hardly even bother to hid it.

[Lemur]

So, your argument is the cost of ID?

Yes, I have a problem with the cost of ID. Correct. If you require a particular kind of ID, and you charge for that particular ID, you are instituting a de facto poll tax. If Grandma X does not have the right kind of ID, lives on some pittance for her retirement, and either through mobility restriction or cost cannot obtain the required ID, she cannot vote. Because of a poll tax. This is a problem.

Is there anyone without some means of identification? Some places used to arrest you for that.

The USA is scattershot and disunified in terms of what constitutes a legitimate ID. A Social Security card is not valid ID in any state that I know of. Almost every initiative to require ID at the polls specifies a driver's license or state ID; many of the initiatives specifically ban university or college IDs because ... well ... look at how them young whippersnappers vote.

your SSN, it is de facto ID.

Incorrect. Most forms of ID require a SSN and a birth certificate, as well as other identifying papers such as utility bills.

Mail-in ballots are most often used in recounts so far as fraud goes.

Not sure what you are saying here.

If some one is to be removed they should be notified of the circumstance and contact information to address the issue.

And if as in the case of Florida, thousands are notified at the polls, what do you recommend?

My problem was with volunteers knowingly registering people not eligible. Most examples I could give are antidotal but I witnessed them, not third hand reports.

If your examples are personal, there's no way to debate them. No idea how extensive your experience is, how many examples you have seen, what the larger repercussions were, etc. I do know, however, that the examples of fake voter registrations that have been brought up in public have almost always involved minimum-wage or volunteer workers submitting obviously falsified voter registrations for people such as Mickey Mouse. They get thrown out almost immediately, and have no impact on the actual election.

[Papewaio]

So I could as a tourist turn up at a polling booth, put on my best attempt at an 'Mercian accent and vote for whoever I wanted and no one would be the wiser?

So you have a police state that monitors all your Internet activities if they are 51% foreign. But you can't even organize a neutral electoral commission.

I'm glad the worlds only superpower and leaders of the freeworld are sell so well organized and working on their priorities.

I suppose I better get a plane ticket to the US, hire a vehicle and travel state to state voting against incumbents.

[Lemur]

So I could as a tourist turn up at a polling booth, put on my best attempt at an 'Mercian accent and vote for whoever I wanted and no one would be the wiser?

Nope, wouldn't work, not even slightly.

Our system does have some checks and balances, believe it or not.

-edit-

And if it needs saying again, those who have a simplistic idea of how easy in-person vote fraud is to commit—and tried to prove it—are on their way to jail.

[Major Robert Dump]

So apparently the State Department has been funding and pushing a program for government funded voter IDs in Kenya. Of course the knee jerk Drudgetards completely miss the big picture and use a misleading headline, and simply focus on the fact that it is voter ID supported by the WH, and not on the fact that it is FREE IDs and is a fairly simple idea that was never (as far as I recall) suggested by either party (but was suggested by Mr Lemur). So yeah, kind of comical how this just played out.

I cannot wait to necro this thread in 2015 when we go through all this garbage again because neither party wants to fix the issue, they simply want to prolong it for political capital

[Ironside]

Nope, wouldn't work, not even slightly.

Our system does have some checks and balances, believe it or not.

I'm curious, why aren't the data crossreferenced with the IRS or whatever organisations that knows where you live, because otherwise you'll never get any mail? Here you'll get registered by default as long as you have a post adress. Homeless people got it a bit harder, but that's it.

I get patchwork feeling instead of streamlined organisations.

[Papewaio]

Don't worry it's an illusion to avoid the feeling of Big Brother. It's all cross referenced in the back end.

Given bank account details. So just get an RV, go state to state. Open a local bank account. Put in enough cash for a couple nights. Come back in 3 months, get a print out of the bank account. One grey nomad is now a grey ghost voter.

Is there an electoral roll to cross your name off at the polling station?

[Lemur]

18 Months Later, S.C. Law Enforcement Closes Case on ‘Zombie Voters,’ Finds No Fraud

For a while last year, you couldn’t turn on Fox News without seeing S.C. GOP Attorney General Alan Wilson saying things like, “We know for a fact that there are deceased people whose identities are being used in elections in South Carolina.”

Attorney General Alan Wilson was unavailable for comment, but his spokesman, J. Mark Powell, passed along a statement.

“The initial claims reported to the Attorney General’s Office were alarming," Powell said. "They were not vague allegations, but contained specific information. The state’s chief prosecutor cannot stand by when presented with such a situation. So SLED was asked to investigate this matter. We appreciate SLED’s hard work in preparing this report.” [...]

Well, SLED has completed its work – and found nothing nefarious.

State Elections Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire says there was a time when the agency would get daily calls from members of the public who believed people in this state were casting fraudulent ballots in the name of dead people.

“It hurt the public confidence in South Carolina elections,” he says. He's glad SLED's report confirmed what the elections agency always believed: there was no fraud, merely clerical errors and genuine mistakes.

[Lemur]

Clearly a state-issued photo ID is no good for voting—at least when it involves young people

Remember, this is all about preventing in-person voting fraud. No, really.

Senator Jim Kyle proposed legislation that would allow students at universities and colleges in Tennessee to use their student photo IDs to vote. The GOP legislators said, "Nah. Can't have students voting, er, no, we mean, VOTER FRAUD, VOTER FRAUD." [...]

Republican lawmakers on Tuesday batted down a proposal by state Sen. Jim Kyle to allow college ID for voter identification, similar to other states such as Arkansas and Mississippi.

“Other states have successfully allowed college ID as proof of identification without inviting voter fraud,” Sen. Kyle said. “Tennessee allows other forms of state-issued ID, such as state employee identification cards, but today the Republican majority singled out the identification every college student has as invalid for voting."

The legislation, SB 1082, would have allowed college students to use state-issued photo identification from institutions of higher learning as evidence of identification for voting. State law currently requires photo ID at the ballot box. Sen. Kyle's proposal was defeated Tuesday in the State and Local committee on a 7-2 party-line vote.

[Major Robert Dump]

Lemurs link makes me sad. America is so sad.

[Lemur]

Well, things that cannot continue don't.

I remember in the '90s, when Carnivore was leaked, thinking, "None of my fellow citizens give a damn about invasive government surveillance." Seriously. Barely anybody mentioned it in the news, much less in a social or professional context. It was depressing.

And so it continued for two decades. Evidence of governmental overreach was all over the damn place, but nobody seemed to care.

And then, through some amazing confluence of the Snowden leaks and Obama Derangement Syndrome, it became an issue. People are talking about it. Politicians are posturing about it. Suddenly it's a hot topic.

So ... the clumsy, obvious stabs at voter suppression are depressing, yeah. The attempt to paper it over by screaming VOTE FRAUD doesn't pass even the briefest, most lazy examination.

And nobody seems to care.

Just wait 20 years or so. These things have a way of coming around.

We Americans do the right thing, after we've tried every possible alternative.

[a completely inoffensive name]

After a year and a half, this title still makes me laugh. It's a shame the content within it is so damn depressing.

[Major Robert Dump]

I still don't see what's so bad about voter IDs if everyone has access to free IDs. We are, afterall, I think the only first world country with such lax rules. But the way both sides frame their arguments makes it clear no one is interested in a real "fix" because if the issue is fixed then no one can use it for political capital down the road.

Oh.... and it takes attention away from voting machines, which are so effed up that it's amazing a country that props itself up on "democracy" actually tries to find the cheapest approach to what is supposed to be the most sacred institution. I mean, really, we can't afford human tally counters, etc? We can afford all this other retarded crap, but not a fool-proof voting process, which voting machines do not provide and for that matter probably aren't any cheaper anyway (when you consider corporate tax breaks, maintenance, and all the other crony crap that goes on in awarding the machine contracts.