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Fan Forums => The RPGPundit's Own Forum => Topic started by: jhkim on September 18, 2022, 07:36:55 PM

Title: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 18, 2022, 07:36:55 PM
I'm curious among those who have followed it, what do you think about the status of U.S. election fraud in 2020. It seems to me that legal efforts to overturn or prove election fraud in 2020 have stalled.

But even if they haven't passed in the courts, there are people still trying to investigate and collect evidence. Do people think that there has been any progress in identifying how election fraud happened? At the time, I saw a lot of claims. Has time allowed clarifying any of those claims? For example, was there a raid on server farms in Germany that were involved in the elections?

Also, what does the progress (or lack thereof) mean for the upcoming 2022 midterm elections?
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: ScytheSong on September 19, 2022, 01:15:48 AM
As far as I've been able to tell the only novel election fraud from 2020 that has gone to the point of prosecution fell into two categories: a handful of cases (less than a dozen) that were Republicans trying to stress-test the system but doing so illegally, and a few dozen cases of felons who were told they were able to register, but the people telling them that were wrong (almost all were in Florida). There are also the usual few cases scattered across the country where someone fraudulently tries to vote for someone else that happen every election.

Other than that, it's all allegations without any proof.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 19, 2022, 11:58:24 AM
As far as I've been able to tell the only novel election fraud from 2020 that has gone to the point of prosecution fell into two categories: a handful of cases (less than a dozen) that were Republicans trying to stress-test the system but doing so illegally, and a few dozen cases of felons who were told they were able to register, but the people telling them that were wrong (almost all were in Florida). There are also the usual few cases scattered across the country where someone fraudulently tries to vote for someone else that happen every election.

Other than that, it's all allegations without any proof.

That's not entirely true.  There *are* cases of election officials being prosecuted for shenanigans and there are ongoing investigations. But they're so few and far between because no one really wants to expose the exact depth and breadth of shenanigans that have been going on for decades.

We know that Nixon beat Kennedy but the shenanigans in IL and TX led to Kennedy winning the electoral votes in those states.

The difference between then and now is that now we have *no* excuses to not have transparency in the entire process. Cleaning up voter rolls is low-hanging fruit, as is having an equal number of officials from both major parties sitting on election boards. Having a system that flags an absentee ballot if an in-person ballot from the same person is cast isn't that hard (and provides an incentive to clean up the rolls). Having the ability to video record the people doing the machine prep and test is easy. Requiring voting machine supplies to provide source code just requires the ability of government procurement people to walk away from bid and proposal responses that don't include it. Having the ability to 100% confirm that electronic voting machines are air-gapped is easy - don't supply them with wifi or cell modem and be able to physically lock out the network ports.

This is all *easy* but it requires government employees to not be lazy or corrupt.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: I HATE THE DEMIURGE I HATE THE DEMIURGE on September 19, 2022, 01:39:46 PM
The establishment won because the opposition didn't do violence.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2022, 02:16:57 PM
Both sides mow believe if the other side wins then it was fraud. Congratulations, we’ve successfully broken democracy, the best system we’ve developed so far. Humanity is fucked now.

We might as well use lottery or death combat to pick our leaders
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: I HATE THE DEMIURGE I HATE THE DEMIURGE on September 19, 2022, 03:07:37 PM
>democracy
>good
lol
lmao
>what we had was democracy
LOL
LMAO
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Ghostmaker on September 19, 2022, 03:28:20 PM
The establishment won because the opposition didn't do violence.
Try not to glow so hard there.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: nobody on September 19, 2022, 05:20:20 PM
The 2020 election was a legit election. If there was any decent evidence of widespread fraud, it would have been brought to the courts by now and received favorably. I know a lot of people have "feelings" about how the elections were conducted, but the way these issues are resolved is through the court system, by presenting evidence, not through people feeling things.

Certainly our elections could be improved. Both parties are guilty of gerrymandering, for example. But we're not really in a political climate where those reforms can take place.

Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: I HATE THE DEMIURGE I HATE THE DEMIURGE on September 19, 2022, 06:00:56 PM
The establishment won because the opposition didn't do violence.
Try not to glow so hard there.

You're the kind of faggot that would call the Founding Fathers glowies, you spineless turd.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Ghostmaker on September 19, 2022, 07:52:32 PM
The establishment won because the opposition didn't do violence.
Try not to glow so hard there.

You're the kind of faggot that would call the Founding Fathers glowies, you spineless turd.
You're a fedposting lowlife. Get your whole head in front of the shotgun when you check out.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Mistwell on September 19, 2022, 10:18:53 PM
You're a fedposting lowlife.

That would explain some things about that guy's posts.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: I HATE THE DEMIURGE I HATE THE DEMIURGE on September 19, 2022, 10:25:09 PM
The establishment won because the opposition didn't do violence.
Try not to glow so hard there.

You're the kind of faggot that would call the Founding Fathers glowies, you spineless turd.
You're a fedposting lowlife. Get your whole head in front of the shotgun when you check out.
>fedposting on some minor RPG site
You're an inbred hick. Do the gene pool a favor and don't procreate. Then when the unwashed mongrel hordes of joggers, NASA engineers, and zippertits invade your rural home, you'll impotently clutch at your guns that you turned over to the ATF, because you're a fucking pansy.

גויים, לציית
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Ghostmaker on September 20, 2022, 09:13:49 AM
The establishment won because the opposition didn't do violence.
Try not to glow so hard there.

You're the kind of faggot that would call the Founding Fathers glowies, you spineless turd.
You're a fedposting lowlife. Get your whole head in front of the shotgun when you check out.
>fedposting on some minor RPG site
You're an inbred hick. Do the gene pool a favor and don't procreate. Then when the unwashed mongrel hordes of joggers, NASA engineers, and zippertits invade your rural home, you'll impotently clutch at your guns that you turned over to the ATF, because you're a fucking pansy.

גויים, לציית
Yawn. And you're a cuck. And off to the cornfield you go.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Tubesock Army on September 20, 2022, 09:30:16 AM
The establishment won because the opposition didn't do violence.
Try not to glow so hard there.

You're the kind of faggot that would call the Founding Fathers glowies, you spineless turd.
You're a fedposting lowlife. Get your whole head in front of the shotgun when you check out.
>fedposting on some minor RPG site
You're an inbred hick. Do the gene pool a favor and don't procreate. Then when the unwashed mongrel hordes of joggers, NASA engineers, and zippertits invade your rural home, you'll impotently clutch at your guns that you turned over to the ATF, because you're a fucking pansy.

גויים, לציית

For anyone not familiar, "joggers", in this context, is a subsitute for the n-word, used by racists to evade bans and word filters. And the Hebrew text at the bottom of this post reads, "Gentiles, obey." So aside from this dude's tiresome schtick, it's safe to say he's a proponent of anti-semitic conspiracy theories, and probably a racist. It's rare for Ghostmaker and I to agree, but yeah, dude needs to wash his mouth out with a revolver ASAP.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 20, 2022, 09:46:31 AM
The 2020 election was a legit election. If there was any decent evidence of widespread fraud, it would have been brought to the courts by now and received favorably. I know a lot of people have "feelings" about how the elections were conducted, but the way these issues are resolved is through the court system, by presenting evidence, not through people feeling things.

Certainly our elections could be improved. Both parties are guilty of gerrymandering, for example. But we're not really in a political climate where those reforms can take place.

But that's the problem that too many people don't understand.  There wasn't widespread fraud. The fraud doesn't *need* to be "widespread" to impact election results. It just needs to be "enough" in little bitty ways in each district for it to add up.  If you have 1000 ballots from dead people in 10 wards in one district that flips that district and 500 ballots filled out "on behalf" of nursing home residents in another district that flips that district, next thing you know, that state goes in the opposite direction than it should have. In a different state, if the voting machines erroneously flip ballots, then maybe it's enough for that district to go in a different direction which flips the state.  In a third state, let's say that the board of elections is stacked with people who are members of one party. Maybe there is no overt corruption, but they might skirt the line of legality to give a BIG benefit of the doubt when doing recounts or deciding which absentee ballots should be disqualified or deciding how much effort to put into cleaning up voter rolls. In yet another state, no one questions 20000 ballots from different people all using the same address (which turns out to be a vacant lot). Or mail ballots received with post marks that were dated *before* the voter sent in the request for the ballot. Or votes from out of state or underage voters.

Now do that across every state and it *is* a problem.

That has been going on for *decades* ( probably all the way to Geo. Washington's campaign for office.)

What is different (and entirely unexplained or unexplainable) is the seemingly "coincidental" manner n which multiple states all stopped counting for the night and then when they restarted the count the next morning there was somehow a prompt jump in the ballots going for Biden. There is incontrovertible proof that election officials and state government officials had conference calls in the early morning hours right after the election. There is incontrovertible proof that many states had electronic voting machines that were "updated" hours before the polls opened and/or that had connectivity to the Internet during the election.

Some of the lawsuits filed by Trump may have been devoid of merit. But not all. Judges actively found a way to reject the lawsuits or willfully refuse to hear evidence to avoid causing chaos in the form of leftist terrorist riots rather than actually upholding the law. How, for example, could Trump (running for a national elected position) somehow *not* have standing?  By virtue of the fact that it was a national position, he should have had standing in *every* state.

What people want is the absence of even the *appearance* of impropriety.  When elections in 3rd world dictatorships have better election integrity, it's a problem.

Solutions are very easy:

1. Clean the voter rolls. A simple dbase query and compare of people on voter rolls and who have been issued a death certificate isn't that hard. Neither is seeing how many voters are using the same address (and what that address actually is).

2. Have a process to ensure all voting machines are in working order and properly set up a week before polls open and are then secured with chain of custody from that point forward until a winner is declared.

3. Have unbiased observers - an equal number from every party whose candidates are on the ballot who are allowed unfettered access.

4. Actually follow the laws in your state surrounding elections. We had several states try to legislate election results by manipulating the laws surrounding election conduct *as the election season was in full swing.* We had several states where election officials didn't follow their own procedures.

5. No automatic mail ballots - they should only go to those who actually request them.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: I HATE THE DEMIURGE I HATE THE DEMIURGE on September 20, 2022, 10:24:31 AM
The establishment won because the opposition didn't do violence.
Try not to glow so hard there.

You're the kind of faggot that would call the Founding Fathers glowies, you spineless turd.
You're a fedposting lowlife. Get your whole head in front of the shotgun when you check out.
>fedposting on some minor RPG site
You're an inbred hick. Do the gene pool a favor and don't procreate. Then when the unwashed mongrel hordes of joggers, NASA engineers, and zippertits invade your rural home, you'll impotently clutch at your guns that you turned over to the ATF, because you're a fucking pansy.

גויים, לציית

For anyone not familiar, "joggers", in this context, is a subsitute for the n-word, used by racists to evade bans and word filters. And the Hebrew text at the bottom of this post reads, "Gentiles, obey." So aside from this dude's tiresome schtick, it's safe to say he's a proponent of anti-semitic conspiracy theories, and probably a racist. It's rare for Ghostmaker and I to agree, but yeah, dude needs to wash his mouth out with a revolver ASAP.

Cool it with the antisemitism, buddy.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: RPGPundit on September 20, 2022, 11:04:51 AM
The establishment won because the opposition didn't do violence.
Try not to glow so hard there.

You're the kind of faggot that would call the Founding Fathers glowies, you spineless turd.
You're a fedposting lowlife. Get your whole head in front of the shotgun when you check out.
>fedposting on some minor RPG site
You're an inbred hick. Do the gene pool a favor and don't procreate. Then when the unwashed mongrel hordes of joggers, NASA engineers, and zippertits invade your rural home, you'll impotently clutch at your guns that you turned over to the ATF, because you're a fucking pansy.

גויים, לציית

Banned for anti-semitic posting.

Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: RPGPundit on September 20, 2022, 11:08:31 AM
As far as I've been able to tell the only novel election fraud from 2020 that has gone to the point of prosecution fell into two categories: a handful of cases (less than a dozen) that were Republicans trying to stress-test the system but doing so illegally, and a few dozen cases of felons who were told they were able to register, but the people telling them that were wrong (almost all were in Florida). There are also the usual few cases scattered across the country where someone fraudulently tries to vote for someone else that happen every election.

Other than that, it's all allegations without any proof.

That's not entirely true.  There *are* cases of election officials being prosecuted for shenanigans and there are ongoing investigations. But they're so few and far between because no one really wants to expose the exact depth and breadth of shenanigans that have been going on for decades.

We know that Nixon beat Kennedy but the shenanigans in IL and TX led to Kennedy winning the electoral votes in those states.

The difference between then and now is that now we have *no* excuses to not have transparency in the entire process. Cleaning up voter rolls is low-hanging fruit, as is having an equal number of officials from both major parties sitting on election boards. Having a system that flags an absentee ballot if an in-person ballot from the same person is cast isn't that hard (and provides an incentive to clean up the rolls). Having the ability to video record the people doing the machine prep and test is easy. Requiring voting machine supplies to provide source code just requires the ability of government procurement people to walk away from bid and proposal responses that don't include it. Having the ability to 100% confirm that electronic voting machines are air-gapped is easy - don't supply them with wifi or cell modem and be able to physically lock out the network ports.

This is all *easy* but it requires government employees to not be lazy or corrupt.

Exactly. The biggest evidence that voter fraud could be happening is the fact that the Democratic party didn't react to the 2020 election controversy by saying "we're going to take all the measures we can possibly take to make sure that no one will have cause to question the next election, to make sure as many Americans as possible believe it is free and fair". Instead they did what a third world banana republic does: doubled down on repeating the exact same dubious policies while calling the other party "dangerous extremists" and threatening anyone who questions the election of the glorious leader.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Tubesock Army on September 20, 2022, 11:35:14 AM
As far as I've been able to tell the only novel election fraud from 2020 that has gone to the point of prosecution fell into two categories: a handful of cases (less than a dozen) that were Republicans trying to stress-test the system but doing so illegally, and a few dozen cases of felons who were told they were able to register, but the people telling them that were wrong (almost all were in Florida). There are also the usual few cases scattered across the country where someone fraudulently tries to vote for someone else that happen every election.

Other than that, it's all allegations without any proof.

That's not entirely true.  There *are* cases of election officials being prosecuted for shenanigans and there are ongoing investigations. But they're so few and far between because no one really wants to expose the exact depth and breadth of shenanigans that have been going on for decades.

We know that Nixon beat Kennedy but the shenanigans in IL and TX led to Kennedy winning the electoral votes in those states.

The difference between then and now is that now we have *no* excuses to not have transparency in the entire process. Cleaning up voter rolls is low-hanging fruit, as is having an equal number of officials from both major parties sitting on election boards. Having a system that flags an absentee ballot if an in-person ballot from the same person is cast isn't that hard (and provides an incentive to clean up the rolls). Having the ability to video record the people doing the machine prep and test is easy. Requiring voting machine supplies to provide source code just requires the ability of government procurement people to walk away from bid and proposal responses that don't include it. Having the ability to 100% confirm that electronic voting machines are air-gapped is easy - don't supply them with wifi or cell modem and be able to physically lock out the network ports.

This is all *easy* but it requires government employees to not be lazy or corrupt.

Exactly. The biggest evidence that voter fraud could be happening is the fact that the Democratic party didn't react to the 2020 election controversy by saying "we're going to take all the measures we can possibly take to make sure that no one will have cause to question the next election, to make sure as many Americans as possible believe it is free and fair". Instead they did what a third world banana republic does: doubled down on repeating the exact same dubious policies while calling the other party "dangerous extremists" and threatening anyone who questions the election of the glorious leader.

This is like saying that the biggest evidence that the Earth is flat is the fact that the scientific community at large isn't reacting to that accusation with a massive, coordinated campaign to educate the populace on the world's semispherical shape. What you posted is "anecdote", not "evidence".
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: im_the_globgloglabgalab on September 20, 2022, 11:38:05 AM
Y'know, banning a Jew for antisemitism is the motherfucking HEIGHT of irony.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Tubesock Army on September 20, 2022, 11:47:34 AM
Y'know, banning a Jew for antisemitism is the motherfucking HEIGHT of irony.

Alt spotted. Also, would it kill you to read a history book once in a while?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National_Jews

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/ellen-feldman-nazi-germany
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: GeekyBugle on September 20, 2022, 12:05:53 PM

Exactly. The biggest evidence that voter fraud could be happening is the fact that the Democratic party didn't react to the 2020 election controversy by saying "we're going to take all the measures we can possibly take to make sure that no one will have cause to question the next election, to make sure as many Americans as possible believe it is free and fair". Instead they did what a third world banana republic does: doubled down on repeating the exact same dubious policies while calling the other party "dangerous extremists" and threatening anyone who questions the election of the glorious leader.

This is like saying that the biggest evidence that the Earth is flat is the fact that the scientific community at large isn't reacting to that accusation with a massive, coordinated campaign to educate the populace on the world's semispherical shape. What you posted is "anecdote", not "evidence".

False equivalence detected, Flat earthers can't point to a single scientific discrepancy in the data or methods.

But there's enough anecdotal evidence of shit that never before happened in the USA to cast doubts upon the electoral system:

Absence of electoral ID that even México has.
Vans droping ballots in the middle of the night.
Reports before and after of ballot harvesting
Changing the rules suddenly
Not following the laws
Stopping the ballot count and then resuming with a giant jump in one direction.
People voting illegally
Irregularities in the voter lists

Fuck we haven't seen that many irregularities in México in a few decades.

Furthermore: there's a massive coordinated campaign to educate the populace regarding the earth's shape, it's called science class.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Tubesock Army on September 20, 2022, 12:20:53 PM
Ah, yes, "anecdotal data", the hallmark of serious scientific research...

No lawsuits. PACs, or Republican think tanks have unearthed evidence of widespread or pivotal fraud to date.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Bruwulf on September 20, 2022, 03:50:36 PM
Exactly. The biggest evidence that voter fraud could be happening is the fact that the Democratic party didn't react to the 2020 election controversy by saying "we're going to take all the measures we can possibly take to make sure that no one will have cause to question the next election, to make sure as many Americans as possible believe it is free and fair". Instead they did what a third world banana republic does: doubled down on repeating the exact same dubious policies while calling the other party "dangerous extremists" and threatening anyone who questions the election of the glorious leader.

Almost, the biggest evidence of voter fraud is that any attempt... any attempt to make the voting process more secure, like requiring ID to vote, is branded as "voter suppression" and "racism".
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Mistwell on September 20, 2022, 04:00:09 PM
Y'know, banning a Jew for antisemitism is the motherfucking HEIGHT of irony.

Pundit was given a series of options he could choose from for reasons to ban you. It could have been your use of the n-word with the "joggers" slang, for instance. Or the fact you were constantly posing off-topic. Instead he chose your, "Gentiles, obey" sig. It's really quite difficult to get banned here, and you managed to do the near-impossible in multiple ways in one post. Bravo?

As for the election fraud topic, I don't really care what you think about it. But I do care about what others think about it here. I don't think there was meaningful election fraud but it's a type of allegation which is so important that, even if I think the odds are extremely against it being real, I have to be willing to listen because the ramifications of it being real are pretty dire.

And I do agree with Pundit that we should be reacting by tightening up the security of our elections system. It doesn't matter if you think it's silly - when nearly half the nation doesn't think it's silly, that's reason enough to react by tightening up your security.

I am of the view that we need a national paid holiday for election day (move President's Day to that date for instance). No excuse of "I can't afford to take time off from work" if it's a national paid holiday.

Voting should be done in person unless a note from your doctor says you cannot make it to the polls or your nearest polling station is so far that it would be impractical to demand you go that far to vote.

And then we should issue a free, universal nation-wide high security voter ID to everyone, which can be obtained by the same means as a passport or selective service. Post offices, DMVs, government passport service agencies, etc.. MOST other nations use a national voter ID, and I don't see why we can't do that as well.

And finally the voting machines should all be the same, and involve no computers in taking votes, involve a paper ballot which you get a recipe for, and never touch in the Internet (which if they're low tech and use no computers to take votes shouldn't be hard to achieve). While counting can use a machine, that machine cannot be attached to the Internet and should be available for observers from any party on the ballot. Counting methods for unusual issues should be standardized across the nation, and hand counting should be allowed if the vote count of the machine is close, or if one party is willing to pay for a hand count. to verify the count.

Other nations can and have done elections in this same way, and they have far fewer problems than we do. We should take the security of our elections seriously. Technology is great for many things, but we need to go lower tech for elections due to the risks involved. Even if that means it takes longer to process results.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: GeekyBugle on September 20, 2022, 04:34:07 PM
Y'know, banning a Jew for antisemitism is the motherfucking HEIGHT of irony.

Pundit was given a series of options he could choose from for reasons to ban you. It could have been your use of the n-word with the "joggers" slang, for instance. Or the fact you were constantly posing off-topic. Instead he chose your, "Gentiles, obey" sig. It's really quite difficult to get banned here, and you managed to do the near-impossible in multiple ways in one post. Bravo?

As for the election fraud topic, I don't really care what you think about it. But I do care about what others think about it here. I don't think there was meaningful election fraud but it's a type of allegation which is so important that, even if I think the odds are extremely against it being real, I have to be willing to listen because the ramifications of it being real are pretty dire.

And I do agree with Pundit that we should be reacting by tightening up the security of our elections system. It doesn't matter if you think it's silly - when nearly half the nation doesn't think it's silly, that's reason enough to react by tightening up your security.

I am of the view that we need a national paid holiday for election day (move President's Day to that date for instance). No excuse of "I can't afford to take time off from work" if it's a national paid holiday.

Voting should be done in person unless a note from your doctor says you cannot make it to the polls or your nearest polling station is so far that it would be impractical to demand you go that far to vote.

And then we should issue a free, universal nation-wide high security voter ID to everyone, which can be obtained by the same means as a passport or selective service. Post offices, DMVs, government passport service agencies, etc.. MOST other nations use a national voter ID, and I don't see why we can't do that as well.

And finally the voting machines should all be the same, and involve no computers in taking votes, involve a paper ballot which you get a recipe for, and never touch in the Internet (which if they're low tech and use no computers to take votes shouldn't be hard to achieve). While counting can use a machine, that machine cannot be attached to the Internet and should be available for observers from any party on the ballot. Counting methods for unusual issues should be standardized across the nation, and hand counting should be allowed if the vote count of the machine is close, or if one party is willing to pay for a hand count. to verify the count.

Other nations can and have done elections in this same way, and they have far fewer problems than we do. We should take the security of our elections seriously. Technology is great for many things, but we need to go lower tech for elections due to the risks involved. Even if that means it takes longer to process results.

Not very much you and I agree politically, but in this you nailed it.

In México the counting is made by hand in each voting station in the presence of representatives of ALL the parties that sent one, they publish their count, then send everyhthing to be counted AGAIN elsewhere.

We have a "free" national voting ID, and it really doesn't take THAT long until you know the winner.

I mean it shouldn't be that WE have a better electoral system than you guys.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 20, 2022, 05:24:13 PM
Y'know, banning a Jew for antisemitism is the motherfucking HEIGHT of irony.

Pundit was given a series of options he could choose from for reasons to ban you. It could have been your use of the n-word with the "joggers" slang, for instance. Or the fact you were constantly posing off-topic. Instead he chose your, "Gentiles, obey" sig. It's really quite difficult to get banned here, and you managed to do the near-impossible in multiple ways in one post. Bravo?

As for the election fraud topic, I don't really care what you think about it. But I do care about what others think about it here. I don't think there was meaningful election fraud but it's a type of allegation which is so important that, even if I think the odds are extremely against it being real, I have to be willing to listen because the ramifications of it being real are pretty dire.

And I do agree with Pundit that we should be reacting by tightening up the security of our elections system. It doesn't matter if you think it's silly - when nearly half the nation doesn't think it's silly, that's reason enough to react by tightening up your security.

I am of the view that we need a national paid holiday for election day (move President's Day to that date for instance). No excuse of "I can't afford to take time off from work" if it's a national paid holiday.

Voting should be done in person unless a note from your doctor says you cannot make it to the polls or your nearest polling station is so far that it would be impractical to demand you go that far to vote.

And then we should issue a free, universal nation-wide high security voter ID to everyone, which can be obtained by the same means as a passport or selective service. Post offices, DMVs, government passport service agencies, etc.. MOST other nations use a national voter ID, and I don't see why we can't do that as well.

And finally the voting machines should all be the same, and involve no computers in taking votes, involve a paper ballot which you get a recipe for, and never touch in the Internet (which if they're low tech and use no computers to take votes shouldn't be hard to achieve). While counting can use a machine, that machine cannot be attached to the Internet and should be available for observers from any party on the ballot. Counting methods for unusual issues should be standardized across the nation, and hand counting should be allowed if the vote count of the machine is close, or if one party is willing to pay for a hand count. to verify the count.

Other nations can and have done elections in this same way, and they have far fewer problems than we do. We should take the security of our elections seriously. Technology is great for many things, but we need to go lower tech for elections due to the risks involved. Even if that means it takes longer to process results.

Not very much you and I agree politically, but in this you nailed it.

In México the counting is made by hand in each voting station in the presence of representatives of ALL the parties that sent one, they publish their count, then send everyhthing to be counted AGAIN elsewhere.

We have a "free" national voting ID, and it really doesn't take THAT long until you know the winner.

I mean it shouldn't be that WE have a better electoral system than you guys.

But the citizenry is used to instant gratification!!  We can't go back to the days of pony express telegrams!!!  Fake outrage aside, it wouldn't kill anyone for there to be a delay in the results of elections until absentee ballots get counted and any challenges to ballot counts are satisfactorily addressed.  We also need to get away from the network newsreaders being allowed to "declare" winners.  In reality, it would do everyone a world of good to slow down *everything* about our lives.
 
But yeah, we'd be better doing elections with something as low-tech as the Iraqis dipping voters' thumbs in ink after voting so that they couldn't go and vote again...
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 20, 2022, 05:34:32 PM
As far as I've been able to tell the only novel election fraud from 2020 that has gone to the point of prosecution fell into two categories: a handful of cases (less than a dozen) that were Republicans trying to stress-test the system but doing so illegally, and a few dozen cases of felons who were told they were able to register, but the people telling them that were wrong (almost all were in Florida). There are also the usual few cases scattered across the country where someone fraudulently tries to vote for someone else that happen every election.

Other than that, it's all allegations without any proof.

That's not entirely true.  There *are* cases of election officials being prosecuted for shenanigans and there are ongoing investigations. But they're so few and far between because no one really wants to expose the exact depth and breadth of shenanigans that have been going on for decades.

We know that Nixon beat Kennedy but the shenanigans in IL and TX led to Kennedy winning the electoral votes in those states.

The difference between then and now is that now we have *no* excuses to not have transparency in the entire process. Cleaning up voter rolls is low-hanging fruit, as is having an equal number of officials from both major parties sitting on election boards. Having a system that flags an absentee ballot if an in-person ballot from the same person is cast isn't that hard (and provides an incentive to clean up the rolls). Having the ability to video record the people doing the machine prep and test is easy. Requiring voting machine supplies to provide source code just requires the ability of government procurement people to walk away from bid and proposal responses that don't include it. Having the ability to 100% confirm that electronic voting machines are air-gapped is easy - don't supply them with wifi or cell modem and be able to physically lock out the network ports.

This is all *easy* but it requires government employees to not be lazy or corrupt.

Exactly. The biggest evidence that voter fraud could be happening is the fact that the Democratic party didn't react to the 2020 election controversy by saying "we're going to take all the measures we can possibly take to make sure that no one will have cause to question the next election, to make sure as many Americans as possible believe it is free and fair". Instead they did what a third world banana republic does: doubled down on repeating the exact same dubious policies while calling the other party "dangerous extremists" and threatening anyone who questions the election of the glorious leader.

Yep. I think a lot of it had to do with the simple fact that allowed all politicians to get away with immoral, unethical, and unlawful behavior for, like, forever.  When you do something wrong and don't get your dick kicked in for it, you tend to engage in more brazen behavior on future occasions to the point that the entire federal government and many state governments are completely untrustworthy. And let's not forget that the reality of elections in the US is that they are actually a private activity conducted by non-governmental entities in the form of political parties insofar as that they control candidate access.  "You get the privilege of exercising your rights to vote for only *these* candidates, citizen! Forget that the chosen one from the two major parties are both scumbags with one cheating on his wife with his secretary and the other having embezzled from the taxpayers when he was a local town mayor."
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: GeekyBugle on September 20, 2022, 05:42:33 PM
Y'know, banning a Jew for antisemitism is the motherfucking HEIGHT of irony.

Pundit was given a series of options he could choose from for reasons to ban you. It could have been your use of the n-word with the "joggers" slang, for instance. Or the fact you were constantly posing off-topic. Instead he chose your, "Gentiles, obey" sig. It's really quite difficult to get banned here, and you managed to do the near-impossible in multiple ways in one post. Bravo?

As for the election fraud topic, I don't really care what you think about it. But I do care about what others think about it here. I don't think there was meaningful election fraud but it's a type of allegation which is so important that, even if I think the odds are extremely against it being real, I have to be willing to listen because the ramifications of it being real are pretty dire.

And I do agree with Pundit that we should be reacting by tightening up the security of our elections system. It doesn't matter if you think it's silly - when nearly half the nation doesn't think it's silly, that's reason enough to react by tightening up your security.

I am of the view that we need a national paid holiday for election day (move President's Day to that date for instance). No excuse of "I can't afford to take time off from work" if it's a national paid holiday.

Voting should be done in person unless a note from your doctor says you cannot make it to the polls or your nearest polling station is so far that it would be impractical to demand you go that far to vote.

And then we should issue a free, universal nation-wide high security voter ID to everyone, which can be obtained by the same means as a passport or selective service. Post offices, DMVs, government passport service agencies, etc.. MOST other nations use a national voter ID, and I don't see why we can't do that as well.

And finally the voting machines should all be the same, and involve no computers in taking votes, involve a paper ballot which you get a recipe for, and never touch in the Internet (which if they're low tech and use no computers to take votes shouldn't be hard to achieve). While counting can use a machine, that machine cannot be attached to the Internet and should be available for observers from any party on the ballot. Counting methods for unusual issues should be standardized across the nation, and hand counting should be allowed if the vote count of the machine is close, or if one party is willing to pay for a hand count. to verify the count.

Other nations can and have done elections in this same way, and they have far fewer problems than we do. We should take the security of our elections seriously. Technology is great for many things, but we need to go lower tech for elections due to the risks involved. Even if that means it takes longer to process results.

Not very much you and I agree politically, but in this you nailed it.

In México the counting is made by hand in each voting station in the presence of representatives of ALL the parties that sent one, they publish their count, then send everyhthing to be counted AGAIN elsewhere.

We have a "free" national voting ID, and it really doesn't take THAT long until you know the winner.

I mean it shouldn't be that WE have a better electoral system than you guys.

But the citizenry is used to instant gratification!!  We can't go back to the days of pony express telegrams!!!  Fake outrage aside, it wouldn't kill anyone for there to be a delay in the results of elections until absentee ballots get counted and any challenges to ballot counts are satisfactorily addressed.  We also need to get away from the network newsreaders being allowed to "declare" winners.  In reality, it would do everyone a world of good to slow down *everything* about our lives.
 
But yeah, we'd be better doing elections with something as low-tech as the Iraqis dipping voters' thumbs in ink after voting so that they couldn't go and vote again...

Something else we also do, this along with the voter lists and your voting ID having an expiration date and places to punch when you vote in an election is very low tech.

My voter ID has a life of 10 years, so for the next elections I need to go and get a new one.

Assuming ill intent someone could say he lost his, so what? You can't get it election day, and if you have two you can't vote twice because there's the redundance of the punching AND the thumb dipping in ink.

Hell you can get one even without ANY papers as long as two people can vouche for you and you have a physical address. Which, is the weakest link since a party could organize to give voting IDs to illegals to have them vote in an election. Or at least you could when it was first introduced many years ago.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jeff37923 on September 20, 2022, 07:45:22 PM

I mean it shouldn't be that WE have a better electoral system than you guys.

With the evidence being the current US president, I'd say that it proves that Mexico does have a better electoral system.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: GeekyBugle on September 20, 2022, 07:54:14 PM

I mean it shouldn't be that WE have a better electoral system than you guys.

With the evidence being the current US president, I'd say that it proves that Mexico does have a better electoral system.

I mean our current dear beloved comrade leader El Presidente is as dumb as a bag of rocks, but he got elected fair and square. Even if said dumb and his followers want to dismantle the electoral system and go back to the one when only the PRI "won" elections.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: RPGPundit on September 20, 2022, 11:22:19 PM

I mean it shouldn't be that WE have a better electoral system than you guys.

With the evidence being the current US president, I'd say that it proves that Mexico does have a better electoral system.

Have you seen the current Mexican president?
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: GeekyBugle on September 21, 2022, 01:19:19 AM

I mean it shouldn't be that WE have a better electoral system than you guys.

With the evidence being the current US president, I'd say that it proves that Mexico does have a better electoral system.

Have you seen the current Mexican president?

But AMLO was elected fair and square, the only idiots claiming our electoral system is corrupt are him and his idiotic followers.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Ratman_tf on September 21, 2022, 01:29:37 AM
What is different (and entirely unexplained or unexplainable) is the seemingly "coincidental" manner n which multiple states all stopped counting for the night and then when they restarted the count the next morning there was somehow a prompt jump in the ballots going for Biden. There is incontrovertible proof that election officials and state government officials had conference calls in the early morning hours right after the election. There is incontrovertible proof that many states had electronic voting machines that were "updated" hours before the polls opened and/or that had connectivity to the Internet during the election.

This is the big one for me. The election may not have been fixed, but it fucking looks like it.
The Democrats (and their anti-Trump allies in the Republican party) had means, motive and opportunity. And with the state of voting due to Covid, this was probably the sketchiest presidential election I've seen.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Bruwulf on September 21, 2022, 08:27:33 AM

This is the big one for me. The election may not have been fixed, but it fucking looks like it.
The Democrats (and their anti-Trump allies in the Republican party) had means, motive and opportunity. And with the state of voting due to Covid, this was probably the sketchiest presidential election I've seen.

Combine this with the refusal to actually properly investigate it in many cases, and the refusal to do the one very easy thing needed to secure the elections against the things that are being claimed.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Ghostmaker on September 21, 2022, 09:27:31 AM
What is different (and entirely unexplained or unexplainable) is the seemingly "coincidental" manner n which multiple states all stopped counting for the night and then when they restarted the count the next morning there was somehow a prompt jump in the ballots going for Biden. There is incontrovertible proof that election officials and state government officials had conference calls in the early morning hours right after the election. There is incontrovertible proof that many states had electronic voting machines that were "updated" hours before the polls opened and/or that had connectivity to the Internet during the election.

This is the big one for me. The election may not have been fixed, but it fucking looks like it.
The Democrats (and their anti-Trump allies in the Republican party) had means, motive and opportunity. And with the state of voting due to Covid, this was probably the sketchiest presidential election I've seen.
This, coupled with the 'no fucking way' reaction people have to Joe Biden somehow outpolling Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

Haha nope.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Mistwell on September 21, 2022, 01:54:22 PM
What is different (and entirely unexplained or unexplainable) is the seemingly "coincidental" manner n which multiple states all stopped counting for the night and then when they restarted the count the next morning there was somehow a prompt jump in the ballots going for Biden. There is incontrovertible proof that election officials and state government officials had conference calls in the early morning hours right after the election. There is incontrovertible proof that many states had electronic voting machines that were "updated" hours before the polls opened and/or that had connectivity to the Internet during the election.

This is the big one for me. The election may not have been fixed, but it fucking looks like it.
The Democrats (and their anti-Trump allies in the Republican party) had means, motive and opportunity. And with the state of voting due to Covid, this was probably the sketchiest presidential election I've seen.
This, coupled with the 'no fucking way' reaction people have to Joe Biden somehow outpolling Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

Haha nope.

That part surprises me not at all. Trump behaved like a troll on the Internet for four years, and that pissed off a lot of people who otherwise would have voted for him just for being a Republican. Biden's support was mostly just people pissed at Trump.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: KindaMeh on September 21, 2022, 02:32:03 PM
I feel like the Trump antipathy was real, if partly manufactured, or else right wing polling sites would never have had Biden leading in the polls at all in the run up to the election proper. These days a lot of the Democratic strategy, even as stated, is “orange man bad”. Heck, both parties seem to rely primarily on how bad the other is stated to be to motivate their voters these days, rather than their own virtues. IDK if it’s necessarily the best thing for our democracy.

I think voter fraud tends to be overstated more generally, if you look at the actual studies and verifiable mass statistics on it. There’s a reason why in the 60+ formal lawsuits started within a year of 2020 relative to the election and electoral process at large, many of which were not dismissed by the court under standing specifically, not a one could or did prove their case rather than losing.

That said, I think the Dems started it, and I really don’t think it illegal for another nation to help you win an election so long as you didn’t solicit them to actually mess with the votes. We try to influence elections all the time, so Russia making an attempt to influence us through social media and other measures, and some successful strategic email releases way back in 2016 means jack shit. Democrats started the decline in electoral faith the moment they wrongly questioned 2016’s legitimacy, which was morally wrong to do on so many levels. Now it bites them on the ass and they cry foul.

 Moreover, anyone not in favor of electoral reform, or convinced that voting restrictions for election security are racism, needs to get their head checked. Enough people have lost faith in our electoral system that something needs to be done, and that something is publicized reform that will restore faith in the system. It doesn’t matter if the problem itself is demonstrably widespread or not, if people think it is, and our system does not inspire faith.

The Democrats seem to want to play the victim (their favorite move) not 4 years after pulling this shit themselves, and somehow think that this and demonizing their political opponents, rather than genuine reflection on the state of electoral faith within America, will win them the next election. Hell, maybe it will, but it’s disgusting.
 
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 21, 2022, 02:54:42 PM
The biggest evidence that voter fraud could be happening is the fact that the Democratic party didn't react to the 2020 election controversy by saying "we're going to take all the measures we can possibly take to make sure that no one will have cause to question the next election, to make sure as many Americans as possible believe it is free and fair". Instead they did what a third world banana republic does: doubled down on repeating the exact same dubious policies while calling the other party "dangerous extremists" and threatening anyone who questions the election of the glorious leader.

This is like saying that the biggest evidence that the Earth is flat is the fact that the scientific community at large isn't reacting to that accusation with a massive, coordinated campaign to educate the populace on the world's semispherical shape. What you posted is "anecdote", not "evidence".

First of all, Pundit calls out the Democratic Party's reaction - but the Republican Party's reaction was largely the same. It's also just doesn't fit simple psychology. If someone is falsely accused of a crime without solid evidence, the normal reaction isn't to be contrite and say "Oh, I'm so sorry that you think that of me. Let me bend over backwards to show you how innocent I am." The normal reaction is to get angry and say "Fuck you, asshole."


Almost, the biggest evidence of voter fraud is that any attempt... any attempt to make the voting process more secure, like requiring ID to vote, is branded as "voter suppression" and "racism".

There are tons of ways to make the voting process more secure that don't involve adding more hoops for voters to jump through. Funding investigations and observers, reforming voting machines like Georgia did so that there is an accurate paper trail, updating voter rolls with existing information like death certificates and change-of-address, and many others.

Voter suppression is a big issue that goes much more broadly than ID. Voting day should be a national holiday so that people don't have to rush from work. There are often long lines for polls in poorer districts, which is flatly unequal. Waiting over 8 hours in line to vote is a travesty. If people who have a car and easy time off and live in the right districts can trivially get to vote in minutes, while others have to rush from work, take the bus, and wait in line for hours -- that's flatly unequal. Voting isn't a privilege that people should pay for. It's a right that the government should guarantee equal access to.

Yes, there are people like me who are concerned about voter suppression - but I don't agree that this is a sign that I or others support fraud.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: KindaMeh on September 21, 2022, 03:19:17 PM
In all fairness, there are absentee voting laws in all 50 states, and early voting in 46, 50 counting absentee early voting. There are ways to vote, even if it isn’t always instant gratification. It’s governance by the majority who care enough to participate.

Likewise, disparate impact as a judicial argument for voting discrimination is kinda bs because our entire society is capitalist in nature, with some respect for the right to property, and capitalism rewards the rich over the poor in lifestyle and ease. Disproportionate impact within this context generally starts with the assumption that if a category is poorer due to historical contexts that can’t easily be “corrected” instantly without a communist redistribution and total restructuring of our society into something much worse, and that quite rationally makes doing something less easy ON AVERAGE for a category, this then means it is discrimination against said category directly. Should we go after companies that make things cost money because that makes it harder for the poor, and therefore ON AVERAGE minorities to buy? What about going after parks for tailoring themselves towards those with more leisure? How about banning all political parties and public service because on average the poor, and therefore minorities, have less time for participation? It’s ludicrous.

Now to be fair, some forms of voter intimidation are racially motivated, morally wrong, and politically encouraged. These  threaten election security and integrity and election reform demands addressing them too. But I think voter suppression as framed by the democrats these days is a definition and distortion standing on ideological sand.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Bruwulf on September 21, 2022, 04:28:23 PM
There are tons of ways to make the voting process more secure that don't involve adding more hoops for voters to jump through. Funding investigations and observers, reforming voting machines like Georgia did so that there is an accurate paper trail, updating voter rolls with existing information like death certificates and change-of-address, and many others.

ID is not, realistically speaking, a hoop. You basically can't function in legal society without photo ID. The incredibly, incredibly overwhelming majority of people who can legally vote to begin with already have some form of government issued photo ID. Hell, I have two in my wallet. The rounding error of people who don't can get one, it's not that big a deal. I'm even fine with making it free, although I'm aware it currently isn't in most cases.

Observers can - as we've seen in the past - be shut out of areas and in other ways deceived, and investigations are after-the-fact and unlikely to go anywhere.

Updating the voter lists is important, too, but we hear cries of voter suppression when some state does that, too. We just heard it again when Florida did it recently.

No. Secure the access to the vote. Don't try to make it easier to clean up a mess, prevent the mess from happening in the first place.

Voter suppression is a big issue that goes much more broadly than ID. Voting day should be a national holiday so that people don't have to rush from work. There are often long lines for polls in poorer districts, which is flatly unequal. Waiting over 8 hours in line to vote is a travesty. If people who have a car and easy time off and live in the right districts can trivially get to vote in minutes, while others have to rush from work, take the bus, and wait in line for hours -- that's flatly unequal. Voting isn't a privilege that people should pay for. It's a right that the government should guarantee equal access to.

Yes, there are people like me who are concerned about voter suppression - but I don't agree that this is a sign that I or others support fraud.

I'm fine with making it a paid holiday. I don't know what systemic knobs need to be tweaked to open more voting places in congested areas, but that should be tweaked too. I'm not saying voter suppression can't happen, what I'm saying is that it's telling that any attempt to secure the system is labeled as voter suppression.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Zelen on September 21, 2022, 04:46:32 PM
Why would the burden of proof be on anyone to "prove" voter fraud? The burden of proof should be on the election commissions to prove that fraud did not occur.

At a bare minimum, every single vote should be digitized and published somewhere publicly so independent auditors can validate votes. Voters should all have a unique private key that allows them to compare their vote to the digitized version of the ballot and verify the vote was recorded correctly.

All vote counting and activity involving handling of ballots should be video recorded and records preserved. Any disruption or malfunction of these systems automatically invalidates any vote where the chain of custody is uncertain and not verified.

Mail in ballots should be outlawed except in circumstances where the voter is physically unable to attend the voting booth. Ballot drop boxes are illegal. Use an AI facial recognition service (I recently had to do this just to check into a hotel) to verify identity with photo ID. Double up with signature verification.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: KindaMeh on September 21, 2022, 05:20:01 PM
Why would the burden of proof be on anyone to "prove" voter fraud? The burden of proof should be on the election commissions to prove that fraud did not occur.

At a bare minimum, every single vote should be digitized and published somewhere publicly so independent auditors can validate votes. Voters should all have a unique private key that allows them to compare their vote to the digitized version of the ballot and verify the vote was recorded correctly.

All vote counting and activity involving handling of ballots should be video recorded and records preserved. Any disruption or malfunction of these systems automatically invalidates any vote where the chain of custody is uncertain and not verified.

I agree with the first point as regards political reform of the electoral system, there unless it can be convincing to the public in no uncertain terms that the system is safe reform should be undertaken.

As regards a judicial overturning of an election, however, burden of proof is pretty clearly on the person claiming fraud to prove people did illegal shit. And that it was genuinely enough to sway the election. As part of that, that those parties overseeing the election had unsound and negligent methods or demonstrably messed with the process. You want to get yourself installed as president you prove you would’ve definitely won without chicanery afoot. You want the other guy thrown in jail for this you prove he personally did something illegal, with presumption of innocence because that’s how our system does and likely should work.

I’d agree with the stuff you say about taping polling sites and making it all available to everyone if not for privacy and voter intimidation/retaliation concerns. (Canceling, doxxing, people like maybe even Antifa type folk showing up to screw with you, or folks trying to get you to claim your vote was wrong through social pressure, etcetera could totally happen.) Also, people might disrupt stuff just to disqualify votes from areas likely to go one way or another if the disqualification rule went into play. 

That private key idea is pretty darn good though, I’d like to think.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 21, 2022, 05:43:54 PM
There are tons of ways to make the voting process more secure that don't involve adding more hoops for voters to jump through. Funding investigations and observers, reforming voting machines like Georgia did so that there is an accurate paper trail, updating voter rolls with existing information like death certificates and change-of-address, and many others.

ID is not, realistically speaking, a hoop. You basically can't function in legal society without photo ID. The incredibly, incredibly overwhelming majority of people who can legally vote to begin with already have some form of government issued photo ID. Hell, I have two in my wallet. The rounding error of people who don't can get one, it's not that big a deal. I'm even fine with making it free, although I'm aware it currently isn't in most cases.

It is a small minority of people hampered by this - but that number is vastly more than the number in-person fraud cases that might be prevented. There are hundreds of thousands of people who don't have a current valid ID, and they'd have to pay to get one.

I have seen nothing to suggest that in-person fraud (i.e. someone comes in and lies about their identity to vote) is at all significant. One easy way to at least identify when this is happening is to send mail or other update to the legal voter of when and where they voted. If someone lied about being them, they can speak up.

Voter suppression is a big issue that goes much more broadly than ID. Voting day should be a national holiday so that people don't have to rush from work. There are often long lines for polls in poorer districts, which is flatly unequal. Waiting over 8 hours in line to vote is a travesty. If people who have a car and easy time off and live in the right districts can trivially get to vote in minutes, while others have to rush from work, take the bus, and wait in line for hours -- that's flatly unequal. Voting isn't a privilege that people should pay for. It's a right that the government should guarantee equal access to.

Yes, there are people like me who are concerned about voter suppression - but I don't agree that this is a sign that I or others support fraud.

I'm fine with making it a paid holiday. I don't know what systemic knobs need to be tweaked to open more voting places in congested areas, but that should be tweaked too. I'm not saying voter suppression can't happen, what I'm saying is that it's telling that any attempt to secure the system is labeled as voter suppression.

But I've already listed out many ways to secure the system that are *not* labeled voter suppression. So your statement is flatly wrong. You're ignoring all attempts to secure the system *except for* voter ID.

Yes, voter ID requirements are labeled as voter suppression - because in the U.S., they do make it more difficult for thousands of legal voters. Even though that's a small minority, they still have their rights. I would support voter ID if the government took on the responsibility of issuing a free ID card to all citizens. That's not how any of the current restriction laws work, though.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 21, 2022, 06:40:58 PM
Why would the burden of proof be on anyone to "prove" voter fraud? The burden of proof should be on the election commissions to prove that fraud did not occur.

At a bare minimum, every single vote should be digitized and published somewhere publicly so independent auditors can validate votes. Voters should all have a unique private key that allows them to compare their vote to the digitized version of the ballot and verify the vote was recorded correctly.

The election commissions *did* prove that fraud did not occur, by validating their votes and presenting their validations to the state governments. The state governments can and did demand additional investigation in some cases, but in the end, they authorized the voting results. If you mean that the election commissions need to prove themselves to 100% of Americans in the court of public opinion, that's flatly impossible.

Regarding your digitization suggestion, I'm concerned about exactly what you mean. It is *required* in a secret ballot that no one - especially government auditors - can see exactly what an individual voter's vote was. That includes the voter themselves. Having a secret key that's given to the voter would mean that if the voter reveals their key to anyone, that anonymity is lost and someone can check out how they voted. For example, there have been problems with bosses requiring that their workers prove they voted correctly, or local governments listing and targeting dissidents based on looking at their votes.

In any case, the percentage of voters who would electronically check their votes is likely to be very small.

In general, the U.S. has a ridiculously messy election system - with different systems for each state and often varying county to county and even by locality. There are dozens of voting machines, hundreds of ballot designs, and different registration systems. Each year there are tens of thousands of part-time volunteers who operate the polling places, and then turn over to local election commissions.

This makes it incredibly difficult to get a top-level security. With only part-time volunteers and local officials, there are always lots of mistakes and possibly local bias, as well as dozens if not hundreds of fraud cases that slip through. On the other hand, it seems also very difficult for there to be a top-down control of it all for the same reason.

EDITED TO ADD: There have been plenty of state and local level reforms to improve election security, but they tend not to get much attention. For example, I thought Georgia did well with its recent reforms to get a simple and robust election machines with a paper trail.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Mistwell on September 21, 2022, 06:50:29 PM
There are tons of ways to make the voting process more secure that don't involve adding more hoops for voters to jump through. Funding investigations and observers, reforming voting machines like Georgia did so that there is an accurate paper trail, updating voter rolls with existing information like death certificates and change-of-address, and many others.

ID is not, realistically speaking, a hoop. You basically can't function in legal society without photo ID. The incredibly, incredibly overwhelming majority of people who can legally vote to begin with already have some form of government issued photo ID. Hell, I have two in my wallet. The rounding error of people who don't can get one, it's not that big a deal. I'm even fine with making it free, although I'm aware it currently isn't in most cases.

It is a small minority of people hampered by this - but that number is vastly more than the number in-person fraud cases that might be prevented. There are hundreds of thousands of people who don't have a current valid ID, and they'd have to pay to get one.

It's free in a lot of places and should be free. If nothing else, to end this stupid claim that it's some burden to get an ID when even most of the lowliest nations on the planet can manage to find a way to distribute IDs to everyone.

Quote
I have seen nothing to suggest that in-person fraud (i.e. someone comes in and lies about their identity to vote) is at all significant. One easy way to at least identify when this is happening is to send mail or other update to the legal voter of when and where they voted. If someone lied about being them, they can speak up.

Here is the problem with this kind of claim: in most places, there is no enforcement arm looking to see if there is in-person fraud happening. It's EXTREMELY rare that the Government looks, and I mean actually looks, to see what's going on.

One of the very few rare times the Government REALLY looked at an election was the Bob Dornan/ Loretta Sanchez case. 

A 1996 INS investigation into alleged Motor Voter fraud in California's 46th congressional district, together with a Congressional Task Force and state investigation, discovered that 4,023 illegal voters possibly cast ballots in the disputed election between Republican Robert Dornan and Democrat Loretta Sanchez. After a careful comparison between the Orange County voter registration files and INS databases the Task Force was able to clearly and convincingly document that 624 persons had illegally registered and thus were not eligible to cast ballots in the November 1996 election. In addition, the Task Force discovered 196 instances where there is a circumstantial indication that a voter registered illegally. Further, the Orange County Registrar of voters voided 124 improper absentee ballots. In total, the Task Force found clear and convincing evidence that 748 invalid votes were cast in this election. Dornan lost by 984 votes.

That's actually quite a lot of voter fraud. So what have we changed to prevent that from ever happening again since 1996?

Essentially nothing. We actually made it EASIER to do that sort of thing here in California, not harder. And we DON'T CHECK to see if it's happening. The only real check on the system is if a private citizen files a complaint because they have evidence of fraud - otherwise, they don't even ask for any form of ID in California. You just show up, state your name, and that's it. How would we know if there was fraud going on at the ballot without checking? What check on the system is there to validate someone is allowed to registered to vote?

To me that's like saying nobody is speeding on the freeways, after we pull all highway patrol and no longer look to see if anyone is speeding on the freeways and depend only on another driver calling in a complaint about a speeder.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 21, 2022, 07:32:57 PM
There are tons of ways to make the voting process more secure that don't involve adding more hoops for voters to jump through. Funding investigations and observers, reforming voting machines like Georgia did so that there is an accurate paper trail, updating voter rolls with existing information like death certificates and change-of-address, and many others.

ID is not, realistically speaking, a hoop. You basically can't function in legal society without photo ID. The incredibly, incredibly overwhelming majority of people who can legally vote to begin with already have some form of government issued photo ID. Hell, I have two in my wallet. The rounding error of people who don't can get one, it's not that big a deal. I'm even fine with making it free, although I'm aware it currently isn't in most cases.

It is a small minority of people hampered by this - but that number is vastly more than the number in-person fraud cases that might be prevented. There are hundreds of thousands of people who don't have a current valid ID, and they'd have to pay to get one.

I have seen nothing to suggest that in-person fraud (i.e. someone comes in and lies about their identity to vote) is at all significant. One easy way to at least identify when this is happening is to send mail or other update to the legal voter of when and where they voted. If someone lied about being them, they can speak up.

Voter suppression is a big issue that goes much more broadly than ID. Voting day should be a national holiday so that people don't have to rush from work. There are often long lines for polls in poorer districts, which is flatly unequal. Waiting over 8 hours in line to vote is a travesty. If people who have a car and easy time off and live in the right districts can trivially get to vote in minutes, while others have to rush from work, take the bus, and wait in line for hours -- that's flatly unequal. Voting isn't a privilege that people should pay for. It's a right that the government should guarantee equal access to.

Yes, there are people like me who are concerned about voter suppression - but I don't agree that this is a sign that I or others support fraud.

I'm fine with making it a paid holiday. I don't know what systemic knobs need to be tweaked to open more voting places in congested areas, but that should be tweaked too. I'm not saying voter suppression can't happen, what I'm saying is that it's telling that any attempt to secure the system is labeled as voter suppression.

But I've already listed out many ways to secure the system that are *not* labeled voter suppression. So your statement is flatly wrong. You're ignoring all attempts to secure the system *except for* voter ID.

Yes, voter ID requirements are labeled as voter suppression - because in the U.S., they do make it more difficult for thousands of legal voters. Even though that's a small minority, they still have their rights. I would support voter ID if the government took on the responsibility of issuing a free ID card to all citizens. That's not how any of the current restriction laws work, though.

How is requiring ID to vote suppression? Would you say the same thing about wanting an ID for anyone desiring to buy a firearm?  The 1st and 2nd amendments are both inherent rights and they can both be used to hurt people.

Three fact of they matter is that those who claim they can't obtain ID are likely in the same lobe of a venn diagram as those who don't want to put forth any effort in any other aspect of their lives. There is no excuse that holds any water. "Well my birth certificate was burned up in a fire, so I can't get an ID." Yeah - you spend $25 to have your state vital records office issue a certified duplicate.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 21, 2022, 07:46:05 PM
Why would the burden of proof be on anyone to "prove" voter fraud? The burden of proof should be on the election commissions to prove that fraud did not occur.

At a bare minimum, every single vote should be digitized and published somewhere publicly so independent auditors can validate votes. Voters should all have a unique private key that allows them to compare their vote to the digitized version of the ballot and verify the vote was recorded correctly.

The election commissions *did* prove that fraud did not occur, by validating their votes and presenting their validations to the state governments. The state governments can and did demand additional investigation in some cases, but in the end, they authorized the voting results. If you mean that the election commissions need to prove themselves to 100% of Americans in the court of public opinion, that's flatly impossible.

Regarding your digitization suggestion, I'm concerned about exactly what you mean. It is *required* in a secret ballot that no one - especially government auditors - can see exactly what an individual voter's vote was. That includes the voter themselves. Having a secret key that's given to the voter would mean that if the voter reveals their key to anyone, that anonymity is lost and someone can check out how they voted. For example, there have been problems with bosses requiring that their workers prove they voted correctly, or local governments listing and targeting dissidents based on looking at their votes.

In any case, the percentage of voters who would electronically check their votes is likely to be very small.

In general, the U.S. has a ridiculously messy election system - with different systems for each state and often varying county to county and even by locality. There are dozens of voting machines, hundreds of ballot designs, and different registration systems. Each year there are tens of thousands of part-time volunteers who operate the polling places, and then turn over to local election commissions.

This makes it incredibly difficult to get a top-level security. With only part-time volunteers and local officials, there are always lots of mistakes and possibly local bias, as well as dozens if not hundreds of fraud cases that slip through. On the other hand, it seems also very difficult for there to be a top-down control of it all for the same reason.

EDITED TO ADD: There have been plenty of state and local level reforms to improve election security, but they tend not to get much attention. For example, I thought Georgia did well with its recent reforms to get a simple and robust election machines with a paper trail.

They didn't prove no fraud occurred. Counting the same ballots one more time is not an audit. An audit is when you actually do the following:

1. Confirm that the ballot was cast by someone on the voter rolls who is actually alive, living in the state, and eligible to vote.
2. Rejecting multiple votes from the same voter.
3. Rejecting ballots cast after the deadline.
4. Rejecting illegible ballots.
5. Rejecting unsigned mail ballots.
6. Rejecting ballots whose signatures don't match the signature on the voter rolls.
7. Rejecting registrations from multiple unrelated people living at the same address, and confirming the address isn't a vacant lot or PO box.
8. Rejecting ballots that have been tampered with.
9. Rejecting ballots whose origin and chain of custody are unknown.

You know - actually doing a forensic audit instead of counting every ballot you just counted and declaring "All good; no fraud here!"
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 21, 2022, 09:09:51 PM
EDITED TO ADD: There have been plenty of state and local level reforms to improve election security, but they tend not to get much attention. For example, I thought Georgia did well with its recent reforms to get a simple and robust election machines with a paper trail.

They didn't prove no fraud occurred. Counting the same ballots one more time is not an audit.

You're talking about something completely different than I was. I didn't say anything about the audit during 2020. I was talking about improvements in election security. Prior to 2019, Georgia had an all-electronic voting system that everyone criticized as vulnerable - and a judge ordered that it could not be used in the 2020 elections. They then went and replaced their old electronic-only system with new machines that had a clear paper trail, which I thought was a big improvement.

This is all prior to 2020. The 2020 Georgia election used a more secure system than the 2016 election.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 21, 2022, 09:34:37 PM
I have seen nothing to suggest that in-person fraud (i.e. someone comes in and lies about their identity to vote) is at all significant. One easy way to at least identify when this is happening is to send mail or other update to the legal voter of when and where they voted. If someone lied about being them, they can speak up.

Here is the problem with this kind of claim: in most places, there is no enforcement arm looking to see if there is in-person fraud happening. It's EXTREMELY rare that the Government looks, and I mean actually looks, to see what's going on.

One of the very few rare times the Government REALLY looked at an election was the Bob Dornan/ Loretta Sanchez case.
In total, the Task Force found clear and convincing evidence that 748 invalid votes were cast in this election. Dornan lost by 984 votes.

You're switching out the category here. Those 748 votes were *not* from people lying about what their name was, that could be prevented by requiring photo ID. Those 748 votes were from people who *had* legal ID and voted under their legal names. What made them invalid was they were immigrants who didn't have the right to vote.

Yes, that is a category that happens more regularly. It was less than half a percent (0.5%) in this case, but that's significant. It can happen in part because there is a tiny percentage of immigrants can screw up and not understand the right to vote. Anything that depends on people following instructions will get some percent of people screwing up - even if they're citizens fluent in English. There can be intentional illegal voting as well, of course. This is exacerbated by the U.S.'s patchwork ID system, where there is no federal ID, and people change out their IDs as they move from state to state. So apparently there's no easy way to check for citizenship status based on ID. Immigrants are allowed to drive and can get driver's licenses, but the status of their naturalization isn't tied to their driver's license ID.

Yes, I support improving our systems so we can more easily verify whether someone is a citizen legal to vote or not. That doesn't involve any extra effort on the part of the voter.

I also would support a system that distributes free photo ID to all citizens, like what Mexico has done. If we did that, I'd be fine with requiring the ID to vote.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: GeekyBugle on September 22, 2022, 09:23:47 AM
I have seen nothing to suggest that in-person fraud (i.e. someone comes in and lies about their identity to vote) is at all significant. One easy way to at least identify when this is happening is to send mail or other update to the legal voter of when and where they voted. If someone lied about being them, they can speak up.

Here is the problem with this kind of claim: in most places, there is no enforcement arm looking to see if there is in-person fraud happening. It's EXTREMELY rare that the Government looks, and I mean actually looks, to see what's going on.

One of the very few rare times the Government REALLY looked at an election was the Bob Dornan/ Loretta Sanchez case.
In total, the Task Force found clear and convincing evidence that 748 invalid votes were cast in this election. Dornan lost by 984 votes.

You're switching out the category here. Those 748 votes were *not* from people lying about what their name was, that could be prevented by requiring photo ID. Those 748 votes were from people who *had* legal ID and voted under their legal names. What made them invalid was they were immigrants who didn't have the right to vote.

Yes, that is a category that happens more regularly. It was less than half a percent (0.5%) in this case, but that's significant. It can happen in part because there is a tiny percentage of immigrants can screw up and not understand the right to vote. Anything that depends on people following instructions will get some percent of people screwing up - even if they're citizens fluent in English. There can be intentional illegal voting as well, of course. This is exacerbated by the U.S.'s patchwork ID system, where there is no federal ID, and people change out their IDs as they move from state to state. So apparently there's no easy way to check for citizenship status based on ID. Immigrants are allowed to drive and can get driver's licenses, but the status of their naturalization isn't tied to their driver's license ID.

Yes, I support improving our systems so we can more easily verify whether someone is a citizen legal to vote or not. That doesn't involve any extra effort on the part of the voter.

I also would support a system that distributes free photo ID to all citizens, like what Mexico has done. If we did that, I'd be fine with requiring the ID to vote.

Is he tho?

Isn't the argument about voter ID?

From my PoV you're conflating ANY legal ID (Drivers License, etc) with a voter ID.

In México we have a voter ID that also works as a legal ID and is required for purchases of alcohol/tobacco/etc. if you look like you're too young to buy them. But it's not our Drivers License, Passport, etc.

IF you guys stoped crying that something even shitholes like México have is raicismism and instituted such an ID people who don't have the right to vote because they're not citizens couldn't vote in any election period.

But no, you cry about voter suppression because in your eyes blacks, latinos, etc are too stooooopid to go get an ID.

You guys also love to conflate (in both sides of the argument) the drivers license with a voter ID. It's not, it shouldn't be, it needs to be a different ID you get in the electoral org's offices once every 10 years, it needs to have a way to punch elecctions per year, a unique number per citizen, and an actual physical address. It has to be "free" so as not to disadvantage the poor (although there's arguments about restricting the vote to those citizens who do pay taxes), it has to be almost impossible to falsify, it has to be how you build the voting lists (these have the voter ID photos in alphabetical order), it has to have your fingerprint, signature, sex, photo, age, place of birth etc.

Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Bruwulf on September 22, 2022, 11:43:09 AM
You guys also love to conflate (in both sides of the argument) the drivers license with a voter ID. It's not, it shouldn't be, it needs to be a different ID you get in the electoral org's offices once every 10 years, it needs to have a way to punch elecctions per year, a unique number per citizen, and an actual physical address. It has to be "free" so as not to disadvantage the poor (although there's arguments about restricting the vote to those citizens who do pay taxes), it has to be almost impossible to falsify, it has to be how you build the voting lists (these have the voter ID photos in alphabetical order), it has to have your fingerprint, signature, sex, photo, age, place of birth etc.

Driver's licence is (admittedly lazy) verbal shorthand. There is a generic government photo ID you can get that is applicable in any situation you need photo ID for, if you don't otherwise need a driver's licence or can't get one for some reason. It's unfortunately not free... I think it's 25 dollars? But I agree it should be. It doesn't have fingerprints, or place of birth, but it's enough.

Again, it's virtually impossible to function in legal society without some form of government photo ID. Without it, you can't buy alcohol or tobacco, open a bank account, apply for government aid (food stamps, etc), get a lot of other government licences, buy a gun, go to a lot of doctors, buy houses or rent apartments, and the list goes on. Or even get most jobs. Yeah, it's possible to find workarounds for some of those (go the emergency room, for example, and there are unscrupulous landlords), but generally speaking without an ID you're kinda fucked already, so I question how many "hundreds of thousands" of legal voters are going to get disenfranchised if we require ID.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: GeekyBugle on September 22, 2022, 01:38:59 PM
You guys also love to conflate (in both sides of the argument) the drivers license with a voter ID. It's not, it shouldn't be, it needs to be a different ID you get in the electoral org's offices once every 10 years, it needs to have a way to punch elecctions per year, a unique number per citizen, and an actual physical address. It has to be "free" so as not to disadvantage the poor (although there's arguments about restricting the vote to those citizens who do pay taxes), it has to be almost impossible to falsify, it has to be how you build the voting lists (these have the voter ID photos in alphabetical order), it has to have your fingerprint, signature, sex, photo, age, place of birth etc.

Driver's licence is (admittedly lazy) verbal shorthand. There is a generic government photo ID you can get that is applicable in any situation you need photo ID for, if you don't otherwise need a driver's licence or can't get one for some reason. It's unfortunately not free... I think it's 25 dollars? But I agree it should be. It doesn't have fingerprints, or place of birth, but it's enough.

Again, it's virtually impossible to function in legal society without some form of government photo ID. Without it, you can't buy alcohol or tobacco, open a bank account, apply for government aid (food stamps, etc), get a lot of other government licences, buy a gun, go to a lot of doctors, buy houses or rent apartments, and the list goes on. Or even get most jobs. Yeah, it's possible to find workarounds for some of those (go the emergency room, for example, and there are unscrupulous landlords), but generally speaking without an ID you're kinda fucked already, so I question how many "hundreds of thousands" of legal voters are going to get disenfranchised if we require ID.

Again, if the aim is to stop voter fraud/increase confidence in the system, you need a special ID, I shared the Mexican one for a reason, our system has been praised the world over. Granted it doesn't stop at the ID but it starts there.

Your whole electoral system needs to be overhauled to bring it into the 21st century, and that doesn't mean electronic fraud machines, paper ballots, clear ballot boxes where the voter places his ballot, voter ID, inked thumbs, electoral lists revised and updated constantly, representatives of all parties supervising each voting station, granting access to observers from outside the parties if they wish to, each polling station counts AND publishes their count outside after closing, recountings/audits of any polling station happen if any party demands it.

That's how we do it and it takes at most 24 hours to know the winner in very constested elections, usually we know the same day or early morning the next day.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 22, 2022, 03:47:33 PM
You guys also love to conflate (in both sides of the argument) the drivers license with a voter ID. It's not, it shouldn't be, it needs to be a different ID you get in the electoral org's offices once every 10 years, it needs to have a way to punch elecctions per year, a unique number per citizen, and an actual physical address. It has to be "free" so as not to disadvantage the poor (although there's arguments about restricting the vote to those citizens who do pay taxes), it has to be almost impossible to falsify, it has to be how you build the voting lists (these have the voter ID photos in alphabetical order), it has to have your fingerprint, signature, sex, photo, age, place of birth etc.

Driver's licence is (admittedly lazy) verbal shorthand. There is a generic government photo ID you can get that is applicable in any situation you need photo ID for, if you don't otherwise need a driver's licence or can't get one for some reason. It's unfortunately not free... I think it's 25 dollars? But I agree it should be. It doesn't have fingerprints, or place of birth, but it's enough.

Again, it's virtually impossible to function in legal society without some form of government photo ID. Without it, you can't buy alcohol or tobacco, open a bank account, apply for government aid (food stamps, etc), get a lot of other government licences, buy a gun, go to a lot of doctors, buy houses or rent apartments, and the list goes on. Or even get most jobs. Yeah, it's possible to find workarounds for some of those (go the emergency room, for example, and there are unscrupulous landlords), but generally speaking without an ID you're kinda fucked already, so I question how many "hundreds of thousands" of legal voters are going to get disenfranchised if we require ID.

Wai wai wait. Let me stop you right there. You mean the same people who the left claims shouldn't *need* an ID to vote are the same people who *have* an ID (that could be used to vote) to buy booze and smokes and government aid?!???

Shocking.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 22, 2022, 04:27:55 PM
You guys also love to conflate (in both sides of the argument) the drivers license with a voter ID. It's not, it shouldn't be, it needs to be a different ID you get in the electoral org's offices once every 10 years, it needs to have a way to punch elecctions per year, a unique number per citizen, and an actual physical address. It has to be "free" so as not to disadvantage the poor (although there's arguments about restricting the vote to those citizens who do pay taxes), it has to be almost impossible to falsify, it has to be how you build the voting lists (these have the voter ID photos in alphabetical order), it has to have your fingerprint, signature, sex, photo, age, place of birth etc.

Driver's licence is (admittedly lazy) verbal shorthand. There is a generic government photo ID you can get that is applicable in any situation you need photo ID for, if you don't otherwise need a driver's licence or can't get one for some reason. It's unfortunately not free... I think it's 25 dollars? But I agree it should be. It doesn't have fingerprints, or place of birth, but it's enough.

To GeekyBugle - the reason why we talk about driver's licenses is because the debate is over the currently-enforced state laws that require photo ID under the current ID system. Over 30 states are now enforcing photo ID requirements without revising their ID system. Currently, a driver's license is the only government-issued photo ID that most Americans have, and as I said, a significant percentage of legal voters do not have that.

As I said earlier, *if* the government took responsibility to issue a free photo ID to everyone who is legal to vote - as Mexico does, then that would be a very different case.


Again, it's virtually impossible to function in legal society without some form of government photo ID. Without it, you can't buy alcohol or tobacco, open a bank account, apply for government aid (food stamps, etc), get a lot of other government licences, buy a gun, go to a lot of doctors, buy houses or rent apartments, and the list goes on. Or even get most jobs. Yeah, it's possible to find workarounds for some of those (go the emergency room, for example, and there are unscrupulous landlords), but generally speaking without an ID you're kinda fucked already, so I question how many "hundreds of thousands" of legal voters are going to get disenfranchised if we require ID.

You claim this, but all the studies I've read have shown that there are indeed many people who don't have a current ID. They're not completely disenfranchised. The vast majority *can* get a valid photo ID, but it can involve a number of hurdles. It isn't just the fee. It's getting to the right office, getting the right paperwork, and waiting in line for hours as well as the fee. Some people don't have their original birth certificate or marriage certificate which can be required, and replacing those takes money and effort. That added effort creates a disincentive to vote, just like a poll tax which has long been ruled illegal.

A common case includes poorer elderly people whose driver's license has expired, and they have not needed the photo id again. The American Association of Retired People (AARP) documented the impact on older Americans.

https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-01-2012/voter-id-laws-impact-older-americans.html

This references a 2006 survey of 987 Americans which found that 18% (!!) of American citizens age 65 and above do not have current government-issued photo ID.

https://www.brennancenter.org/media/6697/download

There was a study about the average cost of replacement IDs, even in states which supposedly offered a free option for photo ID. This was one example from Pennsylvania,

Quote
According to a September 13, 2012 letter to The Morning Call in Scranton, a Pennsylvania resident seeking a “free” voter ID had incurred costs of $94.61 so far, which were likely to eventually reach $133.61. The potential voter traveled 34 miles round trip to and from the PennDOT agency in Bethlehem, an estimated hour of travel time. After a 75-minute wait, she was advised that she needed to present a raised-seal birth certificate from her home state of New York and an updated Social Security card. Subsequently, she requested a birth certificate from New York State. She then traveled to a local Social Security office and was informed that a raised-seal marriage certificate was also required to obtain the updated Social Security card. She then requested a marriage certificate from New York State. She now needs to return to the Social Security office with the marriage certificate to get an updated Social Security card. Then, she needs to return to PennDOT to provide the birth certificate and updated Social Security card to get a voter ID.

cf. http://charleshamiltonhouston.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/FullReportVoterIDJune2014.pdf

It's not just the $133 - it's that it's unequal time and effort to get this in order to vote. Voting should be just as easy for everyone, not selectively harder for elderly and/or poor people.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: GeekyBugle on September 22, 2022, 05:11:46 PM
You guys also love to conflate (in both sides of the argument) the drivers license with a voter ID. It's not, it shouldn't be, it needs to be a different ID you get in the electoral org's offices once every 10 years, it needs to have a way to punch elecctions per year, a unique number per citizen, and an actual physical address. It has to be "free" so as not to disadvantage the poor (although there's arguments about restricting the vote to those citizens who do pay taxes), it has to be almost impossible to falsify, it has to be how you build the voting lists (these have the voter ID photos in alphabetical order), it has to have your fingerprint, signature, sex, photo, age, place of birth etc.

Driver's licence is (admittedly lazy) verbal shorthand. There is a generic government photo ID you can get that is applicable in any situation you need photo ID for, if you don't otherwise need a driver's licence or can't get one for some reason. It's unfortunately not free... I think it's 25 dollars? But I agree it should be. It doesn't have fingerprints, or place of birth, but it's enough.

To GeekyBugle - the reason why we talk about driver's licenses is because the debate is over the currently-enforced state laws that require photo ID under the current ID system. Over 30 states are now enforcing photo ID requirements without revising their ID system. Currently, a driver's license is the only government-issued photo ID that most Americans have, and as I said, a significant percentage of legal voters do not have that.

As I said earlier, *if* the government took responsibility to issue a free photo ID to everyone who is legal to vote - as Mexico does, then that would be a very different case.


Again, it's virtually impossible to function in legal society without some form of government photo ID. Without it, you can't buy alcohol or tobacco, open a bank account, apply for government aid (food stamps, etc), get a lot of other government licences, buy a gun, go to a lot of doctors, buy houses or rent apartments, and the list goes on. Or even get most jobs. Yeah, it's possible to find workarounds for some of those (go the emergency room, for example, and there are unscrupulous landlords), but generally speaking without an ID you're kinda fucked already, so I question how many "hundreds of thousands" of legal voters are going to get disenfranchised if we require ID.

You claim this, but all the studies I've read have shown that there are indeed many people who don't have a current ID. They're not completely disenfranchised. The vast majority *can* get a valid photo ID, but it can involve a number of hurdles. It isn't just the fee. It's getting to the right office, getting the right paperwork, and waiting in line for hours as well as the fee. Some people don't have their original birth certificate or marriage certificate which can be required, and replacing those takes money and effort. That added effort creates a disincentive to vote, just like a poll tax which has long been ruled illegal.

A common case includes poorer elderly people whose driver's license has expired, and they have not needed the photo id again. The American Association of Retired People (AARP) documented the impact on older Americans.

https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-01-2012/voter-id-laws-impact-older-americans.html

This references a 2006 survey of 987 Americans which found that 18% (!!) of American citizens age 65 and above do not have current government-issued photo ID.

https://www.brennancenter.org/media/6697/download

There was a study about the average cost of replacement IDs, even in states which supposedly offered a free option for photo ID. This was one example from Pennsylvania,

Quote
According to a September 13, 2012 letter to The Morning Call in Scranton, a Pennsylvania resident seeking a “free” voter ID had incurred costs of $94.61 so far, which were likely to eventually reach $133.61. The potential voter traveled 34 miles round trip to and from the PennDOT agency in Bethlehem, an estimated hour of travel time. After a 75-minute wait, she was advised that she needed to present a raised-seal birth certificate from her home state of New York and an updated Social Security card. Subsequently, she requested a birth certificate from New York State. She then traveled to a local Social Security office and was informed that a raised-seal marriage certificate was also required to obtain the updated Social Security card. She then requested a marriage certificate from New York State. She now needs to return to the Social Security office with the marriage certificate to get an updated Social Security card. Then, she needs to return to PennDOT to provide the birth certificate and updated Social Security card to get a voter ID.

cf. http://charleshamiltonhouston.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/FullReportVoterIDJune2014.pdf

It's not just the $133 - it's that it's unequal time and effort to get this in order to vote. Voting should be just as easy for everyone, not selectively harder for elderly and/or poor people.

It's the same effort and time and cost for everybody, unless you are claiming that rich people get exmptions for those requirements.

And those requirements are also present in México and the world over, and yes, you also need your birth certificate, because it's for citizens, you also need a physical address (copy of your power/phone receit) and if you don't have another ID 2 persons to testify you are who you claim you are.

And guess what? In the most remote locations people have their voter ID, people who some times have to invest lots of time travelling to a town/city to get their papers.

Only people that don't have it are those who don't care enough to get it.

It's not like you have to get a new one every month or something dude, you get it once every 10 years for fucks sake!

It doesn't disenfranchise nobody, those are just leftoid pretexts to not make the system more secure.

Given what the PRI used to do here before, I can make an educated guess why they are so against having a secure system: They are commiting fraud.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: moonsweeper on September 22, 2022, 05:56:08 PM
Actually if you bother to read the pdf the costs are outrageously overcalculated.  The portions that you cite validate this.
What is even funnier is how much blame gets cast on the inefficiency of the government offices.


anecdote:  As someone whos has had to replace most of those documents in real life, I'll call bullshit.



edit:  I'd like to see some actual numbers for how many of these supposed 'eligible voters' do not have an actual vote allowable photo ID...

You know, all the ones who can't drive vehicles, use a bank, buy alcohol or tobacco, etc.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Ratman_tf on September 22, 2022, 06:24:39 PM
Actually if you bother to read the pdf the costs are outrageously overcalculated.  The portions that you cite validate this.
What is even funnier is how much blame gets cast of the inefficiency of the government offices.


anecdote:  As someone whos has had to replace most of those documents in real life, I'll call bullshit.



edit:  I'd like to see some actual numbers for how many of these supposed 'eligible voters' do not have an actual vote allowable photo ID...

You know, all the ones who can't drive vehicles, use a bank, buy alcohol or tobacco, etc.

Even when I was dirt poor, I was able to scrabble together the money and time to get an ID. (Not a driver's license)

Most of the talk about voter supression comes across as ignorant white people thinking black people are too stupid and poor to get an ID.

I would support a free or cheap voter ID card and more support for voting early, more places to vote, stuff like that. But then I support mail in ballots because with the proper security in place, that would reduce the cost and time of setting up voting booths, taking time off work, etc, etc.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: moonsweeper on September 22, 2022, 06:29:20 PM
Actually if you bother to read the pdf the costs are outrageously overcalculated.  The portions that you cite validate this.
What is even funnier is how much blame gets cast of the inefficiency of the government offices.


anecdote:  As someone whos has had to replace most of those documents in real life, I'll call bullshit.



edit:  I'd like to see some actual numbers for how many of these supposed 'eligible voters' do not have an actual vote allowable photo ID...

You know, all the ones who can't drive vehicles, use a bank, buy alcohol or tobacco, etc.

Even when I was dirt poor, I was able to scrabble together the money and time to get an ID. (Not a driver's license)

Most of the talk about voter supression comes across as ignorant white people thinking black people are too stupid and poor to get an ID.

I would support a free or cheap voter ID card and more support for voting early, more places to vote, stuff like that. But then I support mail in ballots because with the proper security in place, that would reduce the cost and time of setting up voting booths, taking time off work, etc, etc.

States should definitely issue a free photo ID to citizens of the state.  The time costs are actually pretty negligible.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 22, 2022, 08:03:56 PM
anecdote:  As someone whos has had to replace most of those documents in real life, I'll call bullshit.

edit:  I'd like to see some actual numbers for how many of these supposed 'eligible voters' do not have an actual vote allowable photo ID...

Even when I was dirt poor, I was able to scrabble together the money and time to get an ID. (Not a driver's license)

Most of the talk about voter supression comes across as ignorant white people thinking black people are too stupid and poor to get an ID.

I already linked to a survey showing how many Americans don't have a current valid photo ID. I'm open to seeing some other survey or study that show it is wrong.

But it seems like you're putting your own anecdotes over data. Like those who say it's racist to claim that black people are arrested and jailed more than white people. All of the data I have seen show that is clearly the case. That's what reality is. We can vary in how we explain it, but it is the truth that it is.

Likewise, elderly, poor, and black people all have a higher rate of lacking valid photo ID. I don't think that black people are stupider, or that people lacking photo ID are all stupid. It's just a question of circumstance.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Mistwell on September 22, 2022, 09:35:52 PM
I have seen nothing to suggest that in-person fraud (i.e. someone comes in and lies about their identity to vote) is at all significant. One easy way to at least identify when this is happening is to send mail or other update to the legal voter of when and where they voted. If someone lied about being them, they can speak up.

Here is the problem with this kind of claim: in most places, there is no enforcement arm looking to see if there is in-person fraud happening. It's EXTREMELY rare that the Government looks, and I mean actually looks, to see what's going on.

One of the very few rare times the Government REALLY looked at an election was the Bob Dornan/ Loretta Sanchez case.
In total, the Task Force found clear and convincing evidence that 748 invalid votes were cast in this election. Dornan lost by 984 votes.

You're switching out the category here. Those 748 votes were *not* from people lying about what their name was, that could be prevented by requiring photo ID. Those 748 votes were from people who *had* legal ID and voted under their legal names. What made them invalid was they were immigrants who didn't have the right to vote.

Right, which is a system which DOES require an ID to register, and they managed to register with an ID illegally. If THAT level of system failure was happening when we looked, then it's impossible to say with a straight face that no level of system failure is happening at the ballot when literally all you do is say the name of a registered voter and you're given a ballot and your vote is counted. In the very least, we need to have some vague level of check on that system - like literally every other nation on the planet.

Quote

Yes, that is a category that happens more regularly. It was less than half a percent (0.5%) in this case, but that's significant. It can happen in part because there is a tiny percentage of immigrants can screw up and not understand the right to vote.

That is, frankly, an absurd take if you know the facts of the case. They didn't "screw up" this was Democratically funded groups actively going out to register immigrants, knowing they were not checking their status to make sure it was legal to register them. That's what the entire lawsuit was about and that part was proven, it's just they couldn't prove the number went beyond the number needed to win the election. And again, we never changed the system at all after we knew that was going on, on an organized basis.

Quote
Anything that depends on people following instructions will get some percent of people screwing up - even if they're citizens fluent in English. There can be intentional illegal voting as well, of course. This is exacerbated by the U.S.'s patchwork ID system, where there is no federal ID, and people change out their IDs as they move from state to state. So apparently there's no easy way to check for citizenship status based on ID. Immigrants are allowed to drive and can get driver's licenses, but the status of their naturalization isn't tied to their driver's license ID.

We could, yah know, have a free universal ID for citizens. Like, oh I don't know, most other nations in the world?

Quote
Yes, I support improving our systems so we can more easily verify whether someone is a citizen legal to vote or not. That doesn't involve any extra effort on the part of the voter.

I also would support a system that distributes free photo ID to all citizens, like what Mexico has done. If we did that, I'd be fine with requiring the ID to vote.

I would too. However the Democratic party opposes it, and claims it would be "racist" and "biased," again despite most nations in the world being able to do this just fine and being ranked by independent democracy foundations as having more sound democracies than ours right now.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jeff37923 on September 22, 2022, 10:18:51 PM
Actually if you bother to read the pdf the costs are outrageously overcalculated.  The portions that you cite validate this.
What is even funnier is how much blame gets cast of the inefficiency of the government offices.


anecdote:  As someone whos has had to replace most of those documents in real life, I'll call bullshit.



edit:  I'd like to see some actual numbers for how many of these supposed 'eligible voters' do not have an actual vote allowable photo ID...

You know, all the ones who can't drive vehicles, use a bank, buy alcohol or tobacco, etc.

Even when I was dirt poor, I was able to scrabble together the money and time to get an ID. (Not a driver's license)

Most of the talk about voter supression comes across as ignorant white people thinking black people are too stupid and poor to get an ID.

I would support a free or cheap voter ID card and more support for voting early, more places to vote, stuff like that. But then I support mail in ballots because with the proper security in place, that would reduce the cost and time of setting up voting booths, taking time off work, etc, etc.

States should definitely issue a free photo ID to citizens of the state.  The time costs are actually pretty negligible.

I know that my home state of Tennessee does this. If you can prove that you are a resident of TN, you can apply, and get one for free.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 22, 2022, 11:01:23 PM
anecdote:  As someone whos has had to replace most of those documents in real life, I'll call bullshit.

edit:  I'd like to see some actual numbers for how many of these supposed 'eligible voters' do not have an actual vote allowable photo ID...

Even when I was dirt poor, I was able to scrabble together the money and time to get an ID. (Not a driver's license)

Most of the talk about voter supression comes across as ignorant white people thinking black people are too stupid and poor to get an ID.

I already linked to a survey showing how many Americans don't have a current valid photo ID. I'm open to seeing some other survey or study that show it is wrong.

But it seems like you're putting your own anecdotes over data. Like those who say it's racist to claim that black people are arrested and jailed more than white people. All of the data I have seen show that is clearly the case. That's what reality is. We can vary in how we explain it, but it is the truth that it is.

Likewise, elderly, poor, and black people all have a higher rate of lacking valid photo ID. I don't think that black people are stupider, or that people lacking photo ID are all stupid. It's just a question of circumstance.

No one cares about the number because it's not important.

What is important is why they don't have some type of ID. It is not difficult to apply for and obtain a valid ID. The argument of "Woe is me, I needed to go and get this other document that I lost because I was irresponsible and it'll cost me money and time!" doesn't cut it. Too fucking bad.  It's called navigating society.  If you can't be bothered to not lose important personal effects to the extent that trying to obtain a valid ID turns into a Homeric quest, you aren't someone whose vote is going to count for much anyway and maybe you shouldn't be allowed to vote.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 23, 2022, 12:10:45 AM
The discussion of photo ID is getting a bit sidetracked from the general issue of election fraud.

I'd put again - photo ID verification is useful for only one type of fraud - where someone comes in and lies about their name, signs the register with the false name, and votes for another registered voter. Note that in order to do this, it means that whoever they are impersonating can't vote themselves, because that will be flagged as that voter voting twice. So the impersonator needs to know who is registered to vote but definitely won't vote. Unless they are masters of disguise, they need to go to a different polling place to vote again - again needing a confirmed registered voter who isn't voting in that polling place.

I believe this can and certainly does happen. There's a half-dozen people convicted trying to vote as a dead relative every year across the country - and I would guess there could be dozens or even hundreds more impersonators who aren't caught. However, I don't see how this approach can be used as top-down fraud to swing national elections. For it to be organized, then many thousands of people would need to be recruited to do this - and none of those thousands squeal on their recruiters.

If I were trying to defraud a national election, that seems like an unworkable strategy. I'm convinced that traditional strategies like gerrymandering and other semi-legal manipulations have far more impact.

-------------

No one cares about the number because it's not important.

You might not care. However, moonsweeper and Bruwulf both specifically said they doubted the number of people existed and asked about proof.

What is important is why they don't have some type of ID. It is not difficult to apply for and obtain a valid ID. The argument of "Woe is me, I needed to go and get this other document that I lost because I was irresponsible and it'll cost me money and time!" doesn't cut it. Too fucking bad.  It's called navigating society.  If you can't be bothered to not lose important personal effects to the extent that trying to obtain a valid ID turns into a Homeric quest, you aren't someone whose vote is going to count for much anyway and maybe you shouldn't be allowed to vote.

It sounds like you expressly want to suppress the vote of these people. I'd be interested to discuss that argument, but I'd point out first that other people have been arguing the opposite - that Democrats are delusional that there is any attempt to suppress legal voters.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: moonsweeper on September 23, 2022, 12:12:28 AM
anecdote:  As someone whos has had to replace most of those documents in real life, I'll call bullshit.

edit:  I'd like to see some actual numbers for how many of these supposed 'eligible voters' do not have an actual vote allowable photo ID...

Even when I was dirt poor, I was able to scrabble together the money and time to get an ID. (Not a driver's license)

Most of the talk about voter supression comes across as ignorant white people thinking black people are too stupid and poor to get an ID.

I already linked to a survey showing how many Americans don't have a current valid photo ID. I'm open to seeing some other survey or study that show it is wrong.

But it seems like you're putting your own anecdotes over data. Like those who say it's racist to claim that black people are arrested and jailed more than white people. All of the data I have seen show that is clearly the case. That's what reality is. We can vary in how we explain it, but it is the truth that it is.

Likewise, elderly, poor, and black people all have a higher rate of lacking valid photo ID. I don't think that black people are stupider, or that people lacking photo ID are all stupid. It's just a question of circumstance.

No one cares about the number because it's not important.

What is important is why they don't have some type of ID. It is not difficult to apply for and obtain a valid ID. The argument of "Woe is me, I needed to go and get this other document that I lost because I was irresponsible and it'll cost me money and time!" doesn't cut it. Too fucking bad.  It's called navigating society.  If you can't be bothered to not lose important personal effects to the extent that trying to obtain a valid ID turns into a Homeric quest, you aren't someone whose vote is going to count for much anyway and maybe you shouldn't be allowed to vote.

The survey was a joke...
987 total sample size....
2% error with 95% confidence unless 'otherwise stated' and then almost all of their values were noted to be different with anywhere from 4% to 8% error

The first paragraph of the AARP article actually claimed a woman was unable to vote or get a Driver's License because she was not issued a Birth Certificate from the midwife...because no state can issue a driver's license to anyone who doesn't have a birth certificate (snerk!)...looks like they are conflating the issue to say she can't vote because of the BC issue when it is probably just the lack of a DL or other ID since she WAS issued an SSN... ::)

That's before we even get to the cost exaggeration in the 3rd link...


Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: GeekyBugle on September 23, 2022, 12:27:46 AM
The discussion of photo ID is getting a bit sidetracked from the general issue of election fraud.

I'd put again - photo ID verification is useful for only one type of fraud - where someone comes in and lies about their name, signs the register with the false name, and votes for another registered voter. Note that in order to do this, it means that whoever they are impersonating can't vote themselves, because that will be flagged as that voter voting twice. So the impersonator needs to know who is registered to vote but definitely won't vote. Unless they are masters of disguise, they need to go to a different polling place to vote again - again needing a confirmed registered voter who isn't voting in that polling place.

I believe this can and certainly does happen. There's a half-dozen people convicted trying to vote as a dead relative every year across the country - and I would guess there could be dozens or even hundreds more impersonators who aren't caught. However, I don't see how this approach can be used as top-down fraud to swing national elections. For it to be organized, then many thousands of people would need to be recruited to do this - and none of those thousands squeal on their recruiters.

If I were trying to defraud a national election, that seems like an unworkable strategy. I'm convinced that traditional strategies like gerrymandering and other semi-legal manipulations have far more impact.

-------------

No one cares about the number because it's not important.

You might not care. However, moonsweeper and Bruwulf both specifically said they doubted the number of people existed and asked about proof.

What is important is why they don't have some type of ID. It is not difficult to apply for and obtain a valid ID. The argument of "Woe is me, I needed to go and get this other document that I lost because I was irresponsible and it'll cost me money and time!" doesn't cut it. Too fucking bad.  It's called navigating society.  If you can't be bothered to not lose important personal effects to the extent that trying to obtain a valid ID turns into a Homeric quest, you aren't someone whose vote is going to count for much anyway and maybe you shouldn't be allowed to vote.

It sounds like you expressly want to suppress the vote of these people. I'd be interested to discuss that argument, but I'd point out first that other people have been arguing the opposite - that Democrats are delusional that there is any attempt to suppress legal voters.

Being able to vote as a dead person means your voter lists are shit.

Dead people used to vote for the PRI too, and then we got serious about voting fraud, isued voter IDs and purge our lists before every election cycle.

It sounds like you want to keep the fraud that's being commited.

And if your lists are shit, if people can vote in two different voting districts, if non citizens can vote your electoral system is a joke, and a shithole like México does it better.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: RPGPundit on September 23, 2022, 12:38:30 AM
I'm pretty sure every democratic first world country on earth (and most third-world countries) other than the USA require some kind of picture ID to vote.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 23, 2022, 12:57:09 AM
Being able to vote as a dead person means your voter lists are shit.

Dead people used to vote for the PRI too, and then we got serious about voting fraud, isued voter IDs and purge our lists before every election cycle.

It sounds like you want to keep the fraud that's being commited.

And if your lists are shit, if people can vote in two different voting districts, if non citizens can vote your electoral system is a joke, and a shithole like México does it better.

I completely agree that our system sucks. My problem is the narrow-mindedness that current DMV-issued photo ID laws are the key and only improvement that anyone will consider implementing -- and if I oppose those laws and instead call for other fixes, then I'm made out to be in support of fraud.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 23, 2022, 01:03:25 AM
States should definitely issue a free photo ID to citizens of the state.  The time costs are actually pretty negligible.

I know that my home state of Tennessee does this. If you can prove that you are a resident of TN, you can apply, and get one for free.

Do you have a cite for that? When I look at the Tennessee DMV website below, it says that non-driver photo IDs are $12, which is cheap but not free. There are free permanent photo IDs, but according to the page, only for those with a mental or physical disability.

https://www.dmv.org/tn-tennessee/id-cards.php
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Ratman_tf on September 23, 2022, 01:38:05 AM
anecdote:  As someone whos has had to replace most of those documents in real life, I'll call bullshit.

edit:  I'd like to see some actual numbers for how many of these supposed 'eligible voters' do not have an actual vote allowable photo ID...

Even when I was dirt poor, I was able to scrabble together the money and time to get an ID. (Not a driver's license)

Most of the talk about voter supression comes across as ignorant white people thinking black people are too stupid and poor to get an ID.

I already linked to a survey showing how many Americans don't have a current valid photo ID. I'm open to seeing some other survey or study that show it is wrong.

But it seems like you're putting your own anecdotes over data. Like those who say it's racist to claim that black people are arrested and jailed more than white people. All of the data I have seen show that is clearly the case. That's what reality is. We can vary in how we explain it, but it is the truth that it is.

Right. Like saying that because 90+% of inmates are male, that means America is systematically oppressive towards men.
Something I don't think anyone has claimed, and yet numbers are used like that for other demographics all the time.

Quote
Likewise, elderly, poor, and black people all have a higher rate of lacking valid photo ID. I don't think that black people are stupider, or that people lacking photo ID are all stupid. It's just a question of circumstance.

And how many of them would manage to get an ID if it became a requirement to vote? That too is a circumstance.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Ghostmaker on September 23, 2022, 10:35:55 AM
jhkim confirmed as racist for thinking 'some people' can't figure out how to get a photo ID that you need these days to do just about anything.

Also, when I can buy a firearm without photo ID, you can vote without one. Those are my terms.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Zelen on September 23, 2022, 11:16:03 AM
jhkim confirmed as racist for thinking 'some people' can't figure out how to get a photo ID that you need these days to do just about anything.

Also, when I can buy a firearm without photo ID, you can vote without one. Those are my terms.

jhkim earned a block when he defended child genital mutilation and grooming children into deviant sexuality.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: GeekyBugle on September 23, 2022, 11:22:24 AM
Being able to vote as a dead person means your voter lists are shit.

Dead people used to vote for the PRI too, and then we got serious about voting fraud, isued voter IDs and purge our lists before every election cycle.

It sounds like you want to keep the fraud that's being commited.

And if your lists are shit, if people can vote in two different voting districts, if non citizens can vote your electoral system is a joke, and a shithole like México does it better.

I completely agree that our system sucks. My problem is the narrow-mindedness that current DMV-issued photo ID laws are the key and only improvement that anyone will consider implementing -- and if I oppose those laws and instead call for other fixes, then I'm made out to be in support of fraud.

Funny, I haven't seen ANYONE here saying that's the only fix needed, but it is part of the solution, and you are in oposition to it.

Tell me, you really think ANYONE (not counting those living in the street) in the USA is even close tyo being as poor or as far away from services as in México?

Do you have whole communities living in some mountain jungle or something?

If OUR "Natives" and poor can manage I'm sure yours can too.

If your problem is there's some that can't afford to get a copy of their birth certificate then make a charity drive so they have one.

But instead of that you just are against a part opf the solution, as Pundit, myself and others have pointed out, all of the west (or almost if there's any exception) demands a photo ID to vote, and most of the third world does too.

It was part of solving voter fraud in México, WHY are you against it to the point of not even considering workarounds fo0r what you perceive as it's drawbacks?
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Bruwulf on September 23, 2022, 11:56:24 AM
I completely agree that our system sucks. My problem is the narrow-mindedness that current DMV-issued photo ID laws are the key and only improvement that anyone will consider implementing -- and if I oppose those laws and instead call for other fixes, then I'm made out to be in support of fraud.

I - and most others - generally go to using a driver's licence because it's something a majority of people already have, and it's an easily comprehended concept that a lot of the framework is already in place for.

I - and most others - are also fine with it being extended to other, equally validated forms of ID, of which I've already mentioned in this thread, thank you very much. If your big hangup is, for some reason, having to go to the DMV... Hell, that's fine. Going to the DMV sucks. Nobody likes going to the DMV. Make one available at courthouses too, or something. That's fine.

And those aren't the only changes I support. But it doesn't matter. When "my side" proposes it, it literally doesn't matter what we propose, it's "racist" or some other -ist. It's racist when we purge invalid, illegal, fraudulent, and expired registrations from the voter registry, too, for example, and yet that's a bare minimum requirement for a trustworthy election system.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 23, 2022, 12:37:39 PM
It was part of solving voter fraud in México, WHY are you against it to the point of not even considering workarounds fo0r what you perceive as it's drawbacks?

I don't understand. I've already said that I'm in favor of the Mexican system. If there were a law where everyone was offered a free ID with photo and thumbprint that they had to go to a local office to get in order to vote, I would support that system.

I've also discussed other easy workarounds, like voter notification. If voters were always notified of when and where they voted (by mail and optional text message), then someone else impersonating them when voting in-person would be very obvious - because the actual registered voter would report it.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 23, 2022, 01:37:28 PM
And those aren't the only changes I support. But it doesn't matter. When "my side" proposes it, it literally doesn't matter what we propose, it's "racist" or some other -ist. It's racist when we purge invalid, illegal, fraudulent, and expired registrations from the voter registry, too, for example, and yet that's a bare minimum requirement for a trustworthy election system.

It's funny to say that, when I'm the one being called racist in this thread. (Ghostmaker called me "confirmed as racist".)

It seems to me that it doesn't matter what I propose, I'm being called racist and supporting fraud.

My biggest problem with our system is the legal manipulation of voting - like gerrymandering, hours-long lines in poorer districts, and voting day being on a work day. That's why I oppose changes that add additional burden on select groups of voters.

I'm especially in favor of changes that study and prove existing voter fraud in order to come up with solutions, rather than blindly applying changes that also make it more difficult for certain voters. Apropos the topic, if people believe that massive voter fraud is happening in the U.S. - I'd think that people would be pushing for lawmakers and laws that would prove fraud and punish those responsible.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: KindaMeh on September 23, 2022, 04:24:24 PM
And those aren't the only changes I support. But it doesn't matter. When "my side" proposes it, it literally doesn't matter what we propose, it's "racist" or some other -ist. It's racist when we purge invalid, illegal, fraudulent, and expired registrations from the voter registry, too, for example, and yet that's a bare minimum requirement for a trustworthy election system.

It's funny to say that, when I'm the one being called racist in this thread. (Ghostmaker called me "confirmed as racist".)

It seems to me that it doesn't matter what I propose, I'm being called racist and supporting fraud.

My biggest problem with our system is the legal manipulation of voting - like gerrymandering, hours-long lines in poorer districts, and voting day being on a work day. That's why I oppose changes that add additional burden on select groups of voters.

I'm especially in favor of changes that study and prove existing voter fraud in order to come up with solutions, rather than blindly applying changes that also make it more difficult for certain voters. Apropos the topic, if people believe that massive voter fraud is happening in the U.S. - I'd think that people would be pushing for lawmakers and laws that would prove fraud and punish those responsible.

I would not consider you racist in the sense of consciously thinking one race is inferior to another or biologically predisposed to failure due to innate physiological “flaws”. Which for me is the only type of racist that’s a solvable issue in a world where everyone has their own subconscious biases and predilections. (Ex: Some people negatively stereotype straight white males subconsciously too, including indoctrinated straight white males. And sensitivity training doesn’t really seem to work even for removing the biases it targets, which are themselves at times questionable.)

I do think we get a whole lot less of such accusations in absolute terms here than you might on sites sponsored by the left on average. Not least because their definitions of transgression tend to be far less measured and reasonable than my own, with a very real “with us on whatever we say, blindly, or against us” mentality.

Likewise, I think mudslinging is a questionable use of all our time. By and large I think people, even on the internet more broadly (places like rpg.net excepted), but especially on a site like this one, tend to mean well. Even if they are sometimes blinded to the words, positions, and reasonings of others by their own stances and preconceptions. I think you mean well and are an upstanding person with a cool rpg site, even if I don’t agree with you on a lot of things.

I do agree that gerrymandering can be a problem and neutral commissions that equalize the value of a person’s vote might be preferable. I think a national voting holiday would be great and patriotic, even if unnecessary given things like early voting, absentee ballots, genuine estimates of whether it is nonviable to vote or simply a bit less easy (and let us be honest, nothing is ever equally easy for everyone), and my earlier thoughts on the rational follow-ups on disparate impact. I am against voter intimidation of legitimate voters, especially on the basis of race and where it is politically supported.

However, I do acknowledge that some of the positions you seem to support with respect to voting are indeed touched upon in my questioning of the true validity of disparate impact. Likewise, in instances where others have seemingly reasonably implied the real burden of acquiring an ID in practical terms seems quite low, in exchange for basic electoral security, you seem opposed on similar bases. In this sense, while I do not doubt that you disapprove of fraud itself, you are admittedly protecting it from prosecution along certain viable policy lines. Seemingly because you perhaps buy into both some things related to disparate impact and because you either don’t see or find valid the points others have been making with respect to actual voter impacts and the exploited insecurities of our system, or perhaps you do not want to believe.

(To be fair, prior to reading through this thread I was a lot more skeptical of the possibility of real and actionable fraud as well. I still don’t think there is sufficient legal proof to overturn the election and have that be justified, or to lock up Biden on something election related. [Especially since with the fake elector stuff and classified document bs we perhaps shouldn’t cast stones from glass houses.] But I do now believe that our system is flawed and should be changed on that basis as well as the basis of public faith in elections being so low. For that to happen, as noted by others, we may have to pay a bit at times in ease.)
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 23, 2022, 05:21:02 PM
And those aren't the only changes I support. But it doesn't matter. When "my side" proposes it, it literally doesn't matter what we propose, it's "racist" or some other -ist. It's racist when we purge invalid, illegal, fraudulent, and expired registrations from the voter registry, too, for example, and yet that's a bare minimum requirement for a trustworthy election system.

It's funny to say that, when I'm the one being called racist in this thread. (Ghostmaker called me "confirmed as racist".)

It seems to me that it doesn't matter what I propose, I'm being called racist and supporting fraud.

My biggest problem with our system is the legal manipulation of voting - like gerrymandering, hours-long lines in poorer districts, and voting day being on a work day. That's why I oppose changes that add additional burden on select groups of voters.

I'm especially in favor of changes that study and prove existing voter fraud in order to come up with solutions, rather than blindly applying changes that also make it more difficult for certain voters. Apropos the topic, if people believe that massive voter fraud is happening in the U.S. - I'd think that people would be pushing for lawmakers and laws that would prove fraud and punish those responsible.

Gerrymandering: both parties do it. It needs to stop. Voting districts should be drawn along county borders (i.e. District 1 is these 3 counties, District 2 is those 4 counties, etc.) Full stop.

Voting lines has fuck-all to do with racism. It is entirely based upon the competence of the polling place workers and, by extension, the leadership and competence of the election boards. Long lines at polling places correlates 1:1 with how the city the polling place resides in is run. Its no wonder that poorly run polling places occur in Dem-run shitholes. 

I would prefer that voting day be a national holiday and that all citizens legally allowed to vote be *required* to vote or pay a fine. This serves several purposes:

1. Renewed sense of civic duty.
2. Ability to year-over-year determine if someone is sick, moved, or dead. This will allow an easier time of cleaning the voter rolls.
3. If someone is removed from the rolls because they're now worm food, someone trying to cast a ballot using their identity the following year can be instantly flagged for further scrutiny.

Let's be clear. "Making it difficult to vote" is generally only difficult for those for whom navigating society itself is too much effort.  If you can't afford $12 for an ID because you're a homeless drug addict with mental health issues, you have no business voting. And those "advocacy" groups who are trying to help them by registering them to vote aren't doing it out of a sense of charity - we all know they're being paid by Dem operatives to pad the vote count. $20 to buy some crack or a bottle of Thunderbird in exchange for voting straight ticket Dem isn't social assistance. It's exploitation and the poor people suffering end up right back in the Dem plantation, shitting between two parked cars before panhandling for their next fix.  But hey, the Dems also demanded that we shut down all of the mental institutions that could've been caring for these people.

It's not long lines. It's not making people prove that they are who they say they are and that they're legally entitled to vote. It's not properly counting ballots. All of those things can be managed when Dems stop being check valves on common sense and the law. It's the ill intent of the Democratic party who don't give a fuck about voter disenfranchisement - all they care about is how they can cheat without getting caught.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: GeekyBugle on September 23, 2022, 07:23:09 PM
It was part of solving voter fraud in México, WHY are you against it to the point of not even considering workarounds fo0r what you perceive as it's drawbacks?

I don't understand. I've already said that I'm in favor of the Mexican system. If there were a law where everyone was offered a free ID with photo and thumbprint that they had to go to a local office to get in order to vote, I would support that system.

I've also discussed other easy workarounds, like voter notification. If voters were always notified of when and where they voted (by mail and optional text message), then someone else impersonating them when voting in-person would be very obvious - because the actual registered voter would report it.

Are you aware that our system does requiere you to present your birth certificate, and proof of residence in the form of an address in certain services bills? That you do have to pay to get a copy of your birth certificate? Of course in some places this can be done in machines placed in malls and other places but it does cost you money. You still have to go get that and then go get your voter ID (which is "free").

As for how would you notifiy a voter he/she voted? Doesn't that mean the government knows instantly WHO has voted? Unless you mean days latter.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Bruwulf on September 23, 2022, 07:29:31 PM
Apropos the topic, if people believe that massive voter fraud is happening in the U.S. - I'd think that people would be pushing for lawmakers and laws that would prove fraud and punish those responsible.

Sure.

I'd also like a unicorn, while we're at it.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: ThatChrisGuy on September 23, 2022, 11:46:53 PM
Gerrymandering: both parties do it. It needs to stop. Voting districts should be drawn along county borders (i.e. District 1 is these 3 counties, District 2 is those 4 counties, etc.) Full stop.

Good fucking luck.  Elbridge Gerry died in 1814.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 24, 2022, 12:58:09 PM
Apropos the topic, if people believe that massive voter fraud is happening in the U.S. - I'd think that people would be pushing for lawmakers and laws that would prove fraud and punish those responsible.

Sure.

I'd also like a unicorn, while we're at it.

I gather you think that massive voter fraud is happening - but it's impossible to catch them or even prove that it's happening.

Given this, do you think that photo ID laws make an important difference? If it's impossible to catch the perpetrators or even prove they exist, will a photo ID law stop them?
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: KindaMeh on September 24, 2022, 02:21:59 PM
Apropos the topic, if people believe that massive voter fraud is happening in the U.S. - I'd think that people would be pushing for lawmakers and laws that would prove fraud and punish those responsible.

Sure.

I'd also like a unicorn, while we're at it.

I gather you think that massive voter fraud is happening - but it's impossible to catch them or even prove that it's happening.

Given this, do you think that photo ID laws make an important difference? If it's impossible to catch the perpetrators or even prove they exist, will a photo ID law stop them?

Well, I can’t speak for Bruwulf, but personally it seems like a big part of why one cannot easily prove the exact numbers on voter fraud as opposed to simply the systemic vulnerabilities that have been referenced is that ID or other solid proof of identity is not required nor who votes where (to avoid repeat voting) reported across state lines and cetera in many states, among other things. A voter ID would presumably help ensure those voting are both eligible and who they say they are and would be proof against repeat votes because with communication one would know if the same ID voted twice. It would also help answer the question of whether or not fraud is occurring statistically going forward and aid faith in the system, preventing the need and suppressing the desire to question the validity of results.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: KindaMeh on September 24, 2022, 03:09:29 PM
Also, solid proof of ID is already required nationally for anybody who’s a first time voter currently in the process of registering to vote through mail registration, under 2002’s HAVA. So if we do it there and it seems to work out fine, I feel like it would also be workable elsewhere.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: GeekyBugle on September 24, 2022, 03:30:08 PM
Apropos the topic, if people believe that massive voter fraud is happening in the U.S. - I'd think that people would be pushing for lawmakers and laws that would prove fraud and punish those responsible.

Sure.

I'd also like a unicorn, while we're at it.

I gather you think that massive voter fraud is happening - but it's impossible to catch them or even prove that it's happening.

Given this, do you think that photo ID laws make an important difference? If it's impossible to catch the perpetrators or even prove they exist, will a photo ID law stop them?

If you can't vote without a voter ID, if said ID has:

Your photo, fingerprint, address, age, sex, and a unique voter number, all of which is replicated in the voter lists WITH a photo of your ID, then:

Purging lists of replicates, dead people, etc gets easier and voter fraud harder.

You can't stop a burglar from getting into your house just because it's illegal, it being illegal doesn't help to catch the burglar, neither does you putting good locks and an alarm, but it does make it harder to burglar your house and a bit easier to catch the burglar.

I guess you're also against good locks and alarm systems because they don't reduce burglary to zero.

You either don't think through your arguments or you're a disingenuous twat.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Bruwulf on September 24, 2022, 06:11:20 PM
I gather you think that massive voter fraud is happening - but it's impossible to catch them or even prove that it's happening.

I think statistically significant amounts of fraud is happening. Massive is a subjective term. I think it's enough to be concerned about.

I think it's effectively impossible to catch because there exists political will sufficient to prevent it.

Given this, do you think that photo ID laws make an important difference? If it's impossible to catch the perpetrators or even prove they exist, will a photo ID law stop them?

It can only help. If it's done right, it could help a lot. It's not the only change that needs to happen, but it's arguably the most important one. It cuts down avenues for chicanery.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 24, 2022, 09:48:20 PM
I gather you think that massive voter fraud is happening - but it's impossible to catch them or even prove that it's happening.

Given this, do you think that photo ID laws make an important difference? If it's impossible to catch the perpetrators or even prove they exist, will a photo ID law stop them?

You can't stop a burglar from getting into your house just because it's illegal, it being illegal doesn't help to catch the burglar, neither does you putting good locks and an alarm, but it does make it harder to burglar your house and a bit easier to catch the burglar.

I guess you're also against good locks and alarm systems because they don't reduce burglary to zero.

But we have evidence when burglary is happening. If there was a rash of burglaries happening, there would be ample evidence that would be collected in public stories as well as statistics. If I wanted to stop those burglaries, I'd want to look at the data to see how most burglaries were being conducted, and thus what sort of systems would be effective in stopping them.

If someone came up to me and told me there was a rash of burglaries, but they were happening in secret so no one knew who was doing it or even if they were even happening at all, but they had a lock system they were going to sell me -- I'd be fucking suspicious of what they were selling. Especially when they tell me I need to keep buying that lock system, and I'll never know if there were burglars or not.

I'd tell them the same thing I'm saying here -- If there is a rash of burglaries, there should be investigation to collect data on it. How often is it happening? How are they breaking in? Do we know anything about them? Can we set up hidden cameras or a sting operation to catch them?

It seems like I'm being told that it's ridiculous unicorn-chasing to suggest that we should investigate or try to catch the criminals, which doesn't make sense to me. If the criminals are so well-connected that we can't catch a single one or prove that the crime is happening, then why would one think that they are stopped by the lock system? I'd be most suspicious of the person trying to sell me the locks.


Given this, do you think that photo ID laws make an important difference? If it's impossible to catch the perpetrators or even prove they exist, will a photo ID law stop them?

It can only help. If it's done right, it could help a lot. It's not the only change that needs to happen, but it's arguably the most important one. It cuts down avenues for chicanery.

I think the most important change that needs to happen is collecting evidence about where and how fraud is happening.

As I said, photo ID laws only catch a single avenue - someone coming in person and lying about their name in order to vote in the name of another registered voter. As I said, this could easily be proven by voter notification - let all registered voters know when and where they voted, and for them to report it if it doesn't match.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Bruwulf on September 24, 2022, 10:21:49 PM
It seems like I'm being told that it's ridiculous unicorn-chasing to suggest that we should investigate or try to catch the criminals, which doesn't make sense to me. If the criminals are so well-connected that we can't catch a single one or prove that the crime is happening, then why would one think that they are stopped by the lock system? I'd be most suspicious of the person trying to sell me the locks.

Here's the problem: At any given moment, only half of our two party system agrees there is fraud. The other half claims we have the most secure elections in the world.

Well, no. I tell a lie. It's not "the" problem, it's one problem among many. It's sometimes hard to tell where one problem ends and another begins, it's a real mess of snakes. You have lack of proper records, you have judges blocking attempts to investigate, all sorts of problems.

Impossible? No, but it's a herculean effort... And I'm not convinced it's going to happen.


I think the most important change that needs to happen is collecting evidence about where and how fraud is happening.

As I said, photo ID laws only catch a single avenue - someone coming in person and lying about their name in order to vote in the name of another registered voter. As I said, this could easily be proven by voter notification - let all registered voters know when and where they voted, and for them to report it if it doesn't match.

And if we stop giving out absentee ballots like candy, that should be enough to make a significant difference.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: KindaMeh on September 24, 2022, 11:00:44 PM

I think the most important change that needs to happen is collecting evidence about where and how fraud is happening.

As I said, photo ID laws only catch a single avenue - someone coming in person and lying about their name in order to vote in the name of another registered voter. As I said, this could easily be proven by voter notification - let all registered voters know when and where they voted, and for them to report it if it doesn't match.

I fear that while what we can currently investigate shows limited fraud, which indeed means that elections could not and indeed legally should not be overturned, that may as noted earlier be in part due to a lack of ID laws more generally in some states. Ex: California you can show up to vote with no proof of identity at all and vote. It’s even left to election officer discretion whether or not someone who is registering for the first time has to show any form of ID. (The only time they may be asked to.) And they definitely don’t(and can’t) get asked if they know someone’s ID or driver’s license number or last four SSN numbers and want to register by mail. (To be fair though, the latter is less of a problem.) So kinda questionable how well fraud would even be detected there, for instance, and it’s by no means alone.

So, validating voting photo IDs prevent fabrication, as well as going to vote on accident or on purpose with an ID or residence but no legal voting capacity, and potentially also repeat voting, in addition to impersonation voting.

Notification prevents impersonation too, admittedly, provided the person impersonated is living and of sound mind, etcetera, as well as motivated enough and able to check their vote. So not at all useless, but arguably not enough, since of the previous listed issues that’s the only one it prevents, I think. I’d be for notification, but I don’t think it’s really enough, and would still require that every voter be contactable for sure with verified mailing and/or digital address or the like.

Again, I get that you don’t want fraud, but I think you may also be arguing against necessary steps to securing our current system, and repairing what may well be serious systemic flaws. Themselves preventing us from even evaluating our system properly, which I also agree we should strive for and be able to do.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: GeekyBugle on September 25, 2022, 12:04:23 AM
I gather you think that massive voter fraud is happening - but it's impossible to catch them or even prove that it's happening.

Given this, do you think that photo ID laws make an important difference? If it's impossible to catch the perpetrators or even prove they exist, will a photo ID law stop them?

You can't stop a burglar from getting into your house just because it's illegal, it being illegal doesn't help to catch the burglar, neither does you putting good locks and an alarm, but it does make it harder to burglar your house and a bit easier to catch the burglar.

I guess you're also against good locks and alarm systems because they don't reduce burglary to zero.

But we have evidence when burglary is happening. If there was a rash of burglaries happening, there would be ample evidence that would be collected in public stories as well as statistics. If I wanted to stop those burglaries, I'd want to look at the data to see how most burglaries were being conducted, and thus what sort of systems would be effective in stopping them.

If someone came up to me and told me there was a rash of burglaries, but they were happening in secret so no one knew who was doing it or even if they were even happening at all, but they had a lock system they were going to sell me -- I'd be fucking suspicious of what they were selling. Especially when they tell me I need to keep buying that lock system, and I'll never know if there were burglars or not.

I'd tell them the same thing I'm saying here -- If there is a rash of burglaries, there should be investigation to collect data on it. How often is it happening? How are they breaking in? Do we know anything about them? Can we set up hidden cameras or a sting operation to catch them?

It seems like I'm being told that it's ridiculous unicorn-chasing to suggest that we should investigate or try to catch the criminals, which doesn't make sense to me. If the criminals are so well-connected that we can't catch a single one or prove that the crime is happening, then why would one think that they are stopped by the lock system? I'd be most suspicious of the person trying to sell me the locks.


Given this, do you think that photo ID laws make an important difference? If it's impossible to catch the perpetrators or even prove they exist, will a photo ID law stop them?

It can only help. If it's done right, it could help a lot. It's not the only change that needs to happen, but it's arguably the most important one. It cuts down avenues for chicanery.

I think the most important change that needs to happen is collecting evidence about where and how fraud is happening.

As I said, photo ID laws only catch a single avenue - someone coming in person and lying about their name in order to vote in the name of another registered voter. As I said, this could easily be proven by voter notification - let all registered voters know when and where they voted, and for them to report it if it doesn't match.

You have evidence that electoral fraud is happening, you yourself have posted it. You just think it's to little to warrant doing something.

Lets say you're correct in the ammount, is that fraud really not enough to do something? Each fraudulent vote cancels a honest one.

Lets say there's not a rash of burglaries, would that stop you from putting the best locks you could afford?

You seem to want to wait until you have evidence that en election WAS stolen to do something. Why not do what every other western nation and many in the third world do to prevent that from happening?

Would you wait to close the barn after the hgorses have bolted?

Would you wait for a child to drown to cover the well?

I would like to think not, so why are you so against something that would:

A) Increase the confidence in the electoral system
B) Decrease the chances of ANY fraud from happening

I think that an increased confidence in the system would increase the number of people that do vote.

Here many didn't because it was an open secret the system was corrupt, when it was fixed many of those started voting, some for the first time.

Lets say YOURS isn't that corrupt, do you honestly think making it so any corruption goes away is a bad thing?
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Ratman_tf on September 25, 2022, 01:02:19 AM
The problem is, what politican is going to champion real election reform? Foxes and hen houses an all that.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: KindaMeh on September 25, 2022, 01:26:17 AM
The problem is, what politican is going to champion real election reform? Foxes and hen houses an all that.

I mean, in 2016 when intelligence agencies notified folks that in some states the Russians successfully hacked digital voting queues and would have had the capacity to just not let people of their choosing get notified it was their time to vote, the Democrats got scared because with the strategically timed release of Hillary’s emails prior it seemed they were favoring Trump. They pushed hard for countermeasures, then went further to the point of even trying to ban free speech on places like Facebook. Allegedly to counter misinformation and Russian trolls.

In 2020 Republicans lost control and decided it was finally time to fix a system that seemed to have failed them, that they kinda knew had been a problem for decades but hadn’t cared enough about to fix when they were actually in power from time to time, maybe because it would make elections more generally seem less legitimate to the less informed, including their own recent elections. Or perhaps they just didn’t want to pay the political price of having made it marginally harder for folks to vote, because if voters hate anything, it’s marginal inconvenience. Anyway, they decided to fix it through courts that had inadequate proof of fraud given the decades of precedent they had let lie and tried to overturn an election with insufficient evidence to back their claims and make them legally valid, at least from the perspective of the American justice system.

So I kinda gotta agree that both parties only seem to want to change the system when it isn’t working for them, kinda tying back into Bruwulf’s idea that really only the party out of or in some way losing power from fraud tends to want any reform. That, and some attempted change to voting and voter mobilization that is politically motivated can kinda be fraudulent, unconstitutional  or unjust as well, as showcased through my admittedly oversimplified versions of two very complex situational examples. Not that this means we should stop trying as citizens to pursue a proper system.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 25, 2022, 05:44:00 PM
I gather you think that massive voter fraud is happening - but it's impossible to catch them or even prove that it's happening.

Given this, do you think that photo ID laws make an important difference? If it's impossible to catch the perpetrators or even prove they exist, will a photo ID law stop them?

You can't stop a burglar from getting into your house just because it's illegal, it being illegal doesn't help to catch the burglar, neither does you putting good locks and an alarm, but it does make it harder to burglar your house and a bit easier to catch the burglar.

I guess you're also against good locks and alarm systems because they don't reduce burglary to zero.

But we have evidence when burglary is happening. If there was a rash of burglaries happening, there would be ample evidence that would be collected in public stories as well as statistics. If I wanted to stop those burglaries, I'd want to look at the data to see how most burglaries were being conducted, and thus what sort of systems would be effective in stopping them.

If someone came up to me and told me there was a rash of burglaries, but they were happening in secret so no one knew who was doing it or even if they were even happening at all, but they had a lock system they were going to sell me -- I'd be fucking suspicious of what they were selling. Especially when they tell me I need to keep buying that lock system, and I'll never know if there were burglars or not.

I'd tell them the same thing I'm saying here -- If there is a rash of burglaries, there should be investigation to collect data on it. How often is it happening? How are they breaking in? Do we know anything about them? Can we set up hidden cameras or a sting operation to catch them?

It seems like I'm being told that it's ridiculous unicorn-chasing to suggest that we should investigate or try to catch the criminals, which doesn't make sense to me. If the criminals are so well-connected that we can't catch a single one or prove that the crime is happening, then why would one think that they are stopped by the lock system? I'd be most suspicious of the person trying to sell me the locks.


Given this, do you think that photo ID laws make an important difference? If it's impossible to catch the perpetrators or even prove they exist, will a photo ID law stop them?

It can only help. If it's done right, it could help a lot. It's not the only change that needs to happen, but it's arguably the most important one. It cuts down avenues for chicanery.

I think the most important change that needs to happen is collecting evidence about where and how fraud is happening.

As I said, photo ID laws only catch a single avenue - someone coming in person and lying about their name in order to vote in the name of another registered voter. As I said, this could easily be proven by voter notification - let all registered voters know when and where they voted, and for them to report it if it doesn't match.

You have evidence that electoral fraud is happening, you yourself have posted it. You just think it's to little to warrant doing something.

Lets say you're correct in the ammount, is that fraud really not enough to do something? Each fraudulent vote cancels a honest one.

Lets say there's not a rash of burglaries, would that stop you from putting the best locks you could afford?

You seem to want to wait until you have evidence that en election WAS stolen to do something. Why not do what every other western nation and many in the third world do to prevent that from happening?

Would you wait to close the barn after the hgorses have bolted?

Would you wait for a child to drown to cover the well?

I would like to think not, so why are you so against something that would:

A) Increase the confidence in the electoral system
B) Decrease the chances of ANY fraud from happening

I think that an increased confidence in the system would increase the number of people that do vote.

Here many didn't because it was an open secret the system was corrupt, when it was fixed many of those started voting, some for the first time.

Lets say YOURS isn't that corrupt, do you honestly think making it so any corruption goes away is a bad thing?

I would argue that the 2020 presidential election was, in fact, stolen.

There were too many individual irregularities that all coincidentally happened at the same time when multiple states suddenly have vote counts that were showing Biden trailing Trump by 10s of thousands of votes at 11pm somehow miraculously swing to show Biden passing Trump the next morning. It's a statistical improbability that that happens in one state. It's statistically impossible for it to have happened in that many states. There is incontrovertible proof that unknown people brought cases of mail ballots in the backs of vans. Likewise of counters breaking out suitcases of ballots. Likewise of counters putting up brown paper on windows to prevent legal poll watchers from having legally-mandated access to view the counts. Likewise state governments hastily changing the law or actually violating laws on the books to facilitate electoral votes for Biden.

One can argue each of these irregularities that occurred based upon the testimony of witnesses and of surveillance footage.  But, the real thing that seals the deal for me is all of the lawsuits that were thrown out without even hearing evidence. They didn't *want* to even present the Dems with the possibility that they were caught committing fraud because then they'd have had to acknowledge the evidence and find a way to defend themselves against the truth, making every future election more difficult to cheat at.  Guilty people don't even want a trial to occur in the first place in the face of the probability that Trump's lawyers would exceed the burden of proof to win at trial.

50 years ago, this same stuff was going on, it was just a lot easier to get away with it. Nowadays, there is *always* some type of trail.  The Dems got lucky that they were able to suppress evidence in this election, aided by a sympathetic media and collusion with the IC and federal law enforcement. They won't be able to get away with it next election cycle without blatantly engaging in illegal interference and harassment of their political enemies the same way they do in China, Russia, and Iran.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Bruwulf on September 25, 2022, 05:50:28 PM
But, the real thing that seals the deal for me is all of the lawsuits that were thrown out without even hearing evidence. They didn't *want* to even present the Dems with the possibility that they were caught committing fraud because then they'd have had to acknowledge the evidence and find a way to defend themselves against the truth, making every future election more difficult to cheat at.  Guilty people don't even want a trial to occur in the first place in the face of the probability that Trump's lawyers would exceed the burden of proof to win at trial.

I remember one of the cases... I don't remember which one, I think it might have been in PA... When it was thrown out, the judge said, more or less, that a lawsuit before the vote would be groundless, because no fraud had occurred, and would be irrelevant after the vote occurred, because it was fait acompli at that point.

Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 25, 2022, 06:45:49 PM
But, the real thing that seals the deal for me is all of the lawsuits that were thrown out without even hearing evidence. They didn't *want* to even present the Dems with the possibility that they were caught committing fraud because then they'd have had to acknowledge the evidence and find a way to defend themselves against the truth, making every future election more difficult to cheat at.  Guilty people don't even want a trial to occur in the first place in the face of the probability that Trump's lawyers would exceed the burden of proof to win at trial.

I remember one of the cases... I don't remember which one, I think it might have been in PA... When it was thrown out, the judge said, more or less, that a lawsuit before the vote would be groundless, because no fraud had occurred, and would be irrelevant after the vote occurred, because it was fait acompli at that point.

While I can understand the legality of "you can't sue for something that hasn't happened yet," the fatalistic "might as well just lie back and enjoy it as you're getting raped" attitude towards the fact that fraud *is going to occur* is grounds for throwing that judge off the bench. If you *know* that criminal activity is going to occur, you have a duty to report it and the law has the duty to investigate and prosecute, if it did, in fact, occur.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: DocJones on September 25, 2022, 07:46:28 PM
There were too many individual irregularities that all coincidentally happened at the same time when multiple states suddenly have vote counts that were showing Biden trailing Trump by 10s of thousands of votes at 11pm somehow miraculously swing to show Biden passing Trump the next morning. It's a statistical improbability that that happens in one state. It's statistically impossible for it to have happened in that many states.
The reason is the order ballots were counted in those States.  When the polls close precincts send their counts to the county election board which in turn sends them to the State election board.  Then the mail-in ballots are counted at the County offices.   Democrats won the mail-in vote.   In those States mail in ballots were not legally counted before the polls closed and were counted last in those states.  In Ohio you had Biden winning and Trump overtaking  him, because Ohio allows the mail-in ballots to be counted before the polls close, so the mail-in ballots totals were reported at the close of the polls, which is why Biden was briefly winning.  This is not hard to explain.

Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 25, 2022, 08:55:08 PM
There were too many individual irregularities that all coincidentally happened at the same time when multiple states suddenly have vote counts that were showing Biden trailing Trump by 10s of thousands of votes at 11pm somehow miraculously swing to show Biden passing Trump the next morning. It's a statistical improbability that that happens in one state. It's statistically impossible for it to have happened in that many states.
The reason is the order ballots were counted in those States.  When the polls close precincts send their counts to the county election board which in turn sends them to the State election board.  Then the mail-in ballots are counted at the County offices.   Democrats won the mail-in vote.   In those States mail in ballots were not legally counted before the polls closed and were counted last in those states.  In Ohio you had Biden winning and Trump overtaking  him, because Ohio allows the mail-in ballots to be counted before the polls close, so the mail-in ballots totals were reported at the close of the polls, which is why Biden was briefly winning.  This is not hard to explain.

You're totally missing the point (or being willfully ignorant). Mail in ballots aren't typically counted *for days* and only when the spread between the candidates is less than the number of *individualized* mail ballots - where you count them *if* they can decide the election.

Until the 2020 election. Wholesale mail ballots dropped in unsecured drop boxes and brought in *in suitcases* and counted *in the dead of night* is a problem. Even the *appearance* of impropriety is a problem. Zero chain of custody means that it was extremely easy to do things like "here, count *these* 10,000 ballots I brought in this duffel bag like a drug dealer, but *those* 10,000 ballots that came by USPS are going to missing and nobody knows nothing."

Elections need to be 100% aboveboard. When there are claims of impropriety and your first response is to obstruct any investigation by any means necessary, I call into question your integrity.

The election commissions *should* have welcomed forensic analysis of each and every ballot if they had confidence in the results.  Why didn't they?
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Bruwulf on September 25, 2022, 09:27:52 PM
Until the 2020 election. Wholesale mail ballots dropped in unsecured drop boxes and brought in *in suitcases* and counted *in the dead of night* is a problem. Even the *appearance* of impropriety is a problem. Zero chain of custody means that it was extremely easy to do things like "here, count *these* 10,000 ballots I brought in this duffel bag like a drug dealer, but *those* 10,000 ballots that came by USPS are going to missing and nobody knows nothing."

Elections need to be 100% aboveboard. When there are claims of impropriety and your first response is to obstruct any investigation by any means necessary, I call into question your integrity.

The election commissions *should* have welcomed forensic analysis of each and every ballot if they had confidence in the results.  Why didn't they?

Right. This is what some people don't get. It (kind of) doesn't even matter if there actually was fraud. It looks like there was, and a significant chunk of the voter base thinks there was, and nothing is being done to address that. It's "nothing to see here, move along" in all but the words.

People lose faith in the system that way. The system has to have people's trust.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: KindaMeh on September 25, 2022, 09:51:06 PM
I would agree something needs to be done, probably the voter ID stuff that has been mentioned among other things. Not least to restore faith within the system. I do think the explanation of how the votes shifted was pretty good. As for mail in ballots specifically being unsafe, may want to take a look at this: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/mail-ballot-security-features-primer

I disagree with their conclusions, but in some ways I feel like California and other states’ voting more generally is less safe than that, given some of the problems listed earlier. So in a way I feel like it was just an awakening of the public consciousness, rather than a real change in voting security.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 25, 2022, 11:02:13 PM
I would agree something needs to be done, probably the voter ID stuff that has been mentioned among other things. Not least to restore faith within the system. I do think the explanation of how the votes shifted was pretty good. As for mail in ballots specifically being unsafe, may want to take a look at this: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/mail-ballot-security-features-primer

I disagree with their conclusions, but in some ways I feel like California and other states’ voting more generally is less safe than that, given some of the problems listed earlier. So in a way I feel like it was just an awakening of the public consciousness, rather than a real change in voting security.

That Brennan center report on the face of it seems reasonable regarding mail ballots - in prior years when it was not widespread like it was in 2020 because of the coof. But, I'll just quote Frenchy from Goodfellas to illustrate how it was typically treated in 2020. "It's totally, totally untraceable... Security? You're looking at it. It's a joke. I'm the midnight-to-eight man."

The people who are counting the ballots can't be trusted. The people who are managing the polling places can't be trusted.  When you don't trust the people operating the system, you can't trust the system.  When institutions that generations of Americans grew up believing were unimpeachable turn out to be infested with political hacks looking to line their own pockets or perform favors for crooks in exchange for their own benefit, those institutions no longer can be trusted.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Tallifer on September 26, 2022, 09:32:25 AM
I would neither trust a BLM/dragqueen/paedo nor a MAGA/NRA/Klansman.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: GeekyBugle on September 26, 2022, 12:09:01 PM
I would agree something needs to be done, probably the voter ID stuff that has been mentioned among other things. Not least to restore faith within the system. I do think the explanation of how the votes shifted was pretty good. As for mail in ballots specifically being unsafe, may want to take a look at this: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/mail-ballot-security-features-primer

I disagree with their conclusions, but in some ways I feel like California and other states’ voting more generally is less safe than that, given some of the problems listed earlier. So in a way I feel like it was just an awakening of the public consciousness, rather than a real change in voting security.

That Brennan center report on the face of it seems reasonable regarding mail ballots - in prior years when it was not widespread like it was in 2020 because of the coof. But, I'll just quote Frenchy from Goodfellas to illustrate how it was typically treated in 2020. "It's totally, totally untraceable... Security? You're looking at it. It's a joke. I'm the midnight-to-eight man."

The people who are counting the ballots can't be trusted. The people who are managing the polling places can't be trusted.  When you don't trust the people operating the system, you can't trust the system.  When institutions that generations of Americans grew up believing were unimpeachable turn out to be infested with political hacks looking to line their own pockets or perform favors for crooks in exchange for their own benefit, those institutions no longer can be trusted.

I find it weird your polling places don't have representatives of all political parties in the ballot, that they don't count AND publish the count of the ballots, that they send the ballots to be counted elsewhere, that a candidate can't ask for an audit.

In México the polling places DO have representatives of the parties (unless they choose not to send any), the ballots ARE counted there under the supervision of the representatives and the results are posted outside the polling place, the counting acts HAVE TO have the signatures of the representatives. ballots are then SEALED and sent with the count somewhere else, but they aren't counted AGAIN, unless there's discrepancies or a complaint from one of the parties. And there's chain of custody that has to be mantained.

One more thing, just around my home there's usually 3 polling places in walking distance, and we need to know which one we have to vote in, you usually find a very short line of about 10-20 people tops. Enough ballots are sent to each polling station for the number of people that can vote there with some to spare for people that get to vote there for some reason (not for the whole thicket and only in some cases) without being asigned to it.

Our electoral lists ARE purged constantly, we HAVE a "free" voting ID with photo, address, fingerprint, places to punch that you voted that time and Q Code.

When you vote you HAVE TO show your ID, they compare it to the lists (they have your name and a photo of your ID on it), punch it, ink your thumb. You CAN'T vote twice because of that, dead people AREN'T in the lists, you HAVE TO be: a citizen, live in electoral district, AND fulfill your DUTY to have your documents in order to get to vote.

You guys have a Third World Banana Republic Shithole electoral system. And I find it weird that ANY citizen would be against reforming it, and that they would vote for a party that's against reforming it regardless of if they won or not.

Edited to add:

The people maning the polling places? They are ordinary citizens who get "ellected" by chance from the same electoral lists of the district, and they are different every time.

To corrupt them you need to corrupt LOTS of people in a lot of places AND you also need to buy the representatives of the political parties.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: KindaMeh on September 26, 2022, 12:51:35 PM
I would agree something needs to be done, probably the voter ID stuff that has been mentioned among other things. Not least to restore faith within the system. I do think the explanation of how the votes shifted was pretty good. As for mail in ballots specifically being unsafe, may want to take a look at this: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/mail-ballot-security-features-primer

I disagree with their conclusions, but in some ways I feel like California and other states’ voting more generally is less safe than that, given some of the problems listed earlier. So in a way I feel like it was just an awakening of the public consciousness, rather than a real change in voting security.

That Brennan center report on the face of it seems reasonable regarding mail ballots - in prior years when it was not widespread like it was in 2020 because of the coof. But, I'll just quote Frenchy from Goodfellas to illustrate how it was typically treated in 2020. "It's totally, totally untraceable... Security? You're looking at it. It's a joke. I'm the midnight-to-eight man."

The people who are counting the ballots can't be trusted. The people who are managing the polling places can't be trusted.  When you don't trust the people operating the system, you can't trust the system.  When institutions that generations of Americans grew up believing were unimpeachable turn out to be infested with political hacks looking to line their own pockets or perform favors for crooks in exchange for their own benefit, those institutions no longer can be trusted.

I find it weird your polling places don't have representatives of all political parties in the ballot, that they don't count AND publish the count of the ballots, that they send the ballots to be counted elsewhere, that a candidate can't ask for an audit.

In México the polling places DO have representatives of the parties (unless they choose not to send any), the ballots ARE counted there under the supervision of the representatives and the results are posted outside the polling place, the counting acts HAVE TO have the signatures of the representatives. ballots are then SEALED and sent with the count somewhere else, but they aren't counted AGAIN, unless there's discrepancies or a complaint from one of the parties. And there's chain of custody that has to be mantained.

One more thing, just around my home there's usually 3 polling places in walking distance, and we need to know which one we have to vote in, you usually find a very short line of about 10-20 people tops. Enough ballots are sent to each polling station for the number of people that can vote there with some to spare for people that get to vote there for some reason (not for the whole thicket and only in some cases) without being asigned to it.

Our electoral lists ARE purged constantly, we HAVE a "free" voting ID with photo, address, fingerprint, places to punch that you voted that time and Q Code.

When you vote you HAVE TO show your ID, they compare it to the lists (they have your name and a photo of your ID on it), punch it, ink your thumb. You CAN'T vote twice because of that, dead people AREN'T in the lists, you HAVE TO be: a citizen, live in electoral district, AND fulfill your DUTY to have your documents in order to get to vote.

You guys have a Third World Banana Republic Shithole electoral system. And I find it weird that ANY citizen would be against reforming it, and that they would vote for a party that's against reforming it regardless of if they won or not.

Edited to add:

The people maning the polling places? They are ordinary citizens who get "ellected" by chance from the same electoral lists of the district, and they are different every time.

To corrupt them you need to corrupt LOTS of people in a lot of places AND you also need to buy the representatives of the political parties.

In all fairness, we do have poll watchers and challengers in most places. Likewise, there are a lot of independent election and voting security organizations that do their best to hold the system accountable. They also do make an effort to keep proper registrations and purge the lists, and oftentimes attempts to impersonate dead voters are indeed caught. We do have general chain of custody even for mail-in votes. And some states are equally or even perhaps a bit more legit relative to Mexico, because they modify the base requirements for things like ID and also other unmentioned things. The problem is we have inadequate base national standards, and the states do whatever.

You’re not wrong to call us out. That being said I think we are now working on it. Our system was never great, but at least now people are starting to realize that, though I do think many fail to realize that it’s our system as legally set up that’s to blame.

There’s no verifiable fraud that’s been found despite searching that would overturn the election because 2020 wasn’t super unique and our system detects fraud less well than it could in general. We’ve long had a system where voter fraud might not be detectable by those operating the system. I don’t blame them or the volunteers nearly so much as I blame the laws and the public that allowed the system to become what it legally is. We are just now starting to realize that our voting laws and system make verification and actually proving fraud a problem, and I think it’s been going on since long before 2020. We only pay attention to that year because somebody influential finally bothered to challenge the results, on account of being upset with them.

But yeah, Mexico does indeed seem to have a better system in this arena. And I do appreciate some of the hope you give us with respect to the idea that it can be done better.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: KindaMeh on September 26, 2022, 02:14:57 PM
That said, I also love my country and don’t like shitting on it, so here’s some positive pseudo-propaganda that emphasizes what America DOES do to stop election fraud, and some counter arguments to what I and others have posted about our nation’s system being and having long been literal garbage...

On Attempted Repeat Voting: https://www.ncsl.org/blog/2020/09/04/double-trouble-how-states-keep-people-from-voting-twice.aspx

Some Alternative Perspectives And Responses To Some Of What I And Others Have Said Or Folks Are Saying Elsewhere, Albeit Not Comprehensive And Sometimes A Bit Of A Strawman: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol

To be fair, a lot of what I and others have said is not addressed by these/my 5 seconds of copy pasting these 2 links, which is because we are right and the system needs to be changed. But yeah, we could be worse, and some people overestimate how bad we have it.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 26, 2022, 03:18:21 PM
That said, I also love my country and don’t like shitting on it, so here’s some positive pseudo-propaganda that emphasizes what America DOES do to stop election fraud, and some counter arguments to what I and others have posted about our nation’s system being and having long been literal garbage...

On Attempted Repeat Voting: https://www.ncsl.org/blog/2020/09/04/double-trouble-how-states-keep-people-from-voting-twice.aspx

Some Alternative Perspectives And Responses To Some Of What I And Others Have Said Or Folks Are Saying Elsewhere, Albeit Not Comprehensive And Sometimes A Bit Of A Strawman: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol

To be fair, a lot of what I and others have said is not addressed by these/my 5 seconds of copy pasting these 2 links, which is because we are right and the system needs to be changed. But yeah, we could be worse, and some people overestimate how bad we have it.

Ignoring that it is the Heritage Foundation, their database is pretty good at detailing all of the cases of fraud, but it is limited to when they started keeping track.

https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud

Post attention to how many cases involved fraudulent use of absentee ballots. It's the single largest category across every state that counts it separately than ballot petition fraud.

It's an interesting study because it's proof that everything we have claimed happened that is fraud did happen.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: KindaMeh on September 26, 2022, 03:23:35 PM
That said, I also love my country and don’t like shitting on it, so here’s some positive pseudo-propaganda that emphasizes what America DOES do to stop election fraud, and some counter arguments to what I and others have posted about our nation’s system being and having long been literal garbage...

On Attempted Repeat Voting: https://www.ncsl.org/blog/2020/09/04/double-trouble-how-states-keep-people-from-voting-twice.aspx

Some Alternative Perspectives And Responses To Some Of What I And Others Have Said Or Folks Are Saying Elsewhere, Albeit Not Comprehensive And Sometimes A Bit Of A Strawman: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol

To be fair, a lot of what I and others have said is not addressed by these/my 5 seconds of copy pasting these 2 links, which is because we are right and the system needs to be changed. But yeah, we could be worse, and some people overestimate how bad we have it.

Ignoring that it is the Heritage Foundation, their database is pretty good at detailing all of the cases of fraud, but it is limited to when they started keeping track.

https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud

Post attention to how many cases involved fraudulent use of absentee ballots. It's the single largest category across every state.

More to the point these are just the guys who got caught.

I will admit though that this was less fraud cases than I thought had been confirmed. But like you say it is at least proof that the system has vulnerabilities and fraud does happen. I think a lot is invisible.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: SHARK on September 26, 2022, 03:58:22 PM
Greetings!

Yes, distrust and suspicion of the national Election System in America is sky-high. That mistrust and suspicion--contrary to the shrill REEEing of the Libtards--is not without strong merit. While there are few videos, and various courts since November 2020 have rejected arguments and evidence as insufficient--the November 2020 election was felt and perceived differently than any previous election.*

*I should note, however, that in the 2016 election, the Libtards REEE'd and screamed about election fraud, from criticizing the Dominion voting machines, to election officials, and everything in-between.

As I mentioned long ago, my suspicions were raised on election night itself. Trump had the election won as of 10:00PM--then, somehow, by the early morning Brandon was declared the winner. Several states stopped counting votes--and then restarted counting votes in the middle of the night? Somehow, "votes" for Brandon were found in the middle of the night, and counted in the "new tally". So, strange and deep suspicions about election integrity began on the night of the 2020 election for many, many Americans.

More bullshit coming out in the following weeks and months only served to heighten and increase the mistrust and suspicion. I don't care what arguments Trump's lawyers made or fucked up in court.

Libtards and fucking evil globalist bureaucrats are guilty. GUILTY! Why? Because notice how so many election investigations were denied, stonewalled, or otherwise forbidden? If you are innocent, why resist being investigated? I have seen far too many Libtard politicians--as well as fucking RINOS--in various states and state governments lose their shit at their narrative of "The 2020 Election was the safest and most secure election ever" being questioned, and people raising the demand that new investigations be made immediately, with bipartisan supervision and thorough, independent management.

That frequent--and arrogant, dismissive, and smug resistance to new investigations of election integrity right there means you are fucked, the system is fucked, and the country is fucked.

I don't need a pack of lawyers, or a court to rule on a fucking thing. No need for video evidence, or confessions, or stacks of documents, or whaa, whaa, whaa. Whatever kind of "evidence" that suspicious courts hold up as required.

The evidence of corruption, fraud, and deceit is right there, out in the open.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 26, 2022, 05:12:06 PM
Edited to add:

The people maning the polling places? They are ordinary citizens who get "ellected" by chance from the same electoral lists of the district, and they are different every time.

To corrupt them you need to corrupt LOTS of people in a lot of places AND you also need to buy the representatives of the political parties.

Interesting. Are people required to work as poll workers in Mexico if their number comes up, or are there exceptions?

In the U.S., poll workers are generally temporary local workers who apply to the local government - and there are over 900,000 of them in a given election. They're typically retired people (age 60+) who may get a minor stipend but are effectively volunteer. They are not professional workers. Laws vary based on state, but they're generally required to be a local citizen. Local governments generally struggle to get enough poll workers, so it's easy to get hired if one wants to.

With nearly a million people and all the systems locally controlled, the system is hard to manipulate from the top down.

I'd be open to having it be handled as a required work like jury duty instead, but I'm also doubtful that this would have any significant effect -- and I predict it would be hugely unpopular as people were roped into such jobs.

Election observer rules vary based on state and locality, but they're very common throughout the U.S.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 26, 2022, 05:58:44 PM
Elections need to be 100% aboveboard. When there are claims of impropriety and your first response is to obstruct any investigation by any means necessary, I call into question your integrity.

The election commissions *should* have welcomed forensic analysis of each and every ballot if they had confidence in the results.  Why didn't they?

To the last question -- if someone starts in with "you're a dirty lying corrupt cheater who can't do their job" -- then nearly everyone's reaction isn't to say "Oh, I'm so sorry you think that. Let me abase myself to you and try to make you happy." It will be to say "fuck you".

Most U.S. election commissions struggle to get people to help, and are eager to get new workers. It's easy to get a poll worker job. From what I hear, it's even easier more recently because many people have given up on applying because of death threats and harassment that they've been getting.

I'd encourage people to get involved and apply to be a poll worker. It's not some elite class - it's mostly local retirees.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 26, 2022, 06:31:48 PM
Elections need to be 100% aboveboard. When there are claims of impropriety and your first response is to obstruct any investigation by any means necessary, I call into question your integrity.

The election commissions *should* have welcomed forensic analysis of each and every ballot if they had confidence in the results.  Why didn't they?

To the last question -- if someone starts in with "you're a dirty lying corrupt cheater who can't do their job" -- then nearly everyone's reaction isn't to say "Oh, I'm so sorry you think that. Let me abase myself to you and try to make you happy." It will be to say "fuck you".

Most U.S. election commissions struggle to get people to help, and are eager to get new workers. It's easy to get a poll worker job. From what I hear, it's even easier more recently because many people have given up on applying because of death threats and harassment that they've been getting.

I'd encourage people to get involved and apply to be a poll worker. It's not some elite class - it's mostly local retirees.

We know what types of people become poll workers. In Dem-run shithole cities, they're more likely to be someone connected to someone in city government than they are to be retirees. The same types of dead wood infest all levels of government
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 26, 2022, 07:38:09 PM
We know what types of people become poll workers. In Dem-run shithole cities, they're more likely to be someone connected to someone in city government than they are to be retirees. The same types of dead wood infest all levels of government

Those categories aren't exclusive - someone can be retired and connected to local government. In every locality - regardless of whether Democrat-run or Republican-run - there are a subset of people who tend to get involved in local government. These tend to be older people with time on their hands, usually home-owners. Young people rarely get involved like this. Most poll workers are age 60+ - again that's regardless of Republican or Democrat controlled areas.

I think it would be great to change local laws to make it a required service like jury duty, as apparently it is done in Mexico.

I just think it would be hugely unpopular because of the work it puts people through.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 26, 2022, 08:43:01 PM
We know what types of people become poll workers. In Dem-run shithole cities, they're more likely to be someone connected to someone in city government than they are to be retirees. The same types of dead wood infest all levels of government

Those categories aren't exclusive - someone can be retired and connected to local government. In every locality - regardless of whether Democrat-run or Republican-run - there are a subset of people who tend to get involved in local government. These tend to be older people with time on their hands, usually home-owners. Young people rarely get involved like this. Most poll workers are age 60+ - again that's regardless of Republican or Democrat controlled areas.

I think it would be great to change local laws to make it a required service like jury duty, as apparently it is done in Mexico.

I just think it would be hugely unpopular because of the work it puts people through.

You're trying to handwaved the fact that in Dem cities, the "retirees" aren't normal actually retired from a productive career older people - they're grifters and criminals who happen to be older.

Unless you actually have worked or lived in one of these shitholes, it's easy to blindly believe that everyone is a decent human being. Those of us who have understand the nature of the typical Dem party machine apparatchiks.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Bruwulf on September 26, 2022, 09:07:16 PM
To the last question -- if someone starts in with "you're a dirty lying corrupt cheater who can't do their job" -- then nearly everyone's reaction isn't to say "Oh, I'm so sorry you think that. Let me abase myself to you and try to make you happy." It will be to say "fuck you".

Three words come to mind.

"Hoo", "Boo", and "Fricking".

Might need some reshuffling.

If a bunch of people complain that, say, a nurse is hurting patients, stealing their belongings, taking their pudding cups, and mixing up their medications... Or even just one of those things, consistently... They should be investigated by the hospital and, if it's true, either disciplined or fired. To hell with if it hurts their feelings.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 26, 2022, 09:15:35 PM
You're trying to handwaved the fact that in Dem cities, the "retirees" aren't normal actually retired from a productive career older people - they're grifters and criminals who happen to be older.

Unless you actually have worked or lived in one of these shitholes, it's easy to blindly believe that everyone is a decent human being. Those of us who have understand the nature of the typical Dem party machine apparatchiks.

What's your experience here?

I've live in Redwood City for two decades which is very Democrat-leaning, and have been involved with local government in the sense of speaking at town meetings, PTA and education fund orgs, and some other advocacy through my church. I've recognized some people I know as poll workers although I haven't worked as a poll worker myself. I haven't seen anything to indicate that the people I know are criminals, or that they'd knowingly work with criminals.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: GeekyBugle on September 26, 2022, 10:00:17 PM
Edited to add:

The people maning the polling places? They are ordinary citizens who get "ellected" by chance from the same electoral lists of the district, and they are different every time.

To corrupt them you need to corrupt LOTS of people in a lot of places AND you also need to buy the representatives of the political parties.

Interesting. Are people required to work as poll workers in Mexico if their number comes up, or are there exceptions?

In the U.S., poll workers are generally temporary local workers who apply to the local government - and there are over 900,000 of them in a given election. They're typically retired people (age 60+) who may get a minor stipend but are effectively volunteer. They are not professional workers. Laws vary based on state, but they're generally required to be a local citizen. Local governments generally struggle to get enough poll workers, so it's easy to get hired if one wants to.

With nearly a million people and all the systems locally controlled, the system is hard to manipulate from the top down.

I'd be open to having it be handled as a required work like jury duty instead, but I'm also doubtful that this would have any significant effect -- and I predict it would be hugely unpopular as people were roped into such jobs.

Election observer rules vary based on state and locality, but they're very common throughout the U.S.

You CAN refuse, and some do, it is a chore since you have to go to training for a few hours during a week or two (it's been too long since I served as election official).

I do imagine some resent being roped into it, but we still remember what it was to have 70 years of the same party always "winning". So we smile and bear it.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: GeekyBugle on September 26, 2022, 10:06:28 PM

But yeah, Mexico does indeed seem to have a better system in this arena. And I do appreciate some of the hope you give us with respect to the idea that it can be done better.

IMHO, part of the problem is that each state can do whatever and they often do. I think that in this case a federal solution is best, same standards everywhere.

Here we have state electoral organisms but they can't do whatever their stupid ass thinks off, they are to organize, supervise, etc the elections in their state, be it local or federal, but the rules are federal, done by the INE (National Electoral Institue), and the state orgs depend from it and have to follow the rules.

So no state can just decide that foreigners get to vote in their local elections because the electoral law is federal. Neither can a state decide to do away with the ID or to implement electronic voting machines.

While I do admire the state's rights attitude and think WE should copy much of that I think there are places where it's not appropriate to go that route.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 27, 2022, 09:29:10 AM
You're trying to handwaved the fact that in Dem cities, the "retirees" aren't normal actually retired from a productive career older people - they're grifters and criminals who happen to be older.

Unless you actually have worked or lived in one of these shitholes, it's easy to blindly believe that everyone is a decent human being. Those of us who have understand the nature of the typical Dem party machine apparatchiks.

What's your experience here?

I've live in Redwood City for two decades which is very Democrat-leaning, and have been involved with local government in the sense of speaking at town meetings, PTA and education fund orgs, and some other advocacy through my church. I've recognized some people I know as poll workers although I haven't worked as a poll worker myself. I haven't seen anything to indicate that the people I know are criminals, or that they'd knowingly work with criminals.

My experience?  Camden and Newark, NJ. Philadelphia. Miami. San Diego, LA, Honolulu.

Redwood City? It's 60% white and full of silicon valley cash where only 7.3% of the populace earns below the poverty level. It's not a good representation of a typical Dem-run shithole.

Compare that with Philly (23.3%), Newark (25.2%) and Camden (37.4%) The poverty rate, poorly-run government, lack of access to services, and corrupt election activity are all directly correlatable to the crooks who get elected to public office and run these hellholes like African warlords.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 27, 2022, 04:35:12 PM
What's your experience here?

I've live in Redwood City for two decades which is very Democrat-leaning, and have been involved with local government in the sense of speaking at town meetings, PTA and education fund orgs, and some other advocacy through my church. I've recognized some people I know as poll workers although I haven't worked as a poll worker myself. I haven't seen anything to indicate that the people I know are criminals, or that they'd knowingly work with criminals.

My experience?  Camden and Newark, NJ. Philadelphia. Miami. San Diego, LA, Honolulu.

Wow. You've moved around a lot. Can you say more about what you've seen from your experience in those places? How did you interact with the poll workers and local government?

I lived in New York City from 1991 to 1993, and Chicago from 1995 to 1998 -- but I wasn't involved in local politics during that time. I voted, but I didn't know any poll workers or city council members. It wasn't until after I settled and started raising my son in 2000 that I did stuff like go to city council meetings. More on that below...

Redwood City? It's 60% white and full of silicon valley cash where only 7.3% of the populace earns below the poverty level. It's not a good representation of a typical Dem-run shithole.

Well, we're only 40% non-hispanic white. But yes, we have a bunch of money, and I'm sure politics in more poverty-stricken cities is quite different. Still, I would think a lot of the processes are similar. For my city, I don't trust most of my local city council as people. Our mayor is a former Facebook exec. (I didn't vote for her.) Still, they are constrained by legal and citizen oversight. There are citizens like me who come to city council meetings, and check up on what they are doing around town. There are at least a few people I know and support who are inside local government.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 28, 2022, 08:07:03 AM
What's your experience here?

I've live in Redwood City for two decades which is very Democrat-leaning, and have been involved with local government in the sense of speaking at town meetings, PTA and education fund orgs, and some other advocacy through my church. I've recognized some people I know as poll workers although I haven't worked as a poll worker myself. I haven't seen anything to indicate that the people I know are criminals, or that they'd knowingly work with criminals.

My experience?  Camden and Newark, NJ. Philadelphia. Miami. San Diego, LA, Honolulu.

Wow. You've moved around a lot. Can you say more about what you've seen from your experience in those places? How did you interact with the poll workers and local government?

I lived in New York City from 1991 to 1993, and Chicago from 1995 to 1998 -- but I wasn't involved in local politics during that time. I voted, but I didn't know any poll workers or city council members. It wasn't until after I settled and started raising my son in 2000 that I did stuff like go to city council meetings. More on that below...

Redwood City? It's 60% white and full of silicon valley cash where only 7.3% of the populace earns below the poverty level. It's not a good representation of a typical Dem-run shithole.

Well, we're only 40% non-hispanic white. But yes, we have a bunch of money, and I'm sure politics in more poverty-stricken cities is quite different. Still, I would think a lot of the processes are similar. For my city, I don't trust most of my local city council as people. Our mayor is a former Facebook exec. (I didn't vote for her.) Still, they are constrained by legal and citizen oversight. There are citizens like me who come to city council meetings, and check up on what they are doing around town. There are at least a few people I know and support who are inside local government.

I've seen voters intimidated by Black Panthers. I've seen blatant campaigning by Dems (involving passing out cash to voters) outside polling places go unchallenged by poll workers (who have called the police on Republican and 3rd Party candidates and their supporters wearing "[Candidate] for [Office]" shirts showing up to vote. I've seen poll workers receive duffel bags of ballots.

It's not just limited to voting. *Every* aspect of Dem-machine cities is a lawless hellscape.  Do-gooder liberals in gated communities have zero idea of how these places actually operate vs. how they envision them operating. No idea. None.  The corruption in these megalopolis Dem enclaves is deep-seated and generational. You can't fix it without having a zero tolerance broken windows approach to voting irregularities to ensure that the corruption stops getting elected.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: Ruprecht on September 28, 2022, 02:35:01 PM
I've live in Redwood City for two decades which is very Democrat-leaning, and have been involved with local government in the sense of speaking at town meetings, PTA and education fund orgs, and some other advocacy through my church. I've recognized some people I know as poll workers although I haven't worked as a poll worker myself. I haven't seen anything to indicate that the people I know are criminals, or that they'd knowingly work with criminals.
I don't know about Redwood City (grew up in Foster City) but in North County San Diego they don't check ID. The poll watchers could be honest as the day is long and it wouldn't matter as anybody could say a name and drop off a ballot and nobody would know unless they ended up with two from the same name.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: jhkim on September 28, 2022, 08:57:00 PM
My experience?  Camden and Newark, NJ. Philadelphia. Miami. San Diego, LA, Honolulu.

Wow. You've moved around a lot. Can you say more about what you've seen from your experience in those places? How did you interact with the poll workers and local government?

I've seen voters intimidated by Black Panthers. I've seen blatant campaigning by Dems (involving passing out cash to voters) outside polling places go unchallenged by poll workers (who have called the police on Republican and 3rd Party candidates and their supporters wearing "[Candidate] for [Office]" shirts showing up to vote. I've seen poll workers receive duffel bags of ballots.

It's not just limited to voting. *Every* aspect of Dem-machine cities is a lawless hellscape.  Do-gooder liberals in gated communities have zero idea of how these places actually operate vs. how they envision them operating.

Just to check here - are you saying you've seen intimidating Black Panthers in person at your polling place when you went to vote? Or that you've seen video of an incident like the 2008 case in Philadelphia that made national news?

As far as I can tell, the New Black Panther Party are the equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church. They're an openly anti-semitic, listed as a hate group by the ADL and SPLC, and condemned by nearly everyone on the left except those who don't know who they are. They are despicable, but they aren't representative in the slightest of broader black communities. I don't live in a high poverty area, but I stay involved on many fronts. I've been involved in outreach to East Palo Alto - which has had very high poverty. I have a personal friend involved in Hip Hop National Congress who was invited to speak at a local Black Lives Matter protest.

I'd really want to hear more about how you know about the scene in these places. I'm sure the scene in Philadelphia is quite different than Redwood City or even East Palo Alto. But I'd want to hear more details about personal experiences to understand.


I've live in Redwood City for two decades which is very Democrat-leaning, and have been involved with local government in the sense of speaking at town meetings, PTA and education fund orgs, and some other advocacy through my church. I've recognized some people I know as poll workers although I haven't worked as a poll worker myself. I haven't seen anything to indicate that the people I know are criminals, or that they'd knowingly work with criminals.
I don't know about Redwood City (grew up in Foster City) but in North County San Diego they don't check ID. The poll watchers could be honest as the day is long and it wouldn't matter as anybody could say a name and drop off a ballot and nobody would know unless they ended up with two from the same name.

That's an issue of state law which was discussed before. Anyone could say any name and impersonate another voter - but if they say a name of a random registered voter, it's overwhelmingly likely that this will be detected as a duplicate vote. In 2020, about 95% of registered voters turned up to vote nationwide. (Though only around 70% of eligible voters registered.) In practice, two votes for a single registration are very rare - only a handful per state. I saw a study that found were 3 cases in Florida in 2020, for example.

A potentially more common case is duplicate registration - like when a single person who moves votes in both their original state and their new state. There was a GAI study that found there could be several thousand of these in the U.S. - but that's less than 0.01%, and it isn't necessarily caught by voter ID, since they could have IDs for their old state and new state.

I discussed voter notification as an easy way to detect impersonation. The voters could send a followup (via mail or optional text message) to every voter who voted about when and where they voted.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: 3catcircus on September 29, 2022, 10:31:54 AM
My experience?  Camden and Newark, NJ. Philadelphia. Miami. San Diego, LA, Honolulu.

Wow. You've moved around a lot. Can you say more about what you've seen from your experience in those places? How did you interact with the poll workers and local government?

I've seen voters intimidated by Black Panthers. I've seen blatant campaigning by Dems (involving passing out cash to voters) outside polling places go unchallenged by poll workers (who have called the police on Republican and 3rd Party candidates and their supporters wearing "[Candidate] for [Office]" shirts showing up to vote. I've seen poll workers receive duffel bags of ballots.

It's not just limited to voting. *Every* aspect of Dem-machine cities is a lawless hellscape.  Do-gooder liberals in gated communities have zero idea of how these places actually operate vs. how they envision them operating.

Just to check here - are you saying you've seen intimidating Black Panthers in person at your polling place when you went to vote? Or that you've seen video of an incident like the 2008 case in Philadelphia that made national news?

As far as I can tell, the New Black Panther Party are the equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church. They're an openly anti-semitic, listed as a hate group by the ADL and SPLC, and condemned by nearly everyone on the left except those who don't know who they are. They are despicable, but they aren't representative in the slightest of broader black communities. I don't live in a high poverty area, but I stay involved on many fronts. I've been involved in outreach to East Palo Alto - which has had very high poverty. I have a personal friend involved in Hip Hop National Congress who was invited to speak at a local Black Lives Matter protest.

I'd really want to hear more about how you know about the scene in these places. I'm sure the scene in Philadelphia is quite different than Redwood City or even East Palo Alto. But I'd want to hear more details about personal experiences to understand.


I've live in Redwood City for two decades which is very Democrat-leaning, and have been involved with local government in the sense of speaking at town meetings, PTA and education fund orgs, and some other advocacy through my church. I've recognized some people I know as poll workers although I haven't worked as a poll worker myself. I haven't seen anything to indicate that the people I know are criminals, or that they'd knowingly work with criminals.
I don't know about Redwood City (grew up in Foster City) but in North County San Diego they don't check ID. The poll watchers could be honest as the day is long and it wouldn't matter as anybody could say a name and drop off a ballot and nobody would know unless they ended up with two from the same name.

That's an issue of state law which was discussed before. Anyone could say any name and impersonate another voter - but if they say a name of a random registered voter, it's overwhelmingly likely that this will be detected as a duplicate vote. In 2020, about 95% of registered voters turned up to vote nationwide. (Though only around 70% of eligible voters registered.) In practice, two votes for a single registration are very rare - only a handful per state. I saw a study that found were 3 cases in Florida in 2020, for example.

A potentially more common case is duplicate registration - like when a single person who moves votes in both their original state and their new state. There was a GAI study that found there could be several thousand of these in the U.S. - but that's less than 0.01%, and it isn't necessarily caught by voter ID, since they could have IDs for their old state and new state.

I discussed voter notification as an easy way to detect impersonation. The voters could send a followup (via mail or optional text message) to every voter who voted about when and where they voted.

I was driving through Philly when I watched the police come and talk to them and make one of them leave (the one holding a nightstick).  The fact that they let others stay is a problem.
Title: Re: Status of 2020 election fraud
Post by: KindaMeh on September 29, 2022, 05:47:37 PM
I'm sorry to hear that the Black Panthers are a problem to the point where not only that would happen but even the ADL and SPLC would have to recognize them as a hate group. That said, I don't really love the more radical elements who use BLM as cover either, nor do I support a lot of the violence and damage affiliated with that particular group. A group which while possessed of many wonderful members with pure intentions I have no doubt (I even know some), is also based on a lot of statistical manipulation and sketchiness, with a deeper look yielding I would argue somewhat contradictory findings to their claims of nationalized corruption and lethal gun violence specifically across racial lines within the ranks of the police we rely on to defend our nation from crime and corruption and whom many within said movement now wish to defund rather than support and reform in such localities and specific instances as the latter is required.

That said, voter intimidation does go both ways, and I have heard of folks on the right or alt-right, or not-the-right-but-racist doing it too, sometimes even based directly off of race, or sometimes just inadvertently or whatever. So I won't say it's just the prior folks mentioned, though it definitely oftentimes is them.

jhkim's duplicate vote thing is somewhat convincing, I'll admit. I think the 95% of registered voters voting thing is a little fishy from my perspective, but it sounds like at least we could detect duplicate votes pretty well, and that this puts a damper on many fraud types. Which does indeed help catch and prevent fraud. Still behind national voter ID and interstate coordination to prevent things like duplicate voting registration, patch state voting loopholes and restore faith. Also behind voter notifications and possibly also/alternatively election specific private voter keys that work sometime after count and let you and only you check your vote or whatever. But it does ease some of my fears regarding widespread fraud.