Voter Fraud Fraud

The appropriate question is, "What are we doing about ID fraud now?"

The mouthpieces that are screaming the loudest against Voter ID are the same ones saying the least about identity theft by foreign nationals.

 

Nice theory.

How are you going to apply it to those of us who live outside the country?

 

Do you have to take a number, or get in line, or just remember when it's your turn to steal it?

In any case, just think how much crime could be reduced in the state if only they would have police constantly guarding that car!

 

Well, first of all, I wouldn't pass a law that forces you to live outside the country. I would also allow you to vote from abroad, say by mail, rather than assign you to a voting booth in your old neighbourhood and claim that "you can enter that building just like all the people in the neighbourhood can, so it's not disenfranchisment". In fact, this is a good example, because if you're going to trust photo ID to stop fraud, clearly you have to see the person voting, so that person has to be there, physically. Are you in favour of outlawing all votes from those bodily absent, just to make sure there's no fraud?

Of course you're not going to get perfectly equal effort. Take any disabled voter, whose physical struggles mean they'll be faced with more effort than a healthy person. We can't wave a magic wand to stop that, but we can agree that it is not a good thing, and that we don't want to increase that kind of voter inequality any more than we have to.

Do we have to? I suggest measuring that by comparing the number of current fraudulent votes to the likely number of legitimate votes lost under the new law, see above.

 

It's been a while since I've seen this firsthand in the US, but back in the time, the hurdle of photo ID to enter bars or buy alcohol as a minor seemed, shall we say, less than insurmountable. And from your xenophobic link above, you obviously agree that ID can be forged quite easily. So why would you think this law will prevent voter fraud in the first place?

 

Very good.

IOW: "Bumper-sticker" sound-bite was nice, but ridiculously simplistic.

 

Did you read the non-self-loathing link in question?

 

How do you propose fraudulent votes be measured absent any established system of detecting them? Are you going to put a general notice in the newspaper asking those who voted fraudulently to pretty please volunteer that information?

 

Imperfectly, since nobody has a perfect system of detecting them, especially including photo IDs. This might be a reason to disregard the issue, but it's no basis to make up numbers and argue with fiction.

 

That's very weak. I've written several pages in this thread, and you pick on one line that answered an existing bumper sticker sound-bite by turning it towards truth?

Are you going to answer my questions above?

 

What questions did you ask me?

 

Riiiiiiiight, so if it can't be done perfectly, it shouldn't be done at all.

This is the part where you throw yourself on your sword.

If you don't have a sword, I suggest a trampoline, a letter opener and perseverance.

 

On the contrary, it should be done as well as we can, which has happened, pointing to the 86 in 300,000,000 number we're arguing with. Is the number imperfect? Yes. That does not make any other number that you invent arbitrarily correct by default.

 

I asked whether you want to demand that Americans living abroad go to their original neighbourhoods to vote, showing their physical face and photo ID, in order to prevent voter fraud.

See, *I* think that while that would probably eliminate *some* potential for fraud, the cost in increased effort for this group of Americans isn't worth it. Which is why I'm comparing the expected loss in legitimate votes with the expected gain in prevented fraud. (As opposed to reducing my argument to one soundbite out of two pages of text I've written here.) If you have some other criteria to decide how much effort is acceptable, let's hear it.

If you accept that weighing such costs against such gains is reasonable, I'd also like to ask you if you believe that a person is 15 times more likely to be struck dead by lightning than to be prevented from voting due to the new photo ID requirement.

 

No.

Do you think there is a particular potential for fraud?

Since I think that both sides of this argument are ridiculous (I think the idea that tens or even hundreds of thousands of people would be disenfranchized by a photo-ID requirement is complete nonsense, and I think the idea that huge amounts of illegitimate votes are being cast because there isn't such a requirement is equally nonsense), I don't really see the point of this question.

And what "new photo ID requirement" are you talking about? I'm afraid I've been out of touch with the news for a while. Has some state passed a law with such a requirement?

 

Why are you assuming those 86 fraudulent votes remained valid? Why bother detecting fraudulent votes if we're not going to invalidate them? Seems to me the system worked in this instance.

 

C'mon. Unlike skin, you're intelligent enough to know what I was going for here. Don't get down to his level...the stairs'll kill ya.

 

No. Keep in mind I'm in a demonstratio ad absurdum here. I think that if we accept the claim that the current system is fraught with fraud, and the only way to combat it is demanding photo ID, then yes, absentee ballots will present a particular potential for fraud. If they don't, some of the premises are false.

You really should have looked at the context of my post before quoting it. While some -- not all -- of the currently debated laws only require ID, not necessarily photo ID, the suggestion here was that demanding photo ID was reasonable, as several of the debated new laws in fact do. Of course, if the ID is sans photo, you still get almost as much additional required effort, and even less additional security.

 

Your country isn't America, monster, it's HELL!
And it's pressed down on America for too long!

 

No, you "c'mon." Don't pretend a professional word-weaver like you can't appreciate a joke based on twisting the meaning of words!

(Besides, as old as that joke is, are you actually going to pretend you never heard it before?)

 

Sure, if we accept those two premises. Personally, I don't accept either one of them, Democratic claims after the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections notwithstanding.

As for the rest of your post, I'm going to take it that the definite article used with "photo-ID requirement" does not refer to anything specific, but just the same old debate with the Republicans claiming that the end of the world is at hand if we don't have such laws, and the Democrats claiming that the end of the world is at hand if we do. Whereas I, personally, don't think it would make much of a difference either way.

 

Hadn't heard the joke before. And it's not all that different from some of the "arguments" being put forth in this thread, not just by idiots like skin, but by honest folks like LizK who seem to be lying awake at night worrying about this.

 

Well, it got your attention, didn't it?

Now, quick, do a Captain X.

 

Liberals contend large-scale voter fraud isn't happening, as there's no evidence of it.
Conservatives contend large-scale voter fraud is happening, despite there being no evidence of it.

The scientific method demands conservatives prove their allegations before any action is taken.

So far, they're unwilling and unable to do so.

 

I like how the ONLY sources that piece on voter fraud quoted are ten articles that say it isn't happening. Of course, it draws the only logical conclusion: It is happening, and everybody is deluded.

 

What a horrible article. In attempting to dispel the notion that voter fraud is "close to non-existent" the author provides no evidence to the contrary. I want those two minutes back, Muad Dib.

Instead of repeating "we don't know how rampant voter fraud is, but we need to fix it anyway" maybe the first step should be to asses the manner in which we currently detect election fraud once the ballots have been cast. So far it seems to me that our current system is working because we're catching fraudulent votes and presumably invalidating them. Likewise, if we're detecting millions of dead citizens who are registered to vote, the presumption is that once these dead voters have been identified, votes are not being cast in their name. If votes are being cast in their name (assuming they didn't send in an absentee ballot and then die a week later), investigate them.

 

What's amusing (and not a little sad) is how many formerly intelligent debaters have devolved into schoolyard tactics and skin-like gibberish. Aside from earning yuks from the other monkeys in the cage, what do they think they're accomplishing?

This:

is what they're unable or unwilling to recognize.

It's possible one of the few remaining intelligent conservatives can offer some hard data in this thread, but I'm skeptical.

 

So...voter fraud=god.

*Paging Diacanu. Diacanu, please report back to this thread.*

 

Totally different topic, but since you brought it in here, what is skinofevil doing about identity fraud?

Answer: What he always does. Whole lotta noise, whole lotta nuthin'.