Voter Fraud, Voter Supression, Cyber Crime: What's the Bigger Threat to Democracy?

[bust]

Here's another, from the Washington Post:

U.S. Officials Warn of Russian Mischief in Election and Beyond
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...bb4_story.html

[Jimaz]

The GOP's Stealth War Against Voters

The latest tool: Election officials in more than two dozen states have compiled lists of citizens whom they allege could be registered in more than one state – thus potentially able to cast multiple ballots – and eligible to be purged from the voter rolls.

The data is processed through a system called the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program, which is being promoted by a powerful Republican operative, and its lists of potential duplicate voters are kept confidential. But Rolling Stone obtained a portion of the list and the names of 1 million targeted voters. According to our analysis, the Crosscheck list disproportionately threatens solid Democratic constituencies: young, black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters – with some of the biggest possible purges underway in Ohio and North Carolina, two crucial swing states with tight Senate races....

On its surface, Crosscheck seems quite reasonable. Twenty-eight participating states share their voter lists and, in the name of dispassionate, race-blind Big Data, seek to ensure the rolls are up to date. To make sure the system finds suspect voters, Crosscheck supposedly matches first, middle and last name, plus birth date, and provides the last four digits of a Social Security number for additional verification.

In reality, however, there have been signs that the program doesn't operate as advertised. Some states have dropped out of Crosscheck, citing problems with its methodology, as Oregon's secretary of state recently explained: "We left [Crosscheck] because the data we received was unreliable."...

The Virginia list was a revelation. In all, 342,556 names were listed as apparently registered to vote in both Virginia and another state as of January 2014. Thirteen percent of the people on the Crosscheck list, already flagged as inactive voters, were almost immediately removed, meaning a stunning 41,637 names were "canceled" from voter rolls, most of them just before Election Day.

We were able to obtain more lists – Georgia and Washington state, the total number of voters adding up to more than 1 million matches – and Crosscheck's results seemed at best deeply flawed. We found that one-fourth of the names on the list actually lacked a middle-name match. The system can also mistakenly identify fathers and sons as the same voter, ignoring designations of Jr. and Sr. A whole lot of people named "James Brown" are suspected of voting or registering twice, 357 of them in Georgia alone. But according to Crosscheck, James Willie Brown is supposed to be the same voter as James Arthur Brown. James Clifford Brown is allegedly the same voter as James Lynn Brown.

And those promised birth dates and Social Security numbers? The Crosscheck instruction manual says that "Social Security numbers are included for verification; the numbers might or might not match" – which leaves a crucial step in the identification process up to the states. Social Security numbers weren't even included in the state lists we obtained....

The man behind crosscheck is Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Yale-educated former law professor. After 9/11, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft tasked Kobach with creating a system to track foreign travelers. [[It was later shut down over concerns about racial profiling.) He is best known as the author of Arizona's "Driving While Brown Law," which allowed cops to pull over drivers and ask for proof of their legal status. He co-wrote the ultraconservative 2016 RNC party platform, working in a recommendation that Crosscheck be adopted by every state in the Union. He's also the Trump adviser who came up with a proposal to force Mexico into paying for Trump's wall....

This is the list you gave [Virginia], and they knocked off 41,000 voters," I said.

"That is false!" [Kobach] said, as he hurried away. "You know why? Federal law prohibits that."

[GMan]

The GOP's Stealth War Against Voters

I see no problem with cross checking voter registration across state lines.
I am also in favor of voter ID and I have no problem giving my pictured ID across the table to the election official to check my credentials against the voter roles. I do it every time.

That said it seems if the program is not validating their information going into the system, you will get garbage out. That is why the states participating in the program should regularly check their voter roles against the state tax roles and against the death registration ledger.

It is not a republican plot. It is just garbage in garbage out or plain laziness.

[Zacha341]

^^^ You need legal ID for nearly everything prior to and after an election: in some cases to write a check, use a debit card, travel such a boarding an airplane or a bus, or purchase prescriptions, cash a check, buy cigarettes in some cases, buy or rent a car, purchases certain licenses, apply for certain government benefits [[medicare, social security, welfare, foodstamps etc), renew certain benefits, rent a hotel, or get married, purchase a gun, apply for unemployment or get a job, ETC, and vote!

SO this bigger issue is how make it easier for people to legitimaty secure identification! I hear the cost varies state to state, as well as verification.

Community by community we need to set up initiatives and work to get a faster pipeline to get ID for those who need it! The DMV could make on online starting process just for state ID aside from those seeking driving licenses -- especially around the presidential voting cycle!

[Pam]

Here's another, from the Washington Post:

U.S. Officials Warn of Russian Mischief in Election and Beyond
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...bb4_story.html

Hillary's people already have a track record of fraud in the primaries against Sanders. They would be the most likely suspect in further tampering, not the Russians.
Why is anybody buying this retro Cold War BS?

[Honky Tonk]

Why is anybody buying this retro Cold War BS?

Because if you create a common enemy to rally around, the sheeple are more likely to tow the line. [[see weapons of mass distraction)

[Pam]

Because if you create a common enemy to rally around, the sheeple are more likely to tow the line. [[see weapons of mass distraction)

Yes, I understand why they are doing it, but why would anybody with half a brain fall for it?

[bust]

Yes, I understand why they are doing it, but why would anybody with half a brain fall for it?

I have at least half a brain and deep experience in internet technology since when the founders of Google were still at Stanford. And I'm not predicting another hack before Tuesday. But it's not a matter of if another will happen, it's when. Russia has been using all kinds of mischief to try to discredit elections in Eastern Europe for years. Next time it might not be Russia; the whole world has a stake in who wins our elections. When it happens it's unlikely to alter any actual votes, but the opportunities to influence our voting behavior or and/or sow confusion are many and real.

How expert is your local county clerk's office on the topic of cyber security? What antiquated version of windows powers your voting machine? How impenetrable is the AP's vote count platform and API? Do any news organizations run a content management system with security vulnerabilities? What are the chances something like the recent DNS denial of service attack could happen again? How about a physical attack? The internet is dependent on cables and routers after all. Could a hacker release a doctored set of emails in the 11th hour before the election, providing no time to prove the disinformation isn't true? That one or something like it would be especially easy and potentially effective. It never ceases to amaze me what people are willing to believe.

None of this should distract us from the crucial issues at stake this election. And I think voter suppression could have at least as big an impact on the outcome as the hacks that have already occurred. But we should be vigilantly working to prevent more hacks from occurring, and ready for more last minute surprises if they do.

It's a likely goal of hackers to diminish confidence in our democratic process. So it's unfortunate we're discussing this in the first place: they're succeeding. Meanwhile Republicans incite fear about voter fraud as a pretext to erect barriers so some who are unlikely to support them don't vote. Trump bloviates about rigged elections to set the stage for more asshattery if he loses....

I can't wait for this election cycle to be over. Once it is we have some work to shore up our democracy to do.

[oladub]

My township* was required by the State of Wisconsin to purchase a $6,000 voting machine with fewer functions than any computer sold at Walmart. It was, by definition, an overpriced Rube Goldberg devise. A "Rube Goldberg machine is a contraption, invention, device, or apparatus that is deliberately over-engineered to perform a simple task in a complicated fashion" -Wikipedia

I trusted my Township neighbors who counted my paper ballots more than a black box that I was supposed to believe in the owners of which might not even be American. I'm not sure why Americans put up with voting machines when pieces of paper are so easy to count.

*townships are always referred to as "towns" in Wisconsin. "Villages" are a category of small cities not to be confused with "towns".

[Canadian Visitor]

A few observations/questions.

One, why is not a bigger deal in the U.S. to have completely non-partisan elections agencies?

In Canada, we have those for every level of government. ie. Elections Canada, Elections Ontario etc.

They are run and staffed by non-partisans who all parties trust.

No wonder there's so much distrust in your system, when so much of it is run by those with a vested interest in manipulating it.

***

In a related matter, electoral boundaries [[ridings here, as opposed to your districts), are reviewed every 10 years, reviewing new census data. They are decided on by an impartial panel of non-partisan judges/professionals; there are public meetings and an effort to get every party to sign off on the changes.

Again, I find it strange Americans tolerate open gerrymandering.

***

On the subject of electronic voting.

This is not universal in Canada, but quite common.....BUT, not the way you seem to do it.

We still have paper ballots.

They are just counted electronically.

You 'complete the arrow' w/marker or mark 'x' in a circle, and the ballot is fed into the machine, upside down, so no one can see how you voted, and the machine reads and counts it.

But the paper trail is still there to audit the results.

***

I also don't get your voter registration system at all.

We do 'enumeration here'. The government knows who you are, and using gov't ID data, it sends out 'voter cards' to people a few weeks in advance of an election.

You are required to have a quality piece of ID that matches the name on your card, when you go to the polling station.

Done.

If you don't have ID or the card [[which you can request, in advance if one wasn't sent).

Then you swear an oath and/or offer up a witness [[who has their ID)

You folks seem to make this much more complicated for some reason.

[Zacha341]

^^^ We still have paper ballots here in Michigan. Yes, the partisan option has its pluses but it also binds as some will not vote outside of their party on any level even for advantageous policy or the better candidate.

In the past I received voting registration cards that identifies your party allegiance, name etc. Have not receive one in some time. But I do have official ID and I don't adhere to one particular party anyhow.

[Canadian Visitor]

^^^ We still have paper ballots here in Michigan. Yes, the partisan option has its pluses but it also binds as some will not vote outside of their party on any level even for advantageous policy or the better candidate.

In the past I received voting registration cards that identifies your party allegiance, name etc. Have not receive one in some time. But I do have official ID and I don't adhere to one particular party anyhow.

That's another quirk of the U.S. system that baffles me. Registered as 'Democrat/Republican etc'.

That doesn't exist in Canada.

It rather seems to defeat the point of a secret ballot if you declare which party you support publicly before voting.

I get that you need it for Primary purposes.

That's just one more thing that makes no sense to me.

I can't think of any other country that suggest the general public [[open) or 1/2 'ish of the general public [[closed) gets to decide a party's nominee [[locally or nationally).

Here, you choose to take out a party membership for whatever party, if you wish.

But that's far smaller slice of the electorate, not even 10%.

That doesn't show up on a voter card, only a party database.

Even then, you can't normally swing nominations that easily.

Most parties here require the leader to sign the nomination papers of their candidate, so if 'the party' doesn't like you, your not running. [[there are exceptions).

I don't view this as anti-democratic, because I get to vote on which party's candidate I support in the election; and I know [[typically) that that candidate is 'with' his/her party and shares there views. Seems logical to me.

Opening up the process makes it more prone to manipulation, and quite a bit more expensive.

[Jimaz]

Some revealing story links here:

DetroitYES Home » Non Detroit Issues » Thom Hartmann »
Republicans Don't Want Everyone To Vote!

[GMan]

Some revealing story links here:

DetroitYES Home » Non Detroit Issues » Thom Hartmann »
Republicans Don't Want Everyone To Vote!

I don't want an illegal alien in this country to vote but that does not make me a Republican.

[Zacha341]

^^^ Does too! According to the neat easy-peasey narrative where everyone aligns as so prescribed. Didn't you know?

[GMan]

^^^ Does too! According to the neat easy-peasey narrative where everyone aligns as so prescribed. Didn't you know?

No. I must have missed that mandated lesson.
They must be the educated ones that made the categories to control the sheeple.
The elites that created the killing fields for those that fit into the categories that didn't fit their worldly view.
Oh wow. I sound like a Hillary voter.

[G-DDT]

It should also be added that the day of the election I took my mom to vote and run errands. We ended up at Meijer's and saw an African American woman fuming and barreling down the aisle-way grumbling loudly about "racist white *sssholes sabotaging this election.-[[something something)-I can't even vote." She was pissed off about something that happened that day. This was at 4:45p.

I see very little brought up about the issue of a hacked election with faulty machines-and suspiciously so. Of all things, Fox news put this article http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/elec...16159836-story about bad machines [[brother saw a jam up in a machine that held up things that morning when he vote-his wait was over an hour, he said), and the NAACP phoneline out of service or jammed up with complaints.

Something is seriously wrong.

[bust]

Well, it certainly wasn't voter fraud in last year's election. But that's not stopping Trump, and the Republican party, from using it as a pretense for further voter suppression.

The Managing Editor for Opinion at US News and World Report had this to say on the subject:

"...Trump pours taxpayer resources into chasing the right-wing bogeyman of voter fraud. It's national policy dictated by the dear leader's tender vanity. And, again in keeping with his administration more broadly, this bad situation is made worse by the fact that the voter fraud fraud is often a cover for pernicious partisanship – a pretense for voting law crackdowns which are perceived to have the salutary effect, if you're interested in electing Republicans, of disenfranchising young and nonwhite voters.

Trump has appointed to the commission what [[UCLA Irvine Professor Richard) Hasen has called a “rogue's gallery of the country's worst vote suppressors...”"

President Snowflake's Unicorn Hunt
Trump's voter fraud commission chases myths to soothe his ego – and advance a pernicious agenda.
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/artic...g-unicorn-hunt

Jimaz, note that Trump appointed Kris Kobach, the man behind crosscheck, to lead his voter fraud commission. Here's a well-researched profile of him and account of his likely intent with the commission:

The Man Behind Trump’s Voter-Fraud Obsession
How Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, plans to remake America through restrictive voting and immigration laws.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/m...obsession.html

[Jimaz]

... Jimaz, note that Trump appointed Kris Kobach, the man behind crosscheck, to lead his voter fraud commission. Here's a well-researched profile of him and account of his likely intent with the commission:

The Man Behind Trump’s Voter-Fraud Obsession
How Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, plans to remake America through restrictive voting and immigration laws.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/m...obsession.html

Thanks for that, bust.

Check out Fair Vote for some ideas.

[aj3647]

Hillary's people already have a track record of fraud in the primaries against Sanders.

Since there's a "track record", it should be easy enough for you to post some proof or evidence of this. Note that you used the word "fraud", which is a crime, so please provide evidence specifically that Hillary committed fraud during the Democratic primaries. Links would be helpful.

[aj3647]

I see no problem with cross checking voter registration across state lines.

It's not illegal to be registered to vote in two states [[people are constantly moving across state lines and almost no one actively takes steps to cancel their voter registration in their previous state of residence). It is only illegal to VOTE in two states.

Among the hundreds of thousands of Americans registered to vote in two states during the 2016 election were Steve Bannon, Tiffany Trump, Jared Kushner, Press Secretary Sean Spicer, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/u...istration.html

[Pam]

Since there's a "track record", it should be easy enough for you to post some proof or evidence of this. Note that you used the word "fraud", which is a crime, so please provide evidence specifically that Hillary committed fraud during the Democratic primaries. Links would be helpful.

This is a link I posted a year ago in an election fraud topic. There were a lot of irregularities in the primaries that all benefited Clinton. I guess that won't meet your standard of proof, but many people are suspicious. Democrats would rather go on and on about Russia than do a real investigation of the primaries though.

http://static1.squarespace.com/stati...-in-Crisis.pdf

[Richard]

The real ID act passed after 9-11

https://www.dhs.gov/real-id-public-faqs

Although it reads that it does not include drivers license most states use it in the drivers license renewal process.

I renewed my drivers license at age 55 and had to literally prove that I was an American citizen even my military history was not good enough.

You have to provide a seal stamped birth certificate and a original SS card among others like copies of my deed and utility services in my name.

The Feds say to the states comply or we will reduce funding,the only states not complying are states that still offer drivers license to illegals.

[aj3647]

This is a link I posted a year ago in an election fraud topic. There were a lot of irregularities in the primaries that all benefited Clinton. I guess that won't meet your standard of proof, but many people are suspicious. Democrats would rather go on and on about Russia than do a real investigation of the primaries though.

http://static1.squarespace.com/stati...-in-Crisis.pdf

You flat out accused her of committing a felony, but silly me for asking for proof. I can't help but notice that after I ask your for proof of fraud, you already start to shift the goal posts. Now it's "irregularities?" And "many people are suspicious?" What happened to your declarative statement that she committed fraud? Direct quote from you "track record of fraud." Those are literally your words.

I looked through your random pdf hosted on squarespace that you cited as proof of criminal conspiracy. I didn't see any conclusive proof of a crime in there. I see some irregularities cited and then some speculation based on those irregularities. Nothing in that pdf is proof of a crime.

Let me ask you this, since most states in this country are controlled by the GOP, why has not a single Republican state attorney general filed criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for electoral fraud? Not one? 29 states have Republican AGs, and yet not one had even launched an investigation into Clinton, let alone filed charges? There were Democratic primaries or caucuses in all 50 states, so each state AG would have the authority to look into crimes committed in their respective Democratic contest.

How about the Republican-controlled House of Representatives? The Senate? Why no committee investigation into Clinton? Is it because Republicans love her so much? Are they also part of the conspiracy? What about Republican AG Jeff Sessions? Why is the DOJ not "locking her up?" Trump? Why isn't he ordering an investigation into Clinton? She stole the primaries, right? Committed electoral fraud on a national scale? And not one Republican anywhere is doing anything about it? The conspiracy thickens!

As for Russia, you do know that the Democrats are powerless to actually do anything, right? Both the House and Senate committees investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election are chaired and controlled by Republicans. Robert Mueller, the special counsel appointed to investigate Trump, was commissioned by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a Trump-appointee. Democrats didn't appoint Mueller, and they don't run the committees investigating Trump now. But yeah, it's all a Democratic witch hunt.

If it makes you feel better, shall I provide you with quotes from top Republicans in Congress where they also express deep concern about Russian interference and criticize Trump?

[aj3647]

After Alabama passed a strict Voter ID law, what did they do? Closed dozens of DMV offices statewide [[the only place where you can get state-issued IDs). Which DMVs did they close? DMVs in poor, predominately-black counties. And yes, it was politically deliberate.

http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index....ed_closur.html

The closures were later reversed after the obvious political and racial nature of the closing became publicly apparent.

In the olden days of Jim Crow, they would just make it deliberately harder for black people to vote directly [[poll taxes, literacy tests, etc.). Now, they just add a middleman to disguise it, but it's the same Jim Crow tactics. Make an ID mandatory to vote, and then make it extremely difficult for certain people to get an ID.