Voting concerns for the upcoming election

[Frelga]

I am surprised by your reading of my post, and will withdraw from the discussion.

[Cerin]

I'm talking about the language and tone of the article that Cerin posted, which comes from a liberal site, which is obvious from the face of it. An article that talks about "right-wing screeching" and "GOP mythology" is obviously written from a left-wing slant.

A single partisan self-indulgence (screeching) does not invalidate an otherwise informative and well-documented article. And calling something a mythology which is completely and utterly unsupported by evidence is an accuracy, not a slant.

But if the voter registration issues are not caught, it is virtually impossible to catch it at the voting stage.

But they are caught. ACORN is required to submit all of their lists for examination, and ACORN flags dubious entries themselves. ACORN wants to register legitimate voters. They don't want their organization discredited by false registrations.

The pattern of abuses with ACORN is significant enough, and has been going on long enough, to infer that what we have seen may be only the tip of the iceburg.

Will you please explain yourself? What is the iceberg you are referring to? Do you believe there is a vast underground network of people who register multiple times and then actually vote in multiple different polling places, thus risking imprisonment for the sake of changing the election outcome individually by a few votes, but which network has somehow miraculously avoided detection in spite of eight years of an administration obsessed with proving the reality of voter fraud and applying the vast resources of the federal government to finding proof of it? That's quite a conspiracy theory, so where is your evidence? You must have at least some speck of real information to base such a supposition on. Or do you believe that there is some unspecified underground organization that is deliberately using ACORN to submit vast numbers of false registrations and supplying these people with false identification to use at the polls so as to commit massive voter fraud? That would cost an enormous amount of money. Again, where is the evidence?

In this case, what you have is an unsupported theory about voter fraud that has been deliberately cultivated and used successfully as the basis for advancing ever more restrictive requirements for voting in the name of preventing this so-called fraud, which doesn't exist; and against this phantom voter fraud, a clear record of illegal activities resulting in widespread voter suppression, intimidation and disenfranchisement. And you wish to equate the two so as to appear even-handed? Sorry, but not every situation represents a balanced equation.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

A single partisan self-indulgence (screeching) does not invalidate an otherwise informative and well-documented article. And calling something a mythology which is completely and utterly unsupported by evidence is an accuracy, not a slant.

The tone of the article speaks for itself.

But they are caught. ACORN is required to submit all of their lists for examination, and ACORN flags dubious entries themselves. ACORN wants to register legitimate voters. They don't want their organization discredited by false registrations.

That's certainly what they want people to believe. But I am not willing to just accept that at their word. Not when the pattern of abuses is so widespread, and has gone on for so long (as has been documented by others in this thread).

In this case, what you have is an unsupported theory about voter fraud that has been deliberately cultivated and used successfully as the basis for advancing ever more restrictive requirements for voting in the name of preventing this so-called fraud, which doesn't exist; and against this phantom voter fraud, a clear record of illegal activities resulting in widespread voter suppression, intimidation and disenfranchisement. And you wish to equate the two so as to appear even-handed? Sorry, but not every situation represents a balanced equation.

Amazing. It appears to be utterly impossible to discuss the ACORN issue without getting the response of "what the other side is doing is worse." I am certainly concerned about the issues related to the GOP, as I have talked about before, but I really find it disturbing that it is not possible to discuss the issue of ACORN's fraudulent voter registrations without the repeated refrain of "the other side is worse."

[sauronsfinger]

ACORN is the group which is the victim of the fraud. They paid people good money to gather legitimate signatures and they were cheated by some of the very people they paid. They helped the authorities by pointing out what they felt were fraudulent registrations.

Voter fraud is where someone votes illegally knowing that they are doing so. I see no iceberg and I see no tip of an iceberg. I see an inherent problem that has been around for a long time now that pops up in almost any drive to gather signatures where you use paid people to gather them.

Why can't every single citizen be automatically registered to vote and kept on the rolls regardless of if they do or not? As a citizen you have a right to vote. So make all citizens automatically registered then. That would certainly solve this problem of registration.

[Cerin]

That's certainly what they want people to believe. But I am not willing to just accept that at their word.

You don't have to accept that at their word. Every one of their registered names is submitted for review.

Amazing. It appears to be utterly impossible to discuss the ACORN issue without getting the response of "what the other side is doing is worse."

That isn't what is happening here. If you want to discuss ACORN, then discuss them. Provide your facts and the bases for your accusations. Support your theory of widespread voter fraud. No one is stopping you. No one is objecting.

I am certainly concerned about the issues related to the GOP, as I have talked about before, but I really find it disturbing that it is not possible to discuss the issue of ACORN's fraudulent voter registrations without the repeated refrain of "the other side is worse."

You haven't tried to discuss the issue of ACORN's fraudulent voter registrations, beyond an ominous reference to an unidentified iceberg. But yes, if you try to offer your vague iceberg as a discussion point with nothing else to back it up, then naturally people will be inclined to compare your nebulous hints of wrongdoing with the concrete and alarming facts that are emerging with respect to voter suppression and purging. It's all of one piece, but one side of the picture is almost completely blank, and the other is full of details to examine and discuss.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thank you, sf, for responding to this issue without repeating the mantra. I do appreciate it.

I am skeptical, however, of the idea of ACORN being the victim of the fraud. I know that is what they want people to believe, but there seems to me to be so many more issues with their registration drive than with anyone else's. For instance, Obama's campaign itself has engaged in one of the biggest (if not the biggest) voter registration drives in history, and there hasn't been even a hint of a problem (at least that I have heard of). Yet we hear of these issues with ACORN repeatedly, all over the country, and in repeated elections. I am a firm believer that where there is smoke, there is usually fire. Do I think there is an organized conspiracy? No, I don't. But I do think that there are elements in the ACORN organization that are more than willing to encourage cheating. Do I know that these issues have caused or will cause any actual voting irregularities? Of course not. But neither do I (or anyone else, no matter how many times they repeat it) know that they have not.

[sauronsfinger]

V - perhaps the difference in the Obama registration effort and the ACORN effort is the use of disinterested paid signature gatherers? Just reading posts here, I remember some folks helped in the Obama effort. I assume that they were not paid to do so but did it out of a sincere effort to help their candidate. ACORN, on the other hand, uses paid gatherers and that is where the problem comes in.

I would like to know when ACORN pays these people? Are they paid at the time they turn in the signatures? Are they paid after someone in the ACORN office goes through them and divides the really suspicious ones like "Mickey Mouse"? Are they paid after the registrations are confirmed and certified as legitimate? I would guess the first is the way it is done but I do not know this for a fact. I would guess its a pretty transient business and its not like people are willing to get paid weeks down the line.

But I do think that there are elements in the ACORN organization that are more than willing to encourage cheating

That could be true. But to date, I have read nothing which supports any type of belief that there is a conspiracy to get illegal voters to the polls on election day. If I missed that story, I would be glad to read it if a link could be provided.

[Cerin]

But I do think that there are elements in the ACORN organization that are more than willing to encourage cheating. Do I know that these issues have caused or will cause any actual voting irregularities? Of course not. But neither do I (or anyone else, no matter how many times they repeat it) know that they have not.

So you're saying that you believe it is legitimate to propogate the idea that the ACORN registration irregularities may have led and may lead to massive voter fraud even though there is no evidence of this, because no one can prove that it isn't so? That's a very interesting standard of argument. (That would certainly turn our court system upside down. 'Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I do not know if the defendant committed this murder, but neither do I nor anyone else know that he did not.') Let me see if I can apply it to another issue.

Barack Obama had a coffee for his State Senate candidacy hosted by domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. Barack Obama served with Ayers on the Annenburg board. Barack Obama has liberal leanings similar to Ayers. This seems like only the tip of the iceberg to me, regarding that association, since I don't trust Barack Obama to begin with. I don't have any evidence that Barack Obama shares the sentiments and goals of domestic terrorist and America-hater Bill Ayers, but neither do I (or anyone else, no matter how many times they repeat it) know that he does not. Therefore, it is perfectly legitimate for me to go around suggesting that he does.

Under that standard, it's not so hard to see why there are so many people who believe so many horrible things about Barack Obama. They've seen the tip of that iceberg, they've seen those whisps of smoke, and one has been able to prove to them that it isn't so.

Most enlightening, V.

[Padme]

I believe, as a person who is not paid to registered voters, the law states we have to accept every registration. In New Mexico only those people appointed by the Secretary of State can ask for voter identification, since I was working with the federal forms as a volunteer not with the state, I could not, by law, ask for identification. All I could do was accept the registration and hand them in to the County Clerk to verify it. If some one wrote down Micky Mouse and handed me the registration I had to turn it in to the County Clerk. The process then is the County Clerk then verifies the registration and processes it through to the Secretary of State who then issues the actual registration to the person via mail. Once a person recieves their voter registration number from the state that's all there is too it, they show up to the polls find their number, sign by their registration number and thats it. From the point the state issues the voter registration number no one can ask for id or verification. If there is fraud it is the State and Counties responsibility to catch it, not mine as the volunteer.

I have to have some faith that all of the 50 states have similar laws in place, that anyone can fill out a voter registration form, turn it in and then it is up to the state to verifiy if the whole thing is valid. Heaven help us if verification is left up to either the paid ACORN people or the volunteers.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

In the UK the local electoral officer, a non partisan paid official, sends letters out every autumn to every household in the area. The recipients fill it in with the details of the eligible voters at that address. and return the form. The names in due course then go on to an electoral register. Before each election, minor or major the voter gets a reminder through the post with an electoral number. They may or may not take that reminder to the polling station but there they confirm their name and address with the polling official and get their voting slip. It is all covered in nation wide electoral laws.
When at college my children could choose whether to be registered in their college towns or at their parent's home. One can apply for postal votes or a proxy vote. For instance if one of us were abroad the other could, with permission and with the forms filled in, vote on their behalf.

Back in the Thatcherite 80's the Poll Tax had as a side effect the disenfranchisement of poorer people as they tried to avoid a crippling and hated tax. One journalist for Murdoch's The Times heard a conservative politician admit they knew of the effect and benefitted from it but she didn't have the guts or ethics to report it at the time. From then on our census figures could never be trusted.

[N.E. Brigand]

A Google search of "ACORN voter fraud" turned up 520K hits. Here's one:
<<here>>

Thanks for the link, which is an excerpt of a CNN report that has been distributed by the Republican National Committee. I mention the source because I think it means that the release is therefore unlikely to be sympathetic to ACORN. So consider the end, when Drew Griffin reports that the city of Philadelphia disputes ACORN's claim to have flagged about 5,000 potentially false registrations:

Not according to the city officials, not true. They say that ACORN came in with a bundle of 1,100 that they thought were suspect. Actually, it turned out a couple of hundred of them were actually good voter registration cards that they processed and sent voter cards out to. So, there are a lot of disparities between the number that ACORN is getting and what city officials checking the actual records are getting, and that number, Kiran, is only going to grow as they continue to process more of these for this election.

OK, so ACORN either doesn't know or lied about how many possibly bogus registrations had been submitted in Philly, and that's certainly a problem. (Side note: what exactly does Griffin mean by "that number" which is expected to grow: the number of bogus registrations identified by ACORN? The number determined by the city? Or the difference between them?) On the other hand, ACORN apparently is, at least sometimes, too zealous in flagging registrations, to the tune of some 18% (=200/1100) of these newly-registered voters who were deemed suspicious.

[sauronsfinger]

The Obama campaign is on the offensive on this issue.

Charging that the FBI probe of ACORN represents an “unholy alliance” between Republican operatives and potentially illegal conduct by law enforcement targeting voter fraud, the Obama campaign demanded Friday that the U.S. special prosecutor looking into the U.S. attorneys scandal investigate the matter.

General counsel Bob Bauer sent a letter to Atty. Gen. Michael Mukasey charging that coordinated “misconduct” by McCain campaign representatives and GOP officials were relevant to the special prosecutor’s work, because the activities may relate to the dismissal of seven U.S. attorneys in late 2006.

The letter requests that the special prosecutor’s inquiry “include a review of any involvement by Justice Dept. and White House officials in supporting the McCain-Palin campaign [and RNC's] systematic development and dissemination of unsupported, spurious allegations of vote fraud.”

[sauronsfinger]

If you want to see how some of the media is presenting this whole issue of ACORN - just watch this coverage with Laura Ingraham on Fox. Her guest is John Flannery, an attorney in Constitutional Law. Neither of these people are dummies. But one is handicapped by 80 pounds of idealogy which makes them both rude and incapable of distinguising between voter registration irregularaties and actual voter fraud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eicg5A1Q ... lykos.com/

I hope Mr. Flannery gets a nice paycheck for this appearance.... otherwise I see no reason why anyone with an even partial functioning brain would subject themself to this type of process.

It would be interesting to take a stopwatch and time out how much actual on air time is dominated by Ingraham and how much time is given to Flannery.

[Cerin]

But one is handicapped by 80 pounds of idealogy which makes them both rude and incapable of distinguising between voter registration irregularaties and voter fraud.

I'm sure you and I and various media representatives are viewed as similarly handicapped by those on the other side. Since it equals out, I think the comments are worth just as much without that kind of observation, and probably much more, because then people don't get sidetracked from the real issue by the partisan bickering.

[sauronsfinger]

Cerin - I am sure there is truth in what you say. No doubt about it. It seems that in some people - Ingraham for one - they are so ruled by extremist idealogy that they do not even want to hear the words that come out of the other persons mouth for fear they will convert someone before she has a chance to correct them. That is what bothered me about this video more than anything.

I guess the idealogical opposite of Ms. Ingraham would be Keith Olbermann over on MSNBC. I have watched hundreds of his shows and I cannot recall a time when he was so obviously rude to a guest and fought with a guest to silence him or cut him off repeatedly in mid sentence.

I do not watch Fox News. Is Ingraham always like this? Is this her standard M.O.?

[Cerin]

Here is the Washington Post view of the voter registration problem related to the 'Help America Vote' act.

link

The paragraph below pretty well encapsulates the extent of the problem we could be facing:

Tens of thousands of voters could be affected in Wisconsin. Officials there admit that their database is wrong one out of five times when it flags voters, sometimes for data discrepancies as small as a middle initial or a typo in a birth date. When the six members of the state elections board -- all retired judges -- ran their registrations through the system, four were incorrectly rejected because of mismatches.

I mis-read the bottom paragraph here at first, and thought the person was expressing concern about disenfranchisement. Then I realized that he (the Republican Attorney Gen. of Wisconsin) really is considering these people -- citizens who've voted for years, but whose names have been flagged in the creation of the new computerized voting list due to computer or clerical error -- to be ineligible voters! I guess that would include those four former judges who are on the state elections board.

I wonder if it hasn't occurred to him that these errors are statistically going to hit some Republican voters, too. Or if he just doesn't care. The aim here seems to be to keep as many people as possible from voting.

I suppose SCOTUS could be hearing a flurry of cases from now until election time.

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, who co-chairs John McCain's campaign in that state, is demanding that election officials use the database to re-verify the identities of voters who registered going back to 2006.

The elections board has refused, citing the database's error rate. The issue has gone to court, and a ruling is expected next week.

Among the errors with Wisconsin's database, which has been fully in place just since August, are incorrect ages for 95,000 voters, all of whom are listed as 108 years old. If no birth date was available when names were moved into the electronic system, it automatically assigned Jan. 1, 1900.

In court filings, Van Hollen said "tens of thousands" of ineligible voters could cast ballots, noting that Wisconsin "will be a swing state" whose 10 electoral votes "may be won by a very narrow margin."

[Teremia]

The article Cerin cites about Wisconsin worries me a lot more than the ACORN business. Disenfranchising real voters unfairly is a lot worse, in my book, than filing voter registration forms in the name of Mickey Mouse, since those registration forms are probably not going to lead to "Mickey Mouse" actually getting to cast his (fraudulent) vote.

Now before Voronwë says "Amazing!" again -- I'm talking policies and not parties here. I don't want Democrats disenfranchising any voters either.

But if talk about the shenanigans of some of ACORN's paid signature gatherers is being used as a way to deflect attention from more "top down" attempts to manipulate the vote (which is how I'd describe the Wisconsin situation), then I do think it's all right to bring up the latter when discussing the former. Right?

And that does happen to be what I think is going on with all of this ACORN hoopla.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The article Cerin cites about Wisconsin worries me a lot more than the ACORN business.

Why does it need to be a comparison? Why can't someone be concerned about both, as I am?

Disenfranchising real voters unfairly is a lot worse, in my book, than filing voter registration forms in the name of Mickey Mouse, since those registration forms are probably not going to lead to "Mickey Mouse" actually getting to cast his (fraudulent) vote.

If all it was was registration forms in the name of Mickey Mouse, I would agree with you. Clearly, that is not the case. If it were, the FBI would not be investigating. The fact that people are so willing to dismiss it as "filing voter registration forms in the name of Mickey Mouse" is extraordinarily disturbing to me.

I am probably more "liberal" (even "radical") in my views on many issues than just about anyone here.

But if talk about the shenanigans of some of ACORN's paid signature gatherers is being used as a way to deflect attention from more "top down" attempts to manipulate the vote (which is how I'd describe the Wisconsin situation), then I do think it's all right to bring up the latter when discussing the former. Right?

And that does happen to be what I think is going on with all of this ACORN hoopla.

There is no need for either to deflect attention from the other. Frankly, I'm more interested in "cleaning my own house" than I am cleaning someone else's house. The willingness of liberals and progressives to dismiss the ACORN business is probably the most disturbing thing I have seen this election season. And that is saying a lot, because there have been an awful lot of disturbing things go on.

[Teremia]

I'm not happy about ACORN's bad registration forms.

But then I've never been happy about paid signature gatherers. When they come to the door, I won't sign their forms. I just think that paying people to gather signatures logically is going to lead to bad signatures, one way or another. I don't like it.

Still, I'm surprised that the ACORN business (and liberal reaction to it) has been the thing that has gotten you the most upset this election season, Voronwë.

On the Democratic side, the things that have gotten me most riled up are (1) the knee-jerk siding with Georgia in the Russia-Georgia conflict, even to the point of wanting to bring Georgia into NATO, when Georgia is not the most stable place and no democratic utopia (goes without saying that Neither Is Russia! but that's why we don't want to be all mixed up in those regional quarrels), and
(2) the refusal of the Democratic candidates to follow their own logic and support not just equality of rights but gay marriage. Oh, and
(3) the refusal during the primaries of those who voted for the Iraq War to admit that they voted that way out of sheer political cowardice and now regret it! I can't stand this cowering behind "we were fooled; we were misled."

All right, that's just part of my quarrel with "my own team." In many ways, honestly, they aren't my team.

So all that is to say I'm not making comparisons just to pump up the Democrats. I just don't see that the bad stuff ACORN has done is going to lead to good votes not being counted, whereas not letting hundreds of thousands of registered voters' votes count because on some list they're "William" and on another "Bill" IS going to lead to good votes not being counted.

And that seems to me a very important distinction.

[Jnyusa]

This is relevant, and a quick read.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy