Does potential voter fraud in Alabama concern you?

Wait for the final count.
Every time a conservative loses in the an election where there are African Americans voting, there is the right wing call of voter fraud (some don’t think African Americans should vote).
In North Carolina there was a “fraud call” a few years ago out of almost 5 million voters, they found a dozen felons and others that should not have voted.

Voter fraud, when investigated, has been basically nonexistent. I only ever hear about it when a republican loses an election. Or in Trump’s case, when he didn’t win, by as much as he thought.

A recount was wanted after the fiasco in Florida (GW’s second win.) Those votes were eventually thrown out.

I have an idea. Maybe the people of Alabama, aren’t as morally backward, as many thought…

Fake news, @seawulf575 – spreading dissension and doubt when there is none.

Typical for the losing side.

No, but voter suppression does.

Like @janbb I am much more concerned about rampant and strategic voter suppression.

^You’re insinuating, that Republicans don’t want certain people to vote?

And would stoop as low, as needed, for the desired outcome?~~~~~~~~

Due to the intense focus of national attention this is probably the single election in Alabama since Reconstruction free of tampering.

https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/941521619549347850

All smoke and no fire.
And honestly it is just how you choose to interpret the numbers.

In the 2016 Senate election we see that the Republican, Shelby recieved 1,335,104 votes while the Democrat, Crumpton, got 748,709 votes.

The 2017 Senate election we see the Republican, Moore, received 652,300 votes while the Democrat Jones got 673,236 votes.

Jones got 75473 (a little over 10%) fewer votes than his counterpart a year earlier.
But more strikingly his Republican counterpart, Moore got 682,804 fewer votes than his predecessor. This is a whopping 51.14% decrease in Republican voter turnout.

Admittedly this was an off year and you will never get the turnout that you do during a presidential election year but it was a very important election.

What cost the Republicans the election was not voter fraud and certainly not voter suppression since the vast majority of the elimination of voting sites and, more importantly, voter registration sites occurred in majority black areas but in choosing seriously flawed candidate who was completely unpalatable to a huge swath of the Republican voters and repugnant enough to get a higher than expected Democratic turnout.

Illegal voting is very, very rare. It would be difficult to do.

Oh, look. Alabama Voter Suppression

THIS is what needs to be investigated and we need to re-assert Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013.

^^^ Voter suppression is another thing, though.

^^ Yes, that’s the distinction being made.

Voter fraud has never been a pressing concern for me. While it does sometimes occur and it should be stamped out where it does, it seems to be a particular bugbear of the Right that only comes up when they lose. It couldn’t be more opportunistic of an issue.

This last go around with the Electoral College bothers me more than the almost non-existent voter fraud.

AL has strict voter ID laws. If they think this system is so foolproof then what are they complaining about?

This may help answer that question @tinyfaery.

@seawulf575 , You really seem to like this guy Moore. If you think there was voter fraud you should send him money for a recount. I read that the state of Alabama did not inform former prisoners that they were allowed to vote, as is required by state law. Should that be investigated also? What about reports of black voter intimidation? Does that disturb you? Should it be investigated?

There wasn’t any. When the right-wing lose, they complain about fraud or potential fraud, which then becomes a pretext to make it more difficult to vote and suppress votes in future.

What is concerning is that a racist, misogynist paedophile only lost by about 20,000 votes—and that such a person could stand for public office in the first place.

^Hey man. Sadly, that’s progress…..........

So what I am seeing is that even when people ADMIT to voter fraud, this group denies it occurs. But that’s only because the Dem won, I assume. I see the slant that when Repubs lose, they call out fraud. Yet, wasn’t there a recount asked for in the presidential election in 3 states? And what were the results? That Trump won by even more in the states that did recount. Every time there is a claim of voter fraud investigated, it comes back that some is found. And it always favors the Dems. So I understand not wanting to look at this issue.
I see a lot of deflection about voter suppression going on here as well. It is off topic and nothing but a dodge, but in response to the challenge, yes, it should be investigated. Voter intimidation as well….not just black voter intimidation….ALL voter intimidation. We shouldn’t be trusting our one true power to those that stand to gain from stacked decks.

No one denies that voter fraud occurs. I will even accept your suspicious statement that “every time there is a claim of voter fraud investigated, it comes back that some is found.” The problem with that analysis is that the back half of it is always excluded in conservative arguments. In all of these elections investigated for voter fraud, the numbers of fraudulent votes uncovered are ALWAYS so few that they are statistically meaningless. We’re talking about numbers like .0000000013%.

^Yeah. There are probably more mistakes made voting, than actual fraud.

@seawulf575 Take it easy, fraud may have occurred. But vote intimidation DID occur.

^^^^^^NOT from Breibart^^^^^^^^

@seawulf575 , Does voter suppression bother you? There were a lot more votes that were suppressed than any possible voter fraud, especially considering that Alabama has a voter ID law.

You asked if it concerned us. I think the obvious answer is no, there are more pressing concerns such as vote suppression. And, you can call it deflection if you wish but the real deflection is trying to make a case for rampant voter fraud. No such animal, never was.

Also off topic but “We shouldn’t be trusting our one true power to those that stand to gain from stacked decks.” Ah, you poor naive fool. Here, I give you two choices, now choose one of the two I have chosen for you to pick from. See, now you are participating and the winner is the one you picked. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…

Got it Rojo…you don’t want to look at voter fraud. It doesn’t concern you. Got it….bury your head in the sand. Here’s what I notice with every liberal I have ever had this discussion with. They don’t want anything put in place to protect against voter fraud. They don’t want any way of determining if there is voter fraud. But they want to claim there isn’t any. Funny how that works. And if you mention something like voter ID laws? Wow…your a racist! You hate blacks! You are a neo-nazi!. No one has EVER successfully explained to me how a law that would make you show an ID to prove you are who you say you are is a racist move or how it suppresses black votes.
But this case is even worse. Here we have a situation where people are admitting to coming from other states and from other countries to vote in the Alabama election. They are admitting it! And yet I have seen that this doesn’t bother anyone and no one really wants to know how they are doing it or how many are doing it. The one guy I saw admitted to going around and around in the line at the voting station to vote mulitple times. So one guy votes, but then votes 3 or 4 more times. How is that right? But apparently this crowd doesn’t want fair, they want bias in favor of the left. Voter ID law would have suppressed his votes, that’s for sure! It would have suppressed the votes of those that admit they came from other places to vote. But let’s not actually look to close. It would destroy the narrative that voter fraud isn’t an issue.

He’s not saying it doesn’t concern him. He’s saying that the TRUTH is voter fraud is very, very uncommon, it is certainly not “rampant,” and voter suppression is very real and is much more of a threat.

And yet the fact is that there are people admitting to voter fraud. And none of you care. You don’t want to look at it, you don’t want to investigate it, you want to ignore it. Remember, ignore is the root of the word ignorant.

And you are ignoring the much greater issue of voter suppression.

Prove it @seawulf575.

@seawulf575 You are blindly drinking the Trump kool aide about voter fraud. He keeps claiming voter fraud with absolutely no evidence.

@seawulf575, if you’re interested, here are some articles that offer reasons people are concerned about voter suppression, and the link between voter suppression and voter ID laws:

Do voter identification laws suppress minority voting? Yes. We did the research.

Why do many minorities lack ID?

They are from sources you’d probably call liberally bent, but they do provide the reasons and the data behind people’s concerns for voter suppression, which is what believe you were asking for. (“No one has EVER successfully explained to me how a law that would make you show an ID to prove you are who you say you are is a racist move or how it suppresses black votes.”)

As for voter fraud—as some people have already explained above, yes, there are a handful of voter fraud cases that can be found for a given election. We know this because studies have been done—because rampant voter fraud, were it happening, would in fact be an enormous concern for everyone. What the studies tell us is that the number of fraudulent votes is so small compared to the number of legitimate votes that it has no effect on the turnout of the election. Making stricter voting laws wouldn’t solve any pressing issue, because there is no pressing issue there: Fraudulent votes aren’t affecting elections. By contrast, the ways we are able to make voting laws stricter wind up having a measurably significant impact on legitimate voters and their turnout… which is a cost that needs to be factored into the discussion.

When you weigh the costs and the benefits of either option—leaving voter laws a little more relaxed, and allowing a statistically insignificant number of fraudulent votes, versus making voter laws stricter, and suppressing a statistically significant number of legitimate votes… That’s when you have people saying things like, “We shouldn’t implement stricter voter ID laws because the costs of voter ID laws are higher than their benefit.”

@Soubresaut Let me start by saying voter suppression is equally horrid in my eyes. Yet here’s the difference…I will admit that whereas none of you will admit voter fraud is bad and most will try to say it doesn’t exist.
So let me lay out a few other thoughts about ID’s and even some suggestions about voter ID laws. You need an ID to show you are old enough to buy a drink at a bar or from a store. No one gets upset, screaming racism about that. You need to prove who you are to get a loan. No one gets upset, screaming racism about that. You need more than just an ID to buy a gun, yet, you guessed it, no one gets upset, screaming racism about that. No one actually screams about needing a driver’s license, claiming it is racist. Massachusetts has a law requiring a photo ID to us EBT cards, yet no one is upset about that. Other states are considering the same thing and no one is upset about it. So the idea that asking someone to produce an ID to vote is somehow suddenly a massive hurdle to overcome is ludicrous.
Additionally, there have been states that offered to give ID’s to people to vote if they instituted voter ID laws and STILL there was a claim that it was racist and would suppress the vote. I have even heard the one about how really old people don’t have birth certificates so they can’t get IDs. They were born at home and not in a hospital. Guess what? My mom, my aunt, and my uncle are all over 85. All were born at home, on a farm in the backwoods of Georgia. And all have had IDs for decades. They had no problems getting them. So I’m sorry, I don’t buy that argument either.
So please, feel free…try to explain why asking for an ID to vote is racist and unreasonable when it isn’t for everything else. I’d love to hear this.
Meanwhile, the entire argument you have about how minor voter fraud is, is based on flawed assumptions. It starts with “you can’t prove it” and moves on from there. If you don’t functions in place that will verify people are who they say they are, that they only vote once, and that they are legal to vote (illegals and felons), it becomes impossible to tell who voted, how often they voted, or if they were allowed to vote. So yes, you can’t prove much and the fact that we continue to find the really stupid ones should tell you that there is far more out there. And that also shows why the left is so dead-set against voter ID laws…it would put something in place to stop all the fraud. So yes, if you don’t look, you can’t find. It is a fact of life and something the liberals live by.
And you are trying to say that voter ID laws would suppress the minority vote. Yet you say there is no fraud. So the connection falls apart. I’ve already commented on the idiocy of claiming that asking for an ID is racist, especially when the state will give you one. But if we implement these laws, it will suppress the vote. But no one can actually explain why. Here’s my thought on it…it stops the multiple votes so yes, it will suppress the apparent turnout.

The numbers count; there is much more voter suppression than voter fraud.
But voter suppression is OKAY because it is backed by the white bigots in Alabama.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~Sorry could not find any voter suppression comments from Brannon and Breibart.

@seawulf575 So your only proof of the existence of massive voter fraud is a guess that it must be occurring. I see. No proof whatsoever then. And that is the fundamental problem with all those who cry “voter fraud” when their party loses, their lack of proof. They will demand proof for everything else, everything that opposes their own opinions, but with their case they will provide none and call it case closed. And they are flabbergasted that people dismiss their claims. It’s a maxim I like to say: “That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”

I understand that many are unsure of why voter ID laws are problematic. Here are some reasons why, drawn from the ACLU website:

“Many Americans do not have one of the forms of identification states accept for voting.These voters are disproportionately low-income, racial and ethnic minorities, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Such voters more frequently have difficulty obtaining ID, because they cannot afford or cannot obtain the underlying documents that are a prerequisite to obtaining government-issued photo ID card.”

“Underlying documents required to obtain ID cost money, a significant expense for lower-income Americans. The combined cost of document fees, travel expenses and waiting time are estimated to range from $75 to $175”

“The travel required to obtain an ID is often a major burden on people with disabilities, the elderly, or those in rural areas without access to a car or public transportation. In Texas, some people in rural areas must travel approximately 170 miles to reach the nearest ID office.”

“Voter ID Laws Reduce Voter Turnout. A 2014 GAO study found that strict photo ID laws reduce turnout by 2–3 percentage points, which can translate into tens of thousands of votes lost in a single state.”

The types of ID allowed are often determined in a discriminatory manner:

“Texas allows concealed weapons permits for voting, but does not accept student ID cards. Until its voter ID law was struck down, North Carolina prohibited public assistance IDs and state employee ID cards, which are disproportionately held by Black voters. And until recently, Wisconsin permitted active duty military ID cards, but prohibited Veterans Affairs ID cards for voting.”

In other words, it is common knowledge among lawmakers that minorities are more likely to lack ID, thus to implement voter ID laws is an easy way to prevent minorities from voting. It’s a fairly simple concept, really. Now that isn’t to say that these people without IDs shouldn’t have one, of course they should ultimately have one, but that’s beside the point. The voter ID laws are crafted with the knowledge that those people who currently lack ID will probably not vote.

Voter IDs could only prevent one type of voter fraud anyhow: in-person fraud, which is extremely rare, and most documented cases of it were found to be the result of election workers making mistakes. In fact, most instances of voter fraud in general were due to honest errors on the part of election workers, not people deliberately trying to defraud the system.

Bannon says so. ^^^^ @Demosthenes

@Demosthenes Yet none of your arguments address the other times that a person needs an ID. Amazingly, these same, poor, oppressed people that can’t figure out how to get an ID, manage to get one for a plethora of other reasons. And your arguments don’t address the outrage over voter ID laws that propose to give, free of charge, an ID card, if you don’t already have one.

As for voter fraud, I never said “Massive” voter fraud. But let me ask, since you seem to have an opinion….how much voter fraud is too much? What is acceptable to you? And if any efforts to measure voter fraud are considered voter suppression, how do you propose to measure the ACTUAL voter fraud? Let me give you a “for instance”. In the last presidential election, the whiny Dems and Greens decided to go for a recount. In Wisconsin, it turned out that Trump gained 22,000 votes. That is about 1% of the total vote. How do you miss 1% of the vote? If there were actual laws in place that ensure a person is who they say they are, that they only vote once, and that they are legal to vote, you would expect the vote for Dems to go down. Almost 100% of the cases of voter fraud that are found are on the side of the Dems.
Don’t like ID cards? Okay, how about biometrics? When you register to vote, you have to give your thumb print. Then, when you go to vote, you put your thumb print into the system. You could have the statewide system set up that is connected so that it automatically ticks you off the list as having voted and would automatically block you from voting again. Then people that aren’t legal to vote or want to try voting multiple times would be blocked. But not all voter fraud is committed by just an individual. In the last Alabama election, you had people registering convicted felons to vote. Do you know what the law in Alabama says about that? It says that convicted felons can vote if the governor approves it on a case by case basis. That means if they register 10,000 felons to vote, the governor would have to sign a form for each one, allowing them to vote. Do you really believe that happened? Yet they got registered. Did they vote? I can’t say. But they are registered which means they could…illegally.
You, like all the other liberal jellies on here, continue to try avoiding looking at a problem because either (a) you are all fools, which I don’t believe, (b) you don’t want to find the problem because it would hurt the Dems at the polls if it was exposed. If all that I am saying is entirely false, then it should be a simple exercise to show me how voter fraud cannot happen. Until you can do that, you are saying that you don’t care about voter fraud.

Once again you make unwarranted assumptions based on facts not in evidence, and any feeble evidence you do manage to conjure up is exaggerated beyond believable tolerance. For example: 135 million people voted in the 2016 Presidential election. In that election there were 4 documented cases of voter fraud. Those 4 cases are an epidemic compared to the results of the extensive study the Federal election Commission was forced to undertake at the behest of the Republican Congress. This was the study which determined the rate of voter fraud in the United States to be .0000000013%. There are 8 zeros after that decimal point before the first positive integer.

You are correct that liberals view the hooplah about voter fraud as bullshit designed to justify intimidation of liberal voters, but there is ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT that the sudden urgency over supposed voter fraud is based on non existent evidence with no basis in fact. The ludicrous nonsense peddled to low information voters is too pathetic to be taken seriously, and when you repeat the silly gossip here without a lick of documentation, you cheapen your argument and eliminate any chance of being taken seriously. 10,000 felons registered to vote in Alabama? Hoardes of illegal aliens registering in Alabama precincts? This is nonsense aimed at the feeble minded and poor ignorant souls deprived of decent education. You come here repeating rumors floated by right wing hucksters to yokels in Alabama, and are disappointed that none of us accept the blatantly obvious tripe as gospel. When no one is willing to swallow the patently absurd proposition, you conclude “liberals don’t care about voter fraud.”

Remember Bannon was calling voter fraud BEFORE the Presidential election and told Trump to start early and often to commenting on all the “voter fraud”.
I fully believe that is where @seawulf575 is getting his “Trump News” and using it for Alabama.

I fingers it interesting that @seawulf575 assumes that the only people fraudulently voting, are voting for the left.

Yes. The thought of thousands of inmates going out of their eay, to vote, is beyond ridiculous.

Illegal aliens, in this climate, are barely going to ERs, for fear of deportation. Yet they risked their freedom, to vote for a governor in Alabama?

The “guy voting 4 times,” sounds like total BS too.

Listen to what you’re proposing @seawulf575 . Think…

Ok, so let me say what you want to hear on big, bold italicized letters: Voter fraud is not acceptable and should be prosecuted on each and every occasion. Happy now? And, yes, I am being sarcastic but mean every word.

But going after almost non-existent voter fraud or using it as an excuse to make it more difficult for others to vote, is like asking for a band aid for a boo-boo while ignoring the gangrene that has infected your body. There are bigger problems, bigger inequities, bigger issues that should take priority.

A little research about your main premise about people crossing state lines to vote (and please, find the guy who was on the video and prosecute him, not like you don’t know what he looks like) After reading the transcript of what he said, and where he was and the excitement level I can see where if I were a right wing conspiracy nut (and I am not, I am a left wing conspiracy nut) who had one of these internet rags, I could use it to feed the fires of hatred and mistrust. Here is the quote: “We came in from different parts of the country [inaudible]and all of us pitched in to vote and came in together and we got our boy elected! Doug Jones!”
But, as a rational human being I can see how he easily misspoke in the heat of the moment (candidate wins, tv reporter in your face). I have not doubt he and others did come in on buses, cross state lines, and [work to get out the] vote and get Jones elected. Working to get people elected is not restricted to only those who are in the voting district. If it were then there would be a shit-load of campaign contributions, on both sides, that would be illegal.
So, the challenge for Republicans is to quit whining, track down the bus occupants, and find out the truth instead of making incorrect assumptions.

Hey, we can’t use the term evidence-based anymore. @seawulf575 takes this to heart, obviously.

@seawulf575, why do you keep insisting that I don’t care, or that I won’t “admit voter fraud is bad”? Even when I said in my previous post: “rampant voter fraud, were it happening, would in fact be an enormous concern for everyone.”

Maybe I worded it too softly there, and it was easily overlooked. I’ll try again. It’s like… Okay, it’s like arsenic and mercury levels in the food I consume. I know it’s possible for those elements to be in foods, and I am deeply concerned by the idea that the concentrations are high enough to sicken/poison me. Others are concerned too, which is why studies are conducted to measure the concentrations. Those studies come back with results, and it turns out the amount of mercury/arsenic present in certain foods is at a concentration low enough that my body can handle them without problem. (And they’re at a lower concentration than the limit recommended by scientists who study these sorts of things). Am I concerned about contaminated food as a concept? Absolutely. But when I look for the data, I find out that the “contamination” is so small as to be irrelevant—which means it isn’t an issue I have to actively worry about, because it’s not an issue that’s manifesting itself. I realize this isn’t a perfect analogy. There are some products with higher mercury levels, and I remember a year when rice had a higher-than-normal arsenic level… But the point is that these things are monitored, and there is a threshold where the amount is so small that we can safely round it down to zero.

My stance on voter fraud is not based the idea that ”‘you can’t prove it.’” Neither is the stance of anyone I’ve seen on this thread. It is based on the realization that, after studies and studies on the issue, we have found evidence which suggests voter fraud happens at such low concentrations as to be irrelevant to the legitimacy or accuracy or the election results.

Because there have been studies done on voter fraud.

Here is an article written by someone who outlines his own research on voter fraud. Among other things, he points out that “requirements to show ID at the polls are designed for pretty much one thing: people showing up at the polls pretending to be somebody else in order to each cast one incremental fake ballot. This is a slow, clunky way to steal an election. Which is why it rarely happens.” He also conveniently provides links directly to the studies and documents he references, so it is simple enough to follow the sources of his information.

I realize that I am once again citing the Washington Post, and since it is the poster child of “evil liberal MSM,” that perhaps is less than convincing. I would, however, invite you to read it anyway. The author is a guest writer who specializes in this kind of research.

Here is another source for various research into voter fraud. It’s a center associated with NYU. Wikipedia does say it’s left-leaning, but you might find it worthwhile to look through some of their articles if for no other reason than to see the research that people like me believe.

And here is an article which provides yet more sources on voter fraud research from a website that curates research for journalists to use. It looks like it’s a website put together by the Shorenstein Center, which associated with Harvard University. It provides links to sources throughout the article, and then has a list of peer-reviewed journal articles below that. Again, you might find it worthwhile to look through.

All of this to say… People who say there isn’t widespread voter fraud are not saying that people simply can’t prove it exists. There are countless studies that have tried to find voter fraud in various ways, and continue to find that it’s exceedingly rare. (Although, as far as argumentation goes, the burden of proof is on the people who claim voter fraud’s existence.)

As far as voter fraud as a concept? Yes—in concept—it concerns me… In part for democratic ideals elections being about everyone having an equal vote for their position. In part for self-serving reasons—I have absolutely no reason to believe that voter fraud would be only to the benefit of my side of the aisle. Quite the opposite. If voter fraud were as common, and as simple to coordinate, as some would have us believe, I would expect it to be something wielded by all sorts of people with all sorts of political leanings.

I want to believe that people who advocate for voter ID laws truly do just fear voter fraud, and aren’t invested in the argument for political gains. It’s difficult to have much conviction behind that belief, however, when I know that voter ID laws tend to disproportionately disenfranchise voters of one party (specifically Democrat-leaning voters) while having little else to show for it. It winds up looking like a big political gaming of the system. I imagine, however, it is a similar challenge for someone on the other side to believe that I really do just find the studies showing voter fraud to be negligible satisfactory, as well as the studies outlining concerns about voter ID laws in general.

Okay, this has already gotten rather long. Sorry about that.

One quick note—when you mentioned 22,000 votes being missed in the initial Wisconsin count… That number seemed pretty incredible to me.

I did a quick search, and it’s true that Trump won Wisconsin by over 22,000 votes. However, it seems that in the recount he only picked up 131 additional votes—a margin of error is attributable to human error, and one that did not greatly affect the final results. Here is part of Trump’s own tweet on the matter: “The final Wisconsin vote is in and guess what – we just picked up an additional 131 votes.” (Source). It’s an easy enough figure to misremember. I just wanted to let you know, because 22,000 votes going missing is deeply concerning. Thankfully, that doesn’t seem to be what happened.

As for your various reasons you don’t buy people not having government issued photo IDs… I think I’ve gone on too long already to dive into each one, and I’m not exactly sure that’s necessary. I would imagine that if people have trouble obtaining the required IDs for voter ID laws, and if those same requirements are held for those various other examples, then they still have a hard time obtaining the required identification.

Here’s an article looking at various surveys designed to ascertain the number of individuals who don’t have the kinds of IDs that would be required by voter ID laws. Although the surveys use slightly different methodologies, and find different percentages, there appears to be a consistent trend as to who is more and who is less likely to have adequate identification. Some of the reasons why this might be the case are mentioned in the article briefly as well… But they’re also touched on in several of the sources I linked above.

There you go providing proof @Soubresaut. What a load of crap! ~

Why don’t 25% of African Americans have ID?

Most of us suburban types drive and so are required to own a drivers license. If you live in an urban setting without a car and with public transport, what do you need one for? Or, conversely, if you live in a poor rural setting with little if any extra cash and with very few police who have way more to do than worry about whether or not someone has a license as long at they keep it between the ditches, what do you need a license for?
And where do the majority of African-Americans live?

Based on my reading of the article, it’s not necessarily that high—or at least, it’s not uniformly that high everywhere. At the bottom of the article, PolitiFact gives the range of percentages of voters without IDs: “most indicate that African Americans are less likely than whites to hold varied kinds of government-issued IDs, with percentages of blacks without such IDs ranging from nearly 4 percent to more than 26 percent and percentages of whites having such an ID ranging from 1 percent to nearly 14 percent.” And these surveys had varying methodologies and sample sizes/ranges. Still, the takeaway point seems to be that there is a disparity in who may be adversely affected by this kind of law.

Well, if they want to vote then they have to take the steps to get the ID. If they don’t want to vote, and aren’t going to vote, then there is no point in getting an ID anyway. I don’t see how that’s voter suppression. It’s a personal decision.
The thing is, I have to show ID at random times. Even at Goodwill I have to show ID if I write a check or use my card. I understand the argument that they probably use cash-only, but you have to show ID to get liquor and cigarettes. I mean, you have to show ID for a lot of reasons.

Alabama required an ID then closed down a large number of the DMV offices where these ID’s could be obtained and lo, most were in majority black settings either inner city or deep rural. Funny how that works. Esquire, Huffington Post

AND from personal experience trying to get my 92 year old mother-in-law an ID after her drivers license expired and she no longer drove, they placed so many road blocks in the way, requiring so many trips (it took us seven) to the DMV to get it. Things like we have six windows and only two employees. Pick an number and have a seat (#24), someone will call you up to their cubicle shortly. “Number 3, we will see you now”. Six hours later; “Sorry we did not get past #20, please come back tomorrow” And Start Over. Drivers license expired, sorry (yes I can see it is less than a year) but we can’t give you a photo ID without three other forms of identification including birth certificate or a certified copy (Don’t have one, well you can order it from some other government agency and come back again at a later date) and passport and some other photo ID and no, your expired drivers license will not do even though we issued it and have done for the past sixty odd years. Wait, you’re birth certificate has a different last name on it than you are using! Oh, married? Well, we need to see a certified copy of your marriage license. Don’t have one? Order it from some other agency and get back to us at a later date. The only thing they didn’t do was make her take a civics test.
She almost gave up.
She did cry several times in frustration.
I don’t even want to imagine what it would have taken if she were black and had to travel an hour to a different county each time to try to get it.

In addition to what @rojo shared, see @Demosthenes’ post above.

Okay…I guess it’s time for the plethora of posts, which none of you will read or will try to just dismiss out of hand.

http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article183946821.html

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/17/no-voter-fraud-isnt-myth-10-cases-where-its-all-to/

https://www.nbc12.com/story/33364443/indiana-voter-fraud-investigation-grows-to-56-counties

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/17/cincinnati-illegal-voting/2530119/

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/357143-pa-officials-find-hundreds-of-illegal-ballots-cast-in-state

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/politics-government/election/article108539187.html

https://publicinterestlegal.org/files/Report_Alien-Invasion-in-Virginia.pdf

The list goes on and on. Oh, and in 100% of the cases where someone was found guilty, that person was a Democrat or working for a Democrat. @Soubresaut I bounced these off the dates cited in the study of your first citation and found that exactly none of them were included in his findings. Convenient. Yes, he is a scam and isn’t doing a thorough review or purposely misleading people. Either way, the result is the same. His findings are bogus. Your second citation is indeed a left-leaning source and, oh by the way, used the findings of the first bogus citation you used as a source for their research. Funny how that is. One lies and others use it as truth. Second citation debunked. Mind you, I’m not undermining these examples, they do it to themselves. Should I keep going? Okay..Your third citation is from a dolt named David Trilling who is a far left writer and his story…wait for it….cites the same bogus report you first cited! Yes, dear, I see the type of research you believe in.

But the challenge still remains….how much voter fraud is too much? Please, anyone….fill me in. Is 1 case okay? Are 10? How about 1,000? 100,000? Please…stop me when I get near the number that you feel is okay to have.

How about the tens of thousand that can’t vote because the CONSERVATIVES in Alabama and elsewhere make it take so many trips to a faraway government office that the elderly, people of color and others. These people might vote liberal so “we will keep them out of the polling places.” Voter fraud has been researched and in numbers you can understand it is smaller than the number of people from the US to fly in space.
That’s called voter suppression but you’re not okay the three people you find that shouldn’t voted.

Oh these people that have lost the right to vote might vote for someone other than a right-winger so that in your eyes is okay.

@Tropical_Willie Here is a quote from something I said further up this thread:
“Let me start by saying voter suppression is equally horrid in my eyes.” I have claimed it and stand by it. But not a one of you has stood by the idea that voter fraud is equally horrid. I have given many, many examples of it and you all ignore the examples. I have challenged you to quantify your acceptance of law breaking and not a one of you has attempted to answer that challenge. In other words, you are all hypocrites.

100’s of fraudulent voters and 100,000 (maybe liberals) you passed grammar school math; you do the numbers.
What scares you is the 100,000 might have the ability to vote an they are people of color and elderly.

@seawulf575 . It isn’t “equally horrid, ” because it isn’t an equal problem. If suppression were the problem that happened at the frequency of fraud, we wouldn’t be mentioning it.

I know you like to compare the two, but there is no comparison. There is no hypocrisy here. Just a jelly that wants everyone to agree with him, regardless of whether he’s right, or just spreading, and embellishing fake news…

I swear, if you heard that 100,000 Martians voted illegally, you’d believe it. If you like reading fiction so much, there’s a big section of it in each book store…

@seawulf575 Let’s take a look.

your first link: not fraud. Intimidation maybe, impeding yes, fraud, no.

second link: four (count them, four) cases of voter fraud were found in Colorado and one of those they attributed to an error by an election official so actually only three. They also noted that there were 78 dead voters who were potentially eligible to vote but, evidently, did not. In Virginia it says they registered to vote, it does not say they actually voted. If it is done in conjuction with a drivers license then you need to look to the state to make sure this does not happen. Pennsylvania it says some MIGHT have but they actually have no firm data, In Texas it says there were allegations made and concerns raised but, again no actual data. In Indiana, again, allegations made but no actual cases can be shown In Oklahoma three (3) possible cases but, yet again, no actual convictions. In Kentucky we again refer back to the first link which is intimidation, not fraud. In Wisconsin we have six (6) underage students voting and five presented a student ID for identification and should have been stopped by voting officials; the sixth used a report card as identification and still got to vote.In Pennsylvania again we find potential fraudulent voters but no evidence of actual voter fraud and in this case it is the state that is responsible, not the “potential” fraudulent voter.

third link: bad link,

fourth link: a single voter (one) accused of voting twice in one election and three times in another. also linked from the fourth link another three cases, one of which is the original case mentioned in the link so two (2) more. The other link lists 11 “Possible” cases in Kansas and 9 “possible” cases in Arizona. Yet again, no definitive statistics or evidence of actual fraud

fifth link: Pennsylvania says possibly (there is that word again) 544 cases out of 93 million votes over an 18 year period,. And, again, it is a problem with the State issuing improper paperwork, not people trying to vote illegally.

sixth link: Again, hints and allegations but no hard evidence or actual cases of voter fraud.

seventh and final link: A partisan rehash of the problems Virginia has getting their shit together when it comes to properly registering people to vote. A Rag put out by two right wing organizations, the Virginia Voters Alliance and the Public Interest Legal Foundation that makes a whole shit load of accusations without offering and proof or substantial references for their claims.

So, what have you given us? By my count, 3 cases in Colorado, 3 cases in Ohio, 9 possible cases in Arizona and perhaps another 11 in Kansas if they can make the case for any of them.

And by far the biggest factor in all of these cases is the inability of the State to properly issue ID’s when they require them and register actual eligible voters rather than the dead or non-citizens trying to game the system, and on all counts not a single case where you can point to Democratic plot to interfere with an election in any way, shape or form.

Accusations are made repeatedly, Investigations are demanded repeatedly, and then actually made repeatedly but we never see where they actually produce any hard evidence of voter fraud or any verifiable results. In fact, it is usually the case that you never hear another word about it after it goes to investigation.

You have hardly made a case for “rampant voter fraud” nationwide.

I just finished going through the links, too. My response is much longer, much less tidy, but I came separately to about the same reaction @rojo did… even down to the not-working link.

I’m sorry you feel I’m being hypocritical, @seawulf575. And you are of course free to believe that the sources I offered are not credible.

I would, however, like to push back on a couple of things you claimed.

Justin Levitt collected 31 cases of reported in-person voter fraud from 2000 through 2014 (out of 1 billion votes cast). As he puts it, he “track[s] any specific, credible allegation that someone may have pretended to be someone else at the polls, in any way that an ID law could fix.” Note that these are cases that have been reported within that window, not merely ones that appear to have occurred within that window but were reported later. Note, too, that not all instances of what would be considered voter fraud will fall under Levitt’s criteria (see above), which focuses specifically on the kinds of voter fraud that voter ID laws address.

Given that, I actually couldn’t find examples in your list of allegations that would have fit into Levitt’s criteria. (And I really did look). They were out of the date range, and/or reported out of the date range, and/or not the right kind of voter fraud allegation.

And, yes, one of the sources cited by my later sources is Levitt. Both later sources also provide lists of many other sources too, though. Their points don’t hinge solely on Levitt. You might view it as a hit to their credibility for citing Levitt, but that doesn’t in and of itself destroy the credibility of the other sources they’ve compiled.

So I took the time not only to read but to actually analyze your posts (I believe a thank you is in order and yet I did not find, as you did, that someone was “always” found guilty, nor that they were “always” a Democrat or even that everything you posted was voter fraud You accuse others of posting misleading information yet think nothing of doing so yourself. You accuse others of posting “left leaning sources” and yet half of what you linked to were obviously right wing propaganda or at the very least right leaning sources with an obvious agenda and/or bias.
But to quote a highly reliable (and I use the term facetiously) source: ” Mind you, I’m not undermining these examples, they do it to themselves. Should I keep going? ”

^^ If I recall correctly, only in one example of apparent voter fraud was the person’s party affiliation even mentioned.

@Soubresaut I can give you one right off the top of my head and I listed it. Melowese Richardson. She voted numerous times, sometimes for other people. If she had to actually show an ID, she wouldn’t have been able to do that, or at least it would have been easier to show her fraud. That was not included on Levitt’s report at all, yet fell within the timeframe of his study. And it made national news. Seems odd that it wouldn’t have been included. If you want to get picky, and @rojo has equally confirmed this in his evaluation of my citations, NONE of the cases showing fraud were included in the report. Dead people can’t vote if they don’t have an ID. Illegal aliens can’t register to vote, period. And if your stance is now that Levitt cut out only one tiny view point to stress, then what you are saying is that he was trying to slant his study to make a broader conclusion that is supported by his facts. This equally discredits him, his report, and all the other lovely left wingers that use him as a “reliable” source.

@rojo I love your analysis. It agrees that there is voter fraud. It then tries to narrow down that agreement. It tries to ignore citations because you don’t like the source, not because you can actually find fault in their claims. It tries to discount cases where fraud is being investigated because it hasn’t proven anything. That is a partial truth. But warrants have been issued to get the evidence. Those don’t get issued without some sort of proof being available to make the claim credible. Unless they are FISA warrants. And you end your write up with a statement that my claim of rampant voter fraud isn’t credible.
So now come the challenges to you. Where have I said rampant voter fraud? I have claimed it exists. I have said it is bad and worth stopping. I will even say that if you have a system where case after case can be found in every state in the union, you have a program that is flawed and needs to be corrected. But I have never used the term “Rampant” in any of my statements. If you go back and look, it is always someone that is responding to me, including yourself on more than one occasion. And as one of you claims it, the rest feed on it until everyone is sure I stated it. I haven’t. This is a typical liberal tactic….make up a lie, attribute it to someone, and then repeat it over and over until it has the feel of truth. But again, facts defeat you. And I HAVE thrown out the challenge repeatedly for someone to tell me what the correct number is for voter fraud when it suddenly becomes bad. No one will take that challenge either. I see it as a big problem and have offered suggestions for combating it. Yet no one really wants to discuss those either. They really, like you, just want to try downplaying the whole thing. It is amazing to me that almost all the cases of voter fraud and voter intimidation that occur can be tracked back to Democrats and it is Democrats that fight the hardest against any rules that would hamper voter fraud or intimidation. And all you adherents just chirp along in a merry line, right behind the ones that are benefiting from the crimes.

How does one even go about committing voter fraud.? Even disregarding voter IDs, polling stations maintain a list of registered voters. If someone impersonates one, then it will become obvious something is amiss when you end up with two people claiming to be the same person. It would definitely be newsworthy. I have never heard of such a thing happening. Someone would need insider information to know that a dead person is still on the voting role, and that does not happen all that often. The case where the woman was given permission to vote in someone else’s place is really bizarre, a strange statistically insignificant outlier.

I don’t see any indication that voter fraud turns up in more than .001% of the time, which means it has about the same voting impact as potential voters being struck by lightning. Voter suppression, on the other hand, is very real and affects a good portion of the electorate.

While we are in the process of beating this dead horse, it is appropriate to do a postmortem. Alabama is about as red a state as you can find. It took a perfect storm to get a Democrat elected. Let’s use some crude arithmetic to see what happens. In a typical election, about 25% of the voters are black. Suppose they vote nearly 100% Democrat. That makes for a good start. The Democrats would need only an additional 25% of the total vote out of the 75% white voters. That means that they could lose among white voters at a rate of nearly 2 to 1 and still win an election. In Alabama, whites typically vote 80 to 90% Republican. As much as @seawulf575 loves Moore, Moore’s blatant racism drew a higher than usual turnout among black voters and Jones was able to get the close to ⅓ of the white voters he needed due to the weakness of Moore’s candidacy. A small but significant number of white evangelicals saw Moore for the creep that he is. Don’t expect Alabama to go for a Democrat again any time soon.

Okay, quickly, Melowese Richardson: she was a poll worker. The top of the USA Today article has the caption Judge said poll worker used her knowledge to try and evade detection. The article doesn’t get into the details of how she slipped the ballots into the boxes, but it sounds like her position as a poll worker had something to do with it. Other articles I can find say one of the counts was her voting twice as herself, through absentee and in-person ballots… and none get much into the details of others. The closest they get is defining a link between the charges and her being a poll worker, and/or that she was casting ballots for family members. The other examples at the bottom of the article are: another poll worker, and two people mailing in absentee ballots of dead loved ones (I assume the nun was a loved one, anyway). Neither type of situation would be stopped by voter ID laws.

I suppose in a way Levitt’s research does “cut out only one tiny view to stress a point,” but not in the way I suspect you’re understanding it. That collection of 31 cases of alleged voter fraud were specifically the kinds of cases that voter ID laws can catch. Other kinds of voter fraud are irrelevant to a voter ID law discussion, except perhaps as a contrast. Levitt’s larger point in the article was that not only is voter fraud as a whole exceedingly rare, but the subset type of voter fraud that voter ID laws catch is the least frequent type to occur.

I went through that same sort of analysis for every example, ready for one to have been missed by Levitt… (And if he is trying to mislead people, we’d probably expect it to be about more than 31 vs 32 cases out of a billion.) It’s not about being picky. It’s about being accurate with what we’re looking at, so we can know what proposed solutions are actually going to do, rather than just what we want them to do, or hope they would do.

I pulled this from his article in my first post, I’ll requote it here: “requirements to show ID at the polls are designed for pretty much one thing: people showing up at the polls pretending to be somebody else in order to each cast one incremental fake ballot. This is a slow, clunky way to steal an election. Which is why it rarely happens.”

As for people not answering the question of “the correct number is for voter fraud when it suddenly becomes bad.”—I believe people have already answered that. Voter fraud is bad. No one on this thread, for instance, has said that we should get rid of the laws that make it illegal. However, it happens as such a low frequency that interventions like voter ID laws wind up doing more harm than good. That’s not a difficult threshold—if the solution does more harm than good, it’s probably not worth doing.

I don’t expect there to be an exact number where it “suddenly” requires more extensive intervention. A bit like the question, “How many grains of sand does it take to make a hill?” ... But we can bet that if it’s only a few grains of sand sprinkled on the ground, we’re not there yet.

I suspect everyone here has about the same threshold for voter fraud. The difference, from my perspective, seems to be that some people then look at the data and say “well, it’s a few grains of sand.” Others seem to look at the data and say “well, there’s got to be a hill hidden behind those grains.”

Of course it agrees there is voter fraud, no one has said voter fraud doesn’t exist. But it appears you are adamant about wanting a given number. I cannot give one that we would both agree on but let’s just say that since it is statistically insignificant whereas intimidation and suppression affect substantially more people and accordingly are more likely to skew the vote they should be the focus of your ire. Take care of the items that are most disadvantageous to the most people and work your way down the list and vote fraud is low man on that list. Put another way, vote fraud becomes, in your words, bad when it reaches the level of vote suppression.

From your own links it appears the vast majority of vote fraud comes from the inability of the vote officials to properly implement the given system of checks and balances, adding more rules and regulations won’t make this any easier for them, only training and adherence to the task at hand.

As for your contention that you and others have offered solutions and no one want to discuss them, you are mistaken again. We have looked at your solutions, found them wanting, told you so and decided that there is no need to find solutions to minor problems that are, for the most part, delusions anyway. So, the answer to your question is that we don’t need solutions to almost non-existent problems. Try to solve the other two big vote issues, intimidation and suppression. Where are your solutions for these? And, oh lord, we have not yet even gotten into gerrymandering, although that probably falls into the suppression category. So, find me solutions to the real world problems, not right wing hysteria.

And that is a good point that @Soubresaut had, if the solution does more harm than good (and your solutions do) then they are not the proper solution and should not be implemented.

Sorry but your links do not make your case.

No one has said voter fraud doesn’t exist. You all just say we shouldn’t actually look for it and certainly shouldn’t do anything to prevent it. And none of you has identified what an acceptable amount of voter fraud is. So, again, you dodge the pertinent questions, you fall back into burying your heads in the sand. I understand that, as Democrats, you don’t want voter fraud to go away. That is how your candidates keep in elections. I understand that you will never change your views because you don’t care about this country, nor honesty, nor honor, nor fairness…you only care for the liberal agenda. So carry on.

You are missing the main point. Voter suppression is a larger problem than voter fraud by several orders of magnitude. Voter suppression is what we should work on eliminating first.

Are you reading impaired @seawulf575? ” Take care of the items that are most disadvantageous to the most people and work your way down the list and vote fraud is low man on that list. Put another way, vote fraud becomes, in your words, bad when it reaches the level of vote suppression.” THAT answers your question about what is a reasonable amount and also refutes your lie about saying we should not look for it and gives you a response on prevention.
YOU don’t care about this country, nor honesty, nor honor, nor fairness…you only care for the conservative agenda.

@seawulf575 Your first link was about some guy confronting people aggressively about voter fraud. He upset a bunch of people and even got arrested. It doesn’t prove any thing.

I was only able to glance at the second before it said I had to subscribe. I saw that they were going to show 10 (ten) instances of voter fraud. No one said it doesn’t exist. We’re saying it’s not as serious as voter suppression. Ten instances of voter fraud isn’t a drop in the bucket compared to thousands of instances of voter suppression.

I was unable to connect to the 3rd.

The 4th was an instance of one (1) person pleading guilty to voter fraud. Again, no one is denying that it happens.

The fifth one said the voter fraud was caused by a “glitch in the state’s driver licensing software “may inadvertently register” noncitizen immigrants to vote without their knowledge.” I don’t know how the the non-citzens realized that they were able to vote but at any rate, it’s been fixed. Mistakes can happen.

The 6th one just says they’re looking for voter fraud. From your link ”“The Republicans have been looking for a blockbuster case to demonstrate that voter fraud isn’t just a series of small mistakes,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “If some of these allegations turn out to be true, they may finally have their white whale.” Doesn’t say if the allegations were true.

The last one just says only Americans should vote in American elections. Duh. That report claims: _“In our small sample of just eight Virginia counties who responded to our public inspection requests, we found 1046 aliens who registered to vote illegally.” Of course, it doesn’t reference anything that would let us verify that. It’s just words on paper.

One the last one @Dutchess_III more importantly it does not say they actually voted only that they were registered to vote.

@LostInParadise I am not the one missing the point. I asked the question in the first place so I am quite certain I know what the point is. The fact that others have avoided the topic to blather about voter suppression doesn’t change the original point. And I have even stated that I don’t favor voter suppression either, but tried getting us back onto topic. And solving problems like this shouldn’t be either/or. Solve them both.

Solve the bigger (much bigger) problem first. Let me give an analogy. Suppose someone is charged with jaywalking and first degree murder. Imagine the prosecutor thinking, “First degree murder is no big deal, but jaywalking? We are going to ignore the murder charges for now and concentrate on that horrible jaywalking violation.” That is what it is is like to get worked up about the much smaller (if it even exists) problem of voter fraud compared to voter suppression.

And still no one has answered the question….how much voter fraud is too much? At what point do you all start worrying about it enough to actually start looking into it? How about if Republicans started pulling voter fraud…would it be a big deal then? All I have seen so far is that not one of you is willing to go down that path so I can conclude that voter fraud doesn’t worry any of you and you are willing to let it continue unabated, uninvestigated, and unchallenged. I could ask a plethora of other questions along the same lines that none of you would answer and that you would all dodge. How many actual cases have been documented, not just surmised, where a voter ID law has blocked someone from voting? How many actual cases have been documented where voter fraud laws have blocked someone from voting? How many actual cases have been documented where any voter fraud laws have blocked someone from voting? I’m looking for specific people that were hurt by them. And please, because of all the hoo-haw you have made about administrative errors not counting towards voter fraud, you don’t get to claim them now. In the end, after searching, I found 1 actual case where a voter ID law actually stopped someone from voting. It was 12 retired nuns in Indiana. 12 people. Yet according to all of you it is major voter suppression. In fact, all your voter suppression arguments stem from efforts to block voter fraud, so what you are really saying is that you don’t want to stop voter fraud at all and any of you that say it is bad…BUT….you have no credibility. Besides, you really don’t care about voter suppression. If you did, you might have been concerned when the Black Panthers were blocking voting stations in Philadelphia. But that was to support Obama so it is okay, I understand. But don’t strain yourselves, I really don’t expect any of you to actually apply your ideals fairly across the board, nor actually answer any of the questions I have posed.

Here is an answer. Potential voter fraud is a problem if there is substantial evidence that more than a handful (more than 100) engaged in it. No such evidence exists.

^^^ It is no good @LostInParadise, he cannot read evidently. I have answered the question for him (see above) but, since it is not the answer he wants, he cannot accept it. Almost time to give up trying to. But let us give it one more go:

a) how much voter fraud is too much? – already answered. Try reading for comprehension.

b) At what point do you all start worrying about it enough to actually start looking into it? – See answer a.

c) How about if Republicans started pulling voter fraud…would it be a big deal then? – Again, see answer a.

” All I…. can conclude that voter fraud doesn’t worry any of you and you are willing to let it continue unabated, uninvestigated, and unchallenged.” – At last! You have at least partially gleaned what we have been trying to get you to understand! Although you have a tendency to put words into our mouths. No one said it should be unabated, in fact everyone said elections should be fair and clean. No one said it shouldn’t be investigated, only that there are greater inequities that should be eliminated first and finally, no one said it should not be challenged only that there are greater, more important challenges that should be addressed first. Other than that bullshit, good job!

@seawulf575 But we HAVE answered your question. The answer is: voter fraud is “too much” when it can be proven a deciding factor in the outcome of an election. And you are once again wrong. Voter suppression has everything to do with this topic because allegations of voter fraud just happen to be the PRIMARY excuse for nakedly obvious attempts at voter suppresion.

There’s a big stack of clues that the bogey man of voter fraud is churned up to intimidate voters and legitimize their harassment. To begin with, voter fraud is a particularly difficult method for influencing an elelection UNLESS it is at the behest of those responsible for administering the process. Otherwise, widespread individual fraud is virtually impossible without detection. And there are a bundle of other reasons to suspect that the ginned up hysteria around voter fraud is a scam.

I got this guys. I’ll talk to @seawulf575 , like Trump would.

“Voter fraud bad, but not huge. Voter suppression, really bad. Really a huge deal. Bad deal.

If Republicans man up, that would be very good. Voter fraud, is NOT an issue. Republicans are very bad, not good people.”

@stanleybmanly so what you are saying is that we have to wait until voter fraud actually affects an election before we do something about it? I suggest it already has affected elections. The aforementioned case in Virginia. 1046 illegal aliens registered to vote in only 8 counties. There are 133 counties in VA, but only 8 were checked as a sampling. They held an election and the winner won by only 165 votes. Want to bet illegal votes contributed? I will make that bet every day of the week. Oh, @LostInParadise this applies to your comment as well.
Meanwhile, not one of you has shown me actual cases where specific people were affected by voter suppression. I’m still waiting on that one. You want me to back off Voter Fraud as a problem because “It just doesn’t exist” and “the cases that show up are so minor that they make no difference in an election” . Yet none of you have shown any cases of voter suppression. All your examples are law suits that were brought against voter ID laws or other proposed laws to block voter fraud…not cases where voter suppression actually occurred. In fact, the only person on this thread that has done that is me. and it was 12 people. By your reckoning, this is so minor that it doesn’t affect elections and should be ignored. So why the outrage. More of the patented liberal hypocrisy?

Here is an article that goes into the voter-suppression aspects of voter ID laws. (I don’t believe it’s one that anyone has linked before, at any rate.) In the beginning (3rd paragraph) it also describes the ways those voter ID laws prevented three individuals from obtaining voter ID due to situations that are not unique to them—meaning many more than just them would be affected in similar ways. I would also be very surprised to find out the lawsuits mentioned above don’t include at least one individual (the plaintiff) who was harmed by the voter ID laws.

When you look at the ways these laws were put together, which the article details, it paints a rather stark picture of the ways that politicians are able to craft legislation to try and shape who is and who is not able to vote. Pay attention, too, to the laws that voter ID laws are often paired with.

I believe it is also telling to see 17 North Carolina counties’ reactions to the state’s 2013 voter law (which included “strict voter ID requirements”) being overturned in the courts. They did things like reduce the number of days and polling places available for early voting, and were “successfully sued” for “discriminatory purges of black names from voter rolls.” These reactions had nothing to do with trying to prevent voter fraud, and everything to do with the underlying purpose of the laws—trying to shape the electorate to their favor.

As I offer these sources to you, I do think it’s interesting that you continue to ask for someone to show you various specific elements of the position you disagree with. It seems if you have specific facts in mind that would sway your opinion, you would be able to look them up yourself. In any case, if you believe it hasn’t been shown because it doesn’t exist… Well, see above.

Again, no one has said voter fraud doesn’t exist at all. Just as you have pointed out that you have never said “rampant voter fraud,” others have always made it clear that voter fraud is almost non-existent, or that they’re looking for voter fraud at a significant level. People have even given percentage rates of voter fraud, miniscule yet non-zero numbers.

I also don’t believe anyone said voter fraud should be outright ignored. (In fact, we know the current levels of voter fraud precisely because it hasn’t been ignored.) People have, among other things, described a hierarchy of concerns, with voter fraud lower than other concerns that affect more people.

I am personally of the opinion that our current laws regulating voting and voter fraud are sufficient for the amount of voter fraud that exists. I don’t believe we need additional measures—especially when those additional measures will disenfranchise people.

I also believe there is significant reason to doubt the honesty of the Public Interest Legal Foundation’s findings. Here’s my explanation from when I first went through your articles:

This analysis by PolitiFact on the foundation’s methodology gives me pause on their intellectual honesty, though it is in reference to a different news release, and only looks at one county of 250 mentioned in the piece. So that’s not conclusive, but it’s not great looking for the group, either.

Two things I notice as I went through part of the article [given its length I don’t have the time to go through all of it]. One: they cite a list of purged non-citizen registered voters, and claim that’s evidence that the non-citizens must have voted illegally. They don’t give any indication why they believe those individuals were able to vote before their names were purged (or if they do, it’s later in the article, in a different section). Two: they take issue with a process where the DMV gives notice to registered voters who indicated on their driver license that they were a non-citizen—they would prefer the DMV simply purge those individuals without warning. If I can find it, I’ve read/heard about why DMVs give notice and don’t simply purge—they have found that people make mistakes when checking the boxes. Sometimes it’s a matter of inattention. Sometimes it’s a matter of confusion, where the person is a non-nativeborn citizen and assume that’s what the question is asking about. These people are legally allowed to vote, and it would be irresponsible to purge them without some sort of warning.

Given the PolitiFact article, and these two sample points, I’m left with the impression that this group is more concerned about making hasty, dramatic findings… And less concerned about the rigor or validity of those findings.

This will be my last post on this question, so I’ll just say this. I think I understand your concern about voter fraud, @seawulf575. At least, I believe it comes from the same place that has me and the others on this thread concerned about voter suppression. None of us want to see the elections in this country tampered with, because they are one of the foundational ways The People has to enact its will. I guess all I can do is promise you that this is where my position is coming from, and not, as you say, “liberal hypocrisy.”

I would encourage you to keep that in mind as you go forward. For my part, I will, too (though it’d be called “conservative hypocrisy” from my perspective, I suppose.)

@Soubresaut but now you are using the exact logic that those supporting Voter ID laws use and which people, such as yourself, discount. You listed 3 individuals that were affected. The rest of the supposed suppression isn’t represented, just hinted at. So you have 3 cases. I gave you 12 more. That is 15 people total that you have managed to cite that were affected by “voter suppression”. Yet many more were guilty of voter fraud and you all discount that as insignificant, even though the fact that the processes allow that many points to the fact that there are probably more, you want to claim total numbers. Your own citation from Politifact states that yes, many people were illegally registered to vote, but you can’t prove they voted so it isn’t a problem. But you can’t prove they didn’t vote either. And if they didn’t vote this time, they could in the future. So which is it…total numbers or potential impact? If it is total numbers, voter fraud is by far the bigger problem. If it is potential impact, I’d even go with that being a bigger impact because elections impact everyone, not just a select portion of the population.

Well, clearly you aren’t going to make any headway here or anywhere else immune to alarmist redwing pronouncements. Just face it. It isn’t “far left” machinations that are responsible for the browning of the country or the flooding of the redlands with immigrants drawn to slave wage jobs. Study after study on the charges of voter fraud swaying elections have all proven the allegations empty. Do you seriously believe the conservative Congress would tolerate ANY situation where illegal tampering was diluting conservative strength? It is more than a suspicion that the panic being whipped up in the redlands is an invention fabricated for the receptive ears of impoverished people saddled with declining standards of living.

@seawulf575 Which would be a bigger problem for you, one stray neighborhood cat getting into your trash, or a wild, angry cougar in your house?
We are saying that voter fraud is not as big of a problem as voter suppression is.

^He’s a Russian troll. Simply here to be divisive. His mission has failed though, as we just won’t fall for his bait… I see Fluther united in common sense, logic, and facts (most of us.)

It’s his time. He can waste it regurgitating republican nonsense all he wants…

Isn’t it funny that when you use an argument to try countering something I say and then apply that same argument to what you are saying, I’m suddenly a Russian Troll with cougars in my house? You all set the rules. You played the “you don’t have proof” game and the “look how few actual cases” game. If I didn’t have millions of examples, then voter fraud was just a drop in the bucket and the rest was just scare tactics by the right. Yet when you apply those same rules to the voter suppression, that argument falls to showing voter suppression is far less a problem than voter fraud and it is just a scare tactic by the left.
Carry on. Be as biased and fool yourself as much as you like.

^I never said anything about cougars! Caught you slipping, you Russian spy!... Tell Putin, Fluther is not buying it…

ROFLOLL!!! A Russian troll with cougars in his house AND gold fish in his head!

Oooohohhhoohohoooo… @MrGrimm888 I guess you got me there! Hyuck-hyuck-hyuck. Oh wait…was that your overblown ego that just gave you away? I guess you automatically assume you are the only person on the page, or even the one I feel most worth responding to. I made a statement and several jellies responded. I didn’t feel like responding the same thing to them all so I opted to respond to all. Yes, you called me a Russian troll. But it was @Dutchess_III that put the cougar in my house. Yet none of the responders actually addressed my statement. Typical. And you fell into name-calling. Again…typical. This is the standard operation on these pages from the liberals in the crowd. Make bold statements and feed on each other. Then, when I poke holes in your comments and your logic, you all dodge the statements or the questions I pose to show you the idiocy of your view, and usually you fall to name-calling. Now don’t feel bad, you aren’t the only 3rd grader calling names. You have the same people that share your mentality right there with you.

It’s been addressed a thousand times over. You’re stuck in a loop of not wanting to understand for some reason.

What is it exactly that you expect from us? Because no one here is willing to buy the red bumpkin bill of goods we are by definition hypocrites? Perhaps the key reason massive voter fraud is dismissed as an authentic issue beyond the frontiers of conspiracy driven redlands has to do with the character of those espousing and promoting such beliefs. There is also the disheartening fact that it is always in the nation’s great bastions of ignorance and deprivation that such notions take fire.

@seawulf575 . You question was “Does potential voter fraud in Alabama concern you?”

All of us have answered. Others have pointed out what they actually are concerned about. Points, and counter points have been addressed. Your obsession with all things anti-liberal, has been established. I’m not sure what else I learned here.

The election is over. Moore was as bad a loser, as I expected. Moore claims to be very religious. Did his God fail him, or does his God not want him in office? If you’re a believer, it was one or the other… I really don’t see anything further to discuss.

Feel free to keep “poking holes,” as you declare. It just makes me think you’re a Russian agent. Again, if you think that’s name calling, you ain’t seen nuthin. I have seen some real fireworks here before. If you’re going to engage in online debate, you may want to grow some thicker skin…

@seawulf575 The Brennan Center investigated the issue of voter fraud in the United States and found that it happens to a vanishingly small extent (less than 0.0025%). It is more likely that an American will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls. A report by Columbia University found that the rare fraud that is reported can usually be traced to false claims by the loser of a close race, mischief making or administrative or voter error.

As an example, in the single case you cite as evidence of voter fraud, the man accused has turned out to be a legal voter in Alabama.

The penalties for voter fraud are severe and in Alabama can lead to heavy fines and two years in gaol. You have very little, if anything, to gain by casting a fraudulent vote and an awful lot to lose. I think you would have to be slightly deranged to even try.

@flutherother That’s also a key distinction between fraud and suppression. Voter fraud is always illegal. Many states have very strict penalties for it. It’s always a legal risk to attempt voter fraud, and when it does occur and is found not to be the result of an error, it is usually the act of an individual taking that risk (vs. some kind of organized conspiracy to defraud the integrity of an election). Voter suppression, however, is often perfectly legal. It isn’t called “voter suppression”, but that’s beside the point. The measures that end up suppressing votes are legal. These are completely different battles here, so the constant comparisons aren’t necessarily doing one any favors.

@Demosthenes I very much agree and I believe that “voter suppression”, in whatever form it takes, affects election results to a far greater extent than voter fraud. However voter fraud is what this question was about so I concentrated on that.