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It doesn't get charged often because there are parties that fight tooth and nail to prevent the implementation of processes that would allow the detection of in

It doesn't get charged often because there are parties that fight tooth and nail to prevent the implementation of processes that would allow the detection of ineligible voters voting. It is shown in every election cycle that there are cases of voters voting who should not be because of their citizenship or felon status or voting in multiple districts. When you say that only 2 have been charged, why is that relevant? What number of people would be disenfranchised if the voting system required photo ID? And I mean people who literally cannot get a photo ID at all, not someone who has to pay $10 or who has to spend a few hours once every four to six years getting their ID renewed.

s73ver_ 9y ago
You're gonna have to provide proof of that.
- wang_li 9y ago
  Proof of what? That voting fraud happens? It assuredly happens, as does more generalized election fraud. In my state of Washington there have been confirmed cases of people voting their dead family member's ballot[1]. And in the 2004 Gubernatorial election there were more illegal votes cast than the margin of victory.[2] Or do you mean that parties fight against efforts to make the voting process more trustworthy? Feel free to search voter id lawsuit in your favorite search engine. 1: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Dead-voted-in-governor-s-race-1163612.php http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Dead-voted-in-governo... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_gubernatorial_election,_2004 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_gubernatorial_elect...
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    All of it. Proof that it happens on such a scale as to actually be a problem, and proof that those measures you speak of are not just thinly veiled attempts to disenfranchise voters. If you're going to mess with the people's right to vote, you had better have a damn good reason.
  - ch4s3 9y ago
    You own second citation contains the following passage: >ridges removed the five votes from the final count: four for Rossi and one for Ruth Bennett.[32] No evidence was brought before the court of any of the illegal votes benefitted Gregoire.[32] The final margin of victory for Gregoire over Rossi was 133 votes.[33] Rossi did not appeal to the state Supreme Court[34] and the Washington State Republican party settled the case after paying $15,000 in court costs to the Democrats.[35] Judge Bridges' ruling was seen as a comprehensive defeat for Rossi. The judge admitted nearly every piece of evidence the Republican Party offered and then wrote a thorough, tough opinion rejecting the Republicans' claims (while criticizing the administration of the election, particularly in King County); Rossi was left with very little legal ground for a successful appeal. After receiving such a negative verdict, Rossi declined to appeal to the State Supreme Court, claiming that the political makeup of the Court would make it impossible for him to win, thereby ending all legal challenges to the election of Gregoire as the Governor of Washington The plaintiffs, the Washington Republican party wasn't able to provide any evidence that improperly cast ballots disproportionately went to the winner of the election. Additionally the judge noted that many of the "illegal ballots" were simply improperly cast provisional ballots. That means that people casting them weren't trying to commit a crime, they just messed up. Even in this case, there is no proof of substantial voter fraud deciding an election. Or even proof of substantial voter fraud. In fact the judge found that King County had poorly managed the process, which is not a matter of in person fraud, which again, isn't a real problem in the US.
    - wang_li 9y ago
      You'll note that I said more general election fraud happens. That was the point of the 2004 election reference. >Even in this case, there is no proof of substantial voter fraud deciding an election. Perhaps not voter fraud, but certainly the fact that there were substantially more improperly cast ballots than the outcome of the election makes it impossible to know which candidate received more votes. The judge's ruling does not change reality.
      - ch4s3 9y ago
        > Perhaps not voter fraud You said it was an example of voter fraud, I guess expecting no one to be familiar with the case or to bother reading the decision. What is your game here? > substantially more improperly cast ballots Then fix the ballots and the procedure for casting them. THat's no reason to purge rolls with a 99% error rate in the purging process. > The judge's ruling does not change reality. Neither does you nonsense argument. The ruling does however change settled case law. And wishing it away doesn't make in person voter fraud a problem, which it is not. You are a liar, and you are spinning the truth. You are clearly a shill for the interests that want to purge rightful voters from the rolls. You are an enemy of democracy.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> It is shown in every election cycle that there are cases of voters voting who should not be because of their citizenship or felon status or voting in multiple districts. Source? Because every [1] source [2] I find [3] says the opposite. [1] http://library.uwp.ac.id/digilib/files/disk1/13/--publicadmi-624-19-19.pdf http://library.uwp.ac.id/digilib/files/disk1/13/--publicadmi... [2] http://open.mitchellhamline.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1237&context=wmlr http://open.mitchellhamline.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=... [3] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html
- wang_li 9y ago
  Your own links say that it happens, but then hand wave it away as not significant. Your [1]: >However, in only 26 cases was there a conviction or a guilty plea by the citizen. From your [2]: >n the state of Washington, for example, six cases of double voting and nineteen instances of individuals voting in the name of the dead yielded twenty-five fraudulent votes From your [3]: >Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year. I'm not saying it's widespread, but I suspect that there have been local elections where the outcome was changed due to fraudulent votes. The question is do we care that each fraudulent vote voids the vote of a legitimate voter? And if something such as voter ID requirements were in place, would that have any value? Would requiring states to cross check their voter registration have any value? As an aside, people seem to enjoy comparing the US to places like Canada and Germany on many different things, health care, progressive tax rates, commitment to green policies, immigration, etc. yet surprisingly no one ever says brings up voter ID, which both of those countries require.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Very few people object to the concept of voter ID. They object to its implementation in the US, which is virtually always done to disenfranchise legitimate voters. The fight against voter ID laws is really a fight against voter laws accompanied by biased ID requirements and intentional difficulties foisted on the opposition voters.
ch4s3 9y ago
> It doesn't get charged often because there are parties that fight tooth and nail to prevent the implementation of processes You're literally fabricating that. Bluntly,you made this up unless you can provide proof to the contrary. There have been numerous studies that have shown that in person voter fraud is basically non-existent in the US. Think about the motivation for a moment. Committing this crime has negligible and highly uncertain payoff. The odds that your 1 or few fraudulent votes could tip an election turn on you being able to cast those vostes in precincts that have less than a 1% margin between candidates. If you could even correctly identify those places, you'd still have to go and wait in line in those places, which could take all day. You could be challenged and caught in any one of those locations, and face jail time if you're caught. Even if you accomplish your goal you've still only mustered a handful of votes which likely aren't enough. If you wanted your crime to have any chance of paying off you'd need to conspire with other voters to commit similar fraud, and then you exposure to legal peril is exponentially increased. So you'd have to have some sort of leverage to get these conspirators to actually cooperate and not flip if caught. This would likely be money, and a lot of it. With that kind of cash, why not just run attack ads and bus like minded folks to the polls, both of which are legal and more effective. Now, if you could get a hold of a few hundred absentee ballots, from say a nursing home... then you might be able to commit a crime that has the intended outcome. Which is interesting, because this is a crime that actually happens, unlike in person voter fraud which is again, non-existent in the US.
- wang_li 9y ago
  That's not the only form of vote fraud. Non-citizens voting is illegal and happens[1]. Does it happen in massive numbers? No idea, probably not. To what extent, though, does it compare to eligible voters who don't have ID, which is a common complaint about voter ID laws, which are struck down in the courts all the time. 1: https://www.justice.gov/file/3835pdf/download https://www.justice.gov/file/3835pdf/download
  - ch4s3 9y ago
    Non-citizens voting is still in person voter fraud. I'm sure it has happened, but it is vanishingly rare, you citation is about 1 person. There is simply no incentive to commit that crime. Even less so if you're a non-citizen, because if you're caught you'll be deported. Very few people commit crimes where they have nothing to gain, a lot to lose, and a high chance of being caught. It is almost a non-issue. There is literally no evidence that in person voter fraud poses a threat to the integrity of US elections either local or national. It is a red herring.
fencepost 9y ago
You claim that there are a significant number of fraudulent votes happening. The corollary of what you're attesting to is that Kris Kobach and many other folks responsible for enforcement of the laws are utterly and completely incompetent. I don't have time to track down where I did the math, but even being very generous with the claims of fraud (assuming that they're wildly overstating) and assuming that Kansas being full of those Fine Upstanding Conservative Religious Citizens had only half the fraud rate of the country as a whole, that means that Kobach's office was unable to find basically ANY of the tens of thousands of Kansans voting fraudulently. This is a situation that holds true when you look at the other places where there are widespread claims of voter fraud and the people making those claims. Sure there are a few cases (e.g. Ann Coulter's fraudulent registration, a few voters who voted in multiple places including at least one non-citizen, etc.) but not very many. As for Kobach, he actually got 4 convictions in 2016 (for elections in 2010 - 2014): http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article75545277.html http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article75545277.html Looking at a different state, seems that Washington State is a hotbed of fraud - the state has identified 72 cases of suspected vote fraud in the 2016 election. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/2017-10-29/sheriff-recommends-4-voter-fraud-cases-for-prosecution https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/...
- wang_li 9y ago
  > You claim that there are a significant number of fraudulent votes happening. If you mean "significant" in the sense of large, then no I did not. If you mean "significant" in the sense of meaningful, then I assert that even one illegal vote cast is significant as it disenfranchises a legitimate voter. One group has found that between 2011 and 2017, 1852 ballots were cast by illegal aliens in Virginia.[1] 1: https://publicinterestlegal.org/blog/report-5500-noncitizens-discovered-voter-rolls-virginia/ https://publicinterestlegal.org/blog/report-5500-noncitizens...
  - Bud 9y ago
    The Public Interest Legal Foundation, which you cited, is a right-wing crank group. https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2017/06/07/right-wing-media-hype-flawed-report-illegal-voting-pushed-serial-conservative-misinformers/216819 https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2017/06/07/right-wing-...

s73ver_ 9y ago

You're gonna have to provide proof of that.

wang_li 9y ago
Proof of what? That voting fraud happens? It assuredly happens, as does more generalized election fraud. In my state of Washington there have been confirmed cases of people voting their dead family member's ballot[1]. And in the 2004 Gubernatorial election there were more illegal votes cast than the margin of victory.[2] Or do you mean that parties fight against efforts to make the voting process more trustworthy? Feel free to search voter id lawsuit in your favorite search engine. 1: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Dead-voted-in-governor-s-race-1163612.php http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Dead-voted-in-governo... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_gubernatorial_election,_2004 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_gubernatorial_elect...
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  All of it. Proof that it happens on such a scale as to actually be a problem, and proof that those measures you speak of are not just thinly veiled attempts to disenfranchise voters. If you're going to mess with the people's right to vote, you had better have a damn good reason.
- ch4s3 9y ago
  You own second citation contains the following passage: >ridges removed the five votes from the final count: four for Rossi and one for Ruth Bennett.[32] No evidence was brought before the court of any of the illegal votes benefitted Gregoire.[32] The final margin of victory for Gregoire over Rossi was 133 votes.[33] Rossi did not appeal to the state Supreme Court[34] and the Washington State Republican party settled the case after paying $15,000 in court costs to the Democrats.[35] Judge Bridges' ruling was seen as a comprehensive defeat for Rossi. The judge admitted nearly every piece of evidence the Republican Party offered and then wrote a thorough, tough opinion rejecting the Republicans' claims (while criticizing the administration of the election, particularly in King County); Rossi was left with very little legal ground for a successful appeal. After receiving such a negative verdict, Rossi declined to appeal to the State Supreme Court, claiming that the political makeup of the Court would make it impossible for him to win, thereby ending all legal challenges to the election of Gregoire as the Governor of Washington The plaintiffs, the Washington Republican party wasn't able to provide any evidence that improperly cast ballots disproportionately went to the winner of the election. Additionally the judge noted that many of the "illegal ballots" were simply improperly cast provisional ballots. That means that people casting them weren't trying to commit a crime, they just messed up. Even in this case, there is no proof of substantial voter fraud deciding an election. Or even proof of substantial voter fraud. In fact the judge found that King County had poorly managed the process, which is not a matter of in person fraud, which again, isn't a real problem in the US.
  - wang_li 9y ago
    You'll note that I said more general election fraud happens. That was the point of the 2004 election reference. >Even in this case, there is no proof of substantial voter fraud deciding an election. Perhaps not voter fraud, but certainly the fact that there were substantially more improperly cast ballots than the outcome of the election makes it impossible to know which candidate received more votes. The judge's ruling does not change reality.
    - ch4s3 9y ago
      > Perhaps not voter fraud You said it was an example of voter fraud, I guess expecting no one to be familiar with the case or to bother reading the decision. What is your game here? > substantially more improperly cast ballots Then fix the ballots and the procedure for casting them. THat's no reason to purge rolls with a 99% error rate in the purging process. > The judge's ruling does not change reality. Neither does you nonsense argument. The ruling does however change settled case law. And wishing it away doesn't make in person voter fraud a problem, which it is not. You are a liar, and you are spinning the truth. You are clearly a shill for the interests that want to purge rightful voters from the rolls. You are an enemy of democracy.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> It is shown in every election cycle that there are cases of voters voting who should not be because of their citizenship or felon status or voting in multiple districts. Source? Because every [1] source [2] I find [3] says the opposite. [1] http://library.uwp.ac.id/digilib/files/disk1/13/--publicadmi-624-19-19.pdf http://library.uwp.ac.id/digilib/files/disk1/13/--publicadmi... [2] http://open.mitchellhamline.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1237&context=wmlr http://open.mitchellhamline.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=... [3] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html

wang_li 9y ago
Your own links say that it happens, but then hand wave it away as not significant. Your [1]: >However, in only 26 cases was there a conviction or a guilty plea by the citizen. From your [2]: >n the state of Washington, for example, six cases of double voting and nineteen instances of individuals voting in the name of the dead yielded twenty-five fraudulent votes From your [3]: >Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year. I'm not saying it's widespread, but I suspect that there have been local elections where the outcome was changed due to fraudulent votes. The question is do we care that each fraudulent vote voids the vote of a legitimate voter? And if something such as voter ID requirements were in place, would that have any value? Would requiring states to cross check their voter registration have any value? As an aside, people seem to enjoy comparing the US to places like Canada and Germany on many different things, health care, progressive tax rates, commitment to green policies, immigration, etc. yet surprisingly no one ever says brings up voter ID, which both of those countries require.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Very few people object to the concept of voter ID. They object to its implementation in the US, which is virtually always done to disenfranchise legitimate voters. The fight against voter ID laws is really a fight against voter laws accompanied by biased ID requirements and intentional difficulties foisted on the opposition voters.

ch4s3 9y ago

> It doesn't get charged often because there are parties that fight tooth and nail to prevent the implementation of processes You're literally fabricating that. Bluntly,you made this up unless you can provide proof to the contrary. There have been numerous studies that have shown that in person voter fraud is basically non-existent in the US. Think about the motivation for a moment. Committing this crime has negligible and highly uncertain payoff. The odds that your 1 or few fraudulent votes could tip an election turn on you being able to cast those vostes in precincts that have less than a 1% margin between candidates. If you could even correctly identify those places, you'd still have to go and wait in line in those places, which could take all day. You could be challenged and caught in any one of those locations, and face jail time if you're caught. Even if you accomplish your goal you've still only mustered a handful of votes which likely aren't enough. If you wanted your crime to have any chance of paying off you'd need to conspire with other voters to commit similar fraud, and then you exposure to legal peril is exponentially increased. So you'd have to have some sort of leverage to get these conspirators to actually cooperate and not flip if caught. This would likely be money, and a lot of it. With that kind of cash, why not just run attack ads and bus like minded folks to the polls, both of which are legal and more effective. Now, if you could get a hold of a few hundred absentee ballots, from say a nursing home... then you might be able to commit a crime that has the intended outcome. Which is interesting, because this is a crime that actually happens, unlike in person voter fraud which is again, non-existent in the US.

wang_li 9y ago
That's not the only form of vote fraud. Non-citizens voting is illegal and happens[1]. Does it happen in massive numbers? No idea, probably not. To what extent, though, does it compare to eligible voters who don't have ID, which is a common complaint about voter ID laws, which are struck down in the courts all the time. 1: https://www.justice.gov/file/3835pdf/download https://www.justice.gov/file/3835pdf/download
- ch4s3 9y ago
  Non-citizens voting is still in person voter fraud. I'm sure it has happened, but it is vanishingly rare, you citation is about 1 person. There is simply no incentive to commit that crime. Even less so if you're a non-citizen, because if you're caught you'll be deported. Very few people commit crimes where they have nothing to gain, a lot to lose, and a high chance of being caught. It is almost a non-issue. There is literally no evidence that in person voter fraud poses a threat to the integrity of US elections either local or national. It is a red herring.

fencepost 9y ago

You claim that there are a significant number of fraudulent votes happening. The corollary of what you're attesting to is that Kris Kobach and many other folks responsible for enforcement of the laws are utterly and completely incompetent. I don't have time to track down where I did the math, but even being very generous with the claims of fraud (assuming that they're wildly overstating) and assuming that Kansas being full of those Fine Upstanding Conservative Religious Citizens had only half the fraud rate of the country as a whole, that means that Kobach's office was unable to find basically ANY of the tens of thousands of Kansans voting fraudulently. This is a situation that holds true when you look at the other places where there are widespread claims of voter fraud and the people making those claims. Sure there are a few cases (e.g. Ann Coulter's fraudulent registration, a few voters who voted in multiple places including at least one non-citizen, etc.) but not very many. As for Kobach, he actually got 4 convictions in 2016 (for elections in 2010 - 2014): http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article75545277.html http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article75545277.html Looking at a different state, seems that Washington State is a hotbed of fraud - the state has identified 72 cases of suspected vote fraud in the 2016 election. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/2017-10-29/sheriff-recommends-4-voter-fraud-cases-for-prosecution https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/...

wang_li 9y ago
> You claim that there are a significant number of fraudulent votes happening. If you mean "significant" in the sense of large, then no I did not. If you mean "significant" in the sense of meaningful, then I assert that even one illegal vote cast is significant as it disenfranchises a legitimate voter. One group has found that between 2011 and 2017, 1852 ballots were cast by illegal aliens in Virginia.[1] 1: https://publicinterestlegal.org/blog/report-5500-noncitizens-discovered-voter-rolls-virginia/ https://publicinterestlegal.org/blog/report-5500-noncitizens...
- Bud 9y ago
  The Public Interest Legal Foundation, which you cited, is a right-wing crank group. https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2017/06/07/right-wing-media-hype-flawed-report-illegal-voting-pushed-serial-conservative-misinformers/216819 https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2017/06/07/right-wing-...