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If people don't have ID how can you know that there's no fraud? That seems kind of circular. It's kind of amazing that this is even a debate, what kind of votin

If people don't have ID how can you know that there's no fraud? That seems kind of circular. It's kind of amazing that this is even a debate, what kind of voting system doesn't require you to prove you're a citizen? I'm not sure you should be so trusting of studies of ID fraud. For the longest time it was claimed in Europe that migrants who 'lose' their ID and commit asylum fraud are a tiny proportion of the total. Now there are large scale medical studies being done and it turns out in some countries that maybe 70-80% of the asylum seekers who claimed to be children are in fact over 18. Many of the lost ID documents were deliberately lost or destroyed to enable this sort of thing.

kingosticks 9y ago
Do you have a link to one of those studies?
- clickok 9y ago
  According to: https://www.rmv.se/aktuellt/det-visar-tre-manader-av-medicinska-aldersbedomningar/ https://www.rmv.se/aktuellt/det-visar-tre-manader-av-medicin... I don't speak Swedish, so I had to translate it (the site I found the link from[0] after Googling seems like it has an axe to grind). They indicate that, of ~2400 refugees where the National Medical Board rendered an opinion, some ~2000 were estimated to be eighteen years of age or older, with ~400 estimated to be under eighteen years of age (so ~5/6). This may be different from the patterns in general because these are cases where the board was asked for and subsequently rendered an opinion. It might be that (contra the headlines) this sort of misrepresentation is relatively rare, and the rate for the subset of the population where no questions were raised is substantially lower. ----- 0. https://nationaleconomicseditorial.com/2017/07/15/sweden-child-migrants/ https://nationaleconomicseditorial.com/2017/07/15/sweden-chi...
  - Khol 9y ago
    It is, perhaps, useful to take into account the context here. These are people who have risked their life to escape from areas in which they are being persecuted, and are taking every step they can to avoid being forcibly returned to those areas.
    - peoplewindow 9y ago
      Without ID you don't actually know that. They claim to be asylum seekers but you don't know where they're from.
zimpenfish 9y ago
> what kind of voting system doesn't require you to prove you're a citizen? The UK, really. If you know someone's name and address, you can steal their vote pretty easily. https://www.gov.uk/voting-in-the-uk/polling-stations https://www.gov.uk/voting-in-the-uk/polling-stations > Give your name and address to the staff inside the polling station when you arrive. You don’t have to take your poll card with you.
- mulletbum 9y ago
  You just have to know that the guy who you are voting for doesn't also show up. That seems rather tough.....
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    That's if you only fake one vote, yes. But it would be relatively easy to visit a whole bunch of polling stations (even on foot you could do 15-20 in a day). And also easy to get a whole bunch of people doing this. (I'm surprised this hasn't actually been tried before now.)
    - Chathamization 9y ago
      > But it would be relatively easy to visit a whole bunch of polling stations That would make it harder. If you try it for one vote in one place there's a decent chance you might get away with it. You have to hope that the person isn't voting at the same time you are, that the poll workers don't recognize the person, that others voting there don't, etc. It's quite possible you'll get caught, considering these are local areas, but there's enough people that you might get away with it once. But try it 10-20 times, and the likelihood that you're going to get caught increases a lot. And even trying it 10-20 times doesn't mean 10-20 votes, since if the person already voted you'll get a provisional ballot. So even trying to get a handful of extra votes is extremely risky. If you tried to organize a dozen people to do the same, the chance you're going to get caught goes up massively - both because of the possibility of getting caught in the polling place mentioned before, and the fact that if you try to organize a group like that there's a good chance something will leak out/someone will tell people. You're in a situation where it's very likely to be caught and, even in the off chance that you succeeded, you wouldn't even be creating enough votes to impact the vast majority of elections. This is why in person voter fraud is so rare.
arkades 9y ago
> how can you know there’s no fraud? Because the FBI has repeatedly investigated these claims and found them lacking in merit. Various academics have studied it. Police departments have been called in. There’s never anything noteworthy there. It’s one of those things for which there’s no evidence of meaningful fraud, which everyone who has -bothered looking into the issue- knows, rather than proclaiming “but there must be.” https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/The%20Truth%20About%20Voter%20Fraud.pdf https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/The...
- sheepmullet 9y ago
  Can you highlight where in the PDF they set out their methodology for determining voter fraud? It seems difficult to measure but easy to fix.
vanderZwan 9y ago
I don't think you can't quite compare asylum ID fraud with voter ID fraud. From what I understand, for people with some moral sense (so every non-psychopath), to be motivated enough to commit fraud, a mixture of selfishness and self-justification is required. The latter part is where the two examples differ here. Regardless of what anyone thinks of asylum seekers, from an objective, rational point of view, asylum fraud comes down to trying to maximize one's chances of success against a system set up to act as a gatekeeper. It is not hard to see why asylum seekers would find it very easy to morally justify committing fraud to themselves. From their POV, said system has xenophobic and racist elements to it, and the gatekeeping is purely intended to separate the haves from the have-nots. If rules feel unfair, people are less likely to respect them. And that's not even taking into account the factor of "being sent back would put your life in danger". By the way, I'm not saying that all asylum seekers are saints; a typical example are the guys from countries that have no political problems, and simply ask for asylum knowing that the application will be rejected (they're pretty easy to spot: they're the bored guys not worried about family back home, harassing the female asylum seekers). They exploit the time it takes for administration to prove out that they have no reason to leave, using the asylum seeking center as some kind of motel. This is obviously a problem, and it takes away resources for people from warzones who genuinely need asylum. But if anything that just shows how ridiculous this system fails: when rejected they get a plane ticket home. There is zero incentive for them not to do this (except moral incentive of course). Anyway, voter fraud requires stealing someone's identity to cast one extra vote for the party that you want to win. If voter fraud happens it's systemic and large scale, not individual; the impact is too small, the risk too great, the self-justification not remotely comparable to the things I just mentioned, and it's not gameable for immediate personal gain like with the fraudulent asylum seekers I just mentioned either.

kingosticks 9y ago

Do you have a link to one of those studies?

clickok 9y ago
According to: https://www.rmv.se/aktuellt/det-visar-tre-manader-av-medicinska-aldersbedomningar/ https://www.rmv.se/aktuellt/det-visar-tre-manader-av-medicin... I don't speak Swedish, so I had to translate it (the site I found the link from[0] after Googling seems like it has an axe to grind). They indicate that, of ~2400 refugees where the National Medical Board rendered an opinion, some ~2000 were estimated to be eighteen years of age or older, with ~400 estimated to be under eighteen years of age (so ~5/6). This may be different from the patterns in general because these are cases where the board was asked for and subsequently rendered an opinion. It might be that (contra the headlines) this sort of misrepresentation is relatively rare, and the rate for the subset of the population where no questions were raised is substantially lower. ----- 0. https://nationaleconomicseditorial.com/2017/07/15/sweden-child-migrants/ https://nationaleconomicseditorial.com/2017/07/15/sweden-chi...
- Khol 9y ago
  It is, perhaps, useful to take into account the context here. These are people who have risked their life to escape from areas in which they are being persecuted, and are taking every step they can to avoid being forcibly returned to those areas.
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    Without ID you don't actually know that. They claim to be asylum seekers but you don't know where they're from.

zimpenfish 9y ago

> what kind of voting system doesn't require you to prove you're a citizen? The UK, really. If you know someone's name and address, you can steal their vote pretty easily. https://www.gov.uk/voting-in-the-uk/polling-stations https://www.gov.uk/voting-in-the-uk/polling-stations > Give your name and address to the staff inside the polling station when you arrive. You don’t have to take your poll card with you.

mulletbum 9y ago
You just have to know that the guy who you are voting for doesn't also show up. That seems rather tough.....
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  That's if you only fake one vote, yes. But it would be relatively easy to visit a whole bunch of polling stations (even on foot you could do 15-20 in a day). And also easy to get a whole bunch of people doing this. (I'm surprised this hasn't actually been tried before now.)
  - Chathamization 9y ago
    > But it would be relatively easy to visit a whole bunch of polling stations That would make it harder. If you try it for one vote in one place there's a decent chance you might get away with it. You have to hope that the person isn't voting at the same time you are, that the poll workers don't recognize the person, that others voting there don't, etc. It's quite possible you'll get caught, considering these are local areas, but there's enough people that you might get away with it once. But try it 10-20 times, and the likelihood that you're going to get caught increases a lot. And even trying it 10-20 times doesn't mean 10-20 votes, since if the person already voted you'll get a provisional ballot. So even trying to get a handful of extra votes is extremely risky. If you tried to organize a dozen people to do the same, the chance you're going to get caught goes up massively - both because of the possibility of getting caught in the polling place mentioned before, and the fact that if you try to organize a group like that there's a good chance something will leak out/someone will tell people. You're in a situation where it's very likely to be caught and, even in the off chance that you succeeded, you wouldn't even be creating enough votes to impact the vast majority of elections. This is why in person voter fraud is so rare.

arkades 9y ago

> how can you know there’s no fraud? Because the FBI has repeatedly investigated these claims and found them lacking in merit. Various academics have studied it. Police departments have been called in. There’s never anything noteworthy there. It’s one of those things for which there’s no evidence of meaningful fraud, which everyone who has -bothered looking into the issue- knows, rather than proclaiming “but there must be.” https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/The%20Truth%20About%20Voter%20Fraud.pdf https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/The...

sheepmullet 9y ago
Can you highlight where in the PDF they set out their methodology for determining voter fraud? It seems difficult to measure but easy to fix.

vanderZwan 9y ago

I don't think you can't quite compare asylum ID fraud with voter ID fraud. From what I understand, for people with some moral sense (so every non-psychopath), to be motivated enough to commit fraud, a mixture of selfishness and self-justification is required. The latter part is where the two examples differ here. Regardless of what anyone thinks of asylum seekers, from an objective, rational point of view, asylum fraud comes down to trying to maximize one's chances of success against a system set up to act as a gatekeeper. It is not hard to see why asylum seekers would find it very easy to morally justify committing fraud to themselves. From their POV, said system has xenophobic and racist elements to it, and the gatekeeping is purely intended to separate the haves from the have-nots. If rules feel unfair, people are less likely to respect them. And that's not even taking into account the factor of "being sent back would put your life in danger". By the way, I'm not saying that all asylum seekers are saints; a typical example are the guys from countries that have no political problems, and simply ask for asylum knowing that the application will be rejected (they're pretty easy to spot: they're the bored guys not worried about family back home, harassing the female asylum seekers). They exploit the time it takes for administration to prove out that they have no reason to leave, using the asylum seeking center as some kind of motel. This is obviously a problem, and it takes away resources for people from warzones who genuinely need asylum. But if anything that just shows how ridiculous this system fails: when rejected they get a plane ticket home. There is zero incentive for them not to do this (except moral incentive of course). Anyway, voter fraud requires stealing someone's identity to cast one extra vote for the party that you want to win. If voter fraud happens it's systemic and large scale, not individual; the impact is too small, the risk too great, the self-justification not remotely comparable to the things I just mentioned, and it's not gameable for immediate personal gain like with the fraudulent asylum seekers I just mentioned either.