6 ms·

We Found a Way to Increase Voter Turnout in Texas, but Texas Isn’t Interested

83 points by diafygi 8y ago

thebradbain 8y ago
More interesting are the county responses: Dallas County said it would follow the directive of the state and notify affected senders that they need to mail in a signature (without needing to resubmit entirely), even though they had already processed ~800 of the registrations as valid. Travis County (Austin) responded to the Secretary of State that no– these are valid registrations, and counted them as such. The bulk (>50%) of the registrations were in Austin, IIRC. Both of these counties are liberal strongholds in Texas. If Beto manages to win against Cruz by a margin of a couple thousand votes, I imagine the Cruz campaign will make this a much bigger issue than it is (and, imo, deservedly gain the title of trying to win by voter suppression). https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2018-elections/2018/10/04/travis-county-going-secretary-state-says-will-accept-voter-registrations-filed-using-online-tool https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2018-elections/2018/10/04/tr...
- wemdyjreichert 8y ago
  It could be an issue, though. By doing a partial roll-out, you're naturally making it easier for some groups to register. This could be partisan, and it could be innocent. But it might be best to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
diafygi 8y ago
Presidents can wet sign bills into laws using an autopen[1]. Would it be possible to sign a form on your phone and have an autopen wet sign the form? [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/us/politics/28sign.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/us/politics/28sign.html
scottLobster 8y ago
Sounds like they found a corrupt official. Is anyone planning a lawsuit? If not I doubt a medium post is going to do the trick. Seems a classic case of idealistic technologists running into squishy and yes, sometimes corrupt human systems they aren't prepared for. Not excusing the behavior of the official, but I really hope this goes further than an angry blog post.
- dj-wonk 8y ago
  The articles addresses this: > Vote.org strongly disagrees with the Secretary of State and is exploring all avenues of recourse. We suggest that the Secretary of State implement Online Voter Registration, a common sense solution to increase voter registration rates while reducing costs. There are no downsides to online voter registration — unless, of course, your goal is to suppress voter turnout. We hope that this isn’t the case, and look forward to Texas joining the 38 other states that have taken steps to secure and modernize their voter registration solutions. In the meantime, we will do everything in our power to increase voter turnout in Texas — including pursuing legal action, should it come to that.
  - masonic 8y ago
    There are no downsides to online voter registration ... except that it makes it impossible to prosecute voter fraud.
    - CamTin 8y ago
      Why is that?
nindalf 8y ago
Disappointing. Democracy doesn't work if every voter doesn't get an opportunity to vote. I guess the people who specialise in suppressing turnout don't care. The reluctance to let people register to vote is understandable, if your allegiance is to your party before your country. I suppose they rationalise it by convincing themselves that what's best for the country is for their party to be elected, rather than a free and fair election. Or maybe they tell themselves "I'm sure the other side uses similar tactics". Or maybe they just don't care.
- beagle3 8y ago
  Democracy doesn't work even when people get an opportunity to vote (unless the vote is 2-options, one round): See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore... But it works even worse if voters don't get to vote. True.
  - newtothebay 8y ago
    For readers who may encounter the Arrow's Impossibility Theorem for the first time, its conclusion is shockingly true but also doesn't prescribe doom. There are reasonable alternative voting systems that don't run into the same "Impossibility" problem https://ncase.me/ballot/ https://ncase.me/ballot/
    - drdeca 8y ago
      Sure, they don't run up against /Arrow's/ impossibility theorem, but Gibbard's 1978 theorem shows that "Any straightforward game form (deterministic or not) is a probability mixture of game forms each of which is either unilateral or duple." (For an explanation of what that means, see : https://politics.stackexchange.com/a/14245 https://politics.stackexchange.com/a/14245 ) Edit: though, if I had to recommend one, I'd probably either recommend "ranked pairs" or something exotic with a substantial deal of randomness. Or, really, maybe I'd advocate that the primaries use ranked pairs, and that the general use FPTP (or something very similar) because it is easier to understand the mechanism, so easier for people to trust it / keep results seen as legitimate, and because parties narrow down the options to 2 for the most part anyway, and all the usual systems are the same once it gets down to two candidates (in random ballot voting, it is still different though)
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
b_tterc_p 8y ago
Sending a photo of your signature so it can be transposed onto a document by a third party without power of attorney doesn’t sound like a great idea to me. Political motivations aside, I think I agree with Texas. This is a bad idea.
- subway 8y ago
  Is it all that different from DocuSign's entire business model? I'm curious if the state of Texas recognizes agreements signed via DocuSign.
  - chadcatlett 8y ago
    You can use DocuSign for agreements and the state will recognize them. There are only a handful of exceptions where e-sign is not allowed in Texas. In addition to business documents, I have used DocuSign to sign county and state government documents in Texas.
twtw 8y ago
Genuine question: with online voter registration, where is the check for voter eligibility? Actually, when is this supposed to happen in any voter registration? When I registered and voted in CA in 2016, I never had to present any form of ID. Is this the intended system?
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  > where is the check for voter eligibility? Two things. In California they either mail you a ballot to your address. Or you have to present as a warm body at your polling place. Beyond that California's politicians unlike Republican controlled states have no interest in preventing people from voting. For instance San Francisco recently began registering non-citizens to vote for the city's school board.
  - tomjen3 8y ago
    Of course. Texas wants to prevent poor and marginally attached people from voting because they tend to vote democratic, whereas California wants them to vote, because they tend to vote democratic. You generally don't get to become a politician and have principles.
    - Gibbon1 8y ago
      > You generally don't get to become a politician and have principles. This is really only true in states run by Republicans because conservatives have low expectations. And don't enforce them. That gives sociopathic politicians a large advantage.
  - liftbigweights 8y ago
    > Beyond that California's politicians unlike Republican controlled states have no interest in preventing people from voting. It's not like democrats are not above voter suppression. Did we forget what happened to sanders voters in brooklyn not too long ago? > For instance San Francisco recently began registering non-citizens to vote for the city's school board. I wouldn't hold SF as an example of good in anything - the wealth disparity, poor housing, it's dirty, corrupt, etc. And giving non-citizens voting rights is absurd. No sane entity would do such a thing. But SF is "special".
anon49124 8y ago
I'm visiting North Texas right now and there's barely anyone out doing anything... the malls are empty and there's very few people around, and the ones that are out keep to themselves like they're stocking up for their prepper bunker and worried about interacting with anyone. The Christian Taliban like things the way they are: consent manufactured of us "plebs" staying out of politics. That should spur people that there's something rotten and they better get involved and get out vote, or other lesser people take control of their lives for them.
- forrrealman 8y ago
  Whoa dude! That's quite some inference based on your singular experience. If you look at it differently, you could take what you saw as evidence that everyone out there is a lizard person!
- masonic 8y ago
  keep to themselves like they're stocking up for their prepper bunker ... or maybe because it's the hottest part of the day, and it's over 90F and humid... and they aren't idiots. Maybe.
- espeed 8y ago
  It's Texas OU weekend. The State Fair is going on this month too. Everyone's been at the stadium for the game and Texas just beat OU 48 to 45 so everyone from Oklahoma, Austin, Dallas...half the state is partying in Downtown/Uptown by now. There's probably a million people down there right now. You're in the wrong place. https://www.google.com/search?q=texas+ou+weekend https://www.google.com/search?q=texas+ou+weekend
Fins 8y ago
I dunno... It took me all of 15 minutes to get TX license and voter registration (too bad they do not share it across the board, and I am getting bombarded with all those fake "surveys" about yet another stupid California proposition XYZ). Granted, it was in a more civilized part of TX, but is there really an actual problem with registering to vote? And did anyone look at TX code to check that submissions from a third party rather than the actual applicant are valid?
- SamWhited 8y ago
  It's well-known that younger generations tend to put off or not do things if they can't do it online. Also, not everyone has access to the same resources you do. If you work 60 hours a week and don't have a car and it takes you an hour by 3 buses to get o the nearest library or DMV, it's going to be hard to get registered. Maybe you don't even have a drivers license and can't get one. Maybe you don't know your social security number and haven't been able to get access too it. There are any number of things that make this hard, just because you're privileged enough not to have to deal with them doesn't mean everyone else is.
  - justtopost 8y ago
    I am all for voter turnout, but chalking it up to millenials being too lazy to register is pretty lame.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - SamWhited 8y ago
      No one actually did this, you're focusing on the first sentence of a longer reply. It doesn't "chaulk it up" to that at all.
  - Fins 8y ago
    But of course you don't have to go to DMV (or rather DPS, in Texas). If you can go to vote.org you surely can go to https://webservices.sos.state.tx.us/vrapp/index.asp https://webservices.sos.state.tx.us/vrapp/index.asp and have it generate an official application form with your information that you sign and mail. Even when I was going to school, and working two jobs, I could drop off an envelope in a mailbox. Somebody who finds this to be too much effort probably should not be voting in the first place.
gmoore 8y ago
Welcome to Texas! Democracy has been dead here for decades.
AnonymousRider 8y ago
Not surprising insofar as we Texans require a little thing called verified identity to vote. I have heard that the majority of those registrations were invalidated because they could not be matched to real people living in Texas cities.
crazygringo 8y ago
> Any reasonable voter would interpret “you can fax in your form and mail a copy” to mean that you can do precisely that. True (and it should be obeyed as written)... but it's also hard to imagine the purpose behind mailing. The fax is already a copy! Every other circumstance where I've had to mail something in addition to faxing/e-mailing it's always been because the original signature was required. Just using common sense, it wouldn't be surprising if the wording is a mistake where "original" was intended. But hey, unless they fix it, they've got to obey it, right?

83 points by diafygi 8y ago

More interesting are the county responses: Dallas County said it would follow the directive of the state and notify affected senders that they need to mail in a signature (without needing to resubmit entirely), even though they had already processed ~800 of the registrations as valid. Travis County (Austin) responded to the Secretary of State that no– these are valid registrations, and counted them as such. The bulk (>50%) of the registrations were in Austin, IIRC. Both of these counties are liberal strongholds in Texas. If Beto manages to win against Cruz by a margin of a couple thousand votes, I imagine the Cruz campaign will make this a much bigger issue than it is (and, imo, deservedly gain the title of trying to win by voter suppression). https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2018-elections/2018/10/04/travis-county-going-secretary-state-says-will-accept-voter-registrations-filed-using-online-tool https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2018-elections/2018/10/04/tr...

wemdyjreichert 8y ago
It could be an issue, though. By doing a partial roll-out, you're naturally making it easier for some groups to register. This could be partisan, and it could be innocent. But it might be best to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

diafygi 8y ago

Presidents can wet sign bills into laws using an autopen[1]. Would it be possible to sign a form on your phone and have an autopen wet sign the form? [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/us/politics/28sign.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/us/politics/28sign.html

scottLobster 8y ago

Sounds like they found a corrupt official. Is anyone planning a lawsuit? If not I doubt a medium post is going to do the trick. Seems a classic case of idealistic technologists running into squishy and yes, sometimes corrupt human systems they aren't prepared for. Not excusing the behavior of the official, but I really hope this goes further than an angry blog post.

dj-wonk 8y ago
The articles addresses this: > Vote.org strongly disagrees with the Secretary of State and is exploring all avenues of recourse. We suggest that the Secretary of State implement Online Voter Registration, a common sense solution to increase voter registration rates while reducing costs. There are no downsides to online voter registration — unless, of course, your goal is to suppress voter turnout. We hope that this isn’t the case, and look forward to Texas joining the 38 other states that have taken steps to secure and modernize their voter registration solutions. In the meantime, we will do everything in our power to increase voter turnout in Texas — including pursuing legal action, should it come to that.
- masonic 8y ago
  There are no downsides to online voter registration ... except that it makes it impossible to prosecute voter fraud.
  - CamTin 8y ago
    Why is that?

nindalf 8y ago

Disappointing. Democracy doesn't work if every voter doesn't get an opportunity to vote. I guess the people who specialise in suppressing turnout don't care. The reluctance to let people register to vote is understandable, if your allegiance is to your party before your country. I suppose they rationalise it by convincing themselves that what's best for the country is for their party to be elected, rather than a free and fair election. Or maybe they tell themselves "I'm sure the other side uses similar tactics". Or maybe they just don't care.

beagle3 8y ago
Democracy doesn't work even when people get an opportunity to vote (unless the vote is 2-options, one round): See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore... But it works even worse if voters don't get to vote. True.
- newtothebay 8y ago
  For readers who may encounter the Arrow's Impossibility Theorem for the first time, its conclusion is shockingly true but also doesn't prescribe doom. There are reasonable alternative voting systems that don't run into the same "Impossibility" problem https://ncase.me/ballot/ https://ncase.me/ballot/
  - drdeca 8y ago
    Sure, they don't run up against /Arrow's/ impossibility theorem, but Gibbard's 1978 theorem shows that "Any straightforward game form (deterministic or not) is a probability mixture of game forms each of which is either unilateral or duple." (For an explanation of what that means, see : https://politics.stackexchange.com/a/14245 https://politics.stackexchange.com/a/14245 ) Edit: though, if I had to recommend one, I'd probably either recommend "ranked pairs" or something exotic with a substantial deal of randomness. Or, really, maybe I'd advocate that the primaries use ranked pairs, and that the general use FPTP (or something very similar) because it is easier to understand the mechanism, so easier for people to trust it / keep results seen as legitimate, and because parties narrow down the options to 2 for the most part anyway, and all the usual systems are the same once it gets down to two candidates (in random ballot voting, it is still different though)

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

b_tterc_p 8y ago

Sending a photo of your signature so it can be transposed onto a document by a third party without power of attorney doesn’t sound like a great idea to me. Political motivations aside, I think I agree with Texas. This is a bad idea.

subway 8y ago
Is it all that different from DocuSign's entire business model? I'm curious if the state of Texas recognizes agreements signed via DocuSign.
- chadcatlett 8y ago
  You can use DocuSign for agreements and the state will recognize them. There are only a handful of exceptions where e-sign is not allowed in Texas. In addition to business documents, I have used DocuSign to sign county and state government documents in Texas.

twtw 8y ago

Genuine question: with online voter registration, where is the check for voter eligibility? Actually, when is this supposed to happen in any voter registration? When I registered and voted in CA in 2016, I never had to present any form of ID. Is this the intended system?

Gibbon1 8y ago
> where is the check for voter eligibility? Two things. In California they either mail you a ballot to your address. Or you have to present as a warm body at your polling place. Beyond that California's politicians unlike Republican controlled states have no interest in preventing people from voting. For instance San Francisco recently began registering non-citizens to vote for the city's school board.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  Of course. Texas wants to prevent poor and marginally attached people from voting because they tend to vote democratic, whereas California wants them to vote, because they tend to vote democratic. You generally don't get to become a politician and have principles.
  - Gibbon1 8y ago
    > You generally don't get to become a politician and have principles. This is really only true in states run by Republicans because conservatives have low expectations. And don't enforce them. That gives sociopathic politicians a large advantage.
- liftbigweights 8y ago
  > Beyond that California's politicians unlike Republican controlled states have no interest in preventing people from voting. It's not like democrats are not above voter suppression. Did we forget what happened to sanders voters in brooklyn not too long ago? > For instance San Francisco recently began registering non-citizens to vote for the city's school board. I wouldn't hold SF as an example of good in anything - the wealth disparity, poor housing, it's dirty, corrupt, etc. And giving non-citizens voting rights is absurd. No sane entity would do such a thing. But SF is "special".

anon49124 8y ago

I'm visiting North Texas right now and there's barely anyone out doing anything... the malls are empty and there's very few people around, and the ones that are out keep to themselves like they're stocking up for their prepper bunker and worried about interacting with anyone. The Christian Taliban like things the way they are: consent manufactured of us "plebs" staying out of politics. That should spur people that there's something rotten and they better get involved and get out vote, or other lesser people take control of their lives for them.

forrrealman 8y ago
Whoa dude! That's quite some inference based on your singular experience. If you look at it differently, you could take what you saw as evidence that everyone out there is a lizard person!
masonic 8y ago
keep to themselves like they're stocking up for their prepper bunker ... or maybe because it's the hottest part of the day, and it's over 90F and humid... and they aren't idiots. Maybe.
espeed 8y ago
It's Texas OU weekend. The State Fair is going on this month too. Everyone's been at the stadium for the game and Texas just beat OU 48 to 45 so everyone from Oklahoma, Austin, Dallas...half the state is partying in Downtown/Uptown by now. There's probably a million people down there right now. You're in the wrong place. https://www.google.com/search?q=texas+ou+weekend https://www.google.com/search?q=texas+ou+weekend

Fins 8y ago

I dunno... It took me all of 15 minutes to get TX license and voter registration (too bad they do not share it across the board, and I am getting bombarded with all those fake "surveys" about yet another stupid California proposition XYZ). Granted, it was in a more civilized part of TX, but is there really an actual problem with registering to vote? And did anyone look at TX code to check that submissions from a third party rather than the actual applicant are valid?

SamWhited 8y ago
It's well-known that younger generations tend to put off or not do things if they can't do it online. Also, not everyone has access to the same resources you do. If you work 60 hours a week and don't have a car and it takes you an hour by 3 buses to get o the nearest library or DMV, it's going to be hard to get registered. Maybe you don't even have a drivers license and can't get one. Maybe you don't know your social security number and haven't been able to get access too it. There are any number of things that make this hard, just because you're privileged enough not to have to deal with them doesn't mean everyone else is.
- justtopost 8y ago
  I am all for voter turnout, but chalking it up to millenials being too lazy to register is pretty lame.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - SamWhited 8y ago
    No one actually did this, you're focusing on the first sentence of a longer reply. It doesn't "chaulk it up" to that at all.
- Fins 8y ago
  But of course you don't have to go to DMV (or rather DPS, in Texas). If you can go to vote.org you surely can go to https://webservices.sos.state.tx.us/vrapp/index.asp https://webservices.sos.state.tx.us/vrapp/index.asp and have it generate an official application form with your information that you sign and mail. Even when I was going to school, and working two jobs, I could drop off an envelope in a mailbox. Somebody who finds this to be too much effort probably should not be voting in the first place.

gmoore 8y ago

Welcome to Texas! Democracy has been dead here for decades.

AnonymousRider 8y ago

Not surprising insofar as we Texans require a little thing called verified identity to vote. I have heard that the majority of those registrations were invalidated because they could not be matched to real people living in Texas cities.

crazygringo 8y ago

> Any reasonable voter would interpret “you can fax in your form and mail a copy” to mean that you can do precisely that. True (and it should be obeyed as written)... but it's also hard to imagine the purpose behind mailing. The fax is already a copy! Every other circumstance where I've had to mail something in addition to faxing/e-mailing it's always been because the original signature was required. Just using common sense, it wouldn't be surprising if the wording is a mistake where "original" was intended. But hey, unless they fix it, they've got to obey it, right?