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Get real. Any credible research on the topic of "voter fraud" suggests it's not a significant issue and efforts to combat "voter fraud" are really just disguise

Get real. Any credible research on the topic of "voter fraud" suggests it's not a significant issue and efforts to combat "voter fraud" are really just disguised efforts to suppress voting by low income and minority voters.

darawk 6y ago
There is no evidence that voting machines have been hacked, either. Why is the standard of evidence for one different than the other? And more to the point, since when does patching a vulnerability require evidence of exploitation. We wouldn't accept Microsoft saying "There's no evidence of this Outlook vulnerability being exploited in the wild, we're not going to fix it". We certainly shouldn't accept that reasoning for our elections.
- learc83 6y ago
  >Why is the standard of evidence for one different than the other? Because hacking one voting machine potentially allows one person or a small group of people to alter thousands of votes. That person (or persons) has no way to alter anyway near that many votes through in person voter fraud. The amount of effort it would take to alter the results of an election through in person voter fraud makes it extremely difficult to pull off--particularly without detection. Additionally there are downsides to voter id laws. The most troubling is demonstrably lower minority turn out. There are no similar downsides to methods like requiring paper receipts for voting machines. Basically the cost benefit analysis is in favor of hardening electronic voting, but not in favor of voter id laws.
  - im3w1l 6y ago
    Detection is much more gnarly than you give it credit. A pretty likely scenario is that one side will claim that fraud was detected, and the other side will deny it. And both side will try to suppress and deplatform each other. Youtube, twitter, facebook will pick a side. And whoever loses will fume with resentment. Maybe they pick up weapons. If they are right that the election was stolen and that fact is suppressed, they will certainly be justified. If they are right - which is a big hypothetical. Because the detection will be drowned in noise.
    - learc83 6y ago
      You're talking a coordinated conspiracy involving thousands of people. The FBI would have hard evidence during the recruiting phase. You can't involve that many people in something and keep it secret. Even in the best case were we don't find out until elections day, an enormous increase in double votes will be all over the news the same day, and arrests will start happening shortly after.
      - im3w1l 6y ago
        What about an uncoordinated conspiracy involving thousands of people? Just a single troll with a large audience urging them to cheat?
        learc83 6y ago
        It's a felony. A felony that requires you to commit it in person at a precinct is a pretty high bar for an internet troll to get people to jump. Assuming some people decide to take them up on it, they have to coordinate or they'll end up voting as people who have already voted. Double voting is very easy to spot and many of them will be arrested at the precinct. Plus you'd need an accurate list of close to 100k dead voters who haven't already been purged (more in a less tight election), and thousands of people willing to drive to the right precincts to match the list. And we didn't know which states would tip the election until election night in 2016, so you'd need to duplicate your efforts several fold. This idea is pure fantasy.
  - darawk 6y ago
    It's difficult to pull off in a coordinated way. But coordination attacks are not the only thing that matters. It shouldn't be possible for a liberal kid's conservative parents who know he doesn't vote to vote for him. But it's trivially possible, right now. There is literally nothing stopping anyone from doing that.
    - learc83 6y ago
      >There is literally nothing stopping anyone from doing that. Other than the fact that it's a serious felony. Additionally how are voter ID laws going to change this? It already requires some level of cooperation by the kid in that they don't show up and vote themselves. If you're talking about absentee ballots, whatever you're using to identify the kid, the parents likely have access to--copy of id, birth certificate etc... So voter ID isn't going to stop this either. >But coordination attacks are not the only thing that matters. Coordination of some kind is required to change the results of an election. If even a few thousand random parents around the country decide to risk jail time to vote for their kid, it isn't going to impact the results of the election, so hardening against this kind of attack is a very low priority. Particularly when there's no cost effective means to stop it.
- benchaney 6y ago
  The standard has nothing to do with whether the exploit has been used but whether it is possible. There is no credibly attack an adversary could carry out against the election by exploiting the lack a of voter ID requirement. There are however many proof of concept attacks performed against voting machines every time they are introduced.
  - darawk 6y ago
    No, there is no credible way that a single actor could carry out a large scale attack that way. But there are credible ways that individuals can vote illegally extremely easily, and would never get detected. Secondly, we have no reliable data on how often it occurs, precisely because it's more or less undetectable. There are documented cases of it, that have been caught by luck. And people have tried to do surveys that are probably worthless and unreliable. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/29/us/18-are-arrested-in-1997-miami-ballot-fraud.html https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/29/us/18-are-arrested-in-199... https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/voter-fraud-real-rare/story?id=17213376 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/voter-fraud-real-rare/s... Indeed, the incidence is low. But it is importantly not zero, and the numbers we know are only the ones who got caught. Most democracies require ID to vote. It's an anomaly that we do not. There is no good reason not to require it.
    - busymom0 6y ago
      My comment here has links to actual data of people who were caught and prosecuted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22992159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22992159
    - benchaney 6y ago
      It’s not undetectable at all. When you go to vote, you give your name and address, and get crossed off a list. If someone did that fraudulently, it would be noticed when the person who’s identity you stole comes to vote, it is obvious. There is a good reason not to require it. Not everyone who is eligible to vote has an id, or a straightforward way to get one.
NotAnEconomist 6y ago
> suppress voting by low income and minority voters Are you implying that having an ID, such as a drivers license, is out of reach of either low income or minority citizens? That seems classist and/or racist. Are there any studies supporting the idea that either of those two groups of citizens don't have ID?
busymom0 6y ago
28 Million Mail-In Ballots Went Missing in Last Four Elections https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/24/28_million_mail-in_ballots_went_missing_in_last_four_elections_143033.html https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/24/28_mil... https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/pacei-voterfraudcases.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/p... Also people keep claiming that over iD is somehow suppressing voting for low income and minority voters are delusional. US is one of the only countries which doesn’t have voted id. India which has very strict voter iD laws and yet out of the 900 million eligible population, over 600 million votes were counted with voter iD few months ago which was also the largest turnout ever for any democratic election in the world. So no, voter iD and efforts to combat voter fraud are not suppressing votes. That’s just a talking point with zero backing.
- IAmEveryone 6y ago
  If voter ID laws do not suppress the vote, why would Democrats care about them?

darawk 6y ago

There is no evidence that voting machines have been hacked, either. Why is the standard of evidence for one different than the other? And more to the point, since when does patching a vulnerability require evidence of exploitation. We wouldn't accept Microsoft saying "There's no evidence of this Outlook vulnerability being exploited in the wild, we're not going to fix it". We certainly shouldn't accept that reasoning for our elections.

learc83 6y ago
>Why is the standard of evidence for one different than the other? Because hacking one voting machine potentially allows one person or a small group of people to alter thousands of votes. That person (or persons) has no way to alter anyway near that many votes through in person voter fraud. The amount of effort it would take to alter the results of an election through in person voter fraud makes it extremely difficult to pull off--particularly without detection. Additionally there are downsides to voter id laws. The most troubling is demonstrably lower minority turn out. There are no similar downsides to methods like requiring paper receipts for voting machines. Basically the cost benefit analysis is in favor of hardening electronic voting, but not in favor of voter id laws.
- im3w1l 6y ago
  Detection is much more gnarly than you give it credit. A pretty likely scenario is that one side will claim that fraud was detected, and the other side will deny it. And both side will try to suppress and deplatform each other. Youtube, twitter, facebook will pick a side. And whoever loses will fume with resentment. Maybe they pick up weapons. If they are right that the election was stolen and that fact is suppressed, they will certainly be justified. If they are right - which is a big hypothetical. Because the detection will be drowned in noise.
  - learc83 6y ago
    You're talking a coordinated conspiracy involving thousands of people. The FBI would have hard evidence during the recruiting phase. You can't involve that many people in something and keep it secret. Even in the best case were we don't find out until elections day, an enormous increase in double votes will be all over the news the same day, and arrests will start happening shortly after.
    - im3w1l 6y ago
      What about an uncoordinated conspiracy involving thousands of people? Just a single troll with a large audience urging them to cheat?
      - learc83 6y ago
        It's a felony. A felony that requires you to commit it in person at a precinct is a pretty high bar for an internet troll to get people to jump. Assuming some people decide to take them up on it, they have to coordinate or they'll end up voting as people who have already voted. Double voting is very easy to spot and many of them will be arrested at the precinct. Plus you'd need an accurate list of close to 100k dead voters who haven't already been purged (more in a less tight election), and thousands of people willing to drive to the right precincts to match the list. And we didn't know which states would tip the election until election night in 2016, so you'd need to duplicate your efforts several fold. This idea is pure fantasy.
- darawk 6y ago
  It's difficult to pull off in a coordinated way. But coordination attacks are not the only thing that matters. It shouldn't be possible for a liberal kid's conservative parents who know he doesn't vote to vote for him. But it's trivially possible, right now. There is literally nothing stopping anyone from doing that.
  - learc83 6y ago
    >There is literally nothing stopping anyone from doing that. Other than the fact that it's a serious felony. Additionally how are voter ID laws going to change this? It already requires some level of cooperation by the kid in that they don't show up and vote themselves. If you're talking about absentee ballots, whatever you're using to identify the kid, the parents likely have access to--copy of id, birth certificate etc... So voter ID isn't going to stop this either. >But coordination attacks are not the only thing that matters. Coordination of some kind is required to change the results of an election. If even a few thousand random parents around the country decide to risk jail time to vote for their kid, it isn't going to impact the results of the election, so hardening against this kind of attack is a very low priority. Particularly when there's no cost effective means to stop it.
benchaney 6y ago
The standard has nothing to do with whether the exploit has been used but whether it is possible. There is no credibly attack an adversary could carry out against the election by exploiting the lack a of voter ID requirement. There are however many proof of concept attacks performed against voting machines every time they are introduced.
- darawk 6y ago
  No, there is no credible way that a single actor could carry out a large scale attack that way. But there are credible ways that individuals can vote illegally extremely easily, and would never get detected. Secondly, we have no reliable data on how often it occurs, precisely because it's more or less undetectable. There are documented cases of it, that have been caught by luck. And people have tried to do surveys that are probably worthless and unreliable. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/29/us/18-are-arrested-in-1997-miami-ballot-fraud.html https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/29/us/18-are-arrested-in-199... https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/voter-fraud-real-rare/story?id=17213376 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/voter-fraud-real-rare/s... Indeed, the incidence is low. But it is importantly not zero, and the numbers we know are only the ones who got caught. Most democracies require ID to vote. It's an anomaly that we do not. There is no good reason not to require it.
  - busymom0 6y ago
    My comment here has links to actual data of people who were caught and prosecuted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22992159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22992159
  - benchaney 6y ago
    It’s not undetectable at all. When you go to vote, you give your name and address, and get crossed off a list. If someone did that fraudulently, it would be noticed when the person who’s identity you stole comes to vote, it is obvious. There is a good reason not to require it. Not everyone who is eligible to vote has an id, or a straightforward way to get one.

NotAnEconomist 6y ago

> suppress voting by low income and minority voters Are you implying that having an ID, such as a drivers license, is out of reach of either low income or minority citizens? That seems classist and/or racist. Are there any studies supporting the idea that either of those two groups of citizens don't have ID?

busymom0 6y ago

28 Million Mail-In Ballots Went Missing in Last Four Elections https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/24/28_million_mail-in_ballots_went_missing_in_last_four_elections_143033.html https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/24/28_mil... https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/pacei-voterfraudcases.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/p... Also people keep claiming that over iD is somehow suppressing voting for low income and minority voters are delusional. US is one of the only countries which doesn’t have voted id. India which has very strict voter iD laws and yet out of the 900 million eligible population, over 600 million votes were counted with voter iD few months ago which was also the largest turnout ever for any democratic election in the world. So no, voter iD and efforts to combat voter fraud are not suppressing votes. That’s just a talking point with zero backing.

IAmEveryone 6y ago
If voter ID laws do not suppress the vote, why would Democrats care about them?