Suing California for Throwing Out 45k Ballots Over Handwriting 'Mismatches'
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In Japan instead of signatures they use personal stamps. Stamps used for your government business or banking get registered, and they can match stamps from the slight imperfections. If your stamp is stolen you register it as such so they know not to accept it.
A lot of expats here complain about the stamp system, but when they get their bank to use their signature instead, they complain that the bank actually verifies the signature, and I've heard stories of people refilling out the same form 3 times just to get their signature to match the one on file!
This happened to me several times. That's because they use a machine to verify differences in signatures and as long as the machines do not OK the operation you have to retry. It's retarded, because that verification is made for stamps and not signatures and therefore it probably is not trained properly for the subtles differences in signatures from one to the next.
And the stamp system in Japan is retarded anyway, because it's super easy to reproduce one's stamp if you have a paper with that imprint lying around. It's not like the stamp is precise at the nanometer level or something.
> how useful are signatures going to be?
I dont even know why we need signatures honestly - at the bank you should be able to present your national ID or passport and that should be sufficient. And nobody writes checks anymore anyway.
If you do have it, you can use it to print super official documents at the convenience store and pay your taxes online (if you get a chip reader for your computer).*
*I know in the US you can pay taxes online with just some personal info for verification, but for some reason Japan is super serious about verifying online financial transactions.
If someone filed a fraudulent tax report in your name you could be liable ("I made zero dollars last year!"). Actually paying the taxes can be done in cash anonymously at a post office bank teller (or at a convenience store for municipal taxes)
Because those don't exist in the US. We don't have national IDs and not everyone is eligible for a passport.
You can't get a passport if, for example, you have outstanding criminal charges that you are awaiting trial for on bail. Should that prevent you from being able to get or use a bank account? You might need that to be able to pay a lawyer.
It's 2017. This type of ableist language should not be socially acceptable anymore, anymore than calling something the n-word as an adjective. Differing abilities should not be an insult.
It's not language I use or agree with, but my opinion isn't going to change something that turns out to be fundamental to how people communicate. You need to learn how to live and let live.
Isn't that the same system that was used in Europe with signet rings until the 17th century? I wonder why signatures replaced signet rings?
As the need for legal documentation spread downward from the upper classes, they needed an identification method that anyone could use, and wasn't limited to people who could afford to have a unique piece of jewelry crafted.
If you don't believe me, next time you use a credit card with signature, just scribble on the pinpad. No one will bat an eye.
They are not meant to be verified on the spot.
They are meant to be verified as a record IF and WHEN a dispute occurs.
Of course this doesn't happen, and for good reason too since the signature made on a resistive touchscreen ends up looking nothing like that on the credit card.
For example, my wife wants to use my CC so we asked our CC company what we need to do to add her, to make her a valid signature.
The answer? Nothing. I can have anyone I want use my card. They sign it with anything they want. It's up to me down the road to claim fraudulent charges, and if I do, the person who signed is the one committing fraud.
This was two cards, both Visa cards offered from different companies.
Wouldn't that be at odds with what you've mentioned here?
If you want your wife to be able to use it, you get her added as an Authorized User and she gets a new card with the same number but her name and her signature.
Yea.. but who do we get her added with? Because, as i said, we tried that. We called to get her added, see what we need, etc.
They said nothing. They literally said anyone can use my card, and it's assumed fine until i dispute it later.
So we literally tried to get her added, but couldn't - they said it's not needed, and that was that. This happened for both cards, lol.
This is why the charge to the card goes through before you have to sign anything. Even on pos systems where you sign on the screen, I get the text message notifying me that my card was charged even before I start to sign on the screen.
It's not even just handwriting skills - my handwriting is fine, but I was recently asked to sign two documents and there were obvious differences between the two. It's because I've signed maybe four things in the last year, so it's not something I'm going to reliably reproduce identically. I could use my standard handwriting to sign, but I'd be trivial to forge rendering it pointless anyway (I deliberately use print rather than joined-up script [which was taught at school] for clarity's sake).
People trust things they understand. Counting votes manually is easy to understand. It's hard to trust an electronic system.
It's trivial to tamper with such machines.
It's been a couple of years since I last voted in NZ (election in 3 weeks, and it's every 3 years) but I definitely don't think you're allowed to put any identifying mark on your ballot here..
After you fill out your ballot (with no identifying marks), you slip it into an inner envelope (with no identifying marks) and put that in the outer envelope (which includes your name and you have to sign).
When a ballot is received, elections officials check the signature on the outer envelope. If the signature matches, the inner envelope containing the ballot is removed from the outer envelope and dumped into a pile so no one can match the submitted ballot with the original envelope, and then the whole pile is taken in to be counted. There's an observation deck in the facility and cameras running the entire time the elections officials are counting ballots to make sure no one is cheating and checking who voted for who.
I mean there must be multiple transgressions occurring all the time, so it must be very difficult to keep track of everything yourself, but at the same time being inbound will mean you only hear from the "loudest" voices. So how do they strike a balance?
They lack funding and personnel to act on everything. I'm not a lawyer but I've donated both time and money.
Note: Not all donations to them are tax deductible.
I mean, using a signature as a legal, "I was there and I approved this document" is all fine and dandy, but for authentication? There are much better methods
In CA they will fight like hell to prevent it from ever being investigated. And why would they block an "open" voting process from being investigated? A scandal in its own right.
The article you linked to talks about election fraud (i.e. the rigging of an election), not voter fraud (i.e. a ballot voted by one who is ineligible to vote).
I have seen no evidence to believe that the Californian government is actively suppressing access to voter data for the purposes of covering up a scandal. If you have some, I'm all ears. (Or eyes, as it may be.)
Try reading this if you have the time and wish to understand: http://faculty2.ucmerced.edu/snicholson/nicholson.earthquake...
Instead it's a mechanism for enabling voter ID laws, which prevent demographics that trend Democrat from voting.
Some of the laws are explicitly designed to favor demographics that skew conservative and exclude others - for example Texas accepts gun licenses as valid IDs but excludes student IDs.
1) How come there isn't a standard, mandatory, country-wide ID card system in place?
2) If you can vote without an ID card, what prevents illegals from voting as somebody else?
That being said, it kinda exists already in the form of the Social Security card & number. If a baby is born in a hospital, they get one at birth. If not, the parents can apply for one. It is the de facto way to prove citizenship. Everyone who processes sensitive information asks for it (banks, etc.)
2. Persons in the US illegally don't vote because the benefit is nonexistent and the punishment is very harsh.
Anyway I want to know, aren't you identified in any way at all when you vote? Don't you have to pretend you're someone who's on a list, at least?
Or do you believe there is an underground organization that mobilizes this "illegal vote" by insuring millions of people against the adverse consequences of being caught voting in order to push for the legalization of all undocumented immigrants?
I also come from a place where voter fraud is real and significant. Underground organisations that bring old/disabled people to the urns to make them vote whatever they want do exist. We know about that. So whatever is happening in the US won't really surprise me. (Not to say something like this happens in the US, but it's perfectly possible, and it is foolish to simply outright deny that possibility)
What? _Dozens_? Committing dozens of crimes a day sounds like a lot of work. Are you under the impression that all undocumented immigrants in the US are in the Mafia, or something?
If you're already doing all these things, what's illegal voting added to it.
You can see how easy it is to register to vote in California yourself at the official government website https://covr.sos.ca.gov/ You can complete the first 4 steps of the app without submitting it, just complete the first 4 steps to see what's needed.
You do not need to provide any form of identification to register. When asked, just select "I do not have a California driver license or California identification card." You don't need to provide a social security number, which the govt uses to keep track of your taxes, social security benefits; and is used by banks, hospitals, and credit agencies to verify identity. It is assigned by the govt just after birth and practically every citizen born after ~1940 will have one, and all legal immigrants will have one.
You do not need to provide a mailing address to register. You can say "I do not have a street address."
The only items you have to provide to register to vote are a name, birthdate, and what county you live in. And you just need to check a box stating "I am a U.S. citizen". That's it, it's very very easy to register in California.
One restriction is, you can't register with a very silly name (e.g. "Mr. NotMy RealName" because periodically they will search though voter rolls and purge them. However, if you register with a regular sounding name I don't think it would raise any issue.
I assume it is similar in California. Some research indicates that in California, if this is a new registrant, then some identification, or at least proof of residency, must be provided [1]. If documents cannot be provided to the satisfaction of the officials, then a provisional ballot will be offered instead, pending verification of residency.
[1] http://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/regulations/hava_id_regs_fro...
And not all crimes are the same: most people just want to live a quiet live. So just because they are breaking immigration laws doesn't make them a priori more likely to eg commit murder or voting fraud. (I heard that the undocumented immigrants are much more careful to eg stick to traffic laws, since they don't want to get any attention?)
One is people who committed the crime of "illegal entry" -- they smuggled themselves into the country somehow.
The other group, much more common, is people who visited legally (on a tourist or other visa) but have stayed, in violation of their visa.
It's a mistake to think of the second group as criminals in the technical sense -- they have not committed a criminal offense, only a civil offense. It would be like saying that everyone who exceeds the posted speed limits is a criminal "with no regard for the law".
This doesn't exist in the UK. The USA is bigger, more distrusting of government, and would presumably have to deliberate over whether it was really to be a national system, or rather - perhaps mandatory - state-level systems.
More recently I worked for a Lebanese company in the uk and one of my Lebanese coworkers had had a close family member killed as when he was stopped by a militia had had the wrong religion on his card
Most developed countries just have a mandatory ID card, of course.
The US states requiring ID would be much less worrying if they would accept something that everyone has. It's the selectiveness about forms of ID that makes the motives clear...
Sure, but a key purpose of voter IDs laws, as proponents will sometimes admit in public (or in remarks that aren't intended to become public but do) is to tip the partisan scales in elections.
Maybe that's not what you meant it seems a bit racist assuming that young black youth who want to vote are too incompetent to get an ID. But presumably poor white or asian ones are smarter and more resourceful. Having lived in poor neighborhoods with various races I'd say that not true based on my experience.
No need to assume, you can just check the statistics.
(Not that a policy which selectively disenfranchised the poor would be acceptable if it were race neutral in effect.)
And, it may or may not be Constitutionally possible to have a centralized national ID, but it's certainly not politically likely.
On top of this, these laws generally come with extra burdens when getting a generic state-issued ID card (for example, requiring more paperwork to be shown for it), or are passed at the same time that state DMV offices in Democratic-leaning areas have their operating hours cut.
Not true in the UK - last General Election, I walked into the Polling Station, handed over a polling card, confirmed the address WRITTEN ON THE CARD, and then voted as me.
I could have picked up anyone's card from the block of flats I live in. Hell, I could probably have voted more than once if I'd been careful and timed multiple visits to avoid hitting the same checking people.
And this is without even getting to the "you don't need a polling card to vote" bit.
Depends on the country. The UK doesn't require ID (except in Northern Ireland). Ireland requires ID, but it can be practically anything (bank cards, social security cards, student ID, work ID, birth certs, some bus passes...) Most other countries in Europe have mandatory ID for all citizens anyway, so requiring it to vote in less onerous. In the US, there's no national ID card, and the states which require ID to vote typically require ID that not everyone has, and that lower-income people who live in cities are particularly unlikely to have.
As a result, voter ID laws often turn on which form of ID you are permitted to provide. Many states with voter ID laws also have conveniently defined their set of acceptable IDs to be those which Republican voters are much more likely to have than Democrat voters, due to income and cultural disparities. Additionally some of these states offer some kind of universal ID for purposes of voting, but it will not be free or will be unusually difficult to obtain.
This bias towards Republican voters is not by accident: multiple Republican-controlled legislatures have been quite open about their intent. It is one of several strategies being employed by Republicans to counter Democrat-leaning trends in voter demographics.
A dramatic example would be Alabama adopting a voter ID requirement and then shortly after it became effective, closing the driver's license offices (where IDs are issued; driver's licenses are the main form of state ID and alternative non-driver IDs are generally issued by the same offices sice they use infrastructure originally built for driver's licenses) in 8 of 10 black-majority counties, including all those where that majority was 75%+ and including the five that voted most strongly Democratic in the preceding Presidential election.
http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/09/alabama_sends_me...
Which demographics are those?
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Five of these 10 studies found that ID requirements had no statistically significant effect on turnout; in contrast 4 studies found decreases in turnout and 1 found an increase in turnout that were statistically significant.
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And all the states includes in the study seems to have disagreed with the methodology used:
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In comments on draft report excerpts the Kansas, Tennessee, and Arkansas Secretary of State Offices disagreed with GAO's criteria for selecting treatment and comparison states and Kansas and Tennessee questioned the reliability of one dataset used to assess turnout.
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To me it seems the answer is then "let's have community outreach to help every eligible over get an acceptable ID. Even subsidize free ID that can be used for voting" not "let's not have any IDs".
Also coming from Europe and knowing that other countries with even more poverty and somehow manage to have an ID https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_(India) and here despite all the insinuations and allegations of voter fraud and all the talk and energy spent on elections people are still against IDs.
So that's a problem. Making ID cards free would probably help, but the other issue is that you're weighing the potential disenfranchisement of some marginalized people on one side against a phantom "voter fraud" boogeyman on the other side. In-person voter fraud basically never happens. There's no need to take any steps to stamp it out.
There are so many better ways to spend that time and effort -- improving the vote-by-mail process, to pick an easy example.