Comment by zackees | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zackees | Hacker News Reader

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1 in 5 Ballots Rejected as Fraud Is Charged in N.J. Mail-In Election:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/06/26/1_in_5...

Many other stories like this.

What's alarming is that the democrats tried to push through a bill that eliminated the state laws for voter integrity for all mail in ballots across states: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/may/12/democrats-c...

So if this has become law, what would have stopped China from printing a bunch of ballots and sending in them?

Nothing.

The media told us that mail in ballot fraud was non existent. Then when the cases started to reveal this was a false narrative, the media moved the goal posts and said "oh it happens, but only happens by republicans."

It's just an ever changing set of goal posts. It's very clear for those of us paying attention that mail in ballot fraud is the MAIN vector of voter fraud now. Those that proclaim this doesn't exist are naive or willfully deceptive.

The idea that you can vote without an ID is really unprecedented in the whole world. The united states is special in that it allows it at all. But this is quickly changing.

Tick Tock.

We recently had a successful voluntary postal ballot on gay marriage here in Australia

No reports of fraud that I know of - A handful of people trying to steal ballots, but they were just invalidated and sent out again

So here's the thing - thousands of Republicans and conservatives have made claims of widespread vote/voter fraud.

I'm not aware of a single claim that withstood scrutiny or that was even attempted to prosecute, let alone done so successfully.

I'm not talking about isolated instances. That certainly has happened. I'm talking enough fraud to actually change an election. And I'm going to restrict you to the state or federal level, as I wouldn't be surprised that it happens at the local/county level in some hick outposts.

So what do ya got? Show me an election that was actually affected by widespread fraud.

This isn’t a right-wing situation but a real valid concern given plenty of reports between gerrymandering, polling center availability and security, chain of custody, paper processing, electronic machine hacks, suspect company backgrounds, etc.

The major problem is you can’t measure it in the first place because there is no truth set. Unless you can follow up with every single individual and confirm their vote, you dont have the data.

> gerrymandering, polling center availability and security, chain of custody, paper processing, electronic machine hacks, suspect company backgrounds

These are all important concerns, but they have absolutely nothing to do with vote fraud. The first two are voter suppression activities. The last four are election fraud, which is a very different thing than voter fraud.

The notion that you have to follow up with every single voter is absurd. You can statistically sample anywhere you suspect (imagine) that fraud transpired and dig deeper in areas where you get hits.

OP's first article even cites Rick Hasen who notes that there were only 491 prosecutions for absentee ballot fraud between 2000-2012.

There is no widespread vote fraud problem. There hasn't been for decades

> "There is no widespread vote fraud problem. There hasn't been for decades"

This is absolutely unproven. And absentee ballots are not the only way people vote, with prosecutions are only those who are caught and convicted. Here's a list of 1071 proven instances (more than twice) from the very first search on the subject: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/p...

There is no way to know what the real votes are supposed to be unless you confirm with the person who voted.

Whether you want to call it election fraud or voting fraud, it's the same problem because you don't know it occurred unless you have the ground truth to check against. There is no mass confirmation stage for votes to be able to gather this data and thus it's completely unknown.

So, 1,071 proven instances over what period of time? Over what overall count of cast ballots?

Here are some other reviews:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/06/a-com...

https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-fraud...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/05/politics/ohio-illegal-voting-...

The first article you link is only looking into 1 specific type of fraud of voter impersonation, and even mentions many other instances of other kinds. Again, without confirming the votes independently, you have no truth set to compare for finding the real results easily. There is still no answer to this.

Also 99.9% of people already have IDs and need them for living in society so it's strange to say that voting is the only thing that should be defended from requiring it. I find this outright dismissal of no fraud existing to be worrisome. It's the same as antivax and other conspiracy theories and more aligned with a narrative than any discovery of truth.

My second link cited 20 studies, 4 court cases and 8 state-wide or federal investigations.

> Also 99.9% of people already have IDs

Citation needed.

https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a...

I find it odd that you accuse me of conspiracy theory as you're the one alleging a conspiracy without being able to provide any evidence that one exists. Before you re-cite your 1,071 instances in reply, note that in every one of my comments I said widespread fraud. I never argued that incidental fraud does not occur

I'm saying fraud is unknown. Your claim is that there is none, but there is no way to prove a negative and there has been no serious confirmation at scale to conclude otherwise.

Your links are limited to voter ID but there are more types of fraud and, as I explained before, they're all the same as far as needing confirmation to be able to measure. Instant dismissal without study is the problem, and just as conspiratorial as saying it's rampant. I simply want the truth through evidence.

As far as IDs, they're necessary for: opening a bank account, cashing a check, driving a car, buying a car, buying a house, signing a lease, having employment, buying any insurance, using any form of credit, going to school, paying for utilities, receiving welfare, food stamps or any public benefits. Please explain the overlap of people who have never done any of these things, don't have any ID, don't have any legal documentation, and are eligible to vote.

Your 2nd link describes someone who has 2 IDs already, and has failed to get a new one after it expired. There will always be anecdotes of such paperwork mishaps but this doesn't show that there's a structural problem (he refuses to go to court to fix records even though fees can be waived easily). The idea that a certain race or group of people are incapable of attaining IDs like everyone else is a prime example of the bigotry of soft expectations.

We agree that the degree of fraud is unknown.

Where we disagree is on your insistence that the possibility that it may happen is worth suppressing the vote of the "11% of U.S. citizens – or more than 21 million Americans – [who] do not have government-issued photo identification."

You have presented no evidence - at all - that it is a widespread problem, that it is a pervasive problem.

I, on the other hand, have cited dozens of studies and government investigations - many of which were conducted by supporters of voter ID requirements - that showed vanishingly small amounts of fraud.

You have also cited made-up statistics (99.9%) and numbers (1,071 fraudulent votes) that sound scary, but end up being insignificant in terms of actually impacting elections.

Unless you can provide evidence of widespread fraud changing a state-level or federal election - which I've asked for since my very first comment - I'm no longer willing to discuss this with you.

We don't agree. I'm saying it's unknown - which means I don't know whether it's zero or widespread. That's the point. Again, it's impossible to measure without mass confirmation and that has never been done. Where else do you expect the evidence to come from?

You however claim that there is none. A lack of evidence from a lack of measurement does not mean your narrative must be true. I'm asking questions seeking the truth. You are blindly following a political narrative while dismissing any questioning.

You cited a few articles that only focus on voter ID which isn't the only type of fraud (remember the 4 year investigation into Russian interference?). Also that 11% stat is unsourced and just a quote in an article which discusses people who already had IDs and failed to keep them updated. It's not voter suppression if everyone has to do it. Do you think that having an ID for work or to drive is suppressing rights as well?

Can you answer the question I posed earlier about the overlap of people participating in society and but don't have ID? If it's such a problem then the answer should be easy.

I just hope digital voting becomes a thing soon enough. Yes there are still some unsolved problems, but I don't think they're unsolvable. Cryptography is a thing.

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