Feds Charge Hispanic Immigrant with Illegally Voting in Several Florida Elections, Lying on Immigration Forms

[KCfromNC]

Federal Court Blocks “Proof of Citizenship” Voting Requirement | League of Women Voters

A federal court ruled that a former US Election Assistance Commission official violated federal law in 2016 when he allowed three states – Alabama, Georgia, and Kansas – to require documentary proof of citizenship on the federal voter registration form.

www.lwv.org

Clearly someone didn't like the proposed rules of having to prove that one is a citizen during the initial registration and challenged it in order to get it struck down.

That's not an attempt to repeal the law referenced in OP.

 

[KCfromNC]

The mechanisms apart from the ones I listed are, at best, pretty weak.

They seem to be strong enough to catch the attempt mentioned in the OP.

 

[Whyayeman]

There is no evidence of systematic fraud in the last presidential election. Any campaign to get individuals to cast votes for relatives in sufficient numbers to make a difference could never remain secret. The conspiracy would certainly become public when honest voters were approached to commit the personation.

The requirement of voter ID achieves little and prevents little.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

There is no evidence of systematic fraud in the last presidential election. Any campaign to get individuals to cast votes for relatives in sufficient numbers to make a difference could never remain secret. The conspiracy would certainly become public when honest voters were approached to commit the personation.

The requirement of voter ID achieves little and prevents little.

I don't think there's any systemic fraud (just to clarify), and I don't think it's there some sort of "secret plot to encourage people to cast improper ballots", I was just pointing out that in the current framework of mail-in ballots, that option is readily available (and hard to catch) if someone individually makes the unethical choice to do so.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

They seem to be strong enough to catch the attempt mentioned in the OP.

Being able to catch some stragglers (that were particularly flagrant in their violations) isn't indicative of a well-formed policy or legal framework.

One could say the same about our gun laws. We hear a lot of people on the far-right suggesting that "we don't need to make any new laws, we just need to enforce the ones we've got and that's adequate" (and if they look for one, I'm sure they could find an example of a person getting denied a gun by the current laws or the odd person getting busted for making a straw purchase). However, that wouldn't be a strong argument for suggesting "see, the laws we already have for guns are fine, they caught that one guy"

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Are they? They seem to be working pretty effectively, as far as I can tell. You're making an argument from incredulity here.

Per my previous post analogy, our voting laws are about as strong as our gun laws, where they can catch/stop the most flagrant violators when they make themselves particularly conspicuous. But are pretty weak otherwise.

"The laws we have for voting right now are adequate because they caught that one guy" is the same logic that leads right wing people to say "the currently gun laws we have are fine, see they were able to bust that one guy for trying to make a straw purchase (after the fact)"

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Per my previous post analogy, our voting laws are about as strong as our gun laws, where they can catch/stop the most flagrant violators when they make themselves particularly conspicuous. But are pretty weak otherwise.

"The laws we have for voting right now are adequate because they caught that one guy" is the same logic that leads right wing people to say "the currently gun laws we have are fine, see they were able to bust that one guy for trying to make a straw purchase (after the fact)"

The difference is that we regularly discover guns that were obtained via fraudulent means or by people who shouldn't have them, while frequent audits and recounts very rarely turn up fraudulent votes. If you want to claim that our voting laws are weak, you need to show that they actually are weak (objectively, not subjectively).

ETA: furthermore, the real consequences of a fraudulent vote are small - 99.999% of the time, one vote won't change the outcome of an election. It's still wrong, but what that means is that we don't need to focus as much effort on prevention as we would for gun laws, where the consequence of an illegal arms purchase is frequently people dying. Rather, we can concentrate efforts on catching those who vote fraudulently so as to avoid preventing legitimate votes.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

The difference is that we regularly discover guns that were obtained via fraudulent means or by people who shouldn't have them, while frequent audits and recounts very rarely turn up fraudulent votes. If you want to claim that our voting laws are weak, you need to show that they actually are weak (objectively, not subjectively).

ETA: furthermore, the real consequences of a fraudulent vote are small - 99.999% of the time, one vote won't change the outcome of an election. It's still wrong, but what that means is that we don't need to focus as much effort on prevention as we would for gun laws, where the consequence of an illegal arms purchase is frequently people dying. Rather, we can concentrate efforts on catching those who vote fraudulently so as to avoid preventing legitimate votes.

I would say the analogy is still closer than you think.

I would say the audits are unlikely to find anything in most cases, simply by nature of some of the forms of improper voting lend themselves to being easy to keep "under the radar" like many forms of improper gun ownership. For instance, if I live in a household with 5 people, and I fill out all 5 ballots and mail them in (and know how to forge their signature), and they can't be bothered report they never received their ballot (or simply forgot all about it), even the more refined audits are unlikely to catch that.

Much like a "gun audit" is unlikely to be able to catch a case of a person buying one, and just giving it to a family member or conducting it through a private sale in a state that has no registry.

To put the numbers in some perspective:
There are about 20 million firearm purchases/transactions/transfers per year. Roughly 22% (or 4.4 million) happen without a background check (whether it be via non-background checked private transfers or purchases)

There are around 20,000 gun homicides per year in the US. Even if we operated on the hypothetical premise that "all of them were from people that got the guns that were acquired without a background check" (which it's not, but we'll pretend), that would mean that 99.6% of the time someone gets a gun without a background check, it's not going to be used to kill anyone. But I would still favor universal background checks (requiring ID to be shown for said purchase) none the less.

 

[Whyayeman]

I would say the analogy is still closer than you think.

I would say the audits are unlikely to find anything in most cases, simply by nature of some of the forms of improper voting lend themselves to being easy to keep "under the radar" like many forms of improper gun ownership. For instance, if I live in a household with 5 people, and I fill out all 5 ballots and mail them in (and know how to forge their signature), and they can't be bothered report they never received their ballot (or simply forgot all about it), even the more refined audits are unlikely to catch that.

Much like a "gun audit" is unlikely to be able to catch a case of a person buying one, and just giving it to a family member or conducting it through a private sale in a state that has no registry.

To put the numbers in some perspective:
There are about 20 million firearm purchases/transactions/transfers per year. Roughly 22% (or 4.4 million) happen without a background check (whether it be via non-background checked private transfers or purchases)

There are around 20,000 gun homicides per year in the US. Even if we operated on the hypothetical premise that "all of them were from people that got the guns that were acquired without a background check" (which it's not, but we'll pretend), that would mean that 99.6% of the time someone gets a gun without a background check, it's not going to be used to kill anyone. But I would still favor universal background checks (requiring ID to be shown for said purchase) none the less.

The key difference between these is consequence. Voter fraud has never made a difference in the USA for the simple reason that is is not co-ordinated, except in the imagination of Trump and his most fervent followers. Trump certainly does not believe it. If he did he would be trying it.

Voter ID is disproportionate.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

The key difference between these is consequence. Voter fraud has never made a difference in the USA for the simple reason that is is not co-ordinated, except in the imagination of Trump and his most fervent followers. Trump certainly does not believe it. If he did he would be trying it.

Voter ID is disproportionate.

It's never made a difference at a federal level, you're correct.

However, it has (albeit rare) had impacts on elections at lower levels of government.

Per the Washington Post (specifically citing them here because it would be dishonest to trot out conspiracy theories from Fox)
Almost no elections in the past 50 years have been flipped because of documented voter fraud, with occasional exceptions at lower levels.


Sometimes the margins can be thinner than people realize. So even if the overall number is extraordinarily small in comparison to the total number of voters, that doesn't mean that it may not ever be a problem in the future.

Point of reference, the 1960 election actually came pretty close in a few states and they had to call in some some independent reviewers after the fact because of how close it was in the state of Illinois and Nixon thought we was cheated out of that state.

Illinois, that year, saw Kennedy win ~8,800 votes.

There was an issue with irregularities and improper voting that year (specifically in Chicago), and the independent review found that there were just fewer than 8,000 votes that were impacted by the irregularities that took votes away from Nixon...however, given the numbers, that means without the irregularities, Kennedy still took the state, but by a razor thin margin of ~800

The reviewers concluded:
This figure of slightly less than 8,000 votes is not sufficient to make a convincing case that Nixon was cheated out of Illinois' electoral votes.


There were states that were even closer in that election cycle as well...Kennedy only won Hawaii by 115 votes that year. (Key difference is, Nixon didn't throw the same kind of temper tantrum Trump did after the reviews were concluded, and did the right thing and gave a concession speech)


So just because something is extremely rare and hasn't happened "yet", doesn't mean that it can't happen.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

I would say the analogy is still closer than you think.

I would say the audits are unlikely to find anything in most cases, simply by nature of some of the forms of improper voting lend themselves to being easy to keep "under the radar" like many forms of improper gun ownership. For instance, if I live in a household with 5 people, and I fill out all 5 ballots and mail them in (and know how to forge their signature), and they can't be bothered report they never received their ballot (or simply forgot all about it), even the more refined audits are unlikely to catch that.

Much like a "gun audit" is unlikely to be able to catch a case of a person buying one, and just giving it to a family member or conducting it through a private sale in a state that has no registry.

That's a pretty strained analogy. You're comparing a situation in which multiple checks are defeated or bypassed to one that has zero existing checks in place. Once a gun is sold by a dealer, everything past that point works on the honor system - no one ever checks to see if you still own a gun that a dealer says they sold to you (unless it is known to have been used in a crime), and only 20 states have any sort of regulation whatsoever on private-party sales (Source).

To put the numbers in some perspective:
There are about 20 million firearm purchases/transactions/transfers per year. Roughly 22% (or 4.4 million) happen without a background check (whether it be via non-background checked private transfers or purchases)

There are around 20,000 gun homicides per year in the US. Even if we operated on the hypothetical premise that "all of them were from people that got the guns that were acquired without a background check" (which it's not, but we'll pretend), that would mean that 99.6% of the time someone gets a gun without a background check, it's not going to be used to kill anyone. But I would still favor universal background checks (requiring ID to be shown for said purchase) none the less.

And 159 million people voted in the 2020 election. An AP investigation uncovered less than 475 potential cases of voter fraud across 6 states. The Heritage Foundation reports only 18 confirmed cases. We're talking orders of magnitude in difference here, and that's before getting into the fact that voter fraud doesn't kill anyone (as I already pointed out), which means that concentrating on enforcement rather than prevention makes sense when trying to minimize impacts on legitimate voters.

 

[KCfromNC]

Being able to catch some stragglers (that were particularly flagrant in their violations) isn't indicative of a well-formed policy or legal framework.

Prosecutions for a crime aren't indicative of a well-formed legal policy against that crime? Seems like they would be, especially when the people making a big stink about people getting away with widespread violation of that law can't manage to find any evidence for their claims that they're brave enough to try in court.

But in any case, those prosecutions certainly aren't evidence some people were "staunchly opposed" to any and all measures aimed at election integrity, if I remember the initial "but but but both sides" claim which started this tangent.

There's perhaps a reasonable discussion on whether or not we need more strict laws or enforcement of existing laws on in this area. But playing the "acksully, both sides blah blah blah" game doesn't seem to factually address the situation on the ground.

 

[Whyayeman]

It's never made a difference at a federal level, you're correct.

However, it has (albeit rare) had impacts on elections at lower levels of government.

Per the Washington Post (specifically citing them here because it would be dishonest to trot out conspiracy theories from Fox)
Almost no elections in the past 50 years have been flipped because of documented voter fraud, with occasional exceptions at lower levels.


Sometimes the margins can be thinner than people realize. So even if the overall number is extraordinarily small in comparison to the total number of voters, that doesn't mean that it may not ever be a problem in the future.

Point of reference, the 1960 election actually came pretty close in a few states and they had to call in some some independent reviewers after the fact because of how close it was in the state of Illinois and Nixon thought we was cheated out of that state.

Illinois, that year, saw Kennedy win ~8,800 votes.

There was an issue with irregularities and improper voting that year (specifically in Chicago), and the independent review found that there were just fewer than 8,000 votes that were impacted by the irregularities that took votes away from Nixon...however, given the numbers, that means without the irregularities, Kennedy still took the state, but by a razor thin margin of ~800

The reviewers concluded:
This figure of slightly less than 8,000 votes is not sufficient to make a convincing case that Nixon was cheated out of Illinois' electoral votes.


There were states that were even closer in that election cycle as well...Kennedy only won Hawaii by 115 votes that year. (Key difference is, Nixon didn't throw the same kind of temper tantrum Trump did after the reviews were concluded, and did the right thing and gave a concession speech)


So just because something is extremely rare and hasn't happened "yet", doesn't mean that it can't happen.

This is a valid point. Close results really do need close scrutiny.

IN the UK we are really quite familiar with such results. Parliamentary seats are often described as 'marginal' because election results are expected to be close. Recounts are a normal part of the process; no General Election is without these little dramas. The process is familiar. As well as the obvious recounting of the total votes cast and the votes for each candidate there is a closer scrutiny of the ballot papers - for spoilt ballots and other discrepancies. As far as I remember only one has resulted in a scrutiny of the voters themselves. There was no change to the final result.

This is because candidates and officials have a high degree of confidence in the integrity of the whole process, from registration to balloting.

 

[KCfromNC]

It's never made a difference at a federal level, you're correct.

However, it has (albeit rare) had impacts on elections at lower levels of government.

Per the Washington Post (specifically citing them here because it would be dishonest to trot out conspiracy theories from Fox)
Almost no elections in the past 50 years have been flipped because of documented voter fraud, with occasional exceptions at lower levels.

Seems like whatever cure we come up with for this extremely rare problem would need to seriously vetted to make sure it itself doesn't also change the outcome of elections. For example, voter ID laws as written often are targeted in ways to reduce turnout from specific demographic groups. That's something which can also flip elections, so we'd need to be extremely cautious about implementing any of them without making sure that the solution isn't worse than the disease.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Prosecutions for a crime aren't indicative of a well-formed legal policy against that crime?

If it's structured in such a way that it's pretty easy to avoid detection and it's only able to nab a small percentage of people actually engaging in it, that would be a weak policy.

For instance, if there were a legal framework around trying to stop underage drinking, and it only nabbed 1% of the people buying alcohol for minors, I'd suggest that it was pretty weak.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

If it's structured in such a way that it's pretty easy to avoid detection and it's only able to nab a small percentage of people actually engaging in it, that would be a weak policy.

That's all well and good, but you haven't shown that it's actually easy to avoid detection or that it only nabs a small percentage of offenders. All we have are your assumptions.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

That's all well and good, but you haven't shown that it's actually easy to avoid detection or that it only nabs a small percentage of offenders. All we have are your assumptions.

So you don't see a universal mail-in, ID-free, system where it's basically people "eyeballing the signature" as particularly easy quality control to circumnavigate?

How can it not be?


That'd be sort of like an online alcohol delivery service that didn't require any ID verification and simply just asked a person to check a box saying they were at least 21. And when concerns are raised, being met with "Well you're just assuming that 19 and 20 year olds are abusing that honor system, but you don't have any proof" Common sense and knowledge of the impassioned (and sometimes erratic) nature of young people would dictate that it would be a concern.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

So you don't see a universal mail-in, ID-free, system where it's basically people "eyeballing the signature" as particularly easy quality control to circumnavigate?

How can it not be?

Because we see little evidence of people successfully circumventing it, despite multiple massive efforts to show that that's what's happening.

That'd be sort of like an online alcohol delivery service that didn't require any ID verification and simply just asked a person to check a box saying they were at least 21. And when concerns are raised, being met with "Well you're just assuming that 19 and 20 year olds are abusing that honor system, but you don't have any proof" Common sense and knowledge of the impassioned (and sometimes erratic) nature of young people would dictate that it would be a concern.

There's significantly less incentive to commit voter fraud, especially on an individual basis, than there is to purchase alcohol as a minor.

 

[Whyayeman]

There's significantly less incentive to commit voter fraud, especially on an individual basis, than there is to purchase alcohol as a minor.

That is a telling point. Voting in America is not that popular. Until quite recently fewer than half bothered to vote even once. That does offer scope for personation, I suppose.

The thing is, in America and the UK it does not seem to happen much. The most expensive ever 'audit' of the system happened in Arizona in response to claims of 'massive fraud' and nothing of significance was uncovered. I think the reason for that was that it did not happen on a detectable scale.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

That is a telling point. Voting in America is not that popular. Until quite recently fewer than half bothered to vote even once. That does offer scope for personation, I suppose.

The thing is, in America and the UK it does not seem to happen much. The most expensive ever 'audit' of the system happened in Arizona in response to claims of 'massive fraud' and nothing of significance was uncovered. I think the reason for that was that it did not happen on a detectable scale.

It's not even about the popularity of voting, just that an individual gets nothing from casting a fraudulent vote. The chances of one vote changing a result are virtually zero, with no way to predict when it would be effective, and there are no material rewards for voting aside from a sticker (if you vote in person).