election day fraud and exploitation

[Demosthenes]

Nov 10, 2012 14:40:43 GMT -5 Pete said:

The answer to solve the problem of an uninformed electorate is to better education--you know, the source. The problem of low voter turnout is not solved by making it harder to vote.


At some point you have to trust the voters to be able to educate themselves.

Better education is not the problem. Personal responsibility is the problem. How do you solve personal responsibility? By the social contract. I find it funny that when someone criminally breaks the social contract, we send that person to jail. However, when someone civilly breaks the social contract (like refusing to take education provided for them seriously) we enact laws to make it easier for them, usually at the expense of those that adhere to the social contract.

[Pete]

You know what forcing a proficiency test for the right to vote would accomplish? People learning how to game the system and answer a test. In other words, the same exact thing that happens in public schools today. People being taught to pass a test instead of taught to LEARN something. No one would learn a blessed thing from any kind of "right to vote" test, certainly not about the issues and the candidates.

What made you decide on 80% being a justifiable grade to be allowed to vote? Why is 80% the magic number and not 75? Why not make it 100? If you just picked 80 more or less out of the blue, that's not a particularly strong foundation around which to build a law.

[Pete]

Nov 10, 2012 14:57:00 GMT -5 Demosthenes said:

Again, how is this test biased? Are you saying, inherently, that minorities are inferior to whites? Are poor people not smart enough to pass a basic test just because they are poor?

The black-white test score gap is measured, real, and verifiable.

I can't copy and paste passages from the book, but it isn't BLACKS R TEH DUMB. It's about measuring hard data and trying to draw conclusions, Nate Silver-style. And then offer solutions for how to eliminate it. It's enlightening stuff even if you don't want to pay for more than the free Google Books preview. With less data available at the time, the same gap existed for Hispanics and American Indians in comparison to whites and Asians.

I can't fathom the possibility of constructing such a test that wouldn't have the same result.

[marktaggart]

For Pete's sake , let's get back on topic.

foxnewsinsider.com/2012/11/07/voter-fraud-watch-two-election-judges-replaced-after-illegal-activity-in-ohio/

"[Fox News senior correspondent Eric] Shawn detailed reports of broken voting machines and ballot scanners in addition to long lines and hours of waiting. He then explained that some voters arrived at their polling places only to be told they weren’t on the voter rolls — or worse yet, that they had already voted when they hadn’t.

In Hamilton County, the area that houses Cincinnati, two election judges — one Republican and one Democrat — were replaced after illegally allowing unregistered voters to cast their ballots.

Shawn also pointed out how there are 205,422 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio, which is more than double the difference (100,763) between the confirmed popular vote. For those who cast those provisional votes, there are still 10 days to contact election officials and claim eligibility."

And then there's this:

www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/11/florida-officials-order-partial-recount-in-tight-congressional-race-between-rep/

"Late on Election Night, Congressman West led by 1,700 votes," West for Congress said in a statement. "Following the St. Lucie County Supervisor of Elections’ decision to recount thousands of early ballots after a technical glitch, the margin shifted by 4,000. In order to ensure that votes were not doubled counted, we have requested that the St. Lucie Supervisor of Elections make public the poll check-in books to ensure the numbers of ballots cast matches the numbers of voters checked-in at the polls."

[chewey]

I thank you Mark for spreading some information on this story and starting this discussion. I have heard stories of both parties doing this kind of thing in the election, and I agree it's a problem.

My biggest problem with Demosthenes' idea of a test administered to prospective voters.. I'm confident I could pass that threshold, but holy Christ are you seriously suggesting that we extend the wait at the ballot lines by another two or three hours by having an extra test be a prerequisite for voting? You're going to get lower turnout just from people who are frustrated that the event has become a full day affair. Then again, people who actually work would probably be the most turned off by the added wait time.

The idea of a test is not a bad one in theory, but in practice would likely cause a lot more problems than it is intended to solve.

[marktaggart]

Here's where I draw the line with which adults should and should not be allowed to vote: if an adult is considered to be of diminished mental capacity to the point where they are not allowed by the state to act as their own guardian, that person should be deemed ineligible to vote. If a person is 40 years old, can barely recognize their own mother, and cannot distinguish between food and non-food items without supervision, then I would say it is a safe bet they cannot make a decision about who should hold public office. Not without a tremendous deal of "help" at any rate, which is the concern that prompted the initial post of this topic. Beyond that, while I would like to see a system where the voters actually KNEW what they were voting about, I know it is unrealistic given the nature of the current electorate. In a completely free society (which we do not currently have) people have the right to be willfully stupid.

[Bazzy]

You wouldn't think it was USA , you was talking about ? . How sad !