We have had similar troubles with a mismatched character between the IRS's and Social Security's records of our daughter. Took ages to straighten out and I'm not currently sure that we've actually heard the last of it.
I changed my name on marriage in a delayed and erratic fashion (told my CC companies, used my credit cards to change my drivers license, used my license to change my SS card) -- I'm always expecting that to come back and bite me. Particularly since, due to the length and hyphenation of my married last name, every system has a slightly different version (truncated, not truncated, no hyphen but a space, no space no hyphen, differently truncated).
Could electoral woes be justification for the Left to push for a national ID card? I can see the advantages (one, nationalized system; easier recovery of lost documents; more security against identity theft). But beyond the difficulties of implentation, I suspect such a card would be viewed suspiciously by immigrant and recently naturalized communities (especially Latinos); other minorities (who historically oppose any new "obstacles" to voting); and libertarians (who historically are batshit crazy).
How does the national ID card make identity theft harder? That's a sincere question.
I'm also very very touchy about scare quotes around the word "obstacles," in view of e.g. this. This too. When Republicans push anti-fraud legislation, any obstacles they create to black people voting are features, not bugs.
So why d'ja do it? I'm just looking for a link here, I seem to remember B whipping people around the room on this a month or so ago and you've probably said.
4: Assuming this new national identity card had a unique number (that is, not your SSN#), it'd be another piece of information needed to apply for credit, etc. At present, you need only name, birthdate, SSN#, and maybe an accurate and verifiable address/phone. Of course, with time, fraud rings would likely compile databases including this new piece of information, too. But it would be another layer of security, methinks.
I guess all hurdles of every kind in voting rolls are presumed to favor Republicans, because of more regular and persnickety characters and because of much more friendly attitudes on the part of election workers in predominantly Republican areas. Whereas challenging Democratic voters is a time-honored and usually asymetrically Republican tactic. See the early career of William Rehnquist.
I would like to see/participate in serious grassroots voter registration, which is already being done but is a Sisyphian task, and going out to the suburbs and steeling yourself to challenge the hell out of them.
The goals of establishing voter registration procedures are two-fold:
(1) Make it as easy as possible for people to regisiter and vote;
(2) Give the public confidence that voter rolls are free from irregularites and tampering.
Diebold's approach violates the first; the national ID card would (at least seemingly) violate the second. How to accomplish both? Surely some sensible state has an elegant solution.
Maybe I'm just being clueless, but are there really voter registration problems that need solving? Given the embarassingly low electoral turnout in this country, I'd say our problem isn't that too few people are voting legitimately, it's that too few people are voting.
Of course, with time, fraud rings would likely compile databases including this new piece of information, too. But it would be another layer of security, methinks.
I guess all hurdles of every kind in voting rolls are presumed to favor Republicans, because of more regular and persnickety characters and because of much more friendly attitudes on the part of election workers in predominantly Republican areas. Whereas challenging Democratic voters is a time-honored and usually asymetrically Republican tactic. See the early career of William Rehnquist.
I am not sure what this means. I can tell you that as a Republican poll-watcher, I saw a number of instances of voting irregularities and improprieties--all favoring Democrats. Indeed, I had a Democratic election worker in the South Bronz refuse to let me inspect her voting machine and make such a scene that I had to leave the polling place. When I went to a pay phone to call in about the incident, another Democratic poll worker followed me and started screaming at me about how white people were not welcome there and had no right to inspect the polls.
I have worked as a Republican election inspector in a heavily Democratic area, and did not challenge (or see any other poll worker) challenge any voter (Democrat or otherwise).
I'm not saying that there is not voter fraud on both sides and efforts to deter voting on both sides, but you are buying into a myth if you think policing voter fraud is nothing more than a racist Republican plot to throw out the votes of properly registered Democratic voters.
The analogy isn't apt. A National ID is supposed to be a key, the possession of which gives you access to goodies like inalienable rights and airplane cabins. It is, among other things, what thieves want to steal, not a defense against theft.
I do want to see an army of lawyers doing it in Westchester, though.
Fair enough. I suspect that the county political organizations are always looking for poll watchers. I know we had a Democratic poll watcher at the last general election at my polling site in Nassau County. I must confess that I do not remember her ever checking my machine. She was mostly interested in finding out how many people had voted (which information we happily gave her).
It is, among other things, what thieves want to steal, not a defense against theft.
Thieves want to steal your identity, meaning enough personal information to pose as you for the purposes of, say, opening credit-card accounts and buying shit. The National ID card itself, and its unique number, would be another piece of information needed to open such accounts. The card (and its number) per se would not be the end goal of identity thieves. This information would be another piece in their fiendish puzzle.
I think I'm overly sensitive to ID theft, because of the number of cases of ID theft I encounter at work. Perhaps I should be more attuned to the obstacle argument and less concerned with verifying that people are who they say they are.
Ideal: Putting completely aside accusations of bad faith on the part of individual poll workers (I.e., the sort of thing present in the South in the 50's and 60's, less so otherwise), there's a clear sense in which tighter control on voter registration, even where that control has nothing to do with the elimination of fraud, structurally favors Republicans.
Structurally, poor people tend to vote Democratic by a large margin (as do minorities and recent immigrants, but I think the overlap between those categories and poor people explains enough of the pattern). Poor people move often; are less likely to reliably receive their mail; are in every way less likely to successfully negotiate bureaucratic hurdles. Given that fact, any unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle -- even if evenhandedly applied -- is going to preferentially discourage the poor, and is therefore going to have a partisan effect favoring Republicans. (Picture, say, a regime where to register to vote you had to visit an office in the state capital three times at varying stages of the registration process. You could apply a rule like that as evenhandedly as you like, but the Democrats would never win another election.)
This is an issue where the position that provides partisan advantage to Democrats -- having only those obstacles in the way of the voting process that are actually necessary to prevent fraud -- is unambiguously the normatively right position -- allowing everyone who is legally entitled to vote. The position that provides partisan advantage to Republicans (I'm not here accusing any Republican of holding this position, just saying that if they did, they would be advantaged by it) -- making it more difficult than necessary to vote -- is normatively wrong. Fraud, I think, evens out: there's certainly a long history of it on both sides, and everyone should be in favor of measures actually necessary to prevent fraud (like, say, paper ballots.).
A story like this one, where patently unnecessary obstacles are placed in the way of voter registration (whatever you say about fraud, throwing out registration forms for failure to include a middle initial has nothing to do with it), is a bad thing in itself, and it's a bad thing, done by a Republican official, that is going to provide partisan advantage to Republicans. I can certainly fairly object to the bad thing in itself, and I don't think it's unreasonable, when someone makes a boneheaded error in their own favor, to believe that there's a fair chance it was deliberate.
and to 5: The short answer is that I agree with B., and Buck and I both changed our names -- I hyphenated with his, he hyphenated with mine.
(The long answer is that his name is silly (think "Cockburn", but not) and mine is euphonious, if you don't mind the Welsh, and we both wanted to have the same name to avoid the 'so, who gets the kids' conversation. At his suggestion therefore, he was going to change his name to mine, no hyphenation, which was not an option on the marriage license form. I could have changed on the marriage license, but he couldn't. At the wedding, it developed that he hadn't mentioned the name change to his family. Objections were lodged. Firm ones. So we didn't do anything for six months or so, and then did the mutual hyphenation thing in the aforementioned vague and erratic fashion.)
The National ID card itself, and its unique number, would be another piece of information needed
Then if we really want to be secure we should issue everyone three national ID cards.
I think identity theft thrives much more on the carelessness with which our private information is bought and sold and misused, than on an there being an insufficient amount of such information.
The Republican Party does everything it can, legal or illegal, to suppress Democratic turnout and in general this means making voting more difficult. Idealist's personal experiences in the South Bronx do not change that fact. He's assuming a parity that isn't there.
This is an argument which can be developed in great detail, and I doubt that that will happen here. So I'll just throw my 2 cents out.
And based on my experiences in Bronx Civil Court (the next step up from Small Claims Court -- little cases) Ideal's story about getting screamed at is perfectly plausible. (I'd believe it even if it sounded weird, but I know him -- the rest of you don't as much.) It's not a great environment in which to look like "The Man" keeping someone down -- you get a lot of fairly direct hostility.
I'm not saying that there is not voter fraud on both sides and efforts to deter voting on both sides, but you are buying into a myth if you think policing voter fraud is nothing more than a racist Republican plot to throw out the votes of properly registered Democratic voters.
Yes, but Republican state legislatorss passing laws to make it harder to vote is a racist Republican plot to throw out the votes of Democratic voters.
I'm working on being at least formally anonymous, and it's an unusual name (more so than you'd guess. I don't think there's anyone in the US with the name that isn't traceable family to Buck.)
I actually don't think it's all that bad, but it was apparently hell in high school. (And people aggressively misspell and mispronounce it to remove the impropriety.)
Well, I knew a Turkish woman once whose maiden name was Kunt. She kept her married name when she was divorced. I don't remember Buck being Turkish, though.
32: Sure, but it can get sprayed around fairly indiscriminately. I was defending (Big Evil Hateful Corporation) against (Sympathetic African Immigrant), but the suit was insane -- it made no sense at all, and it wasn't going to be life-changing for the plaintiff. I'm polite, and respectful, and was unambiguously right about everything, and I still got some weird hostility, and a loony decision.
I think identity theft thrives much more on the carelessness with which our private information is bought and sold and misused, than on an there being an insufficient amount of such information.
Word to the Bridgeplate. My identity was stolen recently (shakes fist at the heavens) and since they had every piece of identifying information about me, I remain stubbornly unconvinced that one more magic number would have stopped them.
Identity theft really sucks because the surly underpaid people who work the front desk at your neighborhood police station don't really believe it's a real crime, making acquiring the necessary police report a comedically horrible bureaucratic nightmare.
This is an issue where the position that provides partisan advantage to Democrats -- having only those obstacles in the way of the voting process that are actually necessary to prevent fraud -- is unambiguously the normatively right position.
But of course if I were being partisan, I would say that this is the Republican position. Isn't the debate over what are the things which are actually necessary to prevent fraud? It is rhetorically advantageous for you to say that "x" is more than is needed to prevent fraud and thus is a Republican attempt to suppress voting. However, that assumes the answer that it is more than needed rather than actually addresses it. Since we can all agree that the issue should be what is necessary to prevent fraud, it might be more productive to talk about that.
So, on the specific instance you cite, while I find it perfectly understandable how someone could make the bureaucratic decision to do what they have done, it seems unnecessary. Thus, even though I am a Republican, I agree.
I don't think it's unreasonable, when someone makes a boneheaded error in their own favor, to believe that there's a fair chance it was deliberate.
So no, don't ask "Whom does this benefit?" because it so far underdetermines a prudent answer that the only response will be an echo of your own prejudices.
Having recently been the victim of a brand of identity theft—all my identifying documents were burglarized from my house—let me attest to teh suck required to re-establish these documents. If correcting a voter registration snafu such as LB describes is even 1/8 the hassle I'm going through, it will no doubt disproportionately inconvenience and furthermore deter poor voters. I've spent a great deal of sick time/good favor from the boss that minimum-wage workers either do not have or can afford to use in order to track down the proper forms and offices to get these things done.
Furthering the point in 20, it's the partisan prerogative of the U.S. Attorney General to favor the "voter integrity" column of the balance sheet over the "voter access" side. Jeffrey Toobin wrote about Ashcroft's Voting Access and Integrity initiative:
In the abstract, no one questions the goal of eliminating voting fraud, but the idea of involving federal prosecutors in election supervision troubles many civil-rights advocates, because few assistant United States attorneys have much familiarity with the laws protecting voter access. That has traditionally been the province of the lawyers in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division, whose role is defined by the Voting Rights Act. In a subtle way, the Ashcroft initiative nudged some of these career civil-rights lawyers toward the sidelines.
The effect of federal challenges to ballots and voter registrations also falls along partisan lines: 82 of the 100 counties where the vote is challenged most often are blue enclaves in the deep south.
My identity was stolen recently (shakes fist at the heavens) and since they had every piece of identifying information about me, I remain stubbornly unconvinced that one more magic number would have stopped them.
I also expect that having a national ID card would make people more lax about identification standards in general. Why need two forms of ID if you have an national ID card code?
But of course if I were being partisan, I would say that this is the Republican position.
You're not following the asymmetry in the situation. Assume a Democrat and a Republican setting up rules. Both are interested in preventing fraud, because fraud is a bad thing, and both sides do it, and you can't tell how it can turn out. The Democrat has a partisan interest in setting rules that will prevent fraud, but will be no more restrictive than necessary to prevent fraud. The Republican has a partisan interest in setting rules that will prevent fraud, and that can be as restrictive as you like -- the more restrictive they are, the better off he is. (It is possible that he wants the rules to be as unrestrictive as possible, but if that is the case he is acting against his partisan interest. Decent people do that sometimes, but not everyone does, and not all the time.)
On matters of tightening voter registration rules, Republicans are a fox guarding a henhouse. They may be restrained by their decency and moral fiber, but they have a clear partisan interest in making it more difficult than necessary to vote. (And the ogged quote applies to figuring out who did something. We know here who, and we know we want them to stop; the only open question is why.)
If I were to be contentious, I would point out that you have the analysis exactly backwards. A Democrat--by your own logic--has an incentive to under-enforce fraud rules and thus is the fox guarding the henhouse. And thus by the cui bono principle which you advocate, should not be trusted to make laws relating to voter access.
I do not bellieve this, and think it it should be possible for people to try to discuss this on the merits. But that's just me.
bad faith on the part of individual poll workers (I.e., the sort of thing present in the South in the 50's and 60's, less so otherwise
I believe, though I'm not quite sure, that the GOP still entertains the strategy of tactically challenging voters in poor neighborhoods; not so much to stop them from voting, but to create really long lines that will encourage people to leave without voting. I don't have any specific links though (however, given this which goes pretty high into the Republican party, I'm not feeling too bad about not giving them the benefit of the doubt).
And I distinctly remember, though I do not have a link, that recently there was at least one black precinct in New York in which the Republicans challenged pretty much every absentee ballot that was filed; on grounds such as writing "The Holy Land" for where the voter would be on election day instead of "Israel." And it was New York! What did it matter?
So (no disrespect meant to Ideal) I'm not confident that every poll worker is acting in good faith.
(Previewing on 47: It's not clear that the Democrat has an incentive to allow fraud, unless the Democrats are the only people who will be able to pull fraud off. Yes the Democrat has an incentive to, other things being equal, allow people to vote, but it's not clear that that creates the same asymmetry.)
A Democrat--by your own logic--has an incentive to under-enforce fraud rules and thus is the fox guarding the henhouse.
As Weiner says, not really. Fraud can go both ways -- if the laws are too lax, Republicans can commit fraud as easily as Democrats, and historically both parties have. (Anyone remember the deal that the Democrats offered Nixon in Illinois in 1960? He could have his recount in Chicago, so long as they recounted Downstate too. Oddly, he turned it down.) If there's an argument that voter fraud systematically advantages Democrats, I'm not aware of it. (I've seen unsupported accusations along this line, but nothing with any factual backup.)
So there isn't an asymmetrical interest in allowing fraud (over the system as a whole. In any given situation, either the Democratic or the Republican side may have enough local control that fraud would advantage them disproportionately.). The asymmetry only comes into play on unnecessary restrictions.
(I do want to reiterate, or say for the first time if I haven't said it before, that Republicans are less honest or upright than Democrats in this regard. All I'm saying is that they're subject to a systematic temptation, that by making it harder than necessary to vote, they can improve their outcomes, that Democrats aren't subject to.)
I doubt that the Republican Party, or rather the group of GOP officials responsible for monitoring voter integrity, is sufficiently monolithic and insidious to devise a tactical scheme to create long lines. IME they simply suspect that voter fraud doesn't happen ever in the suburbs, so they direct their efforts toward other places—cities, counties, wherever it is that poor and minority communities congregate. The data attest to this focus.
54: There were a lot of complaints in Ohio, 2004 about underprovision of voting machines in Democratic areas. That's not a fraud issue, but it wouldn't take any great or particularly unlikely conspiracy to carry it out.
Insofar as I'm giving the GOP the benefit of the doubt, it shouldn't be read as high praise for them, since where I don't suspect machinations I see instead that Republicans just don't like black/poor people.
54: As per the link in 54, the GOP was monolithic, coordinated, and evil enough to jam the Democrats' phone banking operations in New Hampshire, and the RNC has been paying the defense costs of at least one of the people involved. In related news, when six GOP staffers in South Dakota were caught fraudulizing absentee ballot applications, several of them were brought in to run Bush's GOTV operations in Ohio. And going back to 1964, the operation in which Rehnquist made his bones was decidedly national, called Operation Eagle Eye, and specifically referred to trying to keep lines long in GOP precincts. So I do think that they're monolithic and insidious enough to devise a tactical scheme to create long lines.
Re: Matt's 49, obviously not everyone is acting in good faith. They are people, and people do not uniformly act in good faith. It is the case, however, that each party has voting dirty tricks, and those tricks tend to be different. Republicans typically sin by illigitimately restricting access, Democrats typically sin by illigitimately including the votes of people who shouldn't be voting (because they have already voted, or because they are not citizens, or because they do not exist). Idealist is absolutely right that the cui bono question applies equally (in principle) to both sides.
Democrats typically sin by illigitimately including the votes of people who shouldn't be voting (because they have already voted, or because they are not citizens, or because they do not exist).
I contest this: or rather, I have seen no support for the proposition that Democrats do this more than Republicans, or are for some reason able to do it more than Republicans. What is your support for the proposition that this sort of voter fraud is particularly Democratic more than Republican?
So let's consider the cui bono maiori question. To whom the greater or more likely benefit? And we'll consider that both sides are acting in good faith: Republicans aren't trying to disenfranchise anyone who legitimately has the right to vote.
Democrats aren't trying to rely on the felon vote.
We have two cases.
Case A: Very strict voter regulations that (say) perfectly catch all fraudulent behavior, but at the expense of denying some perfectly legitimate and, say, overwhelmingly Democratic votes.
Advantage: Republicans. Given the close elections, barring legitimate voters who are more likely to vote Democratic could swing counties or states red.
Case B: Less strict voter regulations that miss some fraudulent behavior, but don't bar anyone who legitimately has the right to vote.
Advantage: Democrats. Assuming that the barring usually happens in poor or black neighborhoods, etc, more Democrats will be elected if less people are disenfranchised.
Okay. But we're postulating for fun that no Republican would ever deny people the right to vote because they'd vote against them. No Democrat would, either. So Case A seems to be too strict. And the case against Case B seems to be not that people who are supposed to vote can vote, but that the frauds can.
So let's focus on the effect the frauds would have an election. Clearly it would be a bad thing if the frauds determined an election. And what sort of frauds do we worry about? Non-citizens, felons (depending on the state), revotes.
What are the chances of that fraud, and is it high enough to bar legitimate voters? I don't know the answer, though I suspect the non-citizen and felon vote is rather low.
But to me figuring out what we should do doesn't depend on which party benefits, but whether the chances of that fraud are high enough to throw an election.
For Democratic misconduct there's this, which is more like the phone bank thing than anything else (I'm just linking it because I'm familiar with it). It probably didn't go as high up in the party as the New Hampshire thing.
64 was a little hasty, but let me put it more sedately.
There are two different and unconnected sorts of electoral misconduct we are discussing here. They are not points on a continuum -- you do not start with one, move through a middle point, and then arrive at the other.
(1) Electoral fraud: allowing people to vote repeatedly, recording votes that were never cast, allowing people to vote who are not legally entitled to. There is nothing of which I am aware in the nature of electoral fraud that makes it easier or more rewarding for one party to commit fraud than the other -- criminals are present in both parties, and crime is as possible and as rewarding for Republicans as for Democrats. History shows many occasions of fraud committed by both parties. (In an attempt not to be disingenous, I will agree that I am aware of a strong association of this sort of fraud with big-city Democratic machine politics. That said, the machines are history, and even in the machine era, there was matching Republican fraud (see, downstate Illinois, 1960.) I'm not aware of data showing that Democrats do now, or ever did, engage in fraud more than Republicans.) Fraud is a symmetrical problem: both parties have an incentive to engage in it, both parties have an incentive to prevent the other from engaging in it.
(2) Preventing legal voters from voting: This structurally favors Republicans, because the poorest voters, and thus the most easily discouraged, are mostly Democrats. An evenhanded obstacle in the way of registering to vote is a boon for Republicans and a blow to Democrats. (It would be possible for Democrats to do things like challenging voters in Republican areas, where they controlled the voting process to undersupply Republican areas with voting machines, etc. But given the demographics of the two parties untargeted obstacles are never going to help them.)
The parties really aren't in a symmetrical position on this issue.
Not sure I have much to add, but the topic is very dear to me. Standpipe Bridgeplate: Schneier's pieces on the topic are wonderful, nicely linked.
Stanley: Indeed the pupose of online voter registration, as envisioned by HAVA, is to increase voter turn out. There is immense legislative pressure to implement a voter registration system, and use the money allocated for such purposes by the federal government. Unfortunately, the Sec. of State of CA has to approve of a vendor's product before its allowed to be selected, and the list is short. They are left in quite a conundrum: break the law and lose millions of funding, or buy Diebold's sytem. Its not a totaly monopolpy, but the process in CA is not ideal for purchasing voting equipment. Also, there are no standards or idependent testing of registration systems, so in a sense the products could be worse than the DRE machines. (yikes!)
The national voter ID is subject to function creep, abuse, and intimdation. Already, people go into neighborhoods (mostly dem neighborhoods) and scare them into not voting by telling them that police and debt agencies will be waiting for them outside the polling station. We do not require citizens to get an identification card or a driver's lisense. They are not required to vote, but are acceptable forms of identification so lots of people use them. People who fear being found too easily will not get a national voter ID and, thus, will be alienated from contributing to a process they have a right, nay responsibility, to be a part of.
The mail-in systems (they basically run their entire election on absentee ballots in Oregon) are threatened with fraud. But security is a spectrum, and we have to ask what sort of fraud we are willing to accept, if it means the sacrifice of voter disenfrancisement. In practice, its not clear that mail-in systems have gigantic fraud issues, despite the folk-lore of nurses selling the absentee ballots of their dimensia patients (who don't even know there is an election) to the highest bidder.
59, I don't dispute those cases. But I also don't think they speak convincingly to the much broader, less apparently evil focus of the GOP, implemented by Ashcroft and adopted from the Attorney General's office on down the legal ladder, to sideline voter access initiatives in favor of voter integrity advocacy (or voter fraud prevention). Voter fraud prevention is good and important, and voter fraud is not the province of either party except as far specific regional and demographic circumstances permit. But a single-minded program to prevent voter fraud—and specifically, to prevent it where they most suspect it, which is among the poor, urban, and minority communities—will have consequences that look like the intended results of a systematic campaign. But when it comes to Ashcroft & co., how do you distinguish between genuine dogma that leads to negative consequences for Dems and an effort intended to suppress Dems?
New Hampshire was bad, every Rove campaign has always been bad, but the much bigger game is in the Attorney General's office, whose behavior can be explained by bad dogma rather than bad faith.
Whether large-scale coordinated illegal or unethical activity takes place or not is a question of fact. Poo-pooing "conspiracy theories" has become such a knee-jerk response that sometimes people deny reality.
The Republican machine put together by Rove and the others is awesome and incredibly well-funded, and it coordinates activities of many different kinds in many different venues, and this machine is not fussy about legality. Non-Republicans who want to change things have to start from understanding this fact.
But to me figuring out what we should do doesn't depend on which party benefits, but whether the chances of that fraud are high enough to throw an election.
I basically agree.
I would say, however, that the question more properly might be reframed as a balancing between the fraud accepted and legitimate votes excluded. Any system will allow some fraud and (almost) any system will place impediments in the way of legitimate voters. The challenge is to find the proper balance. I agree that an important question in setting that balance is the practical effect of the regulations, that is, are they likely to affect the outcome of an election. In this regard, I would say that revotes and voting in a different jurisdiction are probably the biggest concern.
Case B: Less strict voter regulations that miss some fraudulent behavior, but don't bar anyone who legitimately has the right to vote.
Advantage: Democrats. Assuming that the barring usually happens in poor or black neighborhoods, etc, more Democrats will be elected if less people are disenfranchised.
Cala-
The thing you've left out here, is that while case be is certainly more advantageous for the Democrats, some part of that 'advantage' is legitimate -- the legal votes permitted by this system are more likely to be Democratic (and the matching 'advantage' for the Republicans in Case A is illegitimate, in that it results not from suppression of fraud, but from suppression of legitimate votes.)
The other portion of the effect -- the effect on the election due to actual fraud -- is not clearly an advantage to Republicans or to Democrats. In a system loose enough to allow some fraud, both parties can commit it, and under the assumption that both parties are of similar moral stature, both will.
LB, maybe I don't understand what you're saying, but at the policy level voter access and voter integrity do exist on a continuum. The law is so vague as to require the Justice Department to secure "voting rights" but leaves the matter of emphasis to the discretion of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division. The Bush administration swung in a maximal direction toward ensuring voter integrity and de-emphasizing voter access.
LB, was making that point. Rather ham-handedly, I'll admit.
But assuming that no one *really* has a problem with people voting if they're allowed to (i.e., no Republican could openly say "We oppose this because then minorities might vote and we might lose."), then the Democrat's advantage falls out, and we're left only with fraud, which shouldn't favor either side. I was suggesting we should focus on fraud, rather than who favors.
What I'm saying is that while tightening regulations hurts Democrats and loosening them helps Democrats, the mechanism by which loosening them helps Democrats isn't by allowing fraud, but by allowing legit votes. The fraud allowed by looser regulations can cut one way or the other -- anyone, regardless of party affiliation, can commit fraud.
It is therefore wrong to think of the issue as "Republicans are better off when more legitimate voters are prevented from voting; Democrats are better off when there is more fraud," as if the question were which kind of bad behavior to allow -- the kind that always benefits Republicans or always benefits Democrats. The issue is "Republicans are better off when more legit voters are prevented from voting; Democrats are best off when all legal voters can vote; fraudsters are better off when laws are loose enough to allow fraud."
78: I assuming you're thinking you're disagreeing with me, and the thing is that's the position I was arguing for, so I'm just going to say 'I suck' and be done with it, because I'm not arguing with someone with whom I agree completely.
77 to 75, crossposted with 76 with which I agree. (And 69 should refer to 62 rather than 64. Everyone got that? There's going to be a pop quiz.)
I'm all over requiring a voter-verified paper ballot trail to prevent fraud, and any kind of voter registration drive that goes into poor neighborhoods and registers people with any reasonable form of ID, I'm perfectly happy with. Photo IDs for voting are fine, so long as they're free and easily available in all areas. Reasonable fraud prevention steps are great -- it's just the unreasonable ones, like the one in the posted story, that bug me.
Thank you for 21, I've been away at lunch. I asked because my wife has been more than a little distressed about the rate people have gone back to taking h's name, and I always ask. You may recall I have a silly and sexually suggestive name myself; I wouldn't have changed it but I've been glad that I didn't have to inflict it on my wife. My kids appear to be less sensitive than I was.
In this regard, I would say that revotes and voting in a different jurisdiction are probably the biggest concern.
To keep arguing, now that peace has broken out: Ideal, can you point me to anything suggesting that either revotes or voting in a different jurisdiction are any substantial concern? I just don't recall seeing any news coverage of this actually happening.
can you point me to anything suggesting that either revotes or voting in a different jurisdiction are any substantial concern
Given that I have already neglected too many clients today by commenting instead, probably not now. But so I know what I'm looking for, are you asking for an argument why these are bad things, evidence that they happen or evidence that they happen so much they may affect the outcome of elections?
I obviously live too far away to get the references right; perhaps Nassau will do? Around here I would have said Lake Forest, but you're right about more gentile suburbs of really big cities not being the heart of darkness, and in fact being reachable in the current climate. Dupage County then.
The third. They're obviously bad, and Anne Coulter just got caught voting in the wrong jurisdiction so they happen sometimes. I'm wondering about evidence that the current level of security in this regard is insufficient.
Oh, the latter -- anything that came close to affecting the vote in any given jurisdiction by, say, anywhere near one percent would be something I was concerned about.
It's a characteristic, and I admit, belligerent statement by Billy Prior, the character who comes to dominate Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy. I've been thinking of it as a blog name for a while now, and it also describes my attitude, not purely driven by cheapness or asperity, toward many things.
We have had similar troubles with a mismatched character between the IRS's and Social Security's records of our daughter. Took ages to straighten out and I'm not currently sure that we've actually heard the last of it.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 8:41 AM
I changed my name on marriage in a delayed and erratic fashion (told my CC companies, used my credit cards to change my drivers license, used my license to change my SS card) -- I'm always expecting that to come back and bite me. Particularly since, due to the length and hyphenation of my married last name, every system has a slightly different version (truncated, not truncated, no hyphen but a space, no space no hyphen, differently truncated).
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 8:52 AM
Could electoral woes be justification for the Left to push for a national ID card? I can see the advantages (one, nationalized system; easier recovery of lost documents; more security against identity theft). But beyond the difficulties of implentation, I suspect such a card would be viewed suspiciously by immigrant and recently naturalized communities (especially Latinos); other minorities (who historically oppose any new "obstacles" to voting); and libertarians (who historically are batshit crazy).
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 9:17 AM
How does the national ID card make identity theft harder? That's a sincere question.
I'm also very very touchy about scare quotes around the word "obstacles," in view of e.g. this. This too. When Republicans push anti-fraud legislation, any obstacles they create to black people voting are features, not bugs.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 9:27 AM
#2:
So why d'ja do it? I'm just looking for a link here, I seem to remember B whipping people around the room on this a month or so ago and you've probably said.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 9:44 AM
4: Assuming this new national identity card had a unique number (that is, not your SSN#), it'd be another piece of information needed to apply for credit, etc. At present, you need only name, birthdate, SSN#, and maybe an accurate and verifiable address/phone. Of course, with time, fraud rings would likely compile databases including this new piece of information, too. But it would be another layer of security, methinks.
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 9:46 AM
A National ID card is a rotten security measure. I don't want it even vaguely associated with "the Left", insofar as I belong to "the Left".
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 9:54 AM
I guess all hurdles of every kind in voting rolls are presumed to favor Republicans, because of more regular and persnickety characters and because of much more friendly attitudes on the part of election workers in predominantly Republican areas. Whereas challenging Democratic voters is a time-honored and usually asymetrically Republican tactic. See the early career of William Rehnquist.
I would like to see/participate in serious grassroots voter registration, which is already being done but is a Sisyphian task, and going out to the suburbs and steeling yourself to challenge the hell out of them.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 10:03 AM
The goals of establishing voter registration procedures are two-fold:
(1) Make it as easy as possible for people to regisiter and vote;
(2) Give the public confidence that voter rolls are free from irregularites and tampering.
Diebold's approach violates the first; the national ID card would (at least seemingly) violate the second. How to accomplish both? Surely some sensible state has an elegant solution.
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 10:15 AM
Maybe I'm just being clueless, but are there really voter registration problems that need solving? Given the embarassingly low electoral turnout in this country, I'd say our problem isn't that too few people are voting legitimately, it's that too few people are voting.
Of course, with time, fraud rings would likely compile databases including this new piece of information, too. But it would be another layer of security, methinks.
The first sentence contradicts the second here.
Posted by Matthew Harvey | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 10:19 AM
Standpipe's second link has convinced me that lowering the drinking age to 18 would substantially improve our national security.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 10:20 AM
10 -- A second lock on your door is still an extra level of security even though the thief could potentially pick it too.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 10:23 AM
I guess all hurdles of every kind in voting rolls are presumed to favor Republicans, because of more regular and persnickety characters and because of much more friendly attitudes on the part of election workers in predominantly Republican areas. Whereas challenging Democratic voters is a time-honored and usually asymetrically Republican tactic. See the early career of William Rehnquist.
I am not sure what this means. I can tell you that as a Republican poll-watcher, I saw a number of instances of voting irregularities and improprieties--all favoring Democrats. Indeed, I had a Democratic election worker in the South Bronz refuse to let me inspect her voting machine and make such a scene that I had to leave the polling place. When I went to a pay phone to call in about the incident, another Democratic poll worker followed me and started screaming at me about how white people were not welcome there and had no right to inspect the polls.
I have worked as a Republican election inspector in a heavily Democratic area, and did not challenge (or see any other poll worker) challenge any voter (Democrat or otherwise).
I'm not saying that there is not voter fraud on both sides and efforts to deter voting on both sides, but you are buying into a myth if you think policing voter fraud is nothing more than a racist Republican plot to throw out the votes of properly registered Democratic voters.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 10:26 AM
I don't resent your doing that; it's how the game is played. I do want to see an army of lawyers doing it in Westchester, though.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 10:29 AM
A second lock
The analogy isn't apt. A National ID is supposed to be a key, the possession of which gives you access to goodies like inalienable rights and airplane cabins. It is, among other things, what thieves want to steal, not a defense against theft.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 10:32 AM
screaming at me about how white people were not welcome there
Wow.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 10:34 AM
I do want to see an army of lawyers doing it in Westchester, though.
Fair enough. I suspect that the county political organizations are always looking for poll watchers. I know we had a Democratic poll watcher at the last general election at my polling site in Nassau County. I must confess that I do not remember her ever checking my machine. She was mostly interested in finding out how many people had voted (which information we happily gave her).
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 10:36 AM
After 2004, I remember Galbraith endorsed the mail-in system apparently already used in Oregon. Sounded good to me.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 10:45 AM
It is, among other things, what thieves want to steal, not a defense against theft.
Thieves want to steal your identity, meaning enough personal information to pose as you for the purposes of, say, opening credit-card accounts and buying shit. The National ID card itself, and its unique number, would be another piece of information needed to open such accounts. The card (and its number) per se would not be the end goal of identity thieves. This information would be another piece in their fiendish puzzle.
I think I'm overly sensitive to ID theft, because of the number of cases of ID theft I encounter at work. Perhaps I should be more attuned to the obstacle argument and less concerned with verifying that people are who they say they are.
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 10:49 AM
Ideal: Putting completely aside accusations of bad faith on the part of individual poll workers (I.e., the sort of thing present in the South in the 50's and 60's, less so otherwise), there's a clear sense in which tighter control on voter registration, even where that control has nothing to do with the elimination of fraud, structurally favors Republicans.
Structurally, poor people tend to vote Democratic by a large margin (as do minorities and recent immigrants, but I think the overlap between those categories and poor people explains enough of the pattern). Poor people move often; are less likely to reliably receive their mail; are in every way less likely to successfully negotiate bureaucratic hurdles. Given that fact, any unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle -- even if evenhandedly applied -- is going to preferentially discourage the poor, and is therefore going to have a partisan effect favoring Republicans. (Picture, say, a regime where to register to vote you had to visit an office in the state capital three times at varying stages of the registration process. You could apply a rule like that as evenhandedly as you like, but the Democrats would never win another election.)
This is an issue where the position that provides partisan advantage to Democrats -- having only those obstacles in the way of the voting process that are actually necessary to prevent fraud -- is unambiguously the normatively right position -- allowing everyone who is legally entitled to vote. The position that provides partisan advantage to Republicans (I'm not here accusing any Republican of holding this position, just saying that if they did, they would be advantaged by it) -- making it more difficult than necessary to vote -- is normatively wrong. Fraud, I think, evens out: there's certainly a long history of it on both sides, and everyone should be in favor of measures actually necessary to prevent fraud (like, say, paper ballots.).
A story like this one, where patently unnecessary obstacles are placed in the way of voter registration (whatever you say about fraud, throwing out registration forms for failure to include a middle initial has nothing to do with it), is a bad thing in itself, and it's a bad thing, done by a Republican official, that is going to provide partisan advantage to Republicans. I can certainly fairly object to the bad thing in itself, and I don't think it's unreasonable, when someone makes a boneheaded error in their own favor, to believe that there's a fair chance it was deliberate.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 10:59 AM
and to 5: The short answer is that I agree with B., and Buck and I both changed our names -- I hyphenated with his, he hyphenated with mine.
(The long answer is that his name is silly (think "Cockburn", but not) and mine is euphonious, if you don't mind the Welsh, and we both wanted to have the same name to avoid the 'so, who gets the kids' conversation. At his suggestion therefore, he was going to change his name to mine, no hyphenation, which was not an option on the marriage license form. I could have changed on the marriage license, but he couldn't. At the wedding, it developed that he hadn't mentioned the name change to his family. Objections were lodged. Firm ones. So we didn't do anything for six months or so, and then did the mutual hyphenation thing in the aforementioned vague and erratic fashion.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:06 AM
The National ID card itself, and its unique number, would be another piece of information needed
Then if we really want to be secure we should issue everyone three national ID cards.
I think identity theft thrives much more on the carelessness with which our private information is bought and sold and misused, than on an there being an insufficient amount of such information.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:06 AM
The Republican Party does everything it can, legal or illegal, to suppress Democratic turnout and in general this means making voting more difficult. Idealist's personal experiences in the South Bronx do not change that fact. He's assuming a parity that isn't there.
This is an argument which can be developed in great detail, and I doubt that that will happen here. So I'll just throw my 2 cents out.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:07 AM
Also, believe me, I think identity theft is teh maximum suxx.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:08 AM
And based on my experiences in Bronx Civil Court (the next step up from Small Claims Court -- little cases) Ideal's story about getting screamed at is perfectly plausible. (I'd believe it even if it sounded weird, but I know him -- the rest of you don't as much.) It's not a great environment in which to look like "The Man" keeping someone down -- you get a lot of fairly direct hostility.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:10 AM
Please disregard my previous comment.
Posted by Standpipe A. Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:11 AM
I'm not saying that there is not voter fraud on both sides and efforts to deter voting on both sides, but you are buying into a myth if you think policing voter fraud is nothing more than a racist Republican plot to throw out the votes of properly registered Democratic voters.
Yes, but Republican state legislatorss passing laws to make it harder to vote is a racist Republican plot to throw out the votes of Democratic voters.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:11 AM
Ha. That is no not my middle initial. The invincible security computer REJECTS you!
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:13 AM
"no" s/b "so" s/b "Joe" s/b "Kangamangus"
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:16 AM
"Like Cockburn": Cockchafer? Butts? Boobie? Hoar? Bumfuck? Pooftah?
We can't stand it, LB. You're such a tease.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:16 AM
30 -- Obv. Buck's last name is Nekkid.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:18 AM
LB: a lot of that hostility is earned, no?
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:18 AM
I'm working on being at least formally anonymous, and it's an unusual name (more so than you'd guess. I don't think there's anyone in the US with the name that isn't traceable family to Buck.)
I actually don't think it's all that bad, but it was apparently hell in high school. (And people aggressively misspell and mispronounce it to remove the impropriety.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:20 AM
re 32: `earned' really should be `understandable'. I'm not at all intending to suggest Idealist (or you) deserve it personally....
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:20 AM
My great-grandparents already had the same last name when they got married, which I suppose eased the name-changing hoops.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:22 AM
Well, I knew a Turkish woman once whose maiden name was Kunt. She kept her married name when she was divorced. I don't remember Buck being Turkish, though.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:23 AM
32: Sure, but it can get sprayed around fairly indiscriminately. I was defending (Big Evil Hateful Corporation) against (Sympathetic African Immigrant), but the suit was insane -- it made no sense at all, and it wasn't going to be life-changing for the plaintiff. I'm polite, and respectful, and was unambiguously right about everything, and I still got some weird hostility, and a loony decision.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:23 AM
I think identity theft thrives much more on the carelessness with which our private information is bought and sold and misused, than on an there being an insufficient amount of such information.
Word to the Bridgeplate. My identity was stolen recently (shakes fist at the heavens) and since they had every piece of identifying information about me, I remain stubbornly unconvinced that one more magic number would have stopped them.
Identity theft really sucks because the surly underpaid people who work the front desk at your neighborhood police station don't really believe it's a real crime, making acquiring the necessary police report a comedically horrible bureaucratic nightmare.
Posted by Matthew Harvey | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:24 AM
Usually brothers and sisters do have the same last name, Apo, unless it was the sister's second marriage.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:24 AM
This is an issue where the position that provides partisan advantage to Democrats -- having only those obstacles in the way of the voting process that are actually necessary to prevent fraud -- is unambiguously the normatively right position.
But of course if I were being partisan, I would say that this is the Republican position. Isn't the debate over what are the things which are actually necessary to prevent fraud? It is rhetorically advantageous for you to say that "x" is more than is needed to prevent fraud and thus is a Republican attempt to suppress voting. However, that assumes the answer that it is more than needed rather than actually addresses it. Since we can all agree that the issue should be what is necessary to prevent fraud, it might be more productive to talk about that.
So, on the specific instance you cite, while I find it perfectly understandable how someone could make the bureaucratic decision to do what they have done, it seems unnecessary. Thus, even though I am a Republican, I agree.
I don't think it's unreasonable, when someone makes a boneheaded error in their own favor, to believe that there's a fair chance it was deliberate.
Ogged (PBUH) might disagree:
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:25 AM
Alternately perhaps Buck's last name pre-marriage was Kidd, and he is now referred to as Buck né Kidd.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:26 AM
Having recently been the victim of a brand of identity theft—all my identifying documents were burglarized from my house—let me attest to teh suck required to re-establish these documents. If correcting a voter registration snafu such as LB describes is even 1/8 the hassle I'm going through, it will no doubt disproportionately inconvenience and furthermore deter poor voters. I've spent a great deal of sick time/good favor from the boss that minimum-wage workers either do not have or can afford to use in order to track down the proper forms and offices to get these things done.
Furthering the point in 20, it's the partisan prerogative of the U.S. Attorney General to favor the "voter integrity" column of the balance sheet over the "voter access" side. Jeffrey Toobin wrote about Ashcroft's Voting Access and Integrity initiative:
The effect of federal challenges to ballots and voter registrations also falls along partisan lines: 82 of the 100 counties where the vote is challenged most often are blue enclaves in the deep south.Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:28 AM
Usually brothers and sisters do have the same last name
While it was in Alabama, our family name is a very common one.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:29 AM
42: cannot afford to lose
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:31 AM
My identity was stolen recently (shakes fist at the heavens) and since they had every piece of identifying information about me, I remain stubbornly unconvinced that one more magic number would have stopped them.
I also expect that having a national ID card would make people more lax about identification standards in general. Why need two forms of ID if you have an national ID card code?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:31 AM
But of course if I were being partisan, I would say that this is the Republican position.
You're not following the asymmetry in the situation. Assume a Democrat and a Republican setting up rules. Both are interested in preventing fraud, because fraud is a bad thing, and both sides do it, and you can't tell how it can turn out. The Democrat has a partisan interest in setting rules that will prevent fraud, but will be no more restrictive than necessary to prevent fraud. The Republican has a partisan interest in setting rules that will prevent fraud, and that can be as restrictive as you like -- the more restrictive they are, the better off he is. (It is possible that he wants the rules to be as unrestrictive as possible, but if that is the case he is acting against his partisan interest. Decent people do that sometimes, but not everyone does, and not all the time.)
On matters of tightening voter registration rules, Republicans are a fox guarding a henhouse. They may be restrained by their decency and moral fiber, but they have a clear partisan interest in making it more difficult than necessary to vote. (And the ogged quote applies to figuring out who did something. We know here who, and we know we want them to stop; the only open question is why.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:35 AM
re: 46
If I were to be contentious, I would point out that you have the analysis exactly backwards. A Democrat--by your own logic--has an incentive to under-enforce fraud rules and thus is the fox guarding the henhouse. And thus by the cui bono principle which you advocate, should not be trusted to make laws relating to voter access.
I do not bellieve this, and think it it should be possible for people to try to discuss this on the merits. But that's just me.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:43 AM
I do not bellieve this
I do not believe that I can spell or type, either.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:46 AM
bad faith on the part of individual poll workers (I.e., the sort of thing present in the South in the 50's and 60's, less so otherwise
I believe, though I'm not quite sure, that the GOP still entertains the strategy of tactically challenging voters in poor neighborhoods; not so much to stop them from voting, but to create really long lines that will encourage people to leave without voting. I don't have any specific links though (however, given this which goes pretty high into the Republican party, I'm not feeling too bad about not giving them the benefit of the doubt).
And I distinctly remember, though I do not have a link, that recently there was at least one black precinct in New York in which the Republicans challenged pretty much every absentee ballot that was filed; on grounds such as writing "The Holy Land" for where the voter would be on election day instead of "Israel." And it was New York! What did it matter?
So (no disrespect meant to Ideal) I'm not confident that every poll worker is acting in good faith.
(Previewing on 47: It's not clear that the Democrat has an incentive to allow fraud, unless the Democrats are the only people who will be able to pull fraud off. Yes the Democrat has an incentive to, other things being equal, allow people to vote, but it's not clear that that creates the same asymmetry.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:48 AM
The Cockchafer family does not show up on Google.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:53 AM
A Democrat--by your own logic--has an incentive to under-enforce fraud rules and thus is the fox guarding the henhouse.
As Weiner says, not really. Fraud can go both ways -- if the laws are too lax, Republicans can commit fraud as easily as Democrats, and historically both parties have. (Anyone remember the deal that the Democrats offered Nixon in Illinois in 1960? He could have his recount in Chicago, so long as they recounted Downstate too. Oddly, he turned it down.) If there's an argument that voter fraud systematically advantages Democrats, I'm not aware of it. (I've seen unsupported accusations along this line, but nothing with any factual backup.)
So there isn't an asymmetrical interest in allowing fraud (over the system as a whole. In any given situation, either the Democratic or the Republican side may have enough local control that fraud would advantage them disproportionately.). The asymmetry only comes into play on unnecessary restrictions.
(I do want to reiterate, or say for the first time if I haven't said it before, that Republicans are less honest or upright than Democrats in this regard. All I'm saying is that they're subject to a systematic temptation, that by making it harder than necessary to vote, they can improve their outcomes, that Democrats aren't subject to.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:58 AM
"Like Cockburn"
Vulvascratch.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:58 AM
Goddam. Apo, can you redact that? If my employer googles me I'm sunk.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:59 AM
I doubt that the Republican Party, or rather the group of GOP officials responsible for monitoring voter integrity, is sufficiently monolithic and insidious to devise a tactical scheme to create long lines. IME they simply suspect that voter fraud doesn't happen ever in the suburbs, so they direct their efforts toward other places—cities, counties, wherever it is that poor and minority communities congregate. The data attest to this focus.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 11:59 AM
Republicans are less honest or upright than Democrats in this regard
Definitely agree.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:00 PM
54: There were a lot of complaints in Ohio, 2004 about underprovision of voting machines in Democratic areas. That's not a fraud issue, but it wouldn't take any great or particularly unlikely conspiracy to carry it out.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:02 PM
51: Um, should have been "not less honest". You knew what I meant.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:03 PM
Insofar as I'm giving the GOP the benefit of the doubt, it shouldn't be read as high praise for them, since where I don't suspect machinations I see instead that Republicans just don't like black/poor people.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:05 PM
54: As per the link in 54, the GOP was monolithic, coordinated, and evil enough to jam the Democrats' phone banking operations in New Hampshire, and the RNC has been paying the defense costs of at least one of the people involved. In related news, when six GOP staffers in South Dakota were caught fraudulizing absentee ballot applications, several of them were brought in to run Bush's GOTV operations in Ohio. And going back to 1964, the operation in which Rehnquist made his bones was decidedly national, called Operation Eagle Eye, and specifically referred to trying to keep lines long in GOP precincts. So I do think that they're monolithic and insidious enough to devise a tactical scheme to create long lines.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:11 PM
Re: Matt's 49, obviously not everyone is acting in good faith. They are people, and people do not uniformly act in good faith. It is the case, however, that each party has voting dirty tricks, and those tricks tend to be different. Republicans typically sin by illigitimately restricting access, Democrats typically sin by illigitimately including the votes of people who shouldn't be voting (because they have already voted, or because they are not citizens, or because they do not exist). Idealist is absolutely right that the cui bono question applies equally (in principle) to both sides.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:11 PM
"lines long in Democratic precincts and moving along in GOP precincts"
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:12 PM
Democrats typically sin by illigitimately including the votes of people who shouldn't be voting (because they have already voted, or because they are not citizens, or because they do not exist).
I contest this: or rather, I have seen no support for the proposition that Democrats do this more than Republicans, or are for some reason able to do it more than Republicans. What is your support for the proposition that this sort of voter fraud is particularly Democratic more than Republican?
(and, Weiner: fraudulizing?)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:14 PM
It is the opposite of credulizing.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:15 PM
If you can say this I can say that "fraudulizing" is a word.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:21 PM
Now that I've been primed with "fraudulizing" I can't think of what the orthodox word would be.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:24 PM
So let's consider the cui bono maiori question. To whom the greater or more likely benefit? And we'll consider that both sides are acting in good faith: Republicans aren't trying to disenfranchise anyone who legitimately has the right to vote.
Democrats aren't trying to rely on the felon vote.
We have two cases.
Case A: Very strict voter regulations that (say) perfectly catch all fraudulent behavior, but at the expense of denying some perfectly legitimate and, say, overwhelmingly Democratic votes.
Advantage: Republicans. Given the close elections, barring legitimate voters who are more likely to vote Democratic could swing counties or states red.
Case B: Less strict voter regulations that miss some fraudulent behavior, but don't bar anyone who legitimately has the right to vote.
Advantage: Democrats. Assuming that the barring usually happens in poor or black neighborhoods, etc, more Democrats will be elected if less people are disenfranchised.
Okay. But we're postulating for fun that no Republican would ever deny people the right to vote because they'd vote against them. No Democrat would, either. So Case A seems to be too strict. And the case against Case B seems to be not that people who are supposed to vote can vote, but that the frauds can.
So let's focus on the effect the frauds would have an election. Clearly it would be a bad thing if the frauds determined an election. And what sort of frauds do we worry about? Non-citizens, felons (depending on the state), revotes.
What are the chances of that fraud, and is it high enough to bar legitimate voters? I don't know the answer, though I suspect the non-citizen and felon vote is rather low.
But to me figuring out what we should do doesn't depend on which party benefits, but whether the chances of that fraud are high enough to throw an election.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:26 PM
For Democratic misconduct there's this, which is more like the phone bank thing than anything else (I'm just linking it because I'm familiar with it). It probably didn't go as high up in the party as the New Hampshire thing.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:27 PM
The closest I can come, in one word, is "forging."
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:28 PM
64 was a little hasty, but let me put it more sedately.
There are two different and unconnected sorts of electoral misconduct we are discussing here. They are not points on a continuum -- you do not start with one, move through a middle point, and then arrive at the other.
(1) Electoral fraud: allowing people to vote repeatedly, recording votes that were never cast, allowing people to vote who are not legally entitled to. There is nothing of which I am aware in the nature of electoral fraud that makes it easier or more rewarding for one party to commit fraud than the other -- criminals are present in both parties, and crime is as possible and as rewarding for Republicans as for Democrats. History shows many occasions of fraud committed by both parties. (In an attempt not to be disingenous, I will agree that I am aware of a strong association of this sort of fraud with big-city Democratic machine politics. That said, the machines are history, and even in the machine era, there was matching Republican fraud (see, downstate Illinois, 1960.) I'm not aware of data showing that Democrats do now, or ever did, engage in fraud more than Republicans.) Fraud is a symmetrical problem: both parties have an incentive to engage in it, both parties have an incentive to prevent the other from engaging in it.
(2) Preventing legal voters from voting: This structurally favors Republicans, because the poorest voters, and thus the most easily discouraged, are mostly Democrats. An evenhanded obstacle in the way of registering to vote is a boon for Republicans and a blow to Democrats. (It would be possible for Democrats to do things like challenging voters in Republican areas, where they controlled the voting process to undersupply Republican areas with voting machines, etc. But given the demographics of the two parties untargeted obstacles are never going to help them.)
The parties really aren't in a symmetrical position on this issue.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:30 PM
Not sure I have much to add, but the topic is very dear to me. Standpipe Bridgeplate: Schneier's pieces on the topic are wonderful, nicely linked.
Stanley: Indeed the pupose of online voter registration, as envisioned by HAVA, is to increase voter turn out. There is immense legislative pressure to implement a voter registration system, and use the money allocated for such purposes by the federal government. Unfortunately, the Sec. of State of CA has to approve of a vendor's product before its allowed to be selected, and the list is short. They are left in quite a conundrum: break the law and lose millions of funding, or buy Diebold's sytem. Its not a totaly monopolpy, but the process in CA is not ideal for purchasing voting equipment. Also, there are no standards or idependent testing of registration systems, so in a sense the products could be worse than the DRE machines. (yikes!)
The national voter ID is subject to function creep, abuse, and intimdation. Already, people go into neighborhoods (mostly dem neighborhoods) and scare them into not voting by telling them that police and debt agencies will be waiting for them outside the polling station. We do not require citizens to get an identification card or a driver's lisense. They are not required to vote, but are acceptable forms of identification so lots of people use them. People who fear being found too easily will not get a national voter ID and, thus, will be alienated from contributing to a process they have a right, nay responsibility, to be a part of.
The mail-in systems (they basically run their entire election on absentee ballots in Oregon) are threatened with fraud. But security is a spectrum, and we have to ask what sort of fraud we are willing to accept, if it means the sacrifice of voter disenfrancisement. In practice, its not clear that mail-in systems have gigantic fraud issues, despite the folk-lore of nurses selling the absentee ballots of their dimensia patients (who don't even know there is an election) to the highest bidder.
Posted by Phutatorius' Chestnut | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:30 PM
59, I don't dispute those cases. But I also don't think they speak convincingly to the much broader, less apparently evil focus of the GOP, implemented by Ashcroft and adopted from the Attorney General's office on down the legal ladder, to sideline voter access initiatives in favor of voter integrity advocacy (or voter fraud prevention). Voter fraud prevention is good and important, and voter fraud is not the province of either party except as far specific regional and demographic circumstances permit. But a single-minded program to prevent voter fraud—and specifically, to prevent it where they most suspect it, which is among the poor, urban, and minority communities—will have consequences that look like the intended results of a systematic campaign. But when it comes to Ashcroft & co., how do you distinguish between genuine dogma that leads to negative consequences for Dems and an effort intended to suppress Dems?
New Hampshire was bad, every Rove campaign has always been bad, but the much bigger game is in the Attorney General's office, whose behavior can be explained by bad dogma rather than bad faith.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:30 PM
Whether large-scale coordinated illegal or unethical activity takes place or not is a question of fact. Poo-pooing "conspiracy theories" has become such a knee-jerk response that sometimes people deny reality.
The Republican machine put together by Rove and the others is awesome and incredibly well-funded, and it coordinates activities of many different kinds in many different venues, and this machine is not fussy about legality. Non-Republicans who want to change things have to start from understanding this fact.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:34 PM
But to me figuring out what we should do doesn't depend on which party benefits, but whether the chances of that fraud are high enough to throw an election.
I basically agree.
I would say, however, that the question more properly might be reframed as a balancing between the fraud accepted and legitimate votes excluded. Any system will allow some fraud and (almost) any system will place impediments in the way of legitimate voters. The challenge is to find the proper balance. I agree that an important question in setting that balance is the practical effect of the regulations, that is, are they likely to affect the outcome of an election. In this regard, I would say that revotes and voting in a different jurisdiction are probably the biggest concern.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:37 PM
Case B: Less strict voter regulations that miss some fraudulent behavior, but don't bar anyone who legitimately has the right to vote.
Advantage: Democrats. Assuming that the barring usually happens in poor or black neighborhoods, etc, more Democrats will be elected if less people are disenfranchised.
Cala-
The thing you've left out here, is that while case be is certainly more advantageous for the Democrats, some part of that 'advantage' is legitimate -- the legal votes permitted by this system are more likely to be Democratic (and the matching 'advantage' for the Republicans in Case A is illegitimate, in that it results not from suppression of fraud, but from suppression of legitimate votes.)
The other portion of the effect -- the effect on the election due to actual fraud -- is not clearly an advantage to Republicans or to Democrats. In a system loose enough to allow some fraud, both parties can commit it, and under the assumption that both parties are of similar moral stature, both will.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:38 PM
LB, maybe I don't understand what you're saying, but at the policy level voter access and voter integrity do exist on a continuum. The law is so vague as to require the Justice Department to secure "voting rights" but leaves the matter of emphasis to the discretion of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division. The Bush administration swung in a maximal direction toward ensuring voter integrity and de-emphasizing voter access.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:39 PM
LB, was making that point. Rather ham-handedly, I'll admit.
But assuming that no one *really* has a problem with people voting if they're allowed to (i.e., no Republican could openly say "We oppose this because then minorities might vote and we might lose."), then the Democrat's advantage falls out, and we're left only with fraud, which shouldn't favor either side. I was suggesting we should focus on fraud, rather than who favors.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:44 PM
What I'm saying is that while tightening regulations hurts Democrats and loosening them helps Democrats, the mechanism by which loosening them helps Democrats isn't by allowing fraud, but by allowing legit votes. The fraud allowed by looser regulations can cut one way or the other -- anyone, regardless of party affiliation, can commit fraud.
It is therefore wrong to think of the issue as "Republicans are better off when more legitimate voters are prevented from voting; Democrats are better off when there is more fraud," as if the question were which kind of bad behavior to allow -- the kind that always benefits Republicans or always benefits Democrats. The issue is "Republicans are better off when more legit voters are prevented from voting; Democrats are best off when all legal voters can vote; fraudsters are better off when laws are loose enough to allow fraud."
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:45 PM
76: there should be an 'I' there.
78: I assuming you're thinking you're disagreeing with me, and the thing is that's the position I was arguing for, so I'm just going to say 'I suck' and be done with it, because I'm not arguing with someone with whom I agree completely.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:49 PM
no Republican could openly say "We oppose this because then minorities might vote and we might lose."
The first link in 4 comes pretty close, though (actually it's "All minority votes are the result of bribery").
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:50 PM
77 to 75, crossposted with 76 with which I agree. (And 69 should refer to 62 rather than 64. Everyone got that? There's going to be a pop quiz.)
I'm all over requiring a voter-verified paper ballot trail to prevent fraud, and any kind of voter registration drive that goes into poor neighborhoods and registers people with any reasonable form of ID, I'm perfectly happy with. Photo IDs for voting are fine, so long as they're free and easily available in all areas. Reasonable fraud prevention steps are great -- it's just the unreasonable ones, like the one in the posted story, that bug me.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:50 PM
No, no, Cala, I'm agreeing with you -- just going a little crazy with the restating and clarifying.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:51 PM
Standpipe already linked to some excellent stuff by Bruce Schneier in 7 but I'll throw in a link to this essay of his, too.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:52 PM
I'm not arguing with someone with whom I agree completely.
Yes you are!
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:52 PM
Nuh-uh!
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:52 PM
Thank you for 21, I've been away at lunch. I asked because my wife has been more than a little distressed about the rate people have gone back to taking h's name, and I always ask. You may recall I have a silly and sexually suggestive name myself; I wouldn't have changed it but I've been glad that I didn't have to inflict it on my wife. My kids appear to be less sensitive than I was.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:53 PM
Uh-huh!
(Wanna hear the explanation in terms of the de re-de dicto distinction? Too bad, I'm going to class.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:54 PM
Yes. Let me just say that if your daughter ever thinks of marrying one of Buck's relatives, she should not hyphenate.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 12:55 PM
Matt Weiner, always letting his mouth write checks his ass can't cash. I can fill the void, if you can't wait for the Weiner.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 1:00 PM
In this regard, I would say that revotes and voting in a different jurisdiction are probably the biggest concern.
To keep arguing, now that peace has broken out: Ideal, can you point me to anything suggesting that either revotes or voting in a different jurisdiction are any substantial concern? I just don't recall seeing any news coverage of this actually happening.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 1:01 PM
The SEP page on de re/de dicto appears to use "Ralph" indexically. And that's the charitable interpretation.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 1:04 PM
"de re/de dicto" is a phrase best spoken by guys from Brooklyn.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 1:08 PM
(I'm looking at you, Rob.)
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 1:09 PM
89 - Ann Coulter?
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 1:09 PM
Well, yes. But she only did it once.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 1:11 PM
14, 17: Westchester voted for Kerry and Gore.
Two of the three house districts which include Westchester are represented by Democrats, and the third is unfortunately represented by Sue Kelly.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 1:28 PM
can you point me to anything suggesting that either revotes or voting in a different jurisdiction are any substantial concern
Given that I have already neglected too many clients today by commenting instead, probably not now. But so I know what I'm looking for, are you asking for an argument why these are bad things, evidence that they happen or evidence that they happen so much they may affect the outcome of elections?
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 1:31 PM
#95:
I obviously live too far away to get the references right; perhaps Nassau will do? Around here I would have said Lake Forest, but you're right about more gentile suburbs of really big cities not being the heart of darkness, and in fact being reachable in the current climate. Dupage County then.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 1:34 PM
The third. They're obviously bad, and Anne Coulter just got caught voting in the wrong jurisdiction so they happen sometimes. I'm wondering about evidence that the current level of security in this regard is insufficient.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 1:35 PM
I thought I knew who it was who didn't pay, but now I'm not so sure.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 1:37 PM
Does it have to actually have an effect on the outcome, or just a noticeable effect on the numbers?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 1:41 PM
Also, IDP promised to tell us where his new pseud came from and I don't remember him doing so.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 1:56 PM
Oh, the latter -- anything that came close to affecting the vote in any given jurisdiction by, say, anywhere near one percent would be something I was concerned about.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 1:58 PM
It's a characteristic, and I admit, belligerent statement by Billy Prior, the character who comes to dominate Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy. I've been thinking of it as a blog name for a while now, and it also describes my attitude, not purely driven by cheapness or asperity, toward many things.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 2:02 PM
I remembered what that was about but not where it was from. (Your daughter shouldn't marry my relatives either.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 2:56 PM
That would rock.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-30-06 3:17 PM