This is going around the conservo-sphere, anyone want to take a crack at it?

[NobleSavage]

Could non-citizens decide the November election?

Could control of the Senate in 2014 be decided by illegal votes cast by non-citizens? Some argue that incidents of voting by non-citizens are so rare as to be inconsequential, with efforts to block fraud a screen for an agenda to prevent poor and minority voters from exercising the franchise, while others define such incidents as a threat to democracy itself. Both sides depend more heavily on anecdotes than data.

In a forthcoming article in the journal Electoral Studies, we bring real data from big social science survey datasets to bear on the question of whether, to what extent, and for whom non-citizens vote in U.S. elections. Most non-citizens do not register, let alone vote. But enough do that their participation can change the outcome of close races.

...

Our data comes from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES). Its large number of observations (32,800 in 2008 and 55,400 in 2010) provide sufficient samples of the non-immigrant sub-population, with 339 non-citizen respondents in 2008 and 489 in 2010. For the 2008 CCES, we also attempted to match respondents to voter files so that we could verify whether they actually voted.

How many non-citizens participate in U.S. elections? More than 14 percent of non-citizens in both the 2008 and 2010 samples indicated that they were registered to vote. Furthermore, some of these non-citizens voted. Our best guess, based upon extrapolations from the portion of the sample with a verified vote, is that 6.4 percent of non-citizens voted in 2008 and 2.2 percent of non-citizens voted in 2010.

It's in the Washington Post so I'm suspect.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ld-non-citizens-decide-the-november-election/

 

[dystopian]

I'm not sure what the problem is; are non-citizens *allowed* to vote? If they can register to vote in significant enough numbers to have a real impact on the results, then it seems to me that legally speaking there must be some mechanism that allows them to do so. If so, then what's the problem? If they are *not* allowed to vote, then I can't imagine the system to be so laughable incompetent as to allow hordes of non-citizens to vote and alter the results in any meaningful way accordingly... so I still don't see the problem.

 

[fromderinside]

Could non-citizens decide the November election?


...

Our data comes from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES). Its large number of observations (32,800 in 2008 and 55,400 in 2010) provide sufficient samples of the non-immigrant sub-population, with 339 non-citizen respondents in 2008 and 489 in 2010. For the 2008 CCES, we also attempted to match respondents to voter files so that we could verify whether they actually voted.

How many non-citizens participate in U.S. elections? More than 14 percent of non-citizens in both the 2008 and 2010 samples indicated that they were registered to vote. Furthermore, some of these non-citizens voted. Our best guess, based upon extrapolations from the portion of the sample with a verified vote, is that 6.4 percent of non-citizens voted in 2008 and 2.2 percent of non-citizens voted in 2010.

It's in the Washington Post so I'm suspect.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ld-non-citizens-decide-the-november-election/

As you know I think thinking hurts my b rain so I got come critique elsewhere.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/312594_Wingnut_Academics_Ask-_Do_Non- citizens decide the November election?


...and it appears the survey's were in english...... reinforcing the notion that non-citizens might have meant mostly legal residents who might have been confused by practices in their countries of origin.

The most potent issue is why don't we permit those living here and working here without contact with gun totting cops to vote on their issues.

 

[NobleSavage]

never mind

 

[Loren Pechtel]

At least this time they include numbers, although it should be possible to find out the actual number that voted--and the lack of that number makes me suspect it.

 

[laughing dog]

Of course it is possible that "non-voters" could sway the election even though some ideologically based conservatives claim individual votes don't matter. But this "analysis" is almost entirely conjecture.

 

[NobleSavage]

Of course it is possible that "non-voters" could sway the election even though some ideologically based conservatives claim individual votes don't matter. But this "analysis" is almost entirely conjecture.

Ok please enlighten me. They are talking about "non-citizens" voting which as far as I know is illegal. How do you know the "analysis" is almost entirely conjecture. The paper is behind a pay wall. I stopped at the abstract:

In spite of substantial public controversy, very little reliable data exists concerning the frequency with which non-citizen immigrants participate in United States elections. Although such participation is a violation of election laws in most parts of the United States, enforcement depends principally on disclosure of citizenship status at the time of voter registration. This study examines participation rates by non-citizens using a nationally representative sample that includes non-citizen immigrants. We find that some non-citizens participate in U.S. elections, and that this participation has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes including Electoral College votes, and Congressional elections. Non-citizen votes likely gave Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379414000973

The authors are from "Old Dominion University" which I've never heard of. The only real criticism that I understand is that the sample size is too small.

 

[laughing dog]

Ok please enlighten me. They are talking about "non-citizens" voting which as far as I know is illegal. How do you know the "analysis" is almost entirely conjecture. The paper is behind a pay wall. I stopped at the abstract:

In spite of substantial public controversy, very little reliable data exists concerning the frequency with which non-citizen immigrants participate in United States elections. Although such participation is a violation of election laws in most parts of the United States, enforcement depends principally on disclosure of citizenship status at the time of voter registration. This study examines participation rates by non-citizens using a nationally representative sample that includes non-citizen immigrants. We find that some non-citizens participate in U.S. elections, and that this participation has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes including Electoral College votes, and Congressional elections. Non-citizen votes likely gave Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379414000973

The authors are from "Old Dominion University" which I've never heard of. The only real criticism that I understand is that the sample size is too small.

"very little reliable data exists concerning the frequency with which non-citizen immigrants" should be a big warning flag about the nature of the analysis. "Non-citizen votes likely gave Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome" is pure conjecture. There is no way anyone could know how anyone actually voted.

 

[NobleSavage]

There is no way anyone could know how anyone actually voted.

Why? It's all recorded. Congress passed a law back in 2002 that requires states to record all the info. I'm helping on a campaign now and we know how everyone voted in the past. http://aristotle.com/ collects all the data for a price. The Sunlight Foundation has huge data dumps you can get for free.

 

[skepticalbip]

The fact that non-citizens are voting in itself is a problem. Who they are voting for is another issue. The fact that there known to be illegal voters (regardless of the number of them) shows a serious problem in control of our registration process. Of course political wonks in the major parties will be more concerned with the idea that those votes may be going to the other party rather than the fact that our registration process has serious problems.

 

[laughing dog]

There is no way anyone could know how anyone actually voted.

Why? It's all recorded. Congress passed a law back in 2002 that requires states to record all the info. I'm helping on a campaign now and we know how everyone voted in the past. http://aristotle.com/ collects all the data for a price. The Sunlight Foundation has huge data dumps you can get for free.

Are you seriously telling us that the secret ballot is not secret?

 

[Axulus]

I'm not sure what the problem is; are non-citizens *allowed* to vote? If they can register to vote in significant enough numbers to have a real impact on the results, then it seems to me that legally speaking there must be some mechanism that allows them to do so. If so, then what's the problem? If they are *not* allowed to vote, then I can't imagine the system to be so laughable incompetent as to allow hordes of non-citizens to vote and alter the results in any meaningful way accordingly... so I still don't see the problem.

It is illegal for them to vote. However, the issue is that proposals and laws to prevent them from voting (the mechanisms you refer to) are considered too burdensome by some for the poor and minorities (meaning fewer of them will register and/or show up at the polls, they argue), so they are often objected to by Democrats. Usually it involves providing identification of some sort (voter ID laws).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why? It's all recorded. Congress passed a law back in 2002 that requires states to record all the info. I'm helping on a campaign now and we know how everyone voted in the past. http://aristotle.com/ collects all the data for a price. The Sunlight Foundation has huge data dumps you can get for free.

Are you seriously telling us that the secret ballot is not secret?

Who you voted for is secret. Whether you voted or not is *NOT* secret, at least around here. Early vote and the human calls from candidates stop the next day. (You still get a few robocalls and it does nothing about the pollsters.)

 

[Zora]

It seems that although they state "very little reliable date is available", it doesn't stop them from saying the votes sway elections, and it is slanted toward Democrats, and laws are enacted as a result. What a crock.

 

[NobleSavage]

Why? It's all recorded. Congress passed a law back in 2002 that requires states to record all the info. I'm helping on a campaign now and we know how everyone voted in the past. http://aristotle.com/ collects all the data for a price. The Sunlight Foundation has huge data dumps you can get for free.

Are you seriously telling us that the secret ballot is not secret?

The party, not the actual vote. The Aristotle data has like 500 pieces of info on the voters that is quite predictive. Should be good enough for social science. The Democratic VAN database has major voting history - based off of phone banks and who know what else. The Republicans have a similar DB. There should be enough data to make a legitimate study -- if the one in the OP is or isn't, is what I'm trying to figure out.

 

[laughing dog]

Are you seriously telling us that the secret ballot is not secret?

The party, not the actual vote. The Aristotle data has like 500 pieces of info on the voters that is quite predictive. Should be good enough for social science. The Democratic VAN database has major voting history - based off of phone banks and who know what else. The Republicans have a similar DB. There should be enough data to make a legitimate study -- if the one in the OP is or isn't, is what I'm trying to figure out.

There is no way any data base can be used to accurately divine how someone actually voted. They might be able to predict how a region or country votes on an issue or person with reasonable accuracy, but there is simply no way to tell how individual voters voted.

 

[Duke Leto]

Technical quibble.

If there is only one person who signed the register and voted in a given precinct, it IS possible to determine how that one person voted.

 

[NobleSavage]

The party, not the actual vote. The Aristotle data has like 500 pieces of info on the voters that is quite predictive. Should be good enough for social science. The Democratic VAN database has major voting history - based off of phone banks and who know what else. The Republicans have a similar DB. There should be enough data to make a legitimate study -- if the one in the OP is or isn't, is what I'm trying to figure out.

There is no way any data base can be used to accurately divine how someone actually voted. They might be able to predict how a region or country votes on an issue or person with reasonable accuracy, but there is simply no way to tell how individual voters voted.

Unless you ask them how they voted. Which could be done in a study or by looking at the party databases.

What would be a legitimate sample size, if that is the problem?

 

[laughing dog]

There is no way any data base can be used to accurately divine how someone actually voted. They might be able to predict how a region or country votes on an issue or person with reasonable accuracy, but there is simply no way to tell how individual voters voted.

Unless you ask them how they voted. Which could be done in a study or by looking at the party databases.

I have been asked how I voted and I deliberately lied. Sorry, but it is not possible. There is no way to verify an individual's response.

 

[braces_for_impact]

If people are really concerned about this topic, shouldn't they be concerned about (SUPER)PACS? I mean, you can't trace the money, so you could have a foreign government attempting to sway the American electorate into voting for a certain candidate...