Trump's Commission on Voter Fraud

[Elixir]

We do NOT have to show an ID to vote in U.K. elections - you just have to announce your name and address.

I'm sure many people,like myself, as a courtesy offer their polling card to the official to help them find the name so it can be crossed off. but there isn't even a need to have the card with you when you vote.

Not when I voted but you are correct. The article I just checked in the Guardian shows you are correct on this. Northern Ireland is different on this. As you vote they check your name on a list (which they did with me anyway) and it shows a person claiming to be that person did vote. This is as you say.

I think therefore what we have in Northern Ireland should be applied.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/07/how-do-i-vote-in-the-uk-general-election

You do not need to show ID to vote in England, Scotland and Wales. You just need to tell polling staff your name and address. They will then cross your name off the list and give you a ballot paper.

f you’re voting in Northern Ireland, you must show photo ID.

Maybe you were thinking about when you voted in the Russian elections.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If you were asked to improve an electoral system, what improvements would you implement to minimise the possibility of irregularities?

Get rid of gerrymandered districts and go back to some version of paper ballots (at least as a safeguard against hackers). I also suggest automatic voter registration and automatic early voting ballots to be mailed to every voter. And finally, mandatory early in-person voting and election day be a national holiday.

All of these, of course, will mean that Republicans will lose so they won't happen.

Paper ballots mean ballot-box stuffing.

I prefer what we have--electronic voting with a paper tape in the machine that we can read our votes on. This provides an audit trail that makes it much harder to mess with undetectably.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I think therefore what we have in Northern Ireland should be applied.

'Therefore' kind of implies that some argument was provided preceding this conclusion.
All I see is 'this is how I had to do it' therefore everyone else should have to do it this way.
Not really a 'therefore' kind of conclusion. Or not a supportable one.
Or, at best, no more supportable than anyone else attempting to insist that everyone in the world should gotta be doin' what they, themselves do, for no better reason than they are the center a' the gol' durned world.

But for this thread, I can't see that anything the commission wants surrendered to them will identify whether or not anyone's voting fraudulently by not having to provide a picture ID.
I mean, I'm on the rolls for my district. I'm not registered as Democrat or Republican, no one asked my opinion on exiting the polls, and no one asked me for ID before they crossed off my name.
At most, the commission will be able to determine that someone used my name to vote in the last election. They will not be able to prove it was me. They will not be able to prove it was NOT me. They will not have any data to show that my name was used to vote fraudulently for Hillary to screw Trump's numbers.
So the question of voter ID seems to be superfluous to the question of whether or not states should comply with this snipe hunt, or what the snipe hunt's real goals are.

 

[Elixir]

I think therefore what we have in Northern Ireland should be applied.

'Therefore' kind of implies that some argument was provided preceding this conclusion.
All I see is 'this is how I had to do it' therefore everyone else should have to do it this way.
Not really a 'therefore' kind of conclusion. Or not a supportable one.
Or, at best, no more supportable than anyone else attempting to insist that everyone in the world should gotta be doin' what they, themselves do, for no better reason than they are the center a' the gol' durned world.

But for this thread, I can't see that anything the commission wants surrendered to them will identify whether or not anyone's voting fraudulently by not having to provide a picture ID.
I mean, I'm on the rolls for my district. I'm not registered as Democrat or Republican, no one asked my opinion on exiting the polls, and no one asked me for ID before they crossed off my name.
At most, the commission will be able to determine that someone used my name to vote in the last election. They will not be able to prove it was me. They will not be able to prove it was NOT me. They will not have any data to show that my name was used to vote fraudulently for Hillary to screw Trump's numbers.
So the question of voter ID seems to be superfluous to the question of whether or not states should comply with this snipe hunt, or what the snipe hunt's real goals are.

Obviously the goal is voter suppression and aiding Russian interference - and of course to devote resources to chasing figments of Cheato's imagination instead of investigating his dirty dealings, emoluments violations, money laundering and collusion.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Get rid of gerrymandered districts and go back to some version of paper ballots (at least as a safeguard against hackers). I also suggest automatic voter registration and automatic early voting ballots to be mailed to every voter. And finally, mandatory early in-person voting and election day be a national holiday.

All of these, of course, will mean that Republicans will lose so they won't happen.

Mandatory provision of sufficient resources, voting locations and staff to cater for a 100% turnout with a maximum wait time of 30 minutes. Large personal fines for the senior official in charge of any district that fails to meet this standard. Given the typical turnout is well below 100% this should completely eliminate queuing.

Won't work--you still get surges. The big key here to reducing waits has been early voting--and it's something the GOP keeps trying to cut back on.

Electoral boundaries to be set by an independent non-partisan body, with a mandate to minimize boundary lengths within sensible geographic constraints.

I would prefer an algorithm to a commission.

Mandatory attendance at a polling place, on or before election day, unless a postal vote has been arranged, again with small fines for non-compliance.

With exemptions for those who will be either inaccessible or too distant.

Voting only for legislative assemblies and government executive positions (eg presidents, governors). Judicial and junior state positions (Judges, sheriffs, civil servants, District Attorneys, school board members, dog catchers) to be appointed based on merit, not elected. Referenda only on constitutional amendments.

Agreed on all the positions but the school board.

I disagree on referenda, though--they're often the only way to get change that's unpopular with the politicians. It does need a change, though--I would say they need to gather a fairly small number of signatures, then submit it to the Attorney General for a legal evaluation. This can pass it, reject it on a lack of focus (for example, the lawyers tried to slip one through--I forget the stated purpose, it was something people would like but it was impossible and would certainly be bounced by the courts, but embedded in it was a big boon to the personal injury lawyers) or reject it on impossibility (for example, the gun measure that just passed that required FBI background checks. Oops, the state already has an arrangement with the FBI on handling background checks, the check is submitted to the state who passes it on to the FBI electronically. The FBI has said the current procedure is fine and has told us to pound sand on the initiative measure.) or reject it on unconstitutionality.

Primaries to be eliminated, in favour of candidate selection by a vote of fully paid up political party members only.

Bad idea--that makes the parties all but unresponsive to the will of the people.

Campaigns to be publicly funded, with each candidate given $100,000 to spend, which must be refunded should they fail to secure 5% of the vote. No other money to be spent on campaigning, with candidates disqualified for any breach of the $100,000 cap.

$100k is too low.

No campaigning permitted except in the two weeks prior to election day.

Bad idea. We need time for the claims and counterclaims.

My proposal on elections:

Campaigning shall be limited to a website and in-person appearances. The website is hosted on government servers, all candidates for an office are hosted on the same server (or server cluster) so that if there is any sort of system problem it hits all equally. Websites must accept rebuttal links from their opponents within 24 hours of the link being provided, said link must be located with the claim that it is rebutting.

Automatic jail terms for any representative, senator, governor or president who accepts any gift worth in excess of $50 from any person or organization while in office. Elected office holders total income to be limited to equal to their in-office remuneration for ten years after leaving office. Any income above that level to be taxed at 100%.

Elected positions often pay less than the same skills would bring in the private market.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Not when I voted but you are correct. The article I just checked in the Guardian shows you are correct on this. Northern Ireland is different on this. As you vote they check your name on a list (which they did with me anyway) and it shows a person claiming to be that person did vote. This is as you say.

I think therefore what we have in Northern Ireland should be applied.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/07/how-do-i-vote-in-the-uk-general-election

You do not need to show ID to vote in England, Scotland and Wales. You just need to tell polling staff your name and address. They will then cross your name off the list and give you a ballot paper.

f you’re voting in Northern Ireland, you must show photo ID.

Maybe you were thinking about when you voted in the Russian elections.

Maybe; maybe not. My mistake. It isn't mandatory to provide ID at the polling booth. I think it was just me showing this to the polling clerks.

I just remember, I did vote in the Russian elections. I voted for Putin 484 times.

 

[Keith&Co.]

$100k is too low.

No campaigning permitted except in the two weeks prior to election day.

Bad idea. We need time for the claims and counterclaims.

No, we really DON'T need the claims and counterclaims and two years of campaigning and the media circus. $100,000 would be enough for a two weeks of 'I'm running and i stand on my record which can be found @ here.com.'

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yeah, the first thing is contract the damn election lengths. Will ya?! The special House election in GA took longer than the UK General Election.

Primaries, five days over the period of a couple weeks (in August or September). Primary votes in regions, NE, SE, MW, Central, W.

But this doesn't help the House, as that is just about money. Limit spending in House seats based on some percentage of the median income in the district. Senate seats, same, but for the state.

Of course, we all know these sorts of limits are unconstitutional and make Scalia roll in his grave.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Is the Electoral College necessary?

Not anymore.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Is the Electoral College necessary?

Not anymore.

I thought so too.

 

[RavenSky]

Get rid of gerrymandered districts and go back to some version of paper ballots (at least as a safeguard against hackers). I also suggest automatic voter registration and automatic early voting ballots to be mailed to every voter. And finally, mandatory early in-person voting and election day be a national holiday.

All of these, of course, will mean that Republicans will lose so they won't happen.

...I prefer what we have--electronic voting with a paper tape in the machine that we can read our votes on. This provides an audit trail that makes it much harder to mess with undetectably.

Except that we don't have that in all locations (and that is what I meant by paper ballots as a back-up). I would also like to have a receipt of sorts to the voter that they can see to confirm their vote was recorded correctly.

 

[RavenSky]

Obviously the goal is voter suppression and aiding Russian interference - and of course to devote resources to chasing figments of Cheato's imagination instead of investigating his dirty dealings, emoluments violations, money laundering and collusion.

I tend to agree with you on both counts.

A comment I've read recently that seem on point...

We know* that Russia at least attempted to hack into multiple voter databases in multiple states. I don't think that it is any accident that we suddenly have this White House push to consolidate the voter database federally.

I think Trump was easily manipulated into ordering this nonsense because of his ego and ignorance.


* Don't bother WP, I'm not interested in your willful ignorance on this point

 

[Elixir]

I think Trump was easily manipulated into ordering this nonsense because of his ego and ignorance.

I think he is cowering a terror of what Uncle Vlad might decide to reveal about him, should he do anything Vlad doesn't approve of.

 

[RavenSky]

Get rid of gerrymandered districts and go back to some version of paper ballots (at least as a safeguard against hackers). I also suggest automatic voter registration and automatic early voting ballots to be mailed to every voter. And finally, mandatory early in-person voting and election day be a national holiday.

All of these, of course, will mean that Republicans will lose so they won't happen.

Mandatory provision of sufficient resources, voting locations and staff to cater for a 100% turnout with a maximum wait time of 30 minutes. Large personal fines for the senior official in charge of any district that fails to meet this standard. Given the typical turnout is well below 100% this should completely eliminate queuing.

Paper ballots.

Electoral boundaries to be set by an independent non-partisan body, with a mandate to minimize boundary lengths within sensible geographic constraints.

excellent, and a fuller description of what I meant, too

Mandatory registration to vote, with small fines for non-compliance.

disagree with the small fines, and it is not necessary. Mandatory registration can be better accomplished with the automatic universal registration I mentioned. Six states are already doing it:

Alaska, California, Connecticut, Oregon, Vermont, and West Virginia — plus the District of Columbia have authorized automatic voter registration policies, in which eligible citizens who interact with certain government agencies will be added to the rolls unless they “opt out” of registration.

https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/voter-registration-modernization-states

Mandatory attendance at a polling place, on or before election day, unless a postal vote has been arranged, again with small fines for non-compliance.

Again disagree. Voting is considered a right in the US. Making it mandatory with a fine defeats that. I do think that voting needs to be highly encouraged, and that every level of US government has an obligation to make voting as easy as humanly possible to make it instead of trying to block our right to vote at every turn. That plus education would - in my opinion - make "mandatory... with small fines for non-compliance" unnecessary.

Instant Runoff Voting

yes

Voting only for legislative assemblies and government executive positions (eg presidents, governors). Judicial and junior state positions (Judges, sheriffs, civil servants, District Attorneys, school board members, dog catchers) to be appointed based on merit, not elected. Referenda only on constitutional amendments.

I can see pros and cons on each of these

The Electoral College to be expected to reject obviously unsuitable presidential candidates, regardless of state and/or nationwide voting results (or to be disbanded in favour of nationwide IRV).

Agree 100%

Primaries to be eliminated, in favour of candidate selection by a vote of fully paid up political party members only.

Have to think about this one a bit

Campaigns to be publicly funded, with each candidate given $100,000 to spend, which must be refunded should they fail to secure 5% of the vote. No other money to be spent on campaigning, with candidates disqualified for any breach of the $100,000 cap.

I very much agree with this though I wonder if the $100,000 cap is realistically sufficient.

This eliminates Citizens United, of course, which should have been on my original list

No campaigning permitted except in the two weeks prior to election day.

I know that the UK does it this way, and I can see the attraction, but I don't see how that is really enough time for the electorate to get to know the candidates. I do think, however, that there should be no campaign advertising at all - they are all lies anyway. Perhaps a couple of months of televised debates, plus a requirement that every candidate at every level for every elected position must submit complete answers to surveys from news organizations. FiveThirtyEight and other websites have historically done a good job of organizing these surveys but I've noticed that too many candidates refuse to respond - and they are usually the ones we really need to hold accountable.

Automatic jail terms for any representative, senator, governor or president who accepts any gift worth in excess of $50 from any person or organization while in office.

yes

Elected office holders total income to be limited to equal to their in-office remuneration for ten years after leaving office. Any income above that level to be taxed at 100%.

I think ten years post-office and 100% taxation is excessive, but I like the general idea.

 

[RavenSky]

My proposal on elections:

Campaigning shall be limited to a website and in-person appearances. The website is hosted on government servers, all candidates for an office are hosted on the same server (or server cluster) so that if there is any sort of system problem it hits all equally. Websites must accept rebuttal links from their opponents within 24 hours of the link being provided, said link must be located with the claim that it is rebutting.

I like this idea a lot

 

[Loren Pechtel]

$100k is too low.



Bad idea. We need time for the claims and counterclaims.

No, we really DON'T need the claims and counterclaims and two years of campaigning and the media circus. $100,000 would be enough for a two weeks of 'I'm running and i stand on my record which can be found @ here.com.'

$100k is fine for some elections, it's not enough for the big ones.

And the claims and counterclaims are useful--see what dirt they can dig up on the other guy and see if it's real or fake dirt. (For example, a local politician accused of not paying her property tax. She made the normal escrow payments, the mortgage company dropped the ball.) While the mudslinging doesn't do much good I find I learn more from the complaints about the other guy than from them puffing themselves.

- - - Updated - - -

...I prefer what we have--electronic voting with a paper tape in the machine that we can read our votes on. This provides an audit trail that makes it much harder to mess with undetectably.

Except that we don't have that in all locations (and that is what I meant by paper ballots as a back-up). I would also like to have a receipt of sorts to the voter that they can see to confirm their vote was recorded correctly.

I'll agree there are places that do electronic voting wrong. That's no reason to chuck the machines from places that do it right.

And the receipt is a very bad idea, it violates the privacy of the voting booth. If you want to work here tomorrow you had better bring in a Trump receipt!

 

[RavenSky]

No, we really DON'T need the claims and counterclaims and two years of campaigning and the media circus. $100,000 would be enough for a two weeks of 'I'm running and i stand on my record which can be found @ here.com.'

$100k is fine for some elections, it's not enough for the big ones.

And the claims and counterclaims are useful--see what dirt they can dig up on the other guy and see if it's real or fake dirt. (For example, a local politician accused of not paying her property tax. She made the normal escrow payments, the mortgage company dropped the ball.) While the mudslinging doesn't do much good I find I learn more from the complaints about the other guy than from them puffing themselves.

- - - Updated - - -

...I prefer what we have--electronic voting with a paper tape in the machine that we can read our votes on. This provides an audit trail that makes it much harder to mess with undetectably.

Except that we don't have that in all locations (and that is what I meant by paper ballots as a back-up). I would also like to have a receipt of sorts to the voter that they can see to confirm their vote was recorded correctly.

I'll agree there are places that do electronic voting wrong. That's no reason to chuck the machines from places that do it right.

And the receipt is a very bad idea, it violates the privacy of the voting booth. If you want to work here tomorrow you had better bring in a Trump receipt!

I never said to chuck the machines - just that we need a paper back up to confirm the machines have not been hacked.

And there is no reason the paper receipts should be removed from the voting premises either. They should go into a ballot box connected to the machine to allow for spot checks of machines in random districts.

I know that different machines operate differently. The ones Miami-Dade County uses now have a paper ballot the voter bubbles in. This ballot is fed into the machine to be read, stored and tallied. The problem with our machines is that the voter has no way to verify on the spot that the machine recorded the choices correctly.

Other machines in other districts are completely paperless - the voting is done on screen. These are the machines notorious for showing the wrong person as having been selected. There is no paper ballot/receipt for these, so unless a voter notices the problem and raises the issue on the spot, there is no way to know if these machines are accurately recording the votes.

I think that it should be easy to have a machine that does both - reads the paper ballot (which is then stored inside the machine to allow for random accuracy checks and/or hand counted verification if a machine count is called into question) and shows the actual selections on the screen for the voter to confirm after the paper ballot is read.

Local hacking at an individual machine level is the least of our real problems, but I think it would help increase confidence in the process

 

[Loren Pechtel]

$100k is fine for some elections, it's not enough for the big ones.

And the claims and counterclaims are useful--see what dirt they can dig up on the other guy and see if it's real or fake dirt. (For example, a local politician accused of not paying her property tax. She made the normal escrow payments, the mortgage company dropped the ball.) While the mudslinging doesn't do much good I find I learn more from the complaints about the other guy than from them puffing themselves.

- - - Updated - - -

...I prefer what we have--electronic voting with a paper tape in the machine that we can read our votes on. This provides an audit trail that makes it much harder to mess with undetectably.

Except that we don't have that in all locations (and that is what I meant by paper ballots as a back-up). I would also like to have a receipt of sorts to the voter that they can see to confirm their vote was recorded correctly.

I'll agree there are places that do electronic voting wrong. That's no reason to chuck the machines from places that do it right.

And the receipt is a very bad idea, it violates the privacy of the voting booth. If you want to work here tomorrow you had better bring in a Trump receipt!

I never said to chuck the machines - just that we need a paper back up to confirm the machines have not been hacked.

And there is no reason the paper receipts should be removed from the voting premises either. They should go into a ballot box connected to the machine to allow for spot checks of machines in random districts.

I know that different machines operate differently. The ones Miami-Dade County uses now have a paper ballot the voter bubbles in. This ballot is fed into the machine to be read, stored and tallied. The problem with our machines is that the voter has no way to verify on the spot that the machine recorded the choices correctly.

Which is why our system is better--machine vote but paper confirmation. The paper is a roll which is not cut--that means the votes appear in order, you can't tamper with one of them. Much more secure than simply a paper receipt.

Other machines in other districts are completely paperless - the voting is done on screen. These are the machines notorious for showing the wrong person as having been selected. There is no paper ballot/receipt for these, so unless a voter notices the problem and raises the issue on the spot, there is no way to know if these machines are accurately recording the votes.

That's sloppy poll workers. The touch screen is out of calibration.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Obviously the goal is voter suppression and aiding Russian interference - and of course to devote resources to chasing figments of Cheato's imagination instead of investigating his dirty dealings, emoluments violations, money laundering and collusion.

I tend to agree with you on both counts.

A comment I've read recently that seem on point...

We know* that Russia at least attempted to hack into multiple voter databases in multiple states. I don't think that it is any accident that we suddenly have this White House push to consolidate the voter database federally.

I think Trump was easily manipulated into ordering this nonsense because of his ego and ignorance.


* Don't bother WP, I'm not interested in your willful ignorance on this point

Thanks for the compliment.

I've also mentioned that the US websites are under attack 24/7. The odds of Russians and Chinese and others by way of the volume is extremely high. We can also add in Iran and of course ISIS (per recent intrusions).

One side says voter suppression and the other side says fake voters of sort. There is very little to suggest any of these are significantly true but these should be nonetheless routinely checked.

A commission could be expanded to include independent observers. Of course political views or party membership or in fact anything that provides indications of a person's political or religious beliefs should not be reflected on the electoral register.

By its own report the joint report does not make firm conclusions at this point as can be seen in the terminology of the declassified report here


https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

Page 23

High Confidence: generally indicates that judgements are based on high-quality information from multiple sources. High confidence in information does not imply that the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgements must be wrong.

 

[Elixir]

That's sloppy poll workers. The touch screen is out of calibration.

Can we be sure that Russian hackers are unable to calibrate those screens to their own preferences?