Next Level BS #16: Election Fraud in the United States, with Brad Friedman of the BradBlog

a reply to: theNLBS

Nice one!

When you spend a long time immersed in the matters of a materialistic society, it is necessary to get out and have fresh air in your lungs and no roof over your head from time to time. I have to ask... Did you do that in blue jeans? Because it certainly looks as if you did, and I cannot fathom how for the life of me!

Last time I went for a scramble up a cliff face or two, I was wearing shorts, and even they were a little restrictive for what I was doing! Mind you, I was about fifteen at the time! Lol!

a reply to: theNLBS
IMO the most important thing in a republic/democracy are for the citizens to not only vote but their votes be counted and the whole voting process to be fair and accurate.

Saying there is very little voter fraud from what I have read is disingenuous if not out right wrong. I remember the 150 electronic voting machines that mysteriously burned in a warehouse in Houston the week before they were to be audited because who ever set them up went overboard... The exit polls and the machine results were so far apart it was evident some kind of hanky panky had occurred.. The truth will never be known because a vacant warehouse and all the machines burned to the ground..
Even the old paper ballot method (hanging chads and all) are better than electronic machines because there is no record and no transparency .... That is if the boxes of ballots do not mysteriously disappear.. or the paper ballots are not gathered by the few to vote for the many...

Just some of the latest examples but after the election there will probably be more.....
www.activistpost.com...

First it was reported that a “calibration error” in Cook County, Illinois was causing machines to register GOP votes for Democrats

Then more reports of calibration errors came out of Maryland, where again, red votes were randomly turning blue. Board officials told the Baltimore CBS affiliate that, “election officials receive similar reports in every election.

But Maryland also has another voting issue. Apparently the names of tens of thousands of people who have claimed they are not U.S. citizens on their jury duty forms are the same names turning up in voting booths.

Back in September, 31-year-old state Rep. Christina “Tita” Ayala (D-CT) was arrested on not one or two, but 19 voting fraud charges for allegedly voting in local and state elections in districts where she did not live

With the huge influx of illegal immigrants through the porous U.S.-Mexico border which began to really take off last year but only became highly publicized this year, now groups like La Raza are out promoting a voting guide on all the polling locations people can go to vote without an ID. (Gee, I wonder which party those people will be inclined to vote for, huh?)

www.dailymail.co.uk...

www.foxnews.com...

So whoever came up with the number 31 voting fraud cases out of one billion votes cast might not have looked hard enough..

a reply to: 727Sky

It was 31 IN-PERSON acts of voter fraud at the polls, which is the ONLY kind of fraud that Voter ID addresses.

The fraud related to voting machines, vote counting, absentee ballots, etc. are NOT impacted by Voter ID.

You are correct that there has been a lot of fraud, just not by in-person voters. So why is the ONLY effort related to "paper's please?" Why not go after the machines? Why not go after other forms of election fraud that have so much more of an impact on elections?

When people register to vote, they need to have ID in the form of birth certificate, bank statement or paycheck stub, electric bill in their name with their address, passport, driver's license, social security card, etc. It is usually a wide variety of identification, but ID nonetheless. If people are being registered incorrectly, then that is a different kind of fraud which doesn't impact in-person voter fraud at the polls. This might be something else worthy of attention, as long as it doesn't KEEP people who are legitimate citizens from being able to vote.

That is the issue.

peace,
AB

a reply to: AboveBoard

Well, I would have thought that the reason no one wants to go after the real vote fraud mechanisms, is because doing so would implicate some very powerful and ruthless people in the public eye. That kind of intention attracts a stiff rebuff, and in the terms we are talking about, that could easily translate to threats and assassination.

Politics, it's basically organised crime with a mandate.

a reply to: theNLBS

Much of this interview was NLBS. You interviewed one source, who cited personal opinions and vague studies--studies that have other studies that contradict their findings, mind you--and who compared voter ID laws to Jim Crow laws. Either this guy is purposefully inflammatory, or just outright lying. It makes me question if he even understand the Jim Crow laws at all. Seriously--that is the biggest load of horsesh*t that I've ever heard.

Let me spell it out for those who are too ignorant to see, apparently like Joe and Mr. Friedman: The Constitution of the United States of America specifies that only citizens are allowed to vote. Therefore, people voting should have to prove that they're a citizen.

Sure, you show an ID when you register, but that's not good enough, especially when it is recognized that absentee voting is one of the big problems when it comes to voter fraud. It hurts NO ONE to mandate an ID. It is of no concern of the state election officials if someone loses their ID the day before voting, or if their car breaks down on the way to the polling station. We can't frame our election laws around the least common denominator in society--voting is boring and often a burden, but if it means that much to the individual voter, they'll make it happen.

All of this garbage about ID laws being voter suppression is just the rantings of idiots, as are the whinings concerning early voting. Where I live, ID is required and we have one day to vote--guess what, it works just fine. If people can't make it that day, they can mail in their ballot. If they wait too long or forget to do it, that's not our problem.

This nation needs to be reminded of personal responsibility--we don't need to hold everyone's damn hand and make life available to them on a silver platter. Sometimes sh*t we have a right to do is not a part of our apathetic, need-it-now mentality that our culture has evolved into. And that's okay, because sometimes things worth doing are worth expending a bit of effort to achieve.

The majority of this interview and video sounded more like misplaced whining than informative in any way. I had to show my ID when I voted today--anyone who can't prepare for such a thing in the two years between elections just doesn't appear to really give a rat's ass about voting. I bet they whine about the ID laws, though, because people like this tell them they should.

What a crock.

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
The right-sided media is breathlessly convincing voters of a problem that doesn't exist: A comprehensive investigation of voter impersonation finds 31 credible incidents out of one billion ballots cast
We covered this study in the video. It's simply not something that actually happens.

That "study" was conducted by one guy, Justin Levitt, a professor of law at Loyola. He also maintains a website called "All About Redistricting", which is essentially a left-wing push for the interests of the Democratic party at the polls.

The "study" cited was not conducted by any reputable agency, has not been subjected to scientific peer review of any kind, and presents a far stretch of the imagination to believe that one guy, a full time professor and "expert", had time to evaluate 1 billion ballots and chase down any and all anomalies. Right.

Voter Fraud Activity Map

Ohio Poll Worker Convicted On Multiple Counts Of Obama-Biased Voter Fraud

Voter fraud occurs in Texas, though convictions and guilty pleas are rare

Examples abound ad nauseam.

Democrats Arrested and/or Convicted of Voter Fraud

Abbott spokeswoman Lauren Bean emailed us records showing that from August 2002 through September 2012, the office received 616 allegations of election-code violations and recorded 78 election-code prosecutions.

Hardly 31 in a billion, hey? Either Justin Levitt is much better at Constitutional Law than he is at research and statistics, or he had an agenda to his "research". There have been multiple times as many convictions nationwide for the crime than he was able to even identify as suspect.

My point: the cited study being used as a source for some of the arguments in the video is a complete joke. The real NLBS in this video is the transparency of the bias and the lack of objective research.

There is a reason that the slogan "Dead People Vote Democrat" exists.

originally posted by: AboveBoard
You are correct that there has been a lot of fraud, just not by in-person voters. So why is the ONLY effort related to "paper's please?" Why not go after the machines? Why not go after other forms of election fraud that have so much more of an impact on elections?

Agreed, but attacking the problem from all angles, including necessitating an ID when voting in person (which is not a burden, no matter what people say), is a worthy endeavor.

I'm not a fan of voting machines--I had to fill in bubbles by hand today, but then put it in a machine that scanned the paper. It did not allow me to double-check the results of the scan to verify, nor did it give me a verification printout. I have no idea if who I voted for is actually who got the votes. I am wholly uncomfortable with that method.

a reply to: InTheFlesh1980

Yep the B.S. meter on this one was pegged out after just a few minutes of the video for me...

The voter fraud meme is just like the welfare queen, they don't exist yet they believe. There is just as much voter fraud from republicans as democrats, but both parties limits who can run and who can participate in debates.

Voter suppression by the republicans targets minorities, college students and the elderly, I expect there will be several places with long lines today, I don't see a smooth process, but everyone knows they will blame it on Obama!

Great show Joe!!

a reply to: InTheFlesh1980

We're working on getting Brad here for an AMA once the election madness winds down. So you'll be able to ask him those kinds of questions.

However, it looks as though you're linking to voter fraud (some in primary petitions) that are small scale, and not the focus of the episode. The episode focused on election fraud, and specifically vote suppression. These are different aspects of a complex problem.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

I would say that in-person voter fraud is the LEAST effective and LEAST common form. If ONE PERSON in a district decides to do this, how does that change an election's outcome? What about a few people? Still - no result. Elections are not made or broken on the known levels of in-person voter fraud, which is so insignificant as to be a non-issue in determining outcomes.

So why is it the ONLY issue being addressed? That is the question, no?

If "combating fraud in elections" were the true and noble cause here, it WOULD be a multi-pronged approach that barely glanced at the in-person aspect of voter-fraud and instead, looked at all the other ways voter fraud and suppression was happening. So, my conclusion is, it is NOT a noble endeavor we are seeing currently.

I completely agree it is the machinery that is the first place to look for fraud. I had to vote the same way, and I would have liked some way to confirm that what went into the magic pile of data from my wee piece of paper was what I actually took the time to ink-in.

peace,
AB

originally posted by: InTheFlesh1980

Examples abound ad nauseam.

Democrats Arrested and/or Convicted of Voter Fraud

Abbott spokeswoman Lauren Bean emailed us records showing that from August 2002 through September 2012, the office received 616 allegations of election-code violations and recorded 78 election-code prosecutions.

Hardly 31 in a billion, hey? Either Justin Levitt is much better at Constitutional Law than he is at research and statistics, or he had an agenda to his "research". There have been multiple times as many convictions nationwide for the crime than he was able to even identify as suspect.

The next paragraph in your link

By our count, 46 of the prosecutions ended with a conviction, guilty plea, no-contest plea or guilty plea as part of deferred adjudication. Of those, 18 cases appeared to involve fraud committed by individual voters: 12 cases with ineligible voters, five cases of voter impersonation and one case of voting more than once.

Justin Levitt doesn't count ineligible voters because sometimes, if not most of the time the voter is unaware of his or her eligibility. Making the official count 6.

Voter Fraud was not the focus of the interview, election fraud was. Texas, and other states are obfuscating the numbers, like you have, to make way for strict identification at the polling centers. I have no problem with showing ID as long as most ID's are welcomed but they're not. So, that makes this a form of voter suppression.

a reply to: TrueBrit

No No, I would never wear jeans while climbing. I've seen some local uber hipster climbers doing that but it seems to me to be too restricting. I'm wearing Eddie Bauer Ascent Pants....Possibly the most comfortable pants ever.

a reply to: theNLBS

I listened to the whole interview and read his blog. I can't help but notice he only focuses on the GoP. He has 9 articles on mis-calibrated voter machines when they flip r to d, but he has NOTHING about the same going the other way.

Can you tell me why that is?

a reply to: raymundoko

This one was posted 19 hours ago.

Touch-Screen Votes Flipping Dem to Repub in North Carolina's 'Toss Up' U.S. Senate Race

a reply to: AboveBoard

Like I said, I agree that more needs to be done, but the fact that there is such a outcry from the opposition to voter-ID laws (for whatever reason, I still can't tell, other than hoping that voting loophole remains open, regardless of the frequency of its exploitation) absolutely baffles me. What is the problem with voter ID? Maybe we can't any further along in the pursuit of fixing the election issues because step one--the easiest one--meets with such opposition that we can't move on to anything else.

Just a theory.

As I recall, there were machines in the last election and in this one (during early voting, at least) that were changing who people were voting for right in front of their eyes.

a reply to: raymundoko

www.bradblog.com...

He doesn't. Sometimes if the seeker of info is partisan, all they see is the partisan information.

a reply to: theNLBS

Right, and that is Dem to Repub, like I said...

There are plenty of Repub to Dem but he doesn't post them, or if he does post them there is spin on it. Why?

If you answer that question honestly you will realize you are doing a partisan hacks PR for him.

a reply to: raymundoko

E-Votes Flip D to R in Texas, R to D in Illinois: More Trouble With Touch-Screens (2014 Edition)

There's lots more if you search through the archives, or use Google.