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[GlyphGryph]

Because then it would be too easy for people to vote. And if we make it easy for people to vote, voter fraud will obviously increase.

[Jervill]

Or at least, that's the talking point.  Realistically, voter fraud is extremely rare; the turnout here in Minnesota routinely reaches >70% during Presidential elections, yet there is less than 1% of "fraud", and most of those are simply honest mistakes.

[GlyphGryph]

And the argument that more votes equals more voter fraud, even if perfectly true, means absolutely nothing since it says nothing about the percentage of fraudulent to non-fraudulent, which is what really matters.

[mainiac]

The Bush administration launched a 5 year justice department investigation to look for cases of voter fraud throughout the nation.  In all they found about 120 illegal voters in the entire investigation.  Not one of those cases was an instance of double voting or intentionally submitting illicit information in order to vote, rather they were cases of people no knowing they were ineligible.  Charges were only brought up against 86 people nationwide over the 5 years.

So yeah, voter fraud is not a big issue in the US.  What's stunning is how little we have.

[jester]

The Bush administration launched a 5 year justice department investigation to look for cases of voter fraud throughout the nation. 

Dont know what you hear in the US but in the rest of the world the bush administration is fairly notorious for being connected with things that look a hell of alot like voter fraud

[Sheb]

No, voter fraud is the voter frauding, what Bush did was having the Supreme Court hand him the presidency.

[GlyphGryph]

There are lots of ways to corruptify elections without vote fraud. Vote counting fraud is pretty popular. Driving legitimate votes away from polls. Shutting down or moving polls in districts likely to vote for your opponent. Repeated "miscounts".

None of those are "voter fraud", because none are fraud initiated by the voters.

Still electoral fraud(?) though, or something like that.

[jester]

Nah, I mean all the dodgy taking people off the election roles, not allowing people to enroll, not counting certain votes, paying to make vote machines that can be altered/defrauded in ways that cannot be detected, shutting down investigations into these issues, etc, etc.......


Ninjaed... Well ok then, if thats what is meant by 'voter fraud'  though frankly I find the idea that any one person could embark on a serious campaign to change the political landscape on their lonesome seems a bit farcical.

[kaenneth]

As I said a while back on Slashdot:

"Diebold even ran a poll to determine which voting method people prefer, out of 100 people 65 preferred electronic voting, 45 preferred paper, and 5 George W. Bush."

[MonkeyHead]

This been posted in this thread yet? Its kind of a big deal...

[Jervill]

I believe I speak for everyone here:

It's about fucking time, Mr. President.

[GlyphGryph]

I find the idea that any one person could embark on a serious campaign to change the political landscape on their lonesome seems a bit farcical.

Thats because it is (nowadays, anyway. There have been times when it was a HUGE problem. There were some huge pro and anti-slavery groups that would pretty much roam from state to state to territory and back, voting as many times in as many places as possible).

The problem is really when voter fraud is organized - get a large enough group committed to it and you can cause serious damage, becuase even if they are (or at least were) open about what they were doing, the nature of a secret ballot makes it very hard to tell which votes are fraudulent and need to be tossed.

[Sowelu]

This been posted in this thread yet? Its kind of a big deal...

Hell yeah.

[Sirus]

This been posted in this thread yet? Its kind of a big deal...

Welp, he's got my vote.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I mean, he kinda had it anyway since I'm not about to vote Republican and there aren't very many strong candidates, but this is the clincher.

[mainiac]

I guess this guy finally won him over: http://www.theonion.com/articles/obama-blasts-obamas-evasive-stance-on-gay-marriage,28146/