Few analysts outside the McCain campaign appear to share this view. And pollsters this time around will not make the mistake that the Gallup organization made 60 years ago — ending their polling more than a week before the election and missing a last-minute surge in support for Truman. Every day brings dozens of new state and national presidential polls, a trend that is expected to continue up to Election Day.
Still, there appears to be an undercurrent of worry among some polling professionals and academics. One reason is the wide variation in Obama leads: Just yesterday, an array of polls showed the Democrat leading by as little as two points and as much as 15 points. The latest Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll showed the race holding steady, with Obama enjoying a lead of 52 percent to 45 percent among likely voters.
Some in the McCain camp also argue that the polls showing the largest leads for Obama mistakenly assume that turnout among young voters and African Americans will be disproportionately high. The campaign is banking on a good turnout among GOP partisans, whom McCain officials say they are working hard to attract to the polls.
“I have been wondering for weeks” whether the polls are accurately gauging the state of the race, said Steven Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College in Minnesota. Borrowing from lingo popularized by former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Schier asked what are the “unknown unknowns” about polling this year: For instance, is the sizable cohort of people who don’t respond to pollsters more Republican-leaning this year, perhaps because they don’t want to admit to a pollster that they are not supporting the “voguish” Obama?
I have a variety of mixed thoughts about pre-election polls:
1) Why do we have them anyways? What practical purpose to they serve? When candidate x is supposedly way ahead in the polls – exactly what are people (especially who do not support candidate x) support to think and do? roll over play dead and stay home and note vote? Seriously think about that – just why are pre-election polls so important?
2) My wife (who leans toward Obama) doesn’t think Obama can win because she does not think this country is ready for an African-American president. I am totally against Obama and yet hope she is mistaken – I think the first African-American president would be fantastic (about time!) just not this particular one. So some people refuse to admit they are against Obama because of the Bradley Effect. How many are for Obama solely because of his ethnicity? Surely the latter outweighs the former?
3) One thing that does trouble me is the assumption (whose exactly?) that Dems want to register lots of new voters and see huge voter turnout, and Republicans supposedly do not want this. I would like to think Republicans can and shall be just as enthusiastic about registering new voters (even if most of them vote Democratic) and are not afraid of high voter turnout. (When you think people staying home and not voting helps your chances at election time – you got serious problems.)
Rick, you raise some questions that have been bothering me as well. What *is*the point of polls? That the candidates would want polls, I can understand. But what is the purpose of releasing this information to the voters? Why should we care?
And I am also troubled by the assumption – as I am hearing it here – that the Democrats are registering lots of people and getting them to the polls — as if there were something *wrong* with this. Don’t we want citizens to vote? I do, whoever they vote for. I have found it distressing to see the number of people voting dropping and dropping and dropping.
I think most Americans don’t care if qualified people are registered to vote. The problem is when thirteen people from out of state rent a house to vote in a swing state, when people are bused in from out of state to register and vote in swing states you have a problem. When Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck the the Dallas cowboys register to vote some thing is wrong. In Georgia we have a voter ID law. Various groups have tried repeated court challanges to get it over turned. Why?
Initially, the voter ID came with a price tag – if you didn’t have driver’s license you had to buy one. And I heartily opposed that – voting is a free right and duty of citizens. I will admit that there is something, too, that seems unAmerican about carrying what amounts to a state ID card – when I was in school, we felt sorry for people in other countries who had to be numbered by the state like this. As it stands, the voter ID just throws another step into the voting process, a discouragement to voting when turnouts were already too low. But at least they have quit trying to charge for the ID.
What I am hearing from people in this election, however, is not alarm about voter fraud; it’s alarm that someone is making an effort to register qualified voters, especially young voters, and engage them in the political process. And that attitude does disturb me.
#1,2. I want INFORMED people voting. Anybody who needs somebody else to get a registration form for them, and needs somebody else to turn in that form for them, shouldn’t be voting.
So yeah, I don’t think low voter registration and low voter participation is a problem. If you can’t do simple things for yourself, you shouldn’t be casting votes. I’m not in favor of making voting easier. It’s already incredibly easy as it is.
Well, I’m glad that the local chapter of the DAR didn’t regard us ignorant high school students as unworthy of the effort in my senior year. They came to school one day and set up tables to register all comers in the senior class and seemed proud to get each one of us registered. Because people haven’t been informed voters in the past doesn’t mean, to me, that we should not want them to become informed voters.
Voting is one of the most important things a citizen can do to affect the direction of his/her country. A vote is just like currency. Every currency has some level of counterfit currency floating around. Unless that level reaches a critical percentage (and that percentage is rather small), the currency is considered good. But, when the percentage of counterfit currency in circulation becomes significant (say 3-5%) then currency is signicantly worth less and not just 3-5% less. With voting, the same thing occurs. There has always been a certain percentage of fraud in the votes. However, there is now the perception that one side is registering bogus voters and the other side is suppressing the vote among minorities. The thinking among Democratic partisans probably runs like this: The Rethuglicans are suppressing our vote by illegal means. So, we need to get more people to vote to counter that. The Republicans partisans, on the other hand, seem to be thinking: “The Dimocrats are registering people to vote multiple times with bogus names and addresses and they are registering non-citizens to vote, so we need to do more to suppress their votes. This works in a viscious cycle of escallation.
Voter ID law is designed to counter the non-citizens and people who vote multiple times under different names or addresses. These votes are to the electoral system what counterfit currency is to money. Unless people have faith in the fairness of the electoral system, our whole country is in deep, dark, serious trouble and is even more subject to manipulation by whatever group decides to work its “magic” on the people.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
I agree, Phil, that we need to have confidence in the voting process, but we don’t need to make qualified voters feel that their votes are being needlessly challenged. Was there an uptick in fraud that demanded the sudden need for voter ID? I don’t remember reading that voting fraud had reached new, intolerable levels prior to that. Certainly, in Georgia, there has been nothing comparable to the fraud of the 40s. Unless it was the fraud of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s. 🙁
Dispite all the talk about ID’s causing voter suppression there is not one case to be found in Georgia. One lady who sued saying it would be a hardship to get ID had her case thrown out because she already had an adequate ID, the judge had her bring her purse forward and found her marta pass (mass transit ID). A legal ID can be obtained for free. NO hard ship at all! If you don’t have an ID you are given a provisional ballot and must bring some ID in to get it counted. In Augusta we had about 10 provisonal ballots due to ID problems and about 5 folks came forward with ID’s and thier votes were counted.
I am in favor of a voter ID because of all the voter fraud. If the state can compell folks to register for the draft and issue a draft card…and there is no sentiment that it is somehow un-American to be carrying what amounts to a state ID card…then by golly, folks can carry a card to the polls to prove they have a legal right to vote and that they are only voting one time. Just as the state pays for draft registration cards and Social Security cards, they can pay for voter registration cards, too. So, it won’t be an issue of folks being too poor.
Folks opposing a voter ID card on the grounds that it is a state form of ID – Oh, puhleez!!! Do you have the same objection to Social Security cards? Tax ID numbers? Driver’s licenses? Gun permits? Library cards? Marriage licenses? Electrician licenses? Business licenses? Etc. ad infinitim.
Unless you have the same scruples about these other forms of State IDs that are required to exercise various rights, may I humbly suggest that you actually have some other motive for opposition.
Spoo…hit the “L” key once too many times.
compel
Dave B, I don’t object so much now since they are not charging for an ID, but they were initially attaching a charge to it and there were many who did not have a sufficient ID. They sent a bus around to rural communities to process IDs and could not process all the people who needed one. I think it’s probably true that there are more people in the rural areas who lack adequate ID than in the cities. As long as it’s not made onerous to voters, I don’t object, but I do doubt the need for it. If we survived the Talmadge years without a voter ID, I believe we can do just fine now.
Sick and Tired, I’m not entirely in favor of the draft either. 😉 But I do appreciate the need for it. Voter IDs don’t seem of the same order of urgency as national security, to me.
I for one don’t want anyone voting who recieves money from the government. If that means that millions and millions are disenfranchized because of how much we have socialized this nation, fine by me. There must be someone out there, besides myself, who doesn’t sponge off the state. Wait, I did get that check from the government, and I’m perfectly willing to give it back, with interest, if that will mean that we have a country run by free people for free people. I trust freemen to take care of the rest of the people. I don’t, however, trust freeloaders and those who have been raised to think like freeloaders to vote in the interest of the country and not to vote themselves other people’s money.
There may be something to the McCain camp’s criticism of the voter turnout models behind many polls. In Nevada, the data are showing that new voters, young voters, and Hispanics are turning out at a lower rate than the population generally. Modeling behind many of the polls assumes that these voter groups will turn out in high numbers. If this trend repeats itself nation-wide, then McCain will outperform the polls, although by how much is a matter of debate. It may be that he is down by a substantial margin and that a later surge would not be sufficient to put him over the top.
By the way, and this is a bit off topic, but Joe Biden has let slip that fewer voters would get a tax cut under Obama than Obama has promised. These types of very informative Kinsley gaffes by both Biden and Obama would help explain why McCain is closing late.
I have always believed that pollsters are lied to, especially here in “the heartland,” where a whole lot of people just don’t want their personal business known by pollsters. Also, I saw somewhere (a major wire service, I believe) that early voting among African-Americans, Latinos, and Youth are all lagging the voting percentages of Whites. Apparently the Democratic party is most concerned about this. It may be a telling thing – – and perhaps the polls showing the Democratic candidate so far ahead are, indeed, skewed. The only poll that counts is only a few days away.
The best comment on polls — ever — came from John Diefenbacher (1895-1979), 13th Prime Minister of Canada. During a particularly headed election campaign back in 1963, he was asked: “Mr. Diefenbacher, what do you think of the polls?”
Dief replied: “Polls are for dogs, and they know best what to do with them.”
“Why do we have [polls] anyways? What practical purpose to they serve?” —Rick in Louisiana [#1]
Good question. Some preliminary thoughts:
— Many of us want to know how our candidates are doing relative to their opponents, including who is likely to win. For that purpose, polling data are the best information available. They are a form of news.
— NCAA basketball provides a possible parallel. Why do the news media have coaches and reporters rank teams each week? Why not wait until the end of the season and see who wins the tournament? Life would go on without sports polls. But fans want information about how their team is doing relative to others; the weekly rankings add interest to the race. Polling a cross-section of voters about political races is in some ways more reliable than polling small groups of reporters or coaches about basketball teams: after all, the voters themselves have the last word.
— Polls help interested citizens make better-informed judgments about whether and how to invest their time and money.
— Regular polling by multiple pollsters also serves as a safeguard against stealing elections, as we have seen in developing countries and other nascent democracies over the past decade or two. If polls have regularly shown that 70% of voters support the opposition, it’s more difficult for incumbents to plausibly “award” themselves a majority of the votes.
Polling data, like early election results, do have the potential to skew elections. If it looks like a candidate will lose, his supporters may not show up to vote, thinking “what’s the use?” In 1980, this discouraged-voter syndrome helped clobber Democratic candidates in western states, where voters knew while the polls were still open that Reagan was headed for a landslide over Carter. This year Republicans stand to lose from discourage-voter syndrome.
To reduce the potential for skewing elections, responsible news outlets (including the Evil MSM®) do not release exit poll results for a state until voting has ended there. Not so Drudge and company. We’ll see how that works.
— Regular polling by multiple pollsters also serves as a safeguard against stealing elections, as we have seen in developing countries and other nascent democracies over the past decade or two. If polls have regularly shown that 70% of voters support the opposition, it’s more difficult for incumbents to plausibly “award†themselves a majority of the votes.
Excellent point. Thanks for making it.
“When Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck the the Dallas Cowboys register to vote some thing is wrong” —Dave B [#3]
True. But remember that there’s a difference between submitting a voter registration form and being registered to vote. Nor is there any evidence that Mickey and Donald have ever showed up to vote.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Dave B mentioned that he lives in Georgia. That reminds me of one of the most preposterous voter frauds in American history. Herman Talmadge would have lost the governorship in 1946 but for the fact that he received the votes of 56 deceased citizens of his home county. More remarkably still, these citizens had the same handwriting and cast their votes in alphabetical order. “They rose from the dead in Telfair County, marched in alphabetical order to the polls, cast their votes for Herman Talmadge, and went back to their last repose.” http://facstaff.colstate.edu/buchanan_scott/
I believe that very harsh penalties (loss of the right to vote a minimum of 20 years and a 5 yr prison sentence) should accompany conviction for voter fraud and harsh penalties (such as loss of the right to vote for 5 years) should accompany attempting to commit voter fraud (such as signing up in two different states or signing up with an assumed name or address or urging others to do so).
As for the ID required to vote, I think it is as necessary as banks using those pens that determine if a bill is counterfit or not.
I take no offense when asked for my ID when I use my credit card to pay for an item. Why should I take offense when asked for my ID as I am exercising my sovereign franchise as a citizen of this country.
It seems that heavily Democratic populations (the south in the 1870-1980s, Chicago, etc.) have a history of “vote early and often” and “don’t let a small think like death stop you from voting).
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
PS to the Talmadge story in #20:
What are the odds of 56 live citizens voting in alphabetical order if each decided independently of the others what time of day to vote? If math serves me correctly, the odds of that happening would be 1 in 59!—something like 1 in
710998587804863000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.
🙂 Weren’t they bold, not even bothering to try to disguise their little “resurrections.”? A neighboring county (Dodge) continues to be a byword for crooked elections even now.
“I am in favor of a voter ID because of all the voter fraud”
What’s the evidence that there’s much voter fraud in the sense of people voting when they are not entitled to?
Irenaeus,
I submit that registration fraud is prima facia evidence of vote fraud. In #7 above, I outlined how the perception of voter fraud can increase voter fraud as each side works to “get even” (read get ahead) with the perceived fraud attempts by the other side.
What is the issue with verifying that the person voting is indeed a citizen and is the person on the voter registration card and is entitled to vote? Unless our elections are largely perceived as being fairly run, then people will continue to drop out of the political system and it will be more open to gaming by radicals of either party.
As a Christian first, I want a just, fair, open, and trust worthy system to elect my government. As an American first, I want my political system to be less open to gaming it and the best way to do that is to add the inertia that having more people involved in the system will provide. As a conservative american, I believe that the spirit and the letter of the law should be obeyed and that people should pay a high penalty for attempting to circumvent the law.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
But Phil, has there been an increase in voter fraud? I haven’t seen any reports, here at least, that indicate there has been an increase in voter fraud in recent years.
Phil [#25]: I’m not arguing about an ID requirement. I’m taking issue with the claim, propagated by talk-show hosts, that this country has a host of ineligible people (including illegal immigrants) casting ballots.
I agree with Phil: “… registration fraud is prima facia evidence of vote fraud.”
If a person mint or prints counterfeit money, the Dept. of the Treasury and other authorities don’t just shrug it off and say, there is no evidence the fake currency has been used to make a purchase.
Fraudulent voter registration is an evidence of intent to commit a voting fraud.
If ACORN were in bed with John McCain and the Republicans as they (ACORN) are with Barak Obama and the Democrats, does anyone honestly think there would be anything less than a 24/7 outrage from the mass media over the matter?
Of course, we know the answer.
From what I have seen in the coverage, analysis, reporting, and editing of news and information on Obama, if he assaulted Mother Theresa, you would still find most of the press defending him and blaming Mother Theresa for the assault. Sometimes,
What I see, read, and hear from the press in this election year is Simply Unbelievable!
Lord have mercy.
Fr. Kingsley Jon-Ubabuco
[blockquote]What’s the evidence that there’s much voter fraud in the sense of people voting when they are not entitled to?[/blockquote]
Well, the FBI says there has been a “spike” in that type of crime.
“As the November elections draw closer, we want the public to know that violations of election law will not be tolerated. Second, we’re seeing a spike in these kinds of crime. During the 2004 presidential election year alone, we opened more cases than the previous four years combined. We’re seeing all types of schemes—double voting, voter intimidation, ballot box stuffing, voting in someone else’s name, using false corporate invoices to conceal the actual source of a campaign contribution.”
http://www.fbi.gov/page2/april06/electioncrime041406.htm
Does anyone have any reliable statistics from reputable non-partisan sources to prove the FBI wrong? If not, I stand by my statement.
Phil [#25] & Spiro [#28]: Talk-show hosts would have us believe that we face an epidemic of fraudulent voting: i.e., ineligible persons casting ballots. When I asked for evidence of fraudulent voting, you replied by saying that you inferred it from the submission of voter registration forms with bogus signatures.
Let’s think about that. Take the case of the paid ACORN signature-gatherer who turned in Nevada voter registration forms that mirrored the Dallas Cowboys’ starting lineup. Even without the current controversy, would those forms have resulted anyone being registered to vote—much less registered to vote in Nevada? No way. Routine checking (e.g., of DMV or telephone records) would show that no such person lived at the purported address—if the address itself even existed. Registration fraud can lead to voter fraud only if a fraudster succeeds both in registering and in voting.
No rational person would believe that you could pull off a stunt like registering the Cowboys to vote in Las Vegas and then impersonating them at the polls. The paid signature-gatherer who concocted those signatures didn’t care about generating votes; he wanted to generate signatures.
If you suspect fraudulent voting, you can ascertain with near certainty whether it has occurred. Did someone identifying himself as (shall we say) Mr. Spirophilous vote or attempt to vote? If so, did his signature at the polling place match the one on the voter registration card? If so, does Mr. Spirophilous exist? If so, can he confirm that he voted and that the polling-place signature is his? If the answer to any of these questions is no, you have a possible case of fraudulent voting. But despite talk-show bloviations, what’s the evidence that we have a fraudulent voting problem?
Attempts to register Mickey, Donald, and the Cowboys were DOA, and they hardly constitute proof of fraudulent voting.
Sick & Tired [#29]: The FBI statement you quoted covers a range of election-related crimes, only two of which involve voting by someone not entitled to do so. Laundering illegal corporate campaign contributions is very different. So is stuffing ballot boxes—an insiders’ crime by election officials. So is intimidation designed to keep lawful voters from voting.
[blockquote]To reduce the potential for skewing elections, responsible news outlets (including the Evil MSM®) do not release exit poll results for a state until voting has ended there. [/blockquote]
Gee, I seem to recall that in the 2000, all five networks mis-called the Florida election for Gore at 7:00 p.m. EST…before the Pan Handle had finished voting…skewing the results towards Gore. [The western counties of Florida are traditionally Republican.] They didn’t just announce that Gore had taken the state, they also said that the polls were closed. Yep, with 25 electoral votes on the line, the mainstream media’s non-partisanship was at its finest.
“A survey estimate by John McLaughlin & Associates put the number of voters who did not vote due to confusion as high as 15,000, which theoretically reduced Bush’s margin of victory by an estimated 5,000 votes; a study by John Lott found that Bush’s margin of victory was reduced by 7,500 votes”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_2000,_in_Florida#Controversial_issues_in_Florida
What an outstanding example of responsible news outlets in action. I guess it is an easy enough mistake to make, since this was the first time there had ever been a presidential electionin in Florida and none of the media outlets had ever covered elections there before 2000. Oh, wait…
Well, it couldn’t be an example of bias. The media is not biased. Oh, wait…
[b]Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist[/b]
“…almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.”
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx?RelNum=6664
[b]Even Harvard Finds The Media Biased[/b]
“Just like so many reports before it, a joint survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy — hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy — found that in covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans.
Democrats are not only favored in the tone of the coverage. They get more coverage period.”
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=278808786575124
Good thing we have “responsible news outlets”. I wonder if companies that do the polling are as “responsible” as the news outlets?
[blockquote]The FBI statement you quoted covers a range of election-related crimes, only two of which involve voting by someone not entitled to do so.[/blockquote]
Two of the election-related crimes listed by the FBI as part of “a spike in these kinds of crime” do in fact involve voting by someone not entitled to do so. The fact that they also list other crimes that are part of the spike does not mean that crimes involving voting by someone not entitled to do so are not part of the spike. Basic logic. Adding things to the list does not remove other things on the same list.
Does anyone have any reliable statistics from reputable non-partisan sources to prove the FBI wrong? If not, I stand by my statement.
BTW, there are 23,927 criminals on the active voter database in Washington state that should not legally be entitled to vote. That same state purged 40,000 dead, duplicate, underage, and non-citizen voters off the rolls since 2006. There were duplicate voters, underage voters, and non-citizen voters on the list prior to 2006.
http://www.kirotv.com/news/17714516/detail.html
There are 30,000 felons registered to cast ballots in the “presidential battleground state” of Florida. “Many are faithful voters, with at least 4,900 turning out in past elections.” “Of the felons who registered with a party, Democrats outnumber Republicans more than two to one.”
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flbfelons1012sboct12,0,3762352.story
So, yeah, that is voter fraud and on a pretty large scale.
“Basic logic” —#33
Yes, basic logic akin to saying . . .
1. This locked drawer contains my mother’s thimbles, needles, and gold coins.
2. The total number of items in the drawer has increased fourfold.
3. Therefore my mother has a lot more gold coins.
The problem with thousands of illegal voter registration cards is that election officials need to go through them and process them and enter them on voting rolls. Then when these names are found to be bogus remove them. We then have advocacy groups screaming that people are being disenfranchised and the government faces court challenges and it is a costly mess.
Polls are weighted based on number of registered voters, likely voters, etc., bogus registrations skew polls.
Here is a vidio news report on voter fraud in Ohio, it is on You Tube “OBAMA Got Me A House In Ohio So I Could Vote.” Please watch.
Ireaneus,
Your “basic logic” runs like this:
1. Lot’s of people are aquiring the tools necessary to counterfit currency.
2. There has been no reported increase in counterfit currency discovered at the banks or stores, but there has been an increase in people caught with counterfit bills (the voter registration cards) in their wallets.
3. Therefore, there is no additional counterfiting going on.
Even if there is no reported increase in fraudalent votes, doesn’t it make sense to ensure that the people who actually vote are entitled to vote and are who they claim to be?
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Irenaeus,
If you have any reliable statistics from reputable non-partisan sources to prove the FBI wrong, that prove 4,900 felons have not illegally voted in Florida [a key swing state with 25 electoral votes], and that prove there aren’t thousands of illegal felons registered to vote in Washington state, provide it.
You challenged me to produce “evidence that there’s much voter fraud in the sense of people voting when they are not entitled to” and I have provided a statement from the FBI [complete with link so that you can see for yourself], that states that there has been a spike in voter fraud.
When I did so, you challenged that information by saying; “The FBI statement you quoted covers a range of election-related crimes, only two of which involve voting by someone not entitled to do so.” You seemed to be suggesting that the evidence I provided was not sufficient evidence because there were only two items on the FBI list of the spike in crimes. I pointed out that it is basic logic that if you have a list of crimes that have “spiked” or increased, adding more crimes to the list does not change the fact that other crimes on the list have also “spiked”. It was a list of crimes that have spiked. That means that ALL the crimes listed have spiked, not that some have spiked and some have not.
By the way, I believe that three of the crimes listed involved voting by someone not entitled to do so, not two as you stated. Double voting, ballot box stuffing, and voting in someone else’s name would all “involve voting by someone not entitled to do so”.
Your “logic” is flawed. Your item 2 states “The total number of items in the drawer has increased fourfold.” The fact is that all of the individual types of items in the drawer have increased, and therefore, there would be more gold coins. The list that the FBI provided was of crimes that had “spiked”. All of the crimes on the list “spiked”, not some of one kind and none of another.
Also, I note that you have ignored the fact that 4,900 felons have already voted in Florida [a key election state with 25 electoral votes] in the past, and that in itself is massive voter fraud sufficient to potentially swing an election. Why have you ignored that evidence of voter fraud and instead attempted to refute my logic with your “logic”. What is your point? You failed to document any evidence in support of your assertion, and then attempted to attack my [i]logic[/i] rather than providie evidence to refute my evidence. What is that? Why this animus from a brother in Christ? Refute the evidence with evidence of your own if you can. Otherwise, wouldn’t it be a better witness to refrain from sniping?
So, getting back to the point, I have provided the evidence supporting my statement. If you have reliable evidence from reputable non-partisan sources to contradict it, kindly provide it. If you don’t, have the grace to admit it rather than constantly sniping at my comments.
Phil [#37]: You’re quite mistaken. The analogue to fraudulent voting is passing counterfeit money (as Spiro recognized in #28). We require all voters to sign in and we keep a record of their signatures. We would have a comparable check on counterfeit money if we required everyone who accepts paper money to retain a dated copy of it. Then we would know whether counterfeit money had been used to make a purchase.
In gauging the effect of a counterfeiting operation, we might reason:
1. We caught Bobo with $1 million in crummy-looking $100 bills, and he was in the process of counterfeiting more.
2. Our thorough examination of paper money logs disclosed no case in which anyone had accepted one of Bobo’s counterfeit bills.
3. Therefore we conclude that Bobo did not pass counterfeit money here.
Irenaeus,
You are still my friend- and will continue to be. But on this one, I think we have a great disagreement here.
In this voter registration fraud analogy, Bob’s counterfeit bills are not some “$1 million in crummy-looking $100 bills.” Moreover, in this analogy, Bobo (as we have with ACORN) has every intent of passing off the counterfeit bill as the real thing. Bobo is not making some Monopoly play-money – just as Obama’s supporters are not making play-voter-registration forms.
In law, what these supporters and the win-at-all-cost Democrats are doing have the elements of “intent to commit a crime.”
Obama and his supports are committing and intending to commit election fraud. But, as usual, he and his Democratic supports in the press/media get another pass.
Fr. Kingsely Jon-Ubabuco
Spiro [#40]: I value your friendship but take issue with your analogy. Fraudulent votes are not something you can keep in storage like ammunition or counterfeit money. You have to show up and your signature leaves a paper trail. As explained in #30, that trail can be readily and reliably checked, regardless of whether you get caught in the act. Yet the evidence I’ve seen does not indicate that large numbers of ballots are being fraudulently cast. This is a far cry from the talk-show horror about fraudulent votes skewing election results.
Two questions:
-1- Do you believe election officials simply accept registration forms, without attempting to verify that the purported registrant exists and lives in the jurisdiction?
-2- Do you believe that the signature-gatherer who attempted to register the Dallas Cowboys in Las Vegas cared whether his actions resulted in anyone actually voting?
“The FBI says there has been a ‘spike’ in that type of crime” —Sick & Tired [#29]
No, the FBI says it “opened more cases” during 2004. Most law enforcement in this country is done at the state and local level. The FBI has considerable discretion over what cases it pursues, and the priorities set by the FBI director and federal prosecutors vary from time to time. For example, J. Edgar Hoover long devoted more investigative resources to bank robberies than to organized crime. When the FBI shifted resources from the former to the latter, the shift reflected not an increase in organized crime but an increase willingness to investigate it.
If fraudulent voting occurs on a broad scale, why didn’t all the FBI investigations of the 2004 elections establish that? Or do you contend that they did?
If fraudulent voting occurs on a broad scale, why didn’t all the FBI investigations of the 2004 elections establish that?
And why the uproar for voter IDs in Georgia without any outbreak of fraud? I am more concerned that more damage could be done by unscrupulous handling of the voting machines than I am that any substantial number of fraudulent voters will show up.
The uproar for voter ID is over the proven uptick in registration fraud and the fact that increased registration fraud means a higher chance of voter fraud. If there are more illegal voter registrations, then there are more opportunities for illegal voters to vote.
As a case in point, there were several people who bragged about voting absentee in New York and then voting again in person in Florida. I don’t know that this happened nor not, but annecdotal evidence supports it.
I don’t understand the problem with presenting positive ID when voting – especially if the state will provide a free ID to those who request one and don’t have a driver’s license.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
My problem with it, as I’ve said, was that they it was initially presented as something that those who didn’t have driver’s licenses would have to purchase. But I was puzzled, and still am, that out of the blue we suddenly had to have IDs, without there having been any exceptional fraudulent voting here. It was presented with such urgency, but with no evident reason for the urgency.
#41, Iraneous, the problem in Ohio is the answer to the questions you ask. The Sec of State of Ohio was attempting to correlate the information you asked about for each new registration, after ACORN sent in a massive amount of new registrations in just a few weeks before the election, well after the deadline for registering. The Sec of State of OH said all the new registrations could not be correlated by election time, so those not correlated would not be valid registrations. The District Court Judge agreed with the Sec of State. The much more liberal appellate court told the Sec of St he could not disqualify voters, because he didn’t have the time to correlate the information with residences, etc. So ACORN, as it has in other states, has now a way for massive voter fraud, simply by innundating the Sec of State’s office in any state with new registrations just before an election, that no correlation can be done. That is one of the very good reasons for picture voter i.d. (By the way Sherrie, it’s interesting that no Repubs have opposed the voter i.d. law, only Dems. Why is that?)
Actually, Billy, I’m not a Democrat – I’m not a supporter of either party per se and will likely vote for some of each. I’m still undecided about a presidential candidate, finding neither choice very palatable.
I don’t like the Ohio situation any more than you do. But what happened in Georgia goes back two or three years and I still haven’t heard anything that explains the sudden urgent need for voter IDs in Georgia. It’s a done deal, though, and at least they’re free.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”
— old saying that is perfectly applicable in this topic.
[blockquote]“The FBI says there has been a ‘spike’ in that type of crime†—Sick & Tired [#29]
No, the FBI says it “opened more cases†during 2004. —Iraneus [#42][/blockquote]
Here is the direct quote with a link to the web page so that all can confirm the truth.
“As the November elections draw closer, we want the public to know that [b]violations of election law[/b] will not be tolerated. Second, [b]we’re seeing a spike in these kinds of crime.[/b] During the 2004 presidential election year alone, we opened more cases than the previous four years combined. We’re seeing all types of schemes—[b]double voting[/b], voter intimidation, [b]ballot box stuffing, voting in someone else’s name[/b], using false corporate invoices to conceal the actual source of a campaign contribution.â€
http://www.fbi.gov/page2/april06/electioncrime041406.htm
[i] Emphasis added for those unable to grasp the content without aid.[/i]
What crimes are the FBI referring to in the paragraph? They are referring to “violations of election law”.
Specifically, what are 3/5ths of the crimes they are referring to in the paragraph? They are referring to “double voting”, “ballot box stuffing”, and “voting in someone else’s name”; all of which are voter fraud.
How are they characterizing the rate of occurrences of these specific crimes referred to in the paragraph? They have characterized the rate of occurrences of these specific crimes as having spiked; specifically using these words: “we’re seeing a spike in these kinds of crime”.
To wit, “The FBI says there has been a ‘spike’ in that type of crimeâ€, as I have accurately stated.
The reason the FBI “opened more cases†during 2004 is because they were “seeing a spike in these kinds of crime”.
Iraneus has STILL failed to provide ANY evidence to refute the evidence I have provided. He can parse words and try to twist the meaning, but facts are stubborn things. He has also continued to ignore the 4,900 felons that voted in Florida illegally. That was a clear case of voter fraud in a swing state essential to the presidential election.
So going back to the very beginning, I remain in favor of a voter ID because of all the voter fraud…
I sincerely apologize to everyone for that last line. Elves, if you would, please delete it. It was uncharitable and I was wrong to have written it.
I fear that I have fallen prey to “more heat than light” syndrome.
Due humility:
“New CNN/Opinion Research poll shows Sen. Barack Obama maintains a seven point national lead over Sen. John McCain, 53% to 46%. Said pollster Keating Holland: ‘Keep in mind that this is not a prediction of the final outcome. That’s not an easy task with two full days of campaigning to go in a country in which roughly one in ten voters tend to make up their minds in the last few days.'”