Feds Charge Hispanic Immigrant with Illegally Voting in Several Florida Elections, Lying on Immigration Forms

[ThatRobGuy]

Because we see little evidence of people successfully circumventing it, despite multiple massive efforts to show that that's what's happening.

We also see little evidence of people circumnavigating speeding laws...because people mostly do it after they looked around to make sure there's no cops watching...but I don't believe for a second that the problem is confined to the scope of just the people who get caught speeding.


Perhaps a better way to approached it would've been honesty.

Instead of Democrats trying to counterbalance the GOP's absurdly high 2020 estimates with absurdly low ones (WaPo was, at one point, tossing out single-digit numbers with a straight face), it would've been better to just admit that it happens, but it hasn't happened enough to tip a federal election.

There's significantly less incentive to commit voter fraud, especially on an individual basis, than there is to purchase alcohol as a minor.

I think you're optimistically underestimating just how worked up people get over politics these days.

You're looking at it as a rational, level-headed person, and then projecting your own sensible position onto everyone else.

A level headed person would also not see much incentive in waiting by ballot boxes in a parking lot with guns to intimidate people, nor would they see much incentive in rioting at their college campus in order to try to shut down a Ben Shapiro speech, but yet it happened.


If a person will wait around with an AR-15 in parking lot adjacent to a drop by to intimidate people, or people will riot on campus (with their professors cheering them on) to make sure someone from the other side can't even talk, I don't think those types of people would be above shenanigans.

When you have left-leaning prominent people like Sam Harris saying things like:
In a now-viral interview on the “TRIGGERnometry” podcast, Harris, 55, happily dismissed those who said it was “completely unfair” to have shut down The Post’s Twitter account to silence its reporting.

The influential philosopher noted how critics called it “a left-wing conspiracy to deny the presidency to Donald Trump.”

“Absolutely it was. Absolutely. But I think it was warranted,” the “Waking Up” author claimed. "I wouldn't even care even if the story was about the first son having the corpses of children in his basement.”


If I significant number of people feel the way Sam Harris does about this, then that's cause for concern.


Gun threats, riots, and shutting down the press are all more egregious than casting a fraudulent ballot or two... Anyone willing to go as far as doing the former certainly wouldn't be above doing the latter.


And then there are stories like this one:

Hamilton Co. Poll Worker Removed After Electioneering, Telling Voters Not To Vote Republican Because "They Are Racist"

A Hamilton County poll worker has been accused of electioneering including pre-selecting a voter’s ballot as ‘straight Democrat.’

wibc.com

If the allegations have any merit at all, how many previous times did he pull the "preselect a straight democratic ticket for a confused elderly person into the voting booth" routine before getting called out for it?


Now, to clarify, do I think any of this was to a scale that tipped the election for Biden? Of course not, he won, and the betting odds are that he still would've handily beaten Trump under pre-covid voting rules.

But the gaslighting in the form of pretending that voter fraud is a "non-issue" or not something worth even worrying about isn't helping matters.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

We also see little evidence of people circumnavigating speeding laws...because people mostly do it after they looked around to make sure there's no cops watching...but I don't believe for a second that the problem is confined to the scope of just the people who get caught speeding.

I see plenty of evidence of people circumventing speeding laws every time someone blows by me on the highway. Or when I'm going over the speed limit and see all of the surrounding traffic matching my pace. It's also something that could easily be independently confirmed in a systemic manner simply by standing by the side of the road with a radar gun. In contrast, independent efforts to identify voter fraud have turned up virtually nothing.

Perhaps a better way to approached it would've been honesty.

Instead of Democrats trying to counterbalance the GOP's absurdly high 2020 estimates with absurdly low ones (WaPo was, at one point, tossing out single-digit numbers with a straight face), it would've been better to just admit that it happens, but it hasn't happened enough to tip a federal election.

I can't speak for the rest of the world, but I'm pretty certain that "it happens, but it's not enough to change anything" has been the line here on these forums since complaints about election fraud first became common. And for the record, I'm willing to bet that WaPo's single-digit numbers were confirmed cases of voter fraud (which, three years later, sit at 18, per the Heritage Foundation - linked earlier).

I think you're optimistically underestimating just how worked up people get over politics these days.

You're looking at it as a rational, level-headed person, and then projecting your own sensible position onto everyone else.

A level headed person would also not see much incentive in waiting by ballot boxes in a parking lot with guns to intimidate people, nor would they see much incentive in rioting at their college campus in order to try to shut down a Ben Shapiro speech, but yet it happened.


If a person will wait around with an AR-15 in parking lot adjacent to a drop by to intimidate people, or people will riot on campus (with their professors cheering them on) to make sure someone from the other side can't even talk, I don't think those types of people would be above shenanigans.

Again with the arguments from incredulity. What you think people might do isn't really a sound basis for a law, especially one that potentially restricts fundamental rights of citizens.

Gun threats, riots, and shutting down the press are all more egregious than casting a fraudulent ballot or two... Anyone willing to go as far as doing the former certainly wouldn't be above doing the latter.

Maybe. But wandering around a polling place with a gun or starting a riot is going to have a much, much bigger impact than forging a ballot or two and the intersection of people with both motive and opportunity (it's really only "easy" if you have access to the mail of someone who gets a mail ballot) is going to be pretty small.

But the gaslighting in the form of pretending that voter fraud is a "non-issue" or not something worth even worrying about isn't helping matters.

Please don't misrepresent my words. I have not said either of those things. Again, my position is that further regulations aimed at preventing voter fraud - at least as they've been proposed in recent years - will prevent more legitimate voters from voting than the number of illegitimate votes they stop. Therefore, efforts should be more focused on detecting and prosecuting fraud than preventing it. I'm not necessarily opposed to a universal voter ID, but I've yet to see a proposal that doesn't create disenfranchisement issues.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Please don't misrepresent my words. I have not said either of those things. Again, my position is that further regulations aimed at preventing voter fraud - at least as they've been proposed in recent years - will prevent more legitimate voters from voting than the number of illegitimate votes they stop.

But isn't that the same dynamic for many other things we safeguard against via procedural/legislative means means? (where it could have a deterring factor against more people who wouldn't have been a problem than stopping people who would be?)

There's likely several forms of business permits and regulations that would likely fit that mold of "more good people deterred than bad people stopped"...yet I would assume each of those permits/licenses/regulations would have advocates that suggested that they're still necessary.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

But isn't that the same dynamic for many other things we safeguard against via procedural/legislative means means? (where it could have a deterring factor against more people who wouldn't have been a problem than stopping people who would be?)

There's likely several forms of business permits and regulations that would likely fit that mold of "more good people deterred than bad people stopped"...yet I would assume each of those permits/licenses/regulations would have advocates that suggested that they're still necessary.

Probably, but owning a business isn't a right. And permits/regulations have largely been established over the course of our country's history in response to businesses violating the rights of their employees and customers, not to hedge against potential violations.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Probably, but owning a business isn't a right. And permits/regulations have largely been established over the course of our country's history in response to businesses violating the rights of their employees and customers, not to hedge against potential violations.

Is voting an explicitly defined right?

Does the Constitution Guarantee a Right to Vote? The Answer May Surprise You.

For decades, the courts and Congress have taken the lead in expanding the legal right to vote, but the founders never explicitly included it.

www.nytimes.com

According to the NY Times, it's not.

While certain amendments and provisions enumerate the things that can't be used to deny someone the ability to vote, that's different than suggesting that it's some inalienable right that has be made as easy as possible to exercise.


In fact, I think there's a few well-reasoned justifications for why not everyone should be be able to vote on absolutely everything. But that's a separate topic.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Is voting an explicitly defined right?

According to the NY Times, it's not.

Explicit, no, but that has consistently been the Supreme Court's interpretation nonetheless - including the two cases that the Times article mentioned as being before the Court this year as potential points of concern.

And again, the business regulations you mention are largely reactive, not proactive.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Explicit, no, but that has consistently been the Supreme Court's interpretation nonetheless - including the two cases that the Times article mentioned as being before the Court this year as potential points of concern.

And again, the business regulations you mention are largely reactive, not proactive.

Perhaps to go at it from a different angle, what's wrong with being proactive, and why is it only labelled as racist when the US does it?

For instance, why is there not the same level of outrage at the fact that, say, Canada has these requirements for their federal elections:

Or any of these countries:

Are Canada, Iceland, Norway, and the Netherlands also just overreacting and being unnecessarily proactive about something that's not that big of an issue? Those are nations that are more progressive than we are in most ways, so I'm assuming that most people wouldn't automatically attribute the laws to racism like they do for the US

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Are Canada, Iceland, Norway, and the Netherlands also just overreacting and being unnecessarily proactive about something that's not that big of an issue? Those are nations that are more progressive than we are in most ways, so I'm assuming that most people wouldn't automatically attribute the laws to racism like they do for the US

The question is: how were those laws implemented? When were those laws implemented (relative to the introduction of democratic government)? What percentage of the population lacks government ID? What is done to ensure disenfranchisement? As I said in post #102, every proposal I've seen pushed for voter ID (in the US) creates significant disenfranchisement problems.

Unlike most (all?) of the countries on your list, we don't have a standardized national ID system, our work schedule/culture can make it difficult to impossible for low income people to take the time to obtain identification, and we don't have easy ways to verify identity if we don't have access to certain documents (Canada, for example, allows you to swear an oath and have another registered voter vouch for you). This leads to around 11% of voting-age Americans not having a drivers license. Around 3% have no ID at all. This disproportionately affects young people, minorities, and lower-income individuals.

UMD Analysis: Millions of Americans Don’t Have ID Required to Vote

Study With Voting Rights Organization Shows Young People, People of Color Less Likely to Have Valid Photo Identification

today.umd.edu

 

[ThatRobGuy]

The question is: how were those laws implemented? When were those laws implemented (relative to the introduction of democratic government)? What percentage of the population lacks government ID? What is done to ensure disenfranchisement? As I said in post #102, every proposal I've seen pushed for voter ID (in the US) creates significant disenfranchisement problems. Unlike most (all?) of the countries on your list, we don't have a standardized national ID system, our work schedule/culture can make it difficult to impossible for low income people to take the time to obtain identification, and we don't have easy ways to verify identity if we don't have access to certain documents (Canada, for example, allows you to swear an oath and have another registered voter vouch for you).

For the case of Canada, they implemented the law in 2007 (not sure about the other countries, but I'm sure it's easy enough to find with a google search)

Not sure what you mean by "we don't have a standardized ID system"...we have the same system as Canada minus the healthcare ID.
The following options are available "Passport, Drivers License, State-issued ID card"... I think a non-drivers license state ID should be free, but as it currently stands, it's $10-20 and it's good for 4 years and a 30 minute visit to the DMV. (many states like my own have waived the fee and it's now free for a state-issued photo ID that's not a drivers license which is acceptable for voter ID...if you want the enhanced one that's required for domestic air travel, it's $25.75, also good for 4 years)

The work schedule argument is a weak one... if you know election day is in November, is there really any significant number of people who can't find an hour and scrounge up $10-20 between now and then to get to the DMV to get a free state-issued photo ID?

If the whole argument is "we shouldn't be appealing to outliers" with regards to voter fraud, should we be appealing to outliers who can't come up with $10 and 30 minutes of time once every 4 years?

With regards to the countries who give the option of allowing another person with ID to "swear an oath that you are who you say you are", I suspect that would be even more poorly received by some people than the photo ID method.


Is there possibly a chance (even just the tiniest remote chance) that some democrats want to make voting easier for the inverse of the disingenuous reasons that some republicans want to make it harder?

I don't view "let's make the procedure to vote as easy as possible because Black and Mexican people are too poor and lazy to get a drivers license, but they'll vote for us" to be any more flattering or any less condescending and unethical than some republicans thinking "let's make photo ID a requirement because Black and Mexican people are to poor and lazy to get one, because they don't typically vote for us".

I mean, let's cut through the bull, that is the crux of what the voter ID argument is about in the eyes of many people, right?

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Not sure what you mean by "we don't have a standardized ID system"

We don't. Passports are the closest thing, but they're not mandatory and only half to a third of Americans have one.

...we have the same system as Canada minus the healthcare ID.

And the ability to have another voter vouch for you. Also, healthcare ID is going to be significantly more widespread in Canada, with its state-run healthcare system.

The work schedule argument is a weak one... if you know election day is in November, is there really any significant number of people who can't find an hour and scrounge up $10-20 between now and then to get to the DMV to get a free state-issued photo ID?

I think it's mainly the "getting to the DMV" that tends to be a problem. Limited hours, long lines, and a general lack of accommodation from the types of jobs that low-income voters tend to have can make this a challenge. Add to that the fact that it's more common for low-income people to lack the documents that they need. There's also the issue of making sudden modifications to the law.

If the whole argument is "we shouldn't be appealing to outliers" with regards to voter fraud, should we be appealing to outliers who can't come up with $10 and 30 minutes of time once every 4 years?

Again, orders (many, many orders) of magnitude here. About 30 million Americans of voting age don't have a driver's license. 7 million don't have any current ID. There were 18 confirmed cases voter fraud in 2020. Furthermore, if we consider voting to be a right (because the Supreme Court appears to), outliers are irrelevant. We want to avoid preventing anyone from voting who is permitted to.

Is there possibly a chance (even just the tiniest remote chance) that some democrats want to make voting easier for the inverse of the disingenuous reasons that some republicans want to make it harder?

Anything is possible, I suppose.

I don't view "let's make the procedure to vote as easy as possible because Black and Mexican people are too poor and lazy to get a drivers license, but they'll vote for us" to be any more flattering or any less condescending and unethical than some republicans thinking "let's make photo ID a requirement because Black and Mexican people are to poor and lazy to get one, because they don't typically vote for us".

That's a rather cynical view. And also flawed - it's possible to change voters' minds or work to broaden your party's appeal. Maximizing the pool of potential voters benefits everyone.

Ultimately, the main reason for American skepticism of voter ID laws is their historical use in voter suppression, especially race-based suppression. Recent efforts to institute it having an explicit focus on suppressing minority votes as well really doesn't help endear the concept to voters. Without that history, perhaps people would be more receptive, but the history exists and it can't be ignored.

 

[Whyayeman]

Ultimately, the main reason for American skepticism of voter ID laws is their historical use in voter suppression, especially race-based suppression. Recent efforts to institute it having an explicit focus on suppressing minority votes as well really doesn't help endear the concept to voters. Without that history, perhaps people would be more receptive, but the history exists and it can't be ignored.

I think that is the crux of the issue. America has recent form in the business of voter suppression. It was based on historic racial attitudes which can be traced back to slavery. Anything which has the potential to restrict, or appear to restrict, the franchise must be viewed with caution and outright suspicion.

The UK, in common with the USA, has no established or official bureaucracy to deal with ID. The attempt to issue UK citizens with ID cards was met with vigorous and passionate resistance here. The idea was dropped even as a voluntary system. Other ID suitable for showing to poll officials is not universal - and is not free. Thus, a charge is made for voting. This erodes the idea of universal suffrage, one of the shining lights of American democracy.

 

[KCfromNC]

If it's structured in such a way that it's pretty easy to avoid detection and it's only able to nab a small percentage of people actually engaging in it, that would be a weak policy.

Are you saying that federal election laws are set up this way? If so, seems like a claim that would require some evidence to be believable.

 

[KCfromNC]

Instead of Democrats trying to counterbalance the GOP's absurdly high 2020 estimates with absurdly low ones (WaPo was, at one point, tossing out single-digit numbers with a straight face)

Are we just supposed to take your word on this, or do you have evidence these low estimates are incorrect?

Come on, the both-sides-do-it crashed and burned last time it was tried in this thread. What's with the need to keep trying it? What's so hard with just admitting that the GOP is making up this problem our of thin air, and as with many imaginary problems, the correct response is to just ignore it. Why is there some sort of push to meet them in the middle when reality is clearly pointing at this being a solution looking for a problem?

 

[KCfromNC]

Perhaps to go at it from a different angle, what's wrong with being proactive, and why is it only labelled as racist when the US does it?

Did legislators from other countries investigate which forms of ID are hardest for minorities to get before making them the forms of ID needed to vote? Did legislators from those countries selectively shut down locations where the newly-required IDs could be obtained? Because that's what happened here.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Did legislators from other countries investigate which forms of ID are hardest for minorities to get before making them the forms of ID needed to vote? Did legislators from those countries selectively shut down locations where the newly-required IDs could be obtained? Because that's what happened here.

I stated earlier that there were some efforts by GOP state legislatures in some instances to well beyond just common sense voter ID requirements.
(the example I cited was when Texas started allow concealed carry permits to be a valid form, but not college IDs)

But I don't think "what bad actors in politics may do with certain types of laws" should be a rationale for the flat out rejection of certain laws.

For instance, we know that certain republican administrations and localities have leveraged the concept of drug laws to disproportionately target minorities. I don't think the right answer to the question of what we do about that is "Okay, since some people are going to misuse those types of laws, we should do away with drug laws"


You said "why should people strive to meet in the middle?", the answer is "because that's the only way this society works". If both sides think that the other side is "pulling a fast one" every time they win, it's going to erode public confidence in the institution.

and I don't think the "both sides" thing crashed earlier in the thread as you claim. (not sure specifically which post you're referring to)

PolitiFact - Did Democrats suggest 2016 presidential election was stolen?

Gov. Glenn Youngkin recently gave his blessings to an "Election Integrity Unit" established by Attorney General Jason Mi

www.politifact.com

...but there certainly were no shortage of democrats suggesting that the 2016 election was illegitimate (for different reasons), but the tone was still the same "we lost, but it can't be because our candidate was bad, it has to be something fishy the other side did", and proceeded to build their own "solution without a problem" centered around trying to put a bunch of misinformation restrictions on social media as to imply the reason why Hillary lost because a bunch of people got duped by fake stories on the internet (as if die hard conservatives were going to vote her instead "if wasn't for that pesky fake story on Twitter")


To me, a "meet in the middle" solution looks like:
"Require voter ID, make a non-drivers license state ID free (which many states have already done), prioritize in-person voting on election day over other forms, and make voting paid national holiday or make it a compensated event (like jury duty) so nobody is losing a paycheck for voting"

And if there really is someone who can't get a few hours off to get to a DMV, or really can't afford to pay for the gas to go get one (and I'm skeptical of how many people that actually applies to)...it can be an additional duty of the local election board to help facilitate that by picking them up in a shuttle bus to take them to the BMV and help them with the forms that need to be filled out.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

I stated earlier that there were some efforts by GOP state legislatures in some instances to well beyond just common sense voter ID requirements.
(the example I cited was when Texas started allow concealed carry permits to be a valid form, but not college IDs)

But I don't think "what bad actors in politics may do with certain types of laws" should be a rationale for the flat out rejection of certain laws.

Flat-out rejection, no, but it can certainly justify treating them with heavy suspicion and carefully scrutinizing them, and that careful scrutiny could lead to flat-out rejection.

...but there certainly were no shortage of democrats suggesting that the 2016 election was illegitimate (for different reasons), but the tone was still the same "we lost, but it can't be because our candidate was bad, it has to be something fishy the other side did", and proceeded to build their own "solution without a problem" centered around trying to put a bunch of misinformation restrictions on social media as to imply the reason why Hillary lost because a bunch of people got duped by fake stories on the internet (as if die hard conservatives were going to vote her instead "if wasn't for that pesky fake story on Twitter")

At the risk of derailing the thread, let's not pretend that everyone who voted for Trump in 2016 was a "die hard conservative". There were lots of people on the fence and a whole lot of (actual) fake news was being spread on social media (Trump co-opted the term to refer to anything he didn't like, but prior to that, it was used to refer to fabricated or highly misleading stories being spread by websites configured to look like newspaper sites that weren't actually associated with any real news organization). It was a genuine problem during that election cycle.

In the end, the actual margin of victory amounted to a few thousand votes in a couple states. There's a very real possibility that fake news stories (as well as the last minute announcement of the FBI reopening the email investigation) changed the outcome of the election.

To me, a "meet in the middle" solution looks like:
"Require voter ID, make a non-drivers license state ID free (which many states have already done), prioritize in-person voting on election day over other forms, and make voting paid national holiday or make it a compensated event (like jury duty) so nobody is losing a paycheck for voting"

And if there really is someone who can't get a few hours off to get to a DMV, or really can't afford to pay for the gas to go get one (and I'm skeptical of how many people that actually applies to)...it can be an additional duty of the local election board to help facilitate that by picking them up in a shuttle bus to take them to the BMV and help them with the forms that need to be filled out.

I could get behind a program like that.

 

[Whyayeman]

And if there really is someone who can't get a few hours off to get to a DMV, or really can't afford to pay for the gas to go get one (and I'm skeptical of how many people that actually applies to)...it can be an additional duty of the local election board to help facilitate that by picking them up in a shuttle bus to take them to the BMV and help them with the forms that need to be filled out.

Make it a duty to hire buses? Surely that has it topsy turvy. If polling stations are too far away, the proper answer is to open more of them. And offer help with form-filling? I think this just shows that an obstacle has been put in the way of people trying to exercise their democratic right.

 

[KCfromNC]

I stated earlier that there were some efforts by GOP state legislatures in some instances to well beyond just common sense voter ID requirements.
(the example I cited was when Texas started allow concealed carry permits to be a valid form, but not college IDs)

But I don't think "what bad actors in politics may do with certain types of laws" should be a rationale for the flat out rejection of certain laws.

Combined with the complete lack of evidence for a legitimate need for these laws, it's certainly a big hint as to what's going on.

For instance, we know that certain republican administrations and localities have leveraged the concept of drug laws to disproportionately target minorities. I don't think the right answer to the question of what we do about that is "Okay, since some people are going to misuse those types of laws, we should do away with drug laws"

There's evidence of a widespread drug problem, which makes it quite different from far-right talking points about election fraud, so I'm not sure of the relevance to this thread.

You said "why should people strive to meet in the middle?", the answer is "because that's the only way this society works".

If it worked that way, liberals would propose that anyone gets to be a citizen when they turn 21, and the GOP would meet in the middle and say, no, that happens at 40. Or the GOP would meet in the middle on a proposal to give every citizen $2000 a month basic income and be OK with a figure of $1000.

Let me know when the GOP is willing to meet in the middle like that "because that's the only way this society works". Let's see how that works out.

Until the, back here in reality the response to proposing unnecessary, burdensome laws should be "lol, no".

If both sides think that the other side is "pulling a fast one" every time they win, it's going to erode public confidence in the institution.

and I don't think the "both sides" thing crashed earlier in the thread as you claim. (not sure specifically which post you're referring to)

The first sentence in post 66 kinda fell apart as soon as it was questioned.

...but there certainly were no shortage of democrats suggesting that the 2016 election was illegitimate (for different reasons)

Yeah, for example the documented foreign interference in an attempt to get a favorable candidate elected : Publications | Intelligence Committee

Again, the additional attempts at "ackhsully, both sides..." continue to show how baseless the GOP calls for additional election laws are compared to ones based on reality.

To me, a "meet in the middle" solution looks like:
"Require voter ID, make a non-drivers license state ID free (which many states have already done), prioritize in-person voting on election day over other forms, and make voting paid national holiday or make it a compensated event (like jury duty) so nobody is losing a paycheck for voting"

That's nice. But per above, until there's a demonstrated need for these laws, "lol, no".
Well, come to think of it, I'd be willing to "compromise" by accepting the last one, combined with the free transportation to and from polling sites. Come on, meet me in the middle "because that's the only way this society works".

 

[ThatRobGuy]

That's nice. But per above, until there's a demonstrated need for these laws, "lol, no".
Well, come to think of it, I'd be willing to "compromise" by accepting the last one, combined with the free transportation to and from polling sites. Come on, meet me in the middle "because that's the only way this society works".

I have no problem with that arrangement.

In fact, there are plenty of people who do have an ID (but no car, or a car that doesn't work) that would probably appreciate the ride.

In fact, I think there's a lot of localities (as well a few private companies) that already do that.

https://rideshare2vote.com/request-a-ride/

The city of Cleveland already has one as well

VoterDrive

www.voterdrivecle.com

 

[rjs330]

Don't worry voter fraud doesn't harm any elections. Its so infrequent and so few that it doesn't affect anything.