# We must protect ourselves from the voter fraud problem we do not have!



## Bill Mattocks

Love it...

http://www.goerie.com/article/20120...nowledges-there-is-no-evidence-of-voter-fraud



> Pa. acknowledges there is no evidence of voter fraud
> By KAREN LANGLEY
> Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
> HARRISBURG -- State attorneys defending the new voter ID law at a hearing beginning Wednesday will present no evidence that in-person electoral fraud is likely to occur this November without the law, according to a document signed earlier this month.
> 
> *The state and the parties challenging the law agreed in the court document that neither side knows of cases of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania.*
> 
> Backers of the requirement that most voters show an approved form of photo identification at the polls have said the law will prevent fraud and assure residents of the integrity of elections.



So...

No evidence that voter fraud has ever happened in PA, nor is it likely to occur without a photo voter ID law, by their own admission.  But they need it anyway, to combat voter fraud.  Which they admit doesn't happen.  Well, it's for the future...which they also admit is unlikely to happen.  Well, they just want it, dammit!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

Photo Voter ID laws are not for the purposes of stopping voter fraud.   Period.

So what are they for?

Nobody knows.

Except they're for fighting the voter fraud that doesn't exist.

Right.

I'm buying that.

Not.


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## Empty Hands

Bill Mattocks said:


> Photo Voter ID laws are not for the purposes of stopping voter fraud.   Period.
> 
> So what are they for?



Suppressing votes for the Democratic Party.  "&#8220;Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it&#8217;s done. First pro-life  legislation &#8211; abortion facility regulations &#8211; in 22 years, done. *Voter  ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of  Pennsylvania, done*.&#8221; - Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai


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## Bill Mattocks

Empty Hands said:


> Suppressing votes for the Democratic Party.  "&#8220;Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it&#8217;s done. First pro-life  legislation &#8211; abortion facility regulations &#8211; in 22 years, done. *Voter  ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of  Pennsylvania, done*.&#8221; - Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai



Wow.  Just came right out and said it, didn't he?

What do you think, Tea Party guys?  Still going to argue that voter photo ID laws are intended to prevent voter fraud?

http://www.politicspa.com/turzai-voter-id-law-means-romney-can-win-pa/37153/



> House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny) suggested that the House&#8217;s end game in passing the Voter ID law was to benefit the GOP politically.
> 
> &#8220;We are focused on making sure that we meet our obligations that we&#8217;ve talked about for years,&#8221; said Turzai in a speech to committee members Saturday. He mentioned the law among a laundry list of accomplishments made by the GOP-run legislature.
> 
> &#8220;Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it&#8217;s done. First pro-life legislation &#8211; abortion facility regulations &#8211; in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.&#8221;
> 
> The statement drew a loud round of applause from the audience. It also struck a nerve among critics, who called it an admission that they passed the bill to make it harder for Democrats to vote &#8212; and not to prevent voter fraud as the legislators claimed.



...



> *Turzai spokesman Stephen Miskin said voter fraud is a real problem.*
> 
> &#8220;Do you remember &#8216;Joe Cheeseboro?&#8217;&#8221; he asked, reiterating that election fraud has occurred in PA and across the nation.
> 
> &#8220;Rep. Turzai was speaking at a partisan, political event. He was simply referencing, for the first time in a long while, the Republican Presidential candidate will be on a more even keel thanks to Voter ID&#8230;Anyone looking further into it has their own agenda.&#8221;



But wait...the state itself is going to state that voter fraud has NEVER been a problem in PA, and they don't believe it will be in upcoming elections, with or without photo voter ID laws.

Huh.

Agenda?

Yes, the GOP in PA has one.

And I think we all know what it is.

Don't we?


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## Empty Hands

It's a shame.  I'm not against the GOP winning in principle, and I used to vote GOP prior to 2005.  We need a solid conservative party (note, actual conservative, not "conservative") to ground and balance ill-considered movements.  Actual conservatism has something important to offer.  Too bad what we have now in the GOP is a cesspool of irrational, reactionary, resentment driven fools.

No matter what though, if you have to cheat to win, then you shouldn't win.


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## Bill Mattocks

Empty Hands said:


> It's a shame.  I'm not against the GOP winning in principle, and I used to vote GOP prior to 2005.  We need a solid conservative party (note, actual conservative, not "conservative") to ground and balance ill-considered movements.  Actual conservatism has something important to offer.  Too bad what we have now in the GOP is a cesspool of irrational, reactionary, resentment driven fools.
> 
> No matter what though, if you have to cheat to win, then you shouldn't win.



I agree with you.  Everyone here knows that I call myself a conservative, but I am not a GOP member since the Reagan years.  However, I tend to vote GOP when there is only a choice between GOP and DNC on a given ticket.  I vote GOP 90% of the time.  But like you, I am against cheaters and liars, regardless of their party.  The GOP has been caught dead to rights, and this massive lie is exposed for the world to see.  Shame on them.


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## billc

And yet, we never had a problem with people flying airplanes into buildings either, and some federal agents did try to warn people about those flight schools.


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## Bill Mattocks

billcihak said:


> And yet, we never had a problem with people flying airplanes into buildings either, and some federal agents did try to warn people about those flight schools.



A fine reason to restrict anything you want to restrict, then.  Just wave your hands in the air and say "It could happen" and that's reason to restrict it.

Nope, sorry, the GOP guy done let that cat out of the bag.  He said what the law was for once he got behind closed doors.  Sad you don't want admit it, but the game is up, over, done, played.  The GOP is not interested in stopping non-existent voter fraud.

And what part of "and they intend to testify that they don't expect any voter fraud with or without photo voter ID" do you not get?  They are admitting it themselves - in plain and simple language, in court, under penalty of perjury.   It doesn't get more cut-and-dried than that, my friend.


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## billc

No, a way to reduce the chances that the democrats will achieve a greater level of voter fraud than already exists.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/05/democrats_and_vote_fraud_on_th.html



> Examples of vote fraud by Democrats have not been widely publicized, thanks to the symbiotic relationship between the party and most of the media. In 2000, major TV networks wrongly projected Al Gore as the winner in Florida before the polls even closed in the state's heavily Republican Panhandle. Many prospective voters stepped out of line and went home. Later studies estimated that the error had reduced President Bush's margin by 8,000 to 11,500 votes.
> 
> In his book _Stealing Elections_, writer John Fund suggests that another 15,000+ Bush votes were destroyed in Democrat-controlled Palm Beach County. Palm Beach reported 19,120 "over votes" -- ballots marked for more than one candidate -- representing nearly ten times the error rate for the rest of the state. Former law enforcement officials told Fund that stacks of paper ballots had been altered by pushing a thin prod through the Gore column, invalidating votes for Bush while leaving those for Gore intact. National Democrats hired a telemarketing firm to make thousands of calls to Palm Beach County on Election Day, urging residents to say they were "confused" by the ballo


t.



> *A spark in Houston*
> 
> Last fall, 35 tea party members in Houston signed up to monitor the off-year Texas elections. The new poll watchers came back appalled at the abuses they saw. Precinct judges regularly failed to check voter IDs, and some even filled out ballots to "help" people vote. Investigating further, they made a second unpleasant discovery: Voting violation reports submitted to the District Attorney's office after the 2008 elections had yet to be processed or even reviewed. They resolved to make stopping vote fraud a top priority for 2010.





> [FONT=times new roman,times]Democrats have consistently attacked anti-fraud proposals, claiming that they violate voters' civil rights. In particular, they





> [FONT=times new roman,times]oppose requiring voters to show identification.[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] A recent poll found that 82% of Americans think a photo ID should be required to vote. However, only 25 states check any form of voter identification, and a photo ID is required by just seven.[/FONT]
> 
> [FONT=times new roman,times]A [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]PowerPoint presentation[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] available at [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]ElectionCenter.org[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] describes new election legislation proposed by congressional Democrats. They intend to nationalize voter registration and force the states to eliminate voter ID checks, provide absentee ballots to all voters, register voters on Election Day, and permit felons (who overwhelmingly support Democrats) to vote. Each of these measures would create new opportunities for fraud. [/FONT]
> [FONT=times new roman,times]
> [/FONT]


[/FONT]


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## billc

The major reason this kind of fraud goes unreported is that after an election the process for checking it out isn't important...



> Voting violation reports submitted to the District Attorney's office after the 2008 elections had yet to be processed or even reviewed.



I'll take voter I.D. as a safeguard because the democrats cheat, and they cheat early and often.  Voter I.D. doesn't stop anyone from voting and it is an added protection against close elections being stolen by the wrong people.


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## Bill Mattocks

billcihak said:


> The major reason this kind of fraud goes unreported is that after an election the process for checking it out isn't important...
> 
> 
> 
> I'll take voter I.D. as a safeguard because the democrats cheat, and they cheat early and often.  Voter I.D. doesn't stop anyone from voting and it is an added protection against close elections being stolen by the wrong people.



"The state and the parties challenging the law agreed in the court document that *neither side knows of cases of in-person voter fraud* in Pennsylvania."

I do not know how much more clear it could be.


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## Haakon

So we're supposed to believe that voting is the one area of government that has no corruption or illegal activity in it what so ever, EVER? Yeah, right.


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## Tgace

...has there ever been a serious investigation/study conducted?

I have to admit that in a society that seems to require ID of some sort to do pretty much anything official, the ability to just walk in and vote by stating your name seems odd.

But I'm not a rabbid voter ID proponent either.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2


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## Bill Mattocks

Haakon said:


> So we're supposed to believe that voting is the one area of government that has no corruption or illegal activity in it what so ever, EVER? Yeah, right.



In the absence of proof of any kind, yes.  I believe you have never robbed a bank.  Because I have no proof.


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## Bill Mattocks

Tgace said:


> ...has there ever been a serious investigation/study conducted?



Yes.  No evidence of voter fraud sufficient to change the outcome of any election has been detected.



> I have to admit that in a society that seems to require ID of some sort to do pretty much anything official, the ability to just walk in and vote by stating your name seems odd.



It would be odd.  But you can't do that.  Generally, you have to register to vote.  When you go to vote, your name has to appear on the rolls in that precinct.  You present your voter ID card (no photo on mine, it's just mailed to me) and they cross your name off and give you a ballot.  You go vote.

Has no one around here ever actually voted?  I get the feeling that not many actually have a freaking clue how it's done.



> But I'm not a rabbid voter ID proponent either.
> 
> Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2



I'm all for stopping voter fraud.  Let me know when there is some.  No fraud, no need for photo voter ID.  If it's demanded, there's a different reason for it than is being given.  And if you read my the posts in this thread, you now know what that reason is; they said it themselves.


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## Haakon

But Bill there IS proof of voter fraud. In district after district there are findings of dead people voting, of illegals who somehow get registered to vote, and vote. How much voter fraud is too much?

http://www.nbc-2.com/story/16662854/2012/02/02/nbc2-investigates-voter-fraud


> "I vote every year," Hinako Dennett told NBC2.The Cape Coral resident is not a US citizen, yet she's registered to vote.
> 
> NBC2 found Dennett after reviewing her jury excusal form. She told the Clerk of Court she couldn't serve as a juror because she wasn't a U.S. citizen.
> 
> We found her name, and nearly a hundred others like her, in the database of Florida registered voters.
> 
> Naples resident Yvonne Wigglesworth is also a not a citizen, but is registered to vote. She claims she doesn't know how she got registered.
> "I have no idea. I mean, how am I supposed to know."
> 
> Records show Wigglesworth voted six times in elections dating back eleven years.


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## Haakon

Bill Mattocks said:


> It would be odd.  But you can't do that.  Generally, you have to register to vote.  When you go to vote, your name has to appear on the rolls in that precinct.  You present your voter ID card (no photo on mine, it's just mailed to me) and they cross your name off and give you a ballot.  You go vote.
> 
> Has no one around here ever actually voted?  I get the feeling that not many actually have a freaking clue how it's done.



ALL voting is done by mail in WA now, they mail out the ballot, you fill it out and mail it back. You register to get a ballot online now and never have to actually see a living person, and in WA illegals can get valid state ID.

After the 2004 election in WA I have absolutely no doubt there is voter fraud in this state/county.


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## ballen0351

Why shouldn't you show an ID to vote?  And don't give me the crap about its a right.  Its a right I can buy a gun but I still need to show my Id to buy one.  Every right we have has a restriction on it.


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## Bill Mattocks

Haakon said:


> But Bill there IS proof of voter fraud. In district after district there are findings of dead people voting, of illegals who somehow get registered to vote, and vote. How much voter fraud is too much?



*"The state and the parties challenging the law agreed in the court document that neither side knows of cases of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania."*


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## ballen0351

Bill Mattocks said:


> *"The state and the parties challenging the law agreed in the court document that neither side knows of cases of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania."*



Says your article but others have posted articles saying there is voter fraud so why should you believe yours not the others?


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## Bill Mattocks

ballen0351 said:


> Says your article but others have posted articles saying there is voter fraud so why should you believe yours not the others?



Because it is the state itself - testifying in court to that effect.  Why would they testify against their own interests, hmmm?  Because of perjury laws, that's why.  Sworn testimony by state officials in court holds a bit more water for me than your sources.  Especially when it's the state officials who WANT the photo ID law but are forced by law to testify it won't do anything.


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## Tgace

Bill Mattocks said:


> It would be odd.  But you can't do that.  Generally, you have to register to vote.  When you go to vote, your name has to appear on the rolls in that precinct.  You present your voter ID card (no photo on mine, it's just mailed to me) and they cross your name off and give you a ballot.  You go vote.



Not here..yes you have to register. But when an election is coming up all I get is a postcard in the mail telling me my polling place. When I arrive I go to a table based on my home location. I give my name..they find it in a book and I sign it. Then I vote.

Theoretically..If "Mr. Jones" my neighbor passed away recently I could likely come back (hours later with new poll workers of course)..give his name and sign.


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## Tgace

Yup...thats the way we do it here in NY too.

Name

Address

Sign

Vote

But. Ironically enough. You needed ID to attend a Holder speech lol!

While Im unconvinced that there is widespread fraud going on, I really don't know what the big deal about the ID is. If you have to register to vote anyway, issue a card. It's way easy with digital cameras and printers these days.


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## Master Dan

*I personally listenedto many voting pole officials and other officials interview that many had neverseen actual voter fraud and nothing that could constitute more than a rareoccurrence. Hitler was able to seize power under the guise of providing moresecurity  and this voter fraud crap is nodifferent. *
*The people whofeed you this crap must just get a woody every time you run with it?*
*PolicyBrief on the Truth About Voter Fraud
Analysis*
*Summary*
* Fraud by individual voters isboth irrational and extremely rare.
* Many vivid anecdotes of purported voter fraud have been proven false or donot demonstrate fraud.
* Voter fraud is often conflated with other forms of election misconduct.
* Raising the unsubstantiated specter of mass voter fraud suits a particularpolicy agenda.
* Claims of voter fraud should be carefully tested before they become the basisfor action.
*Fraud byindividual voters is both irrational and extremely rare**.*
 Most citizens who take the time to vote offertheir legitimate signatures and sworn oaths with the gravitas that thishard-won civic right deserves. Even for the few who view voting merely as ameans to an end, however, voter fraud is a singularly foolish way to attempt towin an election. Each act of voter fraud risks five years in prison and a$10,000 fine - but yields at most one incremental vote. The single vote issimply not worth the price.

*Here take some time study about it!!! OhI forgot dont confuse you with facts!!*
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/policy_brief_on_the_truth_about_voter_fraud/


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## ballen0351

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/25/drug-money-funds-voter-fraud-in-kentucky/?test=latestnews


Interesting post on voter fraud


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## WC_lun

As the testimony states, voter fraud just isn't the reason for these laws.  Therefor, it isn't a problem.  If it isn't a problem, why are you conservative types so for uneeded government intervention?  The PA state senator said it was to sway the vote in Romney's favor in the national election.  He admitted to it and yet many of you still argue for the ID laws.  This is a case of Republican state congresses trying to game the system.  If you support that, then fine, but realize that those same laws can and probably will come back to bite you in the backside in future elections.  It isn't just poor Democratic voting rights that are being effected.  It is also yours.


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## ballen0351

WC_lun said:


> As the testimony states, voter fraud just isn't the reason for these laws.  Therefor, it isn't a problem.  If it isn't a problem, why are you conservative types so for uneeded government intervention?  The PA state senator said it was to sway the vote in Romney's favor in the national election.  He admitted to it and yet many of you still argue for the ID laws.  This is a case of Republican state congresses trying to game the system.  If you support that, then fine, but realize that those same laws can and probably will come back to bite you in the backside in future elections.  It isn't just poor Democratic voting rights that are being effected.  It is also yours.



So dems are not smart enough to figure out how to get an ID?  I have an ID so it has no effect on my right to vote.


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## billc

Once again, it is one less thing to worry about in a close election where the democrats try to cheat, especially when they are in control of a state's government.  It helps Romney because it is one more layer that protects the vote from democrats cheating, that's all.


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## WC_lun

billcihak said:


> Once again, it is one less thing to worry about in a close election where the democrats try to cheat, especially when they are in control of a state's government.  It helps Romney because it is one more layer that protects the vote from democrats cheating, that's all.




No proof of that at all and just plain bull dung.


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## billc

Yeah, here is more cheating coming through today...

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/07/2...inia-state-board-of-elections-return-address/



> The center&#8217;s registration forms, some of which have been addressed to the dead, children, even pets and felons ineligible to vote in Virgina, state that recipients are eligible to vote. They come with some personal information already filled in, and instruct recipients to send the forms in to the Virginia State Board of Elections via Business Reply Mail to an address pre-printed on the form. But where do the returned forms really go? A Virginia blogger at the Disrupt the Narrative blog received one of the VPC&#8217;s forms in the mail in June 2012, and posted screen shots of the form on the blog. Click the image to enlarge it.





> Look at the screenshot of the form above. The address for the State Board of Elections is correct up to the zip code. But the zip code on the form will send it somewhere other than the actual State Board of Elections.
> The group bills itself as a Washington-based voter registration group, and on the voter registration form gives its return address as 7109 Staples Mill Rd., #160, Richmond, VA 22238.
> 
> 
> 
> Where is that? It certainly is not an office. Click the photos to enlarge them and see.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The evident misdirection of the return address and the permit number registered in Pennsylvania all beg for an answer: Why? These returned registration forms contain real personal information including full legal names, date of birth, and even Social Security numbers. What is the Voter Participation Center really up to, in having forms returned to an address that it says is controlled by a state entity, when that is not the truth? Additionally, where are the completed forms really going?





> The Voter Participation Center appears to be spoofing the Virginia State Board of Elections. The Voter Participation Center appears to be receiving forms that respondents believe are going to the Virginia State Board of Elections, but are not.  Why? How many states is the VPC operating in?
> As I noted in the previous post, the Voter Participation Center is not a non-partisan entity. It is run by longtime Democratic Party operative Page S. Gardner and receives funding from the Tides Center, which is funded by Democratic Party heavyweights including Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). The VPC&#8217;s Democratic connections do not stop there. John Podesta, former President Bill Clinton&#8217;s chief of staff and current chair and counselor to the Democratic advocacy group Center for American Progress, is on the Voter Participation Center&#8217;s board. The CAP is among the many groups on the political left that receive significant funding from George Soros, the billionaire who was convicted of insider trading by a French court in 2002.



I can't say this too often, democrats cheat, early and often, and Voter I.D. is just one more safeguard to protect the voting process, especially in tight races in swing states where as few as a couple hundred votes may steal the election...This group is active in Virginia, Florida, Colorado and Wisconsin...



> Virginia, Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin &#8212; all of these states are expected to be in play in the presidential election in November, and most polling shows a tightening race in all of them. A small number of votes here and there could make a very significant difference.






> *Update*: The VPC has posted a list of the states it was operating registration drives in in the last quarter of 2011. They are:
> Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico,  Ohio,  Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington.​


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## WC_lun

More bull dung, for a couple of reasons.  An incorrect zip code will not make an item arrive at a completely wrong address.  If a letter is addressed to 1 w 1st street, Somewhere USA but the zip code is incorrect, that doesn't automatically mean it is going to arrive at a specific post office box in Everywhere USA. 

Also, even if this story was %100 true, which obviously it is not, voter ID would do nothing what-so-ever to change anything about this story.  It is a smoke screen to fool those that won't take the time to really look at what is being done.  For emphasis, voter ID would not stop this even if it were true.

Here is fact.  Voter fraud is very, very, rare.  It is almost evenly split among Democrat, Republican, and Independant registered voters and many times is an honest mistake, like voting at an old polling station after a move.  At least in PA, it has been admitted there is no basis for the law UNDER OATH. A state senator from PA stated that it was passed to help Romney in a close race.  Voting is a right, and as such any abridgment of the ability to vote without just cause is against the constitution.  There has been nothing to indicate that voter ID laws will have any impact on what very little voter fraud there is, though it has been shown that it will cause some problems for poor and elderly voters.


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## billc

Hmmm...if voting fraud is rare, how do you know how it is split between the parties, how it is an honest mistake or any other information if, as you say, it is so very, very rare?

How is passing voter I.D. that will help Romney in a close race a bad thing.  The democrats have cheated in close elections over and over again and forcing them to have their voters show an I.D. will keep them from voting for dead people, for example in Florida where the democrat attorney general Eric "Americans are cowards," Holder has been trying to prevent them from getting dead people off of their voter rolls. If voter I.D. makes it harder for the democrats to cheat, by having other democrats and illegal aliens, vote for dead people, that is going to help Romney by making it harder for the democrats to cheat.


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## billc

As to the wrong zip code, the article goes into that...



> The Disrupt the Narrative blogger inquired about the zip code discrepancy with the US Postal Inspector, and received the following reply.
> The Business Reply Mail (BRM) piece, Permit # 78103, containing the zip code 23286 is a unique zip code for BRM in the city of Richmond. The plus 4 number (0508) identifies the station in the city that the mail goes to.
> BRM Permit # 78103 is issued out of Denver, CO and is issued to the Voters Participation Center. VPC has many sub accounts who use this number in different states, such as Virginia.​The bogus zip code is not a mistake or misprint. Google mapping 23286-0508 leads to a Richmond, VA park, and a query to the post office nearby at 1801 Brook Rd. in Richmond confirmed that the return address resides within that post office. The Voter Participation Center appears to be spoofing the Virginia State Board of Elections. The Voter Participation Center appears to be receiving forms that respondents believe are going to the Virginia State Board of Elections, but are not.  Why? How many states is the VPC operating in?


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## billc

Here is a look at voter fraud in the poconos...

http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120611/NEWS/120619972/-1/NEWS01



> The DA alleged that Pugh registered to vote in Middle Smithfield Township and voted there four times when she was actually living in Stroud Township.





> June 11, 2012
> 
> The Monroe County district attorney's office charged the embattled former Middle Smithfield Township golf course director with several counts of voter fraud Monday.
> Robyn Pugh was charged with perjury, false swearing in official matters and unlawful voting. She could receive up to 10 years in prison and fines of $20,000.
> 
> Pugh voluntarily appeared at the Monroe County Correctional Facility this morning with her attorney, Jim Swetz, for processing before the arraignment in front of District Justice Brian Germano in Smithfield Township.The DA alleged that Pugh registered to vote in Middle Smithfield Township and voted there four times when she was actually living in Stroud Township.


http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/07/the-battle-for-ballot-integrity-in-pennsylvania.php





> No doubt the State is aware of this case, to name just one. And there are people who find suspicious those 100%-plus turnouts in Philadelphia. Also, of course, let&#8217;s not forget ACORN:
> 
> 
> These days, liberals pretend they never even heard of ACORN, but the scads of phony voters that ACORN left behind undoubtedly helped motivate the photo ID push in Pennsylvania and other states.Criminal charges involving false voter registrations, it has been reported, were filed in at least two Pennsylvania counties, and in Allegheny County, six ACORN figures were convicted. Other reports said election officials found thousands of phony voter registrations in Philadelphia alone.
> News stories said ACORN arranged 149,000 voter registrations in Pennsylvania, virtually all of them Democrats, with the main focus on urban blacks and Latinos.​In every state, the Democrats tell us there is no such thing as voter fraud. Yet as far we can tell, dead people can vote in New Hampshire, anyone who calls himself &#8220;Eric Holder&#8221; can vote in the District of Columbia, and here in Minnesota, you can register and vote as &#8220;Tim Tebow&#8221; and no one will be the wiser. It requires a considerable amount of chutzpah&#8211;a quality not lacking in Democrats&#8211;to refuse to enforce the voting laws, and then argue that there must not be any violations, since so few people get caught.



And the 100% voter participation charge...

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2012/04/20/philly-election-officials-take-up-gop-complaints/



> The Philadelphia city commissioners, who oversee the administration of elections in Philadelphia, are investigating the state GOP&#8217;s complaints that a number of city divisions in last year&#8217;s primary election somehow reported more ballots cast on electronic voting machines than voters who signed in.
> Corbett, a Republican, used the 100 percent-plus argument several times in the days leading up to his March 14 signing of one of the nation&#8217;s toughest voter identification laws, but neither he nor his administration have backed up his statement with a specific example.
> &#8220;That, to me, demonstrates that something happened, where there was fraud that took place,&#8221; he told a Pennsylvania Cable Network interviewer on March 12. Two days later, in a public ceremony to sign the law, he repeated the claim, saying, &#8220;how does that happen?&#8221;
> The state Republican Party brought the complaints to the Philadelphia city commissioners in March after similar complaints in recent years that a prior slate of commissioners had dismissed because of questions about the accuracy of the data, said Joseph DeFelice, the Philadelphia director for the state Republican Party.
> The newly elected chairwoman of the Philadelphia city commissioners, Stephanie Singer, said Thursday that she&#8217;s concerned about the phenomenon, but is not ready to say whether fraud actually occurred.
> &#8220;It needs to be investigated,&#8221; she said, &#8220;and the same analysis should be run &#8230; in other counties.&#8221;





> Singer said one of the three divisions she has so far personally looked into had a straightforward explanation. In north Philadelphia&#8217;s 20th ward, the confusion was caused by a machine assigned to the 11th division that recorded dozens more ballots than voters who signed in there after it was switched to a polling place for a different division, Singer said.
> But in the other two divisions, she couldn&#8217;t find an immediate explanation. Singer said she also plans to investigate a handful of other divisions scattered around the city where, according to the data, there were &#8220;substantial over-votes&#8221; in the 2011 primary.
> There may be innocent explanations: for instance, machine error or poll workers failing to make a log entry for everyone who walks in to vote. But it is also possible that polling place workers colluded to run up vote tallies for favored candidates.



For emphasis...



> a handful of other divisions scattered around the city where, according to the data, there were &#8220;substantial over-votes&#8221; in the 2011 primary.


----------



## billc

And one last embedded article, seperated from the rest to make it easier to digest...

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/01/the-deceased-vote-in-new-hampshire.php

Why is there so little evidence of voter fraud?



> *THE DECEASED VOTE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE*
> 
> It is an article of faith on the Left that there is no need to protect the integrity of the ballot, e.g. by voter ID laws, because there is hardly any voter fraud. They assure us it&#8217;s true, but how can they know, since in many states no effort is made to prevent voter fraud or to catch those who perpetrate it?





> James O&#8217;Keefe made the point yesterday in New Hampshire. Here is how his group, Project Veritas, describes what it did:On January 10th, Project Veritas reporters walked into New Hampshire Polling Locations during the Presidential Primaries, saying dead people&#8217;s names. We stated the name of a dead person we got from the NH obituaries. The names of the deceased were both Registered Republican and Democrats And in almost every case, saying a dead person&#8217;s name, we were handed a ballot to cast a vote. We used no misrepresentation and no false pretenses. in fact, in almost every case, we insisted we show ID and they insisted that we vote without showing ID.
> 
> ​





> How much does this kind of fraud go on for real? I think the best evidence that it is widespread is the Democrats&#8217; hysterical reaction to every effort to protect ballot integrity&#8211;including, now, threats by Obama&#8217;s Department of Justice to persecute states that try to prevent voter fraud.


----------



## ballen0351

So for the non ID folks let me ask you should I need to even provide my name or address?   Why should I need to even register at all


----------



## WC_lun

Billi, it is the right that wants to infringe upon the right to vote, therefor it is the right's job to prove that voter ID is needed to fight voter fraud. That threshhold has not been met.  If there were proof that voter ID was needed to fight voter fraud, then I could maybe support the idea.  However, as it stands even those in state legislatures enacting the laws cannot point to any fraud, much less fraud that would be tackled by the voter ID laws.  However, there has been a few studies showing the impact of voter ID laws on the poor and elderly.  That means you are infringing on people's right to vote for an imaginary crisis of voter fraud that has not been proven?  It is kind of what many of you folks are saying about enacting stricter gun laws.  There is no need to punish law abiding citizens making it more difficult to own a gun because of the few that do not obey the law...of course in the case of voter fraud there are far less cases that of gun violence.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

WC_lun said:


> Billi, it is the right that wants to infringe upon the right to vote, therefor it is the right's job to prove that voter ID is needed to fight voter fraud. That threshhold has not been met.  If there were proof that voter ID was needed to fight voter fraud, then I could maybe support the idea.  However, as it stands even those in state legislatures enacting the laws cannot point to any fraud, much less fraud that would be tackled by the voter ID laws.  However, there has been a few studies showing the impact of voter ID laws on the poor and elderly.  That means you are infringing on people's right to vote for an imaginary crisis of voter fraud that has not been proven?  It is kind of what many of you folks are saying about enacting stricter gun laws.  There is no need to punish law abiding citizens making it more difficult to own a gun because of the few that do not obey the law...of course in the case of voter fraud there are far less cases that of gun violence.



Well, I agree.  And I think that the comments made by the GOP guy in the article quoted earlier make it clear what the intent of the law in PA is.  The fact that there is no fraud to protect the voters of PA from is made clear by the state's own officials, who testified that there was no such fraud.  Period.  As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing left to say.  The rest is desperate flailing around, trying to prove a reason that doesn't exist by the explicit admission of those who want the law (in PA).  It will be interesting to see how the court case turns out.


----------



## seasoned

ballen0351 said:


> So for the non ID folks, let me ask you, should I need to even provide my name or address?   Why should I need to even register at all



Exactly, lets just say it's the right thing to do. I understand about the poor and the elderly, I get that. Lets make it easier for them to vote, but not just letting any, and everybody, walk in and vote, no. There may not be voter fraud going on, but ID is a good stop measure to put in place to be assured of that. It only makes sense.


----------



## cdunn

The Republicans in my state have disenfranchised a HALF MILLION active voters. In the face of the potential for tens of fraudlent votes at the hands of insufficently updated voter rolls.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

seasoned said:


> Exactly, lets just say it's the right thing to do. I understand about the poor and the elderly, I get that. Lets make it easier for them to vote, but not just letting any, and everybody, walk in and vote, no. There may not be voter fraud going on, but ID is a good stop measure to put in place to be assured of that. It only makes sense.



Except we don't let 'just anybody' walk in and vote.

As I've said before, doesn't anyone on this thread besides myself ACTUALLY VOTE?  If you did, you'd know that the comment you made about voting isn't true.


----------



## seasoned

seasoned said:


> Exactly, lets just say it's the right thing to do. I understand about the poor and the elderly, I get that. Lets make it easier for them to vote, but not just letting any, and everybody, walk in and vote, no. There may not be voter fraud going on, but ID is a good stop measure to put in place to be assured of that. It only makes sense.





Bill Mattocks said:


> Except we don't let 'just anybody' walk in and vote.
> 
> As I've said before, doesn't anyone on this thread besides myself ACTUALLY VOTE?  If you did, you'd know that the comment you made about voting isn't true.



I get all that. I've been voting you 50 years.

Register
Go in to vote, and they look up your name.
Sometimes they ask for ID sometimes they don't.
I have no problem showing it.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

seasoned said:


> I get all that. I've been voting you 50 years.
> 
> Register
> Go in to vote, and they look up your name.
> Sometimes they ask for ID sometimes they don't.
> I have no problem showing it.



In my state, I need to show my Voter ID card which is mailed to me by the Secretary of State every year.

So I have to have already registered ahead of the election (I believe the cutoff is 90 days prior).
I have to have my Voter ID card.
And my name has to appear on the rolls maintained in the precinct in which I vote.

Photo ID would add an additional level of security.  For a problem which does not exist.  And those who do not, for whatever reason, have a photo ID, would not be able to vote.  So I see downside, but no upside.

I'm glad you have no problem showing photo ID.  Please don't give away my rights while you are giving away yours.

And in the meantime, people who do understand how voting works - like you -  continue to drop offhand remarks to the effect that all a person has to do is stroll in off the street and vote, when you know that's not the case.

And now that the GOP in PA has announced - in the press but behind closed doors - exactly why they want photo ID for voters in PA (to ensure the election of Mitt Romney), I don't think there's any question anymore about the real purpose of this photo ID for voters thing.

EDIT:  Correction, I forgot that Michigan now has a photo ID law for voting.  So I did have to show my photo ID:




Don't Vote 2008 by Wigwam Jones, on Flickr

And anyone who didn't have a photo ID could not vote.  I wonder how many people that was?

FYI - I like seeing my old photo.  I really have lost a lot of weight since then.


----------



## Tgace

Bill Mattocks said:


> In my state, I need to show my Voter ID card which is mailed to me by the Secretary of State every year.
> 
> So I have to have already registered ahead of the election (I believe the cutoff is 90 days prior).



That's nice for your state Bill...but in ours, as long as you know the address, you can vote for Eric Holder. 

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


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## Bill Mattocks

Tgace said:


> That's nice for your state Bill...but in ours, as long as you know the address, you can vote for Eric Holder.
> 
> Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk



Only one person can, though, and they have to go to the polls before Eric Holder does.  And when Eric Holder goes to vote and finds that someone has claimed to be him and voted in his name, he'll file a protest, be given a provisional ballot, vote, and the 'phoney' Eric Holder vote will be thrown out.

And in any case, that's a 'what if' problem.  It's not happening.  And in PA, the state officials themselves testified to that fact in court.


----------



## Haakon

How will they know which ballot is from the false voter? In a WA back when they actually had polling places ballots didnt have names on them and were put in a secure box so they supposedly cant be tampered with. We are suposed to have secret voting in the US to prevent people from being punished for how they voted, so tell me how are they going to know which ballot to toss out?


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## Bill Mattocks

Haakon said:


> How will they know which ballot is from the false voter? In a WA back when they actually had polling places ballots didnt have names on them and were put in a secure box so they supposedly cant be tampered with. We are suposed to have secret voting in the US to prevent people from being punished for how they voted, so tell me how are they going to know which ballot to toss out?



OK, good point.  I stand corrected.  Someone can vote as Eric Holder and the election will be ruined because of it.  Clearly a widespread problem.  But yes, you're right. I have no idea how they'll find and toss the fraudulent vote.  Clearly it makes sense now to infringe on everyone's right to vote to protect Eric Holder.  Against theoretical abuse.


----------



## Tgace

But cant you see any scenario where that ability could be problematic?

See who passed away recently and send out your activists to vote for them.

Go around to the projects and get people to register who will most likely never vote...then vote for them.

Sure..neither may actually ever happen...but do we enact process to solve problems or to prevent them in the first place?

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


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## WC_lun

Tgace, I understand what you are saying, but the way it is happening now is restricting people right to vote for something that _could _happen.  In at least one state it is being used to game the system.  Making it more difficult for people to vote in order to correct a problem that isn't happening is too high a price. It is cutting off your nose to spite your face.  If there is a way to keep those things from happening without infringing on people's right and ability to vote, I wouldn't have issue with it.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

Tgace said:


> But cant you see any scenario where that ability could be problematic?



Yes.  It would take a determined effort by many people to change the results of an election, though.  Since only one fraudulent person can vote as Eric Holder, many fraudulent voters would have to each vote for someone they are not.

And it would only work in locations where no non-photo voter ID was required.

And everyone who went to the polls and discovered that their vote had been 'stolen' would obviously be complaining about it, so it would be a police/media event.

And it's never happened.

So I while I accept that it could be done, I do not see any danger that it's going to happen, has happened, or needs to be protected from happening.



> See who passed away recently and send out your activists to vote for them.



One vote, one person.  So you'd need 100 people to vote for 100 dead.  And 1,000 people to vote for 1,000 dead.  And if the voter rolls are validated against the SSN death lists (public and available online), then even that could not happen.

You propose a lot of hypotheticals that do not happen in PA.  Their own officials testified under oath that they don't.

And for that reason, you want to restrict the right to vote.

Again, it's protecting against a problem we do not have.



> Go around to the projects and get people to register who will most likely never vote...then vote for them.
> 
> Sure..neither may actually ever happen...but do we enact process to solve problems or to prevent them in the first place?
> 
> Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk



We don't restrict civil liberties to protect against problems that do not exist, typically.  Even if they 'might' happen, that's not a valid reason to restrict liberties.

If voting were not a civil liberty, then no problem - the state can restrict whatever it wishes.

But voting is a right.  Rights can and are restricted, but only under some fairly serious circumstances.

Some courts in some states have held that the potential for voter fraud is a sufficient reason.  I don't agree.

We will see what PA has to say about it.

And you seem to be ignoring the fact that a fat-head GOP bigwig in PA stated out loud that the reason for voter photo ID in PA was to ensure Mitt Romney is elected President.   Why won't you talk to that point?  Why keep pretending it didn't happen?


----------



## ballen0351

So how is showing an ID to vote infringing on someones right to vote?  I don't get that?  How is showing an ID to buy a gun not infringing on someones 2nd amendment right but showing an ID to vote is a violation?  I already had to preregister to vote to prove I can vote in this district so what's wrong with then showing ID at the poll to prove I am who I say I am and not just taking my word for it.


----------



## ballen0351

As for the PA guy that said he wants the law for mitt to win that's just silly.  How is a voter OD law going to keep democrats from voting?  Are you dems  to stupid to figure out how to get an ID?


----------



## Bill Mattocks

ballen0351 said:


> So how is showing an ID to vote infringing on someones right to vote?  I don't get that?  How is showing an ID to buy a gun not infringing on someones 2nd amendment right but showing an ID to vote is a violation?  I already had to preregister to vote to prove I can vote in this district so what's wrong with then showing ID at the poll to prove I am who I say I am and not just taking my word for it.



There is nothing 'wrong' with it except that it isn't needed; since no threat exists.  Restricting liberties should not be done unless there is a credible threat that the restriction fixes.  This isn't difficult stuff here.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

ballen0351 said:


> As for the PA guy that said he wants the law for mitt to win that's just silly.  How is a voter OD law going to keep democrats from voting?  Are you dems  to stupid to figure out how to get an ID?



I'm not a Dem, though, am I?  Well, Twin Fist thinks so, but I assure you that I'm not.


----------



## cdunn

ballen0351 said:


> As for the PA guy that said he wants the law for mitt to win that's just silly. How is a voter OD law going to keep democrats from voting? Are you dems to stupid to figure out how to get an ID?



I have my ID - a driver's license. However, frankly, we do have two real cities in this state, and in them, the lower income brackets are better served by not wasting money on a vehicle. These people tend to have been showing up to vote with things like their employer IDs, the state registration IDs... and the state hasn't bothered to publicise the new law very much; nor that you have to have your birth certificate(possible $22 and 4-6 weeks) to get the proper ID... which costs $13.50 for the non-driver version, which takes weeks to do the paperwork for in normal times, let alone a pre-election crush, plus a trip to a PennDOT center... which tends to require taking a day off work. 

Furthermore, the state has not been doing very much to get the word out that you're going to need an ID at the polls. So, the state is set up to bushwack you at the polls, denying your vote this year, and making you pay a poll tax to vote NEXT year. 

Our state is such that the rural, sparsely populated counties tend to vote Republican, and the two big cities vote massively Democratic. Rural voters have to drive, they have licenses. City voters... not so much. Anything that keeps the city dwellers from voting while not impeding the rural voters tilts the state towards the Republicans. 

It also turns out that up to 43% of Philadelphia may not have IDs. Philly votes VERY Democratic. Disenfranchise Philly, and _viola_, your election has been fixed. Earlier, they were talking about assigning electoral votes by county, specifically to dilute the elective power of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Then they found a more effective way to throw the election.

This is *OBSCENE*.


----------



## ballen0351

cdunn said:


> I have my ID - a driver's license. However, frankly, we do have two real cities in this state, and in them, the lower income brackets are better served by not wasting money on a vehicle. These people tend to have been showing up to vote with things like their employer IDs, the state registration IDs... and the state hasn't bothered to publicise the new law very much; nor that you have to have your birth certificate(possible $22 and 4-6 weeks) to get the proper ID... which costs $13.50 for the non-driver version, which takes weeks to do the paperwork for in normal times, let alone a pre-election crush, plus a trip to a PennDOT center... which tends to require taking a day off work.
> 
> Furthermore, the state has not been doing very much to get the word out that you're going to need an ID at the polls. So, the state is set up to bushwack you at the polls, denying your vote this year, and making you pay a poll tax to vote NEXT year.
> 
> Our state is such that the rural, sparsely populated counties tend to vote Republican, and the two big cities vote massively Democratic. Rural voters have to drive, they have licenses. City voters... not so much. Anything that keeps the city dwellers from voting while not impeding the rural voters tilts the state towards the Republicans.
> 
> It also turns out that up to 43% of Philadelphia may not have IDs. Philly votes VERY Democratic. Disenfranchise Philly, and _viola_, your election has been fixed. Earlier, they were talking about assigning electoral votes by county, specifically to dilute the elective power of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Then they found a more effective way to throw the election.
> 
> This is *OBSCENE*.



So then yes your saying they are too stupid to figure out they need an ID.


----------



## ballen0351

Bill Mattocks said:


> There is nothing 'wrong' with it except that it isn't needed; since no threat exists.  Restricting liberties should not be done unless there is a credible threat that the restriction fixes.  This isn't difficult stuff here.



And needing to show you are who you say you are is not restricting liberties its common sense


----------



## cdunn

ballen0351 said:


> So then yes your saying they are too stupid to figure out they need an ID.



No. Functionally, the state has lied AND charged a poll tax.


----------



## Makalakumu

Bill Mattocks said:


> *"The state and the parties challenging the law agreed in the court document that neither side knows of cases of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania."*



:BSmeter:

Every state and every election has "problems" that could be construed as fraud.  Pennsylvania is no different.  My guess is that if one side brings something up, the other side will bring something up and then the whole shady **** iceberg of fraud perpetrated by both parties will be visible.  Therefore it's mutually beneficial for both parties to deny that it happened.

Check out this website if you are serious about people who may actually be researching this in Pennsylvania.

www.blackboxvoting.org

People who look at voter fraud around the world congregate there and share resources.  Also, for a little background, this interest greatly interested me from 2000 to 2006.  During three election cycles I volunteered to monitor polls in Minnesota and Wisconsin, in particular I was concerned with the chain of people who handled the ballots.  From what I remember, in 2004, a statistical analysis of the vote totals was done at Penn State regarding Pennsylvania's elections.  The official vote totals were statistically significantly different from the scientifically determined exit polling results.  According to election monitors world wide this is prime circumstantial evidence of fraud.  

So, sorry, these party wonks are either incredibly naive or outright lying.  I don't believe it.


----------



## cdunn

Makalakumu said:


> :BSmeter:
> 
> Every state and every election has "problems" that could be construed as fraud. Pennsylvania is no different. My guess is that if one side brings something up, the other side will bring something up and then the whole shady **** iceberg of fraud perpetrated by both parties will be visible. Therefore it's mutually beneficial for both parties to deny that it happened.
> 
> Check out this website if you are serious about people who may actually be researching this in Pennsylvania.
> 
> www.blackboxvoting.org
> 
> People who look at voter fraud around the world congregate there and share resources. Also, for a little background, this interest greatly interested me from 2000 to 2006. During three election cycles I volunteered to monitor polls in Minnesota and Wisconsin, in particular I was concerned with the chain of people who handled the ballots. From what I remember, in 2004, a statistical analysis of the vote totals was done at Penn State regarding Pennsylvania's elections. The official vote totals were statistically significantly different from the scientifically determined exit polling results. According to election monitors world wide this is prime circumstantial evidence of fraud.
> 
> So, sorry, these party wonks are either incredibly naive or outright lying. I don't believe it.



Oh, I'm sure there's plenty of fraud in the US. Disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, intimidation, lost ballots and voting machines, those happy little phone calls that went around in Michigan saying that if you signed the petition to recall the governor, you didn't need to vote against him in his election... These are frauds we have. But what we have no evidence of is impersonation, the only thing the voter IDs can find. Tens of thousands of dead voters on the rolls... but they so rarely seem to show up and vote.


----------



## Makalakumu

cdunn said:


> Oh, I'm sure there's plenty of fraud in the US. Disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, intimidation, lost ballots and voting machines, those happy little phone calls that went around in Michigan saying that if you signed the petition to recall the governor, you didn't need to vote against him in his election... These are frauds we have. But what we have no evidence of is impersonation, the only thing the voter IDs can find. Tens of thousands of dead voters on the rolls... but they so rarely seem to show up and vote.



It's actually depressing because once you realize all of the ways elections can be thrown, the only way candidates can win a major close election is by *outfrauding *the other guy.  Democracy sucks sometimes.


----------



## Tgace

Im not even saying I think that we all need to show a license at the polls. If every state had to do what Bills does...mail out cards you have to bring to vote...that would be fine with me. Just anyone walking up to a table and giving a name/address as enough to vote seems like a situation far to easy to defraud.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

Makalakumu said:


> :BSmeter:
> 
> [snip]
> 
> So, sorry, these party wonks are either incredibly naive or outright lying.  I don't believe it.



You can call BS all you like.  I didn't say it, PA officials said it.  Under oath.  In court.  If you think they lied under oath to undermine the law they actually WANT...uh, what?

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories...s-there-is-no-evidence-of-voter-fraud-645985/



> Pennsylvania acknowledges there is no evidence of voter fraud
> July 24, 2012 9:43 pm
> By Karen Langley / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
> HARRISBURG -- State attorneys defending the new voter ID law at a hearing beginning Wednesday *will present no evidence* that in-person electoral fraud is likely to occur this November without the law, according to a document signed earlier this month.
> 
> The *state* *and the parties challenging the law agreed *in the court document that *neither side* knows of cases of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania.



What part of this is unclear to you?  The state AND the people suing the state BOTH agreed that a) there is no evidence of voter fraud in PA, and b) there is none likely to occur if the law is overturned.

I don't even understand how a person who speaks and reads English can not get this.  It's not a matter of my opinion or your opinion, this is a statement of fact that is made BY THE PEOPLE who are defending it in court.

We can argue about many things, everyone is entitled to an opinion.  But you're calling BS against a statement made by the people who are actually trying to keep the law on the books in PA, not the people against it.  Why on earth would they perjure themselves to testify AGAINST their own law that they are TRYING to keep?

I can just imagine it.  _"Well, Bob, I want this law to remain law, so I have a clever plan.  When I testify tomorrow in court, I'll lie and say there is no reason for the law.  That will, uh, confuse them!  Yeah, that's it, it will confuse them!"_

Are you serious that you do not understand what was said and who said it?


----------



## cdunn

Makalakumu said:


> It's actually depressing because once you realize all of the ways elections can be thrown, the only way candidates can win a major close election is by *outfrauding *the other guy. Democracy sucks sometimes.



And thus, 





			
				Oh said:
			
		

> *democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time*.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120726_Study__1_million_PA_voters_do_not_have_valid_ID.html



> Study: 1 million Pa. voters do not have valid ID
> 
> By Angela Couloumbis
> INQUIRER HARRISBURG BUREAU
> 
> Harrisburg - Over 1 million voters in Pennsylvania do not have valid photo identification to vote at the polls in November, *a University of Washington professor testified* on Thursday.
> 
> In the detailed survey conducted in late June and early July the professor, Matt Barreto, found that nearly 13 percent of registered voters, or just over 1 million people, do not have acceptable forms of identification required by the state new law.
> 
> Barreto testified that those who are less educated, low income or live in urban areas are more likely than others to lack proper ID.
> 
> The professor took the stand on the second day of what is expected to be a weeklong hearing on whether Pennsylvania's voter identification law should take effect in time for the Nov. 6 election.



Gee, do you think 1 million people unable to vote might influence the outcome of an election?  Hmmm?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...O2OttA?docId=15872a136ba046c299645622c8e68829



> Pa.'s tough, new voter ID law lands in court
> By By MARC LEVY  17 hours ago
> HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP)  The first legal test for Pennsylvania's tough new voter law requiring photo identification began Wednesday, with state lawyers calling the measure a completely rational step, while opponents attacked it as an unnecessary, unjustified and partisan scheme that will deprive countless people of their right to vote.
> ...
> The original rationale in Pennsylvania's Republican-controlled Legislature for the law  to prevent election fraud  will play little role in the legal case *since the state's lawyers have decided not to make that argument and acknowledged that they are "not aware of any incidents of in person voter fraud.*" Instead, they are trying to show that lawmakers properly exercised their latitude to make election-related laws when they chose to require voters to show widely available forms of photo identification.



Get that?  NO VOTER FRAUD.  I'm sorry, what was that?  NO VOTER FRAUD.  Wait, one more time?  NO VOTER FRAUD.  Period.  End of discussion.  The state itself says so.  Under oath.  In court.  NO VOTER FRAUD.

So if there is NO VOTER FRAUD, then WHY DO THEY WANT IT?



> Democrats' accusations that it is an election year scheme to steal the White House were fanned in June when *the House Republican leader* told a state party gathering that *the law would allow Romney to win Pennsylvania in the fall*.
> The photo ID requirement is a significant departure from current law, which asks only people voting in a ward for the first time to show identification, including such non-photo forms as a utility bill or bank statement.



There it is.  Black and white.  I can't believe anyone has this much trouble comprehending what they said.

A) 1 million people do not have the required photo ID.  They won't be able to vote.  Mostly poor, elderly, and minorities.  In other words, the people the GOP presumes would vote for Obama.
B) The state itself admits in court and under oath that this law does not fix voter fraud in PA, because there isn't any.  Not subject to debate - even they say THERE IS NO VOTER FRAUD IN PA.
C) The GOP HOUSE LEADER stated that the law was going to guarantee Romney would win the Presidential election.

WOW!  If anyone can't grasp that, I can only assume it is because they do not want to.


----------



## Makalakumu

Bill Mattocks said:


> What part of this is unclear to you?  The state AND the people suing the state BOTH agreed that a) there is no evidence of voter fraud in PA, and b) there is none likely to occur if the law is overturned.
> 
> I don't even understand how a person who speaks and reads English can not get this.  It's not a matter of my opinion or your opinion, this is a statement of fact that is made BY THE PEOPLE who are defending it in court.
> 
> We can argue about many things, everyone is entitled to an opinion.  But you're calling BS against a statement made by the people who are actually trying to keep the law on the books in PA, not the people against it.  Why on earth would they perjure themselves to testify AGAINST their own law that they are TRYING to keep?
> 
> I can just imagine it.  _"Well, Bob, I want this law to remain law, so I have a clever plan.  When I testify tomorrow in court, I'll lie and say there is no reason for the law.  That will, uh, confuse them!  Yeah, that's it, it will confuse them!"_
> 
> Are you serious that you do not understand what was said and who said it?



It's a political fight where the Republicans are outmaneuvering the Democrats in terms of manipulating voting totals.  The actual meaning of the words stretches the limit of rationality, but that is the nature of the battle.  What we have here is a group that can't admit voter fraud or the other side will bring out a laundry list of real examples.  Then, the Republicans would come out with their laundry list.  It's mutually assured destruction if either side admits any fraud.  It's logical insanity where both sides have dug themselves such a big hole that the only thing that seems rational at the time is completely irrational to anyone on the outside looking in.

What would be really interesting is if an independent party came forward with evidence of fraud on BOTH sides, catching both parties in obvious lies.  How fast would the whistleblower be labeled a vicious conspiracy theorist terrorist?  LOL!


----------



## Bill Mattocks

Makalakumu said:


> It's a political fight where the Republicans are outmaneuvering the Democrats in terms of manipulating voting totals.  The actual meaning of the words stretches the limit of rationality, but that is the nature of the battle.  What we have here is a group that can't admit voter fraud or the other side will bring out a laundry list of real examples.  Then, the Republicans would come out with their laundry list.  It's mutually assured destruction if either side admits any fraud.  It's logical insanity where both sides have dug themselves such a big hole that the only thing that seems rational at the time is completely irrational to anyone on the outside looking in.
> 
> What would be really interesting is if an independent party came forward with evidence of fraud on BOTH sides, catching both parties in obvious lies.  How fast would the whistleblower be labeled a vicious conspiracy theorist terrorist?  LOL!



Jesus wept.


----------



## Makalakumu

Bill Mattocks said:


> Jesus wept.



You're a good man, Bill.  Don't try to make sense of it.  There isn't an ounce of rationality to be found.  Someone call Chuck Norris to sort this out.


----------



## ballen0351

I still don't see how showing an ID benefits one side over another last I checks both dems and Republicans can go get an ID.  I even think they allow independents to get them too shocker I know.


----------



## billc

The democrats want to cheat and voter I.D. would make that harder.  Their solution...accuse Republicans of being racists and demanding voter I.D. to keep minorities from voting, it is as simple as that.  This way they kill two birds with one stone, they get to slow down voter I.D. and they get to falsely accuse Republicans of being racists...again.


----------



## Makalakumu

Do Republicans ever engage in election fraud?


----------



## billc

Apparently not since many people say no fraud at all is going on.  Could be, but it isn't the pattern that you see.  If you look around the country, the organized efforts seem to be coming from the democrats, hence ACORN, and the latest one on this thread.  Then you have the close elections in the democrat controlled states where the Republican wins narrowly and then the demcrats start recount after recount and then the republican loses, as happened in the Franken race.


----------



## Carol

ballen0351 said:


> I even think they allow independents to get them too shocker I know.



We vote with out-of-state ID's


----------



## Haakon

billcihak said:


> Apparently not since many people say no fraud at all is going on.  Could be, but it isn't the pattern that you see.  If you look around the country, the organized efforts seem to be coming from the democrats, hence ACORN, and the latest one on this thread. *Then you have the close elections in the democrat controlled states where the Republican wins narrowly and then the demcrats start recount after recount and then the republican loses, as happened in the Franken race.*



And the WA governors race a few years ago. (ballot count) Republican wins! (find more ballots, recount), Republican wins! (find more ballots, recount) Democrat wins (stop counting).


----------



## WC_lun

Haakon said:


> And the WA governors race a few years ago. (ballot count) Republican wins! (find more ballots, recount), Republican wins! (find more ballots, recount) Democrat wins (stop counting).




..and this proves fraud how?  You know, actual proof instead of hurt feelings because a Republican lost?  It has happened the other way around as well you know.


----------



## billc

You know what we really need for elections, and it just occurred to me, we should do as the Iraqi's did when they voted and put dye on the hands of people who vote, that would solve the problem of voter I.D. and it would keep people from voting more than once.   When people come in to vote, they have their finger or hand checked, if there is no dye, they can vote.  It also solves the issue of people who don't care enough to go and get an I.D. to vote...until the day of the election.

Is there a way to get that dye off quickly or will it last a day or two?  How about the dye used in banks for robberies, it would serve the same purpose here.


----------



## billc

Which election was that?  I hope you aren't referring to when gore tried to steal the election from George Bush.


----------



## Makalakumu

billcihak said:


> Which election was that?  I hope you aren't referring to when gore tried to steal the election from George Bush.



So, are you saying that you don't know of any instances of election fraud perpetrated by Republicans?


----------



## billc

Not that I have seen.  If there were, they would be all over the old media.  Of course, the old media may not be pointing out fraud by Republicans because that would just reinforce the need for voter I.D.  I don't want anyone cheating in elections, Republicans or Democrats, or any other party.

Makalakumu, if you find Republican election fraud post it.  It supports the need for voter i.d.s


----------



## Wo Fat

I try not to compare the (R) vs (D) parties because it's so boring.  Neither seems a great choice to me these days.

That said, if the GOP spent half as much energy in trying to make it harder for sociopaths to get guns as they do in trying to make it harder for people to vote ... 

we would have more people alive and voting.  And they might even have a reason to vote Republican.


----------



## Tgace

Wo Fat said:


> I try not to compare the (R) vs (D) parties because it's so boring.  Neither seems a great choice to me these days.
> 
> That said, if the GOP spent half as much energy in trying to make it harder for sociopaths to get guns as they do in trying to make it harder for people to vote ...
> 
> we would have more people alive and voting.  And they might even have a reason to vote Republican.



First you would have to address how we identify sociopaths.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2


----------



## Makalakumu

Tgace said:


> First you would have to address how we identify sociopaths.
> 
> Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2



They'll take a test, and soon, no one will be able to pass the test.


----------



## Makalakumu

billcihak said:


> Makalakumu, if you find Republican election fraud post it.  It supports the need for voter i.d.s



Google "Republican Voter Fraud" and you'll get plenty of examples if you want to see them.  Some of the examples may or may not be true, but the thing that I would like you to understand is that they do happen and, this is a serious problem if we claim that we value democracy.  Like I said before, in close elections, the outcome is dependent on who can cheat the most and not get caught.  It's always been that way, so any pretense of one party being "clean" is absolutely preposterous.  

I did find this article, which was interesting...

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/27/fla_republican_we_suppressed_black_votes/



> In the debate over new laws meant to curb voter fraud in places like  Florida, Democrats always charge that Republicans are trying to suppress  the vote of liberal voting blocs like blacks and young people, while  Republicans just laugh at such ludicrous and offensive accusations. That  is, every Republican except for Floridas former Republican Party  chairman Jim Greer, who, scorned by his party and in deep legal trouble,  blew the lid off what he claims was a systemic effort to suppress the  black vote. In a 630-page deposition recorded over two days in late May,  Greer, who is on trial for corruption charges, unloaded a litany of  charges against the whack-a-do, right-wing crazies in his party,  including the effort to suppress the black vote.
> 
> 
> In the  deposition, released to the press yesterday, Greer mentioned a December  2009 meeting with party officials. I was upset because the political  consultants and staff were talking about voter suppression and keeping  blacks from voting, he said, according to the Tampa Bay Times. He also said party officials discussed how minority outreach programs were not fit for the Republican Party, according to the AP.
> 
> 
> The  comments, if true (he is facing felony corruption charges and has an  interest in scorning his party), would confirm what critics have long  suspected. Florida Gov. Rick Scott is currently facing  inquiries from the Justice Department and pressure from civil rights  groups over his purging of voter rolls in the state, an effort that  critics say has disproportionately targeted minorities and other  Democratic voters. One group suing the state claims up to 87 percent of the voters purged from the rolls so far have been people of color, though other estimates place that number far lower. Scott has defended the purge, even though he was erroneously listed as dead himself on the rolls in 2006.



If anything can be drawn from these words, I think the fact that we have some serious problems with our democracy, and our government, is pretty well established.


----------



## WC_lun

New news on this front.  Jim Reed, the former GOP head in Florida gave a legal diposition saying that Florida GOP officials were looking for ways to supress the African American turnout and the voter laws are part of that effort.  For fairness sake, I should also include that Mr Reed was ousted as the head of the Florida GOP and is facing corruption charges.  However, if his 630 page diposition has any meat to it, that will be two states in which these laws are for voter suppression instead of safeguarding the process.


----------



## Cryozombie

Look, as far as I am concerned, and I get Bill's point that we Don't need the ID because there is no widespread problem... but as far as I am concerned, as long as it is OK to subject any one right to that requriement, then there should be no argument that it shouldn't be ok to subject ANY of them to it.  You cannot argue that "It will prevent people from being able to Excercise that right" while excusing it as neccessary for another right, because you disagree with that particular right or think that you can justify the need to do it in the interest of the public good.  Anyone can disagree with a right, or find a reason it doesn't act in the interest of the public good.  That doesn't make it right.


----------



## billc

On the continuing debate on voter I.D...

http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/02/v...rs-minorities-from-fraudsters-says-new-study/



> Criminal justice data shows that blacks and poor people are the most common victims of voter fraud and are the greatest beneficiaries of voter identification rules, according to a new study.
> The courtroom evidence &#8220;completely contradicts the [progressive claim] that blacks, seniors, college students and other disadvantages groups are being victimized,&#8221; said Horace Cooper, an adjunct fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research.
> &#8220;The truth is &#8230; [that] the criminals &#8212; more often than not &#8212; are Democrats violating the rights of people who tend to be black or senior,&#8221; he told The Daily Caller.
> A large investigation in Virginia, for example, showed that 30 percent of fraud allegations were centered in Richmond, which has the highest percentage of African-Americans in the state. In the state a wide investigation of voter fraud produced criminal charges against 38 people.





> Good voter identification procedures would reduce that fraudulent voting, and aid minorities most, Cooper said.
> The new study damages progressives&#8217; claims that the popular demand for voter identification laws mask a GOP effort to suppress the vote of racial and ethnic minorities who support Democratic candidates.





> Cooper&#8217;s study highlighted cases where inadequate voter ID rules allowed political operatives to submit fraudulent votes under the names of local minorities.
> Three times as many Democrats as Republicans have been charged with voter fraud, he said.
> In Troy, New York, four Democratic officials have pled guilty to forging mail-in ballots. The fake ballots were submitted under the names of people who &#8220;live in low-income housing [because] there is a sense that they are a lot less likely to ask any questions. &#8230; What appears as a huge conspiracy to nonpolitical persons is really a normal political tactic,&#8221; Democratic Committeeman Anthony DeFiglio told the police as he plead guilty.
> A particular problem is fraudulent voting during low-turnout primary elections, which allows corrupt Democratic party bosses to keep control over elected representatives, former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis told TheDC.
> &#8220;The people who engage in the in-person fraud, or the theft and interception of ballots, or the people who try to [arrange votes by] illegal felons and aliens &#8230; are doing so at the expense of minorities that they fear won&#8217;t show up&#8221; during the election, Cooper said.


----------



## ballen0351

WC_lun said:


> New news on this front.  Jim Reed, the former GOP head in Florida gave a legal diposition saying that Florida GOP officials were looking for ways to supress the African American turnout and the voter laws are part of that effort.  For fairness sake, I should also include that Mr Reed was ousted as the head of the Florida GOP and is facing corruption charges.  However, if his 630 page diposition has any meat to it, that will be two states in which these laws are for voter suppression instead of safeguarding the process.


So are you saying African Americans cant figure out how to get an ID?  I dont get the point if they say you need an ID and anyone can get an ID how do you supress a vote?


----------



## billc

Yeah, a guy kicked out by the party is saying things about the party...yeah, sounds like he is submitting his resume with the democrats...

It is perhaps the soft racism of low expectations of a minority population...they can't get I.D. on their own...they just can't manage it...


----------



## billc

And speaking of disenfranchising voters...here is where the democrats show the love to our soldiers fighting in foreign lands...

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/08/02/obama-campaign-sues-to-restrict-military-voting



> On July 17th, the Obama for America Campaign, the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party filed suit in OH to strike down part of that state's law governing voting by members of the military. Their suit said that part of the law is "arbitrary" with "no discernible rational basis."
> Currently, Ohio allows the public to vote early in-person up until the Friday before the election. Members of the military _three extra days_ to do so. While the Democrats may see this as "arbitrary" and having "no discernible rational basis", I think it is entirely reasonable given the demands on servicemen and women's time and their obligations to their sworn duty.
> The National Defense Committee reports:[f]or each of the last three years, the Department of Defense&#8217;s Federal Voting Assistance Program has reported to the President and the Congress that the number one reason for military voter disenfranchisement is inadequate time to successfully vote. ​Personally, I think its unconscionable that we as a nation wouldn't make it as easy as possible for members of the military to vote. They arguably have more right to vote than the rest of us, since it is their service and sacrifice that ensures we have the right to vote in the first place.
> If anyone proposes legislation to combat voter fraud, Democrats will loudly scream that the proposal could "disenfranchise" some voter, somewhere. We must ensure, they argue, that voting is easy and accessible to every single voter. Every voter, that is, except the men and women of our military.



You see, what this is is the democrats are trying to keep African Americans in the military from voting so it is in essence...wait for it..."racism."  That makes as much sense as all the other fake charges of racism that the democrats throw around...


----------



## billc

This is the example republicans want to prevent in the future...

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/08/voting_fraud_sometimes_it_changes_history.html



> As Byron York points out in the Examiner, sometimes, the consequences of voter fraud can change history:On the '08 campaign, Republican Sen. Norm Coleman was running for re-election against Democrat Al Franken. It was impossibly close; on the morning after the election, after 2.9 million people had voted, Coleman led Franken by 725 votes.
> Franken and his Democratic allies dispatched an army of lawyers to challenge the results. After the first canvass, Coleman's lead was down to 206 votes. That was followed by months of wrangling and litigation. In the end, Franken was declared the winner by 312 votes. He was sworn into office in July 2009, eight months after the election.
> During the controversy a conservative group called Minnesota Majority began to look into claims of voter fraud. Comparing criminal records with voting rolls, the group identified 1,099 felons -- all ineligible to vote -- who had voted in the Franken-Coleman race.
> Minnesota Majority took the information to prosecutors across the state, many of whom showed no interest in pursuing it. But Minnesota law requires authorities to investigate such leads. And so far, Fund and von Spakovsky report, 177 people have been convicted -- not just accused, but convicted -- of voting fraudulently in the Senate race. Another 66 are awaiting trial. "The numbers aren't greater," the authors say, "because the standard for convicting someone of voter fraud in Minnesota is that they must have been both ineligible, and 'knowingly' voted unlawfully." The accused can get off by claiming not to have known they did anything wrong.
> Still, that's a total of 243 people either convicted of voter fraud or awaiting trial in an election that was decided by 312 votes. With 1,099 examples identified by Minnesota Majority, and with evidence suggesting that felons, when they do vote, strongly favor Democrats, it doesn't require a leap to suggest there might one day be proof that Al Franken was elected on the strength of voter fraud.
> And that's just the question of voting by felons. Minnesota Majority also found all sorts of other irregularities that cast further doubt on the Senate results.
> The election was particularly important because Franken's victory gave Senate Democrats a 60th vote in favor of President Obama's national health care proposal -- the deciding vote to overcome a Republican filibuster. If Coleman had kept his seat, there would have been no 60th vote, and no Obamacare.​





> The idea that there is no voter fraud in Chicago, Philadelphia, or any other large city run by Democrats is laughable. Republican poll watchers are routinely kicked out of Democratic precincts in Chicago and intimidated. One wonders what goes on in those precincts without a Republican to stop the shenannigans. Or are we to believe they kicked the GOP poll watchers out for some kind of innocent reason? Sorry, it doesn't pass the smell test.
> They still buy votes in the hills and hollers of West Virginia and Kentucky. Big city machines still play fast and loose with ballot boxes (See 2004 governor's race in Washington and Seattle area vote fraud). There are still tens of thousands of bogus voter registrations the country. And there is still the motivation for both parties to cheat.
> Resistance to Voter ID is for one reason only; if your side is planning to cheat. The Democrats wrap their opposition to ID laws around a sanctimonious charge that it would suppress the votes of minorities and the young. But when the opportunity presents itself for fraud, are we to think that the Democrats are so pure and noble of heart that they wouldn't go for it?



The governor's race in Washington and Seattle linked above...

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Dead-voted-in-governor-s-race-1163612.php

And a history of Democrat cheating in Chicago, it happened long before Kennedy/Nixon...

http://www.ipsn.org/chiviol.html



> A Republican businessman named George Armour challenged the votes of some Irishmen who did not reside within ward boundaries. Armour was set upon by a crowd of poll-watching ruffians, kicked, beaten about the head, and dragged through the streets by the hair until his friends came to the rescue. Another Wentworth worker was not nearly so lucky. He was attacked, stabbed, and chased clear down to La Salle Street where he jumped onto a dangerously thin sheet of river ice to escape his pursuers.
> 
> The man escaped but not before one of the 7th Ward Irishers crashed through the ice and drowned in the bone-chilling waters of the Chicago River.
> 
> "The 7th Ward is bloody ground and a certain class of Irish seize the occasion, not only to exhibit the wildest passions but to endanger it to the shedding of blood and taking of life of honest citizens who are simply exercising their constitutional rights." -- Chicago Tribune, March, 1857.
> 
> Of course the opposition press, led by the Chicago Democrat took an entirely different view of the affray by accusing the Republicans of provoking the mass of simple, honest, working men.
> 
> Election chicanery and the head-knocking tactics of the "bummers" - men hired to descend on political gatherings of rival candidates for the sole purpose of creating a disruption (often culminating in fist fights, and blood letting), characterized mayoral and aldermanic elections through the 1870s and 1880s.





> A few days before he was scheduled to appear before Kefauver's committee, Drury was shotgunned to death while backing his car into his garage in the 1800 block of Addison Street. Bill Drury's killers vanished into the night.
> 
> The same night Drury was gunned down, Attorney Marvin Bas, the Republican nominee for Circuit Court Clerk was murdered near his home at Orchard Street and North Avenue. Bas was another in a long line of public figures who was well acquainted with members of the Chicago "Outfit." He too had agreed to exchange information at election time. In this case, Bas intended to embarrass the Democratic candidate for Cook County Sheriff, Daniel "Tubbo" Gilbert, otherwise known as the "World's Richest Cop."
> 
> The gangland-style executions of Prignano, Granata, Drury, and Bas were attributed to the "Outfit" - and they were entered into the ledgers of the Chicago Crime Commission as officially unsolved gangland "hits." The number of such murders was fast approaching a thousand when these stories were first reported.
> 
> Even with the memories of the political assassinations of the 1960s blazed in our collective conscience, the cold-blooded murders of Chicago politicians and a highly- respected police detective still seems almost unimaginable, looking back on these events more than 40 years later.





> The most talked about political murder-mystery of the decade revolved around Clem Graver, a state representative and 21st Ward Republican Committeeman who was dragged from inside his garage on 976 W. 18th Street on June 11, 1953, by three men - while his wife Amelia helplessly watched from inside the house. A black 1950 Ford sedan, stolen from the South Side, sped away with Graver who was forcibly restrained in the back seat.
> 
> No ransom demand was ever made. Despite an intensive search of the rail yards, coal piles, and dead-end streets west of Halsted Street, Clem Graver was never seen again.


----------



## billc

Zombie voters in Virginia get the baseball bat to the head treatment...

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/08/10/10000-dead-virginia-voters/


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## Makalakumu

You've convinced me to become republican. Wear do I wear my colors?


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## billc

Welcome aboard Makalakumu, welcome to the dark side, you'll get your red lightsaber with your information package on how to poison the air and water.  The incoming republican mixer with Dick Cheney will be next week, where the usual fun events of stealing candy from babies, and denying medical coverage to poor people for fun and profit and giving tax cuts to the rich will be enjoyed by all.  Now that you are one of us, you'll see how the world really works and how as one of the really rich, you will automatically get a gazillion dollars added to your bank account, we can't have you associating with the poor or middle class now can we.  The rest of your information packet will instruct you on your duties and obligations and the number of human sacrifices you have to perform every quarter as part of your membership.  Again, welcome aboard, you'll like it over here on the dark side after all....there is no going back...


----------



## Makalakumu

billcihak said:


> Welcome aboard Makalakumu, welcome to the dark side, you'll get your red lightsaber with your information package on how to poison the air and water.  The incoming republican mixer with Dick Cheney will be next week, where the usual fun events of stealing candy from babies, and denying medical coverage to poor people for fun and profit and giving tax cuts to the rich will be enjoyed by all.  Now that you are one of us, you'll see how the world really works and how as one of the really rich, you will automatically get a gazillion dollars added to your bank account, we can't have you associating with the poor or middle class now can we.  The rest of your information packet will instruct you on your duties and obligations and the number of human sacrifices you have to perform every quarter as part of your membership.  Again, welcome aboard, you'll like it over here on the dark side after all....there is no going back...



The only problem with republicans is that they are democrats. They all want my money and freedom in some way. The governments gun in the room is up for grabs!


----------



## Tgace

http://m.arktimes.com/arkansas/blog...sas&day=05&id=ArkansasBlog&month=09&year=2012 

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


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## WC_lun

I think that which states are being targetted and the methods being used for many so called voter fraud actions are very telling. It is also telling that these rules and laws are being inacted before the problem has even been defined.  How do you really fix an issue when you do not even know where the problems are, or even if there is a problem?  It defies logical thinking to start these rules when you haven't even asked the question, "Where are the problems that we can correct in voter fraud?" or "Is there voter fraud?"  It makes it obvious that the problem is not what is being claimed.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

Tgace said:


> http://m.arktimes.com/arkansas/blog...sas&day=05&id=ArkansasBlog&month=09&year=2012
> 
> Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk



Explain how absentee ballot fraud will be fixed by requiring voters who appear in person to present photo ID.


----------



## WC_lun

Bill Mattocks said:


> Explain how absentee ballot fraud will be fixed by requiring voters who appear in person to present photo ID.



Simple answer: it won't.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

WC_lun said:


> Simple answer: it won't.



That would be correct.  So citing instances of ballot fraud committed by elected officials and involving absentee ballots is a bit of a Red Herring, eh?  Once again, no voter fraud, no need for a fix.  Anyone who continues to insist that it is needed has a different agenda.


----------



## Cryozombie

Bill Mattocks said:


> Anyone who continues to insist that it is needed has a different agenda.



I do, and I admit it.  My agenda is to make everyone jump thru stupid hoops to exercise *their* rights.  I'm STILL trying to figure out how to pass a mandatory 48 hour "Cool Down" waiting period before people can speak, just to be sure they wont spout off hate speech or Bullying.


----------



## Tgace

http://www.radioiowa.com/2012/09/20...for-illegally-voting-in-pottawattamie-county/


----------



## Bill Mattocks

Tgace said:


> http://www.radioiowa.com/2012/09/20...for-illegally-voting-in-pottawattamie-county/



Yay!  Actual voter fraud!

Now, let's take a couple quick notes, shall we?

First, did you note that it was THREE voters?  While three voters can certainly change the results of an election, I'm going to tend to believe that in most cases, it doesn't.

Second, let us note that the illegal aliens in question were found (drumroll please) via their driver's licenses.  Meaning what?  Meaning they ALREADY HAD PHOTO ID.

Now, this leads us back to the question at hand.  How would photo ID have stopped them from voting?  In Michigan, for example, I have to show my driver's license and my voter registration card to vote.  I got my voter registration card FROM the place I got my driver's license, the Secretary of State's office.  So if Ohio had the same photo ID requirement, these guys would still have been able to vote.

The problem, it appears, stems from the fact that these three (and potentially nearly 3500 more, according to the story) got driver's licenses and on the voter registration rolls even though not eligible to vote.  Sounds like Iowa has a problem with their voter registration process.

But photo ID would not have fixed this - the illegal aliens HAD photo ID.  That's how they were caught.


----------



## WC_lun

It also isn't just IDs, though Bill has a great point on that.  It is also kicking voters off the rolls six weeks before an election, using substandard databases.  That a majority of those being sent those notification letters are Democrats and minoritues.  Or trying to limit early voting in democratic majority states/counties.  This is a concerted effort of Republicans to game the system in thier favor, and some of them have even admitted as much.  Knowing these things, I just do not understand how how anyone thinks these actions are okay.


----------



## Tgace

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...-leaning-voting-blocs-sends-dogs-dead-people/



> The voter registration form arrived in the mail last month with some key  information already filled in: Rosie Charlston's name was complete, as was her  Seattle address.
> Problem is, Rosie was a black lab who died in 1998.
> 
> 
> Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...g-blocs-sends-dogs-dead-people/#ixzz27hHSlf9n



WOOF!


----------



## granfire

Tgace said:


> http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...-leaning-voting-blocs-sends-dogs-dead-people/
> 
> 
> 
> WOOF!



where did they mine that address? accidentally browsing dog licenses instead of drivers licenses?


----------



## Empty Hands

granfire said:


> where did they mine that address? accidentally browsing dog licenses instead of drivers licenses?



One time my wife used our cat's name to get some extra free CDs from Columbia House (how about THAT blast from the past?).  For several years afterwards, we would receive spam mail targeting our cat, including "pre-approved" credit card offers based on her "history of excellent credit."


----------



## WC_lun

Now a Tea Party group in Ohio is trying to get roughly 700,000 people kicked from the registered voter roles.  Once again, most of those targeted are likely democratic leaning groups.  Excuses being used are similiar to this, not letting college kds vote because the did not put thier dorm room number on the registration.

In other news it seems in Florida, a company hired by Republicans to get registered voters is facing voter registration fraud charges.  

It seems that if Republicans cannot win by producing the better canidate then they'll influence the vote as much as they can in the swing states by any means neccesary.  Of course, that blows Bill C's theory that this is all done because Democrats cheat in everything out of the water. This is a Republican strategy across many states and yeah, its cheating.


----------



## Cryozombie

Empty Hands said:


> One time my wife used our cat's name to get some extra free CDs from Columbia House (how about THAT blast from the past?).  For several years afterwards, we would receive spam mail targeting our cat, including "pre-approved" credit card offers based on her "history of excellent credit."



Yeah, I dated a girl who's dogs were registered Ministers online...


----------



## billc

James O'keefe strikes again catching voter fraud in action...

http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2012/10/10/latest-okeefe-video-shows-obama-campaign-voter-fraud/




> The undercover &#8220;volunteer&#8221; tells Caballero &#8220;I&#8217;m going to vote by ballot and then I have mine here too.After the volunteer tells Caballero  her plan, Caballero volunteers to help the double voter get the forms to  request an absentee ballot in Florida. &#8220;I&#8217;ll print that out and you  just have to mail it back,&#8221; Caballero says.





> Now we have yet another reason to explain why some Democrats  so aggressively oppose election integrity efforts and accuse election  integrity watchdogs of phony &#8220;voter suppression.&#8221; They don&#8217;t want  anyone, it seems, to know what they are really up to.


----------



## billc

Yes, supporters of voter I.D. must be racists, for example this guy...er...wait...er...(are you sure this guy supports voter I.D. laws...really?...but...he's like, an African American guy...)







Here is a...racist?...who supports voter I.D. laws...and why he supports them...

http://pjmedia.com/blog/why-we-need-voter-id-according-to-disillusioned-democrat-artur-davis/



> Few public figures can explain the voter ID issue as clearly and simply as former Congressman Artur Davis.
> Davis is the man who seconded Barack Obama&#8217;s nomination at the Democratic Party&#8217;s 2008 convention. After serving in Congress from 2003 to 2011, he has since left the party, disgusted by the radicalism and race-baiting now in vogue among national Democrats.
> 
> 
> Using simple language, Davis explained to an audience this summer that state laws requiring voters to present government-issued photo identification in order to cast their ballots are eminently sensible.
> In fact, according to Davis, asking voters to present government-issued photo ID in order to vote is not a burden, contrary to the increasingly rabid claims being propagated by the Left and the mainstream media.
> Davis made the comments during a panel discussion on electoral integrity that took place at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., on July 26, 2012.
> Here is a transcript containing the relevant portions of his remarks:
> 
> Let me begin &#8212; I want to start by showing you something if I can, and it&#8217;s obviously something that&#8217;s at the core of what it is we&#8217;re talking about today.
> Perhaps you can&#8217;t see it so well if you&#8217;re watching this on the Internet, on television, and most of you in the audience can see it all too well &#8212; you can see how bad I look.
> This is a Virginia driver&#8217;s license, also known as a state-issued photo ID. Very small. Pretty innocuous-looking except for the ugly face on it.
> And it&#8217;s actually even sanded around the edges, so unlike the notes I have in front of me or the notes maybe you have in front of you, you can&#8217;t even cut your hand inadvertently.
> It&#8217;s a very tiny little thing that will fit in a breast pocket, fit in a wallet &#8212; you can carry it next to your pager or your BlackBerry.
> It is not a billy club; if you look at it that&#8217;s clear. It&#8217;s not a fire hose.
> I live in Virginia now but I come from the state of Alabama and used to represent Birmingham, Alabama, and Selma, Alabama, in the United States Congress.
> I know a little something about fire hoses. It&#8217;s not this. It&#8217;s not some kind of a weapon or club that southern sheriffs used to use to keep people from voting or participating.
> It&#8217;s a tiny little photo ID.
> But this tiny little thing I&#8217;m holding up in my hand tends to do very weird things to people. It tends to create some very interesting political arguments.
> Several months ago, two very prominent leaders of organizations, civil rights organizations, as a matter of fact in the United States, were so riled up by this tiny little thing called a photo ID that they went to the United Nations and they went to a very particular place in the United Nations called the UN Commission on Human Rights.​





> Now I won&#8217;t even get into the fact that Cuba sits on the UN Commission on Human Rights and Cuba would not know a free election if it walked in and did a burlesque dance in front of it.
> I won&#8217;t get into the fact that China sits on the UN Commission on Human Rights &#8212; and China has many great virtues as a great competitor and sometimes partner of ours, but in China, unless you&#8217;re one of a small group of provinces that actually do get to cast votes in some of their local races, China has never had a free election in many histories of dynasties and centuries. They make us look like the rookies as old as that civilization is; they have never had a free election.





> Saudi Arabia sits on the UN Commission on Human Rights. Saudi Arabia occasionally experiments with voting, but if you&#8217;re a woman you&#8217;re not part of the experiment.
> You get my point. Not quite the group I would expect to judge our integrity when it comes to elections.





> Reasonable people can differ about almost everything in American life today including this issue, but reasonable people shouldn&#8217;t disagree on one thing.
> We have had our share of suppression, particularly in the American South. There&#8217;s no question about that. But this is not suppression.


----------



## seasoned

When I was in grade school we did the pledge of allegiance to our flag, prayed before school started, and got a ruler to our back side if we got out of line. If the school called my house, either mom or dad would answer if they were home and not working. If I messed up in school dad would deal with it and it was never good. Values were very high and taught right at home, tv reinforced it with good programming.  
My point, people just don't give a damn now a days. My dad would always say "do the right thing". Funny thing was, we all knew what the right thing was, but, not so today. 

If you can legally vote that's great, find out what it takes and do it. If you can't take care of business, then you should not be able to vote. No disenfranchise involved, just follow the process and get it done. 

If I am the only one that feels that this is reasonable, then, this is the problem, in a nut shell. On November 6th my vote will go to the person that best fits my feeling above. 

PS, Great debate tonight, one was a goof, one was not..................


----------



## WC_lun

Billc, most people are not accusing anyone of being racist.  What is being said is republicans are trying to game the system.  Even if the charge was racism, showing one black guy who supports it does not negate the criticism, but rather reinforces it.


----------



## billc

Actually, the majority of Americans agree with requiring an I.D. to vote...

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/special_packages/inquirer/20120812_Polls_find_support_for_voter_ID_but_little_awareness.html


> A new Washington Post poll found that 74 percent of respondents strongly  agreed or somewhat agreed that voters should be required to show a  government-issued ID when voting.





> The Post poll shows broad support for ID laws despite party affiliation,  with support from 88 percent of Republicans and 60 percent of  Democrats.



And then there is this...

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Govern...ic-Survey-71-Of-Latinos-Support-Photo-ID-Laws



> [h=2]A new comprehensive Pew Hispanic survey found 71%  of Latinos favor photo ID laws and 97% of all registered Hispanic  voters say they "are confident they have the identification needed to  vote on election day."
> [/h] Nationally, 77% of Americans support photo ID laws, so Latinos do not  differ much from the population at large in their support of photo ID  laws.
> According to Pew, Latinos make up 15% of eligible voters in the 11  states that have photo ID laws: Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho,  Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, South Dakota and  Tennessee.
> And while the mainstream media tries to claim photo ID laws are being  used as discriminatory weapons to burden minorities, 95% of Latinos  surveyed in these 11 states said they "are confident they have the  identification they will need to vote on election day."



Racism is the first tool the democrats go to to attack an opponent or an idea they disagree with, that is why racism is the only thing you hear about in this debate, since the majority of people have no problem with voter i.d. to protect the vote.


----------



## WC_lun

You say progressives are accusing conservatives of racism because that tends to shut down the conversation.  Most progressives are not accusing anyone of racism, they are accusing some Republicans of trying to cheat.  In fact, some Republicans have already admitted to cheating (see the OP).  To some who are sensitive to racism, because the methods used effect more minorities than caucasians it triggers that response.  It isn't about race, it is about Republicans in some states trying to supress voter turnout of Democrats through various means. So as much as you want to change the focus to the "racism" charge, that is not the core issue.  Nice try on trying to change the subject though.


----------



## billc

It isn't about suppressing turnout since anyone can get a free i.d., these laws have been passed and have been on the books long enough for the democrats to get i.d.s to their people.  It is a sad day when preventing voter fraud is considered a way to suppress democrat voter turnout.

Here is a list of states that have passed voter i.d. laws and when they were passed...

http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/voter_id_laws_passed_in_2011

Wow, looking at these states it is hard to see how anyone can say voter suppression is going to happen.  There is more than time in the states where it was passed and is in effect, and several of these states won't be allowed to implement the law until after the November election.  Voter "supression," is just another democrat "dog whistle," to keep people from protecting the vote.

I'd say these people concerned about voter suppression could move to Canada...but if this link is accurate...you probably need i.d. to vote there as well...

http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=ids&document=index&lang=e

Hmmm...seems to be the same for Germany and the Netherlands...the racist, voter suppressors...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_laws#Germany



> *Germany*
> 
> Germany has a community-based resident registration system and everyone eligible to vote receives a personal polling notification some weeks before the election by mail, indicating the polling station of the voter's precinct. Voters have to present their polling notification or a piece of photo ID (identity card, passport) when voting. The election officials may refrain from demanding identification when the voter is personally known to them, given his or her name is in the polling station's register of voters.
> *[edit]Netherlands*
> 
> The registration office of each municipality in the Netherlands maintains a registration of all residents. Every eligible voter receives a personal polling notification by mail some weeks before the election, indicating the polling station of the voter's precinct. Voters have to present their polling notification and a piece of photo ID (passport, identity card, or drivers license) when voting. Such photo ID must not expired for more than 5 years.[SUP][3][/SUP]


*[edit]
*
France uses i.d. and the British seem to want to suppress the Northern Ireland vote since they are the only ones who seem to need I.D to vote.


----------



## WC_lun

First of, we are niether France, Great Britian, Germany, or the Netherlands.  Accepting that statement as true, it makes anything you have to say about what they do in thier elections moot.

How many cases of fraud have there been in those states that are now requiring voter ID that would have been stopped by the ID law?  Poking around the internet and taking numbers from the different election boards, I found the number 6 cases in the last 10 years.  So the Republicans are trying to put in place a cure for something that is not a problem.

Now lets go to the actual suppression tactics.  First the ID law, which makes it more difficult for the poor, elderly, and disabled to vote.  Regardless if the ID is free or not, getting the ID can be a hardship.  There has to be supporting documents and you can't just order the ID through the mail.  Then there has been the push in states to limit or do away with early voting which historically has been used most by Democrats.  In Iowa it is so blatant they are only tried it in historicly Democratic counties.  There have been confusing mailers sent out by various states saying valid ID is needed, when that is not the case.  There has been many cases of efforts to remove voters from registrations by Tea Party groups.  Those voters are mostly from Democratic leaning demographics and just about all of them have been cleared by the various states' election boards to vote.  Florida tried the same thing, even though it went against thier own election laws to do so within six months of a national election. Mailers have been sent out telling people that if they voted in a primary, they do not need to vote in November.  Absentee voter forms in many states have had new restrictions placed on them.  The company hired by the RNC to get out the Republican vote in many swing states has been charged with election fraud.  They were hired even though there have been similiar allegations of the company in past elections.  Many of these tactics have been found illegal by various states' courts.  All of the above indicates a concerted effort by some in the Republican party to game the system.  In short, cheat.  To support these efforts is to support denyng voting rights to fellow Americans for no other reason than they do not belong to your political party, which quite frankly is disgusting and not very American.


----------



## Touch Of Death

Hasn't anyone thought of of the republican voter fraud, with all these good for nothings living in their mom's basement hearing these fateful words, "Hey!, you should get up and find a job! By the way your ballot came in the mail, if you would ever check the mail!, and you voted strait republican, and you also voted against the legalization of marijuana".


----------



## billc

And Rhode Island and their voter i.d. law...

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kevin-...democrats-disprove-media-myth-voter-id-racist



> In response to multiple voter fraud complaints from his own constituents in Providence, Sen. Harold Metts, a black Democrat, led the charge in favor of a new photo voter identification law that is now operative in the Ocean State. Metts is far from alone, however. In fact, despite what the media would have you believe, minorities are more likely to support identification laws than white Americans.





> Rhode Island&#8217;s new law was tested for the first time during April&#8217;s presidential primary, when voters were asked to show drivers&#8217; licenses, passports, birth certificates, or health club IDs. Voters who did not have the necessary identification were permitted to cast provisional ballots. Beginning in 2014, only a photo ID will be accepted, but the state will provide free IDs to anyone who needs them, and provisional ballots will remain in effect for anyone who lacks an ID on Election Day.





> Since 2011, Rhode Island is the only state with a Democratic legislature to pass a new voter ID requirement. The laws tend be more controversial in states where both parties are politically competitive and where a few votes could swing close elections, Metts suggested. There is no danger of the law &#8220;upsetting the apple cart&#8221; and turning Rhode Island into a Republican state, he said.





> By raising the bogus specter of racism to undermine and discredit new ID laws, the news media is doing a great disservice to those Americans who are victimized by voter fraud. The list includes Democratic Rep. Anastasia Williams, an African-American from Providence, RI, who was turned away from the polls after someone illegally voted in her place.



Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kevin-...rove-media-myth-voter-id-racist#ixzz29CFQANKL




> The media are on a quest to deceive the American people into believing that voter integrity measures are racist, suppressive laws written by conservatives to diminish the black, poor and elderly vote,&#8221; Danhof says. &#8220;Nothing could be further from the truth. Voter ID laws treat every eligible voter equally and with dignity.&#8221;
> The study entitled &#8220;Media Shows Pervasive Bias When Covering Voter ID,&#8221;finds that journalists typically place a greater premium on race-baiting than they do on fact checking. They also tend to omit any discussion of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Crawford v. Marion,which upheld Indiana&#8217;s strict photo voter ID law. Justice John Paul Stevens, one of the court&#8217;s most left-wing justices, wrote for the majority in the 6-3 ruling.
> &#8220;The bias is staggering,&#8221; Danhof says. &#8220;The media needlessly injects race into discussions of race-neutral voter integrity laws almost 150 times more often than it discusses their legal underpinnings. Since 2011, 37 states have passed or considered some form of voter integrity measure. Many of these laws are based on Indiana&#8217;s voter ID law that the United States Supreme Court ruled was constitutional only four years ago in the case of Crawford v. Marion.&#8221;





> Contrary to the liberal-leaning paper, in Rhode Island voter fraud has been detected and exposed by Democrats who ardently support the state&#8217;s new voter ID law.
> Rep. David Cicilline&#8217;s primary opponent, Anthony Gemma, told reporters during a press conference this past summer that a private investigation agency he retrained uncovered evidence that demonstrates how Cicilline&#8217;s mayoral and congressional campaigns have benefitted from voter fraud since 2002. That was the year Cicilline was elected mayor of Providence. He now occupies the congressional seat previously held by Rep. Patrick Kennedy. The evidence Gemma presented to the media includes video tapes, audio tapes and sworn statements from individuals associated with Cicilline who say they saw and sometimes participated in multiple instances of voter fraud. Gemma also told reporters that the evidence has forwarded to the Rhode Island State Police and the Federal Bureau of  Investigation (FBI). Cicilline prevailed by a wide margin during the Sept. 11 primary.




Hmmm...apparently more than one Black Democrat doesn't have a problem with voter I.D. laws protecting the vote...


----------



## WC_lun

First I question your source.  That site is definitley not an unbiased one.  Second, I see no proof of voter fraud in the article, much less fraud that would be prevented by photo ID.  There is hearsay in the article, but no direct knowledge of or proof of fraud.  Finally, this article does absolutley nothing to address the other forms of voter supression I mentioned.


----------



## billc

From Democrat Representative Anastasia Williams imbedded in the above article...

http://www.oceanstateteapartyinaction.com/ocean_state_tea_1/VOTER_ID_BILL.html



> Representative Anastasia Williams (D-Providence) recounted her experience with voter fraud as she spoke on the floor of the House in the 2011 legislative session in favor of legislation requiring voter ID. Her story was powerful and highlighted the fact that voter fraud can and does happen anywhere, to anyone.



The other embedded article about voter fraud in Rhode Island.

http://oceanstatecurrent.com/analys...ed-from-voter-fraud-efforts-opponent-alleges/



> U.S. Rep. David Cicilline&#8217;s political campaigns benefitted from a highly organized voter-fraud effort dating back to 2002, his Democratic primary opponent alleged in a press conference today. That was the year of Cicilline&#8217;s landslide victory to claim the office of mayor in Providence, Rhode Island.
> Anthony Gemma, who is running against Cicilline in the September 11 primary, told reporters in Providence that a private investigation agency he retained uncovered evidence that demonstrates how fraudulent activity conducted in Cicilline&#8217;s name &#8220;compromises the very core of the electoral process.&#8221;
> Gemma says he has presented federal and state officials with sworn statements from people associated with Cicilline who say they saw and sometimes participated in multiple instances of voter fraud.
> TRP, the private investigation group Gemma hired, includes retired state police officers.





> *Train Illegal Voters, Break the Machines, Use Paper Ballots*
> Gemma&#8217;s documents allege that voter fraud has been fine-tuned to the point that willing participants can be trained to carry it out. One witness claimed that at least 10 people received instructions from a woman identified as &#8220;CA4.&#8221;
> &#8220;After the election, I reviewed a list of the individuals who voted at the Elmwood Community Center,&#8221; the witness said. &#8220;I noted the presence of numerous Chinese names. I visited the residences of these individuals, all of whom told me they did not vote.&#8221;
> Nevertheless, votes were recorded in their names. The voter fraud trainees included an underage male who called himself &#8220;John Smith,&#8221; the witness said. Mr. Smith voted multiple times, according to the witness statement.



All attempts at voter fraud have to be stopped, not just voting under the name of a registered, but non-voting person.  That the democrats attack voter i.d., a simple way to curtail one aspect of voter fraud just means they are more than happy to cheat to win, as has been happening around the country.  

I think another way to curtail voter fraud is to put ink on the hands of people who have voted.  This would keep people from voting in multiple polling places.


----------



## billc

Here is more on voter fraud in Rhode Island...and how the democrats are using voter i.d. laws to stop it.  Of course, voter suppression is an old tactic used by democrats since the end of slavery, but something tells me they aren't involved in it when they are trying to use I.D's for voting...

http://oceanstatecurrent.com/analys...e-case-for-voter-id-law-senate-democrat-says/



> *New Voter Fraud Allegations Bolster the Case for Voter ID Law, Senate Democrat Says*



And here is how they cheat in Rhode Island...and why voter i.d. laws are needed...



> One witness described how campaign operatives would build a &#8220;Not Coming&#8221; list by calling actual registered voters to determine who was unlikely to show up at the polls. The &#8220;Not Coming&#8221; list was then given to willingly accomplices, who were paid to stand in and impersonate voters, the witness said.
> &#8220;I was told to call the voters on the legitimate rolls and ask if they were going to vote,&#8221; the witness explained. &#8220;If they answered &#8216;no,&#8217; I was to put a &#8216;NC&#8217; next to their name and then make a list of the &#8216;NC&#8217; list and give it to another member of the campaign. I found out later that they used this list to give the names to people who were paid to take their place and vote.&#8221;
> With the voter ID law in effect, it will become more difficult for this kind of activity to take place, Metts observed, but he did offer an important caveat.



News Busters, the original link, is just a place that collects and reports on actual stories.  The Ocean State Current is where the original story came from.  

Now tell me, if democrats in Rhode Island have pushed for and gotten voter I.D. laws passed for their state...are they also racists and vote suppressors...the way republicans are accused of being racists and vote suppressors?

The other forms of voter fraud have to be dealt with as well.  Why would you think that because I support voter i.d. laws, that I, or others who support them, would ignore or approve of other forms of voter fraud.


----------



## billc

Oh, by the way.  If Republicans are caught cheating, they should be arrested, and they should be stopped as well.  All voter fraud needs to be stopped, all of the techniques and every aspect of it needs to be addressed so all votes count.

In the last post that showed how "stand ins," get a list of names to vote for, my idea of putting ink on the hands of voters would be another way to stop that.  You vote, you get ink, you go to vote and you get checked for the ink.  I think that, maybe even more than voter i.d. could help to stop this aspect of voter fraud.  I would still want voter i.d. though, a layered defense is the best defense against fraud.

Inking hands also is something that doesn't cost a lot, doesn't inconvenience people, and can be done on the day of the election without lead up time.


----------



## WC_lun

Looks like Strategic Allied Consulting, the company hired to get out the vote by the RNC are in trouble in Virginia now as well as the already talked about Florida problems.  Seems they threw away some registrations the day before the registration deadline.  Interestingly enough, it came up during the investigation that Strategic Allied Consulting shared an address with American Crossroads, the CPAC created by Ed Gillespie and Karl Rove, and Jill Holtzman Vogal, a Virginia State Senator.


It seems like a lot of this voter fraud that is happening is by a company hired by the RNC.  Yet another thing that cannot be stopped by voter ID


----------



## Bill Mattocks

WC_lun said:


> Looks like Strategic Allied Consulting, the company hired to get out the vote by the RNC are in trouble in Virginia now as well as the already talked about Florida problems.  Seems they threw away some registrations the day before the registration deadline.  Interestingly enough, it came up during the investigation that Strategic Allied Consulting shared an address with American Crossroads, the CPAC created by Ed Gillespie and Karl Rove, and Jill Holtzman Vogal, a Virginia State Senator.
> 
> 
> It seems like a lot of this voter fraud that is happening is by a company hired by the RNC.  Yet another thing that cannot be stopped by voter ID



http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_new...stration-worker-charged-with-voter-fraud?lite



> GOP registration worker charged with voter fraud
> By Michael Isikoff, NBC News
> A campaign worker linked to a controversial Republican consulting firm has been arrested in Virginia and charged with throwing voter registration forms into a dumpster.
> The suspect, Colin Small, 31, was described by a local law enforcement official as a "supervisor" in a Republican Party financed operation to register voters in Rockingham County in rural Virginia, a key swing state in the Nov. 6 election. He was arrested after a local business owner in the same Harrisonburg, Va., shopping center where the local GOP campaign headquarters is located spotted Small tossing a bag into the trash, according to a statement Thursday by the Rockingham County Sheriff&#8217;s office. The bag was later found to contain eight voter registration forms, it said.  The arrest was reported Thursday night by WWBT-TV in Richmond.



Agreed on all counts.  Voter registration fraud is something that is a continuing problem.  This time it's a GOP operative (allegedly), and other times it has been DNC people (allegedly).  But in none of these cases will voter photo ID stop this from happening.  That's a Red Herring and it is being used to try to keep certain citizens from voting, in an attempt to win the upcoming election.  Not only is it unnecessary and unlikely to result in the achieving of the stated objectives (reducing voter fraud at the polls that does not occur or occurs very rarely and is caught), but it's an obscene attempt to win an election through deceit and lies.


----------



## WC_lun

Something I would just like to point out here...

_"I'll take voter I.D. as a safeguard because the democrats cheat, and they cheat early and often.  Voter I.D. doesn't stop anyone from voting and it is an added protection against close elections being stolen by the wrong people."
                                  -Billcihak

_Too many on the right have been closing thier eyes to this voter suppression while at the same time attacking the left's stance on this.  It is becoming more and more clear that at this time that it is a concerted effort by some on the right to influence the election.  When does the outrage begin that exsisted with Acorn?  Or is it okay if elections are stolen by the "right people"?  ...and yeah, pun was intended


----------



## Bill Mattocks

WC_lun said:


> Something I would just like to point out here...
> 
> _"I'll take voter I.D. as a safeguard because the democrats cheat, and they cheat early and often.  Voter I.D. doesn't stop anyone from voting and it is an added protection against close elections being stolen by the wrong people."
> -Billcihak
> 
> _Too many on the right have been closing thier eyes to this voter suppression while at the same time attacking the left's stance on this.  It is becoming more and more clear that at this time that it is a concerted effort by some on the right to influence the election.  When does the outrage begin that exsisted with Acorn?  Or is it okay if elections are stolen by the "right people"?  ...and yeah, pun was intended



As far as voter suppression goes, the left are no angels either.  When it comes to fake registrations, same thing.  I don't think either side has a lock on purity and clean living.  They both want to win and some of them will stop and nothing to do so.

But photo ID doesn't stop the problems we do have; it's another trick to keep presumed left-wingers from voting.


----------



## WC_lun

I absolutely agree there are no angels in the voter registration fraud.  That is why I mentioned acorn.  At this moment it isn't left wing shenanigans though.  It is right wing and all those who have been saying that we need IDs to keep fraud from happening and those that were all over the acorn issue now seem to be silent.  Here is fraud.  Where is the outrage now?  Where is the push for laws to keep such things from happening?

When taken as a whole, I believe the lack of concern over fraud being committed in the name of the right just highlights that the ID laws are not being put in place for the reasons being given.


----------



## Cryozombie

WC_lun said:


> First of, we are niether France, Great Britian, Germany, or the Netherlands.  Accepting that statement as true, it makes anything you have to say about what they do in thier elections moot.



LOL, Not to sidetrack this thread, but am I allowed to quote this the next time some "progressive" on the board uses them as the comparison for Single Payer/Socialized healthcare?


----------



## billc

Hmmm...I believe I said...



> Oh, by the way. If Republicans are caught cheating, they should be arrested, and they should be stopped as well. All voter fraud needs to be stopped, all of the techniques and every aspect of it needs to be addressed so all votes count.


----------



## billc

Again, these democrats in Rhode Island must be trying to stop...well...someone from voting too...



> http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kevin-m...oter-id-racist
> 
> 
> In response to multiple voter fraud complaints from his own constituents in Providence, Sen. Harold Metts, a black Democrat, led the charge in favor of a new photo voter identification law that is now operative in the Ocean State. Metts is far from alone, however. In fact, despite what the media would have you believe, minorities are more likely to support identification laws than white Americans.
> 
> 
> 
> Rhode Islands new law was tested for the first time during Aprils presidential primary, when voters were asked to show drivers licenses, passports, birth certificates, or health club IDs. Voters who did not have the necessary identification were permitted to cast provisional ballots. Beginning in 2014, only a photo ID will be accepted, but the state will provide free IDs to anyone who needs them, and provisional ballots will remain in effect for anyone who lacks an ID on Election Day.


----------



## billc

Is there actually any effect on turn out...there apparently is no way to tell...

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/20/whats-the-real-effect-of-voter-id-on-turnout/



> One of the most common complaints we hear from opponents of voter ID laws is that such rules would suppress voter turnout and make it more difficult for people to get to the polls. But for states who have already enacted such legislation, has the predicted effect proven true? Are there really less people making it out to cast their ballots on Tuesday? The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the question this weekend and finds that it&#8217;s not exactly an easy calculation to make.





> This left one analyst throwing up her hands.Lorraine C. Minnite, a Rutgers University political scientist and a senior fellow at Demos, a liberal think tank, looked for a turnout effect in a 2009 paper she co-authored with Columbia University political scientist Robert S. Erikson. They didn&#8217;t turn up definitive evidence, concluding, &#8220;our data and tools are not up to the task of making a compelling statistical argument for an effect.&#8221;
> Whether the inability to find an effect means there is no effect is contentious. To Prof. Minnite, it means the tools aren&#8217;t sharp enough, not that ID laws don&#8217;t curb voting.​





> Another item which can&#8217;t be quantified into hard numbers but which is acknowledged by these studies is the question of how likely the people most affected were to vote anyway. The majority of those without any form of photo ID were people who were apparently not all that big into participating in the public forum in the first place. This doesn&#8217;t mean that we should actively seek to _stop them from voting &#8211; quite the opposite &#8211; but it does make it all the harder to figure out what the final effect of these laws are on turnout._
> _I still maintain that any such law should be enacted in a way that doesn&#8217;t put a direct fee in the way of someone being able to register or vote. That flies in the face of the constitution. But we also can&#8217;t allow ourselves to fall into the trap of eliminating any proposal which requires even the slightest additional effort to vote. Participating in virtually every aspect of our society requires some measure of effort. And if your state requires you to have a free photo ID &#8211; assuming you don&#8217;t have one of the most common ones already &#8211; then that&#8217;s an effort you&#8217;ll need to make. It takes an effort to get up off your couch and go to the polls anyway._



To those who b**** and moan that there isn't any evidence that there is actually any voter fraud that can be stopped by voter i.d.....well...there isn't any evidence that voter i.d. prevents people who want to vote from voting either...so according to you guys that means that no one is being stopped from voting because of voter i.d. laws....Right?


----------



## Bill Mattocks

billcihak said:


> To those who b**** and moan that there isn't any evidence that there is actually any voter fraud that can be stopped by voter i.d.....well...there isn't any evidence that voter i.d. prevents people who want to vote from voting either...so according to you guys that means that no one is being stopped from voting because of voter i.d. laws....Right?



Let's say that's true.  So no voter fraud is prevented and no one is stopped from voting.

So why do we need the law again?  Why put another layer of restrictions on a constitutional right?

Right.  No reason.

So the reason must be something OTHER than preventing fraud.


----------



## billc

I'm glad you asked, this article takes up the case rather nicely...

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/20/the-non-problem-of-voter-fraud/



> It never fails to spur some heated discussions on both sides of the aisle when we bring up the subjects of voter ID laws and potential voter fraud. Some of the unusual suspects seem to be interested in talking about it this week, but only because a Republican supporter was involved. Such was the case earlier today when I wrote aboutefforts to measure the effect on turnout where such laws make it on to the books. The response from the left was both rapid and typical, summed up rather nicely (if impolitely) by one person who chimed in on a Twitter discussion I was having about national ID. (Image of one Tweet has been edited to block out an expletive, but text not edited in any other way.)





>








> Okay, let&#8217;s talk about that for a minute, since we hear it on pretty much a daily basis. (Thanks, Reverend Al!) We&#8217;re supposed to start from the assumption that there is no need to take any action because of the paucity of recorded convictions or reported and prosecuted instances of voter fraud crimes. It&#8217;s a compelling argument if you don&#8217;t think about it for too long. But to explain it to those who choose to engage in this argument in a way that&#8217;s easier to digest, let&#8217;s look for a moment at another crime &#8211; murder. We&#8217;ve touched on this before, but it&#8217;s worth a closer look.





> And in the example above, we&#8217;re _talking about MURDER. This isn&#8217;t some obscure code violation like building a garage too close to your property line. It&#8217;s the one case which attracts more immediate and vigorous police and media attention than anything else when an innocent person turns up missing. It is, getting back to the original point of this, *a crime that we&#8217;re actively looking out for and trying to identify and solve whenever it crops up. And yet there are probably more cases of it that are never reported than are solved. And &#8211; again &#8211; we&#8217;re really looking for it.*_
> _*Now what is the key difference between murder and voter fraud? (I hope by now you&#8217;re getting the idea.) Nobody is looking for it. It&#8217;s not obvious like a person not showing up at work for weeks on end or a bloody body in the park. Somebody walks into a precinct who isn&#8217;t immediately recognized by the blue haired ladies volunteering at the desk and what happens? Nothing. You can&#8217;t know everyone who lives in the entire area. And there is no trail of evidence to follow after the fact. There are no families of the stolen vote beating down the doors of the cops. It may be true that you haven&#8217;t found many instances of in person voter fraud. But it&#8217;s also true that you haven&#8217;t been looking. Not even in passing.*_





> It&#8217;s clearly possible to commit voter fraud. It&#8217;s also reasonable to see that there will be some number of unscrupulous individuals (and no party gets a pass here) who may have the motive to do so. So with all things being equal, why would you not want to take reasonable steps to prevent or at least hinder efforts of criminals to do it? If your town had no robberies for one entire year, would you push to repeal all laws against theft?





> You say to us, &#8220;there is no proof of widespread, in person voter fraud so why are you trying to stop it?&#8221; And I say to you, there is no proof that it&#8217;s not happening either, so why would you fight so hard against preventing it?



So there is no proof that voter i.d. laws prevent anyone from voting.

So there is no reason to not use voter i.d. laws to add a layer to protecting the vote, much in the same way you have layers of protection protecting your home, even if you have never had your home robbed...ever...

So the reason to stop voter i.d. laws must be something other than trying to help people vote.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

billcihak said:


> I'm glad you asked, this article takes up the case rather nicely...



Not really, it's just rehashing of the same arguments we've already had, including a rather sad strawman.

The basis of the argument is that the crime of voter fraud MAY WELL BE HAPPENING, but we just can't prove it.  Voter photo ID would stop it, so why not put it in place?

Well, I already answered that sufficiently, but to recap:

1) Voting is a constitutional right.  
2) Before placing restrictions on constitutional rights, specific hurdles have to be cleared.
3) The most important of those is WHAT is the SPECIFIC public good that is more important that the right itself?

_"We may have a problem we're not even looking for"_ is not sufficient reason.  _"Show cause, or do not infringe the right,"_ is the basis for most of the court arguments rejecting voter photo ID laws to date.

And to just add to that, may I say that the notion that we have a massive voter fraud problem that we're not aware of because we're not looking for it is absurd.

Let me prove that.  Let's say someone goes to the polls and identifies himself as me.  Since I am a registered voter, my name appears on the voter registration rolls.  Of course, he'll have to have a voter ID (non photo as they are issued in Michigan) with my name on it, and he'll have to know to go to the right polling place, since that's the only place my name appears, but never mind all that, let's say he is very determine to steal my vote, so he does it.

Presuming that he got to the polls BEFORE I did, then when I go to the polls, I'll be told I cannot vote, because their records indicate that I already voted.  Yes, that's right, using the high-tech device of a pencil and a ruler, they crossed my name off the voter printout when that vote fraud guy voted as me.

So I just say "Oh well," and I go back home and I tell no one, and the vote fraud guy wins.

Yeah.  Let's think about that one for a minute.

The FIRST thing that would happen is that I'd be raising a stink about it.  I'd demand my right to vote and I'd be given a provisional ballot.  An investigation would ensue when I lodged a complaint with the local Election Commission, too.

And that's ONE guy.

Sure, a voter fraud guy would get away with voting for some folks, since most don't show up to the polls anyway.  

On the other hand, he has to go stand in line for each of them; he can't show up to the polls and pretend to be five guys all at once, let alone 50 or 500 guys.  If he's going to go back to the same polls over and over again, he has to hope no one recognizes him each time he comes through; pretty daring for the sake of waiting an hour in line each time to cast one vote, then back to the end of the line again.

Oh, but maybe he has 500 cohorts!  Yeah, that's it, they do voter fraud en masse.  Of course, I hope they'll be able to muster those 500 guys all in the same district, since no doubt they'll want to vote THEMSELVES and gosh, can there be 500 voter fraud guys for every precinct who dare to vote once as themselves and once as someone else?  Seems like a lot of people willing to risk going to prison over a vote.  How much are they being paid for this work?  If it were me, they'd have to pay me an awful lot to get me to risk it.

And of course, it only takes a few guys like me who discover that someone else has voted in our names before the election folks are going to realize that they have a massive problem on their hands.

So, to be clear, for this kind of fraud to work:

1) One guy has to pretend to be many; or many guys have to pretend to be a few guys each.
2) They have to stand in line for up to an hour each vote.
3) They have to hope they're not recognized.\
4) They have to be local, since clearly they will want to cast at least their own lawful vote (not much point in casting one fraudulent vote if you don't also vote yourself, eh)?
5) They have to know where each voter they intend to defraud needs to go to vote.
6) They have to hope that the voters they intend to defraud WERE registered to vote but do NOT plan on voting, of there are going to be LOTS of complaints of voter fraud raised all at once.

Hmmm.

I'm going to say no, we do not have an undetected voter fraud problem at the polls.

If you can't show me the fraud, you can't restrict my right to vote by placing burdens on it.

No breaky, no fixy.

Especially when we're talking about constitutional rights.

And frankly, if someone suggested that what really need is more gun laws because maybe there is a lot of gun crime that we're just not detecting, your head would shoot off your shoulders and fly around the room.  Think about it.


----------



## billc

And to rehash from Democrat controlled Rhode Island with their new voter i.d. laws...


http://oceanstatecurrent.com/analysi...onent-alleges/




> U.S. Rep. David Cicilline&#8217;s political campaigns benefitted from a highly organized voter-fraud effort dating back to 2002, his Democratic primary opponent alleged in a press conference today. That was the year of Cicilline&#8217;s landslide victory to claim the office of mayor in Providence, Rhode Island.
> Anthony Gemma, who is running against Cicilline in the September 11 primary, told reporters in Providence that a private investigation agency he retained uncovered evidence that demonstrates how fraudulent activity conducted in Cicilline&#8217;s name &#8220;compromises the very core of the electoral process.&#8221;
> Gemma says he has presented federal and state officials with sworn statements from people associated with Cicilline who say they saw and sometimes participated in multiple instances of voter fraud.
> TRP, the private investigation group Gemma hired, includes retired state police officers.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Train Illegal Voters, Break the Machines, Use Paper Ballots*
> Gemma&#8217;s documents allege that voter fraud has been fine-tuned to the point that willing participants can be trained to carry it out. One witness claimed that at least 10 people received instructions from a woman identified as &#8220;CA4.&#8221;
> &#8220;After the election, I reviewed a list of the individuals who voted at the Elmwood Community Center,&#8221; the witness said. &#8220;I noted the presence of numerous Chinese names. I visited the residences of these individuals, all of whom told me they did not vote.&#8221;
> Nevertheless, votes were recorded in their names. The voter fraud trainees included an underage male who called himself &#8220;John Smith,&#8221; the witness said. Mr. Smith voted multiple times, according to the witness statement.



And how the cheat in Rhode Island...




> http://oceanstatecurrent.com/analysi...democrat-says/
> 
> 
> *New Voter Fraud Allegations Bolster the Case for Voter ID Law, Senate Democrat Says*
> 
> 
> 
> And here is how they cheat in Rhode Island...and why voter i.d. laws are needed...
> 
> 
> One witness described how campaign operatives would build a &#8220;Not Coming&#8221; list by calling actual registered voters to determine who was unlikely to show up at the polls. The &#8220;Not Coming&#8221; list was then given to willingly accomplices, who were paid to stand in and impersonate voters, the witness said.
> &#8220;I was told to call the voters on the legitimate rolls and ask if they were going to vote,&#8221; the witness explained. &#8220;If they answered &#8216;no,&#8217; I was to put a &#8216;NC&#8217; next to their name and then make a list of the &#8216;NC&#8217; list and give it to another member of the campaign. I found out later that they used this list to give the names to people who were paid to take their place and vote.&#8221;
> With the voter ID law in effect, it will become more difficult for this kind of activity to take place, Metts observed, but he did offer an important caveat.



The "Metts" referred to in the above article is again...





> _In response to multiple voter fraud complaints from his own constituents in Providence, Sen. Harold Metts, a black Democrat, led the charge in favor of a new photo voter identification law that is now operative in the Ocean State. Metts is far from alone, however. In fact, despite what the media would have you believe, minorities are more likely to support identification laws than white Americans._


----------



## billc

Well...you almost got that past me...

You typed...



> And frankly, if someone suggested that what really need is more gun laws because maybe there is a lot of gun crime that we're just not detecting, your head would shoot off your shoulders and fly around the room. Think about it.​



I don't know about you but in this state (Illinois) in order to use your constitutionally protected right to "Keep and Bear Arms,"....I have to show a photo i.d. called a "Firearm Owners Identification Card" in order to purchase a firearm or buy ammunition or use a commercial shooting range.  Hmmmm...you were saying about constitutional rights and gun laws...:angel:

Would showing an i.d. to vote be any more of a violation of a right than an F.O.I.D. card?

I believe in the past you have said you are from Michigan...and their gun laws are...

http://crime.about.com/od/gunlawsbystate/a/gunlaws_mi.htm



> *Handguns*
> 
> 
> *Permit to purchase a handgun? Yes (*License to purchase - see below)*
> *Registration of handguns? Yes*
> *Licensing of owners of handguns? No*
> *Permit to carry handguns? Yes. Carrying concealed or openly in a motor vehicle requires a license.*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ​


----------



## billc

Specifically, in Michigan, the right to "...Bear arms...," requires what?...wait for it...

http://www.michigan.gov/msp/0,4643,7-123-1591_3503_4654-10926--,00.html



> [h=2]Concealed Pistol License Requirements[/h]*A. State Requirements*Applicants for a Michigan Concealed Pistol License must:
> 1. Be at least 21 years of age
> 2. Be a citizen of the United States or an immigrant alien lawfully admitted into the United States
> 3. Be a resident of the State of Michigan for at least 6 months prior to application. An applicant is a state resident if one of the following applies:
> 
> 
> The applicant possesses a valid, lawfully obtained Michigan driver's license or state identification card


----------



## WC_lun

There has been shown a need for ID when purchsing a gun.  No such thing has been proved when voting.  It is a ploy to restrict voting rights and has been admitted as such by a few Republicans.


----------



## CanuckMA

To expand on BillM's scenario, do waht we do in Canada. When you show up tp vote, your name is crossed off a list and you are given a ballot. Ballots are numbered. The number is recorded next to your name. 

If someone showed up and pretended to be me, I'd raise a stink, then I'd prove who I am. They would put the fisrt ballot's number on a list of ballots that are not to be counted. Done. I need ID only if there is a dispute.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

billcihak said:


> Specifically, in Michigan, the right to "...Bear arms...," requires what?...wait for it...
> 
> http://www.michigan.gov/msp/0,4643,7-123-1591_3503_4654-10926--,00.html



Different rights, different threats to the public, different restrictions.  None of us need to show photo ID to pray or to speak publicly.

The state has not shown a compelling threat to the public by allowing people to vote with just a non-photo voter ID card.


----------



## billc

A great, short, commercial about the silliness of objecting to voter i.d. laws.  It is kind of funny...What if Banks were run like Minnesota's elections?

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/10/what-if-they-ran-banks-like-minnesota-elections.php


----------



## billc

And here is some democrat leadership talking to our favorite undercover journalist and his merry men, and women, James O'keefe and a voter fraud hidden camera interview...

Pat Moran, the son of a candidate actually talks about how best to commit voter fraud...and encourages the undercover journalist that he has to be very good at it...so he doesn't get caught...

Here is a link to the video...the advice on actual voter fraud starts at the 3:30 mark...

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/10/24...n-voter-fraud/

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/10/democrat_boss_caught_on_video_planning_vote_fraud.html



> Moran also unwittingly explained why Democrats steadfastly oppose voter-ID laws: he told the reporter that such laws would make vote fraud more difficult. Nonetheless, as indicated earlier, he had [COLOR=#11B000 !important]advice[/COLOR] on how to circumvent the system at the ready.
> Now, note that Moran talks about this plotted vote fraud as if it's nothing unusual. This raises the question: how many similar incidents occur that we never even hear about?
> Another case we did hear about came out of Bridgeport, Connecticut, where just a week and a half ago Mayor Bill Finch was caught on video joking (boasting?) about being able to steal an election.
> While meeting with Democrat CT congressman Chris Murphy, who is running neck-and-neck for the US Senate against Republican Linda McMahon, Finch said that "even if it takes a couples of days to get the results, 'You can be guaranteed you're going to get the vote,'" writes _The Weekly Standard_. By the way, Finch and Murphy were comrades in their state senate for four years, and Finch has a history of stealing elections via Bridgeport ballots.
> Then there's another kind of machine politics. There was a report yesterday that voters in Guilford County, North Carolina found that their Mitt Romney ballots automatically defaulted to Barack Obama at the Bur-Mil Park polling location. Writes MyFox8.com:
> Sher Coromalis...says she cast her ballot for Governor Mitt Romney, but every time she entered her vote the machine defaulted to President Obama.
> ...Guilford County Board of Elections Director George Gilbert says the problem arises every election. It can be resolved after the machine is re-calibrated by poll workers.
> "It's not a conspiracy [sic] it's just a machine that needs to be corrected," Gilbert said.
> ...Marie Haydock, who also voted at the Bur-Mil Park polling location, had the same problem.
> Is it my imagination, or is this problem that arises every election one where machines just always happen to malfunction in favor of Democrats?
> I've said for a long time that this election is going to be the dirtiest in US history, mainly because the left moves ever further down the rabbit hole of relativism, which begets an end-justifies-the-means mentality. Moreover, I truly believe that these liberal political operatives can steal enough votes in swing states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico to turn them in Obama's favor and thus steal the election. Remember, you don't need an October Surprise when you have a November 6 Surprise.


----------



## Cryozombie

Bill Mattocks said:


> Different rights, different threats to the public, different restrictions.  None of us need to show photo ID to pray or to speak publicly.
> 
> The state has not shown a compelling threat to the public by allowing people to vote with just a non-photo voter ID card.



I would think, however, this fits your slippery slope thread pretty well.  "If you need to present an ID to exercise an Inalienable right, than soon you may have to present photo ID to exercise Every inalienable right."

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The only reason I support Voter ID is because the Majority who oppose it are the same clowns who support Firearm Id's.  If I have to pay fees and jump thru hoops for my rights than **** you so do you.


----------



## WC_lun

Cryozombie said:


> I would think, however, this fits your slippery slope thread pretty well.  "If you need to present an ID to exercise an Inalienable right, than soon you may have to present photo ID to exercise Every inalienable right."
> 
> I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The only reason I support Voter ID is because the Majority who oppose it are the same clowns who support Firearm Id's.  If I have to pay fees and jump thru hoops for my rights than **** you so do you.



What a mature and well thought out reason to support voter ID


----------



## billc

In the case of Firearm i.d.'s, they are okay with them because they see it as one way to block ownership of firearms, or at least to make it a little more difficult for the average person to get one.  For the voter i.d., stopping them  it isn't a problem for them because it would make it harder to cheat at the polls.  That is why they have a double standard when it comes to i.d.s being necessary to access "rights."


----------



## WC_lun

billcihak said:


> In the case of Firearm i.d.'s, they are okay with them because they see it as one way to block ownership of firearms, or at least to make it a little more difficult for the average person to get one.  For the voter i.d., stopping them  it isn't a problem for them because it would make it harder to cheat at the polls.  That is why they have a double standard when it comes to i.d.s being necessary to access "rights."



Nonsense.  The ID for buying a gun is because in the past there have been people buying guns that should not have been, including minors and felons.  So the law for id was put in place to curb it. In regards to voter iD, there is virtually no fraud happening.  most of the fraud that is happening would not be stopped by voter ID.  The voter ID isn't about stopping fraud, but rather making it more difficult for poor, elderly, and disabled to vote, whichas a whole vore more for democrats than republicans.  

It is also very hypocritical to say that you are against ID'ing gun purchasers because it is your right to purchase a gun, but in the next breath say you want it for voting.  So in your mind, as long as it isn't your rights being infringed on, its okay?


----------



## billc

You don't need i.d. to purchase a gun if you have an instacheck system in place that would simply confirm that the buyer had no criminal history that would prevent them from buying a firearm.  As to voting, I'm not saying voter i.d. should be used to prevent voting but to keep someone else from voting and stealing, someone elses vote.  The situations are different and voter i.d. makes sense, only hysterical people disagree with it.


----------



## Cryozombie

WC_lun said:


> So in your mind, as long as it isn't your rights being infringed on, its okay?



Yes that seems to be EXACTLY what is being said: "YOU need a ID to buy a gun, but how dare you demand an Id for ME to vote."  Thanks for pointing that out, because that's exactly my argument... I want it all to be fair an balanced, not skewed to one side.  I think that if more Mature and Well thought out than "ZOMG TERRIFIYING GUNS, STOP PEOPLE FROM GETTING THEM CUZ I'M SO ASKEERED!"  which is what most of the arguments come down to in the end.  Also, you are incorrect in the assumption that Gun restrictions were put in place to stop people who shouldn't have guns from buying them... they were originally put in place to stop minorities from owning them, TYVM.

.


----------



## billc

Hmmmm...obama voted early...they asked for a photo i.d....he didn't have it and wasn't allowed to vote...just kidding, he showed his i.d. and voted and basically said it wasn't a big deal.  Wow!  Obama supports racism and voter suppression apparently.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/25/barack-obama-votes-early-in-chicago-is-asked-to-show-id-video/



> &#8220;This was really convenient​
> 
> ​,&#8221; he added, referring to the early voting process. &#8220;I can&#8217;t tell you who I voted for. But I very much appreciate everybody here. It&#8217;s good to be home back in the neighborhood.&#8221;
> Obama and other Democrats &#8212; most notably, Eric Holder and other Justice Department officials &#8212; have railed against voter ID laws, claiming they serve as barriers to minority voters&#8217; participation in the electoral process.
> Obama&#8217;s Justice Department has sued several states for enacting voter ID laws like the one in place at his polling precinct.



Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/25/b...cago-is-asked-to-show-id-video/#ixzz2AMHerNCO


----------



## Tgace

Its perhaps a regional thing, but I deal with the "poor minority" segment quite often and a large percentage of them seem to have some form of ID on them. While I'm not sold on requiring photo ID to vote, I don't see a huge lack of it where I live....or an inability to get it. Most poor have a benefit card issued by the state.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2


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## Bill Mattocks

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/201...sleading-billboards?google_editors_picks=true



> Pennsylvania Officials Accused of Running Misleading Voter ID Ads
> &#8212;By Josh Harkinson| Tue Oct. 30, 2012 3:03 AM PDT
> Early this month, a federal judge partially overturned Pennsylvania's voter ID law, ruling that the state couldn't require voters to show photo identification at the polls until after the 2012 election. But the ruling has not stopped the state from running ads suggesting otherwise&#8212;ads that have disproportionately targeted urban and minority communities that tend to vote for Democrats.
> 
> In English, the billboard pictured above reads: "This election, if you've got it, show it." It is one of 58 billboards erected by Pennsylvania's Republican-led Department of State, mostly in Democratic-leaning Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Though Latinos make up only 6 percent of the state's population, about 20 percent of the billboards are in Spanish. Similar Spanish-language ads appear on public buses.



Because it's not about convincing the Hispanic population not to vote.  Not at all.


----------



## billc

Sooo...if they buy into what these ads are saying...they will bring an i.d., though it is not needed till after 2012, and then when they show it to the pollster, they will be told it isn't necessary until after 2012...and then they will vote.  Hmmmm...devious isn't it.  Not quite like the fire hoses, night sticks and police dogs, the fire bombing and the lynchings employed by the democrats to supress the black vote,  but...well, there is still no comparison...they still get to vote, wether they have i.d. or not.


----------



## WC_lun

The ads are deceptive and they are being put in nieghborhoods that have historically voted democratic.  Seems if those ads were truly for information purposes, they would be put into heavily republican voting areas as well...or do republicans not need information on voting?


----------



## Makalakumu

Both candidates are so close on all of the positions that matter. 

Both sides have been cheating as long as anyone can remember?

How is this different from Pro Wrestling?


----------



## WC_lun

Pro wrestling effects very few people in real world in a substatiative way.  Potus and congress can and does effect just about everyone's life here in the US and many times people around the world as well.  Play the disenfranchised as much as you like, but the differences really don't need to be explained to you, do they?


----------



## Bill Mattocks

I'm having a little trouble understanding the responses I am reading to the report that the state of Pennsylvania is running billboards telling people they need ID to vote when in fact they do not.

Let me just run through this really quickly.

First, I made the charge (as many others have) that attempts to create photo voter ID laws are not actually intended to protect the integrity of the voting process, since there is no evidence of any kind of massive voter fraud that would be stopped by the use of such laws, but is actually a thinly-disguised attempt to keep a certain segment of the population from voting.  Generally, this segment is poor, often comprised of racial minorities, and tends to vote Democrat.  The fact that the GOP is almost 100% behind these efforts lends credence to that belief.

Now, since the voter photo ID law has been tossed out in Pennsylvania by the courts, the STATE is posting billboard advertisements, most heavily in Hispanic neighborhoods, telling people that they HAVE to have ID to vote, which is fact a lie.

I do not understand how ANYONE can still defend this behavior as not having the ulterior motive of trying to keep (in this case) Hispanic voters from voting.

There is absolutely NO DIFFERENCE between them running these billboards and running ads that say, for example, _"Remember, you must be white if you want to vote!"_  Or, _"Remember, only land-owners can vote!"_  Or, _"Don't forget, only men have the right to vote!"_  It's the same damned thing.

Professional wrestling?  Are you kidding me?  These are our elected officials spending taxpayer money to tell Hispanic citizens that they can't vote without photo ID, when in fact the courts have said that is a LIE.  If they show up without photo ID, they WILL be allowed to vote, the court made that ruling and it's a done deal.  The state running billboards saying the opposite is nothing more than a very clear attempt at voter intimidation and I do not see how any decent human being could possibly think otherwise.

Night sticks and firehoses?  billcihak you just basically agreed with me.  You're no longer denying that this is voter intimidation by the state, or that the purpose is to keep Hispanics from voting, you're just arguing that it's not as bad as it could have been.  Wow.  Are you serious?  Before, you were angrily decrying the notion that voter photo ID laws were intended to disenfranchise legitimate voters, now you're just shrugging it off as not as bad is it could have been.  Wow.  I'm glad you're finally admitting that it's nothing more than voter intimidation, but I'm shocked that you think it's OK because it doesn't involve violence.

I guess I'm just flabbergasted because now it is so out in the open.  We've dropped all pretenses, and it appears that my accusation was correct all along.  No one is even denying it now, they're just playing it off like it could have been worse.  Let me make this clear.  Voter intimidation is illegal.  It's wrong.  It's frankly f'ing evil.  And the GOP is making it very clear that this is exactly what they are doing, they are not even hiding it now.  They are not even PRETENDING that voter photo ID laws are intended to protect the integrity of the voting process, they are clearly stating that the entire purpose is to keep people who have a low income from voting.  And then they shrug like it's no big deal.  After all, if citizens reject their attempts to intimidate them and show up anyway, they'll be allowed to vote, so what's the big deal?

The big deal is it's evil.


----------



## WC_lun

&#8220;Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win Pennsylvania, done.&#8221;
-Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R)
June 26th 2012

They've been admitting it for a while.  It just seems that a lot of people just don't give a damn.


----------



## billc

Sorry, I'm not dropping anything.  My example of firehoses and nightsticks was to show how real voter suppression is conducted by experts, the democrats.  This claim that voter i.d. laws are voter suppression are silly.



> Early this month, a federal judge partially overturned Pennsylvania's  voter ID law, ruling that the state couldn't require voters to show  photo identification at the polls until after the 2012 election. But the  ruling has not stopped the state from running ads suggesting  otherwise&#8212;ads that have disproportionately targeted urban and minority  communities that tend to vote for Democrats.
> 
> In English, the billboard pictured above reads: "This election, if you've got it, show it."



considering that President obama had to show photo i.d. to vote here in Illinois just shows, again, how silly the complaints about voter i.d. are.



> _"Remember, you must be white if you want to vote!"_



The above quote isn't even close to being on par with remember to bring your i.d. to vote.  They aren't being told they can't vote because of their ethnicity, color or country of origin. The people in these communities, as well as all the other communities in the state need i.d. to bank, drive, get insurance, cash checks and any number of other day to day activities.  The only people who may not vote when they see these ads is people who don't have i.d. and odds are, if they don't have some form of basic i.d. needed for daily life, they shouldn't be voting in the election in the first place.



> "This election, if you've got it, show it."



This add above doesn't say if you don't have i.d. you can't vote.  It doesn't say if you don't have it don't show up.  It says "If" you have it "show it."  Real voter suppression would say if you don't have i.d. you can't vote and will be arrested...major difference. 

Besides, the law is only being blocked for this election because the judge wants to help obama get elected.  That is why it wasn't completely overturned, just postponed.  I believe they have already used it in previous election cycles as a run up to this year, and then the judge stepped in.

Since the law will still go into effect, after obama has his chance to be re-elected, once again, the objections to voter i.d. are silly.

Wow, so the republicans don't want the democrats stealing pennsylvania for obama through voter fraud, yeah, that makes them bad guys...not.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

billcihak said:


> This add above doesn't say if you don't have i.d. you can't vote.  It doesn't say if you don't have it don't show up.  It says "If" you have it "show it."  Real voter suppression would say if you don't have i.d. you can't vote and will be arrested...major difference.



Nope.  It's playing word games for the EXPRESS purpose of making people think that they can't vote if they don't have ID.  There is no other reason.

This is very clear.  It's a deliberate GOP attempt to persuade Democrat voters to stay home.  And it's wrong.  I don't want Obama to win, but I'll be damned if I will support this kind of evil.

It's evil and I believe you in your heart it's evil.  Defending it is repulsive.  The facade has been dropped, this is nothing more than a blatant attempt voter suppression by the PA GOP, and defending it is morally reprehensible.  That's not even open for debate at this point, as far as I am concerned.


----------



## Master Dan

WC_lun said:


> Pro wrestling effects very few people in real world in a substatiative way.  Potus and congress can and does effect just about everyone's life here in the US and many times people around the world as well.  Play the disenfranchised as much as you like, but the differences really don't need to be explained to you, do they?


 If Romney had been the president the last 4 years there would be little or no FEMA to help New York City or the states that are now disaster areas due to Huricane Sandy. The point is not those who show up to vote ID or no but those who do not because of miss information on polling places dates, ID requirements and even direct mail letters to intimidate resulting in indirect poll taxes on those who cannot afford it will stay at home and not vote.


----------



## billc

Yes, why worry about voter i.d.s when the democrats have so many other ways they are going to try to steal the election in individual states...

http://www.marionstar.com/article/20121031/NEWS03/310310009/Problem-found-board-elections?nclick_check=1




> *MARION* &#8212; Joan Stevens was one of several early  voters at the polls on Monday. But when Stevens tried to cast her ballot  for president, she noticed a problem.
> 
> Upon selecting &#8220;Mitt Romney&#8221; on the electronic touch screen, Barack Obama&#8217;s name lit up.
> It took Stevens three tries before her selection was accurately recorded.
> &#8220;You want to vote for who you want to vote for, and when you can&#8217;t it&#8217;s irritating,&#8221; Stevens said.
> Stevens  said she alerted Jackie Smith, a board of elections member who was  present. Smith declined to comment, but Stevens says she mentioned that  the machine had been having problems all day.
> Stevens also reported the issue to Sophia Rogers, the director of the board of elections for Marion County.
> Rogers  said the machine worked fine when she and others tried voting on it. No  one else had reported problems with the voting machines malfunctioning.
> Rogers  suggested the issue may have been caused by not hitting the button  directly or tapping with more than one finger. Stevens was aware the  machine had to be operated a certain way.
> &#8220;I know how to do the voting,&#8221; Stevens said.




As to evil?  There are a great many things in this world that are truly evil, voter i.d.s are not one of them.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

billcihak said:


> As to evil?  There are a great many things in this world that are truly evil, voter i.d.s are not one of them.



Attempting to suppress voting is not only evil, it may be *the fundamental evil* for a democratic republic.  It's so wrong that people who do it should arrested and tried as traitors.

If a person wants their own party to win or their own cause advanced so much that they would stoop to attempting to stop other citizens from voting by trickery and skullduggery, they are not fit to live among us.

Loving liberty requires respecting the choices others make when voting, whether one agrees with them or not.  When the agenda becomes more important than liberty itself, that agenda has become corrupt and evil.

In such ways, despots are created.  In such ways, freedom is curtailed.  In such ways, patriots become traitors.

There are worse criminals out there.  But that's a weak, weak, excuse to do the wrong thing.  Yeah, there are people out there who rob banks.  So it's OK for me steal a little bit since there are worse crooks?  No.


----------



## WC_lun

LOL  So a malfunctioning machine is the democrats plot to cheat the election.  They aren't very good at gaming the system I guess...certainly not in comparrison to the GOP's attempts at suppression.  Billc, you are trying to defend the undefendable.  This doesn't excuse any attempts by any democrats to rig voting.  Right now though, it is a concerted effort by the GOP as a whole.  That the party you support is using such tactics should have you mad as hell, instead of just trying to ignore it and shifting blame to the democrats.  It truly is a vile tactic and unAmerican.


----------



## billc

I realized that part of the problem is that the article cited above is from motherjones.com, that is the first problem.  The more important point, taken from the actual article is that voter i.d. was already checked during the primary election, so anyone who voted then, and anyone who will vote in the general election will have to show voter i.d. anyway, but if they don't have it they can still vote...



> Ron Ruman, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania's Department of State, denies that the advertisements are misleading. "In the primary all voters were asked for ID, and they will be again in November," he says, though he acknowledges that people will be allowed to cast regular ballots&#8212;ID or no ID. He explained that the department targeted urban locations to get the most bang for the buck, and because "there might be a larger number of people there who might not have a driver's license."



Sooo, this is still not voter suppression or racism.  Only more democrat magic can make it so...the same magic that turned the party of racism and slavery, the democrat party, the party of minorities.

This is what voter suppression actually looks like...democrats with clubs standing outside of polling places...





Again, the real selling point to voter i.d.s...the President of the United States had to show a photo i.d. to vote.


----------



## billc

Now this is voter suppression, and once again, the democrats are doing it...

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Govern...-Oregon-Voters-We-Will-Know-Who-You-Voted-For



> [h=2]Voters in Oregon are receiving a mailer from the AFL-CIO that could imply their votes in the upcoming election will not be secret. [/h]"Your voting history is a matter of public record," the mailer says on the cover of a trifold pamphlet, which lists the union's positions and its endorsed state and local candidates inside.
> In fact, a voter's precise vote is secret, though the fact that they have returned a ballot in Oregon's mail-in elections would be a matter of public record.
> The reverse cover of the pamphlet features an historic photograph of a union strike, in which the worker in front is carrying a poster that reads: "DO NOT CROSS OUR PICKET LINE."


----------



## WC_lun

Okay, so the person or persons responsible for the mailer need to be prosecuted, just like ANYONE trying to supress the vote or commit voter fraud.  In this case they might even be able to get them for mail fraud. What I don't understand is how you can just ignore what your own party is doing?  If Democrats do something negative, you are all about linking all kinds of crap and attacking as great as you can.  When it is the party you belong to doing something negative, you play the Wizard of Oz, "Ignore the man behind the curtain!  He's not suppressing the vote!"  Its crap.  You are an American before you are a republican or democrat...at least that is how i thought it was supposed to work.


----------



## billc

I don't ignore it and like you, if they are caught committing voter fraud or doing something wrong they need to be arrested and put in jail.  I don't want anyone suppressing anyone's vote.  I don't think voter i.d. laws are suppressing anyone's vote and will actually help to protect the vote from democrats who cheat, especially with all the examples I have given on this thread of actual techniques used by democrats to cheat.


----------



## WC_lun

You are willfully blind and will seemingly remain so as long as there seems to be an advantage for your "team."


----------



## punisher73

There needs to be a better system in place for removing voters from the database after they are dead.  In Michigan, for example, they were contacted by the DOJ because we have 102% of our state population registered to vote, and around 15-20 counties that have more registered voters than people living there (stats may be off slightly, trying to go from memory).

I think this would be a big step in cutting any alleged fraud down without disenfranchising voters.


Here is an article that discusses some of the numbers and reasons.
http://watchdoglabs.org/blog/2012/1...d-500000-voters-between-2000-and-2010-census/


----------



## Bill Mattocks

punisher73 said:


> There needs to be a better system in place for removing voters from the database after they are dead.  In Michigan, for example, they were contacted by the DOJ because we have 102% of our state population registered to vote, and around 15-20 counties that have more registered voters than people living there (stats may be off slightly, trying to go from memory).
> 
> I think this would be a big step in cutting any alleged fraud down without disenfranchising voters.
> 
> 
> Here is an article that discusses some of the numbers and reasons.
> http://watchdoglabs.org/blog/2012/1...d-500000-voters-between-2000-and-2010-census/



Now, the question is, do more than 100% of registered voters vote?

But yes, when a person dies, their name should be removed from the voter registration rolls in an automated fashion.

But again, let's say that some naughty person is trying to steal the vote of a dead person.  They must know who that dead person is.  They must know where their polling place is.  They must obtain a voter ID (non photo) and in Michigan a photo ID as well in the name of that dead person.  Then they must go stand in line for hours or however long it takes to cast that vote.  I don't see this as being a massive risk, haven't heard of it being a problem, and the photo ID that Michigan requires would not have changed that in any case; you get your non-photo voter ID by going to the SOS and registering, then it comes by mail to the registered address of the voter.  So if they could and would go to all that trouble, they already have all they need to get a fake photo ID from the state also.

These are just excuses used to try to intimidate Democratic voters into not voting.  Nothing more.

The billboards in PA absolutely prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.  The issue isn't really even arguable anymore.  No *rational* human being can deny what they are.


----------



## punisher73

Bill Mattocks said:


> Now, the question is, do more than 100% of registered voters vote?
> 
> But yes, when a person dies, their name should be removed from the voter registration rolls in an automated fashion.
> 
> But again, let's say that some naughty person is trying to steal the vote of a dead person.  They must know who that dead person is.  They must know where their polling place is.  They must obtain a voter ID (non photo) and in Michigan a photo ID as well in the name of that dead person.  Then they must go stand in line for hours or however long it takes to cast that vote.  I don't see this as being a massive risk, haven't heard of it being a problem, and the photo ID that Michigan requires would not have changed that in any case; you get your non-photo voter ID by going to the SOS and registering, then it comes by mail to the registered address of the voter.  So if they could and would go to all that trouble, they already have all they need to get a fake photo ID from the state also.
> 
> These are just excuses used to try to intimidate Democratic voters into not voting.  Nothing more.
> 
> The billboards in PA absolutely prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.  The issue isn't really even arguable anymore.  No *rational* human being can deny what they are.



You are correct, I should have stated more clearly that the removal of dead people or people who are no longer in state would cut down on alleged fraud, in that it would remove that argument about dead people voting.  I'm sure you have heard stories about how many "dead people" vote in Detroit.  But, to my knowledge I have never actually seen facts about this or a list of dead voters.  By removing them from the data base this argument can't be made anymore.


----------



## punisher73

I don't know if this has been posted yet or not, but here is a breakdown of voter id laws by state.
http://www.ncsl.org/legislatures-elections/elections/voter-id.aspx


----------



## billc

Yes, and the cheating continues...

http://www.rgj.com/article/20121101...bles-Nevada-other-swing-states?nclick_check=1



> The Republican National Committee sent letters to election officials in Nevada and three other swing states on Thursday alleging a significant number of cases where voting machines cast ballots for President Barack Obama when the vote was intended for his Republican challenger, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.


----------



## billc

This is voter intimidation, hollywood style, during another election...I hadn't even heard of this one till today...

http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2012/11/03/danny-devitos-union-thugs-and-tuesdays-vote/



> I first experienced the rising thugocracy watching a famous Hollywood celebrity lead a rally where Republican voters were intimidated from entering the polls to vote. I was in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2004 at the early voting site on Military Trail. There, a giant purple SEIU rally stood in front of the single entrance. Danny DeVito led the mob.
> I watched Bush voter after Bush voter (known by bumperstickers) at DeVito&#8217;s rally suffer identification by a SEIU member posted in the parking lot. As each voters exited his car, the SEIU thug pointed and followed the person, announcing to the mob that he was a voter for Bush.  The mob made passage difficult to impossible.





> I was not alone in watching DeVito&#8217;s SEIU mob block the polls. _National Review_ had this to say at the time:We&#8217;re already witnessing the organized bullying of voters in the hotly contested swing state of Florida. According to a disturbing report in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: &#8220;With early voting taking place in busy public places like City Halls and libraries, voters are voicing complaints of being blocked by political mobs, or being singled out for their political views. Others say they have been grabbed, screamed at and cursed by political partisans of all stripes.&#8221;
> &#8220;Special-interest groups are trying to whip everybody into a frenzy and get everybody upset,&#8221; LePore said. &#8220;Campaigns and their observers are confronting the workers and the voters. Things have gotten nasty and ugly.&#8221;   &#8220;LePore said campaign workers followed voters into polling places and handed out literature next to the voting machines. Other voters standing in line were told the machines don&#8217;t work and that they should vote absentee.&#8221;
> Actors Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman led a rally at the entrance to another polling location, prompting poll watcher Lawrence Gottfried to intervene. &#8220;I said, &#8216;Look Mr. DeVito, I&#8217;m a big fan of yours and Rhea&#8217;s, but you are blocking the entrance.​I was there. The account in _National Review_ is accurate. Danny DeVito egged on union thugs who were preventing Republicans from entering the polls.



And from the beginning of the article...



> We can learn a lot from Democrats by what they oppose. While Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings tells us there is no vote fraud, fellow Maryland congressional candidate Wendy Rosen is committing federal felonies byvoting both in Maryland and Florida. While the NAACP is leading the charge against photo voter identification, Lessadolla Sowers from the NAACP heads off to prison for voting for dead voters. While Brian Moran, Virginia&#8217;s Democrat chair, rails against voter integrity, his nephew Pat is caught on camera plotting the use of forged documents at the polls to help President Obama.
> Indeed, we learn much by what they oppose. It certainly explains their existential opposition to True the Vote&#8217;straining of the poll-watching army on Tuesday.
> 
> 
> But this year, their hypocrisy has reached a diabolical crescendo. The Obama campaign has sought to unleash law enforcement officials across the United States against law-abiding citizens who exercised state and federal laws to clean up the voter rolls and monitor the polls.
> It is bad enough when Eric Holder refuses to enforce laws to maintain the voter rolls. It is even worse when his political buddies like Obama campaign lawyer Robert Bauer try to intimidate people who clean up Holder&#8217;s mess by badgering state election officials.


----------



## arnisador

Meanwhile, in actual voter fraud news:


> Investigators today arrested a Southern Nevada woman suspected of  trying to vote twice this week at two different polling locations.
> Roxanne Rubin was taken into custody as she arrived for work at the  Riviera hotel-casino, investigators said. Rubin, 56, is a registered  Republican


----------



## billc

Glad she was arrested, I hope the democrats cheating are arrested as well.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

arnisador said:


> Meanwhile, in actual voter fraud news:



"When Rubin arrived at the second location, a poll worker conducted a routine database check and found Rubin had already voted."

Oh, look!  I guess photo voter ID would not have stopped this abuse either, since the safeguards ALREADY IN PLACE did their job!  Well, what a bummer.

Just another nail in the coffin of that tired argument that we need photo voter ID to prevent voter fraud; a solution we don't need for a problem we don't have.


----------



## billc

Yes, union thuggery and voter fraud, two complementary topics...and then add in illegal immigration for extra spice...

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Govern...-Them-With-Deportation-For-Not-Going-To-Polls



> *Two immigrants who are not citizens -- and thus not eligible to vote -- have accused a Nevada Culinary Union of registering them to vote and then threatening them with deportation if they did not go to the polls. Even worse, the immigrants say there are more like them who are illicitly registered and may be casting ballots in one of the most critical swing states in the 2012 election due to Nevada's lax voter identification laws that do not require voters to provide photo IDs or prove citizenship.*
> 
> Glenn Cook, of the _Las Vegas Review Journal_, met with two immigrants who said Culinary Local 226 signed them up to vote.  The immigrants told Cook "the Culinary official who registered them to vote didn't tell them what they were signing and didn't ask whether they were citizens" and "they trusted that the union official's request was routine, thought nothing of it and went about their work."
> Once registered, these immigrants can vote because of Nevada's rather lax identification requirements.
> As Cook notes:In Nevada you never have to prove you're a citizen to register to vote or cast a ballot. Forget about showing government-issued photo identification at the polls, as several states now require. You don't have to show a photo ID at any point in the process. The immigrants I met could vote Tuesday just by showing a Culinary health insurance card and a power bill.​Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax told Cook all voters would need are documents proving identity and residence.
> "Just like every other voter in Nevada, they will not be asked to prove citizenship," Lomax said.
> Cook notes the Union officials visited one immigrant and made threats of deportation and said the immigration was in "so much trouble" for not having voted.





> But, as Cook notes, even though one of the immigrants had filled out the paper work to be removed from the voter rolls, as of Friday, the immigrant's form was not among the registration cancellation forms the Clark County election office have received during the last month.
> Cook notes that in Nevada, more identification is required for cashing a check than voting, and that needs to change to prevent such non-citizens from potentially tampering with close elections.
> "We should ask every voter, upon registration, to prove citizenship, but we don't," Cook writes. "Instead, we have an honor system that's exceedingly easy to cheat and gives political parties and politically active groups a powerful incentive to break the law without much risk of being caught."


----------



## Bob Hubbard

This popped up in my facebook feed. No idea on the accuracy. Doesn't matter though, Romney owns the machine that's counting his votes right?


----------



## arnisador

Let's get some fact-checking going on this.


----------



## Bob Hubbard

On which part?  Democrats voting multiple times, and after they've died, or Romney having some ownership and control over the polling machines that'll be counting the votes?

Does it matter? Obama won the election, by 3%.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

arnisador said:


> Let's get some fact-checking going on this.



From what little I can find online, the man bragged on Facebook that he had in fact voted multiple times for Barack Obama, and has since removed the post.  Others have stated they have been in communication with the FBI over the claims that the FBI is investigating.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

Hmmm.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...285252-24eb-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_story.html



> Virginia voter fraud case expands to focus on GOP firm
> The investigation into the arrest of a man on charges of dumping voter registration forms last month in Harrisonburg, Va., has widened, with state officials probing whether a company tied to top Republican leaders had engaged in voter registration fraud in the key battleground state, according to two persons close to the case.



Note that voter photo ID laws would not have stopped this either.  And the woman arrested in Nevada a couple days ago for voting twice is apparently a registered Republican.  But again, she was caught, and without the use of voter photo ID.

Still not seeing a case for photo ID.


----------



## arnisador

bob hubbard said:


> does it matter? Obama won the election, by 3%.





Heh.


----------



## WC_lun

What I am seeing from these post is allegations of wrongdoing from both sides.  From the conservatives there are instances of idividual wrongdoing, effecting registrations and voting for a limited amout of people.  If true these things should be investigated and proper punushments doled out.  For the progressive complaints there are republican policticians activily participating in voter suppression and admitting it to the general public.  They are trying to institutionalize the voter suppression.  The results?  Well in just one state PA, it is estimated that it could effect up 700,00 voters.  Given all the "democrats cheat" posts I am seeing, on the outside from all the states, maybe 50 votes are effected and NOT from instilutionized efforts.  It is pretty assinine to compare 700,000 voters being effected in one state by claiming that a few democrats are playing dirty too.  Yes, arrest and preosecute those democrats doing dirty, but don't pretend it even equates to the concerted effort by many republicans to disenfranchise at least 100's of thousands.


----------



## Bill Mattocks

WC_lun said:


> What I am seeing from these post is allegations of wrongdoing from both sides.  From the conservatives there are instances of idividual wrongdoing, effecting registrations and voting for a limited amout of people.  If true these things should be investigated and proper punushments doled out.  For the progressive complaints there are republican policticians activily participating in voter suppression and admitting it to the general public.  They are trying to institutionalize the voter suppression.  The results?  Well in just one state PA, it is estimated that it could effect up 700,00 voters.  Given all the "democrats cheat" posts I am seeing, on the outside from all the states, maybe 50 votes are effected and NOT from instilutionized efforts.  It is pretty assinine to compare 700,000 voters being effected in one state by claiming that a few democrats are playing dirty too.  Yes, arrest and preosecute those democrats doing dirty, but don't pretend it even equates to the concerted effort by many republicans to disenfranchise at least 100's of thousands.



To be clear, the estimate is, I believe, for all states implementing voter photo ID, not just one:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162...-would-exclude-up-to-700000-young-minorities/

However, yes, it's true.  The GOP is spearheading an intensive effort to keep a certain segment of society from voting, and it's not to protect the integrity of the voting system as they claimed.  That stated purpose is laughable, and everyone knows it except one guy.


----------



## arnisador

Bill Mattocks said:


> However, yes, it's true.  The GOP is spearheading an intensive effort to keep a certain segment of society from voting, and it's not to protect the integrity of the voting system as they claimed.  That stated purpose is laughable, and everyone knows it except one guy.



...and those pretending not to know it.


----------



## Cryozombie

WC_lun said:


> It is pretty assinine to compare 700,000 voters being effected in one state by claiming that a few democrats are playing dirty too.



Or, in plainer English "Well My side is barley doing it compared to their side, so stop talking about my side doing it."

Or in even Plainer English:  "But your honor, I only murdered ONE person, Gary Ridgeway murdered 90, you shouldn't even be paying attention to me."

Lets call it like it is kids: BOTH SIDES ARE GUILTY.  One or 90, wrong is wrong.


----------



## WC_lun

Cryozombie said:


> Or, in plainer English "Well My side is barley doing it compared to their side, so stop talking about my side doing it."
> 
> Or in even Plainer English:  "But your honor, I only murdered ONE person, Gary Ridgeway murdered 90, you shouldn't even be paying attention to me."
> 
> Lets call it like it is kids: BOTH SIDES ARE GUILTY.  One or 90, wrong is wrong.



Notice in previous post I have said that ANYONE guilty of voter fraud should be prosecuted, up to and including politicians.  You are right though, it is wrong no matter who is doing it.  My problem is some people trying to make it seem okay for Republicans to supress the vote of hundreds of thousands of people, using the excuse that a few Democrats are doing it too.  Truth is that Republicans are making a concerted effort over many states to keep voter turn out low, which historically would give the advantage to Republicans.  There is no concerted effort by Democrats to suppress or defraud.  To excuse the massive suppression effort by Republicans because there have been a few Democratic morons is idiotic.

Now, because of Republican election officials blatantly trying to game the system, any close result in which Romney wins will be challenged, casting doubt upon our entire system.  So even if thier canidate wins, there will be doubt if he really did win.


----------



## billc

Yes, the fraud may be starting early as well as the intimidation...

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/11/are-the-democrats-trying-to-steal-pennsylvania.php




> *Are the Democrats Trying to Steal Pennsylvania? [Updated]*
> 
> It is being reported that Democratic Party operatives are evicting  court-appointed Republican poll watchers from polling places in  Philadelphia. Specifically, this reportedly has happened in Ward 32, Div  13; Ward 43, Div 14; Ward 56, Div 1; Ward 56, Div 22; Ward 32, Div 28;  Ward 32, Div 28; Ward 12, Div 17; Ward 39, Div 1; Ward 24, Div 9; Ward  18, Div 25; Ward 43, Div 14; Ward 29, Div 18; Ward 65, Div 19; Ward 20,  Div 1; and Ward 6, Div 11. The idea is to kick out the Republicans, then  stuff the box with ballots marked for Obama. This is how some of these  precincts have achieved 99 to 100% turnout in past elections.
> The story is, as they say, developing&#8230;





> UPDATE: The New Black Panthers are out, too, &#8220;guarding&#8221; the same  voting location where they were criminally prosecuted for voter  intimidation in 2008.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The moral is that Republicans don&#8217;t just have to win elections, they have to win by an amount that exceeds the margin of fraud.



http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Govern...on-Judge-Wears-Obama-Hat-in-Obama-s-Home-Ward



> *This photo was taken by a voter this morning on Election Day, in  President Obama's home ward, Ward 4 Precinct 37 at 1212 S. Plymouth  Court in Chicago. The image shows an election judge wearing an Obama hat  while passing out ballots to voters inside the poling place.
> 
> **Ward*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *
> *
> 
> Only in Chicago, in Obama's home ward would be electioneering. Or is  it? Something tells me this is just the beginning of many more stories  to come throughout the day.



http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/11/06/Obama-supporter-punches-voter-in-face



> [h=2]REPORT: A woman in a Detroit polling location was aggressively  campaigning for Obama. A female voter in line objected. The Obama  supporter punched the woman in the face.[/h] Police came to arrest her and she smacked the cop.
> Developing...


Yes, I still support voter i.d. for voting...the other guys cheat more...


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## Bill Mattocks

billcihak said:


> Yes, I still support voter i.d. for voting...the other guys cheat more...



Terrible reason.

But quite frankly, polling place by polling place intimidation is going to be quite a bit less effective than laws which affect everyone in a given state across the board.

Both sides are trying to win by whatever means necessary, including denying others the right to vote whenever possible if they think they'll vote against their party.

It basically points the way to the exit for a representative republic such as ours.  Voting becomes a mockery, and darkness descends on our nation.


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## Instructor

Bill the ad in your last post shows a hotty wearing a T-shirt that says I pooped today....somehow it was fitting.


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## Bill Mattocks

Instructor said:


> Bill the ad in your last post shows a hotty wearing a T-shirt that says I pooped today....somehow it was fitting.



I have absolutely no idea how to respond to that statement.


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## cdunn

Ohio Secretary of State, Jon Husted (Republican), now has functionally unfettered read-write access to the voting tabulation systems and their records in at least 39 Ohio counties.  The Green Party has already sued, the hearing was scheduled for 9 AM, but I haven't heard any results yet.


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## Instructor

Bill Mattocks said:


> I have absolutely no idea how to respond to that statement.



Sorry buddy my humor doesn't translate well to the written word.  I meant I am just tired of the political talk.  Be glad when this election is over with.  You really did have an ad like that though.  Bizarre shirt.


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## WC_lun

cdunn said:


> Ohio Secretary of State, Jon Husted (Republican), now has functionally unfettered read-write access to the voting tabulation systems and their records in at least 39 Ohio counties.  The Green Party has already sued, the hearing was scheduled for 9 AM, but I haven't heard any results yet.



That is troubling given his previous actions.  Isn't having work done on voting machines without state approval tantamount to tampering with voting machines?



On a seperate note, it looks like the glitch in the voting maching mentioned earlier by Bill C is an equal oppurtunity pain;
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/watch-glitch-voting-machine-pennsylvania-171806481--election.html


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## Carol

Can't say I'm thrilled with the voter ID law.  I do not have a photo ID that reflects my physical address.  My driver's license, registration and such reflect a mailing address. Because, I like my privacy and all that.   This is perfectly legal in the state of NH.  I did have to prove residency to get my DL, but it is absolutely permissible in the state to have a different mailing address on your license.

So, I go to vote, and I show my DL, and a printout of my electric bill that shows where I receive service.  Guy didn't like that to much, and asked me to register under the address that is on my license (election day registration is legal here).

I'm pretty sure registering under an address other than where you physically live is a felony, or something, so I refused.   The guy didn't like that either, so I ended up pulling out my iPad, mapping the address which resolved to a local strip mall, and showing the guy that the address on my license really was -- as I had been telling him -- not my residence, but mailing address at commercial location that offers mailbox services. 

I ended up signing an affidavit....exactly what I did in 2008 when I arrived with a Mass. driver's license and my tenancy-at-will agreement that a paragraph in MS Word.


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## WC_lun

True voter fraud, though probably very small in scale;
http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-off...-in-oregon-20121105,0,2676440.story?track=rss


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## cdunn

WC_lun said:


> That is troubling given his previous actions. Isn't having work done on voting machines without state approval tantamount to tampering with voting machines?
> 
> On a seperate note, it looks like the glitch in the voting maching mentioned earlier by Bill C is an equal oppurtunity pain;
> http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/watch-glitch-voting-machine-pennsylvania-171806481--election.html




It's not the voting machines directly, but the back end. He has read-write access to the tables where the sums of the votes are collected, however, encryption may provide a small barrier to access. He also has read-write access to the files that are assembled from those tables, and those files are both unencrypted and plain text. It is a lot of trust to place in him and his operative team. Judge Frost (A Bush The Younger appointee) has denied Fitrakis an injunction, claiming he hasn't proven that this access could be abused. 

Locally, a judge has had to issue an injunction against third parties asking for photo IDs outside the polls in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Homestead. Homestead is one of the few places in the area that is more than 50% black, and it has a reputation as being desperately poor. The Republican party is challenging absentee votes from the local hospital.


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## WC_lun

Why would he need write access?  This is starting to smell pretty bad.


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## cdunn

WC_lun said:


> Why would he need write access?  This is starting to smell pretty bad.



The system is kludged together without proper standardization. Therefore, there must be a point in the tabulation process where everything gets put into a common format - and for some reason, the common format they chose was an unsecured plain-text document(Comma separated variable).


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## WC_lun

Well either way, I'm glad it and suppression efforts did not effect the election.  We as a nation need to really look at this though and not let it be attempted in the future.


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