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UPDATED: Florida finds evidence of voter registration fraud

Somerville

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UPDATED: Florida finds evidence of voter registration fraud

TALLAHASSEE — Two employees of a company once aligned with the Republican Party of Florida admitted to law-enforcement authorities that they forged voter registration forms.

It's the first result in a far-reaching voter fraud investigation that was launched last fall - and initiated at the urging of the party after election supervisors started flagging questionable applications.


Not what some might have expected I know. The GOP has been so loud about voter fraud on the left of the political spectrum, they do hate to admit they have similar behaviour in their own ranks.

Like the case in Virginia last year: Virginia voter fraud case expands to focus on GOP firm - Washington Post
 
I am shocked! We now have actual evidence that crime perpetrators are not limiited to minorities and demorats. Maybe it was a simply a conspiracy scheme in order to help get voter ID laws enacted. ;)
 
It's basically the GOP equivalent of the ACORN situation, so ill once again point out a few things.

1) voter registration fraud isn't the same thing as voter fraud.
2) this wasn't an attempt to steal elections. It was lazy employees wanting to get paid without doing the actual legwork of registering people.

Hardly a massive scandal.
 
I gotta say, I'm not really concerned with voter registration fraud because it's pretty much useless. I'm concerned about voter fraud. Which as statistics show, there is a near zero percentage of in this country.
 
It's basically the GOP equivalent of the ACORN situation, so ill once again point out a few things.

1) voter registration fraud isn't the same thing as voter fraud.
2) this wasn't an attempt to steal elections. It was lazy employees wanting to get paid without doing the actual legwork of registering people.

Hardly a massive scandal.

"Dumping" voter registrations is completely different than forging Mickey Mouse who will never show up to a polling station.
 
I gotta say, I'm not really concerned with voter registration fraud because it's pretty much useless. I'm concerned about voter fraud. Which as statistics show, there is a near zero percentage of in this country.

Useless? You might want to ask Paul Laxalt, who lost a Senate seat by 48 votes, about that.
 
I gotta say, I'm not really concerned with voter registration fraud because it's pretty much useless. I'm concerned about voter fraud. Which as statistics show, there is a near zero percentage of in this country.

Voter fraud happens in the polling place itself by the election judge and polling site employees. It is remarkably easy to do. I was a Democratic election judge for a precinct one time. I could have cast hundreds of votes if I had wanted to. Just wait until near the end, see who hadn't voted, sign or have someone sign their name, and vote for the person. Even if later proven that person had not voted (not likely detected), there would be no way to remove that vote from the total nor prove I did it.

Ir really is that simple and that is the source of nearly all voter fraud - which can happen on a huge scale.
 
"Dumping" voter registrations is completely different than forging Mickey Mouse who will never show up to a polling station.

Refusing to allow people to vote is another problem for some precincts. Sometimes it may be deliberate. Other times an election judge overstepping authority.
 
The BEST solution to voter fraud would cost piles of money. It would require biometric voting machines (finger print) not allowing a person to vote more than once. An override would allow an election judge to use his/her fingerprint to cast a vote for a person who didn't have fingers - but then it documented who that judge did this for so could be later investigated if 300 fingerless people supposedly voted.

The other half would relate to hacking voting machines, but that likely VERY rare.

Such in-house at the poll fraud is common and known. It is not uncommon to have vote totals at precincts where more than 100% of registered voters voted. Still, unable to prove which are legit and which are not, all have to be counted.
 
Useless? You might want to ask Paul Laxalt, who lost a Senate seat by 48 votes, about that.

Again, registration fraud doesn't mean votes were cast.

Far more concerning would be voter suppression, where 50 people received robo calls telling them to stay home, or flyers with the wrong election date printed on them. Worst of all, fraudulent votes can be purged when found and results overturned if needed. You can't unpurge a vote that didn't happen.
 
Again, registration fraud doesn't mean votes were cast.

Well since you can't vote if you aren't registered it's the first step. What exactly are you registering to do?
 
Voter fraud happens in the polling place itself by the election judge and polling site employees. It is remarkably easy to do. I was a Democratic election judge for a precinct one time. I could have cast hundreds of votes if I had wanted to. Just wait until near the end, see who hadn't voted, sign or have someone sign their name, and vote for the person. Even if later proven that person had not voted (not likely detected), there would be no way to remove that vote from the total nor prove I did it.

Ir really is that simple and that is the source of nearly all voter fraud - which can happen on a huge scale.

That sounds a lot like like a problem faced by individuals unrelated to demographics or political parties, contrary to the rhetoric that one party or another has cast any significant number of false votes. The greatest threat to electoral integrity remains the efforts to restrict voting rights, such as with ID laws.
 
Well since you can't vote if you aren't registered it's the first step. What exactly are you registering to do?

Get paid. We went over this already.
 
Get paid. We went over this already.

"Election fraud does exist, but hasn’t been shown to be widespread. The New York Times reported in 2007 that a five-year crackdown on such fraud by the Bush administration’s Justice Department had produced 70 convictions at the federal level, including 40 campaign workers or government workers convicted of vote-buying, intimidation or ballot forgery, and 23 cases of multiple voting or voting by ineligible voters. But the Times described these as unconnected incidents and said the Justice Department had turned up no evidence of "any organized effort to skew federal elections."

FactCheck.org : ACORN Accusations
 
"Election fraud does exist, but hasn’t been shown to be widespread. The New York Times reported in 2007 that a five-year crackdown on such fraud by the Bush administration’s Justice Department had produced 70 convictions at the federal level, including 40 campaign workers or government workers convicted of vote-buying, intimidation or ballot forgery, and 23 cases of multiple voting or voting by ineligible voters. But the Times described these as unconnected incidents and said the Justice Department had turned up no evidence of "any organized effort to skew federal elections."

FactCheck.org : ACORN Accusations

Right. Fraudulent votes occur, but this case isn't how that happens. This is lazy employees filling out forms instead of walking around registering people. Registering someone who doesn't exist doesn't lead to a fraudulent vote.
 
Right. Fraudulent votes occur, but this case isn't how that happens. This is lazy employees filling out forms instead of walking around registering people. Registering someone who doesn't exist doesn't lead to a fraudulent vote.

Unless someone actually shows up claiming to be that person.
 
This is just one organization who registers voters. They pay by the hour not by number registered.

"PA 2008 State election officials have thrown out 57,435 voter registrations, the majority of which were submitted by ACORN. The registrations were thrown out after officials found "clearly fraudulent" signatures, vacant lots listed as addresses, and other signs of fraud. "

"IN 2008 Election officials in Indiana have thrown out more than 4,000 ACORN-submitted voter registrations after finding they had identical handwriting and included the names of many deceased Indianans, and even the name of a fast food restaurant."

"TX 2008 In Harris County, nearly 10,000 ACORN-submitted registrations were found to be invalid, including many with clearly fraudulent addresses or other personal information."

"WI 2008 At least 33,000 ACORN-submitted registrations in Milwaukee have been called into question after it was found that the organizations had been using felons as registration workers, in violation of state election rules. Two people involved in the ongoing Wisconsin voter fraud investigation have been charged with felonies."

Fraud Map :: Rotten Acorn ::
 
What's the beef here?

Those of you on the left condone such behavior, by continually opposing measures to prevent such practices.


Really!?! We "on the left condone such behavior"? Tell us, how many cases of actual vote fraud have occurred in the past 20 years?

ACORN had problems because they were paying people to go and get voter registration forms filled in, people who had no other income. ACORN was required by law to turn in filled-out voter registration cards - even when they knew the form was fraudulent.
 
Unless someone actually shows up claiming to be that person.

Someone can't just show up and claim to be a nonexistent person. You have to provide proof before you are added to the voter rolls and, yes, there are other forms of ID besides a photo ID.

Simply filling out a registration form doesn't automatically make you eligible to vote.

You still have to be vetted by the registrar and your post #18 shows election officials doing just that.
 
What's the beef here?

Those of you on the left condone such behavior, by continually opposing measures to prevent such practices.

Care to show anyone "on the left" who has condoned such behavior as described in the OP?

What measures have "the left" continually opposed to prevent such practices as described in the OP?


As a matter of fact one of the charges a contractor for the Republican Party of Virginia is being charged with, is just exactly what some of us have been saying all along that ACORN was lawfully bound to abide by. That is, ACORN legally had to turn in all registrations to election officials that were turned into them or they would have been facing the same charges as the employee of Strategic Allied Consulting.
OP Article said:
A former employee of Strategic Allied Consulting, a contractor for the Republican Party of Virginia, had been scheduled to appear last Tuesday before a grand jury after he was charged with tossing completed registration forms into a recycling bin.
 
Someone can't just show up and claim to be a nonexistent person. You have to provide proof before you are added to the voter rolls and, yes, there are other forms of ID besides a photo ID.

Not true. In my State you just need a voter registration card to vote. You can get one without showing a picture ID, all you need to provide is the last 4 numbers of a SS number.
 
Unless someone actually shows up claiming to be that person.

That's not how voter registration works. You can't invent a voter by filling out one of those forms.

Not true. In my State you just need a voter registration card to vote. You can get one without showing a picture ID, all you need to provide is the last 4 numbers of a SS number.

Yes, which does work if you're a real person. What happens when the last 4 digits you give them don't match the name you give them because you made both of them up?
 
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