Investigations into voter fraud

[lwf]

Out of curiosity, how many liberals/democrats would be adamantly against any investigation into voter fraud?

How many conservatives/republicans are adamantly against the investigation into whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in election meddling?

My personal feeling is: investigations get to the bottom of what happened. Even if they cost taxpayer dollars, if there is evidence of a crime, I'm absolutely on board with finding out what happened and who is responsible, regardless of their political party.

My suspicion is that most democrats and liberals would be just fine with an investigation into voter fraud. In my experience, most republicans and conservatives, (that I interact with, anyway) are against any investigation into Russian collusion.

If you are for one and against the other, why?

 

[Xelor]

Out of curiosity, how many liberals/democrats would be adamantly against any investigation into voter fraud?

How many conservatives/republicans are adamantly against the investigation into whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in election meddling?

My personal feeling is: investigations get to the bottom of what happened. Even if they cost taxpayer dollars, if there is evidence of a crime, I'm absolutely on board with finding out what happened and who is responsible, regardless of their political party.

My suspicion is that most democrats and liberals would be just fine with an investigation into voter fraud. In my experience, most republicans and conservatives, (that I interact with, anyway) are against any investigation into Russian collusion.

If you are for one and against the other, why?

Red:
I think had you added a poll to the thread, you'd have an efficient way to obtain your answer, or at least as good a one as you'll here get.

 

[Visbek]

Out of curiosity, how many liberals/democrats would be adamantly against any investigation into voter fraud?

That depends on how and why the investigations are conducted.

If an electoral board is conducting routine checks into election security, that's fine.

If an electoral board has received reports of voter fraud, that's fine.

If there are almost no reports and almost no evidence of voter fraud, and the state launches a massive multi-million dollar campaign into voter fraud, and the secretary of state has complained about voter fraud with no evidence thereof, and has a habit of closing polling stations in minority communities... Then that's a problem.

A lot of these investigations are not happening in a vacuum. Many states have a long history of voter suppression, and in many respects the complaints about voter fraud is just another voter suppression tool and/or means to delegitimize elections.

My personal feeling is: investigations get to the bottom of what happened. Even if they cost taxpayer dollars, if there is evidence of a crime, I'm absolutely on board with finding out what happened and who is responsible, regardless of their political party.

Yeah, the thing is: There is very little evidence of voter fraud. Republicans have been in charge of elections in a lot of states for years, and keep looking for wide-spread fraud, and keep not finding it, and keep "investigating" it.

Not all investigations are justified.

 

[Rogue Valley]

My personal feeling is: investigations get to the bottom of what happened.

Like the famous Kobach voter-fraud 2016 investigation? He's so bad red-state Kansas elected a Democrat governor rather than suffer with Kobach.

 

[SoCal]

Out of curiosity, how many liberals/democrats would be adamantly against any investigation into voter fraud?

How many conservatives/republicans are adamantly against the investigation into whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in election meddling?

My personal feeling is: investigations get to the bottom of what happened. Even if they cost taxpayer dollars, if there is evidence of a crime, I'm absolutely on board with finding out what happened and who is responsible, regardless of their political party.

My suspicion is that most democrats and liberals would be just fine with an investigation into voter fraud. In my experience, most republicans and conservatives, (that I interact with, anyway) are against any investigation into Russian collusion.

If you are for one and against the other, why?

I agree with your personal feeling and suspicion. Given the recent state of our politics, I believe the majority of both party members are mostly against the investigations of the 'other' politician's wrong doing.

But as the majority of both party's members don't know squat about criminal law, I couldn't care less what their uninformed opinions are. Dems were against investigating Hillary and most Repubs are against investigating Numnuts. As long as these investigations were and are conducted by professional career prosecutors and not politicians or their lackeys, we should accept the results of both. Although I suspect I'm a in a minority.

Both of those investigations are water under the bridge, but one on voter fraud is possible. But as I believe there's more voter suppression than fraud going on, I would support one under two conditions.

One, it must be conducted by the people mentioned above.
Two, there must be an equivalent investigation on suppression...

 

[lwf]

Red:
I think had you added a poll to the thread, you'd have an efficient way to obtain your answer, or at least as good a one as you'll here get.

Good point. Is it possible to do it after the fact?

 

[lwf]

That depends on how and why the investigations are conducted.

If an electoral board is conducting routine checks into election security, that's fine.

If an electoral board has received reports of voter fraud, that's fine.

If there are almost no reports and almost no evidence of voter fraud, and the state launches a massive multi-million dollar campaign into voter fraud, and the secretary of state has complained about voter fraud with no evidence thereof, and has a habit of closing polling stations in minority communities... Then that's a problem.

A lot of these investigations are not happening in a vacuum. Many states have a long history of voter suppression, and in many respects the complaints about voter fraud is just another voter suppression tool and/or means to delegitimize elections.



Yeah, the thing is: There is very little evidence of voter fraud. Republicans have been in charge of elections in a lot of states for years, and keep looking for wide-spread fraud, and keep not finding it, and keep "investigating" it.

Not all investigations are justified.

True. I guess at that point the argument would be about what constitutes justification.

How about this: If enough people demand an unjustified investigation, can it become justified? Can/should an investigation ever take place in order to placate a sufficiently large number of suspicious people?

Obviously we wouldn't want the system to be abused, but I tend to look at it as an investment in voter confidence.

 

[lwf]

Like the famous Kobach voter-fraud 2016 investigation? He's so bad red-state Kansas elected a Democrat governor rather than suffer with Kobach.

Sure. If there is evidence of voter fraud, or any kind of criminal activity, let's shed some light on it.

 

[PeteEU]

Problem is there is next to no voter fraud.

The real crime is in election fraud and disenfranchisement, but that is almost never investigated... just look at Georgia.

Sendt fra min SM-N9005 med Tapatalk

 

[Xelor]

Good point. Is it possible to do it after the fact?

Technically, yes, but practically speaking and in this subforum, no.

 

[OscarLevant]

Out of curiosity, how many liberals/democrats would be adamantly against any investigation into voter fraud?

How many conservatives/republicans are adamantly against the investigation into whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in election meddling?

My personal feeling is: investigations get to the bottom of what happened. Even if they cost taxpayer dollars, if there is evidence of a crime, I'm absolutely on board with finding out what happened and who is responsible, regardless of their political party.

My suspicion is that most democrats and liberals would be just fine with an investigation into voter fraud. In my experience, most republicans and conservatives, (that I interact with, anyway) are against any investigation into Russian collusion.

If you are for one and against the other, why?

Voter fraud has been investigated. Trump had a commission put into motion to investigate it. Verdict? Not a big enough problem to impact most elections.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/report-trump-commission-did-not-find-widespread-voter-fraud

It's repubs making audacious claims, like Trump claiming of Hillary's 3 million votes she won the popular vote by were illegal immigrants.


How are we to take repubs seriously with claims like that?


There is far more evidence of republican voter suppression, which is a kind of voter fraud, though they are manipulating the vote, than there is of voter fraud of individual voters.

 

[lwf]

Problem is there is next to no voter fraud.

The real crime is in election fraud and disenfranchisement, but that is almost never investigated... just look at Georgia.

Sendt fra min SM-N9005 med Tapatalk

My observations have been the same. But it's still true that each election is its own entity. That there hasn't been significant voter fraud in previous elections doesn't necessarily preclude voter fraud in the recent Florida election. If there is no real evidence of it, then an investigation could be a waste of money and time. But if enough people call for it, and if confidence in the election process is at stake, would it still be a waste of time and money?

Georgia is no different. Someone running for the Senate also overseeing his own election process is an obvious conflict of interest. Let the people investigate, (through professionals of course.)

This whole notion of the other party having no business knowing what's going on in our party is a problem. The particulars of elections ARE our business. If someone casts fraudulent votes, we need to know about it. The president's private affairs ARE our business. If he colluded with a foreign power to win an election, we need to know about it. Shed some light so we know what is happening and who we are dealing with.

 

[lwf]

Voter fraud has been investigated. Trump had a commission put into motion to investigate it. Verdict? Not a big enough problem to impact most elections.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/report-trump-commission-did-not-find-widespread-voter-fraud

It's repubs making audacious claims, like Trump claiming of Hillary's 3 million votes she won the popular vote by were illegal immigrants.


How are we to take repubs seriously with claims like that?


There is far more evidence of republican voter suppression, which is a kind of voter fraud, though they are manipulating the vote, than there is of voter fraud of individual voters.

Should we investigate both? If it puts minds at ease, is it OK to start an unwarranted investigation?

 

[OscarLevant]

Should we investigate both? If it puts minds at ease, is it OK to start an unwarranted investigation?

Both are investigated

 

[Visbek]

True. I guess at that point the argument would be about what constitutes justification.

How about this: If enough people demand an unjustified investigation, can it become justified?

No. Beyond routine checks (which are typically non-intrusive), that is either mob rule, or harassment, or an attempt to disenfranchise a community, or an attempt to discredit the electoral process altogether.

Let's say that you develop a sophisticated voter database, which includes multiple identifying features (name, birth date, last 4 of SSN, past 3 addresses etc). We know that dead people can often remain on voter registration rolls for years, as we don't purge the rolls every 6 weeks. (We also don't have a central federal database tracking every death, let alone a federal system to track voters.) If we check the names of actual voters against a list of presumably deceased voters, and we find thousands of votes cast by dead people across the state, then you need an investigation.

Keep in mind that this is not as simple as it seems, because even in a relatively small state like Louisiana (~4.6 million people) you are actually going to have lots of overlaps of names and even birth dates. This is one reason why Koblach's claims were so vastly overinflated, he didn't clean up his database anywhere near as much as he should have, in no small part because he wanted to make a huge stink about voter fraud.

 

[Lord of Planar]

Out of curiosity, how many liberals/democrats would be adamantly against any investigation into voter fraud?

How many conservatives/republicans are adamantly against the investigation into whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in election meddling?

My personal feeling is: investigations get to the bottom of what happened. Even if they cost taxpayer dollars, if there is evidence of a crime, I'm absolutely on board with finding out what happened and who is responsible, regardless of their political party.

My suspicion is that most democrats and liberals would be just fine with an investigation into voter fraud. In my experience, most republicans and conservatives, (that I interact with, anyway) are against any investigation into Russian collusion.

If you are for one and against the other, why?

From my experience conservatives are always wanting to do better ID checks and have accountable elections, liberals seem to always want to hamper any such process.

I deduce that liberals know they are the cheating side.

The 2004 election for Governor in the state of Washington was almost undeniable that King County election officials rigged the recounts.