Easy to prove voter ID fraud is rare

[Cicada]

Precincts are not very large. The typical precinct worker knows at least 20% of registered voters by sight, I would think. And he or she also knows a lot of those who are not registered to vote. At least in a town like mine, population 2200. Two precinct voters probably see the name of each voter. So there is maybe a one in four chance of a fake voter being caught at sign in. If a thousand fake voters showed up in a state hundreds would be caught at sign in and Fox News would blast that to the moon. Yet we NEVER hear of a fake voter caught at sign in. NEVER! This is compelling proof that the fake voter pretending to be someone else does not exist.

[shraby]

1. I worked an election one time and knew 100% of the voters. It was a small

town.

[Gothmog]

2. The GOP is the party of voter suppression and relies on voter suppression to win races

[unblock]

3. I don't think your argument is mathematically compelling

Even if a poll worker knows 98% of the people, if someone unrecognized comes in, the poll worker is very likely to assume that must be the hermit down on shady elm street.

Not recognizing someone doesn't mean a fraudulent voter is automatically caught.

Worse, you may know the person as having a house in the area but not know they have another house elsewhere and voted in both places.


The better argument is that the problem would have to be massive, out of 130 million voters, to actually tilt an election, at least on a presidential level. Keep in mind that fraudulent votes aren't necessarily all going the same direction. Many will cancel each other out.

The fraud to worry about is the fraud that affects many votes at once. Losing ballots, changing numbers, spoiling stacks of ballots, etc.

Never mind good ol' voter suppression....

[LisaL]

4. While that might be true for a small town, in a big city, it's very unlikely that a precinct worker

knows many voters by sight.

[Cicada]

6. James okeefe took a reporter to witness voter fraud

He took a Detroit newspaper reporter to that reporters precinct in Birmingham City, population 20,000, outside of Detroit to demonstrate how easy it was. Okeefe said he forgot his drivers license so he needed to sign the affidavit form. But the precinct worker recognized the reporter because the reporter always votes there. A suburb adjacent to a big city yet the precinct worker remembered him from prior elections. I just think a significant percentage of fakes would be spotted at sign in.

[progree]

5. When I sign in, i have to state my name and address, e.g. 5342 Orchard Rd. and then sign on that

spot in the book -- which has my name and that address.

If somebody has already signed there, then we know there's a problem.

Or if the spot is empty, and I sign there, and later on someone else shows up and claims to be "Progree Smith, 5342 Orchard Rd.", then they know there's a problem.

They must keep records of when that happens ... I've seen in that list of 31 voter fraud cases nationwide over the past decade or so, a half dozen maybe, IIRC, were of that type -- two people consecutively claiming to be the same person ... address when they sign in.

Anyway, if voter fraud (impersonating another voter) was all that common, that would show up.

True, somebody could read the obituaries and hope that the voter rolls haven't been updated, or know that "Progree Smith" is out of town, or.... (and hope the Progree Smith didn't vote absentee) and claim to be "Progree Smith", but that sounds like a lot of luck and work involved in doing that just to cast one lousy extra vote -- a felony.

And yes, one or two poll workers know me, so it would be difficult for me to sign in as somebody else.

I'm in Minnesota, BTW, but I think the same or similar is true of most states. (And in 2016 for the first time, we went to an "electronic poll book" but its still the same -- sign in to this spot next to your name and address).

[mr_lebowski]

7. I think mostly the wingnuts think non-citizens register to vote and then show up at polls ...

In massive numbers (circa 3,000,000 of them, last election alone, all voting for Hillary cause they got checks from George Soros to do so) ... Even the dumbest among them can't be so stupid as to think 'voter impersonation' is truly a massive problem ... if you've ever ACTUALLY VOTED ... you should know that it wouldn't be easy/simple to do.

I'm thinking if *I* was not a documented citizen, probably the last thing I'm doing is calling attention to myself & family by registering to vote and showing up on election day to cast my ballot. I'm sure 'it happens', but I doubt it's all THAT common, not to mention there's no guarantee they'd vote Dem/Progressive ...

[progree]

8. Well, that's the whole point of voter ID -- is to stop voter impersonation --

it doesn't guard against any other kind of voter fraud or election fraud, and I've never heard anyone claim otherwise. And yet the Supreme Court, in its infinite wisdom, has upheld a couple of these voter ID laws. And that it undoubtedly disenfranchises innumerable thousands for each case of voter impersonation it prevents.

>>Even the dumbest among them can't be so stupid as to think 'voter impersonation' is truly a massive problem ... if you've ever ACTUALLY VOTED ... you should know that it wouldn't be easy/simple to do. <<

I know a long-time election judge in my precinct socially. Once we had an argument about voter ID -- he was for it. His question was: "how would you know" if someone was voting illegally without voter ID? At the time I didn't have an answer for him ... it was only later that I thought about the poll books and signing into the one and only slot for "Progree Smith, 5342 Orchard Rd", right in front of the election judge, and thought about what would happen if someone had already signed there.

So anyway, I guess I know "even the dumbest among them". And as a bonus, an election judge too