blows whistle
Flag on the play. Moving the goalposts. Five yard penalty. Repeat the first down. But more seriously, let's go allll the way back to your original post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23318100
>>in the complete absence of any actual fraud happening
That is an objectively false statement. Will you concede that?
>>>An extremely motivated source like the Heritage Foundation was able to find 1,285 instances over 41 years?
>>>Did you even click through more than one of these?
Did you? California's list doesn't have a single entry pre-2000, and over half of them are post-2010. Texas? Same, nothing pre-2000. New York? One in 1983, one in 1999. Florida? Four entries pre-2000 (and a BUNCH 2002-2010, probably due to fallout of Bush-v-Gore).
So either election fraud enforcement has become significantly more vigilant post-2000, or election fraud incidents have seen an astronomical uptick. Or both. But what we DO know for certain is:
-The incidence rate is non-zero, especially in the past 10 years.
-Some elections have in fact been swayed by fraud.
-We should probably spare at least some modicum of serious thought and allocate some resources to improving the process integrity and security of one of our most sacred civil institutions. We make it rain fiat currency for every other government boondoggle imaginable, why is there so much opposition to THIS?
On this website, there's an indication above each comment that notes which user left that comment. You'll notice that the comment you link was not posted by me.
>So either election fraud enforcement has become significantly more vigilant post-2000, or election fraud incidents have seen an astronomical uptick. Or both.
An astronomical uptick from 0.0000001% to 0.00001%? Horrifying! This is like when there's 1 murder in a town of 100,000 people one year, 2 murders the next, and the local paper prints "MURDER RATE DOUBLES".
>The incidence rate is non-zero, especially in the past 10 years.
Okay? Whether there was zero or greater than zero incidents doesn't tell us much.
>Some elections have in fact been swayed by fraud.
Fair enough. But again you're basing your argument on conveniently skipping over the real question which is not "was there at least one fraudulent vote in America in the last 41 years?" (the question you're trying hard to answer over and over with "yes!").
The question is whether it's a problem that has a material impact on our elections. Basically, is it really a problem? 1,285 instances over 41 years (and how many _billions_ of votes in that time period) makes the answer extremely obvious.
It's funny because I am in favor of voter ID on principle alone. But you have to acknowledge the fact that voter fraud is a non-issue in practice. There are better arguments to make in favor of election integrity.
>>>You'll notice that the comment you link was not posted by me.
You are....100% correct. My mistake to attribute that to you.
>>>The question is whether it's a problem that has a material impact on our elections.
Less than 600 votes decided the 2000 Presidential election. In the aggregate that seems tiny, but in swing states in particular, with close elections, the potential implications are massively outsized. And that's to say nothing of the State & local elections where even smaller absolute numbers are impactful ("all politics is local").
>>>But you have to acknowledge the fact that voter fraud is a non-issue in practice.
Even one of the winning candidates said the election was trash, partially due to mail-in ballots. And it's not a bunch of minority-oppressing white Republicans in that article who are complaining about the election either (not saying that's your position, but that particular strawman has been brought up elsewhere in the conversation).
>Fair enough. But again you're basing your argument on conveniently skipping over the real question which is not "was there at least one fraudulent vote in America in the last 41 years?" (the question you're trying hard to answer over and over with "yes!").
>The question is whether it's a problem that has a material impact on our elections. Basically, is it really a problem? 1,285 instances over 41 years (and how many _billions_ of votes in that time period) makes the answer extremely obvious.
>It's funny because I am in favor of voter ID on principle alone. But you have to acknowledge the fact that voter fraud is a non-issue in practice. There are better arguments to make in favor of election integrity.
We're just going in circles here. Have a nice evening :)
>>in the complete absence of any actual fraud happening
That is an objectively false statement. Will you concede that?
>>>An extremely motivated source like the Heritage Foundation was able to find 1,285 instances over 41 years? >>>Did you even click through more than one of these?
Did you? California's list doesn't have a single entry pre-2000, and over half of them are post-2010. Texas? Same, nothing pre-2000. New York? One in 1983, one in 1999. Florida? Four entries pre-2000 (and a BUNCH 2002-2010, probably due to fallout of Bush-v-Gore).
So either election fraud enforcement has become significantly more vigilant post-2000, or election fraud incidents have seen an astronomical uptick. Or both. But what we DO know for certain is:
-The incidence rate is non-zero, especially in the past 10 years. -Some elections have in fact been swayed by fraud.
-We should probably spare at least some modicum of serious thought and allocate some resources to improving the process integrity and security of one of our most sacred civil institutions. We make it rain fiat currency for every other government boondoggle imaginable, why is there so much opposition to THIS?