Poll: 72% of Americans support voter ID laws

[dogcows 1,029]

8 hours ago, Voltaire said:

Thank You for the reply, as I like to see exactly what it is in the talking points that gets people bent out of shape. The chain of custody over access to the ballots is important and you seem unaware of the vote harvesting that was conducted in 2020. I think that is what the Georgia legislature is trying to correct by moving the drop box sites indoors. In reducing the number of boxes, I think is a valid complaint that requires a further look.I vote absentee all the time nowadays. If I am in town, I pick up a ballot at the local government office, fill it out there, and give it back to the clerk who had given it to me 20 minutes earlier. Other times, most times, I need it mailed and I initiate those requests.  I'm not opposed to the idea of a drop box in principal if your local government office is far away and those locations are secure. I'd like to see what the reasoning is behind the 2/3 of drop box locations that were rejected and the extent of how such inconvenience impacts poorly served residents. Perhaps these locations were unsecure, it's what I presume, but I don't know.

I don't see how putting the dropoffs inside rather than outside polling places makes a lick of difference to you, let alone makes them worthless, or restricting the dropoff times to when people are actually in the buildings that can keep the boxes secure. Better ballot security = better overall trust in the process.

In Michigan, and CDub tells me this law has changed. Hallelujah! But through 2000, whenever I went to vote, I would pull out my wallet and show my ID and the nice lady, who doesn't know me, wouldn't even bother to look at it. I'd just tell her who I was and she'd check that i was on the list. I always found that unsettling. Damn focking straight that she should be checking these IDs. That absentee ballots should be requested and initiated by the voter, not mass mailed, and they should come with signature verification. All this seems very straight forward and non-controversial to me. Especially when you have the massive irregularities that happened last time. I know that you don't believe that is the case, you think I am delusional whereas I think you were deliberately kept uninformed of them, but half the country is aware of what I am, and I so think straightforward, non-controversial reforms are hugely important. That you see these as controversial is troublesome.

I use to pass out fliers outside polling places. Never beverages. I think passing out water may be a small scale bribe.... "here's something nice from the Stalin campaign, vote Joe." I dunno. Being nice could affect undecided voters to tilt your way, I think that's the point, but I wouldn't get too bent out of shape over it. If the Stalin campaign gave me water, I'd take it. I wouldn't affect me any. I'd read their fliers and that may move me. To compensate, they do task the election officials with making sure people in line get water.

Can you provide evidence of vote harvesting in Georgia? If so, the authorities will want to know since it’s illegal there.

Why do libraries and banks have drop boxes outside? Because it’s convenient - and I think we should make voting accessible to as many people as possible. It is quite possible to have a secure dropbox. If they weren’t secure, I promise you banks wouldn’t use them at all.

Why shouldn’t absentee ballots be sent to everybody? Some states have done it that way for years. I can understand that some states want to keep things traditional, that people vote in person. But if voting by mail is inherently flawed, why do many states have a majority of their voting done by mail?

https://usafacts.org/articles/voting-by-mail-and-covid-19/

Quote

In 2018, seven western states—Arizona, California, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Utah, and Washington—reported by-mail voting as the most-used voting method, with over 50% of ballots cast by mail. Three of those states—Colorado, Oregon, and Washington—conducted statewide by-mail voting, sending ballots to all registered voters in the state.

The water thing was a major mistake for this bill. Is it really going to prevent illegal electioneering? Highly doubtful, but it made the law look punitive towards voters waiting in long lines. And in Georgia, that’s mostly minorities due to the way their precincts are setup. If they didn’t put that in there, they might still have the All-Star game in Atlanta. A needless provision that seems to show what the law is really about: making voting painful for minorities. 100% an own goal by the GOP there.

[Utilit99 4,099]

2 minutes ago, dogcows said:

Can you provide evidence of vote harvesting in Georgia? If so, the authorities will want to know since it’s illegal there.

Why do libraries and banks have drop boxes outside? Because it’s convenient - and I think we should make voting accessible to as many people as possible. It is quite possible to have a secure dropbox. If they weren’t secure, I promise you banks wouldn’t use them at all.

Why shouldn’t absentee ballots be sent to everybody? Some states have done it that way for years. I can understand that some states want to keep things traditional, that people vote in person. But if voting by mail is inherently flawed, why do many states have a majority of their voting done by mail?

The water thing was a major mistake for this bill. Is it really going to prevent illegal electioneering? Highly doubtful, but it made the law look punitive towards voters waiting in long lines. And in Georgia, that’s mostly minorities due to the way their precincts are setup. If they didn’t put that in there, they might still have the All-Star game in Atlanta. A needless provision that seems to show what the law is really about: making voting painful for minorities. 100% an own goal by the GOP there.

What country to you live in? Cause you don't sound like you are paying any attention to what's happening in the US.

[dogcows 1,029]

Just now, Utilit99 said:

What country to you live in? Cause you don't sound like you are paying any attention to what's happening in the US.

Funny, whenever some people say “you haven’t been paying attention” - they can’t provide any actual evidence of what they expect others to have been paying attention to.

 

[Hardcore troubadour 12,588]

46 minutes ago, dogcows said:

I don’t recall her asserting voter fraud, but if she did then she was off base. I didn’t see any major difference in the way elections happened in 2016 vs 2020 other than the percentage of mail-in ballots being higher. I think that was understandable considering the pandemic.

How about Elizabeth (pochanatas) Warren? Or Amy Klobacher? Were they off base when they claimed it too? 

[jerryskids 5,169]

45 minutes ago, dogcows said:

I see your point. I simply believe it to be based on a total fallacy.

The only reason that there is a “worry” about election security is because the Orange man was whining about it for months before the election. Mail-in voting was never a problem in the past… but since Trump was behind in the polls, and it seemed likely that in 2020, the mail-in voting pattern would flip from its usual GOP-majority to a Dem-majority, he sowed seeds of doubt. Every other year, when mail-in votes came from the military and the elderly, not a single soul in the GOP made even the slightest peep about such ballots being insecure. The evidence itself shows that among the very rare cases of voter fraud in the last 50 years. most are NOT from mail-in ballots.

When people trot out the argument that we need to “restore faith in the election system,” I just shake my head. The only reason people lost faith in it is NOT because of any errors in tabulation or stolen votes. It is because you had an entire political party stoking that doubt and fear, led by the White House.

If people want to believe “things changed so there MUST have been some kind of fraud” - despite a total lack of evidence (despite numerous investigations specifically trying to find such evidence), then hey - believe in whatever you want. It doesn’t make it true. If you want others to join in your belief, you could try presenting some evidence. Instead it’s just “since people mailed votes in record numbers, there MUST be a problem….” Sorry, voter fraud is a serious accusation, and you should try finding some evidence to back it up. Trump’s campaign spent millions trying to come up with anything and couldn’t. That’s because there’s nothing to find.

For the losers in 2020, it is not surprising that they say NOW is the time to change election laws.

I’ve explained numerous times that shotgun blasting out ballots with old unvetted addresses and voter rolls is different than the vetted absentee processes which existed prior to 2020.  You choose not to see it, and will respond with more inanity about how it wasn’t a problem in the past.  Carry on.    

[Utilit99 4,099]

19 hours ago, dogcows said:

Funny, whenever some people say “you haven’t been paying attention” - they can’t provide any actual evidence of what they expect others to have been paying attention to.

 

You have been disproven 100+ times in these threads. Why keep spewing facts at you when you respond with 200 word essays that are completely made up narratives that are incorrect? I could only think you are talking about some remote island or something.

[Voltaire 4,554]

12 hours ago, dogcows said:

Can you provide evidence of vote harvesting in Georgia? If so, the authorities will want to know since it’s illegal there.

Why do libraries and banks have drop boxes outside? Because it’s convenient - and I think we should make voting accessible to as many people as possible. It is quite possible to have a secure dropbox. If they weren’t secure, I promise you banks wouldn’t use them at all.

Why shouldn’t absentee ballots be sent to everybody? Some states have done it that way for years. I can understand that some states want to keep things traditional, that people vote in person. But if voting by mail is inherently flawed, why do many states have a majority of their voting done by mail?

https://usafacts.org/articles/voting-by-mail-and-covid-19/

The water thing was a major mistake for this bill. Is it really going to prevent illegal electioneering? Highly doubtful, but it made the law look punitive towards voters waiting in long lines. And in Georgia, that’s mostly minorities due to the way their precincts are setup. If they didn’t put that in there, they might still have the All-Star game in Atlanta. A needless provision that seems to show what the law is really about: making voting painful for minorities. 100% an own goal by the GOP there.

My best vote harvesting story is from Minnesota, not Georgia. I'm not an expert on every state. The two most compelling things about the Georgia situation is that the cheaters were caught on video camera pulling fake ballots out from under tables after they'd cleared the room of observers, as well as the MSM lie about Trump wanting to find votes there. Manufactuing fake votes out of thin air was the Dem calling cardin many states. The votes Trump wanted the POS, er SOS, to "find" were those illegal ballots and tossing them out. What President Trump told the POS is that if he got off his ass, he could easily find exponentially more illegal votes fraudelently cast to make up the difference in the result but the POS is a Bushtarded neocon who was happy with the result and decided to shove his head up his ass instead. He didn't want to open that can of worms. And from there, the MSM lied their ass off. "Find votes" bullsh*t. "Scrap fraudulent votes".... ding ding ding.

I'm also not concerned about how many secure drop boxes, only in ensuring that they are secure. Nor voter suppression which I just don't see much of. 

[Hardcore troubadour 12,588]

Voter suppression is a complete hoax. Explain NYC and their abysmal voter turnout. Are NYC and NY state suppressing votes? 

[dogcows 1,029]

18 hours ago, jerryskids said:

I’ve explained numerous times that shotgun blasting out ballots with old unvetted addresses and voter rolls is different than the vetted absentee processes which existed prior to 2020.  You choose not to see it, and will respond with more inanity about how it wasn’t a problem in the past.  Carry on.    

Other states have done this for many years. Why can’t people in Georgia or other states do what Oregon and Colorado have done for many elections? The process has been vetted, and it works. And it’s baloney that Georgia has old voter rolls - they have been one of the most aggressive states in purging them. Facts; they are certainly an annoyance when it comes to pushing false narratives.

[dogcows 1,029]

6 hours ago, Voltaire said:

My best vote harvesting story is from Minnesota, not Georgia. I'm not an expert on every state. The two most compelling things about the Georgia situation is that the cheaters were caught on video camera pulling fake ballots out from under tables after they'd cleared the room of observers, as well as the MSM lie about Trump wanting to find votes there. Manufactuing fake votes out of thin air was the Dem calling cardin many states. The votes Trump wanted the POS, er SOS, to "find" were those illegal ballots and tossing them out. What President Trump told the POS is that if he got off his ass, he could easily find exponentially more illegal votes fraudelently cast to make up the difference in the result but the POS is a Bushtarded neocon who was happy with the result and decided to shove his head up his ass instead. He didn't want to open that can of worms. And from there, the MSM lied their ass off. "Find votes" bullsh*t. "Scrap fraudulent votes".... ding ding ding.

I'm also not concerned about how many secure drop boxes, only in ensuring that they are secure. Nor voter suppression which I just don't see much of. 

No evidence. Just anecdotes of “suspicious” stuff, from the same people who think a person wearing a headscarf is automatically suspicious. Again, if there was any truth to these accusations, why was it never presented in the dozens of court cases from Trump’s team, with millions of dollars in funding? If you still believe in this, you have to wonder what other fantasies you’ve been tricked into believing.

And did you listen to the Trump call? He asked them to find the exact amount of votes he needed to win. There is not enough lipstick in the world to dress up that pig.

And we were talking about ballot collection in Georgia. Other states have other laws, some of which allow a 3rd party to collect votes from places like a nursing home and deliver them en masse. I believe Minnesota may be one of those states. 

[dogcows 1,029]

16 hours ago, Utilit99 said:

You have been disprove 100+ times in these threads. Why keep spewing facts at you when you respond with 200 word essays that are completely made up narratives that are incorrect? I could only think you are talking about some remote island or something.

Hmm, I provide facts, numbers and links to studies. You provide “everybody knows” and “it’s just common knowledge” as your sources of information. If that’s what you prefer, good for you.

[Reality 2,710]

Georgia knew a lot of sketchy things went down leading up to and during the election. Ballot harvesting should never be allowed and controlled by groups that are politically motivated. Nobody can possibly think that's a good idea. Good for them for getting out in front of it now. They have the right as a state to run elections how they see fit. You know, being a state and all.

The rest of this back and forth is wasted breath. You don't live there, your opinion doesn't matter.

[Hardcore troubadour 12,588]

Mark Zuckerberg spent 300 million dollars on the last election and people are ok with that. Talk about a need for pitchforks and torches. 

[jerryskids 5,169]

33 minutes ago, dogcows said:

Other states have done this for many years. Why can’t people in Georgia or other states do what Oregon and Colorado have done for many elections? The process has been vetted, and it works. And it’s baloney that Georgia has old voter rolls - they have been one of the most aggressive states in purging them. Facts; they are certainly an annoyance when it comes to pushing false narratives.

They can do similar processes of course.  But just because another state has spent years honing an absentee process, doesn’t mean another state can just shotgun blast ballots and say “hey, well, Colorado mailed some stuff so, umm, this should work right out of the shoot with no real process in place, right?”

I’m an engineer, I understand systems.  For a system that complex it would take months to test the change of character length for one data set in an existing system.  The odds of just mailing a bunch of stuff out in a place which never did it, without the time to plan, design, implement, and test it, and it not having substantial systemic problems, is virtually zero.  Lower that by 10X if it is a government system.

[RLLD 3,455]

On 4/10/2021 at 7:10 PM, jerryskids said:

I’ve explained numerous times that shotgun blasting out ballots with old unvetted addresses and voter rolls is different than the vetted absentee processes which existed prior to 2020.  You choose not to see it, and will respond with more inanity about how it wasn’t a problem in the past.  Carry on.    

This is not the first time in our history that a political party gamed the system.  Early on it was common for political operatives to have people vote multiple times, this is just the new way of perverting the vote.  So yeah, blast out ballots, eliminate proof of who you are, and you can more easily change election outcomes.

[dogcows 1,029]

On 4/11/2021 at 2:19 PM, jerryskids said:

They can do similar processes of course.  But just because another state has spent years honing an absentee process, doesn’t mean another state can just shotgun blast ballots and say “hey, well, Colorado mailed some stuff so, umm, this should work right out of the shoot with no real process in place, right?”

I’m an engineer, I understand systems.  For a system that complex it would take months to test the change of character length for one data set in an existing system.  The odds of just mailing a bunch of stuff out in a place which never did it, without the time to plan, design, implement, and test it, and it not having substantial systemic problems, is virtually zero.  Lower that by 10X if it is a government system.

“Shotgun blast” is hilarious. As if they mailed these out like bulk mail catalogs...? Every registered voter already has an address on file so they can vote in the correct precinct. Sending out mail is not that complicated. You're acting like they tried to land ballots on the moon or something.

Is shotgun blast the term they use in Colorado and Oregon where they have been mailing ballots to everybody for many years? What a laugh.

[jerryskids 5,169]

1 hour ago, dogcows said:

“Shotgun blast” is hilarious. As if they mailed these out like bulk mail catalogs...? Every registered voter already has an address on file so they can vote in the correct precinct. Sending out mail is not that complicated. You're acting like they tried to land ballots on the moon or something.

Is shotgun blast the term they use in Colorado and Oregon where they have been mailing ballots to everybody for many years? What a laugh.

I really don't know how to respond when you quoted my post which already has the response.  Maybe if I use colors and font changes your eyes will register them?  I'm kinda busy for that though.   

[dogcows 1,029]

30 minutes ago, jerryskids said:

I really don't know how to respond when you quoted my post which already has the response.  Maybe if I use colors and font changes your eyes will register them?  I'm kinda busy for that though.   

I read your post. You make it seem like mailing out ballots to everybody is some major feat of engineering. It’s not. Hence, we had a secure election with no evidence of an amount of fraud anywhere near enough to make the slightest difference in any state’s results.

Nice to see that America can actually figure out a way to securely distribute ballots during a global pandemic so we didn’t have to delay the vote for a year or something.

We landed people on the moon and brought them back 50 years ago. If you think mailing letters to the correct address is more difficult than that, well….

[Utilit99 4,099]

2 hours ago, dogcows said:

I read your post. You make it seem like mailing out ballots to everybody is some major feat of engineering. It’s not. Hence, we had a secure election with no evidence of an amount of fraud anywhere near enough to make the slightest difference in any state’s results.

Nice to see that America can actually figure out a way to securely distribute ballots during a global pandemic so we didn’t have to delay the vote for a year or something.

We landed people on the moon and brought them back 50 years ago. If you think mailing letters to the correct address is more difficult than that, well….

[Reality 2,710]

We're so easily manipulated, they don't even attempt to hide it any more.

By making accusations of vote fraud he was not able to prove, both before and after the election, Donald Trump made it easy for his critics to dismiss as dishonest any and all concerns about election integrity. Typical was a New York Times “fact check” from late September denouncing as “false” GOP claims that expanding access to absentee ballots and voting by mail facilitated election fraud. 

Linda Qiu, New York Times "fact-checker": Mail and absentee ballots are the “gold standard of election security.” But this wasn't always the Times view.

Politifact.com

“There have been numerous independent studies and government reviews finding voter fraud extremely rare in all forms,” wrote Linda Qiu. That includes “‘absentee ballots’ and ‘vote-by-mail ballots’” between which there is “no meaningful difference.” Not only are both “secure forms of voting,” according to Qiu; they are considered the “gold standard of election security.”

To pass a law limiting the use of absentee ballots, as Georgia recently did, is no longer to choose a side in a legitimate debate over how to balance ballot integrity and ease of voting. Instead, to express concern about the risk of election fraud is seen as being engaged in a different sort of fraud -- an illegitimate effort to disenfranchise the poor and minorities. The New York Times has aggressively insisted the last several months that worries over absentee and mail-in ballots, in particular, are dishonest violations of voting rights. Times staff opinion editor Spencer Bokat-Lindell wrote late in October that “[t]he effort to discredit and discourage mail-in voting” was the “culmination of a decades-long disinformation campaign by the Republican Party and others to suppress votes, especially those cast by Black and Latino Americans.”

This is the New York Times now, bullish on absentee voting ...

NYT "fact check," Sept. 26, 2020

Spencer Bokat-Lindell: Times opinion editor: Efforts to discredit mail voting are aimed at suppressing votes, "especially those cast by Black and Latino Americans.” Then what of the Times's cautions over decades that the most common sort of election fraud involves absentee voting? 

LinkedIn

But what of the Times itself, which for over two decades has warned readers that the most common sort of election fraud involves absentee voting? As recently as September, Times reporters Stephanie Saul and Reid Epstein quoted Richard Hasen, who teaches election law at the University of California, Irvine, saying that “[e]lection fraud in the United States is very rare, but the most common type of such fraud in the United States involves absentee ballots.”

In 2018 operatives working for the Republican candidate for North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional District seat, falsified absentee ballots.  Times reporters Alan Blinder and Michael Wines told readers that the state’s long history of election fraud was “under a spotlight.” They quoted lawyer Bill Gilkeson saying that “absentee ballots” were “where the fraud really happens.” In 2019 Blinder wrote, “The Ninth District controversy ranks among the highest-profile examples of modern election fraud,” one that “underscores how absentee ballots remain susceptible to abuse.”

What accounts for the change from a dark presentation of the issue to a decidedly rosy one? RealClearInvestigations asked a spokesperson for the New York Times whether the paper’s current enthusiasm for absentee voting meant its staff’s previous criticism and reporting were wrong or misleading. RCI also asked whether the articles had been, even just unintentionally, part of what Times staff editor Bokat-Lindell called “a decades-long disinformation campaign by the Republican Party and others to suppress votes”? She did not respond to those two questions.

... and this is the New York Times back in 2012, highly skeptical of the practice.

NYT headline, Oct. 6, 2012

But the examples already cited here do not seem to be outliers. The headline of a 2012 article by Times legal affairs reporter Adam Liptak shouted, “Error and Fraud at Issue as Absentee Voting Rises.” Liptak declared that liberalized absentee voting “increases the potential for fraud.”

Adam Liptak, New York Times legal affairs reporter: He wrote in 2012 that so grave are “the flaws of absentee voting,” they “raise questions about the most elementary promises of democracy.” Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas quoted from the article in a recent dissent.

Slowking4/Wikimedia

So grave are “the flaws of absentee voting,” according to the Times, that they “raise questions about the most elementary promises of democracy.” Under a section heading “Fraud Easier Via Mail,” Liptak wrote: “Election administrators have a shorthand name for a central weakness of voting by mail. They call it granny farming.” We learned from the Times that campaign operatives “helped” voters in nursing homes. Such voters “can be subjected to subtle pressure, outright intimidation or fraud. The secrecy of their voting is easily compromised. And their ballots can be intercepted both coming and going.”

“Absentee ballots also make it much easier to buy and sell votes,” Liptak continued. “In recent years, courts have invalidated mayoral elections in Illinois and Indiana because of fraudulent absentee ballots.” It would be hard to pull off some types of election fraud, he wrote. Impersonate voters on a scale large enough to be likely to affect the outcome of an election, and you’re likely to be caught. The Times quoted no less an authority than Heather Gerken, an elections expert who is now dean of Yale Law School, on where to find fraud: “You could steal some absentee ballots or stuff a ballot box or bribe an election administrator or fiddle with an electronic voting machine,” Gerken told Liptak, concluding that is “why all the evidence of stolen elections involves absentee ballots and the like.” RealClearInvestigations reached out to Gerken asking whether she stood by her comments. She did not respond.

The Liptak article, with its central thesis that “mailed ballots” are “more likely to be compromised and contested than those cast in person,” was persuasive enough that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas quoted from it in a recent dissent.

Also in 2012, The New York Times published an op-ed by Hasen, the professor at UC Irvine whom Times reporters quoted just this past September. In the op-ed he observed, “Every year we see convictions for absentee ballot fraud. Not a lot, but enough to know it's a problem.” Hasen wrote he had found no election in decades “in which impersonation fraud had the slightest chance of changing an election outcome.” But absentee-ballot fraud is a different matter altogether. Hasen wrote it “changes election outcomes regularly.”

Contacted by RealClearInvestigations, Hasen stands by his observations. He says that in the last decade, the “ability to conduct absentee voting has improved,” but that “anytime ballots are outside the control of election officials, there’s risk.” He suggests that the difference in statements about absentee ballots made in the New York Times may be explained by some assertions being made by news reporters and other claims by the opinion staff of the paper.

In 2011, Pulitzer Prize-winning Timesman Charlie Savage wrote that, compared with in-person voting, there was “greater evidence that absentee ballot fraud has been used to attempt to alter the results of an election.”

Joyce Purnick penned a page-one story in the New York Times in September 2006 declaring, “Experts in election law say most voter fraud involves absentee balloting.” In 2004, the paper warned of fraud in the upcoming national election: Officials “are struggling to cope with coercive tactics and fraudulent vote-gathering involving absentee ballots that have undermined local races across the country,” wrote reporter Michael Moss. The Times worried that many states had “abandoned or declined to adopt the safeguards on absentee voting that election officials have warned they will need to prevent rigged elections.”

In November 2000, the New York Times’s Leslie Wayne warned about the expansion of absentee voting: “The alternatives to traditional voting are more susceptible to fraud.” Wayne attributed the concern to “experts” who said that “[a]bsentee ballots can be more easily sold or shown to others before they are cast.”

The New York Times now insists through its designated arbiter of verified facts that absentee voting is the “gold standard”; the opinion page denounces any concern about the practice as not just wrong, but a myth used to suppress voting by the poor and minorities. And yet for more than 20 years the Times has been making the not-unreasonable case that absentee ballots are more susceptible to fraud than in-person voting.

One might ask whether the Times, in its eagerness to discredit arguments with which it now disagrees, has thrown decades of its own reporting under the bus.

That’s effectively the question put to the Times, but not answered.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/04/13/the_absentee_vote_logic_of_the_new_york_times_772343.amp.html?__twitter_impression=true

[Hardcore troubadour 12,588]

Great post Reality. They have changed their tune because they decided to do the cheating now, and don’t GAF if everyone sees it. Who’s gonna say something, the FBI? 

[dogcows 1,029]

5 hours ago, Reality said:

We're so easily manipulated, they don't even attempt to hide it any more.

By making accusations of vote fraud he was not able to prove, both before and after the election, Donald Trump made it easy for his critics to dismiss as dishonest any and all concerns about election integrity. Typical was a New York Times “fact check” from late September denouncing as “false” GOP claims that expanding access to absentee ballots and voting by mail facilitated election fraud. 

Linda Qiu, New York Times "fact-checker": Mail and absentee ballots are the “gold standard of election security.” But this wasn't always the Times view.

Politifact.com

“There have been numerous independent studies and government reviews finding voter fraud extremely rare in all forms,” wrote Linda Qiu. That includes “‘absentee ballots’ and ‘vote-by-mail ballots’” between which there is “no meaningful difference.” Not only are both “secure forms of voting,” according to Qiu; they are considered the “gold standard of election security.”

To pass a law limiting the use of absentee ballots, as Georgia recently did, is no longer to choose a side in a legitimate debate over how to balance ballot integrity and ease of voting. Instead, to express concern about the risk of election fraud is seen as being engaged in a different sort of fraud -- an illegitimate effort to disenfranchise the poor and minorities. The New York Times has aggressively insisted the last several months that worries over absentee and mail-in ballots, in particular, are dishonest violations of voting rights. Times staff opinion editor Spencer Bokat-Lindell wrote late in October that “[t]he effort to discredit and discourage mail-in voting” was the “culmination of a decades-long disinformation campaign by the Republican Party and others to suppress votes, especially those cast by Black and Latino Americans.”

This is the New York Times now, bullish on absentee voting ...

NYT "fact check," Sept. 26, 2020

Spencer Bokat-Lindell: Times opinion editor: Efforts to discredit mail voting are aimed at suppressing votes, "especially those cast by Black and Latino Americans.” Then what of the Times's cautions over decades that the most common sort of election fraud involves absentee voting? 

LinkedIn

But what of the Times itself, which for over two decades has warned readers that the most common sort of election fraud involves absentee voting? As recently as September, Times reporters Stephanie Saul and Reid Epstein quoted Richard Hasen, who teaches election law at the University of California, Irvine, saying that “[e]lection fraud in the United States is very rare, but the most common type of such fraud in the United States involves absentee ballots.”

In 2018 operatives working for the Republican candidate for North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional District seat, falsified absentee ballots.  Times reporters Alan Blinder and Michael Wines told readers that the state’s long history of election fraud was “under a spotlight.” They quoted lawyer Bill Gilkeson saying that “absentee ballots” were “where the fraud really happens.” In 2019 Blinder wrote, “The Ninth District controversy ranks among the highest-profile examples of modern election fraud,” one that “underscores how absentee ballots remain susceptible to abuse.”

What accounts for the change from a dark presentation of the issue to a decidedly rosy one? RealClearInvestigations asked a spokesperson for the New York Times whether the paper’s current enthusiasm for absentee voting meant its staff’s previous criticism and reporting were wrong or misleading. RCI also asked whether the articles had been, even just unintentionally, part of what Times staff editor Bokat-Lindell called “a decades-long disinformation campaign by the Republican Party and others to suppress votes”? She did not respond to those two questions.

... and this is the New York Times back in 2012, highly skeptical of the practice.

NYT headline, Oct. 6, 2012

But the examples already cited here do not seem to be outliers. The headline of a 2012 article by Times legal affairs reporter Adam Liptak shouted, “Error and Fraud at Issue as Absentee Voting Rises.” Liptak declared that liberalized absentee voting “increases the potential for fraud.”

Adam Liptak, New York Times legal affairs reporter: He wrote in 2012 that so grave are “the flaws of absentee voting,” they “raise questions about the most elementary promises of democracy.” Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas quoted from the article in a recent dissent.

Slowking4/Wikimedia

So grave are “the flaws of absentee voting,” according to the Times, that they “raise questions about the most elementary promises of democracy.” Under a section heading “Fraud Easier Via Mail,” Liptak wrote: “Election administrators have a shorthand name for a central weakness of voting by mail. They call it granny farming.” We learned from the Times that campaign operatives “helped” voters in nursing homes. Such voters “can be subjected to subtle pressure, outright intimidation or fraud. The secrecy of their voting is easily compromised. And their ballots can be intercepted both coming and going.”

“Absentee ballots also make it much easier to buy and sell votes,” Liptak continued. “In recent years, courts have invalidated mayoral elections in Illinois and Indiana because of fraudulent absentee ballots.” It would be hard to pull off some types of election fraud, he wrote. Impersonate voters on a scale large enough to be likely to affect the outcome of an election, and you’re likely to be caught. The Times quoted no less an authority than Heather Gerken, an elections expert who is now dean of Yale Law School, on where to find fraud: “You could steal some absentee ballots or stuff a ballot box or bribe an election administrator or fiddle with an electronic voting machine,” Gerken told Liptak, concluding that is “why all the evidence of stolen elections involves absentee ballots and the like.” RealClearInvestigations reached out to Gerken asking whether she stood by her comments. She did not respond.

The Liptak article, with its central thesis that “mailed ballots” are “more likely to be compromised and contested than those cast in person,” was persuasive enough that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas quoted from it in a recent dissent.

Also in 2012, The New York Times published an op-ed by Hasen, the professor at UC Irvine whom Times reporters quoted just this past September. In the op-ed he observed, “Every year we see convictions for absentee ballot fraud. Not a lot, but enough to know it's a problem.” Hasen wrote he had found no election in decades “in which impersonation fraud had the slightest chance of changing an election outcome.” But absentee-ballot fraud is a different matter altogether. Hasen wrote it “changes election outcomes regularly.”

Contacted by RealClearInvestigations, Hasen stands by his observations. He says that in the last decade, the “ability to conduct absentee voting has improved,” but that “anytime ballots are outside the control of election officials, there’s risk.” He suggests that the difference in statements about absentee ballots made in the New York Times may be explained by some assertions being made by news reporters and other claims by the opinion staff of the paper.

In 2011, Pulitzer Prize-winning Timesman Charlie Savage wrote that, compared with in-person voting, there was “greater evidence that absentee ballot fraud has been used to attempt to alter the results of an election.”

Joyce Purnick penned a page-one story in the New York Times in September 2006 declaring, “Experts in election law say most voter fraud involves absentee balloting.” In 2004, the paper warned of fraud in the upcoming national election: Officials “are struggling to cope with coercive tactics and fraudulent vote-gathering involving absentee ballots that have undermined local races across the country,” wrote reporter Michael Moss. The Times worried that many states had “abandoned or declined to adopt the safeguards on absentee voting that election officials have warned they will need to prevent rigged elections.”

In November 2000, the New York Times’s Leslie Wayne warned about the expansion of absentee voting: “The alternatives to traditional voting are more susceptible to fraud.” Wayne attributed the concern to “experts” who said that “[a]bsentee ballots can be more easily sold or shown to others before they are cast.”

The New York Times now insists through its designated arbiter of verified facts that absentee voting is the “gold standard”; the opinion page denounces any concern about the practice as not just wrong, but a myth used to suppress voting by the poor and minorities. And yet for more than 20 years the Times has been making the not-unreasonable case that absentee ballots are more susceptible to fraud than in-person voting.

One might ask whether the Times, in its eagerness to discredit arguments with which it now disagrees, has thrown decades of its own reporting under the bus.

That’s effectively the question put to the Times, but not answered.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/04/13/the_absentee_vote_logic_of_the_new_york_times_772343.amp.html?__twitter_impression=true

Wow, you went through two decades of NY Times Op-Eds? Now that’s commitment.

I read through this and these are all assumptions and opinions, not actual numbers of fraudulent votes. People from decades ago expressing worries about absentee voting does not mean “absentee voting = fraud”. Believe it or not, The NY Times publishes a variety of opinion pieces from both sides (although more of their regular columnists are liberal than conservative). But again - these are opinion, not fact. As it turned out, these worries have turned out to be unfounded, and voter fraud is still extremely rare.

I know some have called for audits of the 2020 results. I say, sure go ahead. I’d prefer they do that instead of just passing a bunch of laws based on unproven assumptions as Georgia and Texas are doing right now.

[dogcows 1,029]

 

[TBayXXXVII 2,106]

On 4/3/2021 at 4:35 PM, IGotWorms said:

I don’t want government run healthcare.

I would like true universal healthcare.

Is it possible you are confusing the two?

Meaning what, you want insurance companies to make their insurance available to everyone?

[JustinCharge 2,397]

1 hour ago, dogcows said:

 

we dont know the extent of voter fraud in the 2020 election because congress wont due its job and investigate.  

[Cdub100 3,366]

1 hour ago, JustinCharge said:

we dont know the extent of voter fraud in the 2020 election because congress wont due its job and investigate.  

Oy Vey! it's over goy let it go. 

[JustinCharge 2,397]

3 hours ago, Cdub100 said:

Oy Vey! it's over goy let it go. 

that attitude is exactly why the left is at a point where it is rioting and burning all the time.  the republicans need to stop letting it go and then the democrats would back off.

[dogcows 1,029]

16 hours ago, JustinCharge said:

that attitude is exactly why the left is at a point where it is rioting and burning all the time.  the republicans need to stop letting it go and then the democrats would back off.

The laws in Georgia and Texas are the opposite of “letting it go.” They are assuming fraud without investigating and passing laws based on that assumption.

There is nothing stopping Texas or Georgia from doing full audits, right? They don’t need permission from the feds. Just do it if you’re so sure there are tons of fraudulent votes!

We all know they’ll never do it because when they come up with nothing, they’ll have to admit it.

[RLLD 3,455]

21 minutes ago, dogcows said:

The laws in Georgia and Texas are the opposite of “letting it go.” They are assuming fraud without investigating and passing laws based on that assumption.

There is nothing stopping Texas or Georgia from doing full audits, right? They don’t need permission from the feds. Just do it if you’re so sure there are tons of fraudulent votes!

We all know they’ll never do it because when they come up with nothing, they’ll have to admit it.

I support the Democrat position from 2016 through 2019, the our elections are sacrosanct and we must protect them.

[dogcows 1,029]

On 4/14/2021 at 2:35 PM, RLLD said:

I support the Democrat position from 2016 through 2019, the our elections are sacrosanct and we must protect them.

I agree. And part of that is equal access to the ballot box. I welcome audits from the states claiming fraud. Passing laws without any evidence could actually be harmful. What if the measures they’re taking are missing the actual source(s) of fraud, if any are found?

[Hardcore troubadour 12,588]

How does requiring an ID prevent equal acres to the ballot box if everyone is required to have an ID? ID’s are free. 

[RLLD 3,455]

16 hours ago, dogcows said:

I agree. And part of that is equal access to the ballot box. I welcome audits from the states claiming fraud. Passing laws without any evidence could actually be harmful. What if the measures they’re taking are missing the actual source(s) of fraud, if any are found?

Fantastic, then we need to ensure the integrity of voting in the same manner by which we ensure access to air travel, or driving, or to federal facilities and have an ID check.

Since it is not racist to have those instances demand an ID, it stands to reason that voting is similar. The protection of our voting system is too important to the well being of all citizens, and where we have failed in the past there were instances of malfeasance. We cannot afford that.

There is nothing racist about proving ones identity.