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Comment by Amezarak | Hacker News Reader

Not all states require an ID to vote. Voter ID laws are a controversial measure.

Generally, you register to vote. As long as you input plausible information and a real address you can receive mail at, you are likely to get on the rolls. Once you get on the rolls, you just show up at the polling station and tell them who you are (no ID required), they look for the name in the book, mark you as having voted, and you go vote.

Several years ago they did pass a law federally requiring an ID if you couldn't provide the last-four of an SSN or a driver's license, though, if you're a new voter. Not sure how that works if e.g., you're Amish and don't have an SSN or driver's license.

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And how are you going to do this on a large scale? Especially without being caught?

How would you detect this kind of fraud? Historically, whenever states go about trying to verify their voter registration databases, they end up wiping out swaths of real, actual voters for various reasons, which usually makes it a non-starter.

I doubt it's very common in a fraud sense (though there are probably a lot of people who aren't supposed to be able to vote who end up voting), but either way, it's a difficult problem, probably impossible, to solve without impinging on the rights of the voting public. Voter ID laws disenfranchise people, sharing too much data with the feds has privacy risks, cleaning up the rolls inevitably affects legitimate voters...there's no good way to solve the problem.

> How would you detect this kind of fraud?

Voter rolls are public. You can't see how someone voted, but you can see if they voted.

Sure, but there's no reliable way to determine of someone is a real and qualified voter in the precinct they voted. That's the whole problem.

Nobody is engaged in a conspiracy to vote hundreds of times, but are a lot of people voting in various technically illegal ways? Sure.

Again, proof. Show it, or stop disrespecting us by parroting the tired and debunked talking point.

> there's no reliable way to determine of someone is a real and qualified voter in the precinct they voted

Have you registered to vote in the United States? Records are corroborated.

Remember, voter rolls are public. My New York City record lists my name, address, party affiliation and voter district information. Anyone can challenge this based on public information, e.g. social media posts, court records, employment records, et cetera, or absolutely nothing.

In New York, you literally write a letter and the Board of Elections opens an investigation. Lots of people do this every year, and the problem isn't them finding anything useful. The problem is them (a) burning tax dollars and (b) knocking off the rolls those who forgot to report minor address changes, e.g. moving within the same building.

> a lot of people voting in various technically illegal ways

Many have looked for evidence of this. Zero has been found. It's a high-cost, low pay-off gamble. Will some people be idiots? Sure--there's a small handful every election. Is this even remotely of concern? Absolutely not.

No, all you can see is that somebody claiming to be X voted at Precinct Y using Z method (in-person, absentee, provisional vote).

You have to accept a vote whether that voter appears on your roll or note (if unregistered, a provisional ballot is cast; it's generally not opened unless the sum total of provisionals can sway a race).

You can't challenge a signature for invalidity, and you can't pull that ballot even if it is later found to be invalid.

Even if a fraudulent vote was cast in the name of a real voter, and that real voter shows up later to vote (and has photo ID), his/her ballot turns into a provisional ballot, and the first-cast, bogus ballot is never retracted.

> You can't challenge a signature for invalidity

In New York any poll worker can challenge a signature for validity. Those ballots are specially marked and subject to individualised scrutiny.

This thread has got to have the highest-confidence totally-wrong assertions I’ve seen on Hacker News in a long time.

> his/her ballot turns into a provisional ballot, and the first-cast, bogus ballot is never retracted

What do you think happens to provisional ballots? They’re provisional because they’re specially handled. If a double vote occurs on a name, that’s certainly investigates (again, in New York).

No, you were asked first. How would you do it without getting caught? How would you amass that amount of funding, and that number of people, and keep it all quiet?

I'm talking about people voting in their old precinct because they didn't change their address, felons voting in states where they are ineligible, people who don't even know they aren't citizens voting, that type of thing.

There's no funding or conspiracy involved.

> I'm talking about people voting in their old precinct because they didn't change their address, felons voting in states where they are ineligible, people who don't even know they aren't citizens voting, that type of thing

These statistically-irrelevant edge cases have been addressed in other [1][2] comments. You're beating a dead, incorrigible horse in the face of documented evidence.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15587942

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15587906

  they end up wiping out swaths of real, actual voters

Examples?

To expand on this point, large-scale voter fraud in the United States means having confederates at multiple polling locations in multiple, independently-administered precincts, each with their own processes, in multiple, independently-governed states, each with their own rules. Getting caught at any of those stages means the plan is a bust. Oh, and you can't re-use a single confederate more than a handful of times.

If you're going to conduct voter fraud, the count is your target. At that stage, IDs are irrelevant. (Even then, there are multiple precincts in multiple states with lots of random, independent volunteers and elected representatives puttering about.)

Being skeptical is fine. Using skepticism of a low-probability unsubstantiated claim (voter fraud) to detract from a proven problem (voter suppression) is at best irrational.

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