It could be like selective service. Sign up after your eighteenth birthday to vote.
Also, use scantron style ballots that use computers to automate vote counting but not vote casting, with members of all major political parties monitoring polling stations and vote counting to ensure everything is above board.
I live in Illinois and I don't know if it is free or not but you can get a sate ID here that is not a drivers license and use that to register to vote.
A national version could make sense. Since the more voters there are only helps one party, we'll never see anything like that on a national level no matter how much sense it makes.
Offer may differ for some communities, certain may experience having to sign up two counties over, in the basement, on the second Wednesday every odd month, behind a locked door with a sign "Beware of the leopard".
Better if everyone just gets enrolled by default.
But the whole point is that non-citizens are voting or multiple voting or non-resident voting is occurring.
The question is, how do you know that the person who is in the line to vote is the person who he says he is. Sure the name John Doe is on the list, but is the person standing in front of you is John Doe or not, how do you establish that?
My shit country has solved this _ages_ ago:
Every citizen has an id.
The IDs are issued by each state, but they are all functionally the same. You will have no trouble voting with an out-of-state ID.
That ID is free and relatively easy to get.
Every citizen has an assigned place (building, room and ballot box) to vote, and it's usually close to their residence (you are expected to update when you move, it's also very easy).
Each ballot holds no more than 600 votes, average is around 300. Lines are uncommon, it usually took me like 5 minutes to vote.
Voting takes place on a Sunday, and most cities make public transit free of charge.
Agree, it should be easier not harder to register and to vote
It's really difficult to tell what percentage of people that applies to, but just for one example I got from Google, The Tax Policy Center estimates that 70 Million Americans do not need to pay income tax.
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/tpc-number-those-who-...
Just a guess but I think that overlap is probably pretty large. I would think the majority of people who don't owe taxes are due to lower incomes who would not be required to file and that is offset with deductions....purely a guess though.
The opposition argues that this is discriminatory and would favor richer voters.
If I understand their argument correctly, there is a non-zero cost to going to obtain these forms of identification that disproportionately impact the poor. You have to take off work, commute (potentially without a car or bus), pay a fee, be capable of understanding the instructions, etc.
> Also, use scantron style ballots that use computers to automate vote counting but not vote casting, with members of all major political parties monitoring polling stations and vote counting to ensure everything is above board.
The state of Georgia switched to these! They're awesome.
You digitally record your vote and get a printout with your selections. The printout becomes your ballot, and you're able to verify it before submitting it. The choices are super legible in big fonts.
There's a big QR code in the corner that an automated scanner can use to read the values, but a human can manually verify the printed names and ballot initiatives.
The printed ballots look like this:
https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/imagecast-x-ballo...
Since rich people tend to make more money per hour, that is discriminatory to them too.
Honestly if there is one thing the US doesn't need it is more uninformed voters. I would love if one could require a test for civics or something before you could vote. Not discriminating anyone, no grandfather clauses.
That said, if there's any suspected discrepancy between recorded choice and the QR code encoding, the ballots can be statistically sampled for divergence.
Scantrons might be difficult to implement for ballots with lots ballot choices or lots of options. You'd want to maintain readability for those with poor eyesight.
You probably don't want to hold up the line with people scanning the matrix to make sure it encodes the correct choices, either.
I'm not sure what the optimal solution is here, but we are improving. No more "hanging chads".
I can't imagine any ballot that would be hard to encode on them.
Not quite. They argue that the kind of voter ID requirements that are being passed in several states are discriminatory because they are not free of charge. Some are free of any direct fees, but the indirect costs are often substantial, for the reasons you note:
> If I understand their argument correctly, there is a non-zero cost to going to obtain these forms of identification that disproportionately impact the poor. You have to take off work, commute (potentially without a car or bus), pay a fee, be capable of understanding the instructions, etc.
Worse, some states that have passed such laws have also simultaneously taken steps to increase those indirect costs. E.g., under the guise of budget cutting reducing the number of offices that issue state IDs, and reducing the hours during which the remaining offices processes ID applications. The offices that get closed are disproportionately the ones that are nearest to the most minority and poor voters, who also happen to the the voters who are most likely to not already have the ID, and the reduced hours usually mean no evening or weekend hours meaning many have to take unpaid time off work to go apply for ID.
I forget which state it was, but in a lawsuit over their new ID law plaintiffs found a list the committee that drafted the law made which listed a bunch of different possible forms of ID that people had, and for each also listed for each what percent of voters had it and their party and racial demographics, sorted by how much that ID would favor white people of the majority party in that state, and the final approved IDs in the law were all the ones the ones that favored white majority party voters.
Here are a ton of references, many of which contain a zillion links to even more research on this:
https://www.projectvote.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/AMERI...
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/jul/11/eric-holde...
https://www.aclu.org/documents/oppose-voter-id-legislation-f...
https://www.usccr.gov/files/pubs/2018/Minority_Voting_Access...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a...
https://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/11/4/7157037/us-voter-id-req...
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/07/644648955/for-older-voters-ge...
https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2014/10/16/well-actually-pretty-...
https://www.theregreview.org/2019/01/08/shapiro-moran-burden...
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/10/heres-h...
https://scholars.org/contribution/high-cost-free-photo-voter...
https://now.tufts.edu/2018/01/23/proving-voter-id-laws-discr...
Maybe Joe down the street isn't very much into politics, but he's been hearing all about these electronic voting machines being the source of fraud, and he know it sounds unreasonable, but it does introduce some doubt, especially when he finds out that no one knows what's in them and that people can access em "over the internets", it's enough out of his wheelhouse to get him wondering.
It might do the opposite; "see, they finally admitted it's a problem!"
Presuming there was no problem:
- Not doing any 'improvements' would result more of what is going on right now, an inability to prove the otherside wrong, and doubling down on the (near ridiculous) claim that it was the 'most secure election of all times'.
Presuming there were issues:
- Doing anything to improve them would mean that the one election they truly really wanted to win (i.e. defeating Trump), they will be accused of finally admitting that there were problems.
- Which means from their perspective, keep doubling down on the claim that it was the most secure election of all times
- OTOH if you didn't care that much about defeating Trump, and truly want there to be improvements if they are needed, then the Democrats claiming that these were the 'most secure elections of all times' just makes you start not believing it
In the real world, though, the good tools we already do have are being removed because of conspiracy theories. For example: https://apnews.com/article/voter-fraud-election-conspiracies...
> Earlier this month, Republican election officials from Florida, Missouri and West Virginia said they planned to withdraw from the group, joining Louisiana and Alabama. Former President Donald Trump, on social media, has called on every Republican-led state to leave, characterizing it as a “terrible Voter Registration System that ’pumps the rolls’ for Democrats and does nothing to clean them up.”
Playing devils advocate here, how do you know that?
This whole argument dont look under the rug because if the rug isnt dirty then theyll shift their attention to under the couch seems afoul.
It's not that we don't look under the rug. The rug has been looked under, many times, and we keep not finding the monsters claimed to be under the rug.
It is entirely possible that voter fraud occurred AND there is no evidence that it occurred.
Again, I’m not saying that happened, but I think there are some common sense improvements that could be made to the voting process that remove any doubts.
There isn't much doubt from people that care about evidence.
I care about evidence, I believe it is absolutely possible to commit voter fraud and not leave any evidence of it, and I also do not believe that Trump lost due to voter fraud. All of these things can simultaneously be true.
I fail to see the harm in making our elections more secure, so long as we do not disenfranchise any legal voters.
44 states have laws to run post-election audits, sampling the ballot pool and checking for statistical anomalies in the result [0]. This is one thing, and it's certainly not a complete solution to voter fraud...but I didn't know about these regular, legally mandated audits til I searched for election audit information. I do know about other things that help reinforce election security, like poll observers. From past jobs that occasionally provided IT support to local governments, I also have exposure to the physical security controls around ballots and polling equipment.
If you're well informed about election security, it might be more effective for you to bring up the specific challenges you feel need to be solved or gaps that need to be filled. Otherwise it's chasing shadows of threats and vulnerabilities that may or may not exist.
If you're not that informed, get involved with your local election office. They probably want volunteer pool workers and you'll learn a lot about the behind the scenes parts.
[0] https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/bestpractices/Electi...
Then why don't you have any?
I fail to see the harm in making our elections more secure, so long as we do not disenfranchise any legal voters.
It isn't necessary and it does statistically disenfranchise legal voters.
If there is virtually no voter fraud why are you so set on 'making our elections more secure'? These pushes are always started by people who know the truth - they aren't solving an election security problem, they are solving the problem of making people who vote against them have statistically more difficulty to vote.
Also they aren't free in the US and they aren't always easy. Sometime you have to make appointments at DMVs and you have to get there as well. There are different fees and different durations per state.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/drivers-lic...
If you think about someone living in a city where they can take the bus and they don't own a car, they might not have a license. Then they might not get one just to vote in an election every four years that will just go the same way the state always votes (of course they end up not voting for everything else on the ballot).
Then maybe you shut down some polling places, split some up, move some around. Maybe you expire people's registrations early.
This is how you bend statistics to your side. It isn't about one person technically being able to navigate every obstacle. Every time the bus goes around a corner some people fall off and that's the point.
You are falling into the exact type of thinking that the people who create these situations want.
So I would say its more along the lines that they tried to look under the rug many times but everytime they tried they got denied.
How is standing assessed? That there has been damages to the party. The party is claiming that there was voter fraud however most of the evidence they need to prove their damages require a subpeona which they need a court case to start gathering proof. Do you see the catch 22 there?
I am not a lawyer but presenting all your evidence before a trial seems poor form.
You don't have to present all your evidence before a trial, but your filings at the start of the process do need to create a picture of the standing you have, the harm you've suffered, and the evidence you intend to present.
“Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so,” wrote Stephanos Bibas on behalf of a three-judge panel. “Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here,” [0]
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-election-lawsuit-penn...
United States Supreme Court Texas v. Pennsylvania et al. - Dismissed on standing.
Arizona Aguilera v. Fontes - Voluntarily Dismissed Aguilera v. Fontes - Dismissed Donald J. Trump for President v. Hobbs - Voluntarily Dismissed Arizona Republican Party v. Fontes - Dismissed Ward v. Jackson - Dismissed Bowyer v. Ducey - Dismissed on standing Stevenson v. Ducey - Dismissed
The case was dropped because by the plaintiff because even if the plaintiff won, they would still be short a few hundred votes.
Again , not one case was actually allowed to go to trial.
Georgia
In re: Enforcement of Election Laws and Securing Ballots Cast or Received after 7:00pm on November 3, 2020 - Dismissed Brooks v. Mahoney - Voluntarily Dropped Wood v. Raffensperger - Dismissed on Standing Pearson v. Kemp - Dismissed on standing Boland v. Raffensperger - Dismissed Trump v. Raffensperger - Dismissed Favorito et al. v. Fulton County et al. - Dismissed Trump v. Kemp et al. - Dismissed
Again , not one case was actually allowed to go to trial.
Im not going to list every single state but its very similar elsewhere. Dismissed for standing, jurisdiction, or trumps team dropped the suit voluntarily.
The statue of limitations is VERY short for elections.
Going back to the Catch 22, many of the personal testimonies the trump legal trump had saying they witnessed fraud were thrown out or could not be used until a trial. So, he cannot use a subpoena , and his witnesses were not allowed to testify. What would you recommend he do?
So now you get crazy schemes like Mr Pillow to collect data during the election so they have something to bring to court. At least that sounds like their plan no matter how wacky it is.
Now, I dont believe that Trump won. But I do believe they should've gave the guy his day in court. To deny someone that on the basis that they will just keep coming back looking elsewhere is not right.
By denying his day in court you have emboldened their supporters and disenfranchised independent voters who want secure elections, like myself.
I'm sure he's just part of the conspiracy, or something...
I read and analyzed a sampling of two cases, and saw the same pattern where there were a whole bunch of straightforward banal claims plus a whole bunch of grandiose conclusions, without any logical linking of the two. The grandiose claims were widely quoted in the press though, despite being completely unsubstantiated. That was enough to satisfy my own opinion.
True and I think that's a good observation.
My takeaway from it was they were looking to get a trial and up against a fast approaching statue of limitations. I also think the fraud they claimed was very novel for a case. What evidence would a person need to bring forward to meet the criteria for standing in a federal election> I still don't know even though most of these cases were dropped for it.
A lot of the sound bites in the press focused on what I thought was frivolous political points on both sides so I think the answer is like many of the issues we are facing these days, in the middle.
However, I do believe giving Trump a day in court and having faith in the system would be overall the best to move the country forward. Maybe he is allowed to bring forward some evidence in his criminal trials for why he believed there was fraud? We shall see.
https://www.businessinsider.com/voter-election-fraud-statist...
This exists, it's called registering with your address and then going to your local polling place.
Voter fraud is essentially a nonexistent problem.
Where do you think the vulnerabilities are that can be exploited?
Then his preferred candidate loses. The loser tosses accusations at Raffensperger and friends ranging from incompetence to outright malice. The loser claims the systems Raffensperger has been knee deep in the previous two years are insecure, suspect, compromised. The loser puts personal pressure on Raffensperger to "find" votes.
That had to be one hell of a "what did I do to deserve this?" feeling throughout that time frame.
Also using mail to register to vote has been used for over 150 years and current voter fraud is practically zero.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/exhaustive-fact-check-find...
Yes, and the longer a game is played, the more loop holes are found.
He explains it here. Where is the evidence that he said it?
https://www.wired.com/1997/01/did-gates-really-say-640k-is-e...
Yes, and the longer a game is played, the more loop holes are found.
This is vague FUD nonsense. What are you talking about and where is your evidence?
Ballots are mailed to every eligible voter, but you can go vote if you really like your precinct.
That's almost the right way to do it. Just add some additional data printed on the ballots in a special ink that is normally invisible, and provide voters with a special marker to fill in the bubbles that reacts with the special ink to make it visible, use some clever cryptographic techniques to figure out what should be printed with that special ink, and you get this [1].
With that, people who just want to vote and trust that others will deal with auditing and counting go into the booth, fill in the bubbles for their candidates, drop the ballot in the collection box, and then just wait for the machine count to see who won, just like now.
But after the election all the cast ballots can be published allowing anyone to check the count.
Individual voters who noted a code that was on their ballot can check the published ballots and verify that their ballot was counted correctly (but they cannot prove to a third party that they voted for a particular candidate).
This system also allows a voter before voting to verify that the ballots have been correctly printed.
Voting systems with those properties are called end-to-end (E2E) verifiable voting systems [2], and there have been several proposals for such systems, including many that like Scantegrity do not rely on electronic voting machines.
Here is the original paper on this (PDF and HTML), and a paper proving that it is coercion-resistant [3][4][5]:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_auditable_voting_sy...
[3] https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/evt08/tech/full_papers/c...
[4] https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/evt08/tech/full_papers/c...
Can you prove him wrong? Can he prove it?
Because if not, it all seems pointless to me.