(10-29-2010 09:20 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  Someone please try to explain that to me. IMO that is an attempt to manipulate the Voter Rolls by trying to insert invalid voters into the system.

There are other possible explanations. First, in some states (maybe all?) it's illegal to take a voter registration application from a potential voter and not submit it to the local registrar. This is a result of a political organization (somewhere in the midwest, iirc) that took registrations, then discarded the ones from demographics that favored the other party. The first time the applicant knew he or she wasn't registered was when they tried to vote.

Next, have a canvassing scheme that sends relatively untrained people out to get registrations. To make it worse, pay them by how many they bring back. Ergo, you get applications from lots of ineligible people, cartoon characters, what have you. The registering organization must submit them all, hence what you see in your post above.

Not saying I have any information that this is what happened, only that there may be other explanations than "an attempt to manipulate the Voter Rolls".

I am happy to report that I, personally, have seen no evidence of voter fraud or intimidation in Parker County.

However, it was suspicious that one of the poll watchers was a retired IRS agent.

(smiley: just kidding around)

(10-30-2010 11:22 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I am happy to report that I, personally, have seen no evidence of voter fraud or intimidation in Parker County.

However, it was suspicious that one of the poll watchers was a retired IRS agent.

(smiley: just kidding around)

I'm surprised there were Poll Watchers in Parker County, period.

(10-31-2010 12:01 AM)WMD Owl Wrote:  

(10-30-2010 11:22 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I am happy to report that I, personally, have seen no evidence of voter fraud or intimidation in Parker County.

However, it was suspicious that one of the poll watchers was a retired IRS agent.

(smiley: just kidding around)

I'm surprised there were Poll Watchers in Parker County, period.

Well, maybe he was an election employee. Hard to tell. Democrats and Republicans here are pretty friendly - after all, we all have to live together afterward no matter what. The IRS guy, BTW, is a guy i went to HS with.

It's been since 1970 that I voted in a city. In the 90's, I leased office space to the Democrats - so very very Republican of me, I know. Being nonpartisan for a profit.

(10-29-2010 09:20 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  My concern rests with the fact that the Harris County Voting Machines went "up in smoke" a few weeks ago.

As a result, Beverly Kaufman, Harris County Clerk, urged voters to use Early Voting and Absentee Ballots (including Mail Ballots) as much as possible to cut down on the expected long lines on Tuesday, because Harris County was only able to replace around 80% of the voting machines lost in the fire.

And then you had the SEIU linked organization "Houston Votes" that, as of August 16, 2010 submitted over 25,000 "new" voter applications to the Harris County Voter Registrar, but "oops" only 7,193 of these applications turned out to be valid-- with the rest (as of August 16)

1597- multiple applications for the same person

1014 -applications for persons already registered to vote

1113-applications where the applicant said they didn't have any ID when Texas databases showed these individuals had ID issued to them

1030 incomplete applications-- no address, date of birth, etc.

325 applications when the applicant said that they were under the age of 18

25 applications from applicants who weren't US citizens.

Someone please try to explain that to me. IMO that is an attempt to manipulate the Voter Rolls by trying to insert invalid voters into the system.

Sorry that isn't people residing in "student housing" IMO they were trying to overload/sneak something through the system that Harris County caught (at the taxpayer expense)

Tuesday may be a Zoo.

And if there are any issues, you will have people like the idiot that wore her Obama shirt into the polling station and then complained that her "Constitutional Rights" have been violated when they told her to turn her Tshirt inside out before she could vote.

Your figures don't make sense. The incomplete applications mean nothing, as do the multiples - those have reasonable explanations that have nothing to do with fraud and don't prove to me that someone is trying to do anything with their vote that they shouldn't. Things don't add up to 25,000 - 7193 = 17800 bad registrations, did you notice?

Do you have personal knowledge of the voting intent for these people?

The fact that we're discussing the issue means even if this was an attempt, it DIDN'T succeed. I feel happy with my stance of not being worried here.

And who cares about one idiot with an Obama shirt? I'm sure there are lots of idiots that don't know the rules about what you can wear to a polling place, of both parties. Immaterial.

(10-29-2010 09:20 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  The plain fact is that these "complainers" cant accept that come Wednesday morning their political agenda has been stopped dead in its tracks.

I can't wait until November 2012. "Humm.. Humm.. Humm"

And this kind of attitude makes me respect you a lot less. I don't call you a "complainer", I assume you want a positive outcome for the country same as me, we just disagree on how to do it. There's no need to be vindictive or bitter.

(10-31-2010 02:14 PM)emmiesix Wrote:  Your figures don't make sense. The incomplete applications mean nothing, as do the multiples - those have reasonable explanations that have nothing to do with fraud and don't prove to me that someone is trying to do anything with their vote that they shouldn't. Things don't add up to 25,000 - 7193 = 17800 bad registrations, did you notice?

Do you have personal knowledge of the voting intent for these people?

The fact that we're discussing the issue means even if this was an attempt, it DIDN'T succeed. I feel happy with my stance of not being worried here.

Your response raises some questions for me.

1. Where did you learn that the multiple registrations all have reasonable explanations? All of them? What constitutes a reasonable explanation?

2. I believe that if things are out of place, or otherwise nonstandard, then quite often something is wrong. It could just be incompetancy, or it cold be sloppiness, or it could be fraud. The old smoke/fire relationship. Not always of course - but I am not going to dismiss the possibility on faith. How do these discrepancies compare to similar discrepancies in other places? If location A has 5% problems, and the national average is .5%, then AFAIAC, that's smoke.

3. That one instance did not succeed does not mean others haven't. It certainly doesn't mean that only one effort was attemped, and that one caught.

I am not worried about my house being burglarized, but that doesn't mean I should not check on things and if something is out of place, make sure all is well. Open window? I am not serene. Lawn mower missing? maybe I better find out what's up.

I am not worried about my house burning down, but I think it is prudent to be prepared and take precautions. Some houses really DO burn down. And some people really are arsonists.

edit: Requiring personal knowledge of the intent of every possible voter is setting the bar too high. I can only speak for my intent - and the lady who registered me cannot.

(10-31-2010 02:14 PM)emmiesix Wrote:  

(10-29-2010 09:20 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  My concern rests with the fact that the Harris County Voting Machines went "up in smoke" a few weeks ago.

As a result, Beverly Kaufman, Harris County Clerk, urged voters to use Early Voting and Absentee Ballots (including Mail Ballots) as much as possible to cut down on the expected long lines on Tuesday, because Harris County was only able to replace around 80% of the voting machines lost in the fire.

And then you had the SEIU linked organization "Houston Votes" that, as of August 16, 2010 submitted over 25,000 "new" voter applications to the Harris County Voter Registrar, but "oops" only 7,193 of these applications turned out to be valid-- with the rest (as of August 16)

1597- multiple applications for the same person

1014 -applications for persons already registered to vote

1113-applications where the applicant said they didn't have any ID when Texas databases showed these individuals had ID issued to them

1030 incomplete applications-- no address, date of birth, etc.

325 applications when the applicant said that they were under the age of 18

25 applications from applicants who weren't US citizens.

Someone please try to explain that to me. IMO that is an attempt to manipulate the Voter Rolls by trying to insert invalid voters into the system.

Sorry that isn't people residing in "student housing" IMO they were trying to overload/sneak something through the system that Harris County caught (at the taxpayer expense)

Tuesday may be a Zoo.

And if there are any issues, you will have people like the idiot that wore her Obama shirt into the polling station and then complained that her "Constitutional Rights" have been violated when they told her to turn her Tshirt inside out before she could vote.

Your figures don't make sense. The incomplete applications mean nothing, as do the multiples - those have reasonable explanations that have nothing to do with fraud and don't prove to me that someone is trying to do anything with their vote that they shouldn't. Things don't add up to 25,000 - 7193 = 17800 bad registrations, did you notice?

Do you have personal knowledge of the voting intent for these people?

The fact that we're discussing the issue means even if this was an attempt, it DIDN'T succeed. I feel happy with my stance of not being worried here.

And who cares about one idiot with an Obama shirt? I'm sure there are lots of idiots that don't know the rules about what you can wear to a polling place, of both parties. Immaterial.

(10-29-2010 09:20 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  The plain fact is that these "complainers" cant accept that come Wednesday morning their political agenda has been stopped dead in its tracks.

I can't wait until November 2012. "Humm.. Humm.. Humm"

And this kind of attitude makes me respect you a lot less. I don't call you a "complainer", I assume you want a positive outcome for the country same as me, we just disagree on how to do it. There's no need to be vindictive or bitter.

I don't mean to gloat. But it is nice when you see Politicians like Reid and Pelosi who Railroad Legislation down everyone's throats, govern against the will of the people, and use sleezy back room political ploys,-- end up getting voted out of Office or forced into retirement.

And I would feel the same way about a Republican. I can't stand Tom Delay.

(10-31-2010 04:35 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-31-2010 02:14 PM)emmiesix Wrote:  Your figures don't make sense. The incomplete applications mean nothing, as do the multiples - those have reasonable explanations that have nothing to do with fraud and don't prove to me that someone is trying to do anything with their vote that they shouldn't. Things don't add up to 25,000 - 7193 = 17800 bad registrations, did you notice?

Do you have personal knowledge of the voting intent for these people?

The fact that we're discussing the issue means even if this was an attempt, it DIDN'T succeed. I feel happy with my stance of not being worried here.

Your response raises some questions for me.

1. Where did you learn that the multiple registrations all have reasonable explanations? All of them? What constitutes a reasonable explanation?

2. I believe that if things are out of place, or otherwise nonstandard, then quite often something is wrong. It could just be incompetancy, or it cold be sloppiness, or it could be fraud. The old smoke/fire relationship. Not always of course - but I am not going to dismiss the possibility on faith. How do these discrepancies compare to similar discrepancies in other places? If location A has 5% problems, and the national average is .5%, then AFAIAC, that's smoke.

3. That one instance did not succeed does not mean others haven't. It certainly doesn't mean that only one effort was attemped, and that one caught.

I am not worried about my house being burglarized, but that doesn't mean I should not check on things and if something is out of place, make sure all is well. Open window? I am not serene. Lawn mower missing? maybe I better find out what's up.

I am not worried about my house burning down, but I think it is prudent to be prepared and take precautions. Some houses really DO burn down. And some people really are arsonists.

edit: Requiring personal knowledge of the intent of every possible voter is setting the bar too high. I can only speak for my intent - and the lady who registered me cannot.

What I mean is, registering twice doesn't mean they intend to vote twice. I've had people at Rice with voter cards telling me to just "fill one out anyway" - probably they want to brag about numbers - I still don't see how it allows me to vote fraudulently. You have not demonstrated that doing so implies fraud (alternatively, they forgot, or lost their registration).

And again, you seem to be suffering under the delusion that most of these "fraudulent registrations" went to someone intending to vote democrat (or else you would not be so upset?). I see no evidence of that presented, and it's not a reasonable stance based on logic. Same with filling one out incomplete - technically that's not even to be counted as registering, I would assume. They just screwed up their chances of voting, actually.

And most of all, we're talking about a few thousand registrations that didn't count. Not near 20,000, as the post originally implied.

When there's smoke, sometimes there's just smoke. I prefer the adage "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Thanks Emmie and Sammy for making these points. I really think what we’re seeing here is an ideological inclination to jump to the least likely and least supported conclusion, i.e. “[insert group here] is trying to steal the election!” Sending a bunch of people out to collect voter registrations is a messy process. I’m sure these types of “fraud” WMD lists happen with partisan registration drives on both sides as well as non-partisan ones, not to mention in the course of well intentioned individual citizens getting registered.

Heck, I wouldn’t be shocked if I double registered at some point, especially in my student days when I was moving around sometimes multiple times in a year and voting in multiple elections (primary, national, local, etc.) To use OO’s metaphor, I don’t even think there’s smoke here.

Really, let’s think about this. If a union or other organization has $X to spend, is it really going to spend it to get people to vote multiple times or illegally, or to spend it on legitimate GOTV operations? Given that the groups being accused usually have low turnout, especially in mid-terms, it seems pretty obvious to me it’s the latter.

(10-29-2010 10:09 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  Tea party groups plan to use "surveillance squads" at polling places to record possible voting misbehavior.

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that Tea Partiers who talk about "defending liberty" against "tyranny" are organizing "surveillance squads" to monitor the fellow citizens most likely to vote against Tea Party candidates?

(11-01-2010 10:38 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(10-29-2010 10:09 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  Tea party groups plan to use "surveillance squads" at polling places to record possible voting misbehavior.

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that Tea Partiers who talk about "defending liberty" against "tyranny" are organizing "surveillance squads" to monitor the fellow citizens most likely to vote against Tea Party candidates?

I agree that is a bad term to use. But they are nothing more than "Poll Watchers" that are expressly authorized by State law.

(11-02-2010 09:18 AM)WMD Owl Wrote:  

(11-01-2010 10:38 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(10-29-2010 10:09 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  Tea party groups plan to use "surveillance squads" at polling places to record possible voting misbehavior.

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that Tea Partiers who talk about "defending liberty" against "tyranny" are organizing "surveillance squads" to monitor the fellow citizens most likely to vote against Tea Party candidates?

I agree that is a bad term to use. But they are nothing more than "Poll Watchers" that are expressly authorized by State law.

But then that is *no* defense against "Gee its a close race, and I *just* happened to remember that I left that ballot box in my [car trunk, hall closet] for twenty hours, even though I am a poll official whose primary duty is to relay these objects *as quickly as possible* to the county clerk's office."

Funny how that happens in amazing frequency in Illinois, Wash. state, and Minnesota , and almost exclusively originating from heavily Democratic leaning districts.....

(11-02-2010 10:02 AM)tanq_tonic Wrote:  

(11-02-2010 09:18 AM)WMD Owl Wrote:  

(11-01-2010 10:38 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(10-29-2010 10:09 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  Tea party groups plan to use "surveillance squads" at polling places to record possible voting misbehavior.

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that Tea Partiers who talk about "defending liberty" against "tyranny" are organizing "surveillance squads" to monitor the fellow citizens most likely to vote against Tea Party candidates?

I agree that is a bad term to use. But they are nothing more than "Poll Watchers" that are expressly authorized by State law.

But then that is *no* defense against "Gee its a close race, and I *just* happened to remember that I left that ballot box in my [car trunk, hall closet] for twenty hours, even though I am a poll official whose primary duty is to relay these objects *as quickly as possible* to the county clerk's office."

Funny how that happens in amazing frequency in Illinois, Wash. state, and Minnesota , and almost exclusively originating from heavily Democratic leaning districts.....

citation needed

(11-02-2010 11:58 AM)emmiesix Wrote:  

(11-02-2010 10:02 AM)tanq_tonic Wrote:  

(11-02-2010 09:18 AM)WMD Owl Wrote:  

(11-01-2010 10:38 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(10-29-2010 10:09 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  Tea party groups plan to use "surveillance squads" at polling places to record possible voting misbehavior.

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that Tea Partiers who talk about "defending liberty" against "tyranny" are organizing "surveillance squads" to monitor the fellow citizens most likely to vote against Tea Party candidates?

I agree that is a bad term to use. But they are nothing more than "Poll Watchers" that are expressly authorized by State law.

But then that is *no* defense against "Gee its a close race, and I *just* happened to remember that I left that ballot box in my [car trunk, hall closet] for twenty hours, even though I am a poll official whose primary duty is to relay these objects *as quickly as possible* to the county clerk's office."

Funny how that happens in amazing frequency in Illinois, Wash. state, and Minnesota , and almost exclusively originating from heavily Democratic leaning districts.....

citation needed

Washington state:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/lo...ts02m.html

Minnesota:
retracted, as no first hand reports could be found for the issues that cropped up in the Coleman/Franken recount. Won't use blog reports....

Illinois:
am I to take it you disbelieve the existence of the "Chicago Machine"? If so, I have some "lakeside" "land" to sell you in central Florida.... lol...

If you think otherwise, check out precincts 14, 33, 36, 16, 21, and 26 in Chicago that miraculously all had more votes cast than were registered in them in the 2006 Governors race.... all essentially one candidate......

Or perhaps google "Ohio" and the 2004 election for efforts to get car trunk ballots accepted.

Hate to ruin your perceptions, but union/city political machines really do exist in this day and age, and ballot-stuffing is part and parcel of their operations.

Still haven't had a chance to really write down some of my experiences as an election officer, but in reading that Washington state link, I'm stunned by the number of absentee ballots and particularly the provisional ballots used. And that's in a county with less than 2 million people (including minors). Over 500k absentee (generally okay, as I understand they allow them and people take advantage of them), but another 28k provisional ballots filed on election day? Wow, that's a huge number, considering the number of remaining voters likely to vote, and not one that I would expect. When I worked a precinct of 3k to 4k registered voters (with 50% to 70% voting, depending on the election), I might have had 5 to 8 total provisional ballots filed by the end of day.

Again, maybe that's par for the course in Washington or King County, but that seems excessive. At least with provisionals, there should be a paper trail to determine after the fact if they really need to be counted or not.

(11-02-2010 02:01 PM)gsloth Wrote:  Still haven't had a chance to really write down some of my experiences as an election officer, but in reading that Washington state link, I'm stunned by the number of absentee ballots and particularly the provisional ballots used. And that's in a county with less than 2 million people (including minors). Over 500k absentee (generally okay, as I understand they allow them and people take advantage of them), but another 28k provisional ballots filed on election day? Wow, that's a huge number, considering the number of remaining voters likely to vote, and not one that I would expect. When I worked a precinct of 3k to 4k registered voters (with 50% to 70% voting, depending on the election), I might have had 5 to 8 total provisional ballots filed by the end of day.

Again, maybe that's par for the course in Washington or King County, but that seems excessive. At least with provisionals, there should be a paper trail to determine after the fact if they really need to be counted or not.

I thought all Washington State voting was absentee:

Almost, after looking it up. King County is one that does not have election day polling centers (only one county actually does). However, every county must open at least one location 20 days prior to election, to allow for in-person voting.

http://www.sos.wa.gov/_assets/elections/...sGuide.pdf

Interesting system. Which makes me wonder how they could ever generate 28,000 provisional ballots with most people being encouraged to vote by mail (the easiest way to do it) by having the ballot mailed to you (presumably as a registered voter), as well as providing local voting centers in the days before election. I'm sure there are reasons, but don't have time to look it all up right now.