US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

You inquired about moving votes from state to state. What would prevent that? Each state has their own machines that are coded for that state only.

How does this preclude a person voting in one state, then moving and voting in another?

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

Nah, it was an internal thing, this arrest is a part of investigation of a hacker group that was hacking internal political stuff, like Medvedev's twitter and leaking various stuff.

Lately it went comercial (ie selling secrets for money rather than leaking them for political reasons) and this may be why they got screwed. You can access their twitter here:
https://twitter.com/b0ltai

Ah, the Humpty Dumpties, got to admit not heard of them, they've kinda of gotten over-shadowed by the Fancy Bears.
How is old Preved! Medved these days? Haven't seen much of him since he and Putin had a disagreement of policy back when he was still President.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

How does this preclude a person voting in one state, then moving and voting in another?

If a individual is registered in one state and moves that individual will need to register for that state. It goes a bit deeper than that. Each individual not only registers in the state but also the county within that state.

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Ah, the Humpty Dumpties, got to admit not heard of them, they've kinda of gotten over-shadowed by the Fancy Bears.
How is old Preved! Medved these days? Haven't seen much of him since he and Putin had a disagreement of policy back when he was still President.

He is the head of the Goverment, the PM. But yea, it is an internal thing, not related to the US elections. From what I read the FSB officer in question was arrested during the FSB leadership meeting.

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

If a individual is registered in one state and moves that individual will need to register for that state. It goes a bit deeper than that. Each individual not only registers in the state but also the county within that state.

What precludes an individual to register in multiple states? Do states check that said individual is not registered elsewhere?

[August]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

How does this preclude a person voting in one state, then moving and voting in another?

Well i'd think that having to vote, then move, re-register in the new location and then vote again all during the month or two long (less depending on the state) early voting period for one thing, minimum residency and registration deadline requirements in some states for another. Remember they can't use fake addresses either. It has to be a real location within the town or city they would be moving to.

They might even have to prevent anyone else from registering at their old address to prevent any raised flags.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

What precludes an individual to register in multiple states? Do states check that said individual is not registered elsewhere?

Nothing precludes an individual from multiple registrations from state to state. However, when voting(at least for me) I had to provide my current address before I could vote. But, this is not always a failsafe either. Anyone could provide my name and address. I was never asked for ID. That is a problem.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

Were already getting screwed ... our own cars and trucks coming cross the border on semi's with car trailers to sell in America.

I'll be glad to pay more for the beer and avocados too.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...gn=pubexchange

Paging Mssrs Smoot and Hawley.

[Catfish]

Gorbachov about international relations, from yesterday:
http://time.com/4645442/gorbachev-putin-trump/

[MaDef]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

Why? The system appears to be vulnerable.

As someone else said, the only place the system is vulnerable to widespread fraud is in the counting/changing of the ballots after votes have been cast.

I came across the following that might explain the difficulty of perpetuating voter fraud on a national level.

In most countries the national government oversees elections and may even have a wing of government charged with this duty. In the U.S. this is not the case at all, not even for Federal elections. This is one of the unsung parts of "States Rights" and exemplifies our national motto of E pluribus unum (out of many, one) that is a pretty interesting part of how the U.S. government is set up. Oversight of elections is charged to the local or county level here, with ultimate oversight by each State's Secretary of State.

[mapuc]

Here is something I don't understand or why no one does it.

It seems like every media and anti-Trump people are angry on the President and those who support him on the Mexican wall thing.

How come no one have taken a look at Mexico ? Why haven't any of these people asked the leaders in Mexico what they have in mind to prevent thousand and thousands of poor Mexican people to flee to the States and if it wasn't about time they "installed" a social safety net or similar.

Markus

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by August

Well i'd think that having to vote, then move, re-register in the new location and then vote again all during the month or two long (less depending on the state) early voting period for one thing, minimum residency and registration deadline requirements in some states for another. Remember they can't use fake addresses either. It has to be a real location within the town or city they would be moving to.

They might even have to prevent anyone else from registering at their old address to prevent any raised flags.

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Nothing precludes an individual from multiple registrations from state to state. However, when voting(at least for me) I had to provide my current address before I could vote. But, this is not always a failsafe either. Anyone could provide my name and address. I was never asked for ID. That is a problem.

The problem here is not with individual fraudilent votes, but with the potential organised mass fraudilent votes. Ie some organisation bussing people around so to speak.

Originally Posted by MaDef

As someone else said, the only place the system is vulnerable to widespread fraud is in the counting/changing of the ballots after votes have been cast.
I came across the following that might explain the difficulty of perpetuating voter fraud on a national level.

That is where the system appears to be the most resistant to fraud, as you cannot subvert a single entity. With the multiple votes this does not improve the resistance of the system, but decreases it.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by mapuc

[...] How come no one have taken a look at Mexico ? Why haven't any of these people asked the leaders in Mexico what they have in mind to prevent thousand and thousands of poor Mexican people to flee to the States and if it wasn't about time they "installed" a social safety net or similar. Markus

The leaders in Mexico are rather powerless when it comes to citizens deciding to leave their country, for whatever reason. Well paid jobs are rare.

A good idea would be to change Mexico in a way that not so much people see the need to leave, but this is difficult. Mexico is ruled by drug syndicates, and they do not only kill each other, but also citizens indiscriminately, just to spread terror and demonstrate their power.
(Excempt some short intervals where there is an uneasy "peace" between syndicates, but since the Zetas appeared on the scene it all has turned to the worse.)
Other targets are journalists, politicians and generally everyone who publicly dares to criticize the cartels.

The problem on the US side is that so many guys over there consider consuming drugs as being cool. And of course some US citizens are making big money with it, not only the Mafia. And the drugs pass the border via official routes and border crossings, since a lot of border personnell is either bribed, or directly threatened, or dead. They do not need to illegally cross the border, most of the van drivers do not know eactly what they transport, and have official papers from all sides. The CIA itself has allegedly dealt with mexican drugs to finance the Contras in Nicaragua back then.

The drugs passing the borders via official border crossings and openly, is one of the main reasons Mr. Trumps wall will most probably be a failure when it comes to drug trafficking.

Regarding illegal immigrants, a lot of them help to power the US industry, since they get very few money, and are thus cheap workers and silently accepted for all kinds of jobs. So some industries will probably not like Trump's plans. Trump used mexican workers for his own business b.t.w.

The third thing is international companies, who do not need a home country anymore. Their registered office can be in Monrovia, or Singapore. And if a country decides to threaten them with higher taxes, they just change the country.
Silicone valley CEOs probably tend more to keep their head offices in the US, even if they produce in India, or China. But make no mistake, patriotism stops where money is involved.

Originally Posted by mapuc

Here is something I don't understand or why no one does it.

It seems like every media and anti-Trump people are angry on the President and those who support him on the Mexican wall thing.

How come no one have taken a look at Mexico ? Why haven't any of these people asked the leaders in Mexico what they have in mind to prevent thousand and thousands of poor Mexican people to flee to the States and if it wasn't about time they "installed" a social safety net or similar.

Markus

They aren't 'fleeing' to the U.S. They move there for simple economic reasons, in the same way that anyone else does. People moving around in order to maximise economic benefit is integral to the economic system. There are of course alternatives ('planned economies' where such movement is restricted), but neither the U.S. nor Mexico are trying to impose such systems. As for social safety nets, they require funding.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

The American consumer gets screwed, businesses don't move back to the States, and the fact that tariffs are bad for business is proven yet again as it has been over and over and over in history.

http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/201...l-cost-money./

Business my not move back to the US but it may prevent any working towards leaving the US to Mexico. In some cases it may be more profitable to restart manufacturing back in the US as the tariff of 20% does cost more.

At this juncture....at least Trump is attempting to do something other than signing off on TPP and allowing other manufacturing jobs go elsewhere.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

How does this preclude a person voting in one state, then moving and voting in another?

Because there are deadlines for registering prior to a specific election. Registration must be completed prior to any early or absentee voting.

Therefore, I can't register to vote in Maryland, cast an early or absentee vote, then travel to Virginia, register and cast a vote in the same election as registration in Virginia will close prior to voting starting in Maryland.

There are limitations on when a specific state can start early voting, just for this reason.

The problem is being registered simultaneously in two states.

In the past, it was expected for a citizen to have one primary residence. People could have residency in multiple states, but one was designated as primary due to the amount of time spent in that state. For many many years, this worked out well.

However, as citizens become more mobile and fluid in where they live, it is possible for a citizen to have more than one residence but not have any of them as a primary residence.

Various states have tried adopting different policies to address this. One of the more common ones focuses on where does the person live at the time of the election (usually in November). That works great if the citizen has a regular rotating schedule of residences e.g., Summers in New York and Winters in Florida). But what if the citizens rotation of residences changes or is unpredictable? That's a problem.

While a lot of people like to have systems with iron clad verification, they forget that a lot of what happens in our society is based on an assumption that the citizen will do the right thing until proven that they have done the wrong thing. A lot of our voting procedures is based on trusting the citizen to do the right thing. Implementing a system where the government provides 100% oversight would be expensive and unnecessary in my opinion.

Our federal elections are inherently safer (not 100%) because of not only do we have a lot of voters, but the voting is decentralized.

Yes, if I were willing to risk committing a felony, I could manage to vote twice, but my voting twice in a federal election will not have much of an effect on the outcome as we have tens of millions of votes. Would any of you risk being charged with a Felony knowing that your crime won't affect the outcome of an election? I suspect few would.

Our decentralization provides another level of security. There is little that anyone can do at the state level to effect the outcome of an election. Fraud would have to occur at the precinct level. There are almost a hundred precincts just in my county just in my state. How many precincts across the country would have to be successfully infiltrated to have an effect on the outcome of the election?

Lets try to affect the outcome of federal elections in my county. First you would have to determine which precincts are expected not to favour the Purple Party. After all, you don't want to risk exposure fixing precincts where you already know you will get the Purple Party vote. Let's say that there are 40 precincts that need fixin. Let's say that each precinct has an average of 5,000 registered voters. Out of a two party race that means that you want to fix between 30-40% of the vote as you can assume that some of the citizens will vote Purple. So you need to fraudulently alter 1,700 votes in each precinct. 40 precincts mean 68,000 fraudulent votes.

And that's just for my one county. A single county does not sway a federal election. In many cases, a single county won't sway a state's electoral college.

But, wouldn't it be easier to just after the votes at the state level (there are only 50 of them. Well no. Part of the decentralization of our voting process is that at the precinct level is where the initial ballot counts are made, witnessed, recorded, reported, and sealed.

All this information is public information. Last election, I published my precincts results 12 minutes after the polls closed and those results were published on the internet in real time. If my precinct legitimately receives 500 votes for the Purple Party but the state reports that my precinct reported 5,000 votes for the Purple Party, it will be immediately detected by either party observers or the citizenry. Since the ballots are sealed in a box (one more reason why paper ballots are the best), this box can be unsealed in the presence of witnesses and the ballots recounted. Any discrepancy will be obvious and impossible to hide as the recounts are open to public witnessing in addition to multiple of state/county/federal witnesses.

Even as a Precinct Chief, I can't do anything alone and everything I do is checked and double checked and recorded. Even if I wanted to compromise the election at my precinct there is little I could do, unless the majority of my election officers are in on the conspiracy. This is why election officers are assigned according to their declared political party and why the Chief and Assistant Chief are from different declared parties. The penalties for election officers violating election law are much harsher then for a citizen fraudulently voting and they should be.

All that being written, it is important to remember that elections are run by humans and humans are prone to mistakes. The news media is eager to publish stories where people have voted more than once, but tend not to follow up the story when the investigation by the State Board of Elections reveals that it was due to a mistake by a human.

Mistakes should not happen, and we try very hard to prevent mistakes, but it is important to not attribute to a conspiracy what is actually attributed to a human mistake.

As we are moving more towards computer assisted voter check-in I have found that our mistakes (which were always in the decimal single digit percentage) have gotten lower and in many cases eliminated. Virginia is a leading state in investments into new computer assisted voter check-ins and it is paying off. I hope that more states start taking advantage of the innovation that Virginia is paying for.

Computers are very good at detecting details and humans are very good at solving problems. Working together, where each does what it does best, results in a more accurate voter check-in.

But there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. Closer coordination between state agencies that handle death records and the election registrar's office is needed. When a person dies, that information should either automatically update multiple databases, or send an alert to those who maintain those databases.

But honestly, the biggest problem are people moving and not letting the registrar's office know. I turn away more citizens away from the polling location because of this than for any other reason. It is part of my job that stynks the most. But ultimately, it is the citizens responsibility to update their own record. But knowing that does not make it easier when you have a citizen crying in front of you, when you have just told them that they can't vote for the president of their own country.

This is why we have provisional ballots. A provisional ballot allows the person to cast a sealed ballot and then have their eligibility determined after the polls close. If the research indicates that they are eligible, their ballot is unsealed and counted. If they are ineligible, their sealed ballot is destroyed unopened. The person casting the provisional ballot is allowed to be present during the investigation.

Another problem is the fickleness of the citizens. On one hand the citizens want a voting system that verifies everyone's data, but on the other hand these same citizens resist any talk of integrated inter-state/federal databases. It is difficult to have it both ways. That's one of the many reasons I like voter ID laws. To me, it is a good compromise between allowing anyone to vote if they claim they can vote and having a comprehensive national or inter-state database of our personal information.

It is an imperfect system, run by imperfect human election officers, processing imperfect human voters.

Even of our systems are 99.99999% secure, that still leaves a number of voters that will slip through the cracks.

I can design a system that will have a zero percent chance of voter fraud. Unfortunately it would take each citizen about 8 hours to be processed and the entire system would cost trillions of dollars.

How much money are we willing to spend to get from 99.99999% to 99.999999%?

Many of the policies are a compromise like many other instances in our government.

If some one has a better system, please contact your respective State Board of Elections and submit it. So far, our present system is about as secure and fair as it can get.... with some room for improvements.

A rather long winded response. But you asked a serious question and I felt it deserved a serious answer. If you have any other question about how USA elections are run. I will be happy to answer them or research it and get back to you.