October 20, 2006
In Shocker, Arizona to Restrict Voting to Legal Voters
A lot of us are really scratching our heads... not at this U.S. Supreme Court ruling (overturning an injunction), but at the fact that the underlying law is even controversial at all:
Arizona voters will have to present identification at the polls on Nov. 7 after all.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that Arizona can go ahead with requiring voters to present a photo ID, starting with next month's general election, as part of the Proposition 200 that voters passed in 2004. The ruling overturns an Oct. 5 decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which put the voter ID rules on hold this election cycle.
Now, this was not a ruling on the merits of the case. Rather, the 9th Circus Court of Appeals -- the most overruled circuit court in the nation -- issued an injunction on October 5th to prevent the 2004 law from going into effect... even though it already had gone into effect during the primary election.
What happened today is that the Supreme Court overturned the injunction by the 9th Circus:
The Supreme Court on Friday did not decide whether the new voter ID rules are constitutional. That decision is still pending in federal district court.
Instead, the court decided that the 9th Circuit made a procedural error by granting an injunction to put the new rules on hold without waiting for the district court to explain its reasons for not granting an injunction.
The Court ruled that the 9th improperly rushed to grant the injunction -- in my own opinion, because they were desperate to prevent it from being applied in the 2006 general election -- and that they should have waited to hear the reasoning of the district court for why they refused to grant an injunction earlier.
Since there is no way that the district court and the appellate court can have their exchange before November 7th, that means that Arizona will become a test case for the radical, new concept that only American citizens who are legally empowered to vote -- should be allowed to vote.
It's clear why Democrats are so worried about this law, as well as a similar federal law that was passed by the House of Representatives this term... yet another great bill passed by the Republican majority with virtually no Democratic help: the final vote on September 20th was 228 Ayes, only four of them from Democrats, to 196 Nays, all but three of them Democrats (counting Socialist Bernie Sanders as a Democrat, since that's who he caucuses with).
196 out of 202 Democrats, 97% of the party, voted against requiring citizenship ID in order to vote. Why? Because a large number of Democrats are elected with the help of illegal votes from non-citizens and felons.
If a wave of states, especially in the Southwest and possibly California, begin enacting laws requiring voters to show actual proof of citizenship before voting (or if the federal Congress does so nationally), then all of a sudden, we're going to have a lot fewer Democrats in the House.
I expect the Democrats to filibuster the House bill when it comes up in the Senate during the lame-duck session following the election; and Democratic-controlled state legislatures (such as California's) will never enact such bills. But as Arizona's Proposition 200 shows, state citizens can pass referendums for such a common-sense reform.
Let's keep our fingers crossed that when the Supreme Court actually rules on the merits (as I'm sure they will, if they lifted the injunction), that they actually uphold it. It's hard to see how this could violate the National Voting Rights Act of 1965, since there is no impermissible literacy test or any other racially based test for voting. Even when the Act was passed, everybody, including every member of Congress who voted for it and the president who signed it (Lyndon Johnson). Since there is provision for indigent voters to receive their ID for free, you can't even ding it for being an illegal poll tax.
It's time we reintroduced sanity to the electoral process. No Democratic politician has the guts to stand up and actually propose that non-citizens be allowed to vote; they want the courts to do it for them.
Not even legally resident aliens supposed to vote, let alone illegals; there is no coherent reason to refuse to check voter identification... other than a desire to circumvent the law and let non-citizens determine the results of American elections, to the advantage of the Democratic Party.
Hatched by Dafydd on this day, October 20, 2006, at the time of 5:34 PM
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» Supreme Court Reinstates AZ Voter ID Law from Blue Crab Boulevard
Surprise move by the US Supreme Court - they vacated a 9th Circuit court decision that had enjoined the Arizona voter ID law. They did so by specifically calling the way the 9th Circuit judges rendered their decision an error.
Surprising acti... [Read More]
Tracked on October 20, 2006 9:55 PM
» Legal Aliens Are Not Citizens from Webloggin
Activists are pushing hard to give non citizens the right to vote claiming that the poor aliens are disenfranchised. They are not disenfranchised because they are not legally allowed to vote so a right is not being denied.
... [Read More]
Tracked on February 21, 2007 6:47 AM
Comments
The following hissed in response by: snochasr
I think you have missed the bigger problem, and that is that the Democrats consistently benefit from massive amounts of voter fraud by people who would normally be allowed to vote, but only once. Photo ID and pre-registration requirements tend to eliminate that advantage.
The above hissed in response by: snochasr at October 22, 2006 2:39 AM
The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh
Snochasr:
You're right; I hadn't thought about that.
Dafydd
The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh at October 22, 2006 4:48 AM
The following hissed in response by: NoMoreBlatherDotCom
Another big but ignored problem is that illegal aliens do "vote" in another way: they count towards congressional representation. While only citizens can vote, districts are created using Census figures, and the more illegal aliens a state has, the more reps they have.
And, there are other forms of "voting" as well. CA's Gil_Cedillo basically represents Mexican_citizens, Nancy_Pelosi or one of her helpers refered to illegal aliens as her "constituents" and tried to get the S.F. federal building to accept ID_cards that the Mexican_government passes out to their citizens who are here illegally, etc.
And, some unions - such as the SEIU - have a large number of illegal alien members. Their dues are then used to influence legislation.
The solution to those problems is not to keep illegal aliens disenfranchised, the solution is to enforce our laws and reduce the numbers of illegal aliens.
And, based on previous posts at this site, it needs to be pointed out that the Senate_amnesty will only make the situation worse by encouraging more illegal immigration and giving more power to those who support illegal immigration.
The above hissed in response by: NoMoreBlatherDotCom at October 22, 2006 4:34 PM
The following hissed in response by: Dick E
Snochasr-
C’mon -- you’re just trying to upset a hallowed tradition in the city of my birth. The motto in Chicago was always “vote early, vote often.” And look how well it has worked: Republican officeholders in Chi-town are about as numerous as Christian clergymen in Riyadh. Life is sweet for Dems in Daleytown.
Dafydd-
Amen and huzzah. Couldn’t agree more.
A (somewhat) related issue is voting technology. I was upset today to hear that Florida acted to prevent a repeat of the 2000 election fiasco by simply outlawing any physical recounts of ballots. Well, if true, that certainly eliminates any future controversy, doesn’t it? (I did a quick search and was unable to confirm the claimed action by Florida. I think it was bogus. But will that stop me from pressing on? Hah!)
To me and, I think, to most folks of a conservative bent, the most important thing about election procedures is voter confidence. That is, are voters reasonably confident that the votes they and others cast will be properly counted? Where I live, the subject rarely comes up, because our voting system seems to work pretty well. How does it work? Thanks for asking.
We use paper ballots (how 20th century!) We mark our choices with a pen by connecting two heavy lines next to the candidate’s name. The voter then carries the ballot, concealed in a folder, to an optical scanning machine and inserts it so that the votes may be tallied.
This has the obvious advantage of providing a paper trail, and the voter is very sure that the ballot he or she submits is the real paper trail. Votes can be counted and the tallies transmitted very quickly -- probably nearly as fast as with touch screen machines. And a single optical scanner per precinct is probably less expensive than several touch screen machines -- even after considering the cost of paper ballots. Moreover, power failures, software problems, etc. are far less significant for paper plus scanner systems than for all-electronic methods. We also have routine spot check audits to confirm that the paper ballots for a precinct equal the reported totals.
I have yet to hear of a really high-tech method that provides the level of voter confidence and security plus rapid counting we enjoy with our medium-tech system.
(While checking on the Florida story I ran across this article indicating that Montana uses a method much like the one I describe above.)
The above hissed in response by: Dick E at October 22, 2006 5:36 PM
The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh
Dick E:
So does California. If one votes on Election Day, one fills out a paper ballot by blackening the oval next to one's choice.
I prefer voting touchscreen, because it's more science-fictiony; but at most precincts, you can only vote touchscreen if you vote early. I'll be voting Wednesday.
Dafydd
The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh at October 22, 2006 9:47 PM
The following hissed in response by: Dick E
Dafydd-
Interesting. Glad to hear you Golden Bears have a good system for election day. But why do you have two systems? Sounds redundant to me. Why don’t early voters use the same paper ballots as those who vote on election day? Only reason I can think of is that you don’t trust election officials to keep, and not tamper with, early voters’ ballots.
If you don’t trust them to do that, how can you trust the touchscreen system which, as far as I know, is not auditable?
And if you have a really close race, how do you recount the votes? Do you recount the paper ballots and throw out the touch screen ones, because those can‘t be recounted? Or do you accept the touchscreen totals because, of course, they can’t possibly be wrong and just recount the paper ones because their electronic components (the optical scanners and the central computers that accumulate the totals) can be inaccurate?
Touchscreens are, of course, more “science fictiony”. But that’s not a reason to sacrifice voter confidence about the integrity of the election process. Any system that doesn’t allow after-the-fact verification of vote totals introduces the possibility of undetectable fraud, abuse or error.
The above hissed in response by: Dick E at October 22, 2006 11:32 PM
The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh
Dick E:
Why don’t early voters use the same paper ballots as those who vote on election day? Only reason I can think of is that you don’t trust election officials to keep, and not tamper with, early voters’ ballots.
How about the possibility that many voters here like touchscreen voting... as I do?
Honestly, it's as easy to cheat with paper ballots as touchscreen. Easier, actually, since you would have to reprogram the touchscreen machine after it's inspected but without anyone seeing you.
Whereas with paper ballots, all you need do is fill out a batch of 2,000 or 3,000 "the right way," then swap them out for a stack of real ballots of the same number... a much easier proposition.
The voting method that is easiest to monkey with is the punch card: if you take a stack of punch cards with about 5-10 of your party's on top, take a stylus, and jam the stylus down the hole that corresponds to your party's nominee for, say, Congress -- then all the cards that already had that hole punched out (your party's ballots) will be unaffected... but any ballot that had a different hole punched in that race will now have an overvote (what the voter punched, plus what you just punched), and will be rejected -- at least for that contest.
New touchscreen machines print out a copy of how you voted. You can compare right there in the voting booth... and if it's wrong, you can request to have your first vote invalidated, allowing you to revote right there and then. You can do this as many times as you want until you're satisfied.
Dafydd
The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh at October 23, 2006 12:59 AM
The following hissed in response by: Infidel
Something like 169 counties across the US had more votes cast (in the 2004 election) than eligible voters. This held for the entire state of Maine.
There's lots of ways to "stuff ballot boxes".
By the way, Arizona's Janet Napolitano won the governorship by less than 3000 votes in a state of four million. And estimated 17,000-25,000 illegal aliens voted in that election.
Until it got too hot (figuratively, not literally, in Arizona) she was for any measure than increased the numbers and access for illegal aliens to vote. Same thing for the AG who earlier refused to enforce Prop 200 (services for aliens) and was looking at a recall for malfeasance.
The above hissed in response by: Infidel at October 23, 2006 8:32 AM
The following hissed in response by: Bill M
New touchscreen machines print out a copy of how you voted. You can compare right there in the voting booth... and if it's wrong, you can request to have your first vote invalidated, allowing you to revote right there and then. You can do this as many times as you want until you're satisfied.
Agree. My precinct had an example touchscreen voting system exactly like that for the primary. It was delayed getting there (arriving in the late afternoon apparently), and the precinct workers encouraged me to try it. It really didn't take a lot of encouragement as I am always up for trying new things. Anyway, I found it easy and the verification via papertrail was right there at the side of the screen. This is the way of the future for voting so far as I can see...if they will let us. Our Democrat-controlled county government is trying to force everybody to vote by mail. You might remember how well that worked in the Washington State governor's race in 2004. My own wonderful King County came up with just enough votes for Christine Gregoire to give her the victory...and all done with paper ballots...
The same thing will happen with the McGavick/Cantwell race this year. I predict that Cantwell will win and King County will put her over the top. And the count will be just as crooked as the count for governor (and I'll bet, just like Cantwell's original victory in 2000).
The above hissed in response by: Bill M at October 23, 2006 7:15 PM
The following hissed in response by: Dick E
Dafydd-
-
How about the possibility that many voters here like touchscreen voting... as I do?
So we should choose a voting technology based on what voters like? That’s a great reason. I suppose maybe Florida voters like punch cards, hanging chads and all.
-
New touchscreen machines print out a copy of how you voted. You can compare right there in the voting booth... and if it's wrong, you can request to have your first vote invalidated, allowing you to revote right there and then. You can do this as many times as you want until you're satisfied.
Sure, you can verify that the printout shows the votes you cast, but how do you know for certain that the printout agrees with the votes the machine registered? And do you also know for sure that the touchscreen machine’s totals were properly tabulated and accumulated in the central office responsible for such matters? Trouble is, you can never go back to check and verify that it all happened as it was supposed to. (I seem to remember a statesman who would probably be held in pretty high esteem in these parts saying, “Trust but verify.”)
Look, I’m not tech-phobic. After all, consider the medium we’re using to communicate. But when it comes to elections, I’m very people-phobic. There are lots of people who are totally convinced that their side is right and the other side is completely wacko. (I think a few of them have visited this site on occasion.) Some of these folks are so fanatical that they would do just about anything to help their candidate win.
Some of the tactics these fanatics use are decidedly low-tech -- slashing tires in Milwaukee, for example. But given the opportunity, wouldn’t some of them just love to tweak the electronic voting system in favor of their candidates? I can’t tell you exactly how they would do it. After all, if I told you, I’d have to kill you.
:-0
The problem is, if someone did succeed in hacking the electronic voting system, what could we do about it? Even if we knew what happened, there’d be no way to backtrack and prove what the actual vote was.
And don’t get me started on power outages, electrical storms, lost or forgotten passwords, etc., etc.
So, a challenge: I challenge you to come up with a way to stuff our ballot boxes. No, not really. I only want to point out that just because we use paper ballots doesn’t mean ballot box stuffing is as easy here as it might be in Tijuana. The way we do it, such a scheme would require collusion involving several people at the polling place. Details upon request.
The fact that you even mention ballot box stuffing shows that you don’t really understand the optical scanning system we use. You really should read about Montana’s system in the article I referred to previously. Sounds like they’re relatively new to the technology and are still working out the bugs. Then add to the article the fact that lots of people are involved in the process at every polling place, that each person has discrete, defined duties, and that all the poll workers are in the same room in plain sight of one another and, voila, you have what we bean counters call a pretty tight system of internal control.
Oh, and a retraction: I think it would be a really bad idea to use the same optically scanned ballots for early voting -- that could truly introduce the possibility of fraud. That’s a problem we don’t have, because here everyone but absentees votes on election day. But for you Golden Staters, I suppose once you’ve let the genie of early voting out of the bottle, it’s hard to get it back in.
The above hissed in response by: Dick E at October 23, 2006 8:35 PM
The following hissed in response by: Dick E
Sheesh!
Did I use the wrong paragraph highlighter again?
Can someone please tell me what UL and OL mean?
The above hissed in response by: Dick E at October 23, 2006 8:36 PM
The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh
Dick E:
So we should choose a voting technology based on what voters like?
Say, there's a concept! That state legislators deciding on the mechanics of voting should actually pay attention to what the voters themselves want... the same voters who vote either to reelect or dump the legislators doing the deciding.
Who'd'a thunk it?
(And the reason Montana doesn't have problems is that the entire state has fewer people than the city of San Diego.)
Sure, you can verify that the printout shows the votes you cast, but how do you know for certain that the printout agrees with the votes the machine registered?
I give up. You got me. I cannot, in fact, verify to 100% certainty that there is no grand conspiracy to cheat us out of our franchise by reprogramming Diebold machines.
Dick E., every voting system can be rigged. Including your beloved optical scanners: oh, sure, you have your ballot; but how do you know the machine actually registered the votes you inked on the ballot, instead of some pre-programmed tally?
If there is a random recount in a district that has been rigged, there is no way to prove it wasn't an error with the machine itself. After all, the Election Systems & Software machines Montana uses have a history of problems. From the very article you cited:
In June, the results of nine primary races in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, were reversed after flawed programming in ES&S optical scanners was suspected and all ballots were recounted by hand, according to the Des Moines Register. In an Arkansas senate race the same month, a tabulation error on the same machines resulted in a similar reversal, according to news reports, and in another Arkansas county, faulty ES&S scanner programming mistakenly counted 432 Democratic primary votes as Republican votes, throwing off the results and sparking a lawsuit. While ES&S spokeswoman Amanda Brown says she isn’t aware of the above problems, she responds generally by saying, "With such a widespread implementation of new technology there are going to be problems," and that "when problems arise, they’re resolved as quickly and efficiently as possible."
There is no such thing as a voting system that cannot be rigged. Even if it takes collusion between a couple of people at a precinct.
But for you Golden Staters, I suppose once you’ve let the genie of early voting out of the bottle, it’s hard to get it back in.
Dick E., the population of California is about forty times the population of Montana. We need early voting, because having everyone vote on the same day has become a nightmare to administer.
Montana is nothing like California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, or Ohio. You must understand that. What works for Montana and Wyoming and Vermont might not work in states that are many times larger.
That's why the Constitution put state legislatures in charge of writing the election rules for that state.
Can someone please tell me what UL and OL mean?
"Unordered list" and "ordered list." They're used when you want bullet points -- a bullet for the first, a number for the second.
(Though actually, want you wanted was b-quote; see below.)
Bullet items must be inside the LI tag, and all the LI tags inside a UL or OL tag, thus:
- Bullet item one;
- Bullet item two;
- Bullet item three.
This produces the following output:
- Bullet item one;
- Bullet item two;
- Bullet item three.
Or, if you use OL instead of UL:
- Bullet item one;
- Bullet item two;
- Bullet item three.
On this blog, you can just highlight your bullet item and click the LI button above; repeat with each bullet item. Then highlight all of the bullet items together at the same time and click either UL or OL above.
But you were quoting, so you wanted to use the b-quote (blockquote) tag instead: select the quoted text and click the b-quote button instead.
It ends up looking like this.
Dafydd
The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh at October 23, 2006 9:34 PM
The following hissed in response by: Dick E
Dafydd-
If there is a random recount in a district that has been rigged, there is no way to prove it wasn't an error with the machine itself.
(Hey! I think I got the b-quote right! See? I’m still educable.)
Excuse me, sir, but an audit result that discloses errors isn’t supposed to be just chalked up to machine error. (Well, OK, if the error is really insignificant in every precinct tested and the errors appear random, then that could be ascribed to machine error and brought to the manufacturer’s attention.)
If an audit reveals a significant error, what would a reasonable person do? You test some more precincts to find out if the error is recurring.
After doing that, you discover one of two things:
- Either the error is isolated and, if small enough not to affect the election outcome, can safely be ignored, at least for vote counting purposes. (The proper procedure would be to notify the manufacturer of the issue to see if they think it’s worth pursuing. Then, next election, audit the same machine, the same memory card and the same precinct workers to see if the problem recurs and act accordingly.)
- Or else you find out that the error is pervasive and requires large scale manual recounts, as well as an investigation into how it happened.
(UL and LI? Yesssss!)
I give up. You got me. I cannot, in fact, verify to 100% certainty that there is no grand conspiracy to cheat us out of our franchise by reprogramming Diebold machines.
and
In June, the results of nine primary races in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, were reversed after flawed programming in ES&S optical scanners was suspected and all ballots were recounted by hand, according to the Des Moines Register.
Right. There is no such thing as a foolproof system, manual, mechanical or electronic. But at least in our state, and presumably for the majority of California votes (those cast on election day) there is a way to verify the outcome via recount.
Note that in Iowa and Arkansas, the vote counting problems were ascribed to “programming”. Fortunately, the errors were identified and corrected by reference to paper ballots. What makes you think that similar programming errors don’t occur in California‘s touchscreen machines? The Arkansas error was in “tabulation”, so an error of that type in a touchscrreen system might allow a paper printout that differed from the tabulation totals.
Problems with voting technology don’t necessarily require a “grand conspiracy”. They can just be programing or other errors. If Diebold discovered a programming problem like those on the ES&S machines, how willing would they be to step up to the plate and tell your secretary of state that they screwed up? Especially if they knew the problem was widespread.
We need early voting, because having everyone vote on the same day has become a nightmare to administer.
As I said, now that you have early voting, there’s probably no way you’ll stop doing it.
But please, you don’t really need early voting any more than Montana does. All you need is more voting precincts and more precinct workers. Enough to put you on a per capita basis equal to, say, Montana, Wyoming or Vermont. In times past, that would have been more of a problem for large states because of problems transmitting so many precinct vote totals (by telephone?) to the central tabulation points. But with today’s electronic data transmission, it should be a breeze.
The above hissed in response by: Dick E at October 23, 2006 11:10 PM
The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh
Dick E:
What makes you think that similar programming errors don’t occur in California‘s touchscreen machines?
On the contrary, it is 100% guaranteed that they will. Just as it is 100% guaranteed that any hand recount will also contain errors... typically a lot more than occur in any machine count.
The syllogism is simple: it is impossible for human beings, by any means, to count hundreds of thousands of objects error free.
We just have to live with error in this fallen world. If the errors are random, they will even out; if they're a conspiracy, then the only question is whether the conspirators are more or less clever than the investigators.
Dafydd
The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh at October 24, 2006 6:10 AM
The following hissed in response by: Dick E
Dafydd-
If the errors are random, they will even out; if they're a conspiracy, then the only question is whether the conspirators are more or less clever than the investigators.
There’s a third possibility: The errors are neither random nor a conspiracy -- they may truly be errors, but the effect may not be random. If there is, indeed, a “tabulation” error, there is no reason to assume its effect will be random. If widespread, it could easily turn a loser into a winner. And if you use touchscreens (or any other method that lacks an audit trail) you’ll never be the wiser. Maybe you think ignorance is bliss, but I sure don’t.
As to whether investigators need to be more clever than the conspirators (or the error-prone programmers), the whole idea behind spot check audits is that you don’t have to be smarter. All you need to do is count the votes and compare your result for a precinct to what was previously reported. Pretty simple.
And there’s no reason the audit counts have to be done manually. The auditors would have their own thoroughly vetted optical scanner and run the test precincts’ ballots through it. They might do a manual count of a precinct or two just to reconfirm the accuracy of their own scanner. (All precincts’ ballots would, of course, remain sealed in their optical scanners until all audit procedures are complete.)
It’s hard to imagine a scenario where all ballots would have to be manually recounted statewide. If a recount is required because of problems with scanner software, it would be done by re-scanning the ballots through tested (and retested) scanners.
There are really two reasons to have an auditable election system: First, it can detect errors or malfeasance, thus allowing corrective action. Second, it can discourage people from trying to rig the system. It works something like traffic radar -- it doesn’t catch all the speeders, but it makes lots of people think twice about how fast they’re driving. (There really are more reasons -- like recoverability in event of catastrophic hardware or software failure, or ability to keep voting during a power outage -- but those two respond to your latest points.)
One final thing: Your point about whether the conspirators are more or less intelligent than the investigators is truly valid -- but only if you have a system without an audit trail.
The above hissed in response by: Dick E at October 24, 2006 8:48 PM
The following hissed in response by: Dick E
Dafydd-
I forgot your point about counting huge numbers of objects error free. The purpose of an audit is not to prove that there were no errors, but that the errors detected are within a reasonable range of tolerance. That's true of any audit -- at least any I ever participated in. Yup, I speak from experience.
The above hissed in response by: Dick E at October 24, 2006 9:54 PM
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