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[pgtl_10]

So you're unconcerned that in both intent and implementation Crosscheck is overwhelmingly providing the former result and only paying lip service to the latter? Because of the byline?



This is a serious corrosion of voting rights if people have to check their mail for a slip of paper that says 'hey fill this out and mail it back if you don't want to lose your right to vote!'

In Texas its the size of a post card.

 

[Piecake]

Jim Crow has been with us since the 'death' of Jim Crow. It has just morphed into a new system of mass incarceration of minorities, which strips them of the vote forever and relegates them to a permanent underclass. This just seems like them ratcheting up what they have been doing forever, a very blatant ratcheting at that.

 

[Mollymauk]

Republicans hate democracy.

 

[poppabk]

voter fraud isn't real. it is a made up issue to disenfranchise minorities from voting. there is no need for any ID card.

i laughed at the george bush pic on the first page. my dad and i have the same name, and neither one of us use our suffix. nothing is going to happen though, because we are white . it is a damn shame that people have to stoop so low to keep crooks in office

Why would you say that when this affects roughly 3.5 million non-hispanic white voters?

 

[GorillaJu]

Well Koreans and Vietnamese are out of this election. Better luck next time, homies.

 

[davepoobond]

Republicans hate democracy.

Smaller sample size is indicative of a greater whole!

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

Why are you surprised? Did you think they would work to make themselves more appealing to minorities instead?

 

[gutter_trash]

other normal countries have independent non-partisan bodies who take care of elections and such. it is so bizare to me that voters register according to party affiliation in the US.

I would urge and recommend all Americans of any political leanings to just register as an Independant to diffuse the partisan hackery tempered in your electoral system and voter registration

 

[wildfire]

voter fraud isn't real. it is a made up issue to disenfranchise minorities from voting. there is no need for any ID card.

i laughed at the george bush pic on the first page. my dad and i have the same name, and neither one of us use our suffix. nothing is going to happen though, because we are white. it is a damn shame that people have to stoop so low to keep crooks in office

You have a 10% chance of being screwed.

 

[Gattsu25]

I have an extremely common first+last name combo.

Hell, there are three other people that share my first+last combo in my company's address book.

I was in the same class with people that shared my name numerous times growing up.

Edit: I just checked the article and there are TWELVE matches with my first+last name.

 

[Cyrano]

What the hell. How do such racist laws get passed? How do such racist people make it into positions of power? You would think people would have figured out that these laws benefit no one by now.

 

[davepoobond]

What the hell. How do such racist laws get passed? How do such racist people make it into positions of power? You would think people would have figured out that these laws benefit no one by now.

I think it's less about "pure racism" as it is about voter suppression and rigging the elections in their favor. Most of the laws are passed with noble causes like "fight fraud" and "verify identification of voters" and "cut costs." Those things just happen to affect people who tend to vote for democrats. Which tend to be people of color -- these same people do not have a turnout for republicans in a favorable way, so blocking all of their votes benefits them.

And the reason is money and religion. Republicans agenda is always about trickle down, less government regulation, more moral clauses and installing your values on other people -- which has been a core tenant of religion and the only way it can survive

 

[Abinash117]

I am surprised the thread isn't longer currently. I think some guys should show this to many people and officials as you can if you feel really strongly about this . If this gets more known than I can see a lot voices being raised which will at least cause a few to not participate on the list and back the officials that actually will do something about it , not just say they will.

 

[Necromanti]

Amazingly undemocratic, no matter what party would endorse such means.

 

[RustyNails]

Thanks for the bump. Al Jazeera has followed up with another awesome piece on the voter suppression tactics employed by Republicans:

Voters in the Rust Belt: Will Indiana's voting rules keep the poor from the polls?

Others in this section of the Rust Belt — where more than 16 percent of the population lives in poverty — say they have faced logistical obstacles to voting.

Indiana has below-average voter-turnout rates: since 1990, less than 40 percent in midterms and 50-60 percent in presidential elections. Yet it has led the push for strict polling rules. In 2005, the state became the first to require all voters to present an official state ID, a statute eventually upheld by the Supreme Court and replicated in other states, including Texas and North Carolina. (Judge Richard Posner of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, who authored the majority opinion upholding the Indiana ID law, later wrote, “I could not be confident that it was right.”)

Indiana has since added other provisions, such as requiring volunteers to list their own address on voter-registration forms, giving counties the right to centralize voting locations and permitting partisan polling-place challengers to question voters and demand identification. In fact, 22 states have enacted new “voter restrictions” that take effect this year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Supporters of the laws say they are designed to combat voter fraud, but opponents argue that they are politically motivated attempts to undermine the rights of voters — the elderly, poor, minorities and ex-offenders, in particular — who tend to vote Democratic.

Here in the 2nd Congressional District, one of the few Indiana jurisdictions that hasn’t consistently swung Republican or Democratic over the past few decades, incumbent Jackie Walorski is in a relatively close race against Democrat Joe Bock, a career humanitarian-aid worker who teaches at Notre Dame. Walorski is a moderate Republican who boasts of her track record with vets, support for the Keystone pipeline and, above all, commitment to a balanced budget. Bock is a moderate Democrat who has distanced himself from the Affordable Care Act and speaks in vague terms about bringing manufacturing jobs to the 2nd District. The candidates have led quiet campaigns focused on reliable midterm voters of which, in this part of Indiana, there seem to be few.

Prospective voters in Indiana must register a full 29 days before an election — in contrast to 10 states with same-day registration. And a new law requires anyone who assists in filling out a form to provide her address, potentially deterring volunteers, says Elizabeth Bennion, a political-science professor at Indiana University, South Bend. Early in-person and mail-in absentee voting are available in limited circumstances, but on Election Day, the polls only open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., the earliest closing time in the country.

Two more changes may catch voters unaware, advocates say. Elkhart and several other counties in Indiana have adopted a system of centralized “voting centers” instead of precinct voting, a possible source of confusion for residents lacking reliable transportation. And again this year, as in 2012, the state is allowing “polling-place challengers” at voting locations: partisan monitors authorized to ask for voters’ names and IDs (PDF).

Since the civil rights era, the trend nationally has been to expand access to voting, says Bennion. But “in the past few years, the laws are decreasing the franchise ... the trend has been backwards.” A preliminary study (PDF) of Indiana’s 2005 requirement projected that blacks would be disproportionately affected and that the lowest-income category of voters would be the least likely to have an acceptable photo ID. It is difficult to determine the exact consequences of tightened voting rules, but research has shown a correlation between higher turnout and low barriers to entry, particularly for African-Americans and young people.

Strict voting requirements, however, do not seem to bother the general public. Linda Silcott, a GOP volunteer and retired county clerk who once processed voter-registration forms in South Bend, says that such measures are necessary to curtail fraud. Her friend Christine Murdock, proud owner of what may be the largest “Jackie Walorski for Congress” yard sign in town, says she’s heard no complaints about these voting rules in her many hours of phone-banking from the local Republican headquarters.

The question of how low-income Hoosiers should make their voices heard could depend on the outcome of the November secretary of state election. (In Indiana, as in most states, the authority to enforce voting laws resides with the secretary of state). The incumbent, Connie Lawson, boasts of having “championed the most sweeping election reforms since photo ID” and “the effort to clean Indiana’s voter rolls.” In November, she faces off against Democrat Beth White, who points to “very few documented cases” of voter fraud in the state’s history.

In the 2nd District race, neither voting rights nor the welfare of those living near poverty, the group most affected by voter restrictions, has been much at issue. Elkhart County, just east of South Bend, depends on a limited number of jobs in traditional manufacturing: an anachronism in the U.S. economy. It is best known for its recreational vehicle plants and a series of midrecession visits by candidate-turned-President Barack Obama when the region had the highest joblessness rate in the United States, nearly 20 percent. The district is increasingly diverse — 87 percent white, 8 percent Latino and 6 percent African American.

Earlier this month, Bock and Walorski made their sole joint appearance in a candidates’ forum at the Wabash Chamber of Commerce, in the district’s rural, whiter, less-populated southern end. They answered questions about domestic terrorism, health care, fracking and immigration, but not about poverty or civic participation. (Neither candidate agreed to be interviewed for this article.)

Walorski was elected to Congress in 2012 following a career in state politics before that. To her supporters, she’s a straight shooter, a mainstream Republican guided by Christian convictions. Fewer voters are familiar with Bock, a political newcomer. His boosters seem to like him most for his party affiliation.

South Bend resident Karen Green, a 55-year-old factory worker, has a Joe Bock sign planted in her front yard. She knows little about his platform but always votes Democratic, she says, because they “help poor people.” Green previously worked as a poll monitor and encouraged her co-workers to turn out on Nov. 4. “People died so I could vote,” she says, referencing the history of black suffrage. “Every chance, I vote.”

Squirrel, are you ready to shoot this messenger as well?

 

[Diablos]

I hate politics so much.

I hate it when people think this is just 'politics'. This goes far beyond politics. These tactics have no place in a free country. It is a direct assault on our basic rights. The fact that people don't seem to realize that scares me just as much if not more than what the article quoted in the OP is telling us.

 

[neurosisxeno]

I hate it when people who think this is just 'politics'. This goes far beyond politics. These tactics have no place in a free country. It is a direct assault on our basic rights. The fact that people don't seem to realize that scares me just as much if not more than what the article quoted in the OP is telling us.

The same people who say that nonsense are the ones that don't vote because it "doesn't affect them". Horse shit. If you live in this country voting and my extension the people in political positions most certainly affect you.

 

[Squirrel Killer]

Ok, so can we discuss what Greg Palast got wrong in the article? For those interested, author's one source of information is from a presentation by Chris Kobach, the Kansas sos that deviced this purge and this resentation is uploaded on documentcloud. Its there for everyone to see.

Palast has a history of leaving out important information and deliberately framing information to make his targets look bad. In this case, he:

• Per RustyNails, he only has one source of information. Apparently for investigatory journalism, he beats out a high school freshman only because he doesn't use Wikipedia as his only source.
• While Palast is correct in that "most" of the election officials in the 27 states are Republican, the raw percentage is 70%, and the participating states include such Democratic strongholds as MA and IL.
• Leaves out the fact that some states are legally required to maintain their voter lists, which Crosscheck is intended to help with. The industry term is "list maintenance," and this is a Good Thing (tm). You want a clean voter list for a variety of reasons, including; so that people are voting for the right set of offices, to reduce postage costs when sending mail to voters, remove dead people (from experience I know people tend to get upset when receiving calls or mail for dead Grandpa Joe,) reduce printing costs when printing up lists for poll workers, help campaigns be more efficient, and yes, to reduce the risk of fraud.
• Leaves out that a Crosscheck match has a score from 10 to 95, and that entities are encouraged to use that strength to identify potential duplicate registrations (pg 62.)
• Asserts that DOB is not checked, but provides no backing or examples that this is the case. In the screenshot he uses to show an example of a bad match, three things stand out to me: 1) he doesn't show DOB, 2) he doesn't show match score, 3) 6 out of the 7 records in the screenshot are pretty damned close.
• Presents the number of potential matches as unreasonably large, yet I just grabbed a old voter file I had lying around and out of only <24,000 records, >1,000 shared first and last name, and 22 shared YOB (full disclosure, none shared full DOB.) And that's from a known clean list - extrapolating that out to a full state and including data from a number of other states, make the number understandable.
• Leaves out that Crosscheck is supposed to be a step in a process, not an end product. Ada County in Idaho used Crosscheck as an end product and mistakenly cancelled the registration of hundreds of properly registered people, even though "(s)taff members were to further winnow the list by crosschecking middle initials or middle names and the last four digits of the voter's Social Security numbers" before acting on the Crosscheck report. Additionally, going back to the document on ACLU PA's site, "(Wendy) Weiser (who monitors voting rights issues at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's School of Law) added that states need to be careful about what they do with potential duplicates. She said voters should be notified and provided time to correct errors. If there's no response, the voter should be placed on inactive status for two federal elections, Weiser said. Some of the leaders in the matching programs said those are the standard procedures." (pg 78.)
• Presents an example of a match on firstname, lastname, and DOB with a non-match on SSN as a failure of Crosscheck, even though Crosscheck notes that such a partial match is intended. Per the chart, it looks like it should be a match with a score of 50 (out of 95.)
• While he starts off identifying what Crosscheck claims to do (identify potential duplicate registrations and instances of double voting,) he morphs that into the ridiculous idea that Crosscheck positively identifies a "crime wave."

Now personally, I actually think this is one of the better stories I've seen from Palast. It's manipulative and incompletely reports things, but at least it's not complete bullshit like his caging list and "Kerry won" stories were.

Like Helen Butler said, any list that relies on name matches will inherently over-represent ethnic groups due to name distribution patterns. That's why such a list shouldn't be an automatic purge list, which Crosscheck is not meant to be. If (and this is a huge if) the further steps effectively winnow the suspected duplicate registration list down to actual duplicate registrations, then there's no problem.

Like Michael Wychocki said, following up with only an easy-to-miss postcard to verify a registration is absolutely ridiculous.

Just given the numbers of potential matches Crosscheck claims to have found, I have to question the tool for it investigative functionality. Even KY, with the fewest hits of any member state, still has 14,078 potential matches to wade through. Crosscheck seems to be throwing such a wide net that, if I were in charge, I'd have to see a lot more results than just 14 double votes over two election cycles to continue with it.

Squirrel, are you ready to shoot this messenger as well?

Nice. Do you question people who dismiss James E. O'Keefe like this?

But to answer your question, I am not familiar with this author. I'll read it and let you know.

 

[benjipwns]

I wish my name would get purged so they stop sending me mailers.

Should go try and unregister. Probably easier to just commit a felony.

 

[LAUGHTREY]

If the majority of the people who are being blocked from voting are

Democrats, minority, or impoverished,

how can that picture be any clearer? Why wouldn't it be Republican voters having even a shadow of a threat of their votes not being counted?

It's just funny how they expect us to believe it's a coincidence over and over again. How hard is it to just dip someones finger in ink?

 

[Squirrel Killer]

I wish my name would get purged so they stop sending me mailers.

Should go try and unregister. Probably easier to just commit a felony.

Might not work, not all states strip felons of the right to vote.

 

[benjipwns]

Might not work, not all states strip felons of the right to vote.

Yeah, but they don't let you vote from prison do they?

 

[Squirrel Killer]

Yeah, but they don't let you vote from prison do they?

I haven't had the guts to test it.

 

[numble]

Yeah, but they don't let you vote from prison do they?

They will count the prison population in apportioning voting districts though.

 

[benjipwns]

They will count the prison population in apportioning voting districts though.

We need to build a prison that's large enough to be its own district but has only one eligible voter.

Wait, get hollywood on the phone, I have a script for them!

 

[Rocket Scientist]

2010 election was the end of America. That Israeli guy was right, America is a third world country.

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-u5NTA7TGqI

Spoiler

House of Cards spoilers

Equal example from The West Wing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwEAISF9m6Q

for those unwilling to watch or confirm the scene

Spoiler

"You got your health and your strength and we'll steal the rest" - "fishhooks" McCarthy

 

[RyanDG]

http://projects.aljazeera.com/2014/double-voters/interactive.html?

So this is kind of interesting. You type your name in here and it lets you know whether or not you could possibly be flagged as a double voter.

I used my first and last name (which is Hispanic in origin), and it has me tagged as a double voter in two states that I previously lived in.

Okay, I thought. This kind of makes sense because i voted in one state up until 2012 when I moved and began to vote in the other state almost exclusively. Decided to test my wife's name (which was not changed to mine), and her information isn't tagged at all even though she followed the same voting pattern.

Kind of weird. I wonder why I got tagged and she didn't, if it is not related to the last name?



Edit - I wonder if it may have something to do with my old registration office not being properly notified by my new one? That's the only thing I can think of.

 

[Piecake]

They will count the prison population in apportioning voting districts though.

And usually jails are situated in rural, republican districts.

 

[TheOMan]

7 Ds to 20 Rs. And many of them are from southern leaning states where there is a "push" against fraud.

Both parties are clearly the same.

Sorry, my "both parties are the same" was sarcasm that I didn't mark clearly in my haste.

 

[cooljeanius]

While it sucks that this is happening, I hope Democrats don't try to explain away their election losses last night solely by this one factor. Stopping voter suppression won't help if you can't motivate your base to turn up to vote in the first place.