Trump II

[laughingbear]

In my country, with an election coming up next month..

Hi Bart  long time no see. Hope all is going well for you!

Yes, the far-right Wilders partij voor de vrijheid (What a joke that name really is!) turned into a threat for progressive thinking people and society at large, to put it mildly.

Hopefully dutch progressive voters will come out and vote.

Best
G

[Rob C]

It would be a benefit if voting came as a legal obligation.

However crazy the outcome, at least it would represent a true picture of a country's majority feelings at a specific moment.

It would stop this stuff about misrepresentation of the popular wish: if the populace speaks...

Rob C

[tom b]

Voting is compulsory in Australia, there are fines for not voting, you can make a 'donkey vote' as a protest vote. Preventing people from voting is an anathema here. The turnout in the Presidential elections and efforts to prevent citizens from voting must be truely embarrassing in the 'land of the free'.

Cheers,

[Otto Phocus]

This year, there was more talk about making the Monday after the Super Bowl a holiday than for making Election Day a holiday.

Indicates where our priorities are. 

[Otto Phocus]

In many states, pre-election registration deadlines of 25-30 days prior to the election have not been updated for decades; such deadlines may have been adopted long before the age of the Internet or computers, and no longer make sense in today’s world.

I would be interested in reading why you feel this no longer makes sense. To me it makes sense as the state needs time to verify the registration application, cross verify against other databases (we actually need more of this) and to publish the various voter registration rosters. It is not like US elections sneak up on people. 

What is necessary is for the citizenry to become more involved in the election process and be responsible for updating their own data. The state can only do so much.

But, I would be interested in reading your opinion on the statement you made.

[dreed]

I would be interested in reading why you feel this no longer makes sense. To me it makes sense as the state needs time to verify the registration application, cross verify against other databases (we actually need more of this) and to publish the various voter registration rosters. It is not like US elections sneak up on people. 
...

Not to forget that each state needs to know in advance roughly how many ballots to print and distribute to each region.

100 people registering to vote and only 50 voting isn't really a problem.
100 people registering to vote and 200 people turning out to vote is a problem.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Seriously, do I or anybody else really care if it is a state fault or federal fault or the Pope's fault or someone's mother-in-law's fault???

Yes, 'you and anybody else' should care, if you want to fix it.

Cheers,
Bart

[Alan Goldhammer]

Your country and Europe in general is smart.  They require a photo ID card of some kind to prove who you are.  Makes a lot of common sense.  In the US, every time a Republican proposes photo ID's for voting, it's the Democrats who oppose saying this is some racist plot by Republicans to deny votes to Black Americans.  Of course what Democrats won't admit is that after many poor Americans and illegal residents are registered, they make arrangements for voting for them, Democrat of course.  The whole identification process is a joke.  This is part of the voting frauds that go one that are hidden and hard to identify.  The Secretary of States who are responsible for checking are usually Democrats in those states where the fraud is going on like California.  So they don't check anything.  This is the stuff the Trump is talking about.

this post is way beyond ludicrous.  Do you even know about the voter registration requirements in California and how they are checked before being approved?  I suspect not.  Regarding photo IDs, these have usually been proposed in states that have a long history of voter suppression and have been subject to the Voting Rights Act until it was gutted by the Supreme Court.  Personally, I'm not opposed to such IDs but they have to be easy to obtain and FREE.  Remember that there are a significant number of people who don't drive and cannot easily get to the motor vehicle administration in their area where such IDs would be issued.  For someone who works long hours during the day, they might not be able to get there at all or perhaps face long lines on a weekend 'if' such places are open.  We seen how restrictions on the number of polling places in minority districts has led to extra long lines and voter frustration.  This even happens in suburban Virginia near Washington, DC.  Voting is a right, it should be easy to do; in many areas of the country it is not.

[Alan Goldhammer]

I would be interested in reading why you feel this no longer makes sense. To me it makes sense as the state needs time to verify the registration application, cross verify against other databases (we actually need more of this) and to publish the various voter registration rosters. It is not like US elections sneak up on people. 

The problem is that registration is done at the state rather than the national level.  The most common sense solution is to link voting registration to one's Social Security Number which almost everyone in the US has (you cannot open a bank account or get any type of Federal payment without one).  It's fine with me to have a photo ID attached to this as long as it is easy to check.  I know California requires a state driver's license, date of birth and last four digits of the SSN to register (my daughter did this in September when she moved to Oakland from Philadelphia).  The system is computerized and cross checking for identity is simple.

[Alan Goldhammer]

New York Timeshas a good summary of the voting fraud issues focusing on New Hampshire.  Of course some would disregard the story because the Times is a well known left wing paper, not to be trusted.  Also, think about what it means for 3000 out of state voters going up to New Hampshire to vote means.  Travel by bus would mean.  Most of the commercial inter-city buses have a capacity of about 50.  So you have 60 or so coming across the border.  Now these are pretty big vehicles so it's doubtful you would see them pulling up to a polling place but where would they park so that nothing out of the ordinary was observed?  Are these 50 people all going to a single polling place or multiple sites?  There would be logistical issues to deal with.  If all these people came by car, don't you think all these out of state license plates would be noticed?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I moved from Illinois to Indiana during the election period. Nobody asked me to return my IL voting card, so I could have voted twice easily.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...The most common sense solution is to link voting registration to one's Social Security Number which almost everyone in the US has...

Including illegal aliens.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Including illegal aliens.

If they have them they are counterfeit as you have to prove citizenship or current immigration status in order to get a Social Security card.  Again, this is a fake issue as fraudulent SSNs are easily queried for against the national database.

[Alan Klein]

Voting is compulsory in Australia, there are fines for not voting, you can make a 'donkey vote' as a protest vote. Preventing people from voting is an anathema here. The turnout in the Presidential elections and efforts to prevent citizens from voting must be truely embarrassing in the 'land of the free'.

Cheers,

Well, in my country the USA, not only do we have the right to vote, we have to freedom and right to not vote.

[Otto Phocus]

In Virginia, not only are voter ID cards free, you can actually get one the week after the election.  You cast a non-ID provisional ballot on election day and you have a week to come in to the registrar's office with appropriate documentation. If everything checks out they will take your photograph, issue you a Photo Voter ID card and then accept and count the provisional ballot.

Virginia makes it as easy as possible and I think could serve as a model for other states. In Virginia, we even have a procedure for registering homeless people.

I think the best solution is for the individual states to continue handling voter registration but to have an inter-state database where data can be cross linked.  This would apply only to federal elections.  For strictly state and local elections, the states can continue having responsibility but should implement more voter verification steps.

There is no need nor desire for the federal government to become involved in voter registration unless the federal government intends on having all federal elections separated from state elections, which would be prohibitively expensive and confusing for the voters.

Sometimes it sounds like some people just want to replace existing systems instead of trying to fix existing systems.  Often, it may be better to fix stuff than to replace it.

[Alan Klein]

I moved from Illinois to Indiana during the election period. Nobody asked me to return my IL voting card, so I could have voted twice easily.

You're the guy Trump's been  talking about and everyone is looking for.  Hope they don't catch you.

[Alan Klein]

New York Timeshas a good summary of the voting fraud issues focusing on New Hampshire.  Of course some would disregard the story because the Times is a well known left wing paper, not to be trusted.  Also, think about what it means for 3000 out of state voters going up to New Hampshire to vote means.  Travel by bus would mean.  Most of the commercial inter-city buses have a capacity of about 50.  So you have 60 or so coming across the border.  Now these are pretty big vehicles so it's doubtful you would see them pulling up to a polling place but where would they park so that nothing out of the ordinary was observed?  Are these 50 people all going to a single polling place or multiple sites?  There would be logistical issues to deal with.  If all these people came by car, don't you think all these out of state license plates would be noticed?

Better to use dead people to vote. You save on gas and no one can see them.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Hi Bart  long time no see. Hope all is going well for you!

Hi G.,

Still alive and kicking. Hope you're fine as well.

Hopefully dutch progressive voters will come out and vote.

I hope that a lot of people will vote, from all political persuasions. But even without a recently growing number of Russian attempts to infiltrate systems, I'm pretty sure that Wilders' party will get a lot of votes (possibly more than any other single party).

But the entire Dutch population (i.e. all legal inhabitants with Dutch nationality of age 18 or older) is by default allowed to elect one individual person from a list. These electable persons are associated with one of many groups/parties. Each of those groups has a political program they would like to achieve. The groups/parties that collected the most voted members then form a (usually majority) coalition that appoints a government (from those elected or professionals in specific fields).

There is usually not a single party that has an absolute majority, so coalitions have to be negotiated and various interests groups can thus have an influence on the government's agenda for the coming 4 years. They either compromise and participate, or they become an opposition party or a party that sometimes sides with the government on some issues and opposes on others in the legislative process.

One person one vote, the majority rules, but with support and influence of minorities.

It works reasonably well, without a need for separate registrations and potential fraud, or claims thereof.

Cheers,
Bart

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

You're the guy Trump's been  talking about and everyone is looking for.  Hope they don't catch you.

I said "I could have voted twice" not that I did 

Not that it would matter, even if I did. No matter who I voted for, Hillary would win IL and Trump IN.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... fraudulent SSNs are easily queried for against the national database.

One would think so... in theory, at least.

In practice, however: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/report-social-security-paying-millions-to-dead-people/article/2576250#!

Officials overpaid Social Security recipients by billions thanks to a series of administrative and reporting errors, the watchdog found....ended the year with $18.5 billion in uncollected payments... That included $46.8 million that was paid to Social Security recipients who had already died...The inspector general's office said it was "concerned" that "noncitizens" are illegally obtaining and using Social Security numbers..recent audit work determined that over 6 million number holders age 112 or older had no death information.

So, there is that.