[EL] Vote fraud -- evidence vs. belief
Justin Levitt
levittj at lls.edu
Fri Jul 20 13:35:12 PDT 2012
I think Mark's "friend X" email and this one actually capture the
problem nicely. The issue is not whether there are security risks in
the abstract (_life_ is a security risk in the abstract), but whether
any incremental measure aimed at security is worth the associated cost,
including unanticipated consequences for people like X. There are many
ways to determine that people are who they say they are; every single
state has one, at various places along the range of efficacy. The more
limited the menu of options, the more cost to individual voters without
handy access to those options. Some states have recently limited the
menu quite substantially; most have not.
The debate about the extent of current fraud feeds the discussion of
whether an incremental measure of restriction is worthwhile. I've got
windows. And I would _hate_ for someone to break in. I could hang
curtains to hide the contents of my house, or install a block to stop
the windows from opening more than a few inches, or purchase a monthly
burglar monitoring service, or install ugly iron grates on the windows,
or get an attack dog, or put up a locked fence at the sidewalk, or hire
a private security force to be on site 24-7. It's always going to be
a potential vulnerability that someone _could_ break in. If potential
harm is the only appropriate measure, then I should always take all of
the measures possible, at least up to the replacement value of my stuff
and my lost sense of personal security. Bring on the private home
security -- and I hope you've all got security guards too, because hey,
there's a real potential vulnerability.
The incidence of actual home burglaries in my area matters. It's not a
perfect gauge, but it speaks generally to the general adequacy of
existing measures to confront the problem. And it also informs the
extent of the costs that I should be willing to bear to ensure adequate
prevention.
(For what it's worth, I think that the greater incidence of past
problems confirms the need to spend more effort on absentee balloting
issues, as Mark suggests; and I'm hopeful that the vulnerabilities of
voting systems can be addressed using tools and techniques where the
primary costs are to the public fisc -- to me, an acceptable cost --
rather than the individual exercise of the franchise).
Justin
On 7/20/2012 12:46 PM, Scarberry, Mark wrote:
>
> In response to Jim: Conservatives generally have no problem believing
> that people may act foolishly for various reasons. Conservatives tend
> to have a more realistic view of human nature than do some liberals.
> Conservatives may believe it is foolish for people to support liberal
> policies, but conservatives generally are quite willing to believe
> that people do so in large numbers. No conservative that I know has
> any difficulty believing that a majority of voters in New York, for
> example, vote for candidates who support liberal policies, or that
> President Obama received more votes than Sen. McCain. Conservatives
> also think that there are a lot of people who benefit from a large
> government who are likely to vote in favor of govt expansion.
> Conservatives are not at all surprised, for example, that a lot of
> government workers would do so. Whether or not that is a foolish
> decision depends on the factors that it may be reasonable for people
> to take into account in voting.
>
> With regard to real reasons why at least some people who support voter
> ID laws do so: There is a concern that fraud may occur in the future.
> Perhaps it is analogous to the fear that electronic voting systems may
> be hacked so as to change voting results. Even if there is no evidence
> that it has occurred, there is a system vulnerability that can
> reasonably be considered in deciding what action may be appropriate,
> in part to prevent the vulnerability from being exploited and in part
> to help assure voters that the system has integrity.
>
> Discussions on this list have persuaded me that there is little
> current voting fraud that would be prevented by voter ID laws, and
> that there should be more concern about absentee voting, voting by
> mail, and new Internet voting systems. I also have an innate distrust
> of non-transparent systems like electronic voting and would prefer
> that we use paper ballots that can be recounted manually. That does
> not mean that it is unreasonable to take into account other
> vulnerabilities of the system that could be exploited in the future.
> Explanations about why voter ID laws are not needed or helpful to
> address a potential vulnerability will be more persuasive than data
> showing a lack of current fraud that would be prevented by voter ID laws.
>
> Mark S. Scarberry
>
> Professor of Law
>
> Pepperdine Univ. School of Law
>
> *From:*law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of
> *Jim Gardner
> *Sent:* Friday, July 20, 2012 12:08 PM
> *To:* Election law list
> *Subject:* [EL] Vote fraud -- evidence vs. belief
>
> The lack of evidence to support charges of vote fraud raises a more
> interesting and profound question: Why do people continue to believe
> in it? The answer, it seems to me, has nothing to do with evidence --
> so arguing about the evidence is probably a waste of time -- and a lot
> to do with culture, specifically the culture of contemporary politics.
>
> I think the problem here is that many on the right have managed to
> convince themselves that it is impossible -- literally impossible --
> for people in any kind of numbers to support liberal policies. Since
> people can't possibly support such policies, they can't possibly vote
> for liberal candidates. Consequently, if liberal candidates win, it
> can only be the result of fraud because nobody could actually vote for
> such people.
>
> This problem is cultural. It reveals a very sad fact about our
> current politics, namely that the views, beliefs, and experiences of
> other human beings are so completely dismissed and devalued in some
> quarters that many find it impossible to take seriously the
> possibility that their fellow citizens could actually hold certain
> views (much less actually take those views seriously or engage with
> them on the merits).
>
> I hasten to add that the political valence does not always run in the
> same direction. For example, the "What's the Matter with Kansas"
> analysis holds that working class voters couldn't possibly support
> candidates who support policies that disadvantage them economically,
> although proponents of this view explain it by brainwashing rather
> than vote fraud. But this explanation doesn't take seriously the
> possibility that social and symbolically resonant issues could
> actually be more important than economic ones to some segments of the
> population.
>
> Until we start taking each other seriously as political agents, we're
> not going to extract ourselves from the current impasse.
>
> Jim
>
> ________________________________
> James A. Gardner
> Joseph W. Belluck and Laura L. Aswad
> SUNY Distinguished Professor of Civil Justice
> SUNY Buffalo Law School
> The State University of New York
> Room 316, O'Brian Hall
> Buffalo, NY 14260-1100
> voice: 716-645-3607
> fax: 716-645-5968
> e-mail: jgard at buffalo.edu <mailto:jgard at buffalo.edu>
> www.law.buffalo.edu <http://www.law.buffalo.edu>
> Papers at http://ssrn.com/author=40126
>
>
>
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--
Justin Levitt
Associate Professor of Law
Loyola Law School | Los Angeles
919 Albany St.
Los Angeles, CA 90015
213-736-7417
justin.levitt at lls.edu
ssrn.com/author=698321
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