[EL] Voter Fraud

[JBoppjr at aol.com]

Yes, I think it is a balance between the two.  but as to harm, there  are 
two types (1) at the micro level, one ineligible voter is equal to one  
eligible voter not voting and (2) at the macro level, does it change the outcome  
of an election?  Either type can do this as well.
 
But I just do not agree that Voter ID requirements like Indiana's creates  
substantial harm as I explained to Jeff. Jim
 
 
In a message dated 10/3/2016 1:56:48 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
HESSDOUG at Grinnell.EDU writes:

Jim,

There is an important policy difference between hazards  and risks. Hazards 
lurk everywhere. There are chemicals in most homes that  could be 
MacGyvered into something dangerous to the public, for instance.  However, the risk 
of that happening is low because the probability of somebody  doing that is 
low (for various reasons) and the harm to banning lots of  cleaning agents 
would be larger than the harm prevented with such a ban.  (However, large 
scale purchases of some chemicals are tracked,  etc.)

Thus, Jim, you need to show that the risk (not hazard) of harm  from the 
voter fraud of the kind you mention is greater than the risk of harm  from the 
proposed solution. This is the collar of the criteria you put forth.  Right?

It seems to me that the number of legitimate votes prevented by  strict ID 
policy would be far larger than the number of illegal votes it would  
prevent. 

Make sense? 

(P.S. This issue has been discussed ad  nauseam on this list.)

Douglas R Hess
Assistant Professor of  Political Science

On research leave for Fall Semester  2016.
http://www.douglasrhess.com 

Grinnell College
1210 Park  Street, Carnegie Hall #309
Grinnell, IA 50112  
--------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2016 12:21:43  -0400
From: JBoppjr at aol.com
To:  Kevin.Greenberg at flastergreenberg.com
Cc: law-election at uci.edu
Subject:  Re: [EL] Voter Fraud
Message-ID:  <30f311.189bd16c.4523df96 at aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;  charset="utf-8"

As a general matter, we need to ensure that every vote  counts.  This  has 
two aspects, in my view, that are of equal weight  and  consequence.  The 
right to vote is violated by either (1)  unreasonably  preventing an eligible 
person from voting or (2) by  canceling out an  eligible person's vote by an 
ineligible person  voting.  Liberals focus on  (1) and, in my view, pay 
little  attention to (2).

In my post, I did not focus on "in person voter ID  requirements," but 
raised the general issue of voter fraud since I think voter  fraud is a serious 
violation of a person's right to vote.  And certainly  there are many 
different ways that this problem is and can be dealt  with.

Obviously, at this point, registration fraud is most likely to be  the 
focus  of attention, since voting, by in large, is not  occurring.  The voter 
registration process was created as a principal  means to prevent voter fraud 
itself since prior registration provides a  reasonable time to verify 
whether a  particular person, who has  registered to vote, is in fact eligible to 
vote. And  if someone is not  registered, the person cannot vote. Same day 
registration,  that many  liberal advocate, would remove this time-tested and 
effective voter   fraud prevention measure.

Of course, no one in their right mind would  commit voter registration 
fraud  without having in mind, and without  having a plan, to convert that 
registered  voter into an actual  vote.  The vote is the payoff, not the 
registration  itself. So it  is irrelevant that there is no proven voter fraud yet, 
since   registration fraud is just the first step to voter fraud.

And as to  your question,  it is perfectly obvious to me that  an in person 
 voter ID requirement is a substantial impediment to someone  voting a  
fraudulently registered voter. The person would need to not only   fraudulently 
register a person but also create a phony ID to vote that   person.

So my view is that we need to strike a reasonable balance   between two 
concerns that are of equal weight. First, all eligible   voters must have a 
reasonable opportunity to vote.  And second we  must  take reasonable efforts 
to make sure that all ineligible voters do  not vote. I  understand that 
striking that balance is difficult and is  often a subjective  judgment.  But I 
rarely see liberals doing  anything other than disparaging  and denigrating 
those that raise one  valid side of this issue. And usually it  entails what 
you resorted to,  claims that these are but " efforts to suppress  the 
votes of the poor,  old, and young without any basis in fact" or is just  
"fact-free  hysteria" ie, nonexistent, which was mild actually since liberal  
usually  just call it  "racist."

[Snipped]
_______________________________________________
Law-election  mailing  list
Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20161003/a2351815/attachment.html>