Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[Bacchus]

You don't need to falsely register, you can turn up and vote for somebody else. Voter registration records are public in the US. You can even see whether a particular person voted in previous elections (maybe not in all states).

As for the non-citizen question, when reigstering in US, most States don't require proof of citizenship, you just tick a box saying that you are one. All you have to prove is your address.

[Bobchillingworth]

'I'm open to ideas, provided they can be proven' -> 'ranting about his conviction'

Could say something about ideological lensing here, but that'd probably make me a racism-apologist.

Oh, I guess I may have taken some descriptive liberties there. After all, all Gavagai did was spend several pages "raising questions" about whether some races might be superior to others, which is definitely not something he actually believes. Also he keeps talking about people from Central America like they're a criminally-inclined horde of inferior beings. But hey, I haven't seen any crude slurs or /pol gifs, so it's all very respectable. I certainly would never want to imply that just maybe Gavagi is a racist, as we all know there is no greater wrong one can do to a fellow being than inflict upon them the r-word.

What? I need to ask you to take this back or it will be very hard for me to keep this in politics thread.

Aww man! Is that a threat? I'd certainly hate it if you treated me differently in one of our many games together. I can't imagine you'd ever do anything like that though, as we obviously share a mutual & genteel appreciation for each other's contrasting political opinions.

It is indeed.So lets see if i underatsnd corectly.In Sua you go to  a place were they are voting and say, i want to vot and they let you and after you can go somewere else if you want and do same?

Is this a joke? We have computers, mackoti. Election officers can track when and where you've voted. Come on.

[Mr. Cairo]

You don't need to falsely register, you can turn up and vote for somebody else. Voter registration records are public in the US. You can even see whether a particular person voted in previous elections (maybe not in all states).

As for the non-citizen question, when reigstering in US, most States don't require proof of citizenship, you just tick a box saying that you are one. All you have to prove is your address.

Ok, that seems even easier to get caught at, if the person you're impersonating also votes. Also, not feasible at the large scale (ie: the millions that republicans like to say are illegally voting)

In fact, the report that Trump likes to claim as evidence of voter fraud was this one:
http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/...ionpdf.pdf
In it, Pew found several million instances of voter registration inaccuracies caused by people dying or moving to another state. But it also found no evidence of any fraud arising from this. Funilly enough, four of the people registered in multiple states were Steve Bannon, Steve Munchin, Jared Kushner, and Sean Spicer.

I'm not going to say that the American voting system is perfect, in fact it is really out-dated and flawed. But there is simply no evidence of wide-spread voter fraud.

Personally I have no problem with requiring ID to vote, as long as it's made easy to get ID. For example, the BC Services Card, which provides access to government services like healthcare, is free. However, the USA has a cultural issue with requiring its citizens to carry around mandated ID (which is really the best way to ensure that everyone has it)

[Bobchillingworth]

Personally I have no problem with requiring ID to vote, as long as it's made easy to get ID. For example, the BC Services Card, which provides access to government services like healthcare, is free. However, the USA has a cultural issue with requiring its citizens to carry around mandated ID (which is really the best way to ensure that everyone has it)

I seriously doubt many people object to the idea that voters should have some form of ID. The problems in the U.S. are that A: voter ID laws are not consistent nation-wide, and B: that's because they've often been obviously tailored by Republican legislatures to disenfranchise certain groups. You can probably guess which ones.


It's not bad at all in my state; the list of acceptable IDs is extensive, and it's simple to obtain one. Other states however make it financially and logistically taxing for lower-income constituencies to obtain them, despite T-hawk's breezy assertions otherwise. They don't make it impossible, just pointlessly burdensome, which is still odious.

[Gavagai]

Also he keeps talking about people from Central America like they're a criminally-inclined horde of inferior beings.

That's sort of ridiculous. You got caught lying, walked away from attributing to me one idiotic viewpoint only to immediately substitute another one for it.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

You posted something stupid and racist and tried to walk it back and blame everyone else for it you bleating little coward.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

It is the most elementary tactic by racists to go "I'm just askin' questions here, maybe ethnic groups are just worse than others?????????"

[Bacchus]

But it also found no evidence of any fraud arising from this.

Did it look for it? The single mention of fraud in the linked document simply notes the obvious -- that having dead people on the electoral roll makes the entire thing susceptible to fraud.

Note that I have little to no idea what Donald Trump, other politicians or the media have to say on the issue in the US. I am interested in the process, and have read various overviews of legislation and case studies, but I do not follow the topical debates. I do vaguely know of the polemical battle which is getting echoed here, voter supression vs accusation of rampant fraud, but that's about it. I have also actually served on a polling station as a monitor, in Russia, so have had all sorts insight into what people can try. Based purely on the latter, I can tell you from experience that even in-voter fraud is nowhere as hard as people make out in this thread, nor is fraud particularly easy to catch, unless it's blatant.

And then there's the issue of using machines vs paper, which is a whole other topic: http://votingsystems.cdn.sos.ca.gov/over...erview.pdf Funnily enough, I don't think anyone has repeated such an audit since 2007.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

We were barely even talking about voter fraud, we were talking about immigration, and then someone who wanted to distract from the issue rolled in and tried to justify the current policy of ethnic cleansing with "well you need to purge these people lest they start asking for political rights at the polling booth".

[Bacchus]

Crikey!