1. Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

The GOP's Stealth War Against Voters

Discussion in 'News & Current Events' started by Zaac, Aug 31, 2016.

  1. Zaac

    Zaac Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2012
    Messages:
    13,757
    Likes Received:
    222
    When Donald Trump claimed, "the election's going to be rigged," he wasn't entirely wrong. But the threat was not, as Trump warned, from Americans committing the crime of "voting many, many times." What's far more likely to undermine democracy in November is the culmination of a decade-long Republican effort to disenfranchise voters under the guise of battling voter fraud. The latest tool: Election officials in more than two dozen states have compiled lists of citizens whom they allege could be registered in more than one state – thus potentially able to cast multiple ballots – and eligible to be purged from the voter rolls.

    The data is processed through a system called the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program, which is being promoted by a powerful Republican operative, and its lists of potential duplicate voters are kept confidential. But Rolling Stone obtained a portion of the list and the names of 1 million targeted voters. According to our analysis, the Crosscheck list disproportionately threatens solid Democratic constituencies: young, black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters – with some of the biggest possible purges underway in Ohio and North Carolina, two crucial swing states with tight Senate races.


    [​IMG]
    2016: First Presidential Election Since Voting Rights Gutted

    America will vote for president in a country where it's easier to buy a gun than vote in many states

    Like all weapons of vote suppression, Crosscheck is a response to the imaginary menace of mass voter fraud. In the mid-2000s, after the Florida-recount debacle, the Bush administration launched a five-year investigation into the allegedly rampant crime but found scant evidence of wrongdoing. Still, the GOP has perpetuated the myth in every national election since. Recently, North Carolina Board of Elections chief Kim Strach testified to her legislature that 35,750 voters are "registered in North Carolina and another state and voted in both in the 2012 general election." Yet despite hiring an ex-FBI agent to lead the hunt, the state has charged exactly zero double voters from the Crosscheck list. Nevertheless, tens of thousands face the loss of their ability to vote – all for the sake of preventing a crime that rarely happens. So far, Crosscheck has tagged an astonishing 7.2 million suspects, yet we found no more than four perpetrators who have been charged with double voting or deliberate double registration.

    On its surface, Crosscheck seems quite reasonable. Twenty-eight participating states share their voter lists and, in the name of dispassionate, race-blind Big Data, seek to ensure the rolls are up to date. To make sure the system finds suspect voters, Crosscheck supposedly matches first, middle and last name, plus birth date, and provides the last four digits of a Social Security number for additional verification.

    In reality, however, there have been signs that the program doesn't operate as advertised. Some states have dropped out of Crosscheck, citing problems with its methodology, as Oregon's secretary of state recently explained: "We left [Crosscheck] because the data we received was unreliable."

    In our effort to report on the program, we contacted every state for their Crosscheck list. But because voting twice is a felony, state after state told us their lists of suspects were part of a criminal investigation and, as such, confidential. Then we got a break. A clerk in Virginia sent us its Crosscheck list of suspects, which a letter from the state later said was done "in error."

    The Virginia list was a revelation. In all, 342,556 names were listed as apparently registered to vote in both Virginia and another state as of January 2014. Thirteen percent of the people on the Crosscheck list, already flagged as inactive voters, were almost immediately removed, meaning a stunning 41,637 names were "canceled" from voter rolls, most of them just before Election Day.

    We were able to obtain more lists – Georgia and Washington state, the total number of voters adding up to more than 1 million matches – and Crosscheck's results seemed at best deeply flawed. We found that one-fourth of the names on the list actually lacked a middle-name match. The system can also mistakenly identify fathers and sons as the same voter, ignoring designations of Jr. and Sr. A whole lot of people named "James Brown" are suspected of voting or registering twice, 357 of them in Georgia alone. But according to Crosscheck, James Willie Brown is supposed to be the same voter as James Arthur Brown. James Clifford Brown is allegedly the same voter as James Lynn Brown.

    And those promised birth dates and Social Security numbers? The Crosscheck instruction manual says that "Social Security numbers are included for verification; the numbers might or might not match" – which leaves a crucial step in the identification process up to the states. Social Security numbers weren't even included in the state lists we obtained.

    We had Mark Swedlund, a database expert whose clients include eBay and American Express, look at the data from Georgia and Virginia, and he was shocked by Crosscheck's "childish methodology." He added, "God forbid your name is Garcia, of which there are 858,000 in the U.S., and your first name is Joseph or Jose. You're probably suspected of voting in 27 states."

    Swedlund's statistical analysis found that African-American, Latino and Asian names predominate, a simple result of the Crosscheck matching process, which spews out little more than a bunch of common names. No surprise: The U.S. Census data shows that minorities are overrepresented in 85 of 100 of the most common last names. If your name is Washington, there's an 89 percent chance you're African-American. If your last name is Hernandez, there's a 94 percent chance you're Hispanic. If your name is Kim, there's a 95 percent chance you're Asian.

    ...

    http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-gops-stealth-war-against-voters-w435890
     
  2. Jordan Kurecki

    Jordan Kurecki Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Apr 26, 2013
    Messages:
    1,925
    Likes Received:
    130
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Name one state where it's easier to buy a gun than to vote..I'm
    Curious.
     
  3. TCassidy

    TCassidy Late-Administator Emeritus
    Administrator

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2005
    Messages:
    20,080
    Likes Received:
    3,490
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Well, let's see.

    Vote:

    1. Register
    2. Give name and address
    3. Prove citizenship
    4. Vote

    Buy a gun

    1. Fill out 6 page Form 4473 including giving Name and address
    2. Give lengthy background information
    3. Indicate any past or present drug or alcohol abuse
    4. Indicate any past or present psychological impairment
    5. Provide proof of residency
    6. Provide proof of legal residency if not a US citizen
    7. Undergo a NICS telephonic background check by the FBI at point of sale
    8. Proof of being at least 18 for long gun or 21 for hand gun
    9. Provide the make and model and the serial number of firearm being purchased
    10. Provide Drivers License Number to NICS telephone person

    And this is for Texas, one of the easiest states in which to purchase a firearm. The liberal left-wing states such as California, Illinois, New York, etc. make it much more difficult.

    And, of course, the right to own and carry firearms is a constitutionally protected right, but there is no constitutionally protected right to vote at the national level.

    Hmmmm. It seems to me that somebody doesn't know what he is talking about! LOL! :D:D:D
     
    • Winner Winner x 1
  4. Jordan Kurecki

    Jordan Kurecki Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Apr 26, 2013
    Messages:
    1,925
    Likes Received:
    130
    Faith:
    Baptist
    I suspected this was the truth.
     
  5. Alcott

    Alcott Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Dec 17, 2002
    Messages:
    9,404
    Likes Received:
    353
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Zaac doesn't care if he's right ( correct) any more than B.Hillary cares about minorities or illegal immigrants. She's a 1%'er , not a 99%'er, who wants the votes of the dead and double.
     
    #5 Alcott, Aug 31, 2016
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 31, 2016
  6. 777

    777 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Nov 25, 2006
    Messages:
    3,085
    Likes Received:
    1,190
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Greg Palast???? Seriously? Rolling Stone must be really hard up to employ that flake, guess they lost the spirit to write about false campus rapes.

    Where to begin here? That program checks a lot more than just the name, it goes by DoB, SS#, address, among other things. Voter fraud is rampant. but far-leftists like Palast will never admit that - he thinks the fraud does exist, but it comes from the GOP.

    http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=2216

    you know what they say, vote early and vote often but all guns are evil.
     
  7. Sapper Woody

    Sapper Woody Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 5, 2011
    Messages:
    2,314
    Likes Received:
    175
    Just bought my new rifle in Arkansas. It's an "easy" state. By that I mean I got it the same day with no waiting period. But it took about 30 minutes to fill out the paperwork, plus another 30 for the background check.

    Took me about 5 minutes to vote in the primaries.

    Sent from my QTAQZ3 using Tapatalk
     
    • Like Like x 1
  8. TCassidy

    TCassidy Late-Administator Emeritus
    Administrator

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2005
    Messages:
    20,080
    Likes Received:
    3,490
    Faith:
    Baptist
    One of the reasons I love Texas is that my Texas LTC allows me to bypass the telephone check. I still have to fill out the 4473 but my LTC proves I have already passed the background check so I can skip that part. :)
     
  9. StefanM

    StefanM Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Jul 4, 2004
    Messages:
    7,333
    Likes Received:
    210
    Faith:
    Baptist
    The only possible argument I can see here is the "waiting period" for voter registration. Assuming everything is good to go, you can walk in and buy a rifle. It can take some time for the checks, but it's possible.

    Voter registration in Arkansas requires a bit more forethought. If you don't register well in advance, you don't get to vote.

    It's not always a failure to make the deadlines either. When we moved back to Arkansas, my wife's registration wasn't processed in time for the primaries, despite the fact that she submitted her registration paperwork on time.

    I'm not sold on the idea of same-day voter registration, but I would like to see the process go much more quickly. (And have an online component!)
     
  10. Sapper Woody

    Sapper Woody Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 5, 2011
    Messages:
    2,314
    Likes Received:
    175
    On the same thought, so does buying a gun. You have to have an Arkansas drivers license. So before you can buy a gun, you have to plan ahead and get your ID.

    Also, if I'm not mistaken, you can register to vote when you get your driver's license.


    Sent from my QTAQZ3 using Tapatalk
     
  11. Zaac

    Zaac Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2012
    Messages:
    13,757
    Likes Received:
    222
    If I'm not mistaken, Palast's investigation proved that to not be the case as the different middle names, SS#s, etc., were ignored and people purged if their first and last name alone showed up in different states.

    Interesting how the GOP went on this legislative spree to try to suppress votes after the 2008 election. By purging out by first and last name alone they already knew that you were gonna get a lot of minorities with the same sir names

    The GOP keeps trying to sell that lie. Nobody except the folks who believe everything that's said on Fox NEws believe that.
     
  12. StefanM

    StefanM Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Jul 4, 2004
    Messages:
    7,333
    Likes Received:
    210
    Faith:
    Baptist
    You can turn it the form, but it doesn't necessarily get processed that day, as I understand it. Each county has its own process.

    But I don't want to sidetrack the discussion too much.
     
  13. 777

    777 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Nov 25, 2006
    Messages:
    3,085
    Likes Received:
    1,190
    Faith:
    Baptist
  14. Zaac

    Zaac Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2012
    Messages:
    13,757
    Likes Received:
    222
  15. 777

    777 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Nov 25, 2006
    Messages:
    3,085
    Likes Received:
    1,190
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Sounds more like Hillary, but you're still a fan.[​IMG]

    And Greg Palast is still crazy, too.
     
  16. Zaac

    Zaac Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2012
    Messages:
    13,757
    Likes Received:
    222
    Yep you're confused.

    They say crazy knows crazy.:p
     
  17. 777

    777 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Nov 25, 2006
    Messages:
    3,085
    Likes Received:
    1,190
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Who posted this article from Crazy Greg Palast again? Maybe you are right for a change, crazy does know crazy and quotes crazy in some instances.

    He's still a LWNJ, know that.
     
  18. Zaac

    Zaac Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2012
    Messages:
    13,757
    Likes Received:
    222
     
  19. 777

    777 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Nov 25, 2006
    Messages:
    3,085
    Likes Received:
    1,190
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Look at you, proudly standing up and claiming Greg Palast's crazy. Your thread, own it.
     
Loading...