? for the brain trust re-pbs now video

so, i sent links to the 2 videos from the pbs now piece (up in the video forum) to some folks in my hood who are concern about elections, but don't really understand the problem.

i sent them with this message-

i know some people have concerns about "voter fraud" something which by and large really does not exist, and "election fraud" which most certainly is a problem of huge magnitude, and grave consequences. how this distinction has been muddied is all part of the plan.
fwiw, it remains my concern that outside groups came to rogers park and did the same sort of voter suppression.
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(i posted about this stuff, most is in my journal, fwiw. not sure if you have to really get the local issues to understand the exchange. i will sit down to reply to this tomorrow, but wonder what the brain trust might think. i got this reply from the loser of the local election.)


I'm a little confused on the caging issue and how this targets specifically low income and minority populations as mentioned early in the first video or even targeting those based on race. The statement was made that they were targeted and yet there was no proof offered in the videos as to how minorities were identified for the mailings - only that "newly registered" voters were sent the letters - which of course could include Republicans! Did I miss something?

Voter fraud is indeed a problem at least in the City of Chicago and certainly in the 49th Ward, which we identified as part of the lawsuit. That evidence never made it to the light of day because the judge pulled a highly unprecented move to reverse her own decision at a hearing where evidence was going to be presented. There were numerous incidents of voters voting from vacant buildings, particularly in Precinct 1 and even a couple of deceased voters voting.

It's important that every citizen has an opportunity to vote and that the process to do that is simple without being open to the possibility of fraud. Registering from an address of a building that's been vacant for over a year, as an example, and not allowing that voter to be challenged is simply wrong. We need to make sure that the Election Judges are enforcing the use of tools that already exist - to validate that a voter is who they say they are, that they live at the address that they claim to live at AND that the address is a valid address.

Yes, this requires showing some kind of ID, but it could be something as simple as a gas bill. None of this process is an overwhelming challenge to ask of a voter. Even a homeless person could be given the opportunity to register at a shelter as proof of residence in their particular community. Our voting rights are the basis of our democracy. It's wrong to prevent people from voting, but it's just as wrong to allow people to vote who intend to defraud the system. Either case diminishes our democratic process.

"It's wrong to prevent people from voting, but it's just as wrong to allow people to vote who intend to defraud the system. Either case diminishes our democratic process."

Yes, it does. And when thousands or millions of voters can be denied the right to vote at all, in hopes of stopping the three or so that your friend mentioned, we've got a problem.

Will the "solution" do more harm then good? Then it is no solution. Are there (very) occasional vote fraudsters? Yes. Most of them happen via absentee balloting, which does not require the same type of Photo ID the GOP vote suppressors are pushing for at the polling place.

In the meantime, in addition to thousands and/or millions routinely being disallowed to exercise their franchise on a regular basis (unlike the very rare voter fraud), there are also the thousand and millions of votes that don't get counted at all, or counted accurately.

And yes, it happens in Chicago. Big time. With the new, wholly unverifiable Sequoia touch-screen voting systems they use on which it is strictly impossible to prove that any vote was ever counted accurately as per the voters intent.

Finally, with those machines, a single person can flip an entire election without detection. It's a cake walk for an insider to pull off.

Worried about "diminishing our democratic process"? Take a look at the real diminishment of it, as described above, correct those problems, and then we can talk about the incredible rare cases of "voter fraud" (by which it is almost impossible to effect the outcome of an election).

In the meantime, stop disenfranchising voters -- yes, minorities, elderly, urban dwellers, youth, all those most likely to have no state-issued photo ID -- in order to take care of an "imagined" "problem".

Hope that helps.

he is talking about are just transients that come back to their last address, thinking that they are doing nothing wrong.

and just to be clear- this emailer is not a friend, he is the loser of the last aldermanic race here. it is a long story, but he filed suit after a close loss. his case was dismissed because he didn't have any evidence. he promised to make this evidence public, but never did. so the whole thing hangs over the head of the winner, who is actually a good, progressive democrat.
journal entry here, but there are a couple of others, the oldest 3 posts.

thanks for your reply, brad. when i get the reply done, i will post it here for my journal.