
Second woman claims she was paid to pick up ballots in US House District 9 race - smacktoward
https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/second-woman-claims-she-was-paid-to-pick-up-ballots-in-us-house-district-9-race/883177036
======
dev_dull
It’s really sad that we have such low visibility into _actual_ voter fraud. It
seems our elections are broken in such a way that no one is interested in
fixing them lest they lose some particular advantage.

It’s enough that now I’ve had enough. I want ID required. I want real paper
trails. I want to know exactly how many ballots were issued and where each of
them was sent. I want to enforce laws such as cutoffs.

People who say there’s no evidence of voter fraud. How would you even know?

~~~
torstenvl
> _It’s enough that now I’ve had enough. I want ID required._

I understand and agree with the sentiment. I worry, though, about placing too
many administrative hurdles in front of a fundamental right. ID is already
required; but I assume you mean photo ID. But photo IDs aren't free, and
neither is transportation or time off work. Some part of me is concerned that
photo ID laws amount to a poll tax. I'd be interested to know your thoughts on
that.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>I worry, though, about placing too many administrative hurdles in front of a
fundamental right

>Some part of me is concerned that photo ID laws amount to a poll tax.

All the arguments against ID requirements, poll taxes and other measures used
to disenfranchise poor people can be turned right around and used to argue
against licensing requirements, fees and other typical tactics used to keep
(mostly poor) people from exercising their right to keep and bear arms.

Either restricting people's fundamental human rights is ok or it isn't. I know
which hill I'm dying on.

~~~
kbenson
> Either restricting people's fundamental human rights is ok or it isn't.

Are you equating the right to bear arms (as part of a _well regulated_
militia) with fundamental human rights? I think that one might need a bit more
explanation.

~~~
benjohnson
My opinion is that the individual right to self-defense is a fundamental human
right.

~~~
kbenson
Okay, but self defense does not necessarily mean firearms. Applying the
argument to firearms restrictions is like applying the right to have a voice
in governance by requiring a specific type of governance (such as a true
democracy instead of a representative one). I don't believe there's a
fundamental human right to have a firearm any more than I think there is one
to have a nuclear bomb. Both can be (and have been) used for defense, but we
do not allow individuals (or even all countries!) to have both.

A firearm is one tool of many that can be used to defend yourself. Voting is
_the_ method for the citizens to control government in a Democracy. Once you
take away or impede someone's ability to own and operate firearms, you have
hampered their ability to protect themselves in some small or large part, but
there are other methods available to them. Once you take away or impede
someone's ability to vote, you are affecting their only way to actually affect
their own governance. (all the above all assumes _legal_ recourses are
considered).

Note: This isn't to say I think we should ban guns or anything, I just think
as fundamental rights go, what was presented originally was not equivalent in
my eyes, as explained above.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>Okay, but self defense does not necessarily mean firearms.

There is a fundamental human right to defend yourself from physical violence.
If there are tools that are used for that task then it follows that one has a
fundamental human right to posses tools that give one the means to do so. If
the year was 1018 we'd be discussing bows and swords instead of firearms. In
3018 we'll be discussing lasers or something like that. In 2018 (or 1788 for
that matter) the tool is firearms.

>Voting is the method for the citizens to control government in a Democracy.
Once you take away or impede someone's ability to own and operate firearms,
you have hampered their ability to protect themselves in some small or large
part, but there are other methods available to them. Once you take away or
impede someone's ability to vote, you are affecting their only way to actually
affect their own governance. (all the above all assumes legal recourses are
considered).

While I understand where you're coming from I think you're wrong because I
don't believe there is a meaningful distinction. The union of all fundamental
human rights is greater than the sum of them individually and each right is so
important in the context of the others that a threat to any one human right is
a threat to them all.

>Once you take away or impede someone's ability to own and operate firearms,
you have hampered their ability to protect themselves in some small or large
part, but there are other methods available to them. Once you take away or
impede someone's ability to vote, you are affecting their only way to actually
affect their own governance. (all the above all assumes legal recourses are
considered).

So is it ok that the government routinely tries to side step the people's
right to not be subject to unreasonable searches and seizures and right to due
process because people can still vote for a government that won't do that?

I don't think the right to vote is any more important than any other
fundamental human right.

------
torstenvl
The lengths North Carolina Republicans will go to cheat democracy is hard to
stomach. (N.B.: This is not a partisan attack on Republicans generally, but a
criticism of one specific organization.)

To my knowledge, they're also the only ones in recent history to be overturned
by a federal court for just how gerrymandered the districts in NC were.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-c...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-
court-sends-case-on-north-carolina-gerrymandering-back-to-lower-
court/2018/06/25/03c1119e-787e-11e8-93cc-6d3beccdd7a3_story.html)

~~~
vatueil
To be fair, this appears to be the work of a rogue candidate, Mark Harris, and
his supporters, not the GOP establishment. The Republican incumbent, Rep.
Pittenger, was also targeted, when Harris challenged and narrowly defeated
Pittenger in the Republican primary earlier this year.

[https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-the-heck-is-
happen...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-the-heck-is-happening-in-
that-north-carolina-house-race/)

> _It turns out that the data irregularities in Bladen County extend to past
> elections, too. The 9th District saw a contentious and razor-close
> Republican primary in May 2018, when Harris ousted incumbent Rep. Robert
> Pittenger by 828 votes. Bladen accounted for 56 percent of the absentee-by-
> mail ballots (456 of 811) cast in that primary despite being home to just 6
> percent of those who voted — and Harris won 437 of those absentee-by-mail
> votes to Pittenger’s 17, a massive gap nowhere near either the absentee-by-
> mail results in other counties or the other results in Bladen. And in the
> 9th District’s 2016 Republican primary, 22 percent of the race’s absentee-
> by-mail ballots were cast in Bladen County. That time, they went
> disproportionately to Pittenger challenger Todd Johnson — he won a whopping
> 221 of Bladen’s 226 absentee-by-mail votes._

[https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/rep-pittenger-
fully-a...](https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/rep-pittenger-fully-aware-
of-unsavory-people-in-election-fraud-claims)

> _“We were fully aware of it. There’s some pretty unsavory people out,
> particularly in Bladen County. And I didn’t have anything to do with them,”
> Pittenger said in an interview with Spectrum News in Raleigh._

> _Pittenger, who lost his GOP primary to Baptist minister Mark Harris by 828
> votes earlier this year, said he did not know what would happen to the
> general election results. Harris holds a 905-vote lead over Democrat Dan
> McCready in the election that has now been cast in doubt._

> _“I don’t have a clue. I have my feelings about what’s right or wrong, but
> let’s leave that to those who’re [leading the investigation into the
> irregularities],” Pittenger said._

If the North Carolina Republican party were smart they'd support the
bipartisan ethics panel and wash their hands of Harris.

------
dvt
Elections are woefully behind the times - I can track my pizza, but I can't
track my vote? I feel that political infrastructure are where technology can
really positively disrupt the landscape.

I know it's _en vogue_ to show how easy ballot machines are to cheat and hack
-- and maybe they are indeed incompetently built. However, this doesn't mean
there isn't a way to use technology to make democratic processes more accurate
and streamlined. I pay my rent online, I see my doctor's appointment lab
reports online, and I have a powerhouse in my pocket. Technology can be used
for evil in this context (see Cambridge Analytica and Russian troll farms),
but we need to figure out how to use it for good.

~~~
orev
Seems like vote tracking would open elections up to massive vote buying
problems and possibly de-anonymization.

------
Simulacra
What’s more interesting is what they’re doing out in California. Campaign
workers are going door to door and pushing voters to fill out absentee
ballots, then delivering them to polling places.

~~~
iron0013
That sounds like either something that didn't happen, or something legal that
you are intentionally twisting to make sound equivalent to the (very illegal)
things that are going on in North Carolina. Care to provide some evidence
backing your claims?

~~~
Simulacra
It's anecdotal at this point but I think ballot harvesting did play a role in
California. Why keep ballots from people you think might be opposing your
party? Toss them and keep only those you think will vote for your party. Next
time the Republicans are going to go big for ballot harvesting and I think
we're going to see huge fraud issues.

[https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-
conversatio...](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-
conversation/sd-what-is-ballot-harvesting-in-california-election-
code-20181204-htmlstory.html)

[https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-ballot-
harv...](https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-ballot-
harvesting-20181207-story.html)

------
senectus1
I dont understand how the US people and courts allow everything that has been
going on.

If here in Australia they tried any of the Gerrymandering/voter
suppression/political power-plays/outright fraud that has been going on for
YEARS in the US, there would be heads rolling.

I mean we're pretty apathetic when it comes to politics, but the turning a
blind eye to the activities in the US system is just astounding.

