A Political Thread pt. 2

[ncurd]

totally unfounded and thrown out by every court he tried his luck with.

Yup mainly tried it with postal votes which are signature verified as coming from the registered voter (as they are in this country) before the actual ballot papers also enclosed are added to the secret ballot. It would be incredibly hard to commit postal vote election fraud on any scale to defraud an election.

Meanwhile the Tories managed to defraud the public by putting up a PCC candidate who ineligible to hold the office despite him declaring to the selection committee his offence. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-57048309 so not only costing the British public the cost of an election and the rerun. But any costs incurred by those running against him and hours of volunteer work in an election that meant the winner couldn't win.

Have to worry about something that might happen though not stuff that actually does or proven that will through trials.

 

[Not Mike Brown's Sock]

Its been explained multiple takes this thread. You've chosen to ignore it.


And if people can't fill out a ballot that required them to write two numbers in without deliberately spoiling it. They probably shouldn't be voting in the first place. Cause they are too ******* thick to understand the ramifications of their vote.

Ok, if we extend this last bit, your logic should apply to getting a free too ID no? If you can't be bothered to go online and get a photo ID for free then you probably shouldn't be voting at all if you care that little... Only extending your logic there.

There's a lot I disagree with here. Firstly, I'm a bit concerned by the way you described the US election. When you say it was "widely disputed" can you clarify that please as all I saw was Donald Trump inventing a whole BS narrative of election fraud that was totally unfounded and thrown out by every court he tried his luck with. That, to me, is not "widely disputed" in fact it's the opposite. It's complete BS peddled by a BS artist that no one accepted other than Trump and QAnon conspiracy theorists.

And this is in essence a lot of the problem. I would gather just on this point alone that you see this as a significant risk we should take seriously when really it's not that big of a problem. Will introducing voter ID deter more people from voting than it will reduce voter fraud? That's the issue and what we need to ask ourselves.

Your answer to my original question seems to be: The Tories are doing it against their own interests because the Tories just want to protect our democracy, they're nice like that. I mean, they not concerned with reports about Russians interfering in our democracy but they are about Dave pretending to be uncle Jonny and casting 2 votes. I can't go along with that and, to be honest, I think you know deep down this wil benefit them. Will they lose some votes out of it? Sure they will but other parties will lose out more.

At the end of the day is this going to help or hinder the democratic process.

On the first bit - don't worry I wasn't suggesting the election was meddled with on a huge scale but it was "widely disputed" purely by virtue of the fact that millions (tens even?) of people were convinced the election was stolen. Purely by a numbers game that means it is widely disputed, not that I think it is. Doesn't have to be factual to be widely disputed

I really don't think it would deter people, and there's not really any evidence that it does - of course it's hard to quantify because political engagement and turnout is so different internationally, but the best example is probably NI where it didn't really effect turnout.

On the final point, I legitimately cannot see how this would benefit the Tories in particular, I'm sure theres some logic behind it but what makes you think that statistically?

Confidence only enhances the democratic process - knowing that there are more stringent checks to secure our democracy and mitigate future attempts to undermine confidence in it (in a trump esque manner) can only be positive

 

[ncurd]

Ok, if we extend this last bit, your logic should apply to getting a free too ID no? If you can't be bothered to go online and get a photo ID for free then you probably shouldn't be voting at all if you care that little... Only extending your logic there.

Fair argument I'm not particularly fond of people who vote that refuse to engage with the process. However its not the main argument and just one of a whole host.

The main issue is it creates a barrier that is disenfranchising voters to a scale vastly dispprotionate to the problem.

Different voting systems other than FPTP are proven to enfranchise voters and create more representative governments of the peoples will.

So whilst the logic is sound the ultimate litmus tests is does the measure better represent the people and enfranchise more voters. Both Voter ID and FPTP fail this test.

 

[Not Mike Brown's Sock]

Fair argument I'm not particularly fond of people who vote that refuse to engage with the process. However its not the main argument and just one of a whole host.

The main issue is it creates a barrier that is disenfranchising voters to a scale vastly dispprotionate to the problem.

Different voting systems other than FPTP are proven to enfranchise voters and create more representative governments of the peoples will.

So whilst the logic is sound the ultimate litmus tests is does the measure better represent the people and enfranchise more voters. Both Voter ID and FPTP fail this test.

Why does turnout not generally go down if all these people are being disenfranchised?

 

[Welsh Exile]

Ok, if we extend this last bit, your logic should apply to getting a free too ID no? If you can't be bothered to go online and get a photo ID for free then you probably shouldn't be voting at all if you care that little... Only extending your logic there.


On the first bit - don't worry I wasn't suggesting the election was meddled with on a huge scale but it was "widely disputed" purely by virtue of the fact that millions (tens even?) of people were convinced the election was stolen. Purely by a numbers game that means it is widely disputed, not that I think it is. Doesn't have to be factual to be widely disputed

I really don't think it would deter people, and there's not really any evidence that it does - of course it's hard to quantify because political engagement and turnout is so different internationally, but the best example is probably NI where it didn't really effect turnout.

On the final point, I legitimately cannot see how this would benefit the Tories in particular, I'm sure theres some logic behind it but what makes you think that statistically?

Confidence only enhances the democratic process - knowing that there are more stringent checks to secure our democracy and mitigate future attempts to undermine confidence in it (in a trump esque manner) can only be positive

Yeah, like I said, QAnon Trump cultists believed it. That does not constitute "widely disputed" and I find it a bit disingenuous of you to go down this route to be honest. Of course it matters if it's factual and where the lies are coming from. We're debating whether significant voter fraud is an issue. It's not. These days you can find millions of people that believe the earth is flat, that doesn't mean it's widely disputed that the earth is a sphere. You don't give these people credibility. You don't believe that **** for a reason. Ask yourself why that is.

You're right about it being hard to quantify but I bet the Tories have been punching those numbers and are fairly confident. I think anything they can do to make it a little more hassle for younger voters, who tend to vote center left, will be worth there while. And again we just come back to this question of why now. Why the **** are they doing this. What is their thinking.

 

[Not Mike Brown's Sock]

Yeah, like I said, QAnon Trump cultists believed it. That does not constitute "widely disputed" and I find it a bit disingenuous of you to go down this route to be honest. Of course it matters if it's factual and where the lies are coming from. We're debating whether significant voter fraud is an issue. It's not. These days you can find millions of people that believe the earth is flat, that doesn't mean it's widely disputed that the earth is a sphere. You don't give these people credibility. You don't believe that **** for a reason. Ask yourself why that is.

You're right about it being hard to quantify but I bet the Tories have been punching those numbers and are fairly confident. I think anything they can do to make it a little more hassle for younger voters, who tend to vote center left, will be worth there while. And again we just come back to this question of why now. Why the **** are they doing this. What is their thinking.

I wasn't going down that route of all, I absolutely agree that it isn't a massive issue, but confidence is. Even if the people spouting it were nutjobs, it was still widescale enough to cast doubt, if we can mitigate that we absolutely should. I'm not giving them any credibility, but if there is room for people to start casting doubt, we should do our best to limit that and maintain the integrity of the system.

So are you legitimately basing your opposition to it off of a conspiracy theory you can't find any evidence for but just "bet" they are being nefarious? I've never seen the argument that it's young people this would be most difficult for, there is, again, no evidence that it reduces turnout.

The thinking is maintaining confidence and integrity in the system. The end of the trump presidency demonstrated how quickly **** can go south if you leave room for people to question the integrity of an election, even if those questions are based on nothing but conspiracy theories

 

[Welsh Exile]

I wasn't going down that route of all, I absolutely agree that it isn't a massive issue, but confidence is. Even if the people spouting it were nutjobs, it was still widescale enough to cast doubt, if we can mitigate that we absolutely should. I'm not giving them any credibility, but if there is room for people to start casting doubt, we should do our best to limit that and maintain the integrity of the system.

So are you legitimately basing your opposition to it off of a conspiracy theory you can't find any evidence for but just "bet" they are being nefarious? I've never seen the argument that it's young people this would be most difficult for, there is, again, no evidence that it reduces turnout.

The thinking is maintaining confidence and integrity in the system. The end of the trump presidency demonstrated how quickly **** can go south if you leave room for people to question the integrity of an election, even if those questions are based on nothing but conspiracy theories

Confidence is a massive issue in the UK? Got any studies or data for that? Sure in America because they've given credibility to conspiracy theorists. I guess we're susceptible to this, for sure, but are UK voters actually worried about voter fraud? Genuine question I'd be interested to know.

It's weird to me. We both agree significant voter fraud isn't a problem but I guess you want to placate a minority of extremists who believe this rubbish whether I would rather we tackle the actual problem of holding the liars spreading the BS to account. What do NASA do, do they say "actually we're not 100% sure the earth isn't flat" to placate flat earthists or do they try and educate people.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

I wasn't going down that route of all, I absolutely agree that it isn't a massive issue, but confidence is. Even if the people spouting it were nutjobs, it was still widescale enough to cast doubt, if we can mitigate that we absolutely should. I'm not giving them any credibility, but if there is room for people to start casting doubt, we should do our best to limit that and maintain the integrity of the system.

So are you legitimately basing your opposition to it off of a conspiracy theory you can't find any evidence for but just "bet" they are being nefarious? I've never seen the argument that it's young people this would be most difficult for, there is, again, no evidence that it reduces turnout.

The thinking is maintaining confidence and integrity in the system. The end of the trump presidency demonstrated how quickly **** can go south if you leave room for people to question the integrity of an election, even if those questions are based on nothing but conspiracy theories

So we should pander to the nutjobs to deal with a problem that is purely a figment of their imagination whilst ignoring the sane people who are saying that the action to appeal to the nutjobs will create real problems? Sorry but in what way is that the reasonable course to follow? These people believe there is fraud despite a complete lack of evidence, you think they will stop believing there is fraud regardless of what anyone does? Of course not. You could have retina scans, fingerprints, voice matching etc and all it would take is an orange faced tosser standing up and calling the whole thing rigged for them to start screeching fraud again, so why concede to them at all? Their view is already completely separated from reality so no change to reality is going to make a dent in it. It's them who need to change, not everything else.

You're basing your support for it on a conspiracy so yeah...

Enacting voter fraud systems when there is no fraud does not increase confidence and integrity, it undermines it. You take a system that has no problems, claim it has problems and then claiming you are fixing it. That does not inspire confidence at all. Would you feel confident if you were on a boat and someone started hammering planks on to the bottom and they were telling you they were fixing leaks, even if you couldn't see them?

 

[Not Mike Brown's Sock]

Confidence is a massive issue in the UK? Got any studies or data for that? Sure in America because they've given credibility to conspiracy theorists. I guess we're susceptible to this, for sure, but are UK voters actually worried about voter fraud? Genuine question I'd be interested to know.

It's weird to me. We both agree significant voter fraud isn't a problem but I guess you want to placate a minority of extremists who believe this rubbish whether I would rather we tackle the actual problem of holding the liars spreading the BS to account. What do NASA do, do they say "actually we're not 100% sure the earth isn't flat" to placate flat earthists or do they try and educate people.

Electoral commission has it at about 19% here, up 6% from last year - https://www.electoralcommission.org...ws-and-research/our-research/public-attitudes (last use of the word fraud, jus cntrl F and skip down).

https://www.electoralcommission.org...cation-pilot-schemes/impact-voters-confidence This is also interesting, but as they say, it is risky to take conclusions from such a small sample size.

I'd argue that in your NASA analogy, trying to educate people equates to making the checks around elections more rigorous. If people want to believe dumb ****, prove to them they are wrong. It is so easy to conceptualise how voter fraud could work in our elections at present, especially on that tiny individual level, that it can easily be weaponised to create a trump esque scenario. Don't leave ourselves open to that risk

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

And there we go again, pander to nutjobs and figments of their imagination just to make them feel warm and fuzzy, regardless of the truth of the claim or any actual effect it would have in changing their mindset...

At this point I'm either on BPMs block list or they are just making a point of not addressing what is being said, leaning towards the former. Ah well, reciprocate I guess.

 

[ncurd]

It's interesting data of people perceptions, 19% think their is fraud but we know that to be baseless so we're going to disenfranchise voters to fix that issue.

21% think their is foreign interference and we know that to be true but we're doing sod all to stop that (except possibly what intelligence agencies are doing behind the scenes but not working).

Hmm...

 

[Not Mike Brown's Sock]

And there we go again, pander to nutjobs and figments of their imagination just to make them feel warm and fuzzy, regardless of the truth of the claim or any actual effect it would have in changing their mindset...

At this point I'm either on BPMs block list or they are just making a point of not addressing what is being said, leaning towards the former. Ah well, reciprocate I guess.

I'm not BPM fyi, also I don't block people, always seemed an odd thing to do

Statistically, it would seem that you are just incorrect... though same caveat as I said to @Welsh Exile, the array of evidence is small so I would be hesistant to use it, but all we got unfortunately. Regardless of that, the logic that many voting more secure = people doubting the election more seems odd.

What conspiracy am I subscribing too?

 

[Not Mike Brown's Sock]

It's interesting data of people perceptions, 19% think their is fraud but we know that to be baseless so we're going to disenfranchise voters to fix that issue.

21% think their is foreign interference and we know that to be true but we're doing sod all to stop that (except possibly what intelligence agencies are doing behind the scenes but not working).

Hmm...

Voter turnout not going down = disenfranchisement somehow? How does that work?

We should absolutely be doing more to stop foreign interefence

 

[Welsh Exile]

Electoral commission has it at about 19% here, up 6% from last year - https://www.electoralcommission.org...ws-and-research/our-research/public-attitudes (last use of the word fraud, jus cntrl F and skip down).

https://www.electoralcommission.org...cation-pilot-schemes/impact-voters-confidence This is also interesting, but as they say, it is risky to take conclusions from such a small sample size.

I'd argue that in your NASA analogy, trying to educate people equates to making the checks around elections more rigorous. If people want to believe dumb ****, prove to them they are wrong. It is so easy to conceptualise how voter fraud could work in our elections at present, especially on that tiny individual level, that it can easily be weaponised to create a trump esque scenario. Don't leave ourselves open to that risk

Thanks for the links.

I was actually wrong with the NASA analogy. They don't try and educate flat earthists. They ignore them. That's all you can do with these people.

I take it there aren't any other extremists that you like to placate. ISIS? WOL journalists after a victory against England?

 

[ncurd]

Voter turnout not going down = disenfranchisement somehow? How does that work?

We should absolutely be doing more to stop foreign interefence

Because it did effect turnout 800 people turned away in this trial. Seams like 100 people per area is fairly standard number. Looking across those two trails. Think those voters were disenfranchised of their right to vote. All this for 1 case of actual convicted voter fraud across the entire nation.

800 voters turned away in ID trial during local elections | Electoral reform | The Guardian

Number caught out is higher than in first trial of compulsory voter ID last year

www.google.com

Some elections are won by those margins. At least 24 seats in 2019 won by less than 800 votes https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/general-election-2019-marginality/

1 by 100.

 

[Not Mike Brown's Sock]

Thanks for the links.

I was actually wrong with the NASA analogy. They don't try and educate flat earthists. They ignore them. That's all you can do with these people.

I take it there aren't any other extremists that you like to placate. ISIS? WOL journalists after a victory against England?

Haha no I feel like ignoring ISIS probably wouldn't end well and WOL journos most definitely need to be talked out of their insanity!

 

[Not Mike Brown's Sock]

Because it did effect turnout 800 people turned away in this trial. Seams like 100 people per area is fairly standard number. Looking across those two trails. Think those voters were disenfranchised of their right to vote. All this for 1 case of actual convicted voter fraud across the entire nation.

800 voters turned away in ID trial during local elections | Electoral reform | The Guardian

Number caught out is higher than in first trial of compulsory voter ID last year

www.google.com

Some elections are won by those margins. At least 24 seats in 2019 won by less than 800 votes https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/general-election-2019-marginality/

1 by 100.

Thankfully we do have research on turnout as opposed to confidence -

Commons report for you - NI section about a 3rd down https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9187/

 

[Welsh Exile]

Haha no I feel like ignoring ISIS probably wouldn't end well and WOL journos most definitely need to be talked out of their insanity!

Out and out trolls just have to be ignored, though. Just as crazy people who believe in deep state election fraud and people that think the earth is a donut.

Some people have to be fought though (ISIS) and the people who seek to undermine our democracy (domestic and abroad)

Do you know what really fucks me off is that I'm not a Tory, I've never been a Tory, my family have been Tory so I appreciate I'm from a very partisan perspective here but one thing I thought you could count on the Tories for (or the right in general) is that they won't take any **** from foreign countries trying to **** about with our democracy. This bunch, though, they get handed actual evidence of it and just go oh well. But nah, voter fraud could be a big problem guys we've got to do something. Evidence did you say, nah we don't have any of that, that's why I said could. Do me a favour. Start with that narrative and more people will start believing it

 

[ncurd]

Thankfully we do have research on turnout as opposed to confidence -

Commons report for you - NI section about a 3rd down https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9187/

So section 3.7 of the full report shows voters were turned away by margins elections are won by. But on turnout overall it was about the same so we ignore it.

Gonna be a really fun legal challenge and uproar every time voters are turned by the margin of victory. That won't undermine the system at all.

 

[Not Mike Brown's Sock]

So section 3.7 of the full report shows voters were turned away by margins elections are won by. But on turnout overall it was about the same so we ignore it.

Gonna be a really fun legal challenge and uproar every time voters are turned by the margin of victory. That won't undermine the system at all.

Has that been a regular occurrence in anywhere with voter ID out of curiosity?