You’re conflating again. Pointing out that your particular emotional bugaboo was impractical is not the same as pointing out a specific and potentially critical point of potential fraud. Also, you never called out the Republican party for their efforts on voter disenfranchisement. If anything, you supported them by implication on multiple occasions.
Let’s shift this to a metaphor for a moment. Imagine that a man who walked around seeing pickpockets everywhere, that every single person around him was a potential pickpocket in his eyes. So he advocated for systems that would harass a large number of people going about their day, but would catch very few pickpockets, because most people are not pickpockets. His associates look at this with skepticism. Then, one day, he visits a friend of his who runs a store, who is examining his record books. His friend looks up and goes, “I think someone might be cheating me in the unpacking room based on these figures”.
Is it fair for the pickpocket-phobe to accuse the shopkeeper of being a hypocrite, as they’re both afraid of being stolen from?
I would much rather he discuss specifics than “sides”, as rugged independent tends to be, again, self ascribed and have little to do with ones desire for neutrality, honest appraisal of the political system as it is without desire for or clinging to the average person’s narratives and the “party line”.
There are more than two sides, and even if there were only two, you can’t tell which ‘one’ I oppose.
Any chance that you oppose one party and assume everyone is like you in that regard? Because when someone tells me I oppose one side of a fight where they define the two sides, well, I call that person a liar. Because that person just lied.
I understand that his first overt act of violent antisemitism will be to relocate the US Embassy to Jerusalem, where the Knesset is located, and which has been the capital of Israel since 1949.
And here is a picture of Trump at (the opposite of) a KKK meeting-
But he will probably say something vulgar and boorish, and that makes him Just Like Hitler.
if you say so, you seem to be the one with the grasp on things.
Personally I just think he’s going to hire a bunch of idiots, poison the well of public discourse, and anger a lot of allies and potential allies. And I’ll spend the rest of my life on the hook in other than financial ways, as well as financial ones, as a responsible citizen.
The one change I worry the most about though is that as a nation we may return to a policy of making enemies faster than we can kill them.
You can try to put all the words in my mouth that you want, you can piss on my leg and tell me it is raining ALL DAY, if that’s what turns you on. I’m a tiny bit of a masochist, but don’t mistake me for a fool, Max. I voted for Clinton, in 1996, but not in 92.
Well, I believe that’s actually a new fallacy for you, Max: Quoting out of Context/Quotemining.
If I fill the Bingo Card, I’ll stop having to make increasingly torturous explanations on how, despite all appearances, that you’re actually debating in good faith. (I don’t actually believe that you are actually debating in good faith anymore, actually, but by rationalizing your arguments to state that you are, I have more fun that way). Could you make an ad hominem so I can fill the free space?
Ok? Nate Silver is on a victory lap after being shat on the week before the election, and his analysis of “our nation has already lost confidence in the voting system and a recount just makes that worse” is typical of his bad punditry.
The facts of he matter is that when Silver corrects his model for “important factors in the election” he isn’t proving that a different source of biasing hasn’t skewed the model as well - something he very briefly touches on in that article. Halderman is pushing for an audit because he feels it could theoretically be possible and there are clear discrepancies in he data.
Again, Nate Silver is aknowledging there are discrepancies and then is writing them off because of his own analaysis of he data shows that there are more likely scenarios. The bullshit comes from Nate Silver saying people must have concrete proof of voting machines being hacked in order to recount votes, and at the same time they completely undercut their entire article with the very last sentence:
They know that the only way to know for sure is a recount, but still say there shouldn’t be a recount because it undermines the system and their particular models can already correlate the data discrepancies.
In Wisconsin, from my above link, (to get this thread back on track):
Wis. Stat. Ann. §7.08(6) [7]
Government Accountability Board 2014 Voting System Audit Requirements
100 reporting units across Wisconsin are randomly selected, including a minimum of five reporting units for each voting system used in the state. Four contests shall be audited, including the top contest on the ballot (either gubernatorial or presidential). The other contests are randomly selected from other states contests on the ballot.
Well, I guess we can either hope for the best, or make ourselves sick speculating on the worst. Or we can go with the radicals, and use this as an excuse to disrupt the whole system. It is entirely likely that we will see legislation passed that we disagree with. But we will survive it. The big one I see is women’s health. Also the reduction of power of the EPA to control industrial pollution. Those, and gun control, are the big issues for me. I knew that any way this election went, I was going to lose on one or more issues that I cared about. But losing on an issue was never going to cause me to become violent or disruptive. When it has happened to me in the past, I just waited patiently, then used my vote to make my statement.
Of course, that strategy relies on a reliable, trusted, election process. to me, that means machines, if used, should be completely reliable and made, serviced, and the vote counted by totally impartial persons. And voters should be required to prove who they are, and that they are legally qualified to vote. If that means going around to all the homes of the few people who have never had any ID, we use tax money to get it done. Every other civilized country requires ID to vote.
And if someone says that some method we are using disenfranchises some group, we make changes to make sure that everyone who legally can vote gets the opportunity to do so, using a foolproof counting system.
You’re really only half correct on the solution. Voter fraud, on the level of individuals showing up to the polls and casting ballots, is statistically meaningless. There’s no way to make it effective, and the ID laws disenfranchise people. The ability to audit all machine votes with a paper trail, and making that count part of the normal process instead of requiring a challenge, is far more likely to decrease any sort of fraud that would make a difference.
