Andrew Olmsted dot com: Fraud and the Parties

« The Myth of Negotiations | Main | Game Three »

October 26, 2004

Fraud and the Parties

I've drawn an accusation of partisanship due to my assertion I believe the Democrats are likely to secure the election for John Kerry through electoral fraud. Clearly, I should be more clear. I do not believe that the Democrats are a party of cheats and liars and that the Republicans are the party of virtuous seekers of truth. I'm quite confident that both parties have their fair share of miscreants and cheats, and that there will be attempts on both sides to appropriate votes to their side. So why do I think that Kerry will benefit from this more than Bush? Because I think the Democrats are better at it than Republicans. Historically, voter fraud has been far more effective in the cities than in rural areas. This is quite logical; in a city of millions of voters, a few thousand fraudulent votes are hard to spot. In a rural area, conversely, it's tough to launder the votes you've created. Not impossible, but harder, and certainly it's harder to create the number of votes your candidate may require for victory. This aids the Democrats, who are stronger in the cities and weaker in rural areas. It's simply a structural coincidence, not a demonstration of one party's being somehow more corrupt than the other. But if you really want to know which party is better at voter fraud, just ask them. One of the easiest ways in the world there is to reduce fraud is to require people actually prove that they are who they claim to be when they vote. That would allow the authorities to prevent (or at least reduce, depending on the degree of information-sharing) people from voting multiple times as well as reducing the possibility of people voting in other people's names. It wouldn't cure the problem, but it would certainly reduce it. If both parties were truly interested in reducing the problem, I'd argue they would act to fix it. If both parties felt they were gaining an advantage through such methods, they would leave it alone. If one party thought it was gaining an advantage while the other thought they were at a disadvantage under the current rules, the party believing itself to be at a disadvantage would try to fix the problem and the party believing it had an advantage would try to keep things the way they are. So which party is trying to change things, and which is trying to maintain the status quo? If you follow politics, you know very well that the Democratic Party has done everything in its power to make it easy to vote early and often in elections, while the Republican Party has tried to enact methods to restrict voter fraud. I don't think the Republicans are doing that out of the goodness of their hearts: they know the Democrats have them beat when it comes to voter fraud, and they're trying to make themselves more competitive. There's nobody pure out there. Just one side that's more successful than the other. Good news for John Kerry. But don't take my word for it: in the most hotly contested states, listen for which parts of the state report last. When the big cities consistently report in last with just enough votes to throw the state to Kerry, ask if that's really just an interesting coincidence. Update: Will Wilkinson argues that Republicans and Democrats suppress the other's votes in different ways. He's probably right, although I still think that demographics favor the Democrats in this battle.

Posted at October 26, 2004 02:16 PM

Andrew Olmsted

Advertisers

Cat Medicine
Refrigerator Repair Parts
Best Price Cars
Account Money Market
Detailing Supplies

Comment policy

I apologize for only allowing authenticated commenters, but comment spam overwhelms the site if I don't use those measures to prevent it. I reserve the right to delete any comment, although generally comments will only be deleted due to use of profanity or personal attacks on people. I have no objection to vigorous argument, but when name-calling begins, I'm putting a stop to it. In the immortal words of Eugene Levy, "People, people, let's stop this before somebody says something untrue!" If you want to call people names, I recommend you get your own blog.

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://andrewolmsted.com/mt/pings.cgi/796

Comments

I hope that you didn't get that I was accusing you of a simple partisan message. I was just saying that it was an incomplete argument.

I agree almost entirely with this post. It is true that since a majority of Democratic support is in large urban areas, they have more access and it is easier to hide fraud.

As far as reporting last as proof. If all precincts in a state close at the same time, wouldn't it make sense that large citied take longer. Sure, it could be fraud, like when a guy I golf with always says his score last and it is always at least one below mine, but it could also just be numbers of votes.

The first town I lived in in Minnesota had one polling place and maybe 1,000 voters. They didn't check ID's when you went in. They just handed you a ballot and had you sign in. After the morning rush, there was no wait to cast your vote.

Where I live now is a little larger and has 3 official polling places. At all 3 of those, there is a pretty consistent flow throughout the day until close. I would expect them to take longer.

Both of my Minnesota cities have been Republican majorities that really aren't close. Maybe I should investigate them for fraud.

In the first, the Republican Party was allowed to have representatives take absentee ballots to the nursing home for those who couldn't get out to vote. Did they influence or get votes from people with Alzheimers who didn't even know there was an election, I don't know. They could have though. Maybe I will monitor it this year since the race is more competitive in Minnesota.

I guess that my only point is that politicians and ideologues present hafl the story using sensationalism to get you to accept their view, intellectuals present the whole argument and say why they believe what they do to get you to think and decide for yourself. Even if I agree with parts of your argument, I am less likely to be influenced by it unless I already agree when presented in a simple, one-sided manner.

I like to occasionally debate on the St Cloud Times website with Bush supporters. I have even been known to take up a pro-Bush point of view. I it because I agree or support him, most definitely not. It is instead because when many present their candidate, they do so using talking points and no substance. It happens on both sides, but around here the majority of peopel are Republicans and the most common arguments on there are Hanoi John this and 9/11 that.

If you ask why do you support the President, it is always why is John Kerry a communist coward who doesn't want to keep America safe, he just wants better ketchup prices and a French veto over our security. I get that from the idiots on both sides campaigning, what I want to know is why you believe or support something. I like to say why I believe things. I love a good debate. Only through that honest and open communication will we ever go beyond argument to understanding. After all, agreement is not necessary to success of this nation, just that we understand and are accepting of both sides.

Posted by: Scott at October 27, 2004 11:47 AM