[The Final Dakar]

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepo...181860151.html

The state Senate's incoming leader said Monday he would like to take retired judges off the state's nonpartisan elections and ethics board and replace them with political appointees.

Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), who becomes Senate majority leader in January, said he believed the state Government Accountability Board has made decisions favoring Democrats and that putting political appointees on the board would "strike more of a balance."

Wait, what?

political appointees on the board would "strike more of a balance

political appointees ... balance

da fuq?

Lawmakers in 2007 overwhelmingly voted to create the accountability board, which merged the state's elections and ethics board to create an agency that was meant to be tougher and more independent. The board consists of six retired judges.

Every Republican in the Legislature at the time voted for the measure, and having the board consist of former judges was a GOP idea. But Fitzgerald said it had not worked out as expected.

The members of the accountability board are selected in a Byzantine fashion devised by the Legislature to ensure fairness. For each opening on the board, a panel of four appeals court judges - selected at random - reviews applicants and makes recommendations. For an opening, they forward at least two names to the governor, who must then select one of them to sit on the accountability board.

Board members cannot hold other offices, belong to a political party, run for office, work as a lobbyist or make political contributions while serving on the board.

[raleur]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

[the state Government Accountability Board has made decisions favoring Democrats and that putting political appointees on the board would "strike more of a balance."

Welcome to "reality based" thinking.

[The Final Dakar]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2273927.html

Republican campaign consultant Scott Tranter appeared on a panel Monday hosted by the Pew Center on the States to discuss the long lines and voter ID controversies that plagued the 2012 election. In his comments, Tranter seemed to imply that he believed these issues were helpful to Republicans and should be pursued for that reason.

"A lot of us are campaign officials -- or campaign professionals -- and we want to do everything we can to help our side. Sometimes we think that's voter ID, sometimes we think that's longer lines -- whatever it may be," Tranter said with a laugh.

[subego]

I'm still stymied about what to do about it. I think the system rewards people who behave like this.

[raleur]

You're right, the system does reward it. In fact, if you take redistricting into consideration, it's an important part of the system.

But look at it from the "big picture" point-of-view: it's a last-ditch effort to postpone the inevitable. If the demographics are on your side, you can afford to let the campaign ride on the issues and the candidates. But if the numbers aren't going your way, you need to change the numbers.

However, it has never worked in the long run because a) we've been lucky enough to have people who believe that upholding the law is more important than which side wins an election, and b) the demographics keep changing anyway.

The solution is simple, but also unacceptable to certain groups: if you want to win, you must present ideas and policies that the people understand, agree with, and want.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by raleur 

The solution is simple, but also unacceptable to certain groups: if you want to win, you must present ideas and policies that the people understand, agree with, and want.

OAW

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by raleur 

The solution is simple, but also unacceptable to certain groups: if you want to win, you must present ideas and policies that the people understand, agree with, and want.

Obama won because he gave poor people free stuff.

[raleur]

Yes, that too.

[The Final Dakar]

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs...nclick_check=1

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said Monday there is one major thing the federal government could do to help improve elections in Ohio: give the state the tens of millions of dollars it needs to upgrade or replace its aging voting machines.

---

During months in which Ohio’s electoral system drew extensive national scrutiny, the two major charges made by the opposing sides in that debate dealt with alleged voter suppression and fraud, Husted said.

The fact that a record 1.8 million early votes were cast in Ohio this year – due in large measure to a Husted initiative under which every registered voter received an absentee ballot application – refutes the voter suppression claims, Husted said. Vote fraud, he added, “is a very rare occurrence,” despite claims from far-right groups and others to the contrary.

[subego]

Just to be clear, that was beamed here by a space alien, right? That's why it doesn't relate to things which happened on Earth, right?

[The Final Dakar]

Now extending to 2013!

Reince Priebus backs electoral vote change, but it's state's decision

The head of the Republican National Committee believes Wisconsin and other battleground states should change the way they allocate their Electoral College votes, but he said he is not inserting himself into how states decide to proceed.

Why just the battleground states?

"I think it's something that a lot of states that have been consistently blue that are fully controlled red ought to be looking at," Priebus said of the plan to change how electoral votes are granted.

How do you change a state that's consistently blue to red? By changing their minds? No! By changing how the votes are counted, of course!

[The Final Dakar]

*tip of the hat to the mod that changed the thread title so freakin' fast*

[subego]

What a great counter-argument:

"With such a system in place, candidates and groups would run fewer ads, concentrating on swing congressional districts. That would mean tens of millions of dollars in ads would not have gone to Wisconsin television and radio stations"

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by subego 

What a great counter-argument:

"With such a system in place, candidates and groups would run fewer ads, concentrating on swing congressional districts. That would mean tens of millions of dollars in ads would not have gone to Wisconsin television and radio stations"

The same argument could be made for overturning Citizen's United.

[subego]

Good point.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

Do you consider illegal immigrants voting to be voter fraud?

Yes, but it isn't the issue.

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

...please explain your answer.

Assuming 100% of illegal immigrants voted identically across all 50 states, they'd make a whopping 0.0007% difference in the polls. In short, it doesn't matter if they vote, it's just a red herring to keep legitimate voters out of polling stations.

Incidentally, you don't need an I.D. for a mail in ballot.

[The Final Dakar]

Republicans Brag They Won House Majority Because Of Gerrymandering | ThinkProgress

Farther down-ballot, aggregated numbers show voters pulled the lever for Republicans only 49 percent of the time in congressional races, suggesting that 2012 could have been a repeat of 2008, when voters gave control of the White House and both chambers of Congress to Democrats.

But, as we see today, that was not the case. Instead, Republicans enjoy a 33-seat margin in the U.S. House seated yesterday in the 113th Congress, having endured Democratic successes atop the ticket and over one million more votes cast for Democratic House candidates than Republicans. The only analogous election in recent political history in which this aberration has taken place was immediately after reapportionment in 1972, when Democrats held a 50 seat majority in the U.S. House of Representatives while losing the presidency and the popular congressional vote by 2.6 million votes.

In Ohio, for instance, Republicans won 12 out of 16 House races “despite voters casting only 52 percent of their vote for Republican congressional candidates.” The situation was even more egregious to the north. “Michiganders cast over 240,000 more votes for Democratic congressional candidates than Republicans, but still elected a 9-5 Republican delegation to Congress.”

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Republicans Brag They Won House Majority Because Of Gerrymandering | ThinkProgress

Yawn....

Take a look at MD's ballot this year. Nothing new here.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

Yawn....

Take a look at MD's ballot this year. Nothing new here.

You're bored because Republicans didn't manage to gerrymander Maryland?

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

You're bored because Republicans didn't manage to gerrymander Maryland?

No, lamenting that the democrats did...as they've done for decades here, but that it is not worthy of your scorn unless there is an (R) next to the name.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

No, lamenting that the democrats did...as they've done for decades here, but that it is not worthy of your scorn unless there is an (R) next to the name.

"The other side does it too" is a shit reason to not care.

[The Final Dakar]

Virginia, emulating the genesis for this thread, only much worse.
Virginia State Senate Moves Ahead on Electoral College-Rigging Bill

These guys are swiftly becoming my favorite state legislative body. From the AP: Virginia's Republican-ruled legislature has taken the first steps toward ending the state's winner-takes-all system of apportioning its 13 presidential electoral votes. A Senate subcommittee recommended Sen. Bill Carrico's bill on Wednesday on a 3-3 party line vote.

I interviewed Carrico about the bill last month, asking why he added a provision that makes this even less democratic than other vote-split schemes. Most of these bills assign one electoral vote for every congressional district, then give the two at-large districts to whoever wins the state. But the Carrico bill would assign the final two electors to whoever won the most districts.
"We're still not sure we're going to leave it at that," he told me. "If we tweak the legislation somewhat to allow those votes to the statewide winner, the metropolitan voters may understand that their vote is going to be heard."

Not quite. The new language: Receipt by a slate of electors of the highest number of votes in a majority of congressional districts constitutes the election of the two at-large electors of that slate.

Look at the map from 2012. Mitt Romney won the 1st (53%), 4th (50%), 5th (53%), 6th (59%), 7th (57%), 9th (63%), and 10th (50%) districts. Barack Obama won the four remaining districts -- the 2nd (50%), 3rd (79%), 8th (68%), and 11th (62%). Had the Carrico plan been in place in 2012, Mitt Romney would have won nine of Virginia's electoral votes, and Barack Obama would have won four -- even though Obama won the popular vote of the state by nearly 150,000 ballots, and four percentage points.

[OAW]

^^^^

When you can't beat them fair and square ... just change the rules!

OAW

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

"The other side does it too" is a shit reason to not care.

Exactly, so where's your outrage for when the (D)'s do it (which is all the goddamned time)? Frankly, I don't care either way when either "side" does it. Its a symptom of a much more pervasive problem of a large, unchecked ruling class. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy in this thread which is nothing but vitriolic, partisan shillery.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

Exactly, so where's your outrage for when the (D)'s do it (which is all the goddamned time)?

Feel free to post some examples and I shall share my feelings on the matter.

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy in this thread which is nothing but vitriolic, partisan shillery.

Hypocrisy? If ignored a nation-wide attempt by democrats to suppress conservative influence and turnout, please share.

Also, vitriolic? Please, demonstrate.

[Snow-i]

This is the most impartial source I could find towards the most recent example (that occurred at the same time). Type in Gerrymandering to google...and the autocomplete will try to put "maryland" in for you. Nothing new, nothing "outrageous."

Gerrymandering? Maryland Ballot Question 5 Asks Voters To Decide on Tortured Maps | wusa9.com
It passed by the way.

The vitriol description stems from the cherry picking and supposed outrage at a tactic that has been used by both sides for decades...including at the exact same time as the VA measure. I would join you in a call for the shenanigans to stop, but the interest on your "side of aisle" seems to only be when it suits you to discredit those you disagree with.

In other words, I don't believe you honestly care about the issue. Its just a great opportunity to flame those you don't agree with again.

Please, If I'm wrong, please correct me and state your position on gerrymandering as a whole, including the plethora of examples of Dem's pulling the same bullshit.

[Snow-i]

Here's a more comprehensive, wikipedia style description:
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.ph...estion_5_(2012)

The washington post, known around here for being pretty left, said:
'The Washington Post said, "Brazenly partisan redistricting leads to non-competitive elections whose winners need never fear a plausible challenge from the opposing party. The result is a Congress stuffed with incumbents who, lacking any incentive to compromise, provide the building blocks for political paralysis."[4]'

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by OAW 

^^^^

When you can't beat them fair and square ... just change the rules!

OAW

And when you win, change the rules so you never have to compete again!

OAW, where is your outrage for the Maryland democratic party? Where?

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

This is the most impartial source I could find towards the most recent example (that occurred at the same time). Type in Gerrymandering to google...and the autocomplete will try to put "maryland" in for you. Nothing new, nothing "outrageous."

You're falling victim to google's personalized search. If I type in gerrymandering the second result is Pennsylvania. (The first is "explanation". Maryland is nowhere to be found)

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

Gerrymandering? Maryland Ballot Question 5 Asks Voters To Decide on Tortured Maps | wusa9.com
It passed by the way.

Wait, voters approved it? As in, the constituency had a chance to vote it down and they decided to keep them? That one's on the voters.

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

The vitriol description stems from the cherry picking and supposed outrage at a tactic that has been used by both sides for decades...

I haven't been of voting age for most of those decades...

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

including at the exact same time as the VA measure.

You do realize the VA measure ins't about gerrymandering per se, but using it's results to affect the outcome of the presidential election, right? I mean, if you want something from the other side, you can complain about National Popular Vote Interstate Compact - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, but given it requires widespread adoption and makes 1 man = 1 vote, I don't see it as quite as evil.

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

In other words, I don't believe you honestly care about the issue. Its just a great opportunity to flame those you don't agree with again.

I honestly don't care if republicans manage to skew elections by suppressing the will of the people? Are you nuts?!

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

Please, If I'm wrong, please correct me and state your position on gerrymandering as a whole, including the plethora of examples of Dem's pulling the same bullshit.

I'm against any type of vote-rigging.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

The washington post, known around here for being pretty left, said:
'The Washington Post said, "Brazenly partisan redistricting leads to non-competitive elections whose winners need never fear a plausible challenge from the opposing party. The result is a Congress stuffed with incumbents who, lacking any incentive to compromise, provide the building blocks for political paralysis."[4]'

Yes, that's why gerrymandering is terrible. The real election becomes the primary. Hope your state holds open primaries!

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

And when you win, change the rules so you never have to compete again!

OAW, where is your outrage for the Maryland democratic party? Where?

If only you had posted about it first and waited to see our reaction before crucifying us.

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

You're falling victim to google's personalized search. If I type in gerrymandering the second result is Pennsylvania. (The first is "explanation". Maryland is nowhere to be found)

So even google gerrymanders their results?

Wait, voters approved it? As in, the constituency had a chance to vote it down and they decided to keep them? That one's on the voters.

Is your stance the same for "Voter ID suppression" referendums that have passed or been supported by the majority? Directly analogous.

I haven't been of voting age for most of those decades...

But now that you are, would you stand for it if the candidate you supported also supported MDQ5?

You do realize the VA measure ins't about gerrymandering per se, but using it's results to affect the outcome of the presidential election, right? I mean, if you want something from the other side, you can complain about National Popular Vote Interstate Compact - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, but given it requires widespread adoption and makes 1 man = 1 vote, I don't see it as quite as evil.

I mean, what are the results of q5 in MD going to be used for? I'm not seeing the distinction between its status as a means and its status as an end as being morally unequivocal.

I honestly don't care if republicans manage to skew elections by suppressing the will of the people? Are you nuts?!

"You honestly don't care if Democrats manage to skew elections by suppressing the will of the people? Are you nuts?!"

Thats the charge. I look forward to you challenging this in open forum.

I'm against any type of vote-rigging.

Then don't you think we ought to stop attaching (Rs) and (Ds) to this and start understanding that its becoming People vs Government? I withdraw my above charge with prejudice.

To address your previous statement:
"Both sides doing it is a shit reason not to care"

I would amend that to say "Both sides doing it is a real good reason to gerrymander the lines in the sand, and start 'redistricting' our outrage towards the ruling class a whole"

Yes, that's why gerrymandering is terrible. The real election becomes the primary. Hope your state holds open primaries!

If only you had posted about it first and waited to see our reaction before crucifying us.

Its a Monday. The only strategic thinking I'm doing is when 5 roles around do I want to nap before or after dinner.

[OAW]

Snow-I,

My position on "gerrymandering" is that federal and state districts should be drawn by NON-PARTISAN groups as opposed to being drawn by whichever political party happens to be in power when a census is conducted.

OAW

[P]

It seems that one could make a formula to make it more automatic and improve compactness, something like the total length of the district borders being below (theoretical minimum+25%) or whatever.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

Is your stance the same for "Voter ID suppression" referendums that have passed or been supported by the majority? Directly analogous.

I'd much rather see some of these kinds of things passed by the populace, than the politicians, whether I agree with them or not.

It's worth noting I'm not entirely against voter ID, but as noted earlier in the thread, I found the recent timing and implementation highly suspect.

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

I mean, what are the results of q5 in MD going to be used for? I'm not seeing the distinction between its status as a means and its status as an end as being morally unequivocal.

I'm not going to pretend I understood all of that, but right now it's "limited" to affecting the house nationally, while the game plan is to have it potentially affect the presidential election. Going from affecting one half of one third of government to affecting two thirds of government is an alarmingly big jump to me.

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

"You honestly don't care if Democrats manage to skew elections by suppressing the will of the people? Are you nuts?!"

Thats the charge. I look forward to you challenging this in open forum.

The entire point is to be subject to the will of the people, not the politicians. Live by the sword, die by the sword. I live in PA. Trust me, I die by the sword a lot more than I live by it.

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

Then don't you think we ought to stop attaching (Rs) and (Ds) to this and start understanding that its becoming People vs Government? I withdraw my above charge with prejudice.

You're right that both sides engage in shenanigans. It's why I refuse to register as affiliated with a party, even though it's obvious my views align me with one side the majority of the time. That said, it's hard for me to indict both sides when one is doing much more heinous things than the other. The truth is if the Democrats decided to "catch-up" by similarly awful methods, I'd probably just turn apathetic towards everything.

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

To address your previous statement:
"Both sides doing it is a shit reason not to care"

I would amend that to say "Both sides doing it is a real good reason to gerrymander the lines in the sand, and start 'redistricting' our outrage towards the ruling class a whole"

So what are you advocating we do? I use this thread with the hopes that the more people who know, the more chance their outrage is voiced and these methods are stopped.

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

Its a Monday. The only strategic thinking I'm doing is when 5 roles around do I want to nap before or after dinner.

Your outrage started in the middle of last week.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by OAW 

Snow-I,

My position on "gerrymandering" is that federal and state districts should be drawn by NON-PARTISAN groups as opposed to being drawn by whichever political party happens to be in power when a census is conducted.

OAW

Doesn't california do it by computers?

[OAW]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Doesn't california do it by computers?

That I don't know offhand.

OAW

[The Final Dakar]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/op...r-of-2012.html

Sam Wang is an associate professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton and the founder of the Princeton Election Consortium. (My note: He along with Nate SIlver, crushed it this election, so he apparently knows numbers to some degree)

Using statistical tools that are common in fields like my own, neuroscience, I have found strong evidence that this historic aberration arises from partisan disenfranchisement. Although gerrymandering is usually thought of as a bipartisan offense, the rather asymmetrical results may surprise you.

I have developed approaches to detect such shenanigans by looking only at election returns. To see how the sleuthing works, start with the naïve standard that the party that wins more than half the votes should get at least half the seats. In November, five states failed to clear even this low bar: Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

I had no idea PA was that bad. I should have, though.

Now let’s do something more subtle. We can calculate each state’s appropriate seat breakdown — in other words, how a Congressional delegation would be constituted if its districts were not contorted to protect a political party or an incumbent. We do this by randomly picking combinations of districts from around the United States that add up to the same statewide vote total. Like a fantasy baseball team, a delegation put together this way is not constrained by the limits of geography. On a computer, it is possible to create millions of such unbiased delegations in short order. In this way, we can ask what would happen if a state had districts that were typical of the rest of the nation.

In North Carolina, where the two-party House vote was 51 percent Democratic, 49 percent Republican, the average simulated delegation was seven Democrats and six Republicans. The actual outcome? Four Democrats, nine Republicans — a split that occurred in less than 1 percent of simulations. If districts were drawn fairly, this lopsided discrepancy would hardly ever occur.

Confounding conventional wisdom, partisan redistricting is not symmetrical between the political parties. By my seat-discrepancy criterion, 10 states are out of whack: the five I have mentioned, plus Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Illinois and Texas. Arizona was redistricted by an independent commission, Texas was a combination of Republican and federal court efforts, and Illinois was controlled by Democrats. Republicans designed the other seven maps. Both sides may do it, but one side does it more often.

Surprisingly absent from the guilty list is California, where 62 percent of the two-party vote went to Democrats and the average mock delegation of 38 Democrats and 15 Republicans exactly matched the newly elected delegation. Notably, California voters took redistricting out of legislators’ hands by creating the California Citizens Redistricting Commission.

Political scientists have identified other factors that have influenced the relationship between votes and seats in the past. Concentration of voters in urban areas can, for example, limit how districts are drawn, creating a natural packing effect. But in 2012 the net effect of intentional gerrymandering was far larger than any one factor.

This more what I suspected was happening with PA and Philly, which is about the only blue area in the state and highly concentrated.

Third, gerrymandering is a major form of disenfranchisement. In the seven states where Republicans redrew the districts, 16.7 million votes were cast for Republicans and 16.4 million votes were cast for Democrats. This elected 73 Republicans and 34 Democrats. Given the average percentage of the vote it takes to elect representatives elsewhere in the country, that combination would normally require only 14.7 million Democratic votes. Or put another way, 1.7 million votes (16.4 minus 14.7) were effectively packed into Democratic districts and wasted.

In Illinois, Democrats did the converse, wasting about 70,000 Republican votes. In both cases, the number of wasted votes dwarfs the likely effect of voter-ID laws, a Democratic concern, or of voter fraud, a Republican concern.

To preserve majority rule and minority representation, redistricting must be brought into fairer balance. I propose two plans. First, let’s establish nonpartisan redistricting commissions in all 50 states. In Ohio, one such ballot measure failed in November, in part because of a poorly financed campaign. Maybe those who prodded voters to turn out could support future initiatives.

[BadKosh]

OHIO chimes in....

Did Obama supporter vote 6 times in 2012? Ohio poll worker target of investigation | Fox News

[The Final Dakar]

"Fraud does happen," noted Husted. "Most attempts are caught by the system. But there are cases that do slip through, as this one does, and we need to make sure that we really send a strong message, that if you do this, you are going to be held accountable. It might mean fines, it might mean jail time."

All of that sounds reasonable to me.

[subego]

The scope of this woman's level of denial is both funny and sad.

[OAW]

"Richardson is one of 19 people suspected of illegal voting by the Hamilton County Board of Elections in the last election."

OAW

[BadKosh]

And ANOTHER!!! Bwa-haa-haa!

Ex-Md. Candidate Pleads Guilty In Voting Case | wusa9.com

[subego]

Wendy Rosen reaches plea agreement on voting charges - baltimoresun.com

Rosen apologized to campaign supporters Friday, but also said she hoped the incident would shine a light on what she described as more serious examples of voter fraud. She argued that some states take great efforts to keep the poor and minorities from voting, for instance.

“What I did wasn't right, it wasn't smart, but it was [an act] of civil disobedience, not arrogance, and if it somehow ... helps to bring this problem to light, it will be worth the pain I've endured over these last six months and into the future,” Rosen said in a statement.

Wut?

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by subego 

Wendy Rosen reaches plea agreement on voting charges - baltimoresun.com




Wut?

hahaha. "I only robbed the bank to show how greedy people can be. It was civil disobedience!!!"

[BadKosh]

AND YET ANOTHER!!!

Cincinnati poll worker charged with voting half dozen times in November | Fox News

[The Final Dakar]

Are you trying to prove something?

[BadKosh]

voter fraud?

[OAW]

Originally Posted by BadKosh 

voter fraud?

Actually your 3/12 link is to the SAME CASE that you linked to on 2/19. So your "AND YET ANOTHER!!!" declaration is a bit "fraudulent" itself n'est-ce pas?

OAW

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by BadKosh 

voter fraud?

No one here denies it happens, though, do they?