Matt Yglesias

Oct 14th, 2008 at 10:10 am

Error Rates

I find that an awful lot of problems are caused by people’s inability to understand things like error rates and big numbers. If a pharmaceutical company came out with a new anti-depression drug and gave it to a million people suffering from depression, of whom 970,000 were helped you wouldn’t turn around and conclude that the company was perpetrating a deliberate fraud based on the fact that “tens of thousands” of patients got no relief. You’d say that the medicine was helpful in 97 percent of the indicated cases. ACORN is trying — and succeeding — in an effort to register a lot of new voters.

There’s simply no way to gather over one million new voter registration forms without some of the forms having been filled out with bogus information. You could ask the group to automatically toss out the obviously wrong ones — some guy saying he’s Tony Romo, someone else saying he’s Mickey Mouse — but the law requires them to hand all the forms in to prevent them from tossing out forms filled out by people who say they want to register Republican. Consequently, if you go out and register over a million voters you’ll wind up with a lot of bad forms being submitted. But just as 30,000 is a lot of people and also only a very small fraction of one million people, when you’re talking about registering over a million new voters you’d need orders of magnitude more bad forms to constitute real evidence of a systematic fraud campaign.

Meanwhile, if you want to reduce the number of bad forms submitted, you have basically three options:

  1. Make voter registration much easier and more automatic so as to reduce the need for registration drives.
  2. Let registration organizers toss out forms.
  3. Stop all registration drives by conflating good faith errors with systematic, criminal fraud.

Conservatives like option (3) because they don’t like it when large numbers of people vote. And that’s what this is about, finding a backdoor way to delegitimize all efforts at large-scale registration drives. It’d be as if instead of trying to ban computers (obviously impossible) you passed a law saying you could throw someone in jail for selling a computer that’s prone to crashing. It’s computer sales fraud — the thing’s supposed to work! Well, nobody knows how to build a crash-free computer so, bye bye computer industry.

Filed under: ACORN, Media,





78 Responses to “Error Rates”

  1. Rich Says:

    If only there were some way to charge user fees for voting rights enforcement, which after all is an immensely expensive governmental activity that only benefits minorities. Maybe some kind of poll tax would do the trick.

  2. Christopher M Says:

    you’d need orders of magnitude more bad forms to constitute real evidence of a systematic fraud campaign

    Good point overall, but this is a little overstated. 30,000 out of a million is 3%. Surely you wouldn’t have to go nearly as high as 30% (one order of magnitude) before it started to look like deliberate fraud.

    At any rate, the really crucial point (which you have made before) is that whether or not “Mickey Mouse” is registered to vote, it is extremely unlikely that Mickey Mouse or anyone purporting to bear that name is going to show up at the polls and actually vote.

  3. rea Says:

    But just as 30,000 is a lot of people and also only a very small fraction of one million people, when you’re talking about registering over a million new voters you’d need orders of magnitude more bad forms to constitute real evidence of a systematic fraud campaign.

    Well, one order of magnitude anyway. Multiple orders of magnitude would just be bizarre. “Jeez, we tried to submit paperwork to register a million new voters and got 3 million reejctions for fake forms–what’s up with that?”

  4. Brad Says:

    Give me a break. Poor little ACORN never did anything to anyone! You are an idiot if you don’t think ACORN isn’t purposefully and knowingly registering phony voters. And yes, Mickey Mouse could not show up to vote, but there are many other ways to cheat the system.

    And that was probably the dumbest analogy ever put to print Matt.

  5. Njorl Says:

    Statistically speaking, there are probably more than 100 Tony (of some variation) Romo’s in the US (I’m sure some of them would be pissed that their registration got tossed because they had the same name as a famous guy.

  6. Matt Says:

    I support voter registration efforts generally, and ACORN specifically, but Matt’s argument seems a little weak to me.

    The issue isn’t about the error rate - it’s about the severity of the error.

    To use his analogies - it would be ridiculous to outlaw PCs that crashed occasionally, because the consequence of a crash is generally insignificant - a minor hassle, that hardly detracts from a PCs utility.

    Likewise, it would be ridiculous to outlaw a drug that only cured 97% of users, if those other 3% only received no benefit.

    But if those other 3% instantly dropped dead upon taking the drug - that’s a completely different story.

    To come back to ACORN - the question you need to address is how severe are tne negative consequences of a small error rate?

    If you end up with a few thousand bad registration forms, but virtually no fraudelent votes - then sure, it’d be ridiculous to outlaw ACORN.

    But if ACORN’s efforts result in thousands of fraudulent votes - then that’s a significant problem, that could conceivably justify the conservative’s argument.

    So - that’s what we need to explain - not that ACORN’s error rate is low, but that the consequences of it’s errors are trivial.

  7. Bob Loblaw Says:

    You are an idiot if you don’t think ACORN isn’t purposefully and knowingly registering phony voters.

    Even if we grant this highly questionable assertion to be true, there’s no need to get the vapors when the numbers of phony registrations are still as small as even the most conspiratorially minded think. And again, this wouldn’t even be voter fraud, it’s registration fraud.

  8. James Gary Says:

    Brad, thanks for that brilliantly reasoned rebuttal. It’s not often that I come across such a well-thought out refutation of a blogger’s point, but I have to say that calling one’s opponent “an idiot” and describing his argument as “the dumbest analogy ever put to print” is a welcome breeze of intellectual clarity in these vitriolic times.

  9. Peter Elias Says:

    Only slightly off topic, this great article (and accompanying editorial) talks about statistical illiteracy among pateints and professionals and provides a framework for addressing the communication of risk/probability in a way that makes it more likely that it will be understood.

    Worth reading!

  10. Pronk Says:

    I’m a Democrat and I think it’s important to have organizations that make it easier for citizens to register to vote.

    But, Matt is coming across as willfully blind about the ACORN issue. I haven’t been following this issue as closely as some, but it’s my understanding that certain ACORN workers were given strong incentives to hand in as many new registration forms as possible, which is what caused a lot of the fraud.

    Matt’s option #1 should be the goal of groups like ACORN - “make voter registration much easier.” Their goal shouldn’t be to submit as many forms as possible no matter what.

    Groups like ACORN are serving a noble cause, but they went too far. Liberals need to acknowledge that truth and make sure that voter registration efforts are conducted with a little more discipline in the future.

  11. SLC Says:

    Re Brad

    Since fucktard Brad has posted the right wing crap, I will repeat my comment on the previous thread. The Michigan Messenger has investigated the allegations against ACORN and has found them overblown and seriously in error.

    http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/10/facts_about_acorn_and_alleged.php#more

    Payoff comment from the attached link:

    This is politics, plain and simple. The GOP cannot come up with a single documented example of someone voting twice or voting fraudulently, but they continually raise the specter of voter fraud in order to cover up their longstanding voter suppression efforts. And those efforts, unlike the allegations of voter fraud, have been documented and proven in court many times. Multiple courts have found the RNC and various Republican state committees guilty of illegal voter suppression and issued injunctions against their voter caging programs. And that is the sole purpose of these voter fraud allegations, to distract attention away from all of that.

  12. Jeffrey Davis Says:

    Who here would support the idea of an organization helping people to register and giving that organization the option of throwing away registration cards?

  13. Andrew Fly Says:

    On Sunday, I watched an interview on C-SPAN with the interim chief of ACORN, and she said that workers are paid hourly, and that there is no incentive for quantity of registrations. She also said that 90% of the bad/fraudulent forms cited by elections officials are already flagged by ACORN staff. They also contact the authorities to whenever an employee submits fraudulent forms for possible fines/prosecution.

    She also said that what needs to happen is more and better cohesion between voter registration drives and individual boards of elections.

    That’s really all they can do.

  14. bemused Says:

    The other important point to remember is that Acorn itself identified problematic registrations when turning in the registrations to the registrars.

  15. bemused Says:

    Sorry for the overlapping comment.

  16. ElBlot Says:

    Good post Matt. Damned lies and statistics and all that!
    But about ACORN generally, it’s pretty unbelievable how people swallow this crap. This is a group that literally tries to organize some of the POOREST PEOPLE IN THE COUNTRY to help them improve their lives. Only a Republican could blame these folks for a crisis actually caused by, literally, some of the RICHEST PEOPLE IN THE COUNTRY.
    Pathetic.

  17. Borden Tarde Says:

    Heard an Ohio election on Diane Rehm (hope I remember this correctly) saying that ACORN had sent in some 33,000 forms in his jurisdiction to register some 26,000 people. The difference is accounted for by duplicate forms–surely not ACORN’s fault. They had actually disqualified some 20 attempted registrants, about half of those registered by ACORN. He made no claim that the ten were fraudulent. So in this sample ten registrants out of 26,000 were disqualified. Not too bad.

    But it was also interesting that this guy didn’t really have any problems with ACORN. They had had some problems with the group in past elections, but this time had met with them to go over procedures, and the result was a big improvement–surely a win both for ACORN and democracy. Goes to show how it’s better to talk to a group than to demonize them.

  18. -=topper=- Says:

    This whole ACORN thing stinks. I can imagine a group, an online crusade, where they got people together of the conservative set to make out these forms, and drop or mail them in.

    Just to make ACORN look bad. They are, to me, just that pathetic.

    Actually, some have taken the time to comment at conservative sites using my name to try and generate more hateful comments coming my way.

    Oh well, it’s that type of behavior that makes me believe that they will do anything.

  19. Som12H8 Says:

    This whole thing just makes me laugh. The US is like a third world country in this area. There’s one simple solution to this problem that most of the world has figured out - a national ID card/database. Voilá, problem solved.

  20. Xanthippas Says:

    And yes, Mickey Mouse could not show up to vote, but there are many other ways to cheat the system.

    Which you fail to note, we are not currently talking about. Please enlighten us about a way to “cheat the system” as a registered fake voter that doesn’t actually involve voting. I’ll wait.

  21. Xanthippas Says:

    There’s one simple solution to this problem that most of the world has figured out - a national ID card/database. Voilá, problem solved.

    Or, national voting standards and a uniform process by which they are implemented that doesn’t involve half-trained county officials and third party organizations.

  22. Bloix Says:

    “Voila, problem solved.”

    What problem would be solved? The problem of fraudulent voting? The one that doesn’t exist? Or the problem of right-wing hacks spreading lies about fraudulent voting? For that, we need a national ID program?

  23. sarah smith Says:

    Error rate - a 50% error rate in Indiana - in one county only. You should review your Statistic texbook. Normally an acceptable error rate is 3% on less.

  24. MAX HATS Says:

    If a pharmaceutical company came out with a new anti-depression drug and gave it to a million people suffering from depression, of whom 970,000 were helped you wouldn’t turn around and conclude that the company was perpetrating a deliberate fraud based on the fact that “tens of thousands” of patients got no relief.

    No, that is precisely what gets said about drugs with precisely that level of error rate (or better).

  25. Mia Says:

    I agree that to prevent this from happening again, ACORN should move away from paying on a commission model. I know that at least here in Mpls/St. Paul, workers would only get paid if they turned in a certain amount of registration forms. I think most of us would try and slip in a fake form if it made the difference between getting paid or not. What I don’t know is if ACORN educated workers on the severity of turning in fraudulent forms….?

    I am glad that ACORN does do these drives, many of the workers I knew had little or no job history or other barriers to employment, so this was great. I hate how people are ripping on an organization that primarily works in low voter turnout areas, really stupid…I agree with you ElBlot.

    Also, kind of getting off topic, but I know that in Minnesota, repubs tried to make an amendment to our family welfare program so as to not allow paid voter drives as valid “work activity”. Again, stupid. But good ol’ Neva Walker slipped in the word “partisan” voter drives.

  26. Twinkles Says:

    The biggest problem that I see with this issue is that ACORN will NOT register anyone who states they would vote non-Democratic. And ACORN does have a long sordid history of voter fraud. Bussing people to the pols and ‘buying’ them lunch? Southern FL, 2000.

  27. pseudonymous in nc Says:

    The problems with ACORN’s registration drives are a symptom, not a cause. They’re symptomatic of a fragmented, broken electoral system, which in turn is symptomatic of the curiously American attitude that a democratic government doesn’t need to attend to the machinery of democracy.

  28. calling all toasters Says:

    Bussing people to the pols and ‘buying’ them lunch

    Oh noes! ACORN bussed people to the polls! Don’t they know that if you have difficulty getting to the polls you’re not supposed to vote? Anyway, both Republican and Democratic campaigns regularly bus people to the polls, so for ACORN to also do it is just wrong.

    Fortunately, this story has a happy ending: many of those dark-complexioned people turned out to have similar names to felons, so they couldn’t vote anyway. Katherine Harris saved the day again!

  29. Mary Says:

    I think it’s time for the American taxpayer to stop being expected to FUND them, now that it’s proven their record-keeping is slip-shod.

    Incompetence is incompetence, no matter what color skin or what political ideology.

    Hopefully, this will be one of the “government programs” we delete when we’re making lists of the ones that really, really can’t manage their own paperwork.

    Let someone else fund them, besides the American taxpayer.

  30. aleks Says:

    Can they hand the fishy ones in to the gov’t with a post-it note about their suspicions?

  31. St Wendeler Says:

    Good to know that a 3% disenfranchisement rate is acceptable to you.

    Fisked your post here.

  32. Dave G Says:

    1. If I wasn’t sure if I was registered (my wife got her voting package several days before I got mine) and re-registered then by someone’s standards I would be guilty of voter fraud.

    2. If I were trying to make trouble for the folks registering new voters, I could just register as Mickey Mouse; then later claim they were guilty of fraud.

  33. TSW Says:

    ACORN’s just facing the same problems as any large organization employing minimum-wage labor. When I go through the drive-through at McDonald’s there’s a decent chance they’ll screw my order up. But that doesn’t mean that McDonald’s is behind some huge conspiracy to cheat people out of food.

  34. FireTag Says:

    Both Republican allegations of voter fraud and Democratic allegations of voter suppression tend to have an “eye of the beholder” quality to them. ACORN claims to be a “victim of fraud by its own employees. If so, it could solve a lot of its own problems by paying employees by the hour, not by the number of forms turned in. What hurts ACORN is its failure to take such obvious steps, and its association with intimidation accusations in other contexts, such as mortgage standards.

  35. Yorugua Says:

    So Matt if fraud is almost negligible, can you explain to me how did the Republicans steal Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004

  36. Ted Says:

    I dunno, Matt. This error rate seems like 100%. And it doesn’t look like “error”; it looks like intentional fraud. Like one person filling out dozens of forms at a time.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRhrT22BsIY

  37. DaveinHackensack Says:

    Meanwhile, if you want to reduce the number of bad forms submitted, you have basically three options:

    1. Make voter registration much easier and more automatic so as to reduce the need for registration drives.
    2. Let registration organizers toss out forms.
    3. Stop all registration drives by conflating good faith errors with systematic, criminal fraud.

    Since the issue isn’t bad forms per se but voter fraud, why not add a fourth option — make voter registration easier but require voters to produce a valid, government-issued photo ID when they go to vote.

  38. db haber Says:

    It’s funny to see how so many conservatives just don’t get the simplest things. Let’s do some definitions:
    Voter registration: Filling out a form that allows you to go to the polls and vote.
    Voter registration fraud: Filling out a voter registration form or forms with phony information.
    Voting: Casting a ballot.
    Voter fraud: Voting when you don’t have the right to, such as when you vote then go to another polling place and claim to be someone else and the poll workers let you vote using his ballot. Or stuffing a ballot box, like they did in the good old days.
    People occasionally get charged with voter registration fraud.
    There are almost no convictions for voter fraud.
    Because it hardly ever happens anymore. And certainly not with thousands of votes being cast fraudulently.
    If it were easy to do, people would have tried.
    I defy anyone on this page to find us a single case of successfully prosecuted voter fraud (not voter registration fraud, voter fraud) involving more than a handful of votes in the last 20 years.

  39. Deb Says:

    Can they hand the fishy ones in to the gov’t with a post-it note about their suspicions?
    They do. Suspicious votes are handed over in a separate batch flagged as suspicious.

    They also pay by the hour, not on commission, and the highest quota I’ve heard is 20 new registrations per shift. Other groups - notably an organization hired by the Republican party to register new Republican voters - do pay on commission and are being investigated for changing the party on registration forms, or tricking people into signing voter registration forms.

    In soome of the cities where ACORN offices were raided, ACORN had been the ones to notify registrar’s offices of suspected fraud, offered up names of those workers who knowingly handed in fraudulent cards and offered full cooperation.

    One of the things that no one is mentioning is that these one of the avenues for checking these registrations is the SSA database - and at least as of early last Wednesday, the SSA was planning to have the database servers offline for scheduled maintenance from the 11th through the 13th - just at the time when there would be a deluge of forms because of registration deadlines. I know many groups were trying to get them to postpone the scheudled down time until after the election. I’m not sure if they did or not.

    These ACORN purges come up routinely during every election cycle and eventually, the ballyhooed investigation admits that they’ve found nothing but a kid or two

  40. Tom West Says:

    How about making voter registration compulsory? Just need to arrange thinsg so when you get sent a tax form by the government, it has a box labelled “are you registered to vote?” If don’t tick yes, then you get registered.
    Problem solved.

  41. Ranch Kid Says:

    From a REAL journalists’ website:

    A 2005 report by the League of Women Voters of Ohio and the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio found that of about 9 million votes cast in the state from 2002-2004, there were four fraudulent ballots
    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OH_VOTER_FRAUD_OHOL-?
    SITE=OHWOO&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

    Without a soapbox to incite, like Rush and Sean Hannity, without connections to wealthy lawyers and insiders, no PhD or Pedigree, I am one of those silly individuals who believes I can make a difference if I get involved. I worked on a registration drive and I can tell you that the group I worked for screened EVERY registration and visibly crossed off the invalid registrations before handing them over to the Secretary of State. Yes, we got our share of Mickey Mouses and obvious wrong dates.

    By the way: where did you first hear of the alleged “voter fraud” Rush Limbaugh? He was the one who encouraged Republicans in Texas to register Dem so Hillary would be the nominee.

    As always, Rush needs to take the log out of his own eye before screaming about the splinter in ours (paraphrased from a bible verse by a screaming LIBERAL!!!!!!!)

  42. Scott Says:

    Funny… Didn’t GWB win by only 538 votes in 2000? I don’t know what percentage that equates to, but I would be willing to guess that it was less than one percent by far.

    The Democrats seem to think that Republicans are out to stop people from voting. I don’t think that is the case. I am an Independent who wants everybody that is legally entitled to vote, to vote for whomever they please, ONCE.

  43. Happy Farm Says:

    I predict that the biggest problem with voting this year will be the distribution of voting machines. Lines 8 hours long in the city vs a 10 minute wait in the suburbs.

  44. Paul Says:

    To the zealots on both sides of the fence: Would you like some cheese to go with that whine? Regardless of affiliation, humans are involved and some bad behavior is an inherent consequence. Having said that, the process still (somehow) works. It is naive not to recognize that fraud and error do occur, but in the final analysis the outcome still ends up reflecting the will of the people. Never underestimate the common sense of the average citizen.

    In recent elections, the split has been so close as to fall within the range of error. Is this the result of fraud? Maybe. Is it the result of incompetence? Perhaps. Is it the fault of a system that allows a victor to be chosen when the results are within the margin of error? Yes.

    Instead of spending time pointing fingers at each other, point it at yourselves and ask “Am I doing all I can to be a decent, productive, citizen? Am I trying to understand differing beliefs? Am I working to find common ground that benefits no one exclusively and everyone to a degree?”. Until that answer is yes, your opinion is of no consequence.

    Get out and vote on November 4th!

  45. Mark Says:

    I believe that the problem is one of perception more than actual fraud on the Dem side or suppression on the Repub side. If people think that there are major forces supported by either or both parties out to unfairly sway the election, they may decide that voting is not worth the effort. Much like the feeling many Dems had after the Supreme Court “elected” GWB.
    It is in everyone’s interest including both major political parties to defend the right and the safety of the voting process. Dems and Repubs should both make a stronger stand to support voting. Spending so much time and money in a strategy to sway the election either by coercion or supression ends up damaging to the political process that both parties need to have legitimized.
    No one wins if everyone loses.

  46. Amy Says:

    Ranch Kid: I can’t believe I’m speaking up for Rush Limbaugh, but what is wrong with this?:

    V=He was the one who encouraged Republicans in Texas to register Dem so Hillary would be the nominee.

    That is perfectly legal and IMO perfectly moral. I’ve done it myself, voting in the Vermont Republican primary to get rid of an ignorant carpetbagger and vote for a joke candidate. (He won.) That was an open primary, so we didn’t need to register as Republicans, but same difference. There were no interesting contests in the Democratic primary, so over we went to help the Democratic Senator by providing him with a joke opponent. Parties wish we wouldn’t do things like this, but if you are primarily (heh) concerned with your favorite candidate winning the general, then you may legitimately go about it by trying to guarantee a weak opponent, or try to keep your least-favorite potential opponent from winning the nomination.

    Of all the horrible things Limbaugh has ever said, I can’t believe this is the worst you can come up with!

  47. arclight Says:

    Basically, our citizenry is now so immature that they don’t recognize any responsibility to vote, or to register to vote. Further, our citizenry is now so immature that they are all too willing to see the basic tenets of our form of government (respect for the rule of law, governing by the consent of the governed, and the right of every person to believe and proclaim as they wish) violated and trampled on. How do they do that? Here are some examples:

    a. They denigrate respect for the rule of law by either (a) ignoring the law whenever it’s inconvenient or (b) turning the law and the courts into a weapons system for personal, organizational, or corporate gratification.

    b. They scream for the government to regulate more and more things immediately right NOW without attempting to build consensus among the population.

    c. They fail to support the right of every person to believe and proclaim as they desire, even though the Constitution is quite clear that every person is created with those rights:

    1. There are far too many who believe that the phrase “separation of church and state” (which doesn’t even appear in the Constitution) means that religious-based thought and belief is somehow inferior before the Constitution relative to non-religious-based thought and belief, even though the Constitution flatly does not support that contention.

    2. There are far too many others who believe that this is a “Christian nation” or similar, when the Constitution flatly does not support that contention.

    3. Worst of all, altogether too many citizens are willing to stand quietly by (or cheer from the sidelines) when partisans of left or right attempt to use (or succeed at using) the power of government at any and all levels to coerce adults who don’t agree with them to surrender their beliefs, or (worst of all) to use the public education system to indoctrinate as pawns not only their own children but the children of those adults who disagree.

    These irresponsible citizens take ANY issue (like voting, as has been discussed here) and turn it into just another front in the ongoing Cold Civil War between “their” partisans and “those other folks” that they so dearly love to hate. In the process of doing this, the fabric of our nation is torn to greater and greater degrees…to the point that it may well be more holes than fabric.

    We have huge challenges in front of us: (a) personal, corporate, and governmental debt in the trillions of dollars; (b) underfunded Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (estimated to be about $53 Trillion underfunded, per the GAO in 2008); (c) an energy policy that makes us hostage to other nation-states; (d) an approach to manufacturing that makes us hostage to other nation states (we can’t even manufacture in the United States certain critical components in our electrical infrastructure, for crying out loud); (e) a refusal to accept that automation is rapidly destroying the ability to “create” high-wage low-skill jobs (a trend that is irreversible); (f) a labor force that MUST be retrained to compete in the 21st century; (g) an education system that MUST be retooled and remissioned to ensure that children who pass through it understand their responsibilities as American citizens and are trained and prepared to assume and execute those responsibilities. Instead of turning our focus toward these enormous challenges and applying what knowledge and wisdom we have to solving them, we instead are quite content to continue fighting, fighting, fighting the Cold Civil War with “those other folks”.

    Want to solve the voting issue? Remind folks that voting is a right, but registration is a responsibility, and that EMOTIONS AND FEELINGS DON’T HAVE A DARN THING TO DO WITH EITHER ONE. In short, stop fighting about it, and find a way to ensure that adults are registered (I like making it mandatory) and that anyone who attempts to commit voting fraud of any kind (voting multiple times, fiddling with machines, losing ballots, etc.) is punished for attempting to subvert the form of government of the United States (because THAT’S what voting fraud is, if anyone has the guts to call it what it is).

    A standard system for all 50 states is something that could be generated in a heartbeat IF folks were more interested in solving the problem than in making sure that their partisans and their party remained supreme.

  48. David Says:

    Voter registration fraud does not equal voter fraud? Maybe I’m missing something here but why would anyone waste their time filling out Mickey Mouse voter registrations with no intention of ever using those registrations to vote? Obviously there are some weird folk out there…

  49. Ralph N. Says:

    David: Because they get PAID for it.

  50. Bill Says:

    David:

    People would also put down false names on an application if they were paranoid about putting their real name down on a government form. Like, if someone asked you to register and you had reason to be paranoid, would you want say “no thanks, I’m an illegal alien” or “no, because there’s an arrest warrant out on me” — or would you just fill out the form with some made up information?

    Note that the persons described above are NOT going to show up at a voting booth, paranoid persons that they are…

    Again, with SOME evidence of significant actual voting fraud (of which I’ve never heard of any in the last several decades), this whole issue is a complete scam. Now, evidence of voter intimidation and suppression, I’ve seen MUCHO evidence of that! Guess which party was doing it? Does the name “Katherine Harris” ring a bell? Think the number of real votes that were suppressed on that one were less than 538? So, which group again has a confirmed record of actual election fraud in recent years, causing severe damage to the country?

  51. tim ` Says:

    They registered 1.3 million people! It’s not there fault that some of their employees are douchebags!

    - T

    http://MostEmailedNews.com

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