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Mystery of missing votes deepens as Congress investigates Georgia:
To find a clue about what might have gone wrong with Georgia's election last fall, look no further than voting machine No. 3 at the Winterville Train Depot outside Athens.
On machine No. 3, Republicans won every race. On each of the other six machines in that precinct, Democrats won every race.The odds of an anomaly that large are less than 1 in 1 million, according to a statistician's analysis in court documents. The strange results would disappear if votes for Democratic and Republican candidates were flipped on machine No. 3.
It just so happens that this occurred in Republican Brian Kemp's home precinct, where he initially had a problem voting when his yellow voter access card didn't work because a poll worker forgot to activate it. At the time, Kemp was secretary of state — Georgia's top election official — and running for governor in a tight contest with Democrat Stacey Abrams.
The suspicious results in Winterville are evidence in the ongoing mystery of whether errors with voting machines contributed to a stark drop-off in votes recorded in the race for Georgia lieutenant governor between Republican Geoff Duncan, who ended up winning, and Democrat Sarah Riggs Amico.
Even though it was the second race on the ballot, fewer votes were counted for lieutenant governor than for labor commissioner, insurance commissioner and every other statewide contest lower on the ballot. Roughly 80,000 fewer votes were counted for lieutenant governor than in other down-ballot elections.
The potential voting irregularities were included among 15,500 pages of documents obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that have also been turned over to the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee, which is looking into Georgia's elections. The documents, provided under the Georgia Open Records Act, offer details of alleged voting irregularities but no answers.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office has refused to open an investigation. State election officials say the low number of votes could have been caused by low interest in the lieutenant governor's race or where that contest appeared on the ballot.
'It is not letting me vote for who I want': Video shows electronic machine changing ballot in Mississippi (Paywalled and/or Javascript required):
Over and over again, the man touches a box on an electronic voting machine to cast his ballot for Mississippi gubernatorial candidate Bill Waller Jr. And over and over again, the machine instead checks off a vote for Waller's opponent in Tuesday's GOP runoff, Mississippi Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves.
"How would that happen?" a woman exclaims in the background.
"It is not letting me vote for who I want to vote for," the man says.
The moment, captured on a video uploaded to Facebook and Twitter, where it's gotten nearly 750,000 views as of early Wednesday, shows one of at least three malfunctioning voting machines reported in two counties in Mississippi, state elections officials confirmed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday August 29 2019, @10:58PM (4 children)
Voter ID laws aren't about election security, but about instituting a de facto poll tax to prevent certain kinds of people from voting. The people who've been sued over these laws have publicly admitted as such, but gotten around problems with the 15th Amendment and Voting Rights Act of 1964 by claiming that the goal was to disenfranchise citizens who were part of the "wrong" political party (which for some reason isn't illegal) rather than disenfranchise citizens who were the wrong color.
Those kinds of issues were also involved in the decision many states made to disenfranchise people based on previous criminal convictions.
It sure looks like part of what's going on is at least 1 political party in the US who doesn't give a damn what the majority of their constituents want.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 30 2019, @12:02AM (2 children)
Why don't you do a survey of your own. Ask all of the black people you know if they can get to the DMV to get their free voter photo ID. You DO know some black people, don't you? If not, surely you have some near neighbors you can survey? Please don't tell me that your nearest black neighbor lives miles away.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 30 2019, @12:52AM (1 child)
Moron. "Can" is not the same as "can easily." It's akin to a chemical reaction: the higher the energy barrier the slower the reaction proceeds, ie. the fewer particles are active.
Disproportionately putting friction on black voters doesn't hardline block black votes. But "would you vote if you had to spend 4 hours in line, a week ahead of time" is also super fucking classist, because I'm not a housewife (or house husband), and my 8-7, Tues-Sat cleaning job doesn't give me time off to visit the DMV, unlike voting day. So when the fuck am I supposed to go in and not lose my job? Monday, when I have to watch two kids from noon-4? Yeah, maybe if I can catch the 6am bus, WITH my kids fed and in tow, to be in line when the DMV opens, so I can bus another hour home after and MAYBE make it on time?
Moron.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 30 2019, @02:36PM
Yes, of course, because you disagree with me, I'm the moron. Watch this all the way through - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrBxZGWCdgs [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 30 2019, @06:19AM
"de facto poll tax to prevent certain kinds of people from voting"
You mean FREE issued government ID is a tax? I suppose it is paid with taxes, but the people you pretend to care about do not often pay those.
Obtaining an official document is probably the bare minimum you should do to actually participate in a society.