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posted by martyb on Friday July 24 2020, @09:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the counting-is-hard-when-it-counts dept.

With No Final Say, Trump Wants To Change Who Counts For Dividing Up Congress' Seats:

President Trump released a memorandum Tuesday that calls for an unprecedented change to the constitutionally mandated count of every person living in the country — the exclusion of unauthorized immigrants from the numbers used to divide up seats in Congress among the states.

The memo instructs Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the Commerce Department, to include in the legally required report of census results to the president "information permitting the President, to the extent practicable" to leave out the number of immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization from the apportionment count.

But the move by the president, who does not have final authority over the census, is more likely to spur legal challenges and political spectacle in the last months before this year's presidential election than a transformation of the once-a-decade head count, which has been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

[...] Since the first U.S. census in 1790, both U.S. citizens and noncitizens — regardless of immigration status — have been included in the country's official population counts.

The fifth sentence of the Constitution specifies that "persons" residing in the states should be counted every 10 years to determine each state's share of seats in the House of Representatives. The 14th Amendment, which ended the counting of an enslaved person as "three fifths" of a free person, goes further to require the counting of the "whole number of persons in each state."

It is Congress — not the president — that Article 1, Section 2 of the country's founding document empowers to carry out the "actual enumeration" of the country's population in "such manner as they shall by law direct."

In Title 2 of the U.S. Code, Congress detailed its instructions for the president to report to lawmakers the tally of the "whole number of persons" living in each state for the reapportionment of House seats. In Title 13, Congress established additional key dates for the "tabulation of total population."


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by canopic jug on Friday July 24 2020, @10:38AM (11 children)

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 24 2020, @10:38AM (#1025714) Journal

    Yes, it is essential that people go through the motions, but keep in mind how empty that is. It's been over 20 years since the US exit polls matched the alleged results for the elections. It's been almost as many since the US election process fulfilled the UN's requirements for open and fair elections. Mainstream media continues to spin it as the polls being wrong. Yet at the same time, every time it has been attempted, the individual US states have not been able to prove in any way, shape, or form the veracity of the alleged tallies from the election. So, since 1) the polls can be verified and 2) the election results have not been able to be verified, it looks much more like "irregularities" in managing the election despite the spin from the media.

    Last time around, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were examined in detail. None of the three could reproduce the tallies they alleged were the bona fide results, not even the one state out of the three which had used paper ballots. That's how bad things stand. Throwing money at the problem alone won't fix it, but it can't be fixed without a lot of investment in cleaning out the current workflow. Moscow Mitch blocked that money last year back when there was still time to fix or ammeliorate the problem. Now it is way too late to do anything for this current cycle except watch the trainwreck.

    Then on top of that there is the outright fraud presented in the form of electronic "voting": https://www.defcon.org/images/defcon-26/DEF%20CON%2026%20voting%20village%20report.pdf [defcon.org]
    https://www.defcon.org/images/defcon-25/DEF%20CON%2025%20voting%20village%20report.pdf [defcon.org]
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-a-data-security-expert-fears-u-s-voting-will-be-hacked-11587747159 [wsj.com]
    https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/16/voting-security-crisis-q-a-1466704 [politico.com]

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @01:01PM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @01:01PM (#1025738)

    I always lie to the pollsters. Stop believing that their numbers are somehow more trustworthy than any other random stat you see anywhere else.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday July 24 2020, @01:19PM (9 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 24 2020, @01:19PM (#1025749) Journal

      Stop believing that their numbers are somehow more trustworthy than any other random stat you see anywhere else.

      Like actual vote tallies, for example?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @01:35PM (8 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @01:35PM (#1025754)

        In case you were just born yesterday, there have been myriad problems with vote tabulation throughout history. High-tech has added new layers of potential problems, including "hacking".

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday July 24 2020, @02:39PM (3 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 24 2020, @02:39PM (#1025785) Journal
          I knew of those problems when I wrote my post. Perhaps you should reread it with that new information in mind.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @03:54PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @03:54PM (#1025817)

            You get 2 upmods sir.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @03:57PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @03:57PM (#1025818)

            Apologies- my post was meant for previous AC. Human error; corrections not allowed.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @06:19PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @06:19PM (#1025877)

            But, khallow was born yesterday, he's a Millenniall.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday July 25 2020, @05:33AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 25 2020, @05:33AM (#1026089) Journal
          Since several people seem to be having the same misconceptions, I'll point out that the "problems" above mean that exit polling may still be a more accurate estimate of the vote than the official tally of the vote. Even with people like the previous AC who claim they deliberately lie to polls.
        • (Score: 2) by Mykl on Sunday July 26 2020, @09:06AM (2 children)

          by Mykl (1112) on Sunday July 26 2020, @09:06AM (#1026503)

          there have been myriad problems with vote tabulation throughout history

          Oh, OK. I guess we don't need to worry about trying to fix it then.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @02:53PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @02:53PM (#1027116)

            No, by all means, keep on worrying. That approach has worked so well so far. Sorry for the sarcasm, but as far as I can tell society is full of problems that never get fixed. Do you have any suggestions for fixing the problem?

            • (Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday July 27 2020, @11:25PM

              by Mykl (1112) on Monday July 27 2020, @11:25PM (#1027387)

              Do you have any suggestions for fixing the problem?

              Yes.

              1. Get rid of electronic voting. It's proven to be too unreliable and non-verifiable. I know that irregularities predate it, but there are far worse irregularities with e-votes than without
              2. Stop getting private companies to supply most of the equipment and logistics for voting. This should be managed by an independent government body (like the Australian Electoral Commission)
              3. Have your independent body draw the electorate maps, not the incumbents. Remove Gerrymandering. This is what most western civilizations do
              4. Move your voting to weekends, where more people are able to make it to the polls, and more volunteers are able to assist with ensuring that voting runs smoothly
              5. Leave each state to determine what they want to do for state-level elections, but have one single consistent approach to voting across all states for Federal Elections (i.e. have the Federal Election run Federally!)

              These are a start. Going further, please improve the quality of the election process by introducing preferential or runoff voting.