Posted on 09/16/2005 3:39:47 AM PDT by Pharmboy
TRENTON, Sept. 15 - The joke has long been that dead people vote in Hudson County, New Jersey's legendary enclave of machine politics. But now the joke may be on New Jersey, according to a new analysis of voter records by the state's Republican Party.
Comparing information from county voter registration lists, Social Security death records and other public information, Republican officials announced on Thursday that 4,755 people who were listed as deceased appear to have voted in the 2004 general election. Another 4,397 people who were registered to vote in more than one county appeared to have voted twice, while 6,572 who were registered in New Jersey and in one of five other states selected for analysis voted in each state.
At a news conference at the State House, Tom Wilson, the state's party chairman, took pains to say that the analysis did not look at voters' party affiliation. He also said that the party was not accusing voters of committing fraud, suggesting instead that someone else may have exploited their names without their knowledge.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
You don't want any system that ties a particular vote to an individual. That would be the death of secret ballot. There is a reason for keeping those things separate.
Mainly, if your vote CAN be traced to you, you can be pressured to vote a certain way. Or, you could reliably sell your vote, since you have the means to guarantee what it was.
Nope, the way to stop the fraud is to stop the fraudulent votes from entering the system in the first place. After they get in, you're stuck with them.
I predict that the 'Rats will object to preventing dead people from voting and the kangaroos on the SCONJ will go along with it.
Geraldo Rivera can then stake out cemeteries on Election Night looking for opinions from dead voters on who they favored for Presdient. (Hey Jerry -- I can tell you what the dead will say -- every last corpse will vote 'Rat!!)
Is that Hugh Macobb?
I just moved to NJ a few years ago from NYC and when I voted for Dubya I did not use punch cards.
No, its a non-caffinated human at an ungodly time in the morning.
Macabre
Actually, I think this would be illegal. SS# is not supposed to be used by the government for other purposes.
Do you mean like when they require it for Driver's License, Passport, Financial Aid, Military Applications, Selective Service Forms, Medicaid, Medicare, Background Investigation, etc? I think they've already gone there, so why not use something useful to stop voter fraud?
I understand your point, but I think a double blind ballet could be devised to void all associated votes. They currently hold ballets that aren't registered, not to mention absentee ballets. You could do this with all of them until the SSNs are compared. However, there is no risk at all in entering your SSN when you vote, thus insuring that the particular SSN only votes once. And it is probably adequate to simply use it for registration, and have a system that cross checks all systems for the dead and duplicates 24 hours before the polls open.
I wonder how many dead voters are in Wayne County, Cook County, and King County.
You are most certainly right on private businesses, but the government asks for your SSN on everything. I do believe that you are correct in that the Gov. stated back at the creation of SS that the number would never be used for anything else, but they left that behind long ago. Using it to combat voter fraud seems the least of concerns about its overuse to me.
I agree with you but this will be the argument against using it, and my guess would be the initial intent would prevail.
If you don't mind an alternative, I think the state drivers license or identification cards could be used for voter ID's. It could be implemented during renewals by asking people go renew in person and prove citizenship that one time. Then, if governments could get their act together, a national database of drivers licenses and voter registration could be developed.
I don't know about that...there was a lot of anger against Bush in the Republican suburbs. Many Republicans I called stated they were voting for Kerry.
But at least it would have been LOTS closer, if not a win for Bush. But I think that the GOP doesn't want their own dirt revealed. Still, when an old-time Dem here didn't realize my affiliation and started telling me about their dirty tricks they'd played, I realized the Dems are much more active on the slime trail than the Republicans.
Thanks for the heads up. Part of my reason for posting was my surprise that the Times ran it at all.
Hardly news. The democratic party is fdamous for getting dead people to vote for live people, excpet when they pulled off their greatest stunt and got live people to vote for a dead man (Mel Carnahan, whose Senate seat somehow fell to his wife).
Wow...you need a lotta bandwidth for this list. Thanks...
Ya got me...I admit it: I'm a deadist.
Waiting for the other shoe to drop. They probably found 3 dead republicans voting in Florida in 2000. Just you wait...
bttt
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