Depends what you mean by the little people. Electoral frauds by trade unionists, in Irish areas and now in, ahem, patriarchal areas, surely aren't huge and expensive? A bit of clannishness, a few threats of severe violence, a few minor payoffs perhaps, and Bob's your uncle.
@d I wasn't making a general statement about the phenomenon of voter fraud in history and worldwide - I was talking about the recent and current situation.
The electoral system is engineered by government, and from a relatively secure and fair system, recent re-engineerings have made make fraud easier to do and harder to detect - but in a manner that is only likely to be effective for those that command large resources of one sort or another.
21 November 2012 at 13:14
dearieme said...
No. Blair's rejigging of the system was, I'm pretty confident, based on his racist assumption that large parts of Pakistani England would thereby corruptly vote for Labour in even larger numbers. (If not racist exactly, then culturist, religionist, ethnicist, or whatever.) Command of large resources didn't really figure. Blair being dim, he then invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and realised too late that he might yet be hoist with his own petard.
I think it a great shame that the media didn't point out how racist he was being, but there you are.
Which was shocking and unprecedented for England - but has, of course, gone down the memory hole.
My impression is that this would have needed to be a fairly large scale and organized activity - albeit at a local level.
But the postal vote was a disgusting act of deliberate Leftist corruption.
Similar in nature to the introduction of easy cheat coursework/ homework/ somebody-else's-work 'exams' at GCSE and A-level (marked in collusion with teachers who are evaluated according to the marks obtained) - and of course most degrees.
21 November 2012 at 15:16
George G. said...
The U.S. has a very poor voting system with little security. There are multiple faults where fraud would is easy, but no efforts at reform pass. It seems those currently in power have likely benefited from the fraud and so are not inclined to vote in favor of measures preventing further fraud.
Then there are other matters: of public discourse being controlled by major media, of most people being idiots and voting for short-term selfish gain, of politicians buying votes by promising to redistribute wealth.
Additionally our actual system itself has problems, irregardless of fraud, propaganda, and the quality of the electorate: should the majority favor one option - they can still lose because of the US's electorate system. Should one side lose by only a minor number of voters, 49.99% could still be forced to accept a decision they disagree with - they have no more say!
@GG - it is obviously the Left who benefit nowadays, since they are the ones who block reform and introduce further corruption.
Even a fair democracy is unacceptable as a method of pre-agreed decision making - all forms of voting are immoral - but corrupt democracy is probably the worst possible system in so far as it allows all the abuses of tyranny but without any personal responsibility for anything.
21 November 2012 at 17:05
*
Expensive fraud - fraud which requires large scale organization and resources.
Certainly - at all costs - effective electoral fraud must be kept out of reach of the little people.
"What kind of voting fraud do governments like best?"
6 Comments -
Depends what you mean by the little people. Electoral frauds by trade unionists, in Irish areas and now in, ahem, patriarchal areas, surely aren't huge and expensive? A bit of clannishness, a few threats of severe violence, a few minor payoffs perhaps, and Bob's your uncle.
21 November 2012 at 12:02
@d I wasn't making a general statement about the phenomenon of voter fraud in history and worldwide - I was talking about the recent and current situation.
The electoral system is engineered by government, and from a relatively secure and fair system, recent re-engineerings have made make fraud easier to do and harder to detect - but in a manner that is only likely to be effective for those that command large resources of one sort or another.
21 November 2012 at 13:14
No. Blair's rejigging of the system was, I'm pretty confident, based on his racist assumption that large parts of Pakistani England would thereby corruptly vote for Labour in even larger numbers. (If not racist exactly, then culturist, religionist, ethnicist, or whatever.) Command of large resources didn't really figure. Blair being dim, he then invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and realised too late that he might yet be hoist with his own petard.
I think it a great shame that the media didn't point out how racist he was being, but there you are.
21 November 2012 at 15:05
@d - I guess you are referring to this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4406575.stm
Which was shocking and unprecedented for England - but has, of course, gone down the memory hole.
My impression is that this would have needed to be a fairly large scale and organized activity - albeit at a local level.
But the postal vote was a disgusting act of deliberate Leftist corruption.
Similar in nature to the introduction of easy cheat coursework/ homework/ somebody-else's-work 'exams' at GCSE and A-level (marked in collusion with teachers who are evaluated according to the marks obtained) - and of course most degrees.
21 November 2012 at 15:16
The U.S. has a very poor voting system with little security. There are multiple faults where fraud would is easy, but no efforts at reform pass. It seems those currently in power have likely benefited from the fraud and so are not inclined to vote in favor of measures preventing further fraud.
Then there are other matters: of public discourse being controlled by major media, of most people being idiots and voting for short-term selfish gain, of politicians buying votes by promising to redistribute wealth.
Additionally our actual system itself has problems, irregardless of fraud, propaganda, and the quality of the electorate: should the majority favor one option - they can still lose because of the US's electorate system. Should one side lose by only a minor number of voters, 49.99% could still be forced to accept a decision they disagree with - they have no more say!
The system is certainly not a good one.
21 November 2012 at 15:46
@GG - it is obviously the Left who benefit nowadays, since they are the ones who block reform and introduce further corruption.
Even a fair democracy is unacceptable as a method of pre-agreed decision making - all forms of voting are immoral - but corrupt democracy is probably the worst possible system in so far as it allows all the abuses of tyranny but without any personal responsibility for anything.
21 November 2012 at 17:05