Comments on: 68,000 Texans no longer have to prove they're not dead in order to vote

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 13:45:00 +0000

No doubt they’re not all immortal, and I don’t have a problem with any corporation in terms of its actual longevity, however short or long. I do have a problem with them being personified, though. And the fact that some do have a lifespan in the range of millennia certainly points even more to the absurdity of equating them with people.

By: Entrope

Entrope — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 12:47:00 +0000

What do you have against the (mostly small, family-owned) Japanese companies that are over a thousand years old? And were you aware that the average “lifespan” of a company in the S&P 500 index is now just 15 years?

By: blueelm

blueelm — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 09:50:00 +0000

“Are Old Texans more likely to be Democrats than Republicans? ”

Yes, actually.

By: B E Pratt

B E Pratt — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 05:55:00 +0000

Sure! Hey, it worked for LBJ ya know :)

By: Guest

Guest — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 03:40:00 +0000

Corporations are people, my friend. People that never die.

By: roseviolet

roseviolet — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 02:31:00 +0000

Clearly they do not. I spent my entire time at college arguing with my college’s administrators over this that and the other. Why? Out of something statistically freaky, she and I entered the same college at the same time, had the same initials and had only ONE number difference in our SSN’s. As an added bonus, we came from neighboring counties and went to a state college. If a college can have that much trouble keeping two CURRENT, LIVING students straight with COMPLETE social security numbers, just what in the blue blazes did Texas think they were doing with *partials*? It takes the WHOLE and accurate number to identify a person.

Furthermore, it takes a whole number AND a whole name. This gets particularly important if either the person’s name is common – in whole or part. Hell, my first name is uncommon and there’s still at least a pretty good handful of others with it – and several of them have my last name with a couple having the same middle initial. The State of Texas could have gotten similar “accuracy” to their method of names and partial social security numbers by using phone books and darts.

By: Red Monk

Red Monk — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 01:03:00 +0000

So the dead can now vote in texas?

By: Kevin 'Bynk' Bingham

Kevin 'Bynk' Bingham — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 23:14:00 +0000

Who thought this crap up? SSNs are similar by region, and given sequentially. So two people who were born in the same region, born on the same day, will have very similar SSNs; in some cases only a few digits difference. Also, what happen to all those laws over the last 20 years preventing the government from using SSN? I guess those were thrown out the window too.

By: TheMadLibrarian

TheMadLibrarian — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 22:16:00 +0000

We are all in Schroedinger’s Voting Box.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 21:34:00 +0000

There’s a guy who doesn’t pay his bills who shares my first and last name and his SSN is only a couple of digits different than mine. I’m really sick of getting collection calls for him.

By: Taniwha

Taniwha — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 21:33:00 +0000

Surely the whole turning up to vote is a bit of a dead give away that, well you’re not dead

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 21:11:00 +0000

I don’t believe democrats are the good guys who really care about peoples rights to vote, they just don’t want to see likely voters for them not allowed to vote. That being said, democrats are doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, but the republicans are just plain wrong.

If Democrats are not trying to disenfranchise Republican voters, that seems like an awfully bizarre analysis.

By: Peter Green

Peter Green — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 20:48:00 +0000

Schrödinger’s voter.

By: cellocgw

cellocgw — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 20:38:00 +0000

Just thinking in a Jack Benny mode: would you rather be in Texas or dead?

By: invictus

invictus — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 19:54:00 +0000

The problem with using the whole number is that people freak out when a number that’s simultaneously supposed to be secret and ubiquitously used is used in a way that even hints at violating that polite fiction.

By: Atomicpanda

Atomicpanda — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:47:00 +0000

Let me guess, “potentially deceased” is Texan for “likely to vote Democrat,” right?

By: semiotix

semiotix — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:33:00 +0000

Texas is on firm philosophical ground here. Are we not all “potentially dead?”

I think instead of worrying about silly voting stuff, you need to be asking yourself if you’re potentially alive. Yeah. You’re welcome.

By: wysinwyg

wysinwyg — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:33:00 +0000

Well said. It always feels a little distasteful to me to defend the Democrats on this one because as you say it’s not as though they’re doing it out of principle. But they’re doing the right thing nonetheless.

By: BillStewart2012

BillStewart2012 — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:30:00 +0000

“Partial Match” means “Guaranteed not to be the right person, unless it’s an exact match.” An exact match isn’t a guarantee, because there are some people using other people’s social security numbers for paperwork. (And what are voter rolls doing with SSNs anyway?)

Are Old Texans more likely to be Democrats than Republicans?

I realize that Romney thinks they’re part of the 47% and will therefore vote for Obama, but we’re talking about Texas here.

By: Cubey

Cubey — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:20:00 +0000

Yes, using the whole number is a problem. The problem is that it doesn’t disinfranchise anyone!

By: Quiche de Resistance

Quiche de Resistance — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:03:00 +0000

The whole issue of barring dead voters and other measures like voter ID are just pure partisan politics.

Republicans want to disenfranchise these people because they are likely to vote democrat.

I don’t believe democrats are the good guys who really care about peoples rights to vote, they just don’t want to see likely voters for them not allowed to vote.

That being said, democrats are doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, but the republicans are just plain wrong.

By: headcode

headcode — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 15:37:00 +0000

Is there a problem with using the WHOLE number? You know, the thing that is tied to a SPECIFIC PERSON?

By: SamSam

SamSam — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 15:16:00 +0000

How the hell do Republicans ever justify barring people based on “weak matches”, like SSNs being “partially” the same? Heck, thousands of people in the same district will have SSNs “partially” the same, since the start of an SSN is an area number.

Every. Single. F*cking. Time. that a news report comes along saying, say, 47,000 dead people voted in Texas last election or whatever (there was even someone quoting this in BB the other day), it *always* turns out that 99% of these people were flagged by “weak” matches that decide that the SSNs 1234 and 6234 are basically the same, and the names “Sam” and “Tim” are basically the same, so this seemingly-alive “Tim” must actually be the dead “Sam” trying to illegally vote.

By: Funk Daddy

Funk Daddy — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 15:11:00 +0000

I hope, but not much, that they were talking about the last few digits and not the first few, since they are going to be a lot of the same people with both the first 3 and a birthdate dead and alive.

By: Funk Daddy

Funk Daddy — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 15:09:00 +0000

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Abbott.jpg

“Democrats ARE dead to me”

By: rrh

rrh — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 15:08:00 +0000

A *partial* Social Security number? Someone doesn’t understand how Social Security numbers work, I think.

By: millie fink

millie fink — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 14:59:00 +0000

Seems like a lot of the tentacles of this centralized Republican effort to suppress votes in Democratic-leaning places are getting chopped off these days. I wonder if anyone has compiled a list of them, along with a list of those that are still alive? What I’m basically wondering is just how strong this vote-suppression monster still is.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 14:57:00 +0000

“No-no, you don’t understand. I only said that the election-day activities at the polling stations in Democratic districts reminded me of an attack by a zombie horde. I never intended for anybody to be kicked off the rolls.”

By: JG

JG — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 14:49:00 +0000

You would think that dragging your corpse down to the polling place would be proof enough… but… not if there’s lots of zombies.

By: royaltrux

royaltrux — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 14:48:00 +0000

Just take their pulse when they sign in.