[General Battuta]

That's not necessarily true. In 2004 -- and moreso in 2008 -- the Democrats, at least, deployed teams (lawyers, observers, stuff like that) to polling stations in minority areas, which were the hardest hit by disenfranchisement tactics.

[karajorma]

Was anyone ever prosecuted? Was any tainted election ever forced into a re-election?

If the worst that a cheat can expect is to have to weather a few months of being called a cheat then there's not really much of a disincentive not to do it.

[General Battuta]

Hmm, you're probably right.

[Mongoose]

People can be and have been arrested for committing voter fraud; the recent investigations into the actions of members of the voter-registration organization ACORN could potentially have a similar outcome.  And there's never been a re-election because any fraud that has taken place in the past has occurred on a generally small scale that didn't have any impact on the election's outcome, or at least there was no evidence to the contrary.  (Unless you're talking about the late 19th century, when politics was completely anything-goes to begin with.)  I don't even know that any states have provisions for a re-election procedure; I'm fairly certain that nothing exists along those lines at the federal level.

[colecampbell666]

What's the method of voting on the US?

Two steps, IIRC: Primaries, you vote for the leader of whichever party you will be supporting, to elect the leader of the party. Election: You choose between the leaders of the two parties, who were chosen in the primaries.

[Mongoose]

The primaries don't select the "leader" of the party so much as they select the candidate that particular party will be officially running for office; there are primary elections for members of the House of Representatives and Senate (as well as various state government positions) in addition to those for the presidential candidates.  Many states have "open" primaries, where one can vote for a member of any party for a particular office.  Others, like my own state of Pennsylvania, have "closed" primaries, where one can vote only for the members of the party one is registered under; if you're not registered under any party, you can't vote in the primary.  On the day of the actual elections, of course, any voter can vote for a candidate of any party, no matter what party they're registered under.

[colecampbell666]

So even more complicated. I like our Canadian system.

[General Battuta]

It's not that complicated. You vote in the primary, or you don't; then you vote in the general election.

[Mefustae]

The only way people will actually wake up and notice voter fraud this year is if Nader wins.

[Mongoose]

It's not that complicated. You vote in the primary, or you don't; then you vote in the general election.

Precisely.  And generally, only the more die-hard party members vote in the primaries, which is why candidates will often seem to swing back to the center after they're over to capture the majority of moderate voters out there.

[karajorma]

And there's never been a re-election because any fraud that has taken place in the past has occurred on a generally small scale that didn't have any impact on the election's outcome, or at least there was no evidence to the contrary. 

*points at Bush's first term*

There are many who will disagree with you there.

[General Battuta]

And there's never been a re-election because any fraud that has taken place in the past has occurred on a generally small scale that didn't have any impact on the election's outcome, or at least there was no evidence to the contrary. 

*points at Bush's first term*

There are many who will disagree with you there.

Yeah, myself included. And the Republicans are using many of the same tactics this year.

[spartan_0214]

And there's never been a re-election because any fraud that has taken place in the past has occurred on a generally small scale that didn't have any impact on the election's outcome, or at least there was no evidence to the contrary. 

*points at Bush's first term*

There are many who will disagree with you there.

Yeah, myself included. And the Republicans are using many of the same tactics this year.

Bush won because of the electoral college. He actually lost the popular vote, which is why Gore requested a recount, but the electoral college once again selected Bush. The reason Kerry didn't request a recount was because he didn't have the popular vote.

[General Battuta]

Right, I'm referring to some disenfranchisement tactics in Florida, which won him the electoral college.

[spartan_0214]

Right, I'm referring to some disenfranchisement tactics in Florida, which won him the electoral college.

Elaborate please. I wasn't able to vote that year.

[Mongoose]

And there's never been a re-election because any fraud that has taken place in the past has occurred on a generally small scale that didn't have any impact on the election's outcome, or at least there was no evidence to the contrary. 

*points at Bush's first term*

There are many who will disagree with you there.

If one side did it in that situation, then both sides were doing it in that situation.  And it's all such a jumbled mess of partisanship and bitter history that whatever truth there may be to any accusations, no matter how ridiculous, would never come to light anyway. I hold very little pity for any people still fixated on some incredibly nebulous might-have-beens from eight years ago.

[General Battuta]

Right, I'm referring to some disenfranchisement tactics in Florida, which won him the electoral college.

Elaborate please. I wasn't able to vote that year.

Some contend (and I agree, but it's definitely contentious) that the Republican government removed a lot of names from voter registration rolls, targeting largely black (and therefore largely Democratic) areas.

The tactic in question involves the names of felons. If a felon named Thomas M. Smith existed, then, allegedly, names such as Thomas D. Smith, Thomas R. Smith and so on were removed.

I don't have enough evidence for this claim, aside from widespread allegations of such tactics -- as well as the use of patrol vans meant to look like undercover cop vehicles, scaring off minority voters -- to really back it up.

[karajorma]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Central_Voter_File

That should cover it in some detail.

If one side did it in that situation, then both sides were doing it in that situation.  And it's all such a jumbled mess of partisanship and bitter history that whatever truth there may be to any accusations, no matter how ridiculous, would never come to light anyway. I hold very little pity for any people still fixated on some incredibly nebulous might-have-beens from eight years ago.

And thus you prove my point that few in America actually care about election fraud. Instead of wanting to find out what actually happened you're quite happy to sweep it under the rug, say that both sides did it (Even though only one side happened to have the brother of the man who won running the state) and say that we'll never know the answer.

To be honest I find that attitude rather pathetic considering that we're talking about the curtailing of one of America's most cherished values, the right of the people to decide who governs their country. But then as I said, Americans in general have always been incredibly lax about punishing electoral fraud or even giving a damn about it in the first place. Even as far back as Nixon no one cared. All he had to do was resign and he was pardoned.

Had the same thing that happened in Florida happened in say, Ukraine you'd have had hundreds of thousands on the street protesting. In America neither side even wants to have an investigation.

[Ford Prefect]

To be honest I find that attitude rather pathetic considering that we're talking about the curtailing of one of America's most cherished values, the right of the people to decide who governs their country.

The right to what? I've never heard of this. You're just making **** up. How do you know that anyway? You don't even live here.

[Mongoose]

Don't get me wrong; I do find it rather irritating that the system for determining eligible voters has become so needlessly (and sometimes even intentionally) muddled, and I think it's outright embarassing when incompetence, maliciousness, or some combination of the two is allowed to interfere with the normal process of an election.  But at the same time, I see no inherent value in dredging up details of one of the most polarized elections in modern American history, particularly when any discoveries would be completely discredited by those they fell against and wouldn't have any effect on the eight ensuing years anyway.  Also, I'm not too proud to admit that, since the person I desired to win that election wound up doing so, I have a bit of a personal vested interest in not finding out if he did so illegally (though what the alternative would have been is an interesting prospect, eight years in retrospect).

And I think the reason that most people here are so apathetic about it is because of the very fact that it's become ingrained as part of the idea of the dirtier side of politics.  I'm quite certain that you could point to just about any election in American history and pick out at least one locale where some sort of alleged fraud ensued; hell, the entire city of Chicago has had that reputation for more than a century now (and indeed, there's been a long-running joke about dead Chicagoans voting for JFK in 1960).  It's hard for people to become incensed about activities that occur election after election but normally don't have a game-changing impact.  The 2000 election was a massive exception in the grand scheme of things; few presidential elections have come down to the electoral votes of a single state, and perhaps no previous election has been decided by such a small popular vote in said state.  People have the idea that "the system works things out," and since any attempt to dig any deeper generally involves the ever-undesirable accusations of partisanship, there's an idea of letting sleeping dogs lie.

(Also, I find it rather unlikely that we're the only democracy out there that's prone to backhand dealings at at least some level, but that's nothing  more than conjecture.)

As a random side note, Nixon's resignation had nothing to do with voter fraud; indeed, he won in a landslide rarely seen in presidential elections, in which any sort of localized voter fraud may have had no impact.  The Watergate break-in and ensuing scandal were more symptoms of Nixon's paranoia and desire to keep tight control over his political enemies.  But hey, at least he made for a hell of a Futurama character a long way down the road.