ACORN

[Jester]

As to the logic lesson, start with Jester's "There is no evidence that these voter registration issues have led to voter fraud." Since he says that in rebuttal to kandrathe's claims that, "registration fraud leads to voting fraud.", the conclusion is that Jester is, in effect implying that registration fraud does not lead to voter fraud. Voter fraud exists, even you grant that. For a fraudulent vote to be cast, the voter must obtain a ballot. To obtain that ballot, the voter must be on a list (under the fraudulent alias) either to vote in person or to receive an absentee ballot, or there needs to be collusion between the voter and the workers at the polling place. There are observers at the polling places to ensure that such collusions do not take place. So, if there are fraudulent votes (as you admit there are) then they must be the result of fraudulent registration, contrary to Jester's implication. To make his implied statement false does not take all fraudulent registrations causing fraudulent votes. If even a single case occurred, then that is sufficient.

You take as an implication ("in effect implying") from "There is no evidence that these voter registration issues have led to voter fraud." that "registration fraud does not lead to voter fraud." Correct?

Then, clarifying the issue as to what you are taking me to mean, you say that a single case would be sufficient to disprove my implication (actually, your implication from my statement) that registration fraud does not lead to voter fraud. Slightly more hoity toity, that's me implying "There does not exist a case where registration fraud led to voter fraud" which would be contradicted by "there exists a case where registration fraud led to voter fraud."

That would be fine, except that it's not what I said. I made an epistemological claim about what we know about the situation, not an ontological claim about what is or is not factually true about voter fraud. We do not have reason to suspect that, in these cases, voter registration issues led to voter fraud, NOT that voter registration issues are never connected to voter fraud. The first is a very basic statement about the state of our knowledge. The second is an obvious absurdity.

Propositions for which I have no evidence, I believe in like I believe in Russell' Teapot. I have no evidence or argument that they are definitely not true. That's all I can say about them. But, were I to translate that into a pragmatic, actionable belief, it would not yield "maybe, maybe not, 50%-50%", it would yield "show me first, I'll believe second." To not reason in this way seems to condemn oneself to near-solipsistic uncertainty about the most ridiculous propositions. (I believe Dawkins has a passage in The God Delusion on the topic.)

Now, if the FBI investigation that Kandrathe claims is going on kicks down the right doors, and reveals actual fraudulent votes, or something pointing in that direction, either through the intentions of ACORN, or simply using them as a vehicle, then I'll change my position. That would be evidence. Right now, we haven't got the evidence, so suggestions and innuendoes about ACORN as a corrupt organization are unwarranted.

-Jester