Mail in Voting

[FireDragon76]

I suspect the Dems truly don't even care about democracy anymore. It plays out this way in their minds....the right (politically speaking) are so wrong they shouldn't even have a seat at the table in how the nation is run after all THEY ARE the enlightened ones! ;They are the true Guardians of society or so they think. I've seen that in comments on the net but also personally I've heard people ask this......why should anyone who opposes the left the ones they consider to be the educated even really have ANY SAY. Of course with their desire carried out it's tyranny but they justify it as being a necessary one.

I am afraid this really just sounds like projection, and doesn't accurately describe the motives of millions of people on the Left in the US. Many people on the Left in the US simply don't share the authoritarian personality hat make the contemporary Republican party tick. That's far different from believing in moral absolutism.

 

[Bobber]

I am afraid this really just sounds like projection, and doesn't accurately describe the motives of millions of people on the Left in the US.

Don't give me this projection stuff. I've read leftist saying this that the RIGHT really shouldn't have a right to vote or have a say in anything. According to them they're not smart enough.

Sure there's millions on the left who aren't absolutely extreme. We count on them to not vote Democrat at least this time around. I'm guessing a lot of them do appreciate the things of cancel culture CAN'T CONTINUE.

 

[iluvatar5150]

There is no longer any doubt about it. Not long ago, a lot of Democratic elected officials were insisting that there is no fraud involved. Anywhere. Since then, it has been discovered that there has been fraud with absentee ballots in many states.

And as for what might be honest slip-ups in some cases, there have been thousands of ballots either not delivered by USPS to the addresses of voters or, on the other hand, to the local election officials after being completed by the voters.

Voters have actually been advised that it's a good idea to put your completed ballot into a mail-box in a part of town which is known to be primarily Democratic-leaning, if you live elsewhere, since this will tend to prevent your ballot from simply being "lost" or else not reaching the counting board until after election day.

I'd like to take this opportunity to remind folks of the threads from March in which several of our conservative members and their preferred conservative media pooh-poohed Pelosi's grants for beefing up mail-in voting processes:
Senate Democrats block much needed relief to working families.
.....And the House weighs in

It looks to me like the House Democrats, in that case, were rather prescient whereas conservatives, by and large, were a bunch of obstructionist whiners.

 

[Albion]

I'd like to take this opportunity to remind folks of the threads from March in which several of our conservative members and their preferred conservative media pooh-poohed Pelosi's grants for beefing up mail-in voting processes:

Pelosi did more than just want to beef up mail-in processes. LOL

As she often does with her approach to legislation, she turns her bills into the wish list of the Democratic Party, then campaigns for passage as though only the one issue is being decided.

More recently, it's been the legislation to ease the burden on the unemployed caused by the coronavirus. In the earlier case you are referring to, it was not simply about beefing up mail-in processes!

Not unless you mean by "beef up" all the various changes she demanded, including requiring that every state be forced to use the same election policies as every other one. The legislation would also have authorized what's called "vote harvesting" by which anybody could go out and find people who hadn't voted in the election, give them (allegedly) a ballot to fill out and sign, and then that first person could return it after the election and have it counted!

And that's just for starters.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Trump administration is undermining the Postal Service in an election that’s going to be dependent on mail-in ballots. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a former supply-chain CEO and a major donor to Trump and other Republicans, has pushed cost-cutting measures to eliminate overtime pay and hold mail until the next day if postal distribution centers are running late.

Critics of Trump White House decry latest ‘Friday night massacre’ as postmaster general sidelines two dozen USPS officials

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

We now file taxes on-line. If it is safe and secure enough for that why not voting?

 

[durangodawood]

Of course R's want to limit voter participation. They have everything to lose when more people vote.

 

[trunks2k]

We now file taxes on-line. If it is safe and secure enough for that why not voting?

oh god no.

 

[Kentonio]

Of course R's want to limit voter participation. They have everything to lose when more people vote.

This is all this has ever been about. Trump even admitted it publicly. With a high turnout Republicans lose. And instead of asking themselves why that is, and coming up with a platform that makes people want to actually vote for them, they’ve chosen to suppress the vote by any means necessary.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

oh god no.

Why not? At least as an option.

 

[Albion]

I'm wondering if "Critics of Trump White House" aren't actually decrying an existence for a Postal Service at all. At least so far as so-called "mail-in" balloting is concerned.

It would make it so much easier, don't you know, if the Secretary of State simply mailed an absentee ballot to every resident of the state and then decided what the preferred election results should be.

Counting votes received after election day, sending absentee ballot applications to people who didn't request them, and sending applications to non-citizens haven't so far seemed to satisfy some of the election officials, therefore for them to also be carping about an attempt to make the USPS more efficient seems almost superfluous.

 

[trunks2k]

Why not? At least as an option.

Because personal finances are not the same as voting. In the case of fraud in taxes or mistakes, records are kept that allow me to go back and potentially fix the mistakes.If the IRS thinks I messed up or I don't receive the funds that I expected to get, there is some sort of recourse. You can't do that with online voting. It's waaaaaay too easy to exploit for mass voter fraud and no way of you knowing it happened. Granted, there's a certain level of trust with in person voting, but a good system should have a paper trail for validation. You can't get that with online voting.

IMO, you should not trust a voting system that does not leave a physical paper trail. I'm generally OK with electronic systems that are used but produce a paper ballot, and you can then spot check the results; i.e. if a sample of paper votes differ significantly from the electronic votes in a given place, then you can do a count of physical ballots.

From https://xkcd.com/2030/
(mouseover text: "There are lots of very smart people doing fascinating work on cryptographic voting protocols. We should be funding and encouraging them, and doing all our elections with paper ballots until everyone currently working in that field has retired.")
As a software engineer, that's pretty accurate.

 

[Kentonio]

I'm wondering if "Critics of Trump White House" aren't actually decrying the existence of a Postal Service at all.

It would make it so much easier, don't you know, if the Secretary of State simply mailed an absentee ballot to every resident of the state and then decided what the preferred election results should be.

Counting votes received after election day, sending absentee ballot applications to people who didn't request them, and sending applications to non-citizens haven't so far seemed to satisfy some of the election officials, therefore for them to also be carping about an attempt to make the USPS more efficient seems almost superfluous.

Why would it matter if a ballot application form was sent to someone who didn't request it, or indeed someone who wasn't eligible?

 

[Albion]

We now file taxes on-line. If it is safe and secure enough for that why not voting?

Because filing a tax return is not the same thing as casting a vote in an election.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Not unless you mean by "beef up" all the various changes she demanded, including requiring that every state be forced to use the same election policies as every other one.

That isn't true. I don't know where you got that idea, but I challenge you to find it in the bill.

The legislation would also have authorized what's called "vote harvesting" by which anybody could go out and find people who hadn't voted in the election, give them (allegedly) a ballot to fill out and sign, and then that first person could return it after the election and have it counted!

Ballot collectors can't give out ballots.

And that's just for starters.

Just for starters, eh? Where two of the three claims you made are false?

 

[Albion]

Why would it matter if a ballot application form was sent to someone who didn't request it, or indeed someone who wasn't eligible?

For one thing, thousands of these ballots have been sent to people who are not alive. Do you not suppose that whoever picks up one of them is being handed a wonderful opportunity to engage in vote fraud...and do it anonymously as well?

 

[Kentonio]

For one thing, thousands of these ballots have been sent to people who are not alive. Do you not suppose that whoever picks up one of them is being handed a wonderful opportunity to engage in vote fraud...and do it anonymously as well?

The United States doesn't keep any record of deaths? You could just pick up a social security number of a dead guy and use that, and no-one in state or federal government would notice?

 

[trunks2k]

For one thing, thousands of these ballots have been sent to people who are not alive. Do you not suppose that whoever picks up one of them is being handed a wonderful opportunity to engage in vote fraud...and do it anonymously as well?

You would have to show that:
1. Thousand of ballot applications are being sent to people who aren't alive
2. A significant number of people are submitting the application for the dead person.
3. A significant number of those applications result in actual ballots being mailed.
4. A significant number of those ballots actually get filled out and submitted.
5. And as good measure - that such fraud happens to one party/candidate/issue more than another, otherwise such fraud is just a wash.

 

[Albion]

The United States doesn't keep any record of deaths?

I'm telling you what has happened, whether or not it seems that it should.

 

[Kentonio]

I'm telling you what has happened, whether or not it seems that it should.

And I'm asking you why it matters. An application is just an application. You then have the layers of security that stand between that application actually being successful or not. And the key reason this is almost never a real issue, is because of the risk-reward involved in this kind of mail fraud. A person is literally risking years in jail for a single vote. You really think people are taking that kind of risk en-masse?