Voting by Mail?

[JustOneWay]

There are countries in the world who are implementing Electronic( online ) voting and it is safe, and here in USA , apparently greatest country in the world still talking about “ if mail in vote safe” .

When the world moved to 21st century, we in America still want to go back to 19th century.

Only one political party wants to go back to the 19th century. Certain individuals were not allowed to vote back then.

 

[Tiberius Lee]

And it is not safe for a variety of reasons. It's not that we've suddenly discovered that the US mails are not working right.

But this has happened to a system that used to accommodate voters who couldn't get to the polls because of infirmity or age and requested a ballot. But now...

1. Election officials are mailing out ballots to almost everyone, often people who've died or moved. The election rolls are not cleared of registered voters who no longer are eligible to vote for years and years.

2. Mail-in ballots are not being checked to see if the signature on the envelope matches the one on file with the county clerk. To do that is a pretty mild form of verification, but now in some places it's being waived.

3. Depending on the state, ballots can be returned anywhere from a month before election day to a week or so AFTER the election.

4. Instead of returning one's ballot by mail, you can put it in a drop box, such as the one outside the door of the election clerk's office. So if getting to that voting precinct is too demanding for you, you can get all the way there except for going into the building. (?) These boxes are unguarded.

5. Mail-in ballots, often many of them, can be collected by a person who is not an authorized election worker and brought back by such people to the polls for counting. Such a person, not necessarily a relative or friend of the voter, might have gotten a ballot from some address where the voter no longer lives, or rounded up a bunch in a nursing home by saying they'll help those voters, or it may be that one family member decides to vote the ballot of his spouse or kids as well as his own. Recently a person who was a ballot harvester revealed that he'd been paid a certain sum, by an outside source, for each vote he rounded up. He claimed to have made tens of thousands of dollars that way.

To this situation, which accounts for thousands and thousands of votes, one political party says it's all for the convenience of the voter and that anyone who disagrees is in favor of "voter suppression." It's not voter suppression except in the sense of keeping invalid votes from being counted!

I agree with every point you raised here. Having said that how many voter frauds occurred in 2020? In 2020 over 159 million people voted, even if 50,000 voter fraud took place that is less then .03%, in 2016 101 million people voted and if 50,000 people illegally voted that still wouldn’t be .05% . There is no system in the world can guarantee 100% accuracy. Even in-person voting with DNA scanning will not give you 100% accuracy. So what is the acceptable “risk” are we willing to take to make voting easy and encourage all American to participate in election?

 

[wing2000]

And it is not safe for a variety of reasons. It's not that we've suddenly discovered that the US mails are not working right.

But this has happened to a system that used to accommodate voters who couldn't get to the polls because of infirmity or age and requested a ballot. But now...

1. Election officials are mailing out ballots to almost everyone, often people who've died or moved. The election rolls are not cleared of registered voters who no longer are eligible to vote for years and years.

2. Mail-in ballots are not being checked to see if the signature on the envelope matches the one on file with the county clerk. To do that is a pretty mild form of verification, but now in some places it's being waived.

3. Depending on the state, ballots can be returned anywhere from a month before election day to a week or so AFTER the election.

4. Instead of returning one's ballot by mail, you can put it in a drop box, such as the one outside the door of the election clerk's office. So if getting to that voting precinct is too demanding for you, you can get all the way there except for going into the building. (?) These boxes are unguarded.

5. Mail-in ballots, often many of them, can be collected by a person who is not an authorized election worker and brought back by such people to the polls for counting. Such a person, not necessarily a relative or friend of the voter, might have gotten a ballot from some address where the voter no longer lives, or rounded up a bunch in a nursing home by saying they'll help those voters, or it may be that one family member decides to vote the ballot of his spouse or kids as well as his own. Recently a person who was a ballot harvester revealed that he'd been paid a certain sum, by an outside source, for each vote he rounded up. He claimed to have made tens of thousands of dollars that way.

To this situation, which accounts for thousands and thousands of votes, one political party says it's all for the convenience of the voter and that anyone who disagrees is in favor of "voter suppression." It's not voter suppression except in the sense of keeping invalid votes from being counted!

Republicans have supported mail in voting for over 25 years in Arizona. No objections were raised until 2020...by certain partisans who made claims with no basis.

 

[JustOneWay]

Republicans have supported mail in voting for over 25 years in Arizona. No objections were raised until 2020...by certain partisans who made claims with no basis.

Trump and his subjects are responsible for this. This is why we can't have nice things.

 

[wing2000]

Trump and his subjects are responsible for this. This is why we can't have nice things.

Our Republican Governor was defending our voting system during his WH visit with Pres. Trump prior to the election. Post election, he was mum...but the point is, he and other Republicans in this state have supported our mail in ballot option for 25 years. It works.

 

[Albion]

I agree with every point you raised here. Having said that how many voter frauds occurred in 2020?

Well, we do not know. That is a major part of the problem and a major part of the reason this issue is still a hot one.

IF the Biden people had allowed audits and investigations into what are undoubtedly real acts of election wrongdoing, we'd already be at the end of this matter and it would be settled.

But so long as the liberal battle cry is "there was no vote fraud!" yet there was a lot of voting irregularity, deliberate flouting of election law by elected officials, and so on, all of which undeniably allowed tens of thousands of votes to be counted which were invalid AND the Democratic Party is absolutely determined that no modifications of any sort will be allowed to fix the quite apparent errors that all the changes made in haste last year led to....well, you see.

In 2020 over 159 million people voted, even if 50,000 voter fraud took place that is less then .03%, in 2016 101 million people voted and if 50,000 people illegally voted that still wouldn’t be .05% . There is no system in the world can guarantee 100% accuracy.

What you've pointed to there completely misses the reality of the situation. There could have been a million invalid votes cast in California, for example, and it would not have changed the outcome. BUT we elect by Electoral College votes, not by direct popular vote, and a change of only a few thousand votes in a few states could indeed have changed those states from one column to the other in the Electoral College and changed the outcome of the election.

 

[wing2000]

But so long as the liberal battle cry is "there was no vote fraud!" yet there was a lot of voting irregularity, deliberate flouting of election law by elected officials, and so on, all of which undeniably allowed tens of thousands of votes to be counted which were invalid AND the Democratic Party is absolutely determined that no modifications of any sort will be allowed to fix the quite apparent errors that all the changes made in haste last year led to....well, you see.

Pure fiction.

 

[JustOneWay]

Our Republican Governor was defending our voting system during his WH visit with Pres. Trump prior to the election. Post election, he was mum...but the point is, he and other Republicans in this state have supported our mail in ballot option for 25 years. It works.

Understood. Living there, dealing with that too.

 

[ArmenianJohn]

And it is not safe for a variety of reasons. It's not that we've suddenly discovered that the US mails are not working right.

But this has happened to a system that used to accommodate voters who couldn't get to the polls because of infirmity or age and requested a ballot. But now...

1. Election officials are mailing out ballots to almost everyone, often people who've died or moved. The election rolls are not cleared of registered voters who no longer are eligible to vote for years and years.

2. Mail-in ballots are not being checked to see if the signature on the envelope matches the one on file with the county clerk. To do that is a pretty mild form of verification, but now in some places it's being waived.

3. Depending on the state, ballots can be returned anywhere from a month before election day to a week or so AFTER the election.

4. Instead of returning one's ballot by mail, you can put it in a drop box, such as the one outside the door of the election clerk's office. So if getting to that voting precinct is too demanding for you, you can get all the way there except for going into the building. (?) These boxes are unguarded.

5. Mail-in ballots, often many of them, can be collected by a person who is not an authorized election worker and brought back by such people to the polls for counting. Such a person, not necessarily a relative or friend of the voter, might have gotten a ballot from some address where the voter no longer lives, or rounded up a bunch in a nursing home by saying they'll help those voters, or it may be that one family member decides to vote the ballot of his spouse or kids as well as his own. Recently a person who was a ballot harvester revealed that he'd been paid a certain sum, by an outside source, for each vote he rounded up. He claimed to have made tens of thousands of dollars that way.

To this situation, which accounts for thousands and thousands of votes, one political party says it's all for the convenience of the voter and that anyone who disagrees is in favor of "voter suppression." It's not voter suppression except in the sense of keeping invalid votes from being counted!

So basically you're applying the anti-vaxx "logic" to voting by mail... i.e., if you can find even a few insignificant examples where it didn't work perfectly, then the whole thing is completely worthless and should not be scrapped. It's just more of the same old, same old.

 

[Albion]

So basically you're applying the anti-vaxx "logic" to voting by mail... i.e., if you can find even a few insignificant examples where it didn't work perfectly, then the whole thing is completely worthless and should not be scrapped. It's just more of the same old, same old.

You may need to pay closer attention. Far from finding "a few insignificant examples where it didn't work perfectly," I discussed in some detail the fact that there were many (not a few), very significant (not insignificant), instances of vote counting errors that could well have changed the outcome of the election and, also, threaten the integrity of future elections if allowed to stand uncorrected.

Just having you describe this as "the same old, same old" shows how far you missed the message, since a part of it was about how almost all of these innovations in the election processes were new since the 2018 elections.

 

[Tiberius Lee]

Well, we do not know. That is a major part of the problem and a major part of the reason this issue is still a hot one.

IF the Biden people had allowed audits and investigations into what are undoubtedly real acts of election wrongdoing, we'd already be at the end of this matter and it would be settled.

But so long as the liberal battle cry is "there was no vote fraud!" yet there was a lot of voting irregularity, deliberate flouting of election law by elected officials, and so on, all of which undeniably allowed tens of thousands of votes to be counted which were invalid AND the Democratic Party is absolutely determined that no modifications of any sort will be allowed to fix the quite apparent errors that all the changes made in haste last year led to....well, you see.



What you've pointed to there completely misses the reality of the situation. There could have been a million invalid votes cast in California, for example, and it would not have changed the outcome. BUT we elect by Electoral College votes, not by direct popular vote, and a change of only a few thousand votes in a few states could indeed have changed those states from one column to the other in the Electoral College and changed the outcome of the election.

As I said , mail in ballot, or in person voting with DNA scan will not give you 100% accuracy. Can you tell me in last 250 years US history, every election in the past was accurately counted every vote? The answer is - WE Don’t Know.

In life we don’t make decision based on “we don’t know”. In life every decision , every action we take, we take some risk, even getting coffee from across the street, we take acceptable risk.

So what is the acceptable risk are you willing to take? “We don’t know” can’t be a reason not to do something.

 

[wing2000]

You may need to pay closer attention. Far from finding "a few insignificant examples where it didn't work perfectly," I discussed in some detail the fact that there were many (not a few), very significant (not insignificant), instances of vote counting errors that could well have changed the outcome of the election and, also, threaten the integrity of future elections if allowed to stand uncorrected.

Citation?

 

[Albion]

As I said , mail in ballot, or in person voting with DNA scan will not give you 100% accuracy. Can you tell me in last 250 years US history, every election in the past was accurately counted every vote? The answer is - WE Don’t Know.

You cannot cover up for an election that had widespread irregularities which could have changed the outcome by saying 1) that the issue is whether or not every last vote was valid, or 2) mistakes were probably made before.

 

[FreeinChrist]

Republicans have supported mail in voting for over 25 years in Arizona. No objections were raised until 2020...by certain partisans who made claims with no basis.

I was going to post about that.

I like mail-in voting. Many cannot take off work to go to the polls. The Republicans wanted mail-in voting because so many of their voters were elderly and had issues standing in line. One can take their time making sure they mark the right boxes, and the elderly take longer to do that.


I believe mail in voting is in the AZ constitution.

 

[Albion]

I was going to post about that.

I like mail-in voting. Many cannot take off work to go to the polls. The Republicans wanted mail-in voting because so many of their voters were elderly and had issues standing in line. One can take their time making sure they mark the right boxes, and the elderly take longer to do that.

And they still do.

Even during the current ruckus over changes in the voting procedures, I don't recall anyone saying that it would be better to have no mail-in voting.

 

[FreeinChrist]

You cannot cover up for an election that had widespread irregularities which could have changed the outcome by saying 1) that the issue is whether or not every last vote was valid, or 2) mistakes were probably made before.

Many mailed in their votes in 2020, like me. And yet:

Trump’s own officials say 2020 was America’s most secure election in history

“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double-checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result,” the coordinating bodies on election infrastructure and security said in a joint statement issued by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).​

Opinion: All evidence points to a safe, fair election in Michigan

Going into this election season we knew that the dramatic increase in absentee ballots would likely mean we would not have results on election night. Michigan election officials — our friends and neighbors — took their time to accurately count and verify every vote, as required by law. This time-consuming but thorough process allowed them to meet the highest standards of security and integrity. The result was safe, free and fair elections. It was worth the wait.
​

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...c64ace-6e50-11ec-aaa8-35d1865a6977_story.html

The November 2020 election in Arizona’s largest county was administered properly and not marred by fraud, the Republican-led local government concluded in a lengthy report released Wednesday. The 93-page document debunks, one by one, vague allegations of potential problems previously identified by the GOP-led state Senate and championed by former president Donald Trump and his allies.


County officials said the blunt rebuttal, released on the eve of the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, was intended to highlight the ongoing dangers of unfounded claims of mass election fraud.

​

Giuliani in Public: ‘It’s a Fraud.’ Giuliani in Court: ‘This Is Not a Fraud Case.’ (Published 2020)

The clearest tell that Mr. Trump’s effort is a security blanket and a prayer strategy is the difference between what Mr. Trump’s supporters say in the press and what they say in court.

On Nov. 7, the day most media outlets called the race for Joe Biden, Rudy Giuliani stood outside a landscaping business in Philadelphia, making false claims about widespread election malfeasance.

“This is a gross miscarriage of the process that would assure that these ballots are not fraudulent,” he said. “It’s a fraud, an absolute fraud.”

Under questioning from a federal judge in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Mr. Giuliani made a different admission: “This is not a fraud case,” he said.
​

 

[Albion]

So the Republicans were and are typically divided while the Democrats were and are typically acting in lock step. There's nothing new about that, nor does it change the facts we've been discussing here.

 

[Subduction Zone]

As a disabled American, I've voted by mail for the past decade. How is it not safe?

You could get a very nasty paper cut when you lick the glue for the envelope.

 

[FreeinChrist]

So the Republicans were and are typically divided while the Democrats were and are typically acting in lock step. There's nothing new about that, nor does it change the facts we've been discussing here.

That makes no sense in regards to the topic.

Actually, I see a great diversity in the Democratic Party. Compare AOC and Manchin, Talib and Synema.
The Republicans stick together in lock step these days. ONLY Liz Cheney and her father represented the Republicans in a memorial yesterday regarding Jan. 6th.

 

[Subduction Zone]

So the Republicans were and are typically divided while the Democrats were and are typically acting in lock step. There's nothing new about that, nor does it change the facts we've been discussing here.

There is a very good explanation for that. The claim that voting be mail is unsafe is part of the Big Lie that Trump sold to his followers. Many Republicans do not believe all Trump's lies. As a result Republicans are split on the issue. The evidence tells us that mail in ballots are safe.