Vote by Mail

What if Ohio screws up vote by mail, and Ohio is the deciding factor?  Will EC delegates be bound by an invalid vote, or would they hold a do-over?

The lesser shit-show would be to re-do the election.  But imagine what that fight looks like - you already screwed-up vote by mail once, and now how many early voting days do we need to have?  What about absentee ballots?

And then the pièce de résistance...it goes to the SCOTUS where the stolen nominee Gorsuch casts the deciding vote!!!

I think it really might be time to buy a gun....

posted by Spock

Large housing developments where 1/3 or more of the ballots are mailed to people that arent even living there.  People getting ballots for dead relatives.......  lots of ways fraud can happen

But there's really no evidence of fraud.

Your first point is how vote by mail could be screwed up and the election declared invalid.  You can't have a widespread issue like that go uncovered - either people complain about not getting their ballots, or you have hundreds (thousands?) of duplicate ballots cast.

posted by gut

But think about how uninformed the average voter is, and then think about the people who haven't even been voting....

mail-in ballots *would* benefit people like myself: i generally want to participate in an election, but if i can avoid spending 20-30-40 minutes out of my day standing in line with other people, i will absolutely take it, because dealing with people is annoying.

in a general election i'll suck it up and stand in line. for a midterm election? probably not.

i'm more inclined to particpate in events such as a midterm if i have the option to vote via mail. those people who already don't vote probably won't go out of their way to request a mail-in ballot either, as they probably don't give a shit.

posted by justincredible

yes

posted by MontyBrunswick

mail-in ballots *would* benefit people like myself: i generally want to participate in an election, but if i can avoid spending 20-30-40 minutes out of my day standing in line with other people, i will absolutely take it, because dealing with people is annoying.

in a general election i'll suck it up and stand in line. for a midterm election? probably not.

i'm more inclined to particpate in events such as a midterm if i have the option to vote via mail. those people who already don't vote probably won't go out of their way to request a mail-in ballot either, as they probably don't give a shit.

Can’t you just do absentee? Use the work excuse if you’re in a state that makes you have an excuse. I’m all for people signing up for mail in ballots, just think mailing everyone a ballot is a bad idea. 

posted by iclfan2

Can’t you just do absentee?

yes, yes I could.

what if they mailed people ballots who have "recently" voted in an election? or mailed people who have registered to vote? i don't see anything wrong with that.

The left is clinging to the USPS conspiracy theories. Lol a group even met to protest outside of usps official’s house bc they are afraid to vote in person? Still trying to figure out the mental gymnastics of that, how protesting is safer than voting. Oh and Fauci said voting in person is fine. 

posted by iclfan2

The left is clinging to the USPS conspiracy theories.

Seems pretty legit - I think Trump basically even admitted it.  The problem is he also keeps sayings absentee voting is perfectly fine.  So the argument goes, I guess, that there's not enough time for you to mail in your request, and then receive your ballot and mail it back. 

No, INSTEAD the Dems want to remove that one step and increase the mail burden 100-fold to get everyone an absentee ballot.  This is SO easy, and Trump is badly screwing it up, per usual.  Even Ptown agrees vote by mail is going to be a shitshow.

But I have a good conspiracy theory for you. The Left is pushing vote by mail because they KNOW there will be problems, and it will be the basis to challenge the results as invalid and illegitimate.  There are already multiple narratives emerging about how Trump is going to meddle in the election.  Should Trump somehow win re-election, this will be the basis for 2 more years of investigations, another impeachment, and who knows what else.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/07/02/joe-biden-600-lawyers-ready-battle-trump-election-chicanery/5362546002/

This sounds a little brownshirt-ish.  I'm sure Biden is fully prepared to accept the result of the election.  It actually sounds like a typical team of election observers, but it was an interesting way of putting it.

"The team of 600 lawyers, along with 10,000 volunteers, would be in every state to figure out if any "chicanery is likely to take place.""

https://thegrio.com/2020/08/11/gop-ramps-up-effort-to-monitor-voting/

Ahhhh!  Makes much more sense now.  It also adds very interesting context to the whole vote by mail debate.

So Trump went first - pretty disturbing implications, by the way.  And Biden acted accordingly.  On the other hand, the more benign implication is Trump's team anticipated massive vote by mail and prepared accordingly.

"In June, the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign sued to ease those rules, saying they imposed arbitrary limits on the party’s ability to keep tabs on the voting process no matter where it occurs."

"The GOP is recruiting 50,000 monitors, typically party activists and specially appointed volunteers, across 15 battleground states."

I think that if casinos and liquor stores are safe to utilize, so are voting centers.

The people who usually fit into the usual habit of mail in voting aren't going to change (disabled, unpredictable work patterns, etc.).

Somebody said (sorry can't remember who) that maybe a holiday would be an appropriate thing to consider or have. I'm ok with that too.

I'd definitely be down with a holiday for voting. It's always seemed kind of weird that the really important activity that determines who gets offices, what taxes/levies pass and so on is just sort of forced into being an additional part of a working person's day that they have to fit into their schedule, while so many things less important on a current events level turn into days off for many workers.

posted by Heretic

I'd definitely be down with a holiday for voting.

Just expand early voting.  Most places already have at least 10-11 days to do that, it seems.  Open polls for 2 weeks straight ahead of Nov. 4....everyone can vote Nov. 4th, or you have 3 days out of the 14 to vote (according to your last name).

Let's see if Trump really plays 4D chess....When Dems keep demanding funding for USPS for a surge in universal vote by mail, Trump should just offer to give the money to states to increase early voting.  AND, you can still request absentee ballots.

To me, implicit in the idea behind universal voting is that states simply can't handle the volume of requests.  Not a USPS issue, a state resource issue.  Eliminating the requirement to request the ballot says, to me, that the real logjam will be in processing those requests (not the USPS).

posted by MontyBrunswick

Aka you couldn't find a brietbart article to push your agenda?

If you have to vote absentee, then follow the proper protocols already in place in EVERY SINGLE COUNTY in the country to insure vote integrity.

If you want fraud, then do mail-in voting.  This is not difficult to understand, especially when we already have numerous examples.

posted by QuakerOats

If you have to vote absentee, then follow the proper protocols already in place in EVERY SINGLE COUNTY in the country to insure vote integrity.

If you want fraud, then do mail-in voting.  This is not difficult to understand, especially when we already have numerous examples.

Isn’t the president mailing in his vote?

posted by geeblock

Isn’t the president mailing in his vote?

Its a absentee ballot that was requested and sent to him.  Its not universal mail out ballots that go to dead people, wrond addresses etc..

posted by Spock

Its a absentee ballot that was requested and sent to him.  Its not universal mail out ballots that go to dead people, wrond addresses etc..

Is he mailing it?

posted by geeblock

Is he mailing it?

We are not talking about "mailing it", the issue is absentee ballot applications/absentee voting which has all the necessary fraud protections, versus universal mail-in voting which is fraught with fraud.

Need to grasp the essence of the debate.

FRAUGHT!

How so specifically? I see WA state has been doing ok with it. Eagerly awaiting the Breibart links.

posted by QuakerOats

We are not talking about "mailing it", the issue is absentee ballot applications/absentee voting which has all the necessary fraud protections, versus universal mail-in voting which is fraught with fraud.

Need to grasp the essence of the debate.

Everything i have read shows very low amount of voter fraud in general and even less with mail in. Interesting. But isn’t he supporting mail in voting in Florida? 

Someone needs to be a grown-up and explain to everyone why we can't have universal vote by mail.  It WILL be a disaster.

It looks to me like both sides are setting up the arguments to challenge the election results.  We're going to have forensic handwriting experts debating what's a valid signature or not on millions of mail-in ballots FOR MONTHS.