PM_ME_MURPHY_HATE t1_is0y4g5 wrote
Reply to comment by rivershimmer in The Philadelphia Inquirer: The Supreme Court just undid a key ruling for counting undated Pennsylvania mail ballots by oldschoolskater
Opening the door to officials "correcting" ballots by adding missing fields is one hell of a can of worms.
Either follow the instructions to the letter or simply go vote in person.
rivershimmer t1_is0zh8x wrote
This field isn't on a ballot. It's on the envelope. There's no fields to fill out on a ballot except one's election choices.
So let's say a ballot comes in with plenty of time to spare before the election. Let's say it arrives via mail on October 28. But whoops, the voter had a brain fart and dated the envelope "11/25/2022" instead of the day they completed the ballot, 10/25/2022. Shall we throw that ballot out?
PM_ME_MURPHY_HATE t1_is171xt wrote
> Shall we throw that ballot out?
Yes we should because:
- That's the law of the land.
- It's the only course of action that can be uniformly applied.
- That voter is an idiot if she can't even follow basic instructions and the commonwealth is better off without her input in the elections.
rivershimmer t1_is17gcc wrote
> That's the law of the land.
How about we change the law of the land to not be petty? This particular issue-- the date on the outer envelope-- does nothing to prevent fraudulent votes, as the office itself knows on what date the ballot arrived. Cut the bureaucratic red tape.
PM_ME_MURPHY_HATE t1_is181xl wrote
Or go entirely in the opposite direction and eliminate all forms of voting outside of showing up in person on election day with a valid form of ID. No mail-ins, not absentee. Zero.
Plus it'd save a ton of money and be environmentally friendly as we wouldn't have to print any mail-in ballots.
rivershimmer t1_is1au08 wrote
> Or go entirely in the opposite direction and eliminate all forms of voting outside of showing up in person on election day with a valid form of ID. No mail-ins, not absentee. Zero.
So you'ld like to disenfranchise a good percentage of the elderly and disabled, anyone who takes ill on Election Day, anyone schedule for surgery on Election Day, anyone working during the hours the polls are open, and anyone traveling over Election Day?
PM_ME_MURPHY_HATE t1_is1bshn wrote
> So you'ld like to disenfranchise a good percentage of the elderly and disabled, anyone who takes ill on Election Day, anyone schedule for surgery on Election Day, anyone working during the hours the polls are open, and anyone traveling over Election Day?
Yes I'm completely fine with that. All of those things happen to people of all ages, of all political dispositions, and all racial and ethnic backgrounds. It's completely uniform.
rivershimmer t1_is1cq9r wrote
Oh, they def happen more to poor people, particularly the having to work part. Rich executives can write their own schedules at work. Rich elderly or disabled persons can more easily get rides to the polls.
But that aside: why? Why are you fine with disenfranchisement? Why do you want to see rightful voters presented with obstacles that prevent them from exercising their right?
PM_ME_MURPHY_HATE t1_is1lzru wrote
> But that aside: why? Why are you fine with disenfranchisement? Why do you want to see rightful voters presented with obstacles that prevent them from exercising their right?
There will always be disparities in people's access to the polls. It's never 100% uniform. A city dweller can walk down the block whereas someone living in the countryside might have to drive 15 miles. Ditto for people's time constraints, whether they have a baby sitter, whether they can go in the morning, or after work, or anything else.
I consider it more important to have a process that is objectively harder to be gamed or manipulated more important than making it slightly more convenient. If those people actually care about voting then they will find a way to vote.
rivershimmer t1_is1pggk wrote
>If those people actually care about voting then they will find a way to vote.
What, rise from a deathbed? Quit their job?
It's important to remember that when voting in America was started, only a minority of Americans qualified to vote: white landowning males. That part's important, because farm hands and factory workers mostly didn't qualify. They didn't need the time off work to go into town, because they couldn't vote. Right up until 1828, the majority of voters wrote their own schedule.
>I consider it more important to have a process that is objectively harder to be gamed or manipulated more important than making it slightly more convenient.
The problem is that process is being twisted into one of those systems that prevents more rightful votes than it does fraudulent. Is this process doing us any good if a thousand citizens are disenfranchised for every fraudulent vote prevented?
PM_ME_MURPHY_HATE t1_is1vnip wrote
> What, rise from a deathbed?
Are you suggesting the dead should be able to vote? Sounds very Democratic...
> Quit their job?
Polls in the commonwealth are open from 7am to 8pm. If you're in line then you can vote. Nobody has to quit there job to vote and just because it may be more inconvenient to vote earlier or later in the day or rearrange you schedule to do so is not justification alone for accepting the extra risks of those processes.
> It's important to remember that when voting in America was started, only a minority of Americans qualified to vote: white landowning males. That part's important, because farm hands and factory workers mostly didn't qualify. They didn't need the time off work to go into town, because they couldn't vote. Right up until 1828, the majority of voters wrote their own schedule.
Yes and the people that furthered those polices were Democrats. Anything short of showing up to the polls is more likely to be gamed. Mail-in ballots can be lost, modified, mutilated, duplicated. There's plenty of issues that could happen.
> The problem is that process is being twisted into one of those systems that prevents more rightful votes than it does fraudulent.
Mail-in voting is objectively less secure than showing up to the polls. That's indisputable.
If you want to argue about how many less people would be voting then quantify it. You're just making things up without any actual statistics to back it up.
Would it even have an impact on the outcome? Would the "wrong" people be voting or not voting? Would it matter at all?
> Is this process doing us any good if a thousand citizens are disenfranchised for every fraudulent vote prevented?
Haha. You really think it's 1000 mail-in voters that would not vote for every one potential instance of fraud?
rivershimmer t1_is20guq wrote
> What, rise from a deathbed? > > >Are you suggesting the dead should be able to vote? Sounds very Democratic...
I'm using hyperbole for humorous effect, but to get pedantic, dead people are not on their deathbeds. They are buried or cremated.
I'm saying there's frail people out there who are very much in their right minds, but not physically up to a trip to the polls.
> Quit their job?
>> Polls in the commonwealth are open from 7am to 8pm. If you're in line then you can vote. Nobody has to quit there job to vote and just because it may be more inconvenient to vote earlier or later in the day or rearrange you schedule to do so is not justification alone for accepting the extra risks of those processes.
You seem to be under the misapprehension that everyone works 9 to 5, and then is just a quick trip away from the polls. The workday and transportation itself can eat up 13 hours. Plus, some people find themselves traveling on Election Day.
> It's important to remember that when voting in America was started, only a minority of Americans qualified to vote: white landowning males. That part's important, because farm hands and factory workers mostly didn't qualify. They didn't need the time off work to go into town, because they couldn't vote. Right up until 1828, the majority of voters wrote their own schedule.
>> Yes and the people that furthered those polices were Democrats. Anything short of showing up to the polls is more likely to be gamed. Mail-in ballots can be lost, modified, mutilated, duplicated. There's plenty of issues that could happen.
I have absolutely no idea why you quoted that part of my post but didn't bother to address it, but okay. I'll move on and look at what you are saying.
>>Mail-in ballots can be lost, modified, mutilated, duplicated. There's plenty of issues that could happen.
Sure there's plenty of issues that could happen. The question is are they happening in any statistically significant numbers. And the answer to that question is no.
People don't want mail-in voting, fine. Then we need to have a couple weeks of elections, not one day, to accommodate everyone. The nation has grown too much to continue on with one-day, in person elections. It worked in 1801, but we need to modernize.
> The problem is that process is being twisted into one of those systems that prevents more rightful votes than it does fraudulent. > > >Mail-in voting is objectively less secure than showing up to the polls. That's indisputable.
Less secure doesn't mean insecure.
>> If you want to argue about how many less people would be voting then quantify it. You're just making things up without any actual statistics to back it up.
I could say the same to you. You keep saying it could increase fraud. What evidence do you have that it does increase fraud And no, I won't accept 2000 Mules. Yes, I watched it. It failed to prove its point. But I enjoyed it because I'm a big fan of bad movies.
Also, is there a point to me arguing that fewer people will be able to vote? Considering that you don't care if people are unable to vote.
>> Would it even have an impact on the outcome?
.
>increased turnout by 10 percentage points.
>>Would the "wrong" people be voting or not voting?
.
What does that even mean? Myself, I want every rightful voter to vote. But this speaks to something I notice: so many of these steps people offer supposedly to counteract fraud seem to really be about keeping particular populations from voting. Look up North Carolina's 2018 voter ID law.
> Is this process doing us any good if a thousand citizens are disenfranchised for every fraudulent vote prevented? > >>Haha. You really think it's 1000 mail-in voters that would not vote for every one potential instance of fraud?
I'm asking you what numbers you'd find acceptable. And yeah, considering the low rate of fraudulent votes, 1,000 rightful votes prevented vs 1 fraudulent vote prevented really doesn't seem out there.
PM_ME_MURPHY_HATE t1_is21orm wrote
> I'm asking you what numbers you'd find acceptable. And yeah, considering the low rate of fraudulent votes, 1,000 rightful votes prevented vs 1 fraudulent vote prevented really doesn't seem out there.
Again, if people truly want to vote then they will arrange their affairs to do so. If they can't then tough beans. It's never going to be exactly the same level of convenience for everybody anyway. The only way to make it truly uniform is to have a single defined process involving showing up at the polls and presenting your ID.
The only acceptable amount of fraud is zero. You seem to think that there's some acceptable level of fraud in order to expand the convenience to some subset of the population. I disagree.
Have a nice day sir.
rivershimmer t1_is22tty wrote
> The only acceptable amount of fraud is zero. You seem to think that there's some acceptable level of fraud in order to expand the convenience to some subset of the population. I disagree.
Of course fraud isn't acceptable. But like all crime, it's inevitable. It only rises to a problem when it's statistically significant. And it's not.
Disenfranchising large amounts of people to prevent tiny amounts of frauds is a classic case of ignoring the forest for the trees. That amount of fraud is too small to have any effect on elections. Mass disentrancement does.
>Have a nice day sir.
And you too, maam.
HairyHouse2 t1_is2y0xz wrote
This dude definitely thinks Trump actually won don't even bother 😂
rivershimmer t1_is32py3 wrote
Eh, I enjoy this sort of thing, for rea.
"Election fraud" has become a euphemism. No one concerned about election fraud is seriously concerned about election fraud. They are using it as a socially-acceptable cover for what they are really trying to do.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments