Which is why the losing side has not accepted a result in the last couple decades in Oregon, correct?
Options are good. Also, no one’s vote should go uncounted. Also, we have a pandemic going on and letting people vote by mail is safer than insisting they all show up in person on the same day.
I’m not “terrified” Trump will “screw” with the process because it’s a reality - his appointee is very, very much “screwing” with the process right now and the entire USPS. Also, that appointee has a definite conflict of interest in owning stock in a USPS private competitor.
I’m sorry - are you unaware that there has been mail-in voting since the Civil War? This is nothing new. If this could be done with 19th Century technology surely it could be managed in the 21st Century if the current administration wasn’t bound and determined to destroy it as an option.
This may shock you, but some of us old farts have been liberal/progressives for decades (I’m not a Democrat, either - I actually am an independent who researches individual candidates).
You sure have funny ideas about people who aren’t Republicans, starting with the idea that if you’re not a Republican you MUST be a Democrat. You are aware that choosing a party is not compulsory, right?
See, that’s a puzzle to me - Trump is shooting the Republicans in the foot with this BS.
Honest answer IMO: Another thing young people don’t do (or more accurately won’t put up with) is gladly standing in long slow moving lines for bureaucratic processes designed 200 years ago.
If they could securely vote by an app on their phone we’d get huge participation.
If the goal is to increase participation by the young, then snail-mail, especially with a postage prepaid response envelope so they don’t need to already own stamps, is the next best thing. Not the worst thing.
Mail in voting right now in 2020 is all about COVID. However (in)efficient traditional polling places on Election Day normally are/aren’t, the throughput that can be safely accomplished with physical distancing, frequent sanitizing, etc., is vastly less. So to accommodate the same demand either we somehow roll out vastly more polling places, voting equipment, election monitors, etc.
Or we spread the voting process out in time by early in-person voting and/or snail-mail voting. The latter is the least expensive for the election agencies.
I once tried that. They wouldn’t let me in the door because I had a backpack with my lunch and a book. Could I leave it in the lobby? No. You can leave it on the sidewalk outside. That was even before I realized I had a small pen-knife in my pocket. The day I get my ballot, fill it out, take it over to the post office and hope for the best. Doesn’t really matter in IL, but I would also like to vote for a congressperson.
The repugnants haven’t been fiscally sound since Reagan. Which is the only party that has run under budget since at least 1970?
I know. The Democrats.
I’m no R nor R sympathizer. But a successful country does need two principled parties with some ideological differences as well as a lot of shared commonalities.
That the last standard-bearer of “traditional” Republicanism was now so long ago that only old farts like you and I can recall them in office is appalling. If it took the Rs 50 years to paint themselves this far out on a limb, how many more years will it take them to shinny back? Or does the bough break, and down come the Rs, cradle and all?
Because they don’t trust Republican governments to keep polls open in minority areas. The strategy of shutting down polling places in places people vote Democrat was commonly used in the last few elections and will be even more common this year.
This remark reminds me of this David Horsey cartoon, which I can’t resist posting here:
Thread winner for the best mixed metaphor!
Well, the postal workers union did not come to play, apparently…
I’m so old I can remember when people got called on the carpet here for saying ‘Democrat’ instead of ‘Democratic’ because it wws obviously an insult. But I guess ‘Repugnants’ is totally okay.
Personally, I am 65 and my mother is 94. It is extremely important to me not to get COVID-19. And past experience is that, for a Presidential election, there are long lines and crowds at my polling place – even when not consolidated, as it was for the 2020 primary. As for using a dedicated drop-off box, I think it would entail a drive of maybe ten miles, and I have a high level of trust in the working-level postal employees. I’m a little afraid that putting out a box, on the street, that is just for ballots, creates a bit of vandalism risk, not that the risk is high.
Under our legal system of government, the Vice-President announces the electoral vote count before a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2020.
This was a formality in the past, but I think will be important this time. And the joint session result, announced by Pence, is what legally counts under our system of laws. What Biden or Harris or Trump says does not.
Are you predicting that Mike Pence will refuse to announce the true election result is he loses, and it was “remotely close?”
If you really thank Pence is that anti-democratic, you should hold your nose and vote for Biden. Joe might prove a sore loser, but that would be trivial because neither he nor Harris bears responsibility for the formal electoral vote count.
I take it that you’ve reported it, then, and can be reasonably sure a mod has seen the report and is blowing you off?
Assuming this is an “honest question.”
Last presidential election, there were election lines that were thousands of people long where voters had to wait all day and well into the night in closely packed lines in order to vote. (We’re not talking 20 minutes. We’re talking 8-10 hours.)
This is bad enough in “normal times” However, having a bunch of people in a crowded indoor space for hours during a pandemic is a very, very bad idea. And so, “mail in your ballot” is a much more responsible option than having your electorate infect themselves in order to vote.
Also - from one of the states where we’ve had all mail in for years, close votes are actually easier handled because there are paper trails. You may not get results on election night, but it’s much easier to go back and recount if/when it is necessary.
All or no-excuse-required vote by mail also eliminates the problem of people not being able to make it to the polls on election days. People who can’t leave work, or can’t afford to miss work, or caregivers of young children. And those problems intensify when waits are long for in person voting. The alternative is making election days holidays, but even then, some people would still have to work.
Vote by mail is pro-democratic (small d). It’s just easier for almost everyone. I missed the ritual of voting at first, but I don’t miss lines, having to figure out my new polling place if I move, shenanigans about closing polling places in some precincts, or large-scale voter intimidation tactics at certain polling places. It’s just easier. And now, with Covid-19, anything that can be done remotely instead of having many people in close quarters, the responsible thing to do is make it as widely available as possible.
Because COVID. Aren’t you paying any attention? And why isn’t your question: “given COVID and the long history of mailed in ballots, why are Republicans so dead set against it?”
Wait, so you actually ARE saying that what actually counts as the actual official result of the presidential election is not what the electoral vote count actually is, but what the Vice President SAYS it is at that particular time and place?
This has never been put to the test because the incumbent VP (even Nixon in 1960, when he might have personally thought it unfair) went along with a consistent electoral vote count given to him by the tellers.
One possibility is that the electoral vote count given to Pence, by the House-speaker-appointed tellers, will be different from that given to him by the Senate-majority-leader-appointed tellers, and he then picks the count that makes him win.
I don’t think Pence could get away with declaring himself the victor if all four tellers disagreed, but who knows?
Putting U.S. history aside, the presidential republic is not a very stable form of government. If you read a book on the technical details of the electoral college, you will find there is room for mischief. The smooth transfer of power requires a level of common decency that I haven’t seen from the administration to date.
People got called out for trying to pretend that “Democrat” couldn’t possibly be an insult.
That’s an awesome cartoon. Thank you! And so true.
I’m not much good at puns, but I lurvs me some mixed metaphors. The more cockeyed they are the better they sound.
Everyone in that building is going to know what the Electoral Vote is before any of those votes are opened. If the announced winner doesn’t correspond to that, there’s going to be hell to pay. Especially if the new Senate also has a D majority, which I fully expect will happen.