There’s the rub.
Trump and the GOP now have their Brown Shirts (ICE). He’s working on a Gestapo by stealing 1.8 billion dollars and paying off the traitors/insurrectionists. Though Trump will pocket most of that.
I do NOT want the Federal Government to have my voting information. I do NOT want them to know who I voted for and where I live.
This must remain in control of the states, not the lying GOP.
I wouldn’t mind which system is applied, provided the winner has integrity.
I can help with that, end of the month, high time to spend the gift links available:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/05/28/world/iran-war-us-trump-deal?unlocked_article_code=1.mFA.Eha7.D0agdbLjwODN&smid=url-share
At least we’d be disgusted by the words coming out of his piehole, not just the sounds.
That really sounded like the Onion.
Isn’t that winnowing and threshing stuff the purpose of the primaries?
Patently YMMV but both my State and Federal Governments know where I live, from numerous databases 'cause sometimes they send me cool stuff like cheques and yet neither of them know how I voted.
In Texas, for at least one, whether or not you voted is a matter of public record. If you vote in a primary, that is public record, too. You can bet that any candidate will have copies of those records for their local get out the vote workers to use.
They can use that, for example, to know which houses to visit soon before election day or on election day to remind them to vote without reminding people of other parties to vote. They can use it to determine which people might need a ride to the polls and back or other assistance.
Years ago, I did some work to help one candidate (big mistake) whom I knew. Those previous voting records were of immense use in their campaign.
And reference those to send, for example, truly ridiculous numbers of text messages letting voters know which runoff candidate is the Real™ MAGA candidate that will work for God King Trump and which candidate is a woke socialist RINO
Whatever else betide, I’m glad those are over. At least until October
I have questions: apologies if this isn’t the right thread for it.
My ballot is delivered by email. I print it out, and then mail it back (with Canada Post, which gets it to USPS for final delivery). So, on behalf of all overseas voters and all voters who receive ballots by email, how would this affect us?
Let me address a few things here. First, this debacle of a decision is not existing in a vacuum. The felon has already made noises about having the military at the polling stations. How may democracies do that? As far as I now, that number is exactly zero.
Next, there is a definite divide between states which do not require government-issued photo identification to vote and those which do. Those which do require such have at the very same time made it more difficult for certain demographics to actually obtain the identification document, not to mention making it more difficult for those same demographics to even vote.
Those of us who are both overseas and registered to vote, as I am, in a red state are lucky if our vote makes it to the registrar’s office in time owing to the incredibly short time between the ballot being available and the deadline, which is the actual deadline. It’s expensive and not a guarantee.
The more the felon and his fondlers think about this, the more restrictions they will add. As I mentioned above, one current workaround is to send the ballot by a service other than the USPS. The rub in that is the requirement the outer envelope be marked as voting material and thus even sending it via EMS, FedEx, DHL, or another country’s postal service will trigger the first receiving USPS station to check the new approved national voter list. And, of course, using non-governmental postal agencies, when said fondlers start actually cogitating on their evil, will be banned.
Again, this decision is not in a vacuum. But it sure sucks.
It’s worth pointing out that this ruling isn’t saying he can implement this order, just that it’s too soon to block it. The merits of the case remain undecided.
Of course the government knows where you, I and everyone else lives, and if it doesn’t, it can learn within milliseconds whenever it wants to. It’s the government.
Well yes.
But the point is that all my levels of government, local, State & Federal don’t know who I voted for.
It seemed to me that enipla’s point was their preference for the US Federal Government not knowing how they voted. But that their State Government knowing that detail was somehow acceptable.
I think the only thing that truly matters in this conversation (about the US election system) is …
We have a relatively long and well-established track record of Presidents and their administrations – at least, to a large degree – playing by the rules. Sometimes, it’s laws; other times, it’s ethics and norms.
And the memorable types who flouted those limits tended to be held to account by the Rule of Law, even if not in the way we would all have liked, or with the outcome we’d all have hoped for.
The US has officially begun playing Calvinball now, led by a President who – quite literally – tried to overthrow the legitimately elected US government (among a lifetime of innumerable other crimes and transgressions).
Anybody who has a conversation about our form of government without keeping this concept squarely in their sights is likely to end up holding flawed opinions about the right way forward.
TL:DR:
Kyle Reese: You still don’t get it, do you? He’ll find her! That’s what he does! That’s ALL he does! You can’t stop him! He’ll wade through you, reach down her throat and pull her f***** heart out!*
–The Terminator (1984)
I just retired from my position as a GIS Application Engineer. I made that kind of stuff. Who you voted for was not included. That’s sort of the >.< .
My guy HAS NOT won.
I’ve been voting since the 1980’s. In all that time JUST ONCE did the person I vote for become president. My “success” with the rest of the ballot is very similar. My reluctance to change our present system, even flawed as it is, has NOTHING to do with “my guy wins” because for the last 45 years that has not been the outcome.
IF I could wave a magic wand I’d change us over to a parliamentary system, at least on the national level, because that seems to work better.
But reality is I don’t have a magic wand.
Been voting since the 70s.
I’ve never voted for the Prime Minister.
Their name has never been on my ballot paper.
That was the whole point of the electoral college in the first place - the idea was that the masses for for their state legislatures and then the state governments would choose the president.
At least in theory.
Didn’t last long before it mutated into our current system.
I am aware that in a parliamentary system the citizens don’t vote for the prime minister. It still seems to work better than the US system.
Too much focus on “president” in the US these days, not enough people care about the folks being elected “down ballot”. And if you go back and re-read my post I very much stated that it wasn’t just the president who wasn’t “my guy” but rather everyone else on all the ballots I’ve cast over the years.
Apparently my political views are in the minority where I live.
In my first Presidential election, I voted for Ronald Reagan in the primary and Gerald Ford in the general election. Carter won.
Since then, I’ve mainly voted Libertarian.