Voting by Mail in 2020: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I expect that most of the 101st Keyboard Division will scurry back under their rocks after a few incidents of violence lead to the perpetrators being made serious examples of.

More on the Texas situation.

…Travis County [Austin], with more than 800,000 registered voters spread out over 1,000 square miles, had just opened four dropoff sites Thursday.

Harris County [Houston], home to more than 2 million registered voters across more than 1,700 square miles, had 12 sites that opened Monday.

Neighboring Fort Bend County, where almost 400,000 registered voters reside, had announced it would have five sites just hours before Abbott issued his proclamation…

It’s not like these places were going to have FIFTY drop-off locations that might be difficult to keep track of. Now all of these will just have ONE drop-off location.

I would think that there would a lot of Republicans who, if they had their druthers, would rather drop their ballot in the mail than stand interminably in a line in some basement. Is it their assumption that only Democrats want to vote by mail?

Maryland authorities are warning people not to give their ballots over to people coming to the door telling them they’ll turn their ballots in for them.

What is the process for making sure that a person doesn’t vote in person multiple times?

That does seem to be conventional wisdom: Democrats are more inclined to VBM than Republicans. i don’t know origin of that knowledge, but there it is.

The process of making sure people don’t vote twice is straightforward, at least in Minnesota. In the old days with paper voter rosters the signature space of a voter for whom the county had received an absentee ballot was marked with a red A.B. No place to sign, no ballot to vote. We’d get updates by phone several times on election day, and I’d stamp the appropriate signature spaces by hand. Now we use Ipads for voter check-in, and the roster is updated automatically via a vpn.

I have a question. I mailed my ballot and Virginia states they received my ballot on 09/30/2020. So far, so good. But I scrolled down and clicked on my ballot status and the message said Ballot Information Was not Found. I emailed the registrar but haven’t received a response. Does anyone know what this means?

I don’t know but it is concerning!

I wonder if it’s an unhelpfully worded way of saying, “we haven’t done anything with it yet.” It appears that Virginia doesn’t mandate, but does allow, ballots to be opened and counted before election day; the state does not appear to allow vote totals to be released prior to election night. The state looks like it allows each district to decide for themselves whether they need the time provided by opening and counting ballots early in order to smooth out the process.

So, I could see that being some coder’s way of saying, “no new information regarding your ballot,” if it hasn’t been opened yet and is being held until election day. Like you, though, I would be concerned and calling my local election official for clarification.

Okay, thanks. I hope it doesn’t mean that they found something wrong with it and threw it away.

There was a segment on public radio yesterday (pretty sure it was This American Life), interviewing a county election official, and her scoffing at the concept of election fraud in any form.

We need a shit ton more of this kind of reporting, and it’s disappointing that the media hasn’t stepped up. The way to counter misinformation is with real fact-based information. We need stories every day from every outlet that go into detail about how ballots are collected, controls and quality checks and verification and signature checks and balancing between mail-in and in-person and all that good stuff.

You said this was NPR? You realize NPR is a bit on the leftwing side. I wish I could ask her some questions rather than a NPR reporter who panders to them (BTW, I am a regular NPR listener of KCUR 98.3 in Kansas City).

Yes, in many areas the election officials are honest as you can get.

But others, like in strong liberal strongholds like major cities, do you actually expect those people to be honest? When you have democrats as mayor, city manager, county manager, and just about every position from governor down to dog catcher do you really expect those people to be fair? Heck no. They will pull every trick in the book to keep their power.

You do realize also in places like San Francisco (maybe even all of California I’m not sure) they allow illegal immigrants to vote. How can you trust those election officials?

Surely you can back up such a ridiculous claim with a credible cite?

There is this article which states: “We find that some non-citizens participate in U.S. elections, and that this participation has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes including Electoral College votes, and Congressional elections.”

It has happened in Florida.

This article says in California one doesnt need to show ID to vote so an illegal could very well vote there.

You see again, it comes down to local election officials. So say an illegal shows up, wants to vote, but has no ID or a fake ID, whats to keep them from voting?

Why didnt that NPR reporter ask that question?

And then THIS article says that while TECHNICALLY illegals cannot vote, the ARE counted in the census and since congressional votes are based on census numbers, and democrats tend to hold sway in urban areas, this gives democrats more votes.

Yes, “illegals” (or undocumented residents, as I prefer to call them) are counted in the census, because the Constitution doesn’t exclude them.

So Jose Illegal shows up at the polling location to vote and when asked his name, what is he telling the poll worker? “Hmm, we can’t find a Jose Illegal in the list of voters.” How exactly is this supposed to work?

First claim: elected Democratic party members in charge of cities will pull every trick in the book to keep their power.
No idea how to prove or disprove this.

Second claim: San Francisco allows non-citizens to vote.
Partially true. Non-citizens can vote only in school board elections.

Third claim: California allows non-citizens to vote:
Not true. It is against federal law for non-citizens to vote in federal elections.

Fourth claim: California voters do not have to present ID when voting.
Partially true. More information:

In most cases, California voters are not required to show identification at their polling place. However, it is a good idea to bring identification with you when you vote for the first time. A poll worker may ask to see your identification

Fifth claim: Non-citizens have voted in Florida.
Unproven. According to the ballotpedia link offered:

However, the actual number of non-citizens who have voted could not be confirmed.

An official report indicates that there was no proof of voter fraud in Florida during the 2018 elections.

Sixth claim: Non-citizens have voted in California.
Unproven. I cannot find any hard evidence either way. If there was a valid official complaint made, there should be a report (just as in Florida), but, as far as I can tell, no such report exists.