Republicans are engineering an electoral disaster this fall
My bold.
Using “honorable” and “Republicans” in the same sentence?? :dubious: Nobody can say WaPo doesn’t have a sense of humor.
*Shambolic. This word was new to me, but it is a word we need.
From what ThelmaLou quoted:
Indeed.
Yeah, the GOP wants to hold onto power without having to change a thing about what they stand for, other than perhaps getting more militant about it. Which is why they need to suppress voting by every means they can think of, and gerrymander so that even if they’re outvoted, they can still retain control.
Mitt Romney. I dont care for his politics, but he is honorable.
Even before vote by mail became the standard here in Oregon, the county clerk was encouraging people to register for an absentee ballot so they could get their ballot in the mail. The official move to all vote by mail was kind of ho hum.
I really don’t think it makes much difference in voter turn-out. The same people who can’t be bothered to go to the polls to vote are the same people who will let that ballot sit on their desk or throw it away. My wife usually can’t be bothered to fill the thing out except for rare occasions when a particular issue is important to her.
I would like to see a study where vote by mail increases voter turn-out. It makes it easier, if you take advantage of it, but I am skeptical that more people will take advantage of it. I am one of those evil Republicans and I would be just fine with the whole country moving to vote by mail. In the end, those who follow the issues and care to vote, will vote, the others who don’t vote now, probably won’t vote by mail either.
I don’t think Oregon is representative of the problems posed in other states where active voter suppression is practiced. Oregon has been all vote-by-mail since I moved here, so I can’t speak to how elections were handled before it was all vote-by-mail.
However, I suspect there was not active voter suppression like forcing people to vote in person during a pandemic, wait in line for literally hours to access a polling station in the pouring rain or schmuck voters off the rolls because they had failed to vote in previous elections.
If I were a single mom who worked for hourly wages with no time off to stand in line for hours to vote, you bet I’d welcome vote-by-mail.
An interesting (but not surprising) fact was that only folks in the poor, disadvantaged parts of Georgia were thus inconvenienced. Observers reported that if you lived in the “Republican” neighborhoods, no such obstacles were noted.
Most studies only show a modest increase in turnout. I posted a link to one in another thread recently.
IIRC, we did have a fairly large boost in turnout here in Oregon, but apparently we’re an outlier.
Yeah, and a variant I am hearing is the illegals are faking signatures to vote as well. Also without any evidence. :rolleyes:
Forgot to add - here in CA it works a lot like Aspenglow details for OR, with the main difference is you have to opt-in for a mail-in ballot. You only do this once and then you are mailed a ballot for every election going forward. You have the option of mailing it back or dropping it at the Post Office. I seem to recall there was an issue here about the state providing paid return envelopes not too long ago.
To complete the Left Coast, let’s look at the SoW. It’s more like OR in that vote-by-mail is the default. Each county manages its own election process, but the schedule is set at the state level; ballots are mailed about three weeks prior (except for military ballots, which go out a month or so earlier).
Where I live (Pierce County), the ballot package consists of the ballot itself, a plain security envelope and a return envelope. I fill out the ballot and place it in the security envelope, then place the security envelope in the return envelope. Sign and date the return envelope, then either mail it in (prepaid) or drop it in one of the boxes scattered more-or-less conveniently throughout the county. Ballots must be in the box or postmarked before the polls close at 8PM on election day.
Once the ballot is received, the signature is scanned and matched with the signature on file. If the signatures match — the usual case — the security envelope is removed and put together with ballots from the same precinct for processing on election day. If they don’t, the ballot is set aside for manual verification. On election day the ballots are removed from the security envelopes and scanned; those that can’t be scanned (the most common reason being that the voter used a felt marker that bled through to the other side) are examined later by a panel that includes representatives of both parties.
Yes, in the past some counties in California required postage for ballots, others had postage-paid return envelopes. Recently a state law was passed requiring postage free returns throughout the state.
The recent election in Oregon did not require postage.
This topic from (was it only??) last month is becoming extremely relevant. And this is only a primary. 
… At the center of this mess is a massive influx of mail-in ballots — 403,000 returned ballots in the city this cycle vs. 23,000 that were returned and determined valid during the 2016 primary — and a system wholly unprepared to process them. It’s not just delayed results that are at issue: In the 12th district and in the primaries across the country, tens of thousands of mail-in ballots were invalidated for technicalities like a missing signature or a missing postmark on the envelope.
This isn’t the only primary race in New York still up in the air. The 15th Congressional District in the Bronx, where New York City Council member Ritchie Torres holds a healthy lead, still hasn’t been called. Two other primaries in the Bronx and Westchester, won by Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones, were not decided for three weeks.
None of this bodes well for November’s federal election in which President Trump has refused to say whether he will accept the results. Turnout is expected to skyrocket because of the presidential race. Another covid-19 spike in the fall could lead to more mail-in ballots from people who fear crowded polling places. Add in slowed mail delivery because of the pandemic, while Trump constantly threatens to dismantle the U.S. Postal Service. Meanwhile, Trump and his Republican allies have repeatedly attacked the integrity of mail-in voting, making unfounded claims that the method is susceptible to widespread fraud.
…
I expect there to be a lot more of this in the next few months. DeJoy has to help his pal Donnie get reelected.
My bold.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service is considering closing post offices across the country, sparking concerns ahead of an anticipated surge of mail-in ballots in the 2020 elections, U.S. Sen Joe Manchin and a union leader said Wednesday.
Manchin said he has received numerous reports from post offices and colleagues about service cuts or looming closures in West Virginia and elsewhere, prompting him to send a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy asking for an explanation.
The possible cutbacks come as DeJoy, a major donor to President Donald Trump who took control of the agency last month, moves to eliminate overtime for hundreds of thousands of postal workers, potentially causing a delay in mail deliveries. A recent document from the Postal Service, obtained by The Associated Press, described the need for an “operational pivot” to make the cash-strapped agency financially stable.
“It’s just asinine to think that you can shut something down or throttle it back in terms of the pandemic when basically the lifeline for voting and democracy is going to be in the hands of the Postal Service,” Manchin, a Democrat, told reporters Wednesday.
…
As the coronavirus pandemic has upended normal balloting, more than half of voters under the age of 35 say they don’t have the resources or knowledge they need to vote by mail in November according to a new poll.
The poll was conducted by Global Strategy Group for NextGen America, a group that is focused primarily on engaging and turning out young voters.
“The problem is we’ve never voted in a pandemic before and some of these young people have never even voted before,” said Ben Wessel, NextGen America’s executive director. “And so when we look at the information about how to print out or, do you have the ability to print out a ballot request form or do you know how to get stamps or do you even know where to find more information? We’re really understanding that we have a big job to do.”
…Mary-Pat Hector, 22, says she’s planning to vote in person this November, but says she’s also spoken to people who are skeptical of mail-in voting.
“A lot of Georgia voters are actually afraid to vote by mail,” she said. “Many people who applied for an absentee ballot, never received that ballot via mail. And they’re afraid these same tactics will occur during the November the third election. And that’s just something we can’t afford.”
…
No great loss. Most of them would probably vote Democrat anyway, amirite?
I’m in a Vote-by-Mail state, but I think I’ve only voted by mail once? maybe twice? Technically, I usually Vote-by-DropBox.
Do the states who are using VbM in large numbers for the first time also have alternatives outside of USPS for people to deliver their ballots?
I don’t know the answer to your question, but to me the concept of “Vote by Mail” also includes GETTING YOUR BALLOT in the mail. As opposed to standing in line at the polling place and seeing the ballot for the first time in the booth.
I, too, often take my ballot to a dropbox.
But if the post office is slowing down and cutting staff, that will also hinder getting the ballots out to people, right? Or am I off base on that?
I know that here, ballots are sent 20 days before an election - even with the post office slowing down and cutting staff - people should still get their ballots at least 2 weeks before the election. If they haven’t arrived by then, with 2 weeks there’s still time to work through a problem. But, also here - there are already systems in place to work through issues with remote voting.
I do worry that there may be more issues with states that simply haven’t dealt with distance voting in large numbers (getting ballots out in time, troubleshooting balloting issues). Perhaps that’s something that can be added to phone banking calls this fall - “have you received your ballot?” “do you know where/how to return it?” “do you know how to check if it has arrived?”
I live in an all VbM state and have always dropped my ballot off rather than mail it back. That’s still considered voting by mail.
One of the problems this year is that some of the drop boxes are in libraries and those are closed because of COVID. In the primary in May, they didn’t get any substitute drop boxes outside. I hope that deficiency is repaired for the general election. However, they may not get all of them replaced. An outside drop box has to be a lot more robust than an inside one.
I’m in Jackson County and our dropbox is located on the street directly in front of the county elections office which means people drive up and drop their ballots in the box just like the mailboxes in the post office lot. I usually bike to mine and pull up on the sidewalk next to the box so I don’t impede car voters. It’s very convenient.
I just discovered you can locate dropboxes on the SoS website and download a variety of “I Voted” graphics so you can make your own sticker.