I’ve noticed that the OP has not posted in this thread recently.
I live in Colorado, which is a vote-by-mail state. I’ve noticed that every election, shortly after we get our ballots, I get a call from some Democrat volunteer who wants to make sure that I got my ballot. And my husband gets a call from some Republican volunteer, who wants to make sure he got his ballot.
But people can go vote in person if they would rather do it that way. We almost always take our ballots to a nearby polling place and put them in the box rather than mailing them back.
As in, a few hours? So far the arguments amount to:
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they don’t keep track of the actual numbers for either case, so you’re wrong. No, there’s just no data.
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Individual disenfranchisement doesnt’ matter.
Vote by mail is fine during an epidemic and for those who can’t get to the polls. Really, it’s fine all the time, I don’t really care. I just am noting that all that Democratic rhetoric about a few people getting disenfranchised was never a principled stand.
No, the central argument is that offering people more options on how they can vote reduces disenfranchisement.
Are you claiming not having any cites as an exclusive privilege then?
This is not correct and several people have explained to you why this is not correct.
It’s not just “Democratic rhetoric.” Oregon, a “blue” state, is exclusively a vote-by-mail state. No problems asserted by any side, not Dems, not Republicans, not independents. Utah, a “red” state, is exclusively a vote-by-mail state. No problems asserted by any side, not Dems, not Republicans, not independents. Colorado is exclusively a vote-by-mail state. Sometimes red, sometimes blue. More blue now, but only recently so. No problems asserted by any side, not Dems, not Republicans, not independents.
The military is almost exclusively a vote-by-mail “state.” Certainly you would allow there are many voices on many sides of members of the military. No problems asserted by any side with them, either.
What’s unprincipled is making unfounded claims based on no experience and no evidence.
You’re making up problems that don’t exist and never have. No voting system is perfect, but vote-by-mail is pretty darned close.
No reported problems isn’t the same as no problems, most people just never know if their ballots were counted or not, although this is also true of traditional voting, where they lose ballots all the time, whole offices full of them.
It just means that any claims of fraud on your part are unevidenced and unjustified.
So if no reported problems isn’t the same as no problems, how can you comfortably say that vote-by-mail is the most problematic? I don’t think you can. That seems a lot like, uhh, what did you call it? Motivated reasoning?
A few people in this thread have explained to you that there are tracking systems in many vote-by-mail states where a voter has the ability to verify that their ballot was received and counted.
It seems like you’re saying that the absence of evidence is evidence of the problem. Also, people in this thread aren’t saying that disenfranchisement of voters is not an issue. If you’re thinking of my post, I said that, even if it were the case that votes are getting lost (hypothetically), random disenfranchisement is better than targeted disenfranchisement. I’d rather see none, but random is better than targeted, right?
If it makes you feel better, 538 thinks that there’s no evidence that voting by mail helps either party.
The assertion in the OP is ridiculous.
Voting by mail has previously not been a particularly partisan issue. If anything, older voters, who have tended to be more conservative, and who sometimes have more difficulty getting to polls, have often preferred it.
The OP is twisting into a pretzel to make this some kind of hypocrisy on the part of the Democrats, by impugning the effectiveness of the USPS. But it was Trump who said voting by mail would hurt Republicans. He says it’s because voting by mail is “rigged,” but he has no evidence of that. He always says something is rigged in advanced when it seems he’s going to lose. That’s what he did in 2016. It’s his typical bullshit.
Any form of election is equally susceptible to being “rigged” – voting by mail or regular polling. (However, Trump’s own commission couldn’t find any fraud from 2016.) The USPS is not the relevant variable.
Really, Trump is the hypocrite here. He voted by mail himself. Yet, he knows he is unpopular, so generally speaking, the more people who vote, the more likely he is to lose. His only hope is to strategically boost voting among some voters, and to suppress it among others. He knows that voting by mail will increase the overall vote, which statistically is bad for him. Whether it’s by mail or not isn’t an issue
Talking about “lost” mail here is idiotic.
The issues raised by Palast have to do with the administration of absentee ballots, a specific component of larger election administration. Palast’s concerns are valid, but what he cites is not indicative that the USPS is the problem. To the degree that there is a problem, it has more to do with bad administration when the mailing component of an election is a particular subsystem of the larger process. It’s not definite at all that any inequity would arise in this way when the entire process is vote by mail, or when vote by mail is simply an option available to regular in-person voting. Some of those problems would happen in any type ballot system.
Yes, we need to be vigilant of all election processes, but there is no evidence that “lost” mail is the problem.
Actually, I take that back, and apologize. It’s not “idiotic.” I can see how it could be a natural concern on first glance, without looking into the situation.
So, to get this straight, you have no numbers at all for either form of voting, but you’re certain they prove that Democrats are unprincipled.
What substance are we supposed to be engaging with here again?
And is said substance legal to indulge in where you live?
I’m just going to respond to the title, because the answer is simple.
Voting by mail could only possibly disenfranchise those who have no way of retrieving mail. Even homeless people can go to the post office. Generally speaking, voting by mail also means you can go to the courthouse and retrieve your voter packet. And, however you got it, you can return it to the courthouse.
Voter ID definitely disenfranchises more due to there always being difficulty in getting an ID. That’s going to affect more people than who don’t have mail service. So what’s left is traditional voting. And that has the issue where people can’t get off work and such to vote. There are definitely more people like that than there are without mailboxes.
So, no. It would not disenfranchise more people than any other method. And that’s assuming pure vote-by-mail, and not allowing any voting booths that maintain proper social distancing for those who don’t want to vote through the mail. Add that, and you have the advantages of both systems.
I vote by mail myself, BTW. I have since 2012. I couldn’t go that year, and I discovered how much better it is. I have all the time in the world to vote, meaning I can look up all the candidates in the lower offices and pick the best of them. Before, I was stuck mostly voting by party, even for local positions where that doesn’t matter.
It’s quite good, and, even if not made a necessity by COVID-19, I encourage everyone to try it at least once.
The important question to answer would be how many absentee ballots are actually lost and at what level would they have to be for the system as a whole to be not fit for purpose. It seems like the amount lost is nowhere near enough to be a real concern, especially if we introduce measures to check if the ballot has been received/counted.