No reported problems isn’t a void into which you can project any set of facts you wish to make up. And then declare that your facts are true and prove your ideological beliefs.
So even you don’t believe traditional voting works better than mail-in voting.
- Invent a problem out of thin air with absolutely nothing to back it up.
- Excoriate liberals for not caring about said problem.
I’ve got to admit, there’s a certain elegance to this approach. Very economical.
dup
Yeah. Since the 1960’s, thru four republican Governors, including Reagan (who liked Vote by mail) CA has been voting by mail, running about 2/3rds of ballots cast. No issues at all until trump. Odd that. Reagan liked it, trump doesnt.
Of course I see one reason- the Military used to be almost all VbM, and the Military used to be solid GOP voters. I dont think they are anymore.
A couple of other reasons for the voter ID in person can result in voter suppression in person.
-
Voters who are afraid that the person at the polling place is some sort of law enforcement officer. Let’s say you haven’t paid parking or speeding tickets because of lack of money. Voters could think that the person at the polling place would run your ID like a police officer would at a traffic stop.
-
The Real ID requirements can make it a pain in the ass to get a new ID if you’ve moved recently and your license is still valid. This goes double if you’re not planning on sticking around forever. Even if the cost of a new ID isn’t prohibitive, getting all the crap required for Real ID is a pain.
Guess which groups get affected more? Hint, it’s not the 50 year old suburbanite that owns their own home and plans to stay there at least until retirement.
As far as lost in the mail, I’d love to see some stats about how many pieces of mail get lost that are sent back as return mail going to the same place. These aren’t handwritten letters from your grandma.
Intuitively I’d have to agree that vote by mail should increase participation, but I’d hate to make the assumption.
Anecdotally, I recall that our referendum for a new flag which was totally vote by mail had relatively low participation rates*
Some things that I’d imagine can lead to vote by mail problems
> systems for address verification put in place by the state - how hard is it to receive a ballot?
> leakage through “disorganisation” - i.e ballot is filled out, then put on table and never posted for whatever reason
> inability to follow instructions (eg: ballot signed in wrong place or whatever else) - at the polling place there should be less likelihood of this
> people not receiving their mail in a shared housing situation, if they move about frequently (eg: visiting a love interest) or for whatever other reason
There are / will be plenty of systems in place for people that care about voting, but this same is true for physical polling places. For those that are at the margins however, I would think more robust research is needed before confirming vote by mail increases participation rather than just relying on intuition.
- the reason for which I don’t know but bear further investigation
You also forget voter intimidation at the polls, fairly common in some Southern states:
The images that usually come to mind when people hear voter intimidation are flashbacks of vicious German Shepherds that have been trained to attack Black voters at the polls. Today, intimidation is far less violent, but the intent to interfere with ones right to vote remains. In response to growing concerns around voter intimidation, the voter protection community has galvanized efforts around the country to provide support to voters if they have issues on Election Day.
*Voter intimidation and harassment
This year, there was a rash of racially motivated attempts to frighten voters. …Voters faced intimidation and harassment at polling places as well. In Missouri, a poll worker asked a voter whether they were “a member of the caravan,” in reference to a group of Latino asylum-seekers who are making their way from Central America toward the United States.53 Meanwhile, a poll worker in Harris County, Texas, told an African American voter: “Maybe if I’d worn my blackface makeup today you could comprehend what I’m saying to you.”54
Whereas past administrations have prioritized protecting voting rights on Election Day, President Donald Trump’s administration and those inspired by his rhetoric made efforts to intimidate voters, particularly Latinx voters, and to discourage them from participating in the midterm elections. In August, for example, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoenaed the voter records—an estimated 20 million documents in all—across 44 North Carolina counties that included disproportionate numbers of black and Latinx citizens.55 The DOJ backed down only after the North Carolina board of elections’ unanimous objections but requested that election officials send the records by January 2019.56 In late October 2018, fake flyers from an unknown source were also distributed in Milwaukee, falsely informing residents that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would actively patrol polling stations and detain anyone without ID. ICE released a statement in response clarifying that they neither patrol polling places nor perform such blanket sweeps.57 And President Trump himself engaged in intimidating voters on Election Day, tweeting on the morning of November 5: “Law Enforcement has been strongly notified to watch closely for any ILLEGAL VOTING which may take place in Tuesday’s Election (or Early Voting). Anyone caught will be subject to the Maximum Criminal Penalties allowed by law. Thank you.”58*
So, since this is all on the GOP, of course they now hate vote by mail since it is hard to intimidate a voter sitting at home.
Fortunately, you don’t have to make any assumptions. Voter turnout in VbM vs traditional voting has been studied by academics. Here’s one paper that covers it:
Universal Vote-by-Mail Has No Impact on PartisanTurnout or Vote Share
(emphasis mine)
I seem to remember that when Oregon went to all-mail-voting, we had a big jump in turnout, not a modest one. I guess we’re an outlier on that. We did have a drop in participation a couple-three years ago. It was thought to be caused by the recently implemented motor-voter registration, where anyone who gets a drivers license gets automatically registered unless they opt out.
It’s easy, however, to look for the postal votes signed by someone called Sanchez, and lose them all. You can’t do that if the ballots are going straight into the ballot box.
As Palast points out, some states also require ID for postal voting, some require polling officials to confirm the signature against existing records, and so forth. You don’t need to intimidate voters, if you just take their votes.
There’s also the issue of intimidation by people other than government officials. The postal vote effectively eliminates the whole notion of a secret ballot. The postal votes introduced in Britain a few years ago turned out the be extremely popular in muslim communities. In muslim communities lots of adult children still live with their parents, or even grandparents, so the women and offspring are coerced into casting their ballots from home, so the paterfamilias can dictate who they vote for. There’s no reason that phenomenon should be limited to muslim communities, or even just to communities with large households.
That might be an issue that voters find not very interesting.
Not easy at all. Volunteers and workers from both parties watch the procedure. If someone started throwing away ballots from "sanchez’ several people would call foul. Apparently you dont know how vote by mail happens in the USA nor have you ever been a volunteer or poll watcher.
Yes, they do check the signature here in CA.
No, not at all. The signature and address is on the *outside of the envelope. *Once checked, the ballot inside is separated from the envelope and treated like any other ballot. It is not viewed for votes until separated. There is nothing to ID the voter on the ballot.
My impression — tell me if I’m wrong — is that mail-in balloting, especially if it’s mandatory, favors the Republicans. (For starters, many students and underclass people lack a convenient and reliable fixed postal address.)
Depending on implementation details, vote-by-mail could give a big boost to GOP’s chances.
See the study results I quoted in post #69. There seems to be no favoring of either party with VbM. I’m not saying the reasons you think Republicans are favored are wrong, but they may be balanced out by other factors.
As far as checking the signatures, yes, they do that for VbM. In fact, they probably do a better job of it than traditional voting. The reason is that it’s done by a relatively small number of highly trained election employees, rather than a large number of precinct workers who are likely to be temporary workers and not likely to be specially trained.
When they do reject a ballot for invalid signature, they call the voter and ask them to come in and verify it was their signature and then update their voter registration with their changed signature. At least that’s how it works here in Oregon, perhaps some other states don’t have this procedure.
With the coronavirus epidemic, I’m surprised no one’s suggested online voting. Or if they have, the suggestions haven’t gotten much traction. That’s good, considering how secure the internet is generally. In this highly partisan age and with likely foreign interference, any state that tried online voting would have their voting website attacked by hackers from all over the world.
In Arizona you can watch the process via webcam. Bins of envelopes are brought to desks where two people are seated (presumably one from each party) and processed. Ballots are electronically counted in another room, also viewable via webcam.
Exactly.
I would fight online voting tooth and nail. One of the most comforting aspects of vote-by-mail (or drop-off) is paper ballots. Always there for a recount, and quick to catch shenanigans such as stealing/harvesting ballots.
I would also fight any efforts made to standardize or federalize voting procedures. One of the very best protections we have against vote interference is that each county in each state runs their elections differently. There are similarities to be sure. But the differences make it hard for outside bad actors to do much damage.
Old fashioned ways are sometimes the very best way to go.
But these aren’t ordinary envelopes with typed addresses sent out accross the country. They will be recognizable envelopes with barcodes that can be directly read by computer. Its not like some inattentive postal worker is going to deliver 2,000 ballots to the dry cleaner at 2001 Ashly Way then they should have been delivered to the board of elections at 2001 Ashly Terrace.
It should also note that from the very same article:
It certainly used to. Senior citizens and armed services used it the most, and they tend GOP. In fact, if a election was close but there were a tonne of uncounted mail-in ballots, then pundits often said a Republican victory was likely.
However, trump has really pissed off both seniors and the military. Maybe that’s why he doesnt want it- altho he uses it himself. :rolleyes:
I seems odd that the Rs are afraid of/opposed to a method that is more-or-less party-neutral (but, really, it has to be, because Gallup’s ongoing party identification poll shows the largest segment – ~40% – as “neither”), because destroying the USPS is a central (unplanked) tenet of the Party. Eliminate the post office and mail-in voting becomes more than a little bit questionable.