Home About Explore Search
Little Tiny Frogs
with Brad Wardell
This is why mass mail-in voting was a bad idea
November 4, 2020 11:25:32 AM from Brad Wardell's Little Tiny Frogs
When you vote in person, the trust-level of the result is high. I fill out my ballot, I walk to a machine with a poll worker and I insert it in and my vote is cast.
But with mail-in votes, especially ones where the ballot applications are mailed out, you have a bunch of vulnerable points in the process:
You have the possibility of harvesting the applications. Picture an operative going to a college dorm or a high density housing complex and going door to door to gather those applications and sending them in. This part isn't particularly problematic because it's just the application.
The follow-up, called ballot-harvesting, is a much bigger problem. You have operatives arriving and ensuring that the people vote "correctly" and then gather up the ballots and send them in. Anonymous voting is extremely important for reasons that have been widely discussed elsewhere. Ballot harvesting is very difficult to prevent in this system.
In both 1 and 2, you are relying on the application and the ballot to, in general, make it through the mail system. These ballots/applications can be easily lost. Which way different neighborhoods tend to vote is not an mystery.
You also have the issue with people who shouldn't be voting voting. This is the "no voter ID" issue on steroids. Whether it be adults voting in place of their parents in nursing homes or even people who just shouldn't have received an application because they died or moved and having an operative take care of the rest is a problem.
Now, in none of these examples can this make up for a massive lead. But it can probably generate a 1% delta in a given state.
This is why, for the integrity of our system, voting should be done in person.
terpfan1980
Reply #1 November 4, 2020 3:35:40 PM
from JoeUser Forums
/applaud to all of what you have written here.
(Visiting again for the first time in a while. Nice to see you still writing occasionally)
To make any system work voting should be compulsory.
It works here...as does postal voting...and absentee voting. What we don't have is someone having a tantrum because he might legitimately lose, and stacks the Supreme court just to be sure....
Should add....the idea of the postal voting was to avoid crowds in a Pandemic...so voting wouldn't be quite so lethal. The current US Govenment has seriously dropped the ball with regards to managing the situation. No Trump, the US is leading the world in deaths, not in management of it.
The founding fathers were smart,
the safeguard built into the system is grid lock.
There has to be a large agreement to change anything.
Otherwise it is a dictatorship.
skywalkerhogie
Reply #6 November 4, 2020 11:09:14 PM
from Brad Wardell's Little Tiny Frogs
I totally agree ... watching from New Zealand and holding my head in my hands in disbelief.
There should never be doubt whether a vote is legitimate ... if there is doubt then the vote should be thrown out.
BONEHEADdb
jafo,
Evidently you don't know the definition of court packing.
Compulsory voting? We have this thing we call freedom.
Quoting BONEHEADdb,
So do we....and we don't have rioting and looting etc when the person we vote for doesn't win. We work on the concept that EVERYONE voted...and MAJORITY wins....so suck it up and stop being babies if you lose. Currently, no-one actually voted for our current PM...that was party manouvering...so yes, he's a moron too, but so was his predecessor...for whom I also didn't vote....but a majority did....
It appears your understanding of 'stacking' is a bit deficient, Jafo.
Reply #10 November 5, 2020 8:58:11 PM
and we don't have rioting and looting etc when the person we vote for doesn't win.
Trump hasn't won yet so all the snowflakes are still at mom's house. The dems are trying hard to steal the election. If they fail they will burn, loot and kill.
If the democrats can steal the election, why didn't they steal it in 2016 or 2000?
Reply #12 November 5, 2020 11:19:57 PM
Brad, in an 'ideal' world, yes, yer right. It'll also be perfect if people only voted in the home location where they were registered as a voter.
That isn't viable because so many people eligible to vote aren't even in the country, let alone their own 'home town' at the time. I remember when I was 19 I had to jump through hoops to vote when I was 10,000 miles away from Oz...and had to get to the Oz consulate in London [for us it's compulsory - fined if you don't].
These days I cannot be stuffed standing in a queue at some state school...fending off people with their how-to-vote-cards, just so I can have my name ticked off [and avoid that fine]. We have 3 layers of Government so we get to do it 'a lot'. Instead I do it via Postal Vote and thus 'waste' less of my time [and more of the Govt's - whichever level].
The problem with voluntary voting is you will only get people 'incensed enough' to bother - voting. The rest will sit back and think 'whatever....shit happens'...and forget they just voided their right to have an opinion either way...because they did nothing.
Compulsory voting is really what is meant by 'the right to vote'. You don't have to actually cast a vote...you just have to have your name ticked off the roll...so the Govt knows you exercised your 'right'.
About 50 years ago [hippy student] I thought 'right to vote' meant it shouldn't be compulsory at all. But then I realized I would be doing my society/county a disservice as if I was somehow 'superior' - above voting like a simple Prole.
But I am a Prole - so SHOULD vote. Society won't change if I just sit there and do nothing. I have a 'voice' that has equal rights to be 'heard'....
I don't think any polling system is perfect. All are vulnerable to voter fraud if various people and/or groups really want to. I use the mail in service due to mobility issues.... standing in queues for any period of time is painful for me, as is fold-up temporary seating. However, I would legally use my ballot paper to have MY say, nobody elses.
As for what happens in the US, well the system there is different to ours here in Australia, so I do not have an opinion about how things are processed there. However, given that the US is our chief ally these days, I am interested in the outcome of presidential races, as to who our country has to deal with.
Quoting Iben,
Precisely! The idea of the Democrats stealing this election is just the ill-informed belief of a megalomaniac [my opinion] who fears losing for what can happen to him after leaving the presidency. There's the possibility his undisclosed tax returns may be exposed and audited, and there is a number of pending lawsuits against him. So frankly, I think he's running scared.
Anyway, congratulations to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for their eventual win.
Seems Trump is running scared. It's not that he's a sore loser, which obviously he is, but more that he's running scared of mounting lawsuits, both civil and criminal, catching up with him once he no longer has the protections of the presidency.
Then there's Inland Revenue seeking to audit his incomes and taxes over the last few decades. It's likely he will owe billions in evaded/unpaid taxes from the late 70's until now.
Yup, karma is the bitch who comes hunting when people knowingly and deliberately do the wrong thing, as D Trump obviously has, and for decades at that.
Reply #15 November 11, 2020 11:09:03 PM
Ann Coulter: The Democrats' Guide to Losing Gracefully
Reply #16 November 12, 2020 12:14:52 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDYNVH0U3cs
"Ann Coulter: The Democrats' Guide to Losing Gracefully"
Donald ain't gonna read that, not in a million years. He was never a graceful winner, much less a graceful loser. Thing is, this isn't about losing so much [and he did confess to being a sore loser], and yes, there is much more to this than his followers care to admit. No, this is more about him losing the protections of a sitting president.
Shoot, he could even be looking at some jail time on criminal charges, perhaps even tax evasion..... not to mention risk losing whatever popularity he may have remaining within Republican ranks for refusing to concede the obvious to Joe Biden.
The fact that he is refusing to cooperate with the incoming president is an embarrassment and a travesty against the voting public, those who decided to elect a far more mature-minded/level-headed leader.
Reply #18 November 13, 2020 9:26:44 AM
Quoting starkers,
He's not the incoming president yet. Results are not certified. Study up, starkers. Try, say, the 2000 election.
FE Sneak Peeks
Stardock Games
Stardock Software
Twitch Livestream
Terms of Service Privacy Policy About Contact Stardock
Copyright © 2021 Stardock. All rights reserved.