2020 Presidential Election

Honest question: there are five states in the US that have conducted almost all of their elections, including federal elections, via mail (Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Hawaii and Utah) for nearly 20 years. Nobody has called their elections into question. They do not have higher rates of fraud.

If vote by mail is so ripe for abuse, why hasn't it happened in the states that already vote this way? You keep harping about "potential" for abuse when there are five states that have evidence and data that disproves your potential concerns.

 

Again, show studies that show wide-spread fraud in mail-in votes, not a quote by one congressman who was talking about the use of paper ballots for in-person voting, not the use of paper ballots that voters must file a written application for with signatures upon application for and submission of the ballot.

I will wait. Otherwise, I would be forced to believe there are none.

 

You know.... it's just my opinion. It seems like it would be easy to mail in a bunch of fake crap. I had no idea it was such a touchy subject. But I've been pretty honest about stating that it's my opinion. But I will take your word for what you've said to be true and I'll consider that I may be wrong. But it's kind of hard to really say someone's opinion is wrong, when they aren't even presenting it as fact.

I've got some good PDF editing skillz though. Just saying.

 

Appreciate your first paragraph.

It's not about mail-in vs. in-person. It's about allowing both, because it's the best (and only) way to allow the most people to exercise their right to vote, especially when it's unsafe to do so in person, especially if you're in a vulnerable population.

As for fraud, the GOP has used fraud allegations to disenfranchise black and brown voters (kicking them off the rolls for no good reason, intimidating them by surrounding their polling places with cops, putting older and less voting machines in black/brown neighborhoods forcing longer lines and more voters giving up) for years. Some Republican strategists have made the mistake of admitting on open mics that they can't win without voter suppression.

There's also potential for fraud in the touchscreen machines and there have been more than a lot of reports of voters checking boxes then seeing totally different votes appear at the end when they summarize your votes. That's only the people that noticed and reported it. And there have been a hugely disproportionate number of D's reporting this than R's. That's why you never hear R's reporting fraud about that. R's only shout "Fraud!" when it advantages them. As Trump discourages safety measures, he loses more and more vulnerable populations that voted for him before, so his strategy is to suppress those voters by making them choose between their right to vote and their safety.

Every method of voting is prone to fraud. No method of voting (apart from active voter suppression, often practiced by the GOP, esp. in the South, but never by Dems) is prone to more than a speck of fraud.

It's like the Bill Hicks joke about wanting to pass laws against burning the American flag when there had been about 3 cases of it nationwide at the time the GOP was spending so much time trying to pass a law about it.

It's a distraction, Trump's favorite strategy.

Don't like dying from coronavirus or the depression that will result from his inaction the first few months? Look over there: election fraud!! Look over there!! Joe Scarborough!

I know, I know. Wasting my time.

 

You produce some studies to back up your claim.

I'm not going to wait. Because you most likely can't. And I don't really give a **** if you do. I simply don't feel that strongly about it.

 

At least your respectful about it.

I honestly hope for a 'clean' election. As clean as it can be. I don't think the country wants to fight for 4 years over election fraud or interference from other countries.

 

I don't need to post studies proving mail-in voting has extensive instances of fraud... I am not arguing that it does (you are) because it doesn't exist. Mail-in voting exists in many states already.

https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/all-mail-elections.aspx

Your weak arguments are weakened further by "I really don't care" and "I don't feel strongly about it".

 

Meanwhile, the trump campaign is hard at work...

 

I'm gonna answer in good faith but I apologize if I'm repeating stuff you (and most people) already know.

Liberals are in favor of easier access to voter registration and voting because, in almost every era of every modern democracy in the world, the higher the percentage of the population votes, the more the left wins.

Conservatives are in favor of making voting more difficult and restricting access for the same reason - the more people vote, the more they lose.

Conservative politicians want to disqualify as many people as possible from registered voter rolls, close polling stations, disallow automatic voter registration and renewal, and introduce new laws, rules, and hurdles to register and vote.

Liberals want to expand mail-in voting, automatic registration and renewal, and so on.

There is a political argument to be made in favor of restricting voting access, but it's a hard one to make to the public, so conservatives would rather argue about fraud. The argument for wide participation in a democracy is a pretty easy one to make, so this is a fight that conservatives would rather avoid.


Regarding "that's your opinion, man" (I love Big Lebowski)
It is irrelevant that you imagine it would be easy to commit fraud by mail-in vote.
We have decades of data from several states that have done mail-in voting for most or all elections. Many, many elections that have been studied for evidence of fraud, and near zero has been found. This is relevant, not your gut feeling on the matter.

If you have a principled argument to make against easier access to voting, then by all means, make it. Anecdotal or emotional arguments are inferior to evidence-based arguments, and as far as fraudulent voting on mail-in ballots in the United States of America is concerned, the case is closed.

 

Anyone think that mail in voting bodes I'll for Democrats because the Repubs, and Trump in particular, are the ones that would find the way to defraud the system?

If it was any other Repub candidate, I wouldn't say it so, but I think it's so.

 

I've been hearing from more conservative types irl that we are reopening the country now because the wave of Covid19 has passed and the chance of getting sick has actually gone down -- as if it was a tide that goes up or down and not a network effect. They will allow there might be a resurgence in the fall/winter (as though it was a seasonal flu), but think we are essentially in recovery now. If you thought that was true then the fixation on mail-in ballots looks suspicious. Surely, you think, if you can go to the movies, take in a game, get on a plane, etc, you can go to the ballot box. They say stuff like "we'll be back to normal by then!"

But I don't think that's true about Covid19. I think we're reopening despite the virus and expect to see an acceleration of infections in about a month from the increase in interactions. I expect our country is going to be struggling with the virus in November not because the colder weather creates more illness but because our policies will have allowed the virus to hang around. So voting in person sounds like a dangerous prospect and voting by mail sounds like the most logical thing in the world.

 

I consider myself a conservative or most of my views align with the Republican Party. I don't think I've ever thought about wanting to stop anyone from voting. In fact, I usually go out of the way to encourage it.

I know you are generalizing for the sake of the discussion by saying conservatives are in favor of disqualifying as many people, etc.... But when you do that you're towing a party line, which is fine as long as you are aware of what you're doing. And if that's the case then it would be easy for me to retort with something equally inflammatory about the Democratic Party.

You are absolutely correct that my opinion is irrelevant. It's a point I had a difficult time making in the previous posts. I made the comment that it seems like there is the potential for abuse with mail in voting. It's an opinion. Honestly, I don't think you can say I'm wrong because I said there is potential. That seems like a pretty safe assumption.

Your response is pretty well thought out but it doesn't apply. When you make statements like "Conservative politicians want to disqualify as many people as possible from registered voter rolls, close polling stations, disallow automatic voter registration and renewal, and introduce new laws, rules, and hurdles to register and vote" You are also asserting your opinion. It's a very stereotyped, programmed opinion...in my opinion.

 

I admired your patience. After seeing his reply to your very reasonable response... well, it's clear it was wasted on him. Might as well just said he was retrumplican...

 

I'm not in the camp that's going to ballgames or movies anytime soon. If you recall your earlier post you had some skepticism about massive mail in voting.

Honestly, I'm not a big fan. It's not at all clear to me that there is potential for corruption at scale without getting caught. I just don't know. Experts say it can be done safely. Nevertheless I'm uncomfortable with standing up a new protocol on an emergency basis. You don't have the time to do a pilot, to build fraud detection capabilities, etc. ...

And I have a similar opinion that there is a large potential for corruption. I'm not proposing solutions and I haven't exactly criticized anyone else's proposed solutions. I've just defended an opinion that is my own.

 

That probably would be the easiest thing to do. I just realized I'm the only right leaning or conservative poster that's actively posting at the moment. So no wonder it's open season. Carry on.

Nolen's response was reasonable. But he did throw that barb in there.

 

Actually, we can say you are wrong because your opinion does not hold weight to years of data produced by those 5 states that allow mail in voting, plus the research that has been done to identify if fraud was committed.

You have an actual opinion on the matter, and that's fine, you are entitled to that, however, your opinion is wrong based on the years and years of data that says otherwise. If he had not posted what you identified as "very stereotyped, programmed opinion", would your stance change at all? I know you will say no, but we all know you are just being dense and don't like being told you're wrong.

EDIT:

I understand that many individuals hold on to the narrative they believe and they will defend their narrative at all costs, even when proven wrong. Personally, I think party ideology and loyalty is poison to our country, because lack the ability to analyze and comprehend their stances and fall into this trap basing their opinions and beliefs based on how their party identifies rather than what actual evidence shows. The other problem is when you have data and you attempt to manipulate it to support your bias and narrative.

I personally believe people need to learn to think for themselves and be smarter rather than be led by party ideology and loyalty. If you are wrong, then you are wrong. There is nothing wrong with that. Rather than being dense, you need to take a closer look at the research and find a way to actually back up your claim.

We all become smarter people and a smarter country when we learn to defend our stances with real evidence. We are all more stupid when we believe whatever bad information is fed to us without checking on facts. I can't tell you how many times I've seen narratives be driven based on headlines. I've called out both sides of the coin out for their bullshit and will point how their own articles point out the opposite of the headline or exaggerate it.

 

Every single State has absentee ballot. 5 states have conduct all elections by mail. 13 additional states permits some form of all-mail based elections. I think more than half the states allow no-excuse absentee ballot - so effectively, vote by mail is your choice.

This isn't new. Corruption or fraud protection is already established. The work needed is more about man-power, expanding mail-in ballot to all using existing methods, protocols, and processes, not new method or protocol. We also know that corruption or fraud for mail-in voting has been pretty much non-existence as well.

EDIT: looking at below, do we even care ? lol.

Although I personally think everyone should have the option for mail-in ballot for safety reason this Nov, the argument is not about mail-in voting so much. It's about State being ready and wiling to execute to allow access to it at scale (expect people to opts for that at a much higher rate), and the man-power to quickly count on election date (we don't want to wait days). For States that require excuse for absentee ballots - well, add one: "Covid-19".

 

There’s no ‘onus’ on me. I think that mail in ballotting has a big potential for fraud. It’s got nothing to do with me supposedly wanting to suppress voters because I’m a conservative. I can print out 5 ballots and mail them from Sweet Lou spelled 5 different ways.

Let’s turn this around. What measures are in place to ensure there is no potential for fraud and what are the procedures to validate that these measures work. And what are the corrective steps to be taken in the event the system shows signs of being corruptive?

 

I believe you that you don't want to prevent anyone from voting and would rather encourage voting.
Conservative politicians, however, like all politicians, want to be reelected. Restricting access to voting will help them do that. There are mountains of data from numerous countries and eras supporting this and they are perfectly aware.
I don't think that American conservatives as a group want to restrict voting; most people are unaware of the high correlation between turnout and leftist victory. I think that most American conservatives take the talking points (lies) fed to them about fraud and accept them in good faith.

I don't see it as inflammatory to say that republican politicians want to restrict voting; it's a simple matter of self-preservation. If one were to think that restricting access is wrong (it seems you do,) then maybe it feels like an accusation. But as I said before, there are principled philosophical/political arguments to be made in favor of elitism in voting. But it's a hard fight to win in public, so republican politicians would rather not go there.

So let's split hairs about my "opinion" on this matter.
If I say republican politicians want to restrict voting, I can't prove that because I can't read minds.
If I say republican politicians actually restrict voting, then I'm simply speaking factually, because that's exactly what they do, all over this great nation. (Not all of them, but if it's being done, it's being done by a republican.) Purging voter rolls, closing poll stations, introducing new legislation to make it harder to vote. They do it because they want to win, but they tell y'all it's about fraud as a cover and y'all buy it. There's too many examples to list. There's nothing opinionated about noting this.

Ok.... but this starts to feel like a "what is truth? Is it really knowable?" kind of a argument one makes when they know the evidence isn't on their side.