The Voting Thread (Procedures, Turnout, Legal Challenges)(Update: Trump to file suit in PA, MI, WI, AZ, NV, GA) (1 Viewer)

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    Lapaz

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    There is a lot of push-back from Trump on voting by mail, but most states allow it, and 1/3 allow it without any excuse. His rationale is that it will lead to vast fraud, but of course that isn't his real reason. His real reason is that he thinks it will be worse for conservatives, but studies have shown that states that have instituted much broader voting by mail haven't had any statistical changes in party voting.

    www.politico.com

    Stanford study: Mail voting doesn't benefit one party over another

    Coronavirus-spurred limits have intensified a push to allow more mail balloting in November.
    www.politico.com www.politico.com

    Voting Outside the Polling Place: Absentee, All-Mail and other Voting at Home Options

    Most states offer at least one method for any eligible voter to cast a ballot before Election Day. While some states provide early in-person voting, this webpage addresses absentee voting and all-mail voting.
    www.ncsl.org

    Although, normally voting by mail doesn't affect party votes, I bet it might this year if we have another resurgence of Covid, because I think the right is much more apt to discount the virus than the left. I know that is why Trump is against it.

    Whether you're left or right wing, expanding mail in votes is the right thing to do to reduce the likelihood of spreading the virus, to expand voter participation, and to make it easier for those that do show up to stay distant. It will also allow any people with susceptibilities to remain safer. I think voting by mail could be made extremely secure by having people vote using traditional postal mail, coupled with requiring a confirmation either by phone, email or text. If done by phone, then voters can provide confirmation that can include confirming their form number. If done by email or text, it can include a picture of their form, and then confirmation that that was their form. Rather than staffers individually calling people, this can be automated by having voters call the number, text the number, or email the address provided to them on their form. A website can even be created with a database of those that have voted, and perhaps a link to allow people to confirm their vote was correctly registered. For people without computers, a site can include a means to access the database over the phone with some confirmation information. These types of systems are used extensively by banks and other sites that need security, so I think they are mature enough to use. We could even use such a site for people to confirm their vote on the day of the election.
     
    NoPartyMike said:
    We should go further and open up online voting. Then we can see where America really stands on issues. I see no reason why online voting shouldn't be available. Am I missing something? We can bank online, have doctor's visits and receive health information, file our taxes, conduct the census, and handle our DMV work all online. Time to enter the 21st Century.
    Click to expand...
    I mentioned online voting earlier, but I wonder if the stakes are high enough, will hackers attack online voting? We should be able to add secondary security methods to allow it. As long as it is not a soft target.
     
    Lapaz said:
    will hackers attack online voting? We should be able to add secondary security methods to allow it.
    Click to expand...

    There's not a doubt that wouldn't happen. If it's connected to the internet, it's open to attack.

    There are a great many variables in play to even go down that road. Think of how many banks/credit agencies/government entities have been hacked. Then you have to add the susceptibility of end users and their devices on top of that. If your "voting" account is tied to your email, all it takes is having someone phish those credentials. If it's tied to nothing, how do you secure it? If the fraud occurs at the source (or the voter), where's the paper trail to prove it?

    It's pretty common in an email phish for the attacker to set inbox rules that will automatically delete any incoming messages related to the hack. So they can get in your mailbox, then set a password reset email to auto delete. The generate your password reset, grab it from your deleted items and they have your vote. Yea, you can dispute it (maybe), but what's that do to the overall voting process?

    I'd love to be able to do it, but people who work in the cybersecurity realm are totally opposed to the idea, and I'm inclined to trust their opinions on it.
     
    Just to tack on ^

    Despite my post looking like I'm arguing against it, I'm totally in favor of online voting. I think it should absolutely be a focus to get right. I don't deal with the level of cybersecurity to even start to think of the different levels of complexity though.
     
    JRad said:
    Just to tack on ^

    Despite my post looking like I'm arguing against it, I'm totally in favor of online voting. I think it should absolutely be a focus to get right. I don't deal with the level of cybersecurity to even start to think of the different levels of complexity though.
    Click to expand...
    I think you're right that there are many potential risks with online voting, and expert cybersecurity people need to analyze, develop options, and test them. Phishing can be very clever and deceptive, and I think it would be too difficult to overcome that. Mail-in ballots paper ballots are probably more secure than online, when used with secondary validation methods.
     
    I’m still waiting for Bronco to shine a light on how much he trusts USPS. They are notorious for screwing up mail delivery but I’m supposed to believe they are spot on when it comes to ballot delivery. I also want him to explain how it’s ok in almost every state to go into a gas station and buy something from a clerk who is behind plexiglass or go to Walmart or Home Depot with hundreds of other shoppers but it’s dangerous to get in line and vote.
     
    Tony1Sainstfan said:
    I’m still waiting for Bronco to shine a light on how much he trusts USPS. They are notorious for screwing up mail delivery but I’m supposed to believe they are spot on when it comes to ballot delivery. I also want him to explain how it’s ok in almost every state to go into a gas station and buy something from a clerk who is behind plexiglass or go to Walmart or Home Depot with hundreds of other shoppers but it’s dangerous to get in line and vote.
    Click to expand...

    That's irrelevant. The level of trust a person has in someone or something else does not necessarily reflect reality. Plenty of people in the country don't trust medicine. That doesn't suddenly make medicine unreliable or unworthy of trust.

    On the other hand, has there been issues with the USPS screwing up the delivery of ballots? If there has, would properly funding and staffing facilities resolve the issue?
     
    Tony1Sainstfan said:
    I’m still waiting for Bronco to shine a light on how much he trusts USPS. They are notorious for screwing up mail delivery but I’m supposed to believe they are spot on when it comes to ballot delivery. I also want him to explain how it’s ok in almost every state to go into a gas station and buy something from a clerk who is behind plexiglass or go to Walmart or Home Depot with hundreds of other shoppers but it’s dangerous to get in line and vote.
    Click to expand...



    So you are loosing that much mail?

    Or does it have to do with the administration talking crap about the USPS and not wanting to fund them anymore.

    I don't see the problems. Lots of elderly people and rural people vote by mail and have done it a long time. Heck so has Trump.

    Now the fact that you think this is not a real problem with 100,497 dead Americans is the real issue with the by mail voting. We have more dead Americans than Korea and Vietnam combined now.

    This is a real issue for Americans why not fix the potential problems unless you don't buy that we even have a problem.
     
    Tony1Sainstfan said:
    I’m still waiting for Bronco to shine a light on how much he trusts USPS. They are notorious for screwing up mail delivery but I’m supposed to believe they are spot on when it comes to ballot delivery. I also want him to explain how it’s ok in almost every state to go into a gas station and buy something from a clerk who is behind plexiglass or go to Walmart or Home Depot with hundreds of other shoppers but it’s dangerous to get in line and vote.
    Click to expand...
    We just had a conversation from the mods about qualifying your statements. That these sorts of evasive conversational tactics will no longer be tolerated.

    My confidence in the post office is as high as the results dictate, which is very. Again, you are the one making the accusation that expanding something that has been more accurate, more participatory, and more successful in terms of minimizing fraud than in-person voting, so the onus is on you to prove your case. You claim the post office can’t succesfully handle this, prove it. You say that expanding this will increase fraud despite all evidence we have showing the opposite, prove it!

    Stop dancing, stop sealioning, just prove it!


    EDIT: To Slackermod, my frustration stems from this:

    Andrus:

    News for those of you that like to present their opinions as if fact. If you make an assertion on the MCB and present it as fact, you then must be prepared to back it up. No more entire threads filled with avoiding, dancing around answering, deflecting and telling members to do their own homework when that burden of proof is on the person making the assertion. When you practice such avoidance you lose credibility, leaving us with the perception that you are spreading misinformation. Good Faith means being "honest". That is an expectation on this board. So, if you are stating an opinion, make sure that you express that it is just that - an opinion, rather than inviting such challenges.​
    ​
    ​
    Going on two days now Tony has refused to engage on the merits of his assertions, made numerous inflammatory statements despite being asked multiple times by myself and others to qualify his statements. Instead, endless deflection. At what point are we allowed to be frustrated after showing up under the pretense of expectations we are adhering to but are not being enforced toward violators?
     
    Last edited:
    Lapaz said:
    The way you've described what Oregon is doing, they do have a secondary means of confirming votes, but it appears to rely on voters. That might be adequate, if they have a reporting system that would alert them of a problem, and then if the state can perform secondary checks without relying on the voters. If so, then I would hope other states would emulate that. The alternate secondary check that would not rely on voters should allow the state to sample some voters for secondary confirmation, and only expand the secondary check if some fraud is discovered.

    Maybe the reason we haven't seen much mail-in fraud is due to the places that are using it. Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, and Colorado are firmly blue states, so it would take vast fraud to swing an election in those states. It would be too easy to catch that, so it is effectively a hardened location. The same applies to Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas, etc, that are firmly red states, and likewise hardened. On the other hand, purple states like Florida, Ohio, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are much more appealing targets. You can swing the national and statewide elections with a small, and less detectable, attack on their elections. I want them to increase their security, not create any new vulnerabilities. I know it is a political issue, so the question is will we be worse off accepting some new vulnerabilities created by hastily adding mail-in ballots, or worse off accepting a skewed election due to suppressed voting due to fears of the pandemic? I lean in favor of taking the risk of mail-in, since it will prevent a virus resurgence that doesn't care about politics, but my hope is that at least the purple states will work hard to expand mail-in voting with protections.

    Our adversaries will look for vulnerabilities to attack, so we shouldn't be complacent, just because we haven't had a lot of it in the past. We never saw anything like we saw in 2016, and I suspect we don't really know how effective they were in changing any votes. Whether or not they were successful, I'm sure they learned, and will keep poking around, so we have to harden our systems.

    I'm not familiar with Oregon's approach, and it may be adequate, particularly if they have a secondary means to randomly confirm votes, and a means to expand the checks if something suspicious is spotted. In person voting in my state already has a secondary check in many states, since you have to show your ID to compare to registered voter lists. I want something similar for mail-in voting. Mail-in voting can be a wonderful thing, particularly for people that can not afford to wait over an hour in line or even get to the voting place, but I see the logic, even if their motives are politically motivated, in increasing mail in security.
    Click to expand...
    Utah also does it.

    And It is not reliant simply on voters. I apologize if I indicated that was the only check in the process. Voters simply have the sort of transparency and oppurtunity to track their ballots that is basically not possible in pretty much every old-school in-person system. Which is important to point out when most in-person systems do not.

    You sign your ballot, government receipt of your ballot can be verified online or by phone, your signatrue and info is matched to your voter registration and license info/signature both digitally and in-person by a multi-level bi-partisan panel, if there is a discrepancy you are contacted and asked to provide additional information to validate your ballot.

    Additionaly, because things are collected and catalogued in this manner, and it is standard across all mail-in states, Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii are also able to compare ballots and make sure people are not mailing in ballots into two states. Something only really possible with a standardized process and this level of efficiency gained through a system like this.

    I’m also not sure how you are more vulnerable with paper mail-in ballots than digital systems that we know by leaked intelligence documents have been hacked successfully and there is basically ZERO accountability once you press send.
     
    Last edited:
    JRad said:
    Just to tack on ^

    Despite my post looking like I'm arguing against it, I'm totally in favor of online voting. I think it should absolutely be a focus to get right. I don't deal with the level of cybersecurity to even start to think of the different levels of complexity though.
    Click to expand...

    I‘m hesitant about online voting simply because I’ve been hacked or had my information compromised several times. Between me and my husband we’ve both had fraudulent card purchases and been part of several data breaches: Target, credit bureaus. I can’t even remember all of them.
     
    N.O.Bronco said:
    We just had a conversation from the mods about qualifying your statements. That these sorts of evasive conversational tactics will no longer be tolerated.

    My confidence in the post office is as high as the results dictate, which is very. Again, you are the one making the accusation that expanding something that has been more accurate, more participatory, and more successful in terms of minimizing fraud than in-person voting, so the onus is on you to prove your case. You claim the post office can’t succesfully handle this, prove it. You say that expanding this will increase fraud despite all evidence we have showing the opposite, prove it!

    Stop dancing, stop sealioning, just prove it!


    EDIT: To Slackermod, are we implementing these new policies Andrus mentioned or not? For two days now Tony has refused to engage on the merits of his assertions, made numerous inflammatory statements. Asked multiple times by myself and others to qualify his statements, he has refused and deflected. We were all asked to engage in a new found emphasis on quality of engagement, essentielly, meaning you put in the effort you receive, such as that if we make statements of fact the expectation is you will be asked to back it up or expect to be asked to leave, so is this a real thing or not?
    Click to expand...
    N.O.Bronco said:
    We just had a conversation from the mods about qualifying your statements. That these sorts of evasive conversational tactics will no longer be tolerated.

    My confidence in the post office is as high as the results dictate, which is very. Again, you are the one making the accusation that expanding something that has been more accurate, more participatory, and more successful in terms of minimizing fraud than in-person voting, so the onus is on you to prove your case. You claim the post office can’t succesfully handle this, prove it. You say that expanding this will increase fraud despite all evidence we have showing the opposite, prove it!

    Stop dancing, stop sealioning, just prove it!


    EDIT: To Slackermod, are we implementing these new policies Andrus mentioned or not? For two days now Tony has refused to engage on the merits of his assertions, made numerous inflammatory statements. Asked multiple times by myself and others to qualify his statements, he has refused and deflected. We were all asked to engage in a new found emphasis on quality of engagement, essentielly, meaning you put in the effort you receive, such as that if we make statements of fact the expectation is you will be asked to back it up or expect to be asked to leave, so is this a real thing or not?
    Click to expand...
    So you aren’t going to answer the question.

    townhall.com

    You Get a Ballot, You Get a Ballot: Nevada's Mail-in Primary Shows Potential for Voter Fraud

    The Nevada primary is proving Republicans right about the dangers of voting-by-mail. Thousands of ballots mailed to inactive voters, people who moved or perhaps even died, are reportedly stacking up
    townhall.com townhall.com
     

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