Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy❤
No. of Recommendations: 15
If you live in Pennsylvania and plan on voting by mail-in ballot, be very careful when mailing your ballot.
The Pennsylvania State Supreme Court issued a ruling last week that any mail-in ballot missing a hand-written date on the outer envelope must be rejected. Why? Well, for the best reason... Because...
In the Pennsylvania system, voters mark up their ballot, put that inside an innner black envelope, then place the black envelope inside a white outer envelope, seal that, write the date on it, then mail it in. When it arrives, the outer envelope is opened and the inner envelope is opened and the ballot is stamped with a date/time stamp reflecting when it was physically received. This stamp is sufficient for the rest of the ballot's life to confirm whether it was received by the cut-off date and time. The written datestamp on the outer envelope has zero correlation to any opportunity for fraud and shouldn't be trusted if present. Only the internal stamp only in possession of the election officials should count as proof of timely arrival.
Yet Republicans filed suit to attempt to force the outright rejection of all incoming ballots without an outer date written on the envelope, even those received PRIOR to election day and pre-stamped with the actual arrival date. That case went all the way to the PSSC who agreed.
Why would Republicans care so much about this? Possibly because a higher percentage of Democrats cast ballots via mail-in and in prior elections, the number of incoming ballots without a voter-written date was considerably high. Voila! An easy way to supress ballots from Democratic leaning areas and swing margins toward Republicans.
Some counties have implemented notification processes to "cure" such defective ballots by contacting the voter and having them come in and correct the problem, etc. However, Democracy Docket reported that Republicans actually SUED these counties in a attempt to block ANY effort to cure such ballots. In other words, again... This isn't about protecting against fraud, it isn't about encouraging turn-out. It's about creating pointless procedural steps, identifying correlations between steps that get messed up and votes you want to supress, then pushing for strict enforcement of pointless rules that shave away votes you don't like.
WTH
No. of Recommendations: 1
Some counties have implemented notification processes to "cure" such defective ballots by contacting the voter and having them come in and correct the problem, etc. However, Democracy Docket reported that Republicans actually SUED these counties in a attempt to block ANY effort to cure such ballots. In other words, again... This isn't about protecting against fraud, it isn't about encouraging turn-out. It's about creating pointless procedural steps, - WTH
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It it possible that more effort is given to correct ballots from known blue precincts? I think it is the case that most civic minded election workers lean Blue. How about treating all flawed ballots the same, reject them... What you say as you clutch your pearls, that this is disenfranchisement. Yeah, I know, but the number is so minuscule that it is not an issue with the outcome (sound familiar).
Other than reject them all, show me some statistics on the cure rates by precinct.
No. of Recommendations: 12
It it possible that more effort is given to correct ballots from known blue precincts? I think it is the case that most civic minded election workers lean Blue. How about treating all flawed ballots the same, reject them...
How about we not use pretexts to negate ballots just because Democrats vote by mail more than Republicans?
No. of Recommendations: 1
>>It it possible that more effort is given to correct ballots from known blue precincts? I think it is the case that most civic minded election workers lean Blue. How about treating all flawed ballots the same, reject them...<<
How about we not use pretexts to negate ballots just because Democrats vote by mail more than Republicans? - Lapsody.
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Voters should vote independently and not in partnership with someone at Election HQ. And if you insist on going that way, then simply show me that curing is done even handedly. A lot of confidence in elections could be restored if the data was not held so tightly by the election officials.
BTW, some would say tearing up a Trump vote cures it.
No. of Recommendations: 3
Voters should vote independently and not in partnership with someone at Election HQ. And if you insist on going that way, then simply show me that curing is done even handedly. A lot of confidence in elections could be restored if the data was not held so tightly by the election officials.
BTW, some would say tearing up a Trump vote cures it.
I think we waste a lot of energy suppressing the vote, harassing voters and election people, creating and pushing false election fraud stories, and now it looks like interfering with certifying the vote is going to be a permanent feature.
No. of Recommendations: 1
How about we not use pretexts to negate ballots just because Democrats vote by mail more than Republicans?
I read -several years ago- that actually more Reps vote by mail than Dems. I can't find the reference now. As I recall, it wasn't a large margin. But Reps actually had a slight edge in mail-in voting. It was pointed out that it was ironic that they were the ones opposing it. I do not recall if that included military personnel overseas.
No. of Recommendations: 1
I read -several years ago- that actually more Reps vote by mail than Dems. I can't find the reference now. As I recall, it wasn't a large margin. But Reps actually had a slight edge in mail-in voting. It was pointed out that it was ironic that they were the ones opposing it. I do not recall if that included military personnel overseas.
If you can, please find the reference. I think in the low population states, Repubs may vote more by mail, but I've usually read more Dems than Repubs vote by mail. Ironically, Trump discouraged voting by mail in Georgia in 2020, and it may have cost him some older Repub votes.
No. of Recommendations: 5
If you can, please find the reference. I think in the low population states, Repubs may vote more by mail, but I've usually read more Dems than Repubs vote by mail.It's been the case in some states, at least. For example, in Texas, more Republicans voted absentee than Democrats prior to 2016, but that was reversed in 2020:
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/01/11/texas-mail...Note that in Texas (and some other states), mail-in absentee voting is limited to certain categories of people. Unlike in-person absentee voting (ie. early voting), Texas doesn't have "no excuse" absentee voting - so the mail-in absentee voting is going to skew
very old in 'normal' election cycles (ie. not Covid). In areas where older=more conservative, that can lead to more GOP use of mail-in.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Texas doesn't have "no excuse" absentee voting - so the mail-in absentee voting is going to skew very old in 'normal' election cycles (ie. not Covid). In areas where older=more conservative, that can lead to more GOP use of mail-in.
Makes sense. Thanks Al. :)
No. of Recommendations: 1
I'll try to look, but I'm really only finding more recent stuff about mail-in ballots. As albaby said, old tends to equal conservative, and elders like mail-in ballots. And I don't remember now if they also included overseas service members, but most serving lean conservative.
If I do find an article circa 2020, I'll post it. That's when the Reps started kicking up a fuss, and I remember on TMF they were being ridiculed because the data showed that mail-in ballots favored the Reps.
No. of Recommendations: 3
If I do find an article circa 2020, I'll post it. That's when the Reps started kicking up a fuss, and I remember on TMF they were being ridiculed because the data showed that mail-in ballots favored the Reps.
To be a little more specific, though, 2020 was an election year where many of the rules regarding mail-in ballots changed. A lot of the Covid-specific accommodations resulted in a significant increase in the number of folks using mail-in ballots as their method of voting. It was widely expected (and turned out to be the case) that you would see many more Democrats voting by mail than Republicans, given the partisan and geographic skew on attitudes towards Covid. So this was a case where past performance was not likely to be indicative of future results.
No. of Recommendations: 2
If I do find an article circa 2020, I'll post it. That's when the Reps started kicking up a fuss, and I remember on TMF they were being ridiculed because the data showed that mail-in ballots favored the Reps.
Wow! I believe you 100%. I must have missed that on the fool. My bad.
