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My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

portal.drewdevault.com

261–270 of 358 posts

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#261
post #137
post #125

Biden only gets lucky in PA a full day after that if you look at vote share per batch, well after in-person votes are counted, and the later you go, the luckier he gets. The pattern is the same in every swing state except Arizona, and in Virginia as well. If you plot out Edison data that has vote count updates, in "normal" states (both Biden and Trump dominant), things are chaotic initially (when in-person votes are…

Its not "lucky" at all, this was an orchestrated outcome. Theres 2 components to this: 1. Mail in ballots were heavily partisan. The president made a point to instruct Republican voters to vote in person, and not by mail. And many other correlated factors (eg. COVID and social distancing has also been heavily politicized, influencing whether a voter would vote in person vs mail in). 2. Mail in ballots were delayed. T…

Just FYI, in regards to your the 2nd point, while there was rampant speculation about delivery delays, I don’t think there’s any evidence that ballots were actually delayed due to USPS, and quite strong evidence in fact that ballots were not delayed by USPS.

Specifically, in PA where they were segregating late arriving ballots, only about 10,000 ballots arrived after 8pm on Election Day, and there’s no reason to believe those ballots weren’t delivered within the expected delivery timeframe and just mailed late.

The USPS wrote a letter months ago trying to urge states to be sure their mailing cutoff timelines corresponded with USPS’s physical delivery timelines (e.g. basically, don’t let someone request a mail in ballot within 4 days of the election) and there was a massive over-reaction. In the end there has been no incidence of ballots not being delivered on time that I’ve seen.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#262
post #15

This part seems incorrect: > There are strict laws regulating police and poll workers while the polls are open. Police are not allowed within 100 feet of the polling location, unless they're actively voting or there on official business at the request of the election board. Additionally, anyone working at the polls in an official capacity is not allowed to wear any clothing with political messaging. One of the office…

Speaking of not being allowed to enter a polling place wearing curtain clothes: "Since Tuesday, she has become known as the “Topless Voter.” The woman, who ripped off her T-shirt after objections that it was too political to wear inside the Exeter polls, said she has no regrets. “I said, ‘Well then, can I vote naked?’ He turned to me and said, ‘If you want to.’ So I took off my shirt,” she said. She said she kept on…

Depressing how uncivilized and obnoxious people can be. We may want to reevaluate why we used to tech our children shame. It’s about mutual respect. Without that, we continue a downward spiral.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#263
post #211
post #70

> The voter approaches their table, and gives their name and party affiliation. I’ve voted in PA for 20 years and have never once been asked my party affiliation. This is all in Philadelphia, so maybe other counties are different? This seems sketchy. Even more so than the cop, who likely didn’t expect anyone to challenge him.

He explained it in the article and it makes sense: > The party affiliation is used as a signal that something fishy might be going on if the ratio of R to D is very different from the votes recorded.

Huh ... I wonder if that's going to come up in many of the legal proceedings in PA over their due process violations.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#264
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it helps, the machines described in OP sound similar to what we used here four years ago. I haven't voted in between though so I'm not sure when the switchover actually took place here.

Philadelphia County switched their machines to a new style in 2019.

Are they the Dominion machines?

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#265
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To avoid the religion argument, let's switch it to a shirt with a big marijuana leaf on it. In that case, yes. Unless the person is a voter in the act of voting.

I didn't think voters were allowed to have political clothing either? I've heard of some voters asked to turn masks and shirts inside out while they're at the polls.

The PDF linked from the post clarifies the rule for PA: "Wearing a t-shirt or button supporting a candidate, campaign, or political party (except voters in the act of voting)"

(Other jurisdictions may have other rules, of course)

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#266

As a non-citizen who had a chance to observe how the process works in California, I was struck by how little emphasis is put in the secrecy of the vote. The whole system looks reasonable except for how easy it can be for poll workers to know what you voted for. Beyond that, the system is clearly geared towards increasing participation and enfranchising as many people as possible (a good thing in a democratic system).

> The whole system looks reasonable except for how easy it can be for poll workers to know what you voted for.

I was struck when the article said they were asking party affiliation before voting.

>> The voter approaches their table, and gives their name and party affiliation. The party affiliation is used as a signal that something fishy might be going on if the ratio of R to D is very different from the votes recorded.

Wtf? You can vote in secret but you gotta tell us who you voted with?

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#267
post #137
post #125

Biden only gets lucky in PA a full day after that if you look at vote share per batch, well after in-person votes are counted, and the later you go, the luckier he gets. The pattern is the same in every swing state except Arizona, and in Virginia as well. If you plot out Edison data that has vote count updates, in "normal" states (both Biden and Trump dominant), things are chaotic initially (when in-person votes are…

Its not "lucky" at all, this was an orchestrated outcome. Theres 2 components to this: 1. Mail in ballots were heavily partisan. The president made a point to instruct Republican voters to vote in person, and not by mail. And many other correlated factors (eg. COVID and social distancing has also been heavily politicized, influencing whether a voter would vote in person vs mail in). 2. Mail in ballots were delayed. T…

You do realize GOP observers were thrown out in PA, and they put up bristol board so media observers couldn't see into the counting area right? They also violated orders by Justice Alito to keep mail in votes separate and votes by incoming date separate.

Their State courts also rules to extend the voting deadline for mail-in, which goes against their own laws and may end up going against the constitution.

PA has not been confirmed on some media sites; and been switched back to grey. It will likely make it to the Supreme Cort.

Please stop spreading misinformation. There is a lot of credible voter irregularities. Due process violations occurred in PA and NV (observers not allowed access) and in Detroit (observers were told to go home when 120k votes came in at 4am .. and then those votes changed to 12k).

There are a lot of questionable aspects to this election and they all need to be investigated. Please at least realize that investigation needs to happen. If there are no issues, investigations should not be a big deal. So far every state in question has been actively hindering transparency.

This could turn into one of the most disputed elections of our time and the media is trying to dismiss all the irregularities. This is incredibly dangerous, as we could potentially see riots that would make May look like a Canadian hockey game after party.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#268
post #143
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not "lucky" at all, this was an orchestrated outcome. Theres 2 components to this: 1. Mail in ballots were heavily partisan. The president made a point to instruct Republican voters to vote in person, and not by mail. And many other correlated factors (eg. COVID and social distancing has also been heavily politicized, influencing whether a voter would vote in person vs mail in). 2. Mail in ballots were delayed. T…

Did this only happen in swing states and VA though? And why does drift happen _well after_ in-person vote is already counted? And do you have data to support your point #1? Because people claim that, but I don't really see any evidence to support the claim.

Exactly! We didn't see any issues in any non-contested areas. We're seeing serious problems in Detroit, Philly, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Las Vegas.

But we didn't see any issues at all in Miami, or Cleveland, or Iowa City, or Cincinnati, or Dallas, or Nashville, or Houston. All of the other states and cities were able to get their ballots counted.

The irregularities in these key cities is highly suspected, especially after one State senate race was already overturned in a manual recount, where they discovered 6,000 votes were cast to the wrong presidential party due to 'bugs' in the voting machine software .. and that software is used in 40+ counties. All of those votes are going to need to be manually counted now.

As more work is done and the recounts being, I predict the differences between the hand and machine counts is going to be a significant indicator of election interference.

This is on its way to be the most contested election in history.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#269
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A dog whistle for what? There's an awful lot of cagey presumption going on in every reiteration of this claim.

> A dog whistle for what? There's an awful lot of cagey presumption going on in every reiteration of this claim. I'm not a US citizen nor I ever set foot in the US, and even from afar the quasi-fanarical displays of support for the US armed forces is a hallmark of supporters of the Republican party.

As an American, American politics genuinely feels like a game of dodge ball where each team captain takes turns picking virtues that the other side has to be against.

The left picked immigration so the right has to hate immigration, the right picked the military so the left has to hate the military. It's like our politics have to be polar opposites on everything, and it's exhausting.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#270
post #92

This squares with my experience in Illinois after a couple of elections. * As a security/integrity issue, the ballots themselves are much less scary than the pollbooks, which are what we use to match voters against the voting rolls. * Everything's ultimately on paper; there are bar codes, which nobody loves, but they're auditable against the readable printed ballot. * Most of the security is physical/human; for us, e…

> Most pollworkers in my experience are there for the money (I've never bothered cashing the check) and the threat that they won't get paid if they count doesn't match is extremely powerful.

That's it, you just don't get paid? I'd expect it to involve a criminal investigation.

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