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Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

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Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#231

Post by hackyhacky »

impossiblefork wrote: post #211
bojan wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do all that with a driving license, but a driving license is not a proof of citizenship and thus of your eligibility to vote. In Europe, you can't get a regular ID without being a citizen. So having an ID automatically means you're eligible to vote.

Yes, but a driver's license can be accepted as ID. Just because a driver's license isn't proof of citizenship doesn't mean that it isn't sufficient, since it will have some identifier connected to the identity of the voter. You would show the driver's license, then the registrars would find your name on the list, strike it out, give your voting envelopes, and then you go wait for a private booth to become free and th…

> Yes, but a driver's license can be accepted as ID

So what would that accomplish? The Trump playbook asserts that there is a massive conspiracy involving noncitizen voting. Their proposals involve proving citizenship to vote. And now your argument is to use ID that doesn't prove citizenship. Brilliant.

Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#232

Post by hackyhacky »

MisterMower wrote: post #218
bojan wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do all that with a driving license, but a driving license is not a proof of citizenship and thus of your eligibility to vote. In Europe, you can't get a regular ID without being a citizen. So having an ID automatically means you're eligible to vote.

In my state government issued ID is used to verify who you are . You are then issued a ballot if your name is also in the poll book. Your eligibility to vote and have your name entered into the poll book is determined by providing a Social Security number or birth certificate. So yes, a driver’s license is sufficient ID to vote in many states.

> So yes, a driver’s license is sufficient ID to vote in many states.

At the moment, yes. Under Republican voter ID proposals that require proving citizenship, no. Having an SSN does not imply US citizenship.

Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#233

Post by hackyhacky »

Morromist wrote: post #199
teh_infallible wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need an ID to drive, buy alcohol, buy cigarettes, board a plane. And people manage to do all those things.

Actually you need a REAL ID to board a plane now. 20% of americans don't have them. They're pointless, take a lot of time and effort to aquire and are needlessly expensive. I don't have one because I have a passport.

> Actually you need a REAL ID to board a plane now.

If you don't have a REAL ID or passport, you can just pay a $50 fee and get on the plane anyway. So whatever the REAL ID proves cannot be essential to security.

Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#234

Post by eagleal »

tumult wrote: post #179
arjie wrote: post #171

Considering a mail-in ballot gets rid of ballot secrecy anyway, I don't see why they don't just allow online ballots cast with login.gov or whatever.

Mail in ballots don’t get rid of secrecy, unless the system has been tampered with, which you could also do with illegal cameras at in-person voting etc. Anonymous envelope-within-envelope is a pretty standard way to keep secrecy, and many states do it, like mine.

> Mail in ballots don’t get rid of secrecy

They mean voter buying cases, "paying you to confirm a vote for X" and see you check the card.

In ballot cabins the buyer can't come with you inside the booth to confirm, so your vote has verifiable privacy/secrecy.

It doesn't really solve all type of vote buying problems (like clientelism lists, etc), but removes that confirmation step.

Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#235

Post by hackyhacky »

Hobadee wrote: post #224
hackyhacky wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our elections are beyond broken and untrustworthy. You assert this without evidence. People have spent years looking for evidence of widespread voter fraud without success [1]. > voting should have a barrier to entry. Your freedoms are important - people died for them. That's not how rights work. Would you say that there should be a "barrier to entry" for freedom of speech or gun rights? They added a "barrier to en…

> You assert this without evidence. I mean, there are plenty of instances if you are willing to look... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cases_of_electoral_fra... Hackers rather trivially were able to hack optical scan machines back in the 90s or early 2000s. Defcon famously has its voting village, where hackers hack voting machines via numerous means. If you think this isn't happening (or at least being attempt…

> I mean, there are plenty of instances if you are willing to look

I am willing to look and I see exactly zero cases of widespread, organized, mail ballot voting by non-citizens of the type that Republicans say is widespread, despite lack of evidence. What I do see is low-level cases of some guy filling out two voter registration forms in an effort to win a local election and getting caught immediately, which are cases that Republican proposals would do nothing to prevent.

> Hackers rather trivially were able to hack optical scan machines back in the 90s or early 2000s

Curiously, this case was not in the list of fraud cases that you yourself provided.

> Yes, there is a barrier of entry for freedom of speech and gun rights; it's called holding on to freedom itself,

That's not what I asked. Do you have to show your ID before you are allowed to use your freedom of speech? No you don't. Rights don't have a barrier to entry: they are available to everyone.

> if you aren't willing to give up something for your freedom, you probably don't deserve it. (Not saying you must necessarily give something up, just that you must be willing to give something up.)

Again, that's not how rights work. The Bill of Rights doesn't say "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech ... unless the person in question gives vibes suggesting that they don't love the the US of A, go America." You can vehemently disagree with your country and still get rights, including the right to vote.

> I never said the barrier for entry should be a test, like the "literacy tests"

The Republican proposal under question specifically requires people to get a government issued ID that proves citizenship, while ~10% [1] of the US population lacks such ID. That sure sounds like a barrier of entry designed to exclude classes of "undesirable" people.

[1] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/213-...

Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#236

Post by LeBit »

somenameforme wrote: post #223
Capricorn2481 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you're saying can be true and co-exist with the reality, which is the current administration has been so vindictive, short-sighted, and nakedly serving the billionaire class, that its own supporters have had to completely disengage with everything The Executive Branch is doing. If you talk to Trump supporters in real life, they are not having nuanced discussions about the state of our country, they are com…

There are currently 20 root level comments. 8 have been flagged. Which is again starting to look a lot like Reddit. Some of those flags are quite reasonable, but some are not. And this happens every single time you have a thread that brings out the partisan flaggers, which will discourage future conversation from those that did bother to try to discuss and got hit by them. Absent the flaggers existence, you'd have a…

If the quality comments that have been flagged are like what you see on /r/conservative , it might be that you subjectively see quality where others see something else.

Can you point at the well thought out rebuttal that have been victim of flagging?

Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#237

Post by hackyhacky »

MisterMower wrote: post #221
Capricorn2481 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you're saying can be true and co-exist with the reality, which is the current administration has been so vindictive, short-sighted, and nakedly serving the billionaire class, that its own supporters have had to completely disengage with everything The Executive Branch is doing. If you talk to Trump supporters in real life, they are not having nuanced discussions about the state of our country, they are com…

I think GP is right: this place has become an echo chamber. Even if someone posted a thoughtful rebuttal, it would not be seriously considered, or worse, flagged. And why would anyone waste their time when they know their efforts will be immediately dismissed and memory holed?

> Even if someone posted a thoughtful rebuttal

You could easily test this by posting a thoughtful rebuttal.

I've been posting actively on this thread and I haven't yet seen a thoughtful rebuttal, although there have been several comments in favor of the current administration's approach to voter enforcement via the USPS. Unfortunately, literally all of those comments were based on misinformation or make sweeping assertions, unsupported by evidence, about voter fraud in the US.

Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#238

Post by smitty1e »

Stipulating that the article is bollocks, you still have no guarantee that a ballot was marked without coercion applied to the voter.

This is why as much voting in person; on election day; at a polling place; behind a privacy screen; as possible is generally recommended.

Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#239

Post by thataccount »

wtfwhateven wrote: post #124
thataccount wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why are you lying about what the other person said? They said "no meaningful fraud" as in there's not an amount of fraud that can actually change the results.

>Why are you lying about what the other person said?

Why do you see the truth as a lie?

>They said "no meaningful fraud" as in there's not an amount of fraud that can actually change the results.

Except there is plenty of evidence across the world for over twenty years of "meaningful fraud that could change election results" happening. Heck, it actually goes all the way back to the Civil War and while history records Lincoln being elected, the cheating was such his election almost wasn't.

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