Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by earth-tattoo » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 12:59 PM UTC

samstokes wrote: post #188

earth-tattoo wrote: post #183

[flagged]

This is misleading. It's true that you get a ballot, but it's a provisional ballot. Your eligibility to vote gets checked during the counting process. The process is described on the same website you linked to: https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voter-registration/same-day...

1. Why send ballots until verified. 2. There's no document verification. Anybody can enter someone's name and social security number and get a ballot delivered anywhere. 3. I still don't trust the ballot gets thrown out if there's a mismatch.

In order to be 100% safe, there should be only in person voting with a voter id. Anything else is open to abuse.

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

#262

Post by earth-tattoo » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 1:00 PM UTC

samstokes wrote: post #192

earth-tattoo wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Oh, I see, you are posting the same misleading comment on multiple threads here. I'm sure you are doing so in good faith, so here is a link to my other comment explaining why it is misleading: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49546715

1. Why send ballots until verified.

2. There's no document verification. Anybody can enter someone's name and social security number and get a ballot delivered anywhere.

3. I still don't trust the ballot gets thrown out if there's a mismatch.

In order to be 100% safe, there should be only in person voting with a voter id. Anything else is open to abuse.

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

#263

Post by earth-tattoo » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 1:00 PM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #193

earth-tattoo wrote: post #183

[flagged]

Disinformation.

No.

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

#264

Post by llm_nerd » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 1:02 PM UTC

jimmydddd wrote: post #254

llm_nerd wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something incredibly cancerous when a certain party abhors democracy, and does everything they can to undermine the voting rights or access to groups they think won't vote for them. I would expect most Americans would see this as grotesquely anti-American, and absolutely against the principals of the country. Instead it barely makes news and is just another "get whatever advantage you can" tactic.

It's strange though, because Trump's elderly voters are the ones who vote by mail. Some observers say he would have won the incredibly close 2020 race if he hadn't discouraged mail in voting.

I did hear a lot of people claim this, and it seemed mostly like unqualified schadenfreude and fantasy.

In the most recent analysis, about 37% of Democrats use mail in voting, versus 24% of Republicans. This is why Republicans often take the lead in vote counting, and then because of Republican-imposed rules mail in ballots are counted later in the process, suddenly turning the tide. Which then yields lots of "the fix is in!" undermining of democracy -- at least in every race they don't win (the ones they win are 100% fair, of course) -- because the GOP of 2026 absolutely hates democracy, and they'll do everything they can to destroy it.

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

#265

Post by cogman10 » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

wallst07 wrote: post #241

dpkirchner wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully they're embarrassed.

[flagged]

> Some opinions that would have been demonstrably in the Clinton/Obama administration would be considered MAGA now.

Interestingly there's been a few party shifts. It's not just one direction.

For example, Reagan was pretty pro immigration and pro vaccination. Before 9/11 Republicans were the party of immigration. Even Trump in 2016 was the pro-LGBT candidate, that's certainly shifted dramatically. "Donald Trump said I could take a pee anywhere in the Trump facility, so I am going to go take a pee in the ladies' room."

One thing I'd give republicans is they are far more responsive to their base vs the democrats.

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

#266

Post by hackyhacky » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 1:07 PM UTC

RickJWagner wrote: post #259

LastTrain wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s just demanding the same kind of rigor he demands from Trump about rigged elections. Here you go RickWagoner the Republican Governor of famously liberal Wyoming smells something fishy too: https://www.codyenterprise.com/news/local/article_7f688e37-3...

Rigor is needed. Here’s an article talking about 6000 ineligible voters in New Jersey getting ballots. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/30/new-jerseys-nonciti... Surely you agree this is problematic, and oversight is needed? Then extend that one step farther. It wouldn’t be fair to scrutinize only blue states like New Jersey. Red states like Wyoming should be held accountable too, right?

I think it's amusing how partisan your notion of "rigor" is. Because of a run-of-the-mill software error, you want to take away election power from the states and hand it to the federal government, which at the moment is in the hands of someone who has zero credibility regarding running honest elections?

Moreover, you find these 400 erroneous votes deeply problematic but you, I assume, did not ask for federal election oversight in the following cases:

* Georgia improperly purged legitimate voters https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/19/georgia-gove...

* Tarrant County, Texas dramatically reduces polling sites in Democrat-leaning areas, despite population growth https://fortworthreport.org/2026/09/01/advocates-demand-incr...

* Tennessee (among other states) gerrymanders its districts to disenfranchise minority voters https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-memphis-voters-fee...

What I see here is a pattern of attempts to restrict voting among those opposed to the GOP. And these are the people that you trust to provide "rigor" in voting?

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

#267

Post by somenameforme » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 1:08 PM UTC

hackyhacky wrote: post #237

MisterMower wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 asse…

In this thread you said "...they are doing this to inject chaos into the election results, giving them cover to claim any result they want or even to just throw out the results entirely. Catastrophic problems are the means to that end." Try to imagine how that would read to somebody who wasn't already sharply biased in the same direction as yourself. What would you assume?

It reads as the exact sort of evidence free, misinformation driven, conspiratorial and sweeping assertion that you're now complaining about. The reality is that most political discussion online has been trending towards sewer level content, and I think a huge part of it is the echo chamber issue. You don't get any pushback from stuff like this online when the only people engaging with you are themselves already heavily biased in a similar direction. Oh sorry, you actually did get several people pushing back, including one merely asking for evidence. Perhaps you didn't see that because those comments were all flagged and buried.

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

#268

Post by hackyhacky » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 1:09 PM UTC

RickJWagner wrote: post #260

ModernMech wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just spent a year hearing from some asshole about how the government was spending too much money and couldn't afford frivolities, yet we're supposed to spend money on security theatre to fix a problem that doesn't actually exist, all because some other assholes are butthurt about losing an election fair and square? Remember the people leading the charge for this are insurrectionists. They don't care about protecti…

New Jersey had 6600 hundred non citizens get ballots. If you were writing software, would you overlook a problem like that? https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/30/new-jerseys-nonciti...

> If you were writing software, would you overlook a problem like that?

They didn't overlook it. They fixed the error.

If you are asserting that this error was a partisan, intentional attempt to change the outcome of the election, you're going to need to provide a lot more evidence before injecting USPS into election policy makes sense.

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

#269

Post by hackyhacky » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 1:14 PM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #267

hackyhacky wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 asse…

In this thread you said "...they are doing this to inject chaos into the election results, giving them cover to claim any result they want or even to just throw out the results entirely. Catastrophic problems are the means to that end." Try to imagine how that would read to somebody who wasn't already sharply biased in the same direction as yourself. What would you assume? It reads as the exact sort of evidence free,…

> It reads as the exact sort of evidence free misinformation driven conspiratorial sweeping assertion that you're now complaining about.

It reads that way only if you are intentionally ignoring evidence.

We're talking about an Executive Branch in the hands of a man who has shown historic contempt for election outcomes and little moral qualms with altering them to suit his agenda.

* Conspiracy after the 2020 election to float fake electors

* Massive and ongoing campaign of lies about the illegitimacy of the 2020 election, in absence of any evidence

* Demanding states perform mid-decade redistricting, in contravention of longstanding custom

* Repeated calls to "cancel" upcoming election

* Repeated allusions to running for a third presidential term, in violation of the Constitution

Needless to say, these kind of actions and pronouncements are unprecedented in this country. When a person tells you they don't care about accurate elections, believe them.

It's incredibly hard to think that this person is deeply concerned about election integrity when he has shown such little regard for existing election laws and customs. Your willingness to overlook this evidence speaks of your own partisan bias. Oh wait, are going to say he's "joking" and I don't have a sense of humor?

EDIT: formatting

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

#270

Post by hackyhacky » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 1:19 PM UTC

wallst07 wrote: post #244

hackyhacky wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 asse…

The thread is about general echo chamber / liberal bias though, not specifically on USPS/voter fraud. Any/Every discussion that makes the top page on HN about politics will flood out most of the conservative discussion, further most of the comments are echo chamber 'me too, Trump fascist' that adds very little to the conversation.

> Any/Every discussion that makes the top page on HN about politics will flood out most of the conservative discussion, further most of the comments are echo chamber 'me too,

I keep waiting for all these well-thought-out, factually-based, good-faith arguments offered by conservatives but for some reason they never appear. It seems that the only comments written by conservatives are knee-jerk, xenophobic, semi-literate arguments based in half-truths and GOP talking points. Maybe we scared off all the "good" conservatives?

> Trump fascist' that adds very little to the conversation.

I agree that it adds little to the conversation, but it's not clear to me what else you'd like to hear. If you think that a federal takeover of state elections in absence of any real election crisis is not fascist behavior, feel free to make that argument here and I will respond in a temperate and measured tone.