Thinking ahead -- what, in your opinion, SHOULD the election/voting rules be? (weapons, how much)
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In spite of empty claims to the contrary, this year's over-emphasis on wholesale mail-in/online voting, has nothing to do with either banking online or absentee ballots. The issue is that the left seems committed to seek and encourage as many ballots as possible, with no verifiable evidence of legitimate or registered voters submitting these ballots. Of course, there will also be no verifiable 'chain of ballot handling' to identify ballots that 'somehow' never got delivered.
Mainstream America is fed-up with the persistently dirty politics and corrupt media our nation has been subjected to for the last 3-4-years. I think the only thing that will prevent a major ballot/election uproar that likely reaches the Supreme Court, is a landslide victory that even the left cannot rationally contest. (In a sense, that would be much like their baseless, totally partisan impeachment action, that was virtually DOA in the Senate).
What "the left seems to be committed to seek and encourage" to you bears no resemblance to reality, "in spite of empty claims" you care to repeat from those who fear the truth. Your horror of "the corrupt media" is easily assuaged by broadening your choice of sources and questioning all of them.
Your opinion does not represent that of "Mainstream America" any more than that of anyone else and most of us trust that such partisan views, unsupported by evidence, become a thing of the past and all can cooperate in furthering the common interests of the nation rather than the self serving divisiveness of the major parties.
I have read this thread, but haven't commented before now because there seems to be little interest in completely revising the election/voting rules. After what is going on now, I must say that I am at a loss as to why more people are DEMANDING this (and making the rules the same for every state).
And to be clear, I am not saying that what I outlined in the first post (just a first draft of my thoughts, btw) should be adopted -- I posted it to get the opinions of other as much as I did to see what people thought generally of my idea. [Edit]
Last edited by Rachel NewYork; 11-05-2020 at 10:27 AM..
Reason: Please don't use acronyms for profanity. Thank you.
I do think there should be a very short window for casting a ballot, whether you do it in person or by mail. One week at the most. Your ballot must be postmarked and delivered within that week. Or you can turn up in person.
I do think there should be a very short window for casting a ballot, whether you do it in person or by mail. One week at the most. Your ballot must be postmarked and delivered within that week. Or you can turn up in person.
I don't agree. But I prefer EARLY voting, with a deadline, over letting ballots just trickle in after the fact, and worse, not even beginning to count until the day-of.
The reason I like the idea of a decent timeframe, is so that if there is a problem with your signature, like a lot of people have sloppy sigs or just don't sign consistently...or if your ballot is lost in the mail, or something weird happens, I want citizens to have every means to track their ballots and to resolve any problems before the last second. Even if one clings to the notion that voting should be in person, letting it happen early means that if you go one day and your polling place was closed or moved, or the line was stupid long and the weather freezing, or your ID was expired and you didn't realize, or...just whatever...with early voting, you have a chance to fix this and still go back and get your vote in.
But I wish so badly, especially now, that states were not allowed to report any early or speculative numbers, until ALL of the votes were counted. I really think that all of this business we're dealing with now, watching every state slowly tally votes and continuously report numbers, does nothing good at all for anyone. If states put a deadline on it, and said that on or before X date, the FINAL count will be announced, everyone can just shut up and wait... That would be so much better.
And then, if the President thought that there was fraud, he can challenge for recounts and whatever. But until the count is done, not even he can know how it's going. Wait like everybody else.
If our government is competent, we can have online voting.
We are doing our banking online but we cannot do our voting online.
I completely agree, but online voting lacks a good method for auditing. One problem is that the government itself has a vested interest in the results.
We could get similar results just by looking at car registration records.
If someone has a vehicle over XXXX lbs, they're Republican. Under that, they're Democrat.
I'm joking, but I bet there's some weight value we could set as the cutoff, and get the exact same national results as we do now. Each state could calculate their average vehicle weight per person, send it in, and we'd be done in a couple of hours.
[CNN: "Pennsylvania shows a statewide vehicle average of 2433 lbs. We're calling PA for Biden!" "At 3800 lbs per person, Texas has gone to Trump!"]
In spite of empty claims to the contrary, this year's over-emphasis on wholesale mail-in/online voting, has nothing to do with either banking online or absentee ballots. The issue is that the left seems committed to seek and encourage as many ballots as possible, with no verifiable evidence of legitimate or registered voters submitting these ballots. Of course, there will also be no verifiable 'chain of ballot handling' to identify ballots that 'somehow' never got delivered.
Mainstream America is fed-up with the persistently dirty politics and corrupt media our nation has been subjected to for the last 3-4-years. I think the only thing that will prevent a major ballot/election uproar that likely reaches the Supreme Court, is a landslide victory that even the left cannot rationally contest. (In a sense, that would be much like their baseless, totally partisan impeachment action, that was virtually DOA in the Senate).
That is not the issue. OP, please decide if you want this discussion to devolve into left/right accusations, discussions of who's using the voter fraud claim as a smokescreen for rampant vote suppression, and the like, or what the parameters of your discussion topic should be. Thanks. Guidance is needed.
Proof of residence for voter ID is a stumbling block for people who don't have a fixed residence. Unfortunately, not everyone in America is fortunate enough to have a fixed residence, documentable via utility bills, or however residency should be documented. Some people (you may have noticed) are homeless. Others couch-surf at the home of friends or relatives. The voter ID based on proof of residence has already been used to disenfranchise a segment of the poor, and in some states, has been used to target minority populations, like Native Americans. There are areas on some reservations, where there are no streets, and no street names. Some Native people don't have birth certificates, and election officials don't always recognize the legally-valid alternative document. The voter ID issue in North Dakota was settled in February 2020 after 2 lawsuits challenged it. Arizona's Voter ID law requiring proof of citizenship was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013. https://www.npr.org/2020/02/14/80608...er-id-lawsuits https://www.azcentral.com/story/news...rs/5771359002/ https://www.headcount.org/politics-a...w-struck-down/
Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff;
]A civics test would be required to get the ID card.
Testing to qualify to vote has been highly problematic historically, and was banned by federal law as a result of the Civil Rights movement, at least in the form of literacy tests. It's too easy to use testing as a disenfranchisement tool targeting whichever ethnic group the state majority wants to exclude.
Quote:
Proponents of tests to prove an applicant’s ability to read and understand English claimed that the exams ensured an educated and informed electorate. In practice they were used to disqualify immigrants and the poor, who had less education. In the South they were used to prevent African Americans from registering to vote. The Voting Rights Act ended the use of literacy tests in the South in 1965 and the rest of the country in 1970.
That is not the issue. OP, please decide if you want this discussion to devolve into left/right accusations, discussions of who's using the voter fraud claim as a smokescreen for rampant vote suppression, and the like, or what the parameters of your discussion topic should be. Thanks. Guidance is needed.
Proof of residence for voter ID is a stumbling block for people who don't have a fixed residence. Unfortunately, not everyone in America is fortunate enough to have a fixed residence, documentable via utility bills, or however residency should be documented. Some people (you may have noticed) are homeless. Others couch-surf at the home of friends or relatives. The voter ID based on proof of residence has already been used to disenfranchise a segment of the poor, and in some states, has been used to target minority populations, like Native Americans. There are areas on some reservations, where there are no streets, and no street names. Some Native people don't have birth certificates, and election officials don't always recognize the legally-valid alternative document. The voter ID issue in North Dakota was settled in February 2020 after 2 lawsuits challenged it. Arizona's Voter ID law requiring proof of citizenship was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013. https://www.npr.org/2020/02/14/80608...er-id-lawsuits https://www.azcentral.com/story/news...rs/5771359002/ https://www.headcount.org/politics-a...w-struck-down/
Testing to qualify to vote has been highly problematic historically, and was banned by federal law as a result of the Civil Rights movement, at least in the form of literacy tests. It's too easy to use testing as a disenfranchisement tool targeting whichever ethnic group the state majority wants to exclude.
Of course, I did not want this to turn into a "liberal/Democrat vs. conservative/Republican" argument! That is why I started the title of this thread with the words, "ThinkingAhead.
However, when I started this thread eight days ago, three days BEFORE the election, I had no idea how close the election would be, although I did expect the voting to end in at least some kind of a debacle -- and I was right, I think. The purpose of this thread is just to get opinions on what people think should be done to avoid this kind of disaster* NEXT time -- meaning 2024 and beyond.
*I really don't think that "disaster" is TOO much of an exaggeration, although that might be debatable.
P.S. Personally, I don't like to put "limitations" on Great Debates discussion, but that is just my opinion.
Last edited by katharsis; 11-08-2020 at 10:08 PM..
I'm not understanding the objections to mail voting, or early voting. Isn't the idea to encourage as many people as possible to register and vote? How is mail voting wrong? How was my mailed ballot any less valid from the one I cast in person at a physical polling place?
There's not a thing wrong with mail in voting. Just all the followers of St. Donald of Trump have heard him harp on it all this time that it's fraudulent. Washington state has been voting by mail for years.
When we requested our mail in ballots here in Kentucky, online, we couldn't get them unless we were registered voters. We put in our names, last 4 of our social, and our address. In no time the web site told us to expect our ballot in the mail by a certain date. As far as having to show my drivers license when I voted in person, I've had to do that just about every year I've ever voted, and I'm 64. I never thought anything about it. As long as they didn't laugh at the picture that is.
Last edited by Rachel NewYork; 11-09-2020 at 03:39 AM..
Reason: Removed unacceptable "St Donald" snipe.
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