What do you think about mail-in ballots?

I know Fright wingers hate them, claim they are easily faked.
I think for very rural voters, and voters out of the country I think they are great.
Also during cvid it was a safer way to go,but again fright wingers couldn’t give a shit about any of that.

Do I think they’re safe? I don’t know enough about it to say with any certainty, but it seems like it would be easy for a mail carrier to just whisk away any ballots. Of course, I don’t think you can see the results on the ballot, so they may be eliminating votes for his or her favorite candidate.

If there weren’t such a thing as mail-ins, think of all the people who wouldn’t be able to vote, especially the poor and disabled.

@SQUEEKY2 Funny that the right insists that the mail ins are easily faked. ALL my friends who uses them are Reich wing/maga.

Personally, I drive to the local voting office, show them my required docs & then vote early in person.

I don’t like mail-in ballots especially since the 2004 Washington State gubernatorial election. Republican Dino Rossi was declared the winner by a close margin over Democrat Christine Gregoire and then won the recount. But then someone found a box of uncounted ballots in someone’s car trunk. Of course all ballots must be counted even though the integrity of the ballots is lost.

Seemed pretty logical that a reasonable person would conclude that that election was rigged.

As long as it is done fairly, and accurately, it should replace in person voting. Why would we need to burn fossil fuels, stop work, and stop our lives, to vote in person?

More importantly, the presidential election is a joke.
Picking the lesser of two evils to fuck you for the next 4 years, shouldn’t make anyone lose hours, or have to make a day of it.

Trump will clearly protest ANY vote count. Even when Jesus won, he said he win by way more.

G. Bush won, because votes were thrown out.

Factor in gerrymandering, and all the other attempts at cheating by both sides, and I don’t see a legitimate process as being possible.

I’m fine with them. In my state they are sealed and they are tracked so I can see when my ballot is counted. My county is annoying, because if I want to drop the ballot of at the voting center they make me WAIT ON LINE to turn it in. I still have to go into the polling place. They take my name that I’m dropping it off. That is so totally stupid to me. I can put it in the US mail, but the last 5 years that seems iffy.

I like taking my time to look over the ballot and read up and fill it in.

I like when states can start counting the ballots early.

I’m in favor of early in-person voting too, but that is usually only in select locations.

I live in Florida and there has been mail-in voting for any reason for a long time.

As long as there is a valid count and traceable chain of custody, I’m fine with them. I tend to trust the Dominoes pizza tracker more to be honest, though. I would want to have verification the votes were counted and I don’t think what we have is sufficient.

They’re fine. Good for people who can’t get out.

Above a jelly claimed ballots were found in a box in somebody’s trunk? Why in earth would they be carting around such sensitive material? And do you have have proof of that claim?

Same with your claim @MrGrimm888 that ballots were “thrown out”? Thrown out by whom? Any proof?

The entire process of mail-in voting is rife with opportunities for fraud as well as human error. This country ought to go back to in-person voting only, ID required, and preferably with paper ballots only.

And I’ve heard the argument about those poor people that live out in the sticks having to drive so far just to vote. It’s a bullshit argument. I used to live out in the sticks. I probably had a population density of 10 houses in a square mile radius. I think I had to drive 4 miles to get to the election center. Claiming the infringement on rights because of inconvenience is a scare tactic.

There are only 2 times that someone ought to be able to vote remotely. The first is military. If you are at a base outside of your voting district (overseas for instance), you should be able to still vote. The other time is for someone that is physically unable to get out to vote. My niece, for instance, is pretty much bed ridden. But these cases are not as wide-spread and could have security measures put into place to verify they are who they say they are and that they legitimately cannot get out to vote.

Again @seawulf575, you’d have to recruit hundreds of people to the Dark Side for such nefarious “opportunities” to take place.

@seawulf575 You mean the human error like hanging chads and names on two sides of a center column?

Like automatic or asking for a recount for in-person voting because there might be an error?

Voting can have some errors snd so we do our best to keep improving it and realize there might be a margin of error so it gets double checked when it’s very close to everyone can feel it’s valid, and unlike what Republicans want to think, there are Democrats and Republicans working in polling places and supervisors and third parties watching over.

Republicans don’t complain about Florida mail-in, because they won I guess? Or, because so many registered Republicans only live here half the year?

@seawulf575 Disability OR too poor to own a car and the bus line doesn’t come where you live or you can’t afford to take time off. Yes, that’s an issue if you’re poor and every single day you work pays your bills.

Well…the polls are open early and close late for working people.

@Dutchess_III Or just a couple in key positions.

@JLeslie You do realize the entire “Chad” thing was made up by Democrats, right? There is nothing in the law that talks about hanging chads or dimpled chads or anything else even remotely close. In an effort to be more than fair to the Dems (to shut them up) “Chads” were then re-evaluated on ballots that were cast.

@smudges And the ones you are describing (except for the disabled) are a pretty small minority. Most people live close enough to voting centers that they could get a ride with a neighbor if they had to. That argument is like the one the left always uses against Voter ID. It infringes on the rights of the poor! Except most people have IDs that they use for all sorts of things every day…poor included. The elderly that don’t have a birth certificate because they were born at home is another one. My mom died 2 years ago at the ripe old age of 88. She was born at home, in the country in GA and still she had gotten a birth certificate and had ID most of her life. Those who are older than 90 are a VERY small group of the population.

So that very small group of the population that you huff about, do you just exclude them?

@SQUEEKY2 No, but if voting is that important to them, they can arrange for something. I have been in a situation like @smudges suggested in my life. Guess what? I got to the polls every time I wanted to. Are you suggesting that all you have to do is say you want special treatment and everyone should bend over backwards for it?

So no real answer for them, just if they want to vote then damnit it’s up to them to get to a polling station.
Could be health, or mobility issues or other reasons, nope mail in ballots to insecure find a way to vote in person or don’t vote it is just that simple ,and because you did it every one should do it ,man you are all heart.

Well, I do find it funny when Republican politicians tell their constituents not to vote by mail and then when the mail-in ballots come in and they’re mostly for Democrats they say “hmm isn’t that SUSPICIOUS?!” Lmao.

Democrats are more likely to vote by mail, so Republicans don’t like it. That’s really all there is to it.

@seawulf575 Made up? It was a terrible ballot. I don’t know who created it.

My girlfriend that morning before anything was on the news called me and said, “I hope my mom voted for the right person, the ballot was so confusing and they wouldn’t let me help her.”

Pat Buchanan joked more than once that Republicans were mad at him for running that he would split the Republican vote, but in the end people intending to vote for Gore voted for him because his name was on the ballot to the side of Gore. Even he admitted the ballot was easy to make a mistake.

As I said there were two problems, not punching all the way through and some ballots how the names were arranged. Any teacher can tell you a lot of people get answers wrong because they don’t read through a Q completely or don’t pay close attention to directions.

@JLeslie as long as it comes out in the Republicans favor they don’t care.

They serve a purpose. It should be used as the exception if you can’t get to the polling place.

@SQUEEKY2 I already said to put in exceptions for things like mobility. go back and look. And yeah, if I could do it when I had no car and was poor, I see no reason why others can’t. It comes down to what you set as priorities, doesn’t it?

@JLeslie I don’t necessarily disagree that the ballot was crap. But it was the same ballot for everyone in the district. My statement about being made up addressed the recount of ballots looking for hanging chads and dimpled chads, etc. All that was made up criteria by the Dems. Chads were not a thing. I was extremely clear on that in my previous statement. And now here you are trying to apply a piece of my statement to an entirely different topic. How very disingenuous you are today!

I myself prefer mail-in ballots because with my health issues, it is hard for me to stand for a long period of time. Thus, it would be hard for me to wait in a long line. It does help that there’s early voting now in my state, as that tends to help with preventing long lines. I really like the ease though of filling out a mail-in ballot and then instead of actually mailing it, I go to the voting location and drop it in the designated box. Sadly, I don’t trust the mail nearly as much as I used to, but even back in the day I would have preferred to drop it off. And there’s ways that you can get notified by email and such that they have received your ballot, and then also again when it has been accepted.

@seawulf575 What does that have to do with it? Most people wanted to vote for Bush or Gore. On the left side Bush was at the top and Gore listed below him. The top chad circle was for Bush. The second circle was for Buchanan. The third circle down was for Gore.

The butterfly ballot wasn’t a good ballot.

@JLeslie But I wasn’t talking about the ballot. YOU brought up Chads. I pointed out that the entire thing with chads was made up by the Dems. It was not at the time and has never been a part of Florida’s election laws. It wasn’t even a thing until the Dems were trying to interfere in the election.

I even said I don’t necessarily disagree with the ballot. I wasn’t there and don’t know how difficult it would have been to determine. But the point I did make is that every ballot was the same. Obviously some people did understand it. The same ballot was given to every voter.
It was applied equally to Dems, Repubs, Indies, and everyone else.

@seawulf575 I was only pointing out that all types of voting can have some problems, but overall voting is done well in the USA. We could pick apart ballots across the country, we could pick apart mail-in all across the country. The Republicans OBSESS about mail-in voting being full of fraud, and it just isn’t.

Because of “confusion” in Florida, some votes were “thrown out.” It was long ago now, I don’t save news papers from the early 2000’s…

Some people understood it is shit! A voting ballot should be easy to decipher. Everyone basically agreed and ballots are different now. We strive to do better.

The butterfly ballot favored making the mistake of voting for Buchanan instead of Gore. It’s not like some people screwed up one direction and others the other direction and it probably evened out. That was not the case, and even Buchanan knows it, he said so.

^Interesting. So, some votes were thrown out/didn’t count?

@seawulf575 I’m not trying to excuse anyone due to age…you said that, not me.

@MrGrimm888 If they mistakenly voted for Buchanan too bad, it counts. It’s like marking the wrong bubble with your pen.

The chad problem was aside from this. Sometimes the punch through the hole didn’t completely remove the chad.

A lot of ballots had Buchanan at the top and down ballot all Democrat. A lot not meaning the majority, only meaning it wasn’t just few.

I don’t know if the assumed incorrect votes on the butterfly ballot problem was enough to change the result. I don’t remember the numbers.

^That’s about what I remembered.
I was just checking, because it was insinuated that I manufactured a problem with an election.
I remember seeing funny fake Florida ballots, where all the names ended in the center of the ballot, so each vote was for everyone. Lots of problems, in that election.

@MrGrimm888 I don’t know about fake ballots. These were real ballots. This wikipedia page has a photo of the ballot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidential_election_recount_in_Florida

@JLeslie Yep, all forms of voting can have problems. Did the problem with the ballots get identified and fixed? Yep, it did. Things in person are easily identified and fixed…for good. Mail in ballots have many, many ways they can be used illegally. But identifying it and proving it are sometimes very, very difficult. And usually when it is identified, it doesn’t mean anyone is held accountable nor that the situation will get fixed.

@smudges No, if I said that I apologize. What I referenced you about was the poor, no car, no bus service, having to work…that is what I was referencing. My point about age is that there are always excuses given when possible improvements are given to voting. Age is the excuse given for fighting against voter ID. The strawman argument is given: “what about someone who…” and when you think about what is being said you are talking about an extremely small subsection of society.

@seawulf575 Mail-in ballot processes get improved also. I don’t know what you are talking about.

@JLeslie Do they? What is the driving force for those changes? Got examples?

@seawulf575 In Florida we now have to reapply every two years to receive mail-in ballots. I’m fine with that.

Some laws in FL I don’t agree with, like limiting how many ballots can be turned in by one person for other people, but that was changed in the last few years. You probably think that is an improvement.

We also now allow mail-in ballot processing and counting before Election Day (I think 21 days before Election Day). It used to be not until Election Day, which is horrible for many reasons and a Republican tactic to accuse states of election fraud in the eyes of the public.

@MrGrimm888 @JLeslie The year of the hanging chad dispute, remember it went to the Governor Jeb Bush in Florida for the ultimate decision, which, surprise, guess whose side he took?

^That’s what I was talking about.

@JLeslie The “fake ballots” I was referring to were on late night TV shows, and other comedy skit shows. Several versions were shown in monologs etc around that time.
I didn’t mean any real fake ballots.

Wulf. I definitely agree that doing things in person, is the easiest/best way of getting shit done.

I guess I figure if we can vote for the Pro-Bowl players by phone, and that works, this shouldn’t be that different. In fact, it should be easier.
Corruption/fowl play, is certainly a concern. But we have to work with people who are overseas, or unable to vote in person.

@jca2 Actually, it ended up with the FL Supreme Court who ruled in favor of the Dems (surprise, surprise since they were all Dems). It then got kicked up to the SCOTUS who looked at the laws and kicked it back to the FL Supreme Court for further deliberation. Basically they were saying that the FLSC had no basis in law for their decision without actually saying that. And, here’s another surprise, the FLSC then ruled against the Dems….when they actually were forced to interpret the law.