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On May 13 2024 14:13 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2024 09:02 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 13 2024 08:20 BlackJack wrote:On May 13 2024 07:08 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 13 2024 06:43 BlackJack wrote:On May 12 2024 21:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I already told you that I don't have a specific number of days, and that the very premise of the question is flawed, because it mistakenly assigns blame to the voter rather than the system - the system that is being undermined by Republicans. I'm sorry if that's an unsatisfactory answer, but I'm not just going to make up a number like "If on-time votes aren't counted by day 2, then they just don't get counted." That just allows Republicans to additionally focus on finding new ways to pause the mail-in vote count (or in-person vote count) by 48 hours.
How is the premise of the question flawed? Whose fault it is for the ballot being late is irrelevant. At some point election officials are going to need to know what they should do and they won't be able to determine that from your non-answer. oBlade was criticizing voters for not sending in votes significantly earlier than deadlines, but that's not how deadlines work. If a voter is told to mail in their vote by November 1st, for example, then they should assume their vote will be counted, whether they mail it on November 1st or a full week earlier. If that deadline ends up leading to issues where the counting needs an extra day or two after Election Day to finish up, then the officials need to plan better for the next election. I don't know if that means that they need to hire more people to count votes faster, or improve the delivery system to obtain votes earlier, or push the mail-in deadline up a day or two next time, or just keep counting votes one or two days late if they don't think it's an issue, but the ethical solution cannot be to throw out votes from people who met the deadline and correctly did what they were told. Seems like the only proposal he disagrees with would be the last one that I bolded. Who is the "they" there? The election workers? The Legislature? You can't just have some "they" making decisions that could possibly flip an election by counting late votes and then simultaneously admonish people questioning the integrity of our elections. I don't know how the precise chain of command works when it comes to federal/state guidelines that trickle down to individual precincts and election workers, but I'm referring to whether or not the top of the pyramid feels it's absolutely necessary to have everything counted by midnight vs. one day later vs. two days later. That's who I mean by "they". I'd love to know the outcome as soon as possible, but I don't think we should sacrifice accuracy for speed. I'd also hope that each state/precinct is proactively accounting for variables like having more mail-in ballots to count, but if the counting runs late then the counting runs late. I don't think I understand your last sentence. Are you saying that people are justified in questioning the integrity of our elections just because the continuation of vote counting can flip an election the day or two after Election Day? We know that the election isn't decided merely by whoever is in the lead at midnight, and arbitrarily deciding to stop counting the remaining votes would be election interference (which is what Republicans are promoting, like when Trump told key states to stop counting during the 2020 election, when he was still leading in them, before all the remaining Democratic votes were counted). Yeah I think people are justified in questioning the integrity of elections if you won’t hammer down specific rules. “Counting ballots that are 1-2 days late if they think it’s not an issue” isn’t very specific. Is it 1 day or 2 days? Why not 3 days or 4 days? I’m not even saying whatever you think the rules should be are wrong. You might have some great ideas. But I do think giving vague non-answers to what the rules should be is not a good idea if you want people to trust the elections.
I think you're mistaking an official rule for an ideal goal. I also think Kyadytim correctly points out that people being impatient is not the same as people having good reason to suspect election fraud.
We might all agree that it'd be convenient if all the votes were counted by midnight, but in no way does that need to become a rule of any sort. I'm pretty fast at grading math tests - I tend to grade them within 24 hours - but if I need an extra day to get them done, then my students just wait until I'm done. I'm not going to throw out the last few tests just because I didn't meet my personal goal of grading them within a single day.
If it takes, say, two extra days for all the election votes to be counted, then perhaps a goal might be to do it all within one extra day, the next time we have that election. And there might be steps they can take to be better prepared for next time. But whether or not the next time actually takes one or two or three extra days has nothing to do with election integrity.
I also think that Gorsameth is accurately identifying the malicious and accusatory intentions of Republican leaders in this scenario. They wouldn't be complaining about this if Republicans were the ones casting most of the mail-in ballots that were counted last. The onus is on the person suspecting widespread voter fraud to provide evidence, and we saw in 2020 how those nonsensical lawsuits were thrown out - even by Trump-appointed judges.
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On May 13 2024 14:27 KwarK wrote:
This is a very weird thing to come after him on given that he’s not responsible for the specific rules. If your doctor said that you’d need 1 or 2 operations you might go “which is it, 1 or 2?” But this isn’t that. He’s not an expert, this isn’t his responsibility, he has no obligation to be specific here. Not only is he entirely within his rights to be non specific, it’d actually be weird if he had a fully specific and all encompassing policy document to hand ready to pass your review. You’d no doubt accuse him of refusing to give a simple answer as you refused to read his 500 page document.
Well he called it a "flawed question" to ask how many days after an election we should count ballots, as well as saying "I don't know if that means that they need to ... just keep counting votes one or two days late if they don't think it's an issue"
That verbiage to me seems more like we don't really need specific rules hammered down and it's okay if election officials just decide on a whim how to play it on and after election day. My point was I think oBlade's question is not flawed but incredibly important and we should have the rules of the game clearly written before tip-off. I'll happily accept a response where DPB agrees we should have specific rules hammered down but he's not specific on the rules because he's not the expert, but my interpretation is that he thinks we shouldn't have specific rules at all because it just helps the Republicans know how to play around them.
Edit: also I find it kind of odd to defer to the judgement of election officials when oBlade twice pointed out that the majority of states don’t count ballots received after Election Day. So they should be the ones to decide how late in the process they will accept ballots but also you disagree with what the majority of them have decided? /shrug
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Northern Ireland24517 Posts
It’s a demand for a specific rule of thumb to deal with a basically non-existent problem, and all one can really give is an arbitrary response. Or not, as DPB chose not to. Plus the fun of divergence state to state too.
Not talking about this thread, but in a wider sense if these concerns were remotely coming from a place of good faith, yeah absolutely let’s work out the particulars. As they evidently are not why entertain the discussion?
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On May 13 2024 19:07 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2024 14:27 KwarK wrote:
This is a very weird thing to come after him on given that he’s not responsible for the specific rules. If your doctor said that you’d need 1 or 2 operations you might go “which is it, 1 or 2?” But this isn’t that. He’s not an expert, this isn’t his responsibility, he has no obligation to be specific here. Not only is he entirely within his rights to be non specific, it’d actually be weird if he had a fully specific and all encompassing policy document to hand ready to pass your review. You’d no doubt accuse him of refusing to give a simple answer as you refused to read his 500 page document. Well he called it a "flawed question" to ask how many days after an election we should count ballots, as well as saying "I don't know if that means that they need to ... just keep counting votes one or two days late if they don't think it's an issue" That verbiage to me seems more like we don't really need specific rules hammered down and it's okay if election officials just decide on a whim how to play it on and after election day. My point was I think oBlade's question is not flawed but incredibly important and we should have the rules of the game clearly written before tip-off. I'll happily accept a response where DPB agrees we should have specific rules hammered down but he's not specific on the rules because he's not the expert, but my interpretation is that he thinks we shouldn't have specific rules at all because it just helps the Republicans know how to play around them.
There are plenty of actual rules in regards to mail-in voting that I'm fine with. For example, making sure the ballot and envelope are correctly filled out, and making sure the ballot is mailed in by the appropriate deadline. You shouldn't double-vote or impersonate someone else either (that goes for both mail-in and in-person voting). There are plenty of these guidelines, and I think they should be followed because they help ensure a safe, secure, and accurate election.
However, an additional rule like "We will stop counting ballots two days after Election Day, no matter what" undermines that same primary objective of having a fair and accurate election, in favor of speed. I outlined several ways that election officials might be able to proactively speed up the counting process without sacrificing accuracy, but there's no guarantee that every election will be decided within the same short time frame.
It would be nice for an election to be decided accurately *and quickly*, but the latter is a luxury. The former is a necessity. And we know that Republican leaders are doing what they can to sacrifice accuracy, if it improves their chances of "winning" an election. The questions that you and oBlade bring up might be in good faith, but we know that Republican leaders are not acting in good faith.
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I'd be pissed if I put my ballot in the post within the deadline and it didn't get counted because the people counting the ballots were particularly slow that day or there was an unanticipated delay somewhere in the chain outside of my control. So would anybody else, Republican or Democrat. This really should be uncontroversial.
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On May 13 2024 20:32 EnDeR_ wrote:
I'd be pissed if I put my ballot in the post within the deadline and it didn't get counted because the people counting the ballots were particularly slow that day or there was an unanticipated delay somewhere in the chain outside of my control. So would anybody else, Republican or Democrat. This really should be uncontroversial.
Amen.
This is only a discussion at all because not counting certain votes at all allows a few more republicans to win. There is no genuine value at play here except get power. No point engaging with any substance - it's all post-hoc.
Let's be real: the consequences of an election are years of someone being in power. What's preferable? Someone without a democratic mandate for four years, but put in there on minute one, or someone with it who gets there a week or two late?
The length of delays that make the former preferable are (to those who are not acting on the single aforementioned republican value) not what we are actually risking here.
Further, such egregious delays are also easily avoidable if you don't deliberately sabotage the whole system that sends and counts the votes 
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On May 13 2024 22:07 Ciaus237 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2024 20:32 EnDeR_ wrote:
I'd be pissed if I put my ballot in the post within the deadline and it didn't get counted because the people counting the ballots were particularly slow that day or there was an unanticipated delay somewhere in the chain outside of my control. So would anybody else, Republican or Democrat. This really should be uncontroversial. Amen. This is only a discussion at all because not counting certain votes at all allows a few more republicans to win. There is no genuine value at play here except get power. No point engaging with any substance - it's all post-hoc. Let's be real: the consequences of an election are years of someone being in power. What's preferable? Someone without a democratic mandate for four years, but put in there on minute one, or someone with it who gets there a week or two late? The length of delays that make the former preferable are (to those who are not acting on the single aforementioned republican value) not what we are actually risking here. Further, such egregious delays are also easily avoidable if you don't deliberately sabotage the whole system that sends and counts the votes
Not to mention that Inauguration Day is more than two months after Election Day. There's no chance that the next president gets sworn in late just because counting the votes is taking too long. While there are some other election-related steps in between the November and January dates, the argument that "we need to stop counting after one or two days, because what if it would otherwise take five or six days to count everything, when we only have two months!?!?!?" isn't even a convincing facade. Easiest bullshit call ever.
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Norway28608 Posts
Kind of an incomprehensible discussion tbh. If the ballot is cast before the deadline it has to be counted. If it's cast after, it should not be. The deadline is x hour on election day. If there's no system to figure out whether it's cast in time, fix a system so there is one, because doing so isn't difficult for a developed country. And then count them asap. If that for whatever reason results in a particularly slow state which happens to also be super close and the state that determines the entire election resulting in it taking a full week to determine who won, then hey, that's just how it is (but again, a functional system shouldn't have it take more than a couple days even in that unicorn scenario). Either way if a ballot is cast before the deadline, it has to count, should be the baseline to operate from, and then whatever problems arise from that can be addressed in much better ways than giving incentives to be slow through saying they won't be counted if they haven't been counted by x time.
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On May 13 2024 20:32 EnDeR_ wrote:
I'd be pissed if I put my ballot in the post within the deadline and it didn't get counted because the people counting the ballots were particularly slow that day or there was an unanticipated delay somewhere in the chain outside of my control. So would anybody else, Republican or Democrat. This really should be uncontroversial.
There is apparently a lingering confusion of what "count" means still which is understandable among the international users but frankly worrying in the native citizens. The issue is not "counting" as in the physical process of figuring out how many there are. Rather, the issue is inclusion/acceptance vs rejection. You posted yours the day before, it arrived the day after, it gets accepted because it's in a magical 3-day window. I post mine the day before, it arrives five days later by virtue of postal idiosyncrasies and is therefore too late. Is this a more or less fair result than both of us being shit out of luck for not meeting a basic deadline? Meanwhile another ballot "arrives" within 2 days that isn't postmarked and gets accepted. I'm sure the double government competence of the US Postal Service combined with the Secretary of State is enough to deduce where and when that ballot came from. What could be more effective than a state and federal agency teaming up.
It could take a month to count all the votes exactly, that's another problem entirely, the question at issue in the lawsuit and more generally is simply this: Whether that month should be spent counting the votes that were received by election day or counting the votes received by election day plus an arbitrary extension of length "T + theoppositeofwhateverGOPsaidobviously." Most states go with the former although nobody has been interested enough in the actual issue to dig up how partisan the per-state division of that is.
You could be pissed, and that would be a great motivating emotion to be sure to vote on time and not procrastinate next election. Being a citizen entails responsibilities as well as rights - with 3 different ways to vote over a month, figuring out a way to manage to get a ballot in is about the minimum possible unavoidable literacy test for a democracy. The pissed emotion you feel can just as easily be replicated in people when they find out they're voting in an election where ballots without postmarks (let alone with) received after election day are being accepted. Or in elections that have chain of custody issues. Or people on video doing weird things with dropboxes. Or people finding boxes of ballots on sidewalks. Or broken voting machines leading to closed precincts.
Let's say a 3 day window to wait for ballots to arrive after election day is because it's assumed in the worst case scenario the post office can deliver a local ballot in 3 days. Solution: Fill out the ballot the day you get it and mail it the next day. Or put it in a ballot drop box yourself. Watch it for a week. If it doesn't show as received, go say it seems lost and get a provisional ballot and fill it out in the next 2 weeks.
If someone can't do this, voting isn't important to them. That's fine also (the US doesn't have mandatory voting) but it's not society's fault or problem. If the final round of boxing ends and it goes to the judges because nobody got knocked out, one boxer can't go to the other side while the judges are checking their tallies and start beating him saying "Ah I just forgot to get a few last punches in." If your term paper is due at 6pm Friday and you waited until Friday morning to do it, and realized at 5:30 your printer broke and ran to the library and printed it to come out at 6:05 and see your teacher driving away, it was your fault you got a score of zero. If you forgot it was election day, or even knew it was election day, and the polls close at 7, and you leave at 6:30 going "it only takes 10 minutes to get there," and there's a traffic jam from a car accident, and you get there at 7:15 and there's still a line for people waiting to cast their vote, but you can't get in the line because you weren't there before 7. When you get turned away, that's your postmarked (or not) but didn't get there on time ballot. You can be pissed all you want. It's fundamentally your own fault. It's a deadline. Either we have rules and observe them or not.
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Norway28608 Posts
Maybe they took a while to decide. You have until election day to do just that. Aside from 'the US is a fucking shitshow and the republican candidate is a wannabe dictator who would love to stir shit up if the result isn't immediately clear and a bunch of idiots are going to be duped into believing there's something nefarious at play', there aren't really any reasons for why waiting a couple days, in the worst case scenario where a deciding state happens to be really slow, is a problem. And that reason is not a valid reason to go with said wannabe dictator and his idiot followers' attempt at voter disenfranchisement.
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On May 14 2024 04:13 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Maybe they took a while to decide. You have until election day to do just that. Aside from 'the US is a fucking shitshow and the republican candidate is a wannabe dictator who would love to stir shit up if the result isn't immediately clear and a bunch of idiots are going to be duped into believing there's something nefarious at play', there aren't really any reasons for why waiting a couple days, in the worst case scenario where a deciding state happens to be really slow, is a problem. And that reason is not a valid reason to go with said wannabe dictator and his idiot followers' attempt at voter disenfranchisement.
Agreed. Its such repeated bad faith from these people. Nothing can be taken in good faith for the forseeable future.
Attacks on the postal service and secretary of state, because of course government = bad. Nevermind the fact that republicans actively try to make things nonfunctional to show government=bad. These are not serious people who have no interest in solving problems.
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On May 14 2024 04:05 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2024 20:32 EnDeR_ wrote:
I'd be pissed if I put my ballot in the post within the deadline and it didn't get counted because the people counting the ballots were particularly slow that day or there was an unanticipated delay somewhere in the chain outside of my control. So would anybody else, Republican or Democrat. This really should be uncontroversial. There is apparently a lingering confusion of what "count" means still which is understandable among the international users but frankly worrying in the native citizens. The issue is not "counting" as in the physical process of figuring out how many there are. Rather, the issue is inclusion/acceptance vs rejection. You posted yours the day before, it arrived the day after, it gets accepted because it's in a magical 3-day window. I post mine the day before, it arrives five days later by virtue of postal idiosyncrasies and is therefore too late. Is this a more or less fair result than both of us being shit out of luck for not meeting a basic deadline? Meanwhile another ballot "arrives" within 2 days that isn't postmarked and gets accepted. I'm sure the double government competence of the US Postal Service combined with the Secretary of State is enough to deduce where and when that ballot came from. What could be more effective than a state and federal agency teaming up. It could take a month to count all the votes exactly, that's another problem entirely, the question at issue in the lawsuit and more generally is simply this: Whether that month should be spent counting the votes that were received by election day or counting the votes received by election day plus an arbitrary extension of length "T + theoppositeofwhateverGOPsaidobviously." Most states go with the former although nobody has been interested enough in the actual issue to dig up how partisan the per-state division of that is. You could be pissed, and that would be a great motivating emotion to be sure to vote on time and not procrastinate next election. Being a citizen entails responsibilities as well as rights - with 3 different ways to vote over a month, figuring out a way to manage to get a ballot in is about the minimum possible unavoidable literacy test for a democracy. The pissed emotion you feel can just as easily be replicated in people when they find out they're voting in an election where ballots without postmarks (let alone with) received after election day are being accepted. Or in elections that have chain of custody issues. Or people on video doing weird things with dropboxes. Or people finding boxes of ballots on sidewalks. Or broken voting machines leading to closed precincts. Let's say a 3 day window to wait for ballots to arrive after election day is because it's assumed in the worst case scenario the post office can deliver a local ballot in 3 days. Solution: Fill out the ballot the day you get it and mail it the next day. Or put it in a ballot drop box yourself. Watch it for a week. If it doesn't show as received, go say it seems lost and get a provisional ballot and fill it out in the next 2 weeks. If someone can't do this, voting isn't important to them. That's fine also (the US doesn't have mandatory voting) but it's not society's fault or problem. If the final round of boxing ends and it goes to the judges because nobody got knocked out, one boxer can't go to the other side while the judges are checking their tallies and start beating him saying "Ah I just forgot to get a few last punches in." If your term paper is due at 6pm Friday and you waited until Friday morning to do it, and realized at 5:30 your printer broke and ran to the library and printed it to come out at 6:05 and see your teacher driving away, it was your fault you got a score of zero. If you forgot it was election day, or even knew it was election day, and the polls close at 7, and you leave at 6:30 going "it only takes 10 minutes to get there," and there's a traffic jam from a car accident, and you get there at 7:15 and there's still a line for people waiting to cast their vote, but you can't get in the line because you weren't there before 7. When you get turned away, that's your postmarked (or not) but didn't get there on time ballot. You can be pissed all you want. It's fundamentally your own fault. It's a deadline. Either we have rules and observe them or not. A vote isn't worth less because you cast it last minute. If you voted in time your vote counts, same as any other.
To say it doesn't matter that a persons vote isn't counted because they 'waiting to long' without actually passing the deadline of election day is by its very nature undemocratic.
And while we're at it lets address the elephant in the room, if the Republicans can get valid ballots send in before the deadline tossed out by gutting the postal service to such a point where it is unable to deliver ballots in a reasonable time frame they will do so if they have the power, by simple evidence of historical precedent of their continues actions to close polling stations and purge voter rolls in an attempt to disenfranchise those groups who are less likely to vote for them.
If you put your ballot in the mail in time and it arrives within a reasonable window of time to allow the postal service to do its job, regardless of if this is after election day, it should be counted.
No different from the polling station 'closing' while you are in line waiting. If your in the line you will be allowed to cast your vote.
Whether or not that makes you think they don't care about their vote is not relevant. No where in the constitution does it say only those who give a shit are allowed to vote.
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Canada11328 Posts
Pretty sure any time there is a date cut off in regards to sending by snail mail, what matters is the date that the post office receives it. Their stamp gives a date in which it is received and is therefore official and therefore made the deadline. Whether the postal service decides to go on strike for a couple months in the meantime is material. Date of receiving the package is what matters.
Any system that allows a vote that was cast within the time frame to not be counted because 'it took too long to count' is ripe for abuse. Just slow roll counting votes in ridings favourable to your opponent and hey presto!. You've successfully discounted validly cast votes. That's a perverse incentive that should never be countenanced.
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I don't like the rule of postmarked by election day. It should be received by election day to be counted so all the votes can be counted together and the results announced promptly. If that means we need to send out mail in ballots earlier, and/or increase early voting opportunities that's fine, but this system of not being able to determine a winner even in elections that aren't close enough to require a recount for days or even a week is stupid. I think it makes the government look incompetent and lowers confidence in the elections process.
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Norway28608 Posts
I mean, if you want to make a rule that 'if you want to vote by mail, you need to vote two days before election day', I'd be fine with that - as long as the date is set and that everybody voting before the set deadline's vote is valid.
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On May 14 2024 04:13 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Maybe they took a while to decide. You have until election day to do just that. Aside from 'the US is a fucking shitshow and the republican candidate is a wannabe dictator who would love to stir shit up if the result isn't immediately clear and a bunch of idiots are going to be duped into believing there's something nefarious at play', there aren't really any reasons for why waiting a couple days, in the worst case scenario where a deciding state happens to be really slow, is a problem. And that reason is not a valid reason to go with said wannabe dictator and his idiot followers' attempt at voter disenfranchisement.
California takes weeks to count all ballots, if it wasn't such a blue state it'd be a scandal, but it's caused issues with congressional and state legislative races. So yes, it can happen. And they have a generous "postmarked 7 days after the election" rule.
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On May 14 2024 12:56 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2024 04:13 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Maybe they took a while to decide. You have until election day to do just that. Aside from 'the US is a fucking shitshow and the republican candidate is a wannabe dictator who would love to stir shit up if the result isn't immediately clear and a bunch of idiots are going to be duped into believing there's something nefarious at play', there aren't really any reasons for why waiting a couple days, in the worst case scenario where a deciding state happens to be really slow, is a problem. And that reason is not a valid reason to go with said wannabe dictator and his idiot followers' attempt at voter disenfranchisement. California takes weeks to count all ballots, if it wasn't such a blue state it'd be a scandal, but it's caused issues with congressional and state legislative races. So yes, it can happen. And they have a generous "postmarked 7 days after the election" rule.
It'd be a scandal if an election victory was given to the wrong person, especially if the people who caused that mistake disguised their evil, fraudulent intentions as merely immature impatience.
It's possible to support both of these statements:
1. States should do a better job of proactively preparing for receiving and counting votes;
2. States should not throw away legal votes.
EDIT: Never mind. Nearly everyone here recognizes the obvious importance of *not* rigging an election.
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Norway28608 Posts
On May 14 2024 12:56 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2024 04:13 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Maybe they took a while to decide. You have until election day to do just that. Aside from 'the US is a fucking shitshow and the republican candidate is a wannabe dictator who would love to stir shit up if the result isn't immediately clear and a bunch of idiots are going to be duped into believing there's something nefarious at play', there aren't really any reasons for why waiting a couple days, in the worst case scenario where a deciding state happens to be really slow, is a problem. And that reason is not a valid reason to go with said wannabe dictator and his idiot followers' attempt at voter disenfranchisement. California takes weeks to count all ballots, if it wasn't such a blue state it'd be a scandal, but it's caused issues with congressional and state legislative races. So yes, it can happen. And they have a generous "postmarked 7 days after the election" rule.
Taking weeks is unfortunate, shouldn't happen. It's still preferable to not counting all the ballots, though.
I do think there was a county in the recent election in Norway where the final result changed after a couple of days. In this case it was the matter of a few votes being the deciding factor, though.
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On May 14 2024 07:07 NovaTheFeared wrote:
I don't like the rule of postmarked by election day. It should be received by election day to be counted so all the votes can be counted together and the results announced promptly. If that means we need to send out mail in ballots earlier, and/or increase early voting opportunities that's fine, but this system of not being able to determine a winner even in elections that aren't close enough to require a recount for days or even a week is stupid. I think it makes the government look incompetent and lowers confidence in the elections process.
This is generally sensible.
And in a sane country, rules like that work very well. For example, in Germany we have a rule like this, where ballots are counted at the evening and in the night of voting. However, we also have a post office that reliably actually gets the ballot to the counting stations in time if it was thrown in the mail the day before. And on voting day, you can just drop off your mail-in ballot at the municipal office yourself, should you want to. Also, voting is on a sunday and you rarely wait more than 15 minutes, it at all.
In the US, the core problem is that we know republicans. We know how they act, and they never act in good faith. Shit like this is never about making the election system better, or more fair, or anything like that. It is always about winning at any cost. Republicans will champion anything that will make it harder for their opponents to vote, or for those votes to be thrown out.
If a rule like we discuss here is implemented in the US, republicans will just destroy the post office to make sure as few as possible mail-in votes actually arrive in time as a next step. That is just how they always act.
One must never make the mistake to assume that republicans actually believe the things they say. They don't have principles, or core thoughts, or anything like that. They just want to win at any cost, and they will use any argument which furthers that, and then on the next day use the exact opposite argument if it helps them.
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My 2 cents on fixing election logistical nonsense:
It is plain and simply under funded and under staffed. Our goal should be for each ballot to be manually counted and then verified by a randomized second person within 24 hours of polls closing. Election integrity and election clarity are too important to allow to be resource constrained.
I don't think it is outlandish or unreasonable to basically make the budget infinite. If it means hiring 100,000 people, hire 100,000 people. Pay each of them $500 for an 8 hour shift counting ballots. Our country should be capable of organizing a monstrous effort like this. I think all of the efforts to minimize, distribute, or digitize are both misguided and ridiculous. The mission statement of an election is too critical to be finding ways to cut corners. Manual counting with some kind of verification system with an insane number of people is all we need. The focus should be advocating for funding rather than redesigning a way to work within budget constraints.
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EPT
