Althouse: "This is a message for any Democratic voters who have already cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton and are having a bad case of buyer’s remorse."

November 2, 2016

"This is a message for any Democratic voters who have already cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton and are having a bad case of buyer’s remorse."

"Wisconsin is one of several states where you can change your early ballot if you think you’ve made a mistake. You can change your vote to Donald Trump and make America great again. She will never make America great."

Said Donald Trump in Eau Claire, Wisconsin yesterday. I did not know that you could rescind an early vote and revote. According to the linked article, not only can you rescind and revote, you can rescind and revote twice.

I haven't independently researched this law, but I am reading that you can change your early vote in Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York, Connecticut, Louisiana, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

Trump tweeted this morning: "You can change your vote in six states. So, now that you see that Hillary was a big mistake, change your vote to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

I wonder if the states are geared up to handle mass revoting.

How many people will actually do it? I would think early voters are the most settled in party loyalty. But just the call for revoting must be unsettling to the Hillary supporters who've been burbling about all the votes they have banked. That bank is not so secure.

45 comments:

RMc said...: I wonder if the states are geared up to handle mass revoting.

I read this as "mass revolting", which seems to be what's happening.; 11/2/16, 7:56 AM
Sydney said...: How can you rescind a vote? I thought our ballots were secret. Do they keep them in a file somewhere with your name attached and not count them until election day? Are they even kept in alphabetical order? I voted early four years ago and I thought the whole process seemed haphazard. I felt my vote was probably lost. I got a glimpse of a room with stacks of ballots in it. Did not fill me with much confidence. I'd like to know how that whole re-do thing works. I suspect it could be easily gamed.; 11/2/16, 7:57 AM
Clyde said...: Early voters may or may not be most settled in their party loyalty, but they have already made up their minds about the candidates, all of whom are flawed (I include the various minor party spoiler candidates as well). People who are going to vote for Donald Trump know that he's a vulgar boor, but they will vote for him anyway. People who are going to vote for Hillary Clinton know that she's a crook, but she's their crook, so they will vote for her anyway. People who are going to vote for anyone else know that there is more chance of winning the Powerball lottery and getting struck by lightning on the same day than of any minor party candidate winning this election, but will vote for them anyway because they think the other choices suck. Still, someone is going to win this misbegotten election, since apparently SMOD isn't going to make an appearance.; 11/2/16, 8:01 AM
John said...: There's no early voting in New York. Maybe they mean absentee?; 11/2/16, 8:03 AM
David Begley said...: Think like Scott Adams. There may not be many people who will rescind their votes, but Trump is telling those who have not voted and were intending to vote Clinton that it is okay to change their minds.; 11/2/16, 8:05 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 11/2/16, 8:07 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "How can you rescind a vote? I thought our ballots were secret. Do they keep them in a file somewhere with your name attached and not count them until election day?"

I early voted in Wisconsin once. Maybe there is an envelope inside an envelope?; 11/2/16, 8:08 AM
shiloh said...: Damn Althouse, you are persistent.

There is sound reasoning why Trump has under 40% favorable and over 60% unfavorable polling ie not exactly the kind of candidate you want to make an effort to switch your vote.

Voters have pretty much already made up their minds after Trump lost all (3) debates and polling the last (2) weeks of a campaign is usually just statistically irrelevant noise.

Looking back at 2012, Obama was ahead by 4 pts. w/3 mos. to go and won by 4 pts. And Trump is doing worse, if possible, w/minorities and women.

But, but, but Trump doing great with older white guys so keep hope alive!

>

Also, really, really angry voters have a tendency not to vote. Which is why the Dems GOTV advantage is yuuuge!

I yield back the balance of my time ...; 11/2/16, 8:11 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "People who are going to vote for Donald Trump know that he's a vulgar boor, but they will vote for him anyway. People who are going to vote for Hillary Clinton know that she's a crook, but she's their crook, so they will vote for her anyway...."

It's a lesser of 2 evils situation with the evils being different in kind and Hillary's evil being something that is getting revealed in the last few days — or so it may seem. If you've done a balance and found her better 2 weeks ago, you may think the balance is different now. You may have been outraged by Trump's female problems, but you might have gotten used to them and mellowed. The balance changes every day... especially if you have little hope and trust in either of them.; 11/2/16, 8:12 AM
Wilbur said...: In my Florida county (Broward) I heard nothing about a re-voting option. When you vote by mail you place your completed ballot in a sleeve, upon which you must print your name and sign some sort of oath. You then place that in the return mailing envelope.

So, unless they open up and process your vote early, they could conceivably track down your ballot.; 11/2/16, 8:13 AM
PB said...: I agree that the early voters are the most settled.; 11/2/16, 8:15 AM
Clayton Hennesey said...: Voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania are allowed to void their early or absentee ballots and cast a new vote.; 11/2/16, 8:15 AM
Brando said...: "How many people will actually do it? I would think early voters are the most settled in party loyalty."

That's my thought too. If you're wavering you're probably not going to bother with an early vote. And it'd take a major reversal (e.g., finding out someone was strangling puppies) to get them to bother re-voting.

The thing now is turnout, not minds changing. Has anyone here changed from pro-Clinton to pro-Trump (or vice versa) within the last few months? I'm guessing not, but would be interesting to see if anyone fits that bill.; 11/2/16, 8:20 AM
Etienne said...: The whole thing is unconstitutional.

Absentee voting should not be available to anyone who is not living outside the borders of the country.

There should be no do-overs. Number one would be the expense, and number two, the shear unfairness.

Congress needs to act. This is something only a banana-republic would do.; 11/2/16, 8:22 AM
shiloh said...: Trump must know by "his" own internal polling that he's losing big league in MI/WI/PA, etc. otherwise he wouldn't be wasting time w/this change your vote nonsense!; 11/2/16, 8:22 AM
mezzrow said...: Pennsylvania...
Michigan...
Wisconsin...

Hmmm. shiloh's, probably right. Nothing to see here.

What could possibly go wrong? Especially in firewall states.

If they weren't safe, they wouldn't be a firewall, would they?; 11/2/16, 8:25 AM
dreams said...: The stock market seems worried about Trump winning, that the consensus anyway.; 11/2/16, 8:31 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Hope and Change!; 11/2/16, 8:32 AM
mezzrow said...: In my state, the ballot has a number which I used to watch them list on the register at my polling place. I suspect the link between voter ID and ballot# is now electronically stored, and they can void a ballot and substitute a new ballot number while firewalling the content of the ballot from this maintenance dataset.

They don't need to know any content to void the ballot.; 11/2/16, 8:33 AM
Darrell said...: Shitloh is paddling for his life.; 11/2/16, 8:36 AM
Martha said...: Can you change your vote up to and including Election Day?

Upcoming Wikileaks alleged to reveal the 33,000 deleted Hillary! emails.; 11/2/16, 8:37 AM
Darrell said...: Will the Democrats pull their Fraction Magic programs off their vote tallying computers? You know the program that runs in background and delivers a vote count matching a pre-entered percentage.; 11/2/16, 8:41 AM
richlb said...: I read an article about this yesterday. They seem to lump absentee voting in with "early voting," which I consider as two distinctly different scenarios. Some of the states will let you change your absentee ballot but not a vote you cast during an "early voting" period.; 11/2/16, 8:41 AM
AllenS said...: Has anyone here seen the size of the crowd waiting to see Trump in Eau Claire? Huge.; 11/2/16, 8:49 AM
CWJ said...: I recall someone said in one of yesterday's threads that in PA the absentee ballots are sent to the voter's precinct on election day and the voter can then retrieve his ballot and revote. Sounds tailor made for vote tampering. If the local foxes guarding the precinct henhouse vote for the dead, I'm sure they would have no compunction against revoting for the absentees.; 11/2/16, 8:56 AM
John henry said...: Insty gets results!

Instapundit had a bit about this yesterday with a link to a longer PJM article which linked to a CNN article from the day before.

First I'd heard of it. I wonder where Trump got it from? Insty or CNN?

John Henry; 11/2/16, 8:57 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Althouse must not have read my post about him saying this in CO the other day, followed by CNN making the outrageous claim that he's telling people to vote multiple times (implying fraud).

Fucking MSM bias.; 11/2/16, 9:20 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: How does Shiloh explain HRC campaigning in safe secure hasn't gone GOP in years MI? Hmmmm? What a waste of her precious nap time!; 11/2/16, 9:22 AM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: This seems rather obvious: drive down the street, make note of houses with Trump signs, see if they have voted, and revote them for Hillary.; 11/2/16, 9:28 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "There's no early voting in New York. Maybe they mean absentee?"

I wasn't making a distinction. What's the difference? Just that you go to some govt building to "early vote" and you have a mail-in thing to do absentee?; 11/2/16, 9:47 AM
TosaGuy said...: "How can you rescind a vote? I thought our ballots were secret."

I've been an election worker in Wisconsin.

The key to the process is that the ballot is not counted until election day.

When you early vote in this state you show your ID to the city clerk, 2) get verified against the voter roll, 3) vote, 4) put your ballot in an envelope and sign the envelope, which receives a witness signature by the clerk, 5) The envelope is then secured until election day when it is delivered to your regular polling place, 6) staff verifies it against the voter registration roll and assigns you a voter number in the registration book, 7) envelope opened and ballot fed into the ballot machine by polling staff.

Recasting your early vote is a matter of the clerk finding your envelope, destroying your ballot and you doing through the process again. You have until your ballot is fed into the machine to change your vote.

As an election worker I hate early voting. Huge bags of ballots show up around 10:00 and you have to process them all during the early afternoon lull. You don't get done during the lull in big elections and have to finish after the polls close at 8:00. It makes for a late night.; 11/2/16, 10:12 AM
Mark said...: "Absentee voting should not be available to anyone who is not living outside the borders of the country."

Well, Boss, I can't travel for work that day as that means I cannot vote.

Also, hospitals can cancel surgeries that day as no one will be scheduling one.

Brilliant idea. The business and medical world will be thrilled to give that day up from all travel and planned surgeries due to your proposal.; 11/2/16, 10:14 AM
TosaGuy said...: I am not assigning any potential for fraud by the voter in the process above that may already be built into the system. For early in-person voting you have to go through the same procedure you would if you vote on election day at your polling place. You are not bypassing anything.

Any potential for vote fraud in early voting is with the clerks and poll workers, not with the person casting an early vote.; 11/2/16, 10:18 AM
TosaGuy said...: I think a ten-day, in-person early voting period, plus the standard mail-in absentee process, would be sufficient time for people to schedule a time to cast their ballot.; 11/2/16, 10:21 AM
CWJ said...: "Any potential for vote fraud in early voting is with the clerks and poll workers, not with the person casting an early vote."

Exactly! Wink, wink.; 11/2/16, 10:22 AM
TosaGuy said...: With regard to Trump's statement. I don't think more than a handful will bother to change, but it's an effective message designed to cast doubt in the minds of the undecided and non-partisan Dem voters who have yet to cast a ballot.; 11/2/16, 10:23 AM
Todd said...: Wilbur said...
In my Florida county (Broward) I heard nothing about a re-voting option. When you vote by mail you place your completed ballot in a sleeve, upon which you must print your name and sign some sort of oath. You then place that in the return mailing envelope.

So, unless they open up and process your vote early, they could conceivably track down your ballot.

11/2/16, 8:13 AM

In Florida you can "sort of" get a do-over in that if you absentee voted, you can show up at a polling location and vote in person. They will ask you if you voted absentee, you tell them yes, they mark it down (but likely don't have to as they track who votes in person and one hopes, validate before processing the mailed in ones) and you can vote. Not quite a "do over" but results in the same. If you in-person voted early, done is done.; 11/2/16, 10:26 AM
TosaGuy said...: CWJ,

One argument for voting early is to prevent someone else casting a ballot in your name since you have already been marked down as having voted. A friend of mine in IL didn't early vote soon enough and his vote was already cast. All he could do is file a complaint and vote a provisional ballot.; 11/2/16, 10:26 AM
robother said...: "I read this as "mass revolting", which seems to be what's happening."

That misreading by Rob McLean also reminded me of Count de Monnae breaking the bad news to King Louie: "your Highness, the people are revolting" I imagine Hillary's response is similar: "You're damn right they're revolting. They stink on ice."; 11/2/16, 10:44 AM
CWJ said...: TosaGuy,

That's interesting, and pretty darn brazen. There's truth in the cynical aphorism that it's not the voters who count, it's those who count the votes.

Has your experience at the polls always been on the up and up?; 11/2/16, 11:01 AM
Yancey Ward said...: You can only change an early vote if it is done in the manner of absentee voting- fill out a ballot put in it in an envelope that identifies you specifically. No state I know of opens and counts those ballots until the polls close on election day. However, a number of states have regular polling early, such as here in TN. Those votes are done the moment you finish and submit your ballot since there is no way to recall your vote and trash it.

Trump's message, though, is two-fold. Where you can get your vote changed, do so if you are unhappy with voting early for Clinton, but I think the more important message is still to the people who haven't voted yet, but were leaning towards Clinton or a third party- "Change your mine."; 11/2/16, 11:20 AM
TosaGuy said...: CWJ

All of my experiences as a poll worker with regard to the clerk/worker process with ballots has been on the up and up.

Prior to voter ID, anyone could walk in and say a name and address in the registration book and they got a ballot. The apartment buildings in my ward had many many people listed under the same apartment number address -- previous renters. Registration books are public documents and that always struck me as a path to engineer additional votes by having people claim to be someone they know would not show up at that polling site because there was no way to verify their identity.

I also found photo IDs make it easier, faster and more accurate for me to process people through the line. I can find names in the book faster when I have the ID right there with the name on it.; 11/2/16, 11:20 AM
clint said...: Here in Massachusetts, Absentee Ballots are mailed back in double envelopes -- the outside markings on the inner one letting them know whose vote is contained within, so they can mark you off in the voter rolls. It *would* be possible to get that back, and instead vote in person, I guess. I'd hope they make that really difficult, though.

Re: Trump's comment... I doubt many people will be changing their votes. But getting us *talking* about it is brilliant. It creates the perception of a preference cascade moving in his direction -- and that perception *could* sway voters.; 11/2/16, 11:27 AM
Etienne said...: Mark said...The business and medical world will be thrilled to give that day up from all travel and planned surgeries due to your proposal.

You only have a certain rights to vote, not a guarantee you will actually be able to.; 11/2/16, 1:42 PM
Anonymous said...: New York doesn't allow early voting so this could only apply to absentee ballots.

Changing the vote would require an in-person visit to the county Board of Elections, which is where the ballot would be mailed. They would be able to locate a ballot because it would be sealed in an envelope containing the voter's name and affirmation (officially so they can mark off the poll record that the person voted...don't color me surprised if officials peek at who votes for whom unofficially).

I don't think many would take advantage because legally the only way to get an absentee ballot in New York is that there is either a disability or an absence that impedes or prevents one from physically getting to the polls from 6 - 9 on election day...and that same impediment is likely to burden getting to the Board of Elections.; 11/3/16, 1:05 AM