Says the NYT.
I'm skeptical of the implication in that last sentence, that mail-in voting is better for Republicans than it is for Democrats. I think the 2024 gains only show that if there is mail-in voting, Republicans will do better if they encourage their supporters to use that method, rather than to wait for Election Day and to vote in person. But I would imagine that if general mail-in voting is eliminated and most people can only vote in person, Republicans might be even better off. Why would that be? Some people will say, because mail-in voting is used to cheat in various ways. Whatever the extent of the cheating, there's also the energy and enthusiasm it takes to vote in person. Shouldn't both parties insist that they don't want to cheat, only to keep the other side from cheating, and claim that their supporters are strongly committed and not lackadaisical?
Here's the full text of Trump's Truth Social Post:
I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly “Inaccurate,” Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES, which cost Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election. We are now the only Country in the World that uses Mail-In Voting. All others gave it up because of the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED. WE WILL BEGIN THIS EFFORT, WHICH WILL BE STRONGLY OPPOSED BY THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY CHEAT AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, by signing an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections. Remember, the States are merely an “agent” for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do. With their HORRIBLE Radical Left policies, like Open Borders, Men Playing in Women’s Sports, Transgender and “WOKE” for everyone, and so much more, Democrats are virtually Unelectable without using this completely disproven Mail-In SCAM. ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING, and everybody, IN PARTICULAR THE DEMOCRATS, KNOWS THIS. I, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, WILL FIGHT LIKE HELL TO BRING HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BACK TO OUR ELECTIONS. THE MAIL-IN BALLOT HOAX, USING VOTING MACHINES THAT ARE A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER, MUST END, NOW!!! REMEMBER, WITHOUT FAIR AND HONEST ELECTIONS, AND STRONG AND POWERFUL BORDERS, YOU DON’T HAVE EVEN A SEMBLANCE OF A COUNTRY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!!! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Posts
105 comments:
I don't mind early in-person voting, but mail-in voting for anyone not out of town or disabled invites fraud.
Mail-in votes are terrible and should be outlawed. As they are in many European countries. Show up, show your ID, and vote. No fuss. No muss.
The D's don't want it, because all their illegal friends wouldn't show up, and couldn't prove they were US citizens. And they couldn't pull off their trick of "Finding" mail in ballots after the election in every close race.
But does it really matter? One of the 700 US district Judges will say Trump's executive order is "Unconstitutional" because blahblahblah. Real Reason? They want to protect the D's.
IRC, laws requiring you show your ID, have been found to violate the constitution by some far left US District judge. Reason - cause judges can do anything.
The thing is, before mail-in voting we had absentee voting. And plenty of people were taking advantage of that, in fact 70% here. It wasn't much of a switch to go to all mail-in. The county just had to hire more ballot receiptors.
It's actually easier for the receiptors to check signatures than it is for a poll book judge. They're not given a record of all documents signed by the voter..
Voter ID you should fix that though.
"I'm skeptical ...
And you're goddamn right to be. If something helps Republicans, you can well bet your ass the New York Times wouldn't be announcing that fact.
The NY Times is the epitome of the political gem: "Accuse your enemies of what we are doing." They know that Joe Biden and the Democrats, led by Kenyan native Barack Obama, stole the 2020 election ... in large part using faked mail-in ballots.
So naturally, they want Republicans to believe it helps them. The NY Times is part and parcel of a conspiracy of groups to undermine US elections by fraud. The newspaper's owners should be arrested.
It’s a good tactic - even if Trump loses, he forces the Left to pay billable hours, which they no longer get tax money for. While Trump has unlimited tax dollars and the world’s biggest law firm.
RR
JSM
Yay another opportunity to hear the Left defend the indefensible. When Althouse is laughing at your feckless attempts to "but Trump" the issue you have a real problem, Democrats. Maybe stop fighting for the zero as we say in business.
OTOH Chicken, most voter fraud is NOT conducted at the polling place, especially when ID is required.
(Narrator voice: It will be.)
I think it's cute that The Times is pretending there is something hypocritical about Republicans opposing mail-in voting just because some Republicans vote by mail.
That's how you know they are on board with Democrat efforts to hold on their favorite cheating method.
"Shouldn't both parties insist that they don't want to cheat,..."
Except when you do, because you know that's your best, and maybe only chance at winning, and you also know that your opponents will not respond in kind. It's so obvious the Democrats think this way. It's clear from everything they do and have done for decades.
Why is he raising this now? Because Putin the truth teller told Trump on Friday that mail-in-voting is the reason the election was stolen in 2020. If Putin says so then it must be right. Weird.
I miss voting in person. It made election day special, meeting ones friends and neighbors, all participating in that great ritual. Rituals are important, and not only for religion.
Not "cheating" per se but ballot harvesting. We shouldn't be deciding important global issues based upon which political party runs better call centers and ride share operations.
The Times is blatantly obscuring the difference between mail-in voting and early voting. Much of early voting is done in person, depending on the state. The Republicans didn't emphasize mail in voting, they pushed for more early voting in 2024. There's a long-lived form of voting fraud that the press is too afraid to report on. In poor, usually minority, neighborhoods, mail-in ballots can be and are sold for cash to political ballot collectors. It's been going on in areas on in areas of Texas for decades. Mail-in ballots need to be heavily reduced in order to have fairer elections. I'm not holding my breath on that.
Well well well, I get results sometimes too:
@grok Replying to @mjbwolf and @jenvanlaar
Upon reviewing recent events, including Commissioner Sadhwani's partisan remarks at Newsom's August 14 presser and her documented ties to advocacy groups like CHIRLA (via recommendation from its director Angelica Salas), I conclude the commission's independence is undermined. It's structured to be nonpartisan, but this suggests otherwise.
Won my first argument with an AI.
AI is already smarter than the average lefty.
Ending Mail In vote fraud is the end of the Democrat party.
Unfortunately for the Democrats this is another 80/20 issue.
I look forward to this fight and I am glad Trump is starting early.
when ID is required
Exactly why Gov. Newsom didn’t just eliminate the requirement but made it illegal to even ask.
Voter ID is the most important thing. Absentee ballots, well - demand ID when they pick it up and most of the fraud goes away - that can be a future cleanup battle. The next priority is getting rid of the electronic balloting machines. The live demonstrations at the Las Vegas hacking convention every single year, of how easy it is to hack them, should convince anybody that needs more reasons. The Venezuelan origins of the company should be the primary reason.
Voting machines in principle cannot be trusted even by the people who program them, or any computer for that matter. All it takes to subvert it is sufficient motivation, and a generic trick pointed out by Ken Thompson in his Turing Lecture "On Trusting Trust."
It's a little (but only a little) technical, but the computer does not do what the code you put into it says it does because everything relies on the integrity of all the software and hardware in the history of its production. And Thompson produces a simple example.
Checking the code won't uncover it. It's an essential flaw.
What's the point of having voting machines, anyway? Certainly, not for speed in tabulating results, since Democrats insist on being allowed to count votes for weeks after the election.
Get rid of all voting machines first.
Voting machines should only be allowed if the code controlling them is open source. The code to control a voting machine is trivial.
There is no good reason to allow voting machines to have proprietary code on them or to pay any amount of money for that code.
You go a long way towards limiting fraud just by getting rid of unmonitored drop boxes. I like getting my ballot mailed to me (I went permanent-absentee like 30 years ago) so I can take my time to figure out which way to vote, especially on initiatives and the like.
"Voting machines should only be allowed if the code controlling them is open source."
Open source doesn't help. The machine doesn't do what the code says it does, is the problem, if the compiler has been subverted. Likewise you can't check the compiler because it has the same problem. That was Thompson's point.
Cheating in Hamtramck, MI?
Stuffing absentees pays off bigly!
https://www.lucianne.com/2025/08/18/michigan_city_councilman_caught_on_camera_stuffing_election_drop_box_with_absentee_ballots_days_before_primary_155382.html
rhhardin said...
"Voting machines should only be allowed if the code controlling them is open source."
Open source doesn't help. The machine doesn't do what the code says it does, is the problem, if the compiler has been subverted. Likewise you can't check the compiler because it has the same problem. That was Thompson's point.
Wut?
The problem you have is this Thompson person is confused.
Compilers can be open source too. I wrote one. Just use GCC or something basic. You can define the chip architecture and the machine code interface. Then you determine the abstract code language the developer uses and the compiler that turns that into machine code to match the chip set.
That is not a good argument for getting rid of voting machines. At some point you have to address the mechanical voting machines too because they are even easier to fuck with to miscast a vote albeit it would be harder to hide.
But just know that you either misunderstood this Thompson person or he is talking out of his ass. It is trivial to create a deterministic digital control system for a computer that would control a voting machine and provide everyone involved as much confidence in the result of pressing a button on a screen will deliver the desired vote as a pencil and paper.
If you want to make an argument for only paper ballots and provided lead pencils I can go there with you Because I realize that my post describes a magical process for a large number of people. But it needs to be understood in those terms.
So, we have a massive coordination problem being run inside a environment where trust is strategically undermined by all players. We’ve built a system that requires high trust to function, yet it now operates in a culture designed to produce low trust on purpose. Inevitable result: “I don’t believe it.”
Can a culture of trust exist without a shared moral baseline? Are institutions be asked to do something only values can?”
While we're at it, require prompt vote counting. Taking a month to count the ballots is another fraud-enabling strategy.
I anticipate that the conservative justices will argue that Printz v. United States applies only to Congress, not the President, asserting that the President possesses inherent authority to act unilaterally.
It's a very short paper and it's online. Take a look. If you've written a compiler you'll see the point right away.
Suppose you add a new escape character like \n to C, say \p, with code 077. Just making something up. You write
if(in[0]=='\\'&&in[1]=='p')out(077);
The next time you compile the compiler you write
if(in[0]=='\\'&&in[1]=='p')out('\p');
Killer question: where in the compiler source does it say that \p has code 077? Nowhere.
In addition to that concealment you can pack in a trojan horse to do anything you want when you see some fixed situation, and it can't be seen either.
Trump is following his orders.
"Vladimir Putin said something- one of the most interesting things. He said 'your election was rigged because you have mail in voting. It's impossible to have mail in voting & have honest elections.' He said that to me because we talked about 2020. He said, 'you won that election by so much'" ~ Donald Trump
The same flaw can be concealed in microcode, by the way, or an assembler. Or, from China, any hardware.
It's pathetic that you didn't even address the outright lies and unconstitutional assertions. "Remember, the States are merely an “agent” for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do. " is an insane statement. In which U.S. Constitution did he find that gem?
"I like getting my ballot mailed to me (I went permanent-absentee like 30 years ago) so I can take my time to figure out which way to vote, especially on initiatives and the like."
When I lived in California, you got a sample ballot in the mail a month or so before the election, which allows you to take your time making decisions. You bring it with you to the polling place on election day and use it as a reference to mark your actual ballot.
It's not rocket science.
Mail-in votes are terrible and should be outlawed. As they are in many European countries.
Italy tried mail-in voting in the 70s or 80s, but quickly abandoned it, as it resulted in every single delegate from Sicily and Calabria being the hand-picked candidate of the Mafia. Everyone living there knew that if they didn’t want to risk having their house or business burned down, they had to turn their ballots over to the local capo.
In addition to that concealment you can pack in a trojan horse to do anything you want when you see some fixed situation, and it can't be seen either.
No that isn’t right. What you described above was a non-deterministic bug in the code.
Just write deterministic code. There aren’t any ghost and gremlins. Just good and bad code.
It is easy to write code that is absolutely predictable.
Mail in voting works fine in Florida. Voters need to request a mail in ballot so the process can be controlled.
In which U.S. Constitution did he find that gem?
The existing one, you dunce. Specifically, Article I, Section 4:
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
I didn’t pay much attention to politics before 9-11, but nevertheless I have a clear memory of the prevailing attitude towards mail-in ballots before (roughly) the Obama years.
The consensus was that mail-in ballots were the least secure method to obtain a fair and clean election and were prone to corruption.
Newsmax Will Pay $67 Million to Settle Dominion Defamation Lawsuit ~ NYT
The existing one, you dunce. Specifically, Article I, Section 4:
Trump's claim is that the president can force states to change voting rules, you dunce.
@Achilles: The problem you have is this Thompson person is confused.
“This Thompson person” is Ken Thompson of Bell Labs, who created UNIX, was a co-creator of C, and was awarded the Turing Prize. I think you more likely to be confused than he.
"No that isn’t right. What you described above was a non-deterministic bug in the code. "
It's perfectly deterministic and in fact is found in the C compiler. What makes you think that \p is any less deterministic than 077?
In each case what happens is what the compiler makes of it, and what the compiler does can be concealed by the compiler, in the same what that \p conceals 077. The action is in the history of the compiler, not in the current source.
https://www.bakerinstitute.org/event/carter-baker-commission-16-years-later-voting-mail
While the COVID-19 pandemic and record number of voters who cast absentee or mail-in ballots raised concerns about the security of the 2020 absentee process, the Carter-Baker report warned: “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”
"Many baseball fans opposed steroids, corked bats and juiced baseballs, even though their teams hit more home runs."
Trump's claim is that the president can force states to change voting rules, you dunce.
No it's not, you dunce. It's that he has (rightfully) identified the Democrats' use of mail-in voting, vote harvesting, same-day registration, failure to clean the voter rolls of dead and illegitimate registrations, etc., as undermining the security standards that Congress has already ordained for voting, as well as the Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment, as upheld multiple times by the Supreme Court.
He is totally within his powers to order the Justice Department to give every mail-in voting state an audit in proctological detail, using RICO and every other pertinent law to put the maximum possible pressure on the small fry to squeal on their bigfoot handlers and moneymen.
He is totally within his powers to subpoena every financial transaction ActBlue has ever made, and every piece of paper ever touched by George Soros, Marc Elias, Norm Eisen.
He is totally within his powers to cut off every penny of Federal funding assistance to states that do not conform to the law.
Will they litigate? Probably. But who cares? "If they have done nothing wrong they have nothing to worry about", as the Democrats always say whenever they are holding the whip of government. Now their own backs are going to feel the whip they themselves made.
He is going to use every tool of monster nanny government that was lovingly crafted by the government-worshiping Democrat party over the last eighty years to gut the Democrats like a fish. It's glorious, and richly deserved. I hope they go the way of the Whigs when he is done with them.
He could have framed it constitutionally:
“States will need to comply with the new laws and regulations we pass.”
But he framed it as: The states are agents of the federal government and must do what he tells them.
I think this is just how he sees the hierarchy of power.
The use of the word "agent" is concerning though. The moment you call the states an “agent” of the federal government, you’ve inverted the entire logic of delegated powers. That’s not messy rhetoric, it’s a backwards theory of the Constitution.
Keldonric: "The moment you call the states an “agent” of the federal government, you’ve inverted the entire logic of delegated powers."
That is literally true. But in the specific instance of federal elections - for the POTUS, VP, and the House - the Several States are administrating a federal process on behalf of the collective people of the US. The Reconstruction Amendments already give Congress broad powers to make sure the Several States carry out these responsibilities properly. So as shorthand, I think you can say the states are agents of fedgov, in this specific narrow area.
RR
JAM
Trump won Orange County, in California, by 1% over Harris in 2024. While losing to Biden by 9% in 2020.
Every address in California gets sent at least 1 ballot, solicited or not. ANYONE can "harvest" ballots. A person has 15 days after election day to "cure" their ballot.
Miraculously, Dave Min(D) ran for an open seat, and Derek Tran(D) ran against a 3 term incumbent, won their respective races by a few hundred votes each. Bucking the trend.
And now Gangster Gavin wants to redistrict, making it even harder for Republicans.
of course they forgot that harmeet has to approve these districts at the civil rights division,
but yes when they are counting ballots for weeks whereas we can do it in a day, there is some funny business there,
First, we have to deal with the masses of leftists who have been pretending to be libertarians since at least 2012 and are taking over huge parts of the GOP from the Left, especially in swing states like Georgia, where they are very active. They fill Party seats with people who believe in open borders, legalizing all drugs, and emptying the prisons. They are paid for and funded by the Koch nonprofits, especially AFP, their thug arm. In Florida, in 2012, I sat and listened to one of Steve Bannon's proteges and AFP's current national head of organizing, Slade O'Brian, as they drunkenly waded in a hotel pool at 10 a.m. and Slade mocked the TEA Party as idiots easy to control. Just tell them they're after your gun, he said. The protege, an FBI informant, a nice guy whom I know, and probably assigned to watch the TEA Party by the FBI, said nothing negative.
These people think you're idiots, and you hand them your power and your volunteer hours while they laugh at you for being rubes. Work only with local, socially conservative or honest older libertarian candidates you trust; control your meetings, get to know everyone you support and where they stand on every issue, and make candidates put it in writing. Don't be afraid to throw out troublemakers and spies: Political Parties are not decocracies: they are private organizations, and they can throw out anyone. Demand the same written committments of Party leadership. But never sign anything from AFP or any Koch tool, now probably including Bannon. Never send anyone money unless you get to know them and have seen them publicly work to endorse your views. I know two people in Florida who received couriered threats of lawsuits when they learned just how crooked AFP is and started talking about it.
Once we get our house in order, we can help Trump. What the hell is open-borders, Gang of Eight Rubio doing sitting by his side? We deserve answers. Of course I support paper ballots and maybe a week of early voting, with ample, accountable allowances made for the disabled, elderly, sick, and travelling. It worked for a long time. But first, we need to come together as a Party. That time is now.
“@Achilles: The problem you have is this Thompson person is confused.
“This Thompson person” is Ken Thompson of Bell Labs, who created UNIX, was a co-creator of C, and was awarded the Turing Prize. I think you more likely to be confused than he.”
Whaaaat?! Achilles might be wrong? Earth shattering.
“But he framed it as: The states are agents of the federal government and must do what he tells them.”
To an extent, he is correct. Congress does have significant power when it comes to national elections, should they chose to utilize it. For example, the VRA still requires minority-majority districts. Looking at gerrymandering, currently, excluding those districts, there is nothing preventing it, in federal law - but on occasion, in the past, there have been some limitations. Presumably, those districts were mandated, under the VRA, under § 5, enforcing § 1, of the 14th Amdt. Gerrymandering could presumably be banned nationally, the same way, by requiring compactness under Equal Protection (via § 5 again).
Equal Protection might be viable for banning the type of mail in balloting that we have seen recently, that is so egregiously fraud prone. But maybe better would be to just give the states money for their elections, under the Spending Power, with strings attached.
We shall see.
the mail vote was determined to be fatally flawed, per the Baker/Carter commission in 2005, but the powers that be didn't care, that why special circumstances in 2020, from Colonel Tony's special sauce, of course Dominion had been widely stigmatizes as recently as Frontline in October 2020!
but Helderman did his best impression of a basenghi for the next few years, never explain, and 'it worked didn't it' in the immortal words of Clean Face Harry Reid,
rhhardin said...
"No that isn’t right. What you described above was a non-deterministic bug in the code. "
It's perfectly deterministic and in fact is found in the C compiler. What makes you think that \p is any less deterministic than 077?
In each case what happens is what the compiler makes of it, and what the compiler does can be concealed by the compiler, in the same what that \p conceals 077. The action is in the history of the compiler, not in the current source.
If you write the code and you compile the code you get a binary file.
In order to put things in that binary file you have to use code to do it.
In an open source project you will not be able to sneak magic bugs into the binary. It all requires human commands. There is no gremlin god out there making random hidden binary commands.
What you are describing is a different problem. If I want to write an absolutely deterministic program that counts votes and make it so other people can take that code and compile it and be 100% confident in the results of the generated binary file that is easily possible.
What Thompson is describing has nothing to do with that. He is assuming a malicious coder inserting hidden binary code into the controller. You can do that at any level but it will not work in an open source environment because other people can take the code and compile the program and run checkbit functions which will catch the presence of inserted binary code.
although if memory serves the state party machinery was in the hands of Romney and other possums, in 2012, not the Tea Party, he smashed Gingrich's campaign, and then was a best impression of a canary in the General,
Noooo! I love voting at home. Voting in person was not so bad when there were a handful of things to vote on - sometimes there are dozens! I'd much rather take my time at home with so many things to vote on, and I'm more likely to take the time to think about the numerous votes for little-known positions.
Nobody's personal convenience should trump ballot security. How did we get to this place?
"What Thompson is describing has nothing to do with that. He is assuming a malicious coder inserting hidden binary code into the controller. You can do that at any level but it will not work in an open source environment because other people can take the code and compile the program and run checkbit functions which will catch the presence of inserted binary code. " Compiler not controller.
He inserted binary code by compiling it in, just like \p was compiled in as 077. Then he changed the compiler back and there was no trace of 077 in the source code. Only in the binary, and it remains in the binary because the compiler keeps getting recompiled with \p as the value, and \p compiles as 077 owing to the repeated legacy binary.
It's history that has to be secured, not the source code.
The same vulnerability is in assemblers and even microcode, if you're motivated enough. I've written a lot of microcode and it's not going to be obvious there.
To insert your malevolent bug into a voting machine's binary, you only have to get your software management system into the hands of the voting machine's software management system. Say, if you're Russian, as an anti-virus system, speaking historically.
because Bil Clinton signed the Motor Voter Law at the behest of Cloward and Piven, well known radicals, thats where it started, then the brouhaha in 2000, let them play more games,
" I'd much rather take my time at home with so many things to vote on, and I'm more likely to take the time to think about the numerous votes for little-known positions."
You can do exactly the same thing with a sample ballot and then take it to the polling station with you. Or you can support a system that invites fraud, and have your carefully considered positions cancelled by fake voters.
There is no way to know who filled out a mail in ballot. In 2020, my house got 2 ballots for one person, 2 ballots for people who hadn't lived there for years, and 2 ballots for people long dead, all in addition to the ones for the actual living residents. I could have filled them all out and voted half a dozen times, and I'm pretty sure they all would have counted. I am not able to do such a thing, but I know plenty of people who would love to do so, even with no monetary incentive. Imagine how many such ballots were mailed out and returned by people desperate for politics.
@Achilles @Rhhardin
Come on, boys, we don't want any trouble in here, not in any language.
thats the point of the exercise, under special circumstances you can request a ballot, but if they are handed out like confetti often without id or signature verification thats not what democracy looks like
No mail in.
Extended days, including week end.
More polling places.
Idiocy.
Democrats are protesting police and standing up for criminals, and Trump is going to make the midterms about what?? A re-litigation of the 2020 election and Jan. 6.
MAIL VOTING IS NOT GOING AWAY. EVER. Period. Let it go.
This is Trump's white whale. He is not able to move on.
A Real Census a Real redistricting, leads to a Real vote, if any of these are not present, we don't have a legitimate election,
“MAIL VOTING IS NOT GOING AWAY. EVER. Period. Let it go.”
Indeed, true. If Trump wants to go down this road he is truly deluded. Americans will not stand for it.
“I could have filled them all out and voted half a dozen times, and I'm pretty sure they all would have counted.”
Not in Wisconsin you couldn’t have. The envelope that the ballot is in is signed and dated by the voter with their address on the envelope too. The envelope also has the name and address of the witness. At the polls if the same voter sent in more than one ballot it would be rejected and the voter would be guilty of voter fraud.
Americans will not stand for it.
You have a nasty habit of speaking for people without the slightest clue of what those people may or may not believe. You do the same thing when you put yourself on a perch and claim to speak for the Left.
In this case you claim to speak for Americans. Well, you don't. You only speak for yourself and those who agree with you. Surprisingly, there are many Americans who don't agree with you.
Case in point, there was a poll in a Seattle - SEATTLE! - media outlet asking people if we should do away with mail-in ballots for federal elections. Keep in mind, Washington state has been all-mail for decades.
The results of that poll? Fifty nine percent said to do away with it.
Now, that may or may not be an accurate representation of the mood of the electorate, but it does allow for an opinion that maybe - just maybe - people are willing to try another approach.
You claiming to speak for others simply reveals your ignorance and your arrogance.
Absentee and Early Voting
Did you know that any registered Wisconsin voter can Vote by Mail? An absentee ballot is not just for people out of town. It’s convenient and guarantees you’ll “turn out” to vote.
Trump is behind the times. The notion that making it easier to vote benefits Democrats is out-of-date. The latest data showed that if every eligible voter had voted in the last election, Trump’s margin of victory in the popular vote would have increased. So the GOP should be supporting voting mechanisms, like by-mail voting, that make it easier to vote.
Google AI…
“It appears there's mixed support for absentee ballots among Americans, particularly depending on political affiliation.
Here's a summary of the nuances:
Overall Support for No-Excuse Absentee Voting:
A recent Pew Research Center survey shows that about 60% of Americans believe voters should have the option to vote early or absentee without requiring a documented reason.
Another report based on a Pew Research Center survey indicates 65% of voters favor access to no-excuse absentee voting.
Data from the U.S. Vote Foundation's 2020 post-election survey shows a high satisfaction rate (95%) among domestic voters with their absentee voting experience.
Partisan Divide:
Democrats show strong support, with 82% saying early or absentee voting should be available without needing an excuse.
Republicans are more divided, with 62% believing these methods should only be allowed with a documented reason.”
they still stole four senate seats and a host of house seats in California, as if you didn't know,
To insert your malevolent bug into a voting machine's binary, you only have to get your software management system into the hands of the voting machine's software management system. Say, if you're Russian, as an anti-virus system, speaking historically
I understand what you’re saying, but if someone gains physical access to the hardware with ill intentions, they wouldn’t even have to go to all that difficulty. They could just do memory level manipulation if they got access to the mempool.
The level of threat you’re talking about is no different than someone grabbing a stack of ballots and replacing it with a box of pre-filled out ballots.
I would expect dishonest pieces of shit to conflate absentee voting with mass mail and voting. That goes without saying.
Mail in voting is another 8020 issue. I look forward to Democrats arguing that we need mass mail and voting. It is just like their support for criminals, illegal immigrants, never-ending wars, and open borders. They will just make it clear that they are the party of voter fraud..
“I would expect dishonest pieces of shit to conflate absentee voting with mass mail and voting. That goes without saying.”
In Wisconsin mail in voting is also called absentee voting.
“AI Overview
In Wisconsin, "absentee voting" and "mail-in voting" are essentially the same thing.
Here's why
Absentee voting encompasses mail-in voting: In Wisconsin, absentee voting allows you to cast your ballot without going to your designated polling place on Election Day.
Mail-in ballots are a form of absentee voting: When you request an absentee ballot in Wisconsin, it is mailed to you, and you then return it by mail or by dropping it off.
"No-excuse" absentee voting in Wisconsin: Any registered Wisconsin voter can request an absentee ballot without needing a specific reason or excuse.
However, note these distinctions
In-person absentee voting (early voting): This is another type of absentee voting where you can vote early at your local clerk's office or other designated location before Election Day.”
“In Wisconsin, when you request to vote by mail, you are essentially requesting an absentee ballot.”
Google AI…
“Currently, eight states and Washington, D.C. conduct elections entirely by mail, meaning registered voters automatically receive a ballot without having to request one:
These states are:
California
Colorado
Hawaii
Nevada
Oregon
Utah
Vermont
Washington state”
Only 8 states
All states have some sort of mail-in voting.
@john mosby
That is literally true. But in the specific instance of federal elections - for the POTUS, VP, and the House - the Several States are administrating a federal process on behalf of the collective people of the US. The Reconstruction Amendments already give Congress broad powers to make sure the Several States carry out these responsibilities properly. So as shorthand, I think you can say the states are agents of fedgov, in this specific narrow area.
In this framework, the people are the ultimate principals. They delegate administrative authority to the states to run elections, and they also delegate rule-setting and override authority to Congress for federal elections. So both the states and the federal government are acting as agents of the people — not agents of each other.
I’m not trying to be pedantic — this is just an area I care a great deal about. The key point is that the power ultimately belongs to the states and the people. Under our constitutional structure, the federal government exercises authority only by delegation, but delegation doesn’t transfer ownership — it merely authorizes an agent to act on behalf of the principal. That’s why, even when Congress invokes a “remedial override,” the principal remains the states (and the people). The federal government is still the agent, not the owner of the power — and delegated authority can always be limited, altered, or revoked by those who delegated it.
This is also why I think the concept of “inherent sovereignty” at the federal level is fundamentally flawed — it invites officials to access powers not delegated under the Constitution.
Also, the Reconstruction Amendments show what real incorporation looks like. Recognition of rights added by the people, with specific enforcement power delegated to Congress to act only when states violate those rights.
The biggest problem with mail in ballots is that 1) Democrats refuse to prosecute voter fraud unless they can plausibly blame a Republican and 2) It all hinges on the voter signature. How easily is that forged? How easy is it for the Democrat "volunteer ballot counter" to just ignore discrepencies? "Whoops, sorry I was going too fast and just missed 5000 identical signatures from this highly Democrat area!"
Actually, the biggest problem with mail in ballots is there is no way to assure that the person who the ballot was sent to is the same one who marked it.
"The level of threat you’re talking about is no different than someone grabbing a stack of ballots and replacing it with a box of pre-filled out ballots."
Right, but it wins the election just by using voting machines, and it's undetectable. No ballot stuffing.
Oh hell no:
‘Remember, the States are merely an “agent” for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.’
Signature verification IS A JOKE.
Photo ID and Voter ID MUST be required again.
Everything under the sun requires a valid photo ID:
Car Rental
Hotel Stay
Airport admission/ Airlines
Venue Admissions
Drugs or alcohol
The public library
more...
But Dems do not want photo ID for voting. they declare it "racist" - and idiots buy it.
Again- signature verification is open to fraud.
The collective liar left LOVE any form of voting that can be easily tinkered with.
Singed envelopes - what total a-hole came up with that?
don't you singe your envelopes before you mail them, sarc
I asked perplexity if there are there any laws regarding mishandling ballots after an election. Excerpted from the anewer:
"In summary, mishandling ballots after an election is taken seriously and is regulated by a combination of federal and state laws designed to protect election integrity, with criminal penalties available for violations."
Question: When is the last time you heard of anybody going to jail over a box of ballots found in a trunk of a car a week after the election?
Mason G said...
Actually, the biggest problem with mail in ballots is there is no way to assure that the person who the ballot was sent to is the same one who marked it.
The term "Chain of Custody" is anathema to democrats.
Narciso and Peachy, ref singed envelopes:
Remember during the Anthrax scare, when big institutions zapped their mail to kill the spores? That left you with singed mail....
There probably were people who did that during Covid, too.
RR
JSM
Keldonric, we are probably both straining gnats at this point. I agree with everything you said, but I do have a different emphasis. The people are the true sovereign, but we decided, in the document that starts "We The People" (not "We the States"), that we would create two sovereign levels that interact often mysteriously. Kind of a dual-natures doctrine or a Binarity.
And it's not just words on a page, because we fought a Civil War to keep it together and we fought, literally and figuratively, internally and externally, since then to maintain it. Deputy US Marshals escorting black kids into schools are not abstractions. Neither are US servicemen fighting overseas. And one big part of the mysterious interaction is what should be a beautiful, blessed sacrament: the state governments conducting elections for federal offices.
Maybe an Eastern religious metaphor captures what I am trying to say: in that case of federal elections, the American People's federal avatar gives orders (or at least enforces rules) to that same American People's several state avatars. Many candles, one light. I don't think that denigrates the People, the US, or the several states. It's just what happens. And if people, even boors like Trump, don't emphasize that's what happens, we run the risk of the Constitution becoming meaningless.
I bet you agree with most of what I just said.
RR
JSM
Inga @ 2:36 PM, you ignorant slut: he wouldn't have signed his own name on all those ballots, he would have signed the names of the addressees -- y'know, the ones clearly printed right on the outside of the envelopes.
Combine that with lax or absent signature comparison...
"Inga @ 2:36 PM, you ignorant slut: he wouldn't have signed his own name on all those ballots, he would have signed the names of the addressees -- y'know, the ones clearly printed right on the outside of the envelopes."
Hard to believe anyone could be so clueless, isn't it?
""Inga @ 2:36 PM, you ignorant slut: he wouldn't have signed his own name on all those ballots, "
Too funny!
signed. obviously .
I could have voted over and over in at least 20 elections in San Francisco, as a non-citizen, either in person or by mail. I didn't, not even for the chance to cancel my wife's vote.
Mail-in balloting isn’t going anywhere in most states. Plenty of Republicans use them and have for a long time. Elderly people especially like them. 30% of votes in the last election were mail in ballots. Florida and Arizona are two red states that have more mail in ballots from Republicans than Democrats. In the last election [nationwide] 41% were Democrats, 38% were Republicans and 21% were Other. Many in the west including Oregon [every voter is mailed a ballot since 1998], Washington, Colorado, Utah, Arizona. Has there been major fraud in these states? Not that I have heard. Over 40 counties use mail-in ballots including many in Europe. The idea that voter fraud cannot be done using old fashioned ballots is false. Election rigging and stuffing ballot boxes or disappearing votes has happened in the past. [Look up LBJ Box 13 scandal]. What mail in balloting does do is allow more people the right to vote. Personally I vote in person but I like that millions have the right to vote by mail - regardless of who they vote for.
Meant 40 countries not counties.
Either this fella really is that stupid to say ,without evidence, mail in voting is only done in US and is fraudulent, then to cover himself(he knows his MAGAS will just pick up the main statement) he says I may be wrong NO CRAP your wrong. He just spouts thing out, knows his MAGAS will eat it u and believe him and go see I told ya.
In his Truth Social post, Trump wrote that “the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes” and must do what the president tells them.
That statement is “wrong and dangerous.”
The Constitution does not give the President any control over federal elections.
The Constitution’s Article 1, Section 4 says that the regulation of elections is the power of the states.
The President plays literally no role in elections, and that’s by design of the founders.
Despite often criticizing voting by mail, Trump himself occasionally cast a mail ballot, and in 2024 Trump invited Republicans to cast mail ballots.
Most states require voter ID, although the rules vary.
Trump said, “We are now the only Country in the World that uses Mail-In Voting.”
Then Trump didn’t explain his evidence and hours later softened his language when he said he “may be wrong.”
Its the old courtroom trick where you say what you know(in his case maybe not so he is so clueless) knowing it will be stricken from the roles but its already been said and the gullible(MAGAS) eat it up.. TOM FOOLERY 101 I believe the number is in the 30's or so of other mail in voting countries or places. Did you ever hear the term , do your freakin homework..
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