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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_North_Carolina%27s_9th_congressional_district_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_North_Carolina%27s_9th_co...

ipnon 6y ago
This is a great example of how voting by mail needs to be made even more secure so that all voters trust that elections are valid.
- Covzire 6y ago
  Indeed. Here's the formula: 1) Quickly gloss over any real examples of voter fraud. 2) Don't acknowledge prominent Democrat concerns with them only a couple years ago. 3) Don't give any time to real and recent examples. 4) Do throw around the words of people who worry about mail in ballots, carefully pointing out they're all Pro Trump, Anti Muslim activist, some other view point CNN/NYT tells you that you hate. 5) Don't acknowledge any of the ways mail in ballots are objectively weaker and easier to compromise. Articles like this are themselves misinformation and propaganda.
  - ipnon 6y ago
    1) In North Carolina's 9th 2018 congressional district election, the campaign manager for the Republican candidate manipulated absentee ballots 2) I'm not arguing whether feigning concern is a political tactic, I'm arguing that vote by mail fraud a. exists, b. is so insignificant that it doesn't affect election outcomes, c. still needs to be combated because elections should be seen as irrefutably valid by all voters 3) You can read the facts about the example here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_North_Carolina%27s_9th_congressional_district_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_North_Carolina%27s_9th_co... 4) Most voter misinformation on Facebook is perpetuated by Trump supporters according to the article. 5) I think all voters should be able to agree that elections, including voting by mail, should be as secure as possible. It seems that as of today, voting by mail is secure enough to warrant its use in general, and more specifically in our current situation where voting at in-person polling locations risks spreading Covid needlessly and would have a chilling effect on voters who fear they would contract Covid and die by visiting an in-person voting location. In fact, I would go so far to claim that the chilling effect from requiring all voting to take place in person during the Covid pandemic would distort the outcome of the election by magnitudes greater than what we would expect from even 10 or 100 times more vote by mail fraud than we have today. Forcing voters to risk their lives to cast their ballot disenfranchises them and is as reprehensible as their ballot being manipulated against their will.
    - Covzire 6y ago
      I don't disagree with that, it's just so many articles are pulling the "without evidence" card, despite much evidence to support weaknesses with mail-in-ballots. Mail in ballots were a real concern among Democrats in past elections also, but somehow today's journalists would have believe that the only people who could possibly care about the issue are all somehow racist or some other bad thing by telling us a bunch of evil people are supposedly fighting against this. It's so blatant in this article it's amazing anyone can avoid the feeling they're being manipulated.
  - jcranmer 6y ago
    The NC election is the closest example we have in recent years to an election where fraud (would have) overturned the legitimate results of the election. I say closest because it's not at all clear that the results were enough to overturned what would have been the legitimate result: the stated margin of victory is about 900 votes, and about that many ballots are thought to have been affected. I will freely admit that mail-in votes are far more likely--about 10×--to be involved in fraud than in-person voting. However, I will also point out that both cases of fraud are quite rare, and far less of an issue in practice than problems such as voter intimidation, voter access, and ballot design, which are known to have afflicted even the largest races in the country (the 2000 presidential election being perhaps the most famous race to have its results altered as a result of poor ballot design).
- creddit 6y ago
  But not an example of why voting by mail isn’t secure and could lead us to doubt elections? My reading of the situation as it happened is that voting by mail wasn’t secure and led to a situation in which an election wasn’t valid. Do you read it differently?

ipnon 6y ago

This is a great example of how voting by mail needs to be made even more secure so that all voters trust that elections are valid.

Covzire 6y ago
Indeed. Here's the formula: 1) Quickly gloss over any real examples of voter fraud. 2) Don't acknowledge prominent Democrat concerns with them only a couple years ago. 3) Don't give any time to real and recent examples. 4) Do throw around the words of people who worry about mail in ballots, carefully pointing out they're all Pro Trump, Anti Muslim activist, some other view point CNN/NYT tells you that you hate. 5) Don't acknowledge any of the ways mail in ballots are objectively weaker and easier to compromise. Articles like this are themselves misinformation and propaganda.
- ipnon 6y ago
  1) In North Carolina's 9th 2018 congressional district election, the campaign manager for the Republican candidate manipulated absentee ballots 2) I'm not arguing whether feigning concern is a political tactic, I'm arguing that vote by mail fraud a. exists, b. is so insignificant that it doesn't affect election outcomes, c. still needs to be combated because elections should be seen as irrefutably valid by all voters 3) You can read the facts about the example here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_North_Carolina%27s_9th_congressional_district_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_North_Carolina%27s_9th_co... 4) Most voter misinformation on Facebook is perpetuated by Trump supporters according to the article. 5) I think all voters should be able to agree that elections, including voting by mail, should be as secure as possible. It seems that as of today, voting by mail is secure enough to warrant its use in general, and more specifically in our current situation where voting at in-person polling locations risks spreading Covid needlessly and would have a chilling effect on voters who fear they would contract Covid and die by visiting an in-person voting location. In fact, I would go so far to claim that the chilling effect from requiring all voting to take place in person during the Covid pandemic would distort the outcome of the election by magnitudes greater than what we would expect from even 10 or 100 times more vote by mail fraud than we have today. Forcing voters to risk their lives to cast their ballot disenfranchises them and is as reprehensible as their ballot being manipulated against their will.
  - Covzire 6y ago
    I don't disagree with that, it's just so many articles are pulling the "without evidence" card, despite much evidence to support weaknesses with mail-in-ballots. Mail in ballots were a real concern among Democrats in past elections also, but somehow today's journalists would have believe that the only people who could possibly care about the issue are all somehow racist or some other bad thing by telling us a bunch of evil people are supposedly fighting against this. It's so blatant in this article it's amazing anyone can avoid the feeling they're being manipulated.
- jcranmer 6y ago
  The NC election is the closest example we have in recent years to an election where fraud (would have) overturned the legitimate results of the election. I say closest because it's not at all clear that the results were enough to overturned what would have been the legitimate result: the stated margin of victory is about 900 votes, and about that many ballots are thought to have been affected. I will freely admit that mail-in votes are far more likely--about 10×--to be involved in fraud than in-person voting. However, I will also point out that both cases of fraud are quite rare, and far less of an issue in practice than problems such as voter intimidation, voter access, and ballot design, which are known to have afflicted even the largest races in the country (the 2000 presidential election being perhaps the most famous race to have its results altered as a result of poor ballot design).
creddit 6y ago
But not an example of why voting by mail isn’t secure and could lead us to doubt elections? My reading of the situation as it happened is that voting by mail wasn’t secure and led to a situation in which an election wasn’t valid. Do you read it differently?