13 ms·
Postal Service Warns Mail-In Ballots in 46 States May Not Be Delivered in Time
- solarkraft 6y agoAh, damn. Nobody could have seen this coming.
- kanobo 6y agoI know there are studies that suggest elections tend to favor Republicans when voting becomes more restrictive but my intuition is that in this unique case this is just as devastating to Republicans as Democrats since older folks are not going to stand in line during a pandemic. I see this as a completely idiotic move by the executive branch. Or am I misunderstanding something obvious?
- IvyMike 6y agoMay the goal isn't so much to win as to undermine the very legitimacy of the election.
- iron0013 6y agoIf the intentional mail slowdowns were evenly distributed that would be true, but if some areas (eg cities in battleground states) are targeted for heavier service disruptions, then the postal sabotage will have the desired effect of decreasing Democratic votes while leaving Republican votes less affected.
- mindslight 6y agoThe older folks that accept the existence of the pandemic wouldn't be voting for Trump anyway. It's a doubling down on the same con.
- fallingfrog 6y agoOld liberals might not want to go out during a pandemic, but old conservatives are convinced that it’s all pretend and even if they thought it was real they’d still go out and expose themselves to corona in order to win.
- odomojuli 6y agoAm I reading this right? They're talking about potentially disenfranchising almost half the population of the US?
- fallingfrog 6y agoYes that is correct. They won’t feel bad about it either.
- RileyJames 6y agoFrom the outside (non-American) I struggle to understand how Trump doesn’t get blamed for this issue he’s making such a fuss about. Trump is President. He appointed the Postmaster General. He, and his appointee are responsible for the post office. He could have spent the past 4 years fixing this problem, building the best postal voting system in the world. He could have spent the past few months (since he brought up the issue) fixing what he saw as the issues. Getting mail delivery up to scratch. Funding the post office effectively, hiring more staff, fixing the ‘arrived too late deadlines’, what ever it takes, in the name of ‘make America great’. But he’s done the opposite at every opportunity, and continued his temper tantrum about the problem. Who is this guy?!? If you’re not up to the task of doing the job, “you’re fired” (it’s his bloody catch line). There is no one else to blame. You are the top dog, you have all the power and control you could ever want or need. I can see how other issues get bogged down in politics and personal opinions. But this one? If the election is a shambles, it happened on YOUR watch. Under YOUR post master general. Running YOUR post office. I’d be interested to hear how and why this is seen differently, and what opinions are on the ground in the states.
- fallingfrog 6y agoI can only speak for myself but it’s all adding up to America becoming a failed state, it feels like something big is coming soon. The younger generation is inheriting an unrecognizable country and at some point there will be massive unrest.
- fallingfrog 6y agoI have some conservative relatives and they appear to believe that every government agency should be defunded because only private corporations can create anything of value and that any problems are being caused by some cabal of communists/liberals who are secretly trying to undermine the police, the troops, and the flag, because they don’t have faith in god that America is the greatest country in the world. They have absolute contempt for poor people, immigrants, anyone who isn’t old and white, and see them as a mob of lowlifes and criminals who must be disciplined and controlled for their own good.
- mindslight 6y ago
- spo81rty 6y agoI'm still trying to figure out why we don't vote via smart phones. Surely there had to be some country in the world doing this? Vote, take a selfie, photo of an ID and submit or something. Can't be that difficult.
- munsters 6y agoPosts like these really belong on reddit and not HN.
- gumby 6y agoCould you expand? If it’s “will lead to flames and reddit is happy with that, HN, not so much”, sure. If there’s another possibility I’d like to learn it. These days I think my flame barrier drops down before I can think of other things :-(
- munsters 6y agoFrom the HackerNews Guidelines: What not to post: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." and a little further down: "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That destroys the curiosity this site exists for."
- perl4ever 6y agoWhat if people could downvote articles, but it would have no visible effect, only advising moderators? Or, just track how many downvotes and flagged comments are in a thread and kill anything (the whole thread) that gets even minimal controversy? If everything that is basically redundant with Reddit or other aggregators was deleted, I think it would be like 60+% at this point, but why not go ahead and try it? Enforcing "high quality" discussion on low quality topics is manifestly a complete failure.