4 ms·

> Mail in votes will almost certainly heavily skew blue. Is there a good explanation for that assertion? I've seen it being said in many places but never any r

> Mail in votes will almost certainly heavily skew blue. Is there a good explanation for that assertion? I've seen it being said in many places but never any reason for it. Why would mail in votes skew in a particular direction?

astura 6y ago
It's in the article I shared in the GP >Starting early this year, the coronavirus pandemic prompted millions of voters across the country to request mail-in ballots in order to avoid exposure to the virus at the polls. And while the party breakdown for mail-in ballots started off fairly even, it split off after Trump launched a monthslong crusade to discredit mail-in voting. >As Election Day neared, some states, like Florida and North Carolina, tallied up the mail-in ballots they received ahead of time, and then released that total soon after the polls closed on Election Day, and before they finished counting up the in-person votes... they tended to show early leads for Biden which disappeared once all the in-person votes (which tended to favor Trump) were counted. This was dubbed the blue mirage. Also https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/10/09/voter-engagement-and-interest-voting-by-mail-and-in-person/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/10/09/voter-engage... >Trump supporters are more than twice as likely as Biden supporters to say they plan to vote in person on Election Day (50% vs. 20%). By contrast, 51% of Biden supporters say they plan to vote by mail or absentee (or have already voted this way). A quarter of Trump supporters (25%) say they plan to vote by mail or absentee.
zo1 6y ago
The going conspiracy reason is that it's because the "Left" is using mail-in ballots to commit election fraud. To be fair, I still don't understand how we can have such manual, potentially-manipulated and mistrusted voting systems in 2020. Like, how difficult would it be for everyone to vote in a secure, cryptographically hidden and verified manner, using some sort booth/app/device/website with proper identity verification linked to your government identification databases? It's beyond scary and infuriating that with all this technology and really smart people around that we still have to have papers, mails and random fallible/corruptible volunteers doing the counting.
- nojvek 6y ago
  Anything that’s only electronic is ripe for fraud. Securing digital things is really hard. For something as important as elections we absolutely need a paper trail. Physical things that both parties can verify exist and are simple to understand. In an ideal world, we’d have a hybrid system. Everyone gets a paper with an ID cryptographically hashed with their voter id. They vote electronically and mail/in person hand their paper with a cast ID that’s also cryptographically signed with their voter id and vote cast. Like how two factor TOTP works, the verification of cast ID can be done totally offline. That way you have a two factor audit system. A fast digital tally backed with a verifiable paper trail for every vote. If paper tally is not within 1% of digital tally, then you have a discrepancy and people ought to vote again. Sure it would take a while to verify paper trail but a couple of days of two factor counting is totally worth it for an important thing as election that decides the fate of a country.
  - noworriesnate 6y ago
    Exactly. And even cryptography can't keep files from being deleted. When someone deletes files, it's not immediately obvious what they're doing, even to software developers. When someone throws a bunch of ballots in a trash can, it's immediately obvious what they're doing to anyone.
- germinalphrase 6y ago
  We absolutely could have trustable, reliable, verifiable voting systems. It is done all around the country. That it is not universal is because - I imagine - the parties want the gamesmanship.
La1n 6y ago
>Is there a good explanation for that assertion? I think part of the explanation is that Republicans tend to feel less threatened by covid-19 and thus more willing to vote in person.

astura 6y ago

It's in the article I shared in the GP >Starting early this year, the coronavirus pandemic prompted millions of voters across the country to request mail-in ballots in order to avoid exposure to the virus at the polls. And while the party breakdown for mail-in ballots started off fairly even, it split off after Trump launched a monthslong crusade to discredit mail-in voting. >As Election Day neared, some states, like Florida and North Carolina, tallied up the mail-in ballots they received ahead of time, and then released that total soon after the polls closed on Election Day, and before they finished counting up the in-person votes... they tended to show early leads for Biden which disappeared once all the in-person votes (which tended to favor Trump) were counted. This was dubbed the blue mirage. Also https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/10/09/voter-engagement-and-interest-voting-by-mail-and-in-person/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/10/09/voter-engage... >Trump supporters are more than twice as likely as Biden supporters to say they plan to vote in person on Election Day (50% vs. 20%). By contrast, 51% of Biden supporters say they plan to vote by mail or absentee (or have already voted this way). A quarter of Trump supporters (25%) say they plan to vote by mail or absentee.

zo1 6y ago

The going conspiracy reason is that it's because the "Left" is using mail-in ballots to commit election fraud. To be fair, I still don't understand how we can have such manual, potentially-manipulated and mistrusted voting systems in 2020. Like, how difficult would it be for everyone to vote in a secure, cryptographically hidden and verified manner, using some sort booth/app/device/website with proper identity verification linked to your government identification databases? It's beyond scary and infuriating that with all this technology and really smart people around that we still have to have papers, mails and random fallible/corruptible volunteers doing the counting.

nojvek 6y ago
Anything that’s only electronic is ripe for fraud. Securing digital things is really hard. For something as important as elections we absolutely need a paper trail. Physical things that both parties can verify exist and are simple to understand. In an ideal world, we’d have a hybrid system. Everyone gets a paper with an ID cryptographically hashed with their voter id. They vote electronically and mail/in person hand their paper with a cast ID that’s also cryptographically signed with their voter id and vote cast. Like how two factor TOTP works, the verification of cast ID can be done totally offline. That way you have a two factor audit system. A fast digital tally backed with a verifiable paper trail for every vote. If paper tally is not within 1% of digital tally, then you have a discrepancy and people ought to vote again. Sure it would take a while to verify paper trail but a couple of days of two factor counting is totally worth it for an important thing as election that decides the fate of a country.
- noworriesnate 6y ago
  Exactly. And even cryptography can't keep files from being deleted. When someone deletes files, it's not immediately obvious what they're doing, even to software developers. When someone throws a bunch of ballots in a trash can, it's immediately obvious what they're doing to anyone.
germinalphrase 6y ago
We absolutely could have trustable, reliable, verifiable voting systems. It is done all around the country. That it is not universal is because - I imagine - the parties want the gamesmanship.

La1n 6y ago

>Is there a good explanation for that assertion? I think part of the explanation is that Republicans tend to feel less threatened by covid-19 and thus more willing to vote in person.