4 ms·

By that logic we have to get rid of mail-in voting as well because there could always be a sledgehammer guy standing next to someone in their own home.

zamadatix 9mo ago
Some do think so, but there is also a material difference in needing to be intimidated at the time of the vote being cast vs any point in the future as well.
- godelski 9mo ago
  I think the bigger concern is that mail in ballots lead to fake ballots being submitted. Though I've seen no convincing evidence of this happening at any meaningful scale and the arguments seem unconvincing since you don't get a ballot unless verified with a state ID and your ballot has a unique ID associated with your name, preventing a double spend. Personally, my concern is that with mail in ballots some nutjob that believes there's ballot stuffing can set fire to the ballotbox and even though they're caught it's a major inconvenience to get a replacement ballot and the websites that show your ballot is received take days to update. But I still love mail in voting. My state sends a candidate brochure with it and I can take my time to actually look up all those random candidates' policies. It takes me hours to actually fill out my ballot but that's a feature, not a bug (there's nothing preventing you from along party lines but frankly I'd be happier without parties)
  - usefulcat 9mo ago
    > I can take my time to actually look up all those random candidates' policies But you can already do that, regardless of mail in voting or not?
    - godelski 8mo ago
      In the booth I've never had a voter guide and you're definitely discouraged from pulling out your phone. Not to mention the peer pressure. What asshole is going to stand in the booth for hours voting? I got to get to work! Sure, you can do all this at home but there's a clear convenience when having both in hand
  - somenameforme 9mo ago
    In 2020 a number of states were sending out mail-in ballots to every single registered voter, even if they didn't request it. Those states were CA, CO, DC, HI, NJ, NV, OR, UT, VT, and WA. [1] [1] - https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-during-covid-19 https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voti...
    - habinero 8mo ago
      And that's completely fine, because each mail-in ballot is associated with one voter, and the system is designed to make fraud very obvious and difficult to scale. If thousands of people were told "you already voted" when they showed up, then that would be very very obvious. They also really do look at signatures and contact voters to cure ballots if they're unsure.
      - godelski 8mo ago
        Not to mention that you can catch double voting across state lines. It's not common that people do this but it does happen and people are really looking for it. Hell, the fact that so many people have been looking for massive voter fraud for about a decade now and haven't is pretty telling. People aren't good at keeping secrets and if it's being done at scale it would be uncovered or leaked. Accidents and stupid people happen, but that works both ways
      - somenameforme 8mo ago
        Mail-in ballots tend to be counted (and received) after in person ballots, so you don't need to worry about in-person conflict. If we go the other direction (mail-in ballot rejected because the person had already voted), it was indeed in the tens of thousands. In 2024 about 584k ballots were rejected. [1] 11% of those, more than 64k, were because the person had already voted. [1] - https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2024:_Analysis_of_rejected_ballots https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2024:_Analysis_of_...
    - direwolf20 8mo ago
      What's wrong with that?
- Detrytus 9mo ago
  For me the problem with mail-in votes is that they are (in many jurisdictions) allowed to come in long after the in-person voting is closed, and the preliminary results are annouced. So it creates the space for manipulations, where you count the in-person votes first, and, if the score is close, then a week after the election day half a million of mail-in votes mysteriously comes in and swings the vote one way or another.
  - ab5tract 9mo ago
    The postmark must be on or before voting day. I cannot fathom how people have bought into this idea that they can be sent after the preliminary voting has happened.
somenameforme 9mo ago
In reality sledgehammer guy is never the threat, it's somebody fabricating votes. This can be done in a completely illegal fashion as in complete identity fraud, legally grey areas like ballot harvesting, or more socially palatable forms of identity fraud like somebody voting on behalf of family members who would not otherwise be voting. And the biggest problem of this all is that it's basically impossible to prove because there's no meaningful identifier at any given point in the process. The only real evidence you'd have is a bad signature, yet in 2020 some states ceased comparing signatures and signature comparison was, in general, bizarrely under attack by certain interest groups.
- habinero 8mo ago
  This is 100%, completely absolutely untrue. Stop repeating this propaganda. The system is actually really well designed and safe, I was a poll observer. You cannot "fabricate" votes, because all mail-in ballots are associated with a voter. Or rather, you put your ballot in an envelope and the envelope is associated with you. When your ballot is received, you are marked as voted and other ballots are invalid. The envelope is stored as proof of who voted and the ballot is kept separately to be tallied. Ballot counting is done in public (you can go watch!) and there are a lot of safeguards and crosschecks. It's intended to make any fraud very obvious and incredibly difficult to scale.
  - yonaguska 8mo ago
    Claims of voter fraud have shifted to mass voter registration occuring for people that are not eligible to vote, then ballots being sent out without being requested. How is this concern addressed?
    - habinero 8mo ago
      Yeah, and those claims are made up to scare people who don't know how it works. The government knows who is a citizen and who isn't lol, they literally have the records. Voter rolls are very closely scrutinized. Dead people are, in fact, taken off the rolls. There is essentially ~no voter fraud and ~no instance of non-citizens voting in this country. Yes, it's audited and studied. Yes, they keep the data and you can audit it. You're literally complaining about it being easier for people to participate in democracy, and you should stop. Everything's a conspiracy when you don't know how anything works.
endgame 9mo ago
Yes. Here's a 2014 BBC article about that: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-26487418 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-26487418 The article quotes one Mr Richard Mawrey QC: > "Postal voting on demand, however many safeguards you build into it, is wide open to fraud… on a scale that will make election rigging a possibility and indeed in some areas a probability." > "Now I know that there is a very strong political desire to keep the present system. What I'm saying is that if you keep the present system, then however many safeguards you create, fraud and serious fraud is inevitably going to continue because that is built into the system."
dietr1ch 9mo ago
Yeah, and you should get rid of that
WWLink 9mo ago
By that logic we should require DNA testing because, you never know, someone might go to a polling place and lie about their name and have a fake ID too. You never can be too careful! Also, maybe someone inside will take their ballot from them. IMHO this voting thing is too risky. We should just go back to having a ruling family /s
matsemann 8mo ago
If you however can go to a polling place afterwards and cast a new vote, that solves that issue, right? And then your mail-in just doesn't count.

zamadatix 9mo ago

Some do think so, but there is also a material difference in needing to be intimidated at the time of the vote being cast vs any point in the future as well.

godelski 9mo ago
I think the bigger concern is that mail in ballots lead to fake ballots being submitted. Though I've seen no convincing evidence of this happening at any meaningful scale and the arguments seem unconvincing since you don't get a ballot unless verified with a state ID and your ballot has a unique ID associated with your name, preventing a double spend. Personally, my concern is that with mail in ballots some nutjob that believes there's ballot stuffing can set fire to the ballotbox and even though they're caught it's a major inconvenience to get a replacement ballot and the websites that show your ballot is received take days to update. But I still love mail in voting. My state sends a candidate brochure with it and I can take my time to actually look up all those random candidates' policies. It takes me hours to actually fill out my ballot but that's a feature, not a bug (there's nothing preventing you from along party lines but frankly I'd be happier without parties)
- usefulcat 9mo ago
  > I can take my time to actually look up all those random candidates' policies But you can already do that, regardless of mail in voting or not?
  - godelski 8mo ago
    In the booth I've never had a voter guide and you're definitely discouraged from pulling out your phone. Not to mention the peer pressure. What asshole is going to stand in the booth for hours voting? I got to get to work! Sure, you can do all this at home but there's a clear convenience when having both in hand
- somenameforme 9mo ago
  In 2020 a number of states were sending out mail-in ballots to every single registered voter, even if they didn't request it. Those states were CA, CO, DC, HI, NJ, NV, OR, UT, VT, and WA. [1] [1] - https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-during-covid-19 https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voti...
  - habinero 8mo ago
    And that's completely fine, because each mail-in ballot is associated with one voter, and the system is designed to make fraud very obvious and difficult to scale. If thousands of people were told "you already voted" when they showed up, then that would be very very obvious. They also really do look at signatures and contact voters to cure ballots if they're unsure.
    - godelski 8mo ago
      Not to mention that you can catch double voting across state lines. It's not common that people do this but it does happen and people are really looking for it. Hell, the fact that so many people have been looking for massive voter fraud for about a decade now and haven't is pretty telling. People aren't good at keeping secrets and if it's being done at scale it would be uncovered or leaked. Accidents and stupid people happen, but that works both ways
    - somenameforme 8mo ago
      Mail-in ballots tend to be counted (and received) after in person ballots, so you don't need to worry about in-person conflict. If we go the other direction (mail-in ballot rejected because the person had already voted), it was indeed in the tens of thousands. In 2024 about 584k ballots were rejected. [1] 11% of those, more than 64k, were because the person had already voted. [1] - https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2024:_Analysis_of_rejected_ballots https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2024:_Analysis_of_...
  - direwolf20 8mo ago
    What's wrong with that?
Detrytus 9mo ago
For me the problem with mail-in votes is that they are (in many jurisdictions) allowed to come in long after the in-person voting is closed, and the preliminary results are annouced. So it creates the space for manipulations, where you count the in-person votes first, and, if the score is close, then a week after the election day half a million of mail-in votes mysteriously comes in and swings the vote one way or another.
- ab5tract 9mo ago
  The postmark must be on or before voting day. I cannot fathom how people have bought into this idea that they can be sent after the preliminary voting has happened.

somenameforme 9mo ago

In reality sledgehammer guy is never the threat, it's somebody fabricating votes. This can be done in a completely illegal fashion as in complete identity fraud, legally grey areas like ballot harvesting, or more socially palatable forms of identity fraud like somebody voting on behalf of family members who would not otherwise be voting. And the biggest problem of this all is that it's basically impossible to prove because there's no meaningful identifier at any given point in the process. The only real evidence you'd have is a bad signature, yet in 2020 some states ceased comparing signatures and signature comparison was, in general, bizarrely under attack by certain interest groups.

habinero 8mo ago
This is 100%, completely absolutely untrue. Stop repeating this propaganda. The system is actually really well designed and safe, I was a poll observer. You cannot "fabricate" votes, because all mail-in ballots are associated with a voter. Or rather, you put your ballot in an envelope and the envelope is associated with you. When your ballot is received, you are marked as voted and other ballots are invalid. The envelope is stored as proof of who voted and the ballot is kept separately to be tallied. Ballot counting is done in public (you can go watch!) and there are a lot of safeguards and crosschecks. It's intended to make any fraud very obvious and incredibly difficult to scale.
- yonaguska 8mo ago
  Claims of voter fraud have shifted to mass voter registration occuring for people that are not eligible to vote, then ballots being sent out without being requested. How is this concern addressed?
  - habinero 8mo ago
    Yeah, and those claims are made up to scare people who don't know how it works. The government knows who is a citizen and who isn't lol, they literally have the records. Voter rolls are very closely scrutinized. Dead people are, in fact, taken off the rolls. There is essentially ~no voter fraud and ~no instance of non-citizens voting in this country. Yes, it's audited and studied. Yes, they keep the data and you can audit it. You're literally complaining about it being easier for people to participate in democracy, and you should stop. Everything's a conspiracy when you don't know how anything works.

endgame 9mo ago

Yes. Here's a 2014 BBC article about that: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-26487418 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-26487418 The article quotes one Mr Richard Mawrey QC: > "Postal voting on demand, however many safeguards you build into it, is wide open to fraud… on a scale that will make election rigging a possibility and indeed in some areas a probability." > "Now I know that there is a very strong political desire to keep the present system. What I'm saying is that if you keep the present system, then however many safeguards you create, fraud and serious fraud is inevitably going to continue because that is built into the system."

dietr1ch 9mo ago

Yeah, and you should get rid of that

WWLink 9mo ago

By that logic we should require DNA testing because, you never know, someone might go to a polling place and lie about their name and have a fake ID too. You never can be too careful! Also, maybe someone inside will take their ballot from them. IMHO this voting thing is too risky. We should just go back to having a ruling family /s

matsemann 8mo ago

If you however can go to a polling place afterwards and cast a new vote, that solves that issue, right? And then your mail-in just doesn't count.