6 ms·

Why Can't California Count?

17 points by 7777777phil 4mo ago

k310 4mo ago
While most of California's population is packed in cities near the coast, the "other California," as some say, is rural, lots of it, and both the densely populated and the sparsely populated areas have unique problems to solve. I have lived in both. IMO, the universal mail-in ballot is great in many ways, and please don't forget that the current regime of 2020 election deniers equates "voter fraud" with "We disagree with the results". Two paradigms apply to the cult: 1. Every accusation is a confession. 2. An entire group is defined by a designated outlier. (Think "Willie Horton") But technical issues of very late vote count are above my pay level to diagnose and fix, even to what extent any fixing is worthwhile. Think Pareto Principle. You want to fix the 20% of causes that lead to 80% of the problem. Both neglect and perfectionism are common enemies.
- thegrim33 4mo ago
  If a significant portion of the population doesn't trust an election system, it's not a functioning system. It makes absolutely no difference whether those doubters are 100% correct or 100% wrong in their beliefs. If there's a sizable portion that don't trust it, and instead of taking measures to secure the elections and prove to those people that they're secure, you just call them stupid cultists and keep the system the same, you do not have a functioning system.
  - malicka 4mo ago
    If the critics don’t respond to facts or data, what makes you think they will once you “secure” the election? Even those recounts after the 2020 election — which found no substantial fraud — did nothing to convince them. The media tells them there is fraud, despite the evidence, and they believe it. If the media lies to this entire part of the voter-base, what you do won’t convince anyone. Catering to propagandist’s lies is hardly productive or useful; you’ll just sink to greater and greater lows trying in vain to win them over, to the detriment of society.
    - k310 4mo ago
      Cult gonna believe what the leader and propaganda ministry say. Denial is top of the list of cult traits. Also, projection. These two are blatantly obvious, and the cult members don't see it because it's always THE OTHER GUY'S fault. Everything is. Fascist playbook reads the same almost verbatim. Cults are very closed systems, and "breaking out is hard to do".
    - crote 4mo ago
      > If the critics don’t respond to facts or data The problem is that the US election system is a fundamentally flawed system, and with pre-existing distrust those "facts and data" might as well be equivalent to a "trust me bro". My country had a similar voting trutherism cult. They sent goons to a whole bunch of polling stations to "prevent it from being stolen". They observed the whole process - as is everyone's right - and reported the counting results back live to the mothership. The outcome? Exactly the same numbers as the official count. They got to observe everything and saw nothing weird, and with the way the elections are set up there was zero possibility of missing any kind of fraud. All arguments were trivially countered by a "But your buddy was right there, why didn't he say anything?". The voting fraud cult died because there was no room left for lies. Properly-secured elections are fundamentally incapable of being stolen. They aren't secure because you can't find evidence of fraud, but because fraud is impossible.
      - UncleMeat 4mo ago
        The US has poll watchers too and that didn’t stop them from creating more conspiracy theories. MAGA says that the budget would be 100% balanced if illegal immigrants stopped getting government benefits. This is so obviously wrong based on information plainly available to everybody. There is nothing you can do to stop this.
        crote 4mo ago
        Just poll watchers isn't enough. You also have to get rid of the extremely sketchy mail-in voting process, get rid of impossible-to-verify electronic voting machines, and automatically register everyone to vote and make sure they have a voter id. Like I said: make the voting process so painfully simple that fraud is literally unimaginable. While you're at it: you should probably also get rid of the whole structure of first-past-the-post and winner-takes-all systems. The fact that it is even possible to get full power over a country with just 23% of the vote is just embarrassing.
- mrighele 4mo ago
  > You want to fix the 20% of causes that lead to 80% of the problem Vote in person. Vote with ID. You solve 99% of the problems. If it works in the rest of the civilized world it can work in California too. The excuses for not doing this seem terribly weak, and only fuel the ideas of conspiracy theorists. > and both the densely populated and the sparsely populated areas have unique problems to solve. What are the unique problems to solve ? And I mean unique compared to the rest of the world where those issue are actually a non-issue.
866-RON-0-FEZ 4mo ago
Whenever the obvious drawbacks of mail-in voting are brought to light, the massive cope machine comes out in full force. Many of the flaws are self-imposed. The requirement for ballots to merely be postmarked by election day is insane. If my credit card bill is due on June 5, it's due on the 5th, not postmarked by. I will pay penalties if it arrives past that date. If you have the privilege of voting by mail then be an adult and mail it promptly so it arrives by election day when all ballots should be counted. Ballots arriving after should be summarily rejected. California also allows same-day registration, another insane innovation ripe for irregularities. A compromise would be vote-from-home but dropoff-in-person (where ID is checked). I would argue most states allow ample time for early voting, sometimes weeks ahead of time, allowing just about anybody to fit it into their schedule to vote in person. The arguments for default vote by mail (barring some verified hardship) simply don't hold up enough to offset the potential negatives.
- asdff 4mo ago
  Why does it matter at all if the ballot arrives a few days late or you register day of or the week before? Seems like the only people who are hurt by this are people betting on polymarket.
  - 866-RON-0-FEZ 4mo ago
    Because if they find out your registration was fraudulent a day later, how are they supposed to dig your anonymous ballot out from the barrel? It's for the same reason most insurance policies have a waiting period. To prevent the most low-hanging fruit of fraud. I've actually seen this happen in big cities where they have same-day popup registration tents in the middle of skid row, signing up random homeless people who don't even have stable addresses. No verification, nothing, we'll worry about that later here take a ballot. I'm sure everything was on the up-and-up there.
    - something98 4mo ago
      Don’t spread lies. Several states also allow same day registration. And all of them set the ballot aside until the registration is verified. This means it isn’t even counted until verified. And, no, I’m not going to “trust me, I’ve seen it before. [I just have no evidence.”
quaddoggy 4mo ago
This is insane. I remember when I was a kid that (with rare exception) you would pretty much know the results the same night, maybe the next day. I can’t help but notice that one party has dominated this state for decades. And they wail on and on about voter ID, etc. Everything is worse than it used to be.

17 points by 7777777phil 4mo ago

k310 4mo ago

While most of California's population is packed in cities near the coast, the "other California," as some say, is rural, lots of it, and both the densely populated and the sparsely populated areas have unique problems to solve. I have lived in both. IMO, the universal mail-in ballot is great in many ways, and please don't forget that the current regime of 2020 election deniers equates "voter fraud" with "We disagree with the results". Two paradigms apply to the cult: 1. Every accusation is a confession. 2. An entire group is defined by a designated outlier. (Think "Willie Horton") But technical issues of very late vote count are above my pay level to diagnose and fix, even to what extent any fixing is worthwhile. Think Pareto Principle. You want to fix the 20% of causes that lead to 80% of the problem. Both neglect and perfectionism are common enemies.

thegrim33 4mo ago
If a significant portion of the population doesn't trust an election system, it's not a functioning system. It makes absolutely no difference whether those doubters are 100% correct or 100% wrong in their beliefs. If there's a sizable portion that don't trust it, and instead of taking measures to secure the elections and prove to those people that they're secure, you just call them stupid cultists and keep the system the same, you do not have a functioning system.
- malicka 4mo ago
  If the critics don’t respond to facts or data, what makes you think they will once you “secure” the election? Even those recounts after the 2020 election — which found no substantial fraud — did nothing to convince them. The media tells them there is fraud, despite the evidence, and they believe it. If the media lies to this entire part of the voter-base, what you do won’t convince anyone. Catering to propagandist’s lies is hardly productive or useful; you’ll just sink to greater and greater lows trying in vain to win them over, to the detriment of society.
  - k310 4mo ago
    Cult gonna believe what the leader and propaganda ministry say. Denial is top of the list of cult traits. Also, projection. These two are blatantly obvious, and the cult members don't see it because it's always THE OTHER GUY'S fault. Everything is. Fascist playbook reads the same almost verbatim. Cults are very closed systems, and "breaking out is hard to do".
  - crote 4mo ago
    > If the critics don’t respond to facts or data The problem is that the US election system is a fundamentally flawed system, and with pre-existing distrust those "facts and data" might as well be equivalent to a "trust me bro". My country had a similar voting trutherism cult. They sent goons to a whole bunch of polling stations to "prevent it from being stolen". They observed the whole process - as is everyone's right - and reported the counting results back live to the mothership. The outcome? Exactly the same numbers as the official count. They got to observe everything and saw nothing weird, and with the way the elections are set up there was zero possibility of missing any kind of fraud. All arguments were trivially countered by a "But your buddy was right there, why didn't he say anything?". The voting fraud cult died because there was no room left for lies. Properly-secured elections are fundamentally incapable of being stolen. They aren't secure because you can't find evidence of fraud, but because fraud is impossible.
    - UncleMeat 4mo ago
      The US has poll watchers too and that didn’t stop them from creating more conspiracy theories. MAGA says that the budget would be 100% balanced if illegal immigrants stopped getting government benefits. This is so obviously wrong based on information plainly available to everybody. There is nothing you can do to stop this.
      - crote 4mo ago
        Just poll watchers isn't enough. You also have to get rid of the extremely sketchy mail-in voting process, get rid of impossible-to-verify electronic voting machines, and automatically register everyone to vote and make sure they have a voter id. Like I said: make the voting process so painfully simple that fraud is literally unimaginable. While you're at it: you should probably also get rid of the whole structure of first-past-the-post and winner-takes-all systems. The fact that it is even possible to get full power over a country with just 23% of the vote is just embarrassing.
mrighele 4mo ago
> You want to fix the 20% of causes that lead to 80% of the problem Vote in person. Vote with ID. You solve 99% of the problems. If it works in the rest of the civilized world it can work in California too. The excuses for not doing this seem terribly weak, and only fuel the ideas of conspiracy theorists. > and both the densely populated and the sparsely populated areas have unique problems to solve. What are the unique problems to solve ? And I mean unique compared to the rest of the world where those issue are actually a non-issue.

866-RON-0-FEZ 4mo ago

Whenever the obvious drawbacks of mail-in voting are brought to light, the massive cope machine comes out in full force. Many of the flaws are self-imposed. The requirement for ballots to merely be postmarked by election day is insane. If my credit card bill is due on June 5, it's due on the 5th, not postmarked by. I will pay penalties if it arrives past that date. If you have the privilege of voting by mail then be an adult and mail it promptly so it arrives by election day when all ballots should be counted. Ballots arriving after should be summarily rejected. California also allows same-day registration, another insane innovation ripe for irregularities. A compromise would be vote-from-home but dropoff-in-person (where ID is checked). I would argue most states allow ample time for early voting, sometimes weeks ahead of time, allowing just about anybody to fit it into their schedule to vote in person. The arguments for default vote by mail (barring some verified hardship) simply don't hold up enough to offset the potential negatives.

asdff 4mo ago
Why does it matter at all if the ballot arrives a few days late or you register day of or the week before? Seems like the only people who are hurt by this are people betting on polymarket.
- 866-RON-0-FEZ 4mo ago
  Because if they find out your registration was fraudulent a day later, how are they supposed to dig your anonymous ballot out from the barrel? It's for the same reason most insurance policies have a waiting period. To prevent the most low-hanging fruit of fraud. I've actually seen this happen in big cities where they have same-day popup registration tents in the middle of skid row, signing up random homeless people who don't even have stable addresses. No verification, nothing, we'll worry about that later here take a ballot. I'm sure everything was on the up-and-up there.
  - something98 4mo ago
    Don’t spread lies. Several states also allow same day registration. And all of them set the ballot aside until the registration is verified. This means it isn’t even counted until verified. And, no, I’m not going to “trust me, I’ve seen it before. [I just have no evidence.”

quaddoggy 4mo ago

This is insane. I remember when I was a kid that (with rare exception) you would pretty much know the results the same night, maybe the next day. I can’t help but notice that one party has dominated this state for decades. And they wail on and on about voter ID, etc. Everything is worse than it used to be.