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> Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems Yes. That's the point. The administration doesn't care about fixing whatever hypothetical mail ba

> Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems Yes. That's the point. The administration doesn't care about fixing whatever hypothetical mail ballot fraud may or may not exist; they are doing this to inject chaos into the election results, giving them cover to claim any result they want or even to just throw out the results entirely. Catastrophic problems are the means to that end.

RickJWagner 29d ago
[flagged]
- Geeek 29d ago
  One can observe and accuse based on that observation. What 'sources' do you expect to see?
  - RickJWagner 29d ago
    [flagged]
    - throwawayqqq11 29d ago
      So you would like to see a real source of the stated/recorded democracy subversion goal of the GOP? If they didnt state it, its fake news? Until then, all the past events, from court packing, gerry-mandering to now mail-in ballots (etc pp) is just coincidence? When trump says "we only need to win once" and then conducts blantant corruption and demolishes institutions/relationships, you think this is just one more isolated coincindence? You think he will leave the white house easily and face the charges, even though his ball room isnt done? Another commenter noted, how many people seem to live in absolute disinformation bubbles, in your case, i would add "state of insane denial".
  - LastTrain 29d ago
    He’s just demanding the same kind of rigor he demands from Trump about rigged elections. Here you go RickWagoner the Republican Governor of famously liberal Wyoming smells something fishy too: https://www.codyenterprise.com/news/local/article_7f688e37-342c-457a-8a1f-aea2a471a0e8.html https://www.codyenterprise.com/news/local/article_7f688e37-3...
    - doc_ick 29d ago
      Don’t worry, rickwagoner will find a way not to believe this source. Maybe because it uses https instead of http.
    - RickJWagner 29d ago
      Rigor is needed. Here’s an article talking about 6000 ineligible voters in New Jersey getting ballots. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/30/new-jerseys-noncitizen-voter-registration-brings-private-worries-into-the-open-01015840 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/30/new-jerseys-nonciti... Surely you agree this is problematic, and oversight is needed? Then extend that one step farther. It wouldn’t be fair to scrutinize only blue states like New Jersey. Red states like Wyoming should be held accountable too, right?
      - LastTrain 29d ago
        If you are suggesting the man who openly pressured states to turn votes for him can be trusted to fix it you aren't worth listening to.
      - hackyhacky 29d ago
        I think it's amusing how partisan your notion of "rigor" is. Because of a run-of-the-mill software error, you want to take away election power from the states and hand it to the federal government, which at the moment is in the hands of someone who has zero credibility regarding running honest elections? Moreover, you find these 400 erroneous votes deeply problematic but you, I assume, did not ask for federal election oversight in the following cases: * Georgia improperly purged legitimate voters https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/19/georgia-governor-race-voter-suppression-brian-kemp https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/19/georgia-gove... * Tarrant County, Texas dramatically reduces polling sites in Democrat-leaning areas, despite population growth https://fortworthreport.org/2026/09/01/advocates-demand-increased-voting-access-as-tarrant-county-considers-cutting-polling-sites/ https://fortworthreport.org/2026/09/01/advocates-demand-incr... * Tennessee (among other states) gerrymanders its districts to disenfranchise minority voters https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-memphis-voters-feel-now-after-tennessee-split-up-its-majority-black-district https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-memphis-voters-fee... What I see here is a pattern of attempts to restrict voting among those opposed to the GOP. And these are the people that you trust to provide "rigor" in voting?
- toomuchtodo 29d ago
  You mean where the sitting president said they were going to try to rig the midterms? > Provide reputable sources, we can discuss it. His Truth Social account is public. Do we agree that is a reputable source? https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/trump-says-he-wants-cancel-elections-here-real-threat https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/trum...
  - RickJWagner 29d ago
    The article you’ve provided clearly says Trumps dialogue is not to be taken literally. ( It does say there are other ways the election might be tinkered with, but these are for another discussion. ) I don’t find that article to be particularly worrying.
    - hackyhacky 29d ago
      > I don’t find that article to be particularly worrying. The issue is not the article, but the president's own words. Do you find it concerning that the president has expressed a desire to cancel elections? Or do you think he was joking? Follow-up question: was/is he joking about building the wall, mass deportations, eliminating birthright citizenship, or running for a third term?
    - margalabargala 29d ago
      That's not what the article says. It says Trump needs the appearance of winning elections, so cancelling is an empty threat. Manufacturing the appearance of winning is the not-empty threat, rather is what TFA is chronicling.
    - LastTrain 29d ago
      “Source please” … “I don’t like your source” Always with you people. In 2020 he personally called state election officials asking them to find votes /in his own election/ but that doesn’t worry you either. Always bad faith, always.
- NegativeLatency 29d ago
  They’d said as much explicitly and implicitly with their actions.
  - RickJWagner 29d ago
    Source, please.
    - margalabargala 29d ago
      You're replying to someone's personal interpretation and opinion asking about a source? That is the source. Do you not understand how discussions work?
      - Freedom2 29d ago
        Is there a source for how discussions work?
- MithrilTuxedo 29d ago
  The fact that reputable sources were not provided to justify the need for fixes has been reputable source enough. Bullshit is produced for the effect saying it will have.
  - RickJWagner 29d ago
    A good majority of Americans want voter id. https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/28/politics/video/the-odds-voter-ids-at-the-door-cnc-kalpar https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/28/politics/video/the-odds-voter... So a party calling for voter id is following the will of the people, while politicians opposing the will of the people are justifying the need for a fix, right?
    - AngryData 29d ago
      If they gave a crap about the will of the people then why is marijuana still illegal? When you defy the will of the people 99% of the time, claiming your motivation is the will of the people when it is convenient rings pretty hollow.
    - hackyhacky 29d ago
      > politicians opposing the will of the people are justifying the need for a fix, right? That's a funny way of saying that they support the status quo, which has never been provably linked to large-scale voter fraud. If you want voter ID, here's the procedure: establish evidence showing that its need outweighs its disadvantages, then pass a bill in Congress, then implement the bill. Signing an Executive Order that demands illegal overreach without justification is not the American way.
      - MrDrMcCoy 29d ago
        If voter ID was accompanied by mandatory free ID services at the polls, it could be a net good. Short of that, it's definitely more harm than good.
        mikem170 29d ago
- mcmcmc 29d ago
  Project 2025
deleted 29d ago
[deleted]
- MithrilTuxedo 29d ago
  Those who are apt to discard responses to what they should have been apt to discard.
llm_nerd 29d ago
It isn't just injecting chaos, but instead is trying to engineer an outcome. Find every mechanism and group that is likely to vote against you, and do everything possible to disenfranchise those voters. They've already gotten a ruling that ballots received after a cutoff do not count, regardless of the reason, so now they're engineering assurances that they get to choose from where ballots can be selectively delayed.
- clumsysmurf 29d ago
  Speaking of engineering outcomes, today I read: “He had told me [before the election] he was going to unleash the ‘anomaly in the matrix,’ ” St. Clair says in championed documentarist Alex Gibney’s film, Musk"
- wl 29d ago
  > They've already gotten a ruling that ballots received after a cutoff do not count Watson v. Republican National Committee seems to be the opposite of what you state: ballots received after election day can be counted provided they were postmarked on or before election day.
  - SiNiquity 29d ago
    You're right, the 5-4 SCOTUS ruling this summer reversed the appeals court ruling, preserving states' rights to set laws that permit counting postmarked ballots -- if postmarked in time. Curiously, the USPS changed when it postmarks mail this year, resulting in postmark delays. In Washington state, the number of ballots rejected for being late is up 32% compared to 2024.
  - deleted 29d ago
    [deleted]
goalieca 29d ago
[flagged]
- hackyhacky 29d ago
  > If I take a look, through a security lens, of the existing mail in process from registration to recording votes, it’s quite shocking. What about it is "shocking"? Please be specific. Please note that the alleged justification these changes is widespread voter fraud, which has never been shown to exist at a level even close to significant, despite many years of effort [1]. > the only way to do anything is to shove an executive order through the post office to prevent mail fraud. Or, ya know, make a persuasive case based on evidence of actual fraud and pass a bill in Congress, the way the country is supposed to work? > This is a kind of comment I would expect on Reddit and not hn. Yours is a low-effort riposte if ever there was one. [1] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/disbanded-trumps-voter-fraud-commission https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/disb...
- prh8 29d ago
  Either your head is 6 feet deep in the sand or you aren't really so non partisan We have had secure elections for a long time, how is it that the only 2 that Trump has presided over are the ones that are a security concern?
- usernomdeguerre 29d ago
  > If you took off your partisan hat, put on your red team hat A humorous double meaning, almost like taking the hat off and putting it back on again. But seriously I would expect a stronger argument in favor of these changes from proponents like you, something sourced, especially given the trial runs of these encroachments that've been run in a number of red states that haven't found any significant security issues and just turned out to be a waste of taxpayer dollars, time, and trust. Do your readers a favor and bring something at least as substantive as the article you're commenting on.
- AshleyGrant 29d ago
  > If I take a look, through a security lens, of the existing mail in process from registration to recording votes, it’s quite shocking. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You supplied nothing to back up your extraordinary claims. Your claims are extraordinary given the almost non-existent issues with mail-in voting. But if you'd like to prove otherwise, be my guest.
IAmNotACellist 29d ago
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- hackyhacky 29d ago
  > Which "side" has been fighting tooth and nail for unverifiable mail-in ballots Mail-in ballots are currently accepted in 23 states [1], including Utah, Kansas, and Florida. Which "side" is that? Please note Donald Trump personally uses the terribly unsecure and unverifiable method of mail-in ballot, so either he thinks it's secure enough, or, uh, is not being totally honest with us. > resisting all investigations of voting integrity? Which investigations, specifically, are you referring to? As far as I know, Trump formed a voter integrity commission in his first term which was unable to find any evidence of voter fraud and was therefore subsequently disbanded [2]. Since then, the only source of information on the allegedly widespread voter fraud is from Donald Trump's own mouth. [1] https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/table-18-states-with-all-mail-elections https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/table-18-states... [2] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/disbanded-trumps-voter-fraud-commission https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/disb...
- aetch 29d ago
  The republicans, they keep claiming that voter fraud is always in favor for democrats but most of the discovered cases are republican voters.
  - klntsky 29d ago
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    - hackyhacky 29d ago
      > Survivorship bias Huh? Survival of what? Are you claiming that Democrat fraud was not found only because the perpetrators are all dead?
      - teravor 29d ago
stouset 29d ago
And when it all goes to shit, they can just use that as evidence that mail-in voting shouldn’t have been allowed in the first place. It is the same tired but sadly effective Republican playbook: take a mostly functioning if imperfect system, break it beyond repair under the guise of fixing or reforming it, use the ongoing disaster to argue that it should be dismantled, rinse and repeat until it’s unsalvageable.
- kulahan 29d ago
  It’s worth mentioning that destroying the USPS has been a largely bipartisan effort, for reasons I cannot understand. Edit: when the PAEA passed in 2006, it had 410 “yes” votes. Not a single democrat, and only 20 republicans voted no. This was, and still is, the primary reason the USPS is no longer able to function.
  - ycombinete 29d ago
    That's a global thing. Postal services are very expensive public services. Low hanging fruit for cost savings.
    - kulahan 29d ago
      That's the crazy thing about the US. Our postal service is, for some reason, not funded by taxpayer dollars, but also not allowed to run a profit, they are not allowed to change prices without congressional approval, and they must fund their pension for 75 years - well beyond any requirement anyone else in the US faces, to include both federal agencies and private orgs. If they didn't have that last requirement, they'd be solvent.
      - tancop 29d ago
        No tax funding, no profit and price controls are normal for a state owned company. In other countries the postal service is not expected to pay for itself all the way but subsidies are limited by law. The prices are supposed to be lower than market as a public service.
BoiledCabbage 29d ago
Exactly. It's incredible how partisan some peoples information bubbles must be to not see this for what it is. All of these changes are based on the president making comments like the following: > "the cheating on mail-in voting is legendary," Which he has attempted to prove going back years. And every time it's been found that it essentially doesn't happen. And I believe, the few instances of voter fraud that have been found have been majority republicans and not democrats as has been accused. So to begin with, anyone arguing for these changes need to acknowledge the well established fact that there is effectively zero voter fraud at all levels throughout the country in anyway impacting elections. As has been investigated and shown time and time and time again. If they aren't beginning with the well established state of the world then they are in fact are the one entering with an extremely partisan hat. Now if their argument is "yes it's true voter fraud has been investigated countless times, and continuously shown to effectively be smaller than a rounding error, does not impact elections, is know to not be a problem, but I still want to make sweeping changes right before an election." Then sure that's a point of discussion. Then I think the simple question then becomes "why"? But if they aren't willing to begin with an accurate discussion of the facts and state of the situation (there is no voter fraud problem), then any comment they make following that has little credibility. Why is he pushing to outlaw mail-in voting when there is no issue with mail in voting? Is it because one party votes by mail more than the other? Or the change in the date mail can receives a postmark? Previously mail was transported to the facility to the same day so would get postmarked that day. Now, as this year, mail won't get post-marked the day it's dropped in a mail box - so any zipcode's mail boxes can now be marked as being sent too late to count, even if they were dropped off before election day. > While we are not changing our postmarking practices, we have made adjustments to our transportation operations that will result in some mailpieces not arriving at our originating processing facilities on the same day that they are mailed. This means that the date on the postmarks applied at our processing facilities will not necessarily match the date on which the customer’s mailpiece was collected by a letter carrier or dropped off at a retail location. If the administration actually cared about getting an accurate vote, why aren't they opening more voting locations? Why don't they mandate one voting location per every x number of citizens? Why would the Department of Homeland Security decide who is allowed to get ballots via the mail? If it's so bad, why has the administration failed time and time again to produce any evidence it's actually bad? If it's so horrible, and wide spread why is it impossible to find evidences that supports this? Or shows it overturning elections or anything close? It's the same scheme. Make a bunch of baseless assertions, repeat them frequently enough and people in an information bubble will begin to believe it. And that's clearly what's happening here. Just like "we've won the war in Iran" 20 times now. And "Iran has agreed to peace deal where they surrender" 15 times now. And how every weekend for months there were claims about the work on Friday that somehow magically fell apart by Monday. And yet somehow there are still people who give these false claims, and the people claiming them, any amount of credibility. Voter fraud is not a problem in this country. It does not rig elections, it does not sway elections. So sudden last min drastic changes in the voting process right before an election, by someone who has previously attempted a coup (not the protest on the capital but the actual coup attempt), has said they admire the leader of a country who dismantled its democracy (Orban) - and previously pushed the govt to make false claims of vote fraud to keep him in power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot > The Trump fake electors plot was an attempt by U.S. president Donald Trump and associates to have him remain in power after losing the 2020 United States presidential election. After the results of the election determined Trump had lost, he, his associates, and Republican Party officials in seven battleground states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin[1] – devised a scheme to submit fraudulent certificates of ascertainment to falsely claim Trump had won the Electoral College vote in crucial states. The plot was one of Trump and his associates' attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election. Then, when that failed: > Trump pressured the Justice Department to falsely announce it had found election fraud, and he attempted to install a new acting attorney general who had drafted a letter falsely asserting such election fraud had been found, in an attempt to persuade the Georgia legislature to convene and reconsider its Biden electoral votes. Like I think there are people in such an information bubble that they aren't even aware these are well established facts. Not partisan talking points, but a recounting of facts of the lengths that have already been attempted to remain in power illegally. And now sudden sweeping changes to voting right before an election amid false claims of rigged elections.
mrj 29d ago
He's spent years telling his supporters not to vote by mail. So during the election when there are problems with the mail, those will primarily affect the other party. That's enough to steal an election without more steps.
- dashundchen 29d ago
  Meanwhile, the piece of excrement votes by mail himself. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/17/trump-vote-by-mail-primaries-florida-01039292 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/17/trump-vote-by-mail-...
- monero-xmr 29d ago
  Having bare minimum protections against invalid voters, illegal immigrants or otherwise, is a basic precaution that every country on Earth except America does. The honor system we have here is absurdly lenient. I understand the Democrat desire to oppose everything Trump proposes, but imagine if in The Netherlands you can waltz in and say you are this person or that person, without any ID check whatsoever. Europeans might not realize this but that is literally the American system. I totally grant that the fraud Trump is claiming is way off the mark. But why not just... require ID to vote? At least in federal elections? The lack of verification is the exact reason why the lies continue
  - michaelmrose 29d ago
    [dead]
  - jlebar 29d ago
    > But why not just... require ID to vote? Among other things, consider https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... > The lack of verification is the exact reason why the lies continue I think the evidence suggests they are not particularly constrained by reality? Recall "They're eating the cats and dogs."
  - hackyhacky 29d ago
    > imagine if in The Netherlands you can waltz in and say you are this person or that person That's not at all how it works. Typically, you do need to present ID to register. You also need to verify your address on the day of voting. If someone does commit fraud, it's easy to detect: as soon as the real voter tries to vote, the system will detect a "double vote." The fact that this almost never happens suggests that there is not much fraud, if any. And the amount of fraud required to actually change an election result with this method would require a concerted effort of tens of thousands of people, all risking federal prosecution. > that is literally the American system. No. Please stop misrepresenting the facts. > But why not just... require ID to vote? There are lots of good reasons, which you are probably already aware of, including the fact that many people eligible to vote do not have the requisite ID and are unlikely to get it. My litmus test for supporting voter ID is that it is accompanied by (a) free, mandatory, and automatic national ID cards, and (b) national holiday on election days. Republicans won't support part A for their own ideological reasons, and moreover their purported effort to support voter integrity is not sincere: the goal is simply to prevent undesirable (i.e. non-Republican) voters from voting.

RickJWagner 29d ago

[flagged]

Geeek 29d ago
One can observe and accuse based on that observation. What 'sources' do you expect to see?
- RickJWagner 29d ago
  [flagged]
  - throwawayqqq11 29d ago
    So you would like to see a real source of the stated/recorded democracy subversion goal of the GOP? If they didnt state it, its fake news? Until then, all the past events, from court packing, gerry-mandering to now mail-in ballots (etc pp) is just coincidence? When trump says "we only need to win once" and then conducts blantant corruption and demolishes institutions/relationships, you think this is just one more isolated coincindence? You think he will leave the white house easily and face the charges, even though his ball room isnt done? Another commenter noted, how many people seem to live in absolute disinformation bubbles, in your case, i would add "state of insane denial".
- LastTrain 29d ago
  He’s just demanding the same kind of rigor he demands from Trump about rigged elections. Here you go RickWagoner the Republican Governor of famously liberal Wyoming smells something fishy too: https://www.codyenterprise.com/news/local/article_7f688e37-342c-457a-8a1f-aea2a471a0e8.html https://www.codyenterprise.com/news/local/article_7f688e37-3...
  - doc_ick 29d ago
    Don’t worry, rickwagoner will find a way not to believe this source. Maybe because it uses https instead of http.
  - RickJWagner 29d ago
    Rigor is needed. Here’s an article talking about 6000 ineligible voters in New Jersey getting ballots. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/30/new-jerseys-noncitizen-voter-registration-brings-private-worries-into-the-open-01015840 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/30/new-jerseys-nonciti... Surely you agree this is problematic, and oversight is needed? Then extend that one step farther. It wouldn’t be fair to scrutinize only blue states like New Jersey. Red states like Wyoming should be held accountable too, right?
    - LastTrain 29d ago
      If you are suggesting the man who openly pressured states to turn votes for him can be trusted to fix it you aren't worth listening to.
    - hackyhacky 29d ago
      I think it's amusing how partisan your notion of "rigor" is. Because of a run-of-the-mill software error, you want to take away election power from the states and hand it to the federal government, which at the moment is in the hands of someone who has zero credibility regarding running honest elections? Moreover, you find these 400 erroneous votes deeply problematic but you, I assume, did not ask for federal election oversight in the following cases: * Georgia improperly purged legitimate voters https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/19/georgia-governor-race-voter-suppression-brian-kemp https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/19/georgia-gove... * Tarrant County, Texas dramatically reduces polling sites in Democrat-leaning areas, despite population growth https://fortworthreport.org/2026/09/01/advocates-demand-increased-voting-access-as-tarrant-county-considers-cutting-polling-sites/ https://fortworthreport.org/2026/09/01/advocates-demand-incr... * Tennessee (among other states) gerrymanders its districts to disenfranchise minority voters https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-memphis-voters-feel-now-after-tennessee-split-up-its-majority-black-district https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-memphis-voters-fee... What I see here is a pattern of attempts to restrict voting among those opposed to the GOP. And these are the people that you trust to provide "rigor" in voting?
toomuchtodo 29d ago
You mean where the sitting president said they were going to try to rig the midterms? > Provide reputable sources, we can discuss it. His Truth Social account is public. Do we agree that is a reputable source? https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/trump-says-he-wants-cancel-elections-here-real-threat https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/trum...
- RickJWagner 29d ago
  The article you’ve provided clearly says Trumps dialogue is not to be taken literally. ( It does say there are other ways the election might be tinkered with, but these are for another discussion. ) I don’t find that article to be particularly worrying.
  - hackyhacky 29d ago
    > I don’t find that article to be particularly worrying. The issue is not the article, but the president's own words. Do you find it concerning that the president has expressed a desire to cancel elections? Or do you think he was joking? Follow-up question: was/is he joking about building the wall, mass deportations, eliminating birthright citizenship, or running for a third term?
  - margalabargala 29d ago
    That's not what the article says. It says Trump needs the appearance of winning elections, so cancelling is an empty threat. Manufacturing the appearance of winning is the not-empty threat, rather is what TFA is chronicling.
  - LastTrain 29d ago
    “Source please” … “I don’t like your source” Always with you people. In 2020 he personally called state election officials asking them to find votes /in his own election/ but that doesn’t worry you either. Always bad faith, always.
NegativeLatency 29d ago
They’d said as much explicitly and implicitly with their actions.
- RickJWagner 29d ago
  Source, please.
  - margalabargala 29d ago
    You're replying to someone's personal interpretation and opinion asking about a source? That is the source. Do you not understand how discussions work?
    - Freedom2 29d ago
      Is there a source for how discussions work?
MithrilTuxedo 29d ago
The fact that reputable sources were not provided to justify the need for fixes has been reputable source enough. Bullshit is produced for the effect saying it will have.
- RickJWagner 29d ago
  A good majority of Americans want voter id. https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/28/politics/video/the-odds-voter-ids-at-the-door-cnc-kalpar https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/28/politics/video/the-odds-voter... So a party calling for voter id is following the will of the people, while politicians opposing the will of the people are justifying the need for a fix, right?
  - AngryData 29d ago
    If they gave a crap about the will of the people then why is marijuana still illegal? When you defy the will of the people 99% of the time, claiming your motivation is the will of the people when it is convenient rings pretty hollow.
  - hackyhacky 29d ago
    > politicians opposing the will of the people are justifying the need for a fix, right? That's a funny way of saying that they support the status quo, which has never been provably linked to large-scale voter fraud. If you want voter ID, here's the procedure: establish evidence showing that its need outweighs its disadvantages, then pass a bill in Congress, then implement the bill. Signing an Executive Order that demands illegal overreach without justification is not the American way.
    - MrDrMcCoy 29d ago
      If voter ID was accompanied by mandatory free ID services at the polls, it could be a net good. Short of that, it's definitely more harm than good.
      - mikem170 29d ago
mcmcmc 29d ago
Project 2025

deleted 29d ago

[deleted]

MithrilTuxedo 29d ago
Those who are apt to discard responses to what they should have been apt to discard.

llm_nerd 29d ago

It isn't just injecting chaos, but instead is trying to engineer an outcome. Find every mechanism and group that is likely to vote against you, and do everything possible to disenfranchise those voters. They've already gotten a ruling that ballots received after a cutoff do not count, regardless of the reason, so now they're engineering assurances that they get to choose from where ballots can be selectively delayed.

clumsysmurf 29d ago
Speaking of engineering outcomes, today I read: “He had told me [before the election] he was going to unleash the ‘anomaly in the matrix,’ ” St. Clair says in championed documentarist Alex Gibney’s film, Musk"
wl 29d ago
> They've already gotten a ruling that ballots received after a cutoff do not count Watson v. Republican National Committee seems to be the opposite of what you state: ballots received after election day can be counted provided they were postmarked on or before election day.
- SiNiquity 29d ago
  You're right, the 5-4 SCOTUS ruling this summer reversed the appeals court ruling, preserving states' rights to set laws that permit counting postmarked ballots -- if postmarked in time. Curiously, the USPS changed when it postmarks mail this year, resulting in postmark delays. In Washington state, the number of ballots rejected for being late is up 32% compared to 2024.
- deleted 29d ago
  [deleted]

goalieca 29d ago

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hackyhacky 29d ago
> If I take a look, through a security lens, of the existing mail in process from registration to recording votes, it’s quite shocking. What about it is "shocking"? Please be specific. Please note that the alleged justification these changes is widespread voter fraud, which has never been shown to exist at a level even close to significant, despite many years of effort [1]. > the only way to do anything is to shove an executive order through the post office to prevent mail fraud. Or, ya know, make a persuasive case based on evidence of actual fraud and pass a bill in Congress, the way the country is supposed to work? > This is a kind of comment I would expect on Reddit and not hn. Yours is a low-effort riposte if ever there was one. [1] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/disbanded-trumps-voter-fraud-commission https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/disb...
prh8 29d ago
Either your head is 6 feet deep in the sand or you aren't really so non partisan We have had secure elections for a long time, how is it that the only 2 that Trump has presided over are the ones that are a security concern?
usernomdeguerre 29d ago
> If you took off your partisan hat, put on your red team hat A humorous double meaning, almost like taking the hat off and putting it back on again. But seriously I would expect a stronger argument in favor of these changes from proponents like you, something sourced, especially given the trial runs of these encroachments that've been run in a number of red states that haven't found any significant security issues and just turned out to be a waste of taxpayer dollars, time, and trust. Do your readers a favor and bring something at least as substantive as the article you're commenting on.
AshleyGrant 29d ago
> If I take a look, through a security lens, of the existing mail in process from registration to recording votes, it’s quite shocking. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You supplied nothing to back up your extraordinary claims. Your claims are extraordinary given the almost non-existent issues with mail-in voting. But if you'd like to prove otherwise, be my guest.

IAmNotACellist 29d ago

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hackyhacky 29d ago
> Which "side" has been fighting tooth and nail for unverifiable mail-in ballots Mail-in ballots are currently accepted in 23 states [1], including Utah, Kansas, and Florida. Which "side" is that? Please note Donald Trump personally uses the terribly unsecure and unverifiable method of mail-in ballot, so either he thinks it's secure enough, or, uh, is not being totally honest with us. > resisting all investigations of voting integrity? Which investigations, specifically, are you referring to? As far as I know, Trump formed a voter integrity commission in his first term which was unable to find any evidence of voter fraud and was therefore subsequently disbanded [2]. Since then, the only source of information on the allegedly widespread voter fraud is from Donald Trump's own mouth. [1] https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/table-18-states-with-all-mail-elections https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/table-18-states... [2] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/disbanded-trumps-voter-fraud-commission https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/disb...
aetch 29d ago
The republicans, they keep claiming that voter fraud is always in favor for democrats but most of the discovered cases are republican voters.
- klntsky 29d ago
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  - hackyhacky 29d ago
    > Survivorship bias Huh? Survival of what? Are you claiming that Democrat fraud was not found only because the perpetrators are all dead?
    - teravor 29d ago

stouset 29d ago

And when it all goes to shit, they can just use that as evidence that mail-in voting shouldn’t have been allowed in the first place. It is the same tired but sadly effective Republican playbook: take a mostly functioning if imperfect system, break it beyond repair under the guise of fixing or reforming it, use the ongoing disaster to argue that it should be dismantled, rinse and repeat until it’s unsalvageable.

kulahan 29d ago
It’s worth mentioning that destroying the USPS has been a largely bipartisan effort, for reasons I cannot understand. Edit: when the PAEA passed in 2006, it had 410 “yes” votes. Not a single democrat, and only 20 republicans voted no. This was, and still is, the primary reason the USPS is no longer able to function.
- ycombinete 29d ago
  That's a global thing. Postal services are very expensive public services. Low hanging fruit for cost savings.
  - kulahan 29d ago
    That's the crazy thing about the US. Our postal service is, for some reason, not funded by taxpayer dollars, but also not allowed to run a profit, they are not allowed to change prices without congressional approval, and they must fund their pension for 75 years - well beyond any requirement anyone else in the US faces, to include both federal agencies and private orgs. If they didn't have that last requirement, they'd be solvent.
    - tancop 29d ago
      No tax funding, no profit and price controls are normal for a state owned company. In other countries the postal service is not expected to pay for itself all the way but subsidies are limited by law. The prices are supposed to be lower than market as a public service.

BoiledCabbage 29d ago

Exactly. It's incredible how partisan some peoples information bubbles must be to not see this for what it is. All of these changes are based on the president making comments like the following: > "the cheating on mail-in voting is legendary," Which he has attempted to prove going back years. And every time it's been found that it essentially doesn't happen. And I believe, the few instances of voter fraud that have been found have been majority republicans and not democrats as has been accused. So to begin with, anyone arguing for these changes need to acknowledge the well established fact that there is effectively zero voter fraud at all levels throughout the country in anyway impacting elections. As has been investigated and shown time and time and time again. If they aren't beginning with the well established state of the world then they are in fact are the one entering with an extremely partisan hat. Now if their argument is "yes it's true voter fraud has been investigated countless times, and continuously shown to effectively be smaller than a rounding error, does not impact elections, is know to not be a problem, but I still want to make sweeping changes right before an election." Then sure that's a point of discussion. Then I think the simple question then becomes "why"? But if they aren't willing to begin with an accurate discussion of the facts and state of the situation (there is no voter fraud problem), then any comment they make following that has little credibility. Why is he pushing to outlaw mail-in voting when there is no issue with mail in voting? Is it because one party votes by mail more than the other? Or the change in the date mail can receives a postmark? Previously mail was transported to the facility to the same day so would get postmarked that day. Now, as this year, mail won't get post-marked the day it's dropped in a mail box - so any zipcode's mail boxes can now be marked as being sent too late to count, even if they were dropped off before election day. > While we are not changing our postmarking practices, we have made adjustments to our transportation operations that will result in some mailpieces not arriving at our originating processing facilities on the same day that they are mailed. This means that the date on the postmarks applied at our processing facilities will not necessarily match the date on which the customer’s mailpiece was collected by a letter carrier or dropped off at a retail location. If the administration actually cared about getting an accurate vote, why aren't they opening more voting locations? Why don't they mandate one voting location per every x number of citizens? Why would the Department of Homeland Security decide who is allowed to get ballots via the mail? If it's so bad, why has the administration failed time and time again to produce any evidence it's actually bad? If it's so horrible, and wide spread why is it impossible to find evidences that supports this? Or shows it overturning elections or anything close? It's the same scheme. Make a bunch of baseless assertions, repeat them frequently enough and people in an information bubble will begin to believe it. And that's clearly what's happening here. Just like "we've won the war in Iran" 20 times now. And "Iran has agreed to peace deal where they surrender" 15 times now. And how every weekend for months there were claims about the work on Friday that somehow magically fell apart by Monday. And yet somehow there are still people who give these false claims, and the people claiming them, any amount of credibility. Voter fraud is not a problem in this country. It does not rig elections, it does not sway elections. So sudden last min drastic changes in the voting process right before an election, by someone who has previously attempted a coup (not the protest on the capital but the actual coup attempt), has said they admire the leader of a country who dismantled its democracy (Orban) - and previously pushed the govt to make false claims of vote fraud to keep him in power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot > The Trump fake electors plot was an attempt by U.S. president Donald Trump and associates to have him remain in power after losing the 2020 United States presidential election. After the results of the election determined Trump had lost, he, his associates, and Republican Party officials in seven battleground states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin[1] – devised a scheme to submit fraudulent certificates of ascertainment to falsely claim Trump had won the Electoral College vote in crucial states. The plot was one of Trump and his associates' attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election. Then, when that failed: > Trump pressured the Justice Department to falsely announce it had found election fraud, and he attempted to install a new acting attorney general who had drafted a letter falsely asserting such election fraud had been found, in an attempt to persuade the Georgia legislature to convene and reconsider its Biden electoral votes. Like I think there are people in such an information bubble that they aren't even aware these are well established facts. Not partisan talking points, but a recounting of facts of the lengths that have already been attempted to remain in power illegally. And now sudden sweeping changes to voting right before an election amid false claims of rigged elections.

mrj 29d ago

He's spent years telling his supporters not to vote by mail. So during the election when there are problems with the mail, those will primarily affect the other party. That's enough to steal an election without more steps.

dashundchen 29d ago
Meanwhile, the piece of excrement votes by mail himself. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/17/trump-vote-by-mail-primaries-florida-01039292 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/17/trump-vote-by-mail-...
monero-xmr 29d ago
Having bare minimum protections against invalid voters, illegal immigrants or otherwise, is a basic precaution that every country on Earth except America does. The honor system we have here is absurdly lenient. I understand the Democrat desire to oppose everything Trump proposes, but imagine if in The Netherlands you can waltz in and say you are this person or that person, without any ID check whatsoever. Europeans might not realize this but that is literally the American system. I totally grant that the fraud Trump is claiming is way off the mark. But why not just... require ID to vote? At least in federal elections? The lack of verification is the exact reason why the lies continue
- michaelmrose 29d ago
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- jlebar 29d ago
  > But why not just... require ID to vote? Among other things, consider https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... > The lack of verification is the exact reason why the lies continue I think the evidence suggests they are not particularly constrained by reality? Recall "They're eating the cats and dogs."
- hackyhacky 29d ago
  > imagine if in The Netherlands you can waltz in and say you are this person or that person That's not at all how it works. Typically, you do need to present ID to register. You also need to verify your address on the day of voting. If someone does commit fraud, it's easy to detect: as soon as the real voter tries to vote, the system will detect a "double vote." The fact that this almost never happens suggests that there is not much fraud, if any. And the amount of fraud required to actually change an election result with this method would require a concerted effort of tens of thousands of people, all risking federal prosecution. > that is literally the American system. No. Please stop misrepresenting the facts. > But why not just... require ID to vote? There are lots of good reasons, which you are probably already aware of, including the fact that many people eligible to vote do not have the requisite ID and are unlikely to get it. My litmus test for supporting voter ID is that it is accompanied by (a) free, mandatory, and automatic national ID cards, and (b) national holiday on election days. Republicans won't support part A for their own ideological reasons, and moreover their purported effort to support voter integrity is not sincere: the goal is simply to prevent undesirable (i.e. non-Republican) voters from voting.