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Regardless what anyone thinks about the security of voting in the US. I'd hope that they could see how massively upending multiple states' voting systems 2 mon

Regardless what anyone thinks about the security of voting in the US. I'd hope that they could see how massively upending multiple states' voting systems 2 months before the midterms is a really bad idea. Even with the best intentions, implementing such a sweeping untested change so rapidly is a horrible idea. (No, I don't support it regardless, but surely even if you do you could recognize that the timeframe is way too short).

Terr_ 1mo ago
To go beyond the understatement of "bad idea" (and likely make the subtext into text): This thing is unmistakable malice, not mere incompetence. There's no "oops I didn't know" or "oops I timed the project wrong" or "oops I forgot about the election deadline" or "oops nobody told me about the court-order prohibiting it", etc.
llm_nerd 1mo ago
There is something incredibly cancerous when a certain party abhors democracy, and does everything they can to undermine the voting rights or access to groups they think won't vote for them. I would expect most Americans would see this as grotesquely anti-American, and absolutely against the principals of the country. Instead it barely makes news and is just another "get whatever advantage you can" tactic.
- majormajor 1mo ago
  "Abhors democracy" isn't necessarily the right phrase for the on-the-ground majority. The leadership, sure. But not the average folk. "Has such a small imagination that they can't imagine they wouldn't be the majority" is more like it. For all the old fears of "we need the senate so big cities don't run the country" they have a massive blind spot of there being less diversity of thought, and more of a monoculture, in suburban and rural areas. And they don't realize that because of this they shouldn't be surprised if not everyone agrees with them.
  - FireBeyond 1mo ago
    There's a sizable part of the group that truly believe that cities get more representation than they do, that there are more rural Americans than urban.
    - tstrimple 1mo ago
      And that they are the “real Americans” who make all the money and all of their tax dollars go to pay for lazy city people. Never mind that counties which vote democratic account for over 70% of the GDP. Their entire existence is subsidized by the actual tax payers in cities and they resent us for it.
  - prh8 1mo ago
    Even the house is unfairly tilted towards smaller states because of the 538 limit
    - cogman10 1mo ago
      Ever so slightly, definitely not as bad as the senate. I'm all for doubling the size of the house, but that's more to combat gerrymandering. The larger the size of the house, the harder and less impactful it is to gerrymander. Though before that I'd definitely push for federal anti-gerrymandering legislation.
- kkotak 1mo ago
  You'd be surprised what hate is capable of. Once you paint a side as the enemy and convince half of the population of that, it becomes easy to carryout acts even if they're detrimental to the your side too. Look at the US economy and inflation caused by the tariffs and wars for instance. It's the 'our side is winning' mentality shortsightedness that destroys nations and institutions. By the time people realize this, it's often too late.
  - throw0101a 1mo ago
    > You'd be surprised what hate is capable of. Up to and including causing illness and death to oneself and one's loved ones: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness
- lenkite 1mo ago
  After hanging out on Trumper forums to try and understand their point of view, I realized that they have a VERY narrow view of who they want in their "ideal democracy": Pure White Conservative Christians, No browns or blacks, No voting women (their place is in the home and the kitchen), No gays, Must love guns, must support everything that their GEOTUS says even if he contradicts himself.
- jimmydddd 1mo ago
  It's strange though, because Trump's elderly voters are the ones who vote by mail. Some observers say he would have won the incredibly close 2020 race if he hadn't discouraged mail in voting.
  - llm_nerd 1mo ago
    I did hear a lot of people claim this, and it seemed mostly like unqualified schadenfreude and fantasy. In the most recent analysis, about 37% of Democrats use mail in voting, versus 24% of Republicans. This is why Republicans often take the lead in vote counting, and then because of Republican-imposed rules mail in ballots are counted later in the process, suddenly turning the tide. Which then yields lots of "the fix is in!" undermining of democracy -- at least in every race they don't win (the ones they win are 100% fair, of course) -- because the GOP of 2026 absolutely hates democracy, and they'll do everything they can to destroy it.
sieabahlpark 1mo ago
[dead]
dplgk 1mo ago
Trump supporters used to speak up on this site. Surely they still exist but all I hear is crickets
- dpkirchner 1mo ago
  Hopefully they're embarrassed.
  - somenameforme 1mo ago
    If you genuinely don't understand what's happening - it's the same reason that political discussion on Reddit became completely detached from reality. On these sort of topics you have a relatively small number of hyper partisans that aim to censor discussion through the abuse of flagging, and they're mostly successful. So all that's left is a circle jerk which has no meaningful connection to views in the actual world, or even on e.g. Hacker News. I'm not really sure why anybody would want this outcome; I suppose that in their mind it's some sort of attempt at manufacturing consent. Anyhow, there's plenty of rich discussion to be had, but you increasingly need to do it in the real world, or on smaller forums/channels. This will likely be an even bigger issue in the future as LLMs will enable full automation of this sort of abuse that will ultimately probably be impossible to stop. In the grand scheme of things we're likely at the tail end of the era where having genuine political discussion online was possible, if not already slightly beyond it.
    - hackyhacky 1mo ago
      [flagged]
    - Capricorn2481 1mo ago
      Everything you're saying can be true and co-exist with the reality, which is the current administration has been so vindictive, short-sighted, and nakedly serving the billionaire class, that its own supporters have had to completely disengage with everything The Executive Branch is doing. If you talk to Trump supporters in real life, they are not having nuanced discussions about the state of our country, they are completely tuned out to what is going on. They have to be. It's embarrassing. Instead, they are still talking about trans people and wokeness, because that is evergreen territory that can forever be raged about but never "solved," because it never affected them in the first place. You accuse HN of being in an echo chamber that you've disregarded an even simpler explanation: The cognitive dissonance of voting for someone who immediately backed out of everything he promised (no wars, releasing Epstein files, serving the middle class) that it has broken some people's perception of their own judgement, and they can't engage with it anymore. There's really no other reason to be suddenly quiet. This isn't 2021, just after Jan 6th. This is almost two years into Republicans having total control of the government. It's just been such a disaster people don't want to publicly root for them anymore.
majormajor 1mo ago
There's a voted-into-oblivion reply to this from someone trying to both-sides things "I don't want to hear about it when it was changed quickly for Covid too". but it doesn't work...anything then was done under literally the same President we have today? That's pretty damn hilarious: *don't complain to me about the Trump admin fucking with the voting system on short notice in 2026 since the Trump admin also fucked with the voting system on short notice in 2020!" (At least there was a major national emergency going on that time...) --- It's a point in favor of the "malicious" theory, though. Here's arguably the person who would have the most reason to not fuck with things last-minute, who complained at no end about the results, is now making his own last minute changes... hmmmm.... must still believe he got cheated, and is intentionally trying to cheat instead.
- euroderf 1mo ago
  Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!... see only the Great Oz.
NicoJuicy 1mo ago
The current administration will just blame it on someone else, like they always do.
- NicoJuicy 1mo ago
  And who complains will get their funding withdrawn.
- mapontosevenths 1mo ago
  "I can't believe Obama did this to us while we were in the middle of fighting Joe Bidens war in Iran! It's almost as bad as Bill Clinton's darn Tariffs!" - Future Trump, probably
rg2004 1mo ago
You're giving them too much credit. There is zero critical thinking happening.
- insane_dreamer 1mo ago
  I disagree. A lot of thinking went into this. It's not a dumb idea -- it's a very smart (in a very anti-democracy) way to try to subvert the midterms
vkou 1mo ago
This isn't a 'bad idea', this is a blatant attempt to at election fraud.
insane_dreamer 1mo ago
it's not a "bad idea", it's intentionally disruptive -- that's the point of it not surprised that Trump Admin is trying to do this; it's a page out of their play dirty, break the law now and sort it out later once the courts catch up, approach to politics but the fact that SCOTUS didn't shut it down is beyond the pale -- unconscionable

Terr_ 1mo ago

To go beyond the understatement of "bad idea" (and likely make the subtext into text): This thing is unmistakable malice, not mere incompetence. There's no "oops I didn't know" or "oops I timed the project wrong" or "oops I forgot about the election deadline" or "oops nobody told me about the court-order prohibiting it", etc.

llm_nerd 1mo ago

There is something incredibly cancerous when a certain party abhors democracy, and does everything they can to undermine the voting rights or access to groups they think won't vote for them. I would expect most Americans would see this as grotesquely anti-American, and absolutely against the principals of the country. Instead it barely makes news and is just another "get whatever advantage you can" tactic.

majormajor 1mo ago
"Abhors democracy" isn't necessarily the right phrase for the on-the-ground majority. The leadership, sure. But not the average folk. "Has such a small imagination that they can't imagine they wouldn't be the majority" is more like it. For all the old fears of "we need the senate so big cities don't run the country" they have a massive blind spot of there being less diversity of thought, and more of a monoculture, in suburban and rural areas. And they don't realize that because of this they shouldn't be surprised if not everyone agrees with them.
- FireBeyond 1mo ago
  There's a sizable part of the group that truly believe that cities get more representation than they do, that there are more rural Americans than urban.
  - tstrimple 1mo ago
    And that they are the “real Americans” who make all the money and all of their tax dollars go to pay for lazy city people. Never mind that counties which vote democratic account for over 70% of the GDP. Their entire existence is subsidized by the actual tax payers in cities and they resent us for it.
- prh8 1mo ago
  Even the house is unfairly tilted towards smaller states because of the 538 limit
  - cogman10 1mo ago
    Ever so slightly, definitely not as bad as the senate. I'm all for doubling the size of the house, but that's more to combat gerrymandering. The larger the size of the house, the harder and less impactful it is to gerrymander. Though before that I'd definitely push for federal anti-gerrymandering legislation.
kkotak 1mo ago
You'd be surprised what hate is capable of. Once you paint a side as the enemy and convince half of the population of that, it becomes easy to carryout acts even if they're detrimental to the your side too. Look at the US economy and inflation caused by the tariffs and wars for instance. It's the 'our side is winning' mentality shortsightedness that destroys nations and institutions. By the time people realize this, it's often too late.
- throw0101a 1mo ago
  > You'd be surprised what hate is capable of. Up to and including causing illness and death to oneself and one's loved ones: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness
lenkite 1mo ago
After hanging out on Trumper forums to try and understand their point of view, I realized that they have a VERY narrow view of who they want in their "ideal democracy": Pure White Conservative Christians, No browns or blacks, No voting women (their place is in the home and the kitchen), No gays, Must love guns, must support everything that their GEOTUS says even if he contradicts himself.
jimmydddd 1mo ago
It's strange though, because Trump's elderly voters are the ones who vote by mail. Some observers say he would have won the incredibly close 2020 race if he hadn't discouraged mail in voting.
- llm_nerd 1mo ago
  I did hear a lot of people claim this, and it seemed mostly like unqualified schadenfreude and fantasy. In the most recent analysis, about 37% of Democrats use mail in voting, versus 24% of Republicans. This is why Republicans often take the lead in vote counting, and then because of Republican-imposed rules mail in ballots are counted later in the process, suddenly turning the tide. Which then yields lots of "the fix is in!" undermining of democracy -- at least in every race they don't win (the ones they win are 100% fair, of course) -- because the GOP of 2026 absolutely hates democracy, and they'll do everything they can to destroy it.

sieabahlpark 1mo ago

[dead]

dplgk 1mo ago

Trump supporters used to speak up on this site. Surely they still exist but all I hear is crickets

dpkirchner 1mo ago
Hopefully they're embarrassed.
- somenameforme 1mo ago
  If you genuinely don't understand what's happening - it's the same reason that political discussion on Reddit became completely detached from reality. On these sort of topics you have a relatively small number of hyper partisans that aim to censor discussion through the abuse of flagging, and they're mostly successful. So all that's left is a circle jerk which has no meaningful connection to views in the actual world, or even on e.g. Hacker News. I'm not really sure why anybody would want this outcome; I suppose that in their mind it's some sort of attempt at manufacturing consent. Anyhow, there's plenty of rich discussion to be had, but you increasingly need to do it in the real world, or on smaller forums/channels. This will likely be an even bigger issue in the future as LLMs will enable full automation of this sort of abuse that will ultimately probably be impossible to stop. In the grand scheme of things we're likely at the tail end of the era where having genuine political discussion online was possible, if not already slightly beyond it.
  - hackyhacky 1mo ago
    [flagged]
  - Capricorn2481 1mo ago
    Everything you're saying can be true and co-exist with the reality, which is the current administration has been so vindictive, short-sighted, and nakedly serving the billionaire class, that its own supporters have had to completely disengage with everything The Executive Branch is doing. If you talk to Trump supporters in real life, they are not having nuanced discussions about the state of our country, they are completely tuned out to what is going on. They have to be. It's embarrassing. Instead, they are still talking about trans people and wokeness, because that is evergreen territory that can forever be raged about but never "solved," because it never affected them in the first place. You accuse HN of being in an echo chamber that you've disregarded an even simpler explanation: The cognitive dissonance of voting for someone who immediately backed out of everything he promised (no wars, releasing Epstein files, serving the middle class) that it has broken some people's perception of their own judgement, and they can't engage with it anymore. There's really no other reason to be suddenly quiet. This isn't 2021, just after Jan 6th. This is almost two years into Republicans having total control of the government. It's just been such a disaster people don't want to publicly root for them anymore.

majormajor 1mo ago

There's a voted-into-oblivion reply to this from someone trying to both-sides things "I don't want to hear about it when it was changed quickly for Covid too". but it doesn't work...anything then was done under literally the same President we have today? That's pretty damn hilarious: *don't complain to me about the Trump admin fucking with the voting system on short notice in 2026 since the Trump admin also fucked with the voting system on short notice in 2020!" (At least there was a major national emergency going on that time...) --- It's a point in favor of the "malicious" theory, though. Here's arguably the person who would have the most reason to not fuck with things last-minute, who complained at no end about the results, is now making his own last minute changes... hmmmm.... must still believe he got cheated, and is intentionally trying to cheat instead.

euroderf 1mo ago
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!... see only the Great Oz.

NicoJuicy 1mo ago

The current administration will just blame it on someone else, like they always do.

NicoJuicy 1mo ago
And who complains will get their funding withdrawn.
mapontosevenths 1mo ago
"I can't believe Obama did this to us while we were in the middle of fighting Joe Bidens war in Iran! It's almost as bad as Bill Clinton's darn Tariffs!" - Future Trump, probably

rg2004 1mo ago

You're giving them too much credit. There is zero critical thinking happening.

insane_dreamer 1mo ago
I disagree. A lot of thinking went into this. It's not a dumb idea -- it's a very smart (in a very anti-democracy) way to try to subvert the midterms

vkou 1mo ago

This isn't a 'bad idea', this is a blatant attempt to at election fraud.

insane_dreamer 1mo ago

it's not a "bad idea", it's intentionally disruptive -- that's the point of it not surprised that Trump Admin is trying to do this; it's a page out of their play dirty, break the law now and sort it out later once the courts catch up, approach to politics but the fact that SCOTUS didn't shut it down is beyond the pale -- unconscionable