Voting is not a Guaranteed Right

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Tom

Well then you have nothing to worry about.
Just vote in person.

Problem solved.

I am not the least bit worried about mine.

No, the problem will always exist with mail-ins! With mail-ins the system can be rigged every way imaginable. They're still finding ballots in AZ that were never cast! Mail-ins are the scourge of the electoral process! If we're ever to hope for a fair and honest process, mail-ins need to be curtailed sharply. They need to be made the exception to the rule, rather than become the rule. I fear that vote counters are already determining the outcome of too many elections.

If people are too lazy or too busy to vote in person, then this tells me they're not very interested in the integrity of the process. Fine. Then let the fate of the country rest in the hands of voters who are conscientious and responsible participants in the process and are concerned about fair and honest elections, unlike those who at the drop of a hat will claim disenfrachisement or inconvenience or hardship. Such whiners and complainers deserve the status of mere spectators.

[Tom]

Seriously, you have tens of thousands of mail bottots, a small number of people to handle them in a limited space.....how the hell smart do you think these people are.

And people in hospitals and incapcipated have just as might right to vote as you do.

YOU are acting like a democrat soperceeding your desires over the law of the land.

If rigging ballots is so easy, HOW did the dems lose the house?

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by boxcar

It's actually THE ONLY way! Besides, our votes are supposed be our SECRET, but that goes out the window with mail-ins.

There is a very easy, straightforward, common sense fix for this mess: National Elections should be declared a holiday in which everyone has off. Then no one has any excuse for why they couldn't find the time during voting day to vote, especially if the polls are open from sunup to sunset.

The vote is still secret. Your signature is on the envelope, not the ballot. When the signature is verified, the ballot is taken out and sent to be counted. Different people due the verifying and the counting.

Election day should be a National holiday, and we should have mail in voting and early voting.

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by Actor

For what it's worth, the Pony Express was a private enterprise. The government had nothing to do with it. It operated for 18 months before going bankrupt.

You're right. I had forgotten that. Perhaps a cautionary tale for those wanting to privatize USPS?

[Tom]

Why bother, we already have Fed Ex! And email.

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by boxcar

"Secrecy sleeves"? Really? And does the ballot need to be physically removed from that "secrecy sleeve" before it's fed into the the tabulator or whatever? If so, do the people doing the removing wear blinders so that they can't see anything, including how to feed the ballots into the machine correctly after they're removed from the sleeves?

Quoting "Bones" McCoy. " My God, man." Can you be any more ridiculous? The guy feeding the ballots into the machines is the guy that lives on the next block or three streets over. he could care less who you voted for or even who you are.

He is definitely not part of any nefarious plot to reveal who you voted for. Nor is she.

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by Tom

How is that any different than the ballot you cast in person?
And logistically, how would anyone have time to read a ballot, read the identity, record it......I'd worry more about getting struck by lightning.

i think it's very likely that Boxcar got struck by lightning. More than once.

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by boxcar

I don't know how they conduct in-person voting in precincts in NY State but here in Swampland precinct officials never even handle a filled out ballot let alone see the contents thereof. We do a very racist but common sense thing down here in Swampland: After filling out the ballot, we voters actually remove the ballot from the large outer sleeve, hand the sleeve back to the attendant who is monitoring the tabulator and, then, we feed our own ballots into the tabulator. Our identities were earlier verified before we even received a ballot.



No logistical problem at all. As far as mail-ins are concerned, an attendant is only concerned with the votes. If a person doesn't like the vote for a particular candidate, he or she doesn't have to bother with any of the other details after the ballot gets "lost". Don't forget: Unlike in-person voters, mail-in voters can never know for certain that their votes got cast. They're relying entirely on the integrity of the system -- a system that is often very partisan.

Or another way to cheat is to forge signatures for the chosen candidate of the "system". Read and weep about "what never happens".

https://www.theblaze.com/news/pa-gov...legedly-forged

You are certifiable. Unlike Trump's fake electors. There is a reason you think everyone is corrupt. it is because you are corrupt.

Here is what your Blaze link proves: It proves that the Democratic Attorney General of Pennsylvania found election fraud-not voter fraud-in the Democratic Primary and did not look the other way. It proves the fraudsters were quite incompetent and lazy, forging the same names numerous times.

It proves that while fraud can happen it is rare-1000 signatures out of millions of petition signatures-all by one man. and, hundreds of candidates sbmitted nominating petitions with no forged signatures.

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by elysiantraveller

The Senate is dumb and should be disbanded... change my mind.

I agree, but I am not sure why you think the Senate is dumb. What I think is that the Senate is not representative democracy. California has 80 times the population of Wyoming. Yet each state has two votes in the Senate. lest you think I'm making a political argument, Texas has 45 times as many people as Vermont, but both states have 2 votes. Essentially, a citizen of Wyoming has 80 times the power of a citizen of California.

It's important to remember that at the time the Constitution was written there were no organized political parties in America. So, the founders were more concerned with keeping a balance among the states rather than opposing factions which transcended boundaries. Just one more reason to reject originalism or original intent. The situation today is very different than in 1787.

We do have a Constitution. We can't disband the Senate and we can't change the number of Senators from each state. But we can change the way it does business.

1. Eliminate the Filibuster-permanently and irrevocably.
2. Limit the power of the majority Leader to control the agenda. Particularly in confirmation hearings.
3. Eliminate the personal privilege veto. That's when, if a Senator objects to a nominee from his state, that nominee will not even be considered.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by mostpost

The vote is still secret. Your signature is on the envelope, not the ballot. When the signature is verified, the ballot is taken out and sent to be counted. Different people due the verifying and the counting.

Election day should be a National holiday, and we should have mail in voting and early voting.

That's ASSUMING, which you love to do, that everyone plays by the rules of the game.

Now...here's another way partisan hacks can cheat. County officials have the voting rolls and they know what percentage any said county politically swings. So, let's say a batch arrives at a polling center from county X and officials know that historically this county has swung about 60-40 Republican, what is to prevent any dimwit election official from just randomly tossing 50% of the ballots, without any examination of the ballots at all, based on that history, being reasonably sure that more ballots with R votes will be discarded than D ballots? Even partisan hacks at the post office can get into that kind of game, conveniently misplacing numerous sacks of ballot mail so that they never reach their destination.

Again...with mail-ins there are many ways to game the system with so many third parties involved.

[Inner Dirt]

Originally Posted by boxcar

I don't know how they conduct in-person voting in precincts in NY State but here in Swampland precinct officials never even handle a filled out ballot let alone see the contents thereof. We do a very racist but common sense thing down here in Swampland: After filling out the ballot, we voters actually remove the ballot from the large outer sleeve, hand the sleeve back to the attendant who is monitoring the tabulator and, then, we feed our own ballots into the tabulator. Our identities were earlier verified before we even received a ballot.

That is what they do here, this is easily the longest streak I have ever voted at the same place, almost a dozen years. In California I lived in the same house for 10 years, yet they moved my polling place a half dozen times. In those 10 years I voted at the airport, two different elementary schools, and in a couple two car garages. I feed my ballot into a machine, put them in cardboard boxes and voted paperless using a touch screen. About the only way I haven't voted is by mail.

[Tom]

Originally Posted by mostpost

I agree, but I am not sure why you think the Senate is dumb. What I think is that the Senate is not representative democracy. California has 80 times the population of Wyoming. Yet each state has two votes in the Senate. lest you think I'm making a political argument, Texas has 45 times as many people as Vermont, but both states have 2 votes. Essentially, a citizen of Wyoming has 80 times the power of a citizen of California.

It's important to remember that at the time the Constitution was written there were no organized political parties in America. So, the founders were more concerned with keeping a balance among the states rather than opposing factions which transcended boundaries. Just one more reason to reject originalism or original intent. The situation today is very different than in 1787.

We do have a Constitution. We can't disband the Senate and we can't change the number of Senators from each state. But we can change the way it does business.

1. Eliminate the Filibuster-permanently and irrevocably.
2. Limit the power of the majority Leader to control the agenda. Particularly in confirmation hearings.
3. Eliminate the personal privilege veto. That's when, if a Senator objects to a nominee from his state, that nominee will not even be considered.

Dems held both house under Barry-O and under Dumb-O and did nothing, just like nothing about inmmigration, but as soon as they lost the house, UpChucky wants to talk about amnesty.

Dems want nothing changed, it gives them something to cry about and campaign on.

BOTH parties want to fix nothing.

[elysiantraveller]

Originally Posted by mostpost

I agree, but I am not sure why you think the Senate is dumb. What I think is that the Senate is not representative democracy. California has 80 times the population of Wyoming. Yet each state has two votes in the Senate. lest you think I'm making a political argument, Texas has 45 times as many people as Vermont, but both states have 2 votes. Essentially, a citizen of Wyoming has 80 times the power of a citizen of California.

You mostly nailed it.

[Tom]

That's because we are a republc. As in United State of America, not America.

But the good news is, the Constitution allows for amendments.
Even been done a bunch of times.

[xtb]

Originally Posted by mostpost

I agree, but I am not sure why you think the Senate is dumb. What I think is that the Senate is not representative democracy. California has 80 times the population of Wyoming. Yet each state has two votes in the Senate. lest you think I'm making a political argument, Texas has 45 times as many people as Vermont, but both states have 2 votes. Essentially, a citizen of Wyoming has 80 times the power of a citizen of California.

It's important to remember that at the time the Constitution was written there were no organized political parties in America. So, the founders were more concerned with keeping a balance among the states rather than opposing factions which transcended boundaries. Just one more reason to reject originalism or original intent. The situation today is very different than in 1787.

We do not live in a pure democracy. A pure democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. Our country was founded as a constitutional republic with elements of democracy. Half of our legislative branch is a representative democracy, I think it was brilliant of our founding fathers to create a portion of our government that represents all states equally. We are after all, the United States of America. Without the Senate, residents of small states would feel disenfranchised pretty quickly.

Do you think the United Nations should apportion voting power according to nations' populations?