(US-Election) So howsabout voting by mail?

emigre · Aug 15, 2020

Hanafuda said:
Have you ever been concerned about corruption within your postal service influencing the outcome of the election? Because the postal workers' union here in the USA just endorsed Joe Biden. That pretty much taints the whole deal for me.

No. The research into fraud into our elections are showing there's a small amount which IIRC is focused a lot in Northern Ireland. The main postal union here (CWU) affiliated with the Labour party here and have been for many years and there's been no question of any attempt of fraud. There have been accusations of 'widespread' postal fraud (not at the CWU) but on so-called community leaders and students from right-wing politicians. No one has actually provided anything credible to provide those. Local Government also do checks between elections to keep track of this.

Basically, trust your post workers.

PiracyForTheMasses · Aug 15, 2020

Sorry not sorry, anyone that thinks mail in ballots are okay are uneducated individuals that have no knowledge on the subject. What most people here fail to realize is people have been buying other peoples votes for decades. Sure, it was not physical, you gave them your word that you would vote how they wanted you to vote. Well now you can buy the physical vote. On top of that USPS workers have been caught before committing voter fraud and they are incompetent like every other shipping service in USA. Do NOT put the future of USA in the hands of USPS.

Hanafuda · Aug 15, 2020

monkeyman4412 said:
Hmm idk. Maybe it's the fact Joe wants to put funding back into the post office after republicans kneecapped their job twice in a row? once in 2006, and now recently?
And I would be concerned about that, especially from the president who put a pundit there to slow down the post office. Why? Oh well he admitted that he's trying to boost his election chances. It's a statistical fact that most democrats take the pandemic seriously. And will guess what? vote by mail, rather than going to a poll.There is already data showing that difference between the two parties. So effectively by trying to axe the post office, Trump is trying to boost his own election chances.

You're missing the point. If we vote by mail, the postal service controls the election if they want to. And they just announced that they want to.

As for your concerns about the Trump vs. the USPS thing, the postal service should be operating at a profit and competing against commercial services, not operating at a constant deficit on taxpayer funding. Charge for a stamp what a stamp actually costs, instead of charging 55 cents but then getting another 55 cents or whatever it takes from funding. I should only have to fund the postal service to the extent I use it. The current system overwhelmingly benefits mass mailers and corporate mailers by keeping their costs down, while people who only use the postal service to mail in their bills, personal correspondence with family/friends, and receive purchased goods are subsidizing the mass mailers through these hidden expenses (tax revenue). It's bullshit.

emigre said:
Basically, trust your post workers.

They've already taken a side. Public announcement. So NOPE.

emigre · Aug 15, 2020

Hanafuda said:
They've already taken a side. Public announcement. So NOPE.

Looks like you've made your mind up without reading what I wrote about the CWU. Whatevs.

Hanafuda · Aug 15, 2020

emigre said:
Looks like you've made your mind up without reading what I wrote about the CWU. Whatevs.

I think you're too easily convinced of what you want to believe. Sorry, but corruption is a reality. The people telling you there isn't any are the most corrupt of all.

emigre · Aug 15, 2020

Hanafuda said:
I think you're too easily convinced of what you want to believe.

Or I base it off on our Electoral commission says.

EDIT: just seen your edit .If you're going to get corruption, you're going to get from politicians doing shit like gerrymandering and 'donations.' Posties at best would be small time.

Next time I speak to the Head of Electoral Services at work, I'll put this out to him as I'm sure I'll enjoy his reaction.

Hanafuda · Aug 15, 2020

emigre said:
Or I base it off on our Electoral commission says.

EDIT: just seen your edit .If you're going to get corruption, you're going to get from politicians doing shit like gerrymandering and 'donations.' Posties at best would be small time.

Next time I speak to the Head of Electoral Services at work, I'll put this out to him as I'm sure I'll enjoy his reaction.

Would you feel comfortable with your Head of Electoral Services endorsing one candidate over another?

Deleted User · Aug 15, 2020

Hanafuda said:
You're missing the point. If we vote by mail, the postal service controls the election if they want to. .

...
Wow, your an idiot beyond recognition. I am honestly about to have a laughing fit. Quick question hun, who verifies the ballots?
I'll tell you now, it's not the post office.

emigre · Aug 15, 2020

Hanafuda said:
Would you feel comfortable with your Head of Electoral Services endorsing one candidate over another?

In the most polite way possible, that's an amazingly stupid question as you're comparing a trade union to the people who run the election. Post Workers deliver shit. My homeboy, the Head of ES organises and verifies the election for the area.

However, for shits and giggles, I'll answer it, H of ES like myself work in local government cannot endorse political opinion in our roles. However, in private, we can and I know multiple people who that. Should he send emails to all staff from his work email telling us he's voting one way, he's fucked. If we have a private conversation in the pub and he tells me how he's going to vote, fair enough.

Hanafuda · Aug 15, 2020

monkeyman4412 said:
...
Wow, your an idiot beyond recognition. I am honestly about to have a laughing fit. Quick question hun, who verifies the ballots?
I'll tell you now, it's not the post office.

No but the postal workers will have control over which ballots are delivered. Do I think there'd be enough of that going on to actually influence outcome(s)? Probably not, but the Presidential election in the US in recent years has been very tight. Like 50/50 tight. They've shown their hand with this announcement endorsing one side, because whether there's tampering or not they've cast a shadow on the credibility of the results. I don't trust US postal workers not to keep a few bags from one district off the truck, or to add a "special" bag or two. So it's not so much that I think it WILL happen, but that I don't TRUST them not to, because they've taken a side in advance.

If any of you have a Trump sign in your yard or bumper sticker on your car (no, I don't, I don't want my house or car vandalized) ... don't mail in your ballot from your own mailbox. Take it to a public mailbox and drop it in there. If the mailman sees you're a Trump supporter, your ballot might not reach its destination.

emigre said:
In the most polite way possible, that's an amazingly stupid question as you're comparing a trade union to the people who run the election. Post Workers deliver shit. My homeboy, the Head of ES organises and verifies the election for the area.

However, for shits and giggles, I'll answer it, H of ES like myself work in local government cannot endorse political opinion in our roles. However, in private, we can and I know multiple people who that. Should he send emails to all staff from his work email telling us he's voting one way, he's fucked. If we have a private conversation in the pub and he tells me how he's going to vote, fair enough.

As I explained above there, mail-in voting puts the postal service in the chain of custody of the ballots. So they control the election as much as those who count the votes. And as Stalin wisely observed, it's not who votes but who counts the votes. Now it's not just who counts the votes, but who plays middle man delivering the votes that will be counted.

VartioArtel · Aug 15, 2020

I'll believe in the crappy system if I get my mail-in ballot. If they conveniently 'forget' while the rest of my family gets theirs (and they aren't listed as 'no party affiliation' like I am), you can expect a shitstorm. It's not like I haven't voted the last 2 presidencies, and a ballot not showing up for me would be a giant red flag.

emigre · Aug 15, 2020

Hanafuda said:
No but the postal workers will have control over which ballots are delivered. Do I think there'd be enough of that going on to actually influence outcome(s)? Probably not, but the Presidential election in the US in recent years has been very tight. Like 50/50 tight. They've played their hand with this announcement endorsing one side, because whether there's tampering or not they've cast a shadow on the credibility of the results. I don't trust US postal workers not to keep a few bags from one district off the truck, or to add a "special" bag or two. So it's not so much that I think it WILL happen, but that I don't TRUST them not to, because they've taken a side in advance.

As I explained above there, mail-in voting puts the postal service in the chain of custody of the ballots. So they control the election as much as those who count the votes. And as Stalin wisely observed, it's not who votes but who counts the votes. Now it's not just who counts the votes, but who plays middle man delivering the votes that will be counted.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, this sounds like good ol' fashioned American paranoia. A similar setup has been happening here for years and honestly, I cannot comprehend this thought process.

I will end with this though, from my experiences when things go wrong, it's not because someone is corrupt, it's cos someone fucked up.

Deleted User · Aug 15, 2020

Hanafuda said:
No but the postal workers will have control over which ballots are delivered.

How? No really how? Are these guys just opening up envelopes like Christmas day? pretty sure you would get fired for it. So no, they can't choose one over the other. Pretty sure anyone who is working in that position and likes their job, will rather not risk it, and if they do, pretty certain they would be caught.

Hanafuda · Aug 15, 2020

emigre said:
I mean this in the nicest way possible, this sounds like good ol' fashioned American paranoia. A similar setup has been happening here for years and honestly, I cannot comprehend this thought process.

I will end with this though, from my experiences when things go wrong, it's not because someone is corrupt, it's cos someone fucked up.

There is fixing in every election in both our countries and if you choose to believe them when they tell you they investigated themselves and found no evidence of it, well good for you.

emigre · Aug 15, 2020

Hanafuda said:
There is fixing in every election in both our countries and if you choose to believe them when they tell you they investigated themselves and found no evidence of it, well good for you.

Where do you our elections are fixed?

Hanafuda · Aug 15, 2020

emigre said:
Where do you our elections are fixed?

It's human nature. There is no government anywhere on Earth that is not corrupt. Just how corrupt is mostly a function of the size of the bureaucracy, how absolute is its authority, how widespread is its invasion into the lives of the people. By that measure the USA is bad and getting worse, our Federal bureaucracy is openly aligned with one political party and works through their official authority to kneecap & destroy office holders from the opposition party. It may be the same in the UK? I do know that the UK has, if anything, an even more pervasive bureaucracy than in the US.

If that engenders your trust, more power to you. I'm more of a "Murphy's Law" type person when it comes to government corruption.

emigre · Aug 15, 2020

Hanafuda said:
It's human nature. There is no government anywhere on Earth that is not corrupt. Just how corrupt is mostly a function of the size of the bureaucracy, how absolute is its authority, how widespread is its invasion into the lives of the people. By that measure the USA is bad and getting worse, our Federal bureaucracy is openly aligned with one political party and works through their official authority to kneecap & destroy office holders from the opposition party. It may be the same in the UK? I do know that the UK has, if anything, an even more pervasive bureaucracy than in the US.

If that engenders your trust, more power to you. I'm more of a "Murphy's Law" type person when it comes to government corruption.

So you can't point out anything.

Btw there are many many issues with the British political systems, to imply I have complete trust in our institutions is laughable.

notimp · Aug 16, 2020

German news media (dw.com) analysis on the topic, mail voting laws and systems in the US are differing by states. In some states every registered voter gets a mail ballot, in some states only ones that request one. In some states ut only can be requested, if you are out of country for election day, in some states you just have to signal intent that youd want to. MIT research says no significantly increased voter fraud potential, if states would switch to primarily voting per mail short term.

Ballots are printed on special paper sealed and signed, so those fraud prevention meassures are in place. So whats all the fuzz about?

DW says, that Trump is making it a public issue to increase distrust in voter populations.

Why? Hes preparing to pull another Bush 2.

Early voting results will come in from lower populated areas, with a lower percentage of mail votes. (I.e. not large cities), which will favor Trump. Mail votes will be counted and come in later in bulk. So, if Trump is in the lead early on, he is expected to declare having won the election and then bank on popular voter support to cut off counting of mail votes eventually.

This also goes hand in hand with the current chief postal officier being an outspoken Trump supporter and having cut funding for on time delivery and fired the two heads of domestic delivery recently.

So better not make the electoral difference too small this time around...

src: https://m.dw.com/de/wird-die-briefwahl-in-den-usa-ein-desaster/a-54570937
(german)

Xzi · Aug 16, 2020

Republicans have been trying to kneecap the USPS for decades, but the fact that they're just now taking definitive actions such as removing hundreds of high-volume sorting machines, mere months away from an election amid a pandemic, is obviously no coincidence. Not only is Trump attempting to rig the election in his favor, he's sewing doubt in the election results ahead of time, just in case he somehow loses despite his best efforts to suppress voter turnout. This shit is straight out of the autocrats' playbook, and it's precisely the type of thing that will turn a first-world democratic nation into a third-world banana republic overnight.

Perhaps the worst part about it is that if the USPS gets privatized or dismantled, nobody's gonna deliver to the most rural parts of America any more because it's simply not profitable to do so. Yet the majority of people living in those areas are so infested with brainworms that they'll gladly vote red and shoot themselves in the foot with a smile on their faces anyway.

notimp · Aug 16, 2020

There is no immediate downside to it though, even if they loose, they loose by a smaller amount which favours reps next time around...

So I doubt that this is only Trump...

(US-Election) So howsabout voting by mail?

Should US residents be allowed to vote by mail?

Absolutely: with the pandemic, it's more important than ever to vote from home

Yes. The system's being used since forever, so I trust it'll be fine

Neutral. I will/won't cast my vote regardless of what's being said or done

No. I don't really trust the process (anymore)

Absolutely not. It's a mass fraudulent system

I'm not a US citizen, so my opinion is irrelevant (though probably in the comments below :P )

Other, namely...

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