Election integrity and the transfer of power

[Paingod]

Given the mentality of Trump supporters, I worry that they'd feel like they were being empowered by the president to pressure people to vote their way or not at all.

There are election laws that deal with that and as someone going through poll worker training, there is also training around how to react.

Laws have done a pretty good job keeping Trump and his agenda in check. I'll rest easy.

[malchior]

Which is not to say that the poll watchers won't engage in shenanigans.

They won't engage in mere shenanigans. He's exhorting them to "fight for Trump." Neither he nor his followers understand the nuance of metaphor very well so I'd be ready for literal fighting and intimidation.

Yes and beyond that it will be used as a data collection network for the lawsuits that are going to crop up after the election.

[Skinypupy]

Which is not to say that the poll watchers won't engage in shenanigans.

They won't engage in mere shenanigans. He's exhorting them to "fight for Trump." Neither he nor his followers understand the nuance of metaphor very well so I'd be ready for literal fighting and intimidation.

That’s my concern.

There’s a difference between “poll watchers” and “poll enforcers”. I strongly suspect Trump is aiming for the latter.

[Holman]

His campaign also called for poll watchers in aggressive terms in 2016 and 2018, and it didn't amount to much.

"Armyfortrump.com" is the usual campaign volunteer solicitation website (and perhaps an older one, since Brad Parscale is featured prominently). You can sign up to make calls, send texts, register voters, etc, along with about five different ways to donate money.

[Skinypupy]

His campaign also called for poll watchers in aggressive terms in 2016 and 2018, and it didn't amount to much.

"Armyfortrump.com" is the usual campaign volunteer solicitation website (and perhaps an older one, since Brad Parscale is featured prominently). You can sign up to make calls, send texts, register voters, etc, along with about five different ways to donate money.

Oh, I don't expect that anything would actually happen, as I'm sure it's all yet another grift. That said, if there ever were a time where MAGA's would actually show up to "monitor" the polls (by any force they deemed necessary), it would be right now.

I was mostly just bugged by the fact that he was doing it in the first place.

[El Guapo]

Which is not to say that the poll watchers won't engage in shenanigans.

They won't engage in mere shenanigans. He's exhorting them to "fight for Trump." Neither he nor his followers understand the nuance of metaphor very well so I'd be ready for literal fighting and intimidation.

That’s my concern.

There’s a difference between “poll watchers” and “poll enforcers”. I strongly suspect Trump is aiming for the latter.

Yeah, I mainly just wanted to make sure that people knew that there wasn't anything inherently wrong with the basic concept.

That said, while relying on overzealous volunteers allows for deniability, one issue is that you wind up with no coordination. So you'll probably wind up with a ton of angry Trumpers at polling stations in Salt Lake City and Nashville, for example, when you really need them in Philadelphia and Manchester.

[Holman]

Just a propos, here's the Parscale video featured on that site.



Talk about phoning it in. It looks like a hostage video.

I have to applaud the grift, especially because Parscale is apparently walking away with a couple of new houses and fleet of sportscars.

[Isgrimnur]

NY Times

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that Texas’ procedure for reviewing — and in some cases rejecting — mail-in ballots was unconstitutional and ordered the state to change its process before Election Day.

The state’s process for verifying signatures on mail-in ballots “plainly violates certain voters’ constitutional rights,” the judge, Orlando L. Garcia of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, wrote in his ruling, describing it as “inherently fraught with error with no recourse for voters.”

“In light of the fundamental importance of the right to vote, Texas’ existing process for rejecting mail-in ballots due to alleged signature mismatching fails to guarantee basic fairness,” Judge Garcia wrote.

In a lawsuit filed last year, two voters said that their mail-in ballots were arbitrarily rejected because Texas officials did not believe the signatures on the voters’ ballot envelopes matched those on their applications. The lawsuit claimed that the state’s procedures, including failure to give “meaningful pre-rejection notice” to voters, violated the Fourteenth Amendment.

[Holman]

Something that might ease our worries a bit: Democrats Hold Secret Edge If Election Is Too Close to Call.

If the outcome of November’s election comes down to fights over counting mail-in ballots and claims of fraud by President Donald Trump, Democrat Joe Biden may have a quiet advantage: the top election officials in many of the key states that could decide the election are Democrats.

In Michigan and Pennsylvania -- two Democratic-leaning states Trump won in 2016 -- the top elections officials belong to Biden’s party. That’s also true in Arizona, which Trump carried but Biden is now leading in the polls, and Minnesota, which the president has targeted as a potential pickup.

Trump, who trails Biden in national polls, has tried to undermine the public’s confidence in the election. He falsely claims that mail-in ballots are rife with fraud, and that the election will be rigged against him. This has led Democrats to worry about a scenario where Trump is ahead in the election-night count from in-person voters and declares himself the winner before all outstanding mail-in ballots are tallied.

Should that happen, it will be up to the secretaries of state to preside over the counting of mail-in votes and certify the final outcomes, a process that could take days or even weeks. These relatively anonymous state officials could prove a bulwark for Biden as they cope with what’s expected to be an unprecedented surge in mail-in ballots because of the coronavirus pandemic.

They will also be on the front lines in countering any claims by Trump or his allies that the election is somehow rigged.

[Alefroth]

FL Sec. of State is the one that concerns me.

[malchior]

Wisconsin Supreme Court delays absentee ballots over question about whether Green Party should appear on ballot.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court told election officials across the state on Thursday -- a week before the deadline to mail ballots -- that they can't mail out absentee ballots until the court decides whether to add the Green Party's presidential ticket to the ballot.

The September 17 deadline for when the 1,850 municipal clerks need to mail out absentee ballots to Wisconsin voters who asked for one is set in state law.
The 4-3 decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court was split among partisan lines, with all four conservative justices agreeing that the process of mailing out ballots must be paused, while the three liberal justices dissented. The possible inclusion of Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins on the general election ballot could tip the scales of a razor-thin contest between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

Voting during the pandemic in Wisconsin has already been the subject of legal fights. Republicans who insisted on keeping the state's April 7 primary on schedule won two legal battles in the spring, as the state Supreme Court blocked Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' bid to delay it until June and the US Supreme Court reversed a lower court's ruling that gave voters six extra days to return their ballots by mail. At least 19 people in Wisconsin who said they voted in-person or worked the polls tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the state health department later that month.

[pr0ner]

That Rosetta Stone ad in the middle of your copy/paste is hilarious.

[malchior]

That Rosetta Stone ad in the middle of your copy/paste is hilarious.

Fixed - thought I got it all! CNN is so annoying with the text breaks.

On another note, more electoral shenanigans. Weird that they ignore equal protection (edit: nvm - just skimmed the decision - the issue is that equal protection wasn't brought before them and the justices basically said...*guys* this is an equal protection case. Get your act together). The problem now is time to get this mess of a case fixed.

[El Guapo]

FL Sec. of State is the one that concerns me.

Yeah, I know. But with the electoral map the way it is, if Biden wins WI + MI + PA, then he basically has a 99% chance of winning the election - it's *really* hard to draw a plausible Trump EC majority map without any of those three states. So not having GOP figures in charge of the elections in any of those three states does give me significant comfort (even if GOP control of the WI legislature & Supreme Court opens the door a creak to shenanigans in there).

Florida I've kind of 90% written off, because while Biden has had a consistent (and often pretty significant) lead in FL polls, with total GOP control of the government I think the odds that they'll be able to get Trump over the hump there seem pretty decent (at least unless Biden can widen his lead there). But again, if Biden gets WI + MI + PA then he doesn't really need Florida.

[YellowKing]

All of Trump's wins require him to take NC, and though it's virtually tied here I"m not at all convinced he'll be able to do it. NC's big emphasis on mail-in voting and early voting favors Democrats, and Governor Cooper (D) is very popular (60%+). We're also seeing Cunningham maintaining a consistent lead over Tillis.

As an NCer, I'm well aware that we like to split our state and federal elections between parties, so Senate and Gubernatorial races swinging towards Democrats in no way guarantees the state won't go Trump. But it's at least a comforting indicator that Republican strength in the state is not where they want it to be.

[El Guapo]

All of Trump's wins require him to take NC, and though it's virtually tied here I"m not at all convinced he'll be able to do it. NC's big emphasis on mail-in voting and early voting favors Democrats, and Governor Cooper (D) is very popular (60%+). We're also seeing Cunningham maintaining a consistent lead over Tillis.

As an NCer, I'm well aware that we like to split our state and federal elections between parties, so Senate and Gubernatorial races swinging towards Democrats in no way guarantees the state won't go Trump. But it's at least a comforting indicator that Republican strength in the state is not where they want it to be.

Yeah, that's another big Biden upside. He has optionality, in that if he loses one or more of WI + MI + PA, he can make up some or all of that in other states where he has polling leads (FL + NC + AZ), and failing that has several other states where he's behind but only narrowly so (IA + GA + TX).

[msteelers]

We knew a while ago that the Russians had hacked into two Florida Supervisor of Elections offices in 2016, although it didn't appear that any votes were changed. DeSantis was told which counties were targeted but opted to keep it a secret. According to the new Woodward book, it was my county that was hacked!

Several national media outlets reported on Wednesday that “Rage,” a forthcoming book by journalist Bob Woodward about President Donald Trump, claims that St. Lucie was one of two Florida counties that had their systems hacked. The other county named in the book is Washington.

Our Supervisor of Elections claims she knows nothing about it.

“To be clear, my office has never been notified by any federal or state official that our county systems have been compromised in any manner,” Walker wrote in a Sept. 10 news release. Internal and external audits of the county’s 2016 voting operations showed no abnormalities, she wrote.

On a side note, I have a pretty bad impression of our county Supervisor of Elections. Not from a corrupt standpoint, just plain incompetance. She was up for reelection in the primary, and unfortunately easily won again.

Fun side note, I found video of our 2016 Election Night broadcast for the radio station I worked at. I was reading the St Lucie election results, and you can see the moment where I realized Trump was going to win Florida.

[malchior]

Roger Stone goes on Infowars and calls for Trump to seize power if he loses the election. Guess this is what happens when the President commutes your sentence. He surely learned a lesson about law and order. Due to Trump's action instead of sitting in prison as Stone rightfully should have been he was making this phone call to foment a fascist takeover of the United States.

As an aside, one criticism of the recent election war game that indicated that the GOP would cause massive unrest after the election was that the GOP players were #NeverTrump people. However the actions they roleplayed in the exercise are essentially along the lines that Roger Stone just outlined. And he is a rather influential dirty tricks fixer close to the President. And he was involved in the Brooks Brother riot in Florida in 2000. The danger levels are off the charts.

Roger Stone is making baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election and is urging Donald Trump to consider several draconian measures to stay in power, including having federal authorities seize ballots in Nevada, having FBI agents and Republican state officials “physically” block voting under the pretext of preventing voter fraud, using martial law or the Insurrection Act to carry out widespread arrests, and nationalizing state police forces.

Stone, a longtime confidant of the president, made the comments during a September 10 appearance on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars network. On July 10, Trump commuted a 40-month prison sentence that was handed down to Stone after he was convicted of lying to Congress and tampering with witnesses as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into 2016 election interference. Namely, Stone lied to Congress about his contacts with WikiLeaks, which released hacked emails with the aim of boosting Trump’s prospects. In the weeks leading up to the commutation, Stone made a number of media appearances where he asked Trump to grant him clemency and said that in exchange, he could be a more effective campaigner for the president’s 2020 reelection efforts.

...

Stone argued that “the ballots in Nevada on election night should be seized by federal marshalls and taken from the state” because “they are completely corrupted” and falsely said that “we can prove voter fraud in the absentees right now.” He specifically called for Trump to have absentee ballots seized in Clark County, Nevada, an area that leans Democratic. Stone went on to claim that “the votes from Nevada should not be counted; they are already flooded with illegals” and baselessly suggested that former Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) should be arrested and that Trump should consider nationalizing Nevada’s state police force.

Beyond Nevada, Stone recommended that Trump consider several actions to retain his power. Stone recommended that Trump appoint former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) as a special counsel “with the specific task of forming an Election Day operation using the FBI, federal marshals, and Republican state officials across the country to be prepared to file legal objections and if necessary to physically stand in the way of criminal activity.”

Stone also urged Trump to consider declaring “martial law” or invoking the Insurrection Act and then using his powers to arrest Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, “the Clintons” and “anybody else who can be proven to be involved in illegal activity.”

[Kraken]

It's funny...when I was a child in the 1960s, Nazis were still the #1 villains in the popular imagination; WW2 was still a fairly fresh memory. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, communists (especially Russians) dethroned the Nazis. After the USSR fell, we elevated drug lords for awhile, until 9/11 catapulted terrorists into the top slot. And now we're back to nazis.

[dbt1949]

For me it was the Commies when in my younger years. But I know the protestors thought all us GIs were Nazis.

[Jaymann]

Remember the Khrushchev shoe bang? He was a fricking wild man.



That fat bastard had his finger on the nuclear button and all we could do was cower under our school desks. No wonder we were scared shitless.

[dbt1949]

Yes indeed. We were.

[LawBeefaroni]

Roger Stone goes on Infowars and calls for Trump to seize power if he loses the election.

I'm trying to fit all this together. Alex Jones was (is?) an anti-government shadowy cabal conspiracy theorist. Bohemian Grove, Bilderberg group, the rich eat babies, etc. Something like a presidential coup seems like exactly the thing he was was warning that Clinton/Bush/Obama would do. Now he's endorsing the idea?


This was so much more fun when these guys were characters on Coast to Coast AM and the X-Files.

[Holman]

Roger Stone goes on Infowars and calls for Trump to seize power if he loses the election.

I'm trying to fit all this together. Alex Jones was (is?) an anti-government shadowy cabal conspiracy theorist. Bohemian Grove, Bilderberg group, the rich eat babies, etc. Something like a presidential coup seems like exactly the thing he was was warning that Clinton/Bush/Obama would do. Now he's endorsing the idea?

It all coalesces in QAnon, where Trump is (and has been all his life) a heroic crusader against those Globalist elites.

With victory within his grasp, aren't any and all means justified?

[malchior]

Roger Stone goes on Infowars and calls for Trump to seize power if he loses the election.

I'm trying to fit all this together. Alex Jones was (is?) an anti-government shadowy cabal conspiracy theorist. Bohemian Grove, Bilderberg group, the rich eat babies, etc. Something like a presidential coup seems like exactly the thing he was was warning that Clinton/Bush/Obama would do. Now he's endorsing the idea?


This was so much more fun when these guys were characters on Coast to Coast AM and the X-Files.

Seriously. I mean it would be laugh worthy if we weren't in the current situation. What's insane is that the President of the United States is influenced by this guy and trusts him. And Trump possibly believes in some of this fringe stuff if not just uses it. Meanwhile, Trump was again talking about how he will 'negotiate' a 3rd term.

[Grifman]

Ok, here's a concern I have. I've expressed it before but nobody really seems to have caught it. I understand the need for many people to use mail in/absentee ballots (I am doing this myself) but I am concerned that if an overwhelming number of Democrats vote via mail. it could cost the election in the closely fought battleground states. Mail in ballots have an error/reject rate because people just don't fill them out correctly.

Trump won WI, PA and MI by 80,000 votes. And in the primaries this year in those states, 60,000 mail in ballots were rejected. And the general election would probably see more rejected. I am afraid that the vast majority of these votes could be Democratic votes, and if so, then there goes the election. The rejected ballots might represent the margin of victory that Biden needs to win.

I'm afraid the emphasis on mail in ballots, while well intentioned, may end up being the cause of defeat. More here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

[malchior]

This is a concern of mine too. NY threw out something like 20% of the primary mail-in votes. Not that NY matters that much but still the margin of error is going to be tight. However, ideally the rejection rate should be statistically even across the board. That is where we get into worries about GOP election boards, Governors, etc.

Edit: Timely Tweet - Trump to sue in 5...4...3...2...

[El Guapo]

This is a concern of mine too. NY threw out something like 20% of the primary mail-in votes. Not that NY matters that much but still the margin of error is going to be tight. However, ideally the rejection rate should be statistically even across the board. That is where we get into worries about GOP election boards, Governors, etc.

Edit: Timely Tweet - Trump to sue in 5...4...3...2...

This is what I was talking about earlier regarding signature matches. It's stupid to allow ballots to be disqualified on those grounds in general, because you can't reasonably expect poll workers (or even experts) to reliably match signatures without extensive handwriting samples from each individual voter. But if it's just some yahoo poll worker playing detective that's probably not an issue, since you would expect them to disqualify voters generally equally. The bigger threat is that either a partisan poll worker or the Trump campaign engineers large scale disqualifications in Democratic leaning areas.

I do take some comfort from the Biden campaign announcing the formation of a massive legal team to take these issues on. And incidentally, for lawyers out there this is a good volunteer opportunity, because ultimately there's no substitute for having people on hand to observe the ballots being opened and challenged / disqualified or not.

[Grifman]

This is a concern of mine too. NY threw out something like 20% of the primary mail-in votes. Not that NY matters that much but still the margin of error is going to be tight. However, ideally the rejection rate should be statistically even across the board. That is where we get into worries about GOP election boards, Governors, etc.

I don't think manipulation by GOP boards/governors is the real issue though. The issue is that even if the mail vote rejection rate for both parties is about the same, if Democrats vote overwhelmingly by mail, then more of their ballots are going to be disqualified, even if everything is on the up and up.

That worries me.

[Isgrimnur]

My current plan is early in-person voting. That starts October 13 for Texas.

[LordMortis]

My plan was to absentee vote and drop my vote at the Clerk. At every turn it seems federal government is attempting shenanigans that affect the local level, so that plan is now on the tentative list. I really don't want to wait in line to sit in public space with the folks in my district. Too many people in my district are far too careless in their general response to COVID, IMO. Come November I'll have to figure out the weight of risking my health vs risking meddling. Currently there is no realistic reason to believe the Executive office of the Federal government will mess with absentee vote through the clerk's office, but in April there was no reason to believe would mess with absentee vote through the Post Office. And then I have to shovel on top of this that there is a Michigan legislature that is friendly to Trump regime shenanigans and they are trying to preserve their gerrymandering by any means possible.

[Carpet_pissr]

Too many people in my district are far too careless in their general response to COVID, IMO. Come November I'll have to figure out the weight of risking my health vs risking meddling. .

Wear a mask?

[LordMortis]

Too many people in my district are far too careless in their general response to COVID, IMO. Come November I'll have to figure out the weight of risking my health vs risking meddling. .

Wear a mask?

I always do but my mask wearing is more about protecting you than it is about protecting me. Like all things in a civil society. The courtesy I extend is with the expectation that you will do the same. I'm sure mask wearing will be required. I'm not sure the requirement will be followed or enforced. I also don't know how much mask wearing will help when I am being cycled through a public elementary school where mask wearing compliance will have been questionable and intermingling rates high by the in person schooling going on, where contact by 100s of people recently is at every surface, where 100s of people are passing through the same indoor space at very slow forward moving pace, even if they maintain 6 feet, which again I am sure will be required but am dubious about compliance or enforcement.

[Unagi]

I’m endlessly annoyed by the sentiment that “you can’t force me to wear a mask if I don’t want to”...

They want to argue that it’s like a seatbelt or motorcycle helmet.


When it’s more like a Speed Limit.

[Holman]

I'm going to vote by mail.

But it were my only option, I would walk bare-faced through an active COVID patient convention to vote against this motherfucker.

[gbasden]

I'm going to vote by mail.

But it were my only option, I would walk bare-faced through an active COVID patient convention to vote against this motherfucker.

Absolutely this.

[malchior]

This totally makes sense.

Football games - outdoors - safe
Tailgating* - outdoors - not safe
Lines to vote - could be outdoors - but somehow dangerous
Voting - indoors - *impossible to do safely obviously * so clearly dangerous
Shuttle to downtown voting location - safe



*Not an exception to the tailgating policy - "Therefore, fans will be allowed to gather near their vehicle with family members or those with whom they traveled and plan to sit with in the stadium."

[LawBeefaroni]

Bars open until 2am: not safe.
Bars open until 11:30pm: safe.

Maybe they could just close the polls a few hours earlier.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

And,of course, closing polling stations means more people packed into the polling stations that remain open. So by closing they’re potentially making things worse.

[Unagi]

The entire goal is to make voting a pain in the ass.