Ignoring Trump and Right-Wing Think Tanks, Red States Expand Vote by Mail | Talking Points Memo

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1308929

MAYBE people are beginning to ‘see’ that the RW is not looking out for THEM but for themselves and would rather just stay alive.

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Forcing Trump to bankrupt and shutdown/furlough the USPS in response, thus making VBM largely a moot point.

The RNC is going to challenge every state that looks to expand vote by mail, that didn’t already have such expansions in place. Winning those challenges isn’t the point, either. Merely tying it up in Court through November is the point.

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It will be the states that suffer both economically and in death counts if Trump’s lack of leadership, incompetence and indifference are allowed to continue. Maybe some are finally getting that this country is in real trouble and everyone’s livelihood and health are suffering.

The number of never-Trumpers is increasing, even if people won’t admit it out loud.

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Why are you linking the exact article we are commenting on?

Red states can expand Vote by Mail ahead of the election, but the RNC WILL challenge those expansions in court. They have already publicly announced they are planning on spending over $20M on such efforts.

Republican governors and secretaries of state are NOT the RNC. In fact, that’s kind of the point of this article…the red states moving forward with expanding the franchise, are doing so against the wishes of the think tanks (who actually have a great deal more influence over the RNC), thus setting up those legal showdowns.

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(Oops, not meant to be a reply to you chelsea; STUPID MOUSE FINGER)

“Christian Adams, president of PILF…"

PILF? Do they even check their acronyms before they choose a name? Internet…do your thing.

His missive contended, with scant evidence, that “twice as many” mailed ballots “disappeared” in the 2016 presidential election than made up the margin of votes between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Wait…does he think Trump should have lost the popular vote by more than he already did? Or is he asserting that the USPS is a liberal deep-state non-part of the government which intentionally “lost” only Trump votes?

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Your comment doesn’t support what’s already happening.

Finished reading your comment, which doesn’t help. Exactly what power does the RNC have to do what you’re suggesting?

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/20/michigan-voting-lawsuits-rnc-trump-116142

Really…

The point is…that the RNC plans to challenge any moves that will expand the electorate. That will definitely include challenging any laws…and especially moves by states without legislation…to expand the Vote By Mail franchise ahead of the 2020 election.

And again, success isn’t necessarily the mission. Merely clogging up the courts and getting stays put in place until after November, is the mission.

They have money to hire lawyers. Lots of money to hire lots of lawyers.

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If the main objection to mail in voting is fraud ( it isn’t it’s voting that they’re worried about ) then mail in should be the natural choice. If a state goes Vote by Mail it can abandon millions of dollars worth of machinery, poll personal and polling stations. The saved money could be diverted to anti-fraud efforts.

Serial number each ballot with a tear off for the voter to keep.
Mark the ballots so they can be detected at a distance and not confused for any other type of mail.
Provide special drop boxes for ballots in the Post Office and public locations.
Develop software to scan in the ballots and post the SN as received. Post that on a public web page.
Make it clear that any manipulation, removal or alteration of a ballot is a felony with a minimum 5 years in the federal pen ( no parole or early outs there ) PER INCIDENT.

That should cost a fraction of what in person voting costs and provides a ‘right down to the ballot’ trace.

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Yeah, well, we’ll see how that works out.

Competing charges of voter fraud? Hilarious. Let’s start by listing actual incidences of voter fraud by both parties. It’s not like this isn’t being addressed by the dems both at the state and federal levels and by Eric Holder and his group.

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Again, the point is merely to suppress votes. The legitimacy of the challenges doesn’t have to hold up in the long run, they only have to be legitimate enough to get votes not counted or cast in November. They don’t need rulings (though getting a few of those with a ton of Trump appointed judges of dubious quality will certainly help their strategy), they just need delays.

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Yeah, their lawyers are so competent. :smirk:

Whatever. We all have to do what we must do and insure that everyone who can vote is allowed to do so.

If we know that the point is to suppress votes, then that has to be overcome. Do you have any ideas? A plan? I’m sure people are working on that.

What can we as individuals do?

Frankly, this article is fairly optimistic about mail-in voting. Supression has always been an issue, but it hasn’t always worked. Getting more people to vote would certainly help counter it.

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Richard…perfectly reasonable suggestions. Sadly, Republicans will not listen to any of this. Their aim is always to restrict/diminish the vote and nothing will dissuade them from their voting fraud fantasies.

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I do what I can do. In Florida, and my county, we are busily making phone calls every day getting people to sign up for VBM. I think we’ve had a 5x increase in VBM sign ups in my county vs 4 years ago. But Florida isn’t one of the states at issues here. We have had unrestricted (mostly) VBM for years, its not a new expansion, there is nothing to challenge in the courts.

There will be challenges down the road on things like signatures matches. But we’ve already put together a Voter Protection team in our county, and have been training them for months on that, and numerous other issues. The FDP is the first state Democratic party to stand up a statewide Voter Protection team, too.

And yeah, I say “we”, because as the Vice Chair and Campaign Chair in my county, I have actively been working and implementing these plans and actions for awhile now. While running campaigns to get Democrats elected, of which I won 2 of 3 in March, and already have at least 2 more lined up for November in my county. I’ve won 8 of the 10 races I have run since 2017, in a 70% republican county, so I stay busy.

Do similar things to what I outlined above. Get involved with your local Dems, and get them to take action. Also, donate money to the DNC and Democratic legal groups that will need funding to fight these challenges that are coming.

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Yeah, pretty much what I thought. I received this earlier today. Don’t know anything about the group, but it certainly is another good step.

Vote from Home 2020

We don’t know what November will look like – but we can’t risk what happened in Wisconsin just last month happening again. Long lines at polling places with worried voters whose absentee ballots never arrived; while efforts to expand voting by mail before the election are short-circuited by Republican state legislators and conservatives on the Supreme Court. Holding an election in the middle of a pandemic is a recipe for voter disenfranchisement unless we do something about it and expand vote by mail opportunities as soon and as widely as possible.

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Thank you for all your efforts!

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I’m not sure I believe that voting by mail favors Dems as is often discussed. It would seem like it would benefit both sides equally.

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Exactly. And society can tolerate a tiny (nearly non-existent) amount of ballot fraud to prevent millions of votes from being suppressed. Just like protections in the justice system will set some guilty people free in order to protect the masses from having their rights and freedoms abridged (ideally)

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