The election debacles across the country this month made one thing clear: the measures that voting experts hoped would mitigate the pandemic-related challenges didn’t go far enough to make voting accessible in the outbreak.
Vote by MAIL only should be the rule.
If everyone votes by MAIL then there should not be any problem in getting the ballots out. The voting rolls are already in place and the ballots can be mailed as soon as they are finalized. Only those newly registered voters should face any delay in getting a ballot.
I am sure WA and OR would be willing to provide advice as to how to process ballots… IF there are complaints that these states lean Democrat, add AZ in there, they have made it easy to vote by mail since at least 2000. These states don’t seem to have any problem tabulating the vote.
What is this need to have the results so quickly? IMO it’s the media which drives this in their zest to be the one who ‘calls the winner’ first. It’s not official until the electors vote anyway.
Great article, and it makes me think it’s crucial Biden wins Florida. They actually count their ballots and give results on election night, even with tons of vote by mail and early voting. Winning Florida would end the election on election night. If we are waiting days for Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina it is going to fuel conspiracy theories and unrest.
If you think FL will save us, then yeah, we’re more ‘Effed’ than we realize.
Think Bush v Gore times a million.
No democracy, no justice.
I agree with you if it is razor close. It was only a 1% in 2016, 1.7% in 2012 and still called each election night by 10 p.m. Just looking at the swing states and who will deliver their votes on election night, I don’t see any swing state other than perhaps North Carolina who will have them counted by midnight. Vote by mail and lots more absentee is going to overwhelm Michigan and Wisconsin and lead to days of counting, unless they allow some counting before election day. Those states were already did for their primaries, and there will be far more votes to count in November.
I think you’re right. I also think the red-leaning states won’t budge on when they count.
In VA which is allowing mail in for everyone that wants it. I’ve only been here 2 years. I’ve gone on their site to update to a new temporary address, then again yesterday to update to my new permanent address. As it looks, none of it has been changed from my original address. You just assume you put info in, submit and it’s done. Will be calling them to see if I can figure this out. I’m way ahead of the November election but wonder if you were doing this last minute or didn’t check to see why you hadn’t received your ballot.
Online voting. We can do everything else online.
There will be conspiracy theories regardless.
It’s not that simple. Securing online sites and databases is expensive and complex. There are over 200 million citizens of voting age in the US. Even Amazon doesn’t have to deal with those kinds of numbers, especially in the short time frame required. Also, most districts don’t have the equipment or personnel necessary for setting up voter servers and databases, and the DT administration clearly isn’t going to help provide resources, at least not to states he isn’t projected to win. You can also bet your ass that the people who hacked into Home Depot, Facebook, Equifax and hundreds of other company databases will be all over election sites.
Online or mail, the Russians will do everything they can to sabotage the voting. It’s Trumps best chance.
What’s scarier is the Russians want Trump, the Chinese may prefer Biden.
How did we get here?
Am I wrong to infer that this means Anti-Democrats?
Citizens United.
Agreed that there’s absolutely no way to do this online by this election. Not a chance, for many reasons. But it IS possible to do it, given enough time, money and resources, and the political will. 2022 might be doable, but 2024 is much more realistic. Everyone would get a (free) Voter ID card and #, and it would basically work like a credit card, in terms of security, and you’d vote via app or web site. The concept isn’t that complicated, and the core technology exists. You just have to want to do it, and do it right, and that’s the hard part. It’s the politics that’s holding this up, not technology.
Call it MAVA: Make America Vote Again
Red states (Georgia) are deliberately not securing themselves against hacking. If Trump wins, it’s all good with them. If Biden wins, they will expose the hacking as corruption. The hackers could go either way depending what flavor of chaos the want.
This is going to make Russia’s 2011 parliamentary elections look fairly tame, and Putin got 140% voter turnout in the Samara region in that one. I think 17 states still have paper-trail-less electronic voting going into this.
All hackers have to do is change addresses in voter registration files so it doesn’t match the voter ID card or voter statement. Guess which interesting names or voting districts might be targets?
