Just before election results are due out of Wisconsin, ambiguity from a U.S. Supreme Court decision and an unprecedented number of absentee ballots permeate the end of what has become the standard-bearer for chaotic elections in the time of coronavirus.
Vote Count Hours Away.
COVID-45 Spike Days Away.
I also read on a techie blog that Foxconn, who successfully swindled Wisconsin into thinking they were getting a massive new plant with massive job hires, has yet to follow through on any of that. Their “innovation centers” are empty, so really, I hope the stupidity of this state continues unabated because it’s awesome to watch.
“…Republicans pushed for the narrowest possible parameters of an acceptable ballot.”
The GOP believes that voting is a precious thing that should be used only sparingly.
Let’s not forget that there was a backlog of requests and there were ballots that were not mailed out to voters.
Redefining cluster fuck.
The court’s opaqueness and commission’s ideological impasse leave election officials to decide themselves which ballots count and which don’t.
Kakistocracy in action.
I don’t understand how this postmark kerfuffle is a thing. What makes a postmark so absolutely critical to whether a vote is valid or not? It seems like the next step in “voter fraud” hysteria. Is there some sort of fraud being alleged here by the people attempting to deny the ballots? I can understand wanting a timely election result, but given everything else going on, this is ridiculous.
Speaking as someone in Wisconsin who is trying very hard to get rid of the GOP infestation, your comment is not only unhelpful, it makes me want to mail you a flaming bag of Trump’s Best Shit, which would turn incendiary when delivered.
Consider the flood of Koch money into my state and how hard it is to overcome a flood of right-wing propaganda after the 2010 Census due to poor voter turnout allowed significant gerrymandering. After all, that right-wing propaganda is what got you Trump. I could take your stupid attitude and address it to all of the US, including wherever the hell you happen to live, given that the Electoral College put that rancid festering pustule into power. Take your smug attitude and wash it down with a bottle of Trump Whine.
Election law.
I voted absentee. I drove down to the city clerk’s office, stood outside the building and called the clerk’s phone number. Someone from the clerk’s office came outside, and I placed my ballot down on the curb and backed away, and then they walked up and took the ballot. Easily more than 6 feet of separation. No time stamp when the ballot was provided. You either trust the clerk’s office or you don’t. (I should add that this exchange was video recorded by my wife from a distance.)
If you take the absentee ballot into the Post Office lobby and you hand it to a mail clerk, ask to see them stamp it. If you don’t trust them to stamp it and they claim they don’t have the time, then pony up a few bucks to get it registered or certified or whatever, and then you’ll have a record of when it was in the USPS possession. And if after all that, they still don’t count your ballot, get a lawyer and sue the mofos for violating your Constitutional Right to Vote and ask for penalties. Because sometimes you have to provide pain. Pain in the wallet should suffice.
Your next Harley Davidson will be built in Thailand also too. Scott Walker fucked over the state but with his reign he unleashed the ugliness of some of the disinformed by right wing media voters. Never underestimate the power of propaganda to infect good but naive and gullible people. This virus has been infecting Americans ever since Reagan and the arrival of Limpbaugh on the AM radio dial and a lot of normally decent people succumbed to the plague of willful and intentional ignorance.
We have very efficient mail-in voting but I always drive to the County Courthouse and put our ballots in the drop box. It’s cheap peace-of-mind insurance.
Does John Menard Jr. spend much to elect Republicans in Wisconsin? I know the other billionaire Diane Hendricks opened her checkbook for Walker.
Democrats lost the messaging war on the ACA in 2010. The tea party funded by Kochs and Dick Armey played a huge role in the 2010 election. Fox and a few other networks would cover one angry old fart holding a sign at a Democratic town hall in podunk wherever protesting the ACA. Their death panel messaging and etc overwhelmed any messaging the Democrats tried. Democrats just were not good salesmen. Those losses in 2010 are still hurting us today. For a midterm election, it was about normal turnout or better than the preceding midterm anyway.
Turnout . Approximately 82.5 million people voted. Turnout increased relative to the last U.S. midterm elections without any significant shift in voters’ political identification.
Election day: November 2
Popular vote margin: Republican +6.8%
No worries. They’ll finally get their shit together enough to achieve the desired result.
“The Wisconsin Elections Commission directs municipal canvass boards to count a ballot, if otherwise valid, if the board determines, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the ballot was in the possession of a USPS facility on or before April 7, 2020, regardless of whether the ballot return envelope includes a postmark with a date on or before April 7th,” she wrote.
Democrats on the commission embraced Wolfe’s advice, while Republicans pushed for the narrowest possible parameters of an acceptable ballot.
Why don’t we let the cities use the the most expansive definition and the rural areas the narrower one? Then everyone gets what they want!
It was my understanding that HD opened the Thailand factory to get around increasingly onerous tariffs, and that the bikes will be solely for the Asian market.
On the plus side, HD got to reduce its labor costs and ship a bunch of jobs overseas. Another victory for American capitalism!
John Menard donates lots to elect Repubs in WI.
It’s about the only cause for which he’s not a mean-spirited cheapskate…
except for donating advanced ER cardiac equipment to the hospital closest to him, which I’m sure has nothing to do with his ongoing heart problems.
I was reading about Herbert Kohler Jr the other day. He supports Republicans also, but he’s not a skinflint. I read he sold his employees land and houses at cost.
With all this fighting over voting, how to allow what kind of voting, it makes me wonder if any of the WI Republicans trying to put the kibosh on how to vote have ever worked at the polls, been an election commissioner, or taken a civics class?
The US postal service does do some crazy shit with mail. In Feb of this year I mailed my March payment check to the cable company. The address for where the payment goes is here in town. It didn’t clear, and it didn’t clear, and then I had my cable box go out and I went to one of their customer service centers to replace. I asked them about my check, they showed that it hadn’t been paid. So I went home and submitted a payment on my credit card. I had to leave town for a couple of days, and when I came back my check payment still hadn’t cleared. And by the second week in March it had cleared. It took over 3 weeks for them to either get it, or process it.
Now I’m not against vote by mail, but does take time to set up the system. For me the bigger picture is that when the spike in corona virus cases happens the blames should be directly placed on the WI Republicans.
You have your work cut out for you.
However, the WI-Dems of 2011-2014 made a series of missteps that made the hole you’re trying to get out of now deeper than Koch money alone created. Even before that, the party failed at developing a deep bench of up-and-comers throughout the state.
So if others doubt your ability to make headway, maybe highlight what’s been accomplished and solicit support rather than give them evidennce that their asssessment is accurate
So if I get this right, ballots that were delivered to their ballot counters on Wed. morning by USPS might not get counted because the tooth effing fairy collected them from under all those voters pillows Tuesday/Wednesday night/morning and delivered them poof to the Registrars Wed upon opening the doors?
Yeah, I can see that.