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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   28884 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

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It just seems so obvious that VBM introduces so many problems I dont know why so many people support it (eg no chain of custody, return of machine politics). Is it just because Dems think it gives them an advantage?

I'm not a Democrat. I voted for Trump. I'm also disabled and likely would not have voted at all without VBM. My local board of elections also likes to move the polling places or reduce the number of locations if they think a lower turnout will produce better election outcomes and vice versa. After going to the normal polling place only to find it had been moved two weeks before the election once I'm not eager to do that again.

I think we're talking about universal vote-by-mail, not about need-based vote-by-mail (i.e., absentee voting) that you would undoubtedly qualify for.

I think we're talking about universal vote-by-mail, not about need-based vote-by-mai

I feel like that makes it even worse.

I think more people voting is a significant social good, and that the security concerns are overblown. If VBM was a significant threat to integrity, I would have expected the contested, chaotic 2020 elections to have turned up more fraud.

Plus, I would personally benefit if the time it took me to vote was reduced. I was in line for quite a while!

Why is more people voting good?

Voting is the safety valve of government. Most of the benefits of democracy come not from better decision making (ha!) or accountability, but from cultivating a sense of skin in the game.

Whether or not this is a real effect, I won’t speculate. The important part is that people feel like there is a normal process for their team to get power. This raises the threshold for any group to decide nope, now is the time for monsters.

I prefer the civic ritual of punching your ballot and getting the all-important “I voted” sticker, but engaging with the government by mail-in voting is better than nothing.

Given what I saw in the last US election, I'm not too keen on letting the average low-info, TV-enraged person have the process of voting greased up for them any further. It's an imperfect process, but I would afford a minimum of respect to people who at least took the time to leave their home, get in line, and sacrifice a few hours of their lives for democracy. Those who are not physically able can make a similar gesture to request their own mail-in ballots. I would say this miniscule effort demonstrates and engenders more skin in the game than automatically sending every Joe and Jane a ballot just waiting to be filled out after a CNN story on a candidate gives them a frowny. It's not evident to me why their input - lazy as it is - should be given any due by default, or further enabled. I can't think of anything positive or constructive they contribute to the process, but certainly a few negatives.

Democracy has always suffered from the dilemma of "what if the idiots vote the wrong way", but maybe we can stave off the worst of it by putting up these bare minimum of barriers? Like, I see a future where people can vote for their presidents via their X accounts or a similar platform. I'm sure that would be amazing for generating 'skin in the game', and also be utterly horrible precisely because said skin doesn't exist. You laugh at a GIF of Biden falling down AF1's steps, then punch the button for Trump without getting off your couch. I would like to stall that as long as possible.

It makes it easier for people to vote. In quite a few places this is the reason Republicans supported it (see PA), as rural voters can sometimes have to travel long distances to vote, and rural voters skew Republican so making it easier for them to vote might be advantageous.

That's why Republicans expanded mail in voting in PA prior to the 2020 election. It got more votes against it from Democrats than Republicans in the State legislature. Then the same Republicans who voted for it then tried to have it declared unconstitutional a year later after the 2020 election.

Prior to that election it was a much less partisan idea, and was common in a few states that weren't huge Democrat strongholds.

Is it just because Dems think it gives them an advantage?

Unlikely, given this press release from the PA GOP a while back

Not sure what you mean by no chain of custody. My state at least has several measures.

On the ballot itself is a stub your're meant to tear off that identifies that specific ballot. That stub has what's basically a serial number on it you can take to the state election website to figure out if the particular ballot you cast has been counted.

As to the ballot itself, it's placed in a security envelope one is required to sign and date. I know signature matching isn't an exact science but I know there are at least some checks. One year I forgot to sign and got some helpful mail from the state informing me of that fact and outlining the process to cure the deficiency.

Is it just because Dems think it gives them an advantage?

It is very convenient and enables people to vote who may otherwise have difficulty doing so.

You don’t know who had the ballot prior to it arriving at the voting station (assuming the ballot ever arrives)!

Do you mean after filling out a VBM ballot before it's been counted? It goes into a county-maintained ballot box. Or I could hand it off directly to a county elections official if I wanted to go out of my way (I think the closest place to do that is out of walking distance). I guess in rural areas, getting to a ballot box might be not worth the effort, so it would go to the mailman instead, so not in the hands of an election official. But that's why there's a notification when your ballot is received; then you can submit it sufficiently ahead of time to try again in the unlikely event it failed to reach the elections office.

No, the principal worry is that someone will coerce you to vote their way. Like, if you're an adult child living with your trad family or a senior citizen living with your woke family, you can be forced/pressured/manipulated to sign the envelope with the ballot someone else has filled in.

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