NY State Democratic primary was held 3 weeks ago . They are still counting . Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney is in a tight contest with Suraj Patel. Only 800 of 65,000 absentee ballots had been tabulated as of Wed Thousands had been disqualified due to late post mark .

https://www.amny.com/politics/candidates-object-to-25-of-ballots-invalidated-in-maloneys-district-due-to-late-postmark/

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/nyregion/election-absentee-ballots-primary.html?smid=tw-share

Absentee ballots should be reserved only for people who cannot make it to their designated polling place like they are sick, physically disabled, or serving the country abroad. Mail in ballots are done outside of all the supervision and control of election officials and outside the control of election observers of which there are at least one of each major party in attendance at each polling place .Mail in ballots absolutely destroys the transparency that is vital to trusting the process.
It also destroys the secrecy of the ballot ;another key part of the integrity of the process.

Really there is no control . Bans against electioneering near polling places are rendered useless. When someone votes from home voters can get unlawful assistance from any number of ways . Campaign staffers and political activists can go door to door and assist voters in filling out their form often they harvest them ie collect them and are then trusted to drop them off at the right polling place. Harvesting is such a common practice in some states that harvesters are paid by campaigns to collect absentee ballots from voters Some states try to control that by making it legal for only a near relative or guardian to deliver the ballot . But in states like California ? It's the wild wild west . There are no restrictions on harvesting ;either who can harvest ,or even how many ballots they can collect. .....That's if the ballots even make it to the proper place . Reports filed by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) on the 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 elections, more than 28 million mail-in ballots effectively disappeared—their fate is listed as “unknown” by the EAC based on survey data sent to the EAC by state election officials
https://publicinterestlegal.org/files/Mail-Voting-2012_2018-1P.pdf

If you think this can't lead to election fraud ;think again. It happened this year already in a special election for Patterson NJ mayor.
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/politics/paterson-city-council-vice-president-among-4-charged-with-voting-fraud-in-may-special-election-nj-ag/2484797/

In that race ,as is in the current Maloney race ,nearly 20% of the ballots were tossed .
In NY alone the seats of two prominent Democrat incumbents are up for grabs with no decision in site 3weeks after the vote. Can you imagine how this will play out in a closely contested Presidential race ? Where thousands of districts around the country will be essentially doing a replay of Florida 2000 ? These "peaceful protests " we have seen this summer will have been dress rehearsals for the main event .

Absentee ballots should be reserved only for people who cannot make it to their designated polling place like they are sick, physically disabled, or serving the country abroad.
Of course, the Republicans have to promise on their favorite holy book that they won't gerrymander and remove polling places so there's only one in the Black neighborhood that's nearly impossible to get to.

gerrymandering is a bipartisan exercise . Here is Ill 4th in Oak Park Chicago
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rtisFF2Sf9VJbLDudULDhSH7F8E=/0x0:1820x941/1200x800/filters:focal(1086x319:1376x609)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66485876/us_house_4.7.png

We have been hearing about voter fraud, though RARE, and purges, ID laws and other suppression tactics from conservatives for decades since counting jelly beans to vote was outlawed. The courts have even ruled against some of those laws as targeted suppression, so not surprising mostly repubs have continued to cry foul and find new ways to spin it. It's still voter suppression to deny people from exercising their right to vote.

While I can get with rules of the road to verify people's identity, mail in voting, already done in states with no issues makes perfect sense safety wise during a raging pandemic, and reduce those long a$$ lines on voting day. You may see standing inline 5 hours or more in some places as patriotic duty, but I do not, nor do most people especially minorities and elderly, disabled or sick. Call my boss at least to schedule me off on election day.

I find it amazing repubs always holler voter fraud, but suppression is NOT the solution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Interest_Legal_Foundation


In 2017, Adams was chosen by President Donald Trump to be a member of his election integrity commission.[7] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Interest_Legal_Foundation#cite_note-:12-7) Adams opposes automatic voter registration, saying that voter registration should require "forethought and initiative, something lacking in large segments of the Democrat base."[8] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Interest_Legal_Foundation#cite_note-:0-8)

Sounds like a very specific agenda to me, one that predates the dufus by decades, but still alive and well, just an updated modern version of Jim Crow.

Much of the rest of the democratically elected world offers some sort of mail ballot for elections etc without issue, so why has this suddenly become such a hot issue for the Orange in charge ?
Are they lacking the internationally required checks and balances to ensure they are carried out correctly...

nothing in my comments had any " voter suppression " suggested . My primary concern was the length of time it takes to tabulate mail in ballots in close contests . You do realize that mail in ballots are not even tabulated in contests where there is a presumed statistical winner where the mail in ballots would not affect the outcome . The problem is that with mail in ballots becoming more prevalent ,it is more likely that there will be unacceptable delays in announcing results . NY Rep Eliot Engel's seat also is up for grabs 3 weeks later with no decision in sight. There also were delays in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary for President where Joe Biden pretty much ran uncontested .

In Rhode Island over 100,000 ballots were returned by the post office as undeliverable in their recent primary . That is 12.5 % of the ballots were not counted before the counting even begins . How can you call it a fair election when 20 % of the ballots delivered are being considered them after I linked to a specific case for a high ranking position in a major American city where charges are being issued . You say it is rare as if that makes it acceptable . But it is more common than you think . If you don't see the corruption in operatives in the campaigns harvesting car loads of votes then I can't help you . Mail-in voting removes all controls from ballot handling and openly invites tampering. Ballot box stuffing and boxes full of ‘lost’ ballots found just in time to be counted will be all the new norm.(aka the Al Franken upset of Norm Coleman when a car full of "missing " absentee ballots "mysteriously" appeared during the recount ) .

Texas has it's share of fraud where 3 elections were overturned in 2018 due to fraud and there are multiple convictions every year.
Just to give you a few examples :
Noe Olvera pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge. Olvera, apostman, admitted to taking a $1,000 bribe from a paid campaign worker in exchange for a list of the names and addresses of mail-inballot recipients on his postal route. After a two-year investigationinto local voting fraud, hidden camera footage surfaced revealinga uniformed and on-the-job Olvera “negotiating an exchange ofmoney for mail-in voter lists.” Olvera was sentenced to serve 18months in federal prison.

Prosecutors charged Graciela Sanchez with four misdemeanorcounts of violating election law in an effort to assist GuadalupeRivera win re-election to the post of Weslaco city commissioner in2013. Rivera and Sanchez were found to have illegally “assisted”absentee ballot voters. The results of the election were disputed,and a judge determined that 30 ballots had been illegally cast inan election decided by only 16 votes. Sanchez pleaded guilty andreceived two years’ probation.
Two campaign workers pleaded guilty in the Southern District ofTexas for paying voters to vote in two 2012 elections in HidalgoCounty, Texas. In an elaborate vote-buying scheme, Belina Solisand Veronica Saldivar offered “baggies” of cocaine and moneyin exchange for votes for local and county candidates. After anextensive FBI investigation, they both pleaded guilty to one count of vote-buying.

Curley Ben . The examples I gave were in Democratically run states and districts . So perhaps they can answer to the lack of efficiency and accountability

By your own account Tom the rare fraudsters are caught and prosecuted, but even you can agree that not allowing college students to vote from college campuses while allowing licensed hunters to use that as an ID is blatantly discriminatory, and aimed at suppressing the youth vote, or closing DMV's in urban areas and making citizens travel to rural settings with restricted hours often with no public transportation available is also an example of discriminating voter suppression, and are practiced in REPUBLICAN run states.

By my account SOME of the fraud gets caught . Most doesn't . When that car load of ballots turned up in the Minnesota recount making Al Franken the Senator ,was that an example of the fraud being caught or was that an example of a close election being decided by fraud ?

Do college students have residency on campus or are they still registered in mommy's basement ? College students should vote in the district they are registered in and if it is out of town or state ,then they have a legitimate cause to absentee ballot .

I favor all types of ID as proof to register to vote .

But that is not addressing my concern . You are deflecting . As I have noted ; the absentee ballot is actually the bigger disenfranchise mechanism because more often it is not counted ;often challenged and discarded ,and clearly it takes way too long to determine a result.

You tell me . What happens if we have a repeat of 2000 ,but not in one state ,in many states taking their sweet a$$ time counting and a decision in the Presidential race is not close 3 weeks out ? These "peaceful protests " we are seeing around the country will have been the warm up acts . This republic hangs by a few threads ;and trust in the franchise is one of them .

Given the death of voting rights ICONS like John Lewis and CT Vivian, the continuing struggles of minorities to vote, I would say trust in the republic to do the right things has been in serious doubt for a long time to be honest. Many states have vote without issues clauses, and early voting so while I understand where your coming from, I hope you can appreciate the number of court rulings and shenanigans that make voter suppression as real as it gets, and that's just the ones that get found by specific lawsuits. We both agree on voter ID's, getting them is a concern, and those voter purges on there face while seemingly lawful, are a huge concern for fraud and abuse. Confidence in the franchise, and stuff like this, don't help one bit either. (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/u-s-swoops-down-on-portland-protesters-after-trump-order-to-protect-monuments/ar-BB16RzLF?ocid=msedgntp)

That belongs in our other discussion . But to that point . If local officials are not going to protect national monuments then the President is given no choice . There is a legitimate and legal way to remove monuments if that is the consensus of the people . The process does not involve anarchists taking the law into their own hands . A civil society needs law and order to function . Those who endorse the mob rule endorse the destruction of that society .

If local officials are not going to protect national monuments then the President is given no choice.
The same president who allows drilling and fracking on public lands and logging in national forests?

as I said there is a legitimate and legal way .

Yep, legitimate and legal ways to steal taxpayer money too, but it's all related and erodes the public trusts and a secret police answerable to the president is as deplorable as it gets. Haven't even jumped on the CDC cut out of the virus thing yet.

yeah it would frighten me if fully armed Federal troops came into my house to kidnap a child . https://cdn.historycollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Untitled-1-13.jpg

yeah it would frighten me if fully armed Federal troops came into my house to kidnap a child . https://cdn.historycollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Untitled-1-13.jpg
Barr's mercenaries are headed to Chicago. Our arsenal is fully stocked and we're ready to defend!

what is there to defend in chicago?

what is there to defend in chicago?
Nothing, but the word is out that Barr's Black Ops guys have Chicago in their sights. After all, Trump's gotta teach Lori a lesson!

yeah it would frighten me if fully armed Federal troops came into my house to kidnap a child . https://cdn.historycollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Untitled-1-13.jpg

Scary but "lawful", but were those armed chamy soldiers legit? The local government said hell NO!


Nothing, but the word is out that Barr's Black Ops guys have Chicago in their sights. After all, Trump's gotta teach Lori a lesson!

All the criminals and gangs have guns.

The local government has no authority to stop the Federal Government from defending it's buildings and monuments from marauders or enforcing Federal law .....especially if the locals will do nothing to stop it . https://thepostmillennial.com/antifa-rioter-smashes-portland-federal-courthouse-assault-police-officer

Federal troops and police were used in the South in the 50s and 60s to enforce a number of Federal laws that came out of the Brown v Board of Education decisions and to restore order when local governments either directly were in violation or encouraged and did nothing to stop the law breaking .

WG the Chi town police union wants Federal intervention because the local politicians hand cuff the police preventing them from properly doing their job.

Hell . In Portland the police can't or won't defend their own structures . The whole governance of the city should be removed by the State . Except the state government is run by a bunch of eunuchs also .https://www.newsweek.com/portland-protesters-set-police-union-building-fire-1518889

This is Officer Natalie Corona, Only 22 years old and 5 months in the Police force.
https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/109075231_1709533315869599_5246578398942254693_n.j pg?_nc_cat=103&_nc_sid=110474&_nc_ohc=nLYu17mfqf4AX_ymVsS&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&oh=c537143d634420b39eb813d609ee060b&oe=5F38783A
She was responding to a car crash when the following occur:
As Officer Corona was conducting an investigation at the collision scene, a person not involved with the crash rode up to the scene on a bicycle. As Officer Corona spoke to one of the persons involved in the crash the man then walked up to her and opened fire without warning, striking her. He shot her several more times after she fell to the ground.

Not sure what this has to do with mail in ballots

That event is something that is unfortunately too common, we have had two recent traffic accidents where police were killed by vehicles hitting the scene, who can say whether it was deliberate

Not sure what this has to do with mail in ballots It doesn't .The conversation strayed from that as a deflection in comment # 3and #9 .

Not sure what this has to do with mail in ballots It doesn't but the conversation strayed because my point is irrefutable . Absentee ballots have historically been left uncounted if there weren't enough of them to change the outcome. Now that they might matter, the weaknesses of mail in ballots becomes evident.

I firmly believe all these issues are closely related and hard to talk about one without considering them all. As I told Clete before, if a suitable structure were in place to eliminate the abuses mail in voting could be both safe and viable, but no such thing is ever considered as many only see the fear of being booted from power.

Given our history of political dirty tricks to win elections, keep power, and pay off the political bosses, it's understandable. Having the House, Senate, and WH is some heady stuff, but the sad facts is the conservative agenda has failed miserably on every level and the people are rebelling. Now you can spin that any way you want it, and blame the dems, and Obama, but we are seeing through that total incompetence and demanding more than the top down trickle down solutions and bad mouthing that the dufus has wrought.

How would YOU feel watching the rich get richer and YOU get poorer at the whims of some feckless greedy b@stards using the tools of racism, and economic hoodoo that this virus has exposed. Can't drain the swamp without getting rid of the King Critter and his ilk, and people are recognizing that. Then we can do better.

I intentionally made my examples from deep blue states and their issues with counting mail in ballots .But you keep deflecting to unrelated issues. Election trickery happens on both sides . I'm trying to preserve any integrity left in the process ;and that accounts for transparency which should be a hallmark of the electoral process in a free society . The Dems agenda appears to be the opposite . Same day registration sending out mail in ballots even when a voter is not requesting one ,mail in ballots ,ballot harvesting do not help in the transparency . I don't think the integrity of the process can be preserved unless the mass majority of the vote is taken at polling places where interested parties are there to confirm the voter's eligibility to vote ,and to observe that the voter is given a ballot to fill out in secret on their own .Then those votes are then tabulated under the observation of all interested parties .

There is no integrity left Tom, the dufus has corrupted everything. If conservatives and repubs had reigned him in and balanced his idiocy with some semblance of common sense and good orderly direction we would be going in the right direction instead of drowning in our own shat.

. I'm trying to preserve any integrity left in the process ;and that accounts for transparency which should be a hallmark of the electoral process in a free society .

Obviously a lone ranger campaign, if you want transparency then remove local control of the process

oh yeah because we do so well at the National level . We can't figure out how to deliver the mail let alone run the national mail in voting .

Maybe it's not perfect, nothing in America is, but the mail is the foundation of America, and of course the dufus and repubs are scared crap less if voting was easy and convenient, AND MORE Americans participated in the franchise.

oh yeah because we do so well at the National level . We can't figure out how to deliver the mail let alone run the national mail in voting .

You do know this is not rocket science, not any of it? don't you? but then if you pay peanuts you get monkeys

Send a guy to the moon, build nukes that hit targets on a dime, have a google machine that can find anything you want to know, including free porn, but can't vote by mail?

The dufus and repubs have dumbed us down pretty good.

what has dumbed you down is your education system, it turns out a few elite and many semi literates

Maybe it's not perfect, Did you not read the OP ? 20% of the ballots are being discarded because the post office couldn't get them post marked on time .
Observers at the polling place are the watch dogs of the balloting . And no that is not perfect either . There are many places in the NE where they can't find a Repub to sit at the polling places .But at least there is a bare minimum of accountability to that process. Is anyone even verifying the signature of the name on the mail in ballots . I'm telling you as a fact there is more disenfranchising being done in the mail in process . 1 . Ballots discarded 2. Ballots not counted at all unless there is a close election . 3 There is no proof that the person who's name is on the ballot ever handled the ballot .

Did you not read the OP ? 20% of the ballots are being discarded because the post office couldn't get them post marked on time .
Observers at the polling place are the watch dogs of the balloting . And no that is not perfect either . There are many places in the NE where they can't find a Repub to sit at the polling places .But at least there is a bare minimum of accountability to that process. Is anyone even verifying the signature of the name on the mail in ballots . I'm telling you as a fact there is more disenfranchising being done in the mail in process . 1 . Ballots discarded 2. Ballots not counted at all unless there is a close election . 3 There is no proof that the person who's name is on the ballot ever handled the ballot .

What percentage of votes cast are you speaking of 1%, 2%? would these make any difference in a contest already decided but I agree with you all votes cast should be counted, only then do you get a true reflection of opinion. You could certainly improve the process by preregistration for a postal ballot, the elector being given an identifying number

Tom forgets the disqualified ballots from typos and misspelling of names by pollsters, or mass purges of voters without them knowing it. A bunch of states already have mail in votes, absentee ballots, and early voting so what's the big deal?

I get why no one trusts the process, party bosses have been known to pull shenanigans.

I get why no one trusts the process, party bosses have been known to pull shenanigans.

This is the twenty-first century, at least in those parts of the world, that want to be part of it. You can discourage such behaviour by sending a few of them to jail

The dufus will just pardon them.

not an excuse to do nothing, the process will be an inconvenience

https://scontent.fsyd4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/108194851_1027437141000820_669464760764977829_n.jp g?_nc_cat=106&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_aid=0&_nc_ohc=IZ3BobsnQ7cAX8MwlF1&_nc_ht=scontent.fsyd4-1.fna&oh=49fb4ae0fd44f83bdeafaea2ecbc2684&oe=5F42D16D

There has been and will be something done to corral the criminals, but you cannot ignore the power to resist the law those criminals have and the resources and friends in high places to aid and abet those criminals.

There has been and will be something done to corral the criminals, but you cannot ignore the power to resist the law those criminals have and the resources and friends in high places to aid and abet those criminals.

and this has to do with mail in votes, how? maybe it is the criminals who mail in votes, yah think?

To it's credit ,CBS decided to test out mail in balloting to see if it can work in November . The parameters of the test were simple CBS mailed 100 ballots to locations across Philadelphia in an experiment to see how long it took the ballots to arrive. A post office box was set up to receive the returned ballots.A few days later, another 100 ballots were mailed to another 100 locations in the city. The results should frighten anyone who claims they are all about “every vote being counted.”


A week after initial ballots were sent, most ballots appeared to be missing from the P.O. box.
“I don’t see anything back there for you,” a postal worker told Dokoupil when he received the mail. “That’s all I have back there right now.”
After asking for a manager and explaining the situation to them, the votes were found.
“They had them somewhere else,” the postal worker said.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-vote-by-mail-ballot-counted-election/



Out of the initial batch mailed a week earlier, 97 out of 100 votes had arrived. Three simulated persons, or 3% of voters, were effectively disenfranchised by mail by giving their ballots a week to arrive. In a close election, 3% could be pivotal.
Four days after mailing the second batch of mock ballots, 21% of the votes hadn’t arrived.
According to Postal Service recommendations, “voters should mail their return ballots at least one week prior to the due date.”
However, nearly half of all states still allow voters to request ballots less than a week before the election.


The system was not built to handle 120 million mailed ballots. Processing and protecting those ballots is beyond the abilities of almost every state as has been proven true in the spring primaries .

And that is not just the Presidential election that is at stake . Scores of State and local elections will be impacted with the potential for many weeks of delays in announcing winners and the avalanche of law suits that are sure to follow.

just because they are being delivered to the one address they can't be handled, incredible

and that's just one address . In the US there are 174,252 voting precincts .

The lesson to be learned is that voting is a bad idea because the problem is just too big

Maybe Wall Street can lease our government, including USPS, their super computer. I heard it can do everything money related super fast and accurately. All those issues you outlined Tom, can be easily overcome with modern technology, and education.

The real question is why hasn't it?

Voting has a proven track record when eligible voters go to a polling place and their vote is verified by poll watchers .

yes as long as there are no hanging shards, eh?

Horses were reliable for centuries before cars came along.

so was the abacus before the calculator and the computer, but Tom believes in eighteenth century technology just as he believes in eighteenth century thought. Bring back the quill pen, yells Tom and my trusty dispatch rider will deliver my vote

Maybe he forgets the voting tactics of a guessing how many jellybeans in a jar, and ignores it's been upgraded to closing polling places and using raggedy old voting machines that most don't work, nor the closing of DMV's in urban high population areas to the suburbs with little or no bus services, and restricted service hours. Good luck getting a REQUIRED ID to vote.

Mail delivery dates back to 2400 BE in Egypt. The US Postal system was established in the Continental Congress in 1775 before the Revolution and the Constitutional Convention . So don't talk to me about using 17th and 18th century technology . 21st century tabulation is already utilized at most American polling places . Tal's concerns can be addressed much easier than the wholesale disenfranchisement that mail in balloting is proving to occur .

wholesale disenfranchisementwhat big words you use , grandma, but in fact not allowing mail voting and making sure it is effective is wholesale disenfranchisement

Makes sense during a pandemic, or frankly any other time that ways to REDUCE long lines and waiting for hours to vote could and should be eliminated. Voting by mail doesn't have to be disenfranchising as conservatives claim, considering the postal services and it's contractors delivery not just the mail, but groceries and goods quick and fast. Not using the tools and technology available to make voting easier, safer, and more accurate is a travesty.

You don't trust USPS, or citizens, then let Amazon do it, instead of dismissing a viable option used already in places quite well I might add despite your stats, a plan to address EVERYBODIES concerns would be preferable to doing NOTHING given the current issues as I have outlined.

If not for conservatives going along with the dufus pooh poohing mail in voting the problem can be solved rather easily with upgrading the system like people routinely upgrade their devices, and back up their files. More fair than purging people for changing their addresses, or clerical errors. I know 50 state governments still using 20th century outdated systems in the 21st century. So do you. No wonder we are bogged down and overwhelmed in services we need to provide.

Who said not allowing it ? It has it's place for expatriates ,people who are not in their district at during the days of the voting , military personnel assigned overseas ,college students living on campus away from home ,the disabled and elderly who cannot make it to the polling places . This business that everyone vote by mail for convenience or for fear of C-19 is absurd . I'm telling you right now America is not even close to ready for the disaster this election cycle is going to deliver . One month later and they are still counting districts in NY in all Democrat primaries . That fact alone is enough to rest my case .

LOL, you should get out more. The burbs are the place for you.

Who said not allowing it ? It has it's place for expatriates ,people who are not in their district at during the days of the voting , military personnel assigned overseas ,college students living on campus away from home ,the disabled and elderly who cannot make it to the polling places . This business that everyone vote by mail for convenience or for fear of C-19 is absurd . I'm telling you right now America is not even close to ready for the disaster this election cycle is going to deliver . One month later and they are still counting districts in NY in all Democrat primaries . That fact alone is enough to rest my case .

So your objection is; if it is generally allowed the voting system will be overwhelmed, the election system is already a disaster by your definition and this would be the last nail in the coffin. What do you care if the vote counting is delayed in demonrat constituencies

Repubs holler fraud and implement stringent "safeguards" that mostly target dems anyway as a backlash to the changing demographics of the population. That's where we get the defunding of the post office during a pandemic, that is, much like everybody, is spending covid related money for supplies and juggle schedules of USPS workers who get sick, and can't work.

Shutting down the post office is just a set up to stop mail in voting pushed by dems.

. I'm telling you right now America is not even close to ready for the disaster this election cycle is going to deliver . One month later and they are still counting districts in NY in all Democrat primaries . That fact alone is enough to rest my case .

Yes but in a real election where the result matters they would do better

I doubt that Clete as conservatives are stubborn people when they don't want to change from what they have become accustomed to, and notoriously against any liberal suggestions. Especially those hardcore tried and true conservatives in power.