Evergreen States
Francine Pierre Saget (they/them)
The state I live in has issued mail ballots to all registered voters for all elections since 2011. While there are problems with implementation, these are generally due to people’s inability to follow basic instructions. All fears of widespread voter fraud are completely unsubstantiated. And I’ve not heard any problems reported with our statewide primary elections earlier this week, let alone any attributable to the USPS.
Bill Blackwell
Leica M Shooter
This is off-topic, and I don't want to get into a big thing about it, but I was speaking to those not already set-up for absentee voting. However, there is indeed wide-spread [vote-by-mail] voter fraud, even on absentee ballots. For example, deceased voters still get them and unscrupulous family members continue to fill those out and send them in!
Vote early and vote often. ...
- Al Capone
Emile de Leon
Well-known
Tell that to all the military stationed abroad..who as a standard measure..vote by mail for decades now..
As well as all American citizens..living abroad as well..
ninadp
bot account
People are not sent ballots by mail as a default setting anywhere. They get the paperwork that has to be filled out that, if approved after cross-checks and signature verification, will result in actual ballots being sent.
farlymac
PF McFarland
I see it truly is a country wide problem. It's not the lateness of deliveries that bug me, but the fact that a package sent from three states away winds up bouncing all over the country until it finally arrives here. There is something fundamentally wrong with hauling freight where it doesn't need to go, and I wonder if the contractors who truck it around get paid by the pound, so they are grabbing every package off the loading dock to get a full load and who cares where it's going.
And yes, the new Postmaster General is nothing more than a hatchet man sent in to wreck the USPS so the Republicans have an excuse to shut it down. This is not a conspiracy theory, it actually happened to me at the last place I worked. So not only would it remove UPS's main competition, and totally pee off Jeff Bezos, but think of all the good paying Union jobs that will be "disappeared". This is a tactic that has been used in the business world for a long time.
As to the USPS having to pay billions into their retirement fund many years in advance over what would be the norm, that money is not going someplace where it will be invested and grown, it is going into the General Fund where it gets spent immediately. And what is Congress going to say when it comes time to pay those health benefits to the future employees? "Gee, looks like there's nothing to pay your healthcare with."?
PF
And yes, the new Postmaster General is nothing more than a hatchet man sent in to wreck the USPS so the Republicans have an excuse to shut it down. This is not a conspiracy theory, it actually happened to me at the last place I worked. So not only would it remove UPS's main competition, and totally pee off Jeff Bezos, but think of all the good paying Union jobs that will be "disappeared". This is a tactic that has been used in the business world for a long time.
As to the USPS having to pay billions into their retirement fund many years in advance over what would be the norm, that money is not going someplace where it will be invested and grown, it is going into the General Fund where it gets spent immediately. And what is Congress going to say when it comes time to pay those health benefits to the future employees? "Gee, looks like there's nothing to pay your healthcare with."?
PF
Bill Blackwell
Leica M Shooter
Not true. I live in a state in which you only have to ask for main-in ballots. And you continue to get those ballots in the mail from that point forward. And you still have the option to vote at your regular voting location - without ID!
Evergreen States
Francine Pierre Saget (they/them)
I can only speak to the US, but there are five states where ballots sent in the mail by default is in fact exactly what happens in all elections: Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Utah. In Washington, our return envelopes must be signed and dated. Signatures on the envelopes are cross-referenced to signatures in databases of the government records and documents people sign. There is also a field on the return envelope for people to write their phone numbers so they can be contacted by the auditor’s office in case of irregularities. On the Secretary of State’s website you can even track your ballot to ensure it was received. It’s the job of the county auditor’s offices to update the voter rolls to ensure that voters still live at an address (or still live, period). Mistakes and do fraud happen, but are exceedingly rare. According to our SOS, there were 142 cases of voter fraud in the 2018 elections. Of 3.2 million total votes cast. That’s a ratio of 71:1600000. We could, of course, completely eliminate voter fraud by simply abolishing voting.
Sources:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ad-people-not-leading-voter-fraud/3214074001/
https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/all-mail-elections.aspx
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/01/898184573/how-washington-state-s-mail-in-elections-play-out
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...-accidentally-disenfranchise-millions-voters/
Getting way off topic here, but anyone with access to a search engine on the net can find plenty of recent mail-in voter fraud stories (I.e., indictments from recent elections) as well as stories regarding lost or undelivered ballots, both of which should be of serious concern to anyone who wants to ensure election integrity.
Peter Jennings
Well-known
Wow. And any casual search will also find a plethora evidence of non-mail-in, in-person voting place irregularity, faulty voting machines and outright voter suppression that dwarfs all the evidence of mail-in voting fraud that exists. It's disingenuous to argue that voting by mail is inherently untrustworthy.
farlymac
PF McFarland
I always laugh when One brings up voter fraud when I remember that the first report of it after the 2016 election was some gal down in the Republic of Texas who voted twice....
PF
PF
aizan
Veteran
They’re going after voting by mail because they’ve already taken care of all the other options!
Yes, there are always voting irregularities, which is why it's probably not a good idea to compound them. It's not "inherently untrustworthy" necessarily, but no one can legitimately argue against the fact that it greatly enhances the opportunity for abuse and fraud. Look up "ballot harvesting."
If people can go to Walmart or the grocery store safely, surely they can go to a voting booth safely.
"There’s little doubt that as the number of mail-in ballots increases, so does fraud. A 2012 report in The New York Times noted that voter fraud involving mail-in ballots “is vastly more prevalent than the in-person voting fraud that has attracted far more attention, election administrators say. In Florida, absentee-ballot scandals seem to arrive like clockwork around election time.”
According to a Wall Street Journal report on voter exploitation in Hispanic communities in Texas, mail-in ballots have “spawned a mini-industry of consultants who get out the absentee vote, sometimes using questionable techniques.” Poor, elderly, and minority communities are most likely to be preyed upon by so-called ballot “brokers.”
Concerns about fraud in mail-in ballots were serious enough that a 2008 report produced by the CalTech/MIT Voting Technology Project recommended that states “restrict or abolish on-demand absentee voting in favor of in-person early voting.”
full article here: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/a...t_missing_in_last_four_elections_143033.html#!
According to a Wall Street Journal report on voter exploitation in Hispanic communities in Texas, mail-in ballots have “spawned a mini-industry of consultants who get out the absentee vote, sometimes using questionable techniques.” Poor, elderly, and minority communities are most likely to be preyed upon by so-called ballot “brokers.”
Concerns about fraud in mail-in ballots were serious enough that a 2008 report produced by the CalTech/MIT Voting Technology Project recommended that states “restrict or abolish on-demand absentee voting in favor of in-person early voting.”
full article here: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/a...t_missing_in_last_four_elections_143033.html#!
aizan
Veteran
Would xxxx think differently if they knew how the amount of voting fraud compared to the amount of voter suppression?
madNbad
Well-known
Oregon has all vote by mail since 1998. We were the first in the nation to approve it and the incidents of fraud are infinitesimally small (22 votes in the 2016 election, all of them from voters who had moved out of state). The problem with most states is the infrastructure isn't in place for things like signature verification. In addition to mail a series of drop boxes are set up by the elections department. Over the years they have gotten more secure to keep people from dropping off things other than ballots.
Darthfeeble
But you can call me Steve
All considered, the volume of their business, they do pretty good. I have a rule for shipping any of the things I sell, if it matters send it UPS. I also pay the price of complete insurance. So far that's worked for me. I've not had a problem with the few things I have sent via USPS, nor the stuff on the receiving end.
presspass
filmshooter
It is slower and more inconsistent than two months ago. Last week, we got a first class letter postmarked in a neighboring town, but in another county. It took from July 17 to August 1 to make the six mile journey. Many of the delays did begin when the new postmaster general took over. But the problem is more long-term. Years ago, Congress make the postal service semi-autonomous, requiring it to create enough revenue to pay its expenses. Then representatives and senators, responding to concerns expressed by their constituents, turned down rate increases, prohibited reductions in service, and disallowed proposals to close smaller and more rural post offices. The postal service was meant to be part of the federal government and, for almost 200 years, was. Then our representatives decided they wanted to exercise control without assuming responsibility. Who would have thought?
Rob-F
Likes Leicas
I have no doubt that Trump is perfectly capable of bullying the post office into delaying the mail-in votes. The Postmaster-General denied it on CNN; but of course he would. I think we are in serious trouble.
Goody
Established
I have noticed a definite decline in timely package delivery. My understanding is that OT has been eliminated, and that previously the postman would complete his route, while now he takes the undelivered packages back to the PO to be delivered another day. Add Covid and you have a real slowdown.
frank-grumman
Well-known
10 days Philly to Baltimore via Springfield MA. And that was 2-3 months ago. LOL. I simply will no longer do business via USPS. Not worth the aggravation.