Gyroscopic Investing

President Trump’s unfounded attacks on mail balloting are discouraging his own supporters from embracing the practice, according to polls and Republican leaders across the country, prompting growing alarm that one of the central strategies of his campaign is threatening GOP prospects in November.

Multiple public surveys show a growing divide between Democrats and Republicans about the security of voting by mail, with Republicans saying they are far less likely to trust it in November. In addition, party leaders in several states said they are encountering resistance among GOP voters who are being encouraged to vote absentee while also seeing the president describe mail voting as “rigged” and “fraudulent.”

As a result, state and local Republicans across the country fear they are falling dramatically behind in a practice that is expected to be key to voter turnout this year. Through mailers and Facebook ads, they are racing to promote absentee balloting among their own.

In the process, some Republican officials have tried to draw a distinction between “absentee ballots,” which Trump claims are secure, and “mail ballots,” which he has repeatedly attacked. The terms are typically used interchangeably.

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, describing a recent meeting with a group of Republican voters in Fort Payne, said he felt compelled to explain that there is only one kind of mail-in voting in Alabama, and that it is safe and secure.

“They were confused about two different kinds of mail-in balloting,” he said, “where one is ‘good’ and one is not.”

Merrill’s concerns were echoed by senior White House and campaign aides, as well as GOP operatives in numerous key states including Pennsylvania, Ohio and Iowa, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity to criticize the president.

Tortoise wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 9:16 pm My understanding is that mail-in ballots that are specifically requested by certain voters are not the big fraud risk.

The big fraud risk comes when everyone is sent a mail-in ballot by default, meaning many ballots will end up at incorrect addresses, homes of deceased people, people who don’t usually vote, etc., and can potentially be gathered up and used to generate large numbers of fraudulent votes.

yankees60 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 9:34 pm I could not imagine how I'd both know about where these ballots are landing and how to efficiently gather them. Seems like a not easy task?

Tortoise wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 9:45 pm

yankees60 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 9:34 pm I could not imagine how I'd both know about where these ballots are landing and how to efficiently gather them. Seems like a not easy task?

Most apartment buildings, condo developments, etc. that have communal mail areas have a big recycling bin next to the mailboxes that people can toss their junk mail into. It would be pretty easy to dig through a bunch of those bins around the time the ballots are mailed out.

That’s just one example.

Tortoise wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 9:16 pm My understanding is that mail-in ballots that are specifically requested by certain voters are not the big fraud risk.

The big fraud risk comes when everyone is sent a mail-in ballot by default, meaning many ballots will end up at incorrect addresses, homes of deceased people, people who don’t usually vote, etc., and can potentially be gathered up and used to generate large numbers of fraudulent votes.

Tortoise wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 9:16 pm My understanding is that mail-in ballots that are specifically requested by certain voters are not the big fraud risk.

The big fraud risk comes when everyone is sent a mail-in ballot by default, meaning many ballots will end up at incorrect addresses, homes of deceased people, people who don’t usually vote, etc., and can potentially be gathered up and used to generate large numbers of fraudulent votes.

glennds wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 10:50 pm

Tortoise wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 9:16 pm My understanding is that mail-in ballots that are specifically requested by certain voters are not the big fraud risk.

The big fraud risk comes when everyone is sent a mail-in ballot by default, meaning many ballots will end up at incorrect addresses, homes of deceased people, people who don’t usually vote, etc., and can potentially be gathered up and used to generate large numbers of fraudulent votes.

Where is this occurring? I read your comment to mean there are counties that are mailing ballots to all voters whether they want them or not.
Do these counties do this in lieu of physical polling stations, meaning you do not have the option of voting in person?

Again, I'd be interested to know where this is the case, and if it is happening, is it pandemic driven, or has it been practice for a while?

yankees60 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 7:07 am NOW on C-Span Washington Journal!

Until 8:45 AM. NO commercials.

"Mail-In Voting & Election Security"

David Becker - Center for Election Innovation & Research, Founder & Executive Director

Vinny

Tortoise wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 1:35 am @Kbg, I just skimmed the links you provided. The gist seems to be that the number of detected cases of mail-in ballot fraud is relatively small, and you seem to be asserting that we can therefore conclude that it's not much of a problem.

However, do we know what fraction of actual cases of mail-in ballot fraud are detected vs. undetected? Is it possible that for every detected case, there may be many undetected cases? That's often the situation with various kinds of crime like shoplifting, in which the detected occurrences are just the tip of the iceberg.

For what it's worth, I think the whole mail-in voting debate would be moot if we had a secure method of casting votes electronically (e.g., from smartphones and computers). It seems like our 21st century technology should be capable of verifying voter identities more accurately and robustly than the antiquated and subjective method of humans looking at physical signatures.

Kbg wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 3:42 pm

Tortoise wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 1:35 am @Kbg, I just skimmed the links you provided. The gist seems to be that the number of detected cases of mail-in ballot fraud is relatively small, and you seem to be asserting that we can therefore conclude that it's not much of a problem.

However, do we know what fraction of actual cases of mail-in ballot fraud are detected vs. undetected? Is it possible that for every detected case, there may be many undetected cases? That's often the situation with various kinds of crime like shoplifting, in which the detected occurrences are just the tip of the iceberg.

For what it's worth, I think the whole mail-in voting debate would be moot if we had a secure method of casting votes electronically (e.g., from smartphones and computers). It seems like our 21st century technology should be capable of verifying voter identities more accurately and robustly than the antiquated and subjective method of humans looking at physical signatures.

Yes, or at least no more serious than other types of voting fraud. However, I am in complete agreement with your bottom line and would like to see something along those lines as well. Sounds like a perfect thing for block chain technology (or whatever is secure and works.)

yankees60 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 7:17 am

yankees60 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 7:07 am NOW on C-Span Washington Journal!

Until 8:45 AM. NO commercials.

"Mail-In Voting & Election Security"

David Becker - Center for Election Innovation & Research, Founder & Executive Director

Vinny

This is EXCELLENT! He is answering a lot of basic concerns that have been expressed here.

Vinny

Libertarian666 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 6:09 pm

yankees60 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 5:45 pm

yankees60 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 7:17 am

yankees60 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 7:07 am NOW on C-Span Washington Journal!

Until 8:45 AM. NO commercials.

"Mail-In Voting & Election Security"

David Becker - Center for Election Innovation & Research, Founder & Executive Director

Vinny

This is EXCELLENT! He is answering a lot of basic concerns that have been expressed here.

Vinny

Now you can watch it whenever you can fit it into your life. I generally listen to Washington Journal while I'm at these keyboard doing something else.

If you really are interested in a lot of answers to concerns about voting you'll get your answers here. He maintained several times that if you try to vote fraudulently, you WILL get caught.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?474403-3/ ... ail-voting

Vinny

Exactly how could that be proven? Does he have a list of all the people who tried to vote fraudulently so he can guarantee that they all got caught?

That's like claiming you have a list of all the unknown problems in a system.

Libertarian666 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 9:10 pm

yankees60 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 6:30 pm

Libertarian666 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 6:09 pm

yankees60 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 5:45 pm

yankees60 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 7:17 am

yankees60 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 7:07 am NOW on C-Span Washington Journal!

Until 8:45 AM. NO commercials.

"Mail-In Voting & Election Security"

David Becker - Center for Election Innovation & Research, Founder & Executive Director

Vinny

This is EXCELLENT! He is answering a lot of basic concerns that have been expressed here.

Vinny

Now you can watch it whenever you can fit it into your life. I generally listen to Washington Journal while I'm at these keyboard doing something else.

If you really are interested in a lot of answers to concerns about voting you'll get your answers here. He maintained several times that if you try to vote fraudulently, you WILL get caught.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?474403-3/ ... ail-voting

Vinny

Exactly how could that be proven? Does he have a list of all the people who tried to vote fraudulently so he can guarantee that they all got caught?

That's like claiming you have a list of all the unknown problems in a system.

I was not giving the presentation my full attention. But you have to supply a lot of unique information so as to get your ballot counted. And, I got the impression that do catch quite a few. But that is my not giving full attention impression. To give him justice you'd need to listen to him yourself.

Capture.JPG

VInny

The claim on the tweet that Washington and Oregon are run by Republicans is a complete and total lie.
The governors of both states are Democrats, and not just any Democrats: extreme leftist Democrats.
I'm sure you can see that because of such a blatant lie, anything else he says on this topic (or any other, really) can and should be disregarded.
Hope that helps.

Libertarian666 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 9:10 pm

yankees60 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 6:30 pm

Libertarian666 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 6:09 pm

yankees60 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 5:45 pm

yankees60 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 7:17 am

yankees60 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 7:07 am NOW on C-Span Washington Journal!

Until 8:45 AM. NO commercials.

"Mail-In Voting & Election Security"

David Becker - Center for Election Innovation & Research, Founder & Executive Director

Vinny

This is EXCELLENT! He is answering a lot of basic concerns that have been expressed here.

Vinny

Now you can watch it whenever you can fit it into your life. I generally listen to Washington Journal while I'm at these keyboard doing something else.

If you really are interested in a lot of answers to concerns about voting you'll get your answers here. He maintained several times that if you try to vote fraudulently, you WILL get caught.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?474403-3/ ... ail-voting

Vinny

Exactly how could that be proven? Does he have a list of all the people who tried to vote fraudulently so he can guarantee that they all got caught?

That's like claiming you have a list of all the unknown problems in a system.

I was not giving the presentation my full attention. But you have to supply a lot of unique information so as to get your ballot counted. And, I got the impression that do catch quite a few. But that is my not giving full attention impression. To give him justice you'd need to listen to him yourself.

Capture.JPG

VInny

The claim on the tweet that Washington and Oregon are run by Republicans is a complete and total lie.
The governors of both states are Democrats, and not just any Democrats: extreme leftist Democrats.
I'm sure you can see that because of such a blatant lie, anything else he says on this topic (or any other, really) can and should be disregarded.
Hope that helps.

Xan wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 5:21 pm Are you guys talking about ending the secret ballot?

Ad Orientem wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:51 pm Side Note: I just got an email notification for this thread. That's the first email notification I have received for any thread I have commented on here in close to a year. Hmmm.