The 2020 General Election Thread

[jamil]

Actual gerrymandering isn't. That's why the courts get involved and sometimes re-draw lines.

Getting as close as you can to gerrymandering without crossing over is legal. Kinda like every other thing that's illegal.

Fundamentally, the problem is that designing systems to produce votes in a representative democracy is REALLY hard. There are checks and balances, though.

Gerrymandering was okay before it wasn't. In other words, courts ruled that the practice of extreme gerrymandering is unconstitutional. The same could be ruled for a party in power advantaging themselves though "ballot harvesting". It accomplishes the same goal, which is giving one party unfair advantage over the other party, thereby disenfranchising those voters. Yeah, fair voting systems is hard. But c'mon. Let's be even in our comparisons. If you rail against Republicans gerrymandering (notwithstanding the fact that Democrats do it too) then call out Democrats for what they do. Democrat politicians are no more moral or upstanding than Republicans. They're all fighting for the power of the stick. They all have their favorite ways to subvert voting systems to give them electoral advantages. Call them all out or call none of them out. But don't pretend one is any less worthy of calling out than the other.

Here's one for you. Republicans/conservatives tend to prefer voting in person at the polls. Democrats tend not to like to bother with that. They'll protest. They'll march. They'll riot. But unless you deliver a ballot right to their ***damn door, it's, "what? go vote? I ain't got time for that what with all the revolutioning I have to do at night."

So yeah. That's a bit of stereotyping, sure. But stereotypes are what they are because tendencies are what they are. This is why, notwithstanding the inherently more exploitable vote-by-mail, Republicans are against vote by mail because it does favor democrats. It's how you get lazy young democrats to vote. You stick it right in front of their face and have a community organizer fill it out for them.

 

[KLB]

Actual gerrymandering isn't. That's why the courts get involved and sometimes re-draw lines.

Getting as close as you can to gerrymandering without crossing over is legal. Kinda like every other thing that's illegal.

Fundamentally, the problem is that designing systems to produce votes in a representative democracy is REALLY hard. There are checks and balances, though.



As does Donald Trump.

I know if a state gerrymanders for supposed racial reasons it would be held illegal, but what law does just general redistricting to favor a party break? It happens all the time in a lot of states.

 

[jamil]

I know if a state gerrymanders for supposed racial reasons it would be held illegal, but what law does just general redistricting to favor a party break? It happens all the time in a lot of states.

It's not just racial. In Davis v. Brandemer, Democrats argued that Indiana's apportionment diluted democrats' electoral power and therefore violated the equal protection clause. Although the court ruled that the particular case did not violate the equal protection clause because it did not sufficiently diminish the Democrats' electoral power, the majority opinion established a precedent that political gerrymandering claims can be ruled unconstitutional under the equal protection clause if extreme enough. So it can just be about electoral power.

 

[T.Lex]

I know if a state gerrymanders for supposed racial reasons it would be held illegal, but what law does just general redistricting to favor a party break? It happens all the time in a lot of states.

I obviously can't speak to every state, but in Indiana there's a state constitutional provision (Art. IV, sect. 5) and laws that describe the process.

The thing about laws is they define lines and what happens when the line is crossed. By describing those lines, it leaves all the conduct on one side of the line legitimate. People are creative. So, they can come up with all sorts of conduct that almost crosses the line, without going over.

 

[chipbennett]

Sorry, mate - to date there does not appear to have been fraud involved in those. At least, nothing proven. So it is more a political rorschrach test.

California has f'd up rules. Dems apparently played by those rules and won. That's not fraud. (That may be a f'd up system, but it isn't fraud.)

You claimed skepticism that the (R) candidate had any chance of winning. I referenced seats that were held by Republicans, and were flipped, due to ballot harvesting.

And I'll go on record stating that, "legal" or not, ballot harvesting is fraud.

 

[chipbennett]

Properly, "mail in" is a version of "absentee" voting. Absentee voting just means the voter isn't at the polling place.

If you go back and look at Trump's rhetoric on this, there's more than a little conflation of "absentee" and "universal mail in" voting.

And, with an increase in absentee voting (which universal mail-in would probably create), we should all expect a longer wait for results. Hand-counting is a horrible process, but a necessary tradeoff if that's what we want to allow.

No - emphatically, no. Vote by mail and absentee voting are not the same thing. Absentee voting doesn't even require returning a ballot by mail. Heck, it doesn't even always require receiving a ballot by mail.

This is not just a matter of semantics. The infrastructure for handing absentee ballots is different from the infrastructure required for universal vote-by-mail.

 

[chipbennett]

Along with that, I worry that conservatives are already planning on taking a stance that elections are going to be stolen because of fraud - because it certainly can't be fair if a democrat is elected.

No matter what the outcome, there will be some people that refuse to accept it.

Of course, it will be rigged because of [the Russians / George Soros].

*Looks at 2016 election*

*Looks at continued #Resistance to 2016 election results*

*Admires your psychological projection*

 

[chipbennett]

Other examples that have been shown,
Turn down votes that don't have a post mark
Turn down votes with an illegible post mark
Turn down votes that missed the deadline
etc.


The, because so many votes are thrown out, the cry is raised that the election is ILLEGITIMATE

Conveniently lose/misplace ballots from certain ZIP codes.

 

[BugI02]

Here’s the catch 22 concerning voter fraud. It’s attempted, but as far as we know unsuccessful. An indication that the devices in place, to prevent it, are adequate. If it is successful, then we won’t ever know about it. Soooo?

I hope that's not the approach you take to cyber-security. The key is to determine the weaknesses any system has and what would be required to exploit them, then a determination can be made of what interventions can make fraud harder. You can never make it completely impossible, but you can make it so unwieldy that it cannot easily be done ona large scale

 

[BugI02]

I recall hearing all those stories back when I was kid listening to Rush. Is there anything recent there, or just akin to WWII veterans forever hating the Red Cross because of charging for donuts once, in one place, at one time?

I guess NPR hasn't mentioned the disastrous NY primary all the way back in June?

 

[NKBJ]

I obviously can't speak to every state, but in Indiana there's a state constitutional provision (Art. IV, sect. 5) and laws that describe the process.

The thing about laws is they define lines and what happens when the line is crossed. By describing those lines, it leaves all the conduct on one side of the line legitimate. People are creative. So, they can come up with all sorts of conduct that almost crosses the line, without going over.

People really do take entertainingly great joy in malicious compliance.

 

[T.Lex]

You claimed skepticism that the (R) candidate had any chance of winning. I referenced seats that were held by Republicans, and were flipped, due to ballot harvesting.

And I'll go on record stating that, "legal" or not, ballot harvesting is fraud.

Why? Registered voters voting is fraud because you don't like who they voted for?

No - emphatically, no. Vote by mail and absentee voting are not the same thing. Absentee voting doesn't even require returning a ballot by mail. Heck, it doesn't even always require receiving a ballot by mail.

This is not just a matter of semantics. The infrastructure for handing absentee ballots is different from the infrastructure required for universal vote-by-mail.

This is absolutely semantics. "Mail in voting" is a form of absentee voting. I didn't say they were the same thing - absentee voting is broader than mail in voting.

My point is that the infrastructure for handling "regular" absentee ballots exists and can be used for "mail in" ballots.

Now, I'm not saying it is seamless or easy or worth it (particularly if we value the secret ballot). But many aspects of voting are complicated.

If Indiana adopts a no-excuse absentee process, isn't that mail in voting? Or are you using it only in the context of universal "mail out" voting or something like that?

Conveniently lose/misplace ballots from certain ZIP codes.

Which would be easily rooted out on any significant scale.

Plus, assuming arguendo that it would be the GOP ballots lost/misplaced... well... GOPers should vote in person. Problem solved. Or hand deliver the ballot to where it needs to be.

Again, has anyone found a jurisdiction that has the mail-in voting that people are worried about, without taking precautions for fraud? I've read of bar codes tracking who has received which ballots, etc.

 

[BugI02]

Can someone point to a state system that doesn't have the fraud-control mechanisms that would thwart or at least hinder the scenarios that are causing all the angst?

Like, California has been mentioned. The problem is, those processes were in place but Republicans didn't like the outcome. There wasn't anything fraudulent or illegal about that election (at least nothing has been proven). "Ballot harvesting" may be cringey, but those are registered voters placing their vote. That's how the system was designed.

All those years lamenting the lack of voter turnout, and then complaining when more people vote seems hypocritical.

This country has been skewing more liberal with each generation basically since its founding. At least since the Civil War. (The New Deal was a huge leap in that direction.) At one level, this really isn't surprising.

If acceptance of state imposed changes to the voting process or its criteria are required/desired, why is your team always arguing (in court) that in person voting and strong ID requirements somehow disadvantage its voters? Have those processes been '... put in place but the [Democrats] didn't like the outcome'?

Your apologia of all things progressive is noted. I dispute your assumption that the country is skewing more liberal, and we have a perfect laboratory test of that theory coming up in 61 days. If you were correct, the Democrats would not need to be so intent on cheating to achieve a victory

 

[T.Lex]

Apropos of nothing, for as hard as Russian bots (both AI and human) worked in the 2016 cycle, when you get down to it, they really are just ghey.

 

[jamil]

You claimed skepticism that the (R) candidate had any chance of winning. I referenced seats that were held by Republicans, and were flipped, due to ballot harvesting.

And I'll go on record stating that, "legal" or not, ballot harvesting is fraud.

I don't know that I'd classify it AS fraud, but it's very exploitable and surely promotes fraud. Makes it a lot easier to stuff ballots. Especially in conjunction with universal mail-in voting. Cross reference voter registration rolls with the SSA DMF file, employ people to fill out ballots with those dead people's names on it. Forge whatever signatures. Send it in on behalf of the dead person. Sure, a lot of those will be rejected, but a lot will be counted, especially if you have your own operatives doing the counting.

 

[BugI02]

Gerrymandering is legal too. Maybe we could all agree that designing systems to favor a political party should be illegal.

I really think it should be possible for someone to write transparent, open source code/algorithms that could divide a state into contiguous, competitive, roughly simple polygon shaped districts without the distortions that occur to concentrate or dilute power at the district or state level

Problem is, only the faction out of power is ever interested in implementing rational redistricting - and if they do come into power, they lose interest in giving up an advantage

The core of the problem is good of the country is no longer of much concern. We can't even agree on a definition

 

[jamil]

*Looks at 2016 election*

*Looks at continued #Resistance to 2016 election results*

*Admires your psychological projection*

This election EVERYONE on the losing side will question the results no matter the outcome. So I don't know why JK is just worried about conservatives.

 

[T.Lex]

I don't know that I'd classify it AS fraud, but it's very exploitable and surely promotes fraud. Makes it a lot easier to stuff ballots. Especially in conjunction with universal mail-in voting. Cross reference voter registration rolls with the SSA DMF file, employ people to fill out ballots with those dead people's names on it. Forge whatever signatures. Send it in on behalf of the dead person. Sure, a lot of those will be rejected, but a lot will be counted, especially if you have your own operatives doing the counting.

Particularly the "employ people to fill out ballots" - how long do you think that could be kept secret when done on a scale of thousands?

As I mentioned earlier, I'm familiar with suspicious precinct-level vote patterns. At that scale, a handful of trusted people could do it and keep it a secret. (So far.)

I just don't see how that would scale up.

 

[BugI02]

I know if a state gerrymanders for supposed racial reasons it would be held illegal, but what law does just general redistricting to favor a party break? It happens all the time in a lot of states.

And if gerrymandering can be held illegal for advantaging voting racially, is not drawing districts to maximize black voting power at the expense of other ethnicities (say, in densely populated cities) just as immoral? The most important characteristic of the districts drawn by any proposed system should be that they be as competitive as possible

 

[jamil]

I really think it should be possible for someone to write transparent, open source code/algorithms that could divide a state into contiguous, competitive, roughly simple polygon shaped districts without the distortions that occur to concentrate or dilute power at the district or state level

Problem is, only the faction out of power is ever interested in implementing rational redistricting - and if they do come into power, they lose interest in giving up an advantage

The core of the problem is good of the country is no longer of much concern. We can't even agree on a definition

There are a number of such algorithms that have been developed. As far as I know, no state uses it to draw districts, include solid blue states who complain about republican states gerrymandering. Of course they don't do it.