What the heck is going on with the USPS?

[Mister Moose]

Absentee voting by mail is fine. Not the same thing.

What's the difference between voting by mail versus absentee voting? In Pennsylvania, it's exactly the same thing.

Since DHS would rather throw bombs without answering questions, I'll take this one.

In my state (prior to any COVID changes),
1) in order to get an absentee ballot, you have to appear in person to the town clerk,
2) show ID,
3) and fill out the form.
4) You must attest to the need for an absentee ballot. "More convenient" is not one of the choices.
5) You are not given the ballot, they must mail it to the address on the voter record.

and

6) The date of the town mailing the absentee ballot is not the same for everyone, hence it isn't possible to harvest ballots.
7) Not everyone gets one, only the few that applied and were approved, hence it isn't possible to harvest ballots.
8] The list of who gets mailed an absentee ballot is not public, if everyone gets a ballot it is.

There's 8 differences, there are probably more. It is not the same thing. How does it work in PA to be "exactly the same thing"?

[XtremeJibber2001]

Absentee voting by mail is fine. Not the same thing.

What's the difference between voting by mail versus absentee voting? In Pennsylvania, it's exactly the same thing.

Since DHS would rather throw bombs without answering questions, I'll take this one.

In my state,
1) in order to get an absentee ballot, you have to appear in person to the town clerk,
2) show ID,
3) and fill out the form.
4) You must attest to the need for an absentee ballot. "More convenient" is not one of the choices.
5) You are not given the ballot, they must mail it to the address on the voter record.

and

6) The date of the town mailing the absentee ballot is not the same for everyone, hence it isn't possible to harvest ballots.
7) Not everyone gets one, only the few that applied and were approved, hence it isn't possible to harvest ballots.
8] The list of who gets mailed an absentee ballot is not public, if everyone gets a ballot it is.

There's 8 differences, there are probably more. It is not the same thing. How does it work in PA to be "exactly the same thing"?

Aside from appearing in person, PA process is the same.

1) Show ID by providing your driver's license number or passport number.
2) Fill out the form
3) Attest to the need.
4) Mail it to my address on voter record

I'm not certain on the logistics in PA (6 through 8 ). I know I'll get the ballot with enough time to mail it in and it must be received by 8pm on election day.

PA is not mailing ballots to everyone. Where are you from that an absentee ballot must be requested in person? I ask because doesn't that defeat the purpose of an absentee ballot? Two questions:

1) What risks are present with 'mailed absentee ballots' that are not also present with 'request absentee ballots'?
2) Do you agree it's disingenuous for Trump's campaign to send out absentee ballot request forms to voters while he asserts mail-in voting is fraudulent?

[Dr. NO]

For nearly a decade I was out with the Air Force (SAC) I never used my AF address to get my ballot. I contacted the town and they sent me my Absentee ballot. Fill it out and send it in. Unfortunately too many people take advantage by delaying returning the ballots so the votes do not get counted. Now they are including people who have no reason to get the absentee ballot.

[XtremeJibber2001]

Now they are including people who have no reason to get the absentee ballot.

Well aside from the fact they don’t want to get sick. Our county isn’t sending kids to school, my employer is making people work from home, etc. Makes sense to vote via absentee ballot to me ... why risk it?

[easyrider16]

Absentee voting by mail is fine. Not the same thing.

What's the difference between voting by mail versus absentee voting? In Pennsylvania, it's exactly the same thing.

Kinda what I was thinking. Any process you use for absentee ballots, you can use for mail in. That process is determined at the state and local level and different in different states. So basically it sounds to me like you're arguing semantics because you want to believe your guy's unfounded assertion that mail in voting is susceptible to fraud.

[deadheadskier]

Voted absentee every general since 2008. I do it because since that time, I've traveled for work. 90% chance on any given M-F workday I will not be able to show up to my polling location. Even if Election Day were a National holiday, I still might not be able to make it to the polls. I've spent all day working in hospitals on Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day in the past with one days notice of needing to do so

Late August or Early September, I walk into the town hall at my convenience, ask for the form, fill it out and mail it in. Get my ballot back in the mail and fill it out to submit before the deadline. Quite frankly, I just assume skip that relatively easy process and just automatically have a ballot arrive in the mail early October.

Properly fund the USPS and make mail in voting as widespread as possible is my view. Our voter participation rate in this country is paltry. Let's open it up

There's a reason the Republicans are politicizing this and it isn't because of the potential for fraud like the Moose's of the world want you to believe......

[Highway Star]

I do not object to a MILD and COMMON SENSE relaxation of the absentee voting criteria due to the pandemic, for documented health reasons / risk, etc. I don't think Trump does either.

However that is not what is being pushed in many states, where they seem to be allowing mass unregulated mail balloting.

The level of media gaslighting around this is intense. So much "disrupting our mail in voting process", implying there actually is an established one. Only a handful of large, low population western states have practiced mail in voting, and in the last decade or so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_vo ... #In_states

[deadheadskier]

You're an idiot. 95% of the gaslighting is by Trump claiming the only way Biden wins is via a rigged election through mail in voting fraud.

You have a greater chance of dying from Covid by a 100 to 1 margin than the election results being determined because of fraud.

[XtremeJibber2001]

However that is not what is being pushed in many states, where they seem to be allowing mass unregulated mail balloting.

Which states are allowing unregulated mail balloting?

[easyrider16]

I do not object to a MILD and COMMON SENSE relaxation of the absentee voting criteria due to the pandemic, for documented health reasons / risk, etc. I don't think Trump does either.

However that is not what is being pushed in many states, where they seem to be allowing mass unregulated mail balloting.

The level of media gaslighting around this is intense. So much "disrupting our mail in voting process", implying there actually is an established one. Only a handful of large, low population western states have practiced mail in voting, and in the last decade or so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_vo ... #In_states

Oregon, Washington, Utah, and California are those "handful of large, low population western states" that have practiced mail in voting according to the article. Few, yes, but low population? California?

In any case, was there any evidence of fraud in those cases? No? So what's the problem? Seems like the thing to do is shore up security, not to try to eliminate mail in voting. That is contrary to Trump refusing to sign off on increased funding for the USPS to help facilitate mail in voting. I mean these are not normal circumstances. We're in a pandemic. Why is Trump being obstructionist about this?

[easyrider16]

Oh one more quote from the article you cited:

In the 2016 US Presidential election, approximately 33 million ballots were cast by postal vote, about a quarter of all ballots cast.[35] Some jurisdictions used only vote-by-mail and others absentee votes.

So 1/4 of all ballots cast in 2016 were by postal vote. Was there widespread fraud in this election that resulted in Trump's presidency? What am I missing here?

I think anyone who's looking at this objectively sees it for what it is. Trump fears the outcome of 2020, which he should given his poll numbers, and he's trying to suppress the vote to gain an advantage. He's far from the first U.S. politician to try to suppress the vote to seek advantage and likely won't be the last. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

[XtremeJibber2001]

Oh one more quote from the article you cited:

In the 2016 US Presidential election, approximately 33 million ballots were cast by postal vote, about a quarter of all ballots cast.[35] Some jurisdictions used only vote-by-mail and others absentee votes.

So 1/4 of all ballots cast in 2016 were by postal vote. Was there widespread fraud in this election that resulted in Trump's presidency? What am I missing here?

I think anyone who's looking at this objectively sees it for what it is. Trump fears the outcome of 2020, which he should given his poll numbers, and he's trying to suppress the vote to gain an advantage. He's far from the first U.S. politician to try to suppress the vote to seek advantage and likely won't be the last. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

I'm still kind of at step 1 here, which is what I asked Moose. The risks present with 'mailed absentee ballots' and 'requested absentee ballots' are the same. PA is typically a Blue state, but results are often very close. In 2012, PA went Red by just 44,292 votes which was one of the slimmest margins. So say we were going to harvest ballots and turn PA Blue again. We would need a pretty massive effort to 'forge' 44k absentee ballots. Say we were successful, we'd also need PA's absentee ballot controls to fail. In the 2020 primaries, we saw ballots rejected because signatures don't match the voter rolls, voter also voted in person, etc. So to make our 44k harvesting attempt successful we'd also need to get the voter roles and ensure the peoples ballot we are harvesting doesn't also vote by mail or in person.

I suppose you could pull it off, but you'd have to find enough willing participants to risk jail time to do it. Of course this would only flip PA, you might need operations like this in several states in order to flip an election.

[easyrider16]

Yes but on the other hand, suppressing votes can be very effective and often isn't illegal. If your organization looks at the numbers and figures the opponent's voters are 60% more likely to vote by mail, and you can interfere with the postal system such that a relatively small percentage of that mail gets delayed enough not to be counted, you can perhaps affect enough votes to tilt elections in some swing states.

Example: In 2016 approximately 5,965,000 voted in PA. If 1/4 of those votes turn out to be mail-in in 2020, that's 1,491,250 votes. If you can just get 15% of those votes not to be counted, that's 223,687 votes affected. If you anticipate 60% of those to go for the opponent, that works out to a swing of about 44,737 votes in your favor. Based on your example, that would be enough to swing the election.

It seems obvious to me that this is the sort of thing Trump is trying to do.

Sources:
https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/post-e ... er-turnout
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_vo ... #In_states

[boston_e]

For nearly a decade I was out with the Air Force (SAC) I never used my AF address to get my ballot. I contacted the town and they sent me my Absentee ballot. Fill it out and send it in. Unfortunately too many people take advantage by delaying returning the ballots so the votes do not get counted. Now they are including people who have no reason to get the absentee ballot.

In the COVID era, there should not be many people with no reason to get an absentee ballot.

[easyrider16]

For nearly a decade I was out with the Air Force (SAC) I never used my AF address to get my ballot. I contacted the town and they sent me my Absentee ballot. Fill it out and send it in. Unfortunately too many people take advantage by delaying returning the ballots so the votes do not get counted. Now they are including people who have no reason to get the absentee ballot.

In the COVID era, everyone has a reason to get an absentee ballot.

Indeed, and the reason isn't even personal to the individual requesting the ballot. If voting in person results in higher rates of transmission, and more people get infected, that would mean more people, even those who have no intention of voting, get affected. It's sort of like vaccines. Vaccines are mandated for children not just to protect the individual child, but to protect the population of children who attend the school. In 2020, mail in voting, particularly in areas of high infection spread, is justified by the pandemic alone, apart from individual need. It could literally save lives.