Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

Re:Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms by AnthonyMouse on Thursday May 28, 2020 @12:45AM (#23333482)

> In those two decades there have been hardly a hand-full of convictions for mail fraud related to ballots that entire time, with millions of mail-in-ballots cast. And there are no indications or notions of any subversive fraud.

But that's the objection. Mail in voting is problematic because the fraud is so hard to detect.

Suppose someone obtains and submits a bunch of mail in ballots. Ballots of people who don't normally vote etc. How would they even get caught? "We haven't caught very many of them" is the problem.

> The only reason to oppose mail in voting, much like supporting rejiggering districts (gerrymandering), is to rig the vote.

You could say it's to prevent someone else from rigging the vote.

Also, this:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-is-no-evidence-th...

So if it doesn't really affect the balance of legitimate ballots and only makes fraud more difficult, why would somebody be against it unless they're legitimately concerned about fraud?

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Re:Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms by Fezzik on Thursday May 28, 2020 @01:21AM (#23333657)

I guess I have not seen any factual basis to conclude that mail-in voting is problematic. I get the theoretical argument, and can imagine all sorts of USPS conspiracies to rig the vote, but the fact is we have multiple states that allow mail-in voting, where millions of voters have cast ballots by mail, and both parties have won and lost elections while watching and recounting numerous votes... and there is no indication that this process has been problematic, ever. And certainly no evidence that it is not at least as secure as the voting machines we have, while still facilitating more people voting.

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Re:Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms by AnthonyMouse on Thursday May 28, 2020 @01:52AM (#23333875)

> and there is no indication that this process has been problematic, ever.

It's a thing that actually happens:

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/cudahy-officials-co...

https://www.dothaneagle.com/news/crime_court/woman-convicted...

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/cahokia-village-tr...

There are also even more small time cases like this:

https://gvwire.com/2019/08/23/mexican-man-who-supports-trump...

Where it's only one person voting when they're not eligible. Those cases often aren't even prosecuted, but at scale it adds up.

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Re:Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms by Fezzik on Thursday May 28, 2020 @04:46AM (#23334967)

All those articles are about absentee ballots which absolutely nobody in DC is trying to stop entirely. It is how deployed military persons vote. Trump and the republicans are trying to stop States from implementing state-wide voting, or expanding absentee ballots for all citizens which more states are trying to implement due to a friggin’ pandemic. And yes, every system will have people that try to mess with it. But as Oregon’s nearly 2 decades of state-wide-vote-by-mail demonstrates, voting by mail is no more problematic than any other method of voting and it is more convenient for voters.

Edit: clarity while trying to maintain brevity.

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Re:Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms by klipt on Thursday May 28, 2020 @04:11AM (#23334786)

> Suppose someone obtains and submits a bunch of mail in ballots. Ballots of people who don't normally vote etc. How would they even get caught?

For a start in California mail in ballots have to be signed and the signature has to match the registered voter's signature on file.

So you're assuming someone can steal a bunch of registered voters' ballots and fake their signatures.

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Re:Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms by tatersolid on Thursday May 28, 2020 @07:10AM (#23335939)

Nobody examines anything but a tiny sample of the signatures unless there is a recount.

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Re:Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms by dragonwriter on Thursday May 28, 2020 @08:01AM (#23336260)

Were there a persistent, large-scale problem, a small sample over many elections would detect it, but actually the process is that each signature is matched before the inner ballot envelope is moved forward to be counted.

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Re:Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms by Wistar on Thursday May 28, 2020 @11:34AM (#23338500)

Here in WA state, my daughter kept changing her signature and had to verify her mail-in ballot for several elections.

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Re:Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms by trent_lott on Thursday May 28, 2020 @07:46AM (#23336168)

I mean on first pass you can just compare the number of votes to voters

Grave ballots would require new/additional votes. That would sure the expected ballot returns.

There are a ton of ways to verify elections statistically that you could read into

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