Cont: The Trump Presidency: Part 27

[quadraginta]

My understanding is that an absentee ballot occurs when an eligible voter has submitted a complying legal ballot for the electorate s/he lives in, but from a location not in that electorate, and/or within a valid period before the actual day of election. This should include and not be limited to: military personnel serving overseas, US tourists in a foreign country or on vacation elsewhere in the USA, and those unable to attend a polling station on the day (e.g. are very sick or are having a major surgical operation, frail residents of nursing homes, unable to travel to a polling station, etc.)

I believe these types of ballots are subject to extra scrutiny and conditions to ensure they are truly valid and have been secured as private while in transit. Once they arrive and are validated by the counting staff, they should go into the general mix of ballots to be tallied just like every other legal ballot. They are, truly, fully legal ballots.

Absentee ballots are nothing new to modern voting systems. All other countries besides the USA which use similar voting systems have some provision for absentee ballots. So why the GOP suddenly think they are a problem now is the question. And it is very clear that they didn't like the result and now just want to sulk bigly.

Close. Fixed it for you.

Yes. The idea being that they are 'absent' from the designated polling places for some reason or another. Being away from where those polling places are is only one reason. Being unable to get to them (sick, handicapped, etc,) is another. And simply not wanting to bother with them (waiting lines, scheduling, etc.) is yet another in jurisdictions which are enlightened enough to allow that.

This last reason became especially popular thanks to Covid 19, as I am sure most of us know.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Regardless there's never been a valid reason why in 2020 and onward you should have to physically go to a location to vote.

The Alt-right trolls will just straight lie about voter fraud and the contrarian trolls will try to drag us down into semantics and meta-debate but nobody has ever tried to offer what the net positive in and off itself to in person voting is supposed to be exactly.

 

[quadraginta]

Regardless there's never been a valid reason why in 2020 and onward you should have to physically go to a location to vote.

The Alt-right trolls will just straight lie about voter fraud and the contrarian trolls will try to drag us down into semantics and meta-debate but nobody has ever tried to offer what the net positive in and off itself to in person voting is supposed to be exactly.

By "valid" I'm assuming you don't mean the same thing as "legal".

Sadly, only twenty seven states allow 'no-excuse' absentee ballot requests. Three send absentee ballots to every registered voter, and twenty, regrettably, require a legally approved excuse to receive an absentee ballot. The excuses which are accepted vary from state to state.

 

[Norman Alexander]

My understanding is that an absentee ballot occurs when an eligible voter has submitted a complying legal ballot for the electorate s/he lives in, but from a location not in that electorate, and/or within a valid period before the actual day of election. This should include and not be limited to: military personnel serving overseas, US tourists in a foreign country or on vacation elsewhere in the USA, and those unable to attend a polling station on the day (e.g. are very sick or are having a major surgical operation, frail residents of nursing homes, unable to travel to a polling station, etc.)

Close. Fixed it for you.

Now that IS puzzling. Unless we have a mix-up in terms? Because if you vote at a location in your electorate then it's not actually absentee. So...

I'll use Australian conditions to illustrate, but I gather there are similar if not identical procedures in the USA and most other western countries.

My residential address determines which electorate I am in, for state and federal elections. If I move house, a change of electorate may follow. I don't get to pick-and-choose this as electorates are geographically determined.

On polling day, I go to any polling station in my electorate, identify myself appropriately (they have voter rolls), get my ballot and cast my vote. Then I get myself a democracy sausage as a reward.*

if I cannot attend a polling station in my electorate (it will be a Saturday and we usually go see friends some distance away on weekends), I can still attend any other polling station in the state or country. I will be given a handwritten ballot paper with my electorate's candidates written on them. I complete the ballot and vote, just as if I were "at home". My vote will be counted in my own electorate, not the one where I physically cast my vote. This is an absentee ballot.

If an election is due and I am overseas, I can go to an Australian consulate or embassy and vote. This may also be ahead of the election day. Again, I am given a ballot paper for my own electorate, my vote is cast, and it is counted on the day of election. Again, this is an absentee ballot.

If an election is due and I know I will be unable or choose not to to attend a polling station on the day, I can vote in advance. I can apply in advance for and receive a ballot paper, complete with a secure method of identifying myself and return it to the Electoral Commission in the mail. Fill it in, send it in. The Electoral Commission does its procedures for verification, then my ballot paper goes in the pile of pre-election day ballots for my electorate. This is a mail-in ballot.

I'm going to imagine this all sounds very familiar to our US voters. *Apart from the democracy sausage. So how does the striking out of "but from a location not in that electorate" from the above definition come about?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Seems to be some conflation of 'absentee' and 'postal'

 

[Segnosaur]

His cunning plan has been foiled!

Trump tries to get around Twitter ban and gets suspended again

trump started posting on a Gab account (which is at 2.1m followers atm) where he posts rants 2-3 times a day, but the creation of multiple tRuMp DeSK twitter accounts suggests that Gab's not doing it for him.

I think I mentioned this before...

That may not actually be Stubby McBonespurs posting on Gab.

From: Wikipedia
In early February 2021, multiple media outlets falsely reported that former-President Trump had joined Gab under the handle @realdonaldtrump....Torba responded to the false reports in a blog post, saying that "@realdonaldtrump is and always has been a mirror archive of POTUS' tweets and statements...

So, unless something has changed, Gab is just reposting things like press releases that Trump has posted elsewhere.

 

[quadraginta]

Seems to be some conflation of 'absentee' and 'postal'

Perhaps so, but for all practical purposes in the U.S., the meaning of "absentee ballot" is a ballot which is delivered by and generally (some exceptions apply) returned by mail.

So, less of a conflation than a synonym, perhaps.

 

[Horatius]

Over the past 4 years, Cheney supported Trump during congressional votes 93% of the time. She voted against impeachment over his Ukraine phone call. She has given speeches in front of anti-muslim hate groups. She has defended people in the birther movement.

So I do think she's in exactly the party she should be in, and the fact that she happened to have a change of heart at the 11th hour doesn't change that fact.

But this is exactly why we should keep harping on about Cheney. Point out to everyone else who still votes Republican, but who doesn't particularly like Trump, that if they'll turn on a hard-core conservative like Cheney, they'll turn on anyone. Every voter who decides not to vote for them is a win, so we need to convince as many as possible that this party simply no longer wants or deserves their personal support.

We don't need to convince them to support the Democrats, we just need them to not support the Republicans.

 

[Norman Alexander]

Seems to be some conflation of 'absentee' and 'postal'

Not really. If you are absent from your electorate, one option is you can post in a vote in advance (we have cutoff dates for this on each election).

Maybe this difference in terms is why we develop such puzzled looks.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Yeah saying "Oh we're for/against absentee ballots, but we're against/for voting by mail" has been one of the main Republican tactics which is pointless because in American they are functionally the same thing as there's really outside of extreme rare edge cases only two ways to vote; at a single voting place you are assigned to or through the mail.

 

[Belz...]

Yeah saying "Oh we're for/against absentee ballots, but we're against/for voting by mail" has been one of the main Republican tactics which is pointless because in American they are functionally the same thing as there's really outside of extreme rare edge cases only two ways to vote; at a single voting place you are assigned to or through the mail.

Well, they're not against the ACA either, just Obamacare.

 

[slyjoe]

Not really. If you are absent from your electorate, one option is you can post in a vote in advance (we have cutoff dates for this on each election).

Maybe this difference in terms is why we develop such puzzled looks.

It may be a conflation of terms. I don't have to be absent from my electorate. My location has nothing to do with my ballot. I live in Arizona, which actually has pretty liberal mail in/absentee voting rules. I crossed out the part in your original post only because for me the location doesn't enter into it. Minor nit I know.

More important is what is a demcracy sausage?

 

[lomiller]

No, the party has changed even more since November, to the point that anyone with a modicrum of reason is expelled.

The GoP has been doing that for 30 years. Each new generation being more extreme than the last only to be ejected in their turn by even more extreme and less rational versions of themselves.

 

[Belz...]

The GoP has been doing that for 30 years. Each new generation being more extreme than the last only to be ejected in their turn by even more extreme and less rational versions of themselves.

I noticed.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

And yet they still are odds on to regain the House in 2022 IMO (thanks to gerrymandering and redistribution) and the Senate.

Close to 50% of the people who can be bothered to turn out to vote support a party which expels anyone with a modicum of reason. What does that say about the US electorate ?

Getting the violins out already I see.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

trump started posting on a Gab account (which is at 2.1m followers atm) where he posts rants 2-3 times a day, but the creation of multiple tRuMp DeSK twitter accounts suggests that Gab's not doing it for him.

This spoiler includes his latest few gab posts. They're just the standard fare, so don't bother to read this if his style irritates you. There's nothing substantial in it, it's just the same old 'I'm gonna eat some worms' cheese and whine.

(most recent post first)

The Fake News Media, working in close conjunction with Big Tech and the Radical Left Democrats, is doing everything they can to perpetuate the term “The Big Lie” when speaking of 2020 Presidential Election Fraud. They are right in that the 2020 Presidential Election was a Big Lie, but not in the way they mean. The 2020 Election, which didn’t even have Legislative approvals from many States (which is required under the U.S. Constitution), and was also otherwise corrupt, was indeed The Big Lie. So when they try to sell the American people the term The Big Lie, which they do in unison and coordination, think of it instead as the greatest Fraud in the history of our Country! An even greater Hoax than Russia, Russia, Russia, Mueller, Mueller, Mueller, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, or any of the other many scams the Democrats pulled!

Liz Cheney is a warmongering fool who has no business in Republican Party Leadership. We want leaders who believe in the Make America Great Again movement, and prioritize the values of America First. Elise Stefanik is a far superior choice, and she has my COMPLETE and TOTAL endorsement for GOP Conference Chair. Elise is a tough and smart communicator!

What Facebook, Twitter, and Google have done is a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our Country. Free Speech has been taken away from the President of the United States because the Radical Left Lunatics are afraid of the truth, but the truth will come out anyway, bigger and stronger than ever before. The People of our Country will not stand for it! These corrupt social media companies must pay a political price, and must never again be allowed to destroy and decimate our Electoral Process.

Warmonger Liz Cheney, who has virtually no support left in the Great State of Wyoming, continues to unknowingly and foolishly say that there was no Election Fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election when in fact, the evidence, including no Legislative approvals as demanded by the U.S. Constitution, shows the exact opposite. Had Mike Pence referred the information on six states (only need two) back to State Legislatures, and had gutless and clueless MINORITY Leader Mitch McConnell (he blew two seats in Georgia that should have never been lost) fought to expose all of the corruption that was presented at the time, with more found since, we would have had a far different Presidential result, and our Country would not be turning into a socialist nightmare! Never give up!

Heartwarming to read new polls on big-shot warmonger Liz Cheney of the great State of Wyoming. She is so low that her only chance would be if vast numbers of people run against her which, hopefully, won’t happen. They never liked her much, but I say she’ll never run in a Wyoming election again!

He really gets going when he's not limited to 240 characters (or whatever the Twitter limit is).

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Gerrymandering works both on voters and the politicians - it's a vicious cycle.

 

[Segnosaur]

Hope this doesn't become the "Liz Cheney" thread... but it seemed relevant to some of the discussions here...

From: The Independent
On 3 January...10 former Pentagon leaders, including two who served in the Trump administration, signed an op-ed in The Washington Post. “Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory,” they wrote.
...
Ms Cheney “secretly orchestrated” the “unprecedented op-ed”.
...
Cheney also sent around a 20-page memo...to the House Republican Caucus....Cheney “debunked Trump’s false claims about election fraud”...and went on to warn her fellow members “that voting to overturn the election results, as Trump was insisting, would ‘set an exceptionally dangerous precedent’”.

 

[JoeMorgue]

At a certain point if you spend all your time as voice of reason within an organization you need to start questioning why you are in the organization.

 

[Segnosaur]

At a certain point if you spend all your time a small amount of time as voice of reason within an organization after supporting the organization for years, and engaging in much of the exact same lunacy that they are doing now you need to start questioning why you are in the organization.

Fixed it for you.