Stealing an election in broad daylight

ml1 said:

hoops said:

Arguing about % reduction of votes that haven’t occurred isn’t something I’m prepared to go into.  What isn’t up for arguing is that the machines that have been removed thus far are directly removed from democratic areas.  These are targeted to prevent democratic votes and targeted to affect all citizens in largely democratic areas from receiving their mail on time or at all. 

 I still think my initial question is an important one.  If NYC has a reduction of 500K per hour in its sorting capacity, isn't a very different impact depending on whether they usually sort five million pieces per mail per hour, or five billion pieces of mail per hour?  Seems pretty basic to me, that I'd rather know the % decrease in capacity over the absolute number.

And I'm not sure that the map makes your second point at all.  There are dots all over the country denoting capacity decreases.  Again, without knowing the % decrease represented by those dots in Nevada for instance, how do I know that the impact is going to tip blue states red?  

I fully buy that all of these machinations are almost certainly to try to screw Democratic voters.  I'm just saying that the map by itself isn't sufficient evidence to tell that story.

 I saw another map which i can’t find that showed all the congressional districts overlaid on this one that would clarify it for you.   It out there...

The rate of loss of throughput which it seems that you are questioning is even now affecting people who get their medications by mail and are not receiving them.  Given that the issue is the election a decrease in throughput is going to affect whether votes are counted in time and guaranteed to set up a Supreme Court battle later no matter the results

hoops said:

 I saw another map which i can’t find that showed all the congressional districts overlaid on this one that would clarify it for you.   It out there...

The rate of loss of throughput which it seems that you are questioning is even now affecting people who get their medications by mail and are not receiving them.  Given that the issue is the election a decrease in throughput is going to affect whether votes are counted in time and guaranteed to set up a Supreme Court battle later no matter the results

 I'm really not questioning those outcomes. I'm reacting to the map, which for me was wholly inadequate as a graphical representation of data. It raised more questions for me than it answered. 

And Trump lawsuits over a "rigged" election have begun:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/19/politics/trump-campaign-new-jersey-mail-in-ballots/index.html

jamie said:

And Trump lawsuits over a "rigged" election have begun:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/19/politics/trump-campaign-new-jersey-mail-in-ballots/index.html

 "The lawsuit alleges that the executive order usurps the legislature's authority to decide when and how elections are held."

How would the Trump campaign have standing here?

jamie said:

And Trump lawsuits over a "rigged" election have begun:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/19/politics/trump-campaign-new-jersey-mail-in-ballots/index.html

He's setting the stage to proclaim himself winner, to deny Biden the presidency, no matter what. Count on it.

A few days ago he told his supporters:

"Make sure because the only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged,” Trump told the group of supporters at the outdoor campaign event. “Remember that. It’s the only way we’re going to
lose this election, so we have to be very careful.”

Biden wins, Trump proclaims he's the winner and there will be protests. He will sic his federal police troopers on the protestors.

Think the local police will protect the constitutional rights of the protestors? Think again. They haven't done before and considering strong police support for Trump we can expect the same or even active suppression.

So are we safer just registering for vote by mail? I received the application before the Primary and before I filled it out, I got the ballot in the mail. Now I'm thinking I should mail in the application to be sure.

This will just confuse voters and I'm sure Trump will be satisfied with that result. It may make people hesitant to even apply for mail in.

https://join.freeconferencecall.com/winnkhuong

Here's a 12 noon conference online. I receive their emails and they will be discussing 4 bills. This is from Action Together New Jersey:

Sorry so last minute, I'm just keeping up. TUNE IN TODAY AT NOON! We have 4 bills up in committee and if you are worried about USPS and this election, we need your testimony - by ZOOM or written - that's due at 3pm today.

We don't have time. So, please tune in and help.

Join by laptop or computer:

Sent via Action Network, a free online toolset anyone can use to organize. Click here to sign up and get started building an email list and creating online actions today. Action Network is an open platform that empowers individuals and groups to organize for progressive causes. We encourage responsible activism, and do not support using the platform to take unlawful or other improper action. We do not control or endorse the conduct of users and make no representations of any kind about them. You can unsubscribe or update your email address or change your name and address by changing your subscription preferences here.

Floyd said:

Think the local police will protect the constitutional rights of the protestors? Think again. They haven't done before and considering strong police support for Trump we can expect the same or even active suppression.

 It's starting to feel like the federal response to protesters have mostly been practice sessions for what will happen in November.  Trying to discover who will lead it - what tactics have been most effective - and how Barr can legally justify any actions that will be taken.

Question is - what tactics have been successfully taken to stop them?

more DeJoy funny bidness

These machines are humongous 100+ feet long.  Smh.  Not removed, not dismantled, destroyed.  Millions of dollars each.  

https://twitter.com/_HeatherWalker/status/1296122043772133382?s=20

I hope the Dems are on the ball for the upcoming hearings. They should turn over questioning to the committee's counsel, if you ask me. Too many questioners tend to bloviate.

aftermath

the consequences or aftereffects of a significant unpleasant event.

So they're viewing the election as a "significant unpleasant event."

good to know.

May they all burn in hell.

more on Mnuchin's role re the USPS

In early February, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin invited two Republican members of the Postal Service’s board of governors to his office to update him on a matter in which he had taken a particular interest — the search for a new postmaster general.

Mr. Mnuchin had made clear before the meeting that he wanted the governors to find someone who would push through the kind of cost-cutting and price increases that President Trump had publicly called for and that Treasury had recommended in a December 2018 report as a way to stem years of multibillion-dollar losses.

It was an unusual meeting at an unusual moment.

Since 1970, the Postal Service had been an independent agency, walled off from political influence. The postmaster general is not appointed by the president and is not a cabinet member. Instead, the postal chief is picked by a board of governors, with seats reserved for members of both parties, who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate for seven-year terms.

Now, not only was the Trump administration, through Mr. Mnuchin, involving itself in the process for selecting the next postmaster general, but the two Democratic governors who were then serving on the board were not invited to the Treasury meeting. Since the meeting did not include a quorum of board members, it was not subject to sunshine laws that apply to official board meetings and there is no formal Postal Service record or minutes of what was discussed.

Reflect a moment on what their suffering must have been like.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-post-office-dead-chickens-thousands-delays-20200820-5rjosemcq5botabymhsv34whom-story.html

Morganna said:

Reflect a moment on what their suffering must have been like.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-post-office-dead-chickens-thousands-delays-20200820-5rjosemcq5botabymhsv34whom-story.html

this was the most horrifying USPS story yet.  And in Trump's America, it's just another news day.  It's unreal how such casual cruelty has become unremarkable over the past three years.  I guess the cruelty was there all along, but it's been jarring to know that 40% of Americans are on board with it.

I do think Biden has an edge over Trump with voters. However, between the open sabotaging of the election process by Trump and the GOP, and the election interference from abroad, we should be very worried. 

There are still a lot of Bernie dead-enders out there (including his former campaign manager and former spokesperson) who are still verbally sh*tting on Biden and the Democrats.  They help Trump's goal of suppressing the vote by discouraging people from supporting his main rival.

nohero said:

There are still a lot of Bernie dead-enders out there (including his former campaign manager and former spokesperson) who are still verbally sh*tting on Biden and the Democrats.  They help Trump's goal of suppressing the vote by discouraging people from supporting his main rival.

 Well, you can't fix stupid. Bernie himself is fully supporting Biden (unlike Hillary in 2016).

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin. Supreme Court has decided they they'd like to screw up Wisconsin voting, with an assist by the Green Party.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/wisconsin-supreme-court-absentee-ballots-green-party.html

On Thursday morning, it looked like Wisconsin was positioned to run a smooth election this fall. The state’s 1,850 municipal clerks had printed at least 2.3 million absentee ballots and mailed 378,482 of them. They were well positioned to beat the Sept. 17 deadline by which, under state law, ballots must go out. In April, these clerks were crushed by a last-minute surge in requests from residents who decided to vote absentee for fear of the pandemic. The resulting delays led to mass confusion and disenfranchisement. Not this time: Officials had learned their lesson and planned far head, setting the stage for the prompt and orderly mailing of millions of ballots.

Then the Wisconsin Supreme Court stepped in. On Thursday afternoon, by a 4–3 vote divided along partisan lines, the court issued a strange, cryptic order that could throw the election into chaos. The conservative majority directed the Wisconsin Elections Commission to turn over a massive amount of information it did not actually have. These justices then halted the mailing of more absentee ballots while they consider nullifying every ballot that has been printed or mailed and forcing the state to start over. Their stunning eleventh-hour intervention could force election officials into an impossible position: either comply with the court’s order or violate both state and federal law.

The latest trouble in Wisconsin centers on Green Party candidates Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker. To get on the ballot, Hawkins and Walker were required to submit 2,000 valid signatures. But the paperwork they filed had a problem: Many signature sheets included an address, a motel in South Carolina, that was different from the one that Walker listed in her sworn declaration of candidacy. Walker had an opportunity to explain this discrepancy but declined. In accordance with state law, the Wisconsin Elections Commission rejected the signatures collected under the wrong address. That left Walker with fewer than the required 2,000 signatures, so the commission declined to place the Green Party ticket on the ballot. Hawkins and Walker waited two weeks—the critical period during which clerks printed and began mailing ballots—before asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to force their names onto the ballot anyway.

A responsible court would have rejected this challenge for two reasons: Hawkins and Walker waited an unreasonably long time to bring it, and it has no plausible legal basis. But instead of dismissing the case, the infamously irresponsible court ordered the commission to reveal who has requested absentee ballots, who has been mailed a ballot already, and when these ballots were mailed. It also demanded to know who requested the ballots to be printed, implying the existence of some conspiracy to rush them out. In the meantime, the conservative majority effectively shut down the state’s election machinery, suspending the printing of more absentee ballots. Its order suggests that four justices are seriously considering a decision in favor of the Green Party. Such a ruling would compel the state to throw out every existing ballot and begin the entire, grueling, monthslong process anew.

and let's not forget the 11th circuit giving an assist to Florida to disenfranchise ex-felons.

I really, really hope that Biden has a strong plan for dealing with the courts.

Regardless of who wins, this election is going to be a cluster****

drummerboy said:

I really, really hope that Biden has a strong plan for dealing with the courts.

Biden Creates Legal War Room, Preparing for a Big Fight Over Voting (NYT)

Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign is establishing a major new legal operation, bringing in two former solicitors general and hundreds of lawyers in what the campaign billed as the largest election protection program in presidential campaign history.

DaveSchmidt said:

drummerboy said:

I really, really hope that Biden has a strong plan for dealing with the courts.

Biden Creates Legal War Room, Preparing for a Big Fight Over Voting (NYT)

Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign is establishing a major new legal operation, bringing in two former solicitors general and hundreds of lawyers in what the campaign billed as the largest election protection program in presidential campaign history.

That's not what I meant by "dealing with the courts". The War Room is for dealing with Trump.

drummerboy said:

That's not what I meant by "dealing with the courts". The War Room is for dealing with Trump.

 so you mean, if Biden is elected?

ml1 said:

drummerboy said:

That's not what I meant by "dealing with the courts". The War Room is for dealing with Trump.

 so you mean, if Biden is elected?

 Yeah, Sorry if I was unclear. I'm talking about a plan to fix the federal courts, after he's elected. I haven't heard him really mention it since he got the nomination. Or before for that matter. It's as critical as SCOTUS and getting rid of the filibuster. There too many minority dominated veto points in our system, especially after McConnell has stacked the courts the way he has.

drummerboy said:

On Thursday morning, it looked like Wisconsin was positioned to run a smooth election this fall. The state’s 1,850 municipal clerks had printed at least 2.3 million absentee ballots and mailed 378,482 of them. They were well positioned to beat the Sept. 17 deadline by which, under state law, ballots must go out. In April, these clerks were crushed by a last-minute surge in requests from residents who decided to vote absentee for fear of the pandemic. The resulting delays led to mass confusion and disenfranchisement. Not this time: Officials had learned their lesson and planned far head, setting the stage for the prompt and orderly mailing of millions of ballots.

Then the Wisconsin Supreme Court stepped in. On Thursday afternoon, by a 4–3 vote divided along partisan lines, the court issued a strange, cryptic order that could throw the election into chaos. The conservative majority directed the Wisconsin Elections Commission to turn over a massive amount of information it did not actually have. These justices then halted the mailing of more absentee ballots while they consider nullifying every ballot that has been printed or mailed and forcing the state to start over. Their stunning eleventh-hour intervention could force election officials into an impossible position: either comply with the court’s order or violate both state and federal law.

The latest trouble in Wisconsin centers on Green Party candidates Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker. To get on the ballot, Hawkins and Walker were required to submit 2,000 valid signatures. But the paperwork they filed had a problem: Many signature sheets included an address, a motel in South Carolina, that was different from the one that Walker listed in her sworn declaration of candidacy. Walker had an opportunity to explain this discrepancy but declined. In accordance with state law, the Wisconsin Elections Commission rejected the signatures collected under the wrong address. That left Walker with fewer than the required 2,000 signatures, so the commission declined to place the Green Party ticket on the ballot. Hawkins and Walker waited two weeks—the critical period during which clerks printed and began mailing ballots—before asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to force their names onto the ballot anyway.

A responsible court would have rejected this challenge for two reasons: Hawkins and Walker waited an unreasonably long time to bring it, and it has no plausible legal basis. But instead of dismissing the case, the infamously irresponsible court ordered the commission to reveal who has requested absentee ballots, who has been mailed a ballot already, and when these ballots were mailed. It also demanded to know who requested the ballots to be printed, implying the existence of some conspiracy to rush them out. In the meantime, the conservative majority effectively shut down the state’s election machinery, suspending the printing of more absentee ballots. Its order suggests that four justices are seriously considering a decision in favor of the Green Party. Such a ruling would compel the state to throw out every existing ballot and begin the entire, grueling, monthslong process anew.

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin. Supreme Court has decided they they'd like to screw up Wisconsin voting, with an assist by the Green Party.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/wisconsin-supreme-court-absentee-ballots-green-party.html

On Thursday morning, it looked like Wisconsin was positioned to run a smooth election this fall. The state’s 1,850 municipal clerks had printed at least 2.3 million absentee ballots and mailed 378,482 of them. They were well positioned to beat the Sept. 17 deadline by which, under state law, ballots must go out. In April, these clerks were crushed by a last-minute surge in requests from residents who decided to vote absentee for fear of the pandemic. The resulting delays led to mass confusion and disenfranchisement. Not this time: Officials had learned their lesson and planned far head, setting the stage for the prompt and orderly mailing of millions of ballots.

Then the Wisconsin Supreme Court stepped in. On Thursday afternoon, by a 4–3 vote divided along partisan lines, the court issued a strange, cryptic order that could throw the election into chaos. The conservative majority directed the Wisconsin Elections Commission to turn over a massive amount of information it did not actually have. These justices then halted the mailing of more absentee ballots while they consider nullifying every ballot that has been printed or mailed and forcing the state to start over. Their stunning eleventh-hour intervention could force election officials into an impossible position: either comply with the court’s order or violate both state and federal law.

The latest trouble in Wisconsin centers on Green Party candidates Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker. To get on the ballot, Hawkins and Walker were required to submit 2,000 valid signatures. But the paperwork they filed had a problem: Many signature sheets included an address, a motel in South Carolina, that was different from the one that Walker listed in her sworn declaration of candidacy. Walker had an opportunity to explain this discrepancy but declined. In accordance with state law, the Wisconsin Elections Commission rejected the signatures collected under the wrong address. That left Walker with fewer than the required 2,000 signatures, so the commission declined to place the Green Party ticket on the ballot. Hawkins and Walker waited two weeks—the critical period during which clerks printed and began mailing ballots—before asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to force their names onto the ballot anyway.

A responsible court would have rejected this challenge for two reasons: Hawkins and Walker waited an unreasonably long time to bring it, and it has no plausible legal basis. But instead of dismissing the case, the infamously irresponsible court ordered the commission to reveal who has requested absentee ballots, who has been mailed a ballot already, and when these ballots were mailed. It also demanded to know who requested the ballots to be printed, implying the existence of some conspiracy to rush them out. In the meantime, the conservative majority effectively shut down the state’s election machinery, suspending the printing of more absentee ballots. Its order suggests that four justices are seriously considering a decision in favor of the Green Party. Such a ruling would compel the state to throw out every existing ballot and begin the entire, grueling, monthslong process anew.

Click to Read More

On Thursday morning, it looked like Wisconsin was positioned to run a smooth election this fall. The state’s 1,850 municipal clerks had printed at least 2.3 million absentee ballots and mailed 378,482 of them. They were well positioned to beat the Sept. 17 deadline by which, under state law, ballots must go out. In April, these clerks were crushed by a last-minute surge in requests from residents who decided to vote absentee for fear of the pandemic. The resulting delays led to mass confusion and disenfranchisement. Not this time: Officials had learned their lesson and planned far head, setting the stage for the prompt and orderly mailing of millions of ballots.

Then the Wisconsin Supreme Court stepped in. On Thursday afternoon, by a 4–3 vote divided along partisan lines, the court issued a strange, cryptic order that could throw the election into chaos. The conservative majority directed the Wisconsin Elections Commission to turn over a massive amount of information it did not actually have. These justices then halted the mailing of more absentee ballots while they consider nullifying every ballot that has been printed or mailed and forcing the state to start over. Their stunning eleventh-hour intervention could force election officials into an impossible position: either comply with the court’s order or violate both state and federal law.

The latest trouble in Wisconsin centers on Green Party candidates Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker. To get on the ballot, Hawkins and Walker were required to submit 2,000 valid signatures. But the paperwork they filed had a problem: Many signature sheets included an address, a motel in South Carolina, that was different from the one that Walker listed in her sworn declaration of candidacy. Walker had an opportunity to explain this discrepancy but declined. In accordance with state law, the Wisconsin Elections Commission rejected the signatures collected under the wrong address. That left Walker with fewer than the required 2,000 signatures, so the commission declined to place the Green Party ticket on the ballot. Hawkins and Walker waited two weeks—the critical period during which clerks printed and began mailing ballots—before asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to force their names onto the ballot anyway.

A responsible court would have rejected this challenge for two reasons: Hawkins and Walker waited an unreasonably long time to bring it, and it has no plausible legal basis. But instead of dismissing the case, the infamously irresponsible court ordered the commission to reveal who has requested absentee ballots, who has been mailed a ballot already, and when these ballots were mailed. It also demanded to know who requested the ballots to be printed, implying the existence of some conspiracy to rush them out. In the meantime, the conservative majority effectively shut down the state’s election machinery, suspending the printing of more absentee ballots. Its order suggests that four justices are seriously considering a decision in favor of the Green Party. Such a ruling would compel the state to throw out every existing ballot and begin the entire, grueling, monthslong process anew.

 Happily, they came down against the Green appeal today.  If they had insisted on a ballot "redo" at this late date, the election would have been one big lawsuit, not to mention the cost to the cities and counties.  To err on the generous side, i don't think they realized what they were asking for. fwiw, Milwaukee County alone has to have 400+ ballot versions, for various municipalities, districts, etc. etc.  Breathing a little better now.