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Wymsey

US Presidential Election 2020

By Wymsey, in General Chat

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twoleftfeet

twoleftfeet

Posted
Posted
17 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

There ought to be something controversial about postal balloting, though nobody seems bothered.  It's the abolition of the secret ballot.

 

The secret ballot was introduced long ago to stop people (in those days usually landlords) putting undue pressure on people to vote a certain way.  Nowadays it's more likely to be abusive husbands (or wives), but could also be landlords or employers or just general bullies.  With a secret ballot, it's not the right to keep your vote secret that is vital, it's that you must keep your vote secret.  If you enter a polling station with your wife, and she marks her cross, she must put it in the box without showing it to you.  If she shows it to you, it's an invalid vote.  Hence husband can't force wife to vote a certain way.

 

That's why postal voting should be controversial - because it makes the secret ballot unenforceable.

I think you are making a very fair point.

 

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ealingfox

ealingfox

Posted
Posted
22 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

There ought to be something controversial about postal balloting, though nobody seems bothered.  It's the abolition of the secret ballot.

 

The secret ballot was introduced long ago to stop people (in those days usually landlords) putting undue pressure on people to vote a certain way.  Nowadays it's more likely to be abusive husbands (or wives), but could also be landlords or employers or just general bullies.  With a secret ballot, it's not the right to keep your vote secret that is vital, it's that you must keep your vote secret.  If you enter a polling station with your wife, and she marks her cross, she must put it in the box without showing it to you.  If she shows it to you, it's an invalid vote.  Hence husband can't force wife to vote a certain way.

 

That's why postal voting should be controversial - because it makes the secret ballot unenforceable.

 

Not everyone can get to a polling station on a given day, get over it. A functioning democracy is one where it's made as easy as possible to vote.

 

How much evidence of this actually happening do you have? Are you sure this isnt just supposition of something you'd like to be true?

 

If you think a landlord or employer could easily defraud a postal vote in this country I would guess you haven't worked on many elections.

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The_77

The_77

Posted
Posted
18 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

There ought to be something controversial about postal balloting, though nobody seems bothered.  It's the abolition of the secret ballot.

 

The secret ballot was introduced long ago to stop people (in those days usually landlords) putting undue pressure on people to vote a certain way.  Nowadays it's more likely to be abusive husbands (or wives), but could also be landlords or employers or just general bullies.  With a secret ballot, it's not the right to keep your vote secret that is vital, it's that you must keep your vote secret.  If you enter a polling station with your wife, and she marks her cross, she must put it in the box without showing it to you.  If she shows it to you, it's an invalid vote.  Hence husband can't force wife to vote a certain way.

 

That's why postal voting should be controversial - because it makes the secret ballot unenforceable.

There are lots of reasons why postal voting is extremely necessary in the United States and not controversial, especially during a pandemic.

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The_77

The_77

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, twoleftfeet said:

It looks like it could all come down to Nevada, Bidden is only 8000 in front with 25% of the votes still to be counted looking at fox news 

Biden has plenty of votes left to be counted in Pennsylvania and that’s all he needs to clinch. Philadelphia has only reported 70% of its vote, the remaining ballots will be heavily for Biden. 

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KFS

KFS

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, twoleftfeet said:

It looks like it could all come down to Nevada, Bidden is only 8000 in front with 25% of the votes still to be counted looking at fox news 

Well firstly, there’s your problem lol 

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The_77

The_77

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Collymore said:

Clinton, Trump and Biden. It's depressing to think that that's the best that they could come up with over the recent past to be President. 

 

You could argue that Biden is possibly the best out of a bad bunch but he wouldn't fill me with confidence if I was American.

2/3 of those are a helluva lot better than Boris Johnson. 😜

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Jon the Hat

Jon the Hat

Posted
Posted
44 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

Come off it, Jon, he's spouting the same shit every American far right "commentator" has been for ages now. That the people that object to, for example, the police murdering black people are "radical left" for taking issue. 

 

This "radical left" in the states all essentially just want public health care, separation of church and state, legalised gay marriage, legalised abortions and less racially fuelled police brutality. 

 

All of which are things that we as Britons, living in a largely centre-right sovereign state, get to take for granted. 

 

So radical. 

 

 

Yea that is all bollocks.  This is why I don;t really support the GOP. I believe in the welfare state.

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twister

twister

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

I suggest the betting markets are not that well informed here, and they panicked a bit when the polls looked way off early in the night.  To be fair the polls still exaggerated the gap between Biden and Trump in key states, but he appears to be liley to win them.  From here ideally they are turn Blue and we can move on.  I think the Supreme court won't want to effectively tell half a dozen states how to run their elections.  Not sure that is even in their power.

Your living in la la if you think america which is closed to the edge of civil disorder between left and right will magically be ok

 

there is a lot of tension over there right now

58 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

There ought to be something controversial about postal balloting, though nobody seems bothered.  It's the abolition of the secret ballot.

 

The secret ballot was introduced long ago to stop people (in those days usually landlords) putting undue pressure on people to vote a certain way.  Nowadays it's more likely to be abusive husbands (or wives), but could also be landlords or employers or just general bullies.  With a secret ballot, it's not the right to keep your vote secret that is vital, it's that you must keep your vote secret.  If you enter a polling station with your wife, and she marks her cross, she must put it in the box without showing it to you.  If she shows it to you, it's an invalid vote.  Hence husband can't force wife to vote a certain way.

 

That's why postal voting should be controversial - because it makes the secret ballot unenforceable.

This is spot on, we have consistently seen issues with postal voting. Any time you remove the secret ballot there are possible issues.

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Jon the Hat

Jon the Hat

Posted
Posted

There is a certain entertainment in UK commentators condemning Trumps legal challenges when they have been so supportive of Gina miller and co challenging our government over Brexit. 

 

I think like those anti Brexit campaigners, Trump is clutching at straws here, and when Biden converts all these states (I think he will now, they keep creeping up and I don't believe there is any significant fraud going on) Trump will eventually be shouting to himself as everyone deserts him.

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dsr-burnley

dsr-burnley

Posted
Posted
31 minutes ago, ealingfox said:

 

Not everyone can get to a polling station on a given day, get over it. A functioning democracy is one where it's made as easy as possible to vote.

 

How much evidence of this actually happening do you have? Are you sure this isnt just supposition of something you'd like to be true?

 

If you think a landlord or employer could easily defraud a postal vote in this country I would guess you haven't worked on many elections.

It certainly happens.  Voting fraud generally is common enough that they made it a rule in Pendle at the last election that you had to have photo ID to vote.  Which is of course useless against postal vote farud.

 

My problem is that if you let relatively minor electoral fraud into the system it opens the way for more major stuff.  One of the reasons the BNP did well in Burnley was because Labour did its best to make itself unelectable, and one of the ways it did that was by the then mayor putting his parents onto the electoral roll even though neither had ever lived in this country and one had never even visited.  One set of 76 postal votes was sent to the same address in Oldham.  A ward had a turnout of 78% in a local election, because both candidates had persuaded about half the residents to pass on their postal vote.  When some of the postal applications were disallowed, one candidate complained because they were his votes and he had worked for them.

 

I'm not opposed to postal voting.  If you have a reason for a postal vote, then you should be able to get one.  (Eg. Texas) and in this time, everyone has a reason.  But as a general rule, I think voting should be in person unless there is a valid reason.

 

(I'm a lot more opposed to internet voting.  Apart from having virtually no security, it means the "don't give a toss" party will still vote.  I'd rather see people not vote at all ahead of voting at random.  At least with postal voting, it takes some effort to read the instructions, fill in the forms, and get it to a post box.) 

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Leicester_Loyal

Leicester_Loyal

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

It certainly happens.  Voting fraud generally is common enough that they made it a rule in Pendle at the last election that you had to have photo ID to vote.  Which is of course useless against postal vote farud.

 

Happened a bit in Peterborough last year as well, I'm not sure to what extent though.

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Scotch

Scotch

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, dsr-burnley said:

There ought to be something controversial about postal balloting, though nobody seems bothered.  It's the abolition of the secret ballot.

 

The secret ballot was introduced long ago to stop people (in those days usually landlords) putting undue pressure on people to vote a certain way.  Nowadays it's more likely to be abusive husbands (or wives), but could also be landlords or employers or just general bullies.  With a secret ballot, it's not the right to keep your vote secret that is vital, it's that you must keep your vote secret.  If you enter a polling station with your wife, and she marks her cross, she must put it in the box without showing it to you.  If she shows it to you, it's an invalid vote.  Hence husband can't force wife to vote a certain way.

 

That's why postal voting should be controversial - because it makes the secret ballot unenforceable.

Everything you say is true and in normal circumstances I don't think it should be normalized BUT if it's that or have hundreds of millions of people leave there homes and go to ballot stations during a pandemic.....

 

They've prioritized safety over a fair and democratic vote which is fair. There is nothing democratic about the voting system in Anerica anyway so it doesn't make a whole lot of difference. 

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Carl the Llama

Carl the Llama

Posted
Posted
19 minutes ago, twister said:

Your living in la la if you think america which is closed to the edge of civil disorder between left and right will magically be ok

 

there is a lot of tension over there right now

This is spot on, we have consistently seen issues with postal voting. Any time you remove the secret ballot there are possible issues.

We have?  Post your sources please.

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