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Post by mikegarrison on Oct 8, 2020 16:54:29 GMT -5
I think the main difference in this case is that it was not just a plan or an idea, to have 12 sites. It was either being setup or was actually implemented, then it was repealed. The difference with your hypothetical (ie, even the 12 drop-off sites is a "reduction" if you consider hiring lots of people to go to homes to take their ballots, etc.) is that it was never a (near) reality, and then repealed. Say another way: it would be one thing if Harris was just proposing to have 12 sites, but that hadn't even been voted on to be approved yet (by the committee/council or whatever), and then the gov said they couldn't even vote on that.
Yeah - I think that is a good way of going at this. I mean in the abstract - why is 12 the point where there is no voter suppression? Why not 24 or 1200 drop points. Does only 1 make sense? I think those are good questions. OTH - in my mind, voter suppression occurs when; 1) a person that WANTS to vote is unable to vote without putting forth more than minimal effort, 2) there are different rules for one part of the state compared to another. One could ask - is it fair for Harris County to have 12 drop points and Brewster only 1? Is having 12 in Harris essentially 'voter suppression' for people in Brewster having just 1? I suspect they have a in day polling place in each precinct? Having a drop box for each precinct may be too costly, especially if some form of voter verification is required. Anyway - is anyone in Texas unable to vote w/o minimal effort? No, really it's not fair for Harris to have 12 drop points and Brewster only 1. After all that would be only one box per 400,000 people for Harris, but 1 box per 9,000 people for Brewster. But even that level of unfairness wasn't enough for Abbott. Oh wait, did you mean it would be unfair THE OTHER WAY AROUND? Did you suddenly forget how to do math? It's starting to seem like it.
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Post by BearClause on Oct 8, 2020 17:07:12 GMT -5
Yeah - I think that is a good way of going at this. I mean in the abstract - why is 12 the point where there is no voter suppression? Why not 24 or 1200 drop points. Does only 1 make sense? I think those are good questions. OTH - in my mind, voter suppression occurs when; 1) a person that WANTS to vote is unable to vote without putting forth more than minimal effort, 2) there are different rules for one part of the state compared to another. One could ask - is it fair for Harris County to have 12 drop points and Brewster only 1? Is having 12 in Harris essentially 'voter suppression' for people in Brewster having just 1? I suspect they have a in day polling place in each precinct? Having a drop box for each precinct may be too costly, especially if some form of voter verification is required. Anyway - is anyone in Texas unable to vote w/o minimal effort? No, really it's not fair for Harris to have 12 drop points and Brewster only 1. After all that would be only one box per 400,000 people for Harris, but 1 box per 9,000 people for Brewster. But even that level of unfairness wasn't enough for Abbott. Oh wait, did you mean it would be unfair THE OTHER WAY AROUND? Did you suddenly forget how to do math? It's starting to seem like it. There are all these moving parts here, but among them include geographic distance, access to transportation, traffic concerns, and (most importantly) lines. I've seen some of these where the lines to drop off a ballot were really long. And most importantly is the willingness of the county elections office to set up multiple sites.
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Post by cindra on Oct 8, 2020 17:16:40 GMT -5
The rules for some people ARE different than others. PA allows multiple drop boxes and no-excuse absentee voting. TX does not. If everyone thought one vote in a vacuum didn't matter, then nobody would vote. Maybe you think your vote doesn't matter, but that's because you're a cynical 3rd party voter in a non-swing state. There are plenty of people who aren't as jaded as you and want to have their voices heard. There's no such thing as a cost-benefit analysis for something with intangible subjective value like voting. And again, this "minimal effort thing" is a. not true (again, read my posts from earlier) and b. irrelevant, because for someone who was planning to drop their ballot off at one of these stations, they no longer can. Voting is harder for those people, and with no gain at all for security/integrity/whatever. I'm just gonna copy paste until I get an answer. And go up a font size this time. Again: I'll repeat until I get a straight answer from the people defending (or being apathetic about) Abbot's policy here. How does getting rid of these ballot drop off sites make voting more secure or democracy more representative?Of course - voting is different in each state. I was referring within each state. What if we hired 10M people to go door to door and take down everyone's vote? Why doesn't each state do this - it would make it easier for people to vote. There are a million things we could do. I am saying - does the voting in Texas require more than a minimal effort to vote? Maybe getting rid of drop off sites isn't cost effective or efficient? Doesn't really matter - what matters is voting even remotely hard to do? Yes. Door knockers would be great, but it's a little financially unfeasible. Instead, what states can do is mail ballots to every voter like in WA, OR, HI, UT, and CO to ensure everyone who wishes to vote is able. Possibly even cheaper than hiring people to drop off sites, and proven to work well and without fraud. "Minimal effort" is a very hazy term, because some people have skewed idea of what minimal effort is. Daryl said a while ago that he would be fine with people having to walk dozens of miles to the DMV to get a voter ID card. You probably think "minimal effort" is driving to a nearby polling place. I think minimal effort should be as easy as walking to the nearest mailbox or dropbox (for me, about 100 yards). A better metric is "as easy as possible," which is clearly not the case in texas right now. As for the efficiency or effectiveness of drop off sites, Harris Co wouldn't have put the sites up if they weren't cost effective and safe, and Dems wouldn't be suing if they didn't help turnout. The governor's motives are pretty clear here.
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Post by mikegarrison on Oct 8, 2020 17:22:25 GMT -5
Of course - voting is different in each state. I was referring within each state. What if we hired 10M people to go door to door and take down everyone's vote? Why doesn't each state do this - it would make it easier for people to vote. There are a million things we could do. I am saying - does the voting in Texas require more than a minimal effort to vote? Maybe getting rid of drop off sites isn't cost effective or efficient? Doesn't really matter - what matters is voting even remotely hard to do? Yes. Door knockers would be great, but it's a little financially unfeasible. Instead, what states can do is mail ballots to every voter like in WA, OR, HI, UT, and CO to ensure everyone who wishes to vote is able. Possibly even cheaper than hiring people to drop off sites, and proven to work well and without fraud. "Minimal effort" is a very hazy term, because some people have skewed idea of what minimal effort is. Daryl said a while ago that he would be fine with people having to walk dozens of miles to the DMV to get a voter ID card. You probably think "minimal effort" is driving to a nearby polling place. I think minimal effort should be as easy as walking to the nearest mailbox or dropbox (for me, about 100 yards). A better metric is "as easy as possible," which is clearly not the case in texas right now. As for the efficiency or effectiveness of drop off sites, Harris Co wouldn't have put the sites up if they weren't cost effective and safe, and Dems wouldn't be suing if they didn't help turnout. The governor's motives are pretty clear here. I'm quite happy with our (Republican) Secretary of State here in Washington (our main election official). She's very keen on making voting as easy, safe, and accurate as possible.
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Post by BearClause on Oct 8, 2020 17:30:18 GMT -5
Of course - voting is different in each state. I was referring within each state. What if we hired 10M people to go door to door and take down everyone's vote? Why doesn't each state do this - it would make it easier for people to vote. There are a million things we could do. I am saying - does the voting in Texas require more than a minimal effort to vote? Maybe getting rid of drop off sites isn't cost effective or efficient? Doesn't really matter - what matters is voting even remotely hard to do? Yes. Door knockers would be great, but it's a little financially unfeasible. Instead, what states can do is mail ballots to every voter like in WA, OR, HI, UT, and CO to ensure everyone who wishes to vote is able. Possibly even cheaper than hiring people to drop off sites, and proven to work well and without fraud. "Minimal effort" is a very hazy term, because some people have skewed idea of what minimal effort is. Daryl said a while ago that he would be fine with people having to walk dozens of miles to the DMV to get a voter ID card. You probably think "minimal effort" is driving to a nearby polling place. I think minimal effort should be as easy as walking to the nearest mailbox or dropbox (for me, about 100 yards). A better metric is "as easy as possible," which is clearly not the case in texas right now. As for the efficiency or effectiveness of drop off sites, Harris Co wouldn't have put the sites up if they weren't cost effective and safe, and Dems wouldn't be suing if they didn't help turnout. The governor's motives are pretty clear here. The startup costs are actually quite large. I saw some piece on how there were doing it in a small county - maybe it was in Kentucky? Everything was done by hand up to the point where ballots were counted because the volumes were typically low. And even then I believe they used fairly slow speed scanners that scanned about as fast as my home office equipment. The weird thing I remember were employees looking over whether or not an envelope was "sealed". They were looking for any indication that the envelope was gummed up - even by a tiny bit where the marginal seal was broken. If they didn't, the ballot had to be invalidated according to state law. The big counties in Washington all have tons of high speed sorting equipment and machines to open the the envelopes. Heck - my county in California has about 2/3 traditional vote by mail and their setup is on par with those in Oregon or Washington. That they're going to a primarily mail-in vote for this election cycle isn't going to result in abject chaos. It might even be relived a lot because the counting starts well before election day.
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Post by cindra on Oct 8, 2020 17:34:05 GMT -5
Yes. Door knockers would be great, but it's a little financially unfeasible. Instead, what states can do is mail ballots to every voter like in WA, OR, HI, UT, and CO to ensure everyone who wishes to vote is able. Possibly even cheaper than hiring people to drop off sites, and proven to work well and without fraud. "Minimal effort" is a very hazy term, because some people have skewed idea of what minimal effort is. Daryl said a while ago that he would be fine with people having to walk dozens of miles to the DMV to get a voter ID card. You probably think "minimal effort" is driving to a nearby polling place. I think minimal effort should be as easy as walking to the nearest mailbox or dropbox (for me, about 100 yards). A better metric is "as easy as possible," which is clearly not the case in texas right now. As for the efficiency or effectiveness of drop off sites, Harris Co wouldn't have put the sites up if they weren't cost effective and safe, and Dems wouldn't be suing if they didn't help turnout. The governor's motives are pretty clear here. The startup costs are actually quite large. I saw some piece on how there were doing it in a small county - maybe it was in Kentucky? Everything was done by hand up to the point where ballots were counted because the volumes were typically low. And even then I believe they used fairly slow speed scanners that scanned about as fast as my home office equipment. The weird thing I remember were employees looking over whether or not an envelope was "sealed". They were looking for any indication that the envelope was gummed up - even by a tiny bit where the marginal seal was broken. If they didn't, the ballot had to be invalidated according to state law. The big counties in Washington all have tons of high speed sorting equipment and machines to open the the envelopes. Heck - my county in California has about 2/3 traditional vote by mail and their setup is on par with those in Oregon or Washington. That they're going to a primarily mail-in vote for this election cycle isn't going to result in abject chaos. It might even be relived a lot because the counting starts well before election day. Better to do it now then, instead of putting it off.
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Post by BearClause on Oct 8, 2020 18:24:14 GMT -5
The startup costs are actually quite large. I saw some piece on how there were doing it in a small county - maybe it was in Kentucky? Everything was done by hand up to the point where ballots were counted because the volumes were typically low. And even then I believe they used fairly slow speed scanners that scanned about as fast as my home office equipment. The weird thing I remember were employees looking over whether or not an envelope was "sealed". They were looking for any indication that the envelope was gummed up - even by a tiny bit where the marginal seal was broken. If they didn't, the ballot had to be invalidated according to state law. The big counties in Washington all have tons of high speed sorting equipment and machines to open the the envelopes. Heck - my county in California has about 2/3 traditional vote by mail and their setup is on par with those in Oregon or Washington. That they're going to a primarily mail-in vote for this election cycle isn't going to result in abject chaos. It might even be relived a lot because the counting starts well before election day. Better to do it now then, instead of putting it off. Depends. Some worries are that this is going to be a one-time expense where most voters go back to in-person voting and there are all these machines that were ordered to meet a peak usage that they'll never see again. In Pennsylvania they're dealing with their first general election where no-excuse vote by mail has been allowed. They had some issues during the primaries so many counties spent money on more equipment just to try and get the count done quickly. Granted they already have the equipment for a reasonably fast count in a few days, but they're really spending the money so they can complete the count within a day or so. Here's a photo from a Philly newspaper: Workers install equipment for processing mail ballots at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia on Sept. 17. Elections officials in the city and elsewhere have spent millions on sophisticated equipment for processing, sorting, opening, and counting mail ballots, in an effort to avoid a long wait before results in the 2020 presidential election are known.
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Post by cindra on Oct 8, 2020 18:40:07 GMT -5
Better to do it now then, instead of putting it off. Depends. Some worries are that this is going to be a one-time expense where most voters go back to in-person voting and there are all these machines that were ordered to meet a peak usage that they'll never see again. All IMHO, of course, but every state should just implement no excuse mail-in full-time, even if they're not mailing a ballot to every voter. It's an investment that many other democracies have made and will be good for the health of elections.
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Post by BearClause on Oct 8, 2020 19:25:17 GMT -5
Depends. Some worries are that this is going to be a one-time expense where most voters go back to in-person voting and there are all these machines that were ordered to meet a peak usage that they'll never see again. All IMHO, of course, but every state should just implement no excuse mail-in full-time, even if they're not mailing a ballot to every voter. It's an investment that many other democracies have made and will be good for the health of elections. That's what Pennsylvania is doing. But they're buying all this equipment that they might not strictly need in 2-4 years simply because the current requests for vote by mail are ridiculously high. Also - what exactly could they do? I don't know if they could rent this equipment. However, I've looked into some of these machines. A few are just high speed office scanning equipment running special ballot reading software. They might have an application beyond just elections where they could be sold used. I don't know if they might have bought some used equipment, although I'd think few election agencies would be dumping equipment now given how they might need it.
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Post by guest2 on Oct 8, 2020 19:41:37 GMT -5
I care if the rules for some people to vote is different than others. Votes are important, but one single vote in a vacuum doesn't matter. There are some people that don't care about elections. Near as I can tell - anyone that Wants to vote can vote with minimal effort. If a person cannot easily vote - then I agree that this would be voter suppression. Being able to vote in Harris county take minimal effort. The rules for some people ARE different than others. PA allows multiple drop boxes and no-excuse absentee voting. TX does not. If everyone thought one vote in a vacuum didn't matter, then nobody would vote. Maybe you think your vote doesn't matter, but that's because you're a cynical 3rd party voter in a non-swing state. There are plenty of people who aren't as jaded as you and want to have their voices heard. There's no such thing as a cost-benefit analysis for something with intangible subjective value like voting. And again, this "minimal effort thing" is a. not true (again, read my posts from earlier) and b. irrelevant, because for someone who was planning to drop their ballot off at one of these stations, they no longer can. Voting is harder for those people, and with no gain at all for security/integrity/whatever. I'm just gonna copy paste until I get an answer. And go up a font size this time. Again: I'll repeat until I get a straight answer from the people defending (or being apathetic about) Abbot's policy here. How does getting rid of these ballot drop off sites make voting more secure or democracy more representative?Aren't the positions that 1) one vote matters and 2) vote by mail should be adopted and voter ID struck down because at worst, those would only lead to some relatively rare voter fraud mutually exclusive. Sorry couldn't resist Long past time for some sort of national election commission to manage every election of significance. Its just too easy for local and state governments to mess around with this stuff. Abbot is clearly trying to drive down Democratic voting so the law should be struck down, but at the same time the argument Harris County is making is fundamentally illogical - even though its correct. Basically Harris is saying its unfair for our voters to have to take X amount of time and effort to vote, even though we don't dispute that its legal for people in other counties to have to take >X time and effort to vote. Again its clearly intended to suppress so should be struck down, but there is a giant, gaping fallacy here.
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Post by mikegarrison on Oct 8, 2020 20:27:14 GMT -5
Bottom line is that Shelby County v. Holder was evil. It opened the floodgates for vote suppression all over again.
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Post by BearClause on Oct 8, 2020 21:40:27 GMT -5
Aren't the positions that 1) one vote matters and 2) vote by mail should be adopted and voter ID struck down because at worst, those would only lead to some relatively rare voter fraud mutually exclusive. Sorry couldn't resist Long past time for some sort of national election commission to manage every election of significance. Its just too easy for local and state governments to mess around with this stuff. Abbot is clearly trying to drive down Democratic voting so the law should be struck down, but at the same time the argument Harris County is making is fundamentally illogical - even though its correct. Basically Harris is saying its unfair for our voters to have to take X amount of time and effort to vote, even though we don't dispute that its legal for people in other counties to have to take >X time and effort to vote. Again its clearly intended to suppress so should be struck down, but there is a giant, gaping fallacy here. This wasn't a law. The directive that allowed counties to set up multiple collection sites came from the Governor. Several counties took advantage of it following their fairly stringent security standards. They already started doing it, then Abbott pulled the rug out. Any lawsuits trying to restore them are likely based on due process. There was nothing in the directive that prevented a less populous county from establishing multiple sites to provide better geographic coverage. Obviously they might have issues with personnel. However, they're also less likely to run into the possibility that people arrive at a single site and face lines waiting - especially given that ID is checked. There's never going to be a perfect system, but in many ways allowing counties to determine their details (polling sites, hiring poll workers, collection sites, equipment purchase) is the best way since they know what their own needs are. As for a national commission - there's really very little in the Constitution that allows for that. It's up to the states to determine how they run their own elections. Congress has regulated it, but they hesitate to overdo anything lest the balance of states' rights is disturbed. There's even less authority for the federal government to regulate Presidential elections past what's authorized in the Constitution.
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Post by guest2 on Oct 8, 2020 22:18:49 GMT -5
Aren't the positions that 1) one vote matters and 2) vote by mail should be adopted and voter ID struck down because at worst, those would only lead to some relatively rare voter fraud mutually exclusive. Sorry couldn't resist Long past time for some sort of national election commission to manage every election of significance. Its just too easy for local and state governments to mess around with this stuff. Abbot is clearly trying to drive down Democratic voting so the law should be struck down, but at the same time the argument Harris County is making is fundamentally illogical - even though its correct. Basically Harris is saying its unfair for our voters to have to take X amount of time and effort to vote, even though we don't dispute that its legal for people in other counties to have to take >X time and effort to vote. Again its clearly intended to suppress so should be struck down, but there is a giant, gaping fallacy here. This wasn't a law. The directive that allowed counties to set up multiple collection sites came from the Governor. Several counties took advantage of it following their fairly stringent security standards. They already started doing it, then Abbott pulled the rug out. Any lawsuits trying to restore them are likely based on due process. There was nothing in the directive that prevented a less populous county from establishing multiple sites to provide better geographic coverage. Obviously they might have issues with personnel. However, they're also less likely to run into the possibility that people arrive at a single site and face lines waiting - especially given that ID is checked. There's never going to be a perfect system, but in many ways allowing counties to determine their details (polling sites, hiring poll workers, collection sites, equipment purchase) is the best way since they know what their own needs are. As for a national commission - there's really very little in the Constitution that allows for that. It's up to the states to determine how they run their own elections. Congress has regulated it, but they hesitate to overdo anything lest the balance of states' rights is disturbed. There's even less authority for the federal government to regulate Presidential elections past what's authorized in the Constitution. If you allow counties to decide their needs in this respect then you have the same set of abuses possible, also the more counties have control over elections the worse things will get. There is no corruption more venal than local government corruption Agree a national commission would take an amendment though
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Post by BearClause on Oct 8, 2020 22:37:19 GMT -5
This wasn't a law. The directive that allowed counties to set up multiple collection sites came from the Governor. Several counties took advantage of it following their fairly stringent security standards. They already started doing it, then Abbott pulled the rug out. Any lawsuits trying to restore them are likely based on due process. There was nothing in the directive that prevented a less populous county from establishing multiple sites to provide better geographic coverage. Obviously they might have issues with personnel. However, they're also less likely to run into the possibility that people arrive at a single site and face lines waiting - especially given that ID is checked. There's never going to be a perfect system, but in many ways allowing counties to determine their details (polling sites, hiring poll workers, collection sites, equipment purchase) is the best way since they know what their own needs are. As for a national commission - there's really very little in the Constitution that allows for that. It's up to the states to determine how they run their own elections. Congress has regulated it, but they hesitate to overdo anything lest the balance of states' rights is disturbed. There's even less authority for the federal government to regulate Presidential elections past what's authorized in the Constitution. If you allow counties to decide their needs in this respect then you have the same set of abuses possible, also the more counties have control over elections the worse things will get. There is no corruption more venal than local government corruption Agree a national commission would take an amendment though The fact is that counties follow specific state rules, but they do the actual running of elections. They pick the polling sites. They pay the poll workers. In most counties they select the equipment, although it might need to come from a state list of certified equipment/software. My county (which is a combination of suburban and rural) has a single county clerk/recorder's office serving as the election office. They determine how many ballot drop boxes they'll use. They've also picked early voting sites. What exactly do you propose? That all this has to be controlled at the state level? That's already screwed things up in states where the state allocates voting equipment resources - like in Georgia. You think the long lines during the primaries in Atlanta were an accident?
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Post by guest2 on Oct 9, 2020 14:04:49 GMT -5
If you allow counties to decide their needs in this respect then you have the same set of abuses possible, also the more counties have control over elections the worse things will get. There is no corruption more venal than local government corruption Agree a national commission would take an amendment though The fact is that counties follow specific state rules, but they do the actual running of elections. They pick the polling sites. They pay the poll workers. In most counties they select the equipment, although it might need to come from a state list of certified equipment/software. My county (which is a combination of suburban and rural) has a single county clerk/recorder's office serving as the election office. They determine how many ballot drop boxes they'll use. They've also picked early voting sites. What exactly do you propose? That all this has to be controlled at the state level? That's already screwed things up in states where the state allocates voting equipment resources - like in Georgia. You think the long lines during the primaries in Atlanta were an accident? I'm not sure. I trust state more than county and federal more than state, so the bigger and broader the better but the founders and various states have helpfully built systems that are incredibly vulnerable to manipulation and certain types of fraud. (I'm thinking voting machines here)
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