Presidents are temporary, a congress seat can be your for life. Especially if your position is such in the party that you get a safe seat. This is one thing which is similar in my country to the US (cabinets being fleeting, but parliament seats can be made almost guaranteed).

Which is probably not healthy. Parties (in any democratic country) tend to be less far less democratic than the elections they present candidates for.

EADGBE and cuepee,

To your point, I am starting to get very worried about mail-in voting. I'm not worried about fraud. But I am worried that there will be a significant volume of mail-in votes and that those votes will skew heavily to Biden.

Here is the nightmare scenario: Trump is nominally ahead at 2 am on election night. Fox and other right wing outlets are (perhaps disingenuously) calling states for Trump while other MSM outlets are refusing to call those same states because of assumptions about how mail-in votes will skew.

Trump declares himself the winner the day after the election. He starts putting enormous pressure on state officials to declare that mail-in ballots received after X date and time are presumptively fraudulent. Trump drops 300 tweets a day about how the Democrats are trying to steal the election. Rat**** turncoats like Lindsey Graham do 10 hours of news interviews a day, talking endlessly about how Democrats are putting the country in crisis by refusing to accept the results of the election.

Trump's recent tweets about delaying the election are in service of this scenario imo. He (or the people around him who actually understand how government works) know that there is no chance that the election will be delayed. The real point of the tweets is to lay the groundwork for an attack on the mail-in ballots as fraudulent.

This is all a long way of saying that I think it is very important for Democrats to vote in person. If you are sick, if you are immobile, then fine, you should vote by mail. If you are a college kid who is voting by mail because you don't feel like standing in line, you are making a grave mistake.

I think most states already have provisions that mail-ins received after election day (regardless of postmark) are invalid, so Trump doesn't need to make demands on that account.

There will be record numbers of mail ins this year due to COVID. So, the most disturbing factor, imo, is that a major GOP donor is now Postmaster General and he is currently systematically slowing down the mail.

It is so so blatant.

That also kind of plays into their 'let's have 1 polling place for ALL of Louisville' type of games. But yea, probably preferable to DeJoy saying 'whew! we're swamped. Currently running at a 2 week delay on the mail. Sorry guys.'

I hadn't paid attention to the bolded because I was planning on voting in person. That's scary for a different reason.

Yup.

Some say it is really poor strategy that Trump is speaking out against Mail In Voting as historically it has always been Republican Voters who utilize it more. Seniors and other Republican strong old voters tend to prefer it.

And Trump voters are showing that most of them will not utilize mail in voting this year. Again something many see as Trump hurting himself.

But this election Seniors and those are trending Dem. And you are seeing an even higher than usual Dem vote (POC) heading towards mail in ballots due to Corona virus and some probably just to spite Trump.

The Dems are putting a huge effort into it.

So what if what i wrote in the other thread and reposted below here, becomes true and Trump

Here are the state by state rules on mail-in ballots.

https://www.ncsl.org/research/electi...e-ballots.aspx

EADGBE is correct that most states require receipt on or before election day, but several keys states, including Florida (little unclear), Ohio, Texas, and NC, do not.

So I think some version of my nightmare scenario is still very possible, although the debate probably will turn on when the ballots were received.

The best way to deal with Covid and voting would be for the State Gov'ts to commandeer inactive sports and events stadiums in the city and on University campuses.


You can stream people to multiple entry points to avoid crowding. Direct them to seating areas with ample social distancing to let them not stand for hours. And have an orderly process for them to flow down to the floor area where you have multiple set ups distanced and able to process the votes.


The stadiums would be paid by the gov't for the daily use of facility and could open select concessions. People would have seating and bathroom access to help with the wait time.

Orderly, efficient and safe, and exactly why the government would not do it.

Is there some reason why voting could not occur over a 2-3 day period? Seems like that would help with crowding as well.

It will get much uglier than that.

Trump lackies would ensure that images of what they would call insecure and contaminated ballots were being pooled and ready to be counted to steal the election.

"Look, look at that room full of insecure bags with Dem operatives coming and going. There is now no way to count them and ensure they are safe"

They would whip up Trump support citizen furor over 'the election being stolen before our very eyes. we must fight it and stop it'

They will try to protest and block and even threaten any workers trying to get in to the building to count.

All with the idea of showing 'we are stalemated. Accept the count NOW, with Trump in the lead and WITHOUT these delayed Mail in votes OR face months, maybe a year or more of delays as you go to court to try and clear the protesters, and get the count done'.


And the longer it takes to do the count the more people, who are so inclined to believe it was rigged, will claim it is rigger.

This was the strategy Roger Stone used against Al Gore, and why Al Gore decided to step aside and award the election to Bush when he did not have to. He recognized a fight would get ugly, spawn unrest, and could take a year or more (maybe forcing a revoke in Florida) and that many would NEVER consider him legitimate if he won that way (thus more unrest) and so he stepped aside.

I fear Biden would also step aside if put to the same test.

Republicans.

Looking at FL's procedure, it looks like there is a hard deadline on certification of election results (14 days).

https://dos.myflorida.com/media/7002...l-election.pdf

I would imagine that this certification date varies state by state as well. But if substantial amounts of mail-in's get 'lost' for a few weeks, they will not get counted regardless of postmark.

Remember, they don't have to get away with it forever, just until results are certified, then the onus is on the Dems to prove fraud in court.

Because that would be the smart (and democratic) thing to do.

I should have said, "is there a good reason?"

Is there a reason Trump wins the walk in vote?

The only reason would be if Biden voters are much more fearful of contracting COVID, or much more open to alternative voting methods, than Trump voters.

As Cuepee mentioned, that's debatable, but it's certainly a worry.

For example, I expect Trump to do quite poorly among older women this time around. I would not be surprised if Trump has lost more ground among older white women than he has among any other demographic. (This obviously isn't his worst demographic, but I suspect it is a group where he may have lost significant ground.) And he did very poorly among older non-white women the first time around and surely will do poorly with that group again.

In my experience, older women are pretty damn worried about catching COVID, certainly more worried than older men.

My guess is Dem's are concerned about COVID, while R's tend to have a lot of 'its just the flu' bros.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/202...boost-n1235289

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...RtU/edit#gid=0

I wasn't aware of the polling and natural experiments on this question. That's extremely alarming to me.

Not necessarily.

As i said historically Republican voters have tended to avail themselves of Mail in Voting far more and thus it was a focus for them.

That has lead some in the Republican party to question what is Trump strategy here as he has already had an impact with republicans firming shifting to not using the 'fraudulent' vote by mail and tearing up the forms and instead looking to vote in person.

On the other side due to covid and simple defiance of Trump (to piss him off) there is a rising percentage of Dem's who will vote by Mail. Record setting.

So there you have Trump's clear target.

Hope he is competitive in the Walk Ins with less Dem's showing up at the Polls, and then shut out those Mail in Dem votes.

Election Hijack completed!

Of course if it is a Dem wave election it may not matter as he may be crushed regardless but this does seem to be his best bet.

And in fact, does seem to be some 4D chess going on. But when it comes to voter suppression tactics, we know the Republicans have schemed now for decades on what could work, and this may be their biggest bet yet.

Trump's recent attacks on mail-in voting are a pretty good indication that his numbers people (who seem quite competent) believe that the mail-in votes will skew heavily Democratic this time around.

Get the left all juiced up about mail in voting so many want to do it just to spite him. It's a classic trump tactic. And then crush the PostOffice/mess with the mail somehow

Something seems up with the mail lately around here at least already--Some stuff I mailed a few weeks ago took ages to get there. And in the last week I've received mail for like 3or4 people I've never heard of in my life--very weird. Owned this place for ~20yrs and other than an occasional odd piece of mail for the prior owners/tenants--I can't really recall that ever happening(and the mail person accidentally mixing in something for one of the neighbors--but that's always been a thing)--just several completely random/wrong names but my address printed on the front.

Anyone who votes by mail to spite Trump is probably too stupid to vote. There are legitimate reasons to vote by mail. That is not one of them.

Oh ya I totally agree there are legit reasons to vote by mail--that doesn't mean he's not potentially trying to encourage it by making an issue out of it. But it's also the bizarre experience I've been having with the mail here recently that's been making me wonder.

For Conservatives Trump's Call To "Delay the Election" A Bridge Too Far?

Here's further evidence that conservatives (or at least a subset of conservatives) are becoming increasingly fed up with Trump.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020...election-tweet

Funny thing about Trump. If he were somehow successful in getting the election delayed or postponed until his poll numbers go back up and he manages to get re-elected ... Then, four years from now, he decrees the law or amendment that limits Presidents to two four-year terms as "unfair" and tries to get the amendment abolished. When that fails, he declares martial law and appoints himself President for Life!

Trump is a populist president. At the end of the day, I don't think he cares how he got to become president whether it was as a republican or democrat (obviously his views and opinions are more aligned with the republicans) but if he was to lose favour with the majority of voters (or through the electoral college system of voting which I know doesn't always give victory to the candidate with the most votes) then he would bow out. I think if this situation came up in 2004 you would have more of an argument of Bush wanting to stay in office.

I'm in Florida. I've been mail in balloting since I moved down here and waited hours in line. No issues at all. I fill out the ballot, sign it, put a stamp on it. You can track your ballot at every stop online at the election website.

You need to send it in early to make sure there isnt an issue with the signature etc. I've had that happen. Your official name is William but you always sign with Bill. I've had them call me. Verify additional info that it really was me that sent it in. My wife was called because her signature differed from past ones. Thats our only issues after 10 years.