Midterm Elections

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Soylent Green Is People said:
Not to say there isn't some measure of monkey business going on in North Carolina, but the D's might not want too stringent of a review of NC's Ballot Harvesting process. It's about as flawed as California's and thus might open a few Orange County races open to review.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/disputed-house-race-puts-spotlight-on-ballot-harvesting/2018/12/06/da85c430-f9b7-11e8-8642-c9718a256cbd_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.af237a62ea3b

and

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation/sd-what-is-ballot-harvesting-in-california-election-code-20181204-htmlstory.html

The opportunity for fraud - not a focus on provable fraud, but the way fraud opportunities begin - is rife within our voting process. Eliminating the opportunity will take changes in the voting process. Many love to say "but it's too hard to vote" to which I say "boo 'effin hoo!" Voting should be taken seriously. If it's too hard, perhaps voting isn't something you should be doing.

To reform the system and put some integrity back in the process - why not take clear obvious steps:

1) Make election day a holiday so excuses about ability to vote are wipes out.
2) Photo ID required to vote.
3) No Mail In/Provisional/Absentee votes accepted after 1 week before live, in-person voting begins. If you want to vote from home, get it done. If you can't get it done in a timely manner, you can still choose option 1.

It's not that tough to keep the process open, fair, easily accessible and tamp down on the ability to commit fraud at the same time. Both the right and the left surely can see the value in making the system less prone to shenanigans.

It's not zero sum game...more hurdles you put up for voting..the more you discourage voting...more likelihood of mistakes, discrepancies, and long lines. 

Georgia is fantastic example of that.
 
If voting is to be taken seriously, hurdles and long lines are part of the process. I'm glad to wait in a 1/2 hour line, as I did during the mid-terms, because it's important. Thankfully it was less time than at the DMV, but still a time commitment.

Everyone will have something to complain about. "I don't have a photo ID" - ORLY? You have almost 24 months until the 2020 election. Get one. "I can't take Tuesday off" It's a holiday, you have the day off. "I forgot to put a stamp on my ballot" - hmmm perhaps voting isn't for you.

People camp out for days before Black Friday. Other people will jam up The Cheesecake Factory for a free slice. If the Government said if you vote you'd get $1.50, the line would be endless and the wait forever. It's a question of priority. If someone is willing wait in line for $1.50 but not for voting itself without $1.50, the priority one has about voting is woefully misplaced. I don't want people like that to be voting frankly, and neither should most readers here.

Changes need to come. Let's hope they are sooner than later.
 
Soylent Green Is People said:
If voting is to be taken seriously, hurdles and long lines are part of the process. I'm glad to wait in a 1/2 hour line, as I did during the mid-terms, because it's important. Thankfully it was less time than at the DMV, but still a time commitment.

Everyone will have something to complain about. "I don't have a photo ID" - ORLY? You have almost 24 months until the 2020 election. Get one. "I can't take Tuesday off" It's a holiday, you have the day off. "I forgot to put a stamp on my ballot" - hmmm perhaps voting isn't for you.

People camp out for days before Black Friday. Other people will jam up The Cheesecake Factory for a free slice. If the Government said if you vote you'd get $1.50, the line would be endless and the wait forever. It's a question of priority. If someone is willing wait in line for $1.50 but not for voting itself without $1.50, the priority one has about voting is woefully misplaced. I don't want people like that to be voting frankly, and neither should most readers here.

Changes need to come. Let's hope they are sooner than later.

Some people camp out for Black Friday or for free cheesecake but most people don't.  That's not the goal of voting.
 
Let me explain it to you in terms you can understand.
(Hypothetical) If a loan brokerage charged customers more fees. Do you honestly expect they will get a lot of business vs a competitor that has no fees for a refi? [or if the refi fees were previously $100 and then down the line they refi a year later they find out the new fees are refi $5k.] Do you expect the customer to be loyal and pay the higher refi fees? Probably not! So why would a Californians vote for someone that raised their taxes.

As you are aware, the new tax law is not favorable to Californians. Do you expect Californians to vote for someone who in essence raised their taxes? (limit the reductions)

Do you remember the post that I previously made? One of the host from Squak Box on CNBC previously mentioned the day after Election Day that he still gets tweets from people that mention that all they care about their tax cuts. (How many months after the new tax law passed and people still upset) To me this clearly shows that people dont care about anything else but their taxes which effect their pocket book.

Why didn?t you comment about the other house races that flipped from GOP to Democrat? (Throughout the US)


Soylent Green Is People said:
Not to say there isn't some measure of monkey business going on in North Carolina, but the D's might not want too stringent of a review of NC's Ballot Harvesting process. It's about as flawed as California's and thus might open a few Orange County races open to review.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/disputed-house-race-puts-spotlight-on-ballot-harvesting/2018/12/06/da85c430-f9b7-11e8-8642-c9718a256cbd_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.af237a62ea3b

and

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation/sd-what-is-ballot-harvesting-in-california-election-code-20181204-htmlstory.html

The opportunity for fraud is rife within our voting process. Eliminating this opportuny should be a priority. Many love to say "but it's too hard to vote" to which I would  say "boo 'effin hoo!" Voting should be taken seriously. If it's too hard, perhaps voting isn't something you should be doing.

To reform the system and put some integrity back in the process - why not take clear obvious steps:

1) Make election day a holiday so excuses about ability to vote are wiped out.
2) Required a photo ID to vote.
3) No Mail In/Provisional/Absentee votes accepted after 1 week before live, in-person voting begins. If you want to vote from home, get it done. If you can't get it done in a timely manner, you can still choose option 1.

It's not that tough to keep the process open, fair, easily accessible and tamp down on the ability to commit fraud at the same time. Both the right and the left surely can see the value in making the system less prone to shenanigans.
 
This is a stretch when you are comparing voting to Black Friday. Also, there are people that waited in line for hours to vote throughout the US.

Soylent Green Is People said:
If voting is to be taken seriously, hurdles and long lines are part of the process. I'm glad to wait in a 1/2 hour line, as I did during the mid-terms, because it's important. Thankfully it was less time than at the DMV, but still a time commitment.

Everyone will have something to complain about. "I don't have a photo ID" - ORLY? You have almost 24 months until the 2020 election. Get one. "I can't take Tuesday off" It's a holiday, you have the day off. "I forgot to put a stamp on my ballot" - hmmm perhaps voting isn't for you.

People camp out for days before Black Friday. Other people will jam up The Cheesecake Factory for a free slice. If the Government said if you vote you'd get $1.50, the line would be endless and the wait forever. It's a question of priority. If someone is willing wait in line for $1.50 but not for voting itself without $1.50, the priority one has about voting is woefully misplaced. I don't want people like that to be voting frankly, and neither should most readers here.

Changes need to come. Let's hope they are sooner than later.
 
Then again many Californians voted for state legislators who have been raising taxes in a variety of ways.

Perhaps it is time to remove the D or R from candidate names.
 
Morons in Cali have been voting for politicians who have done nothing but raise their taxes...hell they re affirmed a gas tax on all uf us just this last election. Why should they be butt hurt about their taxes when they vote on a national election?
 
morekaos said:
Morons in Cali have been voting for politicians who have done nothing but raise their taxes...hell they re affirmed a gas tax on all uf us just this last election. Why should they be butt hurt about their taxes when they vote on a national election?

The gas tax is peanuts compared to the tax increase to Californians. Also, I find it funny how some GOP based their campaign on the gas tax and loss. They even had almost the same color scheme on their election signs. (Yellow and blue) my gosh lol

How about the idea get better candidates? Also, Trump even mention before that they will lose the house before the election.

 
Let?s call a spade a spade . What happened in N.C district 9 was deemed shameful by even the local Republican Party head .

Obfuscating the real crime w essays about how to make elections better won?t  make the issue become another ?both sides are bad?  thing

There is one party that has shown time and again , that wants to make voting difficult and hates democracy ? because they cannot really survive in a true democracy with non gerrymandered districts .

California shows what happens when you make voting easy. People here think tax law change is what doomed republicans. Not exactly . Look at the voting breakdown - younger demographic voted in record numbers and crushed the GOP .
 
Someone had to make a smart remark and bring up election fraud in California. So is he also saying there was fraud throughout the US in house governors and state races? (I think it?s rediculous to not respect election results. But if there is evidence that there is something wrong like NC then bring it up)

Another thing I would like to point out that the OC Register endorsed the following GOP candidates running for house of Reps for the 2018 election:
Mimi Walters (result loss)
Young Kim (result loss)
Dana Rohrabacher (result loss)
Diane Harkey (result loss)

[I have screen shots for support let me know if you would like me to post it]
 
Soylent Green Is People said:
"I can't take Tuesday off" It's a holiday, you have the day off. "I forgot to put a stamp on my ballot" - hmmm perhaps voting isn't for you.

So voting is only for the middle/upper class?

How many retail/restaurant/service employees get holidays off?

 
Eyephone. Past posts confirm I've always believed a blue wave was coming. Commenting on other races is old ground.

If it helps:

NC is wrong, as is California's ballot harvesting.

It shouldn't take hours to vote. Anywhere.

Gerrymandering by any party is wrong.

Bush still beat Gore even after every vote was counted - 3x by the State of Florida as well as by members of the media post confirmation.

Snape kills Dumbledore.

That hopefully covers everything past and present.


These folks some say might be disenfranchised by changes in the process.... they work 14 hour shifts? Is that legal now? Did I miss something?

Voting timelines can be expanded. Options for 6 AM to 9 PM live voting could be put into place. Cant fit anything within a 15 hour window? Send in an absentee ballot a week before live voting.

This is a question of priorities. Some find it a priority to wait days in Black Friday lines. Others find it a priority to wait hours in a voting line. If you want to vote, and if you want to ensure clean elections, changes have to come to the process - and quickly. The 2020 election season started the day after the midterms.

My .02c
 
Soylent Green Is People said:
Eyephone. Past posts confirm I've always believed a blue wave was coming. Commenting on other races is old ground.

If it helps:

NC is wrong, as is California's ballot harvesting.

It shouldn't take hours to vote. Anywhere.

Gerrymandering by any party is wrong.

Bush still beat Gore even after every vote was counted - 3x by the State of Florida as well as by members of the media post confirmation.

Snape kills Dumbledore.

That hopefully covers everything past and present.


These folks some say might be disenfranchised by changes in the process.... they work 14 hour shifts? Is that legal now? Did I miss something?

Voting timelines can be expanded. Options for 6 AM to 9 PM live voting could be put into place. Cant fit anything within a 15 hour window? Send in an absentee ballot a week before live voting.

This is a question of priorities. Some find it a priority to wait days in Black Friday lines. Others find it a priority to wait hours in a voting line. If you want to vote, and if you want to ensure clean elections, changes have to come to the process - and quickly. The 2020 election season started the day after the midterms.

My .02c

Again..not zero sum.  I am fine with the electoral process as it is.  I do not think there is widespread voter fraud...or even anything close to a problem that needs addressing. 

We are 50 years from an era where minorities were physically, politically, and socially blocked from voting.  The Justice Department had to watch state governments from enacting laws that limits/restricts/hinders/blocks minorities from voting...as soon as that monitoring went away, those states returned to their old tricks.

I will worry about voter fraud when marginally legal efforts to disenfranchise voters stop.

I don't know why you keep equating black friday to voting.  We should be appalled that there is a 4 hour line to vote and try to see why such a line exists.
 
eyephone said:
morekaos said:
Morons in Cali have been voting for politicians who have done nothing but raise their taxes...hell they re affirmed a gas tax on all uf us just this last election. Why should they be butt hurt about their taxes when they vote on a national election?

The gas tax is peanuts compared to the tax increase to Californians. Also, I find it funny how some GOP based their campaign on the gas tax and loss. They even had almost the same color scheme on their election signs. (Yellow and blue) my gosh lol

How about the idea get better candidates? Also, Trump even mention before that they will lose the house before the election.

Fundamentally, people do not mind paying for more taxes if they believe that the taxes are being well-spent on things that they believe is important. 

Anti-tax people generally believe that the government is inept and that private individuals know what to do with the money better than the government.

While government can be inefficient and wasteful, people are often self-interested, short-sighted, and sometimes just dumb.  At least with government, you can try and fix it.  With people, you can't fix stupid.
 
i1 +1 thanks for the "truth decay" line. Well written. It still doesn't take away from the fact that ballot harvesting - no matter what State it is in - still is a break in the chain of custody. That's a very dangerous thing. Let's agree there was zero fraud in the last election - the mere fact that someone can pick up a ballot and potentially NOT drop it off remains problematic. I'd rather cure this issue now than suffer for it later. It's not a "Left/Right" thing, but an opportunity for fraud.

We're in agreement that long lines are a problem. In our area most of the delay was caused by new voters, unfamiliar with how the machines work. In other areas, it's gerrymandering and intentional voting machine access restriction. That's a huge, yet very solvable problem. Is the solution a single Federal version, or 2 or 3 State suggested solutions to machine and ballot design? I don't know, but clearly something should be done to prevent what went on in Florida this year alone.

Why equate Black Friday to Voting? It's a question of priority. Some people are more than happy to wait days in BF lines, while others complain about waiting 1 hour in a voting line. I'd rather have it the other way around - waiting days to vote for the privilege that it is - and only hours for a 4k TV at a good price. Voting is an honorable thing to do. If it takes some time out of a day to do so - fine. To say it's "too hard, too inconvenient, to difficult to vote" shows how little some think of the privilege of doing so.
 
In response to S0yGreen. I came across an LA Times article that the Republicans accuses fraud after the election when the election register were still counting the mail in ballots.

LA Times article dated 11/15/18. Written by: Michael Finnegan Titled:Republicans Walters and Kim adopt Trump tactic of charging vote fraud with no evidence of wrongdoing

?Two Orange County Republicans facing the prospect of defeat in the Nov. 6 congressional election as final ballots are counted have adopted President Trump?s tactic of making baseless allegations of vote fraud.

Neither GOP Rep. Mimi Walters nor Republican candidate Young Kim has produced evidence to back up their charges that Democrats are trying to steal the election. County registrars of voters supervising the ballot counts said they knew of no one doing anything that would compromise the election?s integrity.

Both Republicans leveled the accusations after they steadily lost ground in the continuing tabulation of tens of thousands of ballots. Walters finished ahead on election night, but has fallen 3,797 votes behind Democrat Katie Porter. Kim is clinging to a 122-vote lead over Democrat Gil Cisneros.
Walters and Kim have joined a growing number of Republicans in Florida and elsewhere who, like Trump, challenge the legitimacy of vote counts when Democrats gain in late tallies. Nonpartisan election watchdogs are appalled.

?The tone has been set at the top,? said Stephen Spaulding, chief of strategy at Common Cause. ?I think it?s reckless. It is irresponsible.?Scholars who track the rise and fall of democracies around the globe are also alarmed. Public trust in the validity of free elections is a pillar of democracy, they say, and a political party?s systematic attacks on that faith can be corrosive.
?People need to learn to lose and accept the results and move on to the next campaign,? said Daniel Ziblatt, coauthor of ?How Democracies Die.? ?If people don?t believe in the legitimacy of elections and start acting that way, then the whole thing can disintegrate very rapidly.?

The Walters and Kim campaigns both declined to comment or provide any evidence to support their allegations.

In California elections, it?s a firmly established pattern that the votes counted last almost always favor Democrats. The growing dominance of mail ballots has made it more pronounced. The most reliably Republican voters ? a shrinking share of the state?s electorate ? tend to be older white homeowners who send in their ballots before most other Californians do.

On Sunday, when she was still slightly ahead, Walters told supporters in an email that she needed donations to stop Democrats ?from overturning the will of the voters.?
?I?m currently up by 1 point, but the Democrats are already preparing for a recount to try and steal this Republican seat after the fact,? Walters wrote.

In another fundraising email, Walters said she needed ?to make sure vote tallies aren?t tampered with.?

Neal Kelley, Orange County?s registrar of voters, responded ?emphatically no? when asked whether anyone had tried to tamper with any of the ballots.
?We take this responsibility very seriously,? he said. ?I certainly do. I have seen no evidence of it.?

The 45th Congressional District that Walters represents in the Irvine and Mission Viejo area is entirely within Orange County. She lives outside the district in Laguna Beach.

Kim, running in the neighboring 39th Congressional District, which straddles Orange, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties, released a statement alleging that the Los Angeles County registrar had rebuked an unnamed Cisneros operative for ?physical ballot tampering,? which is illegal.

Jim Condos, president of the National Assn. of Secretaries of State, said he was disturbed by the rise in unfounded vote fraud allegations.
?Words do matter,? said Condos, the Democratic secretary of state in Vermont. ?I think it?s unconscionable and irresponsible to be making accusations and threats without any evidence behind it.?

My comments:
I like the following quote in the article.  ?People need to learn to lose and accept the results and move on to the next campaign,? said Daniel Ziblatt, coauthor of ?How Democracies Die.? ?If people don?t believe in the legitimacy of elections and start acting that way, then the whole thing can disintegrate very rapidly.?
 
Soylent Green Is People said:
i1 +1 thanks for the "truth decay" line. Well written. It still doesn't take away from the fact that ballot harvesting - no matter what State it is in - still is a break in the chain of custody. That's a very dangerous thing. Let's agree there was zero fraud in the last election - the mere fact that someone can pick up a ballot and potentially NOT drop it off remains problematic. I'd rather cure this issue now than suffer for it later. It's not a "Left/Right" thing, but an opportunity for fraud.

We're in agreement that long lines are a problem. In our area most of the delay was caused by new voters, unfamiliar with how the machines work. In other areas, it's gerrymandering and intentional voting machine access restriction. That's a huge, yet very solvable problem. Is the solution a single Federal version, or 2 or 3 State suggested solutions to machine and ballot design? I don't know, but clearly something should be done to prevent what went on in Florida this year alone.

Why equate Black Friday to Voting? It's a question of priority. Some people are more than happy to wait days in BF lines, while others complain about waiting 1 hour in a voting line. I'd rather have it the other way around - waiting days to vote for the privilege that it is - and only hours for a 4k TV at a good price. Voting is an honorable thing to do. If it takes some time out of a day to do so - fine. To say it's "too hard, too inconvenient, to difficult to vote" shows how little some think of the privilege of doing so.

Except we have a vested interest in having people vote so we should find way to encourage...not just throw up our hands.  Voting is like vaccination...you don't just throw up your hands if people choose not to vaccinate.
 
Irvinecommuter said:
Soylent Green Is People said:
i1 +1 thanks for the "truth decay" line. Well written. It still doesn't take away from the fact that ballot harvesting - no matter what State it is in - still is a break in the chain of custody. That's a very dangerous thing. Let's agree there was zero fraud in the last election - the mere fact that someone can pick up a ballot and potentially NOT drop it off remains problematic. I'd rather cure this issue now than suffer for it later. It's not a "Left/Right" thing, but an opportunity for fraud.

We're in agreement that long lines are a problem. In our area most of the delay was caused by new voters, unfamiliar with how the machines work. In other areas, it's gerrymandering and intentional voting machine access restriction. That's a huge, yet very solvable problem. Is the solution a single Federal version, or 2 or 3 State suggested solutions to machine and ballot design? I don't know, but clearly something should be done to prevent what went on in Florida this year alone.

Why equate Black Friday to Voting? It's a question of priority. Some people are more than happy to wait days in BF lines, while others complain about waiting 1 hour in a voting line. I'd rather have it the other way around - waiting days to vote for the privilege that it is - and only hours for a 4k TV at a good price. Voting is an honorable thing to do. If it takes some time out of a day to do so - fine. To say it's "too hard, too inconvenient, to difficult to vote" shows how little some think of the privilege of doing so.

Except we have a vested interest in having people vote so we should find way to encourage...not just throw up our hands.  Voting is like vaccination...you don't just throw up your hands if people choose not to vaccinate.

Great quote !
 
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