Donald Trump suggests delay to 2020 US presidential election | Hacker News Reader

Donald Trump suggests delay to 2020 US presidential election

bbc.co.uk

96 pointssjcsjc120 comments

Guys, this is a distraction.

GDP numbers fell off a cliff this morning [0], about 30 min after that tweet. Donny knows that any chance he had at the election was tied to the economy, which due largely to covid19, is in shambles. His scare tactics of brown people rioting near white suburbs are not working. His poll numbers haven't really moved for two weeks of a small bit of Portland's PTAs being teargassed. He continues to refuse to do much else but buck-passing and chloroquine for the pandemic. Joe hasn't ramped up campaigning yet. Donny is still ~8% down nationally and ~6% down in Florida [1]. He has troubles with ramps now.

Expect more of these kinds of things to occur as the days tick down to the election.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-30/u-s-econo...

[1] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general...

My first instinct was also that this is an intentional distraction from the bleak economic news, plus John Lewis' funeral, plus Herman Cain's death from covid19, plus the expiration of disaster relief funds for workers.

It may be a distraction, but that doesn't mean it's not also an attempt to shift the Overton window.

You're saying what everyone else is saying, it's a distraction, or they're also saying that he is setting up an excuse for losing.

What I don't see people saying that's a lot more scary - if he expects to win illicitly, getting his opponents to declare the election won't be corrupt is exactly how to make sure it sticks.

What gives you the impression he expects to win illicitly? Something other than the russian hoax narrative.

After 4 years can't you tell he won't be able to accept any kind of defeat. From his lies about his inauguration crowds on his first day in office when have you seen him accept any thing gracefully. He is what he is but I personally feel the Republicans are worse to stay in power they have let him destroy their own country and it's institutions.

What hoax?

What gives you the impression that he will refuse to?

Elections still happened during the U.S. Civil War and both World Wars.

Also - can’t have the election because of pandemic, but can have schools reopen?

> Elections still happened during the U.S. Civil War and both World Wars.

Did they close down schools for that? Did they hold elections during the 1918 Pandemic?

Let's have an honest comparison here.

Yes, there was a midterm held in 1918.

Even if the election were delayed or cancelled, he was still elected to a 4 year term. The term doesn't extend indefinitely just because there wasn't an election. Directly from the Constitution, "The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January". It's actually very specific about when the term ends.

> It's actually very specific about when the term ends.

And then what?

Not sure why you're being downvoted, it's an interesting thought experiment.

Here's a video talking about what might happen. Basically, if there were no election, all that would be left is 2/3 of the Senate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQLbNekBU1A

Let's be realistic - the election happens regardless of what the President wants.

For obvious reasons, he does not control the election.

...but for the sake of argument, if a comet hit the Earth and cancelled the election, then the terms of both the President and the Vice President would end, and the Leader of the Senate would become the President.

Hmm, if it's just by the order of succession, I thought that the Speaker of the House was 3rd?

The Speaker of the House's term expires every two years, as well, so we wouldn't have one of those, either.

The Speaker for the House doesn't need to be a member of Congress (though always has been). It's not clear to me that we would not have a Speaker.

The Speaker has no term, but the Representative does.

Ah, right. Thanks :-)

President, VP, Speaker, President of the Senate.

The supreme court decision after the Florida hanging chads debacle established that timeliness is more important than accuracy. So that's one possible playbook: dispute certain results (aka mail in ballots) and use the timeliness argument to get a decision without counting the disputed results.

Likely the vacancy clause would kick in and the Speaker of the House becomes President. The office won't be left empty.

On the one hand, Congress is out of office on January 3rd. On the other, technically the Speaker of the House doesn't need to be a member of Congress, so would presumably continue to hold the title?

Acts of the 28th congress of the united states, passed at the second session which was begun and held in ... 1844:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

That the electors of the President and the Vice President shall be appointed in each State on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November of the year in which they are to be appointed;

Translation: get fucked.

Trump response: I’m going to disobey this and you’re going to take me to court. Oh which court is that? The Supreme Court? The one that is stacked in my favour? Oh that’s nice.

worked out so great for him so far!

I think this is a crass way of looking at it. Just because Trump is looking to subvert long held values as well as explicit law doesn’t mean everyone in power will be complicit in the subversion.

Perhaps you missed where the house impeached Trump and the senate fully acquitted him. The Republican party have shown that they are fully onboard with everything Trump is doing. Everyone in power absolutely is and will be complicit.

I think that example is more than a small step away from undermining the constitution via delaying or cancelling an election in order to stay in power. The Democrats did the same thing with Clinton’s impeachment. It’s politics for optics. Not destroying the foundations of government because one guy doesn’t like his odds of winning.

"but gorsuch!"

He wouldn't be the first President to make the mistake of assuming the Supreme Court would be his lapdogs just because he appointed a Justice to it.

Of course, this would never make it anywhere near the Supreme Court to begin with, because there's no ambiguity to the matter whatsoever, and nothing to be decided. Instead what happens if Trump refuses to leave is that some burly gentlemen escort his ass to the curb.

Trump response: We are pausing the calendar because of the pandemic. The date will remain Oct 31st until the emergency is over.

And now you get to argue about whether or not he has the authority to pause time!

"Calendars don't work that way, Mr. President."

"There are no laws saying that I can't change the calendar. The liberal elites in the colleges and universities are saying that I can't change the calendar, the Europeans are saying I can't change the calendar, the fake news media says I can't change it. Why not? There's no laws."

Or make the month of January 19 days. Absorb the remaining 12 days and February to a new biggest month, Trumpruary (40-41 days). Since there's no 20th of January, there's no end to his term. Dates can keep working and progressing, just with a Roman emperor-style month change added in.

Here's today's daily distraction from this embodied failure of pandemic leadership!

I’m probably in the minority but I don’t believe this should not be on HN.

This isn’t some third party hit piece. This is the President of the US trying to usurp power.

It really shouldn't. It's just meant to inflame. There's no legal basis for postponing an election. As others have pointed out, it'd require acts of congress, and possibly also changes to the constitution. It's pretty silly at this point.

Trump infuriates everyone with bombastic statements, that he often can't even implement legally, that sometimes grab members of his base.

On top of that, other presidents have made crazier statements, but with him they're turned up to 11.

There was talk of "Continuance of Government" with the Bush/Cheney era and fear he'd try to stay in past two terms. Nothing ever happened though. This is pure fluff.

I don't hate Trump or Trump supporters like a lot of people, but he just needs to shut up. He does nothing to calm the America people, he just gives everyone fuel to scream and more than anything, this is a big nothing burger. It's not tech news. It's not even good pol news. I will probably drop off the HN front page in an hour or less.

> Trump infuriates everyone with bombastic statements, that he often can't even implement legally, that sometimes grab members of his base.

That reminds me of something that I've often thought - the Left seems to think that Trump's crazy statements are intended to gain support for his base. They don't; the vast majority of Trump voters also think what he says is nuts most of the time.

I don't know anyone that voted for Trump because they agree with what he says. I know lots of people who voted for him because of what the other side has said and done in response to what Trump says.

That's why Trump voters by and large hand-wave away any criticism of his statements. They don't expect them to be reasonable in the first place, and the believe their purpose is to get the left to speak and act. They do believe the left is earnest in what they're saying.

That's a very interesting perspective that would explain a lot of behavior.

I voted for Trump because I believed the alternative posed a far greater threat that a loud mouth, neophyte, billionaire. And unless something really dramatically goes crazy, I'm going to vote for him again for the same reason.

If we delay the election, which as the article says would require an act of congress, the constitution still requires the presidential and VP terms to end on Jan 20, and congress can't change that.

I'm no constitutional scholar, but I'm pretty sure that would make Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi president.

This is what everyone's been saying, but they're trying to counter with written rules to a President that really doesn't respect them. Enforcement matters here.

Until you see Pelosi with enforcement backing her and willing to remove Trump from office on Jan 20th, the result is uncertain.

The US Military has already said that if needed, they will escort Trump out of the White House on the last day of his Presidency.

They swear an oath to the Constitution before all.

This. The federal apparatus will happily remove Trump from the White House, Jan 20. If they didn't, that would literally be justification for national protests and government toppling.

> that would literally be justification for national protests and government toppling.

Sorry, I wouldn't count on that any more.

Plain-clothed officers picked people off the street in Portland and put them into unmarked vans. If that isn't the spark that caused protests and toppling, I don't believe that side has anyone to do the actual toppling. So who's going to rise up against Trump staying in office?

Pelosi's term is up in January as well. best analysis I've seen is by LegalEagle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQLbNekBU1A

Pelosi does not have a term limit as Speaker. The 118th Congress will convene January 3, 2021, and the Speaker will be chosen by a majority vote. That is 17 days before the President is forced to leave office. For talking purposes since this all extremely theoretical, let's say there is no election and the office becomes vacant on January 20th. Instantly the Speaker becomes President due to the vacancy clause. That's why they swear in the Vice President before the President, just in case the guy dies in those few minutes between VP and Presidential swearing in.

Edit: If the elections were cancelled, January 3rd would roll around and if no President, Representative, or Senator has been voted on it would likely fall to the President of the Senate - recall they have staggered terms.

Taking no partisan side (I’m not even American!), it may be a good idea.

Poland held an election during the pandemic, and frankly it was a shitshow. The problem was kind of opposite actually: legally it should have been delayed, but powers that be wanted it to happen.

Getting remote voting ready in time didn’t happen, many people struggled to vote in person, campaigns were affected, accusations of electoral fraud are rife, among other problems.

Maybe best solve one problem at a time.

Well, 70% turnout isn't really "many people struggled".

Since all the churches are now empty. Why not use them to setup voting stations, and let people precast their vote.

Whats wrong with dropping a paper ballot dropped into a sealed clear Acrylic box.

Many churches are used for elections, which has been fought in the past IIRC. As for paper ballot, just look at the dnc talking points on why mail in ballots is the only solution.

Ulterior motives aside, Trump alone does not have the power to postpone Election Day.

It has been a fixed day since 1845, set by federal law, which means that any alteration would require legislation passed by Congress. This would be next to impossible given the current composition of the House.

This has absolutely no chance of happening and is just a giant admission of fear and weakness.

This controversy is dumb.

Trump made some silly tweets. Trump tweets tons of silly things, almost none of which ever happen, because Trump on Twitter is self-promotion and performance, not actual policy or power-building. It's fine to be upset by this behavior, but pretending that this is some kind of serious attempt to delay the election is just falling for the bait.

I think you're missing the point. Nobody thinks the election will actually be delayed. What he appears to be doing is laying the groundwork to dispute the results of the election. That alone is what's disturbing, and what we should be discussing.

I didn't think about that. That is very valid.

We had this in 2000. I'm old enough to remember George W. Bush and Gore. Remember, Bush wasn't elected the first time. That went to the Supreme Court.

This controversy is not dumb, it is actively harmful to the prosperity of the United States and Western civilisation

It is dividing the country by delegitimizing the election

If senior republican leaders don't tell him to fuck off today, it will be disaster

Wisconsin governor wants to delay primary? I sleep.

Trump wants to delay election? Real shit?

Seriously this does not belong on HN

But also, Mr Trump, STEP AWAY FROM THE LAUNCH CODES

I think he's planning to hit the button before he walks out the door in a bid to keep himself out of prison.

Y’all need to stop meta-modding.

To the mods,

You do a great job at keeping a civil and respectful community here on HN. One of the main ways you do it is by restricting controversial stories like this to prevent flame wars.

While I respect your decision to do, and I don't pretend to know what it must be like to moderate any kind of online forum, I ask that this story stay up for the sole reason that we're living in a time that is truly without precedent. A sitting president calling for the delay of the election begins to solidify many of our worst fears.

If we're not able to talk about it on the forums that are most rational and civil, what hope do we have to achieve any kind of productive discourse on this topic on the internet?

Please let this stay up so that the community can discuss this major moment in American history.

I'm inclined to trust the community verdict on this one. There have been countless cases of (let's call it) the Trump/newsmedia industrial complex amplifying signals that feel like "major moments in American history" because they're designed to make you feel that way, but end up sound and fury signifying nothing.

We can consult the site guidelines for additional guidance: Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. [...] If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

If you consider this one in isolation, it feels significant, but "unprecedented in presidential history" has been the dog-bites-man story of the Trump administration. Viewed at that scope, this story does not pass the "interesting new phenomenon" test. The prudent thing is to let a few news cycles blow over and see if anything actually comes of this.

I second that, but this is not the story for such exemption. This is a purely partisan issue. This is a time for the supporters of side A to line up against supporters of side B. Whoever has the most political capital wins. I see little room for civil debate. There will be screaming.

That's a fair point. My only counterargument to it that the potential delay of a presidential election is partisan because one party is choosing to go down this path. This is only partisan because one side blindly follows its leader to whatever conclusion he wants.

This shouldn't be a partisan issue, Americans should have consensus on this, but we don't anymore. I'm frightened by what that means for our future.

edit: a word

This is a time for anyone who believes in the principles upon which this country was founded to speak up about a president who is increasingly hostile to every one of those principles.

(the principles upon which this country was founded) Side A

(hostile to every one of those principles) Side B

We are beyond the rules. This is about changing rules. He with the most massive/ardent/loudest/richest support base wins. Just please keep the screaming of HN.

I agree with you. How do we get back to a place where political discourse is de-escalated and we're not trying to out-shout each other?

Stop watching ABC/NBC/CNN/FOX/NPR and Democracy Now?

how is this a realistic solution if you're not able to persuade everyone to stop following these outlets?

Look, I get that the media is driven by interests that aren't always aligned with the public good, which can create an atmosphere of distrust. But simply discouraging people from consuming media is like telling people to just stop eating sugar.

We have an inherent desire to be informed about our leadership, but asking people to stop watching isn't going to stop people who are already convinced that their side/station/party is right and everyone else is wrong. If everyone got your message to stop watching those networks, what would really change? I don't think anything would.

But what is it we are really being asked to stop watching? The same organizations that winked at each other on election night because they were "with her" and in doing so were saving democracy from someone they saw as a tyrant. The media has an agenda, and likely a bias, so to stop watching is to stop being manipulated.

> Stop watching ABC/NBC/CNN/FOX/NPR and Democracy Now?

I'm sorry, are you suggesting that NPR has lots of shouting? Have you ever listened to NPR before?

Their bias has been increasing for years. I was turned off by NPR back in 2008 after this terrible Inskeep interview:

https://battlepenguin.com/politics/wipedoffthemap/

I still listened to NPR for years after, but I listened to a lot of out news sources and always balanced the information I was getting with the bias I knew they held.

NPR is a lot like RT, in the sense that it is sponsored by the State. Although you might say, "Well NPR is federal grants for non-profits and RT is state propaganda" just lines start to get blurry when you realize both have leadership that have certain agendas.

I guess I shouldn't have said "Stop watching" and instead say "Be sure to watch ALL of these" and then add that you should watch independent analysis (Viva Frei, James Corbett, No Agenda podcast) of all these sources, weigh their biases and come to your own conclusions.

Good luck finding unbiased news outlets.

My main criticism of Fox, CNN, and frankly the vast vast majority of all news outlets (including smaller news outlets and your so-called "independent" analysts) do not present the "other side's" arguments fairly. NPR is one of the least "unfair" major US news outlets (i.e. in reports about controversial issues, you're at least exposed to adequate and coherent arguments from both sides of these issues) despite the creeping bias you allege, so I was taken aback when you lumped them in with the other blatant rage-pornography outlets on the Internet, television, and radio.

Also, in my RSS feeds, Russia Today has hard-hitting unbiased journalism such as "Alyssa Milano roasted after complaining that Joe Rogan's podcast has more listeners than hers does" and "Liberals leap to politicize Herman Cain’s Covid-19 death because he ‘didn’t wear a mask'". Go on NPR's website right now and try to find something similar from today.

May I suggest the Wall Street Journal? It seems to have the least amount of reporters inserting their personal beliefs into news articles.

Ya, stick to twitter and facebook!

Unfortunately we are far, far beyond what is right or best or even fair for the country. It is one party versus another, and they have but one mission: to gain and hold power by any means necessary. Our elected officials no longer work together, they barely speak to each other, and it is likely to continue this way for some time.

I disagree.

I would accept this argument if the news was about the President actually moving to delay the election and having a reasonable chance of success, or anything where discussion would actually improve the news.

This news is tremendous flame bait, and there's nothing that can be discussed in HN that wouldn't appear in major newspapers. If you want to discuss it with other people, Reddit is probably a better place.

It's an interesting question, where and how do you draw the line, especially when the line is moved forward inch by inch, usually with some kind of plausible deniability.

Speaking for myself, at first I upvoted the OP, but after some thought, I decided to unvote it and then flag it, because it doesn't belong on HN, if we judge it through the lens of the HN guidelines at

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Other HN users flagged it too, not just me. They reached the same conclusion.

Ultimately, of course, it's the moderators' decision.

There are things more important than HN guidelines, and even HN moderates tend to be reasonable in that regard.

Well I wonder if the mods actually did read the guidelines:

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

I guess this rule might as well be removed, given the noticeable increase of political HN posts these days.

Note the word "probably." This is not a hard and fast rule and there is always room for exceptions, by design. As others have stated, we live in unprecedented times and interesting new phenomena are occurring in the political sphere every day. You are also free to ignore any posts that are too political for your tastes.

I'd say this is an interesting new phenomenon, unless you can point to a prior U.S. president suggesting that an election should be postponed because he's losing.

> suggesting that an election should be postponed because he's losing

That's not what he suggested. He suggested changing the voting date because of a pandemic.

We can guess that he's lying, and I'm not saying he's honest (obviously), but at the core, this is still just another fearmongering political post since he has no authority to change anything anyway.

I agree the parent made an unnecessary, though obvious, accusation, but the article doesn't feel like fearmongering to me. It seems like a legitimate concern that is newsworthy, regardless of whether he can legally do what he is suggesting.

As for whether it belongs on HN: I'm undecided on that. I lean toward "no", but I understand the arguments for it.

I would like offer a counter-point.

People assume that Trump wants to delay the election to delay the end of his presidency. ...but pushing the date of the election back, say one month, would not alter the last day of him being President.

Given that this is a speculative political fear post, I don't really think it belongs on HN.

If another President had suggested changing the vote date because of a national pandemic, I'm not sure it would be meaningful news.

>If another President had suggested changing the vote date because of a national pandemic, I'm not sure it would be meaningful news.

I agree the degree of newsworthiness would be lesser - but I don't agree with the implication that the president in question should not be a variable in the equation.

He has no authority to delay the election. The election(s) are ran by the individual states which then send their results to Congress which are then ratified.

Again, all talk and no walk with Trump.

Quote from the article:

In a series of tweets, Mr Trump said "universal mail-in voting" would make November's vote the "most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history" and a "great embarrassment to the USA".

It seems to me like the embarrassment would be a vote counting system unable to deal with mail-in votes, not that a country that is currently suffering a lot due to a pandemic would use a no-contact way of handling votes. I thought that mailing in votes was how e.g. servicemen typically vote, and they seem to manage, even when their mail passes a lot of countries along the way (and possibly hostile ones, at that!).

This is an absolutely useless conversation. Of course the US election can be postponed. If there is such a crisis and lots and lots of institutions are struggling, why not do that? The argument that it is against constitution is laughable. So many things are against constitution in the US right now (surveillance, gun restrictions, huge government etc.) that fighting for this particular issue doesn't make any sense. Obviously, the case is that Dems want to do mail-in voting to ensure Biden wins. And yet the discussion as always gets into tiny details that are completely irrelevant.

Distraction from the GDP numbers

It’s been brought up that doing so legally would mean changing laws and the Dem House won’t be doing that.

Also the Constitution does not allow for the inauguration to be anything but Jan 20. If there’s no decision by then there’s no president. I don’t see the Senate or House enabling that.

This is generating noise to distract from economic headlines. The economy is what Trump was riding on until COVID19.

Since when has legality been a concern for this administration?

Why is this flagged? It is news distributed by one of the most trustworthy media available today!

Because it's off topic https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Genuine inquiry: Who has the authority and the history of stopping the current administration from just doing things? Currently, the administration is ignoring a decision from the supreme court [0], and congress has failed to hold the administration on account of abuse of power and withholding promised funds to other nations to broker deals for personal gains [1]. The attorney general, head of law enforcement, has been accused of inconsistent enforcement of the law regarding respecting civil liberties on behalf of the administration (in the hearing, one politician noted that the attorney general did not use military force against armed protestors against the shutdown occupying government buildings, but did use military force against unarmed protestors against police brutality).

So, genuinely, are there any parties that would or could prevent a delay if the administration chooses to enforce such?

0. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-07-16/trump-refu... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Donald_Trump

The US Military has already publicly said they will escort Trump out of the White House if needed at the end of his term.

I see, neat! Could you link me to the claim?

possibly this interview with Biden where he says he thinks the military would do that:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/11/politics/joe-biden-donald-tru...

not really very convincing IMHO!

Yeah exactly. Trump will simply say “the election is canceled” and blue states will still have elections and red states won’t, and the SCOTUS will find 5-4 on ideological lines that Trump is now the king of America, and that will be that.

The red states will absolutely still have elections. I think you GREATLY overestimate his support among GOP leadership.

Republican leaders sometimes bristle and say "well I wish we could deal with the real issues instead of tweets" and say how "disappointed" they are, and then they just do whatever Trump wants to do.

Not only should this not be on HN, but it's worth noting a delay needs to pass congress where the Dems have a majority in the house of representatives.

Our government is by-and-large unwilling to enforce what our current president can and can't do. It really doesn't matter what the laws are if nobody enforces them.

The current president has built a surprisingly large federal police force that arrive in unmarked vehicles, display no insignia, and attack law-abiding citizens based on the president's orders. Federal police have been deployed in DC, Portland, Chicago, and Seattle.

This isn't a partisan issue, and it isn't fear-mongering. We keep being surprised every time the president follows through on his statements, because he says such absurd things.

I don't know what the way out is for us - but don't make the mistake of assuming that laws will keep the president in check.

The US Military has said publicly that they would escort the President out of the White House on his last day, if needed.

There is absolutely zero chance of drama.

This whole post is political fearmongering.

Did they say that after Trump was elected or before?

I know, lets pretend like we know nothing about fraud / security and say "vote by mail" is a solution...

We do something about absentee voting, which is that it’s been done since World War 2, has been predominant in some states for decades, and has not once been the source of any notable irregularities.

The chances of a system as decentralized as this, with 50 states and thousands of cities, with dozens of federal and tens of thousands of lower-level elections, each involving constantly changing volunteers, many examined microscopically by vast armadas of campaign lawyers, to be the subject of significant, regular fraud without it becoming public just once, is nil.

By undermining the legitimacy of elections in such a conspicuously partisan way, you’re putting the ax on the fundamentals of the country you claim to be a patriot of.

Absentee is very different. It's opt in, and those votes are counted separately. I got a mail in registration form for someone who doesn't live in my flat today.

I do think it's unlikely as a whole it will effect anything due to the electoral system. As bad as the electoral system is, it actually forces votes into discrete blocks, so slight irregularities in say Arkansans wouldn't really mean anything because the state will undoubtedly go Republican.

Ok? And if you tried to vote for them, it would likely be detected and you would go to jail. Not an argument against mail voting. which is literally the same process as absentee voting.

Let's say you sign your vote by mail, acknowledge all the legal stuff in there. Say you also live in a suburb with no locks on mailboxes. Say someone steals your actual ballot out of your mailbox, or before it gets to your mailbox, and you never get it. You contact the election board.

Say someone sends in that ballot.

What is the process for getting another ballot? Are they coded so they can tell which ballot belonged to who, and how do you deal with the stolen ballot and possible invalid vote?

Would it though? Consider the term ballot harvesting[0]: "

"Ballot collecting, also called ballot harvesting, is characterized by the gathering and submitting of absentee or mail-in voter ballots by third-party individuals, volunteers or workers, rather than submission by the voters themselves directly to ballot collection sites"

How would someone get caught? If you went around a nursing home collecting ballots and then dumped them in the trash on your way home, unless there was some really strong accounting system, you may never get caught. Ballot harvesting is a tried and true method for the democrats, and frankly I trust no one to cast my vote but myself.

[]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_collection

Even if you accept the proposed statement that mail-in-voting is insecure, despite evidence to the contrary, it is still far more secure than making use of a voting machine that is known to be vulnerable... Like half of those in use across the US.

Which have had questions raised over whether they've made mistakes or been tampered with, and before evidence reached court it was accidentally destroyed. [0]

[0] https://apnews.com/877ee1015f1c43f1965f63538b035d3f/APNewsBr...

Oregon does vote-by-mail and it's been very successful.

65% of ballots cast in California recently were mail-in. https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/historical-absentee/ That's 26 million votes or nearly 10% of the country.

Arizona does it, and it’s turned into a total shit show in Maricopa County full of missed ballots, delays, uncounted votes, and generally an air of malfeasance around the whole process.

It was so bad in our 2018 elections, I’m voting in person this election just to remove one variable.

Colorado, too.

What is it that we know about fraud/security of voting by mail? The rates of fraud seem pretty low from the sources I can find.

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