The Election Mess Is a Feature, Not a Bug

 

People thinking there will be a “red wave” tonight are going to be disappointed. Not because a lot of people won’t vote Republican. It’s because our elections are no longer resolved on election night. They are resolved through a long, agonizing street fight in the courts over what votes get counted and what don’t.  I won’t be staying up to watch the returns tonight.

That’s the point of the Democrat push for mail-in voting, early voting and the general resistance to any voting integrity laws.  I don’t think it is necessarily because they have specific plans for fraud.  It’s because a chaotic election that gets resolved through post-election bureaucracies will always favor them, the party of bureaucrats.  The left is always about results not process, and if destroying the process gets them better results, then so be it.

It’s laughable seeing pundits talk about races where the Republican is up +2 or +3, and what it will mean for congressional majorities on election night. A critical election where the Republican wins by +2 on election night will not be resolved on election night. It will be resolved months from now, after the election bureaucrats pull every trick they know to push the Dem over the line.  All the loose voting rules just given them room to maneuver, that is their only point. It’s disgusting and embarrassing, but that is where we are now, and I can’t watch it anymore. It’s too nauseating.

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  1. DrewInWisconsin, Oik Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oik
    @DrewInWisconsin

    J Climacus (View Comment):
    I sure hope I’m wrong and wake up tomorrow to things like Fetterman conceding an Oz win, with Oz ahead +2%. But I doubt it. It’s part of the Democrat playbook now to never concede and to always lawyer up.

    Fetterman (or his puppet masters) is already demanding that unverified, undated ballots be counted. This’ll go to court.

    • #31
  2. MDHahn Coolidge
    MDHahn
    @MDHahn

    Hang On (View Comment):

    James Salerno (View Comment):

    I voted. Never seen so many poll workers standing around doing nothing. Serious DMV vibes.

    I had to help an older lady get around. She couldn’t stand for long and there was no line, just a big unorganized blob. I’m surprised that one of the numerous “volunteers” couldn’t at least offer a chair or direct the crowd.

    Voting is a peculiar institution…

    There’s no curbside voting? There is here. Pull up to the precinct, ask for a ballot while sitting in your car, verify you are registered, and then vote. They put your marked ballot in an envelope and it gets counted later with absentee ballots at the precinct. There is no central counting of absentees. It’s done in the precinct.

    I wonder how many were observers and how many were actual poll workers. There has been a big push to increase the number of election observers by a lot of GOP campaigns. They are generally prohibited from interacting with voters.

    • #32
  3. MDHahn Coolidge
    MDHahn
    @MDHahn

    Hang On (View Comment):

    MDHahn (View Comment):
    This type of stuff has to stop. It’s a sickness that infects all sides. Our elections are largely run locally. By people who are our neighbors or who live, work, and go to church just like we do. Do you think they are all duped into massive fraud? Or do you only believe that the bad guys are on the other side or in some other location?

    What Leave it to Beaver fairytale world do you live in?

    It’s reality. The vast majority of poll workers are people who work just on election day. They aren’t full time government employees or activists. In most of the small towns I live near, the election staff is indistinguishable from the local church basement ladies.

    That’s why these conspiracy theories are so ridiculous. The number of people who would need to be in on it is astounding.

    • #33
  4. J Climacus Member
    J Climacus
    @JClimacus

    MDHahn (View Comment):

    J Climacus (View Comment):

    MDHahn (View Comment):

    ee what happens today. The random reports of issues aren’t proof of some grand conspiracy. They are almost certainly do to human or mechanical error. I’d be willing to bet that they happen all the time, we just hear about each and every one now because of social media. Try to relax and see what happens before jumping to conclusions.

    No matter what, the sun will still come up tomorrow.

    I am (almost) 60 years old. Elections were not like this in the 1970s and 1980s. There weren’t paper ballots but mechanical voting machines and nearly everyone who voted, voted on election day. The machines were specifically designed to replace paper ballots and make fraud difficult, which they did. There was no hand-counting of ballots over days and weeks, with opportunities to inject new ballots, or worrying over postmarks and dates on mail-in votes. Pretty much every election was called on election night.

    There was nothing wrong with that system. It was the envy of the world. Now we have paper ballots, mail-in ballots, “early voting”, and other “innovations” that simply inject chaos into the system.

    The false alternative presented is that you either accept the current chaos as acceptable, or you are a kook believing in a “grand conspiracy.” There are other alternatives, like the one I presented: There is no grand conspiracy, but the simple understanding by Democrats that the looser and more chaotic elections are, the more they benefit.

    Mail-in and early voting is not decided locally. It is decided on a state level, by state bureaucrats. A Democrat Secretary of State understands that mail-in and early voting is likely to produce more Democrat votes (by fair means of foul, who cares), so he initiates it. It’s that simple.

    I want to be clear: I think we can improve our systems! I would like everyone to follow Florida’s lead because they seem to have it locked down. I also don’t like early voting much at all.

    Assume for the sake of argument that Blue States do not follow Florida’s lead. Why wouldn’t they do so?

     

    • #34
  5. J Climacus Member
    J Climacus
    @JClimacus

    MDHahn (View Comment):

    Hang On (View Comment):

    MDHahn (View Comment):
    This type of stuff has to stop. It’s a sickness that infects all sides. Our elections are largely run locally. By people who are our neighbors or who live, work, and go to church just like we do. Do you think they are all duped into massive fraud? Or do you only believe that the bad guys are on the other side or in some other location?

    What Leave it to Beaver fairytale world do you live in?

    It’s reality. The vast majority of poll workers are people who work just on election day. They aren’t full time government employees or activists. In most of the small towns I live near, the election staff is indistinguishable from the local church basement ladies.

    That’s why these conspiracy theories are so ridiculous. The number of people who would need to be in on it is astounding.

    So election corruption must be done via a vast conspiracy, or it can’t happen at all? 

    How about initiating mail-in voting with loose accounting, in the knowledge that more Democrat votes are likely to come in this way than Republican?  Is it crazy conspiracy thinking to suppose that Democrat state officials accept mail-in voting for this reason?

    • #35
  6. DrewInWisconsin, Oik Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oik
    @DrewInWisconsin

    MDHahn (View Comment):

    It’s reality. The vast majority of poll workers are people who work just on election day. They aren’t full time government employees or activists. In most of the small towns I live near, the election staff is indistinguishable from the local church basement ladies.

    That’s why these conspiracy theories are so ridiculous. The number of people who would need to be in on it is astounding.

    Not really. My friends who work the polls can attest: lots of sketchy stuff goes on even at the local level in the small cities.

    • #36
  7. Chuck Coolidge
    Chuck
    @Chuckles

    DrewInWisconsin, Oik (View Comment):

    MDHahn (View Comment):

    It’s reality. The vast majority of poll workers are people who work just on election day. They aren’t full time government employees or activists. In most of the small towns I live near, the election staff is indistinguishable from the local church basement ladies.

    That’s why these conspiracy theories are so ridiculous. The number of people who would need to be in on it is astounding.

    Not really. My friends who work the polls can attest: lots of sketchy stuff goes on even at the local level in the small cities.

    So some places are relatively safe and secure while other places – uh, not so much?

    • #37
  8. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    I think it might be time to get the UN in to monitor our Third World elections. 

    • #38
  9. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    “Federal monitors looking for potential civil rights violations and voter intimidation will fan out to 64 jurisdictions in 24 states, a marked increase from the presidential election two years ago when DOJ sent monitors to 44 jurisdictions in 18 states.”

    The DOJ announced this and has done it before, except they monitored outside the polling places; now they say they want to be inside. Florida and other states are politely telling them they are not permitted (by FL law) to monitor inside. Just more federal intimidation.

    Missed a good opportunity to arrest some Feds. 

    • #39
  10. The Cynthonian Inactive
    The Cynthonian
    @TheCynthonian

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    After the 2000 election, Florida solved this issue by changing their state law to have mail-in ballots counted as they came in. As soon as the polls close, Florida releases the results of all of the mail-in ballots. The election day ballots are usually counted within two hours. By an hour and a half after the polls close, we know who won in Florida. There is a solution, if you want it.

    You mean there is a solution, if you could get the Dems to go along with it.   They fight every election integrity measure tooth and nail, and through the courts.

    • #40
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