Mailed ballots that arrive on time but in envelopes without dates handwritten by Pennsylvania voters should be counted, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a case that’s likely to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter is expected to be appealed to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before it ultimately reaches the high court, whose final word on what are often referred to as “undated ballots” may help determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential race and other key upcoming elections in the swing state.
Republicans will take all measures possible to reduce the number of votes, because they are more likely to lose when people vote. It’s that simple.
If you look through the material provided to people assigned to manually tally votes, they make it very clear that as long as the intent of the voter is clearly indicated (eg, they filled in one bubble, then drew an X through it, filled in another bubble and circled it and wrote the word THIS with an arrow pointing to it, you’re supposed to count the THIS vote rather than throw it away as a spoiled ballot.
Here, the postmark is a sufficient indicator that the ballot was submitted on time.
How is it that simple, exactly?
Logically, it doesn’t make sense. That’s not how statistics work. Increasing sample size at that scale does effectively nothing whatsoever.
Anecdotally it doesn’t make sense at all. I’m reasonably sure in an anecdotal sense that it’s the exact opposite… We live in a county of 3k people. The polls are within 20 miles of exactly 240 of them. It ain’t exactly convenient to vote in rural areas. If you made voting magical and 100% mandatory, you’re gonna get a massive bump in rural votes, and guess where those votes will go. The “leave me alone” type is more likely to be a Republican vote, and the “activist” types are more likely to vote Democrat. It all heavily suggests that what you’re saying is a just an incredibly well-established and accepted myth.
If you flip to the dark side with that logic, it defies the countering myth just as readily. The myth that voter fraud favors Democrats… I’d assume fraud is probably a hell of a lot easier in rural areas. I could, personally, as an example, on election day, give you a by name list of dozens of people who won’t go to the county office to vote. It’s too far, they work 40 miles away in the opposite direction, they got 12 hour shifts with an hour commute on each end and there’s just no way in hell they’re gonna double that commute. An unscrupulous individual in a rural setting has far more ability to fudge some votes, and guess what those votes will be… Those votes would also be more countable. It won’t be dead uncles and aunts, it’ll be actual registered voters.
I’m not buying it, not from either side… I believe what you’re saying is in fact the bona fide motivation, for both sides, but I think the assumptions behind it are total vaporware. They’ve been sold a bill of goods, and they’re making continued payments on it…
I’m going to try to match your communication style here.
As the saying goes, if you were right, I would agree with you. I’ve been using mathematics professionally for a few decades now, particularly in the analysis of information propagation of human behavior and that sort of thing.
First of all it only doesn’t “logically make sense” if the sample you’re pulling is a random sample. It isn’t. When you disadvantage voters in order to suppress the vote, you don’t disadvantage them all equally. You leave polls open in rural districts and consolidate them in urban ones. You require ID cards because it’s harder for some people to get them than others. I suspect you’ve actually never studied statistics.
It has been demonstrated statistically and repeatedly that actions that reduce voter turnout - off year elections, ID cards, long lines - preferentially discriminate against Democratic candidates by disadvantaging Democratic voters. It is why they work to limit early voting and vote by mail. If your made-up reasoning about rural voters was at all correct, republicans would be the ones pushing for longer voting windows and mail in voting. They’re not. It is time to revisit your hypothesis in the face of what actually happens in the real world.
Here’s an article, and here’s the pull quote for you:
Voter suppression targets minority voters, who for the past half century or so have been primarily Democrats. It’s why republicans have challenged and overturned key provisions of the Voting Rights Act. It’s why they try to cast doubt on the integrity of the vote without providing any evidence.
Here’s a Wikipedia reference. Here’s one from Rolling Stone.
Or just take a look for yourself about which party is trying to pass bills that reduce turnout, permit party-driven redistricting, and reduce the ways in which votes can be cast.
One of my favorite quotes is by physicist Wolfgang Pauli “This isn’t right. It’s not even wrong.” It’s used for ideas that are so ludicrous that they actually fall outside the realm of comprehension. Your idea doesn’t fall into that category. It’s simply wrong.
https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/does-high-voter-turnout-help-one-party
I think a better way to look at this is Republicans are obviously doing everything they can to make elections seem untrustworthy or irrelevant.
Among supporters, this means they won’t oppose antidemocratic measures like making sure the majority of your county don’t have a convenient polling place (I, of course, don’t know this is the case, it’s an example).
Among detractors, it encourages a sense of hopelessness in areas that are red or starting to turning red to purple.
This makes it easier to overturn or manipulate elections without popular opposition.
Every single time you supress a legitimate vote you weaken the idea that every vote counts.