Drive Through Voting. Really?

Thanks Max, for sharing your political narrative.

You are welcome, Real Music. Although, I think you might be misunderstanding my point.

1. There is nothing wrong with having a political narrative. And yes, I am pushing a political narrative.

2. The problem is confusing your political narrative with absolute truth. When someone is unwilling to accept facts that don't fit with their political narrative, or is unable to see when another narrative has valid points... that is when a political narrative becomes extreme.

I am not saying that you shouldn't have a political narrative. Nor have I ever denied that I have a political narrative. The funny thing is that my political narrative is probably closer to Real Music than it is to Oralloy or Brandon.

I am simply against extremism on any side, including my own.

Our voting system should be fair to all sides, and it should be consistent. Changes to our voting system should be done very carefully and have bipartisan support. If one party pushes radical changes to voting over the objections of the other party, it makes me uncomfortable (and yes I understand that this is being done by both sides right now).

The liberal side is pushing a fevered argument toward something that in truth with be a one-sided rather radical change to how elections have been done in the US. The idea that every American should be able to drop their vote in a box, or send it in the mail is a big change from how things were done in the past. And, it favors Democrats, which is why the left supports it.

The conservatives are also pushing through radical changes, but more on a local level. That doesn't change the fact of what the left is doing.

The idea that 50% percent of American politicians are brave and valient and pushing for the good of the country in their rather extreme changes to the voting system.... and that this decency cuts along partisan lines... is a little hard to accept.

I do not believe that liberals are acting with the country's best interests in mind with their hysterical push for these drastic changes to our electoral system.

If they really cared, they would be pushing moderate bipartisan solutions that addressed their concerns at the same time as accepting points from the other side. If there is ever a place where moderate bipartisan policies are needed, our elections are it.

Ballot drop boxes have long been used without controversy. Then Trump got involved

By Amy Sherman
October 16, 2020

In court briefs and on Twitter, President Donald Trump and GOP allies have fought ballot drop boxes as part of a war against voting by mail. But when the California GOP installed its own drop boxes, he gave them the thumbs up.

The Trump campaign and his allies have gone to court to try to limit the use of ballot drop boxes in key battlegrounds such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has also been in a back-and-forth court battle to limit the number of ballot dropoff sites.

In California, the tables are turned. Officials there threatened the state GOP with legal action after reports that the party had set up its own ballot drop boxes. At least one box was improperly marked "official." Trump urged the Republicans to not back down.

"You mean only Democrats are allowed to do this? But haven’t the Dems been doing this for years? See you in court. Fight hard Republicans!" he tweeted in response to an Los Angeles Times article quoting state officials saying the GOP’s actions were illegal.

In August, Trump called drop boxes a "voter security disaster" and tried to cast doubt about their control.

But election experts say such aspersions are misleading, noting that drop boxes have been used in GOP and Democratic counties for many years, without incident. With less than three weeks before Election Day, the ongoing battles over returning ballots threaten to leave voters confused or doubtful about the integrity of the system.

"The Trump campaign seems to be focusing on filing so many lawsuits to try to create opportunities to sow doubt with the process in the minds of supporters," said Trey Grayson, a former Kentucky secretary of state and a Republican. "As a Republican, I worry that some of my fellow Republican voters won't use drop boxes because of this confusion. As a former election administrator, I worry that some voters won't use drop boxes because of this confusion."

We reviewed the status of litigation in a few key states and talked to election officials about why they are confident about the integrity of official ballot drop boxes.

Ballot drop box litigation

Ballot drop boxes allow voters to bypass the mail service, which is under strain this year, to ensure their mail ballots are received on time. The boxes, often located outside of early voting sites or municipal elections offices, also allow voters who are social distancing amid the pandemic to avoid lines or crowds at indoor voting sites.

The Republican National Committee hasn’t challenged longstanding use of ballot drop boxes in many states such as Colorado, Florida and Utah. But the RNC has been involved in litigation in a couple of key states where some of the policies about ballot drop boxes or dropoff locations changed this year.

In Pennsylvania, a federal judge ruled against the Trump campaign’s effort to stop the use of ballot boxes, which were first used during the June 2 primary. The federal complaint said the boxes were "inadequately noticed and unmonitored" and that they "have increased the potential for ballot fraud or tampering." A federal judge, who had been appointed by Trump, dismissed the claims and concluded that the campaign hadn’t proven the burden of impending fraud.

In Ohio, the state passed a bill in March before the primary instructing boards of elections to "place a secure receptacle outside the office of the board for the return of ballots under this section." This summer, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose said state law prohibited more than one ballot box per county, prompting lawsuits by state Democrats and civil rights groups. The Trump campaign and the RNC intervened in a federal lawsuit seeking to block the expansion of ballot drop boxes. A federal appeals court sided with LaRose when it temporarily reinstated the one-location-per-county rule.

In Texas, voters who are allowed to vote by mail, including seniors and people with disabilities, can hand-deliver their completed ballot to county clerk’s offices on Election Day. (This is a separate process from drive-through voting.)

In July, Abbott issued a proclamation allowing voters to deliver ballots earlier than that. Most counties have only one clerk’s office, but a few large urban counties have multiple offices, opening up the possibility of providing multiple dropoff sites.

But on Oct. 1, the Republican governor issued a proclamation that limited dropoffs to just one site per county. That forced Harris County, home to more than 2 million voters in and around Houston, to shrink the number of dropoff sites from 12 to one, and set off a legal battle between the state and voting rights advocates.

"To force hundreds of thousands of seniors and voters with disabilities to use a single dropoff location in a county that stretches over nearly 2,000 square miles is prejudicial and dangerous," Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins wrote in a statement.

The conflict has led to split court decisions, with a federal appeals court upholding Abbott’s order while a state court in Travis County sided with plaintiffs who argued that local officials are in charge of elections.

In California, the state GOP set up its own ballot drop boxes at locations that requested them, such as churches and gun shops, as well as its own offices. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Secretary of State Alex Padilla, both Democrats, sent the party a cease-and-desist letter, stating that the GOP misrepresented the boxes as official and questioning whether they complied with state code. A photo showed that a box stated "official" on it. A lawyer for the GOP blamed the "official" sign on a volunteer and said the word was removed.

The California GOP argues that installing its own drop boxes is no different from ballot harvesting, the term for collecting ballots on behalf of others and delivering them to election officials. In 2016, California passed a law that allowed anyone, including paid workers, to collect and return ballots. Previously, only relatives or people living together could submit ballots for one another.

Becerra and Padilla said in a press conference Oct. 16 that the GOP had agreed to not have unstaffed and unsecured boxes, but reporters on the call told the officials that the GOP said it plans to continue using the boxes. (PolitiFact heard the same comment from Hector Barajas, a spokesperson for the California GOP.) The final outcome of the dispute appeared up in the air.

Ballot drop boxes have been used for many years without controversy

Ballot drop boxes have been in use for about two decades, said Amber McReynolds, CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute and the former head of elections in Denver. The boxes are commonly used in states where generally all voting is by mail, including in Republican-led Utah.

"Counties have added additional drop boxes almost every year since 2014," said Justin Lee, Utah’s director of elections. "We haven't had any security problems, and we have no indication that drop boxes favor one party over another party."

The National Conference of State Legislatures found eight states that have permanent laws that expressly allow drop boxes and include rules such as design features, number and location.

Far more states are using drop boxes this year, as elections coincide with a pandemic.

"At least 34 states have used or plan on using ballot drop boxes this year," Lawfare and the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project said. "In the upcoming election, the use of drop boxes will likely be larger than in any election in American history."

Best practices include tight security

Trump has cast doubt about the security of boxes. But a tip sheet from federal officials about best practices for ballot boxes said a drop box "provides a secure and convenient means for voters to return their mail ballot."

The officials recommended that boxes be locked at all times and accessible only by election officials. Ideally, unstaffed boxes should be located in areas with good lighting and video surveillance cameras.

Drop boxes are generally more secure than standalone mail boxes. They typically weigh more than 600 pounds and have tamper-proof mechanisms.

"They are tamper proof, bomb proof, fire proof and in many places equipped with cameras, or by government offices," said Wendy Weiser, a voting rights expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. "They have more security features than mailboxes do, and they are opened only by qualified election workers."

https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/oct/16/ballot-drop-boxes-have-long-been-used-without-cont/

How is DTV unfair to any side?

1. In this thread you have shown that you are unable or refuse to see when another narrative has valid points.

2. Because of that reason is what makes your statement hypocritical.

You are being silly. Let me give you several valid points from each side.

1) On the liberal side... there are policies that directly impact minority voters. These should not be allowed. There are also clear instances where poor, mostly minority communities have a significantly more difficult time voting than rich White communities. This helps one party the other and should be prevented.

2) On the conservative side... there is a long history of in person voting through most of our history, with exceptions being rather small. There are protections against people influencing the vote that long been a part of our electoral system. We also have a history of state control of elections. Changes to the electoral system, especially changes that almost exclusively benefit one party (in this case the Democrats) should be made very carefully. Any change to the electoral system should be done on a bipartisan basis.

I am going to assume that Real Music accepts all of the valid points I list for the liberal side (as do I).

I am also going to predict that Real Music will reject all of the points from the conservative side. And that is my point.

So far, I fail to see any liberal here that is able to acknowledge the validity of any conservative point on any thread. The absolutism is much of the problem.

Do you deny that Drive Through Voting will directly help the Democrats?

1. Regardless to whether one side benefits or not, please tell me Max: what is unfair about making voting more free and more accessible for everyone.

2. Unless something is being taken away from someone, you really don't have a leg to stand on regarding fairness.

3. The democratic party have in no way propose any legislation that would make it harder or less accessible for anyone to vote.

4. But, the Republicans sure have.

5. Only the republican party have proposed or passed laws making voting harder and less accessible.

6. So, in actuality, only the republican party have been actively seeking ways to pass unfair laws.

7. So, you Max are being misleading and deceptive when you make your fairness argument.

8. If more people voting helps one party over the other party, then it is up to the losing party to modify and change their policy positions to get more voters to vote for them.

9. The voters are suppose to pick the people they want in office.
Not, the other way around.

10. The real problem is that the republican party fear losing to the democrats on policy positions and ideas.

11. The republicans are trying to win by way of voter suppression because they fear they will ultimately lose on policy positions, especially when there is a greater number of total voters participating in elections.



1. Not when the republican party all over the country are not negotiating in good faith.

2. Not when the republican party in United States Senate are not negotiating in good faith.

3. Not when the republican party fear that a true democracy would mean they would have to modify their policy positions to keep from losing.

You are making my point for me Real Music.

I have no objections.

Let me ask the important question..

Drive through voting clearly benefits the Democrats. But lets pretend for a second that it didn't.

What is Drive Through Voting meant more working class rural White people would vote....and.what if this made it likely that Trump or Trump followerer would win the White House in 2024...

Would you support a polocy that would make a Trump Republican more likely to win?

Hightor @ maxdancona
maxdancona, are you saying that there are no provisions to prevent ballot fraud or illegal voting? Technology has gotten pretty good at establishing people's identity and linking it to particular documents. What's the difference between depositing your ballot in a secure drop-box from your automobile and walking up to a mail box and depositing your absentee ballot?

maxdancona @ Hightor
Did you read my post? I explain the problem clearly. It has nothing to do with the bullshit you are saying

Go back, read my post, and then try to write a rational response.


maxdancona wrote:
I explain the problem clearly.
Hightor response:
You do nothing of the kind.
maxdancona wrote:
It has nothing to do with the bullshit you are saying
Hightor response:
Why the foul humor?
maxdancona wrote:
Go back, read my post, and then try to write a rational response.
Hightor response:
I read it the first time. You didn't bother to explain what "Drive Through Voting" actually is; how it works; what it entails – I gave it the most benign interpretation I could and connected it to recent attempts in other states to restrict the use of remote ballot boxes. How does DTV differ from the use of secure drop boxes to collect absentee ballots?


Real Music @ maxdancona
1. Drive through voting is just one method of casting your vote.
2. What specific protections are you claiming that Drive Through voting undoes?

maxdancona @ Real Music
Read the ******* opening post. All of you.

Real Music @ maxdancona
1. I did read the ******* opening post.
2. That is the ******* reason, I asked you the ******* question.
3. But, if you want to continue being ******* rude and ******* obnoxious, then go ahead.
4. Or you can try being civil.

Real Music @ maxdancona
Hightor had politely asked you Max:
What's the difference between depositing your ballot in a secure drop-box from your automobile and walking up to a mail box and depositing your absentee ballot?

Real Music @ maxdancona
Thanks Max, for sharing your political narrative.

maxdancona @ Real Music
The problem is confusing your political narrative with absolute truth. When someone is unwilling to accept facts that don't fit with their political narrative, or is unable to see when another narrative has valid points... that is when a political narrative becomes extreme.

Real Music @ maxdancona
1. In this thread you have shown that you are unable or refuse to see when another narrative has valid points.
2. Because of that reason is what makes your statement hypocritical.

maxdancona @ Real Music
You are being silly.

If you say so.

If you say so.

As long as you are not making voting less accessible, then so be it. My ultimate dream would be to have every eligible voter to vote in every election with a 100 percent voter participation rate in every local, state and national election. My dream and wish would be to pass a constitutional amendment mandating everyone to vote in every election. Obviously we all know that would never become law. It's just a dream.



1. You ask the wrong question.
2. If voting was more easier and more accessible to every eligible voter in America, then so be it.
3. If 100 percent of every eligible voter were to cast a vote, then the candidate with the most votes should win, even if that happen to be a Trump Republican.
4. I wish that voting were to be required by law. But, that will never become law. It is only my wish.

1. That's great, that you have no objections.
2. But, I have absolutely no idea of what point you claim that I am making for you.

Is strongly disagree with your "dream" of 100% voter participation.

1. I don't see any reason that this is even desirable. Every should have the right to vote. That doesn't mean that everyone should vote.

2. In an ideal world only people who care enough to actual be informed on the issues would vote. I don't see a practical way to enforce this. But, if you aren't taking the time to actual learn about the issues, you shouldn't vote.

100 percent voting means that voters, most of whom dont care anyway, will choose their government the same way they choose their deodorant. They will just pick a brand based on an ad the saw in their twenties, and then they will just stick with it the rest of their life.

I do not deny that DTV would directly help the Democrats.I do not deny that DTV would directly help the Republicans as well. DTV would be helpful to both parties.

What. The. Actual. ****.

Who, really WHO deemed YOU God to to think people in THIS country deserves to VOTE or not??

You think only the "right" people with the "right" intentions with the "right" answers have the "right" to vote????

GTFO.

Idiot.

Let's try again.

So

Do you deny that Drive Through Voting will make it more likely that Demcrats will win elections over Republicans because it will increase the number of Democratic voters more than it increases Republican voters?

You are dodging the question. I am pointing out Drive Through Voting slants elections towards the Democrats (as conpared to voting before there was Drive Through Voting).

Democrats support it. Republicans oppose it. That makes partisan political sense.

Neptune. Try reading before you respond. Let me try this again. I did have a typo, so maybe that explains your over-emotional response.

I said, Everyone should have the right to vote. (On second thought, I would certainly qualify that by age and maybe by other characteristics, but that was my statment). Having the right to vote doesn't maean that you should vote. Do you want Neo-Nazis to vote?

I don't know what is setting you off. But your response doesn't make sense.

Try thinking before you type.

You are obsessing over the wrong value. Yes, every one has the right, and OBLIGATION to vote, regardless of political affiliation, moral or religious or not.

Yes, Max, every one SHOULD vote. That is what a democracy is. You should be ashamed of your willful ignorance.