Voting: How's It Going

[WiseGirl]

NJ family has voted. My octogenarian mother told me that after Mitch McConnell blocked Obama's pick she vowed to never vote Republican for anything again. Go mom!

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, clueliss said:

watch out California - the Rep Party has 'official' illegal voting boxes floating out there.

 

This looks like voter fraud/ vote tampering to me. Lock them up!

[CTRLZero]

Those GOP provided ballot boxes look like a felony waiting to happen, no matter what their feeble excuses might be. 

In happier news, my husband and I took our completed ballots to an official and secure lockbox right outside our county's election office.  We also dropped off my MIL's ballot and pamphlet to her at her assisted living facility.  We are hoping for the best that she is able to complete and return the form via mail, but she told us she'll not vote for Trump if that's the only thing she can figure out, lol.  ❤️

[K'Z'K]

Done and done.

I received my ballot on Oct 13, dropped it in a dropbox the next day, and, as you can see, it was accepted (collected and signature verified) the day after.

 

[TuringMachine]

Republicans are trying to claim this is ballot harvesting, a practice legal in California. It is not. To be legal the person voting would have to authorize the person returning the ballot on the ballot itself. Dropping it in a random box does not accomplish this.

I'll be dropping my ballot off at a LEGAL dropbox today.

[Marmion]

2 hours ago, TuringMachine said:

Republicans are trying to claim this is ballot harvesting, a practice legal in California. It is not. To be legal the person voting would have to authorize the person returning the ballot on the ballot itself. Dropping it in a random box does not accomplish this.

I'll be dropping my ballot off at a LEGAL dropbox today.

Quote

The California Republican Party doubled down on its use of unauthorized ballot drop boxes, potentially in violation of state law, shortly before state officials issued cease-and-desist orders against them in the matter.

On Sunday evening, news outlets including The Orange County Register and CBS Los Angeles reported that local election officials in parts of the state including Orange County, Los Angeles County, and Fresno were investigating reports of Republican officials possibly confusing voters by setting up unofficial drop boxes.

In a now-deleted tweet, a California Republican Party regional field director, Jordan Tygh, posted a photo of himself holding his mail ballot in front of a box with a laminated sign taped to it that said "official ballot drop-off box" and "no postage necessary" while wearing a mask with the logo of the Republican congressional candidate Michelle Steel (Steel has not been accused of any wrongdoing or of any official connection to the setup of the drop boxes).

—OC Registrar (@OCRegistrar) October 12, 2020

In a Monday press conference, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced they issued formal cease-and-desist orders to both the state Republican Party and county-level Republican parties in Fresno, Los Angeles, and Oranges counties in connection with the drop boxes. Padilla said state officials were also sending guidance to political parties reminding them of the rules around ballot collection.  

Misleading voters is wrong, regardless of who is doing it," Padilla said in the press conference. "Political campaigns and parties can engage in get-out-the-vote efforts, but they cannot violate state law."

California has expansive laws around both mail voting and third-party ballot collection, laws that both political parties have benefited from in recent election cycles. And on Twitter, the state Republican Party stood behind putting up the drop boxes, citing a state law passed in 2016 expanding ballot collection and arguing that the party-run boxes would give voters another layer of reassurance that their vote would be counted.

"If a congregation/business or other group provides the option to its parishioners/associates/ or colleagues to drop off their ballot in a safe location, with people they trust, rather than handing it over to a stranger who knocks on their door — what is wrong with that?" it tweeted.

The California GOP is correct in pointing out that state law allows any one person to return an unlimited number of other voters' ballots.   

Those returning ballots, however, must properly sign for those voters' ballots and follow the legal procedures to safely return them, and setting up unauthorized and unmonitored third-party drop boxes to collect ballots is not legal in California.

In a memorandum released Sunday, Padilla's office said that not only did state law ban the use of drop boxes that are not put in place and regulated by government election officials, but setting up those boxes also violates the regulations governing the collection of ballots.

Republican Party operatives can deliver other voters' ballots, but voters must designate a specific person to return their ballot, and those returning the ballots must affix their name, signature, and relation to the voter on the outer envelope.

Some commentators originally suggested that the unauthorized drop boxes could be a cynical attempt on the part of the GOP to feed into some of the misinformation suggesting that fraud is rampant. But the episode appeared more like a real attempt at encouraging Republican voters who might be skeptical of mail voting to return their ballots.  

This looks more like paranoia about returning absentee ballots than an attempt at fraud," Rick Hasen, a leading election-law expert at the University of California at Irvine, located in Orange County, told Insider in an email. "It is ironic though that the GOP has set up a massive ballot harvesting operation, even though they are not calling it that."

In addition to risking legal consequences, the state GOP has also put itself at odds with the messaging on election security of national Republicans, including President Donald Trump, who frequently point to third-party ballot collection as inherently suspicious and the ultimate encapsulation of the dangers of lax voting rules.

"GET RID OF BALLOT HARVESTING, IT IS RAMPANT WITH FRAUD. THE USA MUST HAVE VOTER I.D., THE ONLY WAY TO GET AN HONEST COUNT!," Trump wrote in an all-caps tweet in April. (There is no scholarly evidence that voter-identification laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud.)  

The Republican National Committee, in particular, has been at the forefront of the legal fights to limit third-party ballot collection.

The organization calls ballot harvesting "unacceptable" on its website ProtectTheVote.org, which summarizes its ongoing election-related litigation, and lists it as one of its top priorities to stop.

The phrase "ballot harvesting" appears 23 times on the website, which identifies seven states where the RNC legal team has fought in court to limit third-party ballot collection.

But on Monday, the organization did not rush to condemn the California GOP's tactics.  

And in a September tweet that decried "the atrocious Ballot Harvesting Scam," Trump celebrated a court ruling in Pennsylvania limiting third-party ballot collection.  

"We are continuing to fight Democrats' efforts to expand ballot harvesting, but we are not going to let them have an artificial advantage in places where it is legal," an RNC spokeswoman, Mandi Merritt, told Insider in an email. The California Democratic Party is notably not, however, similarly installing unauthorized drop boxes to collect ballots.

The Trump campaign, which also forcefully opposed ballot harvesting and has been a party to litigation to restrict the practice, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

And the National Republican Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans, appeared to defend the practice,tweeting in response to Steel's opponent, first-term Democrat Rep. Harley Rouda: "Looks like Junior here is only ok with ballot harvesting when it's the Democrats ballot harvesting. Go back to the beach, bro."

The California Republican Party openly embracing a practice decried as the height of fraud and dirty tricks by the national GOP is just the latest example of a Republican campaign breaking with Trump's hardline rhetoric supporting election restrictions.  Throughout this year, even as Trump and other top Republicans have publicly (and falsely) lambasted mail voting as inherently fraudulent and untrustworthy, the Trump campaign and other GOP groups have encouraged their voters, through mailers and robocalls, to take advantage of no-excuse mail voting in the states that allow it.

https://www.businessinsider.com/california-gop-breaks-with-party-embraces-unauthorized-ballot-harvesting-2020-10

 

Quote

The Republican Party routinely insists that California is a hotbed of voter fraud. For proof, they point to the fact that voters are allowed to hand over their ballots to another person who submits them on their behalf. The California GOP decries this practice as “ballot harvesting” and attacks its legality to delegitimize election results. This year, some California Republicans went further: Some GOP operatives set up ballot drop boxes that are falsely marked “official,” encouraging voters to place their ballots in these phony boxes. These Republicans appear to have committed felony election fraud.

Over the weekend, the Orange County Register and KCAL broke the news that these official-looking drop boxes had cropped up in Fresno, Los Angeles, and Orange County outside campaign headquarters, churches, and businesses. The Fresno County Republican Party had a list of “Ballot Collection Box Locations” on its website that was removed sometime Monday morning. The list included multiple gun stores and firing ranges. On Friday, Jordan Tygh—a regional field director for the California Republican Party—tweeted (then deleted) a photo of himself holding his ballot next to a box labeled “OFFICIAL BALLOT DROP OFF BOX.” Tygh said he was “proud to have cast my vote” for Michelle Steel, who is challenging Democratic congressman Harley Rouda. He added: “DM me for convenient locations to drop your ballot off at!” But the box in Tygh’s photo was not “official,” even though it was plainly designed to look like one of California’s actual ballot drop boxes. (There are more than 400 in L.A. County alone.)  

California GOP spokesman Hector Barajas acknowledged on Monday that the GOP owns the boxes but refused to say how many exist. Jared Cook, a pastor who set up an unofficial drop box outside his L.A. County Baptist church, seemed to confirm the party’s involvement when he told parishioners on Wednesday that “the local GOP picks up” the ballots “two to three times a week.” (Cook’s church has previously hosted Republican candidates and protested COVID-19 restrictions.)

After Democrats triumphed in California’s congressional elections two years ago, Republicans incorrectly blamed their losses on Democratic “ballot harvesting,” condemning the practice as shady and unethical. Yet this year, even as Donald Trump and many California Republicans continue to oppose the collection of ballots, some GOP candidates have embraced the strategy. David Valadao, a Republican running for California’s 21st Congressional District, said in September that because “ballot harvesting” is legal, “We’re going to have to do it ourselves. So we’ve got our own teams on the ground doing it.” Valadeo previously stated that “every Republican in the state has to be focused on ballot harvesting,” adding that it “is going to play a role” in GOP campaigns. Mike Garcia, a Republican running for reelection in California’s 25th Congressional District, declared in April: “How do you combat [ballot harvesting]? You do it yourself, right? It’s legal.” California Republican Party chair Jessica Millan Patterson also said the official state party position was that no campaign should collect ballots, though she admitted that Republicans collected ballots during the March primary.

Barajas, the GOP spokesman, said on Monday that “Democrats only seem to object to ballot harvesting when someone else does it.” On Twitter, the California GOP has similarly defended the ballot box scheme as lawful “ballot harvesting.” On Twitter, the party claimedthat Democrats legalized this practice and asked “why people are all of a sudden surprised.” It also trolled critics of the scheme, suggesting that fake drop boxes are more secure than door-to-door ballot collection. The National Republican Congressional Committee tweetedthat Rouda “is only ok with ballot harvesting when it’s the Democrats ballot harvesting.”

These comments suggest that Republicans do not understand how Democrats “harvest” ballots. The California Democratic Party hires both volunteers and paid staff to collect completed ballots directly from voters. These individuals cannot be paid per ballot under state law. They often focus on underserved communities whose members may face hardships that make it difficult for them to personally return their own ballot. Setting up drop boxes and falsely labeling them “official,” by contrast, is not legal “ballot harvesting.” It’s likely a criminal offense. California lawstrictly regulates the creation and use of ballot boxes and bars private citizens from establishing them. Moreover, the statute that allows third parties to collect ballots requires voters to formally “designate” the “person” who will return their ballot to election officials. This person must sign the ballot envelope and provide both their name and relationship to the voter. Republicans do not seem to have followed these rules when collecting ballots.  

On Sunday, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla issued guidance to county elections officials explaining that the fake ballot box scheme is “prohibited by state law.” He added that participants may be guilty of election fraud, a felony offense punishable by two to four years in prison. In an email on Monday, Padilla told me he is “coordinating with local officials to address the multiple reports of unauthorized ballot drop boxes.” He urged voters to “never hand your ballot over to someone you don’t trust.” Padilla, along with Attorney General Xavier Becerra, also sent a cease and desist order to the California Republican Party, as well as the county Republican parties of Fresno, Los Angeles, and Orange County—demanding that they remove their fake drop boxes. At a Monday press conference, Becerra warned that some Republican officials have indicated that they “may not be prepared or willing to remove those boxes.”*

Republicans have spent years accusing California Democrats of voter fraud without presenting an iota of evidence. Now they appear to have proved that election fraud is a real problem—by committing it themselves.  

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/10/california-republicans-drop-boxes-ballot-harvesting-fraud.html 

[ADoyle90815]

I dropped my mail in ballot off Monday at a legitimate drop box at a city park's rec center, and got the email confirmation on Wednesday hat it has been received and will be counted. That's my big FUCK YOU to the California Republican party.

Edited October 16, 2020 by ADoyle90815

[Alisamer]

My sisters and I voted this morning! We got there before it opened and the wait was about an hour. Everyone had masks on, even the guy in the Trump hat, though the 6’ of social distance was probably more like 4’ in reality. Behind us was a couple we know so it was nice to talk to them, even though I’m fairly sure they voted the opposite of us. 

There were several county races where the only person on the ballot was a Republican, and on those I did not vote at all. If someone can run for office with an R beside their name while that horrible festering boil on the ass of society sits in the White House with an R by his name, that tells me all I need to know about them. 

[WiseGirl]

Dropped my ballot off. Celebrating with ice cream!

[Coconut Flan]

Mail in ballot received and accepted.  

[AmericanRose]

I also saw the same truck over on the peninsula 2 months ago. In a shocking twist, it has a Trump bumper sticker (and Culp sucks. I'm really starting to believe that Republicans will vote for ANYONE so long as there's an R beside their name).

Edited October 18, 2020 by AmericanRose

[CTRLZero]

Our neighbors have Culp (running for Washington state governor) signs out.  They are second amendment enthusiasts, and I believe that is Culp’s main platform, from the little I’ve researched.  
Meanwhile, I have a small Vote Blue sticker and a big ol’ generic hand painted VOTE sign in my front windows.  Also, we’ve been wearing masks that say “vote.”  Hope our neighbors appreciate it, lol.

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, CTRLZero said:

Our neighbors have Culp (running for Washington state governor) signs out.  They are second amendment enthusiasts, and I believe that is Culp’s main platform, from the little I’ve researched.  
Meanwhile, I have a small Vote Blue sticker and a big ol’ generic hand painted VOTE sign in my front windows.  Also, we’ve been wearing masks that say “vote.”  Hope our neighbors appreciate it, lol.

Culp is the police chief from the small town of republic in Eastern Washington so I know he's got that going for him too, in the very red counties of Washington.

Have you read where he stands on the coronavirus? He's not going to force any state restrictions; instead he says that he's going to educate people and if he educates them they will make the best decisions. Because that works so well on drinking and driving and texting and driving.

[AmericanRose]

1 hour ago, CTRLZero said:

Our neighbors have Culp (running for Washington state governor) signs out.  They are second amendment enthusiasts, and I believe that is Culp’s main platform, from the little I’ve researched.  
Meanwhile, I have a small Vote Blue sticker and a big ol’ generic hand painted VOTE sign in my front windows.  Also, we’ve been wearing masks that say “vote.”  Hope our neighbors appreciate it, lol.

I've only seen Culp (and Trump) signs on the Olympic peninsula and in Eastern WA. Without that, I would have never looked him up!

[Penny]

Voted yesterday. No line. I think everyone went during the week

[SilverBeach]

My original title for this thread referred to mail-in voting as I was specifically interested in getting feedback on that aspect of the election. A decision (not mine, it surprised me) was made to change that title, broadening the scope of this discussion. Whatever. It's interesting to see how things are going in general around the country. 

In any event, I hand-delivered my ballot to the county courthouse last week. People just wanting to drop off ballots had to stand in the same line as everybody else, and go through security. Not disabled or elderly friendly, as there is a very long outdoor platform of steps/ramps to negotiate to even get to the door.  Once inside, I still had to ask several times where the deposit box was located. No signs, instructions, nothing. The county workers were pretty rude also. I still had to be indoors with those waiting to use the voting machines, although I guess I saved some time by bring in the mail ballot in person. No way would I mail it back, I wasn't going to try my luck twice.  

Now we wait. 

 

Edited October 18, 2020 by SilverBeach
Oh, those mofo's in CA are crazed with their fake election boxes. These folks don't even believe in democracy.

[AnywhereButHere]

My son is away at college, so he voted by mail in. He mailed in his absentee ballot application in mid-August, and I think he received the ballot towards late-mid September, and mailed it back in next day. I wish there was a way to track its progress through the system. NYC seems to have a mail in ballot tracker, but it doesn’t extend to the rest of the state that I could find. Bummer. 
 

My husband and I are voting in person, probably on Election Day rather than early, but you never know. There have never been any lines where we are, so we’re lucky.

[onekidanddone]

Can’t we just tesseract to Nov 4th and be done already?

[PsyD2013]

Dropped my ballot off and then  took my mom to drop off hers.  She had not voted in an election since Reagan.  Back in August she asked me to help her register to vote and get an absentee ballot.  She doesn't understand what people see in Trump and despises him almost as much as I do.  I'm really proud that she decided to take a stand this year and cast a vote to get rid of the Orange Asshole.  

[onekidanddone]

Mr. and I filled out our ballots last night. He took them to the board of elections drop box. Kinda annoyed because I don’t think he is allowed to do that. Also I wanted a selfie in front of the building. 
 

[Cartmann99]

 The line to vote was the longest one I'd ever seen here, but nothing compared to the stories from other places. Was pleasantly surprised at the number of younger voters, the social distancing measures, the fact that almost everyone I saw was wearing a mask or face shield, and that there was someone cleaning off each voting machine between voters. I did accidentally select the Spanish language ballot, but since there were no propositions, and I had looked over the sample ballot at home, it wasn't a problem.

[Maggie Mae]

I love our new "I Voted" stickers. 

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2020/10/13/alaskas-new-i-voted-stickers-celebrate-women-and-highlight-native-languages/

Of course, I don't get one, because I voted absentee. But my biased opinion is that we always have the best stickers. 2018 Stickers  were pretty awesome - scroll down to see them with tagalog, yu'pik, and other native languages. 

Yesterday was the first day of early voting. I guess it's not illegal to wear campaign gear to the polls in our state, because Twitter said there were at least 3 people in the looooong line with full Trump Regalia. 

[onekidanddone]

Ballot deposited at our county board of elections yesterday. 
ETA: Plopped it in a drive up box with only one driver ahead in line
 

Edited October 20, 2020 by onekidanddone

[Dandruff]

It seems kind of anticlimactic, since I was running myself ragged all day and am barely functioning at the moment, but I voted this afternoon.

The first location I went to hadn't opened yet so I drove to another, spent at most a few minutes on line, and got it done.   It was easy.  I'm no longer worried about dealing with potentially long waits, bad weather, or right wing hecklers on Election Day.

 

[Marmion]

9 hours ago, Maggie Mae said:

Yesterday was the first day of early voting. I guess it's not illegal to wear campaign gear to the polls in our state, because Twitter said there were at least 3 people in the looooong line with full Trump Regalia

https://www.instyle.com/news/what-to-wear-voting-laws-electioneering  ,  https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/14/us/election-what-not-to-wear-trnd/index.html  ,  

Quote

Alaska law prohibits campaigning within 200 feet of any entrance into a polling place while the polls are open.

This prohibits campaigning materials on your car, displaying campaign items such as signs, buttons, etc. for candidates or issues appearing on the ballot or discussions of candidates or issues appearing on the ballot within the 200 foot perimeter

https://www.elections.alaska.gov/Core/votingatthepollsonelectionday.php