I don't think it's a brilliant idea to have a vote in Montana be something like 40 times more valuable than the ones in California. The United States is inhabited by people, not states. One person, one vote should mean one vote is equally valuable to another. The electoral college ensures it isn't.I agree with a lot of what you say, but the Electoral College is not the unfair boogeyman many try to claim it to be based on the fact that a candidate lost the presidency because they did not acquire the constitutionally required votes to do so.I'm not against ensuring any election is safe. What I'm against is the idea as propagated by this OP that promoting mail-in ballots means you are propagating voter fraud. I'm against the idea as we see from the GOP that voting is a right that should be limited to as few people as possible.There was an entire commission established by president Trump with the purpose of finding cases of voter fraud. So to your questions. I don't know, but I do know the people investigating it had a vested POLITICAL interest in finding it. A single case would have been a boon to Trump and yet none was found.You are the one making statements on this board. You said that Democrats use COVID 19 as an excuse to commit voter fraud.How is voting by mail, something that has been a possibility for over 20 years voter fraud? Trump has asked for an absentee ballot for Florida. So how do you make that leap?
As to fraud itself. What instance do you know of that involved fraudulent by mail voting?
I suggest you read the article or ask RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel herself since SHE is the one making the statement.
Anyway, I read the article. A few things. She's making some pretty big leaps without trying to prove any of them. I know of one instance of voter fraud by mail. It was done by a Republican incumbent. She alludes to other possible ways to commit fraud. The thing is she has no examples of it actually happening.
In 2016 33 million votes where cast by mail. No fraud was detected.
As to election integrity, it's the GOP that's been actively blocking legislation to ensure it. You have a president who has gone on camera and flat out said he will take whatever help he can get, regardless of its source and has actively used his position to try to get dirt on his political opponent by blackmailing an ally. So I find it laughable to now when it comes to ensuring that people will be able to cast their vote in a time of medical emergency all of sudden election integrity is so important that people's lives should not be a consideration.
By the way, election fraud is a felony. Of all things to be put in jail that seems the dumbest. So fearing all of a sudden that enough people will engage in it to have a meaningful impact on the election is disingenuous
This thing has one purpose and one purpose only. To lower voter turnout. I would assert that if your goal in an election process is having as few people possible actually participating in the election process a free and fair election is very far from your mind.
In 2016 33 million votes where cast by mail. No fraud was detected.
What were the detection and processes used to insure no fraud was committed? Who conducted the detection? Was the detection process conducted internally or by third parties? Was there a detection process during the election, post-election, or both?
Just saying fraud detection took place in 33 million mail ballots with no positive results is not sufficient; or, more than likely, the detection process was weak. A mail-in ballot has a lot of attributes or metadata that can and should be indexed real time and analyzed retrospectively. I for one would take a critical eye to that process.
Again, just because a commission was set up and they would have been motivated to detect legitimate voter fraud, does not mean it was successful.
I am talking about the need for a process rooted in data science and transparency to mitigate risk of voter fraud in an all mail-in ballot.
Why have voter registration in the first place? Why have elections on a weekday when people have to work? Why rely on an electoral college? And in this instance, why be against voting by mail in a time when many thousands of people are at risk of death from an infectious disease?
Isn't the idea of "a government for the people by the people" that as many people as possible are allowed to participate?
The Electoral College is actually a brilliant plan designed by the Founding Fathers to ensure equal representation among the states....otherwise we could limit elections to California, Texas, New York, and Florida. The voice of the people in fly-over states would be completely ignored. The United States is comprised of 50 states, and the voices and concerns of citizens in all 50 states must be considered.
There are many ways to disenfranchise voters this is one of them. It reminds me of the French revolution. The straw that broke the camels back was the idea to vote by estate. This meant that any vote would by definition go to the aristocracy and the clergy since they had similar interests and the commoners always lost. Eventually, it caused a revolution.
The founding fathers were creatures of their time. What they started was revolutionary and good. On the other hand, they were almost without exception of a certain class that by default would constitute a new 'ruling class'. Something they knew and tried to ensure would be perpetuated by instituting the electoral college. Ensuring equal voices across the States was a VERY distant second.
The constitution was a first attempt to do something that had never been done before. And like with all prototypes it had flaws. The electoral college is one of those flaws.