Right. Any deviation from the rules ought to be investigated and appropriate response taken.

There are some who presume or suggest something a lot more nefarious. I first heard a reference to this issue on a local NPR talk show by a host I regard as not particularly reliable. She bungles some issues and the show is unabashedly liberal in its presentation (which is fine, of course, but something to keep in mind). What she described sounded awful to me but when I went to the Times article and heard what facts were known, I realized that I had only heard a snippet which suggested but didn't give clear evidence of voter suppression.

So, I'm not saying that we should ignore wrongdoing in this ballot harvesting project, but we also should be careful to stick to the facts we know. Else, we will be like the gullible Trumpers who point to nine ballots wrongly discarded as evidence of a rigged election.

If it violates the law in that respect, then the harvesters should be prosecuted.
I don't know the details of CA law, of course.

I suppose my point is that whether or not this harvesting project is evidence of screwing with the election is unclear to me. What precisely was the plan? If we don't have a pretty good idea, then we don't know that their action in this instance was nefarious.

If your claim is that the GOP is not following CA law when harvesting ballots, I have no problem. If you're saying that this is evidence of screwing with the election, it's not at all clear to me. None of this is to suggest we ignore the fact that Republicans have made many comments to the effect that voter suppression is in their interest and that they intend to pursue it.

It's a matter of relevance. Is this particular case evidence of the lengths to which the GOP will go to suppress the vote? Or is it (merely) evidence of their disregard for vote harvesting laws? The former is worse than the latter, but also harder to see in this case.

California Assembly Bill 1921, passed in 2018.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/f...01520160AB1921

If you've already openly declared your intent to be nefarious, it removes the onus on 3rd parties to over-explain the pure mechanics of your nefariousness to everyone's (or indeed anyone's) satisfaction become making the assumption of nefariousness.

I mentioned this before. There's a broad legal concept called "estoppel." And one precedent of it is that you can't after the fact demand a distinction be clarified after you've already declared yourself on one side of.

If I open "Joe's House of Smutty Smut, That's Right I said Smutty Smut" and get hit with an obscenity violation, I can't then go after the fact and argue that the line between smut and erotica wasn't clearly defined in the stature because I've already said which side I knew I was on even if the distinction actually wasn't clearly defined in the original stature.

The Republicans have already openly declared their intent to screw with this election. Some wishywashy "What? How is this tampering with the election?" pettyfogging has to happen before you admit planning to mess with the election is exactly what you are doing, not after.

That's fine. But then say so, don't just assert the worst (tossing out ballots) without looking at what the evidence supports.


If we are ever going to get back to normal in this country, then we on the left need to take care not to make false or unsupported assertions. It makes us vulnerable to false claims of equivalence.

Facts matter, the real ones, not the alternative ones.

Suppose I say, "I'm going to kill Jim." Then you see me driving my car on a street where Jim is walking. It doesn't mean you can convict me of vehicular homicide, not even if I'm speeding.

You can't use "estoppel" to say that every vote-related acts by the GOP is voter suppression. Your argument is asinine.

And yet, no one's been arrested and the prosecutor is evaluating the arguments put forth in the GOP response letter.

Collins is behind in the polls and Trump throws her under the bus? Stable genius in action.

Yeah but the Republicans keep getting caught trying to kill Jim. This is just like the most recent time.

"Benefit of the Doubt" is a thing.

Where did you get that highlighted bit from?

Have any ballots they've already turned in been flagged? Or invalidated?

The exact wording of the stature matters to the discussion and questions about it where asked so I put the info out there neutrally, no more, no less.

There's not been a court order. There was a cease and desist letter to which the response is being evaluated.

Lavato performed this song on the Billboard Awards with different images in the background. The show's producers edited out the word VOTE from the ending shot.

It's a heart wrenching song.

The voter is supposed to know the person they are giving the ballot to. I don't believe any identifiers are required beyond that.

The mechanism here is violating the law in a way that gets those votes thrown out, which they can then cite as evidence that the election was rigged against them and the law is applied 'unevenly', or the votes get allowed in spite of the election law violation, which they can cite as evidence the election was insecure.

Either way, they can claim the election was invalid. It really isn't different than any government function that the GOP claims can't work, when the major reason it isn't working is they're sabotaging it.

Did you notice it said groups and organizations could collect the ballots as long as no one was paid?

How are the ballots being disqualified or thrown out? Why would the GOP collect GOP ballots that they believed would be invalidated?

For those of you who complained about my highlighted shouting, it got the conversation started where my foot stamping did not. At least people are thinking about the issue instead of only ranting unsupported assertions in an echo chamber.

In the exact way that has already been listed. By California law harvested ballots have to have the name of the person harvesting the ballot written on the ballot by the voter and certified by a witness. Those things can't happen with these boxes.

And the why is answered in the post you're quoting.

No it did not. People are largely repeating what they had already said in new and different ways for you to simply reject.

They can also use it as a Both Sides Are Bad argument if someone in a swing state invalidates a large number of Democratic ballots. The story would be "voter suppression allegations by both sides" and only below the fold will we see it described that the CA GOP was ordered to stop and warned repeatedly while the other guy just decided "screw this blue zip code in particular."

It's an unfortunate situation that what would be a ridiculous CT in other circumstances is worth considering here, because the only thing we know for sure about the intent of these illegal boxes is they're lying about whatever they say it is.

Oh, good. So we can expect more of the same whenever you aren't getting the attention you demand?

I went and looked it up. According to the California's Secretary of State's website:

https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/vot...tion/vote-mail

That section includes the name of the person, their relationship to you, and their signature. So if they drop it off in these collection boxes, how can they fill out the authorization section if they don't know who is going to be turning them in?

Granted, there's nothing physically preventing whoever is turning them in from filling out that section. But that'd be straight up fraud.

Where is that in the law? Joe M posted the law and I didn't see that in there. I could have missed it. Help me out.

The GOP or pastor or gun store owner could fill that out. Does it say the voter has to verify the person designated was designated by the voter?

From your link: I need to see one of the envelopes. We have to sign the outside envelope of our ballots too.

Let me look for an image. OK I looked at the envelope, (not easy to link to the pdf file). It says: Name of person designated to return the ballot
Their signature
Their relationship to you (the voter).

Since the law says a group or organization may be designated, all the GOP needs to do is properly label the drop boxes. From there a group rep can sign the envelope.

Good thing this thread will probably get a new continuation because the past couple of pages are a little off-topic. There’s probably a better place for nuts & bolts of what state parties are doing.

So to return to a more specifically Trumpism topic: He has sowed such confusion about mail-in voting that I don’t quite trust putting my ballot in the post. I want Biden to have a good showing on Election Day itself. Middle ground is to drop it off at an official county collection center. Trump has primed me to believe there will be problems so he has kind of “won” already.

Per California, those private boxes COULD be “tossed” then “found” to suggest Trump votes are being tossed. Since the GOP doesn’t need Trump votes there. Down ticket races, I don’t have enough info to evaluate the possibility. But the point IMO is to foster a widespread notion that any offsite voting is tainted.

:rolleyes:

When skeptics in a skeptics forum repeatedly repeat false facts, then yeah, I might shout again.

No, people are discussing the issues around the ballot drop boxes instead of repeating their outrage that the GOP in CA is nefariously trying to dump Democratic ballots or set up a scenario to falsely declare voter fraud.

Yeah, it should go in the 2020 election thread. Sorry, I was just following the flow.