Pet Peeve number N+1

[Piotrsko]

Originally Posted by freebeard

If they consider the job more important than voting, they probably wouldn't make good choices if they did?

Suspect it's a bit tighter than that. Like 2 hours pay means you eat tonight.

Dead people don't vote unless they mailed their ballot in prior to expiration, which while that's suspect and prone to manipulation, how else you going to accomplish counting their wishes? The ballots here need a matching signature

Heart attack people are relatively fine one day, dead the next.

[redpoint5]

A vote by a dead person should not be counted, as they aren't around.

Voting age should probably be somewhere around 30, where most people should have learned that printing money doesn't magic wealth into existence.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by freebeard

If they consider the job more important than voting, they probably wouldn't make good choices if they did?

You are describing a poll tax. We used to be more direct about it - just charging a fee to cast a vote to discourage the poor from voting. Then a constitutional amendment banned the practice.

Today the preferred method is to make voting hours inconvenient and lines long for those you don't want to vote. The thing is the people making these changes are very open about the goal - they directly argued the fact in Supreme Court cases.

Eliminating Sunday voting in Georgia is one example. Black churches organized "Souls to the Polls" where they would take people to vote after Sunday church service. Participation went up but these new voters did not vote for the desired party, so the party that controlled the election process and didn't get more votes on Sunday eliminated Sunday voting.

In Georgia voting precincts that are 90% or more minority have voting wait times 8 times longer than Tuesday that those that are 90% or more white.

[freebeard]

You are describing a poll tax.

So the poll tax is in their head? I don't see the connection.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by freebeard

So the poll tax is in their head? I don't see the connection.

You said people that have to choose between working and voting would make poor choices anyway. You imply that anyone poor enough that they cannot afford to give up hours of work should not be allowed to vote - at least not the working poor.

No doubt the retired but poor would make good choices and should be encouraged to vote.

[freebeard]

The intended implication was that if they were to vote, as is their right, they would probably continue to vote for what's keeping them poor anyway.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the counting can pause in the middle of the night, a statistical anomaly/miracle occur, and the the result the next day be pronounced unimpeachable; no matter how they vote.

[Piotrsko]

That's pretty much what used to happen in Chicago and other "very fine" places. Pretty sure someone sued and got the local courts involved, and probably the Supremes eventually ruled on that process at least in Chicago


At what point does die ing invalidate your choice? We have very early voting by mail here in Nevada, suspect being dead on voting day happens often enough to have rules.

[freebeard]

I saw that Iowa used paper ballots and did the count on TV, but I can't find that source. Correct?

[JSH]

Originally Posted by freebeard

I saw that Iowa used paper ballots and did the count on TV, but I can't find that source. Correct?

I wouldn't call them ballots. It is just a slip of office paper that you write in any name you want. The are no security features like on a real paper ballot.



EDIT:
Also nothing to keep people from voting more than once - there is just some people walking around collecting the slips of paper in paper bags




No, they didn't do all the counting on TV.

If you want a secure election this isn't the way to do it.

[freebeard]

Election ink
Electoral ink, indelible ink, electoral stain or phosphoric ink is a semi-permanent ink or dye that is applied to the forefinger of voters during elections in order to prevent electoral fraud such as double voting. Wikipedia

Primaries are weird.