- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
The US Postal Service effort to develop a sweeping new system for verifying mail ballots has invited a host of IT concerns among agency officials, with some describing the process internally as a “sh*t show,” according to a new whistleblower report released Tuesday by a Democratic senator.
The unnamed whistleblower is alleging that some of the procedures USPS is planning – under mandates put forward by President Donald Trump – have been hidden from the public. Those procedures will make an already complicated and risky plan even more vulnerable to potential mass disenfranchisement, the whistleblower says.
The new report – which was assembled by the whistleblowers’ lawyers and released by Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal – comes as multiple courts are considering the legality of the proposal, which would require that states submit to USPS lists of their mail-in voters. The agency will not deliver ballots for states if there are any discrepancies between the voter information in the USPS system and what’s picked up by agency scanners on the envelopes of the ballots.
The big benefit of mail in voting is that I don’t need to prepare in advance of going to the polls, or stand in a big line. I can sit down with my ballot at the kitchen table and read about issues or candidates as I fill it in. Once I’ve finished at my leisure, I take the ballot sealed in the return envelope and drop it off at a nearby polling place - most libraries are great for this and have drop boxes at the ready for a few weeks leading up to Election Day.
Even if I procrastinate to the last minute I can drop the sealed ballot at an in-person polling place on Election Day without waiting in the big line. Mail-in voting is still excellent even if you cut USPS out of the picture for the return portion. Maybe better to call it Mail-Out Voting and make that the standard.
Unless you’re out of state on deployment. Good luck getting Hegseth’s military to deliver any ballots.
Hard agree with loving the vote-by-mail process, especially given the complexity of California ballots. But it sounds like they’re messing with getting our ballots mailed out to us in the first place. That means we would have to show up and vote a provisional ballot in person. Blargh.
State could sue but not until the harm was done.
Hmm, I guess you’re right. I guess I expected it to be on the return trip so that voters think they were successful and don’t follow up.
If everyone is forced to vote provisionally, then not only will turnout be low, there will all sorts of further lies about how the provisional process is fraudulent.
I believe you can print at home. This is how it works in WA and I’ve heard CA has a similar deal. There’s no need to use the postal service at all.
That’s exactly the same for me. My ballot gets tracked from pick up to counting, and I can view my voting history online anytime.