a) some states are pure vote by mail. b) if you have the option of voting at home, that exact same abuser can make you exercise it.
I used to oppose VBM because of this. Now I see it as a trade off since there are also benefits that can outweigh the problems. But a person with their eyes open should not pretend that the problems don’t exist.
Which states? I am not aware of any that are solely vote by mail.
If you wanted to, it would be easy to screw up your ballot request. Throw it out when you get it, mess up the form, forget to sign, offer to take it to the post office and never mail it… Then it’s “oh no it never came, let’s just go vote in person”.
Yes, that is California. In the exact same paragraph, other states are listed which don’t offer the option. Oregon was the one that came to my mind immediately.
The issue is, having an option to do something the right way is not all that helpful. If there is an option to do it the wrong way, attackers (using “attacker” in the sense of computer security) will do what they can to make you use that option, so they can exploit it. Therefore, security systems should make doing the wrong thing impossible, rather than merely making the right thing possible.
Here’s one of the sources cited by that Wikipedia article:
Mostly-Mail Elections (aka Vote-by-Mail, All-Mail or Vote-at-Home Elections) What Are Mostly-Mail Elections? In mostly-mail elections, all registered voters are sent a ballot through the mail. The voter marks the ballot, puts it in a secrecy sleeve or envelope if required, places it in a separate mailing envelope, signs an affidavit on the exterior of the mailing envelope or otherwise provides verification of their identify and then returns the ballot via mail or by dropping it off at an approved return location.
Ballots are mailed out well ahead of Election Day, and thus voters have an “election period,” not just a single day, to vote. Mostly-mail elections can be thought of as absentee voting for everyone. This system is also referred to as “vote-by-mail” or all-mail ballot elections. While “mostly-mail elections” means that every registered voter receives a ballot by mail, this does not preclude in-person voting opportunities on or before Election Day. For example, even though all registered voters in Colorado are mailed a ballot, voters can choose instead to cast a ballot at an in-person vote center during the early voting period or on Election Day.
According to this, “All mail elections” are not different from “mostly mail” elections, and doesn’t preclude the use of in person voting.
Also
systems should make doing the wrong thing impossible
Please no, imo that’s an incredibly fucked line of reasoning
According to this, “All mail elections” are not different from “mostly mail” elections, and doesn’t preclude the use of in person voting.
You can’t vote in person in Oregon. There are no voting booths in the state. It is ALL done by mail, the way I heard it.
“Casting a ballot at a polling place” is not “voting in person”. I sometimes cast my own ballots (California) at polling places. That is, fill in the ballot at home, and drop it off at the polling station instead of mailing it. Voting in person means there is a physical voting booth that you enter, close the curtain, and THEN make your voting choices, in an environment where no one else can see them. Poll workers are supposed to make sure that nobody goes into the booth with you, with some exceptions for disabled people (there are similar exceptions for absentee voting in non-VBM states). It’s against the law to photograph your filled-in ballot inside the booth, though in the phone camera era that has become near impossible to enforce.
Please no, imo that’s an incredibly fucked line of reasoning
It is what you have to do in a secure system. Voting (like retail loss prevention) is of course a security vs convenience trade-off, so you might choose to allow the insecure approach at least some of the time. Again, a person with their eyes open has to be aware of all the issues and reach an informed conclusion. See:
Yeah, ok, that sucks. Oregon should still try to make actual polling locations available for people who need (or want) it.
I still don’t think that that’s a reason to abandon vote by mail altogether. The accessibility of it reduces the impact of other voting problems we have in the us overall.
I’m still going to push back hard on the idea that the system has to be 100% perfect. So long as humans are involved, that simply isn’t possible.
I’m not currently proposing abandoning VBM, I’m just saying people shouldn’t ignore the issue. A secret ballot is supposed to be one of the foundations of democracy and VBM doesn’t provide it the way a voting booth does. These days though, I would be scared of voting booths (at least where there are long lines) because of COVID. COVID is what kicked California over to near-universal VBM in 2019, after all.
People have studied and analyzed this stuff for centuries and it’s very easy to overlook things or make false assumptions if you just examine the immediate situation, without awareness of its long history. I’m not any kind of expert, but as a security nerd, I’ve seen the topic come up in that context.
Just going to preface this by saying that I absolutely do support vote by mail, it’s objectively a good thing
However, there’s a problem that should be considered in that it can create opportunities for coerced voting either within a household, or by requiring someone to send a photo of their form.
Where should a just and equal society draw the line, though? A person's partner can also use Life360 (or another app) to monitor their whereabouts and prohibit them from getting a job so they can't save up money to escape - does that mean we shouldn't have phones or that tracking apps should be restricted?
In a country like the US, where voting lines can literally be 8 hours long and employers don't have to pay you while you take time during the day to vote, can you guys afford to limit mail-in voting due to extremely specific scenarios in which abuse may occur?
It appears (from my position as someone who has not been in an abusive relationship) like we could more comprehensively tackle this issue with legislation that covers more situations that are directly coercive in nature (like your mail-in ballot being tampered with, regardless of your consent).
At the same time, I am a bit of an idiot, so I do genuinely want to read your perspective about how you think things should be. I am almost certainly not considering every avenue here, given that I lack first-hand experience with abusive relationships and have only really heard stories from friends and family (some of whom do have first- or second-hand experience).
does that mean we shouldn’t have phones or that tracking apps should be restricted?
It is not my intent to equate “x has problem y” with “x should not exist” very good systems can and do get abused and misused.
There’s a reason I started my comment with
Mail-in voting is objectively a good thing
All I’m saying is that maybe there should be a way for people to go back and override their votes (which admittedly could probably also be abused in some situations), or better yet, just better social safety nets to help people get out of those situations. I’m not suggesting I have all of the answers, just acknowledging that the person at the top of the thread raises a valid, if possibly overstated, concern.
See the discussion? VBM means you fill in your ballot at home, while your husband potentially watches. As opposed to voting with a secret ballot in a voting booth with the curtain closed.
I got put in silent lunch one time because I fell asleep during a guy describing his time in Japan as a teacher by my asshole homeroom teacher (she thought I was acting up because another teacher woke me up and she only saw that). That was unfair and I absolutely hated middle school, but this is a whole new level of fucked.
I worked for SkyWest over 10 years ago as a ground worker. I can’t even remember what they called their fake union (wouldn’t have been SkyWest Inflight Association) but yeah. We also had some “you don’t need a union, they’re bad” propaganda as part of our training.
Honestly, it was a pretty fun job as a college student but some of that stuff made me feel a little dirty
Edit: memory remembered SAFA, and Google says that stands for SkyWest Airlines Frontline Association. In hindsight, yeah, pretty bad.
That’s their money making model, target people who need mental Healthcare, tell them it’s not a mental health problem, it’s a spiritual problem, and they need to pay and participate in their religion and avoid mental Healthcare.
It was Hubbard’s favorite target. In all honestly, the treatment was pretty horrible and used indiscriminately in the past. It’s now used in much more focused and responsible ways when nothing else works.
so technically (historically) electro shock therapy has been used more akin to Pavlovian training. where as ECT is more along the lines of helping develop muscle mass or the ability to use them more effectively/efficiently as you can externally actuate them that way.
From what i understand, it’s really commonly used in physical therapy to help with that general line of work.
And you just know Texas lawmakers were fine with this because the right people got paid off to look the other way by Musk.
The dangers of mercury poisoning are well understood. We’re talking about insanity, paralysis and death. Nobody can pull a, “we had no idea” excuse. Google “Minimata Japan disaster” if you want to know what happens when a corporation poisons people with mercury for nearly 40 years.
The Advocate - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)Information for The Advocate:
> MBFC: Left - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
> Wikipedia about this source
The Guardian - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)Information for The Guardian:
> MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: Medium - Factual Reporting: Mixed - United Kingdom
> Wikipedia about this source
news
Active
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.