The fly in the ointment keeping me awake at night

The election is about a week away now. More absentee ballots have already come in than in any historic election, and early numbers are promising for Democrats. Trump is behind by double digits at the national level and is behind in the swing states Trump "must" get to win the election. By all accounts, Biden is in far better shape than Clinton was in the weeks leading up to the election, and even though he doesn't elicit tons of enthusiasm, it doesn't appear that many Democrats or independents hate him the way they did Clinton. A landslide, both in popular votes and the electoral college, are not impossibilities. Trump has far fewer potential "paths to victory" than Biden does.

But one potential bump in the road is the high percentage of people who are incapable of following simple directions, even when the stakes are very high. Over a million ballots could be rejected because of errors that range from failing to sign, to using the wrong color ink, to not including the envelope to not getting a witness signature (in states that require them). It could even go higher, given that some people are inconsistent in signatures, and there could be a great deal of subjectivity in deciding which signatures match. Many states do not notify voters whose ballots were rejected, and some don't even make it all that easy to check in and see if the ballot was received and counted before the election day.

https://www.theledger.com/in-depth/...jected-major-factor-2020-election/5930016002/

I kind of think a million could be an optimistic number, especially if election officials in some states decide to be hardass about absentee ballots (knowing that more will likely be Democratic). I understand the argument that if someone can't follow simple instructions they should face the consequences, but I also know that people are ultimately inconsistent and careless in ways that sometimes boggles understanding. And let's face it, not all voters are equally good at reading and processing instructions (often through no fault of their own).

I teach college students, and no matter how I try to break down the steps for a lab exercise or homework assignment, there are always students who stand with their mouths open, incapable of reading the instructions or of processing them. Even worse are the ones who forge ahead while misunderstanding the instructions, and so they mess things up.

Okay, an absentee ballot isn't a lab exercise, and the instructions are usually pretty basic: use a black or blue pen, sign your ballot envelope, and (in some states) use the inner envelope and maybe get a witness to sign as well. But every semester, in a class of 40 or more people, someone, often more than one someone, forgets to put their name on the final exam (when there's no easy way for me to track down the owner of the exam if more than one person forgets). This is with me walking around the room nagging them and reminding them to put their name on the essay form and the scan tron form! And there are at least a dozen different ways people mess up on following exam (or ballot) instructions, such as using pens on scan tron forms in classes and using pencils or red ink on ballot forms or whatever.

As a teacher, I always tell my students they will fail the test if the scan tron refuses to mark their answers (because they didn't use the requisite #2 pencil), but I always relent and hand grade the things (cursing the student and all their ancestors under my breath as I do so). Election officials are unlikely to be as forgiving (even if they don't have a political agenda).

One thing I wish Biden and others would do more is remind people to slow down when filling out their ballots--double check, even triple check the instructions. And if they have trouble understanding them, have a friend of family member help them, or call the election office. It's not enough to vote. You've got to vote carefully and follow instructions to a tee, even to the point of getting your driver's license out and studying the way you signed it so your signature on the ballot looks the same.

It scares me that the future of our democracy could be in the hands of those people who forget to put their name on their final exams or who use the wrong writing implement on "bubble in" forms!

neandermagnon said:

In the UK, each candidate and two representatives of each candidate get to review spoiled ballots and they all have to agree they are actually spoiled and not someone trying to vote for a particular candidate, before it's counted as a spoiled ballot. Technically speaking if you put a tick instead of an x that's a spoiled ballot, but it'll get counted because the candidate you voted for will insist it's an attempt to vote for a candidate and not a spoiled ballot. For your ballot to count as spoiled, you have to really fail spectacularly at voting or deliberately spoil it.

Click to expand...

This system has definite merit. It's possible some states have something like this in place. In the US, elections have always been in the hands of the states, barring Constitutional proclamations about suffrage, the Voting Rights Act, and various SCOTUS rulings about whether or not the Constitution and Voting Rights Act are being enforced properly in a given state.

The only thing, given how biased our system is, no ballots would be declared spoiled unless they were so badly damaged that they were illegible. Which is really how it should be, right? If you can tell who the person was voting for, and the person is eligible to vote, then the vote should count, even if there is a coffee stain or they only ticked the box instead of filling it in. But when one's own party controls a given state, the legislature and election commission would be unlikely to favor a system that gives the other party a fair shake.

Wish I'd been wrong, and Biden had won in a landslide that was apparent on election night AND the current administration had enough respect for our electoral process to concede gracefully.

But no. He's going to have to be dragged from the White House kicking and screaming like "toddler Trump" in that Comedy Central Video. Sigh.

And I'm praying there's nothing there that is remotely irregular, because while I don't think even a conservative SCOTUS will hear, let alone rule in favor of, a case that has no legal grounds at all, they would be far more likely to rule in his favor in a situation that is murkier or less clear (just as the court ruled along party lines (5-4) in favor of Bush in 2000).

But the thing that really saddens me is that this is yet another sign of how bad things have gotten in this country. Because it's not only Trump. Most Republicans appear to be behind him, and members of his administration are all in with this attempt to undermine our Democracy. The whole process feels like being gaslit, which is something I am very sensitive to personally for, well, personal reasons. It's a tactic beloved by abusers, and others have noted over the past four years how this administration uses many of the same tactics.

The GOP blocked attempts by PA to change their election rules so they could start processing mail-in ballots before the election (as many other states do). But now they are insisting the fact that PA had to count mail-in ballots for days before the results were clear in Philadelphia County (by far the most populous in the state) somehow invalidates all those mail in ballots. It's crazymaking.

Saddest of all is the fact that our country is so divided that most GOP voters seem to accept these arguments and are angrily rejecting any arguments or evidence of GOP duplicity in this. They are so far down the "alternative facts" rabbit hole that they are angrily dismissing the press for claiming that the Trump administration's claims have been baseless thus far.

It's just emotionally exhausting to be on edge all the time, always worrying, always wondering, occasionally being crushed when I discover someone I've known (and liked) for years has bought into this crap. I try to remember that the victims in abusive relationships often fiercely defend their abusers, so I should pity them, even when their political Stockholm syndrome endangers all of us and our entire system of government. But it's exhausting...