The Left's Attack on the Secret Ballot and on Same Day Voting

Mail in voting over a period of weeks with drop boxes eliminates the secret ballot, and the need for everyone to vote on the same day, with the same headlines in mind, and not over the period of a month.

Using the the Covid pandemic as an excuse, the Left in 2020 massively changed the way presidential elections are held in this country. Whereas previously the secret ballot and same day voting was the norm, and one needed an excuse to get an absentee ballot, suddenly the Left declared it was essential to switch to mail in voting, for any reason at all, over a period of many weeks.

Swarms of Democratic vote canvassers knocked on the doors of thousands of people who had not yet voted "by mail" and offered to "help" them "make their vote count". Ballots were filled in by voters at home. possibly with canvassers or family members, "observing" how each person voted. Canvassers then "offered" to deliver the "harvested ballots" to "drop boxes" saving voters the trouble of turning them in themselves. The net result was that Donald Trump got more votes in Pennsylvania in 2020 than Barack Obama had in either 2008 or in 2012, but he still fell 80,555 votes short of Joe Biden because "mail-in" voting with no secret ballot and canvassers conveying your ballot for you to the polls or a drop box was such a hit.

In 2008, Barack Obama got 3,276,363 votes for President in Pennsylvania. In 2012, Barack Obama got 2,990,274 votes for President in Pennsylvania. In 2020, Donald Trump topped both of Obama's vote numbers in 2008 and in 2012 by getting 3,377,674 votes for President in Pennsylvania. Donald Trump exceeded Barack Obama's 2008 vote total in Pennsylvania by 101,311 votes.  Trump "lost" the "counted vote" in Pennsylvania in 2020 by 80,555 because Joe Biden got an "astonishing" 3,458,229 votes in Pennsylvania in 2020.

I do not myself believe that there was fraud in the counting of ballots or voting machine malfunctions. I do believe, however, that the unprecedented use of mail in voting over a period of many weeks, with the loss of the secret ballot, and drop boxes, produced a fundamentally illegitimate Biden victory in 2020 in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. I simply do not believe that in an honestly held traditionally run presidential election that Joe Biden would get 181,866 more votes for President in 2020 in Pennsylvania than Barack Obama got in 2008.

As a result, many Republicans, myself included, thought that the 2020 presidential election was probably stolen, even though that fact could not be proved in a court of law. President Trump himself did not claim right after the election that mail in voting and the loss of the secret ballot had altered the vote count in the 2020 election. He waited for two weeks and asked for hopeless recounts instead. No recount in Pennsylvania was ever going to erase an 80,555 Biden lead in votes counted at the polls. The margins Trump lost by in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Arizona were simply too big to change after endless recounts. Some Republicans, including me, therefore acquiesced in Joe Biden taking office because we thought we had to do that to preserve a facade of democracy absent concrete proof of vote fraud.  But deep down in our guts we thought that Joe Biden's campaign had probably won with dirty tricks, although that could not proved in a court of law.

We did not side with President Trump on January 6, 2021 because we did not want the GOP controlled state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona to declare Trump re-elected given the returns at the polls. The question was what outcome was worse for our democracy? Going by the vote count on Election Day or letting state legislators pick the President, which had never before been done in American history. Reluctantly, we went along with allowing Joe Biden to be crowned the winner based on the vote count on election day, but we felt then and will always feel that Biden may well have been an illegitimate President.

We disapproved of Trump's behavior on January 6, 2021, not because his claim of election fraud was wrong, but because he as President did not articulate this claim in anything remotely resembling  a compelling way nor did he call on his supporters to forgo violence in the way of a Martin Luther King or a Mahatma Gandhi, and as a result five people died in a riot. The election fraud that wrongly cost Trump his victory in 2020 was caused by mail in voting, drop boxes for ballots, and the loss of the secret ballot. President Trump's mistake was in not complaining much more loudly before the vote was counted that the rules of the game had been rigged against him to produce an undemocratic outcome.

Biden said as a candidate in 2020 that he was a moderate liberal, but he proceeded to govern like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren except for the refusal of two brave Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, to go along with that nonsense. Manchin and Sinema will both be booted out of the Senate come January 3, 2025, as a result. Biden said as a candidate that he would depoliticize the criminal justice process. Instead, his Department of Justice has used an unconstitutionally appointed Special Prosecutor to indict former President Donald Trump -- the first time in history that a former President has been indicted. Hillary Clinton was given a pass on the misuse of classified documents, but not so Donald Trump. Biden's Democrats even got Trump unconstitutionally convicted for altering business records to conceal the Trump Organization's involvement in First Amendment protected speech in a New York State trial that was truly a charade.

We are now about to choose again between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in a presidential election year - 2024 - which is totally free of the fears of infection in public places caused by Covid. Here are three things we should insist on: 1) a return to truly secret ballots cast in polling booths with the curtain shut behind the voter; 2) no use of drop boxes, and 3) that everyone votes on the same day, with the same headlines in mind, and not over the period of a month.

The loss of the secret ballot, the use of drop boxes, and of same day voting is a huge change in our democracy, which ought to be abandoned now that Covid is gone. You cannot fill out a ballot at home in most cases without your family members knowing how you voted and that means the sudden loss of the secret ballot. Partisan canvassers may also observe how people vote, intimidating them and undermining their independence.

The secret ballot is of central importance in elections, especially when candidates generate the passionate feelings of hatred that are generated by Donald Trump and Joe Biden. This is a hatred that pits family members and even long-time friends against one another sometimes ruining long-cherished relationships. If ever, there was to be a presidential election for which the secret ballot was essential, it is this year's rematch between President Trump and Joe Biden.

It is equally important that all Americans vote on the same day, after the same news cycle, with the same information before them. Ballots arriving by mail day after day, after Election Day, discourages confidence that an election has been fair. If you are in the military or have some other good reason for needing an absentee ballot, you should be allowed to have one. But, if we want elections the outcomes of which people have confidence in, we simply have to return to our traditional system of the secret ballot, no use of drop boxes, and same day voting. Otherwise, our democracy is doomed.

[UPDATE 6/8/24 19:25 pm: This post was corrected, to further make clear that the concern is about influence on voters rather than fraud in the counting of votes or vote machine error; see the post above.]

Comments

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, it's true. All those ad hoc changes to election procedures were enough to have swung the election. And it was too late after the fact to do anything but make sure it never happens again: No court was going to invalidate a Presidential election.

Nothing left at this point but to hope the GOP takes power in Washington and locks down our elections going forward.

And I'm not optimistic on either score.

[AmosArch]

Mail in ballots are inherently far more prone to fraud than traditional ballots. Your teenage niece can fill out your ballot and drop it off. Joe Blow in charge of a bunch of mentally disabled people can fill out their ballots for whoever he wishes and drop them off and nobody would be the wiser. Along with ballot harvesting which turns elections from people voting to teams competing to harvest the most votes the Dems have turned elections into who can manipulate the vote gathering and tallying mechanisms the most which they are masters at of course.

[Riva]

So inherently prone to fraud that France largely abandoned them decades ago. And the NY Times editorialized against them when they were mostly military ballots that didn't favor democrats. Now we augment the fraud potential with the failure to scrutinize voter registration or the ballot itself, fail to maintain voter rolls, and in some jurisdictions allow ballot harvesting and unmonitored drop boxes. As long as Democrats believe they benefit from any fraud, they will never support common sense reforms to secure the integrity of the ballot. Together with the lawfare, we're well down the banana republic road.

[jdgalt1]

People stealing another's ballot out of his mailbox and filling it in aren't the half of the cheating that mail balloting enables. In Pennsylvania, postal employees arranged to enable millions of nonexistent voters to register at nonexistent addresses and have the ballots diverted to mass operations to fill them out and deliver them to officials in the middle of the night. When any precinct tallies more ballots than registered voters, all its votes need to be disqualified, followed by investigation and then a new election.

But it wasn't done because election officials were paid off by Soros, Zuckerberg, and even Burisma.

We are approaching the point where the system cannot repair its own credibility and must be replaced as happened in 1787.

[Kolyin]

Pretty astonishing that there were millions of fraudulent votes but no evidence.

Or, alternatively, you're pushing an inane conspiracy theory and urging us to reject democracy because of it.

One of the least impressive things about Trump is that he inspires this kind of bell end instead of serious thinkers and moral people.

[Brett Bellmore]

"but no evidence" IS kind of the whole point of breaking chain of custody. Once you eliminate the possibility of proving fraud, you eliminate any basis for demanding that the absence of evidence be treated as evidence of absence.

[David Nieporent]

No, Brett. You don't need "chain of custody," whatever you're using that phrase to mean, to detect if millions of nonexistent people were registered or millions of extra ballots were cast, as jdgalt lied about.

[Riva]

Putting aside that voting rolls are hardly free of error and that there is considerable evidence of fraud (although its full scope is debatable), one doesn’t need absolutely proof of anything to take reasonable precautions to secure the integrity of the ballot. Democrats make absurd objections to any measure to secure the ballot. I wonder why?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

You haven't heard what Trump is now saying about mail-in ballots, have you?

"Republicans must win and we will use every appropriate tool to beat the Democrats because they are destroying our country," Trump said in a statement launching the initiative.

"Whether you vote absentee, by mail, early in-person or on election day, we are going to protect the vote."

[Riva]

One has to win an election to be in a position to implement change. So obvious a point I guess I assumed even the TDS afflicted would understand. And to win an election, republicans have to work in the unfortunate reality democrat pukes have created.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

No one really expects MAGARINOs to have any principles, anyway.

[David Nieporent]

There is, of course, no evidence of fraud. If you'd stop with the delusional/dishonest rhetoric and just stick with, "These particular proposals would promote confidence in elections while not imposing a substantial burden on anyone," you might have a few takers. I think banning ballot harvesting is a good idea, for instance, and I have no objection to voter ID laws — but if one is going to try to sell them with wild-eyed accusations of fraud (but only by The Other Side, of course), then one is not arguing in good faith.

(N.B. saying that one supports "reasonable" precautions is meaningless; everyone calls his or her own proposals "reasonable." ("Reasonable" gun safety regulations by anti-gun-rights activists, for instance.))

[Nige]

'There's no proof of fraud, therefore fraud is impossible to prove!'

[Sarcastr0]

Ad hoc is really showing your ass.

You don't trust institutions you don't personally agree with, to the point you pretend they do not exist.

[AmosArch]

After 2016 the media was filled with stories of how Russia 'hacked' the election for Trump and how sinister corporations like Cambridge Analytica manipulated the levers in the same way they had previously praised the 'tech savvy' obama campaign for (after fearmongering election tech even earlier during Bush, remember Diebold?). Then come 2020 the election mechanisms/tech were suddenly airtight and unassailable again. And if you questioned it (like they did in 2016) you were a wild eyed election denier not worthy of discussion.

[Sarcastr0]

You compare actual evidence of actions with carping about hypothetical actions to complain about procedure.

[damikesc]

...except there was no actual evidence. You just agreed with the wild conspiracy theories.

[Sarcastr0]

Cambridge Analytica was a thing that happened. Russian hacking was a thing that happened.

Meanwhile on the other side Amos has nothing to mention really. Diebold is the best fit, and that's from the turn of the century.

[Frank Drackman]

The “Russian Hacking” was just releasing Hilary Rodman’s E-mails so everyone could see what an anti semitic Bee-otch she was, as if anyone needed more evidence

Frank

[Don Nico]

That is a mighty weak defence of voting procedures that have no justification except for your partisan views.
Other, more democratic countries don't buy your kool-aid.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Maybe next time, you can address his actual argument, rather than just insult him. Butt your honesty in admitting you have no arguments is appreciated.

https://rosebyanyothernameblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/grahams-hierarchy-of-disagreement-flat.png

[Sarcastr0]

Ad-hoc is load-bearing to Brett's thesis about the courts part in the 2020 election being bad so vote Republican.

[Brett Bellmore]

My thesis is that you couldn't expect the courts to fix a Presidential election after the fact. And they largely dropped the ball on enforcing election laws up front, where they weren't actually complicit.

The judiciary are hugely too forgiving of procedural violations during claimed 'emergencies'. Covid had ceased being an emergency long before the 2020 elections. Once the legislature ihas been in session, and had an opportunity to address a situation, any excuse for allowing 'emergency' measures is gone.

[Sarcastr0]

Nothing is broken, Brett. No one dropped the ball. The judiciary acted well during an actual emergency that was absolutely still going on in the 2020 elections.

It's till on BrettLaw - you don't like the court decisions therefore it's all ad hoc and illegitimate.

[Savagely Average]

Hey — if I got utterly beaten and humiliated on a national stage I’d probably be I g crying “fraud” too.

[David Nieporent]

Well, it’s true.

Well, no, it's not. For one thing, you're trying to engraft your hobby horse onto an insane rambling post. He's not talking about "ad hoc changes to election procedure." He's talking about changes to election procedure, whether "ad hoc" or statutory or judicially imposed. For example, Pennsylvania, which he focuses on, permitted no excuse absentee voting as the result of a law passed in 2019 by the (GOP controlled) legislature.

For another, he dishonestly conflates fraud with, well, things that aren't fraud, like mail in voting or early voting..

[myself]

So you think there was fraud then? Ok then, lay it out, and be specific.

How exactly did they generate those 10s, 100s of thousands of extra Biden votes?

How did they generate absentee ballots?
How did they get the signatures?
How did they make sure the supposed voter hadn't voted already?
How many people were involved?
How did they avoid any leaks?

Do you have a theory that makes any sense?

[jimc5499]

"How exactly did they generate those 10s, 100s of thousands of extra Biden votes?"

I can only speak for Pennsylvania because that's where I live. Philadelphia had some precincts reporting over 100% voter turnout, with out a single Republican vote. A statistical impossibility.
How did they generate absentee ballots?
I moved in 2020. Because of COVID most State offices were closed. When I went to change my address on my driver's license online, I was asked if I wanted to change my address on my Voter Registration. I got 6 mail in ballots. 3 for my new address and 3 for my old address. There were variations on my name. James L. XXXXXXX (the name I registered under) J. XXXXXXX and J.L. XXXXXXX for each address. My Mother used to live with me. We had the same polling place. She voted in the 2012 election, she died in 2010. I complained and her name was removed from the rolls, how many others were not?

"How did they get the signatures?"

Signatures were never checked. The inner envelopes containing the ballot with signatures on them were supposed to have been kept with the ballot for verification. They were destroyed in violation of State Law.

"How did they make sure the supposed voter hadn’t voted already?"

See above.
"How many people were involved?"
I don't know. The majority of Poll workers in Pennsylvania are volunteers or only work the Election. Procedures were changed by the Governor and the Secretary of State in violation of the State Constitution. It is entirely possible that very few people knew what was going on. They were following the instructions that they were given.

"How did they avoid any leaks?"

Easiest one of all. See above for some of it. The media. The MSM and Social Media belittled and ridiculed anyone who questioned the Election. They love throwing out that all of the lawsuits were thrown out by the Courts. None of the lawsuits were ever heard by a Court. They were denied because of a "lack of standing". Basically the Court said "We don't want to be bothered by this. Go away."

[myself]

"I can only speak for Pennsylvania because that’s where I live. Philadelphia had some precincts reporting over 100% voter turnout, with out a single Republican vote. A statistical impossibility."

Extraordinary claims require a citation.

"My Mother used to live with me. We had the same polling place. She voted in the 2012 election, she died in 2010. I complained and her name was removed from the rolls, how many others were not?"

An impossible to check personal anecdote. Things like that have happened but they're generally a close family member.

"Signatures were never checked. The inner envelopes containing the ballot with signatures on them were supposed to have been kept with the ballot for verification. They were destroyed in violation of State Law."

Again, I searched a bit and couldn't find any reference, citation?

And it sounds like even if you got multiple mail-in ballots you still couldn't vote multiple times.

It is entirely possible that very few people knew what was going on.

You suggested it's been going on since 2012, so a conspiracy going almost 10 years without leaks?

None of the lawsuits were ever heard by a Court. They were denied because of a “lack of standing”. Basically the Court said “We don’t want to be bothered by this. Go away.”

No, the lawsuits were thrown out because they were nonsense. They were ridiculous claims that had no evidence, or complaints that wouldn't change the outcome, or conspiracy theories that never made sense.

For instance, you've given a bunch of responses, but I still don't see what exactly you think happened.

Did they use the votes of dead people en-mass? That would have been pretty easily detectable.

Did they fraudulently use the votes of living people? Then why didn't those people get caught for voting twice?

Did they fake-register thousands of people with slightly misspelled names? Again, big risk of being caught for voting twice.

Remember, to swing an election you need thousands of votes, so whatever scheme you invent you need to do it at scale and it needs to evade detection even under significant scrutiny.

[jimc5499]

"Extraordinary claims require a citation."
I could look up the items that I cited. There's nothing that I mentioned that I haven't commented on before.
I just don't think that you are worth me wasting my time over.
This statement pretty much answers why.

"No, the lawsuits were thrown out because they were nonsense. They were ridiculous claims that had no evidence, or complaints that wouldn’t change the outcome, or conspiracy theories that never made sense."

None of the lawsuits, ever made it to Court. No evidence was presented and no testimony was ever presented. So how do you justify your statement? You can't. All you are doing is repeating what you have heard in the MSM and on Social Media. You already have your mind made up and nothing I can say will change it. You are just another "useful idiot".

[myself]

"I could look up the items that I cited. There’s nothing that I mentioned that I haven’t commented on before.
I just don’t think that you are worth me wasting my time over.
This statement pretty much answers why."

I spent a few minutes looking up both the claims I highlighted and couldn't find anything. AFAIK you're just repeating some rumours.

"None of the lawsuits, ever made it to Court. No evidence was presented and no testimony was ever presented. So how do you justify your statement? You can’t. All you are doing is repeating what you have heard in the MSM and on Social Media. You already have your mind made up and nothing I can say will change it. You are just another “useful idiot”."

I justify it by looking at the facts.

If you want to know why those cases generally (not exclusively) failed here's a quote

"Costantino v. City of Detroit (3d Jud. Ct. Wayne Cnty. Nov. 13, 2020) – In denying the plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction, the court found that the plaintiffs’ claims of fraud would unlikely prevail on the merits. The court noted that many plaintiffs failed to include crucial information in their allegations, such as locations of alleged misconduct, frequency of alleged misconduct, names of those involved in alleged misconduct, and so on. Overall, the court found the plaintiffs’ claims of fraud to be speculative, filled with “guess-work,” and often unsubstantiated. Moreover, defendants provided a sufficient amount of evidence to convince the court that they had acted within the law. This decision was affirmed by the Michigan Court of Appeals on Nov. 16, 2020, and by the Michigan Supreme Court on Nov. 23, 2020."

Basically what I've been saying all along, they walked in with an allegation of fraud but no actual evidence of that fraud or even a coherent theory of what supposedly happened.

[David Nieporent]

None of the lawsuits, ever made it to Court. No evidence was presented and no testimony was ever presented.

Setting aside that your first sentence and your second sentence mean different things, both sentences are wrong. It's true that some lawsuits were tossed for lack of standing (which is not the same as not making it to court), but other lawsuits took testimony and reviewed affidavits submitted by the parties. And in every one of them, the suits were rejected because the evidence was not credible and/or didn't prove what the plaintiffs claimed it proved. (For example, someone saying, "I saw a truck parked behind the building" does not prove anything.)

[bernard11]

All your objection amounts to is that a lot of people voted who you would have preferred had stayed home.

That's all.

It's transparent crap.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

There's also the faith-based belief that Joe Biden COULD NOT HAVE WON, "campaigning from his basement".

[David Nieporent]

These people confuse politics with a reality tv show. They think the size of the audience for the show is relevant. Since Biden didn't stage big rallies, people couldn't have been supporting him.

[Kazinski]

Vigilance and making sure proper procedures are followed is all to the good, but this seems to be the last elections battle.

Trump launches effort to promote mail voting ahead of November

I would like to see legislation that requires a signed chain of custody statement for possession of any ballot other than an immediate family member or someone that legally lives in the same household, or a year in jail, at least for unauthorized possession of a ballot, and more of course if there is fraud.

[Brett Bellmore]

In modern America convenience is always going to win over ballot security. The fight to restore the old rules being hopeless, Trump wants the GOP to retool to win under the new rules.

[Sarcastr0]

It's hard to see your beef as being about security since the main thing you hit on is how your contempt for it being easier to vote.

And hand-waiving about 'the old rules' is not doing you any favors on where your emphasis is.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I suppose modern America's concern about a secret ballot is problematic. Let's be more open, like our forefathers, about who we vote for.

[damikesc]

"It’s hard to see your beef as being about security since the main thing you hit on is how your contempt for it being easier to vote."

You can say "I do not agree with how this is" while also acknowledging that things are how they are.

There should be a two day voting period as a required holiday. No early voting. Documented extensive need for an absentee ballot and specific people who are to collect them (not just via mail).

But that is not how it is. So you go with the rules as they are, not how you wish them to be.

Plenty of baseball managers oppose the DH. They still put a DH in their lineup, however.

[Sarcastr0]

I think your suggestion is not at all outside of the bounds of reasonable discussion.

Insisting we do it your way or the election is illegitimate? That's not a reasonable discussion to have.

[David Nieporent]

There should be a two day voting period as a required holiday. No early voting.

When you claim you're worried about fraud with mail-in voting, but your proposed solution is to end early voting, you kind of give yourself away. Early voting is conducted in-person at voting precincts; it has the same parameters as election day voting. The GOP beef with it seems to be nothing more than that it makes it easier to vote.

[Don Nico]

The beef is about procedures that are highly vulnerable to de facto vote fraud or manipulation.

[bernard11]

No Don.

That's the cover story. Don't be gullible.

Remember when it was made illegal to give bottled water to voters standing in long lines in GA? Nothing to do with fraud. Just outright suppression.

[Malika the Maiz]

You got your wish in Pennsylvania in 2020.

https://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/Supreme/out/J-97-2020pco%20-%20104548480113068412.pdf?cb=1

[not guilty]

"The election fraud that wrongly cost Trump his victory in 2020 was caused by mail in voting, drop boxes for ballots, and the loss of the secret ballot."

This is a load of evidence free speculation from Professor Calabresi. Is anyone surprised?

Anyone who chooses to vote by secret ballot can easily do so.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

It's too bad there is no chain of custody or ballot verification to prove him wrong!

[not guilty]

The burden of proving voting irregularities is on the proponent of the claim.

[Jester Naybor]

Compromises in the election processes – junk-mail voting, hasty changes in election rules, and irregular activity in counting the votes; perpetrated by judges, governors and other unauthorized parties in haste in a crisis-not-to-waste – taint an election as much as bad police procedure taints courtroom evidence that leads to its exclusion …

… and the government, as opposed to its individual operatives, does not qualify for the presumption of innocence.

Such compromises are all the evidence that is needed, that an election can’t be trusted

The burden of proof is not on challengers to produce examples of fraud; it is on election officials to assure that no fraud – detected or undetected – has significantly impacted the results.

This is where process matters. Adherence to logically-conceived processes that assure that:

Only votes from eligible voters.
One vote each.
Personally cast by each voter.

are accepted and accurately tabulated, meets that burden of proof. Deviations from those processes render meeting that burden of proof impossible in a system where the secret ballot (rightly) does not include identifying information once cast.

It is the job of the government conducting an election, to prove that the election was on the up-and-up. And “because we say so” is not sufficient.

[Sarcastr0]

Ever heard how you can't prove a negative? That's the first reason your 'assume my conspiracy' thesis is problematic, but it is not the only reason!

[Jester Naybor]

You can follow proper process, as an equivalent to proving the negative. The processes used in 2020 had significant vulnerabilities that made them improper.

Again, the government does not enjoy the presumption of innocence, o submissive acolyte of social technocracy.

[Sarcastr0]

This burden shifting is really just subjectivity on parade.
Proper is ever moving depending on what outcome you want, and which you want to challenge.

E.g. to the OP, it just doesn't feel proper for Trump to lose.

So no, you need to do a lot more work than say 'it's on the government to convince me there is no conspiracy by adopting my personal take on what voting should require.'

Plus the usual franchise restriction based on ease of voting. If there's a pandemic or you are poor, you should have to sacrifice to vote or else you don't want it enough I guess.
I'm not saying ease of access is the only thing that matters, but you need to look at the costs as well as the benefits of what you're arguing for.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Calabresi objects to mail-in voting because it enables Democrats to bypass one of Republicans' most effective voter suppression techniques—to limit the number and accessibility of polling places in Democratic-tending areas. Waiting in hours-long lines for Democrats; numerous, convenient and accessible polling places for Republicans. That's what Calabresi wants. If he were sharper, he would add Souls-to-the-Polls to his anathema.

[Michael P]

There was a huge push for people to vote by mail rather than in person in 2020, and as a result lots of places became vulnerable to the kind of corrupt ballot harvesting revealed by Cynthia Harris in Florida.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

I noticed a lack of evidence in your assertion. Coincidence? Nah.

[Kazinski]

I guess you've forgotten the pandemic already. There absolutely was a push for mail in voting in 2020.

And no I'm not going to look it up for you.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

I expect too much of you.

“…as a result lots of places became vulnerable to the kind of corrupt ballot harvesting revealed by Cynthia Harris in Florida.”

Google that and tell me how much evidence you find, then evaluate that 'evidence.'

[David Nieporent]

By "revealed," you mean "alleged without evidence," right? She made these claims several years ago. Has Ron DeSantis's voting fraud task force arrested or prosecuted anyone for it?

[Kazinski]

I am absolutely for mail in voting, in fact I will be out of state for Arizona's primary election July 30, and even if I wasn't I'd rather mail in my vote than go out during the day when it's 115.

But what they also need to do is have a 1 year minimum sentence for unauthorized possession of a ballot, and require a signed custody log on the outside of the ballot.

If someone is dropping 20 ballots in the dropbox and any of the ballots lacks signatures giving custody to that person, then they go to jail.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Sure, pass a law. It won't make any difference.

[not guilty]

Don't like voting by mail? That's fine. Don't vote by mail.

[Don Nico]

"Anyone who chooses to vote by secret ballot can easily do so."
you know better than to accept that sophism.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Steve's argument is that there has been a "loss of the secret ballot". Are you calling him a liar?

[santamonica811]

Shorter Calabresi:
"Trump got a bunch more votes than Obama did in the past. This was totally legit.
Biden got a bunch more votes than Obama did, and a bunch more than Trump managed to get in that same election. This was totally bullshit, and is evidence that Biden's win in that state was illegitimate."

Not sure what to say about Calabrisi. Yeah, the good and reliable--and accurate--"whore" is always available. But maybe it's not the right term. "Fucking asshole?" Too generic. "Amoral piece of shit?" Well, we're getting closer. "Waste of sperm and egg?" No...that's worse...we're getting back to too generic.

I'm open to suggestions.

[Jester Naybor]

How about “knowledgeable”?

As in, knowing that the popular vote you refer to is not how we elect Presidents. The election was decided by a relative-few votes in a few urban centers dominated by Trump’s moral-relativist opponents, which tipped the balance of the Electoral College. The accuracy and integrity of the voting in those centers is what is in question here.

The Electoral College not only assures that our governance is perpetually dominated by those urban centers, it promotes diversity of thought by limiting their power over the entire nation.

Are you against such diversity?

If so, you might be an acolyte of our new theocracy that sees their gods in their mirrors.

#AmericanInquisition

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You figure voting in half-educated, bigoted, shambling, parasitic backwaters is less reliable and accurate than voting in properly educated, modern, educated, accomplished communities?

By how many million of votes did Pres. Biden outpoll former Pres. (and current convict and serial defendant) Trump, you right-wing hayseed?

[Jester Naybor]

You think you are omniscient and infallible?

Are our crime-ridden/filth-ridden cities "accomplished communities"?

Repeating the word "educated" as you did in the same sentence does not speak well of your education.

Your bigotry towards other Americans, simply because they choose to dissent from your One True Way, does not speak well of your character ... or credibility.

Thank you for providing more proof of my point, o acolyte of the #AmericanInquisition.

[David Nieporent]

The election was decided by a relative-few votes in a few urban centers

You understand that elections are supposed to be decided by voters, right?

[PLP 2]

"I simply do not believe that in an honestly held traditionally run presidential election that Joe Biden would get 181,866 more votes for President in 2020 in Pennsylvania than Barack Obama got in 2008." I would never believe that a man who wants to tear apart the way our government works would be popular, but some people seem to want a king.
"Hillary Clinton was given a pass on the misuse of classified documents, but not so Donald Trump."
As a "Law Professor" you know damn well these cases are not remotely the same. DJT was given multiple chances to comply and return the documents. In fact Trump, Walt Nauta, and codefendant, Carlos de Oliveria unsuccessfully tried to delete security camera footage , and were moving documents while the FBI was on the property, this is after they lied on their declarations, YOU are dishonest to equate the two!

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Just imagine if they had successfully taken hammers to the security camera footage or had some patsy at Crowdstrike delete it all for them? (Who, incidentally, was asking technical questions of how to illegally delete the records on reddit).

[Sarcastr0]

When you switch goalposts, that means the argument on your original thesis got hairy do you want to deflect from that.

Happens to this guy a whole lot.

[Don Nico]

'switch goalposts'
You slogan is worn-out and one of your favorite practices

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Similarly, your childish superstition and right-wing bigotry are stale, ugly, and rejected by modern America.

[Jester Naybor]

Look in the mirror, you will see a bigot.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)

A self-righteous bigot who believes that he is omniscient and infallible, so that any dissent from his One True Way must be based in ignorance and/or evil and it is justified to treat those who who dissent as less than human.

Keep digging, Inquisitor.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, Don, defend the antisemite with an empty attack on me.

Wow.

[Malika the Maiz]

This is hyperbolic nonsense and sour grapes. Mail in voting has been common and not castigated as problematic for a while before Covid in radical Leftist enclaves like....Utah. Trump himself praised and participated in mail in voting in Florida in 2020. The consent of the governed being the only legitimate source of governmental power, complaining that too many people consented is absurd.

Mail in or absentee voting used to benefit conservatives because it was often the military or older folks using it. Suddenly when it was opened to more people guys like this caterwaul (the tell is he says in the former cases it is fine and dandy!)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Bingo. This is practical partisanship amplified by the uniformed, disaffected right-wing base.

[Frank Drackman]

Stick to you Stones picks, now you’re just embarrassing yourself

Frank

[Mr. Bumble]

So many point to Europe as the exemplar of how we should be doing things in America and yet most European countries strictly limit mail in voting; Why?

[Malika the Maiz]

Mail in voting is common in Europe (Germany, Switzerland, UK, etc.,).

[Mr. Bumble]

OK, I stand somewhat corrected, but it is a mixed bag of
when,where and how it is allowed.

[jb]

So... Kind of like the US, you're saying?

[Martinned2]

We have enough polling stations, and laws that protect employees (for example when they need to go vote).

[Brett Bellmore]

" Mail in voting has been common and not castigated as problematic for" decades now.

[Malika the Maiz]

In Utah?

[Riva]

It’s not just mail in ballots. It’s a system that that lacks serious scrutiny of the authenticity of the ballots, that fails to maintain an accurate voter role, and that allows the harvesting of ballots combined with unmonitored drop boxes. Many such changes accomplished through litigation and/or administratively, not by the state legislature and sometimes in contravention of the state law. All changes that undermine the security of the ballot and largely abandoned by other countries. France enacted reforms precisely because of the great potential for fraud. The fraud potential was even recognized in the past by The NY Times, of course that was when democrats were afraid of military ballots and thought they wouldn’t benefit from fraud.

[Sarcastr0]

It is hard to find anything in our society that has not been castigated as problematic for decades now by some group or other.

This is the lowest of bars.

[bernard11]

Brett,

Admit it.

You simply dislike having the "wrong people" vote. And by "wrong people" I don't mean ineligible voters. I mean city-dwellers, especially minorities.

You don't like them. Don't think they are "real Americans," etc. You cover your BS with all kinds of rationalizations about shit you know nothing about, but that's what it comes to.

[Brett Bellmore]

Why the he'll should I admit to something that's not true?

[LawTalkingGuy]

Because he thinks you’re too intelligent to not understand the likely results of your approach to voting so you must be dishonest about your motives. He’s sort of complimenting you here.

I’m undecided. Despite the fact that as an engineer you should be more comfortable with concepts like numbers and logistics you also have demonstrated a remarkable inability to grasp human affairs and the reasons behind them.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Whenever someone strenuously advocates for only having same day voting, it can only be for one of two reasons:

1. They are innumerate individuals who live in some kind of fantasy version of American society where everyone lives in a small town or suburb, has a 9-5 job with no other obligations, and people cast cartoon ballots that only contain two big checkboxes for the major party candidate.

2. Disingenuous liars who don’t want many people to vote.

[Moderation4ever]

Agree. The same old I can get the polling place I don't understand why other people cannot. Well other people work different hours have other responsibilities like kids.

[LawTalkingGuy]

My dad (annoyingly) used to listen to a local radio-host who said that all the time. Even as a middle schooler I realized that was easy for him to say, because his job is to show up in the afternoon to complain about stuff for three hours. Of course he can easily find time to vote.

[Don Nico]

"Disingenuous liars who don’t want many people to vote."
That is an excuse masquerading as an argument.

Votes by US mail over a 1 week period would get rid of the manipulation by "psuedo-exit polls over multiple weeks.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Conservatives have for decades attempted to suppress voting (at least among the voters they disfavor) in myriad ways. If you don't recognize that you should attempt to get an education, ideally before opining.

[Frank Drackman]

Conservative DemoKKKrats maybe, and it was AlGore's cam-pain that tried to get Absentee Ballots from deployed Servicemen thrown out if they didn't make it to the registrars office on time.

[David Nieporent]

Disingenuous liars

Is there another kind?

[bernard11]

Absolutely right.

Calabresi is a dishonest schmuck.

[Richard Gadsden]

If they want same-day voting, then how about having the polling places open for 24 hours to ensure that everyone can vote regardless of shift-work or child-care responsibilities?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

My parents, both die-hard conservative, religious Republicans for their entire lives, never voted in person again after their state allowed mail-in ballots.

That's strictly anecdotal, but it's still a mystery to me why today's RINOs seem to believe only Democrats want to vote by mail.

[MaverickNH]

Fraud isn’t the means by which votes are accumulated. Fraud is when a single vote does not originate from an uncoerced single qualified voter. That a qualified voter’s vote might not have been cast without facilitation and mail-in isn’t fraud.

Sure, some qualified voters might cast votes via facilitated mail-in that might not have otherwise come to the polls in person on Election Day, but how is that vote “fraudulent”?

“One man, one vote” is the standard. The standard is not a “voting process” that can vary by state and local whim.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The Constitution gives states discretion to set their own rules. Congress has some power to set uniform rules. But, "vary by state and local whim" is encouraged by constitutional text.

[Dan Schiavetta]

We lawyers can’t just make assertions. We have to cite to evidence.

If this was a submitted brief, subject to Rule 11, I would like to see what the Professor would attach as exhibits.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

What was the evidence cited by the lawyers in that Trump rape case?

[LawTalkingGuy]

Witness testimony and his own deposition?

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

He confessed to assaulting her in his deposition? I hadn't heard that before.

And that's a singular "Witness" testimony right?

[LawTalkingGuy]

You asked what evidence was cited. Well, witness testimony to events based on personal knowledge is admissible evidence. Whether it is credible or not goes to weight not its status of evidence.

The testimony of any witness if believed by the jury is sufficient to prove any disputed fact. That’s in every single jury instruction for every single trial.

As for Trump’s deposition: he did admit to making one of the statements at issue on the defamation claim, “that he didn’t know Carroll” and then was shown a photo of him interacting with her, but identified Carroll as his ex-wife Marla Maples. A jury could use that to judge his credibility and reliability as a witness. Which apparently they did.

[Sarcastr0]

His testimony was so bad, I wouldn't be surprised if some jury members took it was basically a confession.

[LawTalkingGuy]

The Access Hollywood Tape is also more or less an admission of doing that kind of conduct. Although I’m still skeptical that that was admissible.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Looked into it again, the specific federal rules for sexual assault cases make it much easier for it to be admissible. 403 concerns are still there.

If this were a state without a sex-assault specific rule, it would be very dicey to admits this under a 404(b) theory.

[Sarcastr0]

It wasn't a sexual assault case anyhow.

[not guilty]

One of the Carroll lawsuits was a damages claim for sexual assault. The other was a damages claim for defamation.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Yes and no. So Trump’s argument to Kaplan was that it can’t come in under the 415 exception for evidence of other sex crimes in sexual assault civil cases because it was a defamation case. But he concluded that because the basic thing Carrol had to prove to prevail on defamation, that he raped her, was sufficient to permit its entry.

But if it was only defamation and they were under the many states that don’t have such a rule, but rely on 404(B), then I’d be skeptical of admissibility

[Sarcastr0]

Hah. That is a new twist on the evidence I learned in law school.

[damikesc]

"The Access Hollywood Tape is also more or less an admission of doing that kind of conduct. Although I’m still skeptical that that was admissible."

The tape about consensual activity?

OK, got it.

[Sarcastr0]

'They let you do it' is now consent?

This is the same as: 'She didn't fight me' is now consent.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Trump: I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything.”

Bush: "Whatever you want."

Trump: "Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."

Where in this exchange does he indicate that he obtains consent?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Or that he waits for it...

[Frank Drackman]

What real Hetero Guy hasn't joked about picking up chicks like you pick up a 6-pack? So is Sleepy guilty of ADW for threatening "Corn Pop" (I know "Corn Pop"'s about as real as Sleepy's Annapolis Acceptance Letter, it's a theoretical) with a Bicycle Chain?

Frank

[Frank Drackman]

Hearsay in other words

[LawTalkingGuy]

Hearsay is an out of court statement used to prove the truth of the matter asserted in the statement.

Witness testimony regarding events they have personal knowledge of is not only not hearsay, it’s the complete opposite of hearsay.

Trump’s statements, to the extent they were being used for their truth value, are not hearsay because statements of a party opponent are excluded from the definition of hearsay under the federal rules.

[Frank Drackman]

OK, well besides that, it's hearsay, of course my source is Judge Judy.

[Josh R]

I've been doing mail-in voting since 2016. It's great! And apparently, Oregon hasn't had a legitimate election since 1998. Who knew?

[Michael P]

Eastern Oregon, apparently.

[DaveM]

"Oregon hasn’t had a legitimate election since 1998."

That you know about. And there's the rub. Mail-in voting "dumbs down" the security protocols to the point where you can't even tell what attempts at fraud are being made.

[Nige]

Which is another way of saying you're sure there's loads of fraud going on you've just failed to prove it.

[damikesc]

Take away financial statements requiring and, voila, corporate fraud disappears completely!

[Nige]

Ok, you do that.

[Sarcastr0]

Mail-in voting “dumbs down” the security protocols

Ipse dixit and comparisons to the unstated dumbs down posting to the point you can’t even tell if an argument has been made.

[Sarcastr0]

I stand by this post, but I do want to point out that DaveM goes into more detail on his thinking below.

[Sonja T]

aveM 8 hours ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
“ Mail-in voting “dumbs down” the security protocols to the point where you can’t even tell what attempts at fraud are being made."

That is a legitimate concern which proponents of mail in balloting either dont comprehend or intentionally ignore since it facilitates voting fraud. How can you claim there is little or no voting fraud if there are no mechanisms to detect any fraud or mechanisms so weak that it is near impossible to detect.

[Sarcastr0]

Hey Joe_dallas, nice cheerleading but you should probably retire this screenname because it was shamefully revealed as a sock pupped not long ago.

[David Nieporent]

if there are no mechanisms to detect any fraud or mechanisms so weak that it is near impossible to detect.

You're not any smarter using this username. There are of course mechanisms to detect fraud. Like, counting the number of voters vs. the number of ballots. Verifying the existence of the people listed on the voter rolls.

[Sonja T]

The mechanisms to detect voter fraud with mail in ballots and same day registrations remain very weak. You are being very dishonest to claim otherwise, especially considering you know better.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Which would only have made a difference if only one side had engaged in it. You also have no evidence of that.

[Frank Drackman]

Wait till "45" carries Oregon, you'll be singing a different tune. Stupid State, you still have retards pumping gas for peoples.

[Mr. Bumble]

I think they did away with that, leaving only NJ to have "retards" pumping gas, although the argument that it leads to lower prices is bullshit.

[Frank Drackman]

Was just out there, You can pump your own now, but the kid from Deliverance still walks up to see if you need help. Funny how in Eastern Oregon people walk around with guns but it’s Portland where CVS keeps the toothpaste locked up

Frank

[Riva]

If Oregon fails to maintain the voter rolls, fails to scrutinize voter registration or the mailed in ballot itself then you've probably been tolerating a considerable amount of fraud. Don't know how Oregon addresses ballot harvesting and unmonitored drop boxes but those things only augment the potential for fraud.

[bacchys]

Calabresi has gone full-bore MAGAt. The "Left" in America must now include all Republican governors and legislatures in America, including the reddest of "Red States" because all states took measures to make an election during a pandemic safer.

What's more, mail-in ballots and extended election times have long preceded the 2020 election. It's been a growing movement throughout the country, with states has politically diverse as Utah and Washington experimenting with alternate ways of voting.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

"The Left" is code.

A familiar commenter here, for instance, called out "the Left" for things multiple conservatives said.

[DaveM]

Neither Washington nor Utah are "politically diverse", that's ridiculous.

See https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-red-or-blue-is-your-state-your-congressional-district/

Mail-in balloting is popular in single-party states because it favors the ruling party. Washington is massively Blue. Utah, massively Red.

Mail-in balloting is far less secure than in-person balloting because the ballots pass through dozens of hands before even being considered for a count, and are then subject to review by a third party who has the power to reject the ballot envelope as inauthentic.

[Zarniwoop]

Neither Washington nor Utah are “politically diverse”, that’s ridiculous.
....
Mail-in balloting is popular in single-party states because it favors the ruling party. Washington is massively Blue. Utah, massively Red.

Yes, those two states are wildly diverse from each other politically, amply demonstrating that Calabresi's screed about the eeeeevil machinations of "the Left" is bool and sheet.

[bacchys]

Washington and Utah are diverse from each other, sparky.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

>presidential election year—2024—, which is totally free of the fears of infection in public places caused by Covid.

Dude hasn't seen them spinning up the ol' Bird Flu Plandemic. Probably the weirdest thing Mother Nature has done was to create these leap year-ish pandemics that only pop up every 4 years around a US election.

[Sarcastr0]

And if this doesn't come to pass, you will have some other narrative for 'them.'

[Moderation4ever]

Maybe Prof. Calabresi can give us some insight into why Donald Trump underperformed other Republicans in 2020? Why other Republicans won, and Trump did not? Why ballots came in marked straight party for the Republican slate but skipped voting for President. There was nothing wrong with the method people used to vote it was the candidate that was wrong.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Because most the printed ballots they used to steal 2020 only had Biden selected.

This was widely reported at the time as one of the dozens and dozens statistical anomalies surrounding the 2020 vote count.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Yep. Another example of someone thinking we have cartoon ballots that only have two checkboxes for president.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

I can see now why you're LawTalkingGuy and not LawPracticingGuy.

I never said anything about a ballot with only two checkboxes nor is that even an implication (for humans with fully functioning, healthy, adult brains that is).

[LawTalkingGuy]

You think there were people were printing hundreds of thousands of fake precinct-specific ballots (many of which were multiple pages and included hyperspecific local initiatives and offices) with the correct barcodes? And this was done across multiple states?

[bacchys]

Your "widely reported" is a bunch of MAGAt shitbrains making up shit and flinging it around.

[Frank Drackman]

Pretty simple, the erection was only rigged against him.

[Moderation4ever]

So basically, our election system works for every other candidate but not for Trump, is that correct?

[Frank Drackman]

Are you retarded?

[Moderation4ever]

I believe I correctly restated your comment, is that not the case? And if not, what did you mean to say. I also assumed that you meant "election" when you typed "erection" or did I make a mistake there?

[hobie]

Steven "Q" Calabresi. Some refreshers on actual 2020 election fraud are playing out in several trials across the nation. You might be surprised to know who perpetrated 'The Steal' in 2020 (and just a little bit in early Jan 2021).

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Full trials with both sides presenting evidence and arguments to a jury?

How many of those happened?

[Mr. Bumble]

None.

[Nige]

There has to be some evidence to present.

[Mr. Bumble]

There has to be a court willing to hear it.

[Sarcastr0]

The conspiracy runs to how many court systems?

[Vryedni]

The worst cut of all is the betrayal by Trump judges. Leonard Leo is a deep state stooge. I've long said Stephen Miller and Seb Gorka are too good to be true. Just a matter of time before we find out what they're up to. Trust no one.

[Nige]

No court wants to hear cases with *no evidence.*

[Mr. Bumble]

Circular logic?

[Sarcastr0]

The test for if there is evidence is if there is evidence. You've offered zero examples of such.

[Nige]

Go ahead, see if pursuing court cases without evidence gets you very far. Then try some with evidence for contrast.

[hobie]

The fools all acknowledged what they did...sometimes on live TV. I suppose that could be construed as evidence. As per usual, though, another large corpus of rednecks and lawyers will be sent off to prison, but the Orange Caligula will skate

[Purple Martin]

Mr. Bumble, JHBHBE, thing is, every time Team Trump had the opportunity to introduce evidence, they would not argue in court the things they said to you, Fox, Newsmax, and OANN.

One of the better examples is a decision by conservative Federal District Court Judge and Trump appointee, Brett H. Ludwig, who rejected the defense argument of lack of standing, and said he'd run the trial based of the merits of each side's argument including any evidence Team Trump wished to introduce.

Here's a description of what happened, by Andrew McCarthy, Former DoJ US Attorney, strong conservative, in most cases a strong Trump supporter (he provided some of the most credible criticism of the Mueller investigation). Core paragraphs including money graf bolded below:

A Stunning Passage from the Latest Court Rejection of Team Trump
National Review, ANDREW C. MCCARTHY, December 13, 2020
...
Publicly, the Trump campaign has been claiming there was extensive vote fraud and law-breaking. Specifically with respect to Wisconsin, President Trump tweeted on November 28: “The Wisconsin recount is not about finding mistakes in the count, it is about finding people who have voted illegally . . . We have found many illegal votes. Stay tuned!” The campaign further maintained that the recount it demanded would “show somewhere around 100,000 illegal ballots in the two counties that Biden carried” (i.e., Milwaukee and Dane).

This is in addition to the innumerable times the president and his surrogates have asserted that they were being systematically prevented from proving massive fraud and illegality. The courts and state officials, we’ve been told, have invoked legal technicalities, such as the supposed lack of standing to sue, in order to stop the campaign from calling witnesses and introducing voluminous documentary evidence.

Judge Ludwig denied the state’s claims that the campaign lacked standing. Instead, he gave the campaign the hearing they asked for — the opportunity to call witnesses and submit damning exhibits. Yet, when it got down to brass tacks, the morning of the hearing, it turned out there was no actual disagreement between the Trump team and Wisconsin officials about the pertinent facts of the case. The president’s counsel basically said: Never mind, we don’t need to present all our proof . . . we’ll just stipulate to all the relevant facts and argue legal principles.

In the end, after all the heated rhetoric, what did they tell the court the case was really about? Just three differences over the manner in which the election was administered — to all of which, as Ludwig pointed out, the campaign could have objected before the election if these matters had actually been of great moment.

There was no there there. Despite telling the country for weeks that this was the most rigged election in history, the campaign didn’t think it was worth calling a single witness. Despite having the opportunity of a hearing before a Trump appointee who was willing to give the campaign ample opportunity to prove its case, the campaign said, “Never mind.”

For the full decision, search on

No. 2:20-cv-1785
DONALD J. TRUMP, Plaintif, v. WISCONSIN ELECTIONS COMMISSION, et al., Defendants.
____________________
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
— Brett H. Ludwig, Judge.
____________________

There were others, though not a lot because Team Trump almost always declined to submit admissible evidence of the fraud they kept saying existed. But you can find them all here (detailed analysis broken out by Trump claim, by state, of every single case by a group of sane conservative Republicans):

lostnotstolen (dot) org.

Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election
…
We therefore have undertaken an examination of every claim of fraud and miscount put forward by former President Trump and his advocates, and now put the results of those investigations before the American people, and especially before fellow conservatives who may be uncertain about what and whom to believe. Our conclusion is unequivocal: Joe Biden was the choice of a majority of the Electors, who themselves were the choice of the majority of voters in their states.

(A link to the pdf of the report is on the report's landing page. The Wisconsin Fraud claim is on page 67.)

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

That link didn't work for me. Here's another:
https://lostnotstolen.org//wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Lost-Not-Stolen-The-Conservative-Case-that-Trump-Lost-and-Biden-Won-the-2020-Presidential-Election-July-2022.pdf

[JoeFromtheBronx]

“using the Covid pandemic as an excuse”

The nation as a whole — as did other nations — isolated and socially distanced to protect ourselves from disease and death.

It was not an “excuse” to use mail-in voting in 2020. Polling places regularly are filled with people. Electoral workers have to engage with them. People going to vote would have to engage with more people. So, all states, not just liberal enclaves, found ways to avoid as much contact as in place before.

People have noted that mail-in voting has been a thing in multiple states for years. The same applies to early voting. Early voting helps those whose lives make it more difficult to vote on Election Day. It also reduces long lines at certain polling places.

Voting over a period of time is the practice in multiple nations.

I think there is a value to voting at the polling place. It is a good civic act. A person can ask poll workers questions.

But, if it is a threat to a secret ballot, mail-in voting must have been problematic for years. I would toss out there (FWIW) that for originalists, the secret ballot was a development of the 19th Century.

Again, “the Left” is far from the only one supporting mail-in ballots.

“The Left” is conspirator code. It should have a trademark symbol next to it.

[DaveM]

"But, if it is a threat to a secret ballot, mail-in voting must have been problematic for years. "

Yes, it has been problematic for years because it is less secure, period. You will find support for mail-in voting is strongest in states dominated by one party.

As long as the number of mail-in ballots is less than the margin of victory required before a recount is allowed, then there is little need to worry about the reduction in election security. The chance that a fraud perpetuated via mail-in balloting would affect the outcome is unlikely in that case. It is only when mail-in balloting becomes the norm that it truly makes it impossible, in my view, to certify an election.

A state with mail-in balloting by default would, in my view, be running an unconstitutional election based on a failure to provide equal protection of the law.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I don't think the "one-party state" aside adds much to the conversation. Perhaps, stay consistent about not making this a partisan issue. Red and blue states have expanded mail-in voting. It is also a practice in multiple nations.

A neutral concern for mail-in voting would be more convincing.

The "equal protection of the law" argument also is a confusing one. If it is "by default," there is an evenhanded process. It is unclear how Oregon, for instance, is violating equal protection. The Constitution allows states to have different voting procedures.

Mail-in balloting has been in place since at least the 19th Century. The evidence that it is a threat to ballot security was weak as compared to the benefits to those unable conveniently to go to the polls.

There are multiple possible safety mechanisms to add another layer of security, if necessary. A dropbox, for instance, will not require a ballot to pass through "dozens of hands" (which is an exaggeration anyway). Tracking allows you to know if your ballot was received. Signature requirements can still be in place. Many more things can be imagined, if necessary.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"You will find support for mail-in voting is strongest in states dominated by one party."

Would we, or are you simply unable to provide any evidence yourself?

[bacchys]

You've been making unsupported claims up and down this comment section.

Your "view" is mindless stupidity.

[Don Nico]

"Voting over a period of time is the practice in multiple nation" where voting fraud is common.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

It's a worldwide conspiracy!

[Sarcastr0]

2020 truther, Don?

[Richard Gadsden]

Other democratic countries, whose election dates are not set by a (not rapidly amendable) Constitution, delayed elections that were due to be held in 2020 until 2021. Emergency mail-in approaches were not necessary when the entire election could be postponed.

[David Nieporent]

It was not an “excuse” to use mail-in voting in 2020. Polling places regularly are filled with people. Electoral workers have to engage with them. People going to vote would have to engage with more people. So, all states, not just liberal enclaves, found ways to avoid as much contact as in place before.

More specifically, as everyone who has voted in person at any time in the last 50 years must have noticed, poll workers tend to be on the elderly side. And who was most vulnerable to covid? (Spoiler alert: the elderly.) So they were having trouble recruiting poll workers in 2020 compared to past election cycles, so they changed rules to address that problem.

[DaveM]

While I agree with the conclusions reached here, I do not think the route taken is the right one.

Election procedures absolutely must be entirely unconcerned with the results of an election. It must not matter one whit who wins and loses. All that matters is whether the process is open, fair, and secure.

The reason mail-in voting ought to be rejected is because it is massively less secure than in-person voting. When you vote in person, the ballot goes from your hand straight into the vote counting equipment. You have 100% certainty that your ballot was received. When you use the mail, however, your ballot passes through dozens of hands, none of which are visible to you. Furthermore, your very identity -- and therefore, your very vote -- is subject to review by a third party! You don't even get the satisfaction of being able to personally prove your own existence.

These defects have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with who did or did not win. To even bring that up is to lose the argument.

There are similar defects with the other changes in election security, and especially in those states where ballots can be "harvested". (To even use that word sends a shudder up the spine of this election nerd.) A democracy without a private ballot is a rigged democracy. History is replete with these kinds of democracies. 100% turnout and 100% votes for the ruling party. *ahem*

Same-day voting, in my opinion, is not a requirement for a secure election. A secure process can be maintained for more than a single day. However, it is obvious that the risk of breakage increases with the length of days of early voting. If the goal is to spread out the crowds, a week of voting is more than enough. In my poor state, Virginia, we currently have an early in-person voting period of 45 days! Hopefully, this will be pulled back.

I am 100% behind restoring election security. Just please, please don't make this about Trump. That is a huge distraction and completely unnecessary. This isn't about any one candidate, it's about all candidates.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

The election cheaters stymie even the most milquetoast attempts election integrity.

[Sarcastr0]

You're setting the level based on your own subjective vibes.

You do have some details here - better than your much briefer posts above; this is good - gives me no shortage of food for thought which is how you can tell a good post on this blog. Kudos.

But in the end your personal take is not one lots of states shared, especially in 2020.
That does not make the election stolen, right?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

There are an unlimited number of measures which could be put in place to "guarantee" a free and fair election. Most of them are not worth doing, either because they would negatively affect voter participation or because they would cost massive amounts of money to implement. How do we choose which ones to embrace?

Cost-benefit analysis. And part of that is to first understand how bad things are now, before we spend lots of money trying to "fix" them without securing any benefit. Over to you: show us all this fraud you're just certain has occurred.

Until then, I will go with the more logical explanation for your "concern".

[Longtobefree]

"Reluctantly, we went along with allowing Joe Biden to be crowned the winner based on the fraud infested vote count on election day"

Well, I hope you learned your lesson.

[SRG2]

A fraud which tens of lawsuits were unable to demonstrate.

Note that Trump's own lawyers denied fraud in court.

[SRG2]

Surely when it comes to conservative law professors VC can do better than the absurd Blackman and the even more ludicrous Calabrese.

[Michael P]

I note that those two do better than you.

[LawTalkingGuy]

At what? Being buffoons?

[Mr. Bumble]

No buddy, you have a lock on that.

[SRG2]

So what? I'm not an alleged law "professor" (as Calabrese might write). It is not my business to make tables, per Samuel Johnson.

[Jeff B]

Really putting the C into Volokh with this one. The man lost for no shortage of good reasons.

Now it looks like the other guy’s likely to lose for his own set of good reasons. And so the American pendulum swings.

[bernard11]

Assuming EV basically controls who the posters are I think it's way past time to classify him, regrettably, as yet another cultist or, at a minimum, someone who thinks the main purpose of the blog should be promoting Trumpist BS, no matter how ridiculous.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

He's actually exposing Trumpist BS.

[DavidTaylor]

"the Left in 2020 massively changed the way presidential elections are held in this country."

According to press reports at the time, the option of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania was negotiated between a Democratic governor and a Republican majority legislature. Blaming "the Left" for the change in PA seems a little inaccurate.

"I simply do not believe that in an honestly held traditionally run presidential election that Joe Biden would get 181,866 more votes for President in 2020 in Pennsylvania than Barack Obama got in 2008."

The difference may be due to a simpler factor: the ease of mail-in ballots led to many more people voting, both Democrats and Republicans.

After all, Pennsylvania was the state in which several Republican politicians were recorded saying that the only way to win state-wide elections is to suppress voting. Mail-in ballots did the opposite.

"...everyone votes on the same day, with the same headlines in mind, and not over the period of a month."

The unspoken assumptions here include the purpose of voting. If the purpose of a vote is to get a snapshot on a single day of the views of those who can get a polling place, then excellent. If the purpose of a vote to is count the number of people who support each candidate or issue, maybe limiting the vote to single day introduces greater inaccuracies....

[Dan Schiavetta]

Biden is from Pennsylvania and is the type of Democrat who is popular there. I’m not surprised at all that he did better there than Obama did.

[Frank Drackman]

And “45”’s not and even if I accept the vote was legitimate Sleepy won by a whisker

[Jester Naybor]

The compromises in the 2020 election processes – junk-mail voting, hasty changes in election rules, and irregular activity in counting the votes; perpetrated by judges, governors and other unauthorized parties in haste in a crisis-not-to-waste – tainted the election as much as bad police procedure taints courtroom evidence that leads to its exclusion … and the government, as opposed to its individual operatives, does not qualify for the presumption of innocence.

The burden of proof is not on challengers to produce examples of fraud; it is on election officials to assure that no fraud – detected or undetected – has significantly impacted the results.

This is where process matters. Adherence to logically-conceived processes that assure that:

Only votes from eligible voters
One vote each.
Personally cast by each voter.

Are accepted and accurately tabulated, meets that burden of proof. Deviations from those processes render meeting that burden of proof impossible in a system where the secret ballot (rightly) does not include identifying information once cast.

Without meeting that burden of proof, how can courts declare (among other things) that there was not enough fraud to affect the results?

The compromises are all the evidence that is needed, that the 2020 election couldn't be trusted and should have been sent to the House per the Constitution to vote in a President, not merely certify a compromised election.. Of course, that would have led to Trump winning a second term, and they couldn’t validate 75 million deplorable people like that.

And it is reinforced by the courts ducking their duty to adjudicate the process on technicalities … including dismissing lawsuits against the compromised states, by other states, on “lack of standing” regarding an election where the results of the compromised elections are imposed on all 50 states.

It is the job of government to prove that this election was on the up-and-up. And “because we say so” is not sufficient. This is why a cloud will always hang over the 2020 election

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Could we get a blackline on that? It seems a lot like something you've posted before!

[GlobalTrvlr]

Mail in ballots are the most corrupting influence to ever happen to voting.

Elections are a process to be managed. Mail in ballots turn process control on its head. Corporations look for Opportunities for Error in processes- looking to minimize them down to 1/1,000,000 and less. Otherwise, they go bankrupt if they let that many issues into the public.

In elections, fraud is one type of error. Instead of looking for that 1/1000 or 1/1,000,000 of an opportunity for fraud, mail in ballots present about 20x opportunities for every mail in ballot. Hijacking them at the mailbox; paying people for their ballots; nursing home personnel filling out ballots for everyone, "outreach" programs essentially filling out ballots for their "customers", people filling out all of the ballots in their family, boxes of unfolded and preprinted boxes showing up in the middle of the night in close precincts...

Opportunities for fraud with in person voter ID are essentially limited to identical twins voting for the other.

If you have a 1/1000 opportunity, and you produce 10,000,000 products, you WILL have errors. If you have an election with 250MM products (votes), and have 20x opportunities for fraud with each vote, you no longer have an election system. I am not going to say this is statistical process control 101, because this is so basic, they teach this part day 1 of 101.

Lawyers fighting against this abuse need to hire a statistical expert to explain this and the many other statistical anomalies that happened in that election.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"Lawyers fighting against this abuse need to hire a statistical expert to explain this and the many other statistical anomalies that happened in that election."

The lawyers of Trump Election Litigation: Elite Strike Force -- such as un-American asshole. Volokh Conspiracy dreamboy, and future candidate for cellblock president John Eastman -- are (1) too busy attempting to salvage their law licenses or avoid incarceration or (2) no longer permitted by their betters to practice law.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Trump must have figured out how to control it, then, because he's now endorsing it.

Saying mail-in voting creates an "opportunity for fraud" is one thing; making sure that only one side can do it in the same election is quite another.

[CW17]

Fact: Corporations allows proxy ballots to be submitted by mail.

Your claim: "Corporations look for Opportunities for Error in processes- looking to minimize them down to 1/1,000,000 and less."

Therefore, submitting ballots by mail has less than 1/1,000,000 error in process.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

People who want to make it more difficult to vote are worthless assholes, disaffected losers, half-educated culture war casualties, and usually bigots to some degree.

Replacement of these right-wing write-offs can't occur too quickly.

[Mr. Bumble]

Jester and Global +1

...and even before voting, clean and up to date voter rolls!

[Sarcastr0]

This burden shifting isn't actual concern, it's sour grapes that popped up in 2020.

Part and parcel with the GOP brand really glomming onto all conspiracy theories no trust in institutions.

[Mr. Bumble]

Trust but verify.

[Sarcastr0]

You don't trust anything you don't agree with. And you never bother to verify anything.

[Mr. Bumble]

I trust and have verified that you are indeed a douche.

[Noscitur a sociis]

As a result, many Republicans, myself included, thought that the 2020 presidential election was probably stolen,

You did? Then why did you get on Trump’s case so hard for saying the same thing? You even said that he wasn’t allowed to be president again because “lied to the American people for years that the election had been stolen and continues to repeat those lies even to the present day.” Now you’re saying you agree with him?

Next thing you know, you’ll be saying that you don’t plan on voting “for the Democratic Party's nominee for President over Donald Trump” after all!

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks for narrowing down the timeline on Prof. Calabresi’s breakdown. I put it around mid-January of this year.

[hobie]

Agreed

[loki13]

I was just coming in to say that- thanks for linking it, NS.

I recommend anyone who is curious to look at this post, and then follow the first link and look at what Calabresi was writing in August of last year.

Not just because "Ha ha, Calabresi is saying the opposite of what he said less than a year ago."

Look at the stylistic differences. The differences in tone. I don't actually think the post from last August is a great legal analysis, by the way. It's filled with a lot of the ipse dixit that we see in the current postings. But I am beginning to seriously wonder why EV has not given Calabresi a timeout.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Do you think it might be Alzheimer's rather than a stroke?

Should it matter?

[Frank Drackman]

I think Sleepy’s has/had both, of course your Neurosyphilis is indistinguishable, in fact before Fleming invented Penicillin Syphilis was called “the Great Pretender” (HT The Platters)
Yes, it should, but obviously doesn’t

Frank

[Purple Martin]

Nice of Professor Steven Calabresi to identify words and terms he no longer understands. The quotation marks in the following list are in the OP, and seem to signify things Steven's accelerating loss of reasoning ability prevents him from explaining in clear language. So, as an indicator, he uses scare quotes instead of the actual meaning of the words, and depends on his fellow travelers to intuit the applicable MAGA-unique definitions.

"by mail"
"help"
"make their vote count"
"observing"
"offered"
"harvested ballots"
"drop boxes"
"mail-in"
"lost"
"counted vote"

Add to that Steven's abandonment of empirical methods of differentiating fact from fantasy—such as verifiable evidence, rationality, and reality—in favor of feelings, intuition , and faith-based belief (ellipses indicate modifiers removed for brevity, but the key point remains).

– I do not myself believe that there was fraud...I do believe...mail in voting...and drop boxes, produced a fundamentally illegitimate Biden victory in 2020...
—[in Pennsylvania] I simply do not believe that in an [honest] [traditional]...election...Joe Biden would get 181,866 more votes...than Barack Obama got in 2008. [Note: there were 400k more registered Pennsylvania voters in 2020 than 2008.]
—...deep down in our guts we thought that Joe Biden's campaign had probably won with dirty tricks...that could not proved...
—...we felt then and will always feel that Biden may well have been an illegitimate President.
—The election fraud that wrongly cost Trump his victory in 2020 was caused by mail in voting, drop boxes for ballots, and the loss of the secret ballot.
—Manchin and Sinema will both be booted out of the Senate come January 3, 2025 [Note: will leave identifying the non-House/Senate difference between a Joe Manchin and a George Santos, as an exercise to the student. Granted, Kyrsten Sinema might be harder.]
—...we simply have to return to our traditional system of the secret ballot, no use of drop boxes, and same day voting. Otherwise, our democracy is doomed.

[Vandalia]

"Same day voting" and "secret ballots" are modern innovations and are not consistent with the original meaning of "election" - both etymological and practical - in the Constitution.

That is an innovation that did not occur until roughly the 1890's.

[Hugh]

I live in a state, Oregon, which has had mail in balloting for 25 years. That happened to coincide with the long slide of the state’s Republican party into statewide irrelevance. This slide was not due to voter fraud, but rather to the party’ s increasing advocacy of extreme and unpopular policy positions that alienated suburban voters adjacent to the City of Portland, these suburban voters had been a bedrock of the party when it commanded majorities in the Oregon Legislature all throughout the 1990s. In 25 years there have been no documented cases of fraud, despite increasingly unhinged claims from some Republicans in the state. All mailed ballots must be signed, and the signatures are closely checked by county elections officials

[Roger S]

Maybe they check signatures, but they cannot check for coercion.

[Purple Martin]

Every accusation, a confession.

If you truly believe that, given the opportunity, it's what you would do...I understand why you so deeply believe it's what anyone would do.

But your feelings and beliefs do not provide justification for the rest of us to abandon the most efficient practices of upholding representative democracy.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Coercion which is never revealed, but nevertheless exists within your fertile imagination.

[bacchys]

I have a gut feeling Calabresi was an Epstein client.

[MollyGodiva]

Biden stealing the 2020 election would have required the coordination, cooperation, and absolute secrecy of thousands of people, including local election officials, many who are Republicans. The logistics and organization required to pull that off is impossible.

[MollyGodiva]

Also the polls, economic indicators, and every other metric used to predict the outcome of a US presidential election strongly favored Biden. Trump pulling off a win would have be extremely suspect. In 2016 Trump had a 1/3 chance of winning and his win was considered a huge and unexpected upset.

[Roger S]

No, mail-in votes can be faked without the election officials knowing about it.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Indeed, without anyone ever knowing about it. It's the perfect crime!

[jb]

Usually when you read something and the very first paragraph is obvious bullshit, it's a pretty big red flag for the rest of the content:

"Using the the Covid pandemic as an excuse, the Left in 2020 massively changed the way presidential elections are held in this country. Whereas previously the secret ballot and same day voting was the norm, and one needed an excuse to get an absentee ballot, suddenly the Left declared it was essential to switch to mail in voting, for any reason at all, over a period of many weeks."

In the 2016 election, 42% of ballots were cast before election day. While that fraction did increase significantly in 2020 (there was in fact a pandemic going on), it's hardly the case that this type of voting was some evil scheme thought up by "the Left" in 2020. Mail in voting, in particular, tended to skew Republican until the Trump/party decided to vilify it in 2020.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You can't reason with superstition, bigotry, or belligerent ignorance.

It is pointless, perhaps even counterproductive, to try.

Bringing reason, evidence, facts, and the reality-based world to the Volokh Conspiracy (and the rest of the clingerverse) is pointless.

[Kenan E]

This statement says it all: "I simply do not believe that in an honestly held traditionally run presidential election that Joe Biden would get 181,866 more votes for President in 2020 in Pennsylvania than Barack Obama got in 2008."

This statement coming from a professor?

I suppose that an increase in approximately 400,000 total registered voters in Pennsylvania between 2008 and 2020 might not have anything to do with it?

I'm not a Biden voter, but I see this as intellectual dishonesty, and signs of a sore loser.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Don't dismiss or even discount an obvious prospect: A stroke.

And not one of the other Conspirators seems to care enough to check on this Federalist Society laughingstock.

[myself]

This article is an absolute joke.

Biden's victory is illegitimate because he "feels" there must have been fraud?

Does he even know what this fraud supposedly was other than it involves the words "mail in voting" and "drop boxes"?

Did they change votes? Did they send in votes for people who didn't vote otherwise? How did they avoid the droves of people who then tried to vote and were then told they'd already sent in a ballot? How did they avoid a single person coming forward and spilling the beans on what would have been a massive conspiracy spanning multiple states?

Did Calabresi spend even half the time developing a coherent theory about this supposed fraud as we spent reading his complaints about it?

[LibertyLancer]

Illegitimate? Oh, you bet your sweet ass Biden’s victory was illegitimate, and anyone with half a brain knows it!

Now, let’s break this down for our liberal friends, because I know critical thinking isn’t your forte. Calabresi “feels” there was fraud? Bud, he knows it, we know it, and the mail carriers involved in this scheme sure as hell know it! Mail-in voting and drop boxes, what a convenient little setup, wasn’t it? Like leaving the keys in the ignition and expecting no one to take the car for a joyride!

You see, the left loves to cry conspiracy when they’re the ones pulling the strings. But we, the enlightened patriots, aren’t buying their snake oil this time. We see their little game, and we’re calling their bluff. So, my friends, grab your popcorn and get comfy, because this show is far from over. We will expose their fraud, one way or another, and send these liberal crybabies back to the safe spaces they crawled out of!

-Lin

[myself]

You've had almost four years and haven't exposed anything. In fact, you don't even seem to know what you think you're going to expose.

You're just making vague insinuations with no concept of how to turn those insinuations into a conspiracy that could affect the outcome of an election.

[David Nieporent]

Poe's Law?

[LawTalkingGuy]

Best one to ever do it for sure.

[Nige]

Notsureifserious.jpeg

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Next level: could the real master of this technique be none other than Steve himself?!

[Old Smokin' Egg]

I'm afraid that I must disagree rather strongly with at least one of Prof. Calabresi's assertions, to wit, the desirability "that all Americans vote on the same day, after the same news cycle, with the same information before them".

Such a procedure would ensure that an "October surprise" have maximum effect. Candidates and their supporters will be well aware of this, and will attempt to time the release of damaging information about their opponents, or voter-pleasing news about themselves, in such a way that people will go to the polls with their intial reactions in mind, rather than after they've had the time to consider the news more thoughtfully and with an eye toward its long-term consequences.

Some of Calabresi's other suggestions are indeed valuable ones, but I'm afraid that this one would tend to exacerbate people's tendency to vote based on their immediate emotional reactions to the latest news. The more voting is spread out over time, the less effect a campaign or a biased news outlet can have with the strategic release of one bit of news.

I'd suggest that we preserve the secret ballot by requiring early voting to take place at a central location, but that we allow it beginning weeks before the official election date. Ballots wouldn't be tabulated before that official date, so candidates wouldn't know how they were faring until after the polls had closed. The central-location requirement would do away with the problem of mail-in ballots arriving after Election Day, and that of improper pressure or incentives applied to people filling out absentee ballots. We'd still have to allow mail-in voting for people who can't reach the polls—say, nursing-home residents—but those would be limited to those who could provide a good reason why they can't vote in person, and the numbers would be small enough to make those votes less likely to determine the outcome of an election.

[LibertyLancer]

You see, my dear readers, the left has been playing dirty for years, and this little scheme of theirs is just the latest in their playbook of deception. Can’t have people actually thinking now, can we? No, no, they want those immediate emotional reactions, those knee-jerk decisions that they can manipulate with their biased media buddies. But guess what? Your guy isn’t falling for it, and neither should you!

Early voting? Hell yeah, bring it on! But we’re doing it my way, at a central location, no funny business. No mail-in voting, folks, that’s just asking for fraud and giving the left an opening to weasel their way in. You know they love to pressure those poor nursing home residents, offering them a nice cup of tea in exchange for their vote! Disgusting!

So, my friends, preserve that secret ballot like you would preserve the last slice of apple pie at a family reunion. Keep those voting dates spread out, confuse the left, and let them wonder what the hell just hit them when we elect a real patriot into office! It’s time to take back control, one vote at a time.

-Lin

[loki13]

If you want to actually solve the problem, then make elections a national two-day holiday, and require all employers to provide at least one of the two days as full days off.

Allow very limited exceptions for mail-in ballots (for military, etc.).

To solve the constant battles over the ID problem, we can have ID requirement to vote, but states must provide free (FREE) identification to all residents who don't have driver's licenses, and that must be easy to obtain. No more of this, "We will put all the ID places way out, and have limited hours, and make it an incredibly difficult process in order to make it not happen."

(For people who show up and have an issue, like they haven't updated their DL to a new address, they cast a provisional ballot that will be verified in a convenient manner.)

In other words-
Yes, both sides have both reasonable concerns and partisan concerns. Why not solve the reasonable concerns and stop trying to stealth in the partisan concerns?

Finally- someone check in on Calabresi. This is getting weird. Seriously, it was less than a year ago that he was posting about Trump lying about the election being stolen.

[LawTalkingGuy]

My ideal would be a national election week with all polling places open the entire week. Maybe the final day could be a holiday but I’m not sure that would be required if there is a whole week. Congress would give grants to states/counties to subsidize the cost of keeping polls open for a week. Voting would be treated just like jury duty as far as employers are concerned. There would be a straightforward application process for absentee ballots for various categories of people who still would be unlikely to find a time in the week (military/bed bound/students/other special circumstances).

[myself]

Your solution would never get implemented.

The GOP has never shown any fraud resulting from lack of voter ID. The talk about voter ID is motivated by two things:
1) Talking about voter ID motivates the base.
2) You can disenfranchise some Democratic voters if you require a form of ID they don't have.

Your proposal to require ID, but give free ID to everyone, doesn't really achieve either objective.

[LawTalkingGuy]

A Democratic Congress could grant massive subsidies to states to fund their elections so long as they implemented a free voter ID program. In addition to pretty much every Republican voting against that in Congress, every single state controlled by Republicans would reject the money.

Oh. And the Fifth Circuit would declare it unconstitutional for some reason.

[loki13]

Here's the thing.

You and I both might know that the voter ID thing is primarily about trying to create barriers to voting. And that it doesn't actually do much about fraud.

But ... many people don't understand that. To them, the idea that someone doesn't have, for example, a driver's license, is ... unthinkable! They're like ... but how do you fly? How do you open a bank account??? And so on. I know, I know. But this is what they think.

I don't actually care about IDs. Either way. Except when they are used as a barrier to voting. So what I am saying is that if people actually wanted to address their concerns (whether or not someone else views them as reasonable) without the partisan baggage, there are ways to do it. Unfortunately, we can't. Because the issues are so tied up in partisanship.

So yeah, I think it would be great, and also ensure that some underserved communities are more easily able to get identification. Win/win, right?

[loki13]

It's the same with absentee ballots. The GOP LOVED THEM because it gave them an edge.

Until 2020. Now absentee ballots are all fraud and evil.

If people actually cared about elections, there are simple solutions for most issues (and there are fewer issues than you think). But they don't. They care about their team winning elections. And that's different.

[Richard Gadsden]

For people who can't physically go to vote (e.g. house-bound patients), then rather than mail-in ballots, election officials can make an appointment to visit them (in, say, the two weeks preceding election day), set up a temporary booth in a convenient spot, and let them cast their own vote. For old folks' homes and the like, the officials can set up a polling station inside the building; for true nursing homes, hospices, hospitals, etc, where patients or residents are not even able to move about within the building, they can come to each bedside in turn.

[Josh R]

Voter ID in exchange for 1) easily issued IDs, 2) proactive outreach to get people registererd, and 3) mail-in voting and early voting.

That would be my starting point for negotiations.

[Nige]

'Allow very limited exceptions for mail-in ballots (for military, etc.).'

For a lot of people with disabilities, mail-in is a godsend.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

If we really wanted to "solve the problem" it would get a lot more support if it were an actual attempt to secure and promote voting.

Let's consider both sides at the same time: how to secure the ballots--and make sure everyone who is eligible can vote. If both sides can agree on a federal bill to do both of those things (which doesn't allow the states to sabotage it), I'd consider that a good compromise--regardless of the individual elements of security and access which it includes.

[Vandalia]

If it was good enough for electing George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abe Lincoln ... it should be good enough for you.

"Secret ballots" are a modern innovation.

[Sarcastr0]

So is penicillin.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

To the trustees, administrators, law dean, and law faculty of Northwestern University:

Are you reading Prof. Calabresi's contributions to this white, male, disaffected, bigot-ridden, right-wing blog?

Are you going to make this mistake again?

[bernard11]

The same-day requirement is total crap.

There were 700,000 votes cast in Manhattan in 2020. How many polling stations do you need, how many machines, how many poll workers, to handle all that in a single day, especially when you face a peak after 5PM and probably a smaller one before 9AM.

What about people who are sick, or out of town, or whatever? Or don't have time to stand in line for hours?

It is transparently dishonest once you give it a moment’s thought. No one who takes it seriously deserves any respect whatsoever.

[Mr. Bumble]

Check your numbers:

There were 701,405 total of which 225,877 were Military/Absentee

https://www.vote.nyc/sites/default/files/pdf/election_results/2020/20201103General%20Election/00000100000Citywide%20President%20Vice%20President%20Citywide%20Recap.pdf

[LawTalkingGuy]

So there were even more votes to count, but the same day burden was significantly alleviated due to absentee ballots? Isn’t this proving his point?

[jb]

There were that many "absentee" ballots because New York switched to allow anyone to request one in 2020 due to the pandemic, which is the exact thing that Professor Calabrese is arguing against. So I'm not sure how your fact check does anything but support bernard11's point.

I haven't seen numbers for just Manhattan, but in 2020 about half of the in person votes were cast before election day as well so if Manhattan's ratio is consistent they only had to deal with about 250k votes on election day rather than 700k.

[LawTalkingGuy]

And Manhattan is likely logistically easier to accomplish this than a city/county with similar numbers of voters but less walkability and less public transportation options.

[Moderation4ever]

First, I like to say that absentee mail-in voting worked for many years. In many cases it was Republican state legislatures that championed to make absentee voting easier, seeing it as advantageous to their party. It was only when Trump was losing that he planted the idea of problems with absentee voting in the heads of his marks. Then using the seeded doubt claimed fraud after losing.

Second let's talk about the advantages of the mail in voting. Mail in voting has a number of built in safeguards to provide security. Mail in voting provides the voter with two very favorable benefits. The voter can choose the time to vote. Working parents can come home from work, have the family dinner, put the kids to bed and then sit down to study the ballot and vote. Another advantage is it provides the voter time to study the candidates and issues. This is especially important for local election where there is much less advertising. If the voter gets to an office and they are unfamiliar with the candidates they can look them up and study the issues.

[mse326]

Forget the rhetoric and arguments, this is blatantly ahistorical. For much of our nations history voting wasn't really a secret at all. Basically until the 1900s there was not such thing as a secret ballot. Whether by voice or party tickets everyone knew who everyone was voting for.

I have no problem arguing this wasn't good for any number of reasons, but to argue anti-secrecy isn't traditional and basically undemocratic is ahistorical gibberish.

It is also isn't clear that mail in voting isn't secret. Very few mail in ballots are being filled out with people looking over someone's shoulder, if any at all. It certainly is no where close to the open elections that were the norm for most of our history. And of course caucuses still exist like in Iowa, so much for secrecy being paramount. And "operatives" tampering with mail in ballots has never been shown to have occurred in any meaningful numbers, or even more than other types of election fraud.

[David Nieporent]

It is also isn’t clear that mail in voting isn’t secret. Very few mail in ballots are being filled out with people looking over someone’s shoulder, if any at all.

I think the badly formed argument is that mail in voting doesn't guarantee secrecy the way in-person voting does.

[DonDuck2]

You're a filthy degenerate. As are all MAGAts. You may think you will win the coming civil war, but you are wrong. Liberals will overwhelm conservatives and we will finally be free of you.

[Sarcastr0]

Congrats of being the first to call for the death of this sad man. You suck.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I don’t want to come off as too “my side is morally pure” but something seems off about this one.

So online left-wing extremists/tankies always talk about their violence in terms of “revolution.”

When online democratic hacks and liberals talk about violence…it’s typically in terms of civil institutions prevailing over traitors and such through legal maneuvers. “Go Robert Mueller and the rule of law” etc.

When the people between those groups go all violent it’s usually lamenting something they are worried is going to happen and they’ll be forced to do, or more darkly, openly hoping one deranged asshole takes care of one or two problematic politicians.

“We Liberals will destroy you in a civil war” is not really a thing? Maybe it happens when some right-wing nut goes on about it first and then a liberal responds about how they have guns and stuff too.

Still wrong to call for violence and death obviously but something seems off about this one.

[LawTalkingGuy]

What Sarc said

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Well, they'd better start embracing the 2nd Amendment soon, if they're hoping to win a shootin' war. Libertarians aren't going to be able to fend off the RINOs militarily without at least some "materiel" help from the Left...

[Purple Martin]

Problem with all the arguments here, is that they’re specific to a Trumpist population and the 2020 election. Because, at least before the 2020 elections, universal availability of vote-by-mail was becoming very popular whenever and wherever implemented,. Between 2000 and 2020, more than 300 million votes were cast via mailed-out ballots, in all 50 states, with precisely one instance* of outcome-determinative election fraud. (Yes, including what turned out to be a quite ordinary 2020 presidential election. Most of the numbers here are from a Heritage Foundation continuing project you can find by searching “heritage election fraud database“)

In the 2016 presidential election, about 25% of all voters—more than 33 million—voted with ballots mailed to them (and returned either by mail, or dropped off at elections offices, polling places, or dedicated drop-boxes). That wasn’t just liberal states—it included 27 of 29 Utah counties; 31 of 53 North Dakota counties; and 40% of Alaska’s voters (the City of Anchorage).

(I can’t find verified 2020 numbers yet, but a Pew survey says 46% of national voters self-report voting by absentee or mail-in ballot)

Before 2020, “Vote at Home” was rapidly growing in Red, Blue and Purple states, without controversy. Several pre-2020 studies show pretty definitively that vote-by-mail favored neither party—in fact, the biggest demographic who voted by mail were the elderly, who tended to vote Republican. The people who run campaigns were adapting their processes to Vote at Home, especially the GOP in Republican states with large elderly populations.

But then Trump suddenly came out against mail voting, told his people not to do it, and Trumpists everywhere started yelling Fraud! Cheating! Stolen Election! Well, it should be noted that a necessary foundation to address election fraud everywhere, may be laid by increasing standardization and therefore auditability and security of vote casting/counting practices, everywhere. But, as Prof. Calabresi notes, Trump just came out strongly supporting vote-by-mail (finally, something we can agree on!)

Pretty sure that’s what’s going to happen, and more standardized Vote at Home and vote tabulation processes, practices and methods will be in place by the end of this decade. And because it will increase ballot access, voter turnout, and election accountability across the board, I welcome it.
___________
*That instance happened in Republican North Carolina’s 2018 8th Congressional District GoP House primary, enabled by that state’s legal prohibition of Ballet Assistance programs, and not in California or Arizona, where such assistance was common, legal, reported, and tracked. And note that in NC, the fraud was still easily identified by statistical analysis of results (individual precinct voting patterns compared to prior cycles). After a relatively brief investigation confirmed the particulars, the perpetrator, one McCrae Dowless, was charged and convicted (he died last year).

Mark Harris, the winner (who said he was unaware of the fraud committed on his behalf), voluntarily gave up his seat and did not enter the new election conducted in 2019. He did win the March 2023 GOP primary for the same seat and is favored to win the heavily Republican district this November.

[rraleigh]

I have a very simple rebuttal: Utah. I live in Utah, and the largest counties in Utah use mail voting, and it has been successful and without significant controversy for many years. Obviously, Utah is a very conservative state.

[nonzenze]

This is how you can tell it's completely unserious.

Let's suppose Bob has real and serious concerns about the integrity of mail in ballots and wants to reduce the opportunity for fraud. Bob would then be in favor of eliminating mail-in-ballots (so far so good).

Now, if other political actors have real and serious concerns about the friction of voting. They might ask Bob, in exchange for in-person, let's extend it out to 14 days before the election, with at least some 24/7 polling places. All of them can be monitored and audited.

If Bob was indeed earnest and forthright in describing his motives, he would see this as an enormous win -- in exchange for the thing that he has said he really wants, he would have to trade something that's not material to fraud one way or the other. Win/Win.

On the other hand, Calvin might add to his list of anti-fraud some irrelevant concern about "the same headlines". Headlines, of course, have nothing whatsoever to do with fraud. Fraud is not about what a legitimate voter has read/heard before the election, but about whether that person has the right to vote, in the election in which they are voting, voting no more than once, and having their intended votes properly tabulated (as best possible).

One quickly concludes Bob is serious about fraud and Calvin isn't.