Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 346: One Q Over the Coup Coup's Nest

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Paratroopa1 posted...

Hi, I've worked in elections. Counting every vote in a state in 24 hours is hilariously impossible even with drastically increased manpower, which would cost millions. Ok thanks.

i mean i think it's technically possible but i'd make the expense firmly in the billions with so many points of failures that any incident would become absolutely bloated.

Corrik7 posted...

All digital voting with finger print scanning to validate voting identity. Nationwide fingerprints. Everyone given a government digital location to vote who doesn't have a cell or tablet or pc device with fingerprint scanning technology so that they can vote for themself there.

i do believe we're going into this direction in the end.
your resistance will be people who don't trust giving government fingerprints or those who don't trust fingerprint scanners but you'll still get over half the nation on board and steadily more as time passes.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

Surprised this topic suddenly forgot that masterplum's modus operandi up until now has been to make one pro-Trump/GoP troll post a week every week for the last several months and then dissappear into the ether.

Kind of shocked he is sticking around for this one.

yeah it's kind of the same shit as Wang, disappointingly. I'm pretty done with it since he's showing that he's either not here in good faith or totally unwilling to understand the reality of the situation, and neither is a good look for him.

StealThisSheen posted...

Like, do you seriously think if everything was magically counted in 24 hours, this would be over and all of these lawsuits and recounts and shit wouldn't be happening?

The US looks dumb as fuck right now because of all that shit, not the count itself.

I think less idiots would be duped by the propaganda in that scenario, yes.

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TheRock1525 posted...

As far as I'm concerned, we should have a god damn election week. You know how close we would get to 100% participation if in-person voting was a week instead of a day? You can see how expanding mail-in balloting alone led to a massive increase in voters.

A few states have this.

Not as drastic as you'd think.

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If you want people to vote you make election day a Holiday so that people recognize that time off as specifically time off to vote. Otherwise people have to choose "vote or make use of leisure time".

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Reg posted...

yeah it's kind of the same shit as Wang, disappointingly. I'm pretty done with it since he's showing that he's either not here in good faith or totally unwilling to understand the reality of the situation, and neither is a good look for him.

Or I have a different opinion than you?

I don't understand why that is hard to comprehend.

The reality of the situation is if the government throws money at a problem it can fix it, but we pay poll workers absolute shit and then are confused why it takes too long to count

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Wanglicious posted...

i mean i think it's technically possible but i'd make the expense firmly in the billions with so many points of failures that any incident would become absolutely bloated.

i do believe we're going into this direction in the end.
your resistance will be people who don't trust giving government fingerprints or those who don't trust fingerprint scanners but you'll still get over half the nation on board and steadily more as time passes.

LIberals will be the ones who shoot this down actually. They will argue that giving fingerprints hurts illegal immigrants and gives too much power to the cops. Also, they will argue that this system disenfranchises the poor because they are required to go to a station to vote instead of doing so from the comfort of their own home or car or workplace like however many else.

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I'm not sure why it's difficult to understand that Rick Scott is operating under obvious bad faith and that his suggestion is laughably unworkable

masterplum posted...

then are confused why it takes too long to count

who was confused on this?

Everyone said it would take about a week. We knew the winner in a few days.

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Paratroopa1 posted...

I'm not sure why it's difficult to understand that Rick Scott is operating under obvious bad faith and that his suggestion is laughably unworkable

I just think that's irrelevant. Its way more fruitful to work with people than to stone wall them. If democrats propose increasing government spending to make it happen and he backs down then he looks like an ass

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There is no amount of government spending that will make a 24-hour count happen, it would only cause disenfranchisement as we're forced to throw 80% of ballots into a furnace for no reason

I'm still not sure how you are trying to say "24 hours or else" is somehow valid.

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masterplum posted...

The reality of the situation is if the government throws money at a problem it can fix it, but we pay poll workers absolute shit and then are confused why it takes too long to count

It's not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of you not understanding the logistics of vote counting and why just throwing more money/bodies at the problem doesn't solve it in spite of you thinking it magically will.

Do you think that previous elections were too slowly counted, by any chance?

It's easy to make it work. We just ban absentee voting. All of the states counted their election day ballots well within 24 hours. Most of them got it done within 8 hours.

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red sox 777 posted...

It's easy to make it work. We just ban absentee voting. All of the states counted their election day ballots well within 24 hours. Most of them got it done within 8 hours.

Well that's stupid. I don't want you in my side of the argument

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Corrik7 posted...

LIberals will be the ones who shoot this down actually. They will argue that giving fingerprints hurts illegals and gives too much power to the cops. Also, they will argue that this system disenfranchises the poor because they are required to go to a station to vote instead of doing so from the comfort of their own home or car or workplace like however many else.

How would giving fingerprints hurt illegals? They're not supposed to vote anyway, so they just wouldn't give fingerprints. Or is this one of those "ILLEGALS ARE VOTING FOR DEMOCRATS" things?

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Reg posted...

It's not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of you not understanding the logistics of vote counting and why just throwing more money/bodies at the problem doesn't solve it in spite of you thinking it magically will.

Do you think that previous elections were too slowly counted, by any chance?

Yes. Absolutely it takes too long. California takes weeks every election.

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I mean if the proposal is to actually increase funding to elections, to require states to start counting mail-in ballots as they receive them, etc, then that sounds good to me

Requiring the count to be done in 24 hours doesnt make any sense unless you can identify a consequence that wouldnt be terrible (like not counting whatevers left or penalizing their federal funding or something like that). I dont see how there would be any sort of enforcement of this that wasnt itself hugely problematic.

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well okay, let's take a different approach.
what exactly are you looking to accomplish here, plum. maybe we're getting hung up on the 24h period stuff too much.

is your goal a set deadline?
is your goal a time limit on counting?

like i'm looking for specific goals being intended here as opposed to ideas or claims.

Corrik7 posted...

LIberals will be the ones who shoot this down actually. They will argue that giving fingerprints hurts illegals and gives too much power to the cops. Also, they will argue that this system disenfranchises the poor because they are required to go to a station to vote instead of doing so from the comfort of their own home or car or workplace like however many else.

i can see that. though honestly any fed job asks you for fingerprints so once you get over it the whole thing is whatever.

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Paratroopa1 posted...

There is no amount of government spending that will make a 24-hour count happen, it would only cause disenfranchisement as we're forced to throw 80% of ballots into a furnace for no reason

You don't throw out the ballots ever. You just penalize states that don't get them in with reduced finding or whatever.

In no world should this effect ballots. Male it all about money

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Inviso posted...

How would giving fingerprints hurt illegals? They're not supposed to vote anyway, so they just wouldn't give fingerprints. Or is this one of those "ILLEGALS ARE VOTING FOR DEMOCRATS" things?

I believe they would argue that it helps more readily identify them with having a database of fingerprints from all citizens.

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red sox 777 posted...

It's easy to make it work. We just ban absentee voting. All of the states counted their election day ballots well within 24 hours. Most of them got it done within 8 hours.

Im pretty certain that this is not true for provisional ballots

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I dunno I feel like a national government database you must give your fingerprints to if you want to vote sounds like a terrible idea so maybe Corrik is right about liberals not liking that idea but not for the reasons he says.

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Suprak the Stud posted...

I dunno I feel like a national government database you must give your fingerprints to if you want to vote sounds like a terrible idea so maybe Corrik is right about liberals not liking that idea but not for the reasons he says.

You could say what your reasons are.

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Wanglicious posted...

well okay, let's take a different approach.
what exactly are you looking to accomplish here, plum. maybe we're getting hung up on the 24h period stuff too much.

is your goal a set deadline?
is your goal a time limit on counting?

like i'm looking for specific goals being intended here as opposed to ideas or claims.

i can see that. though honestly any fed job asks you for fingerprints so once you get over it the whole thing is whatever.

The goal is to get the result faster. Look at nevada this year for example that went days without updates, or some of the house district races that took weeks.

In assembly lines they hire shifts for example. If money was no issue you easily could have counting 24 hours a day with 3 shifts of workers. I'm not saying we take it that far, but I agree with the premise that if we were willing to pay more we wouldn't have such a long delay

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Im pretty certain that this is not true for provisional ballots

Those are the slowest but only amount to 1-2% of votes. I'm presuming Rick Scott is proposing that provisional ballots also are banned. Apparently they are a relatively new thing (like last 20 years in a lot of states).

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masterplum posted...

The goal is to get the result faster. Look at nevada this year for example that went days without updates, or some of the house district races that took weeks.

In assembly lines they hire shifts for example. If money was no issue you easily could have counting 24 hours a day with 3 shifts of workers. I'm not saying we take it that far, but I agree with the premise that if we were willing to pay more we wouldn't have such a long delay

It's actually super simple, plum. If any area can get their votes counted in time then any area can. It just requires more workers proportional to the size of the area.

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You don't throw out the ballots ever. You just penalize states that don't get them in with reduced finding or whatever.

If states don't get their votes counted in time, they presumably need to hire more staff to count votes. In order to do this, you're... taking funding away from them?

It just seems like you're effectively encouraging states to count fewer votes and be sloppier about it, both of which would be bad.
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Also there is already a federal deadline in place on vote counting, but it's like a month. The remedy is that if a state can't certify their result by then, Congress doesn't have to count their electoral votes.

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masterplum posted...

You don't throw out the ballots ever. You just penalize states that don't get them in with reduced finding or whatever.

In no world should this effect ballots. Male it all about money

So you're concerned about the low pay of poll workers but you believe that states should be incentivized to badly overwork them and ensure as sloppy a count as possible to avoid getting getting punished

this sounds like a perfect remedy for our nonexistent election problems

MalcolmMasher posted...

You don't throw out the ballots ever. You just penalize states that don't get them in with reduced finding or whatever.

So if states don't get their votes counted in time, they presumably need to hire more staff to count votes. In order to do this, you're... taking funding away from them?

Yes. In the same way we make businesses pay minimum wages regardless of how much money they make, it should be acceptable to force states to count ballots in a reasonable time frame regardless of how much money they have

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Stop relying on the archaic UPS and other aging ways of counting ballots.

Technology exists. Now is the time to jump to the future. We have ways to get votes counted within an hour tops and with proper security to ensure votes are done without fraud (beyond literal like force and coercion). We shouldn't be afraid of them.

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By the way, having states do a sloppy count in order to get in under an arbitrary deadline means that there will be more lawsuits and recounts, which will make elections slower and more expensive

Paratroopa1 posted...

So you're concerned about the low pay of poll workers but you believe that states should be incentivized to badly overwork them and ensure as sloppy a count as possible to avoid getting getting punished

this sounds like a perfect remedy for our nonexistent election problems

This is a good point. Would need to make sure that doesn't happen

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there's a definite danger and uncomfortable feeling to it, government having everybody's fingerprints is something every cop will drool over. match fingerprints to a database with every voter, perfect solution! but i'm positive there's a ton of horrifying prospects that can be come up with so you'd need to tie it together somehow. i mean it'd help with stuff like taxes, census, voter registration, all rolled in one, and another form of ID to use.

now... again, if you work for government, you gotta get printed. happens with feds, happens in state i think (does for NY, dunno if all of them), and that's a lot of jobs right there, especially for lower income.


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perspective from a non-american and an outside observer to all this:

• rick scott clearly has a nefarious self-serving agenda in suggesting this, in line with previous republican efforts towards vote suppression, and it is right to be suspicious of his motives
• this year's election, in the midst of the pandemic, needs to be understood as a uniquely challenging situation and given some leeway
• that said, from an outside perspective, american elections do seem to be organized in a remarkably haphazard and shoddy way across the board, and vote counting speed is one aspect of that. california as masterplum mentioned above is a perfect example; even in normal circumstances that state always takes weeks, and there's never the excuse of "oh it's close, we need to be careful". it's just weird and baffling that the popular vote differential still isn't known now, three weeks later.

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We need to get the count done in 24 hours or else we penalize the states.

Also, we need to make sure every vote is counted and no votes are tossed out.

Also, we need to make sure nobody is overworked.

Also, we need to make sure the count isn't too quick or too sloppy.

Also, we should take money away from states that don't finish in 24 hours.

Also, we should make the states hire more poll workers.

Nailed it, guys. It's so simple!

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Wanglicious posted...

there's a definite danger and uncomfortable feeling to it, government having everybody's fingerprints is something every cop will drool over. match fingerprints to a database with every voter, perfect solution! but i'm positive there's a ton of horrifying prospects that can be come up with so you'd need to tie it together somehow. i mean it'd help with stuff like taxes, census, voter registration, all rolled in one, and another form of ID to use.

now... again, if you work for government, you gotta get printed. happens with feds, happens in state i think (does for NY, dunno if all of them), and that's a lot of jobs right there, especially for lower income.

It's like having everyone's fingerprints to be able to identify criminals easier would be a bad thing! Right!? lol

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TBQH I would prefer going to paper ballots only, so that hand recounts are possible and meaningful and results are released over the course of several hours. It is imperative for confidence that results are not released all at once or all run through the same technological system. Any system can potentially be hacked.

I would not put in that 24-hour deadline, but would ban absentee voting unless you have a good reason (like you are serving in the military). Would allow provisional ballots as well. Would probably require college students to vote at home (by absentee ballot if necessary), not on campus.

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that said, from an outside perspective, american elections do seem to be organized in a remarkably haphazard and shoddy way across the board, and vote counting speed is one aspect of that.

I would assume this is because each of the fifty states is more or less able to set its own rules for its own elections.
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So now that we've got one problem done, anybody have any solutions for global warming, world peace, and hunger?

I say we just fix 'em.

All in agreement?

Three more off the docket!

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You know if we just give everyone money nobody will be poor.

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https://twitter.com/stefanroberts/status/1330091788397408257

Best President of our lives.

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StealThisSheen posted...

So now that we've got one problem done, anybody have any solutions for global warming, world peace, and hunger?

You could fix all three of those with one solution, ironically.

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red13n posted...

You know if we just give everyone money nobody will be poor.

Wait, wait, wait.

More poll workers... More money.

Holy shit, you're on to something. It's so easy.

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"Why are you taking so long to finish my surgery? There should be a law where every surgery lasts no longer than an hour."

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masterplum posted...

The goal is to get the result faster. Look at nevada this year for example that went days without updates, or some of the house district races that took weeks.

In assembly lines they hire shifts for example. If money was no issue you easily could have counting 24 hours a day with 3 shifts of workers. I'm not saying we take it that far, but I agree with the premise that if we were willing to pay more we wouldn't have such a long delay

faster in what way? i see two ways you can mean that.
1) "faster" from getting the vote to counting the vote.
2) "faster" from having the results posted.

dunno if there's other options but i'm generally working with that framework.
for both the easiest answer would be extending the time you can vote, having different ways you can vote. like if you want the overall, long term objective to be accurate vote count in 24 hours i can respect that. but there's a lot that has to change to reach that point and with the level we're at now or the level we'll be at in 4 years, it's an impossible ask. the fingerprint database route would be the best one for this.

the two aren't the same either, the former would allow absentee ballots much easier than the latter.

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@Suprak_the_Stud

I said 222 I believe and you said 225.

It's currently 222-205 with 8 seats uncalled... all 8 with republican leads right now.

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Wanglicious posted...

faster in what way? i see two ways you can mean that.
1) "faster" from getting the vote to counting the vote.
2) "faster" from having the results posted.

dunno if there's other options but i'm generally working with that framework.
for both the easiest answer would be extending the time you can vote, having different ways you can vote. like if you want the overall, long term objective to be accurate vote count in 24 hours i can respect that. but there's a lot that has to change to reach that point and with the level we're at now or the level we'll be at in 4 years, it's an impossible ask. the fingerprint database route would be the best one for this.

the two aren't the same either, the former would allow absentee ballots much easier than the latter.

Pennsylvania and Michigan could have been called earlier if they counted their absentee earlier. The night of easily.

Nevada should have been called the night of and their workers literally said fuck it see you in 2 days half way through the night anyways lol.

But, granted, called for projections and actual results are different things.

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By the way, look at Wisconsin - they were a lot closer than Pennsylvania or Michigan and also had that rule about not being able to count absentee ballots until election day - and they still finished counting on election night!

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