this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024
635 points (99.7% liked)

News

23287 readers
3749 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

The ballot drop boxes in Washington and Oregon both have fire suppression systems that are designed to activate when the temperature inside reaches a certain point, coating ballots inside with a fire-suppressing powder.

For unknown reasons, the system failed to prevent the destruction of hundreds of ballots in Vancouver, just across the Columbia River from Portland.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 40 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

The problem lies in that people need to access them outside working hours due to their own work schedules, which is ultimately the point of these things. Granted, a fire station, ~~police station~~, or even a hospital lobby would be better than outside.

Edit: ok, maybe not a police station, but y'all get my point

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Police station would be a terrible choice. People who aren't able to vote on election day skew poor, black, brown, and/or immigrant - exactly the groups who would be (rightly) afraid of entering a police station.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago

Little bit concerned about a police station, both because people might feel intimidated, and votes could get 'lost'.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Why not just use post boxes? Less of a concentrated target because there'll be a whole bunch of other letters in there too. At least, I don't believe my country uses special boxes just for votes

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You can drop it in the post but many people are paranoid about it being lost in the mail. The US also suffered a not unnoticeable degradation in the post service under Trump and his post master general pick who is still at his post because he didn't resign and Biden didn't fire him.

I still vote in person because of my own anxieties about my vote being counted.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This is very obviously easier said than done, but having mail be reliable seems like a much better way to safeguard this kind of voting, than trying to install massive security around these specialised boxes. Or even having staffed early voting centres would be better than an unattended box.

I'm just looking on (from Australia) and feeling like the way voting is managed in US federal elections is unnecessarily difficult and complicated.

Every state has its own rules, and administers its own vote for a federal election?? (I understand why historically, but this is a really dumb way to run things). Some states use electronic voting, and we have seen what a bad idea this is in terms of ability to claim voter fraud. Even if electronic voting were 100% secure, which it isn't - it's way more vulnerable to large scale attack, it's simply easier to claim fraud when it's inner-workings a black box. And early voting is done in specific unattended ballot drop boxes, which so, so obviously would become a target.

And this lack of coherent, federally managed elections, also means some states just literally provide way too few places to vote.

Y'all flying by the seat of your pants, and it's scary, considering how much control over the world, and specifically my country, the US has.

Please advocate for voting reform, it should be the number one priority above all others, because without it, the political system in the US is going to keep being way too fragile. And again, this shit affects us all because of US imperialism.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

And this lack of coherent, federally managed elections, also means some states just literally provide way too few places to vote.

We actually do have laws federally to protect voters from disenfranchisement. There are often lawsuits about polling locations, hours of voting, and number of drop boxes. One side is definitely always trying to make it harder to vote, specifically on contested areas.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

What I mean is a federal electoral commission that directly administers the entire election, not sues people who do the wrong thing. We can plainly see how fragile the current arrangement is

In my view there is no argument to be made at all that the states should have any direct involvement in the running the federal election, it's a federal election.

A federal electoral commission gives you: one consistent set of rules, consistent voting infrastructure, consistent chains of reporting, consistent invigilation and auditing. Ideally also: no politicians picking their own electorate boundaries, no voting machines (for real, please see 2020 and 2000 for how spectacularly those have caused issues, and probably other times, also), no need for as many lawsuits just to get the bare minimum in compliance.

The number of lawsuits is indicative of how badly it's going.

One side is definitely making it harder to vote, I would definitely agree. I just feel not enough emphasis is given to voting as something that affects the entire political system, and should be the core #1 issue, including where I live in Australia (even if it's massively in better shape here).

Again, I always feel like a bit of a clown telling someone else in another country how to run it, but US is fair game, given it's world hegemon status.

Hope y'all can manage to get some sorely needed reform :/