The Trump Card...

[ATeam]

Although I didn't ask it, there's no arguing the point that you or any of the rest of us that have actually worked for a living and raised a family could claim moral authority over most nitwit politicians.

I just came from our annual Mayors' Breakfast, an annual evet our Chamber of Commerce sponsors. Three mayors of three adjacent cities gave brief state of the city reports and together we honored the cities' police officers and firefighters of the year. All three of the mayors worked for a living and raised families. One entered politics after a decades-long career as a police officer. One entered politics after retiring from a career in the telecommunications industry. One served on his city council for years and is mayor now. He works part time as mayor and full time as a real estate loan officer.

The people at higher levels of public service in our area often start in offices like those above and most have indeed worked for a living and raised families. None of them are nitwits. They are exceptionally disciplined and focused individuals who know how to manage their time. And they are well liked enough to convince the majority of people to vote for them.

A friend of mine who serves on our city council is now running for county office. If he wins, that will become his full-time job. He will become a professional politician. Before getting elected to city council, a part-time job that pays almost nothing, he was a school teacher. And he's the father of seven children. Having been in the game a short time, he discovered he had the gift. Politics is now in his blood and he is fiercely engaged in working his way up the political ladder. You can be sure he has state-office and/or federal-office aspirations. But his political ambitions aside, he worked hard in a non-political job and continues to raise his family.

Another friend of mine, who is also running for a different county office, spent his adult life in the navy, working his way up through the ranks and retiring after serving as the base commander of one of the largest naval bases in the world. He then took a job as our city's city manager, quit that after a few years and is now running to become an elected official on the county council. He too worked for a living and raised a family; and trust me, he is no nitwit.

Politicians are subjected to the full range of human experiences as they run for and serve in public office. They know their communities and the people in them better than anyone else. They are often highly educated and always quick on their feet. If you genuinely believe these people to be nitwits, they are going to run circles around you every time, because they will pick that up in an instant and use your short-sighted view to their advantage. And they'll do it looking you in the eye with a big smile on their face.

 

[ATeam]

It’s illegal in Georgia. The ballots may be legal, but the process of harvesting them for one political party to skirt the law for an election advantage while the other side played by the rules is at issue here.

Which is why the matter is being investigated, as it should be.

 

[ATeam]

My post with screenshots was in response to Rlent who had already commented initially on the ruling and had already came to the conclusion that the Republican judges didn’t come to the right ruling. I made the assumption that since he did all that he actually had read the ruling and it’s reasons already. That is why I didn’t post the link.

I'm not talking about a particular set of screenshots. I'm talking about your habit of posting screen-shot excerpts that present only part of whatever story you are referencing at the time. Recent links you have posted are much better and much appreciated.

 

[ATeam]

So every one of those ballots that were harvested were for Biden?

I don't know. Information about this investigation is not thoroughly reported so far. Those making the accusations seem to think the harvested ballots in question were for Biden. But the fact is, we simply don't know what exactly is being investigated and what the findings are or may turn out to be. We do know allegations have been made and they were deemed credible enough to begin an investigation. We'll simply have to wait to see what develops next.

 

[ATeam]

I agree, the whole thing about ballots being private is ripe for fraud, even if you dont mark the persons name on the ballot put some kind of tracking number that can be tied to whose vote it is, so that later if found to be improper that vote can be removed.

Modern technology would allow everyone to vote without ever having to leave home and be secure, but the GOP would never allow that as it would be their end.

Florida's absentee/early voting ballot process seems as good as they come and reliable. I see no reason why a properly identified citizen should have to work hard to cast a proper vote when the vote can be more-easily cast instead. It is in the interests of democracy to make it easy for people to vote, not hard. It is in the interests of democracy to get as many citizens to vote as possible; and ease of voting is a step in that direction.

With our 2020 absentee ballots, Diane and I identified ourselves with our info and signatures on an outside envelope. That data was verified by election officials to make sure we were eligible voters and had not previously voted in that election. When that was done, our secret ballot (no identifying information) was removed from the envelope, examined to make sure it was not a spoiled ballot (improperly completed or otherwise damaged) and counted with all others. We were able to verify online that our ballots had been received and counted.

I delivered our ballots to a drop box during the early voting period because it was convenient. We did not have to wait in any line on any day. We did not have to worry about our ballots being lost in the mail.

This was a good process that I think should be made available to every American who is eligible to vote. Very little voter fraud, if any, was found in Florida. They system is both practical and secure.

 

[ATeam]

Yes, the people who did the ballot harvesting, but as for who the harvested votes were for there is no way to find out.

If the people who did the harvesting talk, that would be the way to find out. They can say if they harvested ballots for all candidates in general, simply to support people's ability to get their ballots in (still an illegal act in GA), or if they gathered ballots only from voters known to support a specific candidate or party.

If this alleged harvesting turns out to be an actual and widespread thing, I would hope the harvesters would talk so the truth can be known.

 

[danthewolf00]

And California is now looking at blm financials.....60 million missing.

 

[Ragman]

And California is now looking at blm financials.....60 million missing.

Typical inaccurate post....

The investigation is into delinquent documents of what the money is used for.

California threatens to hold BLM's leaders personally liable over missing financial records

The California Department of Justice has threatened to hold the leaders of Black Lives Matter personally liable if they fail to fork over information about the charity's $60 million bankroll within the next 60 days, according to a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.

www.washingtonexaminer.com

 

[RLENT]

My post with screenshots was in response to Rlent who had already commented initially on the ruling and had already came to the conclusion that the Republican judges didn’t come to the right ruling.

No, that's incorrect.

I was disputing your assertion that the matter was "cut and dry" ... remember ?

I then further offered that it seemed like it might be another case where Republican appointed judges were acting in bad faith, in order to make it harder for duly-qualified citizens to cast their ballots.

I made the assumption that since he did all that he actually had read the ruling and it’s reasons already. That is why I didn’t post the link.

Well I'm not sure why you would come to that conclusion ... since I posted the local news article that I based my opinion on right in the post where I replied that I reference above.

 

[RLENT]

Florida's absentee/early voting ballot process seems as good as they come and reliable. I see no reason why a properly identified citizen should have to work hard to cast a proper vote when the vote can be more-easily cast instead. It is in the interests of democracy to make it easy for people to vote, not hard. It is in the interests of democracy to get as many citizens to vote as possible; and ease of voting is a step in that direction.

Agree with those sentiments but I want to address one thing further down in your post:

With our 2020 absentee ballots, Diane and I identified ourselves with our info and signatures on an outside envelope. That data was verified by election officials to make sure we were eligible voters and had not previously voted in that election. When that was done, our secret ballot (no identifying information) was removed from the envelope, examined to make sure it was not a spoiled ballot (improperly completed or otherwise damaged) and counted with all others. We were able to verify online that our ballots had been received and counted.

I delivered our ballots to a drop box during the early voting period because it was convenient. We did not have to wait in any line on any day. We did not have to worry about our ballots being lost in the mail.

This was a good process that I think should be made available to every American who is eligible to vote. Very little voter fraud, if any, was found in Florida. They system is both practical and secure.

Signature matching/verification is highly problematic and potentially arbitrary:

People's signatures change over time (mine certainly has) and can be effected by acute or chronic health conditions, as well as a number of other factors.

Additionally, very few elections officials at the level where such "signature verification" occurs are trained well enough (if they are even trained at all) to do it with any degree of accuracy. Certainly not to the level where they would be qualified to testify in court as an expert witness as to whether a signature is authentic or not.

The State of Florida was sued in 2019 over the fact that they offered no training whatsoever on signature matching to officials that may to do it as part of their duties in administering elections.

The training and rules for officials are all over the place too. Florida law says that ballots can be rejected because of a mismatch, but a 2019 lawsuit filed by Democrats complained that the state offered no training or procedures for officials assessing signatures, “resulting in processes that are demonstrably standardless, inconsistent, and unreliable.” Under a new law, the state must offer standardized training, and a two-hour training video is posted online. You can also watch an Oregon training session on YouTube. Colorado, which conducts its elections via mail, posts its signature-verification guide online.

Your mileage may vary, but these materials didn’t give me a great deal of confidence in the system. It’s not that election officials aren’t trying—the presentations are earnest and straightforward—but they offer fairly minimal training to the people who will decide whether someone’s vote for president gets to count. Professional forensic document examiners are typically trained for two to three years, but even the most robust training systems for election officials are more like eight hours. Some of the judgment calls depicted in the materials are obvious mismatches, but others are much fuzzier.

Signature Matching Is the 'Witchcraft' of Elections - The Atlantic

Signature Match Laws Disproportionately Impact Voters Already on the Margins

 

[coalminer]

You know, there is a good point on signatures, I registered to vote last year online and then requested the vote by mail online, there was no signature to verify. Maybe they suspended that requirement because of Covid?

 

[ATeam]

And California is now looking at blm financials.....60 million missing.

When I saw that headline scroll across one of our gym TVs today I was greatly relieved.

Some time ago, I happened to look at Black Lives Matter, the organization, in response to a post or story I saw. I concluded then they were a CA-based, wack-a-doodle group that was somehow trying to address a mixed-up mess of far, far, far left issues that defied common sense. Up to that point, that was the first time and last time I thought about BLM. After learning a bit about this entity, it was simply of no interest to me.

Then the George Floyd murder happened, riveting and energizing the country around that event. The slogan "Black Lives Matter" -- the slogan, not the organization -- ignited and spread like wildfire. By virtue of its name and status as an existing entity, the wack-a-doodle group was just plain lucky to be in a position to cash in. And cash in they did. But the organization leaders are still wack-a-doodle nut cases.

I am not a bit surprised to see them get into a world of hurt. Indeed, I expected to see them get into a world of hurt, because their view of the world does not conform to the expectations and laws organizations are subject to. These people are truly "out there." It makes perfect sense to me that they are now in trouble for failing to file required reports, and are said to be unable to explain where millions of dollars went, and are even unable to clearly state who is in charge of the organization. Being as "out there" as they are, they are simply not disposed to care about such things.

I fully expect to see the regulators turn BLM inside out and to hear the organization leaders cry loudly about the injustice of it all, when the truth is they were ill-equipped to deal with an issue that was not theirs to own in the first place. I consider the leaders of that organization to be ungrounded, pie-in-the-sky, idiots who, in the long run, are going to do more harm than good to the millions who say from their hearts that black lives matter.

 

[ATeam]

Agree with those sentiments but I want to address one thing further down in your post:

Signature matching/verification is highly problematic and potentially arbitrary:

Your points are valid. But note that you cannot request an absentee ballot if you are not already a registered voter. It's not just the signature that is verified. Your status as a voter and your address is also verified before the ballot is even sent.

 

[RLENT]

Your points are valid. But note that you cannot request an absentee ballot if you are not already a registered voter. It's not just the signature that is verified. Your status as a voter and your address is also verified before the ballot is even sent.

I have no issue with verification to ensure that someone is qualified to cast a vote per se.

But the way that is done needs to ensure that those that are so qualified don't have their right to cast a vote invalidated - due to some flaw or arbitrariness in the process.

 

[ATeam]

I have no issue with verification to ensure that someone is qualified to cast a vote per se.

But the way that is done needs to ensure that those that are so qualified don't have their right to cast a vote invalidated - due to some flaw or arbitrariness in the process.

Yours is a valid concern, especially given the Republican overt and unapologetic voter suppression efforts now underway.

 

[RLENT]

Secondly, I take back my "no defense for lock and load" position because anyone with half a brain knows the context of this expression was not related to the use of firearms. It's pretty common for people to use it in place of "be alert" or "be ready", but of course liberals and the mainstream media would be more than ready to use the literal interpretation if it would make a headline.

Yeah ... the only real problem with that crack analysis, is the speaker's (immediately) previous commentary regarding the 2nd amendment and the (supposed) reason for its existence ... plus all the associated commentary about delivering (so-called) "justice" ...

Of course, it goes without saying that extremist right wing kooks see that sort of stuff as totally fine.

Try watching the video again maybe ?

 

[muttly]

No, that's incorrect.

I was disputing your assertion that the matter was "cut and dry" ... remember ?

I then further offered that it seemed like it might be another case where Republican appointed judges were acting in bad faith, in order to make it harder for duly-qualified citizens to cast their ballots.



Well I'm not sure why you would come to that conclusion ... since I posted the local news article that I based my opinion on right in the post where I replied that I reference above.

And you’re basing that they’re acting in bad faith how? Did you read the ruling yet?

 

[muttly]

Well ... he has had a tendency towards incitement ... usually using coded language.

You know:



Look what happened from that.

He was calling for more "protests" just the other day at the "rally" in Conroe, TX.

People have seen and heard enough to understand how it works:

Georgia DA Requests FBI Protection After Donald Trump Threatens Protests

How is this in any way related to the Black colleges post? You’re stretching credulity. A vast majority of these incidents usually turn out to be some mentally disturbed person with no political motive or a political hoax done by the Left.

 

[danthewolf00]

Well ... he has had a tendency towards incitement ... usually using coded language.

You know:



Look what happened from that.

He was calling for more "protests" just the other day at the "rally" in Conroe, TX.

People have seen and heard enough to understand how it works:

Georgia DA Requests FBI Protection After Donald Trump Threatens Protests

Once again your putting words in trumps mouth......your like Adam schiff.

 

[RLENT]

The following load of disingenuous crap and lies deserves to be dispensed with as the partisan-motivated BS that it is, and I will endeavor to do so now:

"Let’s start with the Supreme Court. On September 17, 2020, in direct contravention of the wording of Act 77, the court extended the deadline for mailed ballots to be received from Election Day, to three days after Election Day. Then the court declared that “just for the 2020 general election”, ballots mailed without a postmark should be presumed to have been received on time.

Regarding this little whine above, it is worth noting that the United States Supreme Court ultimately upheld the PA Supreme Court's decision that the Senator is whining about.

PA Supreme Court based their ruling on an extant "emergency" or "natural disaster" (both of which are addressed under the PA election code) ... and the USPS' problems - which appear to directly stem from having the Trump appointed Postmaster General acting in a manner that appears to have been designed to influence the outcome of the election ... under the rubric of "modernization".

In doing so, they denied the original petitioners request for a 7 day deadline extension, instead agreeing with the revised opinion of the PA Secretary of State, where she revised her original recommendation of a 7 day extension, down to a 3 day extension ... after receiving a letter from USPS officials.

That this whole situation stems from a particular emergency - which will hopefully be a one time event - so it is not at all surprising that the PA Supreme Court held for one-time exception given the circumstances.

Read the actual opinion which I linked previously ... rather than accepting some partisan hack's characterizations - which are highly suspect at best - as gospel truth ...

Lastly, the court mandated that mail-in ballots lacking a verified signature were to be accepted. This meant that any ballot, without a signature, without a postal mark would be counted, even if received three days after the election. This policy making by the court opened up Pandora’s Box for uncertainty in the outcome of the election.

Hard to what to make of this assertion above ... confusion on the part of the Senator ... or outright fabrication ?

The word "signature" appears nowhere in the opinion he cites (PS Supreme Court, September 17th) and the word "verified" appears only once - as part of the whole word "unverified".

The context of that single instance of usage is reproduced in the quote below:

The crux of Petitioner’s position is that although Act 77 directs a mail-in voter to utilize the secrecy envelope in submitting the mail-in ballot, there is no provision in the Election Code authorizing the Boards to discard a ballot on grounds that the voter failed to insert the ballot into the secrecy envelope before returning it to the Boards. Rather, Petitioner asserts, the statute directs the Boards to reject mail-in ballots only if the mail- in elector died prior to Election Day, id. § 3146.8(d), the ballot is unverified or challenged on grounds that the mail-in voter was unqualified to vote ...

This quotation is just a recitation by the Court of the Petitioner's argument ... with respect to one of the counts at issue (which had nothing to with signatures, verified or otherwise), and was not part of any holding of the PA Supreme Court.

Indeed, the Court ultimately rejected the Petitioner's argument on that particular count, and found against them.

Not to be outdone, Secretary of State Boockvar took it upon herself to join in on the hijacking of Act 77 in late October 2020. Boockvar issued guidance directed only to certain counties to “cure” defective ballots. This allowed voting officials in those counties to correct ballots so that they could be counted.

This one above appears to be just an outright lie:

Counties in Pennsylvania employed inconsistent policies when it came to “curing” ballots — notifying voters of an error in their mail-in ballot so they could fix it. But contrary to claims by the Trump campaign, that inconsistency didn’t fall strictly along party lines.

It wasn’t only Democratic counties that “cured” ballots, as opposed to Republican ones that didn’t. All counties got the same guidance the night before the election instructing them to notify political parties and update the ballot-tracking online system about ballot errors, thus allowing voters to cast a provisional ballot on Election Day.

Some counties notified voters, and some didn’t.

Read the linked article below for the full(er) story ... rather than accepting some partisan hack's characterizations as gospel which are highly suspect ... at best.

Ballot ‘Curing’ in Pennsylvania

Boockvar dishonestly told the Supreme Court that mail-in ballots received after the November 3 election would be set aside, pending an appeal to nullify ballots collected in the days after the election. However, the Secretary then told counties to tabulate the ballots as quickly as possible, co-mingling ballots received by Election Day with those received after. To this date, we don’t know how many late arriving ballots ended up being tabulated in the final results."

The good Senator offers no evidence for the claims he makes above (re: dishonesty or co-mingling) ... and from I sit, there's little reason at this point to trust his claims.

Pa. received 10,000 ballots after polls closed on Election Day

Too few late-arriving Pennsylvania ballots to affect final outcome of Trump-Biden race, secretary of state says

Note - the U. S. Supreme Court cited below is SCOTUS - not the PA Supreme Court, although it is mentioned in the article as well (second quote):

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that election officials in Pennsylvania can count absentee ballots received as late as the Friday after Election Day so long as they are postmarked by Nov. 3.

The court declined without comment to take up one of the highest-profile election law cases in the final stretch before Election Day. Pennsylvania Republicans had sought to block the counting of late-arriving ballots, which the state's Supreme Court had approved last month.

In its ruling, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said that ballots could be counted if they were received by 5 p.m. Nov. 6, as long as they were mailed by Election Day, Nov. 3. It also said that ballots without a postmark would "be presumed to have been mailed by Election Day" unless there was strong evidence to the contrary.

Supreme Court Rules Pennsylvania Can Count Ballots Received After Election Day

It should be noted that the good Senator Pilgrim references is a far-right, fanatical religious extremist and conspiracy theory kook:

A Pennsylvania Lawmaker and the Resurgence of Christian Nationalism

It is still not entirely clear what role the six bus loads of followers he paid to transport to our nation's Capitol on Jan 6th had in the events of insurrection.

If Act 77 had remained in place unaltered during the 2020 election, would the results have been different?

Act 77 was not "altered" nor was it set aside ... the courts merely ruled on legal issues that were placed before the courts.

Nobody knows - but keep in mind that Biden put PA over the top with 1,995,691 mail-in votes compared to Trump's 595,538. Comparing that result to the overall vote split, it any wonder that Republicans in PA questioned that Trump won only 23% of the mail-in votes?

Republicans would have had "questions" in any event, under any circumstances, assuming Biden won.

Had Biden lost and Trump won, no questions whatsoever ... we're good, nothing to see here, move along now ...