The move significantly affects the Democratic stronghold of Harris County, which is the state's largest county by population -- one of the most populous in the country -- and covers a massive area. It must now reduce its 11 drop-off locations down to one starting on Friday. Travis County, which includes the reliably Democratic city of Austin, must limit its four drop-off locations to one.
Other large counties -- like Tarrant, Dallas and El Paso County -- only had one drop-off location already in place.
The Republican governor said in a statement the order was made to enhance ballot security. It also allows poll watchers to observe the in-person delivery of mail-in ballots by voters, but critics say it could severely limit access for many voters.
You know, if "ballot security" is an issue the obvious answer is to have more poll watchers, not make it more difficult for Texans to vote. "Ballot security" seems to be a euphemism for securing ballots so they can't be cast.
There was a T ad on TV last night (in the wee hours, IIRC). A woman of color sat on a bed in a bedroom with a stack of hand-drawn signs, and held them up one at a time. She was totally silent. One by one, the signs said how awful Biden's policies are, and how awful the world would be with him as president.
The last one said "I'm afraid to speak up".
(eyeroll)
Change the names, and that would make an accurate pro-Biden, anti-T ad.
It was a little...scary? disturbing? and was meant to be.
I'm guessing, though, that they won't include Trump mocking Joe Biden for wearing a mask everywhere he goes.
I wouldn't bank on it. Hypocrisy has never bothered Republicans.
If Republicans had a lock on hypocrisy, politics would be significantly better. It is bake into politics every place I've paid attention to.
That said, I do think the Republicans are worse than the Democrats* by a good margin.
I'm guessing, though, that they won't include Trump mocking Joe Biden for wearing a mask everywhere he goes.
I wouldn't bank on it. Hypocrisy has never bothered Republicans.
No, but you don't get to be the de facto ruling party of the USA by making ads that hand your opponents their rebuttal gift wrapped on a silver platter.
President Donald Trump's campaign canceled its planned television advertising in Iowa and Ohio this week, focusing its spending on states where Trump is behind even as polls show he is neck-and-neck with Democratic challenger Joe Biden in the two Midwestern states.
Trump's campaign canceled its ad reservations of $2.5 million in Ohio and $820,000 in Iowa this week, according to ad-tracking firm CMAG. It'll be his third consecutive week without television ads in Iowa and Ohio.
The moves come even as public polls suggest Trump needs to shore up support in the two states that he won by about 9 percentage points each in 2016. A CBS/YouGov poll out Sunday showed Biden and Trump tied at 47% each in Ohio, while a New York Times/Siena College poll in late September showed Biden with a 45% to 42% lead Iowa.
Possible explanations:
This is redirecting campaign resources to more urgent needs.
The Trump campaign is broke and can't afford television ads.
Trump has decided that there's no way he can honestly win this election and wants the campaign fund available for the kind of self-dealing looting we've seen throughout his presidency*.
Ohio has Biden ahead by half a point. Iowa has Trump ahead by 1.1 points, so both of them are within the margin of error. (FiveThirtyEight statistics) Nationwide the margin for Biden has increased to 14 points. The spread for Biden has been increasing since the Debate. Now the latest round of hospitalization has not done Trump any favors. And him canceling negotiations for COVID relief strongly suggests he has all but given up.
No, that just means he’s given up on doing (or letting Mnuchin do) anything sensible and productive - but he never really cared about that stuff anyway.
I'm not too convinced by the Ohio poll numbers -- Trump won the state by 8 points in 2016, even though the RCP average of polls had him only up by 2 points in the week before the election.
Makes me think there are a fair number of Republicans there who have just decided they're not going to take calls from pollsters.
I'm not too convinced by the Ohio poll numbers -- Trump won the state by 8 points in 2016, even though the RCP average of polls had him only up by 2 points in the week before the election.
Makes me think there are a fair number of Republicans there who have just decided they're not going to take calls from pollsters.
That's why I said the numbers are within the margin of error. To me, it is a toss-up state. But note, if he won by 8 points in the last election and now is in a virtual draw, that means he has lost almost 8 points over the last four years.
This can also be seen in Texas. Currently, Trump leads by 1.7 points. He won over Clinton by 9 points. That means he has nearly lost 7 points in the last four years. Again, this makes Texas a virtual toss-up state.
When he tells his people to forget Coronavirus Relief, that will mean a lot of people will find themselves without a job in the next three weeks.
It's all about the economy. People vote their pocketbooks.
The polls mean nothing.
Getting people to vote and working around the obstructions that the republicans have created and will continue to create is far more important than polls.
I'm not too convinced by the Ohio poll numbers -- Trump won the state by 8 points in 2016, even though the RCP average of polls had him only up by 2 points in the week before the election.
Makes me think there are a fair number of Republicans there who have just decided they're not going to take calls from pollsters.
Pollsters (aside from the deliberately partisan ones) tend to adjust their models if they make major errors. In any case, pulling ads in the hope that polls are wrong and you're actually 6 points up is... courageous (let the Yes Minister viewer understand).
In a photo posted to social media last week, a young man wearing a mask with Orange County congressional candidate Michelle Steel’s name on it is holding a mail ballot and giving a thumbs up next to a box about the size of a file cabinet labeled “Official ballot drop off box.”
The post, from Jordan Tygh, a regional field director for the California Republican Party, encouraged people to message him for “convenient locations” to drop their own ballots.
The problem is the drop box in the photo is not official – and it could be against the law.
The California Secretary of State has received reports in recent days about possible unauthorized ballot drop boxes in Fresno, Los Angeles and Orange counties, agency spokesman Sam Mahood said Sunday evening. Reports place such boxes at local political party offices, candidate headquarters and churches.
Only county elections officials can oversee ballot drop boxes, choosing the number, location, hours of operation and other details. County registrars are charged with making sure every box follows strict state guidelines for security, including making sure they can’t be tampered with and tracing the chain of custody of all ballots.
“Operating unofficial ballot drop boxes – especially those misrepresented as official drop boxes – is not just misleading to voters, it’s a violation of state law,” Padilla said, with a felony conviction carrying a prison sentence of two to four years.
Like many of the other ways they show contempt for democracy, this seems to be a Republican operation.
On its website, the Fresno County Republican Party also shared a list of “secure” ballot collection locations. None are official county drop box sites, with the local GOP instead listing its own headquarters, multiple gun shops and other local businesses.
<snip>
The California Republican Party did not respond to requests for comment about the boxes by deadline. But they’ve been defending the practice in replies on Twitter, alleging the process was made legal under a 2016 law that allows California voters to designate a person to return their ballot for them. The GOP calls the practice “ballot harvesting” and blames it for losses to the Democrats in OC and other places in 2018.
But state officials clarified that using an unauthorized vote-by-mail drop box would not meet the requirements of the 2016 law. No designated “person” would be signing for the ballots as required by state law.
Tygh, who tweeted the Orange County drop box photo on Thursday, didn’t respond to requests for comment. He is listed on Steel’s campaign website as part of “Veterans for Michelle Steel,” a group supporting her election bid. Steel, a Republican supervisor in Orange County, is challenging Rep. Harley Rouda, a Democrat, for the 48th District Congressional seat.
A Democratic party operative retweeted Tygh’s photo on Sunday, alleging the unofficial drop box was at Steel’s campaign headquarters. Reached Sunday evening, Steel said she was out campaigning and was unaware of whether there were drop boxes at her campaign office. She said she’d check into it and call back, but could not be reached later Sunday night.
If any American shipmates are planning on casting their ballots using a ballot drop box, be sure to verify the location with your state's Secretary of State, county registrar of voters, or whatever other official is in charge of voting in your jurisdiction.
I plan on taking my filled-out ballot to the outdoor central voting site here in SF. They moved it out of City Hall, for Covid reasons.
I was also already planning to verify any workers and boxes. (E.g. If "Hey, can I take your ballot?", then "May I see your ID, please? And I need the official box, and to either put my ballot in myself or watch it being done.")
I used to vote at City Hall because of various reported problems with voting here. (E.g., ballots not making it to City Hall to be counted, empty ballot tubs found in/near the bay, etc.) I figured that, by voting there and watching my ballot being deposited, I'd done everything I could to make sure it was counted.
I took my ballot, along with my parents' to the county office and dropped them into the outside ballot box. Today I checked on line, and all three have been registered as received!
Yeah, Slate, why don't you just put up a big banner headline telling Democrats that they don't need to bother voting?
I'm not particularly worried about that. The election is already happening. It's eighteen days until "Election Day" and 21.4 million Americans have already cast their ballots. (Probably more, given delays in state reporting.) That's ~15% of the 2016 vote total, and today is the first day all states have early or mail-in voting available. (Washington state is supposed to send out the ballots for their all-mail-in election today.)
I plan on taking my filled-out ballot to the outdoor central voting site here in SF. They moved it out of City Hall, for Covid reasons.
I was also already planning to verify any workers and boxes. (E.g. If "Hey, can I take your ballot?", then "May I see your ID, please? And I need the official box, and to either put my ballot in myself or watch it being done.")
I used to vote at City Hall because of various reported problems with voting here. (E.g., ballots not making it to City Hall to be counted, empty ballot tubs found in/near the bay, etc.) I figured that, by voting there and watching my ballot being deposited, I'd done everything I could to make sure it was counted.
It's very disconcerting to read about voters in one of the most established democracies on the planet having to take such precautions to ensure their vote gets counted.
It's very disconcerting to read about voters in one of the most established democracies on the planet having to take such precautions to ensure their vote gets counted.
It's very disconcerting to read about voters in one of the most established democracies on the planet having to take such precautions to ensure their vote gets counted.
The difference now is white voters are getting caught up in this.Granted, a lot of that is because they are in a group more likely to vote for the rights of brown people
It's very disconcerting to read about voters in one of the most established democracies on the planet having to take such precautions to ensure their vote gets counted.
Comments
Donboy Trump
Which would be a good reason, perhaps
It's a reference to the theme from "Only Fools and Horses".
A U.K. TV sitcom about a dodgy and unsuccessful South-East London market trader.
His heart of gold doesn't stop him ripping people off.
If he didn't rip people off he wouldn't be much like Trump, now would he?
You know, if "ballot security" is an issue the obvious answer is to have more poll watchers, not make it more difficult for Texans to vote. "Ballot security" seems to be a euphemism for securing ballots so they can't be cast.
The president had better not have given it to Biden at the debate the other night.
And he can afford to look magnanimous. Right now, even the most objective headline about Trump is effectively a negative ad.
The Trump campaign has said they will continue to run negative ads.
What else have they got?
I'm guessing, though, that they won't include Trump mocking Joe Biden for wearing a mask everywhere he goes.
I wouldn't bank on it. Hypocrisy has never bothered Republicans.
The last one said "I'm afraid to speak up".
(eyeroll)
Change the names, and that would make an accurate pro-Biden, anti-T ad.
It was a little...scary? disturbing? and was meant to be.
That said, I do think the Republicans are worse than the Democrats* by a good margin.
*In their current incarnations.
No, but you don't get to be the de facto ruling party of the USA by making ads that hand your opponents their rebuttal gift wrapped on a silver platter.
Possible explanations:
Another use of his campaign funds might be to pay the army of "poll watchers," lawyers, and whoever else he needs to steal the election.
Makes me think there are a fair number of Republicans there who have just decided they're not going to take calls from pollsters.
That's why I said the numbers are within the margin of error. To me, it is a toss-up state. But note, if he won by 8 points in the last election and now is in a virtual draw, that means he has lost almost 8 points over the last four years.
This can also be seen in Texas. Currently, Trump leads by 1.7 points. He won over Clinton by 9 points. That means he has nearly lost 7 points in the last four years. Again, this makes Texas a virtual toss-up state.
When he tells his people to forget Coronavirus Relief, that will mean a lot of people will find themselves without a job in the next three weeks.
It's all about the economy. People vote their pocketbooks.
Getting people to vote and working around the obstructions that the republicans have created and will continue to create is far more important than polls.
Pollsters (aside from the deliberately partisan ones) tend to adjust their models if they make major errors. In any case, pulling ads in the hope that polls are wrong and you're actually 6 points up is... courageous (let the Yes Minister viewer understand).
Like many of the other ways they show contempt for democracy, this seems to be a Republican operation.
If any American shipmates are planning on casting their ballots using a ballot drop box, be sure to verify the location with your state's Secretary of State, county registrar of voters, or whatever other official is in charge of voting in your jurisdiction.
I was also already planning to verify any workers and boxes. (E.g. If "Hey, can I take your ballot?", then "May I see your ID, please? And I need the official box, and to either put my ballot in myself or watch it being done.")
I used to vote at City Hall because of various reported problems with voting here. (E.g., ballots not making it to City Hall to be counted, empty ballot tubs found in/near the bay, etc.) I figured that, by voting there and watching my ballot being deposited, I'd done everything I could to make sure it was counted.
Biden is not prepared to admit, even to himself, just far ahead he is.
Yeah, Slate, why don't you just put up a big banner headline telling Democrats that they don't need to bother voting?
On the other hand, maybe I should stop being such a gloomy gus and join the celebration...
Alright!
Here it is.
In any case, wouldn't be the first time a Joe Biden campaign has balefully copied that particular politician.
I'm not particularly worried about that. The election is already happening. It's eighteen days until "Election Day" and 21.4 million Americans have already cast their ballots. (Probably more, given delays in state reporting.) That's ~15% of the 2016 vote total, and today is the first day all states have early or mail-in voting available. (Washington state is supposed to send out the ballots for their all-mail-in election today.)
Some of this early voting wave may be the virus, but Americans are incredibly eager to vote this year.
It's very disconcerting to read about voters in one of the most established democracies on the planet having to take such precautions to ensure their vote gets counted.
It's only disconcerting if you know nothing about the history of voting rights in America.
Right. I forgot that "voters" in this context has a silent "white" in front of it.