That’s what ICE is for. The handling of the BLM protests was essentially practice for them.
Yeah I share your skepticism on that. If the NYT runs this as “Supreme Court Confirms Trump Victory” it will provide enough of a veneer of legitimacy to dampen the strength of the protests. And we all know that it will be framed that way.
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As far as I remember there were roughly 0 people in the streets protesting Bush stealing the election through the Supreme Court in 2000. The fact it already happened I think also will lead people to treat it as a more normal outcome tbh.
Access to information is also way more prevalent now.
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I can’t be arsed to dig up Riverman’s post for a proper reply, but I pretty strongly disagree that voting in person is the right thing to do. By far the best is to get an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and then drop it off yourself at an early voting polling place before election day. Safer for the voter, no less safe for your vote.
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Weren’t those prior to the SC ruling not after?
Unless you put it in the Dropbox in the wrong style of envelope, or your signature doesn’t match the signature from when you got your drivers license 30 years ago, or they wait to count the drop box ballots until a few days after the election with the rest of the absentees, or you sign in the wrong place, or you draw a little outside the bubble and a Trump election monitor flags it. My absentee drop box is just a giant mailbox thing outside the local library - honestly what’s to stop someone from just lighting the thing on fire or dumping a bucket of ink down the chute? I feel like nothing is off the table this year.
Idk. It’s easy for me to say because none of my general election races are competitive and so I will of course be dropping it off absentee. If I lived in PA I would absolutely vote in person.
It’s not like in person ballots are never invalidated, either.
I guess it depends on the voting mechanism. I get a paper ballot that I feed into a machine. I tap my selections and it registers the votes. Once the person signs me in at the desk, I don’t really see where the opportunity for invalidation comes in other than the (legitimate) concern that the machines themselves are compromised.
I think it was all during the count and case if memory serves.
I’ll be using my mail-in ballot in AZ. It’s important to remember that many (most?) mail-in systems have online barcode tracking so I’ll be mailing it as early as possible and I’ll know when the ballot was a) received and b) counted. If there’s any problem I’ll know well in advance of election day while there’s still time for a plan B.
If these safeguards were not in place, or if AZ didn’t start counting ballots 2 weeks ahead of election day, I might be considering other options.
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I want this to be false but it’s probably true.
I think about Trump’s insecurity and how much he attacks perceived threats to his legitimacy. He actually won the popular vote due to illegals voting, he had the biggest inauguration crowd ever, etc.
Plainly disregarding the actual vote in any state would be an indelible stain on his legitimacy. I hope this will matter to most people. I even hope it will matter to him.
more on the “strongman” idea
I sincerely doubt it. It may bug him that other people see him as illegitimate, but he will see that as a problem with them and something they need to change. He’s not going to stop cheating until he’s forced to.
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There won’t.
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Honestly, if the trump campaign itse’f is leaking this (and it appears they are), then it looks more to me like a desperate attempt to suppress democratic turnout (why bother voting during a pandemic, trump is just going to seize power anyway) than anything else. Otherwise why would they telegraph this now? I almost think it’s a good thing that they’re talking about this out loud versus just planning to do it behind closed doors.
Most likely it’s getting leaked because it’s getting discussed. It’s getting discussed because Trump realized he was probably going to lose and pivoted directly to what his options to stay in power were.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned to discount entirely in the Trump administration it’s the question of ‘Why now?’. Now is because Trumps addled ass is thinking about this now. As soon as he has an idea he floats it to see what will happen. It’s step 1b of his process such as it is.
This is the guy who was digging for eastern European clay on Biden damn near a year before Biden was actually guaranteed to be his opponent. Almost entirely because Rudy Guliani saw an opportunity to grift and talked him into it I’m guessing. It happened when it happened because that’s when the idea was had. Trump says yes to absolutely everything. He’s the definition of loose and aggressive.
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Or for the 100th time this administration they’re just getting the chatter started to normalize a previously unthinkable thing and see if they can get away with it.
I’d be shocked if less than 90% of Rs have a combination of the following views on the idea a) it is in line w/ the Constitution so dem the rules libtards and b) it’s necessary because if Ds are allowed to take power they are going to ruin the country/rig the rules in their favor so we never win again.
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