I think perhaps Sinema was right: Arizona just might be “the meth lab of democracy”
What else can explain the state’s extraordinarily cockamamie voting system?
Other, much bigger states somehow manage to do it in a night, and maybe an extra day to finish up. That’s true even if they have a lot of mail-in ballots. Then of course later there might be recounts, if necessary, and that can take a long time.
However, although on Election Night all the online reports were that 99% of Arizona’s votes had been counted, we now discover that about 26% remain uncounted. So the outcome of the Senate election in Arizona is completely in doubt because only about 16,000 votes separate the two candidates (the Republican McSally is currently leading Sinema, but that could change).
What’s more, it will take many more days to count the 600,000 as-yet-uncounted votes. One wonders what on earth is going on there. The website I just linked is devoid of any explanation, although it does say which counties have what number of votes still outstanding, and how the already-counted vote percentages went in those places. I did some math, and by my calculations McSally might just barely pull it out in the end, although that depends on the uncounted ballots in each county having the same proportions of votes for each of the candidates as the already-counted ballots do. Do early voters and/or mail-in voters vote the same as people who come to vote in person on Election Day? Dunno.
I found a reasonable explanation in the comments of this thread at Instapunidt:
80% of Arizona voters get their ballots by mail. You can either vote at your kitchen table and drop it off in the mailbox…or vote and drop it off at a polling place on election day (bypassing whatever lines, I think). Those mail ballots are inside an envelope which is signed by the voter. The delay here is that the signatures on those 600,000 envelopes have to be verified (as you have to show ID at the polling station), and then the envelopes opened and the ballots run through the machines….
The signatures aren’t verified at the polling station, but back where they’re counted. Other than some common sense regarding whether the signature on the ballot matches the signature on the registration, I can’t tell you what standards they use, but I’ll guess that there is some method to contest a signature…
…the ID isn’t required to drop the ballot. That is why the signatures are verified.
That is a really lousy system.
Of course, one wonders whether there will be some shenanigans and ballots for Shimena will suddenly be found, just enough to put her over the top. This idea is tempered somewhat by the fact that the Secretary of State of Arizona (“chief election officer”) is a Republican.
These days, is there any other state that is unable to count a full quarter of its ballots until many days after the election is over? I don’t think so. And remember, we’re not talking about a recount here; we’re talking about the initial count.
Although it’s highly possible there will be a recount in this race, as well.
Apparently the Arizona Republican Party has been critical of the situation for quite some time, even before this year’s election, and has filed suit:
Republicans filed a lawsuit Wednesday night to challenge the way some Arizona counties count mail-in ballots as election officials began to slowly tally more than 600,000 outstanding votes in the narrow U.S. Senate race — a task that could take days…
About 75 percent of Arizona voters cast ballots by mail, but those ballots have to go through the laborious signature confirmation process, and only then can be opened and tabulated. If county recorders have issues verifying signatures they are allowed to ask voters to verify their identity.
The suit filed by four county Republican parties — Maricopa, Apache, Navajo and Yuma counties — alleges that the state’s 15 county recorders don’t follow a uniform standard for allowing voters to adjust problems with their mail-in ballots, and that two counties improperly allow those fixes after Election Day.
A judge set a hearing for late Thursday morning.
Maricopa County Republican Party Chairman Chris Herring told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Bruce St. James and Pamela Hughes on Thursday that the county is not suing to stop the counting of ballots, but is suing for equal protection for all voters under the 14th Amendment.
“You can’t give one American one set of rules for voting and another person another set of rules in the same jurisdiction,” he said.
“That’s what is happening in Arizona.”
The article notes that the Republicans had complained before the election as well, and had already threatened to sue. The Democrats of course have countered that this is some sort of voter suppression, although it’s hard to see how because all the Republicans seem to be saying is that a uniform standard is necessary. And it’s not a new problem, although it’s really been highlighted this year:
The sluggish count is a perennial issue for Arizona, but has rarely received such a high level of attention because the GOP-leaning state generally has had few nationally-watched nail-biting contests.
Well, they’ve certainly got one now.
In other undecided Senate races, although Scott is ahead in Florida, Nelson has asked for a recount. And although the Republican in the Mississippi race for senator is favored to win, because it was a 4-way race and no one received over 50% of the vote a runoff is required.
“Of course, one wonders whether there will be some shenanigans and ballots for Shimena will suddenly be found, just enough to put her over the top”
Nope, don’t wonder at all. Some garbage truck will pull up with just found ballots and they will be Dem. Wonder of wonders!
Cynical, you bet.
I grew up in Arizona, and I know some addresses are very remote, so I can see a provision for mail-in ballots. What I can’t see is the “drop off” boxes at polling places. If the polling place is somewhere you can drive to on a Tuesday, you should just vote there.
The lawsuit insisting on uniform treatment of these ballots across the state sounds good.
Kai Akker:
Oops, will fix. I thought I had made sure I spelled it right. Somehow the strength of my urge to spell it wrong prevailed.
Psycho-delic.
Kate-
I’ve been a poll watcher in Arizona.
The person who drops off the ballot on election day doesn’t have to be the voter.
Our system for counting ballots does need fixing.
The sheer half-assedness of elections administration in this country is what gets you, as well as the ‘reforms’ which generally make matters worse.
1. There is no compelling reason to have aught a single-digit minority voting by post. It should be limited to servicemen, u.s. government employees posted abroad; college students resident in institutional housing; spouses of the foregoing residing with them; and shut-ins. In places like the desert zone in west Texas, you might provide for it as well. Fewer than 5% of the adult population is to be found in these categories.
2. If you want convenience, hold the balloting on Friday evening, Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon. Tabulate the ballots Saturday evening. It’s a tribute to the state legislatures’ capacity for inertia that we’re holding election on the mid-19th century market day. Saturdays off has been the norm for a century.
3. Require by law that primaries be held 70 days prior to the general election and that any absentee ballots be mailed out by the 1st Friday in September.
4. Make it the law that postal ballots received after the election day are not validly cast. Put them in a lock box when they arrive and then each day under judicial supervision mail new arrivals back to the sender with a note of regret. That way, every ballot to be tabulated is on the tables at 6:00 pm Saturday evening.
5. Again, signature, photocopied ID, and fingerprint included with every postal ballot sent back. Photo ID, signature and thumb in India ink with every ballot cast in person.
That’s just the mechanics of voting. Then there’s the hopeless electoral calendar, the witlessly extensive menu of elected offices, the use of first-past-the-post tabulation for everything, the gerrymandering, &c.
When the public in the aggregate fails to impose consequence and accountability upon those entrusted with the power to effect change, it ensures the continuance of obvious problems with obvious solutions.
It all comes back to ignorance, apathy, gullibility and ingratitude.
I will predict it right now- both the Florida and Arizona seats will be stolen by the Democrats. In Florida, the game plan was get it down to to manual recount- at that point, the canvassing boards in the big counties will then selectively toss out enough Scott votes to hand it to Nelson. What is happening in Maricopa and Pima counties in AZ, and Broward and Palm Beach Counties in Florida is banana republic voting fraud.
Mark my words- by the time this is over- Sinema and Nelson will be ahead in the votes, and probably so will Gillum in the FL governors race.
Richard, I don’t mind if the person dropping the ballot in the box isn’t the voter, as long as they do check the signature against the registration rolls and check to be sure that voter didn’t also vote in person.
Notice that Pima County run, by Democrats, is not a party to the suit. I voted absentee and did so in California since 1960. The Arizona procedure must be changed. All absentee ballots except “emergencies” were supposed to be submitted before election day. That was my understanding.
Mail-in or drop box balloting simple cannot guarantee voting secrecy. This can lead to various bribery, extortion (lose your union job), or other fraud schemes. No wonder it’s so prevalent. Who knows if any of that actually happens.
Oh yeah, my last check shows Sinema winning over McSally by 0.1%.
In Florida a recount is automatic when less than .5% difference of votes. So after all this look for a repeat of 2000.
When Yankees move to Arizona, Texas, or Florida, The take their crooked culture with them.
Here in Co. all elections are mail in. They send you your ballot about 2 weeks before the election and you can mail it in, drop it off in drop boxes scattered around the county/town you live in nor drop it at a polling center on election day. We also have the signature verification thing, but pretty much had all the votes tallied by the end of election day. Not sure why AZ is having such a problem with it.
You’d think a state meth lab would be handy to energize the long tedious hours of vote counting… Perfect work for tweakers.
According to the book, “Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town” many rural Americans got hooked because they used meth to work longer hours during the economic decline of the region. That works on the front end but the back end is a killer.
I will predict it right now- both the Florida and Arizona seats will be stolen by the Democrats.
Yancey Ward: Likewise. I’m having flashbacks of Norm Coleman’s loss to Al Franken:
n 2008, illegal felon voters appear to have swung the outcome of the critical 2008 Minnesota Senate election. The day after the election, GOP senator Norm Coleman had a 725-vote lead, but a series of recounts over the next six months reversed that result and gave Democrat Al Franken a 312-vote victory.
The outcome had a significant impact because it gave Democrats the critical 60th Senate vote they needed to block GOP filibusters. Franken’s vote proved crucial in the passage of Obamacare in the Senate.
Minnesota Majority identified 1,099 felons — all ineligible to vote — who had voted in the Franken–Coleman race.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/08/james-okeefe-voter-fraud-videos-prove-voter-id-laws-needed/
Kate on November 8, 2018 at 3:34 pm at 3:34 pm said:
I grew up in Arizona, and I know some addresses are very remote, so I can see a provision for mail-in ballots. What I can’t see is the “drop off” boxes at polling places. If the polling place is somewhere you can drive to on a Tuesday, you should just vote there.
The lawsuit insisting on uniform treatment of these ballots across the state sounds good.
* * *
Colorado mails ballots to everyone (at least we get them every election) and I think it is helpful to be able to mark them up and just take them in and put in the box on election day or a few days earlier, as it reduces the line for those voting in person.
This time we had not only all the offices, but a huge passel of initiatives, statutes, bond issues, and constitutional amendments. It took the two of us quite a few readings of the voter guides and some discussion to figure out what we wanted to vote for. Well, the straight ticket “R” was pretty easy, but the rest were far too convoluted. And we have 5 college degrees between us.
As I predicted, the vote counts in the new ballots are quite significantly in favor of Sinema than were the vote counts on Tuesday evening. Supposedly all the late early votes left in Maricopa were posted this evening, and the remaining 350K are votes that were not tallied from the vote taken on Tuesday. Now, I did note on Tuesday that Maricopa gave Sinema 2-3% edge in the early vote post right after the polls closed, but by the time Maricopa claimed 99.9% report, McSally had closed almost all the gap- so she appears to have won the election day vote in Maricopa by a significant amount- probably on the order 4-5% (there were fewer election day votes in early Wed. totals than there were early votes by my memory). So, if I am conservative with the estimate, then McSally should win the rest of the votes Maricopa claims to have by about 10-11K (3% margin), and Pinal County which still has 30K votes should provide McSally with at least another 3-5K, so if the election day vote ratios hold, as they should all else being equal, then McSally should win, but I predict that the ratios will again “inexplicably” tilt towards Sinema to such an extent that McSally won’t even be eligible to request a recount so that the fraud remains hidden.
In Florida, I am not sure what the plan is, but they will get it to a manual recount in both the Senate and governor elections, and at that point, I think it will chaos on a massive scale because the manual recount will start tossing the other party’s ballots, and this favors the Democrats always.
The Massachusetts voting system is good at preventing this sort of thing. At the polling place they check your name and address in a book. If found they mark it and provide a ballot. You vote. Then a second set of people check your name and address in a second book. If found they mark it and you submit the ballot. This system prevents found ballots and ballot box stuffing.
No. The voters who mail in their vote-by-mail ballots the earliest tend to be more conservative, older voters just as the people who show up earliest to vote in person on Election Day itself tend to be. The voters who send their vote-by-mail ballots closer to the deadline tend to be the youngest and dumbest voters. So don’t be surprised that the late returns tend to be stronger for the Democrat, NeoNeocon.
That, dear NeoNeocon, is pretty much the system all other states use for their vote-by-mail schemes. And the vast majority of the voting public do like the convenience; otherwise, could a Democrat win anywhere? (Hah ha, I make a joke.)
Seems like a system open to all sorts of corruption. I live in the State of Queensland in Australia and our voting laws are quite strict. All registered voters are sent a card, about postage card size, in the mail before election day. It has all you details on the card and you have to bring this card with you on election day.
If you do not have the card with you then you have to sign a statutory declaration stating that you are a citizen and eligible to vote. There is no early voting other than absentee voting and you need to provide proof that you will not be in your electorate on voting day to be able to use this system. All voting is via paper ballots.
Elections are held on a Saturday and the poling stations are usually at local public schools. All votes are counted at the voting places after polling closes. Any party with a candidate on the ballot is allowed to have a scrutineer at the counting, which is done by electoral commission staff, to ensure the counting is done correctly. The ballot papers are then packed into boxes, sealed with tape and the commission staff and the scrutineers sign the seal. This system is similar in all Australian states.
As for remote locations, Australia’s land area is approximately the same as the continental USA but with only 25 million people. There are many remote locations but polling stations are still set up everywhere. Voting is compulsory and you get fined if you do not vote.
I am sure that there is still some fraud going on but it seems a much tighter system than I see described for Arizona.
I fully concur with Cameron’s explanation of Australia’s tough voting arrangements. As a fellow Aussie living in an adjacent state (NSW) our paper ballot system seems to be much more fraud-resistant than your machine based methods. For a nation with such technological advancements available to the citizenry, I cannot fathom why the US has so many problems with Federal voting. It appears to be an absolute mis-mash of systems open to fraud being committed on a wide scale. Adopt the systems we have had in place for decades and most or all of your current electoral divisions will cease to exist. We insist that all legal residents in Australia do vote otherwise a fine is applied. The USA has a mess that has to be addressed now with a uniform standard across the nation. That’s my opinion for what it’s worth. PS: We’ll happily take The Donald if you don’t want him to head your country!
Voting SHOULD be simple – you vote, they count it, the results are announced.
However, most of the slow-up and extra time needed is precisely because, every time a new system is put into play, the Democrats immediately start strategizing how to beat it, and stuff the ‘ballot box’.
Every time.
The extra people needed (to watch over the Dems so they don’t pull a fast one) slow up the process. The extra checks for ballot integrity, the same.
All of which makes the process, once you add in a huge number of voting by mail, unmanageable.
Voting by mail, unless that person has verified their registration by thumbprint, and certified that identity on EVERY ballot, EVERY year, by a TEAM of ANY party that wants to be involved, should not be accepted.
That’s as close to fraud-proof as I can think, at this early hour.
And, having come up with that, I feel confident that some Damn Leftist will immediately start working on a way to beat that protection.
I cannot fathom why the US has so many problems with Federal voting.
Like so many things related to politics in this country, the system is set up to allow fraud, just like the resistance to voter ID which India seems to be able to accomplish.
How can Brenda Snipes be walking around free and running vote tabulation in Broward county after having been convicted of destroying federal ballots in previous elections ? And now she is now engaged in the same sort of criminal behavior. Working to steal this election for Nelson and Gillum.
I have long felt that Democrats are vote-fraud experts. The situations in Arizona and Florida reinforce that feeling.
The one silver lining to this is its obviousness. Whether it is merely incompetence, a 20% possibility, or outright fraud, the other 80% likelihood, it is so grungy that an investigation is inevitable. An Executive-branch investigation could find some amazing things. One way to turn a lot of wishy-washies against a particular political party would be proof that that party is cheating on the results. Multiple results.
Investigating voter fraud should be a no brainer. The sole reason to vehemently oppose voter fraud investigations and to constantly scream the voter fraud is a myth is simply to hide the massive fraud constantly perp’d by democrats.
Paper ballots, blue ink finger stain and only citizens stationed overseas by the g’ment can vote absentee. Early voting, if there is to be any, should also be in person, ID required and said person immediately marked as having voted within the States voting registration system.
This is nothing but a third world tactic used by all tyrants.
Democrat Socialists are no different than any other kind of Socialist.
I don’t have to worry about conservatives cheating because we have the media to hold them accountable. who’s going to hold democrats accountable when the media are their operatives?
Any measures to stop voter frauds will be spinned by left leaning MSM as voter suppression.
Based on comments above, Oz seems to have a certain appeal. :>))
The key to understanding the Arizona situation is that the vast majority of the uncounted ballots are from Pima County (metro Tucson, long controlled by Dems) and Maricopa County (metro Phoenix.) Dems have controlled Phoenix itself for a while now, and have counted the votes in Maricopa County since 2016.
Interestingly, Maricopa County vote totals through Wednesday favored Sinema by less than 1%. Yesterday’s initial batch of MC late-count votes favored Sinema by almost 15%, giving her the overall lead.
The Lady Doth Protest Too Much department: Adrian Fontes, Dem Maricopa County Recorder (administers registrations and counts votes) last year went on record that Trump’s voter fraud task force was a waste of time and money, because “there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the United States of America”. Right…
In 2006, I was following a blog in WA. There was a controversy about mail-in ballots in King County, WA. They showed many examples where the EXTERNAL signatures on the mail-in ballot did NOT match the internal signature, and/or the internal signature did not match the signature on file. The hand-writings were different, not different names. When all was said and done, for the most part, if the internal signature was on the roles as a valid voter, the ballot was counted…whether the signatures matched or not. King Co. is basically Seattle, a strong Democrat population.
Pingback:Democrats’ playbook of dirty tricks is getting old, very old… – 53percenter's Blog
I’m old enough to remember the 1960 election, when every time a county in downstate Illinois would report in (all going for Nixon) another box of ballots would be found in Cook County, just enough to keep Kennedy in the lead.
Mayor-for-Life Richard J. Daley was apocryphally reported to have been asked, “How have you stayed in office so long? How do you keep winning elections?” His reply, “We count the votes.”
Pingback:Florida vote fraud rises up yet again - Dennis G Hurst
The only reason voter fraud is not found is that the Democrats (and sorry to say some Republicnans) refuse to look for it; and if it is found anyway, the media refuses to publicize it.
Let’s hope our new AG is interested in tackling a real problem.
James on November 9, 2018 at 4:31 am at 4:31 am said:
The Massachusetts voting system is good at preventing this sort of thing. At the polling place they check your name and address in a book. If found they mark it and provide a ballot. You vote. Then a second set of people check your name and address in a second book. If found they mark it and you submit the ballot. This system prevents found ballots and ballot box stuffing.
* * *
This, and the fact that Mass. keeps electing Republican governors, argues that there are still some sensible people in the state.