Remix.run Logo
hackyhacky 5 hours ago

> Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

Yes. That's the point. The administration doesn't care about fixing whatever hypothetical mail ballot fraud may or may not exist; they are doing this to inject chaos into the election results, giving them cover to claim any result they want or even to just throw out the results entirely. Catastrophic problems are the means to that end.

mrj 24 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

He's spent years telling his supporters not to vote by mail. So during the election when there are problems with the mail, those will primarily affect the other party. That's enough to steal an election without more steps.

dashundchen 16 minutes ago | parent [-]

Meanwhile, the piece of excrement votes by mail himself.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/17/trump-vote-by-mail-...

stouset an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And when it all goes to shit, they can just use that as evidence that mail-in voting shouldn’t have been allowed in the first place.

It is the same tired but sadly effective Republican playbook: take a mostly functioning if imperfect system, break it beyond repair under the guise of fixing or reforming it, use the ongoing disaster to argue that it should be dismantled, rinse and repeat until it’s unsalvageable.

llm_nerd 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It isn't just injecting chaos, but instead is trying to engineer an outcome. Find every mechanism and group that is likely to vote against you, and do everything possible to disenfranchise those voters. They've already gotten a ruling that ballots received after a cutoff do not count, regardless of the reason, so now they're engineering assurances that they get to choose from where ballots can be selectively delayed.

wl 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> They've already gotten a ruling that ballots received after a cutoff do not count

Watson v. Republican National Committee seems to be the opposite of what you state: ballots received after election day can be counted provided they were postmarked on or before election day.

SiNiquity an hour ago | parent [-]

You're right, the 5-4 SCOTUS ruling this summer reversed the appeals court ruling, preserving states' rights to set laws that permit counting postmarked ballots -- if postmarked in time.

Curiously, the USPS changed when it postmarks mail this year, resulting in postmark delays. In Washington state, the number of ballots rejected for being late is up 32% compared to 2024.

clumsysmurf 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Speaking of engineering outcomes, today I read:

“He had told me [before the election] he was going to unleash the ‘anomaly in the matrix,’ ” St. Clair says in championed documentarist Alex Gibney’s film, Musk"

BoiledCabbage 42 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Exactly. It's incredible how partisan some peoples information bubbles must be to not see this for what it is.

All of these changes are based on the president making comments like the following:

> "the cheating on mail-in voting is legendary,"

Which he has attempted to prove going back years. And every time it's been found that it essentially doesn't happen. And I believe, the few instances of voter fraud that have been found have been majority republicans and not democrats as has been accused.

So to begin with, anyone arguing for these changes need to acknowledge the well established fact that there is effectively zero voter fraud at all levels throughout the country in anyway impacting elections. As has been investigated and shown time and time and time again. If they aren't beginning with the well established state of the world then they are in fact are the one entering with an extremely partisan hat.

Now if their argument is "yes it's true voter fraud has been investigated countless times, and continuously shown to effectively be smaller than a rounding error, does not impact elections, is know to not be a problem, but I still want to make sweeping changes right before an election." Then sure that's a point of discussion. Then I think the simple question then becomes "why"? But if they aren't willing to begin with an accurate discussion of the facts and state of the situation (there is no voter fraud problem), then any comment they make following that has little credibility.

Why is he pushing to outlaw mail-in voting when there is no issue with mail in voting? Is it because one party votes by mail more than the other?

Or the change in the date mail can receives a postmark? Previously mail was transported to the facility to the same day so would get postmarked that day. Now, as this year, mail won't get post-marked the day it's dropped in a mail box - so any zipcode's mail boxes can now be marked as being sent too late to count, even if they were dropped off before election day.

> While we are not changing our postmarking practices, we have made adjustments to our transportation operations that will result in some mailpieces not arriving at our originating processing facilities on the same day that they are mailed. This means that the date on the postmarks applied at our processing facilities will not necessarily match the date on which the customer’s mailpiece was collected by a letter carrier or dropped off at a retail location.

If the administration actually cared about getting an accurate vote, why aren't they opening more voting locations? Why don't they mandate one voting location per every x number of citizens? Why would the Department of Homeland Security decide who is allowed to get ballots via the mail?

If it's so bad, why has the administration failed time and time again to produce any evidence it's actually bad? If it's so horrible, and wide spread why is it impossible to find evidences that supports this? Or shows it overturning elections or anything close?

It's the same scheme. Make a bunch of baseless assertions, repeat them frequently enough and people in an information bubble will begin to believe it. And that's clearly what's happening here. Just like "we've won the war in Iran" 20 times now. And "Iran has agreed to peace deal where they surrender" 15 times now. And how every weekend for months there were claims about the work on Friday that somehow magically fell apart by Monday. And yet somehow there are still people who give these false claims, and the people claiming them, any amount of credibility.

Voter fraud is not a problem in this country. It does not rig elections, it does not sway elections. So sudden last min drastic changes in the voting process right before an election, by someone who has previously attempted a coup (not the protest on the capital but the actual coup attempt), has said they admire the leader of a country who dismantled its democracy (Orban) - and previously pushed the govt to make false claims of vote fraud to keep him in power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot

> The Trump fake electors plot was an attempt by U.S. president Donald Trump and associates to have him remain in power after losing the 2020 United States presidential election. After the results of the election determined Trump had lost, he, his associates, and Republican Party officials in seven battleground states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin[1] – devised a scheme to submit fraudulent certificates of ascertainment to falsely claim Trump had won the Electoral College vote in crucial states. The plot was one of Trump and his associates' attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election.

Then, when that failed:

> Trump pressured the Justice Department to falsely announce it had found election fraud, and he attempted to install a new acting attorney general who had drafted a letter falsely asserting such election fraud had been found, in an attempt to persuade the Georgia legislature to convene and reconsider its Biden electoral votes.

Like I think there are people in such an information bubble that they aren't even aware these are well established facts. Not partisan talking points, but a recounting of facts of the lengths that have already been attempted to remain in power illegally. And now sudden sweeping changes to voting right before an election amid false claims of rigged elections.

dabinat 8 minutes ago | parent [-]

Another reason is that if people only have one day to vote, it’s much easier to disenfranchise their vote just by delaying or inconveniencing them. Texas recently tried this by changing where people were allowed to vote, causing mass confusion.

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/el...

RickJWagner 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[flagged]

Geeek 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

One can observe and accuse based on that observation. What 'sources' do you expect to see?

LastTrain 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

He’s just demanding the same kind of rigor he demands from Trump about rigged elections. Here you go RickWagoner the Republican Governor of famously liberal Wyoming smells something fishy too: https://www.codyenterprise.com/news/local/article_7f688e37-3...

doc_ick 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Don’t worry, rickwagoner will find a way not to believe this source. Maybe because it uses https instead of http.

RickJWagner 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I’d like to see a real source, not something somebody made up in their head. An article from any reliable news source will suffice.

NegativeLatency 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They’d said as much explicitly and implicitly with their actions.

RickJWagner 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Source, please.

margalabargala 3 hours ago | parent [-]

You're replying to someone's personal interpretation and opinion asking about a source? That is the source. Do you not understand how discussions work?

MithrilTuxedo 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The fact that reputable sources were not provided to justify the need for fixes has been reputable source enough.

Bullshit is produced for the effect saying it will have.

RickJWagner 3 hours ago | parent [-]

A good majority of Americans want voter id.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/28/politics/video/the-odds-voter...

So a party calling for voter id is following the will of the people, while politicians opposing the will of the people are justifying the need for a fix, right?

hackyhacky 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> politicians opposing the will of the people are justifying the need for a fix, right?

That's a funny way of saying that they support the status quo, which has never been provably linked to large-scale voter fraud.

If you want voter ID, here's the procedure: establish evidence showing that its need outweighs its disadvantages, then pass a bill in Congress, then implement the bill. Signing an Executive Order that demands illegal overreach without justification is not the American way.

MrDrMcCoy 2 hours ago | parent [-]

If voter ID was accompanied by mandatory free ID services at the polls, it could be a net good. Short of that, it's definitely more harm than good.

mikem170 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Agreed, if id becomes madatory for voting then an appropriate id needs to be provided for free, otherwise it is effectively a poll tax, and poll taxes are illegal.

socalgal2 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

What evidence do you have it’s bad? Most of Europe and Asia requires some form of id

hackyhacky 34 minutes ago | parent [-]

Most of Europe and Asia have mandatory, free national ID cards.

throwawaypath 13 minutes ago | parent [-]

Every state in the US has free ID cards that work for voting.

AngryData 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If they gave a crap about the will of the people then why is marijuana still illegal? When you defy the will of the people 99% of the time, claiming your motivation is the will of the people when it is convenient rings pretty hollow.

deaux an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A good majority of the Americans want Epstein's best buddies' jailed, instead the POTUS is one.

ModernMech an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

We just spent a year hearing from some asshole about how the government was spending too much money and couldn't afford frivolities, yet we're supposed to spend money on security theatre to fix a problem that doesn't actually exist, all because some other assholes are butthurt about losing an election fair and square?

Remember the people leading the charge for this are insurrectionists. They don't care about protecting voting or the concept of democracy at all.

toomuchtodo 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You mean where the sitting president said they were going to try to rig the midterms?

> Provide reputable sources, we can discuss it.

His Truth Social account is public. Do we agree that is a reputable source?

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/trum...

RickJWagner 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The article you’ve provided clearly says Trumps dialogue is not to be taken literally. ( It does say there are other ways the election might be tinkered with, but these are for another discussion. )

I don’t find that article to be particularly worrying.

hackyhacky 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> I don’t find that article to be particularly worrying.

The issue is not the article, but the president's own words. Do you find it concerning that the president has expressed a desire to cancel elections? Or do you think he was joking?

Follow-up question: was/is he joking about building the wall, mass deportations, eliminating birthright citizenship, or running for a third term?

margalabargala 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's not what the article says. It says Trump needs the appearance of winning elections, so cancelling is an empty threat.

Manufacturing the appearance of winning is the not-empty threat, rather is what TFA is chronicling.

mcmcmc 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Project 2025

goalieca 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[flagged]

hackyhacky 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> If I take a look, through a security lens, of the existing mail in process from registration to recording votes, it’s quite shocking.

What about it is "shocking"? Please be specific.

Please note that the alleged justification these changes is widespread voter fraud, which has never been shown to exist at a level even close to significant, despite many years of effort [1].

> the only way to do anything is to shove an executive order through the post office to prevent mail fraud.

Or, ya know, make a persuasive case based on evidence of actual fraud and pass a bill in Congress, the way the country is supposed to work?

> This is a kind of comment I would expect on Reddit and not hn.

Yours is a low-effort riposte if ever there was one.

[1] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/disb...

usernomdeguerre 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> If you took off your partisan hat, put on your red team hat

A humorous double meaning, almost like taking the hat off and putting it back on again.

But seriously I would expect a stronger argument in favor of these changes from proponents like you, something sourced, especially given the trial runs of these encroachments that've been run in a number of red states that haven't found any significant security issues and just turned out to be a waste of taxpayer dollars, time, and trust.

Do your readers a favor and bring something at least as substantive as the article you're commenting on.

gopher_space an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

From my perspective this just looks like voter suppression. Your hypothetical edge cases operate at a scale that doesn't matter in the slightest, a fundamental rookie security mistake.

AshleyGrant 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> If I take a look, through a security lens, of the existing mail in process from registration to recording votes, it’s quite shocking.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

You supplied nothing to back up your extraordinary claims. Your claims are extraordinary given the almost non-existent issues with mail-in voting. But if you'd like to prove otherwise, be my guest.

prh8 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Either your head is 6 feet deep in the sand or you aren't really so non partisan

We have had secure elections for a long time, how is it that the only 2 that Trump has presided over are the ones that are a security concern?

4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
[deleted]
MithrilTuxedo 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Those who are apt to discard responses to what they should have been apt to discard.

IAmNotACellist 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Which "side" has been fighting tooth and nail for unverifiable mail-in ballots and resisting all investigations of voting integrity? Though both sides are also embracing totally insecure and insane digital voting systems that have been caught doing things like duplicating votes and enabling fractional voting in general elections.

aetch an hour ago | parent | next [-]

The republicans, they keep claiming that voter fraud is always in favor for democrats but most of the discovered cases are republican voters.

klntsky an hour ago | parent [-]

Survivorship bias

hackyhacky an hour ago | parent [-]

> Survivorship bias

Huh? Survival of what? Are you claiming that Democrat fraud was not found only because the perpetrators are all dead?

teravor an hour ago | parent [-]

he is implying that the focus on the republican cases (the survivors) is a red herring because the system is presumably such that an actual conspiracy cannot be detected.

I don't know anything about elections, a question worth asking is what would it look like if a conspiracy set out to exploit mail ballots? could detection only originate from a defector?

hackyhacky 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> he is implying that the focus on the republican cases (the survivors) is a red herring because the system is presumably such that an actual conspiracy cannot be detected.

Maybe GP is implying that, but that's not what they said, because what you describe is not survivorship bias.

> I don't know anything about elections, a question worth asking is what would it look like if a conspiracy set out to exploit mail ballots? could detection only originate from a defector?

You are asking the wrong question. The correct question is: If mail-in voter fraud cannot be detected, then why do people claim that mail-in voter fraud exists? If there isn't evidence that it exists, then the people who claim that it exists are making statements not based on evidence. In other words, their opinions are either not informed by facts, in which case we should disregard their opinions; or their statements are not sincere expressions of belief, in which case they are liars and we should not trust them.

majormajor 32 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> I don't know anything about elections, a question worth asking is what would it look like if a conspiracy set out to exploit mail ballots? could detection only originate from a defector?

Why don't you start with some research of your own and outline how such a conspiracy would work and how large it would have to be.

Don't throw out a hypothetical "could it even be caught?" to try to bias people without doing any sort of even cursory glance at how things work.

Hell, while you're at it, please outline other possible conspiracies, and think about if there are potential vulnerabilities that could very require less major coordination than mail-in ballots. (Not even including the 'have a president who constantly tells everyone that if he loses it will be due to fraud to stoke the flames in advance' strategy!)

hackyhacky an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Which "side" has been fighting tooth and nail for unverifiable mail-in ballots

Mail-in ballots are currently accepted in 23 states [1], including Utah, Kansas, and Florida. Which "side" is that? Please note Donald Trump personally uses the terribly unsecure and unverifiable method of mail-in ballot, so either he thinks it's secure enough, or, uh, is not being totally honest with us.

> resisting all investigations of voting integrity?

Which investigations, specifically, are you referring to? As far as I know, Trump formed a voter integrity commission in his first term which was unable to find any evidence of voter fraud and was therefore subsequently disbanded [2]. Since then, the only source of information on the allegedly widespread voter fraud is from Donald Trump's own mouth.

[1] https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/table-18-states...

[2] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/disb...

majormajor 35 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

there have been MANY investigations

what have they found, exactly?

at some point how much more money do you want to burn on investigations w/o any particular new cause?

"unverifiable" ain't exactly true either where i live. you might think there should be more or different verification, sure, start some discussions in your local area. don't bring the federal government into everyone else's after the administration shows a long history of crying wolf and pre-seeding conspiracy theories with "i can't possibly lose" stuff. if you're convinced the states and local municipalities can't run stuff, it should be easy to prove.

and yet. you haven't yet.