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Zikan posted:what the gently caress cheetah7071 posted:Is that the kind of thing that smacks of electoral fraud or does that happen all the time by accident and we never notice in races that aren't super close? A little bit of both, I think.
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Nov 16, 2017 00:29
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Zikan posted:what the gently caress holy poo poo cheetah7071 posted:Is that the kind of thing that smacks of electoral fraud or does that happen all the time by accident and we never notice in races that aren't super close? probably a legitimate mistake that normally doesn't matter. everyone's human and nothing is perfect. my guess is they had the wrong house of delegates race on the ballot. the real problem is, how do you count those votes? do they count for the HoD race in the correct district? how can you determine voter intent, maybe some of the voters would have voted for the Republican. this is why recounts are messy. axeil fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Nov 16, 2017 |
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Nov 16, 2017 00:46
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axeil posted:probably a legitimate mistake that normally doesn't matter. everyone's human and nothing is perfect. my guess is they had the wrong house of delegates race on the ballot. Yeah. I'm not sure there's a better solution for it than a special election though. Obviously they can't count to the wrong district, disenfranchising them is incredibly problematic, and it's a hard argument to make that they intended to vote for anyone who wasn't on the ballot they were given.
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Nov 16, 2017 00:48
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farraday posted:Yeah. I'm not sure there's a better solution for it than a special election though. That's probably the best solution out of a whole lot of bad ones (not counting the votes, counting them for the party they were cast for, etc.)
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Nov 16, 2017 00:49
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quote:In Fredericksburg, Elias said those results appear to show about 668 votes at precincts that Virginia’s redistricting statutes say are in outgoing House Speaker Bill Howell’s 28th District that instead were cast in Republican Del. Mark Cole’s re-election victory in the 88th District. https://wtop.com/virginia/2017/11/as-va-heads-recounts-dems-ask-hundreds-wrong-ballots-fredericksburg/ This may be more tentative than the tweet makes it sound.
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Nov 16, 2017 00:56
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farraday posted:https://wtop.com/virginia/2017/11/as-va-heads-recounts-dems-ask-hundreds-wrong-ballots-fredericksburg/ It sounds like it's an unresolved question that hasn't been figured out before. I think it's probably lawsuit time.
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Nov 16, 2017 00:58
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How many total votes in that VA district? That's a serious gently caress up.
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Nov 16, 2017 01:02
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Zwabu posted:How many total votes in that VA district? That's a serious gently caress up. 668 between two precincts My concern with a lawsuit is that even if the lines are incorrect the fact it's been an ongoing thing instead of a one time error is ruled to not disenfranchise those voters as they've been represented. Accordingly they tell them to fix it going forward but don't order any remedy for this election. No idea what the relevant law is though.
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Nov 16, 2017 01:12
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farraday posted:668 between two precincts I actually meant what were the total number of votes in that race. Also, couldn't you force them, in a suit, to hold the election again?
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Nov 16, 2017 01:15
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farraday posted:668 between two precincts Any decision other than this one is going to result in a giant poo poo-show.
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Nov 16, 2017 01:22
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Zwabu posted:I actually meant what were the total number of votes in that race. Also, couldn't you force them, in a suit, to hold the election again? About 23.5k in the latest election.
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Nov 16, 2017 01:23
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Yeah the wrong ballot race is in my district. I posted about it a couple of days ago, since the local newspaper wrote about it right after the election, but I guess it’s getting bigger now. The city of Fredericksburg used to be contained all in one VA house district, but several years back they split it in two since we almost always go Democratic. Stafford and Spotsylvania counties encircle us, as well as other conservative counties, so we are split between them. I received the correct ballot, but who knows.
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Nov 16, 2017 01:37
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What's an incorrect ballot? Edit: unrelated, but holy poo poo this part of Moore's wikipedia page about his Vietnam service: "Serving as the commander of 188th Military Police Company of the 504th Military Police Battalion,[20] Moore was perceived to be reckless, but very strict. He insisted his troops salute him on the battlefield, against his training, as such recognition facilitates an officer being targeted by an enemy.[21] Some of his soldiers gave him the derogatory nickname "Captain America", due to his attitude toward discipline. This role earned him enemies, and in his autobiography he recalls sleeping on sandbags to avoid a grenade or bomb being tossed under his cot, as many of his men had threatened him with fragging.[19]" God must have wanted him to punish us, because he sure as hell did the best he could to get himself killed. Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Nov 16, 2017 |
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Nov 16, 2017 14:05
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I wonder how many of his old "buddies" would quite happily throw a grenade under him now.
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Nov 16, 2017 14:15
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They probably feel really bad for not killing him now. I know I would.
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Nov 16, 2017 15:58
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Absurd Alhazred posted:What's an incorrect ballot? It's a ballot for a different district than the one that is supposed to be given. Basically, your vote only counts in the district that you live in, but in this case the options given to you on election day are for the district neighboring you rather than your own. Since so many people don't really research elections and just vote party line, this can get by a lot of people without notice and end up with a lot of votes ending up with people they can't vote for rather than people they can. End result is a lot of invalid votes and no good way to resolve the issue.
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Nov 16, 2017 16:08
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Whats the reasoning for not being able to give them new ballots and saying you have a week to mail it back or something?
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Nov 16, 2017 23:08
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Communist Zombie posted:Whats the reasoning for not being able to give them new ballots and saying you have a week to mail it back or something? the lack of a law saying they can do that, for one
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Nov 16, 2017 23:09
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Communist Zombie posted:Whats the reasoning for not being able to give them new ballots and saying you have a week to mail it back or something? How do you figure out who got the wrong ballots? Also it would violate equal protection (maybe?) as presumably people could vote in that precinct who didn't vote on actual Election Day, while the rest of the state wouldn't get that opportunity.
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Nov 16, 2017 23:14
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evilweasel posted:the lack of a law saying they can do that, for one And for two? Cause them having no recourse seems like utter bullshit. If the person who gave them the wrong ballot got charged with voter fraud would be atleast something. Edit: axeil posted:How do you figure out who got the wrong ballots? Also it would violate equal protection (maybe?) as presumably people could vote in that precinct who didn't vote on actual Election Day, while the rest of the state wouldn't get that opportunity. Well arent ballots also tied to a name? Cause outside of ballots for a wrong district ending up in a precinct that should entirely be one district im not sure how else youd catch this. And im saying only people who got a wrong ballot and turned it in could vote again, cause they clearly had the intention to vote and did vote but other factors caused it to go wrong. Only other option would be to call a special election and re do it entirely. Communist Zombie fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Nov 16, 2017 |
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Nov 16, 2017 23:15
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Communist Zombie posted:And for two? Cause them having no recourse seems like utter bullshit. If the person who gave them the wrong ballot got charged with voter fraud would be atleast something. There was probably no intent to give the wrong ballot. Seems like it's an unresolved boundary issue. This whole thing isn't any one person's "fault"
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Nov 16, 2017 23:16
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Communist Zombie posted:And for two? Cause them having no recourse seems like utter bullshit. If the person who gave them the wrong ballot got charged with voter fraud would be atleast something. This is why a court, instead of random people in an internet comedy forum, will be the ones to figure it out
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Nov 16, 2017 23:16
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cheetah7071 posted:This is why a court, instead of random people in an internet comedy forum, will be the ones to figure it out Im just asking for the legal explaination for why cause just going 'welp, nothing we can do' seems like a violation of their rights. Unless they use Bush v. Gore as precedent. 
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Nov 16, 2017 23:24
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In a lot of cases like this, the court will say that what was done did meaningfully disenfranchise people, but there's no way to fix that, so the only thing to do is to not do that moving forward. It's like voting rights cases, you can't go back and let a systematically disenfranchised group of people retroactively vote in all the elections they missed, you just have to let them vote moving forward.
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Nov 16, 2017 23:28
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Communist Zombie posted:Im just asking for the legal explaination for why cause just going 'welp, nothing we can do' seems like a violation of their rights. there hasn't been a legal determination that "welp, nothing we can do" but the fact that your prefered legal remedy isn't provided for by law is a big point against it
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Nov 16, 2017 23:31
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Communist Zombie posted:Well arent ballots also tied to a name? Cause outside of ballots for a wrong district ending up in a precinct that should entirely be one district im not sure how else youd catch this. And im saying only people who got a wrong ballot and turned it in could vote again, cause they clearly had the intention to vote and did vote but other factors caused it to go wrong. Right. The issue is really convoluted though. While in principle your idea works here are the real world issues you'd have to grapple with: 1) How do you make it so people who didn't vote on election day are not eligible to vote in this new one-off thing. Logically they wouldn't have voted since their vote isn't in the 600 or so. 1a) If you do restrict it, is it even constitutional? 1b) If you don't, is it fair to everyone else in the Commonwealth? 2) How do you make sure everyone who voted gets to vote in this special one-off? If someone voted and then left the country for 2 months their vote went from counting (for the wrong race) to not counting. Presumably to be fair you need 100% re-vote 2a) Is the voting compulsory? What if people legitimately don't want to vote now? 3) Is campaigning allowed? If so then it seems like an unfair advantage given to these candidates over all others. If not it seems like a pretty clear 1st Amendment issue. These are just off the top of my head.
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Nov 16, 2017 23:45
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Communist Zombie posted:Well arent ballots also tied to a name? I think you may have missed an important aspect of elections in a democracy: the secret ballot.
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Nov 17, 2017 01:52
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Communist Zombie posted:Im just asking for the legal explaination for why cause just going 'welp, nothing we can do' seems like a violation of their rights. Our system isn't particularly democratic and really only gives lip service toward the concept. I agree that the disenfranchised voters should be sent provisional ballots as a remedy, but then again the entire election should probably be thrown out since it's gerrymandered to hell and back. The Virginia courts are heavily partisan, so I'd be prepared for nothing good to happen.
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Nov 17, 2017 17:19
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NintyFresh posted:Yeah the wrong ballot race is in my district. I posted about it a couple of days ago, since the local newspaper wrote about it right after the election, but I guess it’s getting bigger now. I also got the right ballot here and so did the rest of my family from what I’ve heard, but this whole thing is probably working as the Republicans intended.
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Nov 24, 2017 20:25
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Quorum posted:you just have to figure out a new way to not let them vote moving forward. ftfy
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Nov 27, 2017 00:02
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Recounts have been filed in 2 races the Dems lost for the VA House of Delegates by <107 votes. They currently have 49 seats, winning both would give them control of the chamber. They're still trying to figure out what the hell to do in the race where ~500 voters got the wrong ballot, but if the Dems are still losing after that is decided they also can file for a recount there. https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...m=.e7c8447617ff WaPo posted:With control of Virginia House at stake, Democrats seek recounts in two races
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Nov 30, 2017 17:12
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axeil posted:They're still trying to figure out what the hell to do in the race where ~500 voters got the wrong ballot, but if the Dems are still losing after that is decided they also can file for a recount there. I'm a little confused there, as it would seem to me that a recount should proceed at the same time as the "uh is this election even valid" - because (a) perhaps the recount moves the margin of victory outside the number of voters who received the wrong ballot, mooting the whole idea of a special election and (b) if not, at least you know definitively who will be the winner if there's not a special election. If I were the judge in that case I'd tell both sides that they should hold a recount and that filing for such a recount wouldn't be a waiver of any claims or defenses. Because god, I would really, really, really be hoping situation (a) happened. evilweasel fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Nov 30, 2017 |
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Nov 30, 2017 17:27
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evilweasel posted:I'm a little confused there, as it would seem to me that a recount should proceed at the same time as the "uh is this election even valid" - because (a) perhaps the recount moves the margin of victory outside the number of voters who received the wrong ballot, mooting the whole idea of a special election and (b) if not, at least you know definitively who will be the winner if there's not a special election. If I were the judge in that case I'd tell both sides that they should hold a recount and that filing for such a recount wouldn't be a waiver of any claims or defenses. Because god, I would really, really, really be hoping situation (a) happened. I think the lawsuit is arguing they should count the 500 ballots for the party they voted for (I doubt they will though). If they allow that then it's over because they are very likely to have voted massively for the Dem candidate and will give the Dem the win (Northam won the precinct by a ton). The recount is less certain and costs state resources so they're waiting to figure out the first question before having it. I think it could be a procedural issue too, as the vote in this contest isn't even certified yet to my knowledge due to this outstanding issue. You can't have a recount if the vote isn't certified yet. I agree that a recount finding you don't need the 500 votes would be very helpful but it doesn't seem like that's what's happening here.
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Nov 30, 2017 17:37
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axeil posted:I think the lawsuit is arguing they should count the 500 ballots for the party they voted for (I doubt they will though). If they allow that then it's over because they are very likely to have voted massively for the Dem candidate and will give the Dem the win (Northam won the precinct by a ton). The recount is less certain and costs state resources so they're waiting to figure out the first question before having it. Is that even technically possible? It's a secret ballot, you know who voted, but how do you identify the ballots at issue - shouldn't they just be mixed in with all of the other ballots with no way to know who exactly those 500 people voted for? Seems to me the only possible solution would be a new special election, or sworn affidavits from every single person at issue saying who they voted for and who they would have voted for had they gotten the correct ballot, and I don't know that the second one is even legal (or the first, but the second one strikes me as even less legal).
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Nov 30, 2017 17:42
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evilweasel posted:Is that even technically possible? It's a secret ballot, you know who voted, but how do you identify the ballots at issue - shouldn't they just be mixed in with all of the other ballots with no way to know who exactly those 500 people voted for? Seems to me the only possible solution would be a new special election, or sworn affidavits from every single person at issue saying who they voted for and who they would have voted for had they gotten the correct ballot, and I don't know that the second one is even legal (or the first, but the second one strikes me as even less legal). It's one entire precinct that got the wrong ballot. You don't know who specific people voted for but you know it's all the ballots from a certain location and you also know everyone who voted at that location from the sign-ins. If the court accepts an argument that people would have voted for the other Dem/GOP candidate if given the proper ballot you can count them where they "should" have been. I agree it's a pretty shaky argument though, you don't know with 100% certainty that people would've voted the same and any kind of affidavits are problematic to say the least because you have to get 100% of all voters to agree they would have voted the same. You can't ask them who they would've voted for, it destroys the secret ballot. Probably the fairest solution is a special election but I can see the courts really not wanting to do that as a remedy.
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Nov 30, 2017 17:50
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axeil posted:It's one entire precinct that got the wrong ballot. You don't know who specific people voted for but you know it's all the ballots from a certain location and you also know everyone who voted at that location from the sign-ins. If the court accepts an argument that people would have voted for the other Dem/GOP candidate if given the proper ballot you can count them where they "should" have been. Oh, if it's limited in that specific way then the court should have a much easier time. Hell, they can do a special election in that specific precinct. But yeah, while in practice it is virtually certain that everyone voted for party, not person, our voting system is electing people not parties and so I think that it would be legally indefensible to count them for the party they voted for but not the person.
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Nov 30, 2017 17:56
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evilweasel posted:Oh, if it's limited in that specific way then the court should have a much easier time. Hell, they can do a special election in that specific precinct. But yeah, while in practice it is virtually certain that everyone voted for party, not person, our voting system is electing people not parties and so I think that it would be legally indefensible to count them for the party they voted for but not the person. Has there ever been a special election in one precinct? Couldn't whoever loses that special argue it's not fair if more/less people vote than originally voted? Yeah if the VA Supreme Court (who I think has the case right now) argues that people voted for the party and not the person that would be a pretty big shift in how the courts think about elections. Then again, how often do you have a situation like this where you're voting for the wrong candidate but right party? Any state-wide election is going to have the same person on the ballot, this really only applies to House/State House/State Senate/Local races.
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Nov 30, 2017 18:00
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This article is a few days old but it explains what the hell is going on with that one House of Delegates race. https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...m=.328ead40d501 WaPo posted:With uncanny twists and an allegedly rogue registrar, Virginia House left in limbo This thing is totally nuts.
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Nov 30, 2017 23:43
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axeil posted:This article is a few days old but it explains what the hell is going on with that one House of Delegates race. Okay, here's my totally bullshit prediction: the Newport News recount flips that seat to the Dems, Cole's bullshit Fredericksburg precinct doesn't get certified until after January, the session begins at 50-49 D and they work out a power sharing arrangement with a Democratic speaker exactly like in 1996.
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Nov 30, 2017 23:49
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Quorum posted:Okay, here's my totally bullshit prediction: the Newport News recount flips that seat to the Dems, Cole's bullshit Fredericksburg precinct doesn't get certified until after January, the session begins at 50-49 D and they work out a power sharing arrangement with a Democratic speaker exactly like in 1996. If the Dems are at 50 with a GOP person not seated they can jam all the committees on day 1 and there's not much the GOP can do about it as there's no tiebreaking procedure (as far as I know)
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Nov 30, 2017 23:51
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