Tuesday November 8, 2022 is Election Day in the United States of America. In addition to Congressional "midterms" at the federal level, many state governors and other more local offices are up for grabs. Given how things shook out over Election Day 2020, things could get a little crazy.
...or, perhaps, not! But here's the Megathread for if they do. Talk about your local concerns, your national predictions, your suspicions re: election fraud and interference, how you plan to vote, anything election related is welcome here. Culture War thread rules apply, with the addition of Small-Scale Questions and election-related "Bare Links" allowed in this thread only (unfortunately, there will not be a subthread repository due to current technical limitations).
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If this were in any other country, the UN's election monitors would cry foul. And not entirely unreasonably. Even assuming that the election is entirely legit and no one involved at all means badly, with a process like this, what reason does anyone have to believe that?
Ultimately, you can't have a functioning democracy if you can't convince the losers that they lost a fair game. In order to do that, it is imperative not to have procedural problems during the elections, let alone systematic procedural problems.
I'm trying to figure out
A) How this wasn't caught and prepared for way in advance?
B) Why there isn't an established backup protocol to handle this eventuality?
C) Why is this treated as normal an unavoidable by the respective authorities handling it?
There's no surprises here. The date is known well in advance, there's various tried 'n' true approaches to the process. The list of excuses for botching it is pretty short.
The only explanation that doesn't require incompetent and malfeasance is a basic shortage of labor or materials or something due to ongoing supply chain issues.
EVEN THEN, such an issue should have been noted in advance of the election.
Using a throwaway account for op-sec. I'm a regular lurker and inconsistent poster here. I'm a believer that there is some persistent Democrat election fraud in Philly, Chicago, Atlanta and a few other blue cities in the form of organized ballot harvesting in ways that are, let's say, creative. I don't think the same is structurally possible in Arizona for Democrats in volumes that would matter enough to predictably swing an election.
Maricopa, despite being a Democrat stronghold, is not THAT Democratic. There are precincts in Philly and Chicago that return 95%+ for Democrats. Arizona, you might get 70% D in certain precincts in Maricopa, and the 30% that vote R are damned proud about it. Because AZ is purple and this is the west, we like to fight about politics with our neighbors. Do you think that the Republican poll watchers in Maricopa jurisdictions will take bribes to look the other way? No, they raise holy hell about it if they get a sniff of malfeasance.
I'd go out on a limb and say that the problems in Maricopa are just normal human fuckuppery, and not some sinister ploy by Katie Hobbs and her ilk to steal the election. If you voted early on-site in any Maricopa jurisdiction, guess what. You filled out a paper ballot and stuck it in a lock box, just like the voting locations with automated tabulators are having people do today. You even used a sharpie-type marker to do it. So I think the concerns are overblown and we'll end up with Governor Kari Lake anyway.
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You should probably add
D) Did this actually happen?
I don’t see a source, and ymeshkout seems to be questioning the conclusions on sharpiegate.
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