Lara Trump promises legal ballot harvesting to be part of new RNC strategy

[Agafin]

“Unfortunately, we don’t have one day of voting, we don’t have paper ballots, we don’t have voter ID everywhere. So we have to play the hand that we’re dealt,” Trump said, noting the importance of early voting and mail-in voting where possible. “That way, we have votes banked as we head into Election Day, and we’re not playing catch up on Nov. 5 with the Democrats.”

“We need to be doing legal ballot harvesting — something that has never been done by the RNC, but I can promise you will be a huge part of what we’re planning to do,” she added. “And then come Election Day, and you’ll see that, I think, it’s not just about having poll watchers. It’s about having trained poll watchers and lawyers at locations around the country as necessary. And these are people who will be trained and able to physically count how many ballots are coming in. And how many ballots are going out.”

This is quite actually quite smart of her though it remains to be seen if she can actually make it work.

At ant rate, ballot harvesting is an extremely shady practice (one of the only parts of Trump's crusade against the US electoral system which is right in my opinion) but the only way to get it to stop is by republicans getting even better at it than democrats. The same thing is true with democrats but with with parties reversed.

[Agafin]

Ballot harvesting is not shady unless you don't follow the rules (like setting up illegal drop boxes for vote collection like Republicans have done). Overall it sounds like the strategy is to challenge every vote not for Trump and make voting more difficult.

I could post a thousand links showing the contrary but this one should suffice:
7 Elections Reversed After Ballot Harvesting Scandals

It IS shady and just way too easy to abuse. But anyway, you are not going to agree so I really hope the RNC strategy involves republicans collecting ballots at churches, landlords/bosses blackmailing their tenants/workers for their votes, and canvassers coercing or bribing the homeless/addicts/mentally unstable to vote their way (very real examples that actually happened at a large enough scale to swing elections per the article) all leading to Trump winning by a narrow margin. Maybe that'll actually get dems to reconsider.

[Agafin]

Ballot harvesting is not shady unless you don't follow the rules (like setting up illegal drop boxes for vote collection like Republicans have done). Overall it sounds like the strategy is to challenge every vote not for Trump and make voting more difficult.

I could post a thousand links showing the contrary but this one should suffice:
7 Elections Reversed After Ballot Harvesting Scandals

It IS shady and just way too easy to abuse. But anyway, you are not going to agree so I really hope the RNC strategy involves republicans collecting ballots at churches, landlords/bosses blackmailing their tenants/workers for their votes, and canvassers coercing or bribing the homeless/addicts/mentally unstable to vote their way (very real examples that actually happened at a large enough scale to swing elections per the article) all leading to Trump winning by a narrow margin. Maybe that'll actually get dems to reconsider.

All those examples are election fraud. I'm talking about allowing an authorized party to return signed and sealed ballots with a voter signature plus an authorized return agent stipulated on the envelope.

You complain that ballot harvesting is a problem, yet you say that you hope Trump wins by fraud. You aren't joking. Some of you all have lost your rabid ass minds.

The bolded is exactly what opponents of ballot harvesting (like myself) are against. Why would that ever be necessary? The only possible exception I could see is in the case of a disabled person who might genuinely have difficult returning his envelope. But in that case, it would be fine to allow such a person with an excuse designate someone (and only one!) to return the envelope for him. However making the number of envelopes someone can collect ("harvest") to be pretty much unlimited is NEVER justified.

And yes, those examples are indeed fraud. They wouldn't have been possible (not to that scale at least) if it wasn't for ballot harvesting, which is why it was banned in those states (which mostly happen to be red states).

[Agafin]

If you're worried about that, then... just don't give it to them? You're acting like people are having their ballots torn out of their hands and harvested against their will.

...


Mail-in voting is secure. Just because you can imagine a scenario where people are opening them up to see who you voted for, doesn't mean it's actually happening.

I didn't expect you of all people to engage in right-wing election denying rhetoric.

None of those are imagined scenarios, they have happened. I even linked an article in this thread listing several examples of all those "imagined scenarios" happening and potentially swinging elections.

I could post a thousand links showing the contrary but this one should suffice:
7 Elections Reversed After Ballot Harvesting Scandals

You can check all of those examples, they are very real and are often what led to some states (like Florida) banning the practice.

What's interesting is that a lot of mainstream publications like the NYT actually did articles exposing these shortcomings of ballot harvesting back in the 2000s. But of course, no one wants to to talk about the very real issues with it now as that might give oxygen to Trump's broader election fraud narrative (which I think we all agree is bullcrap).