State and federal authorities are investigating a deliberately set fire that destroyed ballots inside a drop box in southwest Washington on Monday morning.

  • rekabis@programming.dev
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    “If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”

    - David Frum

  • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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    The leader of the Washington State Republican Party said what occurred in Vancouver reinforces the need for Washington to ditch vote-by-mail.

    classic GOP destroy a thing so you can say it needs to be replaced because it’s broken

    • DogPeePoo@lemm.ee
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      Drop boxes are only one aspect of voting by mail. Cameras, “election integrity guards” or other means and measures could be employed to help dissuade these terrorists.

      Mail in ballots are just as easily placed in any blue post office box or your own mailbox which is impossible for would be destructors/interceptors to know when your ballot is in the mail.

      Republicans can get bent.

      • Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world
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        Mail in ballots are just as easily placed in any blue post office box or your own mailbox which is impossible for would be destructors/interceptors to know when your ballot is in the mail.

        Republicans can get bent.

        They’ll just start blowing up the mailboxes, which would also serve the purpose of sowing distrust and unreliability in our postal system.

        • Ham Strokers Ejacula@reddthat.com
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          If there’s one organization you don’t fuck with its the U.S. Mail. Touch their shit and they won’t hesitate for a second to jail you. Postal inspectors take their jobs extremely seriously.

          • scutiger@lemmy.world
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            18 hours ago

            It’s easy to say that, but the GOP already got their man on the inside there as well with Louis DeJoy.

        • DogPeePoo@lemm.ee
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          It’s even easier to use your individual home mailbox to mail it. The postage is pre-paid 🤷‍♀️

          It’s completely anonymous as to when and whom you vote for.

      • Wrench@lemmy.world
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        Republicans already destroyed the USPS, so home mailboxes are no better. High likelihood of ballots getting “lost in the mail” until after counting has stopped.

        I have had so many problems with our automated rent checks showing up on time in the last few years. I can clearly see our credit union sending them on time, and they’re eventually received with the appropriate timestamps, but we’re weeks late in arrival.

    • Ep1cFac3pa1m@lemmy.world
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      “If we use vote by mail the election won’t be secure!”

      Not necessarily

      “I’ll make sure of it!”

    • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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      Its also very GOP to be like “votes don’t matter, everythings rigged” and also be the ones trying to rig everything. Its been a successful strategy every since Reagan fucked over the Iran hostage crisis by starting Iran Contra

    • _bcron_@lemmy.world
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      What’s being pushed in the other part of the internet is that these are false flags in deep blue states that won’t affect the outcome in order to bolster security at boxes in swing states that are allegedly being used to dump off tons of fake ballots.

      No winning against the propaganda machine, they have a narrative for every little thing and it always fits inside some weird B movie ‘deep state’ bullshit. Starting to think Russian propaganda mills actually hire B movie writers

      • Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world
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        Russian propaganda mills actually hire B movie writers

        Have you ever seen a film from one of these countries? Russia, North Korea, etc? Those writers only hope to one day aspire to be at the level of B movies. I’ve seen porn with better plots.

  • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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    Great, the people who are saying the Election was rigged, are actually the ones attempting to destroy ballots. Do they not see the irony at all in doing stuff like this?

    • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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      They don’t at all. They know what they’re doing, they know their calling election interference disingenuously, and they know theyre the only ones allkwed to cheat.

      They just really really wanna be able to grab women by the pussy “like the good old days before the wokeness”

    • BmeBenji@lemm.ee
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      It’s beyond irony. It is the Oceania doublespeak playbook. The Ministry of Truth was in charge of authoring all the lies.

  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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    This is why I mailed my wife’s and my ballots inside the post office. It seems like a lot harder target than a box out in the open.

  • billwashere@lemmy.world
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    Legit question: how do they figure out whose ballots got destroyed so they can vote again? Or do they even bother?

    • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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      Your election process may vary, but usually mail in ballots are in a certification envelope with your name, address, and often a declaration of eligibility, voter signature and witness. Digital methods may have a barcode encoding this information, easily readable only by an election official.

      That identification can be used to trace your ballot if damaged/lost and to check for eligibility and that you only voted once.

      The contents are then removed from the certification envelope and the secrecy envelope containing the ballot is added with other votes and anonymised.

    • Ballots typically have identifiers such as voter information or barcodes that help election officials match them to specific voters, allowing them to contact those whose ballots were compromised and ensure they can cast a new vote.

      Voters who used the affected drop box after the last collection time are encouraged to contact the Clark County Auditor’s office to verify if their ballot was among those destroyed and to obtain a replacement (source)

        • EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world
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          I’m sure most of the people living there who recently dropped a ballot in that box will care enough to ask the same thing though.

          I called the election board near me recently and learned my vote was deactivated because I changed registration, so my new ballot will be counted sooner but if I do nothing they’ll just count it on 15 Nov

          • xantoxis@lemmy.world
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            I agree that almost everyone affected would WANT to vote again; most of the work of voting is deciding who to vote for, and they’ve already done that.

            Another problem though is that not everyone affected will know that anything happened to their ballot.

            • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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              But what other options are there? The ballots were destroyed, so there’s no way to know who to contact to let them know it happened.

        • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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          Since the ballots hadn’t been collected, there’s no way for the state to know the identity of voters who dropped off ballots that were destroyed in the fire because those ballots were destroyed.

        • Leeks@lemmy.world
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          If you are worried your mail in ballot is having issues, many states will allow you to cast a “provisional ballot” that only gets counted after they verify if your mail in ballot was processed.

    • xantoxis@lemmy.world
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      (from the point of the vote counters) They know because there are individualized bar codes on every envelope. They will just count every ballot that arrives intact. If they scan one and it’s from a voter who has already been counted, they’ll have to figure out if that’s voting fraud or a legitimate consequence of an act of arson/other problem–and it’s almost never voting fraud.

      (from the point of view of the voter) assume your ballot was destroyed, get another one, vote again.

    • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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      You can check if your ballot was received on a web site and they said if you know your ballot was in there, to reach out and request a new one.

  • LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Biden needs to declare this as an emergency and issue FBI investigation + more dropboxes at every government building.

  • whatalute@lemmy.world
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    As someone local to the area, it’s telling that the drop box targeted is one of the more urban drop box locations in Clark County. The city of Vancouver itself leans blue, but goes red very quick once you get outside the city. This pisses me off so much, I’ve lived in Washington state since like 2006, and I’d never heard complaints about our voting by mail system from republicans until the big orange turd started his temper tantrum.

    • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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      I’m sure if the maga people are going full holy war on democracy we’ll see polling places being shot up as well. These burnt ballots are likely going to look like small potatoes in a week.

  • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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    Trump going win, because the fucking FBI didn’t do their fucking job and stop demostic terrorists. We all know these are maga fuckrts and you all know they love to go online and brag. I am sure millions of them should be on a fucking list somewhere.

    But if Harris doesn’t get enough EC votes then Supreme Court will decide the presidentancy and we know how they will vote.

    I just hope we have the guts to shut this fucking country down with largest general strike in history afterwards.

    • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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      Trump is likely not going to win. But that doesn’t mean he won’t become president by some other means, or cause another insurrection.

      Either way the US is headed for tough time and it’s the fault of far more people than just the FBI.

      • ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works
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        If he does somehow become president, I will be taking all the time off possible (ie general strike) and trying to convince everyone else to do the same.

        Yes I’m in a “safe Republican” state. Don’t care, that “party” shouldn’t be in power.

    • djsoren19@yiffit.net
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      A strike isn’t going to be effective in the slightest. The people on the right are saying the streets will run red with blood, they’re pushing for a civil war. That is what we should be preparing for if Trump wins.

      • WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world
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        I’m more worried what will happen when the orange rapist loses. Or even worse, it ends as some draw that is muddied legally and then all shit hit the fan.

        Either way, Stephen Gobbels Miller, in conjunction with corrupt Roger Stone, will be pulling all sorts of undemocratic shit to maximise chaos

    • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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      Why wouldn’t they, imagination and cleverness is not their strong suit as a whole.

      That said, don’t let your guard down.

  • morphballganon@lemmynsfw.com
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    Actual solution:

    1. Make the privacy envelopes out of a non-burnable material

    2. Design them to completely enclose the ballot

    3. Strongly urge their use to reduce the likelihood of ballots lost to arson

  • Media Bias Fact Checker@lemmy.worldB
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