• @eldavi@lemmy.ml
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      336 minutes ago

      it’s georgia so i’m expecting them to invalidate it somehow and probably after he’s died so that no one can fight it.

    • @WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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      74 hours ago

      This is actually an interesting legal edge case. What happens if someone casts an absentee ballot, but then dies before election day? It turns out that it’s actually very state-specific. Half of states have no provisions for how such a case is handled. Of those that address it, some explicitly allow the votes to be counted, and some explicitly prohibit these votes to be counted.

      https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/counting-absentee-ballots-after-a-voter-dies

      It’s a pretty interesting bit of legal trivia. The whole principle of absentee ballots is that you are not really casting your vote ‘early.’ It’s not like they publish the results of absentee ballots ahead of time. Really you’re effectively saying, “I can’t make it on election day.” An argument can be made that they shouldn’t be counted. Why should someone who happens to get a ballot in early and dies be able to have their vote counted, but someone who was planning to vote on election day, but died in the interim, won’t have it counted? On the other hand, a good argument can be made that we shouldn’t punish those who plan ahead, and as a general rule we just accept the ballots out of respect for the recently deceased. It’s interesting that the states that count them or don’t are distributed fairly randomly across regions and the political spectrum; it’s not really a partisan thing.

      But it is a bit of legal trivial that yes, in some states, the dead are literally allowed to vote under certain very specific circumstances.

    • @Z4XC@lemmy.world
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      620 hours ago

      Still crazy that so many votes don’t matter. That said, everyone should vote. No excuses.

      • The Snark Urge
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        814 hours ago

        Not even living in the country and I still managed it. Minimal fuss.

  • @Holyginz@lemmy.world
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    1201 day ago

    No president is perfect. Some are much worse or much better than others. The US would greatly benefit from having more Jimmy Carters as president.

    • Captain Aggravated
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      2310 hours ago

      Remember when there was a crisis at a nuclear power plant, and the president rushed to the scene…to help, because he’s a qualified nuclear engineer? I don’t, I wasn’t born yet when that happened.

      • @Holyginz@lemmy.world
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        1010 hours ago

        I wasn’t either. But when I heard the story I wished we would have another president who cared like that.

          • @Holyginz@lemmy.world
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            65 hours ago

            Honestly I feel like career politicians are part of the problem. We need people who have done other jobs and have experience outside of political circles. No more actors or reality stars though, I don’t think this country could survive more of those lol.

          • Two9A
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            108 hours ago

            It’s not all roses and rainbows: Thatcher was a chemical engineer, and the only thing she engineered while in power was the downfall of England as a world power.

            • @No_Eponym@lemmy.ca
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              3 hours ago

              Every time I am reminded that she was a chemical engineer, I picture Thatcher as a more-demure-yet-viciously-effective Yzma.

              Edit: And Mr. “Too Tall To Be A Bus Driver” John Major as a blond Kronk?! Oh yeah, it’s all coming together.

    • @thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
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      23 hours ago

      His failure was not including Washington insiders into his cabinet. It’s the lesson that people often forget. The president can’t be a total outsider and expect to be successful.

      • @Holyginz@lemmy.world
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        1322 hours ago

        I could see that being an issue for sure. But I will still say that falls well short of the things some other president’s have done.

  • @BertramDitore@lemm.ee
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    1441 day ago

    I was actually wondering about this, since a close relative of mine probably won’t make it to election day: if you legally cast your ballot (mail in or absentee), but die before Election Day, does your vote still count?

    • @eldavi@lemmy.ml
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      134 minutes ago

      in the battleground states: likely not because you need sufficient justification for going absentee/mail; something that isn’t common to the other states.

    • @yesman@lemmy.world
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      2221 day ago

      Yea. Not only that, when you hear about “dead people voting”, this is often the explanation.

      • cabbage
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        510 hours ago

        I would love to know the winners of past elections counting only the votes of dead people.

        Wouldn’t be surprised if Harris wins in the demography this time around. The greatest generation knows what it means to defeat fascists. But then again there are probably more boomers and anti vaxers dying these days.

      • snooggums
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        1071 day ago

        Also the thousands of people who die on election day, a non-zero number of which voted earlier that day.

      • neoman4426
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        4723 hours ago

        The other big chunk is people who have the same or a similar name. Like “It says here David Jones died five years ago, but David Jones voted today. Suspicious?” “Dude, I’m David Jones Jr. The David Jones who died was my dad, David Jones Sr. Dick.” Or whatever.

        • @gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          23 hours ago

          I am a IIIrd, the third person down my male line with the same first, middle, and last name

          I’m the 5th with our exact initials, too

          One time, while applying for college, I was told I’d already used my GI bill allotment back in '55. Uh… That was grandpa, and he died over 30 years before I was born, how did you mix us up?!?!

          (Also, I was never in the military and this was entirely irrelevant to me they just brought it up as something I couldn’t do)

    • neoman4426
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      731 day ago

      Depends on the state. Looks like Carter is registered in Georgia. According to an article from 2020 when Republicans were bald face lying that long dead people were voting a lot, someone from the Georgia Secretary of State’s office is quoted as saying secrecy rules don’t allow rejecting a ballot when a voter dies before Election Day.

      “You can’t go back and get that ballot back out. It’s just physically impossible, given the privacy rules in our state,”. May or may not still be accurate, or may have never been accurate, but that’s what the first article I found when searching says.

    • @Fump@lemmy.world
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      341 day ago

      Depends on the state. Georgia, where Carter lives, is silent on the issue so it should count. Some state explicitly allow counting them, some states explicitly forbid counting. Some states are silent on the issue.

      • themeatbridge
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        341 day ago

        Once the ballot is cast, there’s no way to pull it out. If you could, that would violate the secrecy of the ballot. They would be able to know who anyone voted for.

        • @yamsham@lemm.ee
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          24 hours ago

          Ignore me, sounds like he’s probably right

          ~~I really don’t think this is true, ballots get pulled out all the time if they’re found to be invalid. If there’s an issue with how it’s filled out, like bubbling multiple entries or signature issues, stuff like that, if there’s an issue with their registration or the incredibly rare instances of actual voter fraud, all those ballots get pulled out unless they get corrected.

          I guess I can kinda see your point about how if an individual ballot gets challenged and removed, and you see the overall vote count change by one you’d obviously know who that ballot was cast for. But in order for that to happen it would have to be an invalid ballot, so I’m not sure it’s really that important to keep a vote that didn’t count secret. Also in this particular case the person’s dead.

          I’m certainly not advocating a law like this be passed, and maybe there’s some federal policy that would prevent it from being enforced, but logistically speaking I don’t see the problem.~~

          • @Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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            171 day ago

            Afaik in most democracies, ballots are verified as from being legit people, then anonimised , then checked for being valid (not spoilt ballots) then processed to see what they voted for.

            During counting you can remove a ballot for being spoilt but not due to its caster being dead.

            • @yamsham@lemm.ee
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              424 hours ago

              Interesting, that makes sense. I thought I’d heard about individual ballots being challenged in all the 2020 bs, but I just looked it up and it looks like ballots can only be challenged before they’re counted, which matches with what you just said. So probably what I’d heard is either challenges that came in before that point, or it was republican nonsense that was presumably shot down.

              But yeah, verifying -> anonymizing -> counting and they can’t go backwards makes a lot of sense, and that would fundamentally prevent removing dead people. Thanks for explaining

          • @ccunning@lemmy.world
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            71 day ago

            Provisional ballots can be held back until a voter’s eligibility is verified but once a ballot is put into the general pool there is no way.

            And that’s separate from not being able to count a ballot that was incorrectly filled. Those ballots are not tied to a specific voter.

  • FlashMobOfOne
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    922 hours ago

    My absentee ballot finally came this week. I’m so excited to get my vote in and be done with all of this nonsense.

    • troybot [he/him]
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      1020 hours ago

      You’ll be even more excited when the 2028 campaign starts in three weeks!

    • @woelkchen@lemmy.world
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      624 hours ago

      You don’t live in a democracy, do you? One of the main points in an free election is that the vote is private with no way to trace it back to whoever cast it.

      • @phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Aside from your needlessly hostile response — They can tell if you voted. Your ballot is linked to your name.

        • @woelkchen@lemmy.world
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          15 hours ago

          “if voted” is different from “voted for”. In a true democracy it must not be traceable who someone voted for. It simply cannot be the case in a proper democracy that the people who voted for the opponent get punished for their vote after transfer of power.

          • @phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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            15 hours ago

            The original question was whether legally they could toss his ballot if he died before Election Day. I think the state probably has the means to locate a ballot.

      • @FireTower@lemmy.world
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        1023 hours ago

        Up until the 1880s pretty much all Americans ballots weren’t private. Some states still technically aren’t private.

        • @woelkchen@lemmy.world
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          312 hours ago

          America isn’t a true democracy anyway with its Gerrymandering, two party system, and registration to vote.

          • @MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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            110 hours ago

            Voting registration isn’t anti-democratic if it’s very easy, like it is here in Australia. It’s done online (and other methods) and very painless. If you don’t move, you never need to update your registration.

            • @woelkchen@lemmy.world
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              8 hours ago

              It’s done online (and other methods) and very painless. If you don’t move, you never need to update your registration.

              And in actual democracies you’re registered automatically when turning voting age (usually 18) and gets updates automatically when moving. Obviously, when you have a monarch, you’re not living in a true democracy.

              • @MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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                2 hours ago

                Come to think of it, we have a system where we update our details and it updates it across all other government agencies (this is optional), but I don’t think it automatically updates your voting registration.

                Room for improvement.

                Oh and yeah, fuck the queen.

                Edit: yes, the queen specifically for presiding over the sacking of Whitlam

  • lnxtx
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    61 day ago

    I hate this type of headline. He is still living (hopefully), but you are not sure.

    • @woelkchen@lemmy.world
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      1524 hours ago

      I hate this type of headline. He is still living (hopefully), but you are not sure.

      You didn’t even care to click on that link. He cast the vote already.

      • @booly@sh.itjust.works
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        11 hour ago

        If he’s running again in 52 years, then I’ll have serious questions about what I know about the fundamental rules of life on this planet, so maybe he should be president again at that point.

    • @bamfic@lemmy.world
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      1021 hours ago

      I remember a oneliner from that year, from the TV show Maude:

      “Everything is so confusing nowadays. Today I saw a Carter sticker on a Ford, a Ford sticker on a Chevy, and a Dole sticker on a banana.”