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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

This article has more info:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/12/california-...

Apparently the state GOP set them up and has admitted as much on Twitter. They say they are justified under California's law that allows ballot harvesting.

They're putting them outside places usually frequented by GOP voters (gun stores, churches, etc) to help make it easier for them to vote.

They may have a pretty solid argument. But more importantly, like most of these types of shenanigans, it probably won't be resolved until after the election.

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It's not, really. Third party ballot collection is allowed but the voter has to designate someone to collect said ballot. The return envelope has a section for the third party's name, signature, and relationship to the voter. If they had a named volunteer at hand to sign the ballot envelopes under their name for collection, it'd probably be on the level. Moreover, that volunteer would have to return only those with their signature.

Instead, they have unattended flimsy collection boxes labeled, "Official Ballot Drop Off Box".

I have no idea why state election officials would say that these are illegal when they allow people to in person collect other peoples ballots.

Edit: That it says "official" but is not official government is questionable.

It's unclear whether the law only applies to collecting them in person or if these unofficial boxes are ok too.

> unofficial boxes are ok too.

These boxes are labeled as Official and fashioned as if from government. Nobody should be allowed to pose as government.

There's a difference in someone giving their ballot to a trusted person that will drop it off (and having signed the ballot over to that person to execute it) and having unofficial ballot boxes that the persons running can wholesale tamper with by say cross referencing the names with some other demographic information to disenfranchise some parts of society. these particular boxes might be operated without ill intent but that's not to say this practice should be allowed... especially since you can just put it in the mail now.

These boxes are labeled as Official and fashioned as if administered by some relevant level of government. That's already a huge problem, especially because these boxes have nobody responsible guarding them. I could steal them and nobody would be responsible for the negligence.

Nobody should be allowed to pose as government.

Better yet, buy a voter registry, cross reference GOP/Democrats, and depending on your affiliation, toss the ones from people who are not your party leanings... who would know? (sarcasm, don't do this, cause it's effed up!)

Please leave the profanity in Reddit, it doesn’t serve you well in this audience. What you bring up is one of the elephants in the room regarding any mail-in ballet scheme. Manageable as a small out-of-band exception process, problematic for broad implementation.

A lot of COVID risk avoidance is reasonable, if annoying. In-person voting, however, may be a hill worth dying on, metaphorically speaking of course...

Sure (on profanity, and edited). Sometimes forget my audience and who I'm talking to.

Mail-in-ballots are basically the norm where I'm from (Utah), we get a ballot, and drop it off at the city building. It's nice. Nobody complains on either side of the aisle here, it just works. If we were a swing state, I'm sure someone would complain if it meant more/less votes for 'their side'.

I lean left, the state leans right, it is what it is, but why can't the rest of America have such an easy system of voting?

The state of Texas won't give you a mail in ballot except under verify specific an restrictive rules. Then the governor has restricted ballot drop offs to one per county including very large counties with millions of people. Anything to restrict the number of voters that may not vote in their favor.

> I have no idea why state election officials would say that these are illegal when they allow people to in person collect other peoples ballots.

Because it is, in fact, illegal; there is a significant difference between each of these things, with a descending degree of voter knowledge and ability to make an informed choice about the security of their ballot:

A voter electing to entrust their ballot to a specific person.

A voter placing their ballot in a a known-unofficial collection box operated by an unknown person.

A voter placing their ballot in a fraudulently-labeled-as-official ballot box.

Allowing the first does not imply that the second should be legitimate, much less the third.

If it's permissable/legal, why describe it as shenanigans. Is rounding people up in vans and driving them to the polls also shenanigans?

The legality is still in question, because the precedent is only for in person collection.

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