2022 Midterms

1. If you move out of state and don't notify the clerk that your registration is no longer valid, which is every voter's responsibility, then who's truly at fault?

2. Someone receiving a ballot isn't the problem, someone trying to illegally vote with their ballot is the problem. The main point is that fraud is by and large prevented should someone make an attempt to do so and you'd know that if you bother to learn how the process works at all. If you're concerned about the security and validation steps the clerks' offices take to ensure voting is fair and accurate, then go tour a damn facility and ask questions instead of making vague, baseless accusations of improprieties. Or watch their videos.

I attended the Colorado County Clerks conference this year and it was infuriating to hear these elected officials, the majority of whom are Republican, share issues of being overwhelmed by deliberately malicious CORA requests (done on purpose asking for hundreds of thousands of records solely to keep them from doing their actual jobs of preparing for upcoming elections), people who signed up as poll watchers who then interfered with the elections process, or representatives of the local Republican Parties who would belligerently insist that they had authority that they did not in fact have (per legal statute) to appoint participants in the election process. These same clerks, who are our neighbors and fellow citizens, are exhausted and getting burnt out trying to do their jobs that they feel a patriotic duty and calling to do. I thanked every one of them that I spoke to for their hard work on behalf of our democracy.

It would be amusing that Republicans are eating their own except that it's causing immense damage to our country as a whole and it needs to stop. Yes, Democrats were guilty of claiming fraud as well after Trump won, but they didn't go anywhere near these kinds of lengths. Our elections are safe, they are conducted bi-partisanly and with integrity, and conspiracy theories that they're "stolen" are completely wrong.
In North Carolina, a county elections director stood up to locals
by Doug Bock Clark | ProPublica
November 3, 2022

The elections director, 47-year-old Michella Huff, who’d lived in the county since high school and knew many voters by name, considered it ludicrous that anyone could think the election had been rigged in Surry County. Donald Trump had received upward of 70% of the roughly 36,000 votes cast. Huff, a registered Republican for most of her adult life, had personally certified the vote.

Yet people had begun approaching Huff in church recently, saying things like, “I know you didn’t do anything, but that election was stolen.” In February, a longtime acquaintance of Huff’s cornered her in a bluegrass music store and berated her with complaints rooted in conspiracy theories. Huff started limiting her trips to town, even doing her grocery order online.

Unbeknownst to Huff, a national network of election deniers had been making inroads in Surry County, on the fringe of Appalachia.

Huff is hardly the only election official struggling to stand up to those who believe the voting system is rigged; such confrontations have dramatically unfolded across the country, from Hood County, Texas, to Floyd County, Georgia, to Nye County, Nevada. Her circumstances illustrate how the efforts to target her are part of a larger playbook, with tactics that are replicated throughout the country.

Who's funding these "national networks" of election deniers?

Edit to add: Thistlethwaite: Election deniers subvert democracy and faith
Susan Thistlethwaite, Vail Daily Opinion | Oct 29, 2022

Election deniers, the far-right Republicans who deny the certified 2020 election results despite all evidence to the contrary, are subverting our democracy. But they are also subverting faith, in my view, since they often misuse Christian theological terms to ratchet up their rhetoric.

But there is no way to break the spiral of violence unless you engage, especially with enemies, those whom you may now be tempted to call “evil” or “Satan.”

So yes, there is evil among us and many are tempted to commit even horrific wrongs. There may be those with whom you radically disagree and even consider enemies. But the way forward in our political process is to engage and not to write anyone off, ever, no matter how impossible that may seem.

While this is shaping up to be one of the most challenging election cycles this nation has ever seen, don’t give up on democracy or on each other.

This shit right here absolutely needs to stop.
Some county clerks in Colorado say they are getting death threats from election deniers
By Shaun Boyd, CBS Colorado | November 3, 2022

Some county clerks in Colorado have installed bulletproof glass after receiving death threats from election deniers. One clerk is even wearing a bulletproof vest.

Two of the clerks who have fielded the most attacks this election are in the most Republican parts of the state -- Weld and El Paso counties.

They say people they once thought of as allies are now among their antagonists.

"For last 2 years been it's been nonstop - innuendo, threats at all levels," said El Paso County Clerk Chuck Broerman, who is one of the last people you would expect Republicans to turn on.

This is the true threat to our elections.
Conspiracy pushers target races for local election posts
By NICHOLAS RICCARDI, AP News | October 25, 2022

As to how these midterms will go, unsurprisingly Republicans will take the House and probably control of the Senate as well. Voters historically vote the opposing party in control of Congress from the White House in an effort to provide another check-and-balance, especially when they are massively unsatisfied with the current state of affairs. But, nothing will change. It's not like whomever is in charge is going to fix the serious problems we actually face until they stop with the partisan bickering and start working together. To do that takes moderates in both parties, who aren't weak as accused, but who have to work harder and longer to compromise, finding acceptable solutions to both sides. Sitting on the sidelines and running your mouth bitching is easy (e.g. Lauren Boebert and AOC) and profitable; actually working to find consensus and solving problems is hard.

If you are one who vilifies the other side as evil, destroying democracy, etc then you are part of the problem. There are good people on both sides and grifters on both sides; life won't improve for any of us until we stop listening to and supporting the crazy extremists (and that includes Trump, Herschel Walker, and the Squad) and stop spouting bullshit conspiracy theories.

Rick, what fraud is being ignored? Be specific and provide credible evidence. Yes, there are isolated cases discovered every year, but nothing in the numbers that election deniers claim that could have changed the results of any election. Elections are conducted with bi-partisan poll workers, by bi-partisan clerks who are voted in by the public, there is chain of custody at every step, and signatures are verified. If they don't match, there's a curing process for that voter.


Is the process perfect? No, nothing is. But that doesn't mean to distrust the entire system.

Off-topic, I've asked this before and I will ask again to everyone: please do not quote the post to reply if you are replying to the immediately preceding post, especially if it's a long post. It makes it extremely hard to read, particularly on a mobile device which the majority of our readers do. Click "Reply" instead of quote.