Paper Ballots vs. Voting Machines vs. both

[Josh]

The vote totals include spoiled ballots. So a hypothetical race between Biden & Trump might have 75 votes for Trump, 80 for Biden, and then 3 votes cast that are unusable, but still in the total count.

At least that's how we did it.

[Ken]

Not every state does things like Ohio. Conspiracy theory or not, it happens frequently. And it is made WORSE by reliance on complicated voting machines. In many states this sort of thing happens at the county level and there are huge discrepancies in resources allocated to different parts of the county. No one should have to wait 6 hours to vote regardless of the reason.

If this is happening it's due to incompetence or corruption on the part of electoral workers. I just checked, and Texas doles out funds at the state level too to pay for elections. There is no difference regardless of local funding, although counties sometimes can contribute additional. In your example above, too, it was all in the same county... so there is absolutely no way this is happening.

What is much more likely (and which I have personally experienced) is local staff in "low income" districts sometimes are incompetent, lazy, and just refuse to fix things. They are hard to hold accountable or get fired. I had to deal with one of these myself. She was representing the Democratic party, I was representing the Libertarian party at the time. Whenever anyone needed help in a voting booth (which was quite often), pollworkers from two different parties were supposed to go in.

Well this worker preferred to just sit in her chair and I had to repeatedly ask her to join me. This was in a district that was almost 100% either registered Democrats or independents, so it made me very uncomfortable that she expected me to go assist voters and see their ballots (sometimes having to do everything short of holding their hand to touch the screen) and see their voting choices. Yet that is the reality in many of these "low-income" districts you are concerned about.

Both of us were paid the same wage, so the difference was that I cared about carefully following procedures and ensuring a fair election - and she didn't. (The other Democrat I was working with was very sincere about her duties as well, and eventually took over from this other girl who basically spent the day sitting around.)

The larger point is that regardless of WHY you think this sort of thing happens. The REASON it happens is that they are using complicated touch-screen voting machines instead of paper ballots. With paper ballots there would have been no lines at all. Or very short ones since there would be no limit to the number of people who could vote at one time.

Yes, not having "technical issues" is a good reason to user paper ballots. The average voter should completely understand end to end how each vote is cast and counted. Very few people understand how computers work end to end. The average reasonable person can completely understand how a paper ballot is cast, counted, and the vote totals tallied up and reported.

In the end it doesn't really matter why. This sort of thing shouldn't be happening and it happens largely due to the decisions in Texas to use expensive touch-screen voting machines instead of simple paper ballots.

In this particular case it was made worse by the refusal of Republicans to run a common primary with Democrats where voters could use the same voting machines for either party's primary. So they insisted on having equal numbers of voting machines for each party in each precinct. Which would be fine in swing areas with roughly equivalent numbers of people voting in each party. But at a historically black college the number of Democratic votes is usually going to greatly outnumber the number of Republican votes. So they had half the voting machines sitting unused in that precinct.

[Josh]

Perhaps the problem is that degree of segregation that you have overwhelmingly Democratic electoral precincts. Wouldn't some diversity be a good idea?

[Ken]

The vote totals include spoiled ballots. So a hypothetical race between Biden & Trump might have 75 votes for Trump, 80 for Biden, and then 3 votes cast that are unusable, but still in the total count.

At least that's how we did it.

Well yes. But when the results are reported to the media they only report the number of votes for each candidate and not the number of ballots that were unusable due to undervotes, overvotes, and soiled ballots. Or ballots that were disqualified for some other reason.

In many cases it is voters who only vote for the top line things like president, governor, senator, etc. But tail off and don't finish their ballot when they get down to the more arcane things like local bond measures, utility boards, judges, etc.

[Ken]

Perhaps the problem is that degree of segregation that you have overwhelmingly Democratic electoral precincts. Wouldn't some diversity be a good idea?

We also have overwhelmingly Republican precincts as well. Like, for example, Holmes County.

That is because we are still living with the legacy of segregation in much of the south (and north) that continues to be perpetrated to this day through things like zoning. We could certainly do more to desegregate our communities racially, ethnically, and economically. But there is enormous resistance to doing so.

You yourself have come here to explain how most people like to stick with their own kind. That doesn't mean they vote together in lock-step. But voting patterns do follow racial, ethnic, religious, and economic lines.

[Josh]

That is because we are still living with the legacy of segregation in much of the south (and north) that continues to be perpetrated to this day through things like zoning.

No, we aren't. Zoning is not by race. People of any race can live anywhere they want and there are powerful laws and agencies enforcing this.

We could certainly do more to desegregate our communities racially, ethnically, and economically. But there is enormous resistance to doing so.

Why should we? It turns out that most people like to live near other people who are related to them, from the same background, think like them, and act like them. That's just human nature.

You yourself have come here to explain how most people like to stick with their own kind. That doesn't mean they vote together in lock-step. But voting patterns do follow racial, ethnic, religious, and economic lines.

Actually, they basically do vote in lock step. People like to associate near others who have similar political opinions, too. I was being rather tongue in cheek with my comment about that voting district. I think it's normal for people to associate with others similar to them.

Although I think a university is the worst possible place to be doing this. Students at universities should be exposed to people with different viewpoints and different backgrounds. That school should be trying to get itself to a balanced political mix that looks like America. Instead it seems to be a very isolationist place where students never have to be challenged to think outside of their bubble.

[Ken]

That is because we are still living with the legacy of segregation in much of the south (and north) that continues to be perpetrated to this day through things like zoning.

No, we aren't. Zoning is not by race. People of any race can live anywhere they want and there are powerful laws and agencies enforcing this.

We could certainly do more to desegregate our communities racially, ethnically, and economically. But there is enormous resistance to doing so.

Why should we? It turns out that most people like to live near other people who are related to them, from the same background, think like them, and act like them. That's just human nature.

You yourself have come here to explain how most people like to stick with their own kind. That doesn't mean they vote together in lock-step. But voting patterns do follow racial, ethnic, religious, and economic lines.

Actually, they basically do vote in lock step. People like to associate near others who have similar political opinions, too. I was being rather tongue in cheek with my comment about that voting district. I think it's normal for people to associate with others similar to them.

Although I think a university is the worst possible place to be doing this. Students at universities should be exposed to people with different viewpoints and different backgrounds. That school should be trying to get itself to a balanced political mix that looks like America. Instead it seems to be a very isolationist place where students never have to be challenged to think outside of their bubble.

The history of zoning was very much about race. Cities and towns across the country implemented redlining through zoning which determined who could live where on the basis of race. And racially restrictive covenants were exceedingly common and exist to this day across the country including in Ohio. They are no longer enforceable due to the Supreme Court and the Civil Rights Act. But they linger on as a legacy of past discrimination. Millersburg Ohio in the heart of Holmes County was a "sundown" town in the early 20th Century meaning that Black people couldn't stay past sundown let alone buy and own property: https://justice.tougaloo.edu/sundowntow ... rsburg-oh/ so it isn't sheer coincidence that you don't see black farmers in Holmes County.

And all the major cities in Ohio implemented and enforced redlining.

[Josh]

The history of zoning was very much about race. Cities and towns across the country implemented redlining through zoning which determined who could live where on the basis of race. And racially restrictive covenants were exceedingly common and exist to this day across the country including in Ohio. They are no longer enforceable due to the Supreme Court and the Civil Rights Act. But they linger on as a legacy of past discrimination. Millersburg Ohio in the heart of Holmes County was a "sundown" town in the early 20th Century meaning that Black people couldn't stay past sundown let alone buy and own property: https://justice.tougaloo.edu/sundowntow ... rsburg-oh/ so it isn't sheer coincidence that you don't see black farmers in Holmes County.

What you said makes no sense. There aren't farms in Millersburg, which is a tiny part of Holmes County. Farmers generally go into town to do their business during the day, not at night.

Zoning is not about race. Lots of countries have zoning laws which don't have anything resembling America's racial past. Zoning is about wanting to have a residential area that doesn't have a drive thru oil change place or a strip club suddenly open next door to your front yard.

And in any case, most of America isn't zoned... including where I live. So if zoning is the problem, then I must live in some kind of paradise that is free from all these ills you keep describing.

[Bootstrap]

Perhaps the problem is that degree of segregation that you have overwhelmingly Democratic electoral precincts. Wouldn't some diversity be a good idea?

And for Republican electoral precincts.

I think gerrymandering is partly to blame, and that's not OK. But some geographical areas are also largely racially homogeneous.

[Josh]

Perhaps the problem is that degree of segregation that you have overwhelmingly Democratic electoral precincts. Wouldn't some diversity be a good idea?

And for Republican electoral precincts.

I think gerrymandering is partly to blame, and that's not OK. But some geographical areas are also largely racially homogeneous.

In your specific example, though, it's due to a university being de-facto segregated. And apparently fixing that isn't much of a priority.