Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo — Page 147

I don’t think there was anything wrong with how you phrased it.

Ryan McAvoy said:

TV’s Frink said:

Ryan is not from the US and I’m not sure how his party system works

WeTo put it as simply as I can… In a General Election. We just vote for our local MP. The Party with ththe most MPs wins and must form a government. We don’t directly vote for the Prime-Minister.

In the US, a primary is an election held by a party to determine who will represent that party in the upcoming general election against the other party or parties. Hillary beat Bernie in the Dem primary and Trump beat a billion other Republicans in the Repub primary.

TV’s Frink said:

Warbler said:

Ryan McAvoy said:

Warbler said:

Ryan McAvoy said:

Warbler said:

Ryan McAvoy said:

Warbler said:

Okay. I will try one more time

Let us say there are 2 people. Person A and person B. They are registered in different polling places. Now, lets say person B for whatever doesn’t vote. What is to stop person A from going to his own polling place, vote and then going to person B’s polling place and lie and say he was person B and then vote again? Without requiring IDs, what is to stop that? How would person A get caught?

As I’ve already said… nothing.

If person-A knew person-B’s name, knew with certainty that they were not going to vote, knew at what polling station they were registered to vote, knew what their voting intentions were and knew that person-B was not known to the officials at the polling station (not unlikely in my experience)… then yeah they could commit the perfect crime and nobody would know.

You have a point here. (However person A would not need to know person B’s voting intentions, only that he wasn’t going to vote)

If your intent was to change a persons vote from party-A to party-B, it could matter that you selected a target that wasn’t going to vote for party-B already. Otherwise you potentially aren’t a very effective election fraudster.

The party thing would only matter in primaries, not general elections.

It wouldn’t?

Not in general elections. It does matter in the primaries, when you are voting to decide which candidate will represent the party in the general election, but it doesn’t matter in the general election.

You have it backwards, because you said “the party thing would only matter in primaries, not general elections.”

No, I don’t. We were talking about whether or not person A would need to know the party affiliation of person B. The only time person A would need to know that is in primary elections, not general elections.

Primary Elections:

You vote by party to determine who will represent the party in the general election. There are separate ballots for each party.

General Elections:

You vote for you want for whatever office you are voting for. There is only ballot.

Regardless, Ryan is not from the US and I’m not sure how his party system works, but he could have just said “if your intent was to change a person’s vote from person-A to person-B, it could matter that you selected a target that wasn’t going to vote for person-B already. Otherwise you potentially aren’t a very effective election fraudster.”

No, in our discussion, person B was a person who wasn’t going to vote all. If it was a general election and person B wasn’t going to vote but was registered to vote, person A come come into person B’s polling place and vote as person B.

I’m confused. Not the first time.

The idea is that which person/party is going to vote for would matter in a general election because if you’re a say a tricky fraudulent Dem/Hillary supporter, you don’t want to bother committing fraud by voting as someone who would have voted for Dems/Hillary anyway.

The primary fraud idea is somewhat silly - if you end up stuck with a ballot on the other side, what’s the point really? You don’t have a horse in that race. In either case, knowing the affiliation of the fraudee is important for the potential frauder.

Ryan McAvoy said:

TV’s Frink said:

Ryan McAvoy said:

TV’s Frink said:

Ryan is not from the US and I’m not sure how his party system works

WeTo put it as simply as I can… In a General Election. We just vote for our local MP. The Party with ththe most MPs wins and must form a government. We don’t directly vote for the Prime-Minister.

In the US, a primary is an election held by a party to determine who will represent that party in the upcoming general election against the other party or parties. Hillary beat Bernie in the Dem primary and Trump beat a billion other Republicans in the Repub primary.

I think I’ve got a handle on it all this year. It seems like a very complicated system overall… and it still comes up with a result 2.7 million votes shy of the right answer 😉

It’s crazier when you look at the actual numbers of who voted Trump into this position.

Primary:
14mil
General:
62mil
Total US population:
324mil

Ryan McAvoy said:

TV’s Frink said:

Ryan is not from the US and I’m not sure how his party system works

To put it as simply as I can… In a UK General Election. We just vote for our local MP. The Party with the most MPs wins and must form a government. We don’t directly vote for the Prime-Minister.

Which is why I used the word “Party” in my example. I think we all understand what I was saying.

US elections work differently. For each office that we election, be it Congress person, Senator, or US President, we have Primary Elections and General Elections.

In Primary Elections, you decide which candidate will represent the party. Democrats vote on one ballot and Republicans vote on another. In last year’s Primary Election, we had on the Democratic ballot for President Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and couple of other minor Democrats. Everyone who is registered as a Democrat went to polls and voted for which Democrat they wanted to represent the Democratic party in the General Election. We had on the Republican ballot for President Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Chris Christie and couple of other minor Republicans. Everyone who is registered as a Republican went to polls and voted for which Republican they wanted to represent the Republican party in the General Election. Hillary Clinton won the Democratic primary and Donald Trump won the Republican primary.

In General Election, you decide which candidate will be elected. In this year’s Presidential Election, you had winners of the Democratic and Republican primaries(Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump), anyone running as an independent candidate and those representing minor parties on the ballot(you can also choose to write-in someone not appearing on the ballot if you want to vote that way).

DominicCobb said:

The idea is that which person/party is going to vote for would matter in a general election because if you’re a say a tricky fraudulent Dem/Hillary supporter, you don’t want to bother committing fraud by voting as someone who would have voted for Dems/Hillary anyway.

It the situation we were talking about, person B although registered wasn’t going to vote.

The primary fraud idea is somewhat silly - if you end up stuck with a ballot on the other side, what’s the point really?

Well, you could vote for someone you thought had no chance against your own party’s candidate in the general election.

Ryan McAvoy said:

Warbler said:

TV’s Frink said:

Warbler said:

Ryan McAvoy said:

Warbler said:

Ryan McAvoy said:

Warbler said:

Ryan McAvoy said:

Warbler said:

Okay. I will try one more time

Let us say there are 2 people. Person A and person B. They are registered in different polling places. Now, lets say person B for whatever doesn’t vote. What is to stop person A from going to his own polling place, vote and then going to person B’s polling place and lie and say he was person B and then vote again? Without requiring IDs, what is to stop that? How would person A get caught?

As I’ve already said… nothing.

If person-A knew person-B’s name, knew with certainty that they were not going to vote, knew at what polling station they were registered to vote, knew what their voting intentions were and knew that person-B was not known to the officials at the polling station (not unlikely in my experience)… then yeah they could commit the perfect crime and nobody would know.

You have a point here. (However person A would not need to know person B’s voting intentions, only that he wasn’t going to vote)

If your intent was to change a persons vote from party-A to party-B, it could matter that you selected a target that wasn’t going to vote for party-B already. Otherwise you potentially aren’t a very effective election fraudster.

The party thing would only matter in primaries, not general elections.

It wouldn’t?

Not in general elections. It does matter in the primaries, when you are voting to decide which candidate will represent the party in the general election, but it doesn’t matter in the general election.

You have it backwards, because you said “the party thing would only matter in primaries, not general elections.”

No, I don’t. We were talking about whether or not person A would need to know the party affiliation of person B. The only time person A would need to know that is in primary elections, not general elections.

Primary Elections:

You vote by party to determine who will represent the party in the general election. There are separate ballots for each party.

General Elections:

You vote for you want for whatever office you are voting for. There is only ballot.

Regardless, Ryan is not from the US and I’m not sure how his party system works, but he could have just said “if your intent was to change a person’s vote from person-A to person-B, it could matter that you selected a target that wasn’t going to vote for person-B already. Otherwise you potentially aren’t a very effective election fraudster.”

No, in our discussion, person B was a person who wasn’t going to vote all. If it was a general election and person B wasn’t going to vote but was registered to vote, person A come come into person B’s polling place and vote as person B.

Party/Primary/General/Person/etc it doesn’t matter. We are just talking about a choice. Person A’s choice, Person B’s choice.

I will try again:

Let us say we are talking about a general election. Person A and B live in different areas so they don’t vote at the same polling place. the workers at the polling places don’t know person A or B personally, so they don’t know what they look like. Person B, is registered but as decided not to vote. What is too stop person A from voting at his own polling place, then go to the one that person B would have used if he was voting, and pretend to be person B and vote twice?

Warbler said:

The primary fraud idea is somewhat silly - if you end up stuck with a ballot on the other side, what’s the point really?

Well, you could vote for someone you though had no chance against your own party’s candidate in the general election.

This is not a smart strategy. I remember some Dems saying they were hoping the GOP would nominate Trump because beating him would be a cake walk. Look how that turned out…

I definitely hoped Trump would win, although I obviously underestimated how dumb our country is.

TV’s Frink said:

I definitely hoped Trump would win, although I obviously underestimated how dumb our country is.

I was sort of similar but a little torn on it. I definitely thought the chances of him winning the general were extremely low so I was kinda hoping he’d take the primary, but at the same time I was worrying about if it was worth the risk. Evidently, no.

DominicCobb said:

Warbler said:

The primary fraud idea is somewhat silly - if you end up stuck with a ballot on the other side, what’s the point really?

Well, you could vote for someone you though had no chance against your own party’s candidate in the general election.

This is not a smart strategy. I remember some Dems saying they were hoping the GOP would nominate Trump because beating him would be a cake walk. Look how that turned out…

Well, it doesn’t always work.

Ryan McAvoy said:

Warbler said:

Ryan McAvoy said:

TV’s Frink said:

Ryan is not from the US and I’m not sure how his party system works

To put it as simply as I can… In a UK General Election. We just vote for our local MP. The Party with the most MPs wins and must form a government. We don’t directly vote for the Prime-Minister.

Which is why I used the word “Party” in my example. I think we all understand what I was saying.

US elections work differently. For each office that we election, be it Congress person, Senator, or US President, we have Primary Elections and General Elections.

In Primary Elections, you decide which candidate will represent the party. Democrats vote on one ballot and Republicans vote on another. In last year’s Primary Election, we had on the Democratic ballot for President Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and couple of other minor Democrats. Everyone who is registered as a Democrat went to polls and voted for which Democrat they wanted to represent the Democratic party in the General Election. We had on the Republican ballot for President Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Chris Christie and couple of other minor Republicans. Everyone who is registered as a Republican went to polls and voted for which Republican they wanted to represent the Republican party in the General Election. Hillary Clinton won the Democratic primary and Donald Trump won the Republican primary.

In General Election, you decide which candidate will be elected. In this year’s Presidential Election, you had winners of the Democratic and Republican primaries(Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump), anyone running as an independent candidate and those representing minor parties on the ballot(you can also choose to write-in someone not appearing on the ballot if you want to vote that way).

Yes I know how it works and I’ve been following it but it’s not relevant to the point I was making.

You seemed to be indicating that person A would need to know the party affiliation of person B. That would not be true in a general election where person B was too lazy to vote.

CatBus said:

Warbler said:

Everyone who is registered as a Democrat went to polls and voted for which Democrat they wanted to represent the Democratic party in the General Election.

Out west, things get murkier. At least in my state, you don’t register as a member of a particular party at all, so technically everyone in the state is an independent. At primary time, you basically decide right on the spot which party’s primary you’d like to influence this year and choose that ballot (or attend that caucus, or both because yes we’re weird that way).

You have primaries AND caucuses??? How does that work?

CatBus said:

Warbler said:

Everyone who is registered as a Democrat went to polls and voted for which Democrat they wanted to represent the Democratic party in the General Election.

Out west, things get murkier. At least in my state, you don’t register as a member of a particular party at all, so technically everyone in the state is an independent. At primary time, you basically decide right on the spot which party’s primary you’d like to influence this year and choose that ballot (or attend that caucus, or both because yes we’re weird that way). It’s not quite an open primary, but we love open primaries out here and it’s the closest we can get to that ideal without the parties suing the crap out of the state. The parties claim they can restrict primary access to their own members; the public reminds the parties who’s paying for these elections in the first place, and a tense standoff is maintained.

Now some of that independence is obviously fictional. We have more self-reported independents (as opposed to the meaningless registration numbers) than most states, but lots of those are leftists who are choosing between third parties and Democrats, and rightists choosing between third parties and Republicans. The percentage actually choosing between Democrats and Republicans probably isn’t that different than other states, although we do have a lot of ticket-splitters, and we were one of the last refuges of the fabled liberal Republicans before they went extinct (or more accurately became Democrats).

We also have a long history of messing with the primaries of other parties. Since the primaries are occasionally just formalities with a single plausible candidate, and you can choose at the last minute which primary to vote in, people often talk about crossing over to the other side to vote for the weakest/craziest candidate on the other side, to improve their own party’s chances. However, that sort of talk has lately fallen out of fashion since it makes the situation a lot more dire when your party loses. Now people talk about crossing over to vote for someone they could stomach, if not vote for, which I guess is moderation coming back into fashion.

I’m registered independent in MA and it’s the similar for me, pick which ballot you want when you show up. Haven’t done the “vote on the other side” thing though.

*is confused* A primary election that doesn’t count‽‽‽‽‽ Your state needs to fix this stuff.

You’re telling me that who people vote for doesn’t really matter in regards to who gets elected‽‽‽ Here‽‽‽ In America‽‽‽

So basically to you have two systems because your government is in a spat with the political parties. nice.