Mark Zuckerberg Launches a Push to Recruit Poll Workers for US Election on Facebook (theverge.com) 81
"Facebook is launching a recruitment drive for poll workers this weekend, putting messages into users' News Feeds with links to poll worker registration sites in their state," reports the Verge:
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post announcing the drive that it was part of the company's larger voting information campaign, which has a goal of helping 4 million people register and vote. "Voting is voice, and in a democracy, it's the ultimate way we hold our leaders accountable and make sure the country is heading in the direction we want," Zuckerberg wrote.
The social media giant also will join dozens of other companies offering paid time off to employees in the US who work the polls on Election Day, according to Zuckerberg's post... [M]ore than 70 percent of states and jurisdictions were having difficulty staffing the jobs even before the pandemic.
"We've also offered free ad credits to every state election authority so they can recruit poll workers across our platforms..." Zuckerberg says in his post.
"Priscilla and I have also personally donated $300 million to non-partisan organizations supporting states and local counties in strengthening our voting infrastructure."
The social media giant also will join dozens of other companies offering paid time off to employees in the US who work the polls on Election Day, according to Zuckerberg's post... [M]ore than 70 percent of states and jurisdictions were having difficulty staffing the jobs even before the pandemic.
"We've also offered free ad credits to every state election authority so they can recruit poll workers across our platforms..." Zuckerberg says in his post.
"Priscilla and I have also personally donated $300 million to non-partisan organizations supporting states and local counties in strengthening our voting infrastructure."
Why are poll workers volunteers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Realistically I know it's for voter suppression. But in 2020 we should be aware of those tricks and unwilling to tolerate them.
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Re: Why are poll workers volunteers? (Score:1)
Realistically I know it's for voter suppression. But in 2020 we should be aware of those tricks and unwilling to tolerate them.
Realistically we all know that you're an idiot, but I would LOVE to hear you explain how this is a form of voter supression.
Re: Why are poll workers volunteers? (Score:2)
Re: Why are poll workers volunteers? (Score:1)
That's not actually true. Poll workers don't necessarily have to be from the area where they're working, nor does a shortage of volunteers from a specific area mean that polls in that area will be shut down.
But pretending for a second that it is true, how does it relate to voter suppression? Which groups are being suppressed? Given what we all know about rsilvertwat, it's safe to assume that he's complaining about lower-income areas being suppressed, but that foes not follow. What exactly stops a person
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What exactly do you think will happen if there are not enough poll workers? They'll unlock the doors and let you set up the machines yourself? Vote by the honor system?
Re: Why are poll workers volunteers? (Score:1)
I know exactly what will happen. Check the news reports. They'll start asking for volunteers from highschool football teams, church groups, knitting circles ... pretty much whomever they can get their hands on. That's what's going on right now. If all else fails, you can start dragging in the homeless; I'm sure they'd be happy to get a hot meal and a few bucks in their pockets. And as a last resort you can always coopt government employees; police, firemen, national guard, whatever. There's some optic
Re: Why are poll workers volunteers? (Score:1)
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he could seek volunteers from only one side of the aisle
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Why do we need poll workers at all?
Several states, including Colorado, Utah, and Oregon, have already moved to 100% vote-by-mail.
It is working fine.
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In would disagree. The states which adopted it in a rush have not learned from the states which have been practicing it long term. This the fraud reports.
Re:Why are poll workers volunteers? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Votes are still anonymous.
If you have never voted by mail, it's a series of Russian nesting dolls. First, you have your ballot. I'ts a plain ballot, with absolutely no identifying information on it. That ballot is put inside a secrecy envelope, one that has all those blobs on the inside that prevent you from using a light to read its contents. You seal the ballot inside the secr
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How about if you offered the person $ to sign the voter identification envelope and give you the whole ballot package. you could send out mass mailings ahead of the ballot offering people money if they would just sign the envelope and mail it to you, or drop it off at a collection point and pick up their money at the same time.
Or your employer could mandate that you sign the envelope and send it to him or you will lose your job.
An actual polling place is "secure" in that you cannot just stand inside a polli
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What makes "inside a polling place" such a special place versus other locations? I can stand 100 ft outside the polling place and do anything that I can do anywhere else. I can solicit people to sell their ballot from the comfort of my own home and it's still a crime.
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Screw you mod.
What makes "inside a polling place" such a special place versus other locations? I can stand 100 ft outside the polling place and do anything that I can do anywhere else. I can solicit people to sell their ballot from the comfort of my own home and it's still a crime.
Re: Why are poll workers volunteers? (Score:3)
People also forget that the system is highly distributed and thus the ROI is pitiful.
Yes, you can hold loved ones hostage to direct votes. Yes, you can impersonate a license. Yes, you can open other people's mail and send in an impersonated vote.
There are all kinds of things that can be done. But these don't work. Because voters are by and large are honest. It takes just ONE person to put country above themselves to weed you out. They could also just be greedy and want the reward for reporting. Or scared o
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What prevents you? Nothing except scale.
In order to have an effect, you need to get a decent number of votes. It's expensive, time consuming, very hard to verify, a decent chance of getting caught if you scale up, large negative consequences and the ability to maybe swing a small local election. If you want to swing a larger election, the problems of scale get ever larger.
Voter fraud is barely worth worrying about. Gerrymandering and voter suppression are how you legally swing an election against the voters
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you have to target marginal seats and even then you're likely to need low hundreds, which is scale.
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You enact a law making vote-buying illegal.
You don't makes it harder to vote, infringe upon first amendment rights (ballot selfies), or otherwise sacrifice real and highly valued public goods in order to prevent an essentially hypothetical problem that is impossible to conceal at scale, so long as you look for it [gq.com].
If you buy enough votes to flip an election (Score:1)
Vote by mail has been studied for hundreds of years. It works. It's safe. Anyone telling you otherwise is trying to shut down Democracy.
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Vote by mail has been studied for hundreds of years. It works. It's safe.
Oh yeah? Show me those studies, you're lying.
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You lose [thehill.com].
Re: If you buy enough votes to flip an election (Score:3)
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Why do you imagine that you get to set the bar?
You don't. The data is what it is. 78% could vote by mail [nytimes.com] before this became a major issue.
Again, you lose.
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That's not a study and it wouldn't pass peer review.
Why do you imagine that you get to set the bar?
I don't imagine LOL, I just have to read your link for what it is.
1) They didn't even attempt to quantify the problem of current voter fraud.
2) They have a database of people who got convicted for voter fraud, which as you know is a different number than the actual number of voter fraud, for many many reasons.
3) They don't mention any studies "for the last hundred years" which the original question was
4) It doesn't address the problem at all of whether mail-in voting could be used for voter fraud.
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How old is the voter fraud that doesn't count as "current" voter fraud? Does 2018 not count? 2016? How are you measuring 2020 voter fraud when the 2020 election is 7 weeks away?
We'll dispense with unnecessary things like standards and proof, obviously. Trust that
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Screw you mod.
Why do you imagine that you get to set the bar?
You don't. The data is what it is. 78% could vote by mail [nytimes.com] before this became a major issue.
Again, you lose.
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Objectively false. Up-mods don't matter. The fact that a single down-mod drops a post below the default level of visibility makes such mods ripe for the suppression of differences of opinion.
But you knew that. You're finely attuned to people exploiting voting systems, right?
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Yet oddly enough someone REALLY doesn't want that post to be seen. Well, game on.
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Screw you mod. I have more karma than you have points.
Why do you imagine that you get to set the bar?
You don't. The data is what it is. 78% could vote by mail [nytimes.com] before this became a major issue.
Again, you lose.
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Screw you mod. I've more karma than you have points.
Why do you imagine that you get to set the bar?
You don't. The data is what it is. 78% could vote by mail [nytimes.com] before this became a major issue.
Again, you lose.
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Screw you mod. I've still more karma than you have points.
Why do you imagine that you get to set the bar?
You don't. The data is what it is. 78% could vote by mail [nytimes.com] before this became a major issue.
Again, you lose.
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Screw you mod. I still have more karma than you have points.
Why do you imagine that you get to set the bar?
You don't. The data is what it is. 78% could vote by mail [nytimes.com] before this became a major issue.
Again, you lose.
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Screw you mod. I still have more karma than you have points. Let's see, you're on your third sock account now, phantomfive? Funny how these line up with your commenting.
Why do you imagine that you get to set the bar?
You don't. The data is what it is. 78% could vote by mail [nytimes.com] before this became a major issue.
Again, you lose.
Re: If you buy enough votes to flip an election (Score:2)
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Nope. I don't care if you respond or not. Go on your way.
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Screw you mod. I still have more karma than you have points. So here's a second.
Why do you imagine that you get to set the bar?
You don't. The data is what it is. 78% could vote by mail [nytimes.com] before this became a major issue.
Again, you lose.
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Screw you mod. I still have more karma than you have points. And here's a third.
Why do you imagine that you get to set the bar?
You don't. The data is what it is. 78% could vote by mail [nytimes.com] before this became a major issue.
Again, you lose.
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>"Several states, including Colorado, Utah, and Oregon, have already moved to 100% vote-by-mail. It is working fine."
Fine? I guess you just suppressed the votes of the homeless. But much more importantly, there is FAR more potential for corruption and tampering. You have NO idea who actually recieved that ballot. You also have NO idea who actually filled out that ballot. The ballot can be stolen from a mailbox before the target gets it. You have much more chance of the ballot getting lost or misp
Re: Why are poll workers volunteers? (Score:3)
Because it's NOT a fraudulent or high risk way of voting. And homeless people can vote by mail in all those states. A simple google search can show you the procedure.
But BOTH sides should be championing mail in ballots because it increases voter participation. It allows a whole class of our population to participate in our system without overburdening them.
I can assure you that Republicans are encouraging mail-in voting. Here is the exact quote of Georgia's SoS: "We are encouraging Georgia voters who are
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>"Because it's NOT a fraudulent or high risk way of voting."
I disagree, and for the reasons I already listed.
>"But BOTH sides should be championing mail in ballots because it increases voter participation."
Voter participation, itself, is not necessarily a positive thing. Again, those who can't bother to go to a polling station once a year aren't necessarily the ones with better information. Those who want to vote but can't, can use absentee voting (which is not at all the same thing as pushing out u
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Lots of organizations are like this. :(
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One major reason is that poll workers are typically (by law in 48 states) supplied by both political parties (and also third-parties) to protect the rights of people who want to vote for the respective parties. It's not so much that poll workers are trusted government workers as that they're overmanned in the hopes that conflicting biases cancel out. Therefore, poll workers don't need to be paid as the importance of their function is compensated by aiding their party/candidate of choice.
I'm not sure if th
Easy fix, let each party send a rep (Score:2)
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I’m fairly happy with my state’s election system - Scantron-esque ballots that are read by tabulating machines. You have the paper ballots as backup if you think the counting machines have been hacked.
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Another benefit for mail-in ballots (Score:4, Interesting)
It also gives extra time to research the candidates or issues before marking your ballot. I've found issues and referendums on my ballot that I didn't know applied to my voting area. I had time to research the issues and make informed decisions before I had to put my ballot in the mail.
Hell, even President Trump votes by mail. If it's good enough for him, it should be good enough for the rest of us. https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
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Lot of voter fraud with mail in (unrequested) ballots, as distinct from absentee ballots (requested by the voter). Even normal voting has lots of cheating:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sit... [whitehouse.gov]
https://www.heritage.org/voter... [heritage.org]
I seem to remember being told that it never or rarely happened.
Posting anonymously so I won't get in trouble.
Re: Another benefit for mail-in ballots (Score:2, Flamebait)
"But the rate of voting fraud overall in the US is between 0.00004% and 0.0009%, according to a 2017 study by the Brennan Center for Justice .
A Washington Post review of the 2016 election found one proven case of postal voting fraud.
And a voter fraud database collated by Arizona State University between 2000 and 2012, found 491 cases of postal ballot fraud out of hundreds of millions of votes.
Oregon has held postal elections since 2000 and has only reported 14 fraudulent votes attempted by mail."
Apparently
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Indeed. Vote-by-mail is the way to go.
No lines, no waiting, no hassle.
When our ballots arrive, my wife, my daughter, and I all sit down together at the kitchen table with our laptops and research each candidate and ballot proposal. We can make an informed choice on every vote.
Re:Another benefit for mail-in ballots (Score:4, Insightful)
Excellent, you can ensure they don’t vote incorrectly!
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And a drawback of mail-in ballots... (Score:2)
No need to pay volunteers or retirees to staff polling places. No need to rent or coordinate polling locations. No need to transport voting equipment to those locations. No need to securely store those devices for the two or three times each year they are used. No need for people to wait in line for hours to get to a voting booth.
And no verification that your vote is actually counted.
With paper-based in-person voting, the ballot machine verifies that all ballots are intelligibly marked. It alerts voters of ambiguous marks and of overvotes. Mail-in ballots are marked by voters, but submitted to machines by someone else. That gap results in some people's votes being thrown out, due to ambiguity.
It also gives extra time to research the candidates or issues before marking your ballot. I've found issues and referendums on my ballot that I didn't know applied to my voting area. I had time to research the issues and make informed decisions before I had to put my ballot in the mail.
This is a benefit of mailing out ballots ahead of time. Voters should still be permitted to vote their ballots in-person.
Don't know about anyone else. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't know about anyone else. (Score:4, Insightful)
Feels a bit like greenwashing to me.
Instead of using those thousands of hours to fix their products and make them less evil, they buy PR and simultaneously relieve the guilt of their employees in being complicit in supporting the empires of people like Mark Zuckerberg.
If they were really serious about letting their people volunteer to help democracy, they'd give them paid sabbaticals to join organizations like the USDS:
https://www.usds.gov/ [usds.gov]
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It's also a bit self serving to also promote Facebook as the cure. Why not donate money to allow jurisdictions to hire poll workers? There are a lot of people who could use work right now. Take the money they'd give in a free paid off day to people who make a crapton more money than the average poll worker, and use that money to actually pay poll workers.
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>"It's also a bit self serving to also promote Facebook as the cure. Why not donate money to allow jurisdictions to hire poll workers?"
Because then Facebook can't target the TYPE of poll worker they want and the TYPE of voter they want. Anyone who thinks a company like Facebook doesn't have some agenda with most anything it does, is naive.
I find it truly ironic that the governments can be fine with just mailing checks to people who make less than X dollars, whether they deserve it or not, for doing noth
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Anyone who thinks a company like Facebook doesn't have some agenda with most anything it does, is naive.
But he donated to totally non-partisan organizations. It says so in the article so it must be true!
Probably as "non-partisan" as Facebook's Oversight Board.
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But Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook getting anywhere near the election gives me the creeps.
I agree. And it seems the Democrats agree. But the so the Republicans. In the last 24 hours Roger Stone told President Trump that if he loses the election, he should declare martial law and use the Insurrection Act to jail Mark Zuckerberg. [theguardian.com]
Appreciate that Roger Stone could be viewed by some as a far-right conspiracy nutcase with a Nixon tattoo on his back. But he's lobbied for Nixon, Reagan, Trump, Dole and Bush. Clearly he still holds a fair degree of political sway. It's not beyond the realm of possibil
Good ole Zuckerberg eh? (Score:3)
The ones he refuses to fact-check, because they're an important source of income for him.
Zuckerberg works for Putin (Score:2)
Trolls on FaceBook are a revenue stream and they allow the platform to be more influential. That's what matters to Z, so election interference is exactly what he wants. It fits with the fundamental intent of FaceBook's culture and business model. It monetizes misinformation/propaganda so it's a win for Zuckerberg.
So... Zuckerberg has read Stalin? (Score:2)
"I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how." - Joe Stalin, mass murderer and leader of the Soviet Union
It's an amateur play to try to trick the voters into voting for a particular candidate; to interfere in an election on an industrial scale you get control of the poll workers and vote counters. Zuckerberg seems bent upon both - his website will select what info voters see, he is funding Dem
Why (Score:2)