The General US Politics Thread

Well Trump has already shit on Fox often enough for not being extreme enough anymore. Maybe they'll eventually bite back.

Trump rags on Fox polling and Fox news anchors. The angry opinion show hosts he likes just fine. They're not going to abandon him.

Maybe when Trump loses. Maybe. And if then, only if they want to distance themselves from a perceived loser.

Just filled out my ballot and I'm about to go drop it off. I admittedly didn't vote on everything since I was too lazy to look up what all the CA Props were about and I don't have time anyway, but I did vote on the important stuff.

Did you manage to hide it from the people you needed to? Good.

Edited by jjjj2 on Oct 18th 2020 at 5:57:10 AM

Yeah. I told my mom I was getting the car washed (which I was) and just left.

So remember when the Trump Campaign called their Ad Strategy "The Deathstar"?

Because Joe Biden is now Luke Skywalker.

The only CA proposition I've heard about is the one that Uber has been pushing to "protect their workers" but is really some bullshit that would prevent the government from forcing them to recognize their drivers as employees

Prop 22. That was the proposition I was most familiar with and voted no on it.

Basically they (along with plenty of other companies) are exploiting a loophole where all of their employees are technically freelance contractors so they don't need to give them any benefits. There was a recent court decision (I think) which said that this was illegal and that Uber drivers technically meet the definition of an employee and need to be treated as such. So Uber came up with Prop 22 in order to carve out a legal exception for themselves and allow them to continue treating their drivers like dirt.

It's pretty disgusting but I think the latest polls indicate that it has a pretty high chance of passing.

Edited by Clarste on Oct 18th 2020 at 3:11:56 AM

How the hell did they push that through to become an amendment proposal in the first place?

And also, I've heard they have been advertising on their app and in emails to vote yes on the amendment. Is that shit even legal?

Edited by Xopher001 on Oct 18th 2020 at 1:26:17 PM

Basically, with Uber it's a double-edged sword. Their whole business model essentially hinges on the idea that Uber Drivers are not their employees.

The reason this is a double-edged sword for Uber Drivers is because a lot of the perks of the 'job' come from being not-technically-an-employee. You can work whenever you want to, the qualifications aren't high, they won't stop you from working for one of their competitors, etc. At least in theory, that's how it works. The downside, of course, is that by not being an employee, they don't get the same benefits as employees.

I worked at the Oregon Unemployment Office recently, and there were a lot of letters from Uber (and its competitors) that were basically saying "Wait wait, just 'cause the pandemic is putting them out of jobs doesn't mean we have to pay them anything! They're not our employees, just contractors!" And I mean a lot of these letters.

I mean, I don't imagine there's a law against corporations voicing their political opinions. For example, SOPA got the wrath of quite a few big names, and there's plenty of corporations that at least claim to support BLM.

Edited by Protagonist506 on Oct 18th 2020 at 3:29:05 AM

Please note that we have a thread for California-specific stuff.

Heard a rumor that a thread on 4chan found a vulnerability in the polling system. I didn't want to investigate too much because /pol/ is Nazi central. I didn't see any news about it from a non-conservative source so reported it to the FBI via that anonymous tipping website. Get some eyes on it.

There isn’t a single polling system, in fact I believe most states have their polling systems so decentralised that each country is often different.

So that’s just gonna be a wild rumour.

And its from 4chan it's really not worth reporting on the latest rumour from there,it has a 0% of being true

Well, it's less that things said on 4Chan are 0% true, and more that if it had any validity another more reputable and verifiable place would be reporting on it too. People have regularly leaked true information on the development of video games on the site before. But political matters would be held to much higher scrutiny.

Edited by AlleyOop on Oct 18th 2020 at 7:22:54 AM

No it’s 0% possible, you can’t find a weakness in the polling system because there’s no such thing as “the polling system”, each state has its own voter registration database, then moving down from that your generally looking at each country running its system however it chooses, utilising a mix of voting machine types and standard paper ballots, in combination with some setup of polling station workers and election officials that varies every which way.

You can’t compromise “the system” because there’s far more than one system that would have to be compromised to mess with the election.

Oh good, I just became the exact kind of paranoid knob I try to avoid. Whoops.

In my defense while I couldn't tell exactly what they were doing, the post itself made it look like something big was going on. You are right though, that were such a thing possible, the multiple law enforcement agencies watching those guys would've acted.

Edited by Codafett on Oct 18th 2020 at 4:34:34 AM

My understanding of the situation is that Oregon specifically has a feature where you can fill out a ballot online and then they'll print it out and mail it to you (pre-filled), after which you just have to sign it and mail it back to them (or deposit it in a ballot box, or whatever the normal processes for a mail-in ballot are). However, the website that lets you do this doesn't have much in the way of security measures so if you know someone's name and address you can have the system send them a pre-filled ballot.

The (alleged) problem is that if they've already mailed in their ballot, printing out a new ballot supposedly cancels their old vote. Maybe. This part is unclear, but that's the story they're telling on 4chan.

Edited by Clarste on Oct 18th 2020 at 4:30:45 AM

Wouldn't the new one simply be voided because signature mismatch?

Also I assume voter registration involves home address and can't be changed randomly?

And voted at last! ^_^

I feel the need to interject Uber is slightly above Theranos in terms of being a scam. It is more like Amyway in that what it does is technically not illegal but it is only actually able to remain solvent by constantly bringing in a fresh set of suckers to invest in it.

It is a business model that does not work and CANNOT work and needs to die.

Cab Drivers need medallions and have other qualifications so Uber is all about attacking one of the classic trained and organized groups.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Oct 18th 2020 at 4:38:40 AM

X3 based on what was said the new one would still go to the legitimate voter, you wouldn’t be able to change someone’s vote, just potentially invalidate it by having them be sent a new ballot.

So it’s concerning, if you true you could with a person’s details invalidate their existing vote-by-mail and force them to either redo it or vote in person if they notice in time.

But it’s also not something that could change the election, it’s a potential targeted attack that could invalidate some mail-in votes in a single non-swing state.

Edited by Silasw on Oct 18th 2020 at 11:44:16 AM

I plan on voting on election day for one simple reason - my signature.

When I registered to vote at 18, I used the entire available space to sign my name. After a decade at my job where the signature space is about 1/8 the size, my signature has changed to match - and I can practically guarantee it'd get thrown out for not matching, and the board of elections is under no obligation to inform you of whether that occurred. Beyond that, I don't think NY has any provisions in which you can change your signature on-file so that there's a more up-to-date version of it, which is... kind of weird.

Thankfully I live in a small, rural community (about 7K people total), and my polling station is literally 1.5 miles from where I live.

Edited by ironballs16 on Oct 18th 2020 at 8:18:47 AM