MFOHome About Commentary Discussions Funds The Best Resources Support Us!

Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Sign In Register

Categories

In this Discussion

Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.

    Support MFO

  • Donate through PayPal

Sharpiegate?

WABACWABAC
in Off-Topic
Is this really a national news event? Or am I just getting these headlines because of my zipcode? At this link Politico gives it a big writeup.

I marked my ballot with a Sharpie several weeks ago when I voted in Maricopa County -- just like everyone else that went to a polling station in the county. When I turned my ballot over I noticed some minor bleed-through into the descriptions of multiple county judges, bond issues, and ballot initiatives. Every word was easily readable. And there was nothing obscuring the little circles to fill in for those votes. I wondered about it for 30 seconds, and then forgot about it.

Subsequently I checked to make sure that my ballot had been accepted, and counted. Arizona checks for a signature match. And there has been some drift in my signature over the years. Everything was copacetic. My vote had been accepted, and tabulated.

Somehow these Sharpies blew up into a thing among MAGAs on the internet. By last night they were protesting outside the county election office. Some local Republicans have filed a lawsuit. The GOP AG demands an explanation form the DEM SOS. And a recount is demanded.

That this subset of voters could come to the conclusion that they alone are being targeted by a process in widespread use brought to mind The Paranoid Style in American Politics by Richard Hofstader. Yuo can track down the book -- I read it 45 years ago. Or you could read online an article by Hofstader written for Harper's back in November 1964.

Comments

  • carew388carew388
    Politico leans right and seems to give a forum for every GOP conspiracy possible !
  • WABACWABAC
    carew388 said:

    Politico leans right and seems to give a forum for every GOP conspiracy possible !

    Not my experience in general since Trump came into office. They were mildly center-right during the Obama era. RINO right one might say.

    The penultimate graf of this particular article says:
    And if Trump ultimately loses, SharpieGate would help give MAGA world the excuses to explain away how a red state flipped blue.
    As Hofstader wrote way back when:
    The paranoid seems to have little expectation of actually convincing a hostile world, but he can accumulate evidence in order to protect his cherished convictions from it.
  • Old_JoeOld_Joe
    With respect to "Sharpiegate", my ballot marking experience was virtually identical here is SF to WABC in Arizona. As he says, we also use Sharpies in the actual physical voting booths. Nothing at all new there. We didn't mail ours though- on Tuesday we personally dropped them off at a nearby public library.

    We've since received two email notifications from the ballot counting operation- the first acknowledged receipt of the ballot and the later one advised that the ballot had been accepted and registered.

    Pretty darned good system, I think.

Sign In or Register to comment.