the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Trenton NJ, Senator Joe Pennacchio today called in-person voting a fundamental precept of American freedom and criticized Governor Murphy’s decision to limit the November election to vote-by-mail.
“We’ve gone through the Civil War, two world wars, natural disasters and depressions and we’ve always managed to vote in person,” said Pennacchio (R-26). “More than anything else, this is political.
“You can stand in line at the MVC and Home Depot with no problem at all, but we’re going to prohibit in-person voting,” Pennacchio continued. “Even Dr. Fauci is on-record saying there is no reason people can’t vote in person.
Governor Murphy delayed the June primary election to July and ordered that it be conducted by mail.
Due to confusion with the mail-in ballot process and well-documented problems with the handling of ballots by the United States Postal Service, many residents have expressed concerns that their votes in the July primary were not counted.
“This is a unilateral decision by the Governor,” cautioned Pennacchio. “Our freedoms are being erased by executive decision, with no rationale, no discussion with the Legislature, and no regard to individual preferences. This is too much power for one person.”
Murphy declared a State of Emergency and Public Health Emergency on March 9, when he signed Executive Order 103. It gives him unbridled authority, according to EO 103, “until such time as it is determined by me that an emergency no longer exists.”
Legislation, SCR-117, introduced by Pennacchio in July, would limit the duration of emergency orders and other rules issued by a governor to 14 days, if approved by voters. Extending the declarations would require legislative action.
Several states have been operating with mail in ballots only for years. Is the mail in process too complicated for some. Why not rally behind it what is to be afraid of. We know both in person and mail in both have gaps.
In person voting with voter id should be the standard.
Dear Taxed,
There have been hundreds of thousands disqualified votes across Patterson local election and the Bronx recently due to mistakes with mail in voting. Trump won by just thousands of votes in certain key swing states. Tell me why I would trust this system to get it accurate when even small local elections can’t get it right? Why would anyone want this? Why is only one party pushing for it while the others president isn’t interested?
Mr. “Wayne”, the question should be why does one party habitually and aggressively try to make it HARDER to vote, rather than easier? Why does one party want fewer people to vote, whether it be by mail(and working to stop it) or in person (closing polling stations, making longer lines COINCIDENTALLY in districts they dont control) or purging voter rolls?
In a healthy democracy, shouldn’t voter participation be as close to 100% as possible? Shouldn’t everyone be able to easily and safely vote?
Good things should be hard.
They purge voting rolls because somehow dead people often vote. Weird, right? I think what you are referring to about making it harder to vote is the need for voter ID. I think that’s kinda poor to assume that requiring, often minorities, to show ID is an unfair burden upon them. That’s kinda racist of you to assume colored people can’t figure out how to get ID… And it’s not right if what you say is true about Republicans purposely clogging voting stations. I will trust you are being honest about that, assuming you are right. Call out both sides. Hold them both to the fire. Dems do bad things too and you need to call them out.
In a healthy democracy dead people shouldn’t vote, illegals shouldn’t vote, you need to have a safe well guarded system that requires ID to vote to ensure security, and a guaranteed counted vote that vote by mail doesn’t offer.
At least Trumps solution is to stick to the status quo that we’ve trusted for the last couple hundred years and not trust a system that’s repeatedly failing — vote by mail. I don’t even particularly love him but the fact that he is arguing against a system that very well might take my vote away due to the past issues with vote by mail is enough for me to support him. I don’t want either of us losing our votes or others voting illegally.
” I think what you are referring to about making it harder to vote is the need for voter ID. I think that’s kinda poor to assume that requiring, often minorities, to show ID is an unfair burden upon them. That’s kinda racist of you to assume colored people can’t figure out how to get ID”
First of all, I said nothing about minorities. The burden of voter ID is a class and age issue. Many elderly don’t have licences, and getting an ID is difficult at best for them, and the less fortunate. Look into some of the laws passed by GOP legislatures- shady tactics like only making getting voter IDs at a few locations in the state and only on, say, the fifth tuesday of the month. If you have to lose a day’s wages to GET an id, much less to wait on line to vote, that’s ultimately a form of a poll tax, which is illegal.
As for the dead voting, that’s been a canard since the 60’s. It is a vanishingly small phenomenon now- just try to find recent examples- you can’t. Just like you can’t find examples of illegals voting- it plain doesn’t happen. The current chief executive, despite saying MILLIONS did last time around, was unable to find ONE example of this happening.
And vote by mail isn’t a new thing, not by a long shot. Said current chief executive has been doing it for years, for example. THAT is the status quo. Plenty of states do it every year. They haven’t had “security” or “fraud” issues….so why now is it such an issue. The post office handles tons of certified mail every day- so why the concerted effort to defund and overwhelm them?
Couldn’t be that increased voter turnout spells doom for a certain party, could it? I mean, it’s not like they’ve flat out admitted it wait
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/21/trump-adviser-republicans-voter-suppression
no
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/republicans-now-just-admitting-they-want-fewer-americans-to-vote
couldn’t be.
“Call out both sides. Hold them both to the fire.” Sure, you first.
It’s not hard to vote anywhere in the United States.
Register.
Vote.
Now is that hard.
What the Dumbocrats want is 2 weeks to harvest ballots.
“It’s not hard to vote anywhere in the United States.”
Yeah, you couldn’t be more wrong if you tried. You’ve seen the long lines outside of some districts, yes? People having to wait hours and hours to vote? Some of those people literally don’t have that kind of time, whether means they are working several jobs, or have to watch their kids, or what have you.
And that’s not even counting willful disenfranchisement- right before the midterms, South Dakota instituted a new law where in order to be registered, you need a street address, not a PO box. The problem with that was that anyone living on a reservation(who just happen to vote overwhelmingly democratic) was immediately kicked off the rolls because there ARE no street addresses on these reservations. Thousands lost their given RIGHT to vote.
Or how about Dodge City? Only minority-majority city in Kansas. Right before the election, their SOLE polling place for tens of thousands(a scandal in its own right) was changed. To a location much farther away. Miles from the nearest bus stop. Because there was supposedly a scheduling conflict with another event on election day.(Spoiler alert- there was no other event.)
Or how ’bout Georgia, kicking thousands upon thousands off the rolls. By a guy who was supervising his own election?
Or Florida, where voters re-established the right for ex-felons to vote. Only to be stymied by their legislature enacting a defacto poll tax on them.
And now, with good reason to go to vote-by mail nationwide…..a new postmaster(who just so happens to be a Trump donor)decides three months before an election is just a peachy-keen time to dismantle and remove mail sorters, remove mail boxes, and overwhelm postal workers?
And you think this is a DEMOCRAT conspiracy?
I agree with Me. Wayne. Local elections failed including Ridgewood which has a small
Fraction of voting as will be this November. Last year almost 139,000,000 people voted. How can the USPS handle all this? They can’t. It is easy for people to print ballots and mail. What will be the check and balance?
How is removing 100, 1000,10000 mailboxes in Portland going to help Trump? It is known that anyone and everyone will vote a D in Portland even if it is a monkey they’re voting for. Why would Trump do that in 90% voting D areas? He will never have a chance there. Cut the BS.
And how about the 1000 and counting Democratic districts where there is rampant electoral fraud reported in EVERY election cycle, be it mail in ballot fraud in Paterson, or more votes than voters in Detroit, or ballot stuffing in Philly – to quote a few.
And these are the ones where the evidence was so overwhelming that the local Democratic Party operatives got caught and sent to jail. Now think of the thousands where no one gets caught!
Dems are Desperate to remove Trump by any means possible – legal or illegal
FACT.
“status quo” – mr wayne, that’s exactly what this country doesn’t need right now especially with the virus and the problem. And are you saying Trump is afraid the amount of dead people that would vote against him will swing is election? LOL is he that scared of losing. Stop voter suppression.
“Fraction of voting as will be this November. Last year almost 139,000,000 people voted. How can the USPS handle all this? They can’t.”
https://twitter.com/APWUnational/status/1295066797205585926?s=20