RVN: Mail-in ballots – the midterms start at the letterbox
For most people in the Netherlands an American election is one Tuesday in November.
Someone wins the White House, done.
This autumn it is not a presidential election.
These are the midterms: halfway through Trump’s term America elects the House of Representatives again (all 435 seats) and part of the Senate.
Whoever wins Congress decides whether the president gets laws through or stalls.
That election is 3 November.
Voting has already started.
North Carolina and Delaware sent out the first postal ballots on Friday.
Dozens of other states follow in the next two weeks.
Millions of people therefore do not vote in a polling station, but at home. Envelope out, envelope back.
The risk is not a fairy tale
Mail-in is not sacred.
There has been fraud with absentee and postal votes. That is not a feeling. It is in verdicts.
Staff who sign an application for elderly people in a care home that those people did not request.
Intermediaries who collect ballots.
Local races that had to be rerun because the postal chain was rotten.
That is something other than “2020 is proven stolen”.
The file does not clear that bar.
Anyone who piles those two together turns real leaks into a myth — or a myth into an excuse not to see a leak.
A channel without a closed count stays vulnerable.
Especially where the voter no longer sees the envelope.
Why it grates now
Trump wants mail-in tightened.
A USPS rule requires states, among other things, to upload lists of recipients and put unique codes on envelopes. A federal portal for that is not ready. Courts have blocked parts of that line. The White House is asking the Supreme Court for a green light after all.
One camp: postal voting is an invitation to mess.
The other camp: this is not security, this is making voting harder just before the deadline.
Both can be partly true.
A late rule change creates chaos.
A system without an audit trail creates distrust.
What Europe often misses
In the Netherlands postal voting is the exception.
In large parts of the US it has become the habit, especially after 2020.
States decide for themselves how wide that mail is. So there is not one American “voting system”, but fifty plus districts.
Anyone who only hears “fraud!” or “suppression!” misses the machine: post, printer, portal, court, calendar.
OIM way out
Do not pick the camp.
Follow the chain.
Who gets a ballot.
Who puts the signature.
Who scans the envelope.
Which rule applies on the day the mail is already on its way.
Elections without an audit trail are not a mystery.
It is the same gap as elsewhere: something moves physically, the mark on paper is missing.
Question for you
Do you see postal voting as a right that should be kept wide, or as a process that must be tightly countable?
And may that choice still change once the envelopes are already in the box?
This post is 100% authentic and verifiable via:
https://openinternetmanifest.org/nl/hash-verifier
### RVN: Mail-in ballots – the midterms start at the letterbox
For most people in the Netherlands an American election is one Tuesday in November.
Someone wins the White House, done.
This autumn it is not a presidential election.
These are the midterms: halfway through Trump’s term America elects the House of Representatives again (all 435 seats) and part of the Senate.
Whoever wins Congress decides whether the president gets laws through or stalls.
That election is 3 November.
Voting has already started.
North Carolina and Delaware sent out the first postal ballots on Friday.
Dozens of other states follow in the next two weeks.
Millions of people therefore do not vote in a polling station, but at home. Envelope out, envelope back.
### The risk is not a fairy tale
Mail-in is not sacred.
There has been fraud with absentee and postal votes. That is not a feeling. It is in verdicts.
Staff who sign an application for elderly people in a care home that those people did not request.
Intermediaries who collect ballots.
Local races that had to be rerun because the postal chain was rotten.
That is something other than “2020 is proven stolen”.
The file does not clear that bar.
Anyone who piles those two together turns real leaks into a myth — or a myth into an excuse not to see a leak.
A channel without a closed count stays vulnerable.
Especially where the voter no longer sees the envelope.
### Why it grates now
Trump wants mail-in tightened.
A USPS rule requires states, among other things, to upload lists of recipients and put unique codes on envelopes. A federal portal for that is not ready. Courts have blocked parts of that line. The White House is asking the Supreme Court for a green light after all.
One camp: postal voting is an invitation to mess.
The other camp: this is not security, this is making voting harder just before the deadline.
Both can be partly true.
A late rule change creates chaos.
A system without an audit trail creates distrust.
### What Europe often misses
In the Netherlands postal voting is the exception.
In large parts of the US it has become the habit, especially after 2020.
States decide for themselves how wide that mail is. So there is not one American “voting system”, but fifty plus districts.
Anyone who only hears “fraud!” or “suppression!” misses the machine: post, printer, portal, court, calendar.
### OIM way out
Do not pick the camp.
Follow the chain.
Who gets a ballot.
Who puts the signature.
Who scans the envelope.
Which rule applies on the day the mail is already on its way.
Elections without an audit trail are not a mystery.
It is the same gap as elsewhere: something moves physically, the mark on paper is missing.
**Question for you**
Do you see postal voting as a right that should be kept wide, or as a process that must be tightly countable?
And may that choice still change once the envelopes are already in the box?
#Midterms #MailIn #USElection #RealityVsNarrative #RVN #OpenInternetManifest
https://openinternetmanifest.org
This post is 100% authentic and verifiable via:
https://openinternetmanifest.org/nl/hash-verifier
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