Our team wrote up a rapid analysis of 2 rumors spreading that frame errors w/ absentee ballots as intentional voter suppression. We explain how those rumors are misleading: errors like that are rarely intentional, have remedies, and are unlikely to affect outcomes. uwcip.substack.com/p/d4ae631c-a... - ThreadSky

katestarbird.bsky.social • 152 days ago

Our team wrote up a rapid analysis of 2 rumors spreading that frame errors w/ absentee ballots as intentional voter suppression. We explain how those rumors are misleading: errors like that are rarely intentional, have remedies, and are unlikely to affect outcomes. https://uwcip.substack.com/p/d4ae631c-a01f-40f6-b97d-8ee35b92abc4?postPreview=paid&updated=2024-09-24T01%3A27%3A49.877Z&audience=everyone&free_preview=false&freemail=true

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katestarbird.bsky.social•152 days ago

These two rumors spread primarily on the left side of the political spectrum (both were ballot errors that affected how the Harris/Walz ticket was presented on the ballot). A good reminder that distrust in election processes is bipartisan.

danfurst.bsky.social•152 days ago

Is there a legal or constitutional block to the US having a non-partisan federal agency setting the rules and running federal elections in a consistent way with consistent rules across the country?

katestarbird.bsky.social•152 days ago

My understanding is that the answer here is yes, U.S. law stipulates that elections are run by the states. And if we think that leads to distrust, just imagine what would happen if they were run by the "feds".

danfurst.bsky.social•152 days ago

OK thanks. I always wondered why there was no American equivalent to Elections Canada. Is there a reason that the states ended up having partisan actors running their elections?

eddieperez.bsky.social•152 days ago

You ask a good question, but it involves two diff things: decentralization; and partisanship.

1) The US has a decentralized election system due to the 10th amendment (“powers reserved to the states…”). We don’t have a non-partisan federal agency like Canada because feds don’t *run* elections.
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eddieperez.bsky.social•152 days ago

2) Partisan roles among top state election officers in the 50 states is an outgrowth of the two-party system and the decentralization above.

IMHO, it’s impt to note that there are still real distinctions between what I consider the truly “political” class and non-partisan election administrators.

cranky-david.bsky.social•152 days ago

federal election commission is SUCH a misnomer. 😞

katestarbird.bsky.social•152 days ago

I think @eddie1perez.bsky.social is going to be able to answer your questions better than I can. My understanding is that this also varies across states, but some election officials are elected (from secretaries of state to county recorders) while others are non-partisan government workers.

gojira65.bsky.social•152 days ago

Probably just an obvious outcome of the Elections Clause, letting the states decide on everything to do with elections, with some ability for Congress to regulate them.

https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/articles/article-i/clauses/750

katestarbird.bsky.social•152 days ago

My experience has been that the vast majority of local & state elections officials, elected or not, are commited to running fair elections. Even ones who come in very partisan (like Stephen Richer in AZ) end up defending the integrity of the elections (sometimes against the folks who elected them).

katestarbird.bsky.social•152 days ago

U.S. elections are disitributed over 1000s of locations. Small mistakes and issues — like ballot printing errors or machines going down — are inevitable. But they are inherently isolated (because they are distributed), almost always unintentional, typically have remedies, and rarely impact outcomes.

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