On Thursday , President Trump double down on the pedagogy he had given voters the daylight before : that those who voted by ring mail should also show up at polling locations and swan that their vote have been number , and , if not , vote again . What Trump has now repeatedly directed people to do is a crime , whether or not anyone tries or gets get . In28 state , in fact , what Trump has enjoin voter to do — to “ go and vote ” again after voting by post — is a felony , according to the National Conference of State Legislatures .
Without noesis of how the election scheme work , it might seem as if Trump is simply be encouraging Facebook users to be hypervigilant about ensuring their votes are reckon . However , his pedagogy , followed loosely or even to a T , can and likely will result in compositor’s case of double voting , which is a offense in every state .
but put , anyone who prove up at a polling locations to ask if their absentee vote has been counted is probable to be told “ no ” ( though hopefully what they hear is “ not yet ” ) . This is because absentee balloting are almost never counted until after the polls are close . In Alabama and Florida , it ’s in reality a crime to release any entropy about the counting of absentee ballots until voting is over .
Photo: Mandel Ngan (Getty Images)
Namely , Facebook chase after the Charles William Post with a disclaimer that just reads : “ balloting by ring armor has a long history of trustiness in the US and the same is predicted this year . ” It then cites the Bipartisan Policy Center — an organisation most voters have never heard of and thus have no reason to believe — and lead them to a page with voting information that , in all earnestness , looks like it was decorate by someone ’s kindergarten instructor .
This was n’t even Facebook ’s first attempt to reply to Trump ’s blatantly reckless post , which also , by the way , in all probability rape the laws of several country . ( In Kansas , for example , it is illegal toinduceanother someone to vote twice . ) Facebook ’s first “ disclaimer , ” for lack of a good Word of God , did n’t even set about to address Trump ’s Charles William Post now , simply say users to , “ Visit the Voting Information Center for election resources and prescribed updates . ”
Facebook can not be say by anyone in adept religion to be doing anything to “ crack down ” on Trump ’s “ double - voting remark ” ( despite what you mightread in Politico ) . This is the everlasting opposite of cracking down . Facebook is the website Americans voter visit to get bombard by dangerously inaccurate voting selective information .
Screenshot:Facebook
For precisely this intent , Union constabulary grants Facebook all the authority to erase , correct , or even just take exception in some venial but meaningful way the spuriously claims of a powerful mega - user who is using step its merchandise to misdirect and misdirect the participants of a national election . Facebook is not a bystander or a passive percipient of this behavior . It holds all the power here . It is an active and willing player in every prevarication its political customers spread on its service .
The Trump campaign has apply Facebook more than $ 70 million this year alone . And in substitution for this deluge of wealth , Facebook is providing the Trump campaign the resource it need to assault the election process . It is a transactional relationship . Trump is not just another rough-cut drug user whose gratuitous speech we must be defended at all price .
Trump is drive proverbial dump trucksfull of cashto Menlo Park .
Screenshot:Facebook Voting Information Center
Trump is using the full weight of the U.S. government to attack one of Facebook topcompetitors .
Trump fulfill in person , sometimessecretly , with Mark Zuckerberg , at his home .
The price is already done ; Facebook ’s inaction saw to that . All one can hope for now is that poll worker have the right resource and reenforcement at their garbage disposal to get an already overly taxing job done properly — because there are some safeguards built into the summons . In the best - case scenario , election official will make out which voter received absentee ballots and , ideally , preclude those mass from voting again ( unless they surrender an unmailed absentee balloting first . )
That is how thing are supposed to work , provided there are no wrick in the physical process , which , unluckily , there often are . nigh anyone , by the way , can obtain a provisional ballot simply by sign a piece of report claiming the ballot they were mailed become missing . ( finger crossed those get thwartwise - see to it right , too . ) But of course , there ’s the mismanaged covid-19 crisis , which has led to ashortage of poll workersnearly everywhere . What level of chaos this might fetch on Election Day is yet to be seen , though the characteristically long lines around urban voting centers are all but guaranteed .
Perhaps the biggest damage because of Facebook ’s inactiveness is the possibility that millions of people who ’ve already voted show up at understaffed polling locations for literally no reason , extend the lines further , make social distancing even more difficult , and cause even more people to get sick — a small portion of whom , we know , will become flat .
Anyone who show up to the polls on Election Day demanding to know if their absentee ballot has already been counted is unlikely to be fulfil by the answer they have — because the literal reply , in almost every case , will be “ no . ” That ’s simply not how the process works . Hopefully very few take this reception conspiratorially . Hopefully , they have n’t been listening too tight to Trump’sbaseless , pre-emptive allegationsthat an election — the core cognitive process of which have n’t even get down — will be “ rigged ” against him .
Hopefully , no one read his advice and ends up in prison for it . It could cost them the right to vote . concord to the Sentencing Project , of the 28 states in which three-fold voting is a felony , 12 do not allow those with felony judgment of conviction to vote while imprison or on probation or parole . In eight states — Alabama , Arizona , Florida , Kansas , Nebraska , Nevada , Tennessee , and Virginia — anyone convicted of voting double would be prevented fromever casting another votein that state .
We have to trust because that is the only option Facebook has left us with .
Donald TrumpElection 2020FacebookMark Zuckerberg
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