Tony From Syracuse wrote:
Well I suspect that was simply the end result of the virus.  the problem for me though is that this is something that has never been done on this scale in the US before so there are bound to be issues. I suspect keeping the polls open after has to do with the large amount of ballots that need to be mailed and as such gum up the postal system so they are giving the absentee ballot users a bit more leeway to get their ballots to the counting place. but yeah its a mess from the little bits you hear

Why did the mail in voters wait until the last second (and in some cases beyond) to submit their ballots?  Do they do the same thing with their monthly bills, Christmas and birthday greetings?  I have voted absentee once in my 40 odd years of voting and it was when I was legitimately going to be out of town.  That ballot was submitted roughly one week before election DAY.  What we saw this year was a blatant attempt at voter fraud and harvesting ballots from the chronically lazy, the takers not the makers.  As a maker that last part bothers me a lot.
My dad died three years ago, I'm wondering how he voted this year.

JustHenry wrote:
What is more puzzling to me is how we went from election DAY to election month.  How we went from polls closing at a particular hour on election day to accepting, even soliciting, votes AFTER the polls close.
I've been voting for 40 some years and have used an absentee ballot once and I was actually going to be out of town on election day.  Needless to say, I'm baffled and disappointed at what I am seeing this year.

That exactly.

Slow changes and subtle reconditioning to create new perspectives that one day simply become, "the way it's always been."

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture.  You just have to get people to stop reading them."
~ Ray Bradbury

JustHenry wrote:
What is more puzzling to me is how we went from election DAY to election month.

Election day was just 3 days ago, not a month.  Election month occurred in the year 2000.

JustHenry wrote:
I'm fine with what the founding fathers set up.  I personally don't want 5 or 6 highly populated cities deciding the fate of the entire country.
What is more puzzling to me is how we went from election DAY to election month.  How we went from polls closing at a particular hour on election day to accepting, even soliciting, votes AFTER the polls close.
I've been voting for 40 some years and have used an absentee ballot once and I was actually going to be out of town on election day.  Needless to say, I'm baffled and disappointed at what I am seeing this year.

"I personally don't want 5 or 6 highly populated cities deciding the fate of the entire country."

NO, you would rather have acres of cows deciding the fate of the country.

AND NOBODY is VOTING after Election Day, despite what your swamp news sources and president are saying. What MAGATS are claiming is shameful, but at least the Kremlin is pleased.

JustHenry wrote:
Why did the mail in voters wait until the last second (and in some cases beyond) to submit their ballots?

Most don't. Some states started counting mail in ballots days before Nov 3rd, like Florida so their count finished quickly. Some states like Pennsylvania did not start counting mail in ballots until election day or evening. Counting millions of mail in ballots takes much longer because they have to be validated before they go through the machine.The Republican Legislature is responsible for that decision to not allow counting to begin early.

Focuspuller wrote:
AND NOBODY is VOTING after Election Day, despite what your swamp news sources and president are saying. What MAGATS are claiming is shameful, but at least the Kremlin is pleased.

While it may be true that no one is actually voting AFTER election day, the issue I have with how the larger than normal amount of mail in ballot have been handled is this...

1) Mail in ballots should only be counted if received before the polls close on election day.  If you think people need more time to get their ballots in by election day, simply start earlier.

2) A voter should have to request a mail in ballot to get one.  Sending out thousands or millions of mail in ballots to everyone on the voter roll is risky on a number of levels. 

3) The USPS should publish a date that all ballots must be mailed by in order to guarantee delivery to the election office before polls close on election day.  USPS does this for Christmas delivery, so they know how to do it. 

4) The majority of mail ballots this year were local mail, it's not like they had to send them across the country.  Local Post Offices should have been able to have ballot drop boxes and deliver to the elections office.

5) Mail ballots should begin to be counted the first day the polls are open for early voting.  Counting of mail ballots should be required each day, and during the hours, polls are open for early voting, with sufficient staff to keep up.

Everything should be ready to release the counts within 12 hours of the polls closing.

Here is why...

The longer it takes for a few areas (not even whole states, just parts of a few states) to release their numbers, the more opportunity there is for shenanigans.  One of the best safeguards of our elections process is that so many people, spread out over the county, are involved in the counting of votes, it would be very difficult to effect a win by cheating.  HOWEVER, if a few areas are left, late reporting their votes, when a close race has developed from everyone else having already reported their votes, it would be much easier to effect a win by cheating.  It could easily be set up by a few people.  Intentionally delay the counting of mail in votes by understaffing.  There is not really a secure chain of custody of mail in ballots, so more ballots could be slipped in the mix.  Those who are actually counting the votes would never be the wiser.  A national party with millions of dollars to spend could surely find some extreme loyal local officials to make it happen.

Before you tell me this is far fetched, please ask yourself if you totally and absolutely trust trust the government ?

ethasleftthebuilding wrote:
While it may be true that no one is actually voting AFTER election day, the issue I have with how the larger than normal amount of mail in ballot have been handled is this...

1) Mail in ballots should only be counted if received before the polls close on election day.  If you think people need more time to get their ballots in by election day, simply start earlier.

2) A voter should have to request a mail in ballot to get one.  Sending out thousands or millions of mail in ballots to everyone on the voter roll is risky on a number of levels. 

3) The USPS should publish a date that all ballots must be mailed by in order to guarantee delivery to the election office before polls close on election day.  USPS does this for Christmas delivery, so they know how to do it. 

4) The majority of mail ballots this year were local mail, it's not like they had to send them across the country.  Local Post Offices should have been able to have ballot drop boxes and deliver to the elections office.

5) Mail ballots should begin to be counted the first day the polls are open for early voting.  Counting of mail ballots should be required each day, and during the hours, polls are open for early voting, with sufficient staff to keep up.

Everything should be ready to release the counts within 12 hours of the polls closing.

Here is why...

The longer it takes for a few areas (not even whole states, just parts of a few states) to release their numbers, the more opportunity there is for shenanigans.  One of the best safeguards of our elections process is that so many people, spread out over the county, are involved in the counting of votes, it would be very difficult to effect a win by cheating.  HOWEVER, if a few areas are left, late reporting their votes, when a close race has developed from everyone else having already reported their votes, it would be much easier to effect a win by cheating.  It could easily be set up by a few people.  Intentionally delay the counting of mail in votes by understaffing.  There is not really a secure chain of custody of mail in ballots, so more ballots could be slipped in the mix.  Those who are actually counting the votes would never be the wiser.  A national party with millions of dollars to spend could surely find some extreme loyal local officials to make it happen.

Before you tell me this is far fetched, please ask yourself if you totally and absolutely trust trust the government ?

Not only far fetched. Irrelevant. A few points:

"1) Mail in ballots should only be counted if received before the polls close on election day.  If you think people need more time to get their ballots in by election day, simply start earlier."

The reason that is disingenuous is because YOUR side PURPOSELY damaged the USPS to make mail-ins  problematic. And which is not to mention that the laws in each state may vary but ALL states have allowed mail-in ballots to be counted if POSTMARKED by Election Day. THAT IS FAIR. Sorry if you disagree.

"2) A voter should have to request a mail in ballot to get one.  Sending out thousands or millions of mail in ballots to everyone on the voter roll is risky on a number of levels.

I will give you that one, but only SOME states did this as a one-off response to the pandemic. You blame them?

"3) The USPS should publish a date that all ballots must be mailed by in order to guarantee delivery to the election office before polls close on election day.  USPS does this for Christmas delivery, so they know how to do it. "

OK. So? Again YOUR SIDE screwed that up.

"4) The majority of mail ballots this year were local mail, it's not like they had to send them across the country.  Local Post Offices should have been able to have ballot drop boxes and deliver to the elections office."

See 1). Disingenuous.

"Everything should be ready to release the counts within 12 hours of the polls closing. "

Sure, if YOUR SIDE did not prevent counting mail-ins until Election Day, a prescription for delays. So dishonest, really.

The reason you are so wrong is that there would have to be a coordinated rapid response operation in place with the cooperation of THOUSANDS of poll workers and counters from sea to shining sea, along with watchers from both sides,  to target key places to mess with the count in a way you  propose. Would this network of cheaters pop up spontaneously under your scheme? Ludicrous, a MAGAT wet dream.

And I use Reagan's old rule re disarmament treaties with the USSR: "Trust, but verify" and THAT is why free press is in the constitution and EXACTLY why your Leader undermines journalism, because HE is not to be trusted. That so many Americans do does not bode well for the future.

IMAGINERIES wrote:
So many of my friends from foreign countries have asked me about "the college of electors"...... And I must admit that I have not been able to give them an answered.
Any help in a few words?...

I don't understand why you would have difficulty answering your 'foreign friends' questions . . .

It's a simple one word answer:  Google

I typed in your phrase: "the college of electors" and received 247,000,000 links with that information.

https://www.google.com/search?client=fi … f+electors

Why would you be asking a bunch of photographers a question like this ?

IMAGINERIES wrote:
Also why "crime and punishment" will vary  from state to state?

Two word answer for this question:  "States Rights"

Read up on Constitutional Law . . . you'll understand it better

Ken Marcus Studios wrote:

I don't understand why you would have difficulty answering your 'foreign friends' questions . . .

It's a simple one word answer:  Google

I typed in your phrase: "the college of electors" and received 247,000,000 links with that information.

https://www.google.com/search?client=fi … f+electors

Why would you be asking a bunch of photographers a question like this ?

Surely if one can get great legal advice and great medical advice here one could find great information about government here as well. (sarcasm of course)

Znude! wrote:
Surely if one can get great legal advice and great medical advice here one could find great information about government here as well. (sarcasm of course)

Or, some of us happen to be teachers of American Government.


So, in a nutshell, OP.....here is how it works.


1. There are 50 states. Each of the 50 states has 2 United States Senators. In total, that makes 100 U.S. Senators.

2. Each of the states is also represented in the House of Representatives, but this is based upon population. There are 435 members of the House of Representatives. Those members are distributed to the states based upon population. Therefore, states with larger populations (California, New York, Texas, Florida, etc.) have more members of the House of Representatives. (One representative = approximately 700,000 citizens at present.)

3. This is why some states have more "electors" than other states.

4. For example, Texas gets 2 electoral votes for its U.S. Senators (like all states). Due to the population of Texas, the state also gets 36 electoral votes for its 36 members of the House of Representatives. Texas' total electoral votes = 38. And so it goes for every state. Wyoming, for instance, has a much smaller population (600,000 or so); and, therefore, gets 2 electoral votes for the Senators and 1 electoral vote for its 1 member of the House. Total = 3. As mentioned above, this makes Wyoming a "not so highly prized state to win in the election" because you only get 3 total electoral votes for winning it.

Total Senate = 100
Total House of Representatives = 435
Washington, DC is allotted 3 electoral votes
Total electoral votes = 538
Total needed to win the election = 50% of 538 (269) + 1 = 270 votes needed to win the election

5. Every state holds a popular election.* The winner of the state (the candidate who gets the most votes) "wins" the state and gets ALL of the electoral votes from that state. Two exceptions are Maine and Nebraska. We won't go into that here.

6. For example, Joe Biden got the most votes in California, so he gets California's 55 electoral votes. All of them. Donald Trump got the most votes in Texas. So he gets all 38 of the Texas electoral votes.

7. Joe Biden was projected to win the election once he surpassed 270 electoral votes.

8. This does not become official until the "electors" from each state cast the ballots won in their state on December 14th. Those electoral votes are then counted and an official winner of the election is declared.


I hope this helps. There are, of course, some nuances (Maine and Nebraska) but this is the gist of it.


* I'm aware of the difference between majority and plurality. Just trying to keep it simple.

IMAGINERIES wrote:
I must admire your knowledge of the United States democratic/republican voting method.
What would, in your opinion, be the percentage of the voting citizens have such knowledge....
Down to basic , we have different shades of reds and different shades of blue.( Ironically in the rest of the world red is communist color)....
I consider myself  purple on the blueish side
But I appreciate your input. And I thank you!

I "hear" what you are saying-- but---

It is not like the " Electoral College" or how it works is a secret.

__ANY__  voter who had a question, ___ANY___ voter that chose to spend a minute--- could easily "Google" the answers to their questions about the subject. There are about --219,000,000-- results to the Google search for "electoral college".

The fact that we Americans are often poorly informed about our own "electoral system" isnt a condemnation of that system as much as it is a condemnation of our educational system, or civic involvement.

IMAGINERIES wrote:
What would, in your opinion, be the percentage of the voting citizens have such knowledge....

The same percentage as those who paid attention in public school, as these things were taught.

Ken Marcus Studios wrote:

The same percentage as those who paid attention in public school, as these things were taught.

Well if that's the case, Ken, we have a very large percentage of people who don't get it. (And I think that's likely true.)

Interesting how I see former students on social media who are now VERY politically aware and active, but couldn't give a damn their senior year of high school. It's a struggle.

JustHenry wrote:
I'm fine with what the founding fathers set up.  I personally don't want 5 or 6 highly populated cities deciding the fate of the entire country.
What is more puzzling to me is how we went from election DAY to election month.  How we went from polls closing at a particular hour on election day to accepting, even soliciting, votes AFTER the polls close.
I've been voting for 40 some years and have used an absentee ballot once and I was actually going to be out of town on election day.  Needless to say, I'm baffled and disappointed at what I am seeing this year.

Baffled?  Is that because you assume that South Carolinia has the same needs and requirements as every other state?  Election day is statutorily set by the Federal Government as the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November.   Tuesday is not a good day for many people to vote because of work obligations.  Some states require paid time off from work to vote.  Some states make it a legal holiday.  In some states the bars are closed on election day.  In my area, the schools are closed.  They didn't use to be closed on election day.  That changed because schools are often used as poling places and in wake of the Sandy Hook shooting and other very real events, the school districts decided they couldn't have masses of people on campus at the same time as the students.  Sound like a reasonable reason to close schools? 

If things change from state to state like the legal conditions required to vote, and things change within our society which impact certain things about voting, then why would you be baffled by the legislatures of states making things easier for people to vote?

It isn't baffling.  Things change.

There are advantages to both the election boards and the voters to have expanded hours and days to vote.  Why should everyone be jammed together to vote?  Why should people be forced to wait in long lines?  My time is valuable.  Isn't yours? 

In some states, the voting machines are reduced in precincts where the politicians don't want as many votes coming from.  Or they close the polling place.  Or they move it so it is harder to get to.  While you lament and complain about the laws that make it easier to vote, you made no mention of the laws, abuses of law (gerrymandering) and people that are actively working to squash voting.  The last governor's election in Georgia, where the guy that runs the election (a Republican) was running for governor and was actively making it harder for people to vote.

You have been voting 40 years and never needed an absentee ballot.  We don't all share that experience.  The expiration time to apply for an absentee ballot in PA was too long before voting day.  I may not find out I need to be out of town until a couple of days before I go.  It means I have to turn down a project or miss my chance to vote.  If I applied for an absentee ballot to cover my ass, I had to provide a reason for needing one, and guess what!  I MIGHT be out of town was insufficient. 

I hate going to the poling place.  There is a rule, law, whatever, the candidates's workers cannot be within 20 feet of the entrance to the polling place.  That is the length of one parking space and the width of two.  Yet they would stand right next to the door.  The reasoning behind that is that the door to the ROOM that the voting takes place in was 30 feet down the hallway and the partisan hacks (Republican dominated) interpreted the rule to be from the room of the door, not the outside entrance.   I bitched about it every time.  I don't need ID to vote- they know exactly who I am.  When PA announced that they were going to allow absentee & mail in ballot for anyone who wanted one, without an excuse, and that it could be automatically available for every election forthwith, I jumped at the chance.  I was a bit pissed that I was ask for an excuse and I made a strong reply about the harassment I get trying to go through the door of the firehouse to vote.

I am not baffled at all.  Making voting convenient does not conflict with what the founders envisioned.  If what the founders envisioned is your ideal of the limits of what the Constitution allows, then you also do not have the right to carry a revolver, an AR-15, or any gun that has a manufactured cartridge, nor could you use a compound bow.  How do you accept that the government adapts to changes in other areas of life but not to voting?  Does every change have to be codified with a constitutional amendment?

ethasleftthebuilding wrote:
While it may be true that no one is actually voting AFTER election day, the issue I have with how the larger than normal amount of mail in ballot have been handled is this...

1) Mail in ballots should only be counted if received before the polls close on election day.  If you think people need more time to get their ballots in by election day, simply start earlier.

2) A voter should have to request a mail in ballot to get one.  Sending out thousands or millions of mail in ballots to everyone on the voter roll is risky on a number of levels. 

3) The USPS should publish a date that all ballots must be mailed by in order to guarantee delivery to the election office before polls close on election day.  USPS does this for Christmas delivery, so they know how to do it. 

4) The majority of mail ballots this year were local mail, it's not like they had to send them across the country.  Local Post Offices should have been able to have ballot drop boxes and deliver to the elections office.

5) Mail ballots should begin to be counted the first day the polls are open for early voting.  Counting of mail ballots should be required each day, and during the hours, polls are open for early voting, with sufficient staff to keep up.

Everything should be ready to release the counts within 12 hours of the polls closing.

Here is why...

The longer it takes for a few areas (not even whole states, just parts of a few states) to release their numbers, the more opportunity there is for shenanigans.  One of the best safeguards of our elections process is that so many people, spread out over the county, are involved in the counting of votes, it would be very difficult to effect a win by cheating.  HOWEVER, if a few areas are left, late reporting their votes, when a close race has developed from everyone else having already reported their votes, it would be much easier to effect a win by cheating.  It could easily be set up by a few people.  Intentionally delay the counting of mail in votes by understaffing.  There is not really a secure chain of custody of mail in ballots, so more ballots could be slipped in the mix.  Those who are actually counting the votes would never be the wiser.  A national party with millions of dollars to spend could surely find some extreme loyal local officials to make it happen.

Before you tell me this is far fetched, please ask yourself if you totally and absolutely trust trust the government ?

Years and decades ago, there was an election.  The polling places closed at a set time, but there were people who had been waiting in line for hours.  The poll workers gave everyone that was in line a 8 pm a voting slip and they collected votes until everyone in line at 8 pm had voted.  According to your spin on things, that should have been illegal.  But that has been that way it has been done ever since I first heard about it.  Otherwise an unscrupulous or incompetent person running the polling place could delay those people who would vote against the favored candidate and deny the vote to to the opposition.  Much as trump tried to derail mail in ballots this year.   trump being both incompetent and unscrupulous. 

Local mail doesn't exist here any more.  I can drop an envelop into the box next to the PO Boxes and instead of the postal workers putting it the destination PO Box five feet away, it gets sent to the regional mail sorting facility where it is sorted and sent back to the box five feet from where I put it in the system. 

Comparing Christmas mail to election day mail is not a sensible equivalency.  Christmas mail that arrives late is still valid.  It doesn't have to be there on Christmas day.  It is nice if it is, and actually, it has to be a day early.  We have until the close of the polls to make a decision regarding our vote.  To say other people have to make the decision earlier is unfair.  Election day is more akin to tax day.  Postmarked by April 15th, not delivered.  How would you like to make that change?  Get penalized for late taxes if you mail the return and check on the 10th, but it took 6 days to get there?

Do you think our service men and women should be denied the right to vote?  Depending on the state, their ballot isn't valid if it doesn't arrive within a certain number of days after the election day.  As is true for people who lives, studies, or works abroad, depending on state laws.  You think the only votes that should count are the ones that are cast locally?  Furthermore, historically, the way the mail in votes count now, is the way it has been done.  Last minute efforts to count votes longer because of the purposely reduced mail system and the impact of covid, were largely struck down by the courts. 

In PA, the legislature wouldn't extend anything because the Republicans wanted people from outside the county of the polling place to be able to oversee the polling.  The Democrat rightfully said no, because it is reminiscent of actions stopped by a judicial order that was valid until after the last election, to keep Republicans from going to the polls of minority majority districts and scaring the people into not voting.   

It is interesting to hear you say what the requirements should be for counting ballets and to outlaw statewide voting by mail (voting by mail and absentee ballots are really the same thing), given all the states rights stuff you have spouted before.  States rights only count when it serves your purpose?  Considering states rights applies to every one of your five numerated gripes, plus your faulty reasoning.  When you don't like it, change the rules?  When the current rules hurt the other guy, keep the rules.   Yep. 

Taking a longer time doesn't mean there is room for shenanigans.  Putting people in charge that do not want an honest outcome does.  We got use to the speed of the returns from mechanical voting machines.  However, they were not infallible.  In my precinct one year, there were many people who left the lever for one office unturned.  But when the count came in, the total between the two candidates equaled the total number of voters.  Who was in charge of watching the polls?  Republicans.  There weren't enough Democrats in the area in those days to man the opposition positions of poll watching.  In the last couple of years, the truly egregious voting frauds were pulled off by Republicans. 

Now we have ballots that leave a paper trail.  The Republicans can't cheat so easy.

The voting system isn't flawless, but it was not untrustworthy until a chronic liar needed to have an excuse for losing.  Twice.  It is unfortunate that so many people believe a chronic liar.  How come so many people trust everything the cops say, but don't trust poll workers who are being watched by opposition poll workers?  It makes no sense. 

We had to trust the results in 2016.  Suck it up, put on your big boy pants and trust the 2020 results.

ethasleftthebuilding wrote:
We had to trust the results in 2016.  Suck it up, put on your big boy pants and trust the 2020 results.

Right here.

Ken Marcus Studios wrote:
I don't understand why you would have difficulty answering your 'foreign friends' questions . . .

It's a simple one word answer:  Google

I typed in your phrase: "the college of electors" and received 247,000,000 links with that information.

https://www.google.com/search?client=fi … f+electors

Why would you be asking a bunch of photographers a question like this ?

1. Not all 247,000,000 of those links have accurate information. How is the OP supposed to know which is accurate and which is not if the OP doesn't know what the answer is? Yes, a reputable source, of course.

2. As I mention later, in a "bunch of photographers" you'll find that some of us actually know what we are talking about...like the ones who teach this stuff. (Me)

3. It's the Off-topic discussion thread, where we discuss non-photography related subjects. "Google it" could be the answer for every one of them.

JustHenry wrote:
I'm fine with what the founding fathers set up.  I personally don't want 5 or 6 highly populated cities deciding the fate of the entire country.
What is more puzzling to me is how we went from election DAY to election month.  How we went from polls closing at a particular hour on election day to accepting, even soliciting, votes AFTER the polls close.
I've been voting for 40 some years and have used an absentee ballot once and I was actually going to be out of town on election day.  Needless to say, I'm baffled and disappointed at what I am seeing this year.

My bafflement and disappointment comes from the Right continuing their two decade (or more) campaign to disenfranchise those who fit into the "I vote left" demographic. There's your disappointment, and we see it on a no-holds-barred, wide out in the open, zero shame display in 2020.

You say: "What is more puzzling to me is how we went from election DAY to election month."

Well, it has never happened all on one day, for starters. Additionally, the world is a big place and legal citizens who are allowed to vote are spread far and wide with 50 different sets of rules as to how they may vote, when they may vote, when their votes may be received and when they are counted. Why is that a bad thing? Count ever vote, make it possible for every person to vote. The Right has a problem with that, and I guess you do as well? (I'm asking.)

Focuspuller wrote:
NO, you would rather have acres of cows deciding the fate of the country.

Those acres of cows and corn that some people want
to marginalize and disenfranchise do feed the country.
Should we import our food from China too?

IMAGINERIES wrote:
I must admire your knowledge of the United States democratic/republican voting method.
What would, in your opinion, be the percentage of the voting citizens have such knowledge....
Down to basic , we have different shades of reds and different shades of blue.( Ironically in the rest of the world red is communist color)....
I consider myself  purple on the blueish side
But I appreciate your input. And I thank you!

Should be 100% of those that stayed awake in grade school history class...tht is if they still teach grade school history what with all the woke PC BS propaganda the schools teach now

nwprophoto wrote:
Those acres of cows and corn that some people want
to marginalize and disenfranchise do feed the country.
Should we import our food from China too?

Because letting the people decide is such a radical idea.

And I happen to like Chinese food. But delivery takes FOREVER.

Bob Helm Photography wrote:

Should be 100% of those that stayed awake in grade school history class...tht is if they still teach grade school history what with all the woke PC BS propaganda the schools teach now

Oh I know. It Is SHOCKING how many kids today believe the Earth is NOT 5,000 years old!

Focuspuller wrote:
Because letting the people decide is such a radical idea.

Lets follow along your logic for protecting Americas food supply.
Put big city politicians in charge whose only farm experience has been going
to wine country for a tasting or high dollar meals with lobbyists.
Throw in a rising star progressive politician who has never been out of The Bronx.
Green Bloomberg who got totally humiliated earlier in the year with his nescience
of farming would be good possibility.
Those monster 1000 hp combines harvesting 16 hours a day on a couple rechargeable batteries.

What could go wrong?

nwprophoto wrote:
Lets follow along your logic for protecting Americas food supply.
Put big city politicians in charge whose only farm experience has been going
to wine country for a tasting or high dollar meals with lobbyists.
Throw in a rising star progressive politician who has never been out of The Bronx.
Green Bloomberg who got totally humiliated earlier in the year with his nescience
of farming would be good possibility.
Those monster 1000 hp combines harvesting 16 hours a day on a couple rechargeable batteries.

What could go wrong?

Nonsense.

By YOUR logic, put URBAN issues in the hands of those whose idea of a city is the Chic-fil-A  at the intersection of Rte 30 and Main Street? Urban, aka where most PEOPLE are.

Rising QAnon loons and creationist politicians who have never been in a museum or read an actual newspaper

Petroleum and Agribusiness industry-funded stooges happy to foul air, land and sea so even the rural Volk can't breathe as long as they keep a death grip on public policy.

What could go wrong? Open your eyes if not your head. And WHO is threatening the food supply? The consumers? Or Big Agro killing their workers and poisoning the food supply?

nwprophoto wrote:
Lets follow along your logic for protecting Americas food supply.
Put big city politicians in charge whose only farm experience has been going
to wine country for a tasting or high dollar meals with lobbyists.
Throw in a rising star progressive politician who has never been out of The Bronx.
Green Bloomberg who got totally humiliated earlier in the year with his nescience
of farming would be good possibility.
Those monster 1000 hp combines harvesting 16 hours a day on a couple rechargeable batteries.

What could go wrong?

You want the same guys in charge of our food supply that have created a hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico? 
Who over fished and over clammed and over crabbed various estuaries?  Over fished oceans?
The farmers in Pennsylvania and New York that dump poop and chemicals down the Susquehanna so the taxpayers can spend billions to restore the bay?
The dairy and cattle farmers that have polluted the Kissimmee River Lake Okeechobee?  (185,000 bovines, 40,000 people and all that cow manure and a fair amount of the people poop ends up in the water.)  And there are many examples like this around the country.
The farmers that push over the hedge rows, forest and fill the wet lands to squeeze out another acre to plow?
The guys that push to allow wolves and Grizzlies and Eagles to go extinct because of the loss of some live stock?

The farmers that are using HT soybeans so they can no till their crops, which has its advantages (reduced soil erosion and fuel use), but it also results in the killing of important non-crops that are are essential to the ecosystem.   (Milkweed may be a nuisance to farmers but it is food for monarch butterflies.)  Which was bad enough when they were using 2,4-D choline, glyphosate, and glufosinate.  Now they want to use dicamba but it is so volatile that it is almost impossible to use according to label.  So the guy with the right GMO bean can kill the weeds in his field, then the chemical drift kills the beans in the neighbor's field.  Along with the trees.

Farmers have an investment in the land and therefore want to be and should be good stewards, but they also have economic pressures.  There is no point in being a good steward if you loose the farm.

Then there was the farm community that was against a solar farm because solar panels kill plants and harms the economy.

North Carolina:
Jane Mann said she is a local native and is concerned about the plants that make the community beautiful.

She is a retired Northampton science teacher and is concerned that photosynthesis, which depends upon sunlight, would not happen and would keep the plants from growing. She said she has observed areas near solar panels where the plants are brown and dead because they did not get enough sunlight.

She also questioned the high number of cancer deaths in the area, saying no one could tell her that solar panels didn’t cause cancer.

Bobby Mann said he watched communities dry up when I-95 came along and warned that would happen to Woodland because of the solar farms.

“You’re killing your town,” he said. “All the young people are going to move out.”

He said the solar farms would suck up all the energy from the sun and businesses would not come to Woodland.

The timber harvesters that can't imagine anyway but the old way, so they clear cut and leave slash on the forest floor, so that what they don't cut burns in a raging fire and the mountainsides slide into the valleys in rivers of mud?  The loggers in the Tongas that want to log wilderness areas (graciously being pushed by trump) at the detriment of recreation and fisheries? (1% of the people in the area derive income from logging - compared with seafood processing’s 8 percent and tourism’s 17 percent.)   BTW, the government has to guarantee a profit to the loggers.

Logging in Alaska costs U.S. taxpayers millions each year, because of a long-standing federal mandate that companies profit from any timber sale. This means the Forest Service often covers harvesters’ costs, including road building. According to a Taxpayer for Common Sense analysis of the Forest Service’s accounts, the Tongass timber program has lost roughly $1.7 billion over the last 40 years.

The miners that want to dig Pebble Mine, but they lied on their permitting and are on tape regarding a nefarious scheme?

Thiessen described both of the state’s Republican U.S. senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, as politicians who might make noises about the project to appear sensitive to environmental concerns but ultimately won’t stand in their way. “It’s an age-old practice where when you have constituents, you have important people who support you on two sides of an issue, all right, you try to find a way to satisfy them both,” he said in the recording.

He noted that Murkowski declined to move a bill that would have barred the federal government from permitting the mine. Instead, she included language in a spending bill that raised some questions about Pebble Mine but did not hinder it. “She says things that don’t sound supportive of Pebble, but when it comes time to vote, when it comes time to do something, she never does anything to hurt Pebble, okay?” Thiessen said.

[Pebble was recently denied a permit but the Army Corp of Engineers]

The coal miners that are happy to rip the mineral out of the ground, but are reluctant to pay for the damage that mining has done to the land and water?  (For any artists out there- Gamblin makes some oil paints from the solids that are taken out of the water that is being treated to remove acid mine runoff.  https://gamblincolors.com/reclaimed-earth-colors/   (Are there any miners or farmers doing that?)

If you add up all the fuel the combines burn each year it would be insignificant to what is burned on the nation's highways.  If the demand for fuel goes down then the price should go down also, so what are you complaining about?  The equipment that can't be converted without advances in technology  will run on cheaper fuel.  If the technology advances to make alternative fuels for power and transportation, then eventually the technology will make it possible to run heavy machinery on alternative fuels.  Some buses run on natural gas now. 

Why are you so against new and better technology?

But this discussion came because someone made the incredibly short sighted and right wing rabbit hole comment that they don't want 5 or 6 big cities to determine the path of the country.  Those big cities are the ones that buy the food and materials that are grown out in the sticks.  Without those big city markets, the farmers would cease to farm beyond subsistence levels. You don't buy a  $3-$500,000 combine to cut the corn off the "lower 40."  (Since we don't have sections here, a 40 acres farm is decent and was nearly bigger than the farms of two of my uncles, combined.) The guys that have those machines are farming multiple hundreds of acres, and around here, that means that they are farming every little family farm that once was able to support a couple raising kids, but now is a non-starter.  IF those farms aren't gobbled up for development.  Also, some guys that buy combines don't farm.  All they do is hire out to harvest the corn, beans, wheat, barley and rye (etc.) around their regions.   Of course people think farmers are sitting on millions of dollars worth of land, but those farms are only worth big money, (and I bet even then, a lot less than you think goes to the farmer when he sells), if they are close to the big city and open land is scarce.

The population of the USA is approximately 328 million and the ten largest cities have fewer than 27 million people.  The ten largest metropolitan areas have about 86 million people, including non-voters.  The last election had 80 million for sanity and 74 million for insanity.  Which means less than 47% of the people voted. 

The only way the government serves the people is if all people have an equitable say and are willing to listen to other people.

Hunter  GWPB wrote:
You want the same guys in charge of our food supply that have created a hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico? 
Who over fished and over clammed and over crabbed various estuaries?  Over fished oceans?

No. My only argument was that putting a super majority of politicians in charge of our
food supplies that had never been on a farm did not make common sense.
I was responding to someone who was advocating that farmers be marginalized and disenfranchised.
Going about it in a way that threatens the food supply I don't think is in anybody's
best interest.


I like clean air and water too.
Agree with you that there are a lot of issues that should be addressed but with input
from all the stakeholders and in a sensible manner.

nwprophoto wrote:
No. My only argument was that putting a super majority of politicians in charge of our
food supplies that had never been on a farm did not make common sense.
I was responding to someone who was advocating that farmers be marginalized and disenfranchised.
Going about it in a way that threatens the food supply I don't think is in anybody's
best interest.


I like clean air and water too.
Agree with you that there are a lot of issues that should be addressed but with input
from all the stakeholders and in a sensible manner.

"I was responding to someone who was advocating that farmers be marginalized and disenfranchised."

LOL. Where? Don't be silly. No one is advocating that. This is about YOU defending the overweighting in the Electoral College of sparsely populated states at the expense of cities with some bizarre scenario of urban politicians who "had never been on a farm" wrecking the food supply, a ridiculous argument.

nwprophoto wrote:

Those acres of cows and corn that some people want
to marginalize and disenfranchise do feed the country.
Should we import our food from China too?

Try looking at various food labels.   You might be surprised how much food we import from China.   https://www.americanmanufacturing.org/b … -the-list/

nwprophoto wrote:
No. My only argument was that putting a super majority of politicians in charge of our
food supplies that had never been on a farm did not make common sense.
Someone else was advocating that farmers be marginalized and disenfranchised.
Going about it in a way that threatens the food supply I don't think is in anybody's
best interest.


I like clean air and water too.
Agree with you that there are a lot of issues that should be addressed but with input
from all the stakeholders and in a sensible manner.

The comment that started it was:

JustHenry wrote:
I'm fine with what the founding fathers set up.  I personally don't want 5 or 6 highly populated cities deciding the fate of the entire country.

The person you responded to provide a contrary view to an uniformed ignorant statement.  That comment marginalized and disenfranchised people, too.  And it was from the false ideology perpetuated by Republicans that a few population centers can control all of the United States electorally without the electoral collage, which is simply bull.  The EC may actually hurt the rural areas because it means that a person's vote doesn't count beyond the state lines. 

If a vote is a vote, then every vote is equal and the fact that people are concentrated into metropolitan areas or scattered through rural areas, isn't relevant.  But, in the US, a vote isn't a vote.  At least for the President of the United States.  We have an electoral college that alters the playing field for that one office, and only that one office.  Maybe the EC levels the field.  Maybe it revises the slope. 

The largest metropolitan area in the US, New York, consists of portions of four states.  I think NYC most likely overwhelms much of New York State regarding state wide contests, but a quick look at the results map shows that it wasn't just NYC that carried the state for Biden.  Buffalo, Ithaca, Syracuse, Rochester, Albany, Schenectady and New Rochelle all went blue, too.  As did some others.

New Jersey, where the five largest cities and about half the land mass of the state are part of the New York Metropolitan Area, but the counties that went red aren't defined by the NYCMA.  The most SE and SW counties went trump.  The Central Jersey shoreline counties (Bruce Springsteen area) and upper Delaware River counties- both areas being part of the New York City Metropolitan Area, also went for trump.

The one county in Pennsylvania that is in the NYCMA also went for trump.  As did most of the state by land mass, but all the counties with a sizable city or town (Erie, Pittsburg, Harrisburg, Scranton, Allentown, Bethlehem), plus Centre County (Penn state and not much else) and Monroe County (Pocono Mountains, mostly very rural) went for Biden.  With all the big cities in PA going blue, and the four Philly suburb counties, then those along and half of the way up the Delaware River, the state was carried by Biden by only 1.2%.

We were told that 5 or 6 major cities could carry the country, but Philadelphia (4th largest city in the country) wasn't nearly enough to carry Pennsylvania.  And NYCMA didn't carry New Jersey.  Smaller towns, suburbs and farmland areas did.  EDITED It is statically impossible to win the top 6 cities in population and win the EC.  First off, none of those cities are big enough to carry their state with a 100% vote count to one candidate. (NY: 19.4 million/NYC: 8.4 million (the entire NYCMA, parts of 4 states, is 20- 23 million);  *California: 39.8 million/LA: 12.5 million; *Illinois 12.7 million/Chicago 2.7 million; *In Texas, the  city is smaller and the state is bigger; etc.).  So you have to win more than just the big city in the state to win the state.  The total EC votes associated with those states is 173 votes.  270 is required to win.  If a candidate won only the top 10 biggest cities in the country, they would still have only 173 EC votes because no additional states would have been won.  The assertion that 5 or 6 cities could dictate the president to the country is ridiculous.  Further more, we still have a Congress and Judiciary and the executive isn't a king, able to do as he pleases.

My post, however, was about how rural people can screw things up.  You know why Holsteins make up about 90% of the dairy cows in this country?  I do and it ain't got anything to do with being environmentally sound.  I grew up with a shotgun in my hand.  Maybe I was 11 the first time I shot a rabbit.  Maybe 12.  Long before that I was fishing and catching frogs.  I was an avid backpacker and camper.  My first degree was environmentally related.  I know birds, snakes, trees, and do okay with butterflies and wildflowers.  I worked for the USDA in two different agencies, state level environmental agencies and a county park system.  I lived in places where if I saw a dust trail then someone was coming to see me or someone was up to no good.  The nearest town, if you could call it a town, had fewer year round residents than I have digits .  I am telling you, that some rural people don't give flip about the environment if it inconveniences them at all.  Some of them have no problem with burning a tire, or dumping one in stream, or backing a truck up a two trail road and unloading refrigerators, furniture and garbage into the woods and the road side borrow pit (aka ditch) is there just for that beer bottle.  They have no problem with breaking beer bottles against rocks in a steam, shooting the crap out of live trees or protected birds and animals; walking away from a fire that should have never been started in the first place; out of season hunting and fishing; or putting spikes into a veneer grade live tree so they can climb it and wait for a deer to come by, when there is a bent up twisted, worthless piece of timber within spitting distance.  And they sure as shit will be crapping their pants and doing whatever they can to kill that rattlesnake, copperhead or cottonmouth, which is just as soon to be some poor harmless snake, because they can't tell a Hognose (if they ever heard of one) from a Milksnake (if they ever heard of one) from a Brown Water Snake (if they ever heard of one), much less a venomous snake when they come upon one, instead of leaving it be.

Some of the city people do these things too.  Especially the fear of snakes.  ( I have seen 6" Garter Snakes stomped to Death on a trail at Valley Forge.)  Though, for the life of me, I will never understand why a person (country or city) lugs a case of beer 3 miles up the rugged Appalachian Trail or into a wilderness area, parties all night, and leaves the empties behind.  They are lighter on the way out!  And they probably long ago pissed out the extra fluid!  (Good way to attract butterflies is to piss on the fire after drinking lots of beer.  Butterflies will come there for weeks for the sugars.  They are attracted to deer piss and stools too, but I don't know why.  The deer don't piss on campfires.  (I can't stand beer so it is a technique I can't use.))  City people don't understand that a hay field, or worse- beans, wheat and other small grains) are a crop that is worth money and if you drive your four wheeler or truck through there, you are not only hurting someones livelihood, but you are screwing with nesting birds and animals for no reason. But the worst case I saw was one time I was working in a National Recreation Area and I watched a Forest Service employee go up in the morning and back before quitting time, through a high mountain meadow with his four wheel drive, where barely a sign of humans existed at the place before this, and he scarred it up to go sit and get drunk.   A couple months later I was up there with a Forest Service guy and we had lunch right there and he moaned about why people did that.  It was a guy under his under his direct supervision that did it.

Members of the spectrum are only too happy to leave painted tags across nature- trees, rocks, whatever because nothing improves nature like painting cuss words and pictures of a penis on a rock.

I would much rather take a stranger that is a slicker (if they will wear decent shoes) into the back country, down to the waterfall, out on a butterfly excursion or just for a walk in the woods, because they are in awe of the beauty and the uniqueness of the little things along the way.  Especially when I can take them off trail.  They aren't going to leave anything behind, and the worst case scenario is they (the women) may pick a wildflower or two.  If it is where it isn't permitted, a simple, "Sorry, you can't do that here," is all that is required.  There is no argument about freedom or individual rights.  But those country boys will pull out the old 9mm and shoot a Snowshoe Hare or an owl just to see what it is.  (The owl was a federal offense.)

We all suck in some form or another.  None of us respects each other out of ignorance or intentionally. But don't tell me rural people do things right and have some kind of virtue that other people don't have.  Virtue doesn't come from the farm.

And I really don't get anyone that claims they love the forest who will vote for a guy that ran on rolling back environmental regulations, opening wilderness to drilling and logging and mining; who cut back the sizes of Bear's Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante; took endangered species protections off Wolves and Eagles and tried to roll back the Migratory Bird Treaty Act; and also cut the EPA, and the Park Service.


EDIT added

Focuspuller wrote:
No one is advocating that.

Sorry. I just assumed with with your history of diatribes, comments like the "popular vote",
"overweighting in the Electoral College"  and "acres of cows deciding the fate of the country"
that you wanted a different political process that disenfranchised farmers and other
Trump apparatchiks.

Hunter  GWPB wrote:
We were told that 5 or 6 major cities could carry the country,

The issue as I see it is handful of high density counties controlling the state and thus the EC.
A lot of polarizing legislation that has lead to separatist movements like California's "State
of Jefferson" and this year eastern Oregon has started a movement to join Idaho.
Also read also there in NY a lot of resentment towards NYC controlling the state politics.

Hunter  GWPB wrote:
My post, however, was about how rural people can screw things up.  .... that some rural people don't give flip about the environment if it inconveniences them at all.  Some of them have no problem with burning a tire, or dumping one in stream, or backing a truck up a two trail road and unloading refrigerators, furniture and garbage into the woods and the road side borrow pit (aka ditch) is there just for that beer bottle.  They have no problem with breaking beer bottles against rocks in a steam,

Some of the city people do these things too.

I highly doubt the behavioral bell curve takes much notice of politics.
More prevalent because its easier to get away with in a rural situation?

Just wanted to add that people in the area I live peacefully coexist with
large number of critters that would totally freak out a city person.
Being aware of what is in your yard before opening your door is good practice here.

I don't see any widespread environmental abuse though I am sure some exists.