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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 11m

Did Lake Harriet grow? When I lived there it was only 3 miles around.

Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 6h

This is a specific status for the voter record, distinct from inactivation. When a voter record is inactivated because the voter moved out of state, they might move back and re-register. But when the voter died, they aren't coming back.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 6h

We might have less fear of death if we normalized talking about it. That includes reducing fears of "ghost voters" by talking about how routinely election officials deal with death. On the average weekday, Minnesota election officials mark 133 voter records as deceased.

Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 8h

"The fraudulent submission was flagged by election officials before it could be counted." Note this routinely happens even with non-fraudulent ballots submitted by people who die between submitting the ballot and the signature envelope being opened. www.inforum.com/news/minneso...

Itasca County woman pleads guilty to voter fraud

The 51-year-old admitted to filling out a ballot in the name of her mother, an “avid Donald Trump supporter,” who died before she could vote for him in the 2024 election.

www.inforum.com

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 8h

If you want to be reliably tracked across different government agencies' computer systems, have a unique name that doesn't have any issues like a double last name that can mistaken for a middle name and a last name. But of course there are personal and cultural reasons for names.

Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 8h

You may also have heard some publicized accounts of people who remained on the voter roll months after they died. This is a very rare exception to the normal timeline. In all the cases I've looked into, it resulted from data-matching issues like a different version of the name.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 8h

But that just isn't possible. Information goes up from the local certification of the death to the state health department, over to the office of the secretary of state, and back down to the county elections office. It all takes a few weeks. And on rare occasion, that matters.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 8h

You might wish for a world where the elections office had instantaneous knowledge of deaths. Among other benefits, Itasca County could have avoided sending the ballot out in the first place that was fraudulently voted in this case — the mother was already dead by then.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 8h

That last situation is similar to what happens with election day polling place voting. If the elections office is notified on November 15 of a death that occurred on October 31, but the voter is shown as having voted in person on November 4, that would be investigated.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 8h

If the elections office received notice of the death only after the signature envelope was opened to anonymize the ballot for counting the ballot would be counted — but if the timing or the signatures on the retained envelope suggested fraud, it would still be investigated.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 8h

In the 2024 election, there were 60 absentee ballots that were rejected (out of 1.3 million cast statewide) because the voter had died. The Itasca County case in this news story is the only one I'm aware of where evidence showed fraud as opposed to untimely death.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 8h

Minnesota election officials routinely mark registered voters as deceased, and when doing so, routinely check for such activity as absentee voting. Even if a signature envelope was already accepted by the ballot board, if it hasn't been opened, it is retrieved and rejected.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 8h

"The fraudulent submission was flagged by election officials before it could be counted." Note this routinely happens even with non-fraudulent ballots submitted by people who die between submitting the ballot and the signature envelope being opened. www.inforum.com/news/minneso...

Itasca County woman pleads guilty to voter fraud

The 51-year-old admitted to filling out a ballot in the name of her mother, an “avid Donald Trump supporter,” who died before she could vote for him in the 2024 election.

www.inforum.com

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 23h

This poll will serve the same function as all the other polls, which is to provide me an opportunity to tap the "the only poll that counts is the election" sign.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 23h

Also, above and beyond whatever basic demographics like age and homeownership you might point to, there is the very fact that these towns *chose* by local option to retain hand counting after others had adopted technology. That flags them as *conservative* in the most literal sense.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 1d

When you see something differently than I see it, may I respectfully suggest that would be a sign that the adjective "clear" may be inappropriate? (You used it two posts in a row.)

Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 1d

Is he old enough to have ever experienced a three-car train other than on a special-event day? You can't expect him to know about middle cars if he only ever experienced two-car trains.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 1d

Up two posts: charter amendments, not character

Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 1d

Fwiw, 2023 was one of the in-between ones. The lowest and highest had mayoral races.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 1d

Yep. That doesn't seem to be any more of a variable than anything else. Hard to remember but there was a time when school board was odd year, and of course there's with vs. without character amendments. Bottom line: what's on the ballot matters more than how the voting is done, for turnout.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 1d

Here are the most recent 10 Minneapolis municipal election turnouts, as reported by Minneapolis Elections and Voter Services, placed in rank order. The five in red used RCV: the lowest, highest, and 3 others in between. The five in blue preceded the switch to RCV.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 1d

Reporting what Jeanne Massey says turnout has been, rather than what it actually was, is inexcusably lazy. The actual data are easily available. If Massey had been right, the STrib could have bypassed the hearsay. Given that she was wrong, they could have reported the truth.

Screenshot from Star Tribune article:
Jeanne Massey, executive director of FairVote Minnesota and a longtime champion of ranked-choice voting, said turnout in city general elections has roughly doubled since the system was adopted, rising from about 25% in pre-2009 cycles to more than 50% in recent contests.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 2d

I don't see how it's different in other than name from other county boards that serve legislative functions and are properly districted.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 2d

We need a short abbreviation, along the lines of etc. We could use amo, but it would be classier to and less prone to unfortunate misunderstandings to use etmo. Translating the words beyond "and" into Latin would be a step too far. We can be classy but 'merican.

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 2d

7 15/16 written in binary is 111.1111, which would be a cooler street name. (The other, 29 5/8, is not so cool: 11101.101, if you must know.)

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Max Hailperin @maxhailperin.bsky.social · 3d

And one needs to beware of the hidden price hike of formulary changes.

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