How Many Trump-Toadying Men Will Mark Their Wive's Ballots?

[MineralMan]

This concerns me. With early voting, mail-in voting, and reason-free absentee voting on the rise, there are many opportunities for Trump-like men to simply mark their wive's absentee ballots as one more denial of their individual rights. When everyone had to go to the polling place and mark ballots or otherwise vote in a privacy-protecting booth, that wasn't possible. Now, however, it is more possible for someone to mark someone else's ballots.

I like the higher turnout these new election models produce, but I worry about the possibility of silent, coerced voting. How many more misogynistic, controlling men will there be who vote more than once by co-opting their spouses' or partners' votes?

[lagomorph777]

1. Those homebody subservient handmaidens are the ones home to receive the mail.

"Ballots? What ballots?"

[Rocky888]

2. Not if the live with a man who controls everything.

[MineralMan]

4. You'd think so, but many women married to such people

are afraid to do that. They're afraid to do almost everything. Many controlling men demand first access to the mail. They insist that all mail be inspected by them before anyone else sees it. And many women comply with such things. Their relationships are based on fear, not affection. Controlling men are a constant danger to their significant others. Survival requires meeting their demands.

[lagomorph777]

5. I know...actually all too well. My comment was a fantasy.

A fantasy similar to many I have on a daily basis.

[MineralMan]

7. Yes. I sort of guessed that, but answered as if

you were being serious. There are plenty of literalists around, even on DU.

[SWBTATTReg]

3. Unfortunately probably too many. NT

[MineralMan]

6. That's what I'm thinking, too.

I've known a few women in relationships with control-freak men. Most of them eventually managed to get free, but not all. MAGA types, I believe, are often woman-hating control freaks. I worry about that, in terms of elections.

[Hoyt]

8. It's time for those women to stand up to their Taliban spouse.

[MineralMan]

11. That is so much easier said than done.

If that were possible, they would have already left the relationship. Far more women than any of us realize are in situations like that. We don't even know who they are, in many cases.

[Hoyt]

20. Agree, but there are lot of women who've had enough. See them here, on other sites, and in person.

[Cousin Dupree]

9. How many women will allow them?

[MineralMan]

13. As many as are afraid to do anything against their husbands' wishes.

Far more than most of us think. Far too many women live in fear-based relationships.

[LAS14]

10. Yikes! That's something I hadn't thought about. It gives flesh...

..to my vague concerns about electronic and mail in voting. In fact, I find it a pretty scary idea!!!

[jalan48]

12. I live in Oregon where everyone has voted by mail for the last twenty years. I haven't

heard of this problem occuring here during that time.

[MineralMan]

15. Well, you wouldn't hear of it, would you. Nobody knows, actually.

There are no checks and balances for this. A signature is needed, of course, but not on the ballot itself. Women who are dominated by their controlling spouses will sign what they are told to sign.

There's no reason for you to hear about it.

[jalan48]

18. Anything's possible. To have thousands (millions?) of women forced to vote a certain way by

their husbands and NEVER have this surface in the public news is a stretch of the imagination IMHO.

[mythology]

28. So the absence of evidence is still evidence?

This is navel gazing at best.

[frazzled]

14. Not without their knowledge and consent

Signatures on mail-returned ballots are carefully checked against registration signatures, and will be discarded if they do not match. So unless there are dishonest clerks who will pass through the ballots of known Republican voters despite a no-match on the signature, this can't happen without a wife's complicity.

As for non-mail early voting, that takes place at a polling place just like regular election-day voting. So there's no chance for that kind of fraud in in-person early voting.

Frankly, although my mate and I discuss major races and almost always agree 100% on how we will vote (with extremely rare exceptions for a primary in which there are several good candidates and we split our vote), my husband usually lets me do the research on down-ballot candidates such as "Water Reclamation District" (choose three); County Clerk; the fifty or so circuit and appeals court judges that always appear on the ballot, etc. After researching, I mark down choices on a sample ballot I've printed out--with notes for uncertainties or other possible choices--and he reviews it and uses it as a cheat-sheet when he goes to the poll. Is that dishonest influence? I think not.

[MineralMan]

16. Consent that is coerced is not really consent, though.

You are in a well-balanced relationship, as am I. But, that's not always the case.

[GemDigger]

17. I work at the Clerks office around ballot time and I can vouch that not only do some men mark

the ballot of their spouse but also signs her name, which is where it gets caught. It doesn't happen often but it happens at least twice every election.

[Kaleva]

25. Do these people who do that get any jail time? Election fraud being a serious crime and all.

[GemDigger]

30. I am not sure. I go in next week to get the mail in ballots ready. I will bookmark this and ask.

[Kaleva]

33. Ok

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. Probably no more than the men who successfully convince

their wives to vote the way they (the man) wants them to. Or convince them not to vote at all.

That's not as great a problem as the people, men and women alike, who vote against their own self-interest. Like the farmers.

Also, a lot of early voting is in person, not mailed in, so the person voting is marking the ballot privately.

[snowybirdie]

21. Ha,ha,ha

I just filled out mine AND hubby's. He said, "I would know who he wanted". All he did was sign. After 57 years I should! It can go both ways folks

[MineralMan]

22. Well, that happens too.

[marlakay]

24. I have filled ours out for years

Because i am the political one, but he signs and knows I am voting for democrats.

[Blue_true]

23. Early voting is like regular voting, but a person simply vote before Election Day.

Even in regular and early voting, a husband can stand over his wife as she vote. Early voting actually allows a woman a chance to defeat her husband telling her how to vote. In early voting, she can vote at ANY early voting location, so she could vote at lunch or take the last 30 minutes of her day off and vote at an early location that her husband won't be at. The fact is, White women are voting for monsters, their husbands don't have to force them to vote that way.

[Kaleva]

26. Any evidence that this actually happens? At least enough to possibly make a differance?

One poster in this thread says she or he catches a couple each election but apparently nobody bothers to prosecute them. Apparently it's kind of a joke.

[MineralMan]

27. No. If there were evidence, people would face prosecution.

That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, though.

[Kaleva]

32. Can't prove a negative.

[GemDigger]

31. That is not exactly what I said.

[sarisataka]

29. So...

We should NOT have absentee ballot because it is easier to coerce or commit fraud?