Drop Your Ballot Off, Don’t Mail It In The time has now come for a piece of cautionary advice for how to vote in the upcoming midterm elections: Don’t mail your ballot in — drop it off instead. I say this not because I for one minute buy into any of Donald Trump’s delusional lies about mail-in ballot fraud, but because of where we are on the calendar. There simply isn’t enough time left to guarantee that mailing in your ballot will automatically equate to it arriving on time and being properly counted (instead of disqualified). So you should use a different method instead. I can’t give specific advice, because every state has their own election procedures. In most states there are multiple options for casting a ballot: mail-in voting, in-person early voting, drop-box voting, elections offices, and (of course) going “old school” and just showing up at the polls on Election Day. Other than that last one, all the rest allow for voters to vote early in various ways. If you have a ballot that you received in the mail, you are likely able to either put it in a secure drop box, walk in to an in-person early voting site and just hand it in, or drop it off at your county’s elections office. If you don’t already have a ballot, then in-person early voting is likely your only choice to vote earlier than Election Day. But it’s now just too late to drop your ballot in the mail with any degree of confidence. This was detailed in a recent ProPublica report that showed a much higher degree of ballots arriving late (in the mail) to elections offices in this year’s primaries. The article starts with a warning signal to voters: In early August, election workers north of Spokane, Washington, went across the street to the post office to check for late mail-in ballots. It was three days after the primary and they were expecting no more than a few dozen. Instead, their mailbox was brimming with envelopes — more than 500 of them, each a vote that wouldn’t count. The sight was “jarring,” said Auditor Lori Larsen, a Republican who oversees voting in Stevens County. Across the region, other election officials were getting similar jolts. In the 11 predominately rural counties in eastern Washington, nearly 2,000 ballots came in late, compared to about 600 in 2022, the previous midterm primary. The article then provides one big reason for all the delayed ballots, which is that the U.S. Postal Service completely changed how it handles mail, especially from non-urban areas. Instead of getting postmarked at the post office that first handles the ballot, it is sent by truck (with only one trip each day, in most rural areas) to a processing center (usually near or in a big city). This can cause a delay of one or more days before the ballot is even postmarked. And the postmark can be crucial on a ballot. The whole article should serve as a wake-up call for any voter who doesn’t already live in a big city. And that means a whole lot of very red areas, as the article points out: Across the five states, the delays have had the most substantial effect in areas that voted for Trump in 2024, ProPublica‘s analysis shows. In Washington, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, a Democrat, said he sees the service changes directed by Republican appointees leading the Postal Service as a way to undermine mail-in voting. “I don’t think they realized how much it was going to affect their voter base,” he said, adding that Washington has “a lot of rural Republican voters.” In other words, they shot themselves in the foot, in a big way. Democrats are already getting a lot warier about voting by mail. Understandably, their fears also don’t match all the conspiracy theories Trump spouts but rather are based on distrust of the postal system after it was so radically changed by a Trump-appointed leader. HuffPost has an article today which examines this new trend in depth. It shows that Democrats have already changed their voting habits for this year’s election: Among Democrats, mail voting is down and early in-person voting is up, a notable shift from other post-COVID elections. . . . “It is clear that Democrats are voting more in person and less by mail,” said Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic political strategist who tracks the early vote. “We’re seeing new voting habits emerge.” In state after state, elections officials are reporting that early mail-in voting rates are down (especially among Democrats) while in-person early voting rates have risen. This is seen as an encouraging sign, but every vote that is cast early means a vote that won’t happen on Election Day. It is impossible to predict what the outcome of any election will be just from a shift in voting patterns, in other words. What all of this is going to mean next Tuesday is that watching the votes get counted may be a little different this year. If rural votes are disqualified at a high rate (because of late postmarks or delivery of mail-in ballots), that may depress the overall Republican vote. And with Democrats using other early voting methods rather than the post office, when their votes are counted will shift as well, as the article points out: A huge factor in Trump’s election fraud lies has been the Blue Shift that occurs when mail ballots are counted after the polls close. Since mail ballots tilt heavily to Democrats, votes for Republicans are often counted early, creating a perception that they are leading. When Democratic mail ballots are counted, the vote shifts in Democrats’ favor. Trump has claimed, falsely, that this is evidence of fraud. But a trend toward early in-person voting is likely to create a smaller Blue Shift, although still noticeable, on election night. That could act as a wet blanket for Trump’s inevitable lies. One can only hope. In any case, no matter what happens on Election Day, anyone who wants to cast their ballot early should still be encouraged to do so. Early voting avoids last-minute emergencies and safely “banks” your vote. But at this point, it is too late to trust the post office with your ballot. So if you’ve filled your ballot out and want to vote early, please consider using another method to do so. Drop it in a drop box, if one is available where you live. Or make the effort to take it to an early-voting site or the county courthouse. Or go vote at one of those early-voting sites in person. That way you will be absolutely sure that your vote will be counted, instead of sitting around in some huge postal warehouse gathering dust until it turns into a pumpkin and is disqualified. — Chris Weigant Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant https://www.chrisweigant.com/cw/2026/10/29/drop-your-ballot-off-dont-mail-it-in/ #ballot #mail #election #instead #donaldtrump #washington #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Media Missing A Big Point In Alaska Senate Race There have been some rather noteworthy recent developments in the Senate race up in Alaska. The Department of Justice filed a rather extraordinary lawsuit seeking to prevent the state from certifying the results of the election — eleven days before the election is going to be held. And just today, the New York Times released an exposé that could land like a bombshell in the middle of the race. But in all the reporting about both of these developments, the mainstream media is either completely ignoring or barely bothering to mention a rather key aspect of the way Alaskans vote. By doing so, they hype their stories to make them sound more dire and momentous than they really are, which would seem to be a cardinal sin in journalism (at least, to me). It all boils down to stupid and/or ignorant voters. Voters that would have to be stupid/ignorant in two separate ways, in fact. But we’ll get to all of that in a moment. First, let’s just review the basics of the race, for those who haven’t been paying attention. Incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican, is being challenged for his seat by a Democrat, Mary Peltola, who has already previously won a state-wide race (for Alaska’s lone House seat). So she’s got a good chance of winning, especially in a year that favors Democrats. There will be four candidates on the ballot next week: the winners of Alaska’s top-four jungle primary. The other two candidates who will appear on the ballot are Gerald L. Heikes, who will be listed as a “Registered Republican,” and one candidate who will be listed without any party affiliation. It’s that last candidate who is causing all the fuss — and understandably so. Because Alaskans will see on their ballot the following two names (presented here exactly as they appear on the ballot): “Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr.“, and: “Sullivan, Dan S. (Registered Republican) Incumbent”. Obviously, this could cause some voter confusion. Except for the fact — the big sin of omission in almost every media report about this election fracas — that it really should not matter at all. It just shouldn’t — because Alaska uses ranked-choice voting for its general elections. But again, I am getting ahead of myself. Before we get to why this shouldn’t matter at all, let’s take a look at the reasons this is all back in the news again. The Justice Department filed their extraordinary case in order to pre-empt a victory by Peltola. She’s very slightly ahead in the polls, but only by a thin margin (and polls in Alaska are notoriously hard to conduct and also notoriously inaccurate). The lawsuit seeks to bar Alaskan elections officials from certifying the election results only if Peltola wins. That’s a rather large thumb on the scale, obviously. The contention is that voters will somehow be “confused” by the two Dan Sullivans on the ballot, and thus votes which were meant for the incumbent senator might go to some obscure “spoiler” instead. But in order for this to happen, voters would have to be either stupid or ignorant in two separate ways. They would have to be bamboozled by Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.’s name, selecting him rather than the guy who is clearly marked as “Incumbent.” And — the big one that everyone seems to be missing — the voters would have to be too stupid or ignorant to fully fill out their ballot. A side note: stupidity can’t be fixed (it is an inherent lack of intelligence or reasoning power), but ignorance can (by education). Which is why two things about this stick out to me. The first is that after an admittedly rather cursory browse through Senator Dan S. Sullivan’s campaign website, there doesn’t seem to be any concerted effort there to highlight any: “Here’s how to fill out your ballot to make sure your vote counts!” voter-education message (which is odd, because it truly could make this problem almost entirely disappear). And the second is the one I’ve already mentioned — there is little-to-no effort being made by the media to likewise educate the public about why this should really be a non-problem. Today brought the bombshell Times report. Republicans have been desperately searching for some sort of proof that this was all a dirty trick by the Democrats, but so far they have been unable to come up with any sort of proof of this. So the Times went ahead and dug it out for them. The story alleges a cooperative effort between people working for the Peltola campaign and the national Democratic Party’s “Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee” (which exists to get Democrats elected to the Senate), using a political operative from Ohio to recruit spoiler candidates for the primaries. Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. was one of these. They also convinced a Democrat who had won one of the four general election ballot spots to drop out, to clear the field by only presenting a single Democrat on the November ballot. None of this is illegal, but it does fall into the category of political gamesmanship or dirty tricks (although we’re not convinced it would qualify as Nixonian-level “ratfucking”). Exposing it all a week before the election could indeed qualify as an “October surprise,” however. But even though the article is a long one — a very deep dive indeed — the words “ranked-choice” or “instant runoff” appear nowhere in it. The casual reader is left with the impression that a vote for Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. automatically means a vote that won’t go for Senator Dan S. Sullivan. And this is just not true at all. It isn’t! The only time the Times even gets close to bothering to mention the method Alaska uses to vote, it doesn’t even qualify as pointing the fact out “in passing” or “tangentially.” Instead, they completely obfuscate it. Twice, the phrase: “the state’s unusual four-person ballot” is used, but with absolutely no explanation whatsoever about what makes it unusual. That, as I said, is journalistic malpractice. You know what would solve this problem almost completely? One ad placed in rotation on Alaska’s airwaves. Here’s what it should say: I’m Senator Dan Sullivan, and I am running for re-election. One of my opponents on the November ballot is also called Daniel Sullivan, which was done in an effort to confuse you and maybe make you throw your vote away. But thankfully there’s an easy way to avoid this — just vote for both Sullivans! Put us both down as your number one and number two choices, and that way your vote will be guaranteed to count. So remember, just to be sure your vote won’t be wasted, make sure you vote for both Sullivans as your number one and number two choices. Let’s beat them at their own game, Alaska! I am Dan S. Sullivan, I am the incumbent senator on the ballot, and I approved this message. That’s really not that tough to figure out. Because the only way the whole “spoiler effect” scheme would even work is if the voters intending on voting for the incumbent were stupid/ignorant in two separate ways. They would have to get confused by the two Sullivans on the ballot and vote for the wrong one — and they would have to refuse to fully fill out their ranked-choice ballot. If you only mark one candidate down (as your first and only choice) and that candidate doesn’t make it through the first round of vote-counting, then your vote becomes meaningless because it is not counted at all in the second and/or third round of vote-counting. So Sullivan should really be putting up some money to educate people of these facts. Because if he does, then he will solve the problem of any ignorant voters — by teaching them the right way to assure that he gets their vote. The news media is doing a big disservice as well, by not pointing this out. They are either ignorant of the system themselves (a possibility, with some political journalists), or they are trying to hype the storyline of the “spoiler effect” when it really should not exist, due to the ranked-choice nature of the ballot. Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. is just not going to win the election next week. So if voters mark down both Sullivans as their top two choices, then it won’t even matter which one they mark as their first choice. Their votes will go to the incumbent senator, in either the first or the second round of voting. If Peltola wins in the first round, then it would mean that it wouldn’t have mattered if they had voted for the right or wrong Sullivan because she would have beaten him either way (with a simple “one vote over 50 percent” majority). That’s the nature of the ranked-choice system. But if it goes to a second round, then all the Sullivan votes will be counted together, if all the pro-incumbent voters do mark both of them down as first and second choice. Ta da! Problem solved! If the polling is right and this is a very close race, then the spoiler effect of having two similarly-named candidates on the ballot could come into play, in terms of who wins. But ranked-choice voting was designed to avoid situations like this, so if the voters mark their ballots intelligently, then it won’t be a problem at all. And the media should be pointing this out in every story they run about the election, even if it does tend to undercut their alarmist storyline. — Chris Weigant Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant https://www.chrisweigant.com/cw/2026/10/28/media-missing-a-big-point-in-alaska-senate-race/ #senaterace #big #registeredrepublican #sullivan #media #dan #peltola #yorktimes #incumbent #voters #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Trump Is Denied Control Of Greenland Donald Trump just signed a new “deal” (or maybe: a “new” deal) with Denmark and Greenland. The scare quotes are there to signify the fact that this really isn’t a new deal at all — it mostly just reaffirms the existing agreement that has been in place since the dawn of the Cold War, back in 1951. But the leaders of Greenland and Denmark were smart enough to know that repackaging what was already in place would soothe Trump’s bruised ego and gave him a performative signing ceremony he could brag about. This shows the rest of the world that coddling Trump the way you would a small infant is often the best path forward for other world leaders. https://www.chrisweigant.com/cw/2026/10/27/trump-is-denied-control-of-greenland/ #greenland #trump #coldwar #denmark #donaldtrump #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Donald (Lame) Duck? That headline, while meant to be amusing, is contemplating a rather broad definition of the historical political metaphor. The term “lame duck” actually predates its use in politics (according to Wikipedia), and was first used in a political sense in America in 1863. Political cartoons depicting lame ducks date back over a century. Used in the traditional sense, the term refers to the period between when politicians lose their bid for re-election and when the new Congress and/or president is sworn into office. The congressional session after the November elections but before the new Congress is sworn in has long been known as the “lame-duck Congress.” But the term can also be used to describe a politician who is barred from even running for re-election by term limits. In this case, the timing of when the lame-duck period begins is a lot looser. Some second-term presidents are labelled lame ducks at the very start of their second term, for instance, others get the label applied after the midterm congressional elections take place, and some skate all the way to the final few months of their administration (the traditional congressional lame-duck period) before having the term used about them. https://www.chrisweigant.com/cw/2026/10/27/donald-lame-duck/ #lame #duck #congress #used #political #wikipedia #america #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Put Up Or Shut Up When the American economy sours, voters react. Usually, this means punishing whichever party is in power in Washington in a generalized “throw the bums out” sort of way. The voters see that the people running the country have screwed things up, so they decide to give the other team a chance at making things better. However, in most such cases there is no easily-identifiable cause of the economy going south. The voters just feel a sort of free-floating malaise and they turn on the party in power to show their general disapproval. It is actually rare that there is an easily-identifiable event or policy choice that people can point to and say: “This is why the economy sucks right now.” We are in one of those times now. There is a clear cause and effect, and it is so obvious and simple that virtually all voters have already made the basic connection. Donald Trump’s war of choice with Iran sent gasoline prices through the roof. It’s a pretty basic equation: “Trump’s war led to sky-high gas prices.” You can draw further inferences as well, although not everybody follows it through all the way: “Trump’s war led to sky-high gas prices and all-time record high diesel prices which led to food prices going up and prices for everything shipped by train or truck going up which led to inflation going up and everything costing more and more.” https://www.chrisweigant.com/cw/2026/10/27/put-up-or-shut-up/ #trump #washington #donaldtrump #iran #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Friday Talking Points — Dear Leader TV Flops Donald Trump just hosted the leader of China on a state visit, and in the end it turned out to be a total flop. No big announcements happened, no big deals were cut, in fact nothing much of anything took place, other than Trump trying desperately to impress Xi Jinping with his new heliport and all the other laughable modifications he’s done to the White House. Xi wasn’t notably impressed (of course), but he did promise two more giant pandas would be heading to America soon, so that’s something, at the very least. The truly epic part of this failure at summitry was that none of it was caught on the television cameras. Which must have thoroughly cheesed off Trump, for whom an event that doesn’t appear on television simply does not exist. https://www.chrisweigant.com/cw/2026/10/27/friday-talking-points-dear-leader-tv-flops/ #leader #trump #whitehouse #donaldtrump #china #tv #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

The Offramp Not Taken Last week, Iran offered Donald Trump an offramp. Days later, Trump announced he was refusing to take it. The offer reportedly came after a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, where the two sides talked for the first time in months. Iran essentially offered up virtually the same deal that was agreed to in the Memorandum Of Understanding earlier this year, except with a one-week timeline. Trump turned it down. Trump called the deal unacceptable and said he hoped that talks between the two sides would continue. This is more than a little strange, seeing as how he had indeed accepted basically the same deal earlier this summer. Perhaps he has figured out by now that the M.O.U. deal was indeed heavily tilted towards Iran’s demands, while addressing virtually none of America’s priorities. It was a bad deal to begin with, in other words, which Trump may have belatedly figured out. https://www.chrisweigant.com/cw/2026/10/27/the-offramp-not-taken/ #trump #donaldtrump #iran #generalassembly #america #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Five Weeks Out, A Quick Look At The Senate Races Since we’re now only five weeks away from the midterm congressional elections, it’s time once again to take a quick look at all the competitive Senate races. The map has been expanding, as more and more states that used to be considered solidly in the Republican column have moved to being close races. This is obviously good news for Democrats, since it provides them with multiple ways to win back control of the chamber. Democrats need a net gain of four seats to reclaim the Senate. They are playing defense in four states — states that have been in Democratic hands up until now. They are playing offense in ten states now (although a few of them admittedly have to be considered the longest of longshots). https://www.chrisweigant.com/cw/2026/10/27/five-weeks-out-a-quick-look-at-the-senate-races/ #quicklook #senateraces #fiveweeks #democrats #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Thanks, But No Thanks Donald Trump is being forced to face a rather brutal political reality. His popularity and approval ratings are reaching new lows, even among his fellow Republicans. This is evidenced by his first big foray into the midterm campaign season. What is pretty obvious from the announced stops on his campaign tour is that few Republicans in close races want their own president to campaign for them. This is actually a common thing to happen to a president whose approval ratings have headed south. Instead of boosting the chances of a candidate from your own party, all of a sudden a presidential appearance at a rally tends to do the opposite. Which seems to be what Trump is now having to cope with. https://www.chrisweigant.com/cw/2026/10/27/thanks-but-no-thanks/ #trump #republicans #donaldtrump #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Democrats Deny Republicans Performative Senate Bills So the Senate has left Washington, to head out on the campaign trail for the rest of this month. Before they scarpered off, Republicans tried to pass a few bills that were no more than performative — they seemed like they were doing something to address a problem, but when you actually examined the details, they really weren’t. Democrats denied the Republicans some wins that they doubtlessly would have made a big deal of back home to the voters (but that wouldn’t have lived up to the hype). https://www.chrisweigant.com/cw/2026/10/27/democrats-deny-republicans-performative-senate-bills/ #bills #washington #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit