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@becomethewaifu They prefer Marine One for local trips from the WH not so much because it's faster, but because the motorcades are incredibly disruptive, not to mention requiring extensive planning and coordination. There are about 15 WH vehicles, plus the police and press escorts, and the local police sent ahead to block intersections.
For a helicopter move, it's simpler. Usually an MPD and/or NPS helicopter is sent ahead on the route, then three HMX1 helicopters for the actual convoy.
@becomethewaifu Yeah, it's just not practical to do a secret presidential move in DC. Trump has been to Walter Reed several times, by both motorcade and Marine One, including when he was transported there for COVID treatment during his first term.
@newstik Right. It basically means "If anything happens later we'll recall the press corps."
And most of the "evidence" for this is just silly.
"They called a lid early in the day on a weekend to get rid of the press." They call early lids all the time, and it doesn't mean no one is watching the White House.
"Some of the entrances to Walter Reed are closed off". Which happens routinely on nights and weekends.
Wild rumors, but scant evidence, that Trump is in serious condition at Walter Reed.
The WH itself has extensive medical facilities, and it's certainly possible he's being treated for something there. But it would be virtually impossible to secretly transport a president to Walter Reed (by either airlift or motorcade) without calling a LOT of attention to it, especially with the added constraints of a medical emergency.
Bondi absolutely deserved to be fired, because she was awful. But she, like just about every official dismissed from this administration, was fired for not being awful *enough*. Her replacement will be expected to have learned from her mistake.
@evanwolf They did! (And I believe still do.)
I wish I had had more time to photograph this delightfully weird building, but I only had an hour or so before I had to leave for the airport that day. The hard morning light only illuminated this one angle reasonably acceptably.
Captured with the Rodenstock 40mm/4.0 HR Digaron-W lens (@ f/5.6), Phase One IQ4-150 digital back (@ ISO 50), Cambo 1200 camera (shifted vertically -8mm).
Opened as the London headquarters for the Michelin Tyre Co in 1911, and now a mixed commercial building, the Art Nouveau Michelin House features whimsical tire-themed ornaments and stained glass windows with the original Michelin Man "Bibendum" character in various, generally terrifying, poses.
81 Fulham Road ("Michelin House"), London, UK, 2024.
All the pixels, each inflated to the proper air pressure, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/54196628571
@dapangma ok. But perhaps there are people here who *do* care. That’s who my post is for.
This motion study was captured with a Zeiss 40mm lens on a Pentax 645Z camera and 10 stops of neutral density. The 13 second exposure was timed so the train was passing in front for roughly half the exposure. The regular corrugated surface of the commuter train worked well to allow the station building to retain detail while still clearly showing the train streaking by in front. A freight train (which passed by a few minutes earlier) worked comparatively poorly for this.
West Trenton (Ewing), NJ, 2015
All the pixels, please have your tickets ready for inspection, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/21010463488
So in summary, mail-in ballots are secured by mechanisms and processes that replicate all the steps of the check-in process at in-person precinct polling stations, but with the ADDITIONAL safeguard that the voter needs to provide a unique document that was sent to their address for each election.
The idea that mail-in voting invites fraud is simply not supported by reality.
- Third, exceptions are extremely rare and would be quickly noticed. If an even moderate number of duplicate ballots or ballots with invalid ID numbers were to come it, that would be a HUGE deal (and I'm not aware of any place in the US where it's actually happened). It would rapidly trigger a major investigation, likely involving both state/local and federal authorities.
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- First, you can only send in a ballot accompanied (on the outer envelope) by something that was sent specifically to the voter, with unique identifying information that a third party couldn't obtain (the ballot ID number). And each ballot ID can only be processed once, since it's checked off a list once it's accepted.
- Second, the submitter of the ballot has to sign the voter's signature. So we know not only that the ballot was sent to them, but have a signature to compare it with.
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4) The inner envelopes (of accepted ballots) are opened only later, in batches after they've been separated from the outer envelopes with the identifying information. This preserves ballot secrecy. Then the opened ballots are sent to the tally machines (generally optical scanners) and retained.
This workflow has a number of important properties.
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3. When the ballot envelope reaches the election office, it's processed in two stages:
3a) First, the outer envelope is checked to verify that it contains the unique identifying information for the voter (usually a unique ID number), that that ballot wasn't already processed, and that the signature matches what's on file. If there is any discrepancy, the ballot is held for exception processing.
3b) If the verification was OK, the inner envelope (with the ballot inside) is sent to tallying.
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1. Marked ballots are generally returned in two nested envelopes or wrappers; the inner wrapper has no identifying information, while the outer one is unique to the voter and has both identifying information and, generally, the voter's signature. In most cases the only way to obtain a valid ballot and envelope is to have it mailed to the address on file with the local election office.
2. The voter returns (by mail, dropbox, etc) their ballot in the two envelopes and signs the outer one.
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Mail in ballots have security features and a processing workflow that mirror that of in-person voting. Just about every mechanism that prevents you from showing up to vote in person multiple times or without being registered has an analog - sometimes a stronger one - in mail-in ballot processing.
The precise details vary from state to state and for different voters, but roughly: