![[1221] Under A Killer Balloon: Into Darkness, Page 2](/comics/2020-10-26-1221-under-a-killer-balloon-into-darkness-page-2.png "[1221] Under A Killer Balloon: Into Darkness, Page 2")
It’s a tragedy that election fraud, or at least allegations of it, is becoming more common in “civilized” countries again.
That’s why I served as election observer for the last federal election at my local poll site.
- Caption: Private eye Sandy South and her trusty companion Qoo are on the lookout for criminal activity.
- Larisa: Keep ’em coming!
- Caption: Ballots
- Sandy South: Larisa, are you burning completed ballots there?
- Larisa: Yeah. But those are for the other candidate. You know, the one we don’t like!
- Sandy South: Ah! No problem then.
- Caption: The search continues!
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*slow clap*
Well, that’d be nice.
Another miss on the political jokes. Novil should really steer clear, it rarely ends up working.
This is hillarious ^^
I don’t really approve of ANY joking about subverting voting rights…
But the effort here to remain unspecific about WHICH side, while still acknowledging there are sides, got a chuckle out of me.
Thisguy wrote:
Ideally, one should be able to joke about anything, and take a joke too.
There’s no such thing as inappropriate subject, there are just subjects that you personally don’t approve. That’s because if everybody’s opinion on what’s not funny were taken into account, there would be no humour at all. People get riled up about all sorts of things (often when they hit too close to home too, or threaten to expose some routine hypocrisy the person concerned is part of).
Personally, I find this extra funny because I tried imagining it happening in my country… and it totally could, but it wouldn’t affect election results anyway.
I mean, this would NEVER happen in America in the real world, right?
Tadrix wrote:
Eh, I find that most people saying that are just looking for excuses not to have to exercise basic tact or take responsibility for their mouths.
That said:
@ diamond_out:
Lighten up, mate. It’s a joke about the rampant voter suppression in the US and the willingness of people on both sides to cry foul when the other side does it and turn a blind eye when it’s their own side doing the same, not a call for or endorsement of it. Both parties here do it.
@ …:
Except that all documented cases of voter supression have been against black and minorities and NOT against republicans.
It’s funnier because just below the comic is a “vote for us @ topwebcomics” plug!
Half-Life-Zim wrote:
Definitely not all. There was, in fact, such an article this year. I would understand if you haven’t heard about it, however.
It’s a tragedy that election fraud, or at least allegations of it, is becoming more common in “civilized” countries again.
That’s why I served as election observer for the last federal election at my local poll site.
@ Half-Life-Zim:
It’s cute that you immediately jumped to race, but:
1: not all minorities, even within the same subgroup, vote Democrat, so yes, there have been Republican victims,
2: there have been attempts by Democrats to suppress Republican voters, the Democrats just tend to be more subtle about it, and
3: I was actually thinking of a certain “accident” in the 2016 primaries where a bunch of votes for Bernie got mysteriously lost or counted as votes for Hillary, and party registration for a lot of voters got switched to Democrat. I found it odd that someone who had been registered as independent since 2009 suddenly got a ballot in the Democratic closed primary and had that quickly rectified, but imagine being a Republican voter and suddenly not being able to vote in the Republican primary?
I really tired of Politics… especially USA politics…I don’t live in the USA and i hear about it 10X time more than my own country politics (Mexico) and I dislike hearing about my countries politics already.
People havent Shut up about USA politics since the last election began…i dunno if it has ever been this bad. before…but if i could pass 1 day online without hearing one joke about the usa right or usa left…and now about Trump or biden…and i know whoever wins itll be a shit storm…
im so fucking tired…
damn hollywood damn youtube…damn twitter…damn everywhere…plz man keep of political humor
@ Dracke:
It’s constant because it’s on everyone’s mind and it’s more acceptable to joke about than the other major worry. Humor is a coping mechanism. We need that these days more than ever, so let people have their jokes.
Lol great joke Novil, all these other people aside its important to have relevant social commentary mixed in humor sometimes
Heh, so Many politicals this can apply to. Have to wonder how many Putin employed before he locked himself in.
Clearly all of the Vermin Supreme write ins. Explains how he keeps losing.
@ Dracke: If you’re tired of hearing about it in Mexico just imagen how tired of it we are her in the US.
… wrote:
And we need hope too, since without it some people feel it’s useless to try to make positive change. I don’t know, not as bad as last year, but it seems like Novil is suggesting the last few years that the world is beyond saving.
I don’t think the joke lands, and tbh I read Sandra and Woo for the comedy, not for political satire. I mean, you don’t need satire for the dumpster fire that is the US. I was so shocked at the Covid response from the POTUS I had a closer look at the US (I’m from Germany) and I was completely surprised how positive my school education on the matter has been. I am wondering how the US even made it to 2020.
That said, Novil is free to do what he wants, as am I. Still I wish for less political stuff because I used to like this comic a lot.
@ Novil:
I’ve always been an observer (which, here, means you sit at a table and count ballots with other people you don’t know and everyone is checking it is done dutifully) for the latest 15 years. And before that I was driving elderly people to the voting offices.
Despite thinking that the electoral system of my country is a farce.
However, I was under the impression that some electoral systems were using voting machines. How exactly are you gonna “observe” that they do what they’re supposed to?
kumesana wrote:
… strace?
The voting machines should be programmed in way that it can be proved they work correctly. I don’t think they are. First, it would cost too much. Second, noone WANTS them to be that much reliable.
Also, well, if they would be programmed that way they wouldn’t need antivirus software.
… wrote:
Well, in-person, you shouldn’t be telling jokes about blondes to a blonde unless you know she likes them. But this kind of control is not possible on internet.
This is not funny because it is true. A democrat is under arrest for burning a ballot box in a republican district. There have already been multiple reports of mail fraud. The public doesn’t know any of this since the democrats control the news. Everyone needs to vote in person. Unless this election is won on Election Day it is likely heading to court.
@ Disgruntled republican:
Interesting – I’d heard of burnings of ballot boxes in many districts (including one yesterday morning, in Boston), but hadn’t heard of any arrests being made; all details I can find still list them as ‘under investigation’.
@ HKMaly:
It’s impossible to design a voting machine that people can verify.
It’s not that we don’t have the technical resources. The problem is solvable from a technical standpoint. Verifiable voting machines are hard because, even if we designed the perfect machine, 99% of the people wouldn’t know what to do to verify it.
(Want a simple verifiable mechanism? Issue a large number of ‘tokens’, basically any small device with a unique private key, and give each voter a token when they go to the polling site. Sign their vote with the token’s key. At the end of the election, publish all signed votes. People can verify their vote (by finding their signed vote and validating the signature), can verify the results (by simply counting the votes themselves, which is easy for computers), and can’t tell who else voted for what, since the signing keys are all unique and random. This isn’t even expensive. But how many people would know how to do these checks?)
Actual, confirmed cases of electoral fraud in most countries / legislatures are usually extremely rare. Even without Voter ID, there are usually several checks and balances to minimise the possibility.
In the US, convictions for in-person vote fraud (someone turning up at a polling booth and either voting when they’ve already voted or voting using someone else’s name) typically run at a handful per election at the most – which, when you bear in mind the US has a population of 320 million, so probably around 100 million are registered to vote, is negligible. Added onto which, to swing any particular vote, you’d need thousands (at least) of people engaging in such fraud – and to do so on that scale, you’d need some hefty organisation, which would be difficult to do without leaving a traceable paper trail.
Slightly less rare is fraudulent mail-in voting, where someone mails in multiple votes – but again, there have been very few confirmed cases, and they can be relatively easy to spot, since the perpetrators are likely to mail in all the ballots simultaneously, those opening them and examining them will probably smell a rat when examining several which appear to have the same handwriting. Nevertheless, many States have rules which further reduce those chances, e.g. requiring be ballot to be encased in an inner, sealed envelope, accompanied by a signature. What’s more likely this time is a whole bunch of ballots to be rejected from people who’ve never voted by mail before and didn’t follow all the instructions (so error, rather than fraud).
However, there is one method that’s potentially more open to abuse than others: those States which allow third parties (other than the USPS) to collect ballots at unofficial drop-off boxes then forward the ballots from those boxes onwards. Ideally, such boxes should have a tamper-proof seal attached supplied by the relevant branch of local government and only opened again at the official counting centre.
Meanwhile, in the UK, there’s never been much hysteria over potential voter fraud, even though our system is potentially wide open for abuse: walk into the polling station, state your name and address (no validation required except a check if it’s on the relevant portion of the electoral register covered by that polling station), and collect your voting paper(s). Having always voted in person, I don’t know how postal voting works.
@ Ratfox:
Kanye West deserves better
while i admit there are a lot of stupid decisions out there and a lot of blindly loyal voters voting for someone no matter how much i think they are wasting their ballot and supporting a bad entity it pains me to admit they have the right, and i would defend their right to do it….afterwards on the other hand they stop being someone i care what happens to, that being said those who disgust me are those who don’t vote by choice if you cant vote that’s fine but if you choose not to vote because “oh my vote doesnt matter” or “i don’t feel like it” you don’t get to moan ever again and your right to vote should be removed in a just world. vote biden vote trump vote one of the 3rd parties that in this system are inherently guaranteed to loose just vote but think about your vote as if your vote is the deciding factor as unlikely as it is 1 vote could theoretically matter in a election, & even if it doesn’t everyone that thinks my vote doesnt matter is one less thing voting making the voting prosses less true to the mass even if the electoral college is broken in modern times. you can make a difference.
all that being said yes i would agree i am a mean person i am cruel at times. just vote.
____________________________________________________________________________
the comic is a cute satire of the times we live in even if it rides close to the rails, it is still well drawn and satirical.
@ mittfh:
Which is, obviously, not to suggest that the UK hasn’t ever had any disputed results or ‘missing ballots’… Case in point: https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/election-candidate-who-got-no-votes-demands-recount-because-he-picked-himself/news-story/2d4fdba38f35f9bf0cd398f342556ffd
topical.
@ Novil:
It has indeed, worst thing about is that there are people either trivialize or defend it, for hi as long as it is THAT guys ballots who gets discarded its completely okay.
Because if the alternative is that THAT guy either gets to remain in power as the leader of the country or gets elected as the new leader of the country.
Then needs must when the devil drives, because getting a guy that is literally worse than Hitler (why not worse then Stalin or Mao?) to either remain in power as the countries leader or gets elected as the leader of the country, society is doomed.
So its for the good of society to tamper with people votes so that the “Right” guy gets to either remain in power as the leader of the country or gets chosen as the leader of the country.
Either way you slice or dice it, it´s pathetic and a sad thing for democracy if its allowed to continue.
Good or bad the people have spoken respect their choice, and come up with a better candidate the next time if yours lost.
A bunch of you people don’t realize that this strip is mostly focused on Sandra & Woo context than whatever y’all talking about
For those who are interested, a primer on how voter fraud actually works, from a Democratic insider who has been engaging in it for years. (I’m sure the Republicans have guys who do the same things — it’s hardly rocket science).
https://nypost.com/2020/08/29/political-insider-explains-voter-fraud-with-mail-in-ballots/
The thing is, if voter fraud would be this much of a problem in the US, you’d think that it should have been one of the top priorities for the trump administration to find ways to enable mail in ballots while still tackling that issure. But Trump didn’t do anything for 4 years. that pretty much proves, that this is just an excuse for him to loose.
@ Disgruntled republican:
Was that one of the ballot boxes that was illegally set up marked “official” despite the fact it wasn’t. And thus every ballot put in there is at risk of being discarded if it’s for the wrong party.
Ayutac wrote:
political satire is comedy. it’s a distinct subcategory of it.
Disgruntled republican wrote:
Curious, because over on twitter I’ve been hearing of a lot more ballot boxes being destroyed and tampered with in democratic districts. Hell, just searching ballot box burning indeed gave me articles from today about someone being arrested for burning a ballot box in Boston. That said, had to look it up, but Boston is in Massachusetts which has democrats as its senators and house delegation, so I don’t think it’s a republican district.
Not saying you’re wrong, just saying that your team is also doing it, and quite potentially more than the other team.
jb wrote:
And yet there’s zero evidence that what he says actually happens. The NY Post the bottom of the barrel where stories go that even Fox News won’t do,
Everyone has commented on whether or not this is funny, does it happen in real life, and which side practices it the most.
Entirely overlooked is Larisa is Russian — her family (maybe her, personally) fled a place where outright “rigging”, either in counting ballots or simply assassinating “inconvenient” people is a commonplace. Considering that they emigrated, they were probably unhappy with such a system. She may have “flexible” morality, but I can’t see her abetting such efforts. It’s out of character for her. (Unless this entire “adventure” is in Sandra’s imagination.)
If S&W’s world was “real”, she should should be satisfied knowing the “bad” people are in for an Eternity of pain — and she’ll be in a supervisory position.
@ Vukodlak:
The New York Post is almost 200 years old and is the forth largest newspaper in America in terms of circulation. It’s a real newspaper. So do you think this story is fake? How would that happen? Do you think the paper just made it up out of whole cloth? Or do you think that they uncritically published the words of some rando, without bothering to do due diligence to make sure that he really was, as he said, a Democratic Party insider?
Or does it simply please you to discount stories from publications whose biases conflict with your own? Yes, the NY Post is definitely biased. But so are the New York Times and the Washington Post, and worse than you realize if those are the only sources you are willing to believe. Limiting yourself to news sources that share your biases is pretty much the definition of living in a bubble.
As the other guy best put this:
https://www.nerfnow.com/comic/2837
@ Disgruntled republican:
The problem with that case was, the ballot box was one of the many fake ballot boxes put up by Republicans.
Illegally.
This offends me VERY deeply. The Earth’s atmosphere does NOT need the carbon dioxide Larisa is releasing here. There are ways to screw with an election that are WAY better for the climate than setting bags full of ballots on fire.
Also, how does Larisa know which way those ballots are marked? And how does Sandra know which candidate Larisa actually likes?
Isn’t Larisa… like… a demon now? Or was that story arc not really part of the S&W cannon? Wouldn’t she generally like the opposite candidate from the one Sandra likes? Or is Larisa evil, but not… REALLY… evil?
@ J. Craig:
*CANON… sorry…
THANKS, autoINcorrect… sheesh.
@ von Rohe:
This strip’s joke sailed so far over your head, it hit Icarus’s sphere of influence and entered the star’s orbit. Novil is engaging in political satire, which is centered around real-world politics. Yes, the *characters* are talking about their own world’s politics, but the strip itself is commenting on the state of real-world politics.
What I find funny about this is how easily Sandra accepts Larisa’s word on this. The girl would set anything on fire, after all.
@ Thisguy:
Yes, I like the neutrality.@ Thisguy:
… wrote:
well, certain post office burned down with plenty votes along
@ jb:
Ah yes, the trusted newspaper the new york post. https://www.google.com/search?q=new.+york.+post&biw=1440&bih=695&tbm=isch&sxsrf=ALeKk0016LWt3yT10YJc4JoRB2zGC1Dq9Q:1603848138005&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiV-6f0j9bsAhWQZs0KHeAcDggQ_AUIDSgD#imgrc=7744wDQvqOJKsM
Crestlinger wrote:
You know, I’m not sure you meant to say “Putin”.
Putin is the russian leader BOTH democrapper and repottery parties say the ‘other’ has/had dealings with.
I’m more interested in when the dang Covid virus thing will be over.
I know humankind has never ‘cured’ any virus (as in ‘healed whatever damage the virus did’), but we have basically defeated a few.
Polio, small pox, bubonic plague come to mind.