Re: 2020 Election
 

Keep in mind Airbnb does very little to verify if a unit is legal and licensed. Vancouver ran into this issue when they started to require licenses, so boiled down to if the person left the license field blank airbnb would deactivate however if they put in any number into the license field airbnb would accept, and some were clearly fake like 12345 or the person listing would get 1 license for one of their units, then use that license number for the rest of their units and even sometimes share it with others so there would be dozens of listings with the same license number.

So a unit can look legal and licensed but reality be not legal as airbnb does very little to verify a license number is legal.

Re: 2020 Election
 

I live in a residential neighborhood in a beach town. Unfortunately, in recent years investors have started to shy away from long-term rentals and see AirBnB'ing as a more profitable proposition. Regular houses zoned as residential properties quickly turn in to fraternity-rage-pads, with different people turning up night after night to party by the beach. Would you want to be neighbors with an endless churn of strangers who are there to party and couldn't care less about your neighborhood?

That's why we have zoning regulations; keep the nightlife in one area, hotel accommodations in another, and residential elsewhere. Airbnb gets to skirt around this by describing themselves as a technology company, and investors who couldn't care less use it to make a quick buck. People who invested in a home and have to live next to this situation get the big screw.

I don't personally object to a situation where a homeowner wants to make a few bucks by renting out a room or whatever, as long as they are guaranteeing/overseeing the situation to the benefit of the neighbors.

Re: 2020 Election
 

This also encumbers the local authority with a massive amount of enforcement that needs to take place - not just issuing and maintaining licenses, but enforcing violations - unfortunately, the local taxpayers end up picking up the tab for it as well.

Re: 2020 Election
 

My mom's husband went to drop off his ballot today, a little over 2 hours in line to drop off. People are either voting early or really getting out to vote this year.

Re: 2020 Election
 

Is that California?

I'm assuming that a fair bit of this is due to people who would normally vote in person on the day, but have been covid discouraged from doing that.

Re: 2020 Election
 

Yes California. I am sure it's COVID related and well some like my mom's husband is paranoid about the mail so went in person, and I doubt he is alone.

Doesn't matter much on the presidential side, would take a lot for Trump to ever win, but some house districts are close races, but I am not sure if their district is a close race, its been democract for quite a few elections now.

Re: 2020 Election
 

I misread that yesterday. I thought he had a two hour wait to vote but now realise that you are saying he did what I did. ie. Filled in a mail-in ballot from the comfort of his home and then hand delivered it to the elections office. :blink:
You would have thought that the office might have been able to organize another secure box, even if they had to have a member of staff guard it all day, assuming that the office currently just has a single slot in the wall specifically for ballots. A two hour wait to dump a pre-filled envelope in a slot is bloody ridiculous.

Re: 2020 Election
 

I'll reiterate that this kind of perception of the postal service as so terribly incompetent or nefarious is not at all rational.

Re: 2020 Election
 

Guessed it right, parcel arrived this morning.

Had a couple coming Sure Post now I am good terms with the UPS driver so he dropped them direct instead of at the County Post Office.

Re: 2020 Election
 

As I wrote before, letter mail handling is much more automated and dummy-proof than parcels. Basically no human has to look at or process letter mail until it arrives at the final delivery person's station. And it's already automatically sorted using the Zip+4 code that places it in order of delivery in the stack.

And with official election mail having a distinctive appearance, there's even less chance of error on the final delivery end. The carrier isn't going to mistakenly deliver an envelope addressed to "X County Elections Office" to Aunt Mildred's house.

Re: 2020 Election
 

I have had 2 pieces of election looking mail so far in my box

I know 2 people who are voting somewhere they do not live, one up here and one in Denver, so I suppose they cancel each other out.

Re: 2020 Election
 

This is puzzling to me also. Many of these urban county governments in the Atlanta area are dominated by Democrats. Are they not in control of their own elections offices' budgets? Can they not add polling locations or make improvements without state authorization?

"Why Do Nonwhite Georgia Voters Have To Wait in Line for Hours? Too Few Polling Places"
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/92452...few-polling-pl

Re: 2020 Election
 

I am actually very happy with the USPS and have few qualms with them - besides the three pieces of tampered, Christmas card, mail that dropped in my mail box one day near Christmas, which only happened the once. I did have a quiet 'word' with the regular postie the next day mind...
If I didn't happen to pass the elections office on a regular basis on my way to and from job sites (as well as some early voting stations, which haven't opened yet) or I thought that I'd have to wait two hours to drop off my ballot then you can rest assured that I would be happy using the USPS. I used to work for a courier when I was younger and understand that sometimes mail can get damaged or sent on a bit of a round trip when it is coming from out of county but local mail has never been an issue and with the local office's set up I can tell long before election day whether they've received my ballot and if I need to do something about it.

The tampering was obvious in that one isolated case, the postie reckoned it might have been the electronic sorting machine peeling up the corners and I'm sure those machines work overtime at Christmas but each had a single peeled up corner and the kind of paper damage you'd expect from someone swirling a finger in the opening to get a better view, non of the junk mail in envelopes was affected and it's not happened before or since, it doesn't just doesn't pass muster that it was machine damage and if I were to dig out the photo you might well agree, fortunately these things happen very rarely, if ever, to most people.

Re: 2020 Election
 

This is exactly my point - you end up getting a quiet residential area turned into party central, with drunk kids blasting music and then driving home drunk at 4am. This has apparently become worse since Covid-19, where bars / clubs have closed. Get 30 kids together, ask for $10 each, and rent a nice home somewhere for $300/night.

Regarding licensing - I think different countries treat this differently. As an example, Uber in UK towns are treated almost like taxis by the local authorities, while in the US, Uber is much less regulated.

Re: 2020 Election
 

Sounds like the 'long-term' rental 3 houses down :lol:

As Steerpike said the licensing regs must differ, plus the ones I rent have a list of rules from the owner (I actually look for those).
No partying.
No stags/hens.
No Leavers.
No under 25s.
Couples/families only.
Only registered guests.
No loud music after 10pm.
Etc.
Violators will be turfed immediately (or something along those lines).

I've always viewed it as renting where the locals live offers the best oversight, because if your guests piss off the neighbours the owners will hear about it, and if they don't act promptly they may lose their license. As a traveller I love the Airbnb option but yes, they should be licensed and well run.