Georgia purges 1 in 10 voters from voter rolls

Politics & Elections
#1

(Courtesy of Eonwe’s ongoing thread in the pit, I figured starting this thread in elections might be sensible.)

Now, it’s worth noting that the supreme court, in a 5-4 partisan split, has deemed this sort of purge legal. So let me make it clear that nobody has said that what Brian Kemp did is illegal. It is, however, deeply undemocratic; the kind of thing where there should be a law. In fact, there is a law! It’s just one with the kind of loophole you can drive a truck through - the kind of loophole a court paying attention to the intention of the lawmakers would have closed - hence the 5-4 split.

However, the scope of this is really somewhat stunning - 1 in 10 voters in Georgia were purged from the rolls as a result of this action, and it wasn’t until literally a day before Georgia’s voter registration closed (that was yesterday, for those keeping track) that a reporter could force the governor to disclose who was purged. We’re looking at at least 100,000 legitimate voters purged from the rolls, and purged in a way that is inherently biased in favor of the republican party and against minority voters, by a republican governor who knows he’s in a dead heat with his african-american opponent.

This is an utterly indefensible antidemocratic action, the kind that has been all too common lately among the GOP.

#2

If Republicans can’t (pick one: rig the game/stack the deck/load the dice) then how can they win elections? A Republican? Playing on a level field? Bah!

#3

Let me save Esquire a click.

Legality is all that matters. Nothing legal is wrong. You are immoral to think otherwise. Our side wins! Ha ha ha ha ha!

#4

And let’s not overlook yesterday’s Supreme Court decision, which disenfranchised a nontrivial chunk of North Dakota voters by a means clearly aimed at Native Americans living on reservations:

Per RBG’s dissent, about 70K ND residents lack qualifying ID, and about 18K of them don’t have supplemental ID that would meet the requirements of the law that the Supreme Court allowed to take effect.

This is a totally unreasonable requirement, and of course here a particular minority is clearly being targeted. (Yeah, like they’re going to try this in WV or PA or KY, where the people being excluded by virtue of not having standard street addresses would largely be rural whites. Let me know when that happens.)

#5

Technically, in the ND case, the Supreme Court refused to review an Eighth Circuit decision last month that allowed the ID law - which had been stayed by the District Court until then - to take effect for the November elections. SCOTUSblog gives details.

#6

Oh come on, that’s not true. There are plenty of legal things that are against Catholic doctrine that are immoral!

#7

Wait for it, wait for it: “America’s not a democracy; it’s a republic.”

#8

Who needs Russian election hackers when you’ve got Kris Kobach?

#9

Warning. You should know better than to take shots at other posters like that, even covered up.

#10

Is there any real democracy on Earth outside the USA that puts so much effort into preventing citizens from voting?

#11

Redundancy alert.

#12

Can you explain how the return of a postcard is inherently biased in favor of the republican party and against minority voters?

#13

Where do you draw the line? Prevent enough citizens from voting and it’s no longer a democracy.

#14

The article explains it thusly:

“But they have not moved,” notes Swedlund, who says not returning a postcard is an “absurd, dangerous” way to determine if voters have moved — especially if their rights are at stake. And basing cancellations on non-responses to postcards is, Swedlund notes, endemically biased against voters who move often, including the poor, students, and Black and Latino voters — in other words, Democrats.

This is not a huge bias, but it is a bias. Just like, in general, any given hurdle will lay higher on the poor than the rich (a trip to the local DMV is a lot harder without a car or if you work two jobs), black people are more likely to be poor, and both poor people and black people are more likely to vote democratic.

#15

Those who move from one address to another, even within the same voting precinct, tend to be poor or students who tend to vote Democratic. A postcard that is not delivered to the current address causes such people to be disenfranchised.
Like sleeping under bridges, the law applies to everyone, but inordinately affects one group.

#16

Thanks, I seemed to have missed that in the quote in the OP and the article :smack:

But the article also says this: “And the majority of others purged had not moved from their original registration address”

So on one hand, it seems like most were removed not because they moved, but because they didn’t return the card. But on the other hand, he says the process is biased against people that move a lot.

It seems to me that since the majority of those purged “have not moved”, the process seems biased against those who don’t know how to return a post card.

#17

Or who ignored it. One consistent claim about these letters is that they look like junk mail, and that many people simply ignore them as a result. Which, let’s be honest, is exactly what you’d expect if this were, in fact, a purge.

#18

Or more precisely it is biased against both groups as well as those for whom the post card got lost in the mail or whose postman simply didn’t bother to deliver it.

#19

Yes, I would expect that. But how does that disproportionately affect poor and/or minority voters or students?

#20

Who spends any time looking ta junk mail? Old people. Old people are more likely to be Republican and more likely to vote.

I’m sort of kidding in that post, but only half so. I think that if you’re looking at laws that make it more difficult to vote, unless there is a really good reason for the law, it’s reasonable to assume that the law was intended to help one political side at the expense of the other. You don’t have to find some rock-solid evidence otherwise.