In California the districts are so gerrymandered they probably don’t even bother counting the votes.
Back there, all I had to do was punch a card. Here in Ohio they have voting machines. I won’t go near the things because they steal your soul. It is a violation of my civil rights that the Election Commission will not accept the ballot I made by gluing dried food to the skin side of a beaver pelt. A pea means Democrat, and a bean means Republican, except for a “Tea Party” Republican I use a kidney bean instead of a regular bean. Third-party candidates are indicated with various pieces of trail mix. I demand that the ACLU and the Justice Department immediately sue the state board of elections to force them to provide reasonable accommodation of my legume-based method of voting, which has been a tradition among my people for time immemorial.
No . but it is a national campaign, state by state.
Every single one of the new provisions will hurt the poor and infirm. Those are mostly likely Dem voters. There is almost zero fraud in election voting . This is not about cleaning up elections. It is about making it harder for Dems to vote.
Weird. I showed up pretty close to opening time at my polls that day, and the place was PACKED. We had lines out the door, and they had about 3 times the normal number of poll workers and were using the gym instead of the normal side room.
I don’t recall now how long it took, but it was probably about an hour before I got out. A very exciting day for a lot of people there. For reference, I live about 40 miles outside of Philly in a township of about 10,000-15,000 residents.
Pretty much. Spare me constitutional arguments: nobody is suggesting that Florida is acting unconstitutionally, just unfairly and unwisely and in a revoltingly partisan fashion (spare us also any tu quoques that come to mind).
There are a lot of idiots out there who vote, no doubt, and the best model of government would be, this is totally true, for all y’all chuckleheads to declare me emperor for life and then do what I tell you to do (Sample decree: knock it off with the murdering people!). I know a lot better how to run the world than the people who actually do it.
But nobody’s gonna declare me emperor for life, much less do what I tell y’all to do. So democracy is the next best thing. But democracy works best when citizens are encouraged at every turn to participate.
Things that encourage participation are almost always good. Things that discourage participation are almost always bad.
If the voting reforms were reversed–e.g., absentee ballots made much harder to submit, with a lot more restrictions on them–it’d hurt Republicans, because of the strong use of absentee ballots among military personnel stationed overseas. But that would be bad, because it would discourage participation. The current proposal most likely hurts Democrats (and is almost certainly motivated by a desire to hurt Democrats), but that’s not why it’s bad. It’s bad because it discourages participation.
Voter rights include the right to vote. That is what the Repubs are selectively attacking. It helps you win, if you prevent the likely opposition voters from voting. the Repub caging list, the Florida and Ohio expunging of voters with no or little cause are examples . They are not interested in a fair and open election. They are interested in winning and will do all they can to keep Dems from the polls.
If you believe that Democracy is best served by having more people vote, then the Repubs are acting against democratic American principles. They are acting to the advantage of their party at the expense of poor, old infirm and minority people.
I disagree. I read the article and thought it was a completely biased piece of horseshit. None of the changes impede anyone from voting in an election. It was a hatchet job, strawman article from start to finish.
So use absentee ballot. I don’t know about other countries, but the two where I’ve voted (the UK and Spain) allow you to vote in person on election day or during several weeks prior by absentee ballot.
Of course it’s biased. It’s an editorial. Do they not have newspapers in your part of the world, Humpy? Or dictionaries? Because the changes clearly impede people from voting. The issue is whether they do so unfairly.
ETA: Nava, that’s a good idea. Florida law allows people to request absentee ballots whether or not they’re actually absent from the state.
Oh, do you have to be at a specific polling place in his state? I’ve only voted once before and it was local, but I assumed everyone in the US can vote anywhere in their registered state.
I don’t know about anywhere else, but in Illinois, specifically Chicago and surrounding Cook County, it works both ways.
*For early voting, you can vote at any early-voting polling place in the city or county respectively. You need government-issued identification with a photo.
*If you wait to vote on election day itself, you have to vote at your assigned polling place. You do NOT need a photo ID to vote on election day.
There are more polling places on election day than during early voting; the early voting sites are all in local government buildings, while the election-day polling places are also in rented spaces in schools, churches, commercial buildings, and even large apartment buildings.
Exactly. I had a half-hour window at the end of the day to get into the absurdly long line at the polling station.
If you want to increase voter participation you need to make it easier to vote. Conversely, if you want to decrease voter participation you make it harder to vote.
No such thing as early voting around here. For some reason the GOP-controlled everything here just doesn’t seem to make voting any easier for the wrong people.
Use of the word “right” is of course not exactly a matter of razor-like precision of meaning. I feel that a right doesn’t exist unless there is a remedy for its denial. But I recognize that others may speak more generally of rights.
Still, by even a generous allowance for ‘right,’ I can’t wrap my head around the concept that State A and State B, which both offer voting only on Election Day, are not violating the voting rights of their residents, but when State B changes its law to allow early voting at the polls, State A is still not violating any rights, and when State B changes its scheme again to be identical to State A’s, somehow, State B’s residents’ rights are violated.
If a right exists because we find it floating in some ethereal text of rights, then how can this be so? And if a right exists because of the operation of law, then how can A and B’s identical schemes represent a denial of rights for residents of B and a hunky-dory scheme for residents of A?
Unfair and unwise I won’t debate. But I reject the claim that there is some matter of “rights” involved here.
I think you can argue that “my rights” can be fairly defined as “the current things I am allowed to do under law”. Obviously it’s not a razor-fine legal definition, but given that definition does it make sense?
Case in point, let’s adjust your analogy. State A and State B don’t allow concealed-carry of firearms. No one has the right to carry concealed firearms. State B allows it, then, and its residents gain the right to carry concealed firearms. State A residents do not have that right. State B revokes their concealed-carry law. State B can be said to have taken away the right to concealed carry, IMHO.
I want to say this sounds like the difference between how we’d discuss legal rights vs. moral rights.
Just because rights aren’t being benied doesn’t mean they aren’t at issue. Voting is clearly a right. Voting in a convenient fashion is just as clearly not a right in itself.
However, since convenience makes it easier to exercise a right, attempts to reduce it should still be looked at askance- particularly when those attempts disproportionately affect groups which have historically been disenfranchised.
One of the issues affecting voting rights in Florida is that wealthier counties have more and better staffed polling stations. The whole point of Florida’s current somewhat liberal voting measures is that they fixed that problem without costing the state much extra money.
I see. So, you would much prefer that we focus our conversation on abstract political theory, rather than the sordid reality of Republican skulduggery? And when you say that you won’t debate whether or not it is “unfair and unwise”, may we take that to mean that you accept that it is, or simply that you find such a debate tiresome?
