I hope this doesn’t come across as a back-handed compliment, because it’s not meant as such, but have you considered writing like that more often? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much text from you where I understood exactly what you were saying and felt you were making a compelling argument.
Not suggesting that you give up your preferred mode of communication completely. That would be unfair and unrealistic. Maybe just tweak the ratio a tad?
Supplying information is something that is done on your part because you specifically have a skill that is involved in a lot of political discussions.
I’m not critical of your legal skill. You seem to be a competent lawyer.
My skills rarely come up in political discussions because I’m a designer. You wanna talk about the Shepard Fairey “Hope” poster, I can offer detailed insight into the process he used to create it. Or like when Magiver waddled into the Birther camp, I posted this rebuttal about his birth certificate nonsense.
The point being, your argument is shit. You simply looked for something you do (answer legal questions) and used it as a baton to make a feeble attack.
I’m not saying I’m that valuable a poster. But I do try to point out when people argue nonsense. Like you just did.
Again.
I said I didn’t know, offered a guess that the reason might have been to save money by reducing the number of days voting was available, and asked if the people making the changes offer any rationale for the change?
You knew that. You acknowledged that comment here:
How can you say it’s never penetrated my filter? Isn’t that your previous acknowledgement of my answer?
Genius is pain, John. Well, you understand, I’m sure…
Now, a word about the rest of this post.
Holy shit.
This is a damn fine post. I don’t agree with all of it, but I have absolutely no problem identifying precisely what point you are making, how you are supporting it, and almost unwillingly nodding in agreement as you lay out your argument.
I criticize you for impenetrable prose a lot, but I need to acknowledge when you eschew it. This post is a model of clarity and is, in my view, both informative and persuasive. Even the potato at the end makes sense, because of the building blocks that led to it.
ETA: it also thwarts my expectations of how you’d respond; I was wrong about that, and acknowledge my error here.
My bad! That answer was so perfectly absurd and crapulous, i assumed you had abandoned it like a animal shelter kitten you’re done experimenting upon.
As for me seeking out their rationale for this, why is that burden mine? And if that’s their “rationale”, will you be joining me in pointing and laughing? Because its perfectly transparent and ridiculous, as I’m sure you know.
I’d like to second the sentiment that your previous post was some very high-kung-fu.
Its a trap. Gotta be a trap. I’ll give you just two hours to cut that out!
I don’t know. I have no idea what their rationale was. The idea that paying workers on a Sunday often involves double-time, or a bigger multiplier, occurred to me. So I don’t see why it’s a crazy supposition, but I admit it’s just that. I have no evidence in support of either financial motives or evil schemes.
The burden is yours because you’re the one making the argument.
Oh, my God, the evil fiends are being nice to me! Its like Kryptonite, snark reserves draining away, I’m melting, melting! What a world, what a world… AAAAAaaaaarrrgh!
I do. Someone explained it to me once, in a “Genius for Dummies” sort or way.
Well, the double pay thing can’t work, because the whole thing they do is to go to church and get together, then go vote, so clearly they aren’t working that day.
Funny thing is, I don’t know why they didn’t steal the idea and exploit it, get white evangelicals to do the same thing. Probably figure there isn’t any more to get from them, so if they thwart some of the black vote, its a win.
Don’t much like to try and figure out how Republicans think, its like taking the brown acid.
Poll workers.
They’re volunteers, aren’t they? They get paid?
Only lefty workers volunteer. The righties demand pay.
http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/Election_reform/ERIPBrief19_final.pdf
A .pdf, if that matters any more…
The point is that if they budget $X, and have to pay 2X for Sunday work, that could be a problem. Again, I don’t know, but nothing I’m seeing contradicts it. Certainly your theory about unpaid volunteers is not …er… on the money. Poll workers do get paid.
But this is a case where if the numbers don’t add up, it isn’t the right thing. If it disenfranchises more voters, convinces more voters not to come, or outright makes it impossible for more voters to vote than it prevents cases of fraud, then the law has failed the purpose of making democracy more representative, and that is the only purpose it will fulfill (unless you want to admit that it has the purposes that people like Luci are insinuating, and doing a complete bang-up job at)! I don’t really understand how this isn’t clicking.
I think that voter confidence is, much like voter fraud, a fake issue. At the very least, it’s considerably less of an issue than the clear elephant in the room – the thing that both south park and “America: The Book” touched on, the reason why voter fraud will never become a major issue in this country, the reason why almost everyone I know who isn’t voting isn’t going out to vote: your vote is insignificant. I’m having trouble finding great sources, but from what I see, “I don’t think the election will follow the will of the people” doesn’t even fucking rank! That’s at least among asians… PBS cites, again, “my vote doesn’t matter”, and “politics sucks no matter what”, but not “my vote won’t get counted” or “the elections are rigged”.
And honestly? Your evidence isn’t good enough. You haven’t set up a correlation (which countries?), and even if that exists, causation seems strongly to be placed elsewhere.
You know what the solution would be to this problem, though? Education. If voter ID laws make the system less representative of the will of the people, then the only way that they could ever improve turnouts by “helping voter confidence” is by lying to people. Which is exactly what happens. There are a lot of people absolutely convinced that voter fraud is this huge problem… When it isn’t. A massive investigation over 10 years in numerous districts, ordered from the top down, proved absolutely fruitless. At that point, absence of evidence pretty much is evidence of absence. Where are they getting this info from, then? Hmm… Well, I’ll let you figure that one out.
Can’t do it justice. My snark toxicity index is down to .045 millihicks, between a Mr. Rodgers greeting and a Garrison Keillor monologue. I’m ruined.
Well, golly everyone. It’s 'luci! He’s lost his irony. Quick, everyone start clapping so we can bring him back. Let’s go!