Why would we? It’s not the business of other countries how we choose to vote.
I doubt if Manwich is talking out the voting systems we use, though og knows that they lag behind more advanced nations. I think it’s more of a concern about whether eligible voters are getting a fair shot at exercising their franchise and having their votes fairly counted.
Understood: it’s more of a message to Sanders’ supporters than to Sanders’ campaign.
People need to wake up and stop believing in Magic Bernie. The assumption that Magic Bernie can summon some kind of magic tidal wave of voting that would be sufficient to overwhelm the Generation X and Boomer vote is just wishful thinking. It’s even more wishful to believe that Magic Bernie can convince most of the country to eliminate the private insurance system is just delusional.
Let’s start with what we progressives can totally agree on: the private health system needs the big stick of government to make it behave better - we nearly all agree on that. A public option or perhaps a quasi-government, non-profit competition would probably be a great place to start.
The Carter Center has monitored elections in 39 countries, always with the cooperation of the host country. Some countries have a reputation for unfair elections and are anxious to demonstrate that their elections are fair.
U.S. elections are very far from fair; anybody ignorant of that needs to report to the Pit for education. Our democracy is in desperate need of help, but many Americans (like bump?) are unwilling to accept that.
I think its more that there is a correlation between mail-in voting and casting ones vote before the revival of the Biden campaign after South Carolina.
Is there a good reason that Texas doesn’t do mail ballots like the other two states I have lived in, Oregon and Colorado?
I talked to someone at the Houston office, most lived in Montgomery county and the traffic between Beltway 8 and Conroe was over an hour and a half on Tuesday, which is normal. It seems weird to me that they can’t vote in a national election in the county where they work. The voter registration and address of the voter should allow them to determine where the vote should be counted pretty easily.
I am not sure I would have been able to make my vote if I had to leave Montgomery county by 5:45 am to be at work by 6:45 - 7:00 and then getting off at 5:15 trying to make it back to my home county. There is always early voting, but I am not sure how that works and I lived in Texas for 33 years. It seems way easier to have the ballot show up in the mailbox with a bar code on it, and my name and address.
Why not mailed ballots nationally? I can even log into the internet and see that my ballot was registered and everything. It seems way more simple to me. We have freaking dog food and mattresses delivered in boxes, why not ballots?
There is a lot of shudda/wudda/cudda going on, and I am not defending the lazy, but why the hell do they even need to show up? Other states don’t make that requirement. It would seem to me that they just want retired, non-working people to vote instead of making it as easy as possible. If the goal is increasing voter turnout, it seems to me that we already have the solution.
What political party controls the TX government? Red states have really doubled down on making it hard to vote, especially in a state rapidly changing like TX.
Personally I don’t think of those voters 18 to 45 as condescendingly as that. They are adults, not kids. And they showed the potential of their muscle in the 2018 midterms and being part of Obama’s victories.
In 2018 their turnout was not as good as voters over 45 but it was good for the cohort historically. And it is a large cohort.
Obama got the cohort to vote more with his messaging approach. If Sanders approach failed to accomplish as much it is mostly on him. My fear is that his messaging results in more apathy when things don’t go their way in a round. And I’d love to see their muscles flexing in the general.
Reality is that the cohort will get older and will grow into one that votes more reliably. If they keep their beliefs the same then their preferred policies are in fact the future. For what the world is left with if Trump wins again.
This is what happens when people support a candidate in a campaign, and vote for him.
If they aren’t Bernie though, they get described as more “at home” in the US, and less threatening. Hm.
Is it simply that Democrats want everyone to have the same opportunity to vote and Republicans don’t?
Is there any evidence for this other than “it’s damn obvious just look?”
I’m not saying you are wrong.
My apologies if this has been posted already but I’m pressed for time–that 13% number everyone’s been using so liberally is, basically, bullshit. Smoke and mirrors. The kids DID get out and vote but they’re being calculatedly suppressed in various ways, and the discrepancies between exit polls and results are so marked that if they occurred in a shithole country the US would be all over them for it but since it’s here nobody says a mumblin’ word. Elections in this country are embarrassingly bad and not even a step above the worst banana republics in history.
You should apologize for posting something from asite and source so obviously in the bag for Sanders. Also, this:
Yeah, the old folks love to stand in line for hours while the young suffer so from short attention spans.
SmartAleq -
Apples to apples youth turnout for Sanders was poor. Sanders is himself honest enough to acknowledge it:
Measuring as favorably as possible one can come up with this (same cite):
So yes, they may be about on par with the 2012 primary in which Obama ran unopposed.
Voting for Sanders just did not matter enough to most of them to bother with doing. HOPEFULLY voting against Trumpism will, like it did in the midterms.
I don’t entirely disagree with you here.
But, if voter suppression efforts are preventing some of Sanders’ supporters from voting against Biden, aren’t they going to have that same problem against Trump?
For the record, I think that Biden beat Bernie fairly and squarely in TX, but I’m wondering how Sanders supporters get around the problem of voter suppression, which they claim to be a factor in some of the contests on Tuesday. If they think that this cost them on Super Tuesday, they’ve seen nothing yet.
“You” should apologise? Using a tawdry phrase like “in the bag”
13% of total voters that turned out were between 18-29 years in age
That’s what happened.
Are you suggesting that we surrender to voter suppression? This isn’t a horse race where you hope to back the winner - actual lives are at stake.
Yes, voter suppression is a real issue and republicans know it is effective, that’s why they spend time money on it. But we need to do something about it and individuals can make a difference.
With the internet that they invented, people from the USA can now see how others live and vote and improve their own lives. It’s a boon to the world (USA) and the other world (world).
And that age group is roughly 23% of the electorate. For “enthusiastic” supporters, they showed up at a lower rate than literally every other demographic.
So the article says 18-29 make up 16% of registered voters. Are they saying turnout was 81%?
Point out to me where I suggested that we surrender to vote suppression. I’m suggesting that Bernie Sanders doesn’t have enough support - period. He’s becoming America’s Jeremy Corbyn.
The short answer is because it’s against state law- apparently what voting fraud their is, seems to be predominantly centered around absentee ballots (the only form of mail in ballots actually allowed). Retirees ARE on that list- 65 and older and disabled people are two distinct categories allowed to vote by mail already. So are people outside the county when the elections happen, which includes military people, college students, etc…
There’s always early voting- it’s open on weekends and can be done at any of the early voting places in your county as well.
And finally, your employer is required to grant you a paid two hour block off within the voting window for voting, IF your normal job schedule doesn’t afford you an unbroken two hour block already. So in your example, your person could have legally left at 5 to ensure they had that 2 hour block. Or if they just can’t leave at 5, then they could have come in as late as 9.
Voter suppression is one thing, but a lot of the gripes I’m hearing seem to align along the notion of “Voting is a pain in my ass, make it easier or I won’t do it!”, which I’m not exactly sympathetic to.