Not only is that not answering the question, but evidence that something is happening is required to ask if someone disagrees with it or not.
If I tell you that McDonalds is closing half their restaurants. You can’t answer the question “how do you feel about that” with “prove it”. There’s a time and place to ask for evidence, but that’s not it, that’s deflecting.
The question “Do you dispute that the measures were probably adopted to affect turnout selectively?” should be a simple “yes (I dispute it)” or “no (I don’t dispute it)”.
I don’t know enough about politics to weigh in on this, but like septimus, it bugs me when you ask a question and instead of an answer you get a question back, often times in a weak attempt to set you up for something.
Not only would the end result be the same (fewer polling places open), but the county would probably be guilty of breaking this new law.
Seems to me you’re continuing to fight a losing battle. But by all means carry on. Perhaps you will find a workaround to combat this voter suppression.
You are correct. The law is already in effect and early voting has started. Obviously, at this point, nothing can be done, unless it’s something done by local election officials.
I suppose somebody could point out the egregious nature of this law on an internet forum and bitch about the law’s creators and their intentions.
I don’t have the slightest idea what would happen in this circumstance. Perhaps you should contact one of the county officials mentioned in the original article and discuss what options are available to them.
There is a possibility. These voter suppression tactics, they got rolling with ALEC, and their suggestions for voter confidence and reform. Thing is, they were all built around trimming a percent or two of the voting results, because, back then, that was all they needed. Just a bit of cheating on the margins, that was the plan.
I’m thinking they have figured it out, that the 2010 plan doesn’t fit the present circumstances. So they are being more blatant, more brazen, can’t afford to be all subtle and legal. Great. So the crooks are Republicans and the cops we gotta call are…Republicans.
By my math, if you can afford to keep the polls open for 48 hours, then the polls are open for 48 hours, regardless of whether that’s 4 days open at 12 hours each, or 8 days open at 6 hours each.
The budgets aren’t being shrunk nor are the hours being shrunk.
I couldn’t say whether it’s more useful to people for there to be more days or for the polls to be open earlier and later. I somewhat suspect that the latter is better, since most people have to go to work during the middle of the day.
It varies by county. However, in some counties tax revenues have been down. That means when, say, the bureau of elections asks for $X on their new FY budget, including Y early voting sites, they instead receive a lower amount than X for their budget…which means they have to make cuts. In several cases I know of what the BoEs have done is to cut out some early voting sites that had low turnouts.
For example, we have the elections happening right now. I know of a few early voting sites that are mainly empty (the one in my building is a good example). MAYBE they are getting 1-2 persons per hour. If there was a budget cut, this would potentially put those sites on the chopping block. There isn’t some nefarious mustache twirling grand scheme in these cases…the sites would be being cut because the public has demanded budget cuts and those sites were low turnout.
Whether that’s the case in North Carolina I have no idea. Maybe it IS some nefarious mustache twirling scheme by the GOP to cut some percentage of folks who would only go to early voting during the times being cut.
To answer your question at the end there, I think the public often doesn’t actually THINK wrt their demands for budget cuts or to prevent bond issues or tax increases. Basically, IMHO, the public wants everything but they want to pay nothing for it, or as little as they can. And I think politicians don’t think either…they just want votes. Lately, in my state at least, we increasingly go with lower general budgets and basically ask the public directly for various bond issues to fund capital projects…which means that a lot of programs don’t get funded when the public decides they don’t want to fund it. Then the public is up in arms because, damn, why don’t we have this service or programs anymore??
Well, OK, then all we have to believe is that the NC Republicans got this perfect opportunity to fuck around with voting… but didn’t? Did it involve visits from the Ghost of Elections Past? Or the Grim Spectre of Elections to Come?
I can believe that they don’t know much about quantum physics or the Defenestration at Prague. That they don’t know which polling places are located in minority population centers? Sure. And Willie Nelson doesn’t know which guitar string is “A”. Maybe sometimes he can’t remember. But he knows!
The law that was struck down was passed by the same General Assembly that passed our current law. The chances that they’re no longer motivated by a racist desire to reduce the votes of black North Carolinians is minuscule.
As I said, I know nothing about NC…I think I drove through once, so that’s about it. That sure looks convincing, though, at least in 2014. If this is exactly the same then I’m curious why it wasn’t also slapped down.
The trouble is that the OP is making an assertion that is not so far supported by any actual evidence. The question: do you dispute that it is happening? is meaningless. As you point out, the answer is simply: yes or no. But the question carries with it an implication: that the claim already has had evidence to support it provided, so that the question’s real purpose (put up or shut up) can be actually tested.
So before septimus, or anyone else, tries to hold someone’s toes to the fire, I insist that they actually make at least a prima facie case in support of the claim. Which was what I asked him to do.
This is not exactly the same. But when Bernie Madoff offers me a new investment opportunity, the fact that it’s not exactly the same as the one he offered his previous clientele is not my main concern.
My main concern is that Bernie Madoff is no more trustworthy when it comes to investments than the NC Legislature is when it comes to decreasing early voter options.
OK, so suppose that you have a limited amount of funding to keep early voting sites open, and suppose also that your goal is to enable as many people as possible to vote. In that case, your best bet would be to cover as wide a variety as possible of times and locations. Some voters will have all the time in the world, but will be limited in how far they can travel. So for them, you want many different locations, even if you can’t keep all of them open for very long. Some voters will be able to travel, but will have restrictive schedules. So for them, you want opportunities at many different times and on many different days, even if you can’t be at all locations at any given time. Some people will have distance restrictions and tight schedules, and all you can do to help all of them is to have many locations with lots of hours at all of them… which we’ve unfortunately already said that we don’t have the funding for. But even there, you might be able to do a lot of good with intelligent scheduling: For instance, if there’s a big factory that employs a lot of people, have a location right next to the factory, for a couple of hours right around the shift change times.
But given that we’ve already established that we don’t have the funding to keep them all open all hours, what’s the advantage of saying that those site-hours must all be concentrated? How is it better to have one site open for 12 hours, instead of three sites with one open for the first four hours, a second site for the next four hours, and a third site for the final four hours?