Stupid Republican idea of the day

[ThelmaLou]

Yet another day to be ashamed of being a Texan.

Texas justices slap down mail ballots
High court agrees that just the fear of contracting virus is not enough

AUSTIN — The state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that lack of immunity to the novel coronvirus wouldn’t qualify voters to claim a disability and vote by mail, dealing a major victory to Attorney General Ken Paxton, who opposes expansion of mail-in voting.

Chief Justice Nathan Hecht wrote in the majority opinion that fear of contracting a disease is not a physical condition, and broadening the definition would render the disability category useless.

The court said the definition as interpreted by the Texas Democratic Party, which had filed lawsuits in both state and federal court on this matter, would be overly broad and enable things like “being too tired to drive to a polling place” to count as a physical condition.

**“It would swallow the other categories of voters eligible for mail-in voting,” **the opinion states. “We agree, of course, that a voter can take into consideration aspects of his health and his health history that are physical conditions in deciding whether, under the circumstances, to apply to vote by mail because of disability. We disagree that lack of immunity, by itself, is one of them.”

Texas is one of the few states that still require voters younger than 65 to have an excuse to cast a ballot by mail, such as being disabled, out of the county during the election period or confined in jail.

Fewer than 7 percent of Texas voters mailed in ballots in 2018, but county clerks in some of the state’s largest counties have said they’re seeing higher levels of interest since the pandemic.

A similar case launched by the party will continue in federal court and now sits before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The case is very likely to land in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
…

Ah, but will it land there in time for the November election??

I have bolded one statement in the article. Maybe someone can explain to me WTF that means? Is this some veiled reference to Jonah and the Whale?

[Knowed_Out]

@Slash1972

Out of curiosity, can’t Twitter just move it’s HQ or where it’s registered as a company to some other country and then tell the US Government to go to hell?

Where would they go that’s better? Pretty much all of South America, Asia, and Africa would be worse. The UK is red, and the EU would probably tax them higher.

[DesertDog]

@Slash1972

Out of curiosity, can’t Twitter just move it’s HQ or where it’s registered as a company to some other country and then tell the US Government to go to hell?

Then they’d have to control internet content coming from outside the country. We already have the Great Firewall of China.

@Wiki

It is mainly used by the Chinese government to perform brain washing and encourage right thinking by censoring dissident ideas. One of the main goals of the Great Chinese firewall is to create an environment where people have the same values and the same opinion. Therefore, the GFW is a political tool using Chinese citizens to promote Chinese Communist Party ideas…

Three guesses who our wall would be named after.

[Folacin]

@ThelmaLou

I have bolded one statement in the article. Maybe someone can explain to me WTF that means? Is this some veiled reference to Jonah and the Whale?

Swallow here I think means that it would be 99% of all reasons, nothing to do with Jonah. Why that is important in deciding if it is a valid reason is unclear to me.

[kaylasdad99]

@Folacin

Swallow here I think means that it would be 99% of all reasons, nothing to do with Jonah. Why that is important in deciding if it is a valid reason is unclear to me.

Yep, it strikes me as a regional way of saying “overwhelm.” Maybe an actual Texan can confirm.

[ThelmaLou]

@kaylasdad99

Yep, it strikes me as a regional way of saying “overwhelm.” Maybe an actual Texan can confirm.

I’m an actual Texan and I don’t have a clue. I don’t get *swallow *and I don’t get overwhelm. Guess I’m not smart enough to be a judge.

[needscoffee]

@ThelmaLou

I’m an actual Texan and I don’t have a clue. I don’t get *swallow *and I don’t get overwhelm. Guess I’m not smart enough to be a judge.

I think “subsume” is the word they want.

[kaylasdad99]

My apologies for being so presumptuous. Allow me to clarify my understanding of the statement.

The number [of people] who claim absentee ballot eligibility based on fear of CoVID-19 will be so large as to comparatively overwhelm the number [of people] whose eligibility is based on currently delineated reasons. That is, one number overwhelms the other number, by virtue of being so much larger.

What seems to be really at stake is Texas’s statute having a meaningful requirement for a valid reason to receive an absentee (mail-in) ballot on request.

[ThelmaLou]

@kaylasdad99

My apologies for being so presumptuous. Allow me to clarify my understanding of the statement.

The number [of people] who claim absentee ballot eligibility based on fear of CoVID-19 will be so large as to comparatively overwhelm the number [of people] whose eligibility is based on currently delineated reasons. That is, one number overwhelms the other number, by virtue of being so much larger.

Personally, I do not see that this is something to be avoided. (Not saying you do, just grasping at meaning.)

What seems to be really at stake is Texas’s statute having a meaningful requirement for a valid reason to receive an absentee (mail-in) ballot on request.

Well, the meaningful requirement for requesting a mail-in ballot ought to be BECAUSE SOMEONE WANTS ONE. No questions asked. Period.

Too sensible for Texas, alas.

[Musicat]

@DesertDog

Three guesses who our wall would be named after.

It will be a great wall! The best wall! And China will pay for it!!

[Horatius]

@Knowed_Out

Where would they go that’s better? Pretty much all of South America, Asia, and Africa would be worse. The UK is red, and the EU would probably tax them higher.

Canada is just sitting right here.
Of course, we will have to insist on them editing every tweet to re-insert the proper number of "u"s in certain words.

[OttoDaFe]

@helencolly

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Reported.

[kambuckta]

Same, dammit. Normally running coach beats me to it…

[kaylasdad99]

@ThelmaLou

Personally, I do not see that this is something to be avoided. (Not saying you do, just grasping at meaning.)

Well, the meaningful requirement for requesting a mail-in ballot ought to be BECAUSE SOMEONE WANTS ONE. No questions asked. Period.

Too sensible for Texas, alas.

Well sure. Point is, yeah it’s a stupid law for Texas to have in the first place, but is that sufficient reason for a court to effectively invalidate it? I suppose the court could have ordered it as an emergency measure, with the caveat that it would be a one-time exception, and the statute remained operative, and they probably should have.

[Strassia]

@kaylasdad99

Well sure. Point is, yeah it’s a stupid law for Texas to have in the first place, but is that sufficient reason for a court to effectively invalidate it? I suppose the court could have ordered it as an emergency measure, with the caveat that it would be a one-time exception, and the statute remained operative, and they probably should have.

Or, and I am just spitballing here, the could have acknowledged that fear of a global pandemic is sufficient reason under the law.

[DesertDog]

Not when it was a Republican who made things ever so much worse and the whole party is facing backlash for it.

They know that MAGAts at the point of death will drag themselves to the polls for a chance to vote for Dear Leader (and thus his enablers). Biden voters, not so much.

[Folacin]

And the couple of right-wingers I have as friends on FB are being whipped up to oppose mail voting as an obvious attempt at stealing the election via harvesting or stuffing or something.

[Steve_MB]

@kaylasdad99

Well sure. Point is, yeah it’s a stupid law for Texas to have in the first place, but is that sufficient reason for a court to effectively invalidate it?

The court did not “invalidate” the law; it simply ignored it. The law says “physical condition”; lack of immunity is clearly a “physical condition”.

@kaylasdad99

The number [of people] who claim absentee ballot eligibility based on fear of CoVID-19 will be so large as to comparatively overwhelm the number [of people] whose eligibility is based on currently delineated reasons.

Irrelevant to the law as written. To illustrate by analogy, let us consider a hypothetical law that states that persons incapable of climbing a two-hundred-foot rope shall be permitted to use an elevator instead. Clearly, the number of people incapable of doing so because they are not athletes in top physical condition “overwhelms” the number of people incapable of doing so because they are wheelchair-bound, but this fact does not make the law inapplicable to either.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Slash1972

Out of curiosity, can’t Twitter just move it’s HQ or where it’s registered as a company to some other country and then tell the US Government to go to hell?

Sure, but so long as they do business in the U.S. and derive revenue here the U.S. government can fine them or sue them or whatever. That’s why Twitter and the other big tech companies are also complying with the new EU data privacy rules, even though they’re not headquartered in Europe.

[eschereal]

@Folacin

And the couple of right-wingers I have as friends on FB are being whipped up to oppose mail voting as an obvious attempt at stealing the election via harvesting or stuffing or something.

Much, much more troubling than merely jiggering the touchscreen voting machines to make it nearly impossible to vote for that other person, when just about every time you touch the screen, it jumps to select the proper candidate. Also, the machines make it much easier to implement the vote-party-slate option.