I take it to mean simply this:
The VA R party is confident their authoritarian-minded voters will follow orders and vote for whoever the authoritarian insider oligarchy selects for them. And they will like it!
…and mugging the winning team after the big game, stealing the trophy and forever claiming you won the game you clearly lost.
There are too many to list, but I think that Lindsey Graham has won that particular hypocrisy medal.
Dave Wasserman tweeted a little while ago, with offering an explanation, that the Virginia Republican candidate for governor had a good chance of winning. A prediction like this from Wasserman scares me a little.
And in the early ballot counting (the VA GOP is using ranked choice voting, a surprising turn of events in itself) the Trumpy lady (Amanda Chase by name) is very much in it.
I think its just logical risk assessment at work. I mean look at the statistics: In 2019 there were only 3,683 deaths due to firearms, but in 2020 there were over 5 million instances of voting for the Democrat party. We have to concentrate in the serious threats here.
Seems like an excellent way to enable extremists. Far more folks will vote for a nut then a mainstreamer as a backup choice than will vote for a nut alone via single preference.
I don’t think any method of voting is a panacea for weeding out the whackos but most election scholars believe that RCV, approval voting and others similar are better at it than first past the post in polarized environments.
Within a party primary isn’t a polarized environment (much). By eliminating the argument that “any vote not for the clear front runner / heir apparent is just throwing your vote away.”, it allows people to vote first with their id and second with their mind.
When we’re dealing with modern Republicanism, where essentially everybody is some shade of far-RW wacko, more id from the electorate is not a helpful thing.
Now once said RW ultra-wacko has to face the whole general voting public in the real election, the RWs going all-in on id may play to the Ds advantage. We shall see.
Virginia Dems have joked that the top three GOP candidates for governor were “Trumpy, Trumpier and Trumpiest.” Chase, possibly the Trumpiest, had traveled to Florida in a desperate attempt to secure Donald’s blessing(she didn’t get a meeting) but was running a weak third after the first couple of rounds of vote redistribution. The current leader is pretty damn Trumpy in his own right.
Wasserman tweeted a little while ago that he found covering RCV elections more interesting than he had anticipated.
Chase also had the highest percentage, almost double that of the next highest candidate, of “all or nothing” votes cast for her. 26% of ballots for her failed to name a second choice. I’m not sure what those voters expected to gain from that because the net result was that they removed themselves from the final round of voting.
In any voting system other than “pick your one favorite candidate from this list” we in the US have the huge problem that the voters aren’t educated on other voting systems and often cannot conceive of any other system even being possible.
So what percentage of the 26% of her votes that were all or nothing were deliberate expressions of the voter’s fully considered intent, and what percentage were folks too lazy to figure out or express their second, third, etc., choices, and what percentage were people unaware they even had a second, third, etc., choice opportunity?
Hellifino. But I’ll wager sight unseen that there’s a hefty dollop of all 3 flavors in the total.
Yes, and they hate the idea of vaccine passports, but love voter ID.
“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”
Each State’s legislature shall prescribe the times, places, and manner of holding elections for federal senators and representatives. And Congress can preempt or overrule said state regulations.
If Congress wanted to draw up its own federal map of ballot drop boxes it has the power to do so, at least for all ballots which contain votes for federal senators or representatives.
~Max
Which raises the fascinating idea of separating Federal from lower level elections. So they are done on different dates using different voting systems, different voter rolls, and all the rest. And using Federal troops to count the ballots.
Just like we had to do in the late 1860s. Some parts of the USA are apparently very, very slow learners.
What a surprise to see the Heritage Foundation showed up:
Isn’t that how lobbying works?
~Max
The lobbyists aren’t supposed to actually write the legislation. That’s why The Iowa House Speaker says that the Heritage folks are lying: GOP lawmakers say Heritage had no role in crafting Iowa election law
(Thanks to @Rick_Kitchen for sharing that link in the SRIotD thread.)
I thought that was one of the major forms of lobbying.
Wikipedia (citations omitted):
“Lobby groups and their members sometimes also write legislation and whip bills, and in these instances, it is helpful to have lawyers skilled in writing legislation to assist with these efforts. It is often necessary to research relevant laws and issues beforehand. In many instances lobbyists write the actual text of the proposed law, and hire lawyers to ‘get the language down pat’—an omission in wording or an unclear phrase may open up a loophole for opponents to wrangle over for years. And lobbyists can often advise a lawmaker on how to navigate the approval process.”
~Max
I mean none of that is good.
Regardless, lobbying to take away the most important constitutional right shouldn’t be viewed as normal lobbying.
Quoeth NPR, “As outrageous as this story seems […] it’s now unfortunately business as usual on Capitol Hill.”
~Max