Josef Stalin was quoted as observing that “quantity has a quality all its own.” But with all due respect to Uncle Joe, the count of posts made in a Pit thread is not a measure of the quality of available argument.
Yes. None do, but all “could.”
I’m not inclined to cut any slack to Wisconsin officialdom. But I think Bricker has the better side of this argument.
If the law in place addressed the concern, then the lawyers were being accurate. Even if you think their obligation was to investigate the level of DMV training and compliance with that law–a stretch–the representations were made in August about non-compliance observed in September, right?
Consider an analogous situation with reversed politics: Bluestate passes a law saying that gun owners have to get a background check to carry a concealed weapon. A concern is raised that the background check process will be used to delay and create expense, and so Bluestate promulgates a regulation that any check must be processed in 48 hours and cost no more than $25, and its lawyers so represent to the Court. A month later, it turns out that a lot of the local sheriffs aren’t complying with the law, and are taking much longer to do the background checks. Would you really conclude that the lawyers had lied in court? I don’t think so.
Of course, the new facts would be a good reason to alter the court’s decision. But it wouldn’t be a good reason to impugn the good faith of the lawyers. In the real world, government lawyers likely aren’t going to know much about local compliance with a new state law.
Trump himself can’t contest the results. However, when the electoral votes are counted in Congress on January 6, 2017, as each state is called, if at least one Representative and one Senator object, and claim that another set of votes from that state is the valid one, then the Congress splits back into its two Houses and they each vote on which one to accept. If they disagree, then “the executive of the state” in question (it’s not specified just what that means - the state’s governor? Its secretary of state?) breaks the tie.
There was an attempt to challenge the Florida votes in 2000, but while a number of Representatives objected, no Senators did; the version I heard was, the Democrats in the Senate had cut some sort of deal with the Republicans (since they knew any vote would end up in favor of Bush, as both the House and the Florida governorship (Jeb Bush) were both Republican) in exchange for not objecting. In 2004, there was a challenge of the Ohio votes, but both the House and Senate pretty much unanimously voted to accept the votes for Bush.
Before the current system was created, probably the most famous contested election was in 1876, where Samuel Tilden clearly won the election, but somehow, four states’ electoral votes were contested, and a committee that had Rutherford Hayes’s party in the majority gave all of the contested states to Hayes.
So, at least theoretically, could a Congress controlled entirely by one party simply refuse to elect the person chosen by the voters - even in the absence of any real controversy - and instead elect whomever they want?
I’ll take that as your capitulation, then, at least for that thread.
I lack a sufficient level of blind trust to share in your “none do” declaration. My reasoning for this is based in part on the motivation for changing the voter rules. I might be willing to entertain the notion that if a legal voter has to wait eight weeks and thus misses an election, it’s because of legislative incompetence - making changes in the law while being unable or unwilling to recognize newly-related problems or having the ability or will to address same, i.e. it’s not that they want to block likely-unfriendly voters, it’s that they’re too stupid to implement their plan in a way that avoids it. I consider this to be quite generous on my part.
My inclusion of the word “not,” signals my rejection of Stalin’s aphorism as applied to that thread. You are mistaken to regard it as acceptance.
The word “not,” is a negation, just for your future reference.
There are 52 weeks in a year. If there is an 8 week delay that means the there are 44 weeks prior to Election Day available for a voter to get ID. If anyone finds himself unable to accomplish this task, it’s that they’re too stupid. And of course I consider this to be quite generous on my part.
Sorry I didn’t see this earlier but this was along the lines of what I was talking about in the OP. Under the right circumstances I could see this election becoming another 1876-type finish, in which hyper-partisanship at the local and national levels is basically employed in order to cast doubt on election results and effectively rig the election.
When Trump surrogates come out and claim that elections are going to be rigged, they are deliberately casting doubt on the election before it begins. What makes anyone think they wouldn’t continue to cast doubt on the election after it ends? In the past people like Romney and McCain and most significantly, a more unified republican party would have accepted the results gracefully and looked toward the mid-terms to build momentum in the following election cycle. That may not happen this time. The republican party is fractured, with partisans fighting among each other and trying to protect their standing with local voters, who themselves are also hyper-partisan.
I guess it’s a good thing, then, that “casting doubt” on the election result plus $2.50 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks, but nothing else.
True.
Did you know people on this very message board claimed that Kerry really won the 2004 election, and Bush stole over 100,000 votes away from Kerry to him in Ohio?
And if you were judging things by posts on this MB, you’d think our biggest vulnerability would be disgruntled Hillary supporters if Trump were to win.
What I glean from your comment (particularly given the comment you were responding to) is akin to sour grapes, actually. You wrote nearly 2500 posts in that thread and you’ll leave yourself an out on the “quality” issue, i.e. you can tell yourself that you didn’t actually lose or that the effort wasn’t actually futile, because you weren’t actually trying.
I’ll reserve further commentary on that thread to that thread.
Sin of omission: wasn’t the state’s position “relating to the November 2016 election” ? You’ve gone from the specific to the general rather conveniently, if I may generously observe.
Oddly enough, a non-trivial part of that thread was my challenge to you to restate my arguments correctly in an effort to show how limited your “gleaning,” ability was, and it is also failing you here.
I don’t say that I wasn’t trying. I was trying very hard.
But against me was a quantity that… er… had a quality all its own.
No.
Then your comment about the number of weeks in a year is irrelevant - the point of contention was the number of weeks before the 2016 election.
No!
The number of weeks in which the electorate was on notice that a prudent move would be to acquire ID was relevant.
Gentlemen-
I realize there’s some animosity based on interpersonal history in the Pit thread.
However, anything past this point that smacks of a personal crack - of any type or level at all - will be dealt with most harshly.
Is that clear? I hope so.
Perhaps in the general sense, but what about the 2016 election specifically?
Interesting point, I admit, but the context is a tad different. We could hypothesize that the legislators in Bluestate honestly believe that background checks for concealed-carry will reduce gun violence. They are probably wrong in this, or the effect might be trivial at best. Contrast this to legislation adding burdens to the voting process, and I find it far less plausible that the legislators honestly believe that voter fraud is a real problem. In both cases, the proper formalities are observed and the plenary power of the legislature properly exercised, etc. etc.
If it was clear that background checks for concealed-carry was useless for fighting crime and we had legislators in Bluestate on record saying things like “This law will discourage potential Red voters from coming here or staying here, letting Bluestate stay Blue” or something else indicating the goal was electoral advantage, I’d be happy to express my opposition. Ultimately, though, gun violence is a thing and voter fraud is not a thing. In either case, I’d want (along with my pony) the legislation in either case to contain a metric for success or failure (i.e. gun violence drops 3% or the number of citizens who can’t meet the new voter ID requirements will not be more than twice the drop in reported in-person voter fraud cases) and failing to meet this metric means automatic repeal.
I think you’re essentially admitting Bricker’s position here. He’s suggesting that you’re claiming these lawyers were liars merely because you don’t like the law they’re defending in court. You now seem to agree.
You don’t need to tell me that voter ID is a crock of shit. It is an obvious effort to suppress votes by exploiting voter fears and naivete. But that’s completely irrelevant to the question of whether these Wisconsin lawyers were liars.
He may be suggesting that, but my objection has always been.that the legislation addresses a virtually nonexistent problem (voter fraud) AND creates a larger one (citizens who gave voted without problems in the past being now unable to do so). If in your gun-control hypothetical, we had similar conditions:
- No evidence that adding a requirement to the concealed carry licensing process made citizens safer.
- All that DOES happen is citizens seeking to legally exercise their 2nd Amendment rights were hassled and inconvenienced.
I’m of the view that (1) is PROBABLY true, but I’d like some stats. Thing is, gun violence IS a problem worth attempts at legislative remedy and voter fraud is not.
I can buy that in your hypothetical, the REAL goal is to add some bureaucratic hassle to discourage concealed carry. Fine. In the actual example of voter ID legislation, we have clear evidence that creating a bureaucratic hassle is precisely the intent, and it bis plausible the attorneys arguing in favour know this or reasonably should know this, and claims that voters in the 2016 election specifically will be accommodated is wishful thinking at best.
I’m okay with them not being liars in the sense a literal reading of their statements does not reveal any specific falsehoods. I’m similarly okay with calling them unethical (perhaps they could rationalize by saying they’re just doing their jobs) for arguing a position that serves a political party’s interests and not the citizens of Wisconsin.
And no, I don’t like that.
We have had other threads that address the argument you raise above.
In this particular thread, I addressed septimus’ claim that “Wisconsin’s state lawyers committed perjury,” and were “…reprimanded for that…”