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The NYT Released an Oregon Trail Style Game about Voter Suppression

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Re: The NYT Released an Oregon Trail Style Game about Voter Suppression

#41

Post by ones_and_zeros »

travmatt wrote: post #21
ones_and_zeros wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DNC are no saints[0]. "Others complained about long lines, shuttered polling locations and inexperienced polling-place employees. Entire blocks and buildings of voters in some districts were purged from the voter rolls, de Blasio said." [0] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/officials-investigating-...

I can't tell if you're alleging something or simply raising some spectre of bad behavior as proof of some type of equivalency. If you are alleging something, your theory runs into some problems: 1. The DNC doesn't run the elections, as another commenter posited. 2. The voters who were purged were disproportionately Spanish, and minority & Spanish voters have disproportionately voted for Clinton and against Sanders [0…

More the later than the former.

My point in both of my comments is both parties/any party operates in its self interest. The GOP do what they need to do and the Democrats do what they need to do. I don't see the democrats as some white light in a world of evil, I see a political organization that is willing to do whatever it needs to do for self preservation. To use your words, I think there is bureaucratic incompetency on both sides, yet people spent time and money to take a really good idea and use it to smear one side. I say this as someone who has not ever and probably never will vote republican.

I'm not sure if you played the game but it associated long lines, reduced polling locations and clueless polling employees with GOP tactics when those same exact issues cropped up in the democratic primary. My point is why say GOP and just say these things happen in all polls?

The game didn't even touch on the North Carolina law. It's the Republicans doing it now but let's not forget the role Democrats had in overseeing Jim Crow laws.

Re: The NYT Released an Oregon Trail Style Game about Voter Suppression

#42

Post by gergles »

aabajian wrote: post #22

This is really funny, because I'm white programmer from California, and I experienced a "hardship" that prevented me from voting four years ago. I admit it was a stupid misunderstanding on my part, but here it goes: I was registered at a polling place in SoCal on election day, but was living in NorCal for school. They didn't let me vote. Proof: "If you moved more than 15 days before the election AND you moved to anot…

They can't vote in local or state elections but you should have been allowed to vote for President. Federal elections just require you to be registered in the state.

Re: The NYT Released an Oregon Trail Style Game about Voter Suppression

#43

Post by [deleted] »

travmatt wrote: post #24
nomoreaccoubts wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasoning on the other side is that you should do something to ensure the integrity of your elections. What stops non-citizens from voting? It's telling that the party opposed to voter verification laws stands to gain from the potential votes of tens of millions of illegal residents. As far as I know, no one is checking outside of states with voter ID laws.

>As far as I know, no one is checking outside of states with voter ID laws "A comprehensive investigation of voter impersonation finds 31 credible incidents out of one billion ballots cast"[0] Seems like a pretty comprehensive check if you ask me. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/06/a-com...

[deleted]

Re: The NYT Released an Oregon Trail Style Game about Voter Suppression

#44

Post by travmatt »

AdamN wrote: post #35
travmatt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it factually accurate? Is it giving a full picture of voter suppression, or do you believe that Democrats engage in the practice and this fact is being omitted? IMO complaining about partisanship is just dodging a conversation on the merits, if in fact the objective truth is partisan. Back when Republicans were the Party of Lincoln it would have been both factual and partisan of me to say they were the political p…

@ones_and_zeros is right, it's hyper partisan. The content (as thin as it is), is true ... but for the NYTimes to use a game produced by GOP Games, who only produce satire of Trump, is really less than ideal. Secondly, it creates a real division between, white, Latina (which remember is an ethnic group, not a racial group ... many Latinos in the US self-identify as white in addition to their ethnicity), and of course…

>@ones_and_zeros is right, it's hyper partisan

Again, calling something partisan is the intellectually lazy way of trying to dodge an argument. It imparts no new information, and tries to establish a false equivalency between two parties for no reason other than 'fairness'. Again, you can't dismiss the civil war as 'partisan' because one political party wanted slaves and the other did not.

>Secondly, it creates a real division between, white, Latina (which remember is an ethnic group, not a racial group ... many Latinos in the US self-identify as white in addition to their ethnicity), and of course black.

In a country where a state GOP party researched the ways that blacks voted specifically to find the ways to best disenfranchise them, it's pretty safe to say these battles have been fought over racial lines for a long time. Trying to pretend these fights aren't over racial lines is again trying to establish some sort of false equivalency.

>Thirdly, it doesn't really hammer home the right issues. The Latina woman's son gets dysentery a few minutes in and then there's a statement about paid time off. Those things have nothing to do with each other.

You're incorrect. Minority voters are disproportionately affected by curtailing early voting because of precisely the situations you just mentioned, which is presumably why the game raised those issues. People who work hourly jobs have a harder time taking time off in large numbers to vote, and especially if those voters can't afford to stand in a line for hours at a time. The game is showing precisely why those long lines are intended to hurt those voters.

Re: The NYT Released an Oregon Trail Style Game about Voter Suppression

#45

Post by maxerickson »

aabajian wrote: post #22

This is really funny, because I'm white programmer from California, and I experienced a "hardship" that prevented me from voting four years ago. I admit it was a stupid misunderstanding on my part, but here it goes: I was registered at a polling place in SoCal on election day, but was living in NorCal for school. They didn't let me vote. Proof: "If you moved more than 15 days before the election AND you moved to anot…

18 states use paper ballots. Given the current state of electronic voting machines, there are legitimate reasons to do this. It's not practical to allow voting in any precinct with paper ballots.

I think the security gained from residency tests and registration are worth disenfranchising people who don't bother to gain a basic understanding of the election system (It's literally a question answered with a pity phrase -- Your vote is only valid in the precinct you have registered in.)

Re: The NYT Released an Oregon Trail Style Game about Voter Suppression

#46

Post by frostburg »

nomoreaccoubts wrote: post #19
frostburg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like voter suppression of vulnerable groups is a tactic that can work at the same time for both of your major parties. This "golden mean" line of reasoning is not worth much.

The reasoning on the other side is that you should do something to ensure the integrity of your elections. What stops non-citizens from voting? It's telling that the party opposed to voter verification laws stands to gain from the potential votes of tens of millions of illegal residents. As far as I know, no one is checking outside of states with voter ID laws.

I live in a country where we have universal identity documents issued to everyone, but apparently voter fraud is extremely rare even without this measure, in the USA. The distortion caused by targeted voter id laws (republican politicians are on record regarding their intent) is orders of magnitude more significant.

Re: The NYT Released an Oregon Trail Style Game about Voter Suppression

#47

Post by camiller »

aabajian wrote: post #22

This is really funny, because I'm white programmer from California, and I experienced a "hardship" that prevented me from voting four years ago. I admit it was a stupid misunderstanding on my part, but here it goes: I was registered at a polling place in SoCal on election day, but was living in NorCal for school. They didn't let me vote. Proof: "If you moved more than 15 days before the election AND you moved to anot…

The mis-understanding here is that there is one election. In the US we have 3000+ county elections run/managed/under the direction of an elected county election commissioner (actual title may vary by jurisdiction). For state and federal positions and issues counts roll up to the state and higher levels, but all elections are local. There may be reasons for several counties to do common things, like standardize on voting systems across a whole state, but even that is really at the discretion of the county election commission.

"...but I image many registered voters think they can just walk into any polling place on election day." I'm not sure why anyone would think that, it has never been the case. Typically, at least where I live, I get a card in the mail a few months before the election telling me exactly where my polling place is and how to get an absentee ballot if I need one.

Re: The NYT Released an Oregon Trail Style Game about Voter Suppression

#48

Post by travmatt »

ones_and_zeros wrote: post #41
travmatt wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell if you're alleging something or simply raising some spectre of bad behavior as proof of some type of equivalency. If you are alleging something, your theory runs into some problems: 1. The DNC doesn't run the elections, as another commenter posited. 2. The voters who were purged were disproportionately Spanish, and minority & Spanish voters have disproportionately voted for Clinton and against Sanders [0…

More the later than the former. My point in both of my comments is both parties/any party operates in its self interest. The GOP do what they need to do and the Democrats do what they need to do. I don't see the democrats as some white light in a world of evil, I see a political organization that is willing to do whatever it needs to do for self preservation. To use your words, I think there is bureaucratic incompete…

Honestly, I can't see how your response is anything but preaching a false equivalency.

>My point in both of my comments is both parties/any party operates in its self interest. The GOP do what they need to do and the Democrats do what they need to do. I don't see the democrats as some white light in a world of evil, I see a political organization that is willing to do whatever it needs to do for self preservation. To use your words, I think there is bureaucratic incompetency on both sides, yet people spent time and money to take a really good idea and use it to smear one side.

Expect the issue at hand is one group is being proven to engineer voter suppression, which is a specific claim that rises above mere bureaucratic incompetence. The fact that these actions can be shown to be more than bureaucratic incompetence is the entire crux of the discussion. This is comparable to a zero tolerance policy saying that someone bringing a pocketknife to school is exactly as guilty as someone who brought a ka-bar into school with the intent of killing his teacher.

>It's the Republicans doing it now but let's not forget the role Democrats had in overseeing Jim Crow laws.

I'm pretty sure this is the definition of false equivalency. FWIW, Jim Crow laws were perpetuated by a coalition of Southern Conservative Democrats and Mid-western Repbulicans. The Democrats on their own didn't have enough numbers to survive the attacks by Northern Liberal Democrats.

Re: The NYT Released an Oregon Trail Style Game about Voter Suppression

#49

Post by travmatt »

moduspol wrote: post #37
travmatt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As far as I know, no one is checking outside of states with voter ID laws "A comprehensive investigation of voter impersonation finds 31 credible incidents out of one billion ballots cast"[0] Seems like a pretty comprehensive check if you ask me. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/06/a-com...

Yep. People very rarely get kicked out of the movies for sneaking candy in. As a result, we know for certain virtually nobody is sneaking candy into the movies. Pretty simple stuff, guys.

I always find this method of argumentation intellectually dishonest, probably intentionally so.

You try and shift the burden of proof onto your opponent and ask them to prove a negative, and in the absence of this intentionally impossible proof you advocate stripping the rights of franchisement from broad swaths of minority groups by using a cute analogy that doesn't really map well to reality. And then you pat yourself on the back and walk away feeling smart.

Back in the real world, away from your fantasy, voting rights are central to American democracy and laws that strip americans of them should actually be shown to be needed, besides the fact that one political party currently only likes white people and subsequently stokes racist anger.

Re: The NYT Released an Oregon Trail Style Game about Voter Suppression

#50

Post by Pigo »

noer wrote: post #20
Pigo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I played all three to see if they tried to show other perspectives, but no. It's just a hit piece.

It's an opinion piece and says as much in the intro.

Oh I missed that, thanks for the heads up though. I'm not sure why, but I really thought it would be more of game with some actual insight instead of "isn't Trump a bully".
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