Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a pretty bad take. The other half the story is that the Dems object to every cleanup and always claim the Republicans are trying to suppress votes, but never have any suggestions on how to do it better, only "don't do it now" or "do it after the next election" in perpetuity. That's how blue states like Michigan end up with court orders requiring them to do cleanups (court orders which Michigan is violating).
> blue states like Michigan Both houses of Michigan's state legislature have been Republican-controlled since 2011. Not much of an example of the Dems controlling voter rolls at the state level there.
Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%
201–210 of 244 posts
Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Germany every person eligible to vote just gets a letter telling you the day of the vote and your voting station (and a list of stuff being voted on, local elections usually coincide with more important ones). At voting day (a Sunday) you go to your polling station with that letter and photo id and after five minutes you have cast your vote and are on your way. It's dead simple. But it hinges on the state having a…
I mean, that's largely what voter registration is - a database of every citizen's address. The problem comes in when those addresses change. There's no requirement to inform your old state you left, so millions of inactive voters are left in the database. Generally there's a requirement to register in the new state (drivers license) within 30 days which is often missed, or not required for temporary moves like colleg…
It so happens that active voter suppression is actively practiced by republicans, because we have their emails from people in state legislatures to researchers asking questions in two key areas: what forms of ID are minority voters not likely to have that 'our' voters do, so that we could block them for registering [0]. And the second thing is picking your voters, which used to be in both parties but today is pretty much also used by one party. Also doing things like cutting early voting and other extended voting which predominantly let people with low-wage jobs have time to vote on weekends. Another cool one, preventing kids from pre-registering, cause those kids are of course not so conservative [1].
Also we have conservative conferences including ALEC talking about how to suppress voters [2].
Today there is no question that republicans use these tactics to actively suppress votes and voter registration for people that are likely to vote against them. It's not in question, it's not just a few bad apples.
[0] https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-north-carolin...
[1] https://www.thenation.com/article/north-carolina-wont-stop-s...
[2] https://www.mediamatters.org/american-legislative-exchange-c...
Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't think removing dead or moved voters is important? This is not about voter fraud. This is just about keeping your records in order, and making sure no one can raise suspicions about your electoral mechanisms.
Removing dead or moved voters is much, much less important than making sure that valid voters can still vote.
Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't think removing dead or moved voters is important? This is not about voter fraud. This is just about keeping your records in order, and making sure no one can raise suspicions about your electoral mechanisms.
Unless the state has an effective mechanism that doesn't disenfranchise voters, and that those moved or dead voters aren't voting, the motives are suspect.
Um, no they're not. Simply wanting to maintain a clean record is a personality difference that it is unreasonable to get suspicious over given the varying personalities of the various secretaries of state (the one who ultimately decides such policies).
Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Because the goal of the Republican Party is explicitly to use these laws to suppress the votes of certain demographics, not to actually secure the vote. Your linked source is talking about an entirely different issue. Does not prove your point about Republicans using voter id laws to suppress the votes of certain demographics, or that it's a point of the Republican party as a national organization to do that. All w…
>... All we know is that some Republicans are biased, just as all people have biases. Also, your source is not substantiated. Ah, so we are still acting like Republicans aren't the legacy bearers of Jim Crow.
Democrats enacted Jim Crow laws (0). I see no evidence that Republicans have enacted any laws that systematically discriminate against black people, in fact Trump has tried to reform the criminal justice system (1). He pardoned Jack Johnson posthumously, and has been handing out pardons like candy to wrongfully accused blacks.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws
1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/3100-inmate...
Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Your linked source is talking about an entirely different issue. It's a court ruling that shut down North Carolina voter ID and early voting laws, in part because the defense of those laws included that that literal quote about it making harder for black people to vote. > All we know is that some Republicans are biased, just as all people have biases. When 'some' is enough to control a state legislature, and simila…
> When 'some' is enough to control a state legislature, and similar things happen across the country ( https://www.npr.org/2018/10/23/659784277/republican-voter-su... ), it's a logical conclusion. I don't see how it follows that a state legislature's cupidity directly translates to a national party's intentions. That's a bridge too far. If there's a smoking gun, such as a leaked internal memo, I would agree totally.…
1. 4 times Alec was caught talking with republican lawmakers about how to suppress the vote (Montana, Alabama, Phoenix, Omaha : https://www.mediamatters.org/american-legislative-exchange-c...
2. North Carolina suppression tactics https://www.thenation.com/article/north-carolina-wont-stop-s...
3. More on N.C. voter id law to suppress voting: https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-north-carolin...
It's not just some scattered occasional thing of a few bad actors. There are state by state actions and national conferences making this happen.
Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
>... All we know is that some Republicans are biased, just as all people have biases. Also, your source is not substantiated. Ah, so we are still acting like Republicans aren't the legacy bearers of Jim Crow.
> Ah, so we are still acting like Republicans aren't the legacy bearers of Jim Crow. Democrats enacted Jim Crow laws (0). I see no evidence that Republicans have enacted any laws that systematically discriminate against black people, in fact Trump has tried to reform the criminal justice system (1). He pardoned Jack Johnson posthumously, and has been handing out pardons like candy to wrongfully accused blacks. 0: htt…
Today the jim crow defenders, the people that say slavery wasn't so bad, some people were even better off. Those are republicans.
They switched.
Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's no requirement to inform your old state you left, so millions of inactive voters are left in the database In Germany when you arrive somewhere we know that you are coming from somewhere. So when you register at your new address that usually involves your new city hall informing your old one that you moved. I guess that doesn't really work if registration isn't universal (in Germany we track you place of res…
> (in Germany we track you place of residence basically from birth, it's used not just for voting but also for determining where your taxes go, for government communication, to make sure nobody skips out on bills by moving, etc). If we tried to institute that kind of system, the political party which currently is all against voter id would be up in arms too.
Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
> (in Germany we track you place of residence basically from birth, it's used not just for voting but also for determining where your taxes go, for government communication, to make sure nobody skips out on bills by moving, etc). If we tried to institute that kind of system, the political party which currently is all against voter id would be up in arms too.
So long as it isn't used to disenfranchise people from a single vote, there's no problem. Now, things get complicated and we would have to do work to get it right in that we have inconsistent rules on residency in terms of students and temporary housing, and we have a significant number of people who don't want to see a national registry of citizens (see issues with using SSN as a national ID) but there's nothing spe…
And you believe it's the Republicans who are hating on immigration enforcement? The proposal for tracking everyone's residence not going to fly(coincidentally another thing you need id to do) with those people.
Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Ah, so we are still acting like Republicans aren't the legacy bearers of Jim Crow. Democrats enacted Jim Crow laws (0). I see no evidence that Republicans have enacted any laws that systematically discriminate against black people, in fact Trump has tried to reform the criminal justice system (1). He pardoned Jack Johnson posthumously, and has been handing out pardons like candy to wrongfully accused blacks. 0: htt…
It was the dems from places like my state in the south, but they all moved to the republican party because of the success of republican party taking on those conservatives. During reconstruction, since lincoln was a republican all the southerners became dems. It wasn't until Nixon and the 1970s that the republicans attracted those conservatives. Today the jim crow defenders, the people that say slavery wasn't so bad,…
> They switched.
A lot of them switched for reasons unrelated to race. "Many white southerners switched to the Republican Party, some for reasons unrelated to race. The majority of white southerners shared conservative positions on taxes, moral values and national security. The Democratic Party had increasingly liberal positions rejected by these voters.[20] In addition, the younger generations, who were politically conservative but wealthier and less attached to the Democratic Party, replaced the older generations who remained loyal to the party.[20] The shift to the Republican Party took place slowly and gradually over almost a century.[20]"
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_Southern_Unite...