91–100 of 311 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is true but only half the story. The federal government is able to incentivize vote-by-mail through federal funds. This has been the center of much debate. Speaker Pelosi says she will push for these funds in any next round of stimulus.
So Pelosi is willing to politicize the epidemic, cool.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to be wowed by this kind of hypocrisy, but lately I've concluded that these things are happening so frequently because the voters have proved to them sufficiently that they will take no heed provided it "hurts the other team." Everything on the news looks ironic now because the political class has realized there's almost no limit to what they can get away with.
>Everything on the news looks ironic I was born and grew up in Scotland. I remember the first time I watched Fox News after moving to the states - for almost fifteen minutes I genuinely thought I was watching some (honestly pretty funny) satire.
The Senate is a deliberative body, and its primary work requires debate . Already too much gets done behind closed doors and outside the public eye. Dispensing with even the pretense of open debate is somewhat concerning.
Can someone point to any concrete results of debate on the Senate floor from anytime in the last 20 years or so? I am genuinely asking, because it seems to me that the value of debate on the floor is like you said only pretense at this point. Mandating that pretense and in turn making the Senate slower to react in an emergency seems like an actively harmful requirement.
I have never seen a compelling argument for why this should not be allowed.
Security, fraud, and lack of a physical paper trail.
Oh, I thought the headline meant remote voting for, you know, voters, not Senators, and was very surprised to see an R next to one of the sponsor's names. The bill's just to let the Senate vote remotely. I'd imagine most of the interesting nuance is about "presence" and quorum-making. This is not about expanding remote/by-mail voting in elections, which Republicans have generally been strongly against, including and…
The federal government does not have the jurisdiction to change how people vote in elections. That is determined by the states.
Article 1 Section 4 of the Constitution:
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 [sic] Senators.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_One_of_the_United_Stat...
"Manner of Elections" certainly sounds like it would allow Congress to pass a law mandating the elections must be vote by mail, specifically for Senators and Representatives.
This does not apply to the President due to states having the jurisdiction to decide how electoral college electors are chosen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_Stat...
So Congress has partial authority, the question is if Congress passed a vote by mail law for Senators and Representatives, would states have other ballot measures or positions (Such as the President) that would not be vote by mail in the same election.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interestingly enough, a significant majority of Republican Voters (~65%) actually do support mail in ballots. The opposition largely stems from the RNC and senior party leadership. In any case I am glad that the US senate is taking public health seriously, and I hope that they will take similar precautions in protecting their constituents by passing the Klobuchar-Wyden bill to allow mail in voting: https://www.wyden.…
The right supports mail-in ballots with voter-id, and voter-id in general. The left doesn't support that, why?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Has this happened with members of the military or in states that already allow vote-by-mail? If not, why not?
Probably not, but mainly due to scale. The number of people who vote remotely is so few that the amount of fraud you can get through without being detected makes it not worth the effort.
>In 2014 Colorado (72 percent) and Oregon (71 percent) led the nation in voter turnout of active registered voters – both states 20+ points above the national average of 48%
Yet still doesn't seem to be happening.
source: https://www.nonprofitvote.org/get-ballot-home-2-weeks-electi...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to be wowed by this kind of hypocrisy, but lately I've concluded that these things are happening so frequently because the voters have proved to them sufficiently that they will take no heed provided it "hurts the other team." Everything on the news looks ironic now because the political class has realized there's almost no limit to what they can get away with.
>Everything on the news looks ironic I was born and grew up in Scotland. I remember the first time I watched Fox News after moving to the states - for almost fifteen minutes I genuinely thought I was watching some (honestly pretty funny) satire.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, but it could have been an amendment, or (more likely) some incentive-based "we're not making you, you'll just get less money if you don't" thing.
Plenty of precedent for that sort of thing, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law > States had to agree to the limit if they desired to receive federal funding for highway repair.
Tons of people on both sides of the isle agree that implementing things like the national speed limit and drinking age of 21 by withholding federal funding from the states that don't goose step in line is a backhanded way of enacting legislation and/or an end run around the constitution.
Sure you can do things that way, but you have to ask yourself if it's really worth it in the long run to normalize that kind of legislative behavior in exchange for getting whatever policy point you want a couple years sooner.
Edit: To reply to your comment below I guess you could say, "no the federal government doesn't have jurisdiction, but that hasn't stopped them in the past"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plenty of precedent for that sort of thing, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law > States had to agree to the limit if they desired to receive federal funding for highway repair.
On a tangential note, these lawmakers failed to see the real consequence of a 55 mph speed limit: the invisible economic loss of longer commute times probably far outweighed any of the minor 0.5 to 1% savings in gas. Those hours spent on the road are hours that people could be spending with their family, at work, or doing whatever else they like. According to the Census Bureau, 128 million today commute daily in the…