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US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

durbin.senate.gov

101–110 of 311 posts

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of states already do it. I think all we need to do is get the POTUS to publicly shame any remaining holdouts. It's not that expensive, so it wouldn't likely present a hardship for states to implement, so a little push in the right direction may be enough.

POTUS and the GOP are against it because opening up voting access means they lose elections

[deleted]

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#102
post #60

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?

Voter id is often very selective about what counts as a valid ID and it's often coupled with legislative changes and executive policies that selectively make it much harder to get a valid id for a few demographics.

Closing down DMVs depending on the district, reducing their working hours, excessive bureaucracy for non-drivers license IDs, charging excessive fees, etc.

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#103
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah conduct their elections entirely by mail. This covers perhaps 10+ million registered voters. At what level would you consider the scale sufficient for these effects to appear?

Colorado at least is _not_ entirely by mail. It's an option, and a good one, and I personally use it, but it's not mandatory.

To my sibling comment - "reliably blue" lol. Only in the last 3 presidential elections, and the House & Senate are split evenly.

https://www.270towin.com/states/Colorado

https://www.270towin.com/elected-officials/colorado

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#104
post #48

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.

Isnt remote voting a priority because of the epidemic?

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

You were. Satire marketed as news.

Satire, by definition, aims at the top of the societal ladder. Fox News, Russian state media, "alternative news" blogs? They aim at the very bottom of the societal ladder (i.e. immigrants, Muslims, poor people) instead. That's not satire, that is inciting hatred.

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#106
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right supports mail-in ballots with voter-id, and voter-id in general. The left doesn't support that, why?

The left doesn't support that because it disproportionately disenfranchises minority voters. Which is the same reason why the right DOES support it.

It's pretty racist to say some groups can't figure out how to get a driver's license.

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#107
post #48

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.

This is needlessly dismissive. Even red states like TX will likely be forced to allow more mail voting. KY and others will also be doing the same, expanding who can vote absentee in order to deal with a public health issue.

Democrats think giving federal funds to states will help ward off recession and also want to prevent outbreaks in the fall. You can argue Democrats are wrong in those views, but states (including states that would prefer not to implement it!) will have to spend a lot of money on vote-by-mail because of decisions (some at court-level) being made that are the result of coronavirus.

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right supports mail-in ballots with voter-id, and voter-id in general. The left doesn't support that, why?

> The left doesn't support that, why? Because it's a transparent attempt to reduce the ability of some groups of people to vote. The right pushes for voter ID while simultaneously doing everything possible to reduce the availability of ID. Put the Federal Election Commission in charge of voter ID, make the cards free and make it the mission of the FEC to track down and ensure every qualified citizen has one. Then I s…

Do you think with 10+ million undocumented immigrants - a not insignificant portion of the population, but not citizenry - that people should not be concerned about ensuring only valid citizens can vote?

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#109

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…

Don't you have construction sites or slower cars?

I'm regularly driving 150 kilometers on the fabled Autobahn, with no speed limit for the most part (and some 120 km/h speed limit sections), and the difference between "I feel great, let's drive 180" and "Let's take it slow and drive 100 or 110" is surprisingly small, because that top speed is only attainable for short stretches of time.

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#110
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah conduct their elections entirely by mail. This covers perhaps 10+ million registered voters. At what level would you consider the scale sufficient for these effects to appear?

Three of those four state are reliably blue. The real reward is for swing states.

(I assume you were picking OR, HI, WA, and CO, not UT.)

EDIT: parent has been edited since I posted to say "Three of those four state are..." rather than "Four states that are..."

Half of Colorado's Congressional delegation is Republican and Clinton won the state in 2016 only by a bare plurality (48% to 43%).

(UT of course is quite solidly Republican.)

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