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US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

durbin.senate.gov

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

#111

Post by blisterpeanuts »

slg wrote: post #30
kd5bjo wrote: post #6

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.

It's not exactly a pretense, but rather it's playing to the audience, which is the country and the rest of the world. It's theatrics, not intended to sway the lawmakers themselves, who in general are not persuadable by their colleagues.

Meanwhile, behind closed doors, lawmakers are horse trading and calling in favors to get their pet projects passed.

This is pretty much how Congress has worked for the past 100 years or so.

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

#112

Post by burtonator »

karatestomp wrote: post #3

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…

We need a new law - call it the Unequal Protection act. Senators/Representatives can't have benefits that exceed that of the general population for certain categories like voting rights, healthcare, etc.

Can't even have private healthcare. Must use the same systems that the general population has access to.

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

#113

Post by justaguyhere »

alasdair_ wrote: post #61
ordinaryradical wrote: post #41

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.

Same here - Fox news is on a whole new level. It is like the onion, except it stops being funny after about 30 seconds.

Also wasn't this the same channel that argued that they are allowed to present false news (or something similar)?

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

#114

Post by Armisael16 »

lozaning wrote: post #67
malandrew wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we do remote voting securely? The moment you move from a tiny minority voting by mail to the overwhelming majority voting by mail, the payoff for corrupting that process goes up dramatically.

Is there some part of the way states that already do it are doing it that you take umbrage with?

I'm not the person you responded to, but current vote-by-mail procedures do make it impossible to ensure a secret ballot.

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

#115

Post by arrosenberg »

eanzenberg wrote: post #72
elicash wrote: 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.

It's super clear you have come on here to be a partisan. Both sides are politicizing the issue (see McConnell wanting the state of New York to go bankrupt).

Take it back to Reddit.

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

#116

Post by [deleted] »

eanzenberg wrote: post #72
elicash wrote: 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.

[deleted]

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

#117

Post by Shivetya »

kd5bjo wrote: post #6

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.

Actually one of the biggest losses in Congress has been committees. The committee driven Congress was slowly pushed aside by the Republicans as part of their take over in the nineties and then nearly completely neutered by the Democrats when they took on the concept of party first politics.

At least with the old system the committees were far more important than their members and they drove policy across Congress as a whole, not all direction is from the party into Congress

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

#118

Post by danharaj »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #108
rootusrootus wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

No.

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

#119

Post by nrmitchi »

I know that the actual text goes into a bit more detail about when this should be allowed, but it's kind of important to remember that strictly speaking, "During National Emergencies" is "all the time" due to the fact that there are, at the current moment, 34 active National Emergencies.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_emergencies_i...

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

#120

Post by karatestomp »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #108
rootusrootus wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Has it been an actual problem in states that allow mail-in voting without also having voter ID laws? If it's a real issue, it ought to already be causing problems.
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