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University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

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Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#411

Post by tptacek »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #339
tptacek wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I understand how delivered-by could possibly be a better standard than postmarked-by. Once postmarked, delivery is out of the hands of the voter (and, in fact, there are some really fucked up incentives for the party that controls postal delivery). The postmarked-by standard didn't meaningfully delay the Pennsylvania count (the drastic shift from in-person to mail-in ballots sure did, but the ballots th…

> I don't think I understand how delivered-by could possibly be a better standard than postmarked-by. The purpose of delivered-by is obviously to allow for the election results to be known on election day (or as soon thereafter as possible). A sensible alternative would be to use postmarked-by, but make the postmarked-by date sufficiently in advance of "election day" to allow for the ballots to have been delivered by…

It's a 50/50 country. We're not going to get results known on election day, if for no other reason than that true absentee ballots (not convenience mail-in ballots) are a thing, and many jurisdictions don't allow them to be counted until election day. Since no proposed policy change gets us the outcome you're looking for, it doesn't make sense to inconvenience (and, really, jeopardize) votes in the name of achieving that goal.

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#412

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #330
tptacek wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last major story about ballot harvesting was a conviction for a Republican operative doing it in North Carolina.

Great. We can get behind it being a bad thing, right?

First, can we agree on a set of premises --- for instance, that "ballot harvesting" is not an idiosyncrasy of the Democratic party? It's an article of faith among conservatives that the Democratic Party is the party of voter fraud, but that's empirically untrue.

When we agree on what the facts are, it should be straightforward for us to work out what good changes would be.

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#413

Post by rayiner »

xphilter wrote: post #377
rayiner wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. It's tit-for-tat. Moderate Democrats won't push back against the "community organizers" when they push highly questionable practices such as ballot harvesting or allowing ballots to be counted that arrive days after election day. Moderate Democrats also never pushed back on two decades of claims about election fraud and stolen elections from the likes of people like Terry McAuliffe and Stacey Abrams: https:/…

What exactly is the problem with ballot harvesting if they’re legitimate votes? Maybe the State shouldn’t make it hard to vote. And your source is not exactly unbiased, stating without evidence that “ Updating the voter rolls by removing dormant registrations does not “disenfranchise” voters; it is necessary in order to keep the rolls accurate and up to date, as many people move or die every year.” How do they know t…

> What exactly is the problem with ballot harvesting if they’re legitimate votes

It destroys the chain of custody. See section 5.2 of the Carter-Baker report, which recommended banning the practice: https://www.legislationline.org/download/id/1472/file/3b5079...

Also what does this have to do with Black people? Most older people in the country who supposedly would benefit from this are white—the median white person is a decade older than the median Black person.

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#414

Post by Consultant32452 »

joveian wrote: post #406
Consultant32452 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is from the article: >"It is important to note that the university did not deny the First Amendment rights or academic freedom of professors Dan Smith, Michael McDonald and Sharon Austin," the school said in an email to NPR. "Rather, the university denied requests of these full-time employees to undertake outside paid work that is adverse to the university's interests as a state of Florida institution." The oper…

"Lots of folks asking what if we do the work pro bono? Our compensation was not given as a reason in the original disapproval from UF. That is new language the university added in its PR statement" https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/1454526638578880516

Does the policy that requires them to ask permission to do something ever apply to volunteer work under any circumstances? Or is this something they only have to do when getting paid?

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#415

Post by rayiner »

tptacek wrote: post #411
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think I understand how delivered-by could possibly be a better standard than postmarked-by. The purpose of delivered-by is obviously to allow for the election results to be known on election day (or as soon thereafter as possible). A sensible alternative would be to use postmarked-by, but make the postmarked-by date sufficiently in advance of "election day" to allow for the ballots to have been delivered by…

It's a 50/50 country. We're not going to get results known on election day, if for no other reason than that true absentee ballots (not convenience mail-in ballots) are a thing, and many jurisdictions don't allow them to be counted until election day. Since no proposed policy change gets us the outcome you're looking for, it doesn't make sense to inconvenience (and, really, jeopardize) votes in the name of achieving…

I view not having results on Election Day as being akin to lag in game controllers. It really undermines the feeling that the election result is causally related to the voting.

I was surprised to see how much it upset me to see the NYC mayoral primary drag on.

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#416

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #410
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree and agree the article is short on questions that the journalist should have brought up, even if they couldn't answer it (eg: names of the specific admins involved, how they got those positions and who they are beholden to).

It’s possible for UF to have a nuanced position and still be in the wrong. Do you believe the purpose of the article was to inform you of the nuances on both sides and let you make an informed judgement for yourself?

> Do you believe the purpose of the article was to inform you of the nuances on both sides and let you make an informed judgement for yourself?

I hope not. We tried that with journalism and wound up with endless views from nowhere. It was barely better than when journalists parrot Gov/Biz/LEO press releases w/o vetting the content (which is done all the time).

edit: I'll append to note that NPR's 2008 election coverage set a gold standard for equanimity that I haven't seen repeated (inc by NPR). They gave conservatives a better shake than RW news orgs did.

Everyone is biased. The key to better journalism is competency.

The key to worse journalism is having an arms-race reaction to bias and building a news org on that reaction - which is to say building it out of bias.

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#417

Post by joveian »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #414
joveian wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Lots of folks asking what if we do the work pro bono? Our compensation was not given as a reason in the original disapproval from UF. That is new language the university added in its PR statement" https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/1454526638578880516

Does the policy that requires them to ask permission to do something ever apply to volunteer work under any circumstances? Or is this something they only have to do when getting paid?

I have no direct knowledge of the policy but the comment implies that it wouldn't matter.

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#418

Post by freeopinion »

RickJWagner wrote: post #222
president wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question, does anyone have any insight into how we got into this mess? It seems like the past few years has seen a whirlwind of anti-democratic rule at almost every level of government - state, local, and federal.

IMHO, it's been an escalation of tit-for-tat from both sides of the aisle. News sources, 'Community organizers', corporate activists, religious leaders etc. have all been increasingly brazen as they take increasingly polarized positions to counter actions from the other side. What's missing is common decency and sympathy for the other person's point of view. We won't find it by clinging to our own political party or…

Almost like they were cooperating?

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#419

Post by Retric »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #360
Retric wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Democracy isn’t perfect it’s just one compromise among many.

So better that more innocents be punished than risk any guilty going free? Truly, your love of the strictest "definition" of democracy is baffling, though I think most would vote against you.

No, Democracy gets it wrong in both directions with more of the guilty set free and more of the innocent sent to prison at least compared to a hypothetical ideal system.

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#420

Post by bsanr »

rayiner wrote: post #335
bsanr wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where truth and "truthiness" diverge, I suppose. "Two decades of claims about election fraud" shares character with "two decades of high rates of Stop-and-Frisk detainments of black New Yorkers." The rest of the world looks at the reasonable behavior of liberal election workers and would be reformers - no the "Moderate" Democrats, who as recently as last week were working to gerrymander one of their own party…

The rest of the world gets an extremely biased view of what’s happening in America. They may view “liberal election workers and would be reformers” as the good guys based on that, but the best way to tell what they think is reasonable is from the rules they impose on themselves. French people might not like Georgia Republicans, but France banned mail in voting in the 1970s, while Georgia has extensive mail in voting.…

Cherry-picking restrictive (and, might I say, somewhat off-topic?) policies doesn't change that some form of postal voting is associated with national freedom and wealth, which is both an image I imagine that we'd like to project and a reality level-headed lovers of democracy support. Japan has it. Australia has it. The UK. Canada. Germany. It's a good thing.

Many foreigners recognize this, just as they recognize the truth that "liberal election workers and would-be reformers" ARE the good guys, because they are not bombarded with cynical, horse race-style coverage of the minutiae of our collective political life. When they learn of our goings-on, they usually receive facts, like:

There has been no widespread election fraud in American federal elections at any point in living memory.

and

Certain US states have a documented history of voting discrimination.

and

A 2013 SCOTUS decision struck down key provisions of a law meant to protect people from this discrimination.

and

The conservative governments of those very same states immediately enacted new restrictive voter laws.

and

Officials have admitted that, in some cases, these laws were expressly designed not to enhance election security, but to lower turnout of "undesirable" voters.

So, if non-Americans come away with the impression that conservatives are married to a century-and-a-half-long campaign of doing whatever it takes to try to restrict voting along lines of identity (sex, race, class, location), and that liberals are the ones trying to get the citizens, of a country that prides itself on its free and fair democracy, to... vote? It would be an accurate impression. It would be the truth.

You completely ignored the bulk of my reply, probably because there's no getting around the fact that American conservatism, historically, radically diverges from liberalism on voting rights. They don't hold the same values at all, and the delineation is clear, as I'll state again:

Liberals want people to be able to vote.

Conservatives want to withhold the right to vote.

Now, you can argue the merits of each stance. I would probably counter your likely argument that undue and onerous restrictions, which substantially resemble capricious tactics of the past, run counter to the most basic American ethos, and that our national experiment has been one of slowly uncovering the diamond of liberty that is recognizing and assuring the right of all sound-minded adults to agency and self-determination and a voice in the public square. It's a really pretty diamond. People around the world think so, too. I'm going to ask you to put down the shovel you seem intent on using to cover it back up again.

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