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Virginia voter registration down on last day to register before election

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21–30 of 87 posts

Re: Virginia voter registration down on last day to register before election

#22
post #3

I don't know much about US elections, but from what I've seen in the news the last couple of weeks, I have to say I'm less than impressed. The rest of the world used to see the US as a beacon of democracy. But the country seems to be utterly incapable of organizing fair elections for its populace. Voter registration failures. Voter intimidation. Politicians literally redrawing maps in order to gain an advangate. A pr…

This comment is going to be upvoted because it's America-in-its-current-form bashing and there's obviously truth to what you're saying the problems are. The dirty little secret is this IS American democracy at work. It has ALWAYS been rife with voter suppression tacts, and disenfranchisement at scale. The Internet and the current political chaos allows the world to see it all in its ugly glory, but there are many people alive who lived in a country with LAWS that prevented minorities from voting. If we were once the beacon of democracy, by those standards, we still are. It's just a pretty low bar.

Re: Virginia voter registration down on last day to register before election

#24
post #4

Well, as unfortunate as this is, I mean, accidents and issues do happen in life. Be prepared. There was a whole probably 4 years (at least) to register to vote up to this day. For the prepared, how does one day out of years really matter? It's a sad situation if your voter base is scrambling to register on the last possible day, regardless of party .

Might I suggest the wild and crazy idea that for us “prepared” citizens, who have the means and wherewithal to register instead of chiding those who do not, we look to address the situations where possible to maximize the ability for that class of voter, as is the good and prudent thing to do in a democratic society, Citizen Kepler?

Re: Virginia voter registration down on last day to register before election

#25
post #3

I don't know much about US elections, but from what I've seen in the news the last couple of weeks, I have to say I'm less than impressed. The rest of the world used to see the US as a beacon of democracy. But the country seems to be utterly incapable of organizing fair elections for its populace. Voter registration failures. Voter intimidation. Politicians literally redrawing maps in order to gain an advangate. A pr…

> The rest of the world used to see the US as a beacon of democracy.

lol wut. The US has always been a flawed democracy [0].

0.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

Re: Virginia voter registration down on last day to register before election

#26
post #3

I don't know much about US elections, but from what I've seen in the news the last couple of weeks, I have to say I'm less than impressed. The rest of the world used to see the US as a beacon of democracy. But the country seems to be utterly incapable of organizing fair elections for its populace. Voter registration failures. Voter intimidation. Politicians literally redrawing maps in order to gain an advangate. A pr…

This is all very exaggerated due to the fact that access to voting has become a political issue.

Voting in the US is incredibly efficient and easy for the majority of people. In this case we are talking about registration not actually voting. You only need to register once when you move to a new area so most people don’t even need to register.

On top of that voter registration is available year round. This is just the last day to register and still be able to vote in the upcoming election. Again you don’t need to register for every election.

Also, numerous states also allow people to register and vote the same day.

It’s not perfect but what you read online is grossly exaggerated for political gain on both sides.

Re: Virginia voter registration down on last day to register before election

#27
post #12
post #7

I think it's important to be careful before crying foul. Never presume malice when stupidity will suffice. Look at VA right now on 538: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/... If polls are accurate, and Nate Silver's models don't fail, it's already been won by Biden. No matter who you suppress from signing up it won't matter- neither party cares about VA anymore. (And yes, those same models sa…

> be careful before crying foul. I think it's safe to say the current administration has lost the benefit of the doubt.

The current administration of Virginia is a Democrat governor, with Democrat control of both houses of the legislature.

Re: Virginia voter registration down on last day to register before election

#28
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Wildly unpopular" ~= 49% of the voters approve [edit for clarity: of the party]. There's truly deeper systemic issues in the United States than the Republican's economic policies.

Your figures are hilariously off, there. If you look at Republican social policies, they're even more off.

The Republican platform is remarkably narrow and well defined. They are the party of 'free speech,' God, guns and eliminating abortions. The rest is ancillary to their voters. When you cast your opponents as God-hating, Christmas-fighting, Gun-stealing, baby-killing potheads, people don't really care about your economic policies, they're just voting to stop the anti-Christ.

The Democratic tent on the other hand is stretched about as broad as it possibly can be, and they don't really commit to anything. If they cast themselves as too progressive they risk alienating their right flank and the 'centrist undecideds' (I mean my lord who can't make up their mind about this). If they cast themselves as too conservative, they risk alienating the Bernie bros (who IMO swung the election for Trump last time).

So, they stand as a big blob. They espouse a kind of wink-wink-nudge-nudge progressivism: no clear support socialized medicine, a refusal to answer questions about court packing, and immigration doesn't even come up. Maybe more DACA? Where we just throw the problem under a rug again, instead of actually addressing it.

I personally wish the Democrats were half as progressive as Republicans are trying to make them out to be, but they're not. Not even close. Half of what the Republicans accuse them of I'm like damn, that's solid center to center-left policy, I wish the Dems were on board with that!

Re: Virginia voter registration down on last day to register before election

#29
post #4

Well, as unfortunate as this is, I mean, accidents and issues do happen in life. Be prepared. There was a whole probably 4 years (at least) to register to vote up to this day. For the prepared, how does one day out of years really matter? It's a sad situation if your voter base is scrambling to register on the last possible day, regardless of party .

Seems like a whole lot of accidents are happening.

Re: Virginia voter registration down on last day to register before election

#30
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the two major parties has economic policies that are so wildly unpopular (see e.g. https://www.vox.com/21502189/preexisting-conditions-trump-re... ) that they've resigned themselves to using gerrymandering, bigotry, voter suppression and inherent weaknesses in the US democratic system (votes in rural areas count more when electing presidents and senators) to rule using votes from an angry minority instead of a…

"Wildly unpopular" ~= 49% of the voters approve [edit for clarity: of the party]. There's truly deeper systemic issues in the United States than the Republican's economic policies.

> "Wildly unpopular" ~= 49% of the voters approve.

Citation? While it's possible there's ~49% support of the party, that doesn't necessarily mean an equivalent amount of support for the economic policy.

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