World reaction to long queues of voters in US • Hacker News Board

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#251

Post by 0x262d » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 8:13 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #202

0x262d wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It drives me nuts that the "opposition" party is not responding to this with calls for mass action to demand fair elections, including occupations and strikes if necessary, but by exhorting unlikely voters who feel apathetic to vote harder against voter suppression.

Any reform will come from outside the system. Said from experience. I share your frustration. I worked on election and voting issues for a decade, fulltime for two years. I was slow to realize that my Mr Smith Goes to Washington folk theory of politics has no basis in reality. The only successes me and mine achieved were thru bringing pressure. I highly recommend Camp Wellstone's training for organizers. (Please shar…

Totally agree about inside/outside the system. I'm in this org and we won an unlikely major victory this year (not voting rights but still cool) because our city councilor member has a clear understanding her power to negotiate and legislate for positive change is virtually nil, but her power to agitate and build mass movements to bring pressure is high. Unfortunately almost no other orgs/elected officials embrace this strategy right now (yet).

I think the article neglects this fact for some reason but the actual tax legislation that was passed was written by Democrats, not us, and they try to frame it as their own idea... but the reality is they passed it literally the day after we announced we had enough signatures to put our somewhat larger tax on the ballot, in response to it.

https://www.socialistalternative.org/2020/07/09/amazon-taxed...

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#252

Post by 0x262d » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 8:15 PM UTC

aww_dang wrote: post #171

0x262d wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandatory voting doesn't preclude writing in nothing if you prefer. And for people who are uninformed, well, having to go through the motion helps that some. More than anything else, this would force the government to make it possible, easy, and routine for current non-voters to vote, which would dramatically shift election results to the left economically.

Ultimately partisans of either persuasion portray opposing voters as uninformed. I'd even suggest that a healthy portion of voters on any side have poorly formed reasoning skills. What is the standard for being an informed voter? I can easily imagine the backlash if there were a test for competence wherein voters were required to identify fallacious arguments.

I agree, but was trying to say that if someone is afraid that most nonvoters are uninformed (debatable), making voting mandatory would cause many nonvoters to learn more about it.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#253

Post by specialist » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

jdmichal wrote: post #242

specialist wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then Apple adapted by allowing preorders. Now suffering the queues is elective.

This is hilarious to me because you are basically making the correct point, but with the wrong conclusion. Let's take as a potentially erroneous given that early voting worked perfectly OK. Then, in 2020, it's run exactly the same , but demand is larger than in previous years [0]. That might result in exactly what's being reported here. So yes, Apple made a mistake with a novel experience. Looks like various supervis…

Election administrators are pretty good at projecting turnout. Historical data and all that. In the year 2020, there's exactly no reason any jurisdiction should have anything less than perfection running poll sites.

The only slack (goodwill) I'm willing to grant admins this cycle is the massive pivot to postal ballots on short notice, while fending off widespread sabotage and harrassment.

Postal balloting is very different from running poll sites. Oregon and Washington experienced a lot of growing pains. And they made the transition gradually. Even so, our admins experienced a lot of burnout.

I imagine OR and WA admins are in a lot of Zoom calls with noobs nationwide. Alas, some jurisdictions don't want to learn.

I expect 2020's election to be the biggest fubar imaginable.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#254

Post by specialist » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 8:44 PM UTC

0x262d wrote: post #251

specialist wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any reform will come from outside the system. Said from experience. I share your frustration. I worked on election and voting issues for a decade, fulltime for two years. I was slow to realize that my Mr Smith Goes to Washington folk theory of politics has no basis in reality. The only successes me and mine achieved were thru bringing pressure. I highly recommend Camp Wellstone's training for organizers. (Please shar…

Totally agree about inside/outside the system. I'm in this org and we won an unlikely major victory this year (not voting rights but still cool) because our city councilor member has a clear understanding her power to negotiate and legislate for positive change is virtually nil, but her power to agitate and build mass movements to bring pressure is high. Unfortunately almost no other orgs/elected officials embrace th…

Congratulations. Nicely done.

There's a droll quote from a political to the effect "I have to find out where my voters are going, so that I can lead them."

As you know, waterdowned legislation is sometimes passed to blunt or diffuse a competitor's initiative. And the rest of Seattle absolutely does not want Sawant's name in headlines.

Other Councilmembers may not like Sawant, but they absolutely respect her as a politician, especially noting that she does a great job representing her constituents. (Source: served on local Dems e-board, have had many sidebar convos.)

For my part, I'm really uncomfortable with the notion of backseat drivers. I expect the person I vote for to do the work. But given her successes, I need to reassess Sawant's decision making process. Thanks for nudging me.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#255

Post by jdmichal » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #247

jdmichal wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The history of voter suppression in certain states cannot be ignored. Agreed but mostly orthogonal. Providing early voting at all is a drastic improvement reducing voter suppression. Since it lasts for multiple days, it allows for many more people to vote on days off work and other commitments, when they may not be able to easily vote on election day. Providing better early voting would of course do an even better…

You can’t ignore the attempt to actively make early voting WORSE though, like Texas removing ballot drop off locations that were already in place and changing the rules to only allow one location per county. That isn’t “old rules are out of date and need updating”, that is “actively making the current system worse to suppress voting”

I'm not sure what you're looking for here? Do you want an endorsement that I don't like voter suppression? Because sure, I don't like voter suppression. But you keep bringing up points that are at best tangentially related to the actual topic at hand here. I don't dispute that there's shit that happens, but I also don't see the connection to long lines at early voting.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#256

Post by 0x262d » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 9:08 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #254

0x262d wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree about inside/outside the system. I'm in this org and we won an unlikely major victory this year (not voting rights but still cool) because our city councilor member has a clear understanding her power to negotiate and legislate for positive change is virtually nil, but her power to agitate and build mass movements to bring pressure is high. Unfortunately almost no other orgs/elected officials embrace th…

Congratulations. Nicely done. There's a droll quote from a political to the effect "I have to find out where my voters are going, so that I can lead them." As you know, waterdowned legislation is sometimes passed to blunt or diffuse a competitor's initiative. And the rest of Seattle absolutely does not want Sawant's name in headlines. Other Councilmembers may not like Sawant, but they absolutely respect her as a poli…

Oh cool, you're in the Seattle area? I moved away from there this summer.

> I'm really uncomfortable with the notion of backseat drivers

I assume this is referring to her being accountable to Socialist Alternative? I understand why this sometimes seems weird to people. But it's impossible get anywhere as a politician without a base of support. Kshama is open about who hers is. Corporate Democrats (and Republicans of course) are not, and tend to surprise people after the fact with their governance when they refuse to, for instance, tax the rich, or hedge on the question indefinitely. I think Kshama's ability to campaign for things and then consistently fight for them after getting elected is closely related to having SA, to not just do necessarily collective political analysis, but also do the work of mass campaigns. By contrast, traditional politicians also offload a lot of political work, but to an array of personally appointed policymakers, lobbyists, private-company executives, and others; while SA is democratically run, the corporate lobbying groups are only accountable to capital. I don't think there is a sustainable path in between these two options.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#257

Post by efa » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 10:17 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #147

efa wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shenanigans are not limited to one of the political parties. https://nypost.com/2020/09/27/project-veritas-uncovers-ballo...

Project Veritas habitually lies to manufacture controversy, and the subject of the video has said that they offered him $10,000 to claim that he was paid to harvest ballots [1], so I think we can dismiss these allegations. [1] https://www.syracuse.com/politics/2020/10/man-says-he-was-of...

He said he didn't do it? Case closed!

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#258

Post by LiquidSky » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 11:18 PM UTC

bpt3 wrote: post #115

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #5

The people behind this would tell you it's a "feature": by making it incredibly undesirable for people in densely-populated areas to vote (which almost universally lean Democratic), you ensure that only the "right" people are able to vote.

Long wait times are occurring across the US this year for early voting; I spoke to someone in Texas (a historically Republican stronghold) who told me lines were 2 hours long in his area on the first day of early voting. US election regulations aren't designed to handle this level of early voting because there has never been this much demand for it. You can debate whether that should change or whether election offici…

>but I don't believe this to be as nefarious as you claim

You might want to pay more attention, then.

Take your Texas example: the state is currently in a legal battle over the Governor's surprise order two weeks ago to only allow one ballot drop per county [1], meaning that Harris County with 4.5 million people went from 11 drop locations to 1, the same number as rural counties with only several hundred people. And, of course, the high-population counties are the urban ones that reliably vote Democrat. This is just one of many examples from around the country of Republican governors/legislatures moving to reduce or remove early voting infrastructure.

This is indeed an usual election, but there is unquestionably also a systematic campaign being waged to reduce voting by the Republicans.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/10/13/trump-j...

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#259

Post by specialist » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 11:31 PM UTC

0x262d wrote: post #256

specialist wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations. Nicely done. There's a droll quote from a political to the effect "I have to find out where my voters are going, so that I can lead them." As you know, waterdowned legislation is sometimes passed to blunt or diffuse a competitor's initiative. And the rest of Seattle absolutely does not want Sawant's name in headlines. Other Councilmembers may not like Sawant, but they absolutely respect her as a poli…

Oh cool, you're in the Seattle area? I moved away from there this summer. > I'm really uncomfortable with the notion of backseat drivers I assume this is referring to her being accountable to Socialist Alternative? I understand why this sometimes seems weird to people. But it's impossible get anywhere as a politician without a base of support. Kshama is open about who hers is. Corporate Democrats (and Republicans of…

Democratic Party members mostly hate their politicians. They're often seen as parasites. They just use the party to get elected. Dems would love to have the kind of relationship Socialist Alternative has with Sawant. Though, in truth, the delegation for Ballard & North Seattle has been pretty good during my direct involvement.

Now that I've played the game a little bit, I don't understand the Corporate Democrat label. As Jesse James said, he robbed the banks because that's where the money is. Same for fund raising. That's been slowly changing on the left as parties wane and interest groups rise. That guy from QuarkXpress was an early pioneer of this model.

I now think of The Struggle as entities defending the status quo (establishment, duopoly) and everyone else storming the castle. That's neither bad or good; it just is.

And per Francis Fukamaya's vetocracy thesis, the connection between our party system and the widespread dysfunction in governance is fairly loose. Right now any one can do anything without much fear of repercussions, esp on the left. Said another way, I agree with Ezra Klein's thesis that if we make the (lowercase) democratic reforms to enable majoritarian rule, then the party system can grow to actually mean something.

I recognize that I'm way to the left of most participants. I have strong affinity for MLK, David Graeber, Jonathan Rawls, and maybe some others. I started as a Green and still (probably) believe in its platform. But Nader nuked that party. (I'm still mad.) And like most Democrats, I joined with the intent to oppose Republicans. aka Negative partisanship. I think this setup is terrible.

Back when I was attending all the third party meetups (Greens, Socialists, Libertarians), I was struck that those members were making an affirmative choice, standing for what they believed in. That's a much more healthy approach.

To feel that vibe, I've focused more on issue based orgs, vs party politics. Gay marriage, weed, sustainability, etc.

So I thank you for sharing some of your Socialist Alternative experiences. I need to go check them out.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#260

Post by 12xo » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 12:11 AM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #250

12xo wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think the retraction of voting rights is due to the actions of men some 300 years ago, I dont really have much to say... You might as well go back a few thousand years. However, if you're interested in the actual cause and effects of real, tangible actions and real legislation by living souls. People whose goals were to repress votes to change outcomes, I suggest you study the last 30 years of American media a…

"Retraction" is a weird word to use. The issue isn't that we're going backwards — voter turnout has generally increased over this country's lifetime [1] — but it's that we're enfranchising people at a relatively slow and demographically disproportionate rate. If you pick 30 years ago as your starting point, you'll miss the start of the war on drugs, white flight and redlining, Jim Crow — all "real, tangible actions a…

Forest v Trees 2020...