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Louisiana voter registration portal mysteriously shuts down on Registration Day

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Re: Louisiana voter registration portal mysteriously shuts down on Registration Day

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the other 60% is not doing basically the same? > 40% always demonizes the 60% as sub-human violent scum One sentence later... > 40% has violent fantasies of a Civil War do-over

You should compare the antifa vs. fa fatality count sometime. It would put the "both sides are equally violent" hypothesis into some perspective. Or guns and ammo count.

> fatality count

If you count WW2 in, sure, but nowadays? I think very few of even the most extremist people on either side will murder for their convictions. If we’re talking political violence, we should focus on counting stuff like beatings, arson, even people getting canceled, because it usually doesn’t manifest in killings.

> Or guns and ammo count.

Not indicative of violence at all.

Re: Louisiana voter registration portal mysteriously shuts down on Registration Day

#32
post #13
post #2

America has corrupt elections. From Gerrymandering, Voter Database purges, Voter Suppression through closing polling places, making it hard or impossible to vote by mail. All of it is intentional. And it won't change because those who are elected are the ones that set the rules.

It can absolutely change if those who are elected are physically removed from their rule-setting positions by the disenfranchised. Historically, you can’t cure fascism by voting, even in situations where the elections haven’t been compromised.

Just to be clear, you are advocating removing government officials by violent means? Please explain the difference between that and domestic terrorism.

To say American elections are "compromised" is both a gross exaggeration and a Dunning-Krugeresque oversimplification. Gerrymandering is absolutely a problem and needs to be dealt with. It's the primary (no pun intended) reason for the polarization of our elected officials. Having a non-partisan commission determine districts would help, but how to appoint those officials is not a solved problem.

Re: Louisiana voter registration portal mysteriously shuts down on Registration Day

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the other 60% is not doing basically the same? > 40% always demonizes the 60% as sub-human violent scum One sentence later... > 40% has violent fantasies of a Civil War do-over

It's probably not true that all Trump supporters want a civil war, but to me it seems true that most/all of Trump's and the enabling Republicans actions are leading their country to either civil war or Putin-style autocracy. So why anyone would still be a supporter is beyond me. I'm a European who has been watching the last four years first in disbelief, then in optimism, then in pessimism and now in horror.

> It's probably not true that all Trump supporters want a civil war

Probably? Dude. Don’t be ridiculous. Exactly this kind of demonization of the opposing political party is causing so many problems today.

Re: Louisiana voter registration portal mysteriously shuts down on Registration Day

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like 10-80-10. You've got some small minority of people on both sides who want complete control as a means to their own ends and then the 80% in the middle who don't really care that much and will ally with either side depending on the other specifics of the situation. I'm pulling the numbers out of my ass but pretty much every contentious issue breaks down this way. Most people mostly don't care about most…

I don't think that this is true anymore. Trump is moving the Overton Window to the right [1], while a part of the Democrats, lead by Bernie Sanders and other left politicians are trying to pull it to the left. So right now, a lot of people are travelling from the center of the Overton window to the sides. This also leads to more "political fights" and political tribalism. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v-hzc6blG…

What statement in the above isn't true (other than the numbers of course). "Most people don't care about most things, most of the time" seems pretty apt, especially for national politics.

Re: Louisiana voter registration portal mysteriously shuts down on Registration Day

#35
post #32
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can absolutely change if those who are elected are physically removed from their rule-setting positions by the disenfranchised. Historically, you can’t cure fascism by voting, even in situations where the elections haven’t been compromised.

Just to be clear, you are advocating removing government officials by violent means? Please explain the difference between that and domestic terrorism. To say American elections are "compromised" is both a gross exaggeration and a Dunning-Krugeresque oversimplification. Gerrymandering is absolutely a problem and needs to be dealt with. It's the primary (no pun intended) reason for the polarization of our elected offi…

My comment didn’t advocate for anything; I am not sure where you got that from.

Re: Louisiana voter registration portal mysteriously shuts down on Registration Day

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably not true that all Trump supporters want a civil war, but to me it seems true that most/all of Trump's and the enabling Republicans actions are leading their country to either civil war or Putin-style autocracy. So why anyone would still be a supporter is beyond me. I'm a European who has been watching the last four years first in disbelief, then in optimism, then in pessimism and now in horror.

> It's probably not true that all Trump supporters want a civil war Probably ? Dude. Don’t be ridiculous. Exactly this kind of demonization of the opposing political party is causing so many problems today.

That's fair. It's definitely not true. I considered changing the words but decided to keep probably since it is after all a more accurate statement (being a weaker assertion) and partly because it's more damning of his supporters I admit.

Re: Louisiana voter registration portal mysteriously shuts down on Registration Day

#37
post #30

As an Australian who lives in the US, the vast chasm between how elections work in the two countries still boggles my mind. First, the US needs mandatory voting. This is what Australia has. The argument against this has always been about uninformed people voting and "fraud". I used to be sympathetic to this argument until I saw the massive scale of voter suppression that occurs in the US. Mandatory voting immediately…

In general this shows a lack of understanding of the US system of government common to folks not from here (and honestly to at least half the people who were born here).

Broad national-level statements like "election supervisors are an elected position" are almost always wrong for huge swaths of the country. Not a single election judge, election helper, or poll watcher (three distinct positions with distinct roles) in my entire state is elected. They're all volunteers, and with the exception of the poll watchers are almost always not elected in their day job.

You simply cannot make broad sweeping changes across the country to something like an election. It's controlled by every state individually. You can even see this in mail-in balloting where some states allow it, some don't, the dates are all different, etc. This is a pain is the ass but it's by design. The US was explicitly founded to not have a strong, centralized federal government. So that makes it very difficult to make huge changes like you're talking about.

Having contracted for a few state agencies myself, I agree with you maintenance can absolutely take a day. Typically it's one or two people responsible for the entire tear down and set-up, and if you have 9 hours to get it done there's little incentive to be super efficient about it. You'll take prod down at 8:01am and plan to bring it up around 4 to check for issues. Even if you're done by noon you may just wait.

Re: Louisiana voter registration portal mysteriously shuts down on Registration Day

#38
post #16
post #5

Louisiana politics has been corrupt for the entirety of the lifetime of anyone who is alive. That it has become a bipartisan effort is not shocking.

Please put me in my place if I'm wrong here, but isn't it typically the Democrats who have the most to gain with more people voting (e.g. young people more likely to be liberal but less likely to vote)?

It depends on the area. In general yes you're right but you could absolutely find a lot of areas where increased voter turnout corresponds to increased Republican votes.

Re: Louisiana voter registration portal mysteriously shuts down on Registration Day

#39
post #35
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, you are advocating removing government officials by violent means? Please explain the difference between that and domestic terrorism. To say American elections are "compromised" is both a gross exaggeration and a Dunning-Krugeresque oversimplification. Gerrymandering is absolutely a problem and needs to be dealt with. It's the primary (no pun intended) reason for the polarization of our elected offi…

My comment didn’t advocate for anything; I am not sure where you got that from.

> if those who are elected are physically removed from their rule-setting positions

> you can’t cure fascism by voting

Perhaps advocating was the wrong word but I only see one way to interpret those two statements side-by-side.

Re: Louisiana voter registration portal mysteriously shuts down on Registration Day

#40
post #28

They really wanted people to register with that domain...

Apparently "Geaux" is the local slang for their sports teams, plus the pun with "Go vote". So it's pretty reasonable in my opinion.

The mobile app goes by the same name.
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