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Virginia voter registration down on last day to register before election

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

#31

Post by m12k »

arcticbull wrote: post #19
m12k wrote: 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.

Policy proposals such as "the rich should be taxed more" routinely get approval from ~65% of voters. Thankfully for that party, they've found a way to get people to vote based on fear, racism, abortion, guns and other divisive issues instead of economic policy.

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

#32

Post by rconti »

elric wrote: 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 only thing that's new here are the last two points. We've got a president from an unpopular minority party that increasingly relies on various tactics rather than actually appealing to voters.

The decentralized nature of our elections means that the elections have always been a patchwork of potentially problematic local jurisdictions, each one so small that it's unlikely for issues to shift the outcome of a national election.

Perhaps our greatest strength was our TRUST in the people involved to do the right thing, and that trust has been abused. And a not-insignificant number of people have decided to go along with it for their own advantage, whatever that may be.

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

#33

Post by TOGoS »

arcticbull wrote: post #19
m12k wrote: 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.

> 49% of the voters approve.

I wouldn't assume that 100% of voters even know the economic policies of the people they're voting for, let alone approve of them. It seems like people mostly vote because they've been told the party they're voting against is evil[1], not because they actually support the policies.

[1] Of course those of us who think they're both evil are not left with much motivation to vote for either, which partly explains (along with voter suppression, gerrymandering making voting less effective, etc) why half the country doesn't bother to vote at all.

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

#34

Post by blibble »

elric wrote: 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.

this has never been the case except in the minds of Americans

parts of the the US had legalised segregation until the 60s, it still has systematic legalised gerrymandering, and the voter suppression problem has never been dealt with to an extent where it could be considered to be a "beacon of democracy"

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

#35

Post by roamerz »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #17
elric wrote: 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 US is not a beacon of democracy at this point, it's a beacon of minority rule. Between the electoral college and each state (no matter how many people live in that state) having 2 senators it's an archaic system that's way overdue for an update. However, the system is built in such a way as to make updates very, very difficult so, unfortunately, don't expect any significant changes anytime soon. In the meantime,…

You’re correct. It’s a Republic with a sane voting system that keeps the mobs from the population centers from ruling the country. You say weakness I say strength.

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

#36

Post by Armisael16 »

curiousgal wrote: post #25
elric wrote: 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

The US was downgraded in 2016, per your link. That’s hardly ‘always’.

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

#37

Post by capableweb »

curiousgal wrote: post #25
elric wrote: 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

Hear hear. As someone who grew up in Europe in a couple of different countries, one opinion has always been the same in all countries: The US is a country that likes to brag about democracy and likes to "bring democracy to others" while having a poor implementation of it themselves.

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

#38

Post by klyrs »

elric wrote: 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…

Senator Mike Lee wasn't just being honest, his statement that the US is not a democracy is factual. This isn't actually new, and there's a reason that the white house and senate have been packing the courts with justices from the Federalist Society. The ideological disagreement between federalists and democrats is as old as the country. The "weird" thing is that the country has been quite focused on installing democracies elsewhere, but that rather makes sense because we maintain influence over those countries and often "observe" their elections.

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

#39

Post by UncleOxidant »

roamerz wrote: post #35
UncleOxidant wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is not a beacon of democracy at this point, it's a beacon of minority rule. Between the electoral college and each state (no matter how many people live in that state) having 2 senators it's an archaic system that's way overdue for an update. However, the system is built in such a way as to make updates very, very difficult so, unfortunately, don't expect any significant changes anytime soon. In the meantime,…

You’re correct. It’s a Republic with a sane voting system that keeps the mobs from the population centers from ruling the country. You say weakness I say strength.

And so instead of the "mobs from the population centers" ruling the country we have the "mobs" from a few swing states running the country. How is that better? When it comes to the Senate why should dirt in one state get so much more say than people in another?

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

#40

Post by pm90 »

kaesar14 wrote: post #22
elric wrote: 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 peo…

I agree with the spirit of your statement. However, the VOting Rights Act places strict requirements that mostly prevented some of the most egregious forms of voter suppression that we are seeing today (strict ID laws, fewer polling places etc.). The VRA was gutted very recently and it has directly lead to a resurgence in these un democratic laws.

So for people who may have been vaguely aware of American democracy for the past few decades, it is a fact that America has become less democratic in that time.

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