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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

#421

Post by davorak »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #405
davorak wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe you interpreted NPR's article exactly the way NPR intended you to interpret it. That is to say, you were supposed to read it and walk away misinformed due to the framing. What you quoted "It is important to note that the university did not deny the First Amendment rights or academic freedom of professors..." comes from University of Florida and as far as I can tell is not an airtight argument. No valid co…

“You can work here and say things that will harm us, but you can’t accept payment to say things that will harm us.” Feels like a very reasonable position to me.

That is the way it works for a private institution, but not for government institutions. It is supposed to a safety net to prevent the government from consolidating power by putting their thumb on the scale of public discourse.

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

#422

Post by freeopinion »

qqqwerty wrote: post #369
angelzen wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link. The congress vote went 66-34. The congressional delegation, 79-21. There is a noticeable gap there, any plan to fix it?

I don't think anyone on either side really thinks this is a problem. Look at Utah for a counter example, 75% of delegates with 60% of the congressional vote. No one on the left is complaining about Utah. When elections are winner take all, big majorities result in oversized representation. And there are still ways for minority party voters to exert influence in these states. For example, they can vote for the more mo…

How about we eliminate party affiliation on voter registration, census, etc. Make it as difficult as possible to gerrymander with confidence.

Of course, that would destroy party primaries, party nominations, etc. Hmmm... even better.

Who ever thought it was a good idea for a private club to control who can or cannot participate in elections?

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

#423

Post by davorak »

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?

The image in the linked twitter suggests that Michael McDonald officially asked if he could testify pro bono and was denied by Gray Wimsett, Assistant Vice President of Conflicts of Interest.

So Gray Wimsett at least claims it is against the policy to volunteer to do the work in this case.

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

#424

Post by alisonkisk »

rayiner wrote: post #248
ianai wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. With all the anti-democratic practices being rolled out across the states it’s pretty scary to imagine things even a year from now and a long time forward. Life threats against election officials and all the way up to Senators. Gerrymandering. Even the SCOTUS is biased. Seems civics in the US are about to be rigged for one party rule.

With due respect, the media has worked Democrats up into a froth over nothing. These "anti-democratic practices" are literally just a partial rollback of unprecedented COVID-related loosing of voting rules. E.g. the Florida law at issue here requires voter ID and guarantees a week of early voting: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facts-on-floridas-election-... Canada also requires voter ID, and Canadian federal elect…

Does France also have two centuries of laws preventing Black people from voting? Context matters.

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

#425

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #415
tptacek wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think we should be angry when incompetence causes undue delays, which is what happened in New York state, for pretty much the same reason we should be angry about any incompetence. I think the idea that the delays undermine democracy are a canard (they're a canard the Democrats have employed in the past, too). Vote tabulation is complicated because we're complicated.

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

#426

Post by bgorman »

ceejayoz wrote: post #307
bgorman wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, none of those links provides evidence that the names of voters from ballots received is actually verified against death records. The links you sent seem to be around removing dead people from voter registration and instances of duplicate votes.

Ah, it's goalpost moves all the way down. The names of voters from ballots received are checked against the voter registration records. Which are checked against the death records. That there's an intermediate step doesn't mean it's not happening.

There is an obvious flaw, which is that someone could die between the time voter registration for the election is finalized and when ballot is submitted. The fact that you ignore this suggests that you are not discussing this in good faith.

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

#427

Post by colejohnson66 »

FireBeyond wrote: post #402
colejohnson66 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worth remembering that arbitration is actually a common enough practice outside of employment. Any divorce involving “mediation” is arbitration, and both parties agreed to it. The disconnect comes when the person “suggesting” arbitration (the employer) is in a position of power.

If mediation is unsuccessful, neither party has lost or waived the right to a court appearance, so your analogy doesn't hold. Mediation in divorce is a cost-saving measure often required by the court.

That's a very valid point. That's why I think employer (or TOS) mandated arbitration are ridiculous. I should have the option of disputing the arbitration result by default, but many clauses say that the arbitration result is binding and that you have no other recourse.

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

#428

Post by ModernMech »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #368
s5300 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, 15 seconds of the slightest search efforts can bring any of this up. I've found time and time again that anybody who believes there is or ever has been even the slightest issue with "dead voters" is somebody who simply can't be reasoned with, and engagement just isn't worth the effort. They're completely lost and engulfed in a sea of "their own research"

The problem with all of this is that it's complicated, people misstate things, and everybody is eager to prove that "their side" is right. So then you get excessive claims like "no state purges voter rolls" which is just easily falsifiable, and then it gets falsified and leads one side to believe that to be the end of it. Whereas what really happens is that a state goes to purge its voter rolls, they have a list of 1…

What you say is true, but at the same time there was a voter fraud commission started in 2017, formed with the explicit charter of investigating such claims. This commission was disbanded after they couldn’t make progress showing that “thousands and thousands” of people fraudulently voted in 2016, causing then President Trump to lose the national popular vote. He made very specific claims about people being bussed around New England to vote across state lines, which is why he claims he lost New Hampshire that year.

The claim is perpetually that there is a problem that needs to be fixed. Literally millions of dollars and an entire political party has set out to answer this question in the affirmative, but they can’t even prove their claims in a court of law. The most telling instance if this in the last year was Rudy Giuliani refusing to make a claim of “fraud” in front of any judge after the 2020 election, but claiming “fraud” as often as he could in front of any TV camera.

So yes, both sides have overstated their case at times. But only one side is perpetually making a very strong case that they will never take to court where they have to provide specific evidence of their claims. It’s very notable and telling that the extreme case they say is the status quo (rampant voter fraud that stole the election from Trump not once but twice) has never been proven by them or anyone else.

> Then each side gets to declare the other side wrong and biased and hidebound and irrational.

Here is where we are right now. A team of auditors in Arizona spent months trying to show fraud occurred there that tipped the scales in Joe Biden’s favor. The result of their audit was that Joe Biden won a slightly larger margin than originally counted. How was this result spun by Trump?

“We won on the Arizona forensic audit yesterday at a level that you wouldn’t believe … They had headlines that Biden wins in Arizona when they know it’s not true … He didn’t win in Arizona. He lost in Arizona based on the forensic audit."

Did you get that? Trump loses Arizona, demands a recount, gets the recount, recount determines Trump did in fact lose, Trump claims exact opposite, and millions of people follow his lead and repeat this lie.

That is the level of reality denial and irrationality coming out one particular party. This is a mind bending level of denial and delusion.

So when you say things like the above, that “each side gets to declare the other wrong” it really serves to blur the context and normalize this insanity, making it seem like the two sides are the equally deluded. Yea maybe if you look only at the extremes, but this is the main stream GOP party leadership pushing this, not the fringe. The two sides are not the same on this issue.

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

#429

Post by spaetzleesser »

clairity wrote: post #214
ianai wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. With all the anti-democratic practices being rolled out across the states it’s pretty scary to imagine things even a year from now and a long time forward. Life threats against election officials and all the way up to Senators. Gerrymandering. Even the SCOTUS is biased. Seems civics in the US are about to be rigged for one party rule.

we’ve been oligarchic since at least the 90s, so it doesn’t really matter that there are two major parties. in fact, having two parties has been an effective shield against criticism and activism, keeping us distracted (see every comment on hn and beyond that mentions democrat/republican, liberal/conservative, etc.) from the real roots of our growing inequality and stagnation. consolidation of power, wealth and influ…

Your analysis is good.

Be careful with your proposed solution. No matter what you do, the powerful and wealthy will always find a way to capture the system. I think the real problem is the sheer amount of wealth and power in a few hands.

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

#430

Post by davorak »

dahart wrote: post #343
davidrupp wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/education/campus/2021... "Hessy Fernandez, UF director of issues management and crisis communications, told the Gainesville Sun in a text message Sunday the university views the professors' request to do outside work for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit as harmful to the university's interests. "However, to be clear," she stated, "if the professors wish to do so pro bono on their o…

I’m happy to be wrong about this, thank you for the link. It’s new information from the top linked article that pro bono would be allowed. I would speculate there’s maybe a big enough caveat in there that the university knows makes a pro-bono arrangement unworkable while appearing to be flexible. “On their own time without using university resources” could mean it’s not actually possible, and doing it pro bono obviou…

At least one of the professors has indicated they requested and denied from doing the testimony pro bono by by Gray Wimsett, Assistant Vice President of Conflicts of Interest.

https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/1454526638578880516

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