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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

#471

Post by isoskeles »

ModernMech wrote: post #463
isoskeles wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m trivializing the use of the victim of an event as justification to say we can’t have voter id. It’s a strange argument, coming off as if voter id laws and protecting people from spousal abuse must be at odds, so anyone who supports voter id must support spousal abuse as well. Is the next argument that Hitler wanted voter id? At what point do we get to actually discuss the merits of validating a person is who they…

If you want to champion a law that impacts someone's fundamental rights as a citizen, rights protected by the US Constitution, it's your duty as a fellow citizen to consider the impact of that law on everyone , and to show that you've taken appropriate consideration as to the first and second order impact of your proposal. Implementing a voter ID law in the way being pushed right now will disenfranchise people, and i…

Why do you think I'm obligated to defend the position that "massive systemic voter fraud" is the only valid reason for asking people to identify themselves when voting? It's interesting considering I never brought up massive systemic voter fraud, I only brought up that a $250 fee to resolve a one-off problem with someone's identity, that his mother ultimately caused, isn't a "poll tax."

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

#472

Post by [deleted] »

_jal wrote: post #316
isoskeles wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for scare quotes around something I never said. What will you accuse me of next? I don't think any of this is "worth it," I just don't agree with coming up with sob stories as a counterexample. It's not that hard to hold onto important government documents like your birth certificate, social security card, etc. The argument against disenfranchisement shouldn't look like such a clear edge case. If anything,…

Wait, are they scare quotes, or am I quoting you? The fact that you can't decide makes me think you know I wasn't quoting you, which was contextually obvious. I find the rest of your argument equally sincere and convincing.

[deleted]

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

#473

Post by [deleted] »

ModernMech wrote: post #463
isoskeles wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m trivializing the use of the victim of an event as justification to say we can’t have voter id. It’s a strange argument, coming off as if voter id laws and protecting people from spousal abuse must be at odds, so anyone who supports voter id must support spousal abuse as well. Is the next argument that Hitler wanted voter id? At what point do we get to actually discuss the merits of validating a person is who they…

If you want to champion a law that impacts someone's fundamental rights as a citizen, rights protected by the US Constitution, it's your duty as a fellow citizen to consider the impact of that law on everyone , and to show that you've taken appropriate consideration as to the first and second order impact of your proposal. Implementing a voter ID law in the way being pushed right now will disenfranchise people, and i…

[deleted]

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

#474

Post by bsanr »

rayiner wrote: post #448
bsanr wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cherry-picking restrictive (and, might I say, somewhat off-topic?) policies doesn't change that some form of postal voting is associated with national freedom and wealth, which is both an image I imagine that we'd like to project and a reality level-headed lovers of democracy support. Japan has it. Australia has it. The UK. Canada. Germany. It's a good thing. Many foreigners recognize this, just as they recognize the…

> Japan has it. Australia has it. The UK. Canada. Germany. It's a good thing. Sure, but Texas, Georgia, and Florida have no excuse-needed absentee voting. Democratic rhetoric about “Jim Crow on steroids” is precisely about these restrictions such as number of days of early voting—which are still generally more liberal in these states than in advanced western countries. > Many foreigners recognize this, just as they r…

>Democratic rhetoric about “Jim Crow on steroids” is precisely about these restrictions such as number of days of early voting—which are still generally more liberal in these states than in advanced western countries.

We are supposed to be the flag-carrier for free and fair elections. That means fairness with respect to the capability of all voters to "get to the polls", however that may be. We meet them where they are, not the other way around. The alternative opens the door for nominally-unrelated-but-practically-critical barriers to voting - like underfunding public transportation, for example.

>But that’s exactly what’s happening. Foreigners aren’t looking at the actual laws in Florida or Georgia and comparing them to their own laws, they’re hearing Biden call those laws “Jim Crow on steroids.”

>Except, apparently, the “facts” regarding the actual content of these laws.

Let's be clear: I am glad that foreigners recognize the righteousness of American elections when they're at their most free, regardless of how that might impugn their own processes. But that's not where my argument draws its legitimacy. It comes instead from the appropriateness of less restrictive election laws in the face of America's particular values and America's particular history. The actual content of restrictive voter laws allow conduct that is substantially similar to the Jim Crow-era conduct - of the segregationist governments that today's Texas and Georgia and Florida and others are heir to - that the VRA was meant to curb.

If you don't want to be accused of conjuring Strom Thurmond's ghost, don't pass laws he would have applauded for reasons he also would have applauded. You accuse others of not looking at the content of laws when you refuse to critically examine the content of our history.

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

#475

Post by bsanr »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #451
bsanr wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where truth and "truthiness" diverge, I suppose. "Two decades of claims about election fraud" shares character with "two decades of high rates of Stop-and-Frisk detainments of black New Yorkers." The rest of the world looks at the reasonable behavior of liberal election workers and would be reformers - no the "Moderate" Democrats, who as recently as last week were working to gerrymander one of their own party…

> That the Left has not always trusted the Right to make the "correct" decisions, but has always trusted them with the right to vote. Packing the Supreme Court because you can't trust the justices appointed by the right to vote the right way? That crazy plan to make a separate state out of each DC neighborhood, so that DC would have dozens of senators? Yeah, they trust the right with the right to vote, as long as the…

>Packing the Supreme Court because you can't trust the justices appointed by the right to vote the right way?

As much as I wish we would have breached this point of trust by now, liberals have never actually packed the Supreme Court.

>That crazy plan to make a separate state out of each DC neighborhood, so that DC would have dozens of senators?

I have never heard of this.

Please focus on things that have actually happened, and not wild conspiracy theories.

>That is so ridiculously wrong

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_suffrage#Dates_by_co...

Each point of contention, hard fought by conservatives, who were dragged kicking and screaming into the future of a country that ever-so-slightly further embodied its highest ideals, despite their protests.

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

#476

Post by AnimalMuppet »

bsanr wrote: post #475
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That the Left has not always trusted the Right to make the "correct" decisions, but has always trusted them with the right to vote. Packing the Supreme Court because you can't trust the justices appointed by the right to vote the right way? That crazy plan to make a separate state out of each DC neighborhood, so that DC would have dozens of senators? Yeah, they trust the right with the right to vote, as long as the…

>Packing the Supreme Court because you can't trust the justices appointed by the right to vote the right way? As much as I wish we would have breached this point of trust by now, liberals have never actually packed the Supreme Court. >That crazy plan to make a separate state out of each DC neighborhood, so that DC would have dozens of senators? I have never heard of this. Please focus on things that have actually hap…

I'm not sure what you think that article demonstrates. It certainly doesn't demonstrate that "The Right has never trusted the Left with the right to vote".

I will give you that there have been times when the Right has not trusted the Left with the right to vote. I will give you that in some places, that is true right now. But a general, sweeping statement? "Never"? C'mon. You're simply wrong.

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

#477

Post by dekhn »

ModernMech wrote: post #37
elliekelly wrote: post #10

I have a colleague who does environmental litigation. (Think Erin Brockovich.) They have a big civil case against a large energy company in a southern, “energy-friendly” state. They had an expert witness all lined up - a professor at the (public!) state university. Well this expert happened to be up for tenure and was (allegedly) told in no uncertain terms that, should they testify as an expert witness in this case,…

As a professor, I think the actions of The University of Florida are abhorrent. I would never want to work in an environment that kowtows to politics. There are enough political considerations within a University, but having to deal with state politics as well? Count me out. At the same time, he doesn’t have tenure? So they are actually fully within their rights to do this, and really no one should be surprised. But…

I have never heard that tenured professors can use the name of their institution without permission. I don't think that's either permitted by any rules (to the extent that rules that apply to tenured professors vary and are only partially codified), or tacitly permitted by the universities and their press departments.

Obviously a subject matter expert in a trial is allowed to describe their credentials (education and employement) but that's not a right solely for tenured professors.

If you could point to written policies or analysis supporting this claim I would be very interested to see it.

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

#478

Post by dekhn »

Based on a bit of reading, neither university, nor the professors, are being entirely honest about their underlying goals here. Each is working hard to adjust the narrative to be entirely in their favor.

The professors could proceed with this, without permission of the university; the consequence could be firing and possibly a lawsuit. But that would backfire spectacularly on the university (streisand effect). So, the professors are actually not proceeding, to make the university look as bad as possible.

Bad faith all around.

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

#479

Post by angelzen »

Master_Odin wrote: post #445
angelzen wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in WA state. All vote is mail-in. I can't vote in-person even if I want to. This is not democracy. Some further thoughts: * I was raised in a country with a single party and 99% outcome elections. People, kids my age (at the time), sacrificed their lives for the right to vote. I don't take voting for granted, but I do take voting seriously. * The mail-in argument is predicated on the postmodern "the exception…

Are you equally appalled that so much other government paperwork goes through the mail? If we can't trust voting by mail, then we certainly can't trust mailing passports, visas, IRS forms, car records, etc. It's weird to me to single out voting as the one thing that can't be trusted to the postal service, especially when there's things like voting lock boxes that are kept under camera you could put your vote in.

https://www.kuow.org/stories/it-s-easy-to-commit-election-fr...

" KUOW news editor Gil Aegerter was poking around on the Washington state elections website when he noticed something strange: You can print out a ballot for anyone, as long as you know their birthday.

To demonstrate, he pulls up a ballot for Secretary of State Kim Wyman, who is in charge of elections in Washington.

[...]

That's because a signature is required when you return your ballot, which is checked against a copy of your signature that's kept on file. Wyman calls it security "at the back end."

Aegerter pulls a copy of Wyman's signature online. Wyman's still not worried. "

It also happens that our last local elections swung by 7-13% after the election night counts. Just a coincidence.

Edit: It's worse than I thought. Obviously, once people accept the inacceptable, you push one step further. Before long we'll decide elections by Twitter likes.

" This year, military and overseas voters will be allowed to vote electronically in Washington's presidential primary. Wyman backed a bill this legislative session to try and kill that. It failed. "

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

#480

Post by singlow »

notreallyserio wrote: post #116
singlow wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can he not vote using the name the State does recognize?

Wouldn’t that be fraud under voter ID law, providing a false name?

How would it be fraud if the name is his, legally?
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