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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

#51

Post by klyrs »

mabbo wrote: post #7

I think it's important to be careful before crying foul. Never presume malice when stupidity will suffice. Look at VA right now on 538: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/... If polls are accurate, and Nate Silver's models don't fail, it's already been won by Biden. No matter who you suppress from signing up it won't matter- neither party cares about VA anymore. (And yes, those same models sa…

"If polls are accurate" is doing far too much work here. 538 gave Trump a 3-in-10 chance of winning 2016. With all the shenanigans surrounding ballot delivery/collection and voter registration this year, I have a very dismal view of polling. It will be even worse in the decade to come, thanks to sustained efforts to undermine the national census.

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

#52

Post by happytoexplain »

kepler1 wrote: post #4

Well, as unfortunate as this is, I mean, accidents and issues do happen in life. Be prepared. There was a whole probably 4 years (at least) to register to vote up to this day. For the prepared, how does one day out of years really matter? It's a sad situation if your voter base is scrambling to register on the last possible day, regardless of party .

The obsession with personal responsibility is antithetical to democracy, and, frankly, civilization. It sounds good, but in practice it's used as an excuse to allow those who "deserve it" to suffer.

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

#53

Post by UncleOxidant »

sokoloff wrote: post #49
UncleOxidant wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I see the House as a faster-changing, populous body (which is generally a good thing) and the Senate as a much slower-changing balance against the worst of what a fast-changing, populous body could wreak on the country.

Ok, so why not a bicameral system where the Senate also has proportional representation while keeping 6 year terms? There wouldn't have to be a 1:1 ratio of senators to representatives. Maybe there would be something like 1 senator/2 representatives?

Or, if we kept the same 2 senators/state maybe we split high population states into smaller states so that we don't have huge gap between number or residents/senator?

Personally, I think we should probably move in the unicameral direction. I don't think that "fast-changing" adaptability is a negative in this modern world.

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

#54

Post by anonuser123456 »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #27
noja wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> be careful before crying foul. I think it's safe to say the current administration has lost the benefit of the doubt.

The current administration of Virginia is a Democrat governor, with Democrat control of both houses of the legislature.

Why should I let your facts get in the way of my beliefs?

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

#55

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

capableweb wrote: post #37
curiousgal wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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.

I'm a lifelong American. I know my perspective is limited, but here's my perception:

- Politicians at the national level often brag in the manner you describe. (I could believe it's become less common in the last 10-20 years, but I haven't paid careful attention.)

- Almost no private citizen (in my circles, at least) thinks in those terms, or at least they don't openly speak that way. The most prevalent form of nationalism that I see amongst Americans is the feeling that various groups are unfairly disadvantaged by our national leadership's tolerance of bad trade deals with China, or (less often) failure to protect American workers from having to compete with illegal immigrants for jobs.

- Also, my impression is that a large majority of Americans hold our Congress and (often) Executive branches in very low regard.

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

#56

Post by Jtsummers »

kaesar14 wrote: post #46
Armisael16 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sounds political. We were a flawed democracy before Trump won too. Anyone forgetting we had a Presidential election decided by the Supreme Court 20 years ago?

2016 was when we saw the impact of eliminating certain oversight portions the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which happened in 2012/2013. After the 2013 court decision, you saw a resurgence in voter disenfranchisement efforts. So it probably has nothing to do with Trump, but with the consequences of dropping the ability to enforce critical parts of the VRA.

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

#57

Post by sokoloff »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #53
sokoloff wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the House as a faster-changing, populous body (which is generally a good thing) and the Senate as a much slower-changing balance against the worst of what a fast-changing, populous body could wreak on the country.

Ok, so why not a bicameral system where the Senate also has proportional representation while keeping 6 year terms? There wouldn't have to be a 1:1 ratio of senators to representatives. Maybe there would be something like 1 senator/2 representatives? Or, if we kept the same 2 senators/state maybe we split high population states into smaller states so that we don't have huge gap between number or residents/senator? Pe…

Unicameral systems seem to prevent beneficial compromises. I’d personally hate to see the country gyrate between policy extremes as the composition of that singular body changed.

Even when going extremely “my way”, as an engineer I’d hate it.

I find a lot of people spend time thinking “how much more progress could we make if we didn’t have to compromise with those assholes?”

Far fewer think “how much more damage could those assholes do if they didn’t have to compromise with us?”

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

#58

Post by sg47 »

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.

What % of the 49% are single issue voters? I think their economic policies are the last reason why voters support Republicans.

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

#59

Post by adrianN »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #55
capableweb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. I'm a lifelong American. I know my perspective is limited, but here's my perception: - Politicians at the national level often brag in the manner you describe. (I could believe it's become less common in the last 10-20 years, but I haven't paid careful attention.) - Al…

I often hear that everybody hates the government, except for the person they voted in.

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

#60

Post by tengbretson »

klyrs wrote: post #38
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 democr…

> ...have been packing the courts

What exactly do you mean when you use this phrase?

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