State Republicans push new voting restrictions after Trump’s loss

[roguenuke]

So a great big "Meh" to voter fraud?

Voter fraud is statistically insignificant. If you want to prevent it, then it is on you all to ensure that as many people are also allowed to vote, get an opportunity to vote in any way they can for such an insignificant problem. If that means giving an option to allow for fingerprint verification rather than ID and curing ballots, and sending ink pads out to everyone to add their print to their mail in vote, so be it. But mail in voting should still be allowed for everyone.

In reality, we have several states now that send out mail in ballots to everyone and GOP/Trump supporters have not shown evidence of any significant level of fraud due to that in any of those states (or any other for that matter).

 

[BlueTex]

"Meh" - got it.

No answer? What problem are we trying to solve? Worried about fair? It's in the fall, I recommend the cotton candy...

 

[GolfingChef]

So a great big "Meh" to voter fraud?

When there is less than one proven case of voter fraud for every million votes cast, it is hard to get really worked up about it.

 

[Bodecea]

because it should be.

Why should it be hard to vote?

 

[NWRatCon]

Here's the reality: Voting, even by mail, is more secure than electronic transactions we routinely do every day. How many vendors online have two-step authentication and signature verification?

 

[NWRatCon]

Why should it be hard to vote?

Because then only Republicans will vote (at least that's the theory). Duh!

 

[MSgt]

In a shocking development surprising absolutely no one, State Republicans push new voting restrictions after Trump’s loss (Politico). "We just weren't effective enough in our voter suppression," they complain. What a bunch of anti-American whiny losers.

Some Republican officials have been blunt about their motivations: They don’t believe they can win unless the rules change. “They don’t have to change all of them, but they’ve got to change the major parts of them so that we at least have a shot at winning,” Alice O’Lenick, a Republican on the Gwinnett County, Ga., board of elections in suburban Atlanta, told the Gwinnett Daily Post last week. She has since resisted calls to resign.

The sad thing is that reforming the Party, so that it can actually represent Americans properly, never even enters their minds.

They have become so entirely bitter and hopeless, their constituents have grown so delusional and care-free, that they don't even bother hiding their decrepit behaviors anymore.

 

[MSgt]

because it should be.

Exactly what the Founders envisioned in a democratic republic.

If you wish for your representation to "win," demand that they pull their heads out of their asses and recognize that their hard-nosed agenda to serve "white power" and only a very select kind of American has failed them miserably. Despite their delusions, America prevails. Perhaps actually representing Americans properly will see them win again. As it is:

- Why, with Bush in 2004 being the only exception, has the GOP not been able to receive the Popular vote since Ronald Reagan?

- Why can't the GOP even rely on the technicality of the Electoral College anymore, which gave Bush and Trump wins?

It's clearly not the rules that need to change. The rules are the same. But as more and more Americans are allowed to exercise their voting Rights, the GOP has found itself more and more desperate to win elections. What does this say? The GOP has grown out-of-touch with America. They know this. This is why they so brazenly and openly employ voter suppression tactics and actual documented fraud at the individual and organizational level. Accusing Democrats, with no evidence, is just deflection. So, the rules don't need to change... -the GOP does.

 

[What if...?]

So let's understand this - your thumbprint is on file with the DMV and the argument of voter suppression really revolves around how hard it is for some people to go to the DMV for a photo ID to use to vote. Admit it - the outcry is over how much of a burden a photo ID is for some. Now you want them to go to the DMV for one thing but not the other. So the photo ID isn't going to be required to identify yourself when fingerprinted? How's that going to work? And if not the DMV doing the prints - who would be assigned this task of collecting fingerprints of all eligible voters. Ah, and then, what about damage to a person's hand? And then I guess in your world no one ever loses their right to vote?

Whoah there!

We know that voter ID laws are about suppression for a simple reason:

Voter ID legislation never includes any kind of program to get everybody IDs. In fact, closures of places to get IDs tend to accompany them. In some places. The same places that get far fewer machines and polling places than the places that don't see closures of places to get IDs.

It's the obvious suppression people don't like. The purges that seek numbers by widening parameters. Get it down to first initial and don't consider gender, that'll get enough. Dems vote on Sunday? No more Sunday voting.

And you all forget that trump said the quiet part put loud again. I don't have the quote handy, but it's out there. He said out loud that if everybody can just vote so easily Republican licans would never win another elelection. Other republicans have said the same exact thing.

 

[NWRatCon]

And you all forget that trump said the quiet part put loud again. I don't have the quote handy, but it's out there. He said out loud that if everybody can just vote so easily Republicans would never win another election. Other republicans have said the same exact thing.

Trump says Republicans would ‘never’ be elected again if it was easier to vote (Guardian) - 30 March 2020.
If You Didn’t Vote for Trump, Your Vote Is Fraudulent (Atlantic, Opinion).

According to a 2020 survey by the political scientist Larry Bartels, three-quarters of Republican voters believe that “it is hard to trust the results of elections when so many people will vote for anyone who offers a handout.” Because Republicans believe, as Mitt Romney put it after his defeat in 2012, that Black people vote for Democrats only because they are offered “free stuff,” Black votes are considered illegitimate even if they are legally cast. Those votes could be legitimate if more of them were cast for Republicans, the party of true Americans, but as long as they are cast for Democrats, they can be dismissed as the result of Democratic brainwashing. Demanding that Black votes be tossed out is not antidemocratic, because they should not have counted in the first place.

This goes back to Reconstruction after the Civil War:

That this racist belief has a partisan valence makes it no less racist. If one’s fundamental rights are contingent on adhering to the political beliefs of the ruling clique, they are not rights at all.

In the early days of Reconstruction, Democrats hoped that Black men, if enfranchised, would vote for those who had fought to keep them enslaved, understanding that their subordinate position in southern society was in the best interests of both races. Some northern Republicans similarly feared that Black men would vote as their former masters demanded. But when the emancipated chose their own path based on their own interests, Democrats concluded that they had to be excised from the polity, by force.

" When they say the 2020 election was stolen, Trumpists are expressing their view that the votes of rival constituencies should not count, even though they understand, on some level, that they do. They are declaring that the nation belongs to them and them alone, whether or not they actually comprise a majority, because they are the only real Americans to begin with."

 

[Peter]

The blatant voter suppression going on in the US should be a huge scandal.

Voting should be easy for everyone as many brave Americans fought and died to give you that right.
My voting station is just a couple of minutes walk away and it's UK law that everyone has a voting booth within easy reach, they stay open all day for the disabled and elderly.
Postal voting is easy to apply for as well.
It's not a partisan issue it just ensures everyone can vote.

1 person 1 vote for everyone over 18.
This should not be considered a controversial idea.

 

[What if...?]

Trump says Republicans would ‘never’ be elected again if it was easier to vote (Guardian) - 30 March 2020.
If You Didn’t Vote for Trump, Your Vote Is Fraudulent (Atlantic, Opinion). This goes back to Reconstruction after the Civil War:
" When they say the 2020 election was stolen, Trumpists are expressing their view that the votes of rival constituencies should not count, even though they understand, on some level, that they do. They are declaring that the nation belongs to them and them alone, whether or not they actually comprise a majority, because they are the only real Americans to begin with."

Thank you sir!

 

[NWRatCon]

Thank you sir!

I remembered it at the time, but was surprised how long ago that was. Covid-19 was new... Lockdowns were just starting... 400,000 fellow Americans weren't dead yet... The then-President hadn't yet attempted a coup. Those halcyon days...

 

[NWRatCon]

The response to Republicanism suppression efforts begins with the "For the People Act", which was passed by the House last year (H.R. 1).