Voting Reforms

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2012/11/vote.html

I am Raoul the Red Shirt and I approve this message. Well, mostly.

There is no practical way, I think, to outlaw gerrymandering. And federalism would make it tough to impose universal standards as listed above. However, there's always the carrot of tying funding to fitting the best practices of voting.

Any other thoughts or ideas?

Dude, get over it, your guy won.

I'll go even further... I say that for federal elections, the federal government needs to establish a set of standards that apply to all states and congressional districts. 2 weeks of early voting, a free federal voter ID card and pretty much everything mentioned above except the automatic registration of all eligible voters. If someone wants to vote, they can make an effort to do so themselves.

The thing is that I don't think those who were so concerned about voter fraud would support these efforts. It would be interesting to see how they twist and contort things justify it, but the truth is that for the most part, they don't think everyone who can should vote.

A poll tax is where you pay money to vote. Having to wait in line is not the same as paying money to vote. Having to prove you can legally vote is not the same as paying money to vote. Nothing is the same as having to pay money to vote as having to pay money to vote. Words mean shit.

There was no move to suppress minorities in Florida by shrinking the number of days for early voting.

How stupid do you leftists think minorities are that they need 14 days to figure out how to early vote?

I saw plenty of minorities in line when I early voted.

The first problem is that most people of all colors are stupidly lazy and they wait until the last fucking moment to go vote. And then complain about it.

The second problem with early voting wasn't the fact that it was only eight days but the lack of voting places and the lack of numbers in machines. That falls on the counties who are in charge of setting up voting places and machines. Lines were long because there was so few places for people to early vote. In Broward county there were only 17 early voting locations to serve the whole county. On election day there was about 700 polling places.

Wow... Or maybe some people just haven't made up their minds in late October. No one said anything about suppressing minority votes here but you.

In NY, one of the most populous states in the union and an region ravaged by a hurricane the week before, there was no early voting. We all knew how it would turn out, but still, it would be great to have the same oppurtunity to vote in NY that one does in FL.

Perhaps Liet and Alphaman should reread this:

3. Standardized early voting periods. Recent attempts by Republican officials in Ohio and Florida to reduce early-voting opportunities in their states were brazenly partisan and, as it turned out, so outrageous that evidence suggests they ended up increasing the minority turnout they were designed to suppress.

The author of the piece is saying Florida and Ohio purposely shortened the number of early voting days to suppress minority turnout but that it backfired on both states

The author of the piece is not the only leftist who has said that Florida and Ohio purposely cut the number of early voting days in a attempt to suppress minorities from voting.

I'm saying the problem wasn't a shortening of the early voting days but the fact that there wasn't enough early voting locations nor polling machines to service the voters. (at least in Florida, not sure about Ohio)

You see threads like this one and you realize just how much the problem with the right-wing in the U.S. is that they're anti-democratic pretending to be anti-Democratic. They really don't get the concept of voting as a right. They really don't get the concept of government of the people, by the people, and for the people; to them government is a game where the winners rule and the only rule of the game is that you do what it takes to win, and the people can just fuck off and die for all they care.

Voting as a right is a non-partisan issue, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a cancer who should be removed from polite society.

I just don't understand why Florida can't learn to count.

I was going to start this thread a few days ago and I was going to name it "By the way, We've Gotta Fix That." or something.

The bottom line is that there seems to be partisan influences effecting election outcomes and I think that's a problem that needs to be addressed nationally. If voter ID needs to be a part of that, then OK, but my main concern is that everyone who has a right to vote has an uninhibited chance to do so.

We've gone over this before countless times in previous voter ID threads. While the ID may be free, the documentation required to obtain said ID is typically not free or else difficult to get. If there were a truly free form of ID, I would have far less of a problem with instituting voter ID. I agree that some effort is required to do this, but in some cases the amount of effort people put in is cumbersome.

How do you get a photo ID if you have no birth certificate?

No, it's really not. There really isn't a problem with in person voting fraud. Except for a certain party that doesn't like certain people voting.

It's not that they cannot be bothered, and it's not the time it takes to get acceptable photo ID that I am questioning. Of course you can't get photo ID at the drop of a hat, but there is NO reason that that it should cost money and take multiple days to acquire if it is a requirement for exercising one of our country's most fundamental rights. I am questioning the fact that (by and large) the only acceptable forms of photo ID are generally not free, or if they are free they require documentation which is not free, and in some cases the process is extremely cumbersome for any average citizen (e.g. the photo ID office is very infrequently open). We should absolutely, positively not require citizens to jump through so many god damn hoops to exercise the most fundamental and basic right of any well-functioning democracy. I understand the worries behind the voter ID laws, but existing laws already address those concerns for the most part. Already in this election cycle we have seen at least one attempt at in-person voter fraud caught. Any additional instances would have turned up, but the reality is that in-person voter fraud is not worth it to the voter, and thus voter ID laws will not solve anything (and in fact do way more harm than good).

IDK, ask Obama.

Notice how these massively long lines ONLY happened in swing states controlled by Republicans and the ONLY effected areas where Democratic voters lived? Yes, this very much is part of the Republican's nation wide attempt from the top to win elections by attempting to suppress voter turn out. Frankly this should be a hanging offense because it is just that damaging to democracy.

I thought you voted to do away with the death penalty

tl;dr, I think we need to:

1) Get rid of the electoral college
2) Make the senate "majority of votes win" instead of the 2/3rds crapshoot we have now
3) Only allow campaigning 6-months prior to the election instead of the 4-year campaigns of today
4) Enable online voting so my fellow liberals in the Silicon Valley can just write codes to hack the system and oust all republicunts/libretardians and make us a progressive country like Norway

Are any people on here actually still birthers? If so, I seriously am considering investigating "you're kind" to see if you are the missing link between great apes and modern humans.

Those who question the legitimacy of President Obama based on his natural born citizenship status? Naw, despite our best efforts Donald Trump has yet join Wordforge.

The "you are kind" variety of humanity? Sure, that's worthy of investigation.




btw - Great or not, humans are apes.

There is no way to make something truly free. There is always a cost.

You're just moving goal posts.

Oh yes you caught the Republicans.

Republicans purposely lost in the local elections for years if not decades in these heavy Democrat areas so Democrats could run the county elections, Democrats could fuck up, and then the Republicans would gleefully take the blame for it!

It was the same way in 2000 when the Republicans purposely lost for decades before the 2000 election in Palm Beach County in order to make sure a Democrat crafted the famed butterfly ballot and that it was Democrats running the county election offices. Republicans were eager to take the fall for a Democrats incompetence!

Drats! We've been caught by that sharp eye ConfederateDunsel.

Did you just accuse frontline of being racist?

No kidding. It's amazing how libs always overlook the role of the county supervisor of elections. If the wait lines in your county is more than a couple hours then common sense would dictate that you need more polling places. It is the job of the Supervisor of Elections to make sure that there are enough polling places for the county and that they are properly staffed. They only have to do this every couple of years, so it's not like they don't have time to properly plan for these things.

Then again libs never acknowledged the important role that Governors play in hurricane disasters (Katrina) so maybe it's just blind ignorance.

Does he control the Republican Party and their mouthpieces?

Poor Raoul. He must've thought The Obama was going to lose and worked up all these stories to protest and now, by god, he's going to use them anyway.

If it's a good idea, then dismissing it because a third party has an ulterior motive seems disingenuous.

Wrong. Florida DID cut early voting days, it was Republicans who did this and, yes, it was to suppress voter turn out. There was no other reason. Second of all, yes, we do need to have enough voting locations with enough machines but early voting also helps so that people have lots of time to get there and that way there is less of a line on the actual election day. Everyone gets to fit it in where ever it works best for them.

Also, yes, Republicans deliberately made sure there were half as many voting locations in Democratic areas and half again as many voting machines in each polling both in Democratic areas. This was done deliberately as it made sure voting was easy with no lines in all Republican areas but with massive 8 hour long lines in Democratic areas. That was done deliberately to suppress the vote.