4 ms·

This is a crime. The power to unregister voters must be forcibly taken away from states; especially red states, since they are the only ones abusing this power.

by Bud 9y ago

This is a crime. The power to unregister voters must be forcibly taken away from states; especially red states, since they are the only ones abusing this power. It should require federal action, instead.

simonh 9y ago
Well that's a non-starter, I'm sure people are de-registered for perfectly legitimate reasons all the time. But yes clearly this is an egregious abuse of power. Here in the UK local councillors have been jailed and punitively fined for pursuing voter registration and de-registration policies that were politically motivated. It's considered a serious crime.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> It should require federal action Shooting from the hip is a good way to trash a democracy. What you're proposing would allow a single, centralized actor to purge voters from the rolls. De-centralised systems will always have longer, more-idiotic tails. That's the tradeoff for their robust central tendencies.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Most countries have centralised voter registration. Often tied to ID and other registration systems.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > Most countries have centralised voter registration Most democracies haven't lasted more than a century. De-centralisation is an annoying but core feature of American democracy. It's wise to be conservative when discussing its dismissal, particularly in respect of something as fundamental as voting.
    - bjelkeman-again 9y ago
      New Zealand was one of the first countries to offer universal adult suffrage in 1893. Which is a decent definition of a modern democracy. Sweden, where I live, was a bit late and got it voted on in 1919 and the first election in 1921. So just under a century now.
      - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
        I'm not saying centralized voting is incompatible with democracy. (It isn't.) I'm objecting to arguments in the form of "because most countries do X, we should too" when it comes to voting. The sample of old democracies isn't large enough to draw much from alone. Note that the Voting Rights Act was an act of federal oversight over voting. I fully agree with it. If you get a chance to read its drafting, please do. It's careful, extending only where necessary, defaulting to the status quo wherever possible.
        jmanderley 9y ago
        American democracy has a myriad of problems, maybe keeping the status quo is the worst of all options.
    - pjc50 9y ago
      Was America actually a democracy prior to the voting rights act of 1965? (Not trolling, this is a critical part of the issue, the extent to which black people could actually participate in said democracy)
      - zo1 9y ago
        And by extension: Is it a democracy right now? Seeing as a good portion of convicted felons are not allowed to vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#Current_practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#Curr...
      - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
        "Stable, prosperous" stands in for "democracy" in most discussions, this one included. Things that look like democracy (peaceful succession, generally non-violent political competition, an electorate too vast to bribe outside policy channels, checks and balances, et cetera) simply have the best track record in achieving this aim.
        pjc50 9y ago
        > "Stable, prosperous" stands in for "democracy" in most discussions "But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less." I can see where you're coming from, and it's the view that has led the US to support undemocratic rightwing parties over democratic leftwing ones in a lot of places. Including some parts of the US. > generally non-violent political competition The US is a little strange on this one, in that armed revolution against the government seems to be something that people talk about all the time but never do.
      - MR4D 9y ago
        Since you’re asking a reasonable question... the probable answer is somewhere around 85% “yes”. And about 15% “f$&@ no!”
- Bud 9y ago
  We could retain a decentralized system and all its benefits if there were federal oversight. Someone has to stop Kris Kobach, basically.
- wahern 9y ago
  Software means one idiot's algorithm can quickly become every idiot's algorithm. That said, the urge to federalize everything is troublesome. Democrats want to protect Alabamians from Alabama, but who's gonna protect us when Alabama takes over the federal government? De-centralization at the very least makes it easier to fix mistakes piecemeal, even if it doesn't prevent everybody from making the same mistake.
  - Mountain_Skies 9y ago
    One benefit of the electoral college is that it compartmentalizes voter fraud to the state in which it happens. If I'm a corrupt election official in a state that is going to give a presidential candidate a large margin of victory, I have no incentive to risk being caught manipulating vote tallies (for president). If we ever switch to using the national popular vote instead, think we'd see lots of cases of local officials trying to 'save the country' by offsetting votes from other states that vote primarily for another candidate.
    - Bud 9y ago
      You are misusing the term "voter fraud" here. It doesn't mean what you think it means. "Voter fraud" refers only to intentional voting by people who don't have the right to vote, or who are voting more than once. There basically is no such thing as "voter fraud"; there have only been a few handfuls of cases in the past two decades, out of billions of votes cast. So it's important not to play fast and loose with the use of this term. Republicans are using professional liars to allege that voter fraud is a real thing. It's not.
  - ScottBurson 9y ago
    I've been wondering whether the way the political war in the US will end will be by a devolution of power to the states, with things like abortion rights, immigration policy, drug policy, health care, the social safety net, and maybe even taxation and some trade policies decided at the state level instead of federally. Just a thought, but it has occurred to me.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
munk-a 9y ago
This is an action which legitimately needs to be done. I think the larger issue we need to fix is the partisan entrenchment that lets people justify this being done to further their own agendas. Using targeted disenfranchisement to further your own political goals is quite clearly illegal, we just need to start sending people to jail over it instead of excusing it because the ends justify the means.
- Bud 9y ago
  This isn't really about "partisan entrenchment"; this is not a bipartisan issue. It's an issue with Republicans. There's no history of any large-scale activity like this from Democrats.
  - boomboomsubban 9y ago
    The history of Democrats doing this is so rich there's a Constitutional Ammendment addressing it. The current climate only benefits Republicans purging voters, but both sides manipulate voting to benefit themselves.
    - lightbyte 9y ago
      Are you referring to the 15th or 17th amendment? Both of those were put in place before political parties switched their ideologies. The Republican Party of the 1800s was the liberal party, not the conservative beast it is today.
      - sanderjd 9y ago
        Ok, but the claim made above didn't have anything to do with "liberal" and "conservative", it was that the Democratic party has never pursued disenfranchisement policies, which is ahistorical to the point of silliness. Certainly, the Republican party is currently pursuing disenfranchisement to a shameful degree (and in my opinion voters should send them into the wilderness next year to show that this, and other, behavior is not acceptable), but it's not happening because they're fundamentally less moral than the Democrats. It's happening because they won power soon after a census and while facing a future of strong demographic shifts toward the other side. They have both motive and opportunity to skew the system in their favor. The Democrats would do the same thing in the same situation. We should be discussing system-level fixes rather than blaming a single party for taking advantage of the current system. The Supreme Court has a chance to start moving this in a better direction this session, and I hope they'll take it.
MR4D 9y ago
You do realize that every time a person moves from one state to another that they need to be removed from the voting rolls of the prior state, right? Honest question, as I’m not sure where you’re headed with this.

by Bud 9y ago

simonh 9y ago

Well that's a non-starter, I'm sure people are de-registered for perfectly legitimate reasons all the time. But yes clearly this is an egregious abuse of power. Here in the UK local councillors have been jailed and punitively fined for pursuing voter registration and de-registration policies that were politically motivated. It's considered a serious crime.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> It should require federal action Shooting from the hip is a good way to trash a democracy. What you're proposing would allow a single, centralized actor to purge voters from the rolls. De-centralised systems will always have longer, more-idiotic tails. That's the tradeoff for their robust central tendencies.

pjc50 9y ago
Most countries have centralised voter registration. Often tied to ID and other registration systems.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > Most countries have centralised voter registration Most democracies haven't lasted more than a century. De-centralisation is an annoying but core feature of American democracy. It's wise to be conservative when discussing its dismissal, particularly in respect of something as fundamental as voting.
  - bjelkeman-again 9y ago
    New Zealand was one of the first countries to offer universal adult suffrage in 1893. Which is a decent definition of a modern democracy. Sweden, where I live, was a bit late and got it voted on in 1919 and the first election in 1921. So just under a century now.
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      I'm not saying centralized voting is incompatible with democracy. (It isn't.) I'm objecting to arguments in the form of "because most countries do X, we should too" when it comes to voting. The sample of old democracies isn't large enough to draw much from alone. Note that the Voting Rights Act was an act of federal oversight over voting. I fully agree with it. If you get a chance to read its drafting, please do. It's careful, extending only where necessary, defaulting to the status quo wherever possible.
      - jmanderley 9y ago
        American democracy has a myriad of problems, maybe keeping the status quo is the worst of all options.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    Was America actually a democracy prior to the voting rights act of 1965? (Not trolling, this is a critical part of the issue, the extent to which black people could actually participate in said democracy)
    - zo1 9y ago
      And by extension: Is it a democracy right now? Seeing as a good portion of convicted felons are not allowed to vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#Current_practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#Curr...
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      "Stable, prosperous" stands in for "democracy" in most discussions, this one included. Things that look like democracy (peaceful succession, generally non-violent political competition, an electorate too vast to bribe outside policy channels, checks and balances, et cetera) simply have the best track record in achieving this aim.
      - pjc50 9y ago
        > "Stable, prosperous" stands in for "democracy" in most discussions "But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less." I can see where you're coming from, and it's the view that has led the US to support undemocratic rightwing parties over democratic leftwing ones in a lot of places. Including some parts of the US. > generally non-violent political competition The US is a little strange on this one, in that armed revolution against the government seems to be something that people talk about all the time but never do.
    - MR4D 9y ago
      Since you’re asking a reasonable question... the probable answer is somewhere around 85% “yes”. And about 15% “f$&@ no!”
Bud 9y ago
We could retain a decentralized system and all its benefits if there were federal oversight. Someone has to stop Kris Kobach, basically.
wahern 9y ago
Software means one idiot's algorithm can quickly become every idiot's algorithm. That said, the urge to federalize everything is troublesome. Democrats want to protect Alabamians from Alabama, but who's gonna protect us when Alabama takes over the federal government? De-centralization at the very least makes it easier to fix mistakes piecemeal, even if it doesn't prevent everybody from making the same mistake.
- Mountain_Skies 9y ago
  One benefit of the electoral college is that it compartmentalizes voter fraud to the state in which it happens. If I'm a corrupt election official in a state that is going to give a presidential candidate a large margin of victory, I have no incentive to risk being caught manipulating vote tallies (for president). If we ever switch to using the national popular vote instead, think we'd see lots of cases of local officials trying to 'save the country' by offsetting votes from other states that vote primarily for another candidate.
  - Bud 9y ago
    You are misusing the term "voter fraud" here. It doesn't mean what you think it means. "Voter fraud" refers only to intentional voting by people who don't have the right to vote, or who are voting more than once. There basically is no such thing as "voter fraud"; there have only been a few handfuls of cases in the past two decades, out of billions of votes cast. So it's important not to play fast and loose with the use of this term. Republicans are using professional liars to allege that voter fraud is a real thing. It's not.
- ScottBurson 9y ago
  I've been wondering whether the way the political war in the US will end will be by a devolution of power to the states, with things like abortion rights, immigration policy, drug policy, health care, the social safety net, and maybe even taxation and some trade policies decided at the state level instead of federally. Just a thought, but it has occurred to me.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

munk-a 9y ago

This is an action which legitimately needs to be done. I think the larger issue we need to fix is the partisan entrenchment that lets people justify this being done to further their own agendas. Using targeted disenfranchisement to further your own political goals is quite clearly illegal, we just need to start sending people to jail over it instead of excusing it because the ends justify the means.

Bud 9y ago
This isn't really about "partisan entrenchment"; this is not a bipartisan issue. It's an issue with Republicans. There's no history of any large-scale activity like this from Democrats.
- boomboomsubban 9y ago
  The history of Democrats doing this is so rich there's a Constitutional Ammendment addressing it. The current climate only benefits Republicans purging voters, but both sides manipulate voting to benefit themselves.
  - lightbyte 9y ago
    Are you referring to the 15th or 17th amendment? Both of those were put in place before political parties switched their ideologies. The Republican Party of the 1800s was the liberal party, not the conservative beast it is today.
    - sanderjd 9y ago
      Ok, but the claim made above didn't have anything to do with "liberal" and "conservative", it was that the Democratic party has never pursued disenfranchisement policies, which is ahistorical to the point of silliness. Certainly, the Republican party is currently pursuing disenfranchisement to a shameful degree (and in my opinion voters should send them into the wilderness next year to show that this, and other, behavior is not acceptable), but it's not happening because they're fundamentally less moral than the Democrats. It's happening because they won power soon after a census and while facing a future of strong demographic shifts toward the other side. They have both motive and opportunity to skew the system in their favor. The Democrats would do the same thing in the same situation. We should be discussing system-level fixes rather than blaming a single party for taking advantage of the current system. The Supreme Court has a chance to start moving this in a better direction this session, and I hope they'll take it.

MR4D 9y ago

You do realize that every time a person moves from one state to another that they need to be removed from the voting rolls of the prior state, right? Honest question, as I’m not sure where you’re headed with this.