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Cuomo is not a good example of an mainline Democrat. He sides with Republicans in the state senate as often as Democrats. The only NY politician with a worse ap

Cuomo is not a good example of an mainline Democrat. He sides with Republicans in the state senate as often as Democrats. The only NY politician with a worse approval rating is Mayor DeBlasio. Election reform is a major piece of the Democratic party platform, and has been for a very long time. Whenever it comes up in Congress, the vote is party-line: all Democrats in favor of more secure and less money-influenced elections, all Republicans opposed.

jerf 8y ago
No, it's all Democrats in favor of things that they know will net them more Democrat votes, and Republicans against them, and vice versa, of course. Why are the Democrats upset about the census not counting "migrants" and going to court to block attempts to make the census only count citizens? Well, you could try to derive an answer from first principles... or you could just count votes, and come to the correct answer much more quickly. Don't be so silly as to believe their spin about "getting money out of the election"; such reforms are not hypothetical things that may happen in the future, reforms have been passed are in effect, and, lo, money is still in politics.
- tzs 8y ago
  > Why are the Democrats upset about the census not counting "migrants" and going to court to block attempts to make the census only count citizens? You are a bit off on that. The census is supposed to count everyone resident in the US, regardless of citizenship status or legality of their presence here. It's been that way since the Census Act of 1790. (And it does not count US citizens who are not resident in the US, except for Federal employees and their dependents). The issue with adding a question about citizenship is that it might discourage some people from responding to the census, reducing the accuracy of the count. The Census Bureau estimates that about 6.5 million people will not respond if the question is included. There are legitimate reasons for the government to want to know how many citizens are resident in the country, and how they are distributed, but they already have that data from the American Community Survey which does include a citizenship question (in fact, I believe, the same question they are trying to add to the census). The experts at the Census Bureau unanimously recommended not including the question (as did six former directors of the Bureau, both Republican and Democrat). The Commerce Secretary overruled them, claiming that the Justice Department said it wanted the question added to somehow better enforce the Voting Rights Act. (Emails between the Secretary and the DoJ that were introduced in one of the trials over this show that this is not true--the DoJ told him that the question was unnecessary). Here's a recent article that covers most of this [1]. [1] https://www.npr.org/2019/04/23/705210786/a-decade-of-implications-at-stake-supreme-court-hears-census-citizenship-questio https://www.npr.org/2019/04/23/705210786/a-decade-of-implica...
  - jerf 8y ago
    None of that matters with regard to what I said. Probably none of it matters with regard to what is really going on, either. Our job as plebians is to get really distracted arguing about the details of the various fig leaves and whose fig leaves are better, but that's all they really are. I don't see any reason to care about them any more than our political class (really) does.
    - tptacek 8y ago
      This is a non sequitur response to an informed and interesting comment, which 'tzs clearly took pains to compose and which addresses in detail the claim you made above. You'd have been better off not commenting at all than writing this.
      - jerf 8y ago
        I disagree. tzs keeps trying to pin me down to disagreeing with "Democrats want the vote to be solid and the evilnasty Republicans keep stopping them", but the point I want to make is that the theory that parties act in their interest is far more explanatory than the theory that the parties act in accordance with their stated principles. (Stated principles are of some modest help in determining why the parties are made up of the specific interests they are, but it's far from determinative.) Do the Democrats believe that any of the measures that tzs defends is going to increase Republican voting, and they are pursuing them even so? That would be relevant. Give me some evidence of that and I'll admit at the very least a rare admission against interest, and at most that I'm wrong about this. But I don't believe it to be true. I'm pretty sure they think that if they get those things, they'll get more Democrat votes. How exactly Democrats defend their position for policies that will result in Democratic voting power isn't that relevant for my point.
        tptacek 8y ago
        First, that is nothing at all like what 'tzs said, and it's rude to suggest otherwise. Second, this new argument essentially shuts down the whole discussion. What you're saying is that there's no explanation about census policy that can override your somehow-infallible observation that this is all a political sideshow. Why bother participating in the discussion at all, then? You've already made that point. Did you need to make it 3 times? I have a problem with the pattern on HN of someone taking the time to make an informed comment, and then others trying to shut that person down with handwaving and shouting. If you want to rebut 'tzs, do the legwork and rebut him.
int_19h 8y ago
Democrats consistently oppose all forms of voter ID, which is pretty much standard practice in most other developed countries. The usual explanation is that it amounts to racial profiling in practice, which is true enough with the implementations that GOP proposes - but then why not propose an implementation that doesn't have those problems (again, like most other developed countries already have)? Don't forget that Maryland remains one of the most heavily gerrymandered states in the nation, either - and that gerrymander was carried out by the Dems, and is currently being defended in court by the state admin. I'm also not convinced by their stance on counting non-citizens for the purpose of representation. I am not a citizen, and I cannot vote - but the effect of the present system is that a vote is effectively allocated to me, but then handed over to whichever side is first past the post in any election in my district, amplifying their voting power without my consent. Supposedly this is because they still "represent" me - but it's about as meaningful as the representation that the American colonies ostensibly had in the British parliament prior to the revolution. If voting power irregularities that stem from the electoral college are bad - and they are - this is no better. So why are Dems supporting it? The cynical answer is that it gives disproportionate voting power to areas with large immigrant non-citizen populations, which are mostly urban and lean strongly Dem. I'm not sure what a non-cynical answer is; I can't come up with one. On the whole, I believe that it is correct to say that Dems are much more often in favor of less money influence on voting and broader franchise. But given situational examples to the contrary, it seems less like a principled stance, and more like the party interests being in alignment with those goals more often than they are for GOP. Which makes sense for a party that relies on a broader, larger coalition of diverse voters, rather than a monolithic key support group.
- specialist 8y ago
  No Democrat any where opposes properly identifying voters. One's identity and eligibility to vote is verified upon registration. One's identity is confirmed when being issued a ballot. The current system works so well, until recently [1], that there have been very few cases of voter or registration fraud. If you are you unhappy with forms of identification accepted to be issued a ballot, then you should advocate that all voters are issued a government issued identification for free. Which is pretty much standard practice in most other developed countries. Requiring government issued ID to vote that is not free is called a poll tax. And that's unconstitutional. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47323556 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47323556

jerf 8y ago

No, it's all Democrats in favor of things that they know will net them more Democrat votes, and Republicans against them, and vice versa, of course. Why are the Democrats upset about the census not counting "migrants" and going to court to block attempts to make the census only count citizens? Well, you could try to derive an answer from first principles... or you could just count votes, and come to the correct answer much more quickly. Don't be so silly as to believe their spin about "getting money out of the election"; such reforms are not hypothetical things that may happen in the future, reforms have been passed are in effect, and, lo, money is still in politics.

tzs 8y ago
> Why are the Democrats upset about the census not counting "migrants" and going to court to block attempts to make the census only count citizens? You are a bit off on that. The census is supposed to count everyone resident in the US, regardless of citizenship status or legality of their presence here. It's been that way since the Census Act of 1790. (And it does not count US citizens who are not resident in the US, except for Federal employees and their dependents). The issue with adding a question about citizenship is that it might discourage some people from responding to the census, reducing the accuracy of the count. The Census Bureau estimates that about 6.5 million people will not respond if the question is included. There are legitimate reasons for the government to want to know how many citizens are resident in the country, and how they are distributed, but they already have that data from the American Community Survey which does include a citizenship question (in fact, I believe, the same question they are trying to add to the census). The experts at the Census Bureau unanimously recommended not including the question (as did six former directors of the Bureau, both Republican and Democrat). The Commerce Secretary overruled them, claiming that the Justice Department said it wanted the question added to somehow better enforce the Voting Rights Act. (Emails between the Secretary and the DoJ that were introduced in one of the trials over this show that this is not true--the DoJ told him that the question was unnecessary). Here's a recent article that covers most of this [1]. [1] https://www.npr.org/2019/04/23/705210786/a-decade-of-implications-at-stake-supreme-court-hears-census-citizenship-questio https://www.npr.org/2019/04/23/705210786/a-decade-of-implica...
- jerf 8y ago
  None of that matters with regard to what I said. Probably none of it matters with regard to what is really going on, either. Our job as plebians is to get really distracted arguing about the details of the various fig leaves and whose fig leaves are better, but that's all they really are. I don't see any reason to care about them any more than our political class (really) does.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    This is a non sequitur response to an informed and interesting comment, which 'tzs clearly took pains to compose and which addresses in detail the claim you made above. You'd have been better off not commenting at all than writing this.
    - jerf 8y ago
      I disagree. tzs keeps trying to pin me down to disagreeing with "Democrats want the vote to be solid and the evilnasty Republicans keep stopping them", but the point I want to make is that the theory that parties act in their interest is far more explanatory than the theory that the parties act in accordance with their stated principles. (Stated principles are of some modest help in determining why the parties are made up of the specific interests they are, but it's far from determinative.) Do the Democrats believe that any of the measures that tzs defends is going to increase Republican voting, and they are pursuing them even so? That would be relevant. Give me some evidence of that and I'll admit at the very least a rare admission against interest, and at most that I'm wrong about this. But I don't believe it to be true. I'm pretty sure they think that if they get those things, they'll get more Democrat votes. How exactly Democrats defend their position for policies that will result in Democratic voting power isn't that relevant for my point.
      - tptacek 8y ago
        First, that is nothing at all like what 'tzs said, and it's rude to suggest otherwise. Second, this new argument essentially shuts down the whole discussion. What you're saying is that there's no explanation about census policy that can override your somehow-infallible observation that this is all a political sideshow. Why bother participating in the discussion at all, then? You've already made that point. Did you need to make it 3 times? I have a problem with the pattern on HN of someone taking the time to make an informed comment, and then others trying to shut that person down with handwaving and shouting. If you want to rebut 'tzs, do the legwork and rebut him.

int_19h 8y ago

Democrats consistently oppose all forms of voter ID, which is pretty much standard practice in most other developed countries. The usual explanation is that it amounts to racial profiling in practice, which is true enough with the implementations that GOP proposes - but then why not propose an implementation that doesn't have those problems (again, like most other developed countries already have)? Don't forget that Maryland remains one of the most heavily gerrymandered states in the nation, either - and that gerrymander was carried out by the Dems, and is currently being defended in court by the state admin. I'm also not convinced by their stance on counting non-citizens for the purpose of representation. I am not a citizen, and I cannot vote - but the effect of the present system is that a vote is effectively allocated to me, but then handed over to whichever side is first past the post in any election in my district, amplifying their voting power without my consent. Supposedly this is because they still "represent" me - but it's about as meaningful as the representation that the American colonies ostensibly had in the British parliament prior to the revolution. If voting power irregularities that stem from the electoral college are bad - and they are - this is no better. So why are Dems supporting it? The cynical answer is that it gives disproportionate voting power to areas with large immigrant non-citizen populations, which are mostly urban and lean strongly Dem. I'm not sure what a non-cynical answer is; I can't come up with one. On the whole, I believe that it is correct to say that Dems are much more often in favor of less money influence on voting and broader franchise. But given situational examples to the contrary, it seems less like a principled stance, and more like the party interests being in alignment with those goals more often than they are for GOP. Which makes sense for a party that relies on a broader, larger coalition of diverse voters, rather than a monolithic key support group.

specialist 8y ago
No Democrat any where opposes properly identifying voters. One's identity and eligibility to vote is verified upon registration. One's identity is confirmed when being issued a ballot. The current system works so well, until recently [1], that there have been very few cases of voter or registration fraud. If you are you unhappy with forms of identification accepted to be issued a ballot, then you should advocate that all voters are issued a government issued identification for free. Which is pretty much standard practice in most other developed countries. Requiring government issued ID to vote that is not free is called a poll tax. And that's unconstitutional. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47323556 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47323556