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> Republican one by it's policies and histories is almost entirely reliant on non-white voters not showing up in the electorate You could make the literal exac

> Republican one by it's policies and histories is almost entirely reliant on non-white voters not showing up in the electorate You could make the literal exact argument in reverse with at least as much credibility.

rtkwe 6y ago
Democrats aren't the ones pushing to lock people out of voting. Republicans are the only ones pushing actively for and currently dependent on minoritarian rule.
- fastball 6y ago
  No, the idea is that Democrats are doing the opposite, which (if true) is just as bad. Republicans shouldn't be locking out people who are eligible to vote, but at the same time Democrats shouldn't be enabling the submission of fraudulent ballots (ineligible, dead persons, etc), which common sense says is easier if you don't require ID verification at polls or if you allow mail-in ballots for all. Both are anti-democratic.
  - rtkwe 6y ago
    > Republicans shouldn't be locking out people who are eligible to vote, but at the same time Democrats shouldn't be enabling the submission of fraudulent ballots (ineligible, dead persons, etc), which common sense says is easier if you don't require ID verification at polls or if you allow mail-in ballots for all. There's no evidence of even minor amounts of voting fraud, the current administration spent months on a commission to find the claimed millions of fraudulent votes and came up with nothing to my recollection. In fact the biggest cases I saw that came out recently was a Republican operative in North Carolina packing mail-in ballots... and he was caught without voter ID. One is actively anti-democratic, the other is hypothetically anti-democratic. You're trying to both sides a possibility against actually anti-democratic actions and policies. If any of the voter ID attempts came with real attempts to increase voter turn out and make sure everyone had an ID I might give them the benefit of the doubt but it never does and the only side that wants it fights tooth and nail to make it harder for voters to vote.
    - fastball 6y ago
      > a Republican operative in North Carolina packing mail-in ballots... and he was caught without voter ID. It's the Republicans that want voter ID and the Democrats that want to get rid of it. And yet you're telling me that it's all just Republicans looking out for their own interests / voter suppression? Ok... Points I have made: 1. Voter fraud exists (true) 2. Republicans support policies that based on common-sense (and actual examples) reduce fraud Thank you for helping me make my argument. And again, it takes two to tango. Why can't the Democrats run with voter ID and encourage people to vote / make it easy for everyone eligible to get an ID? Instead they say "no voter ID ever, it's always voter suppression!" The problem with voter fraud is that it's obviously hard to detect at scale if it actually works. Unlike other crimes, there is no victim that you can use to count cases.
  - lincolnq 6y ago
    Ugh, this is both-sides-ism at its worst. The impact of actual fraud on elections is nil, whereas the impact of subtle disenfranchisement is easily election-swinging. Both are anti-democratic, but that doesn’t mean they are equally bad.
    - fastball 6y ago
      > The impact of actual fraud on elections is nil That's just false. In what universe does fraud not have an impact on anything it touches, much less voting? I can point to many occasions when voter fraud had an impact on outcomes (but was caught so it did not in the end). But the problem with this is that voter fraud is only heard about when it fails. You obviously have no idea how much actually successful fraud has occurred. This is generally true for all crimes, except voter fraud is an actual victimless crime (at least in terms of the victim being able to know that a crime was perpetrated against them), so you can't even estimate scale by victim reports like you could with something like assault or robbery.
      - sharkmerry 6y ago
        If you can point to many. Please do and link them. my understanding is that fraud on elections is close to nil. So while OP is slightly hyperbolic, it isn't far off
        secabeen 6y ago
        Heritage Foundation has a list. It has about 2000 instances over the last 20 years: https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud Not a lot.
        fastball 6y ago
        I think 2000 instances counts as "many". Regardless, the main point still applies. That's only the fraud we know about. The amount of fraud we don't know about that people are getting away with is an unbounded number that we literally can't even estimate given the nature of the crime. Again, this isn't identity theft or robbery where there is a clear victim to tell you "hey a crime has been committed against me" even if you never catch the perp. In the case of voter fraud, there will never be a smoking gun if you don't catch them first. Regardless, it's fairly obvious that less ID verification / policies that result in less of an audit trail make fraud easier to execute without getting caught.
Judgmentality 6y ago
Is that supposed to be a rebuttal? That's just a corollary. Yes - what you just said is logically consistent.
cmorgan31 6y ago
You had the chance to do just that and ended up not making an effort. It seems far fetched to think anyone could become president without a sizable chunk of white voters in the US just based on the census demographic data. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219
- fastball 6y ago
  Well given that whites are a majority of the population, it makes sense that the president would need a sizable chunk of that populace. What am I missing here?
  - cmorgan31 6y ago
    It would be factually incorrect to say the Democrats have a history or desire to disenfranchise white voters. You can not become president without a chunk of the majority demographic’s support. Hopefully that helps shine light on whatever you are missing.
    - fastball 6y ago
      Right, I understand that. I just don't understand the point you are trying to make in the context of the discussion.
      - cmorgan31 6y ago
        You understand my point if you understand the two sentences I had the desire to type out on the topic. I wasn't responding to the full context of the grandparent's post. I was responding to the weak attempt at saying the Democrats and Republicans are the reverse sides of the same coin. Democrats have no desire to disenfranchise the same way Republicans do as it doesn't benefit them. They may try other ways to skew the results towards them but this tactic isn't used by them.
djaque 6y ago
Sure, let me make it here: better watch out for those Democrats encouraging traditionally poorly represented groups to get out and have their voices heard. /s It doesn't really have the same ring, does it.
majormajor 6y ago
You could, and then you'd get up to the 60s, and... then you couldn't anymore. I notice that you say you could but you actually didn't...

rtkwe 6y ago

Democrats aren't the ones pushing to lock people out of voting. Republicans are the only ones pushing actively for and currently dependent on minoritarian rule.

fastball 6y ago
No, the idea is that Democrats are doing the opposite, which (if true) is just as bad. Republicans shouldn't be locking out people who are eligible to vote, but at the same time Democrats shouldn't be enabling the submission of fraudulent ballots (ineligible, dead persons, etc), which common sense says is easier if you don't require ID verification at polls or if you allow mail-in ballots for all. Both are anti-democratic.
- rtkwe 6y ago
  > Republicans shouldn't be locking out people who are eligible to vote, but at the same time Democrats shouldn't be enabling the submission of fraudulent ballots (ineligible, dead persons, etc), which common sense says is easier if you don't require ID verification at polls or if you allow mail-in ballots for all. There's no evidence of even minor amounts of voting fraud, the current administration spent months on a commission to find the claimed millions of fraudulent votes and came up with nothing to my recollection. In fact the biggest cases I saw that came out recently was a Republican operative in North Carolina packing mail-in ballots... and he was caught without voter ID. One is actively anti-democratic, the other is hypothetically anti-democratic. You're trying to both sides a possibility against actually anti-democratic actions and policies. If any of the voter ID attempts came with real attempts to increase voter turn out and make sure everyone had an ID I might give them the benefit of the doubt but it never does and the only side that wants it fights tooth and nail to make it harder for voters to vote.
  - fastball 6y ago
    > a Republican operative in North Carolina packing mail-in ballots... and he was caught without voter ID. It's the Republicans that want voter ID and the Democrats that want to get rid of it. And yet you're telling me that it's all just Republicans looking out for their own interests / voter suppression? Ok... Points I have made: 1. Voter fraud exists (true) 2. Republicans support policies that based on common-sense (and actual examples) reduce fraud Thank you for helping me make my argument. And again, it takes two to tango. Why can't the Democrats run with voter ID and encourage people to vote / make it easy for everyone eligible to get an ID? Instead they say "no voter ID ever, it's always voter suppression!" The problem with voter fraud is that it's obviously hard to detect at scale if it actually works. Unlike other crimes, there is no victim that you can use to count cases.
- lincolnq 6y ago
  Ugh, this is both-sides-ism at its worst. The impact of actual fraud on elections is nil, whereas the impact of subtle disenfranchisement is easily election-swinging. Both are anti-democratic, but that doesn’t mean they are equally bad.
  - fastball 6y ago
    > The impact of actual fraud on elections is nil That's just false. In what universe does fraud not have an impact on anything it touches, much less voting? I can point to many occasions when voter fraud had an impact on outcomes (but was caught so it did not in the end). But the problem with this is that voter fraud is only heard about when it fails. You obviously have no idea how much actually successful fraud has occurred. This is generally true for all crimes, except voter fraud is an actual victimless crime (at least in terms of the victim being able to know that a crime was perpetrated against them), so you can't even estimate scale by victim reports like you could with something like assault or robbery.
    - sharkmerry 6y ago
      If you can point to many. Please do and link them. my understanding is that fraud on elections is close to nil. So while OP is slightly hyperbolic, it isn't far off
      - secabeen 6y ago
        Heritage Foundation has a list. It has about 2000 instances over the last 20 years: https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud Not a lot.
        fastball 6y ago
        I think 2000 instances counts as "many". Regardless, the main point still applies. That's only the fraud we know about. The amount of fraud we don't know about that people are getting away with is an unbounded number that we literally can't even estimate given the nature of the crime. Again, this isn't identity theft or robbery where there is a clear victim to tell you "hey a crime has been committed against me" even if you never catch the perp. In the case of voter fraud, there will never be a smoking gun if you don't catch them first. Regardless, it's fairly obvious that less ID verification / policies that result in less of an audit trail make fraud easier to execute without getting caught.

Judgmentality 6y ago

Is that supposed to be a rebuttal? That's just a corollary. Yes - what you just said is logically consistent.

cmorgan31 6y ago

You had the chance to do just that and ended up not making an effort. It seems far fetched to think anyone could become president without a sizable chunk of white voters in the US just based on the census demographic data. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219

fastball 6y ago
Well given that whites are a majority of the population, it makes sense that the president would need a sizable chunk of that populace. What am I missing here?
- cmorgan31 6y ago
  It would be factually incorrect to say the Democrats have a history or desire to disenfranchise white voters. You can not become president without a chunk of the majority demographic’s support. Hopefully that helps shine light on whatever you are missing.
  - fastball 6y ago
    Right, I understand that. I just don't understand the point you are trying to make in the context of the discussion.
    - cmorgan31 6y ago
      You understand my point if you understand the two sentences I had the desire to type out on the topic. I wasn't responding to the full context of the grandparent's post. I was responding to the weak attempt at saying the Democrats and Republicans are the reverse sides of the same coin. Democrats have no desire to disenfranchise the same way Republicans do as it doesn't benefit them. They may try other ways to skew the results towards them but this tactic isn't used by them.

djaque 6y ago

Sure, let me make it here: better watch out for those Democrats encouraging traditionally poorly represented groups to get out and have their voices heard. /s It doesn't really have the same ring, does it.

majormajor 6y ago

You could, and then you'd get up to the 60s, and... then you couldn't anymore. I notice that you say you could but you actually didn't...