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This is intentionally done by one political party that does not care about democracy. They push policies that restrict individual voting rights, gerrymander dis

by jlev 6y ago

This is intentionally done by one political party that does not care about democracy. They push policies that restrict individual voting rights, gerrymander districts for minority rule, and expand the influence of money over people. This has been their plan for decades, as they see the younger and more diverse America as a threat to their ideology. We have got to vote them out at every level.

mrlala 6y ago
Why do comments like this on HN get downvoted? It's a FACT- not an opinion.
- sealjam 6y ago
  I don’t think the Republican Party even try and disguise this fact President Trump talking about proposed electoral reforms: “They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/30/trump-republican-party-voting-reform-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/30/trump-republ...
  - yonaguska 6y ago
    It's disingenuous to not acknowledge the Republican argument that this is about preventing voter fraud. The Democrat argument is of course, that Republicans are actually trying to disenfranchise actual voters. Either way, this last minute effort to expand mail in voting may not be fraudulent, but it's way too easy to allege fraud, and results will simply take too long to be tallied for anyone to actually trust the election. The legitimacy of an institution is oftentimes equally backed by the perceptions of trust and respect of that institution as much as it is backed by the actual functionality of that institution. Regardless of who you back or how much you trust the authenticity of vote by mail, too many people do not trust the other side to not cheat. And even if you assume we live in a world where voter fraud isn't possible for vote by mail, the veracity of the election can be attacked with little effort. Imagine we're two or three weeks into November and still counting votes. A rogue actor prints tens of thousands of fake ballots. They don't need to actually count them, they just nee to make it public- "hey we found a bunch of lost (party of your choice) ballots!". That's what's scary to me. Suddenly, no one has faith that the other side didn't cheat. If I were Xi(China)- this is exactly what I'd be doing right now. It'd be laughably easy for a foreign state actor to absolutely destroy our faith in the election process right now.
    - sealjam 6y ago
      I take your point, but I don’t feel it’s disingenuous to take the quote at face value. Maybe the quote lost some context but talking about “...levels of voting...” being a negative thing seems like a pretty obvious admission of a desire to suppress votes.
    - NoSorryCannot 6y ago
      Oh yeah, facing the worst health crisis in a century and it's disingenuous to not engage the Republican talking points despite there being zero evidence for them (and there is evidence to the contrary!) while they systematically dismantle the postal service from the inside to "save money" right now, in this moment. No, they don't deserve the legitimacy of being engaged with as if what's going on isn't criminal or corrupt. It is, and those are the facts on the ground.
rayiner 6y ago
> This has been their plan for decades, Democrats controlled the house continuously for 40 years until 1994, due in no small part to gerrymandering. Republican-advantage gerrymandering (on a nationwide basis) dates to only about 2010.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > > This has been their plan for decades, > Democrats controlled the house continuously for 40 years until 1994, 1955-1995, actually, and yet it is still true that the current Republican effort (which also includes gerrymandering, but also all the other factors list by GP) has been in place for decades. (1995 was two and a half decades ago, and the Republican strategy being discussed started before they took control of the House.) And, yes, some of the other bits besides gerrymandering also used to be Democratic strategies, especially racially-targeted restrictions on voting rights before the parties switched sides on race issues in a process that included Johnson's embrace of civil rights followed by the Republican subsequent exploitation of that and pursuit of disaffected ex-Democratic racists as a core voting bloc.
abootstrapper 6y ago
It's ok to name the party. It's the republicans fighting to suppress voting rights.
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by jlev 6y ago

mrlala 6y ago

Why do comments like this on HN get downvoted? It's a FACT- not an opinion.

sealjam 6y ago
I don’t think the Republican Party even try and disguise this fact President Trump talking about proposed electoral reforms: “They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/30/trump-republican-party-voting-reform-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/30/trump-republ...
- yonaguska 6y ago
  It's disingenuous to not acknowledge the Republican argument that this is about preventing voter fraud. The Democrat argument is of course, that Republicans are actually trying to disenfranchise actual voters. Either way, this last minute effort to expand mail in voting may not be fraudulent, but it's way too easy to allege fraud, and results will simply take too long to be tallied for anyone to actually trust the election. The legitimacy of an institution is oftentimes equally backed by the perceptions of trust and respect of that institution as much as it is backed by the actual functionality of that institution. Regardless of who you back or how much you trust the authenticity of vote by mail, too many people do not trust the other side to not cheat. And even if you assume we live in a world where voter fraud isn't possible for vote by mail, the veracity of the election can be attacked with little effort. Imagine we're two or three weeks into November and still counting votes. A rogue actor prints tens of thousands of fake ballots. They don't need to actually count them, they just nee to make it public- "hey we found a bunch of lost (party of your choice) ballots!". That's what's scary to me. Suddenly, no one has faith that the other side didn't cheat. If I were Xi(China)- this is exactly what I'd be doing right now. It'd be laughably easy for a foreign state actor to absolutely destroy our faith in the election process right now.
  - sealjam 6y ago
    I take your point, but I don’t feel it’s disingenuous to take the quote at face value. Maybe the quote lost some context but talking about “...levels of voting...” being a negative thing seems like a pretty obvious admission of a desire to suppress votes.
  - NoSorryCannot 6y ago
    Oh yeah, facing the worst health crisis in a century and it's disingenuous to not engage the Republican talking points despite there being zero evidence for them (and there is evidence to the contrary!) while they systematically dismantle the postal service from the inside to "save money" right now, in this moment. No, they don't deserve the legitimacy of being engaged with as if what's going on isn't criminal or corrupt. It is, and those are the facts on the ground.

rayiner 6y ago

> This has been their plan for decades, Democrats controlled the house continuously for 40 years until 1994, due in no small part to gerrymandering. Republican-advantage gerrymandering (on a nationwide basis) dates to only about 2010.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> > This has been their plan for decades, > Democrats controlled the house continuously for 40 years until 1994, 1955-1995, actually, and yet it is still true that the current Republican effort (which also includes gerrymandering, but also all the other factors list by GP) has been in place for decades. (1995 was two and a half decades ago, and the Republican strategy being discussed started before they took control of the House.) And, yes, some of the other bits besides gerrymandering also used to be Democratic strategies, especially racially-targeted restrictions on voting rights before the parties switched sides on race issues in a process that included Johnson's embrace of civil rights followed by the Republican subsequent exploitation of that and pursuit of disaffected ex-Democratic racists as a core voting bloc.

abootstrapper 6y ago

It's ok to name the party. It's the republicans fighting to suppress voting rights.

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