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how is voter suppression operating (genuine question!) - what are the key techniques? >And is voting still meaningful if most people are ignorant of what's hap

how is voter suppression operating (genuine question!) - what are the key techniques? >And is voting still meaningful if most people are ignorant of what's happening in the shadows?< Democracy is simply people voting for representatives, we have never measured ignorance of the population, hence no qualitative difference today than any time in the history of this system of governance

adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
the most obvious is by closing poling places in regions where your opponents live. Lots of Republican states have dramatically reduced the number of poling places in cities leading, predictably to hour long lines to vote. in addition, some have made giving food or water to people in line illegal.
- hunglee2 3y ago
  this is terrible. How are they able to get away with this?
macintux 3y ago
> how is voter suppression operating Well, one egregious example would be sending a SWAT team to arrest someone in the early morning because they were erroneously allowed to register but not to vote. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/08/florida-voter-fraud-election-police-desantis-entrapment.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/08/florida-voter-fr... Or aggressively purging voter rolls in minority districts. https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/lawsuit-alleges-ohio-illegally-purging-voter-rolls-msna828006 https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/lawsuit-alleges-ohio-illegally-p... Or closing voting sites in minority areas. https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/poll-closures-rural-lincoln-county-georgia/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/poll-closures-rural-... Or outlawing handing out water to people waiting in line to vote. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/mar/29/josh-holmes/facts-about-georgias-ban-food-water-giveaways-vote/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/mar/29/josh-holme... And early/absentee voting has been on the firing line. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/voting-restrictions-republicans-states/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/vot...
- hunglee2 3y ago
  thanks. This is outrageous. How is it possible for these actions to occur, especially closing voting sites? Surely there should be federal mandate that there should be X number of voting sites per Y number of residents
  - macintux 3y ago
    Like much else in the U.S. system of government, responsibility for managing elections is distributed between the federal and local governments, and most of the laws are local, not federal. For decades much of the south was under federal oversight because the suppression of black voting rights was so flagrant that Congress passed a law to impose some sanity, but the law was significantly hamstrung by the Supreme Court in 2013. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965

adgjlsfhk1 3y ago

the most obvious is by closing poling places in regions where your opponents live. Lots of Republican states have dramatically reduced the number of poling places in cities leading, predictably to hour long lines to vote. in addition, some have made giving food or water to people in line illegal.

hunglee2 3y ago
this is terrible. How are they able to get away with this?

macintux 3y ago

> how is voter suppression operating Well, one egregious example would be sending a SWAT team to arrest someone in the early morning because they were erroneously allowed to register but not to vote. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/08/florida-voter-fraud-election-police-desantis-entrapment.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/08/florida-voter-fr... Or aggressively purging voter rolls in minority districts. https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/lawsuit-alleges-ohio-illegally-purging-voter-rolls-msna828006 https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/lawsuit-alleges-ohio-illegally-p... Or closing voting sites in minority areas. https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/poll-closures-rural-lincoln-county-georgia/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/poll-closures-rural-... Or outlawing handing out water to people waiting in line to vote. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/mar/29/josh-holmes/facts-about-georgias-ban-food-water-giveaways-vote/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/mar/29/josh-holme... And early/absentee voting has been on the firing line. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/voting-restrictions-republicans-states/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/vot...

hunglee2 3y ago
thanks. This is outrageous. How is it possible for these actions to occur, especially closing voting sites? Surely there should be federal mandate that there should be X number of voting sites per Y number of residents
- macintux 3y ago
  Like much else in the U.S. system of government, responsibility for managing elections is distributed between the federal and local governments, and most of the laws are local, not federal. For decades much of the south was under federal oversight because the suppression of black voting rights was so flagrant that Congress passed a law to impose some sanity, but the law was significantly hamstrung by the Supreme Court in 2013. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965