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Please explain to me why harder to vote has an automatic correlation with hurting Democratic, but not Republican, turnout; especially considering Republican’s g

Please explain to me why harder to vote has an automatic correlation with hurting Democratic, but not Republican, turnout; especially considering Republican’s greater propensity to live in rural areas with a longer distance to the voting booth.

deleted 2y ago
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xerox13ster 2y ago
Please explain to me how this discussion of voter turnout and voter suppression in the lens of Democrat versus Republican is not too political for Hacker News? Please remember that this entire sub thread was precipitated from you saying that the mention of a reality TV star in the context of the effects of reality TV is too political and now you are actually discussing politics.
bdangubic 2y ago
you should look up how voter supression works and how it is designed to prevent what demographic from voting. additionally, one thing you failed to mention is that republicans are trying to “solve a problem” (voter fraud) which simply does not exist. there are SERIOUS consequences related to fradulent voting that it just does not make any sense for anyone to even attempt it. hence, this is absolutely never about voter fraud, it is now and always has been about voter supression. if republicans wanted everyone to vote they should be pushing for mandatory voting with serious not-paying-taxes like consequences. make every American vote, do it literally through the IRS. You file your tax return in an election year (well technically 04/15 of the following year) you have to show a proof you voted in the election or you get mandatory prison time. it is shit like this that would be about “hey, lets make sure EVERYONE eligible votes and see who wins” … the republicans only want to make sure to supress votes they know will not be kind to them :)
tzs 2y ago
I've lived and voted in rural areas. Even if they had closed the convenient polling places that were typically in the nearest elementary school or nearest large church so that we would have had to go to the nearest town to vote--it wouldn't have actually made much difference. Since we had to go to that town for pretty much all of our groceries, consumer goods, health services, etc we were already set up so that going there was no big deal. It still can cause problems, but the problems are usually not "I don't have a reasonable way to get to my new polling place" problems. They are "Can I fit a trip to the polling place in with my Tuesday schedule?" problems. People in poor urban areas in cities with little public transportation are often actually much less mobile than people in rural areas. For them it is more likely to be a "I don't have a reasonable way to get to my new polling place" problem. But the biggest reason closing polling places correlates well with hurting Democrats is that the people who decide which ones to close tend to pick ones that they will be more likely to hurt Democrats. E.g., from 2012 to 2018 Texas closed 542 polling places in the counties that had the biggest growth in Latino and Black populations (both of which are more likely to vote Democrat) and only 34 in counties with the least growth in those populations.

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[deleted]

xerox13ster 2y ago

Please explain to me how this discussion of voter turnout and voter suppression in the lens of Democrat versus Republican is not too political for Hacker News? Please remember that this entire sub thread was precipitated from you saying that the mention of a reality TV star in the context of the effects of reality TV is too political and now you are actually discussing politics.

bdangubic 2y ago

you should look up how voter supression works and how it is designed to prevent what demographic from voting. additionally, one thing you failed to mention is that republicans are trying to “solve a problem” (voter fraud) which simply does not exist. there are SERIOUS consequences related to fradulent voting that it just does not make any sense for anyone to even attempt it. hence, this is absolutely never about voter fraud, it is now and always has been about voter supression. if republicans wanted everyone to vote they should be pushing for mandatory voting with serious not-paying-taxes like consequences. make every American vote, do it literally through the IRS. You file your tax return in an election year (well technically 04/15 of the following year) you have to show a proof you voted in the election or you get mandatory prison time. it is shit like this that would be about “hey, lets make sure EVERYONE eligible votes and see who wins” … the republicans only want to make sure to supress votes they know will not be kind to them :)

tzs 2y ago

I've lived and voted in rural areas. Even if they had closed the convenient polling places that were typically in the nearest elementary school or nearest large church so that we would have had to go to the nearest town to vote--it wouldn't have actually made much difference. Since we had to go to that town for pretty much all of our groceries, consumer goods, health services, etc we were already set up so that going there was no big deal. It still can cause problems, but the problems are usually not "I don't have a reasonable way to get to my new polling place" problems. They are "Can I fit a trip to the polling place in with my Tuesday schedule?" problems. People in poor urban areas in cities with little public transportation are often actually much less mobile than people in rural areas. For them it is more likely to be a "I don't have a reasonable way to get to my new polling place" problem. But the biggest reason closing polling places correlates well with hurting Democrats is that the people who decide which ones to close tend to pick ones that they will be more likely to hurt Democrats. E.g., from 2012 to 2018 Texas closed 542 polling places in the counties that had the biggest growth in Latino and Black populations (both of which are more likely to vote Democrat) and only 34 in counties with the least growth in those populations.