The wince he gives during the hug strikes me as genuine.
CraigM
3446
Yup, clearly voter suppression. And what do you think the odds of those being removed from the rolls will be notified, so that they could correct it before being turned down at the ballots in November?
I’ve never understood the argument made to purge voters from the rolls. I don’t mean in a can they/can’t they sort of way. It’s rather a why/why not sentiment. Can anyone explain a positive (not “helps Team GOP win”) value to purging voting rolls?
rowe33
3448
I imagine there’ll be some sort of glitch in which Republican-registered voters are notified first, then the system suddenly bugs out and nothing will actually be sent to registered Democrats.
Menzo
3449
You mean besides denying Democrats their right to vote? No, there’s no reason.
The fake reason is, of course, “voter fraud.”
Timex
3450
They mention something about replying to a postcard that’s sent to you.
That’s all I hear, but it makes no sense; Ohio requires a government-issued photo ID (all of which need to be renewed fairly consistently). I mean, there has to be SOMETHING else, right?
Menzo
3452
Which you likely won’t get if you moved more than a year earlier.
Menzo
3453
Here’s a totally real scenario that I’m sure plays itself out every election to the benefit of damn dirty Democrats:
John J. Scofflaw lives in Cleveland, and registers to vote. He votes improperly, but legally (for now) for Democrats in two consecutive elections.
Mr. Scofflaw then moves to Pittsburgh, PA to be closer to family. There’s no particular reason to notify the state of Ohio that he’s done so, so he remains on the voting books there.
The nefarious Mr. Scofflaw then registers in PA.
Three elections pass.
In the 2016 election, John Scofflaw then votes legally for Hillary Clinton in PA, and then hops in his car and drives to Ohio, where he then votes again for the soon-to-be jailbird, showing his legal Ohio driver’s license that he never destroyed.
I guess. Or something like that.
Timex
3454
But if you moved, then your old voter registration is likely not valid, unless you happened to move right down the street, since you’d be in a different voting precinct, wouldn’t you?
Oh well, shit happens, can’t be helped. Technology, amirite?
I suppose that’s… hypothetically plausible?
Well, thats the point. There is no checking or coordination between counties for this stuff. You could probably be registered to vote in dozens of places and nobody would notice. There is not one database, there is one per county or maybe one per state at best. Nobody cross checks. When you register someplace, nothing makes you deregister in the old place.
Timex
3458
Ya, but that’s why the argument of “you didn’t get the postcard if you moved” doesn’t really hold a lot of water.
If you moved, and didn’t register, then you won’t be able to vote in the new precinct even if you weren’t removed from the voter registration listings… and you SHOULDN’T be allowed to vote at your old precinct.
Menzo
3459
Republicans have been spending tens/hundreds of millions of dollars chasing these hypothetically plausible voter fraud scenarios for years.
And just like welfare fraud, it does happen, but to such a small scale that it’s not really worth all the effort.
Tman
3460
As someone who lives in a state where it’s 100% vote by mail, which essentially validates your address every year, I will jump on the proverbial fence post and be the devil’s advocate.
The one good thing that I can see from purging people is that it gives a much more accurate count of voters. When I see “58% turnout” or whatever, it’s 58% of the total registered voters. How many of those are no longer valid? We don’t know unless we go through purge process.
So, it’s a long stretch, and one can easily argue that the pros of knowing accurate voter registrations do not outweigh disenfranchising voters.
So while I do agree with the concept of purging names, I would balance that with the requirement that people can register on the day of vote in case they were affected by the purge. Because if we can do a nationwide gun check in 30 minutes I would like to think that we can validate a person’s identity & proof of residency in 30 minutes.
What is an acceptable timeframe for purging? Ohio will send out a card after 2 years of no voting - that seems too aggressive. I would like to think that if you haven’t voted for 8 years, that would be more acceptable, but again provided that they can easily re-register if needed.
I know you think you’re posting from the position of moral superiority in this situation, but you’re doing one of two things here. Either you’ve just used mental illness as a way of scoring cheap points in an internet argument, or you genuinely believe he has a mental illness and have decided to sneer at him about it.
Since when is this OK? Why do you think you get to call the other guy an asshole?
I appreciate that post a lot. It kind of crosses a line to involve mental illness, because it’s an implicit, unfair slam on people who actually are suffering from any kind of mental illness. Even if you think I am an asshole, that’s pretty low.
