Are there any P&R topics that don’t make you angry? :)
But I do agree. I think without expanding the actual ways you can vote there is little chance of more people actually doing the deed.
And coincidentally, most of the those people are poor. It’s like they don’t even care about America.
You would think some smart political party would think about ways to encourage that demographic to vote for them. :)
37 states and DC have early in person voting, no excuse absentee voting, or a combination of both. The 13 states that don’t include right-wing strongholds such as Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New York.
http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/absentee-and-early-voting.aspx
I’m for this. The massive fraud crap has never been proven. Mail-in-Ballots, early voting… there’s lots of things we can do to have people vote. Making it a holiday doesn’t help the group that likely has the biggest challenge getting to the polls, and making it a holiday or putting it on a holiday might have an adverse affect on voter turn-out.
Glenn Grothman gets a little too loose with his language during an interview.
When asked about how Cruz could win WI in November…
Well, I think Hillary Clinton is just about the weakest candidate the Democrats have ever put up, and now we have photo ID, and I think photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference as well.
Nice.
The reporter doesn’t even acknowledge it. Just rolls on. That’s some class-A interviewing, right there.
I agree that there’s something to personal responsibility here, and the democratic base would serve itself better if they made every possible effort to vote. It can be hard, but it’s almost never impossible.
Still, the barriers can be different. I live in an almost all-white area of a red state. Here, you see a huge number of older white people at the polls. Most of them are retired. Close to 100% of them have cars. The lines tend to be short. It’s really easy for people here to vote. Heck, there are two polling stations within a 15-minute walk from my front door.
Contrast that to someone working full-time, or more than full-time, with children at home to take care of as well. Maybe they ride the bus, which makes commuting to work or the polls more time consuming. Maybe they live in a state which has shuttered half the polling stations in poor areas (e.g., Alabama). Can that person vote? Almost certainly ‘yes,’ somehow. But the increased difficulty matters. It shows up in the results.
Why is it news that Republicans are admitting that Voter ID is a political tool to get them to win elections? They’ve been admitting it for literally years and no one fucking gives a shit.
It’s about ethics in voting. /s
The best way you can do this is expand early voting, and make it where long voting lines are a violation of voting rights. If folks have 2 weeks to vote, with polls open 8 hours a day- folks who don’t vote aren’t going to vote.
Best solution is mandatory voting- make it a fine not to vote if eligible.
The Iowa Caucuses are a meeting. You meet at 7:00p, start the meeting, have some preliminary blah blah blah, and then the R’s take a vote (and then 95% of them leave to let the crazy 5% left vote in all kinds of dumb party platform shit) and the D’s get in to little groups and yell at each other until the people in the littlest groups join one of the bigger one. That can take all evening or it can take 30 minutes for an uncontroversial election (i.e. the incumbent of the same party is running.) Everyone votes or gathers in their supporter groups at the same time.
Election Day is set by law, no amendment needed.
You’d be correct. Making Election Day a holiday doesn’t improve voting turnout. (Link to another study if needed.)
A) It doesn’t meaningfully improve turnout and B) “an extra 1 or 2 people” voting is a ludicrous standard.
Interesting, because absentee balloting is exactly where fraud occurs. The (correct) talking point that the fraud that voter ID aims to prevent isn’t widespread is limited to “fraud that voter ID aims to prevent,” not all election fraud.
Note that the “interviewees” were a panel of election experts and scholars, the list begins on page 9 of the linked report.
Totally agreed. If you have to wait in line more than five minutes before getting your ballot, it’s a colossal fuck up from your local election officials. I seriously don’t understand why there isn’t more backlash against local election officials for this kind of crap.
My freedom of speech also includes the freedom to not speak. Mandatory voting would be a violation of the First Amendment.
See guys, it’s about ethics in voting. Never mind all the Republicans stating matter-of-factly that these laws are making it easier to win elections.
Husted is such a piece of shit.
are there any numbers there? i can’t even tell if it’s in the tens or the thousands.
Mandatory voting should always allow for a “shit bonerz” option, else yeah, you’re absolutely correct.
You would have the right to spoil your ballot or leave it blank.
We allow for jury duty, so forcing someone to vote is not a stretch.
At what cost? Democracy by threat and fear? What if I’m too poor to pay your fine?
I’ve voted in every election since I was 17 years old, because I feel it’s my right and my duty as a free citizen. But I’ll never be forced to because someone feels the process isn’t good enough for their tastes.