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Voter Suppression


Pancho

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As a Georgia voter who voted absentee during COVID:

1. We already have an ID requirement. To get an ID where I live it’s about a 45 minute drive and there’s no public transportation. When we moved here, it took a few trips to bring all of the proper documents, even after checking the website for what we needed. It’s not exactly conducive to a poor person getting an ID, but that ship has long since sailed. It’s not new. Mobile units or drives would be nice though.

2. I had to submit an ID number to get my absentee ballot. During the primaries the system was still pretty bad, but by the general, things were updated, easy, and convenient. The SOS did a really good job with absentee voting and the COVID response.

3. For the reasons already mentioned, signature matching stresses me out. Judgement is very subjective and many signatures are so variable. A number seems better on this respect. At one point there was talk of requiring a photocopy of the ID, so the number seems better than that.

4. A number is also easy to mess up when filling out a form. I suspect that a certain percentage of ballots will be thrown out due to simple human error in writing down the right number. There might be demographic trends to this, I don’t know. I’ve never gone through the ballot curing process personally, but I did scan the lists in November to see if I knew anyone on it.

Generally, those changes seem positive to me. I believe they also allowed or required earlier counting of absentee ballots to avoid some of the issues of this year. That’s also a good change.

The water thing seems cartoonishly bad. The election board stuff seems more troubling.

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Wonder if one could just put a cooler of water bottles close to the lines with a sign that says “NOT free water, wink wink”. 


I think the law just prohibits gifting food or drinks. It doesn’t prevent selling or trading.

Water for sale.
Price: Anything I deem valuable, including but not limited to the following:

- A penny
- A compliment
- A smile
- A joke
- A hug
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I am absolutely amazed that the only way one party seems to think they can keep power is to stymie the democratic process. These are the same dipshits who point to the Constitution as a justification for everything else. 

Countries are destroyed from within. We are living it.

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"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink." **

---- Matthew 25:35

** offer not good in Georgia


Let’s have a moment of silence for all the people who succumbed to hunger and thirst while waiting to vote.
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Four hours in line for an elderly person during early voting in Georgia, when the temps can still be pushing 90 on hot parking lot asphalt.  Yeah, a bottle Of water isn’t out of the question.

Good to see your racism still shines!

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Kinda, but also...not really.  It's all in the same bill.  You can spin the "We have to maintain election integrity" and even some moderates will nod their head in agreement.  And you could bolt on a $10mm rider to pay for new express elevators at the state parking garages and voters of all colors would just shrug like, "Well, yeah, that's government for you..."  But to bolt on, at the end, "And also, no drinking water for people waiting in line to vote."  That's just a "What the fuck, why?" vibe to it.  

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It’s why reforms must be passed by any means necessary:

In a contentious Senate committee hearing last week, Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas, slammed the proposal, which aims to expand voting rights and curb the influence of money in politics, as “a brazen and shameless power grab by Democrats.” But behind closed doors Republicans speak differently about the legislation, which is also known as House Resolution 1 and Senate Bill 1. They admit the lesser-known provisions in the bill that limit secret campaign spending are overwhelmingly popular across the political spectrum. In private, they concede their own polling shows that no message they can devise effectively counters the argument that billionaires should be prevented from buying elections.

A recording obtained by The New Yorker of a private conference call on January 8th, between a policy adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell and the leaders of several prominent conservative groups—including one run by the Koch brothers’ network—reveals the participants’ worry that the proposed election reforms garner wide support not just from liberals but from conservative voters, too. The speakers on the call expressed alarm at the broad popularity of the bill’s provision calling for more public disclosure about secret political donors. The participants conceded that the bill, which would stem the flow of dark money from such political donors as the billionaire oil magnate Charles Koch, was so popular that it wasn’t worth trying to mount a public-advocacy campaign to shift opinion. Instead, a senior Koch operative said that opponents would be better off ignoring the will of American voters and trying to kill the bill in Congress.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/inside-the-koch-backed-effort-to-block-the-largest-election-reform-bill-in-half-a-century?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker&utm_social-type=earned

 

 

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On 3/29/2021 at 11:18 AM, Mole said:

As a Georgia voter who voted absentee during COVID:

1. We already have an ID requirement. To get an ID where I live it’s about a 45 minute drive and there’s no public transportation. When we moved here, it took a few trips to bring all of the proper documents, even after checking the website for what we needed. It’s not exactly conducive to a poor person getting an ID, but that ship has long since sailed. It’s not new. Mobile units or drives would be nice though.

2. I had to submit an ID number to get my absentee ballot. During the primaries the system was still pretty bad, but by the general, things were updated, easy, and convenient. The SOS did a really good job with absentee voting and the COVID response.

3. For the reasons already mentioned, signature matching stresses me out. Judgement is very subjective and many signatures are so variable. A number seems better on this respect. At one point there was talk of requiring a photocopy of the ID, so the number seems better than that.

4. A number is also easy to mess up when filling out a form. I suspect that a certain percentage of ballots will be thrown out due to simple human error in writing down the right number. There might be demographic trends to this, I don’t know. I’ve never gone through the ballot curing process personally, but I did scan the lists in November to see if I knew anyone on it.

Generally, those changes seem positive to me. I believe they also allowed or required earlier counting of absentee ballots to avoid some of the issues of this year. That’s also a good change.

The water thing seems cartoonishly bad. The election board stuff seems more troubling.

I thought they also shut down the voter registration when getting a Driver's License so the ID aspect really isn't about identification at all.  Also, this abbreviated version of the New York Times column:

Republican lawmakers in Arizona, another swing state, have also introduced bills to limit absentee voting in accordance with the former president’s belief that greater access harmed his campaign. One proposal would require ID for mail-in ballots, and shorten the window for mail-in voters to receive and return their ballots. Another bill would purge from the state’s list of those who are automatically sent a mail-in ballot any voter who failed to cast such a ballot in “both the primary election and the general election for two consecutive primary and general elections.”

One Arizona Republican, John Kavanagh, a state representative, gave a sense of the party’s intent when he told CNN, “Not everybody wants to vote, and if somebody is uninterested in voting, that probably means that they’re totally uninformed on the issues.” He continued: “Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well.”

In other words, Republicans are using the former president’s failed attempt to overturn the election as a guide to how you would change the system to make it possible. In Georgia, as we’ve seen, that means stripping power from an unreliable partisan and giving it, in effect, to the party itself. In Pennsylvania, where a state Supreme Court with a Democratic majority unanimously rejected a Republican lawsuit claiming that universal mail-in balloting was unconstitutional, it means working to end statewide election of justices, essentially gerrymandering the court. In Nebraska, which Republicans won, it means changing the way the state distributes its electoral votes, from a district-based system in which Democrats have a chance to win one potentially critical vote, as Joe Biden and Barack Obama did, to winner-take-all.

The Republican Party’s turn against democratic participation and political equality is evident in more than just these bills and proposals. You can see it in how Florida Republicans promptly instituted difficult-to-pay fines and fees akin to a poll tax after a supermajority of the state’s voters approved a constitutional amendment to end the disenfranchisement of most felons. You can see it in how Missouri Republicans simply ignored the results of a ballot initiative on Medicaid expansion.

 

My guess is they want to subtract votes for Democrats based on quality.  Seems totally reasonable and not at all something that could be misused.  And that next paragraph is a doozy.  

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/republican-party-driving-nations-democratic-120526679.html

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You know, the RIGHT way to go about this ban, in the off chance that anyone was truly fearful of vote-buying with free water, would be for the polling sites to provide free bottled water.  It would cost about a nickel and then this whole thing could be put to bed.  But no, Republicans see the only solution as banning the gift of water by political entities, instead of pushing for a more humane solution which is so fucking blindingly obvious that it reveals their true intentions even more than I thought possible.

Gah.

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Yes Georgia GOP, piss off Delta and kick them out of Georgia - I'm sure dozens of cities would gladly take them for their corporate HQ and increased revenue and economic impact of being Delta's new HQ city

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

looking like Virginia will becomes the model for red states that are trying to get out from under the authoritarian thumb of the R voter suppression:

 

Good coupla' weeks for them, after getting rid of the death penalty earlier.

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On 3/29/2021 at 11:11 PM, Satchel said:

reveals the participants’ worry that the proposed election reforms garner wide support not just from liberals but from conservative voters, too. The speakers on the call expressed alarm at the broad popularity of the bill’s provision calling for more public disclosure about secret political donors. The participants conceded that the bill, which would stem the flow of dark money from such political donors as the billionaire oil magnate Charles Koch, was so popular that it wasn’t worth trying to mount a public-advocacy campaign to shift opinion. Instead, a senior Koch operative said that opponents would be better off ignoring the will of American voters and trying to kill the bill in Congress.

Fucking rage.  This is nothing less than an attack on our democracy.  Fuck these people to their deaths.

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5 hours ago, Js1 said:

Yes Georgia GOP, piss off Delta and kick them out of Georgia - I'm sure dozens of cities would gladly take them for their corporate HQ and increased revenue and economic impact of being Delta's new HQ city

 

 

 

 

So am I understanding this correctly?  Delta saying voter suppression is bad is the equivalent of shooting the GOP in the face with a shotgun?  Are they just screaming the quiet part out loud now?

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6 hours ago, Js1 said:

Yes Georgia GOP, piss off Delta and kick them out of Georgia - I'm sure dozens of cities would gladly take them for their corporate HQ and increased revenue and economic impact of being Delta's new HQ city

 

 

 

 

Who knew the CEO of delta was a left wing commie supporter of the ccp?

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1 hour ago, StassneyHorn said:

Live stream of Texas Senate on SB7 to put more limits on voting and tell Houston it sucks

https://tlcsenate.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=5&event_id=3863

This looks like it’s going to be an all nighter. Share on all your social media and message boards with people who may care. Already had a major concession on not having to prove disability

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Reason for her optimism?
 

72 Black executives signed onto an open letter Wednesday demanding corporate America take action to fight GOP-led legislation that would restrict voting access in at least 43 states. 

Why it matters: "The campaign appears to be the first time that so many powerful Black executives have organized to directly call out their peers for failing to stand up for racial justice," the New York Times writes

The state of play: The letter urges corporate America to publicly oppose new legislation that would limit voting rights, calling on companies to use their reputation, money and lobbyists to sway lawmakers. 

  • The effort, led by former American Express CEO Ken Chenault and outgoing Merck CEO Ken Frazier, comes in the wake of Georgia's recent passage of a law that opponents say will make it harder for Black people and other disadvantaged communities to vote. 
  • Few major corporations spoke out against the Georgia bill in the weeks leading up to its final passage. "Georgia is the leading edge of a movement all around this country to restrict voting access," Frazier told CNBC, calling the restrictions "a prototype for a lot of bad laws."
  • Signees to the letter include TIAA chief executive Roger Ferguson Jr., Ariel Investments co-chief executives Mellody Hobson and John Rogers Jr., Vista Equity Partners chief executive Robert F. Smith and Raymond McGuire, a former Citigroup executive who is running for mayor in New York.

What they're saying: "Fundamentally, if you can't oppose this legislation — that's the lifeblood for black Americans, the right to vote. We can't be silent, and corporate America can't be silent. And if they can't speak out on this issue, what can they speak out on?" Chenault said on CNBC.

The big picture: A number of civil rights groups have sued Georgia over its new law, including the ACLU, NAACP, Southern Poverty Law Center and more. A movement is growing in Georgia to boycott Atlanta-based companies like Coca Cola that have not taken a stance against the law.

The bottom line: "Corporations have to stand up — there is no middle ground," Chenault said. "This is about all Americans having the right to vote. But we need to recognize the special history of the denial of a right to vote for Black Americans. And we will not be silent

https://www.axios.com/black-executives-georgia-voting-restrictions-93c41926-1a64-4486-9c71-47448d36f227.html

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So I don't like what the GOP is doing at all, and I think company's should be free to react how they see fit, but what does it mean when half of a country is effectively issuing sanctions and embargoes against the other half and vice versa?

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4 minutes ago, Goredho said:

So I don't like what the GOP is doing at all, and I think company's should be free to react how they see fit, but what does it mean when half of a country is effectively issuing sanctions and embargoes against the other half and vice versa?

it's weird.  corporations have suddenly become the only citizens with both moral courage and power to follow it.  i don't like it.

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12 minutes ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

I'll be impressed if the PGA pulls out of The Masters.  Until then....big fucking meh. 

The PGA, European Tour and Japan Golf Tour could all pull out, and the tournament would go on as scheduled. IBM might pull its sponsorship, and we'd get to see TM commercial-free again. Augusta National and CBS aren't messing with that weekend anytime soon.

If Delta and Coca-Cola had stones they'd float HQ relocation plans.

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2 minutes ago, softlynow said:

The PGA, European Tour and Japan Golf Tour could all pull out, and the tournament would go on as scheduled. IBM might pull its sponsorship, and we'd get to see TM commercial-free again. Augusta National and CBS aren't messing with that weekend anytime soon.

If Delta and Coca-Cola had stones they'd float HQ relocation plans.

I don't follow the PGA closely.  If all those organizations pulled out of the Masters, would players still show up?  

My guess is yes, b/c probably roughly 70% of PGA fans are Trumpkins and back voter suppression.  Can't piss off the base. 

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