The 2020 Presidential Election - Convention & General Election

[teachercd]

Okay, am I the only one that feels like voter fraud just isn't that big of a deal?  Like, I feel like it just doesn't happen that much, by mail, in person, wherever.

 

Some people seem to think fake votes make up like 50% of the votes that are counted.  I don't think so.

[Danny Bateman]

2 hours ago, Notre Dame Joe said:

 

I hear this when the Ds lose an election but I never see names and faces.  Surely there must be a lot of persons who can say I John Smith wanted to vote and was suppressed. 

 

What of voter roll purges? Closure of polling sites? There's a direct line between the invalidating of part of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder and the brazenness with which some politicians feel they can pursue making it more difficult for specific, targeted groups of voters to vote.

 

In 2018 Brian Kemp was elected governor of Georgia with a margin of victory of about 1.5%. But if we look at what it took to get Kemp to that point:

• Introduced a controversial "exact match" policy for extremely strict voter roll purging during his first year as Secretary of State in 2010
  • These types of "exact match" laws are considered by critics to be a form of voter suppression designed to disproportionately target minorities,^[43] and African-American, Asian, and Latino voters accounted for 76.3% of the registrations dropped from voter rolls between July 2015 and July 2017.
• Oversaw the closing of 214 polling locations, or 8% of the total number of locations in Georgia.^[48] The closings disproportionately affected African-American communities.^[49] In majority minority Randolph County, a consultant recommended that 7 of the 9 county polling locations be closed ahead of the 2018 midterm election for failure to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.^[50]
• Between 2012 and 2018, Kemp's office cancelled over 1.4 million voters' registrations, with nearly 700,000 cancellations in 2017 alone.^[54][39] On a single night in July 2017, half a million voters, or approximately 8% of all registered Georgia voters, had their registrations cancelled, an act described by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution as what "may represent the largest mass disenfranchisement in US history."^[55] Kemp oversaw the removals as Secretary of State, and did so eight months after he declared that he was going to run for governor.^[56]
• By early October 2018, more than 53,000 voter registration applications had been put on hold by Kemp's office, with more than 75% belonging to minorities.^[42][39]
• An investigative journalism group run by Greg Palast found that of the approximately 534,000 Georgians whose voter registrations were purged between 2016 and 2017 more than 334,000 still lived where they were registered.^[58] The voters were given no notice that they had been purged.^[59]
• Thousands of voting machines were sequestered by local election officials on Election Day in 2018, an action that critics say was designed to increase wait times at polling locations.^[65] The sequestration of machines disproportionately affected counties that favored Kemp's opponent^[66] and caused voters in some locations to have to wait in line for hours in inclement weather in order to vote.^[67][68] Other locations suffered delays because machines had been delivered without power cords.^[69]
• 48 hours before his gubernatorial election, Kemp's office of Secretary of State published the details of a zero day flaw in the State registration website,^[76][77] accusing Democrats of attempted hacking for investigating the problem but providing no evidence...^[78]In December 2018, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that Kemp made the hacking claims without any evidence to support the allegations.^[82] The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said that Kemp may have made the unsubstantiated accusations against Democrats as a ploy and diversion to help him win the election; the "examination suggests Kemp and his aides used his elected office to protect his political campaign from a potentially devastating embarrassment. Their unsubstantiated claims came at a pivotal moment, as voters were making their final decisions in an election that had attracted intense national attention."^[82]

 

If this guy wasn't doing this stuff on purpose, he's one of the most incompetent public officials of all time. If it WAS on purpose, he's one of the most crooked. But the coup de grace is this one, where Kemp gives up the game:

 

Quote

Kemp opposes automatic voter registration,^[71] a change that advocates say would help make voting easier for eligible citizens and help prevent voter suppression.^[72] In a leaked 2018 recording Kemp can be heard saying that attempts to register all eligible voters "continues to concern us, especially if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote."^[73] In a separate 2018 recording made by a progressive group he can be heard saying "Democrats are working hard ... registering all these minority voters that are out there and others that are sitting on the sidelines, if they can do that, they can win these elections in November."^[36][74][75]

 

Also, in 2018, Florida approved a ballot measure to re-enfranchise most felons with the ability to vote. In response, the GOP governor and state legislature passed a separate bill requiring them to pay vast sums of money in "fees" related to their conviction prior to actually becoming a registered voter again. This amounts to a poll tax that disproportionately affects African-Americans.

 

Are we supposed to just pretend this type of stuff is coincidental and not at all an attempt to hold on to power?

 

[BigRedBuster]

 

[TGHusker]

The above post by Danny is proof that democracy is failing in America. When a society allows this to occur the society is at the cliff where its fall into authoritarian rule isn’t far behind unless corrected 

[Danny Bateman]

14 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

The above post by Danny is proof that democracy is failing in America. When a society allows this to occur the society is at the cliff where its fall into authoritarian rule isn’t far behind unless corrected 

 

It's a bit of a dense post but it was necessary to convey fully how badly Kemp butchered voting rights in a quite targeted way in his state to disenfranchise specific voters.

 

It's why I'm of the mind if Biden wins, one of the first things they need to do is pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to undo some of this damage and restore some of the protections lost when the original VRA was picked apart. 

Hardcore GOP partisans will likely be quite upset but most of us would agree making it easier for more people to vote and harder for voter suppression tactics to work would be a good thing. Plus, it would be healthier for the country for political parties to have to focus on actually appealing to more voters, rather than cheating the system, to achieve political power. 

[TGHusker]

Trump campaign digital ad -   without doing research they use stock photos of Russian jets  --  there such a strong sense of irony in that error --- esp in light of the targeting our soldiers claim in Afghanistan 

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/14/trump-ad-asks-people-to-support-the-troops-but-it-uses-a-picture-of-russian-jets-414883

Quote

 

A digital ad released by a fundraising arm of the Trump campaign on Sept. 11 calling on people to “support our troops” uses a stock photo of Russian-made fighter jets and weapons.

The ad, which was made by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, features silhouettes of three soldiers walking as a fighter jet flies over them. The ad first appeared on Sept. 8 and ran until Sept. 12.

 

[knapplc]

8 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

Trump campaign digital ad -   without doing research they use stock photos of Russian jets  --  there such a strong sense of irony in that error --- esp in light of the targeting our soldiers claim in Afghanistan 

 

 

I don't think it's an error at all. Those are Russian jets and the dude on the right is holding a Russian rifle.

 

They're saying the quiet stuff out loud because their supporters won't question them on it.

[knapplc]

 

And apparently that photo that Trump retweeted was taken completely out of context.  

 

Shocking.

 

 

[Danny Bateman]

Trump can tout his peace deals all he wants, but the fact of the matter is he has largely destroyed our standing with the rest of the world, aside from Israel and a few nations he can sell weapons to.

 

 

[teachercd]

Joe Rogan wants to host a debate between Joe and Don.  That would be cool.  I don't listen/watch Rogan all that much but the times that I have he seems like a really good host.

[TGHusker]

34 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

Trump can tout his peace deals all he wants, but the fact of the matter is he has largely destroyed our standing with the rest of the world, aside from Israel and a few nations he can sell weapons to.

 

 

Sounds like Trump needs to do his own 'apology tour'.

[Danny Bateman]

10 minutes ago, teachercd said:

Joe Rogan wants to host a debate between Joe and Don.  That would be cool.  I don't listen/watch Rogan all that much but the times that I have he seems like a really good host.

 

It would be interesting for sure, but Biden obviously shouldn't do it.

 

I listen to his podcasts when he has someone interesting on. It's very clear from the handful of times the subject has been broached Rogan is not impartial in his beliefs on Biden. He's one of those cognitive decline truthers, can't back it up when asked with anything but BS conjecture you could probably find your dumbest classmate in high school reposting on Facebook and yet somehow hand waves away any concerns about Trump.

 

Very clear to me Rogan is not capable of fairly calling balls vs. strikes between the two men.

[teachercd]

43 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

 

It would be interesting for sure, but Biden obviously shouldn't do it.

 

I listen to his podcasts when he has someone interesting on. It's very clear from the handful of times the subject has been broached Rogan is not impartial in his beliefs on Biden. He's one of those cognitive decline truthers, can't back it up when asked with anything but BS conjecture you could probably find your dumbest classmate in high school reposting on Facebook and yet somehow hand waves away any concerns about Trump.

 

Very clear to me Rogan is not capable of fairly calling balls vs. strikes between the two men.

Well, I have only heard him interview Pauly Shore, Jamie Foxx and Tony Hawk, so I don't really know much about his bias...I can tell you this, he did a good job handling Pauly Shore hahaha

[Danny Bateman]

31 minutes ago, teachercd said:

Well, I have only heard him interview Pauly Shore, Jamie Foxx and Tony Hawk, so I don't really know much about his bias...I can tell you this, he did a good job handling Pauly Shore hahaha

 

And that guy can get out of hand!

 

[teachercd]

1 minute ago, Danny Bateman said:

 

And that guy can get out of hand!

 

Hahaha!  That interview could have went sideways really fast!

 

Shore was sort of like, shocked, that he didn't become the biggest star ever.