Govt & Election Reform Mega Thread

[Notre Dame Joe]

13 minutes ago, Scarlet said:

@Archy1221 can you justify this?  How is this addressing "voter fraud" which is what all this legislation is supposed to be about, right?  How is giving another human being water criminal?  Does this law not seem to strike at the heart of our democracy? Are you good with this?  

How about a beer?

[Archy1221]

4 hours ago, Notre Dame Joe said:

How about a beer?

Or Gatorade? A Coke? 

[knapplc]

 

[DevoHusker]

This webpage provides a breakdown of prohibitions in each state. Here is a summary:   https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/electioneering.aspx 

• 15 states prohibit campaign apparel/buttons/stickers/placards  
• 37 states prohibit campaign materials/signs/banners/literature 
• 28 States prohibit influencing voters/soliciting votes/political persuasion        
• 17 states prohibit circulating petitions/soliciting signatures         
• 9 states prohibit projecting sounds referring to candidates/issues             
• 6 states prohibit polls/exit polls
• 9 states prohibit loitering           
• 3 states prohibit peddling/advertising   
• 10 states prohibit voter intimidation/interfering with voter         
• 10 states prohibit obstructing entrance/hindering voter

While I don't see any specific prohibitions against water, I can see where it could fit with influencing voters/political persuasion. 

*Hey, you look hot and thirsty.

*Yeah, I forgot to bring something to drink.

*Well, you know who wants to give you some water...Candidate A. The other candidate, Candidate B, wants you to be thirsty and hot. Here's some water, and remember which candidate gave it to you...

 

Quid pro quo.

[knapplc]

2 minutes ago, DevoHusker said:

This webpage provides a breakdown of prohibitions in each state. Here is a summary:   https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/electioneering.aspx 

• 15 states prohibit campaign apparel/buttons/stickers/placards  
• 37 states prohibit campaign materials/signs/banners/literature 
• 28 States prohibit influencing voters/soliciting votes/political persuasion        
• 17 states prohibit circulating petitions/soliciting signatures         
• 9 states prohibit projecting sounds referring to candidates/issues             
• 6 states prohibit polls/exit polls
• 9 states prohibit loitering           
• 3 states prohibit peddling/advertising   
• 10 states prohibit voter intimidation/interfering with voter         
• 10 states prohibit obstructing entrance/hindering voter

While I don't see any specific prohibitions against water, I can see where it could fit with influencing voters/political persuasion. 

*Hey, you look hot and thirsty.

*Yeah, I forgot to bring something to drink.

*Well, you know who wants to give you some water...Candidate A. The other candidate, Candidate B, wants you to be thirsty and hot. Here's some water, and remember which candidate gave it to you...

 

Quid pro quo.

 

 

It would be irrelevant if they would stop shutting down polling places in certain areas. If you don't have to wait too long to vote you won't need water. 

 

By banning water, GA Republicans are saying they're going to make wait times in non-Republican areas exceedingly long. That's voter suppression. 

[Archy1221]

10 minutes ago, knapplc said:

It would be irrelevant if they would stop shutting down polling places in certain areas. If you don't have to wait too long to vote you won't need water.

What certain areas are you questioning?  
 

I assume people can bring water if they believe they will get thirsty. 

[knapplc]

4 minutes ago, Archy1221 said:

What certain areas are you questioning?  

 

I'm not questioning anything.

[TGHusker]

55 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

I am more and more convinced that the GOP has become the Jim Crow party of the south replacing the Democratic party with that infamous moniker. 

[Archy1221]

5 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

I'm not questioning anything.

What areas are you talking about. Who is the “they” you posted about. 

[Archy1221]

1 minute ago, TGHusker said:

I am more and more convinced that the GOP has become the Jim Crow party of the south replacing the Democratic party with that infamous moniker. 

Did Brian Schatz ever post a link to the study or did he ever take a look at what counties those neighborhoods reside in?  

[DevoHusker]

 

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924527679/why-do-nonwhite-georgia-voters-have-to-wait-in-line-for-hours-too-few-polling-pl

Republican Brad Raffensperger, who took over as secretary of state in January 2019, has called for more resources and polling places, but he has been unable to push these changes through the GOP-controlled legislature.

Raffensperger's office blames Democrats and county elections officials for opposing his efforts to improve access. "As Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger pushed legislation that would force counties to expand polling locations and directly address these issues," Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs said in an email.

"Unfortunately, every single Democratic Senator and Representative voted against this proposal saying that it would cause 'confusion.' Georgia voters deserve to know who is actually holding back progress and it isn't the Secretary of State's Office."

[knapplc]

3 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

I am more and more convinced that the GOP has become the Jim Crow party of the south replacing the Democratic party with that infamous moniker. 

 

Absolutely. They know their base is shrinking (ageing out) and this is how they're going to try to hold onto power.

 

Not by representing the actual people of America as demographics change, but by suppressing those who don't fit their narrow world view.

[Archy1221]

6 minutes ago, DevoHusker said:

 

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924527679/why-do-nonwhite-georgia-voters-have-to-wait-in-line-for-hours-too-few-polling-pl

Republican Brad Raffensperger, who took over as secretary of state in January 2019, has called for more resources and polling places, but he has been unable to push these changes through the GOP-controlled legislature.

Raffensperger's office blames Democrats and county elections officials for opposing his efforts to improve access. "As Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger pushed legislation that would force counties to expand polling locations and directly address these issues," Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs said in an email.

"Unfortunately, every single Democratic Senator and Representative voted against this proposal saying that it would cause 'confusion.' Georgia voters deserve to know who is actually holding back progress and it isn't the Secretary of State's Office."

Yet people on here want to close their eyes to these facts because it doesn’t fit their pre-defined narrative 

[knapplc]

27 minutes ago, DevoHusker said:

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924527679/why-do-nonwhite-georgia-voters-have-to-wait-in-line-for-hours-too-few-polling-pl

 

You quoted what Raffensperger said.  From the same article, here's what he's done. 

 

Since the U.S. Supreme Court's Shelby v. Holder decision in 2013 eliminated key federal oversight of election decisions in states with histories of discrimination, Georgia's voter rolls have grown by nearly 2 million people, yet polling locations have been cut statewide by nearly 10%, according to an analysis of state and local records by Georgia Public Broadcasting and ProPublica. Much of the growth has been fueled by younger, nonwhite voters, especially in nine metro Atlanta counties, where four out of five new voters were nonwhite, according to the Georgia secretary of state's office.

 

 

The metro Atlanta area has been hit particularly hard. The nine counties — Fulton, Gwinnett, Forsyth, DeKalb, Cobb, Hall, Cherokee, Henry and Clayton — have nearly half of the state's active voters but only 38% of the polling places, according to the analysis.

 

 

As a result, the average number of voters packed into each polling location in those counties grew by nearly 40%, from about 2,600 in 2012 to more than 3,600 per polling place as of Oct. 9, the analysis shows. In addition, a last-minute push that opened more than 90 polling places just weeks before the November election has left many voters uncertain about where to vote or how long they might wait to cast a ballot.

 

 

Georgia law sets a cap of 2,000 voters for a polling place that has experienced significant voter delays, but that limit is rarely, if ever, enforced. Our analysis found that, in both majority Black and majority white neighborhoods, about nine of every 10 precincts are assigned to polling places with more than 2,000 people.

 

 

A June 2020 analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School found that the average number of voters assigned to a polling place has grown in the past five years in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina — all states with substantial Black populations that before the Shelby decision needed federal approval to close polling places under the Voting Rights Act. And though dozens of states have regulations on the size of voting precincts and polling places or the number of voting machines, the analysis found that many jurisdictions do not abide by them.

 

 

Georgia's state leadership and elections officials have largely ignored complaints about poll consolidations even as they tout record growth in voter registration. As secretary of state from 2010 to 2018, when most of Georgia's poll closures occurred, Brian Kemp, now the governor, took a laissez-faire attitude toward county-run election practices, save for a 2015 document that spelled out methods officials could use to shutter polling places to show "how the change can benefit voters and the public interest."

 

 

Kemp's office declined to comment Thursday on the letter or why poll closures went unchallenged by state officials. His spokesperson referred to his previous statements that he did not encourage officials to close polling places but merely offered guidance on how to follow the law.

 

 

The inaction has left Black voters in Georgia facing barriers reminiscent of Jim Crow laws, said Adrienne Jones, a political science professor at Morehouse College in Atlanta who has studied the impact of the landmark Shelby decision on Black voters.

 

 

Voter suppression "is happening with these voter impediments that are being imposed," Jones said.

 

 

"You're closing down polling places so people have a more difficult time getting there. You're making vote-by-mail difficult or confusing. Now we're in court arguing about which ballots are going to be accepted, and it means that people have less trust in our state."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

State legislatures should be making it EASIER to vote, not HARDER.  That this bill is being forcefully denounced should be a clue it's doing the latter. 

 

There is no reason to make these changes. They're loosely based on trump's bogus "voter fraud" nonsense - none of which has ever been validated. 

 

The ONLY reason they're changing these laws across the country is to ensure Republicans hold on to power. Period. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

31 minutes ago, Archy1221 said:

What areas are you talking about. Who is the “they” you posted about. 

 

I've answered these questions. 

[Archy1221]

6 minutes ago, knapplc said:

As secretary of state from 2010 to 2018, when most of Georgia's poll closures occurred, Brian Kemp, now the governor, took a laissez-faire attitude toward county-run election practices, save for a 2015 document that spelled out methods officials could use to shutter polling places to show "how the change can benefit voters and the public interest."