If the GOP wants voter id they can't ask for it months to weeks before an election cycle. There needs to be at least a 1 year grace period but I doubt the GOP would then care about voter ID because their entire point is to create restrictions right before elections to reduce turnout.
Ruled 5-4. Shelby County v. Holder - Wikipedia On June 25, 2013, the Court ruled by 5 to 4 that Section 4(b) was unconstitutional because the coverage formula was based on data over 40 years old, making it no longer responsive to current needs and therefore an impermissible burden on the constitutional principles of federalism and equal sovereignty of the states.[2][3] The Court did not strike down Section 5, but without Section 4(b), no jurisdiction will be subject to Section 5 preclearance unless Congress enacts a new coverage formula.[4] Some allege the ruling has made it easier for state officials to make it harder for ethnic minority voters to vote.[5] Research shows that preclearance led to increases in minority congressional representation and minority turnout.[6][7] Five years after the ruling, nearly 1,000 U.S. polling places had closed, many of them in predominantly African-American counties. Research shows that changing and reducing voting locations can reduce voter turnout.[5] There were also cuts to early voting, purges of voter rolls and imposition of strict voter ID laws.[8][9] A 2020 study found that jurisdictions that had previously been covered by preclearance substantially increased their voter registration purges after the Shelby decision.[10]
Remember this: Kemp to Trump: Georgia law blocks him from ‘interfering’ with elections (ajc.com) It was not that he didn't want to do it, but he can't lawfully do so. Now with this law, politicians can lawfully interfere with election. And remember how the GA SOS refuses to cheat for Trump? Now, the power to oversee election has been removed from the SoS, an elected official. The chairman of the State Election Board is now to be appointed by lawmakers instead of voters. As @Commodore like to said, what ! UNELECTED official?
A risky chess move would be for Dems to put Voter ID requirements in HR1 along with funding to pay for those who can't afford it. There are some true conservatives out there who believe in state run elections with increased voter security. The problem is that 90% of the content of these bills don't address the issues and are obvious intentional election tilters. Texas' voter ID law is an example. It could have addressed security and been fair from the start (with payment assistance programs). It took 3 itterations of being found unconsitutional before it finally stood up to scrutiny in front a of modern covervative court in its current form.
The GOP are trying to rig Democracy in their favor. We must immediately use our tiebreaker in the evenly divided Senate to pass drastic changes to election procedures and admit two new heavily Dem leaning states to stop them. LOL. Quite the opposite. Roberts saved the ACA by considering it as falling within the power of Congress to tax and spend, because there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution which would allow Congress to mandate Americans buy health insurance (nor to establish a national health care system, but the court didn't really care much about the constitution from the 30s to the 80s or so). Obamacare and John Roberts: The inside story - CNNPolitics
The Constitution is very flexible. The arguments for the individual mandate portion of the ACA being a proper extension of the commerce clause are just as valid as the arguments against it, and no more expansive the decision to allow the federal government to regulate weed even if it's grown in someone's basement for personal use (Scalia was for this). That stated, the individual mandate isn't even a necessary leg for the ACA anymore, which every thought was needed at the time. So it's a moot point, and they were arguing about vegetables for nothing, lol.
really haven't followed this issue at all, and I don't know about Reason or the Federalist, but here's what the WSJ Editorial Board has to say. quoted because it's behind a paywall: https://www.wsj.com/articles/jim-eagle-and-georgias-voting-law-11616799451?mod=hp_opin_pos_1 ‘Jim Eagle’ and Georgia’s Voting Law Biden compares state voting bills to Jim Crow, never mind the facts. By The Editorial Board Updated March 26, 2021 7:21 pm ET Georgia passed its over-hyped voting law on Thursday, and the news was met with more of the same. President Biden said at his news conference that the voting bills percolating in GOP state Legislatures are “un-American,” “sick,” “pernicious,” and worse: “This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle. ” C’mon, man, as Mr. Biden likes to say. The comparison is grotesque, and seeing that only requires swimming sideways for a minute to escape the rip current of the media narrative. Take a look at what’s actually in the legislation—and what isn’t. Georgia’s new law leaves in place Sunday voting, a point of contention with earlier proposals, given that black churches have a “souls to the polls” tradition after services. The Legislature, rather, decided to expand weekend early voting statewide, by requiring two Saturdays instead of only one under current law. In total, Georgia offers three weeks of early voting, which began last year on Oct. 12. This is not exactly restrictive: Compare that with early voting that started Oct. 24 last year in New York. The new law also leaves in place no-excuses absentee voting. Every eligible Georgia voter will continue to be allowed to request a mail ballot for the sake of simple convenience—or for no reason at all. Again, this is hardly restrictive: More than a dozen states, including Connecticut and Delaware, require mail voters to give a valid excuse. So what does the Georgia law do? First, it gets rid of signature matching, so election workers aren’t trying to verify mail ballots by comparing John Hancocks. This subjective process should concern both sides. It creates avenues for contested outcomes, with fighting over ambiguous signatures. In 2018 about 2,400 ballots in Georgia were rejected for issues with the signature or oath, according to a recent paper in Political Research Quarterly. Those voters were 54% black. Instead of signature matching, voters will submit a state ID number with their mail ballots or applications. This way there’s no arguing over handwriting: The ID number either matches or it doesn’t. Georgians who vote in person are already asked to show identification. Anyone who lacks an ID can get one for free. The law says the state can suspend local election directors and appoint temporary replacements, which is painted as a plot against Democratic metropolitan areas. More likely it will be used on slipshod conduct in places like Floyd County, which last year initially overlooked some 2,600 ballots. The chief elections clerk was fired, but it’s hard to blame the state for wanting to head off similar trouble. Much hay is being made about a provision that prevents third parties from giving gifts, including “food and drink” to those standing in line at the polls. But the point is to prevent activists from showing up in union shirts—or National Rifle Association shirts, for that matter—and passing out drinks and snacks, with some subtle electioneering thrown in. As for the genuinely thirsty, the new law specifically allows poll workers to provide “self-service water from an unattended receptacle.” Also, the legislation recognizes that it’s a failure if voters stand in line long enough to get parched. That’s why it says wait times at large precincts must be measured three times throughout Election Day. If the line hits an hour, changes are required before the next election. The law makes ballot drop boxes a permanent part of Georgia’s voting architecture. The terms are tighter than they were during last year’s pandemic emergency, but how is it part of “Jim Crow 2.0” to give absentee voters more options than they had in 2019? The legislation also says applications for mail ballots are due 11 days before the election, instead of four days. If that’s racist, so is the U.S. Postal Service, which urges voters to allow 15 days for two-way delivery. The runoff period will be shortened to four weeks. “The lengthy nine-week runoffs in 2020 were exhausting for candidates, donors, and electors,” lawmakers said in their findings. “By adding ranked choice voting for military and overseas voters, the run-off period can be shortened to a more manageable period.” This is politically touchy, since Democrats won two Senate runoffs on Jan. 5, but let’s hear the policy argument for nine-week runoffs, instead of ad hominem attacks. *** No election rules are perfect. Ballot access, integrity and administration are all important. Mr. Biden knows this. Democrats aren’t smearing Georgia because they believe their “Jim Crow” nonsense. Their strategy is to play the race card to justify breaking the Senate filibuster, so they can jam through their election reform known as H.R.1 and overrule 50 state voting laws. Appeared in the March 27, 2021, print edition.
WSJ sux man, I mean, C'mon man. We have seen some of the crazies challenge qualifications based on stuff like I was treated badly. Or I heard this. Or I saw that. Many times, it was some stupid conspiracy theories they were told to believe. Now, let's open that up to allow those crazies to challenge UNLIMITED # of other voters. We have seen Republican legislators wanting the power over the SoS to decide election. GA republican party chairman, amongst other republican, sent alternate electors to Congress. Now, let's them have control over the state election process, taking that power away from locals and from elected official - the SoS. C'mon man. Georgia Bans Handing Out Water to Voters Waiting in Line, Because ‘Election Integrity’ – Reason.com Allowing the State Election Board (which is now appointed by the GA legislator) to "suspend county or municipal superintendents and appoint an individual to serve as the temporary superintendent in a jurisdiction." Allowing a Georgia voter to challenge the qualifications of an unlimited number of other voters in their county or municipality.
WSJ also ignores the multiple years leading up to the present since the Supreme Court ruled that magically racism was over and Southern States that needed federal oversight for any changes due to their racist history don't need federal oversight for any changes anymore have reduced polling centers systemically in minority neighborhoods since the rulling increasing the lines in these neighborhoods. What's worse is that these neighborhoods are poorer which means a larger percentage of these neighborhoods are hourly wage workers which also means that the are more likely to live paycheck to paycheck which means a 5 hour wait time to vote can hurt precious time for them to make money where any drop in pay can make them short on basic expenses like rent and utilities. Long lines disincentivize poor people more than well off people. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-locations-idUSKCN1VV09J
We should make a national law to change this by making places of employment grant a paid day off for voting and let the companies get tax credits for doing this. After all, they get business expenses for wining and dining, but voting is so important in our country.
How does that apply to hourly wage work? Like the employers are obligated to give them time off but are they obligated to give them the hours for the time they missed? If so, then good on MN because I do believe that is a solid step in the right direction though s true solution would just be a much easier path to voting that doesn't require lines where we have automatic voter registration and anyone can vote by mail or at the very least signficantly increase the amount of polling places in dense urban areas.
