New republican voter suppression

Sadly predictable. I was saying all the time, this is just a bunch of noise so the Repugs can say "election integrity, there were doubts" blah blah.

 

Stacey Abrams is right, suspend the filibuster for voting rights and get the the damn House bill to the President for signature.

 

Trying to limit voting shouldn't be something anyone supports.

Mail - in voting, current voting laws have proven to be effective and secure over and over.

It wouldn't be something I would support even if it hurt Progressive candidates.

 

Meanwhile, in Austin:



Our Texas tax dollars at work. Btw, there are 8,760 hours in a year. Texas AG spent 2.5 years worth of hours compressed into several months. I wonder how many people and dollars that required?

 

I can’t wait to vote Abbott’s ass out in 2022, along with his fellow Republican cronies (Cruz, Patrick, Paxton, Crenshaw, etc.) when they are up for reelection. I wish all of them would spend time in prison for their actions during the pandemic, too.

 

Well said. Voter suppression flies in the face of democracy, regardless of who is doing it. If you can’t win an election fair and square, you didn’t deserve to win. Rigging the system to do everything to remain in power is despicable and should be punished harshly.

 

Frightened losers obsessed with victimhood and too dumb to realize that their grievances are not caused by immigrants, African Americans, Latinos and poor folks.

 

I never understood why federal election procedures and regulations should be determined by the state. They are federal elections. One state having shitty voting rights for federal elections effects me even if I don't live in that state because they are voting in federal legislators.

Federal level elections should be federally regulated and be exactly the same process in every state. There should be no "states rights" here. They are federal level legislators.

States can determine their election process for state and local level elections.

 

That was the argument that Paxton made in his lawsuit against PA.

 

I never understood that either there needs to be a set standard for federal elections.

 

It is because people in the states are voting for people to represent their state (or congressional district for members of congress). Yes, that affects you, but the people of New York determine which Senators and electors they want to send to DC to represent the interests of New York. Virginia should have no say in how New Yorkl decides who to send. That is why the state determines their election procedures, why the Secretary of State in each state oversees the election, etc. It is part of our system of government that we are a federal republic, not just one big nation. At the time of the founding, even more than now, people identified with their state as a Virginian or New Yorker, not just as an American. It is right in the name, we are the United States of America, not just America.

The real problem is that the federal government should not have such a large effect on the people. The federal government was meant to be small and only deal with the issues that affect the nation as a whole and the interactions between the states, not to make wide ranging laws that affect everyone. The whole of the US Constitution is about limiting what powers the central government has, because what goes for Virginia was not supposed to go for New York. They were each meant to decide for themselves what the laws were. That way if New Yorkers want to restrict firearm ownership and Virginians don't, they each can have appropriate rules for themselves. If we return to that system, it wouldn't matter nearly as much who is in congress or who is President.

 

Excellent post.

The thing is, if America eliminated gerrymandering and voter suppression, it's not like conservatism would suddenly fizzle out. The republican party in it's current from would have to change, is all.

Tons and tons of Americans are conservative. The problem is they aren't currently represented by their representatives. Conservative voters' stances on gun ownership and taxation are not reflected at all by their representatives on capitol hill.

The current republican politicians are gerrymandering and suppressing the vote like their careers depend on it, like they'll never win a fair election again. That's not true at all. The number of conservative and liberal voters in the country is very even; it's just that if the republican party is forced to win high-participation elections in fairly drawn districts they'll have to less extreme.


Of course we won't have to keep forcing a binary liberal/conservative perspective on this nation of 300 million voters if we have more political parties. America should have at least four viable parties, better five or six. It's easier to acheive than you think; implement any voting system other than first past the post and winner-take-all. Cardinal voting, approval voting, ranked choice voting, scored voting, Condorcet voting... anything other than the vote tabulation system we have now, and the two-party power grip dissolves.

 

You're right on the Constitutional basis for why elections are left to the states to decide and at the moment I'm neutral about whether they should be more nationalized. I think there are good arguments either way.

I will again point out, not directed at you, the utter hypocrisy of Paxton and other Republicans who tried to overturn the elections in other states on that basis. Especially given that Texas itself did some of the same things that Paxton argued PA was doing. So it wasn't just ideological hypocrisy but hypocrisy in action.

Regarding the size of the federal government that is a debate for many other threads. I will point out though regarding elections it seems like most of us here including yourself recognize how elections conducted in the states affect the US as a whole. This goes to that the US is far more interconnected than it was at the time of the Founders I would say that the growth of our economy and technology has been the primary driver of that and as such government has grown to match.

 

Thanks.

It is likely that not gerrymandering will lead to more moderate House members but Gerrymandering doesn't apply to the Senate and we still have some radical Senators.

I agree that we should have more parties but as someone who spent years campaigning for a third party it's not easy. The nature of the majority in Congress and that the Presidency needs to be contested on the basis of state by state makes it very hard for a viable national party beyond two.

 

How can someone have be able to legally vote in one state and not in another state in a Federal election be equal protection under the law? Federal elections should be determined exactly the same way in each state.