US Politics Thread

[TinFoilHat]

CNN running a special report claiming the Republicans are scamming dementia patients for their election campaigns.

 

[The Future’s Blue!]

Watching Musk give away a million dollars, anybody with a brain would be asking what his motives are.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Watching Musk give away a million dollars, anybody with a brain would be asking what his motives are.

Apart from the recipents!

 

[KS55]

And so the violence begins. A Maga supporter has been arrested for assaulting a 69 year old election clerk in San Antonio TX.
Let’s hope this does not spread, but it probably will.

 

[SebastianBlue]

And so the violence begins. A Maga supporter has been arrested for assaulting a 69 year old election clerk in San Antonio TX.
Let’s hope this does not spread, but it probably will.

I just saw that.

There are also investigations in several swing states in to large numbers of fraudulent voter registrations allegedly submitted by several MAGA-aligned voter turnout organisations (those enetities are vehemently denying they were involved).

This after Trump and co have repeatedly claimed the non-MAGA side would be the ones committing fraud and undertaking violence to steal the election from him.

Again, accusation is always confession with MAGA. It is a tactic straight out of the Nazi (and Roy Cohn) playbook.

 

[moomba]

Does JD post on Bluemoon?

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Does JD post on Bluemoon?

Saw that earlier. For a Vale educated guy, he really isn't very good at these types of interviews.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

I just saw that.

There are also investigations in several swing states in to large numbers of fraudulent voter registrations allegedly submitted by several MAGA-aligned voter turnout organisations (those enetities are vehemently denying they were involved).

This after Trump and co have repeatedly claimed the non-MAGA side would be the ones committing fraud and undertaking violence to steal the election from him.

Again, accusation is always confession with MAGA. It is a tactic straight out of the Nazi (and Roy Cohn) playbook.

This is were I start to think voter id and restrictions on postal votes may be a good idea. Whichever way this goes, both sides will be crying foul about things like this and it will call into question the legitimacy of what looks like being a close result. Worrying times.

 

[55yr old teenager]

Saw that earlier. For a Vale educated guy, he really isn't very good at these types of interviews.

I always thought Yale was the better college to get educated at.

 

[SebastianBlue]

This is were I start to think voter id and restrictions on postal votes may be a good idea. Whichever way this goes, both sides will be crying foul about things like this and it will call into question the legitimacy of what looks like being a close result. Worrying times.

Voter ID in the US has been historically used to suppress minority participation and restrictions on mail-in voting would have a very similar effect.

Nearly all of the currently proposed or implemented voter ID laws, after analysis by independent investigators or courts, have been found to primarily impact Democratic voting blocks and advantage Republican voting blocks. And almost all have been proposed or implemented by Republican-controlled state governments.

Functionally, voter ID laws would generally require government issued identification cards, with many Republican programs requiring onerous citizenship and residency requirements that many legitimate citizens would struggle to meet, outside even the economic hardship that would come from taking time off work to go to various government offices and spending the money necessary to acquire the required documentation (which is often above and beyond the common citizenship documents people receive at birth or naturalisation).

Restrictions on mail-in voting would largely disadvantage those in the lower socioeconomic strata, which tend to vote Democrat, rather than Republican, as they find it more difficult to vote in person. That is especially the case in precincts and districts where Republicans have purposefully reduced the number—and staffing levels—of polling stations to increase wait times to actually cast ballots. Some stations have such ridiculous wait times that people are forced to leave without voting because they have to go to work or risk losing their incomes. It is important to remember that the poor make money by selling their time, and any time devoted to intentionally complex or difficult requirements to be able to vote is literally money out of their pockets, which many cannot afford.

Republican state governments have also been working to purge voter rolls, and challenging registrations, due to new rules implemented in the last few years (or even more recently) which makes it incredibly easy to remove even legitimate voters for bad faith reasons. Or, like in the case of Arizona, require different registrations depending on if you are voting in state or federal or even federal presidential elections (meaning you need to go through several different processes and systems to be able to vote in all of the elections in your state).

This would be made an even bigger issue without early voting or mail-in voting, as people would not find out that they had been purged from voter rolls until they go on Election Day to vote, at which point most would have no recourse to resolve the issue for the current election cycle.

And regardless of the method of voting, bad actors—very often MAGA entities now because Republicans struggle to win elections without these types of election manipulation (in tandem with rampant and egregious gerrymandering)—would look to exploit and/or delegitimise them in order to call in to question unfavourable results.