Trump's Coup d'état.

[shemp]

And I think you can see why they have been so scared about allowing making it easier for all those who can vote to vote.

Jut a minor quibble. All those who are eligible to vote are already allowed to vote. Nothing is stopping them from voting except their own laziness, stupidity, apathy, etc.

Having said that, I think mail voting should be implemented nationwide. And voter registration should be automatic for all over the age of 18. Nobody should have to physically register or vote in person.

 

[Paul2]

Jut a minor quibble. All those who are eligible to vote are already allowed to vote. Nothing is stopping them from voting except their own laziness, stupidity, apathy, etc.

Having said that, I think mail voting should be implemented nationwide. And voter registration should be automatic for all over the age of 18. Nobody should have to physically register or vote in person.

You . . . you . . . democracy-loving, vote-supporting, election-improving little citizen!

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Jut a minor quibble. All those who are eligible to vote are already allowed to vote. Nothing is stopping them from voting except their own laziness, stupidity, apathy, etc.

A lot is hiding in those 3 letters.

US election 2020: Why it can be hard to vote in the US

Queues, restrictive voting laws and limited access to polling stations all keep people from participating in the democratic process, says Andrea Hailey, the CEO of Vote.org, a non-partisan non-profit that aims to use technology to help people register to vote.

Some of those obstacles have been amplified by the pandemic, which has led to a nationwide shortage of poll workers and fewer in-person polling stations. "People are having to jump through an extra series of hoops just to participate," Ms Hailey warned...

10-hour waits

In Georgia, thousands of voters waited hours just to cast their ballot during early voting. Many attribute the long wait to voter enthusiasm, but other factors - like a limited number of polls, understaffing or computer glitches - have also been blamed...

And long queues disproportionately affect wage workers, who don't get paid time off to vote.


Naked ballots and other strict rules

Policies like requiring voters to print out a form can dissuade younger or poorer voters, who are less likely to own a printer, from voting, says Ms Hailey.

In Pennsylvania, the state supreme court ruled that ballots mailed in without a secrecy envelope hiding the identity of the voter would be declared invalid...

Long drives

In rural parts of America, voters may have to drive for hours to reach an in-person polling station... In Nevada, for instance, members of the Pyramid Lake Paiutes must drive almost 100 miles (160km) round trip to get to the closest early voting location.


ID laws

Once people get through the line, they may have to prove they are who they say they are.

In 35 states, voters must show some sort of ID at the poll. While some allow a written affidavit if an ID is missing, a handful of states, namely Wisconsin, Texas, Kansas, Indiana, Tennessee, Missouri and Georgia, do not...

Roll purges

In the US, local counties administer the elections - and each county or state has its own rules and regulations. Some regularly purge voters names from lists of registered voters, which mean voters need to register all over again...

Prison voting bans

Most states also restrict the voting rights of felons - criminals who have been convicted of more serious crimes and sentenced to prison. Some states automatically restore voting rights after the sentence is served, while others wait until after probation and parole is served, and after all fines have been paid.

And finally...

Before coronavirus, many states required you to have your mail-in ballot signed by a notary or witnesses. Since the pandemic, many of those states have eased restrictions - but a handful still remain...

There are currently [20 October] over 300 lawsuits in 44 states concerning how absentee votes are counted, who is allowed to vote early and how mail-in ballots are collected. Republican-run states say restrictions are necessary to clamp down on voter fraud, while Democrats say these are attempts to keep people from exercising their civic rights.

Laziness, stupidity, and apathy are not the only things stopping people from voting. Many people rightfully feared that Covid-19 would disrupt their ability to vote in person, but Republicans did their best to discourage them from voting by mail too. Some of us literally had to risk dying to ensure that our votes would be counted.

 

[wareyin]

Jut a minor quibble. All those who are eligible to vote are already allowed to vote. Nothing is stopping them from voting except their own laziness, stupidity, apathy, etc.

Nonsense. You can only take this position if you ignore the well documented voter disenfranchisement in this country. I personally know active voters who have been purged from the Georgia voter registration under flimsy pretences (other voters with similar names in other areas of Georgia in one instance).

It's easy to assume that because something is easy for you to do, then the only reason others don't do it is laziness, or stupidity, or apathy, etc, but that is simply false.

Having said that, I think mail voting should be implemented nationwide. And voter registration should be automatic for all over the age of 18. Nobody should have to physically register or vote in person.

I agree with this, though.

 

[Norman Alexander]

Jut a minor quibble. All those who are eligible to vote are already allowed to vote. Nothing is stopping them from voting except their own laziness, stupidity, apathy, etc.

Having said that, I think mail voting should be implemented nationwide. And voter registration should be automatic for all over the age of 18. Nobody should have to physically register or vote in person.

Add one more thing: Registration is not aligned or associated with any political party. Instead, make a national register of voters. You could even give it a short, snappy name, like...National Register of Voters. Then anyone wishing to vote could make a non-political inquiry as to their status at any time. And poll workers could use the register to tick off people who vote at elections, mail or in person.

 

[shemp]

Add one more thing: Registration is not aligned or associated with any political party. Instead, make a national register of voters. You could even give it a short, snappy name, like...National Register of Voters. Then anyone wishing to vote could make a non-political inquiry as to their status at any time. And poll workers could use the register to tick off people who vote at elections, mail or in person.

Sorry, I don't like that because I don't like open primaries. A person should have to declare a political affiliation to vote in a primary. And I believe that declaration should have to be made at least several months in advance of the primary, to prevent "spoiler" voter from crossing parties to try to affect the party primary negatively.

 

[slyjoe]

Sorry, I don't like that because I don't like open primaries. A person should have to declare a political affiliation to vote in a primary. And I believe that declaration should have to be made at least several months in advance of the primary, to prevent "spoiler" voter from crossing parties to try to affect the party primary negatively.

That doesn't solve the problem you seem to want to solve. I can change my registration at any time.

 

[Meadmaker]

Sorry, I don't like that because I don't like open primaries. A person should have to declare a political affiliation to vote in a primary. And I believe that declaration should have to be made at least several months in advance of the primary, to prevent "spoiler" voter from crossing parties to try to affect the party primary negatively.

I did a same day party change in 2016 hoping to affect the party primary positively. I voted in the Republican primary for the first time ever so that I could vote against Donald Trump. It didn't work, but I tried.


Personally, I don't like partisan primaries at all. You have to run to the outside to pick up the nomination, and run to the center to pick up the general election. What has become truly awful is that with safe districts, the only way a congressman can lose is if he isn't extreme enough, and gets "primaried". There ought to be a better way to pick a president or a congressman.

 

[a_unique_person]

Notice the alternative he presents, i.e. what he wants to believe and what what he can't believe:

"If I'm being manipulated by Trump ... then he is the greatest con man that ever lived in America," Caleb Fryar said, "I think he's the greatest patriot that ever lived."

It's the reason why Fox has been so popular and is now being replaced by Newsmax and OAN: They confirm their delusion and help them believe that Trump's palpable insanity is truth.



Some of them are bound to act out when it becomes impossible for them to hold on to their faith in the leader of their cult.



By the way, Trump isn't the greatest con man that ever lived in America. His performance is pathetic. But he was supported by an apparatus that is still there to help the next one, and more (Newsmax, OAN) are hoping to join in and get their share of the market.

He got to be president.

 

[Random]

I did a same day party change in 2016 hoping to affect the party primary positively. I voted in the Republican primary for the first time ever so that I could vote against Donald Trump. It didn't work, but I tried.


Personally, I don't like partisan primaries at all. You have to run to the outside to pick up the nomination, and run to the center to pick up the general election. What has become truly awful is that with safe districts, the only way a congressman can lose is if he isn't extreme enough, and gets "primaried". There ought to be a better way to pick a president or a congressman.

Twenty years ago maybe. Maybe even ten. But now...

Hillary ran the left-wing-primary, centrist-general playbook, and lost.

2016 Primary Trump was indistinguishable from 2016 General Election Trump. Still got the nod.

There really is no center anymore. You have a bunch of people with liberal ideas, a bunch of people with right wing ideas, and a small handful of "Ideologically Inconsistent" types. You know, the "We have to protect people with pre-existing medical conditions so let's get rid of Obamacare, then use the trillions of dollars we will save from that to cure cancer with shark cartilage" types that you can't make any headway with because they are too stupid to grasp the questions, let alone the answers.

It's all about turning out your base now...

 

[a_unique_person]

I did a same day party change in 2016 hoping to affect the party primary positively. I voted in the Republican primary for the first time ever so that I could vote against Donald Trump. It didn't work, but I tried.





Personally, I don't like partisan primaries at all. You have to run to the outside to pick up the nomination, and run to the center to pick up the general election. What has become truly awful is that with safe districts, the only way a congressman can lose is if he isn't extreme enough, and gets "primaried". There ought to be a better way to pick a president or a congressman.

The overly complex system that was created by the god like founding fathers doesn't stop any of the problems they were trying to prevent and has many downsides they didn't forsee.

 

[Firestone]

There ought to be a better way to pick a president or a congressman.

One person One vote, more proportional representation or at least RCV, primaries like Alaska just voted for, ...

But tell that to your Constitution.

 

[Mumbles]

Twenty years ago maybe. Maybe even ten. But now...

Hillary ran the left-wing-primary, centrist-general playbook, and lost.

2016 Primary Trump was indistinguishable from 2016 General Election Trump. Still got the nod.

Nah. Both Biden and Clinton had the same ideas in the general that they did in the primary - with the major difference being that Biden threw a bone to Sanders voters while Clinton worked hard to attract black voters, and both groups were far more fired up by 4 years of Dolt 45's dumpster fire presidency
in 2020 than by anything that could have happened in 2016 - same with every other dem group.

 

[Norman Alexander]

Sorry, I don't like that because I don't like open primaries. A person should have to declare a political affiliation to vote in a primary. And I believe that declaration should have to be made at least several months in advance of the primary, to prevent "spoiler" voter from crossing parties to try to affect the party primary negatively.

In-party elections, which is what the primaries are, should be entirely separate from actual public elections.

The political parties are not a part of official government. They are a construct that is not even mentioned in the US constitution, I gather. They are effectively clubs or associations of like-minded people. They can have any kind of membership to be "in the party" however they like. And they can ask whomever they want to choose their leaders however they want, debates, hoopla, balloons and all. As long as it is all legal, of course.

If you wish to register with a party as a member and perhaps be active in their political works then by all means do so. But that should have zero bearing on your ability to cast official votes in any elections. You should not have to be a party member, even nominally, to be allowed vote. The party should not be able to enrol you to vote either. None of their business.

Instead, you should be able to register to vote completely independently of any party affiliation or lack thereof. Your name should go on (or stay on) a voters' register, put there by you, solely if you qualify to be able to vote. There should be no need and no space to put down "D" or "R" next to that.

 

[Susheel]

In-party elections, which is what the primaries are, should be entirely separate from actual public elections.

I could never understand why the election of a Party nomination for President becomes the responsibility of the government in the US. Shouldn't this be done by the parties themselves internally through whatever mechanism they deem fit?

 

[Darat]

Sorry, I don't like that because I don't like open primaries. A person should have to declare a political affiliation to vote in a primary. And I believe that declaration should have to be made at least several months in advance of the primary, to prevent "spoiler" voter from crossing parties to try to affect the party primary negatively.

I'd suggest you need to move to having political parties like most other countries do.

 

[a_unique_person]

I like the way Trump said he will concede if he loses the Electoral College vote. His plan is to corrupt that vote.

 

[cosmicaug]

This fact you bring to my attention doesn't mean for one second that the state legislatures would follow this lead. And in fact, they are not.

From your link (did you read to the bottom?) :That was in the middle. They go on to report on the 'Senate' meeting which was actually a meeting of Trump sycophants in a hotel conference room where they paraded 'witnesses' (I only watched a couple minutes of it) and Trump phoned it in. In the end nothing happened. And one more case went before the Third Circuit which was supposed to be a move to get an appeal before SCOTUS. This is discussed in the 2020 election thread.

Said "this legislator" has no power on his own and did not convince his colleagues to throw their careers out in a futile attempt to keep Trump in power. Trump needs more than PA and the other states have certified their electors.

Yup. And they have (almost) all taken a wait & see approach for most of this time. There's nothing intrinsically pure about state level Republican legislators & there are no consistent incentives that predispose them against siding with a coup attempt following the general outlines of what we have seen. They have been playing out a game theory scenario and waiting until they perceived a threshold of their group going one way or the other. There exist outliers one way (like this jackass) or the other (who would not ever go for this) but the vast majority of them are in the middle and, in principle, can be swayed to go one way or the other.

In the context of this election, it's been tipping one way (having Giuliani on Trump's side has helped,... just not Trump). It din't have to tip this one way. It was not inevitable. We got lucky.

We need to eliminate the electoral college system.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I've seen this argument before, but I don't think it's the slam-dunk people think it is.

Ultimately, whether or not someone follows an illegal order comes down to a choice made by the individual. In the case of torture during Gulf War II, lots of those individuals actually believed that the torture was necessary, to stop terrorist attacks. That belief was probably flawed, but is was also strongly motivated by people's emotional reactions to the 9/11 attacks - they really wanted to make people pay for that.

Sure but it means that this blind faith in not following illegal orders is not warranted. It is only illegal and unpopular orders that will get refused, illegal and popular are of course fine.

It refutes the idea perfectly well that the UCMJ is something that will be followed regardless of the orders given. It wasn't and it won't be again. Merely being illegal and immoral is not any kind of bar to the military doing it, it has to be unpopular within the military.

 

[Meadmaker]

I could never understand why the election of a Party nomination for President becomes the responsibility of the government in the US. Shouldn't this be done by the parties themselves internally through whatever mechanism they deem fit?

That's what I think as well. I can't see any down side to it.