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Voter Supression - USA
Voter Supression - USA
#1
In news that should surprise no one:

Report: Georgia's Secretary of State Is Blocking 53,000 Voter Registrations as He Runs for Governor

Indiana purges nearly 500,000 from voter rolls

Thousands at risk from rightwing push to purge eligible voters from US rolls

It seems that the GOP has accepted the fact that unless they do this, they are out this November.

Edited to Add: The purged voters can still vote if they bring their ID and their name matches. But that information is apparently not being given to purged voters in GA.
“We can never undo what we have done. We can never go back in time. We write history with our decisions and our actions. But we also write history with our responses to those actions. We can leave the pain and the damage in our wake, unattended, or we can do the work of acknowledging and fixing, to whatever extent possible, the harm that we have caused.”

— On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World by Danya Ruttenberg
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RE: Voter Supression - USA
#2
It always amazes me when I see reports like this one...

In Canada, the voter rolls are complied from the income tax rolls (plus whoever was missed because their income is too low for them to pay income tax, minus anyone who chooses not to check the obvious box in its own section on page one of the income tax form). No taxation without representation. And we all remember where that phrase came from, right?
--
Rob Kelk

Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown
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RE: Voter Supression - USA
#3
(10-12-2018, 11:49 AM)robkelk Wrote: No taxation without representation. And we all remember where that phrase came from, right?

In the modern U.S.A., it's "no representation without bribing the representative" and "no taxation if you're 'smart' and rich enough to hire clever tax lawyers."
-----
"The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that this was some killer weed."
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RE: Voter Supression - USA
#4
I think we should send in election monitors.....


There's a form to sign to get added - it's one line per person in a household. It asks your citizenship, but doesn't particularly car about you proving it.

It's really easy to register. And really hard to game. Unless you lie on the form. But that's a crime.

You can go to the polling station and prove who you are by bringing:
(i) a passport; (ii) a driving licence; (iii) an employee identity card containing a photograph; (iv) a student identity card issued by an educational institution and containing a photograph; (v) a travel document containing name and photograph; (vi) a Bank or Saving or Credit Union book containing address in the constituency or local electoral area (where appropriate); (vii) a Public Services Card;

OR Any of the following accompanied by a further document which establishes the address of the holder in the constituency or local electoral area (where appropriate): (viii) a cheque book; (ix) a cheque card; (x) a credit card; (xi) a birth certificate; (xii) a marriage certificate.


The usual bug is someone moving out of a locality - registering somewhere else and forgetting to unregister. So their polling card ends up going to whomever lived where they did.

Remarkably, even with such glaring obvious holes that should lead to massive swathes of electoral fraud, the system has proved to be relatively reliable since people are mostly decent. And shuttling enough people around the fuck with things would get noticed really fucking quickly.

I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.

One day they're going to ban them.
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RE: Voter Supression - USA
#5
Quote:Remarkably, even with such glaring obvious holes that should lead to massive swathes of electoral fraud, the system has proved to be relatively reliable since people are mostly decent. And shuttling enough people around the fuck with things would get noticed really fucking quickly.

I think that's part of the issue; Ireland is a much smaller country and much less densely populated. It's fairly easy in the US, especially in major cities, to bus people around and such; and in smaller towns and such to salt the voter rolls as one pleases.
Sucrose Octanitrate.

Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
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RE: Voter Supression - USA
#6
(10-25-2018, 05:06 PM)ECSNorway Wrote: I think that's part of the issue; Ireland is a much smaller country and much less densely populated. It's fairly easy in the US, especially in major cities, to bus people around and such; and in smaller towns and such to salt the voter rolls as one pleases.

Do you really think Ireland is less densely populated than the US? It's fairly low population density by Europe standards, but it's still more than the US.
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RE: Voter Supression - USA
#7
Good grief America...

So, there are reports coming out that one type of electronic voting machine is changing results. In this case, it was changing results from Cruz to Rourke in Texas. However, this is not a case of deliberate fraud. Rather, it's that the machine takes a while to notice that it's updated to the next page, and applies any button presses to the previous page. Apparently, this issue was well known by the company that produces the machines, and their response can be summed up as 'it's your own fault for voting too fast.'

Anyone that's using a machine to vote, be sure to check your choices before hitting okay one last time.

... A PIECE OF PAPER WITH BOXES ON IT! THAT'S ALL YOU NEED! HOW CAN YOU FUCK THIS UP SO UTTERLY?!

And don't even get me started on sending busloads of people around to commit voter fraud. Any half-competent system would be able to spot this and stop it influencing final results, but America somehow continues its noble history of sticking its dick in a woodchipper...
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RE: Voter Supression - USA
#8
There's also a lot more polling stations here. There's three within ten minutes walk of where I live, so there's no real requirement to bus people around to skew the results. In rural areas - the polls are set up in local schools which close for the day - making them also easily accessible. The real lock come from the fact that everyone is registered. It's the exact same registry that's used for jury duty. It's very easy to get on the registry. But because each registrant is tied to a specific address - and the state knows who has voted and who has yet to vote (even if the state has no idea who they voted for). If someone uses someone elses name to vote, it's obvious. If someone tries to register in two localities - they need to create documentation to do it - and must tie it to a real address.

It's also extremely easy tio prove you live at that address - requiring a recognised utility bill or similar. But this takes a lot of effort to actually create in the quantities required to defraud an election en-masse.

The system works specifically because it's set up to work - and not to disenfranchise any particulare demographic by making it harder for them to register or find a polling station, or whatever.

We tried voting machines. Once. They were a failure. I think they're still in storage at significant cost to the taxpayer because they're still operable and to throw them away would be wasteful of public money.

So either there's a massive amount of electoral fraud that goes undetected - or there's little to none to the point where it doesn't blip a statistic. It's why the Love Both campaign was laughed out of the courts when they suggested UUS-style voter suppression had occurred - it'd play to their funding in the States, but not here. Ironically, it can be argued that it did happen - by strict interpretation of the rules some of the #hometovote people would not have been eligible to vote - but the result was so utterly overwhelming and popular that clearly it was a legitimate result.

I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.

One day they're going to ban them.
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RE: Voter Supression - USA
#9
I've said it before on this forum, but the Netherlands has a not dissimilar system to Ireland.

Polling stations? All elementary schools have one, the central hall is cleared for it. Registering to vote? If you are 1) a citizen of the Netherlands, 2) at least 18 years old and 3) have a known address you are registered to vote. When you are registered to vote you will receive atleast 14 days before the elections a postcard sized card with your name, instructions on what you need to take with you to the polling station, where the nearest polling station is, how to request permission to vote somewhere else, a short form to authorise somebody else to vote on your behalf and on what date the vote is and when the station opens and closes. Voting may happen in any of your municipality's polling stations and if you lose your card or didn't receive one while you have the right for one you can always ask by letter, with 5 days lead time, or in person, before noon the day before the vote, for a new card.

Voting happens on paper, like Ireland the Netherlands tried machine voting but it was found too vulnerable to hacking and it was difficult to store the ballots to a satisfactorily secure extent. All ballots are stored until the next round of votes, and trying to manipulate them would take ages compared to, say, getting access to the computer storing the results and changing the votes with a program.


Voting disenfranchisement happens, but it's a very unusual judicially assigned punishment, and only when the judge deems it proven that the perpetrator acted with the intent to subvert the democratic process.
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RE: Voter Supression - USA
#10
You literally have to get out of Dodge to vote.

The electoral system in the US needs to be overhauled from the ground up to minimize this kind of B.S.

From making Election Day a holiday so that everyone can vote, kill the Electoral College as I believe it's no longer necessary or useful, implement ways to reduce gerrymandering , and establish national electoral standards, which would require amending the Constitution--Article 1, Section 4 allows the states to establish their electoral systems however they wish.
“We can never undo what we have done. We can never go back in time. We write history with our decisions and our actions. But we also write history with our responses to those actions. We can leave the pain and the damage in our wake, unattended, or we can do the work of acknowledging and fixing, to whatever extent possible, the harm that we have caused.”

— On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World by Danya Ruttenberg
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