Block the vote

[mike777]

Obviously the authorities in some states want fraud. Don't they have the autonomy to have it their way?

1) NO

2) NO

 

If you think 1) states want fraud...2) you cannot stop it....3) just commit suicide now...keep things simple.

 

Let us take an extreme example.....chicago......

1) chicago is not a state

2) if state wants to stop it they can

3) if you think many states are same.......just commit suicide now...keep it simple

[helene_t]

suicide? cheer up, Mike, you make it sound as if somebody had hacked the bridgemates. It's only politics.

 

Anyway, if you say that the states can stop the fraud if they want then either you must be of the opinion that there is no fraud, or you must be of the opinion that the states don't want to stop it since otherwise they would have stopped it.

 

That's not my question, though. I was asking about the powers of the federal government. FWIW, if some EU member state made a mess of their elections for the EP I don't think the EU could do much about it, but of course things could be very different in the US. What do I know.

[blackshoe]

Who has the right to vote, and so on, is in the Constitution. If states are violating the constitution, enforcement of the provisions of that document is certainly in the purview of the federal government.

[luke warm]

Who has the right to vote, and so on, is in the Constitution. If states are violating the constitution, enforcement of the provisions of that document is certainly in the purview of the federal government.

i agree

[inquiry]

This is bad... .

 

students blocked from voting

[jikl]

"This is about ensuring the integrity of our elections,"

 

This must be one of the best examples of political double-speak I have ever seen. I will refrain from using the language I wish to use even though this is the Water Cooler :)

 

Sean

[matmat]

This is bad... .

 

students blocked from voting

meh. what's so bad about it? the whole point of elections is to only allow your supporters to vote, right?

[PassedOut]

This is bad... .

 

students blocked from voting

The officials involved in these illegal purges should receive long jail sentences. The new attorney general should make sure that happens.

[mike777]

This is bad... .

 

students blocked from voting

Amazing to read such an article and have an article basically say NOTHING!

 

I blame the editors who must be idiots....

 

I did not read one thing in here that I did not read more than 50 years ago and over and over again the last 50 years.

 

If you read your history you can find articles that say the same thing hundreds of years ago. Andrew Jackson election stolen from him......see many others.

 

 

1) Voter data bases have errors...so what? They all do!

2) There are mismatches....well what the heck is a mismatch and why should we care or not care?!

3) Students in a College town may not be able to vote in the town? Shocking.....200 years ago.... lol old news!

 

Just follow these 3 simple rules:

1) If there is a vote Democrat...no voter fraud.

2) If there is a vote Republican there may be voter fraud.

3) If no vote for Democrat there may be voter suppression!

 

See the rest of the world where two babies born on same day same hospital and they grow up...One gets to be a full citizen and vote...other may or may not get to vote depending if she can past test.

[cherdano]

Mike, wtf is your point?

- A non-eligible (or non-existant) voter who gets to vote is a scandal, and

- An eligible voter that cannot vote despite registering correctly is a scandal.

 

Republicans and Democrats seem to agree that there are hundreds of thousands of such scandals around the nation :) (They might not agree under which of the cases most of these scandals fall, of course...)

 

If the "greatest democracy on earth" can't get this problem solved, this is a huge scandal. Just because such scandals have been existing since forever doesn't make it a smaller scandal.

[mike777]

I told you what my points where, in fact I broke them out lol. Reread the post!

 

Nothing new in article......write an article or post a thread that tells me something new or solves the problem.

 

In the meantime much of the rest of the world discriminates against babies born "in country" even more than usa ...:)

[matmat]

I told you what my points where, in fact I broke them out lol. Reread the post!

 

Nothing new in article......write an article or post a thread that tells me something new or solves the problem.

no.. see... i think you just randomly typed some characters that have no cohesion and make no sense.

[onoway]

It's beginning to look more and more as though the economy is not the only thing down for the count in the U.S. these days....

[jdonn]

I told you what my points where, in fact I broke them out lol. Reread the post!

 

Nothing new in article......write an article or post a thread that tells me something new or solves the problem.

 

In the meantime much of the rest of the world discriminates against babies born "in country" even more than usa ...:)

Judging by your posts (specifically the grammar, syntax, and points being made) I suspect you are an American election official. In other words, you are typing absolute gibberish. I would reread your posts, but it's very hard on my precious brain cells to decipher them the first time.

[jikl]

In the meantime much of the rest of the world discriminates against babies born "in country" even more than usa ...

 

Actually Mike, I think you are talking ***** again.

 

Here in Australia voting is compulsory. There are ways out of it (never registering in the first place at 18 years of age, or moving about 4-5 times so they give up on you but you may have a fine waiting for you if you do this. Yes, you do get a fine for not voting without a very good reason) This means you need less validation rules because you can't pretend to be someone else that is already registered. It also means you have less vote stacking. Don't base your world knowledge just on what is in your backyard.

 

Sean

[helene_t]

This is bad... .

 

students blocked from voting

The officials involved in these illegal purges should receive long jail sentences. The new attorney general should make sure that happens.

Agree.

 

But I don't understand how voter registration can be such a problem. Isn't there a central database with ID numbers of all US citizens? Just issue ballots to all of them. That's how it works in the Netherlands and Scandinavia. I have never heard of problems with voter registration. As an expat who has frequently moved between foreign addresses without telling the Danish civil registry, I belong to the small minority of Danish citizens who don't automatically receive a ballot ticket when there is something to vote for in Denmark. I could get one at a Danish embassy by showing up with my passport, and I suppose it could be dealt with per mail also if I send them a photocopy of my passport. In any case it's not like it could be an issue whether I have the right to vote or not, or that I could possibly register twice, or with a fake passport. Admittedly if someone stole my passport and I didn't report it I suppose they could vote on my behalf, at least if they looked like me and could imitate my signature. Or some of the former employers etc who have photocopies of my passport and know I am living abroad and don't bother to vote could probably vote on my behalf, at least if they took the effort to have a fake version of my passport made (that issue is being resolved shortly as they move towards electronic verification of passports).

 

As for ballots that get discarded due to unreadability etc. That happens in Denmark too but each individual ballot is seen by officials appointed by opposing parties. Not sure how it is resolved if there is disagreement, I suppose the local electoral committee which represents several parties would vote about it. The system PassedOut describes with the optical scanner sounds better.

[jikl]

Helene, you are forgetting how few US citizens ever leave the country or even their state, let alone have a passport.

 

Sean

[helene_t]

That should make it even easier. Citizens who never migrate should be easy to trace. No excuse for not just sending them a ticket.

[y66]

Central database with ID numbers of all US citizens? Surprisingly no. This is partly a political issue (unregistered voters are disproportionately younger, less affluent and foreign born), a funding issue (see political issue) and a right to privacy issue (see political issue).

[ASkolnick]

No, Mike's point is simply this...

 

When there is a scandal on the Republican side, reporter's are the first to dig their heels into it. But if the scandal was on the Democrat's side, not as much is made about it.

 

As for voting, in the US, we do not live in a Democracy, we live in a Democratic Republic, a federation of states. Our tenth ammendment states all things not explicitly documented to be executed by the Federal Government will be deferred to the states or the people. Therefore, the states should handle it.

 

The reason for the Electoral College was to correct any "mistake" made by the public. Or as James Madison put it, "the masses are asses". So there is reason for it.

 

Now, why each state forces all the electorals to vote exactly the same way in a winner take all does not make any sense to me, even though that is how the Republicans run their primary. The thing is, this is not how delegates used to have to be divided.

 

One would think a better distribution of delegates would be either:

 

a) Weighted average of delegates compared to the voting.

B) Each delegate represents a region. If you win that region, you get that delegate.

 

And as for the people who say "Gore won without the votes counted", people don't seem to remember articles saying that even if those votes did count, he would not have.

 

I am a Republican and I despise Bush. What I don't understand after the 1st term is how the Democrats even were at a point to "leave it up to the refs"

[cherdano]

No, Mike's point is simply this...

 

When there is a scandal on the Republican side, reporter's are the first to dig their heels into it. But if the scandal was on the Democrat's side, not as much is made about it.

Right, I can't remember any media reports about ACORN...

 

Can we please stop these bogus "but there are [insert other side] scandals, too"? Or even worse, as Mike keeps doing on voting issues, "but there were Democratic voting scandals 40+ years ago, too"?

[PassedOut]

Good News: The attempt by Georgia to engage in state-sponsored vote fraud has been blocked by the federal courts: Panel Blocks Georgia Voter Checks

 

Georgia is one of several states that needs federal approval before changing election policy because of a history of discriminatory voting practices.

But northern states don't have quite the same protection. I do understand, though, that lawyers are ready to do battle to protect voting rights at a moment's notice.

[mike777]

Good News: The attempt by Georgia to engage in state-sponsored vote fraud has been blocked by the federal courts: Panel Blocks Georgia Voter Checks

 

Georgia is one of several states that needs federal approval before changing election policy because of a history of discriminatory voting practices.

But northern states don't have quite the same protection. I do understand, though, that lawyers are ready to do battle to protect voting rights at a moment's notice.

In this example this does sound like good news.

 

Georgia does have a bad record on voting rights compared to other states.

 

The problem I raised however still exists. How do you purge the voter roles or do better voter checks. For some reason the idea of even more detailed databases with even more detailed voter information in them scares me.

 

As I said I thought this article had nothing new in it and I wish to see articles that discuss in more details what this "mismatch" problem is and why state after state after state does not seem able to fix it in a non illiegal way.

 

Having grown up in a small College town half my life I think the issue of students having problems in voting feels like a never ending one.

[mike777]

In the meantime much of the rest of the world discriminates against babies born "in country" even more than usa ...

 

Actually Mike, I think you are talking ***** again.

 

Here in Australia voting is compulsory. There are ways out of it (never registering in the first place at 18 years of age, or moving about 4-5 times so they give up on you but you may have a fine waiting for you if you do this. Yes, you do get a fine for not voting without a very good reason) This means you need less validation rules because you can't pretend to be someone else that is already registered. It also means you have less vote stacking. Don't base your world knowledge just on what is in your backyard.

 

Sean

Granted this is should be a side thread so I will just respond to this and end.

 

I am glad if Aust does not have a problem of voting surpression but speaking of my own backyard, Mexico, and other countries south of the border this problem exists. The problem is huge in Japan. I have spoken and provided links in other threads of the tests these children must go through. Again this is the issue of children born in country who are not automatically voting citizens.

 

Granted here in the USA we seem unable to do a decent job of purging the voter rolls without voter suppression issues being raised.

[mike777]

No, Mike's point is simply this...

 

When there is a scandal on the Republican side, reporter's are the first to dig their heels into it.  But if the scandal was on the Democrat's side, not as much is made about it.

Right, I can't remember any media reports about ACORN...

 

Can we please stop these bogus "but there are [insert other side] scandals, too"? Or even worse, as Mike keeps doing on voting issues, "but there were Democratic voting scandals 40+ years ago, too"?

My point was not as you make out that bad behavior justifies bad behavior. It does not.

 

I do not see where I ever came across advocating such a thing but perhaps as JDONN points out my grammer or syntax should be improved.

 

 

It is that this bad behavior(voters not being able to vote) has been going on forever and I would like to see articles that address why it is not stopped. I feel we both agree on this issue.