Characterizing this dispute as one over “voting rights” is a coup for the partisans pushing HR1. This isn’t about voting rights, it’s about voting convenience. The partisans adopt the term “voting rights” because it has positive moral resonance going back to the fight over the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The controversial state laws in Georgia and other states don’t deprive anyone of the right to vote. They arguably make it less convenient than the emergency voting rules passed during the pandemic, but that is a far cry from denying people the franchise. That is and ought to be the matter of the debate – should the federal government mandate certain levels of voting convenience? My opinion is no: matters of voting convenience ought to be debated and decided at the state level, not the national level.
The Voting Rights Act was passed because it used to be common practice in the Jim Crow south to deliberately make voting more........inconvenient........for certain demographics.
Point being, the line between voter obstructionism and voter suppression isn't always a clear one.
You’re absolutely right – things like literacy tests and poll taxes were used during the Jim Crow era to suppress Black voting. Those were clearly not inconveniences but devices to stop Blacks from voting. I’ve read the new Georgia law but have not read any other of the new state voting laws. I don’t see anything in the new Georgia law that crosses the line from inconvenience to obstruction. Have you seen anything in the Georgia law or any other state law that crosses that line?
Ending advance polling on Sundays. There's no security reason for that; it's just to prevent Black churches from doing their traditional voting drives after Sunday morning service.
Black churches, like any house of worship in the United States, are tax-exempt.
Their tax-exempt status requires them to stay apart from electoral politics and not endorse any candidates (that is the reason political donations are not tax-deductible, as they're for a candidate).
Black churches marching their congregants on Sunday to vote, for a clearly preferred candidate, is a violation of their tax-exempt status.
The Georgia law only prohibits giving food and water to people ***within 150 feet*** of a polling station, which clearly does not include people waiting 6-7 hours in line to vote. It does prevents loads of activists, each holding a water bottle, from intimidating voters filling out their ballot.
I mean, as long as they don't endorse a candidate, they're still doing better than white evangelical churches, who will come right and out and say Democrat voters are all going to burn in hell. When large numbers of congregants don't have cars, those congregation voting drives are a net positive for democracy.
Also, 150 feet is a pretty sizable distance for a standing lineup, so you're easily looking at 2-3 hours where nobody is allowed to bring you anything. Self-serve water would mean either waiting until you're at the right spot in line, or hoping someone saves your spot. And again, the bigger dick move is closing polling stations to create the 7 hour lineups in the first place.
It amazes me anyone goes anywhere to vote. I vote in Washington state, which has mail-in/dropbox voting. I didn't even realize how much voting sucked until I moved here. You get your pamphlet in the mail so you can take your time and make informed decisions from the convenience of your home without time pressure. I don't understand voting any other way. Other ways of voting have almost no advantages, but very real costs.
Why do we vote on Tuesday, when most voters are at work? It probably made sense in the 19th century, but today it effectively discriminates against most working people.
"measures including criminalizing providing food or water to those waiting in line to vote"
This canard from the liberal left refers to Georgia's prohibition of providing food or water only to those *** within 150 feet *** of the polling booth, not to those farther away, This simple provision prevents, for example, loads of BLM volunteers, each holding a water bottle, from intimidating voters filling out their ballot.
It isn’t just intimidation, but bribery that the law is meant to avoid. George Washington lost his first election to the House of Burgesses due to his opponent plying the electorate with whiskey, and it wasn’t that long ago that candidates had cars at the polls on election day with trunks full of pints of bourbon, to be handed out to their voters.
Whatever problems there are with voting rights in Georgia have nothing to do with the Georgia law that prohibits non-voters from being within 150 feet of the polling station.
The dishonest claim that this law prohibits handing out food and water to voters outside the 150 foot limit is the only issue I was addressing. I tried hard for clarity and precision of my written English and am disappointed I failed this time.
It doesn’t help that both parties have been stripping the guardrails from the system since the 1990’s. Maybe the import of the moment will cause Democrats to stop doing foolish things like push election “reforms” that tighten presidential control over the FEC (gosh, who recently would have abused that power?) or campaign with Stacey “Stolen Election” Abrams? Or they’ll just consider it politics as usual, look at each violated taboo as one more weapon for the next election cycle, and let the gyre widen. As an alienated centrist, the Democratic crocodile tears over the rollback of pandemic voting emergency measures don’t move me. The real danger is in who counts the votes, and that’s what Republicans are working assiduously to change, and Democrats are ignoring, because they think they can benefit from the corruption when the pendulum swings. It’s disgusting.
In 2020, Republican observers to the vote count were forcibly ejected in Milwaukee, Detroit and Philadelphia (the last in defiance of an emergency court order). In Atlanta they were tricked into leaving and then the vote count resumed in secret.
Videos posted by Reuters show vote counters in Detroit taping up the windows with cardboard so they couldn't be observed after Republican vote counters were ejected.
Nonsense: Reuters video showed Republican vote counters being forcibly ejected in Detroit. Atlanta officials were on record saying vote counting would end by 10:30pm and then found back in after 11pm.
All of that is easily checked with a Google search. Whether it affected the results is another matter. Whether charges of lying are an ineffective way of intimidating those you disagree with is not in doubt.
Midterm elections are Nov 8, 2022, we'll soon see how many voters are persuaded from each side. Enjoy the results!
Friends of mine were in the room where the counting was taking place in Detroit. They tell me that these claims of malfeasance are simply misunderstanding of standard (and time-worn) procedures by those who had never watched vote-counting before. And, as others have said, this is well-documented and has been litigated in court. So at least one of these cases is simply right-wing mythology, contradicted by actual eye-witnesses, some of whom are friends. And I am neither Red nor Blue, and haven't been for forty years.
Reuters video, which is a friend of mine and was also in Detroit, shows the Republican vote count observers marched out of the room and the election workers then using cardboard pizza boxes to cover up the windows so they couldn't be watched.
That is not "something litigated in court" nor a myth; you can easily google for it:
Yes, some Republican 'observers' (of the hundreds who were there) were asked to leave. And yes, windows were blocked with cardboard because non-observers were taking pictures of the ballots from outside the room. You can read about it here:
Remember the context. Abrams' opponent was the Georgia Secretary of State, the very person in charge of deciding who does and doesn't get to vote! It wasn't so long ago that someone in that position would have been under overwhelming pressure to recuse himself (or at least appear to). The fact that Kemp wasn't was an early warning sign of what was to come.
In the end, Kemp broke a taboo, but that doesn’t excuse Abrams from breaking another taboo. That’s how this mess keeps spiraling out of control. Guess who else decided to push a “stolen election” lie, and where has that gotten us?
He broke a taboo and the result is he became governor. Why shouldn't Dems break taboos when Republicans show that breaking them is a path to power?
Trump broke scads of taboos even before he became president, then dozens more after getting elected. The results is he's the favorite to win the nomination in 2024.
Again, why shouldn't Dems break taboos when Republicans show that breaking them is a path to power?
Because we need at least one responsible party? Because we need leaders with something more than the ethics of a five year old? If the Democrats continue down the road of “but the Republicans did it,” our polity is going to continue to split apart, at some point irreparably. If Democrats continue to pursue power without limits, scruples, or bending to historical precedents, then they’re no better than the Republicans. Why should I vote for leftwing populist authoritarians against rightwing populist authoritarians?
I believe Republicans will continue to win, not because of Trump’s nefarious actions, but because the Democrats are headed in a bad direction on issues of education, Covid mandates, and so-called equity issues. Democrats will use this as an excuse for why they lost rather than reflect on the extremism in their own party.
Alexander, in terms of Texas bill, I read that early voting is actually being expanded:
"The legislation would require counties with populations of more than 55,000 to hold at least 12 hours of early voting for a second week before Election Day, an expansion of early voting hours that will loop in smaller, more rural counties that until now had not been required to offer so many hours."
Interestingly enough, the reason I found Hill article was because I knew there had been an expansion, but couldn't remember why. This article is way down in Google results and many mainstream media articles leave it out.
Also, Weren't some of the things being restricted passed to cope with Covid (from same article)?
"The sweeping omnibus measure would limit some opportunities for voting that major Texas counties implemented in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic. Drive-thru voting and round-the-clock voting, both of which were used in Harris County, home of Houston, would be barred."
In terms of this, "including criminalizing providing food or water to those waiting in line to vote", can you elaborate.....or state the law itself. I remember seeing it explained and once explained, its frisson kinda melted.
One of the reasons I subscribed to Persuasion was precisely to avoid the speciousness that seem to pululate in this article. This is not the only article published by Persuasion recently that seems to have this issue.
"including criminalizing providing food or water to those waiting in line to vote"
In Georgia this applies only to within 150 feet of a polling station. You're free to provide food and drink to people in line at a greater distance. But activists can no longer just grab a water bottle each and march into the polling station to harass voters filling out their ballots:
Sometimes, I really do not understand the mentality in the USA. In Sweden, as in many other parts of the EU, the case is that a government agency sends me a voting ballot paper some months before the elections. After that, I take the ballot paper and got to a voting station in my local area. The elections take place on a Sunday and I can earlier vote by post. Why make things complicated, or? I mean, democracy should not be rocket science.
Characterizing this dispute as one over “voting rights” is a coup for the partisans pushing HR1. This isn’t about voting rights, it’s about voting convenience. The partisans adopt the term “voting rights” because it has positive moral resonance going back to the fight over the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The controversial state laws in Georgia and other states don’t deprive anyone of the right to vote. They arguably make it less convenient than the emergency voting rules passed during the pandemic, but that is a far cry from denying people the franchise. That is and ought to be the matter of the debate – should the federal government mandate certain levels of voting convenience? My opinion is no: matters of voting convenience ought to be debated and decided at the state level, not the national level.
The Voting Rights Act was passed because it used to be common practice in the Jim Crow south to deliberately make voting more........inconvenient........for certain demographics.
Point being, the line between voter obstructionism and voter suppression isn't always a clear one.
You’re absolutely right – things like literacy tests and poll taxes were used during the Jim Crow era to suppress Black voting. Those were clearly not inconveniences but devices to stop Blacks from voting. I’ve read the new Georgia law but have not read any other of the new state voting laws. I don’t see anything in the new Georgia law that crosses the line from inconvenience to obstruction. Have you seen anything in the Georgia law or any other state law that crosses that line?
Ending advance polling on Sundays. There's no security reason for that; it's just to prevent Black churches from doing their traditional voting drives after Sunday morning service.
https://www.ajc.com/politics/plan-to-limit-georgia-sunday-voting-disrupts-black-church-efforts/ARKWRBU7FRAR5LKSA5IY4JGAGA/
That, and closing polling stations to create long lines. Banning people from bringing food/water to those 6-7 hour lineups is just salt in the wound.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/23/texas-voting-polling-restrictions/
Black churches, like any house of worship in the United States, are tax-exempt.
Their tax-exempt status requires them to stay apart from electoral politics and not endorse any candidates (that is the reason political donations are not tax-deductible, as they're for a candidate).
Black churches marching their congregants on Sunday to vote, for a clearly preferred candidate, is a violation of their tax-exempt status.
The Georgia law only prohibits giving food and water to people ***within 150 feet*** of a polling station, which clearly does not include people waiting 6-7 hours in line to vote. It does prevents loads of activists, each holding a water bottle, from intimidating voters filling out their ballot.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/mar/29/josh-holmes/facts-about-georgias-ban-food-water-giveaways-vote/
I mean, as long as they don't endorse a candidate, they're still doing better than white evangelical churches, who will come right and out and say Democrat voters are all going to burn in hell. When large numbers of congregants don't have cars, those congregation voting drives are a net positive for democracy.
Also, 150 feet is a pretty sizable distance for a standing lineup, so you're easily looking at 2-3 hours where nobody is allowed to bring you anything. Self-serve water would mean either waiting until you're at the right spot in line, or hoping someone saves your spot. And again, the bigger dick move is closing polling stations to create the 7 hour lineups in the first place.
There are also Roman Catholic priests who preach from the pulpit that God will torture Democratic voters in the afterlife:
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/07/09/father-james-altman-removed-wisconsin-bishop-241015
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/catholics-democrats-pro-choice-james-altman/2020/09/09/id/985972/
Are there any LONG voting lines in Republican-leaning areas?
It amazes me anyone goes anywhere to vote. I vote in Washington state, which has mail-in/dropbox voting. I didn't even realize how much voting sucked until I moved here. You get your pamphlet in the mail so you can take your time and make informed decisions from the convenience of your home without time pressure. I don't understand voting any other way. Other ways of voting have almost no advantages, but very real costs.
Why do we vote on Tuesday, when most voters are at work? It probably made sense in the 19th century, but today it effectively discriminates against most working people.
https://www.britannica.com/story/why-are-us-elections-held-on-tuesdays
How about e-voting? Using tech as blockchain?
"measures including criminalizing providing food or water to those waiting in line to vote"
This canard from the liberal left refers to Georgia's prohibition of providing food or water only to those *** within 150 feet *** of the polling booth, not to those farther away, This simple provision prevents, for example, loads of BLM volunteers, each holding a water bottle, from intimidating voters filling out their ballot.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/mar/29/josh-holmes/facts-about-georgias-ban-food-water-giveaways-vote/
It isn’t just intimidation, but bribery that the law is meant to avoid. George Washington lost his first election to the House of Burgesses due to his opponent plying the electorate with whiskey, and it wasn’t that long ago that candidates had cars at the polls on election day with trunks full of pints of bourbon, to be handed out to their voters.
You mean that there are no problems with the voting rights in Georgia?
Whatever problems there are with voting rights in Georgia have nothing to do with the Georgia law that prohibits non-voters from being within 150 feet of the polling station.
The dishonest claim that this law prohibits handing out food and water to voters outside the 150 foot limit is the only issue I was addressing. I tried hard for clarity and precision of my written English and am disappointed I failed this time.
It doesn’t help that both parties have been stripping the guardrails from the system since the 1990’s. Maybe the import of the moment will cause Democrats to stop doing foolish things like push election “reforms” that tighten presidential control over the FEC (gosh, who recently would have abused that power?) or campaign with Stacey “Stolen Election” Abrams? Or they’ll just consider it politics as usual, look at each violated taboo as one more weapon for the next election cycle, and let the gyre widen. As an alienated centrist, the Democratic crocodile tears over the rollback of pandemic voting emergency measures don’t move me. The real danger is in who counts the votes, and that’s what Republicans are working assiduously to change, and Democrats are ignoring, because they think they can benefit from the corruption when the pendulum swings. It’s disgusting.
"real danger is in who counts the votes"
In 2020, Republican observers to the vote count were forcibly ejected in Milwaukee, Detroit and Philadelphia (the last in defiance of an emergency court order). In Atlanta they were tricked into leaving and then the vote count resumed in secret.
Videos posted by Reuters show vote counters in Detroit taping up the windows with cardboard so they couldn't be observed after Republican vote counters were ejected.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-michigan-idUSKBN27K2AQ
Lies. Every single issue that you want to bring up was litigated and judges threw them out. Find a way to persuade more voters instead of lying.
Nonsense: Reuters video showed Republican vote counters being forcibly ejected in Detroit. Atlanta officials were on record saying vote counting would end by 10:30pm and then found back in after 11pm.
All of that is easily checked with a Google search. Whether it affected the results is another matter. Whether charges of lying are an ineffective way of intimidating those you disagree with is not in doubt.
Midterm elections are Nov 8, 2022, we'll soon see how many voters are persuaded from each side. Enjoy the results!
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-michigan-idUSKBN27K2AQ
Friends of mine were in the room where the counting was taking place in Detroit. They tell me that these claims of malfeasance are simply misunderstanding of standard (and time-worn) procedures by those who had never watched vote-counting before. And, as others have said, this is well-documented and has been litigated in court. So at least one of these cases is simply right-wing mythology, contradicted by actual eye-witnesses, some of whom are friends. And I am neither Red nor Blue, and haven't been for forty years.
Reuters video, which is a friend of mine and was also in Detroit, shows the Republican vote count observers marched out of the room and the election workers then using cardboard pizza boxes to cover up the windows so they couldn't be watched.
That is not "something litigated in court" nor a myth; you can easily google for it:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-michigan-idUSKBN27K2AQ
Yes, some Republican 'observers' (of the hundreds who were there) were asked to leave. And yes, windows were blocked with cardboard because non-observers were taking pictures of the ballots from outside the room. You can read about it here:
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2020/11/06/tcf-center-detroit-ballot-counting/6173577002/
Remember the context. Abrams' opponent was the Georgia Secretary of State, the very person in charge of deciding who does and doesn't get to vote! It wasn't so long ago that someone in that position would have been under overwhelming pressure to recuse himself (or at least appear to). The fact that Kemp wasn't was an early warning sign of what was to come.
In the end, Kemp broke a taboo, but that doesn’t excuse Abrams from breaking another taboo. That’s how this mess keeps spiraling out of control. Guess who else decided to push a “stolen election” lie, and where has that gotten us?
He broke a taboo and the result is he became governor. Why shouldn't Dems break taboos when Republicans show that breaking them is a path to power?
Trump broke scads of taboos even before he became president, then dozens more after getting elected. The results is he's the favorite to win the nomination in 2024.
Again, why shouldn't Dems break taboos when Republicans show that breaking them is a path to power?
Because we need at least one responsible party? Because we need leaders with something more than the ethics of a five year old? If the Democrats continue down the road of “but the Republicans did it,” our polity is going to continue to split apart, at some point irreparably. If Democrats continue to pursue power without limits, scruples, or bending to historical precedents, then they’re no better than the Republicans. Why should I vote for leftwing populist authoritarians against rightwing populist authoritarians?
I believe Republicans will continue to win, not because of Trump’s nefarious actions, but because the Democrats are headed in a bad direction on issues of education, Covid mandates, and so-called equity issues. Democrats will use this as an excuse for why they lost rather than reflect on the extremism in their own party.
Alexander, in terms of Texas bill, I read that early voting is actually being expanded:
"The legislation would require counties with populations of more than 55,000 to hold at least 12 hours of early voting for a second week before Election Day, an expansion of early voting hours that will loop in smaller, more rural counties that until now had not been required to offer so many hours."
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/570136-texas-legislature-approves-voting-overhaul
Interestingly enough, the reason I found Hill article was because I knew there had been an expansion, but couldn't remember why. This article is way down in Google results and many mainstream media articles leave it out.
Also, Weren't some of the things being restricted passed to cope with Covid (from same article)?
"The sweeping omnibus measure would limit some opportunities for voting that major Texas counties implemented in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic. Drive-thru voting and round-the-clock voting, both of which were used in Harris County, home of Houston, would be barred."
In terms of this, "including criminalizing providing food or water to those waiting in line to vote", can you elaborate.....or state the law itself. I remember seeing it explained and once explained, its frisson kinda melted.
One of the reasons I subscribed to Persuasion was precisely to avoid the speciousness that seem to pululate in this article. This is not the only article published by Persuasion recently that seems to have this issue.
"including criminalizing providing food or water to those waiting in line to vote"
In Georgia this applies only to within 150 feet of a polling station. You're free to provide food and drink to people in line at a greater distance. But activists can no longer just grab a water bottle each and march into the polling station to harass voters filling out their ballots:
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/mar/29/josh-holmes/facts-about-georgias-ban-food-water-giveaways-vote/
Sometimes, I really do not understand the mentality in the USA. In Sweden, as in many other parts of the EU, the case is that a government agency sends me a voting ballot paper some months before the elections. After that, I take the ballot paper and got to a voting station in my local area. The elections take place on a Sunday and I can earlier vote by post. Why make things complicated, or? I mean, democracy should not be rocket science.