Many in the tv and print media are claiming the various voting laws being enacted across the country are racist because they are aimed at suppressing mostly poor and black voters. I've voted since I was 18 maybe twenty when I voted for Reagan. Always voting in person, in those early years I probably would have been considered poor never really had a problem voting. When the media portrays these laws as racist they are insulting the very people they claim to want to protect. The poor and blacks are not too stupid or poor or lazy to vote they can figure out how to get a picture ID or get to the polls.
Democrats are constantly griping about proper identification being a hindrance to voting or how purging inactive registrations is all voter suppression. Then they wonder why people call into question the validity if elections. Trump is the most recent example but Stacy Abrams and the Dem's are still questioning the results of failed gubernatorial bid several years ago.
Voting should be as easy and secure as possible so I make the following suggestions.
All voting will be in person, at a persons proper precinct no provisional ballots.
No picture ID no vote.
All voting will take 2 days Saturday and Tuesday.
Absolutely no media reporting till the polls close Tuesday night.
Absentee ballots are only issued hospitalizations or out of the state.
No ballot counting physical or mechanical is allowed without each party having a representative present.
Voting is a civic and community event where people should gather and see their neighbors sharing in decisions and working to make their communities better. Voting shouldn't be so much about every person voting but encouraging everyone to want to vote.
I agree that "The poor and blacks are not too stupid or poor or lazy to vote" but it ain't always as easy as all that "to get a picture ID or get to the polls". I think I've explained the difficulty we had getting my 90+ yo mother the required ID. It used to be simple enough... they sent us a voter ID card and we showed it at the polling place. Not any more, though I've kept my card. Mass purging of the voter rolls is a solution in search of a problem.
ReplyDeleteI know why the voters distrust the election process: It's because their elected officials are out there promoting The Big Lie and claiming voter fraud where none exists, with no evidence ever presented. That 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election had actual provable problems, including Kemp maintaining his Secretary of State position throughout the election process, which is a clear conflict of interest. The state wrongly flagged over 300,000 people as being ineligible to vote. 53,000 voter registrations were delayed by Kemp's office but the applicants weren't notified. Black voters were the ones most affected by these issues. I'm not claiming it affected the outcome of the election so am not questioning the results even though I recognize the problems there were; but the new laws don't address those problems at all, instead focusing on not allowing volunteers to provide water when providing enough polling places so that waits don't take so long might be an approach better suited to improving access to the polls.
Trump lost. There was no voter fraud beyond whatever occasional "Oh, I forgot I voted early" and "But my dead Mother's last wish was to cast her vote for Trump, so I just mailed in her vote for her" there is. Those kinds of things are always caught.
To your suggestions:
1) Our state doesn't require in-person voting and I would oppose that. Why forbid provisional ballots?
2) Our state already requires a picture ID, which imo is effectively a poll tax since they cost money and a not insignificant amount of time to get. Make them free and provide more locations to get them, that's my counter-suggestion.
3) Our state allows for early voting. I support that.
4) I agree media reporting of "exit polls" and such affects the election. I'd support some kind of press black-out on reporting those kinds of projections.
5) Our state allows absentee ballots that are more liberal than you suggest. I'd not support the further restrictions you suggest.
6) I don't know of any states that don't allow party representation at vote counting.
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Voting is a civic responsibility but not a communal activity. Each individual vote is important, as is encouraging each person to want to vote.
Provisional ballots are issued when someone goes to the wrong precinct or in some other way has raised questions as to their right to vote.If you can't figure out where you need to be that's on you , go where you're told and vote in the proper place.
DeleteIf you can't buy alcohol or cigarettes or book a hotel room or many other things without ID why should you be able to vote without one. Where do you cut off who gets a free ID, besides an ID is not beyond most peoples means. People make choices and choosing not to have an ID is equivalent to choosing to live outside of society' if you don't want to live within the constraints of society maybe you shouldn't be voting on how that society will be taxed and governed.
Early voting and mail in ballots should be few and rare. I know you believe no shenanigans go on with our ballots but why make it easier to cheat.
Purging the rolls is necessary and not done often enough. In our precinct you can see the book where registered voter are listed and all 3 of my children were still registered to vote years after they moved out of the city.
Memphis is a pretty big city maybe voting is purely a civic thing but I live in a township and election day is a time where people run in to neighbors and friends they haven't seen in a while and catch up. The local church has soup buffet where many people stop and visit and remember we are a community so at least in small town America it is a communal event.
Provisional ballots are also issued if you think you have a right to vote but have been wrongly purged or they have made another error of some sort. It ain't always about not being able to "figure out where you need to be".
DeletePoll taxes are illegal, charging a person to vote is illegal, and so I'm saying requiring an ID that costs money to obtain is effectively a poll tax. There's no need for the voter ID to be tied to the drivers license bureau. If they can figure out how to track all the male citizens in this country for draft purposes, then a voter ID should be a no-brainer. Many people have IDs that aren't accepted for voting purposes, so it's also not about not having some kind of ID but about getting an ID that the state has deemed sufficient for voting. Again, the mess our state made of this is instructional but too long a story to tell here. All citizens have a right -and I'd say a responsibility- to vote. Whether or not you drive and have access to one of the places that provide those licenses and IDs isn't about "choosing to live outside of society".
Early voting and mail-in ballots don't make it easier to cheat, though I realize you believe it. I'm waiting on any evidence supporting that idea.
Mass purging of the rolls is not necessary, though I'd certainly support requiring the records department that registers death to notify the office that keeps voter rolls of all deaths of people 18+ so those can be removed. Tens of thousands of people are removed wrongfully during these purges, though, and if they're going to "clean up" the rolls they should be a bit more careful in the process. As far as I know, there's no evidence of people voting in the names of people who've moved. It's a solution in search of a problem, with the "solution" causing tens of thousands of voters to lose their right to vote, while no evidence has been provided that there's a problem other than how some people think it looks.
Even when I've voted on election day I've never once run into anybody I know at the polls. We can't run all our elections so they suit small-town America.
When you leave everyone on the rolls regardless of weather they are legal to vote in a jurisdiction and you mass mail ballots you open the door to cheating. It's a bit naive to assume people aren't cheating because you wouldn't. No Id's in many parts of the country people left on the rolls with no activity in years,ballots mailed out indiscriminately, People gathering up ballots and delivering them for other voters, and people wonder why there is little confidence that elections are run accurately. You can say there is no fraud but no one can prove one way or the other because we refuse to operate with proper controls.
DeleteRequiring an ID is not a poll tax it is reasonable safeguard that each person only gets one vote.Not to mention it is probably to a persons benefit to have an ID. Because you can't hardly function in society without one from applying for jobs to getting a bank account and so many more day to day activities.
Happy Easter!
DeleteI'm not assuming all this cheating isn't taking place because I don't cheat but because there's been no evidence submitted -including in all those dozens of Trump court cases- to support the claim. Saying "You can say there is no fraud but no one can prove one way or the other" doesn't acknowledge that you can't prove a negative, and that it's up to the one making the fraud claim to prove it's true. Or at least to provide some evidence of it. If I claim there's an alien base on Pluto and then when you object I say, "but you can't prove it one way or the other" I would hope you would point out my responsibility to provide some kind of evidence for my claim.
Requiring an ID that costs money, and at least in my state photo IDs that meet the requirement cost money, is effectively a poll tax as it then costs money to vote. Most people may well already have some form of ID, but most of those don't meet the current requirements for voting.
I hope you have a blessed day. It's beautifully sunny here today :)
Thank you it was beautiful here as well and it was great fun watching my 4 grand kids run around the front yard looking for eggs. I enjoy our back and forth,God bless you and your family as well.
DeleteOh, what a delightful image! No grandkids here, but Easter egg hunts at home are some fond memories for me both growing up and when my kids were little.
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