I had to visit a government agency today to take care of some paperwork. The experience was as awful as I expected, which might be one reason it’s so easy to convince people that government agencies are hubs of incompetence devoted to inconveniencing citizens while extracting hard-earned dollars from their wallets.
Don’t @ me, bro — I believe in government’s power to do good at every level, and I am fully aware that most public servants are intelligent, hardworking and diligent. But I’ve noticed there’s often a conspicuous absence of evidence of this at the business end of bureaucracies. Maybe customer service training, massage chairs, WiFi and coffee bars would help? Just a thought.
Anyhoo, such errands are more arduous now that I live at the ends of the earth, so I listened to a podcast on the lengthy trip to the Waiting Room for the Recently Deceased from “Beetlejuice.” It was “With Friends Like These” from Ana Marie Cox, and she and her guest, Rebecca Traister, discussed the recent election results and the Democrats’ white woman problem, which we discussed earlier here.
Both acknowledged that Stacey Abrams was robbed. Traister was in touch with Abrams as she organized during the run-up to the election and talked about her (Abrams’) efforts to expand the electorate rather than count on unreliable white women or change the (tiny, narrow) minds of Trump voters. She mentioned that Gillum did the same in Florida, as did O’Rourke in Texas.
Traister and Cox recognized the incredible accomplishments of all three of these candidates, who made a race out of it in very inhospitable territory for Democrats. They also acknowledged the accomplishments of candidates who pulled off improbable wins, of which there were many.
The Cox-Traister consensus on future strategies for the Democratic Party boiled down to “more of this, please” with an all-out effort to push back against voter suppression. That makes sense to me.
But I heard election night and day-after commentary that struck a very different note, suggesting that the fact that these three specific candidates lost proves that Democrats can’t rely on a strategy of pulling folks off the sidelines but must instead find a way to appeal to, if not Trump voters, Obama-Trump voters.
I think that would take us to places we don’t want to go because, despite the assumption on the part of some pundits, a vote for Obama is not evidence that the voter couldn’t be persuaded later to support a racist demagogue.
Maybe it’s a glass half-full or half-empty thing, but despite the shitty result in my own state, I find the overall midterm results an affirmation of the “expand the electorate” strategy, not a proof point against it. What do you think?
TenguPhule
Sounds good. Remember, government employees dealing with the public always get the shit end of the deal.
And have to pay for their own employee Christmas parties. And their own employee fridges and hot water heaters.
FelonyGovt
Absolutely expanding the electorate worked. We need to work on voting rights, and on encouraging young people and others who previously didn’t vote that their vote does matter. Most Trump supporters are either (1) hopeless or (2) secretly having buyer’s remorse (I’m convinced) and will vote the right way on their own, but may not admit it.
Sorry, Betty, but I think Florida is hopeless.
Corner Stone
It reminds me of the kind of person who gets mad about people discussing race and racial relations. The more they hear the madder they get until they start blaming other people for them becoming racist if it keeps up.
Personally, I’m fine with doing without anyone who could have ever voted for Trump. I am also fine with doing without NeverTrumpers.
J.
I think Democrats need to expand the electorate AND appeal to folks who voted for Obama and Hillary, i.e., be the big tent where everyone is welcome as well as the party that actually has ideas/policies that will lift all boats, to mix metaphors. I don’t see this as an either/or problem. And I think the right candidate(s) can appeal to both constituencies.
schrodingers_cat
When people complain about government services, I have no fucking idea what they are talking about. As if dealing with private sector bureaucracies is fun. Call Comcast and get back to me.
Yutsano
Your state just voted to massively expand the electorate. I can see many things changing in the next two years because of felony re-enfranchisement. It only sucks because it will take four years to bounce out L’il Marco.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Typically state government services like licenses. Or road repair.
Stuff that you feel immediately.
FlipYrWhig
“Expanding the electorate” is also just ethically good. We’re supposed to be being ruled by the consent of the governed. When more people vote there is greater consent.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: TBH the only bad experience at the DMV I have had was when I lived in MD outside DC. In MA, you can renew your license online.
ETA: I have a high level of tolerance for DMV type low grade nonsense, because I have dealt with INS and Indian government bureaucracies. Do. Not. Want.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
“We appreciate your call and are working diligently to improve your services. Your position in the queue is 12. While you’re here on the phone, would you like to hear about our wonderful new service bundle…..”
wjs
It does not matter that Beto lost in Texas. He proved he could win anywhere where there are Democrats who will vote.
Beto, Abrams and Gillum lost because of systematic voter disenfranchisement. That’s all.
You are goddamned right we want more of this please because we are close to pushing their whole rotten scheme over. We have to keep fighting and not give up because the midterms have exposed the GOPs charade for what it is.
Corner Stone
Sheryl Sandberg is the fucking devil.
JPL
If you look at my comments before the election, I said Lucy McBath could not win the 6th district. Because of her hard work and Stacy’s support she ousted Karen Handel. A state house seat flipped also. If it can happen here, it can happen in Florida. just sayin
catclub
I would like to hear more about GOP get out the vote efforts, because they appear to be both very effective, and virtually invisible.
Do GOP voters just vote with no ( or minimal) encouragement?
The radio and the internet are full of Democratic GOTV stories. The GOP nearly matched those, and I heard NO stories.
What is up? Is it some 300lb kid who knows the cyber?
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Has to be done in person in Hawaii at City Hall.
Average processing time including waiting in line is 1-3 hours.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@FelonyGovt:
Ohio is in the same boat. I’m so disappointed in so many of them. They voted no on drug sentencing and probation reform and voted for Governor. My area even lost both of it’s state seats to Repukes, one of which explicitly linked himself to Trump in ads.
Even better news, is that the R dominated Assembly is going to pass the six week fetal heartbeat law and Stand Your Ground. I hate this fucking state and I think it’s probably toast.
eclare
@wjs: This, times 1,000. And yes, let’s see what happens in the next election in FL when 1.5M felons are able to vote.
geg6
I’m with you, Traister and Cox, Betty. Fuck ‘em all if they won’t climb aboard the train.
FlipYrWhig
@schrodingers_cat: @TenguPhule: They mean “look at how many people are leaning on shovels instead of digging.” And what they’re thinking is “if I was that lazy and surly I’d get fired.” And yet they go back to their jobs and fritter away time on the Internet and hope the boss doesn’t find out. Because it turns out they’re at least as lazy and surly in their private sector jobs as any public employee in in her public sector one.
TenguPhule
@JPL:
If it happens in Florida, it usually can’t happen here because anyone that crazy and/or stupid has already managed to kill themselves by accident.
David Fud
@FelonyGovt: 1.5 million potential new voters next FL election might prove otherwise.
TenguPhule
@eclare:
Gun control repeal will be first item on the ballot.
I wish I was joking.
catclub
@schrodingers_cat: “In MA, you can renew your license online.”
Also in MS
OTOH, MS tax forms are fillable PDF’s but you cannot save them after you fill them. WHY NOT?
Federal ones you can save.
rikyrah
I have absolutely no interest in a Democratic Party reaching out to Dolt45 Voters.
None.
Phuck those muthaphuckas.
Unless they’ve had a Come to Jesus moment and realized what they did…
Phuck outta here trying to appeal to them. They showed their lack of character when they voted for him.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
The devil has better fashion sense.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
In the GA 7th CD, Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux trails useless GOP incumbent Rob Woodall by < 500, or around 0.1% of the total. She's insisting on a recount. Good.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: Your call will be ignored in the order it was received.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@TenguPhule:
Does he wear Prada?
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
I am absolutely interested in making Trump supporters less likely to vote.
tobie
Expanding the electorate seems like the best way to go and all the more necessary given the gutting of the VRA. We’re not going to win over committed Trump supporters and organizing a campaign to recruit these voters is a lost cause. I just saw this in MD-01. The Dem candidate went out of his way to bash the Dem party and ended up with 38% of the vote, which was a tad better than the Dem candidate the last time around who had no funding and no campaign.
Authenticity also seems to count for tons in politics, and it’s what made Abrams, Beto and Gillum such compelling candidates.
I really have to wonder how many Obama-to-Trump voters there are. I don’t know if 2016 tells us much on that score given that it was the first election after the dismantling of the VRA, and Trump did turn out a lot of low info voters in rural areas who don’t generally participate in the electoral process.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: Well played.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: After all, the Devil wears Prada. Sandberg wears soccer-mom chic.
Dorothy A. Winsor
When we moved to Iowa, I was surprised by how quick a trip to the DMV or Social Security Office was. I suspect it’s because the population is sparse. Michigan’s DMV was a trial and the one here in Illinois is bad too.
rikyrah
@FelonyGovt:
Uh uh uh
Hold it.
Prop 4 just passed.
Nearly one out of every FOUR of age Black voters COULD NOT VOTE.
Prop 4 has the potential to be a game changer.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@schrodingers_cat:
Yeah, seriously. Bureaucracies are bureaucracies no matter if they are private or public. The reason bureaucracies exist in the first place is to handle the complexity of their tasks in the first place. There literally isn’t a better system at the moment. Without them modern life wouldn’t be possible.
gwangung
@rikyrah: If they come to US, I don’t have a problem with that.
@SiubhanDuinne: Hell, yeah. I don’t have a problem with ANYONE (Dem or Republican) who wants a recount when it’s that close.
The job isn’t to get it down fast…it’s to get it done RIGHT.
catclub
Betty, can you release my response in which I mistyped my email ? Thank you.
Daoud bin Daoud
Fuck the Trumpeters. Let’s focus on getting out our base!
Yutsano
@rikyrah: I’m waiting for them to double down on another form of disenfranchisement. I’m not sure what they all are cooking up, but it’s going to be something evil.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: The experienced sucked, that’s what the fuck I’m talking about. If you’ve had a wonderful time at the DMV, Social Security office, public health department, etc., I’m glad to hear it, but allow me to suggest that isn’t universal. I’m sure Comcast sucks too — I know from personal experience Verizon does (and have written about it here) — but honestly, your retort is “whataboutism” bullshit. There’s no reason to treat people like shit, not at private entities, and not at public ones.
Corner Stone
@schrodingers_cat: Comcast has gone to the, “If you’d like a rep to call you back later please press X and we’ll contact you within 30 minutes.” There’s a reason I am calling now. Just get me someone who can reset the damn box.
hitchhiker
The data I’ve seen shows that the Trump base can be easily activated by racism (caravan, anyone?) and misogyny (Hi, I like beer!) — but that in most places these very tactics now activate the anti-Trump base just as hard.
Seems like the goal should be to focus on an electoral map that has room for us to grow — meaning, places where non-voters can also be activated by things not necessarily related to Trump, or not seen as hate & rage against his very image.
For example, the decision to hammer on healthcare was really about healthcare & not about what a fucking pig he is, right? Voters know the difference between having coverage and being afraid to let anybody know they once had a cancer scare. They know their kids are turning 26, many of them with only gig jobs to support themselves.
As far as the Obama Trump voters, all you have to do is look at Michigan and Ohio for evidence that it goes both ways. When he’s the focus, bad shit can happen (see rallies in Indiana). I think the best way forward is to govern, push back on lies that have to do with the everyday experience (9 new steel plants!) of voters, and generally be fucking steely-eyed when it comes to corruption.
Also, I adore Traister but Cox gets on my last nerve. Her and her Jesusy recovery story make this old woman’s eyes roll ALL the way back .
eclare
@TenguPhule: Florida has gun control?
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: I am sure it sucked. I sympathize. May be its because of all the Rs Florida keeps electing.
ETA: Its not whataboutism to point that most bureaucracies suck, some more than others. Also never said that my experiences were wonderful just slightly less annoying than having to deal with the likes of Comcast and such.
eclare
@rikyrah: QFT
Corner Stone
Hagar Chemical is someone’s real name?
Johnny Karate
Take it from one who knows, there are plenty of right wingers working for federal, state, and local governments. Like Ron Swanson, without the personality and skills.
Eric U.
One of the reasons that Gore “lost” Florida was that the felon voting ban was used by Bush’s people to disenfranchise people that weren’t felons. Certainly can’t hurt to take that away from them.
laura
The shrinking government plan -courtesy of the owners of America is designed to banjax up every service that we all NEED and fund with our tax dollars. Bring a comfy chair and copy of War and Peace when visiting your regional social security office. Try and be one of the first 4 arrives when attempting to do business with your county’s VA coordinator. Lose valuable final days with your loved one in attempting to access earned benefits.
Then imagine being one of the few remaining representatives who first has to hear the struggle and flaming hoops of even getting seen before assisting with whatever it was that necessitated an appointment.
Watch the Merde a Lago cabinet plan to steal all the moneys from the VA and other government benefits and programs.
I want big, juicy, government and well paid government employees, less contractors, and fewer Republican fuckwads, so incapable themselves, they wouldnt recognize efficient reliable service at reasonable rates if they tried.
In the New New Deal, I demand a jobs program so big, so responsive to public need that it kills a Koch brother, hell, all the Kochs, DeVos’ etc.,
bemused
Democrats need to be actively connecting, meeting with voters in every district, every day, all year long not just when election season is gearing up. The party needs to invest money in hiring people to do the outreach with offices in every district. Voters are lazy and often, rightfully, feel neglected. Pay attention to them, woo them every day, go to those tiny, off the main track areas when it’s not campaign season and they will notice, at least I think many would lose some of their pox on both parties cynicism and start feeling like Dems are taking their concerns seriously and might have their best interests in mind. Just my two cents.
SRW1
@catclub:
Also not if you install a program (like PDF24, shareware) on your computer that will allow you to ‘Print to PDF’?
Pogonip
I’ve had much better luck with government bureaucracies than with private ones. (If my call is very important to you, Mr. Businessman, then hire somebody to answer it!). However, the bureaucrat is, like all of us, a subject of The System: she didn’t program it, she can’t override it, and it makes her life at least as miserable as it makes the customer’s.
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: My old town built the internet backbone as a public utility. It took a while to get going but its the best internet connection I have ever had. I have had the unholy Trinity of Verizon, Comscast and Time-Warner at my various abodes through the years. They are all bad, terrible.
Corner Stone
Did the font change for anyone else? Get a little smaller?
trollhattan
Here’s a Hot Take I think we can all be excited over.
Hey, Wilmer’s doing a “town hall” thing. If squishy Dems would only take his lead.
kindness
Meh. I think Ana Marie Cox was better at saying things when she ran Wonkette. Since she left, she is the same as all the other media people, or at least not different enough.
Mnemosyne
@wjs:
This. Any discussion of expanding electorate that doesn’t mention that hundreds of thousands of people in Georgia were robbed of their right to vote because some bureaucrat spelled their name wrong at some point is missing the forest to point out a couple of interesting leaves.
In fact, we can probably use people’s instinctive distrust of bureaucracies to help us win people over to the voting rights side. A bureaucrat at the department of elections spelled LaMonica Washington’s name with a small M instead of a capital M, so she was refused her right to vote. Does that seem fair to you?
A lot of these voter suppression schemes like Exact Match (or whatever it’s called) assume that every bureaucrat gets every piece of data entry correct, always. Let’s use that assumption against them.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
Yes.
trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
Nope (Chrome)
Haroldo
@laura:
This.
P.S. Thanks for the word ‘banjax.’ I’m now on a mission to use it at least once a day.
CaseyL
The turnout percentage this year blew all previous turnout percentages out of the water. I think a good thing would be to follow up on the new voters; keep them involved and interested – in local as well as national politics. Every new voter will talk to their friends and, hopefully, encourage those folks to turn out, too.
Let’s not waste time or energy appealing to Trumpists/diehard GOP voters. If they’re a scattering where you live, we don’t need them. If they’re a majority where you live, I don’t know what to say other than to offer my sympathy and hope they die off soon, and in higher numbers than the replacement rate.
feebog
Part of the problem in expanding the electorate is that some states (Texas, Florida) it is incredibly difficult to register new voters. I read an article just before the election about the hoops you have to jump through in Texas; you have to attend an all day class, and not just once, every election cycle) We need a national standard for registration. As far as I am concerned, new voters should be registered at birth. When they turn 16, renew. No question about citizenship that way, so no need for ID laws. Also, just frikking do it by mail. Works in 3 Western states and in California well over 50% already vote absentee. Easy. Quick. Inexpensive..
kindness
@trollhattan: Let us know when Bernie becomes an actual Democratic Party member.
catclub
@tobie: “Authenticity also seems to count for tons in politics,”
If you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made.
Corner Stone
@kindness: I’m not really a fan of AMC but she can pull a diamond nugget out once in a while. And those cheekbones though.
Mike in DC
One of the reasons why people of color don’t always “vote their numbers” is because they skew younger on average than white people in this country. So their vote share lags their population share. If their vote share equaled their pop share, Republicans would get slaughtered at the national level, unless and until they adjusted their policy/tone to appeal to POC.
Gravenstone
@trollhattan: Funny how grabbing onto a visible pair of coattails suddenly becomes ‘forcing a debate’. Fucking poseur strikes again.
Betty Cracker
@bemused: I believe Kay made the point that not only should districts hire folks to do outreach, they should hire locally. That makes a lot of sense to me. It would be a hell of a lot cheaper than massive media buys and likely a lot more effective.
Corner Stone
@feebog:
I think I am reading this wrong. What do you mean?
schrodingers_cat
@tobie: My example of Obama to T voter, voted for Obama when the stock market was collapsing, and had no faith in McCain to be able to restore the economy. When the economy was stable in 2016, had the luxury of voting his prejudice.
ETA: I have no idea what they did in 2012. Also don’t discount the misogyny among the Obama to T switchers and especially the HRC hate.
rikyrah
@hitchhiker:
As far as the Obama Trump voters, all you have to do is look at Michigan and Ohio for evidence that it goes both ways.
I will remind folks, that for all the stories about Obama to Trump voters…the number of voters THAT WERE VOTER SUPPRESSED in the key states (Michigan, PA, WI)….THAT NUMBER?
Was 2-3 times the margin of Dolt45’s ‘ victory’.
In EACH of these states
trollhattan
@kindness:
So many flaws in a scant few grafs I hardly know where to begin, but that one will do.
catclub
@SRW1: Yes, i realize I can save that way, but then the form is no longer fillable.
Getting closer, but not there.
trollhattan
Anybody able to watch streaming video may be interested in this, from an email I just received from my good buddy Dave Eggers*.
*Which may or may not be true, who’s to say?
The Moar You Know
This is by design. Absolutely it is.
Otherwise people would think government was awesome. Can’t allow that!
They make you wait for hours in a space that hasn’t been cleaned for months and take large amounts of money from you while treating you like shit. That is not an accident. And it really doesn’t have to be like that. Ask any half-successful retail chain.
waratah
I am amazed how many Republicans were giving advise to Democrats after the election.
I think we must be doing good.
Martin
Holy shit would that backfire.
I run the business end of a bureaucracy, and these things can be fixed, but mostly it happens despite, rather than thanks to, the larger organization. There are three main culprits, IMO:
1) the business end of any organization is almost perpetually underfunded because you’re always seen as a cost center. The higher ups never conclude that the reason you lost 5% of your customers is because your customer experience is shit, rather they think a shinier ad or new product is in order.
2) Organizationally, public services routinely struggle because they’ve hired the wrong people. Not that the people are bad, rather that the people you needed 5 years ago are different than the people you need now. This is why startups succeed so often – they can start in the new place, where the incumbent has to go through this laborious process of reforming their staff – either through layoffs/hires (hi, IBM!) or through massive training, which has high opportunity costs and is slow. The DMV is bad because unlike Nokia, nobody could come along and disrupt and replace them.
3) Related to the above – public services don’t have the option of choosing their customers. A household Fortune 500 company might reach 10%-30% of their addressable market. That’s somewhat by design. It allows them to pick and choose the problems they are good at solving. BMW isn’t interested in customers with shitty credit trying to get off the lot for as little money as possible which is why the are positioned where they are. If you want the cheapest possible new car, look at Yaris, or Fit. Honda and Toyota will talk to you, but Infiniti and Lexus will not.
The DMV has to deal with every customer. There really is no ‘I’m sorry, we just can’t help you’. And that makes 1) and 2) above WAY harder. If some startup could come in and provide drivers licenses with no proof of identity whatsoever, small a population as that is, then the DMV would be massively better because of it – they could simply stop dealing with that problem. They don’t get that option. Instead, if you walk in and say ‘hey, I lived in Paradise and everything I own burned, I need a replacement drivers license ASAP for my job, and I have nothing to hand to you to prove I am who I am, then through one mechanism or another, we have to help you. Where a normal customer might take 10 minutes to issue a replacement drivers license, this one might take 10 hours. But because we like to compare the efficiency of public institutions to select private ones, and fund them accordingly, we then encounter 1) above – that any time it takes longer to get a replacement drivers license than a replacement gym membership or we get some anecdote of how a public employee took 10 hours to replace 1 drivers license, then it’s indicative of waste and incompetence, rather than recognizing that the gym probably would have told that person with no identification to fuck straight off, that the 10 hours to replace wasn’t worth the cost of the membership.
And that also means that the pareto optimized solutions that private industry uses rarely transfer well to the public sector. If Anthem Healthcare loses a customer record, then nobody really gives a shit other than that customer. But if the VA loses a veteran record, then there’s going to be a congressional hearing on CSPAN over it. Public sector always factors in customers providing a certain amount of the labor involved in a service. If I lose your record, I can trust you to come and tell me about it, and do a bunch of paperwork and so on. If the Registrar of Voters loses your record, you’re going to yell ‘voter fraud’ and I wouldn’t blame you for it.
Everything in public sector needs to work for everyone, and that inevitably is hella expensive and difficult to do.
jl
” But I heard election night and day-after commentary that struck a very different note, suggesting that the fact that these three specific candidates lost proves that Democrats can’t rely on a strategy of pulling folks off the sidelines but must instead find a way to appeal to, if not Trump voters, Obama-Trump voters. ”
The situation looks so different now that I don’t think election night or day-after analysis is very useful. And, to the extent that our current fix is to cater to Obama-Trump voters, I don’t see how center-right corporate Democratic schtick, or mouthing misguided white-working class PR BS that doesn’t have much policy content is the right approach. And who knows how important group this is in the big picture? That is a serious question. If anyone knows, please post a link.
I think country will respond best to center-left to progressive policy agenda that helps everyone from poor up through middle class, somewhere between Pelosi and new progressives in Congress.
satby
@Mnemosyne: honestly, the signature match verification should strike fear into the heart of every voter. How often does your signature exactly match a previous version? The people who dreamed up that law knew it would be an easy disqualification of legitimate voters, that’s why they passed it.
Mnemosyne
The CA DMV has automated a huge portion of their renewal stuff and they give you the stinkeye if you go to their office in person to renew your license or car registration. They’ve even empowered some smog check facilities to do your smog check and then give you your new registration and tags on the spot, which is awesome.
And if you’re able to plan ahead, you can make an appointment at your preferred office, but they’re so popular now that it takes about 4-6 weeks to get one.
On the other hand, don’t get me started about our city’s public water and power department. Ugh. They kept saying that we had a past due amount but no one at BWP could tell me what it was. It turned out that there had been an overpayment and then rescinded payment two years before but they never sent us an invoice for what was due afterwards. That sucked donkey balls, and I seriously almost lost my job over it because my boss thought it was my fault.
Mart
There is hope for Florida Dems winning. After a long and distinguished career of losing Dem votes (most recently by not following expert advice on how to format a ballot), Broward County election supervisor Brenda Snipes (a Democrat) resigned. Realize “sniping” only on her is not all fair, – GOP funding of the number of voting machines and the quality of machines were out of her control.
OTOH – Missouri privatized getting the drivers license. It has amazed me how much better it works. Kind of a pleasant experience.
eclare
@schrodingers_cat: I have read that the aberration was not the Obama to Trump voter, it was the W to Obama voter. As you noted, when the economy was collapsing, some voters put aside their racism to vote for the more qualified candidate. In 2016, they were doing better and could come home and let their racism flags fly.
Yutsano
@The Moar You Know: I just did my license in Washington online. Less than ten minutes and I had the temp ready to go. The last time I had to renew in person it was no longer than 15 minutes because the DMV was small and out of the way but at the same time well staffed.
But we need at least one more in my area. One DMV to service 300,000+ people is massively ridiculous. And the state doesn’t seem interested in changing that.
The Moar You Know
@eclare: I’ll tell you what will happen. Not much. People who land in prison for felonies are not people who ever voted in the first place.
With aggressive recruiting, if you got a five percent return rate on those folks, and I think you’d be lucky to get that, you get 75,000 voters. Is that helpful? Hell yes, Trump won by less. But it is not going to be the world-upending.
There are reasons you give felons back their voting rights, very important ones, but it is not because you expect them all to become voters. Let alone voters who will vote your way.
Jay
Getting a new mobile phone from the same service provider I have used for over 30 years, took 2 hours of my time,
( mostly because every clause in the contract had to be reviwed, explained, signed and initialed)
Renewing my Drivers Lisence took 10 minutes, in person.
In the last General Election 48% of registered voters, couldn’t, didn’t, wouldn’t vote.
You are probably going to get way more votes out of that group, than the wretched MSM’s “mythical” Obama/Trump voter.
janesays
@FelonyGovt: Gillum lost by by less than 0.5% and Nelson lost by less than 0.25%.
Wyoming is hopeless. Florida is not.
bemused
@Betty Cracker:
Oh yes, locally and I’m sorry I forgot to emphasize that and it’s an important component. It just makes sense. I know there are Dems in my area that love to do that if the Dem party would rent a space permanently and pay them to work from there plus there would be people volunteering to help. Spread the blue wave locally in every district in the country.
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
I have never once had to wait to renew my license here in PA. We do have to go to a licensing center, but it’s never crowded if you go on a weekday. Even, sometimes, on weekends. Depends on how many high schoolers are there to take their driver test. But they are never there on weekdays, so I always go then.
Mnemosyne
@satby:
Oh, yeah. Especially since they have poll workers making the decisions independently with no checks and no audits, as far as I can tell. If one clerk decides they don’t like how your signature looks, your ballot is SOL.
Brachiator
I have been away from the Internets and media for a while, but coming back, I am not really seeing this commentary, nor do I believe it. The stories I’ve been stockpiling about the election does not support anybody’s conventional wisdom.
The reality seems to favor the Democrats, but with a lot of caution. Most pundits figured that the Democrats would regain the House, but no one saw how emphatically the Republicans would be rejected in some races. On the other hand, much of the South and some swing states are Trump/Republican strongholds, and it is unclear that voter suppression made a huge difference in these races.
Also, some analysis is showing that voter turnout was high, and that new voters (those reaching voting age this cycle) and and people who had not previously voted before were strongly leaning towards the Democrats.
But of course you are going to have to appeal to some Trump voters. They made too strong a showing, especially in state offices (governor, Senate). And gerrymandering is the strongest form of voter suppression. But this does not mean that you have to promise them the same crap that Trump is offering.
bemused
I just watched Book event on cspan with Rick Wilson and Max Boot. I didn’t learn much new but listening to the two of them together made 45 minutes or so go by quickly.
trollhattan
@satby:
My sig changes radically with variations like the pen, the paper, time of day and how much coffee I’ve had. My SS card happens to have my signature from grade school. What does that tell anybody, exactly?
satby
@Martin: Very well explained. In my former life as a corporate drone I was a business process engineer. And having to serve everyone, with perpetual understaffing, outmoded technology, and budget cuts is a nightmare. The miracle is that anyone gets services all.
WestTexan70
Expand, expand expand.
And when you’re done with that, expand some more.
I’m a white male in my late 50s. Other than one other guy, I don’t know anyone who looks like me in my 250,000-plus town who would admit to ever voting for a Democrat. That “try to convince the white Trumpies to vote for us” shit ain’t gonna fly out here.
Corner Stone
@bemused: I watched that Miami Book Fair event the other day. Fun time but it’s still kind of enraging on some levels.
catclub
@trollhattan: What does that tell anybody, exactly?
That you learned cursive in grade school, but are now back to printing?
Corner Stone
@The Moar You Know: Yes, the 1.5M ex-felons are cotton candy dreams for FL D’s. If they get a net of +/- 50K voters out of that pool I would be surprised. And at what cost in time, effort and money?
TenguPhule
@The Moar You Know:
I don’t know about that. Have you seen some of the Walmarts lately?
different-church-lady
@The Moar You Know: Additionally: I don’t know why people think it’s automatic that felons would choose democrats over republicans. Sure, that’d be the rational thing to do as far as self-interest goes, but felons are not known for their rational qualities, plus we’re talking about Floridian felons here.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@satby: I can’t believe signature match will remain legal. There’s empirical evidence that it fails to work reliably. But then, no one even seems to know there are experts in this stuff. A friend of mine worked for the labor dept doing surveys. They tested their document design. Of course they tested it! Are ballots tested? I doubt it.
Luthe
@Betty Cracker: I am a firm believer in the “hire local” strategy, but based on my experience this year, I think the local hiring needs to be a bit more targeted. The organizer for my slice of CT-5 was a great guy, but he was from one of the wealthiest towns in the district. Which meant he was clueless on how to canvass the small majority-minority working-class city in his assigned region. If they had gotten one of the city residents as an organizer, I think they would have been more effective (and properly targeted non-English speaking voters).
Also, they could have done a better job mapping likely voters for the canvassers, but that’s just my inner map nerd being salty.
Feebog
@Corner Stone:
Yeah, hastily typed. In order to registered voters yet have to attend a class. Plus, you can only register voters from your county, not anyone else. You are from them that parts, maybe you can add to this.
trollhattan
Watch out Donny, here comes another mob of Guatemalans!
Caravan II, Volcanic Boogaloo.
different-church-lady
There ain’t a government agency anywhere in this country that’s half as incompetent as any given part of health care administration.
eclare
@different-church-lady: If Republicans did not think giving felons the right to vote would hurt them, they would not have been so stingy about restoring the rights. Each individual case was up to whatever mood Rick Scott was in that day.
Jay
@different-church-lady:
Because a lot of Floriduh Felons are African American’s who went to jail for doing while black, what White People do all the time with either no consequences or just community service?
cain
@TenguPhule:
I was just at the social security administration place, and everything went beautifully. I had a simple problem though, but the people were good, friendly and wanted to help. (This is Indiana!) Of course, it helps if you don’t come off as an entitled asshole. So, make sure you treat everyone with respect and things go well. I also bought several reading materials and what not.
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
The current Health and Human Services would like a word.
different-church-lady
@eclare: Yeah, that’s the rational take.
joel hanes
@TenguPhule:
The devil has better fashion sense.
Especially as played by the young, debonair Peter Cook in Bedazzled.
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-bedazzled-1967-dudley-moore-peter-cook-bdzz-005foh-29114619.html
He is, after all, a man of wealth and taste
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@satby:
Exactly. Peoples’ signatures are getting sloppier too due to no longer teaching handwriting in schools as well as new tech.
Ruviana
@trollhattan: Wow, Dave emailed me too! He knows so many people! :)
jl
@satby: Yes, I agree with you and Martin.
It is not really my main thing, but I did have to learn a few practical things in addition to statistics, in grad school. One of them was the basics of operations management (mainly since it was nice application for a lot of the math modelling I had to learn) and cost accounting.
I notice that there is a mania among BS business consultants that large organizations like to hire, for declaring every little thing a ‘cost center’. Then you slop out some BS cost accounting system. Then you declare that, according to your BS cost center definitions and arbitrary cost-accounting system, everything has to make a ‘profit’, and right away. And then you mouth some BS about market, run things like a real business, and hard choices that removing inefficiencies demands, which make no sense, and is actually wrong by the logic of economics and good management practices.
I think this destroys innovation, makes exploration of useful innovations impossible, and for customer satisfaction, removes good old AB testing opportunities, doesn’t recognize the almost always unavoidable arbitrariness of allocating joint overhead costs.
Recently I got huge pushback on a proposal for operations management instruction for health professionals and grad students who want to run big projects, because I wanted to emphasize that if you don’t build some slack into inventory, workflow and queuing systems, they blow up and you have unmanageable problems, usually sooner than you think. People started yelling about ‘just in time’, not realizing that for that, the trick is to push the slack further down towards the production or service line to reduce overhead costs. You don’t try to operate with no slack at all.
I try stay away from it, since it just seems hopeless, and people in charge, who are often functionally innumerate, won’t even try to listen.
TenguPhule
@cain:
“But I want it done now now now!!”
/every DMV at some point in time.
The Moar You Know
@different-church-lady: Basically my point. I know of what I speak. Family confession: my long-estranged cousin is one of the fine individuals that Florida just chose to allow to vote again. He was a dedicated non-voter before. You’d better pray he never starts voting, because every election he will be voting for the Nazi party, preferably the real one led by Hitler if at all possible.
Measure 4, or whatever it was called, like I said is a good idea (you want people who have done their time to feel like they have some, any, no matter how pathetic or small, sort of stake in society) but this is not Christmas For Democrats from Florida voters.
joel hanes
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I suspect it’s because the population is sparse.
It’s because Iowa has a long-standing good-government tradition that is taking the Rs at least two generations to destroy.
Iowa traditionally had good schools, good roads, and good state service offices.
different-church-lady
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: We live in a country where half the dipshits are just fine with the idea of their Facebook log-in being their identity, so we can pretty much forget about the handwriting front.
trollhattan
@Ruviana:
We’re a special group–FOD (friends of Dave). When’s the next cult meeting?
joel hanes
@Betty Cracker:
You live in a deep red state, in which the elected officials are committed to the idea that government is one of the problems, and people who need government services are another. Of course the government services are shit; they’re intended to be shit.
cursorial
Expand the electorate and contest every race we can. Absolutely. Even with the deck stacked, an African-American woman came within 1% of winning Georgia? A Democrat came nearly as close to a Senate win in Texas?
It’s only a perverse media narrative that frames this as “Democrats should change their approach” and not “Why are Republicans even having trouble defending these offices?” No way we should buy into that. Focus on fixing the process, and accept that losing races is the price of contesting more territory.
satby
@trollhattan: @catclub: and the digital generation doesn’t even try to write letters. I use Square at the market, and everyone under 35 just scribbles a few humps across the screen when they sign. Impossible to match because they aren’t actually signing their name.
LuciaMia
I suggest an omelette station. Extra protein helps, ya know.
NobodySpecial
Breaking: 16 Democratic idiots in the House.
https://twitter.com/scottwongDC/status/1064589248660209666
jl
@joel hanes: That’s one thing I like about Iowa, besides the beautiful farm country and some very good universities, (with great statistics departments!). People might not see it now, but it had a long history of progressive, and good, public governance, which may save it from the sad fates of some neighboring and nearby states.
Jay
@jl:
JIT works great, for “stuff”, when it works.
When it doesn’t work, you are buying 50 first class Air Canada seats flying one way out of Tokoyo for boxs of LCD’s.
The local LCDB branch has figured out JIT staffing. Everybody who’s not needed to man a till at that moment, is doing something else, even busy work. When the line at a till get’s 3 deep, they open another till.
LongHairedWeirdo
Expanding the electorate is the right option. The right wing base is toxic and crazy, but not all people who share demographics with “the base” actually believe the conspiracy theories and hatred.
I also think that people should *use* the base-binding hate used by the GOP *against* their opponents. Force them to either go on the record supporting or denouncing it. “Do you believe that it’s proper to joke about murdering journalists, like this T-Shirt from CPAC suggests? You were a speaker at CPAC, weren’t you? Were you aware of this level of hate when you accepted the speaking invitation?”
I’m not suggesting *candidates* can necessarily do that – but the root of our problem is that there are vile lies told and believed, and unless we acknowledge that, and find some way to use it, everything else will just be “the next election” rather than a true change in course.
JustRuss
@hitchhiker:
This. Chasing Republicans is a fool’s errand, the GOP is very good at pushing their racist and authoritarian buttons. Expanding the vote brings people who are reachable. More importantly, “everyone gets a vote” is supposed to be the cornerstone of freedom and democracy, Democrats should own it and hammer Republicans as unAmerican for fighting against it.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
You used to be able to go to a local Auto Club office and do vehicle registration renewal. Don’t know if they still offer that service.
Still, California DMV has massive problems with wait times, and this new Real ID bullshit is only going to add to the problem. From a Sacramento Bee story.
I had to go to a local office a couple of years ago, and customer service was excellent. On the other hand, I got to jump the line because I was using a cane due to a knee injury.
This morning, I passed by a DMV office during my commute. It was 7 am and already there was a long ass line of people waiting for the office to open.
Also, this is what’s up at the DMV website.
The Paradise issue is totally understandable, but Porterville… Man, that just sucks.
piratedan
@Martin: ty Martin, that was some incredible truth right there and if I can pile on..
#1) be polite… yes, I know that when you deal with customer service its not because you want to, many of the people on the front lines really do want to help you but they suffer from many off the same ills that all of us suffer in just about any other profession… management skills and priorities that actually have little to do with problem solving and maintaining a customer base.
#2) have you act together when you call/visit… know your serial numbers, key pieces of information, model numbers, new addresses, what have you, the more you have your act together, the fast the process tends to go…. receipts matter, dates matter, specifics help.
#3) if you can’t get them off the script, ask for a supervisor, politely…. many times the people up front are constrained by silly protocols and standards that try to be one size fit all and rarely work (see management idiocy) and recognizing that they are as constrained by their own rules and protocols as we are in our own jobs (think Bob Parr working in insurance in The Incredibles) but are unable to help because to do so would penalize them, consider it the no good deed goes unpunished school or corporate ineptitude.
jl
@Jay: LCDB branch is a good example of organizing work flow so the slack is pushed further down towards service line. Find alternative productive activities for staff that can be picked up and left off quickly, and move them to just a few feet or yards from critical service lines for queues.
But, you see, that is a mistake, better to start declaring all sorts of shit profit centers and roaring around fussing around with arbitrary accounting profits, disrupting stuff and putting pressure on people. “Put people in an impossible situation and then, gadammt, hold them strictly accountable’, that’s the way to do it!
satby
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I’m an old, but I have no real interest in the “teaching cursive” controversy. Electronic signatures don’t require pen or stylus to flat surface at all. Even if they did, signatures change over time and writing environment. It’s a stupid standard to base verification of a fundamental Constitutional right on.
trollhattan
@jl:
Iowa is so freaking schizophrenic. Steve King’s district used to be the 5th–a vertical slice of the entire western boundary and intermittently Democratic–but they lost a district and he now has a stranglehold on the 4th, a northwestern rectangle. I have to believe the continual farm belt depopulation saw the sane cohort leaving in larger numbers and upping the crazification factor of the remainders. My little hometown was once over a thousand and has dwindled to about 250, just like all the other surrounding towns. Still three churches!
H.E.Wolf
Yes, expand the electorate. And expand it widely.
As a volunteer database wonk in 2018 (I was a volunteer, working with a statewide database of GOTV volunteers), I was interested in the patterns I noticed in the 14-month run-up to the election.
Women of all ages (high school through post-retirement) made up 75-80% of the GOTV cohort. Male volunteers also spanned that age range, with higher rates of activity in the under-25 and over-65 cohorts. Some of that is probably due to workforce participation patterns, and some is due to women’s response to actions of the current GOP.
High school and college students were very active. Retirees were very active. Strong Democrats were very active. People of color were very active. White people were very active. Residents of both blue and red areas of the state were very active in favor of Democratic candidates.
What I want to participate in, going forward into 2019 and 2020, is a focused effort to build on all of this. Having volunteered in 2017-2018, and having seen the demographics of the volunteers, I’m optimistic.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Had my once-in-a-millennium renew your license in person event at the beginning of the year, just weeks before Real ID registration began. Day-umn I wish I’d been able to handle it right then and there. Going back will be like scheduling a root canal.
Now where the heck is my birth certificate, anyway?
Ruviana
@cain: Why are you in INDIANA??? I thought you were in Denver. In fact I thought you’d fled back to Portland. I haz a confuse.
Betty Cracker
@joel hanes: To be fair, the federal offices suck too, with the added suckage of having to look at Trump and Pence’s ugly photos.
@The Moar You Know: You’re right, it’s not necessarily Christmas for Democrats. But in a state where 20% of potentially eligible black voters were disenfranchised — many on bullshit and overtly racist cocaine law disparities from the 80s and 90s — it’s an opportunity. Given the razor-thin margins that decide elections around here, it could be really consequential. We’ll see, I guess.
catclub
@satby: Impossible to match because they aren’t actually signing their name.
also never used except in the rare case when you might be asked, “did you sign this one?”
Also VISA and MC have dropped signature requirement, as far as I know, so I make no effort beyond a squiggle.
Monala
@schrodingers_cat: I recently had to convert my existing driver’s license to an Enhanced ID in Washington state. Despite hearing lots of stories about how long it takes, and how expensive it would be, I was in and out of the DMV in a half hour.* And although getting a new EID would be expensive, upgrading from an existing driver’s license only costs $4 a year for every year until your existing license expires. So it cost me $12.
* I will add that the clerk at the DMV said she was happy I was prepared with all the documents I needed for the EID, which enabled her to process it quickly.
Jay
@jl:
Yup. The LCBD doesn’t use the Optimized Scheduling Program where past staffing and sales shcedules future scheduling, and ruins the sfaff’s lives. Instead, the same staff works fixed schedules. If someone’s out sick, the store get’s slammed, someone get’s injured, maybe the empty boxes just get stacked rather than cut down and loaded into the recycling bin.
BTW, in 2016, almost 60 million eligible voters, didn’t vote.
Working to get those people to vote is going to produce way more votes than chaseing “persuadeable” ReThugs.
Hair Furour is already doing the heavy lifting of driving “those voters” away.
Ruviana
@satby: Yeah, as using a phone as a credit card reader spreads that’s growing. And they tell you to just “scribble your finger on the line.” As an old with a fairly distinctive signature this drives me absolutely around the bend.
TS (the original)
@catclub:
Could it be that in GOP areas – it is easy to vote? No hour long waits, no hassles about identification, machines working, adequate staff?
The Pale Scot
There but for the grace of Dog go we;
WAPO ‘Nothing on this page is real’: How lies become truth in online America
There really isn’t an answer to this, is there. Not even a test of logical abilities so as to vote, she’d pass it. And with the new video editing software arriving that allows someone to make a video portraying someone saying stuff they didn’t, we’re all set to ride down the shit tube. We haven’t seen nothing yet
jl
@trollhattan: I’ve been meaning to re-find a research review I read a while ago. There is a body of research showing that rapid and cheap intercity transit helps with the regional depopulation problem. For example, in Germany, a good intercity high speed rail system is improving economies of smaller outlying regional centers that have gone into decline. See, it is cheap for you to commute from the boondocks Main Street into the Big City. But you can also commute from the Big City into boondocks Main Street. So, better more convenient lives for the ‘lesser people’, revitalizes previously declining boondocks Main Street with high skill labor, which seems to bring economic innovation back to boondocks.
This next is me geusstimating, and extrapolating. The part of the review on Germany said that convenient high speed passenger and freight transit lags in East Germany, except for corridors between Berlin and old West Germany. One of reasons old East German’s economic development lagging. And I read that old East Germany is center of new right there, perhaps because of frustration with lagging regional economies
CA needs a good high speed rail system for more than just global warming. Development in OC, SF Bay, and Los Angeles was supposed to help the boonies, like Central Valley, but hasn’t. SF Bay Area high tech development has zipped straight east through UC Davis, Sacramento through Reno. Neighboring Central Valley areas are, even compared to what they used to be, still pits.
joel hanes
@trollhattan:
the sane cohort leaving [Iowa] in larger numbers and upping the crazification factor of the remainders.
Too many of the young and smart and ambitious leave and never come back.
The remaining population thus skews older, less educated, and more likely to belong to a fundagelical sect.
In my hometown, the liberal Protestant denominations that were once “mainstream” are all hurting for lack of congregants, while the abortion-is-murder and homosexuality-is-abomination churches have been growing for decades.
I think I see signs of a Christian re-alignment, though: the liberal mainstream Protestants have finally had enough, and have been stung into engagement and action. My hometown Presbyterian church has organized a phone and letter campaign, calling and writing every legislator’s office every day, to advocate socially-liberal government policies. And the congregation includes more young couples with kids, again, after a decade during which most of the heads were gray, if not white.
tobie
@Luthe: In our local office, we had an intern from either the national party or the state party, who led the canvassing efforts. I should find out if this was a state-based or national party initiative. It helped a lot.
Chetan Murthy
I’m sure [b/c I’ve experienced it too] that our FPer, BC,is right, b/c … geez, we’ve all dealt with the DMV, haven’t we? Ugh. So much UGH. So I thought I’d provide some “government nice time” as an antidote. A few months ago, after over 5yr, I decided to stop my Netflix DVD-by-mail and go back to using the public library for DVDs. In SF the library has an online catalog, and I tried to login (with my card&password) to reserve a DVD. No dice, in decipherable error. So I called up the local branch, and the (ohmigosh) so helpful librarian both diagnosed the issue (told me “your card is expired”) and then proceeded to -volunteer- to renew it over-the-phone. I didn’t even think to ask that — was gonna walk over and do it in-person (<10min walk).
Lordy, I went from "no access" to "logged in and reserving DVDs" in 10min. I love my library, but more than that, I love the librarians who work there.
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
Word.
In my work life I deal with the Department of Healh and Human Services and MaineCare (Medicaid) every day. They earn shit for wages and are chronically understaffed.
When Republicans aspire to a government so small you can drown it in a bathtub, do they honestly think a government that small can adequately respond to demand??
joel hanes
@Betty Cracker:
federal offices suck too
Yup. Too many years of Republican control of Congress or the Executive branch.
Twas better for a while under Clinton. Was better under LBJ.
The Pale Scot
Could someone release my comment which I clumsily dbl submitted plz?
Ruviana
@joel hanes: It’s small and spotty but there does seem to be a growing progressive wing of the white evangelical church driven by young people. The black evangelical church has always been more progressive in some matters, hence my distinction.
Villago Delenda Est
Or, just perhaps, the pundits are actively trying to discourage the expand the electorate strategy because it would force them to abandon their comfortable, well worn narratives and actually do their motherfucking jobs as journalists again.
Fuck it. Wipe them out, all of them.
The Pale Scot
@kindness: ,
Which was her goal all along
Villago Delenda Est
@joel hanes: Understaffing customer service positions is part of the strategy of neutralizing government as a check on corporations and the parasites of the .01%.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
I know that I’ve become a worse person since the election because I have completely lost all sympathy and caring (!!) for anyone who voted for the apricot asshole. They knew exactly what kind of hate they were endorsing.
schrodingers_cat
@joel hanes: Funny thing, the USCIS offices in CT and MA where I went to when I applied for citizenship had a photo of you know who. I wonder why. This was in 2017.
My study booklet still had President Obama’s signature in it.
TS (the original)
@Brachiator:
They have ONE camera? An office designed to fail.
cmorenc
@eclare:
Predictions:
1) Fla. legislature will attempt to enact new provisions effectively limiting when a felon qualifies to become an ex-felon able to vote;
2) also including extra-aggressive efforts to screen the remaining list of would-be-qualified ex-felons for other reasons to disqualify them (e.g. various mismatches between i.d. and information on voter registration form) – using deliberately error-prone criteria to increase the harvest of rejected voter applications
3) law enforcement personnel/ district attorneys in many red-leaning Florida counties/towns will focus on re-converting ex-felons to felons via selective strict enforcement of certain provisions in the Fla penal code – possibly helped by collusion with Fla Secretary of State’s office identifying which ex-felons turned out to vote in off-year elections, ahead of 2020.
4) In any precinct where ex-felons are more concentrated, make voting generally as inconvenient as possible (fewer voting booths, anything to make for discouraging and inconveniencing ex-felons from voting.
trollhattan
@jl:
Good points. If you could get on a train in Tracy that delivers you to Sunnyvale in half an hour via mountain tunnel, Tracy would become a showplace and the halo effect would radiate up and down-valley. Getting up at four on your Tracy cul de sac to do battle on the wreckage of I-580 for two(?) hours each way is suboptimal.
trollhattan
@joel hanes:
I can well recall my parents’ tales of the Catholics v. Lutherans in our town. Suppose it’s possible they got worse, not better in the meantime.
trollhattan
Hey parents and religious freedomizers, knock this shit off NOW.
You managed to discriminate against families who do not care to have their kids sick unnecessarily.
Brachiator
@Martin:
Interesting example. They lost my record in the primary election.
LA County. First, I learned at almost the last minute that my polling location had changed. They mailed me a notice, but it arrived just the day before the California primary. Then, my name was not on the voter rolls, a glitch that affected several thousand people. However, I was given a provisional ballot and the voting procedure was clearly explained. There were obviously news stories about this, and later I could go online and verify that my ballot had been received and counted.
I did not have any problems in the November election, but double checked poll location and that they had me down OK early. Also, I early voted when I had an opportunity.
So, even though there was a problem, it was anticipated and people and the system made sure that any lack of accommodation was minimized.
I don’t think it’s a matter of expense at all. Some public sector and private sector organizations have the same problem. They are so big and also the only game in town that there is no cost to them if they treat you like shit.
Organizations that have good customer service are organized and managed to give good customer service, and actively monitor results. Shitty companies run by platitudes instead of performance.
Some years ago, I did work for a tax preparation company that had a reputation for excellent customer service. They were purchased by another company and proceeded to dismantle every process that contributed to great customer service. The key thing is that they not only ignored warnings and suggestions by staff, they also ignored customers, and depended on inertia (the hassle of converting data to another software product and training staff on a new program) to keep customer losses to a minimum. The new company made a good product, but did not particularly care about customer service.
I have observed this consistently. Companies that care about customers actively organize to perform. Companies that don’t care about customers often talk bullshit, but actively create or maintain barriers that prevent anyone from providing customer service.
Michael Bersin
Yes, yes, let’s ask Claire McCaskill (D) how a “let’s get the mythical centrists who supported Donald Trump in 2016 to vote for you in 2018” strategery worked out. The base didn’t turn out so well in Kansas City and St. Louis. The result:
Josh Hawley Republican 1,249,854 51.457%
Claire McCaskill Democratic 1,103,461 45.430%
divF
@The Moar You Know: There is one other impact to ex-felons’ voting that I haven’t seen mentioned, which is that you’ve eliminated one criterion for incorrectly culling a voter off the rolls.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Holy crap. I just got back from a meeting of my building’s wine club. Things are a little fuzzy around the edges.
Brachiator
WTF?? Another shooting?
James E Powell
@schrodingers_cat:
I think that right there was the ballgame.
Yutsano
@Michael Bersin: I don’t remember the pundit’s name, but apparently McCaskill was doing a terrible job in outreach to the African-American communities in both St. Louis and KC. That could have made the difference for her except she just HAD to tack right at the end. Sigh. Let’s just hope Hawley’s AG scandals catch up with him. You and I and the Missouri walls know they exist.
@Brachiator: Time to break out yer tots & pears! That is what we do now right?
The Pale Scot
@jl:
Educated women leave east German men behind
· Study reveals massive female exodus since 1991
· Record imbalance leads to fears of male underclass
—
link
Where have I heard that before.
trollhattan
Further Calif election good news:
Persistent, I’ll give them that.
trollhattan
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Monday? Wine? Sounds like the week is off to a humane start.
MomSense
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I was drinking wine while making bolognese. Wine for the sauce, wine for me.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@trollhattan: I think I need to eat something.
Yutsano
@trollhattan: Watch him. He sounds like our professional also-ran Dino Rossi. Those kind tend to never get the hint and piss off.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@MomSense: You and Julia.
Shana
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I don’t know what the arguments state-wide were, but my nephew, a former addict, was against it because it had no mechanism for treatment, just “release them all” or at least that was his take. I don’t live in Ohio but he does.
Michael Bersin
@Yutsano:
Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D) from Kansas City and Representative Lacy Clay (D) from St. Louis had a thing or two to say about that.
“…Clay said he and Cleaver offered to collaborate with McCaskill on a ground game strategy, but were rebuffed. McCaskill’s campaign disputes Clay’s characterization…” (in the Kansas City Star)
debbie
I have to renew my driver’s license on Friday. I expect all kinds of horribleness.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
Come sit by me.
trollhattan
@Yutsano:
Tuck? Agree, he’s one of those professional-candidate types sticking around hoping to get lucky. No thank you, sir.
Baud
@MomSense:
@rikyrah:
Make room for Baud!
germy
what a surprise.
rikyrah
@Yutsano:
She was never forgiven for her non-actions during Ferguson.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
Thurmond has a reputation for standing up for students. I hope he keeps this focus.
debbie
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
My brother is a family therapist and drug counselor. He was very much against the issue because there is a loophole which made possessing 19 grams of fentanyl (enough to kill 10,000 people) a misdemeanor.
I was against it because this crap does not belong in the Constitution. I also believe passing this issue would have ended drug courts, which my brother says are beginning to have a real effect, especially when compared to just releasing addicts.
Frankly, the Ohio Legislature needs to write and pass this issue themselves.
rikyrah
@trollhattan:
Good.
No better for him??
debbie
@MomSense:
Me also. I hate my family and will hate them all Thanksgiving weekend for being together and having fun without me. Bastards.
debbie
@rikyrah:
I absolutely agree. Make them prove they deserve to be with us.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
Most of them have online chats now. I use them instead. They can’t hear me swearing at them while they type in their responses. It helps.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
@debbie:
I want to win and defeat the Republicans. And so, I just want people to vote for Democrats. I’m not looking to date these people.
Barbara
@trollhattan: The electorate has seen charters up close and no longer considers them to be a magical pony.
Humdog
@Shana: @debbie: I know where you are coming from. I hope you have good company during the holidays and forget to care what your R voting relatives are up to. But it is hard to know your relatives are happy to be schmucks. I feel shame, fury, a little bit of “if I had done x, maybe they’d have been better” delusion, then feel lonely or orphaned, then back to shame.
Happy Holidays!
James E Powell
@NobodySpecial:
Any way we can help produce a deluge of phone calls, cards, and letters suggesting that perhaps they ought to shut the fuck up?
trollhattan
@Barbara:
I think a slice of charter-curiosity comes from a genuine interest in “trying something new” but at this point I’m unaware of evidence they’re more successful, plus there’s a lot of shenanigans misrepresenting student success. But the majority of backers, especially the moneybags, are union busters. “Won’t someone rid us of these parasitic teachers?!?”
Ruckus
@Martin:
Any visit to the DMV or the VA, or even a ride enough on the Metro will tell you that there is a segment of the population that is exceedingly tough to work with. And on any day it can be most any one of us, depending on what is going wrong and what if anything can be done to fix it. Which sometimes it can not be fixed because the problem is not with the bureaucracy but with the person not understanding that laws, rules procedures change or that he/she has no understanding of those procedures in the first place. But as you say the service/product must be delivered so far more time is taken with 5% or less of the customers, which can’t be spent on those who do understand.
oatler.
https://www.alternet.org/pulitzer-prize-wining-reporter-explains-why-walls-are-closing-trump-he-shot-himself-foot-firing
“If we can get through Donald Trump, we have a fighting chance outlasting the Roman Empire as a free republic. America is not going to be run by old white men over the next half century. It’s going to be run by people who look like the freshman Congress coming in: 61 duly elected members of Congress, of whom 19 are white men. There will come a time — in two years, I hope — that Donald Trump will be a citizen again and subjected to the rule of law in full.”
TenguPhule
Ivanka Trump used a personal email account to send hundreds of emails about government business last year
Of course she did.
And I predict this will quickly go down the memory hole because IOIYAR.
Yutsano
@oatler.:
This is a horrifically stupid statement. Just because he’s President he’s not above the law. Yes there is a specific process for handling criminal claims against him that is broken because of partisan politics but it’s not because he’s “above the law”. He’s not untouchable. And that fact is going to hit him in the face rather soon I think.
TenguPhule
Trump administration officials suggested sharing census responses with law enforcement, court documents show
Honest to Betsy it really looks like Republicans want to literally break every law on the federal books. Every single one.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Exactly.
My signature depends on my tremor, how well I can make my hands move where I want them at any moment (it’s not as bad as that sounds but that is also not an unrealistic assessment) and to compare it to one I did even 20 yrs ago is insane, let alone one I did 50+ yrs ago. Plus it also depends on did I use my entire name including the II at the end or leave out the middle name, which is the longest. Or did I sign my quick sig, which is an indecipherable squiggle.
hilts
@TenguPhule
Ivanka is pure, unadulterated shit for brains
debbie
@hilts:
FYI, if you delete your WaPo cookies, you’ll go back to zero for the month.
PsiFighter37
@James E Powell: Seth Moulton must really be begging for a primary challenge. Fuck him, and if weren’t for the fact that we would definitely lose his seat, I would bounce Tim Ryan as well. I hope Nancy Smash gives them the shittiest offices and irrelevant committee assignments.
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I had a second cousin whose dad (I have no idea what that makes him in relationship to me) was a hand writing expert. Testified in court and such. He was more suspicious of the validity of a signature that never changed over time as he said that most people’s handwriting changes with the years, especially people who didn’t learn well in early life and got better or people who have some health issues as they age.
jl
@The Pale Scot: ” Where have I heard that before. ”
I don’t understand what you’re talking about.
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: * did not have..
Chetan Murthy
@jl: @The Pale Scot: I suspect TPS is referring to the same thing happening in America (as long-suffering women with jobs and the ability to divorce tell their asshole hubbies to hit the goddamn road). And again with the “incels”. It’s happening all over the world, as women get economic autonomy..
jl
@trollhattan: ” Getting up at four on your Tracy cul de sac to do battle on the wreckage of I-580 for two(?) hours each way is suboptimal. ”
But how many people from Tracy, Manteca, Escalon, and even Modesto and Turlock are forced into that commuting hell on earth?
Cities like Modesto and Merced have been hollowed out from our big fancy new high tech economy.
As a kid, I remember kids talking what their parents fairly interesting jobs that could give them a decent living. Now, when people say ‘If you have any education or training, why would you stay? There’s nothing, and it doesn’t pay.” it is not a joke, they are very serious.
Will be interesting to see what a UC campus does for Merced. But whatever it does, would be more effective with better transit.
Ruckus
@jl:
Take the current train from LA Union station to northern CA. First, your ride from union station will be by bus to Bakersfield to catch the train. Next freight trains often get track preference over passenger. Next the train actually never goes as fast as the road traffic. It is cheaper than the gas though, has beverage and food service and it comfortable, more comfortable than cramped plane seats at less than half the price. What it isn’t is fast.
jl
@Ruckus:
” Next the train actually never goes as fast as the road traffic. ”
And speaking of roadway hells like the 80, and 580, parts of the 5 can be pretty sad. Going faster than traffic on the 5 is a low bar, on many days.
Edit: And as one who has tried out the San Joaquin for decades, getting to where you might want to go in Los Angeles is much worse than before. I haven’t tried it in a few years. A long time ago you could pick what retail bus you wanted to get on and be in basin, or San Fernando Valley, etc. destination pretty quick. Last time I took it, got dumped in Union Station, and bad connections to anyplace. I hope that has been improved in last few years. Last time I tried it, was such a mess, not worth it again.
jl
@Chetan Murthy: I don’t know if it was snark or trying to make a serious point. Link said what is happening in ex East Germany different from other places, like Scandinavia. So, there is something inherently nasty about East German men, and they unlike their West German counterparts or Swedish men are all boor incels looking for excuses?
JR
@catclub: churches
Jay
@jl:
The German Economy inherited the Soviet Model East German economy, and havn’t done a lot with it.
So the traditional Heavy Industry/Extractive/ Industrial Farming jobs remain. Despite the availability of education, East German men seem to “prefer” staying home in “traditional” jobs.
The Pale Scot
@Chetan Murthy: Yea. Beyond the easy dig at the incel’s meme, this has been happening around the world with a different mechanisms. IMHO, the best way to reduce social disorder is to slap a family on young males, Watching the turmoil in the ME and sub Saharan Africa, it’s young guys who can’t make the scratch for a home to bring a wife to. In Asia, sex selection births skewing the ratio of available women. Not really sure what a solution would look like/
TenguPhule
@The Pale Scot:
Two women for every man to ensure he’s always outnumbered.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
I dunno — when 110 out of 152 opt not to vaccinate, you’re basically saying you’re fine with having your kid get serious illnesses from the other kids.
I wonder if this outbreak will change any of the parents’ minds. Nah, probably not.
Jay
@The Pale Scot:
In China, the big “bugaboo” of sex selection produced a ratio of 100 women for every 104 males in the early aughts, 100 women for every 109 males.
In the US, the ratio is 97.4 men for every 100 women.
All those “surplus” women havn’t seemed to help the Incels, the MGTOW’s or the Rust Belt.
Maybe the issue is that a lot of women would rather get an education, job skills and a career, and find a supportive partner, than live with an emotionally abusive cartoon of a “masculine” male who decided to bail on an education and continual personal development to take an economically precarious “macho” job.
Ruckus
@jl:
The Metro train service has changed all of that. It has also allowed TBTP to redo a lot of scheduling which helps a lot. But there will always be problems. On sat a buddy and I were meeting at Union station to catch the train to Long Beach for an industry show. He lives 30 miles from me and has to take MetroLink. He got on, went one stop and the train broke and couldn’t be moved. Instead of 40 min to get to the station, it took him almost 3 hrs. I waited for him for 2 hrs. We then got on the Metro line and got to LB in time for the show. It was far more convenient than driving, as we’ve done for years, even with the delay, which is unusual. It must have been a bad break, most of the trains using that line were canceled till after dark. So MetroLink, which is regular diesel/electric and makes longer runs and the Metro electric commuter lines have made a huge difference.
jl
@Ruckus: Thanks. Next time I go to Los Angeles, I’ll check up on the transit. Recently, when going down for work, I’ve been able to schedule days off around either side, and have taken Coast Starlinght and Surfliner to close to where I have to go. Did that twice. Not $ outrageous when, after pointless fussing, work will reimburse some of it. But they would rather pay more reimbursement for airfare or rental car, because that is SOP, not weird exception. I can’t make a steady diet of that approach. But both trips were fun, and beautiful rides.
Ohio Mom
@Shana: Nope, not true, expanding treatment opportunities was part of the plan, as well as increased services for victims.
Maybe biggest thing Ohio Issue 1 would have done is retroactively reduce some drug felonies into misdemeanors.
That would have made it much easier for ex-offenders to find employment: they’d be able to skip over the part of job applications which ask, Have you ever been found guilty of committing a felony?
I don’t watch TV anymore so I am cut off from a lot of what gets spread around as news. Apparently there was a good-sized disinformation effort against Issue 1, and it succeeded.
I share Goku’s distress about what how backward Ohio has become.
smedley the uncertain
@NobodySpecial: Match those signatures.
debbie
@Ohio Mom:
If you’re still around, please see my comment above about Issue 1 (#184 or thereabouts).
Domestic short hair tabby (fka vheidi)
@Corner Stone: late to the party, but Yes!
Joseph A. Miller
@bemused: This x 1000.