Well, this is disgraceful:
As of 11am, voters waited 5+ hours to cast ballots @ the main Cobb Co. early polling location (736 Whitlock Ave, Marietta). Some seemed unbothered by the line. “It doesn’t matter how long it takes…we’re voting like our life depends on it,“ said a voter. #gavotes @11AliveNews pic.twitter.com/gA5wHLoyit
— Andy Pierrotti (@AndyPierrotti) October 12, 2020
Thankfully, these heroes were determined:
This is the voter. Her name is Viola Hardy. She got in line at 6:20am. She was still in line to vote at 11:15am. pic.twitter.com/dbcHcIRrf8
— Andy Pierrotti (@AndyPierrotti) October 12, 2020
Someone in the morning thread (Kay, I think?) said if the Democrats win the presidency and control of Congress, a new VRA should be priority #1. I agree. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act needs to happen immediately. And seriously, impose jail time for secretaries of state, governors or whomever else is responsible for situations where Americans have to stand in line for hours every election just to vote.
I get that fuckups can happen and polling places can be unexpectedly overwhelmed. But we see this in the same neighborhoods in the same states every year. It’s obviously a voter suppression tactic, and the perpetrators need to be held accountable for violating people’s most fundamental right as citizens. Enough of this bullshit.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Yup, voting rights are Job One.
JPL
I got to the voting site thirty minutes early and there were 80 to 100 people in line. I’m trying again in the morning and if that doesn’t work, there is a senior center tucked away near one of my son’s house. I’ll go there. My other son stood in line for five and a half hours but he did vote. It was the lack of voting machines, but the lack of verifying your right to vote.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I keep wondering how these pasty-faced, drawling, blubbery, narrow-shouldered, soft handed, effete, weak and lazy “men” of movement conservatism can actually look at themselves in the mirror after they’ve had a gigglefest on how they’re going to use suppression tactics to keep “them” from exerting any control on the policy direction of all levels of government.
Can you really look upon yourself with pride for keeping the franchise from elderly black people (many of whom don’t have proper birth records because they were prohibited from obtaining services in their community hospitals by law or custom)? Is there no shame?
Yutsano
Pass a retooled even stronger HR 1. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act needs to be in place and beyond Supreme Court judicial review. The conservative 9 will try to stretch their authority but fuck em.
Kent
In my mind, this is the biggest reason of all for the Democrats to consider court expansion at both the lower levels and SCOTUS. Because the conservative Federal courts have shown their willingness to be absolutely complicit with every bit of this sort of voter suppression and denial of civil rights. They lost their fucking right to any sort of deference when they sign off on this sort of thing.
This is a bigger deal than Roe or the ACA in my mind. If the Dems have unified control of Congress and the White House they can fix both Roe and the ACA through immediate legislation. But insuring voting rights doesn’t just mean a new voting rights act. It means ripping control from all the conservative judges who aid and abet this sort of racist tyranny.
A Ghost to Most
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: The ends justify the means. Guilt or shame are to be dismissed.
raven
It’s been packed at the courthouse in Athens all day but I don’t know what’s up in the other 4 locations.
Chetan Murthy
Does anybody have good ideas on orgs that are providing support to voters in these (insanely long, criminally wrong) lines? I mean, food, chairs, stuff like that? Maybe they could use some money?
JPL
@Chetan Murthy: Ha I offered to bring my son water, but he didn’t take me up on the offer. I do plan on watching the local news and see what updates they have.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Got a news alert saying Trump is planning on sending 50,000 ‘poll watchers’ out, should we take bets on how many show up?
Yutsano
@Kent:
Simple enough. Make the whole law not susceptible to judicial review. Conservative judges can’t overturn what they can’t review. Oh it will still go through the system, but if these hacks decide to completely ignore the text of the Constitution then we balance the courts. I mean, 13 circuits requires 13 judges no?
Chetan Murthy
@JPL: I really worry for all the older voters who will have to stand in line for hours and hours. I’d hope that many brought chairs with them, but y’know, when you’re old enough that you’re a little frail, carrying a chair a long distance is already a trial. And then there’s the heat. And the humidity.
ETA: I sent some $$ to Black Voters Matter about a month ago, but …. clearly there are still unmet needs.
Belafon
I am planning on voting a little later in the early voting days. But this will not be a year I vote on election day.
Betty Cracker
@Kent: I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t understand how any of this works. But how can it be legal to disenfranchise citizens every time there’s an election by providing inadequate facilities for processing votes? How can it be that no one is accountable for this, even though it happens every time in the same places?
Felanius Kootea
Yeah, waiting from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. to vote and not even getting into the building yet is messed up. I love Viola’s quiet determination and that smile. “We’re voting like our lives depend on it” indeed.
Salty Sam
Not if there’s an (R) by your name…
Chetan Murthy
@Yutsano: I’m with Atrios:
Grab Anything That Goes By. It May Not Come Around Again.
With hindsight, “we’ll rule forever now so it’s ok if we wait for permission from the noble opposition,” was perhaps not an especially cunning plan.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Yutsano: Maybe a couple of extra justices for the DC circuit, for a total of 15.
Kent
It shouldn’t be. But when these sorts of voter suppression techniques are challenged in court we find conservative judges upholding them. Like what just happened in Ohio where the courts seem willing to allow the GOP Secretary of State to proceed with his order of only one ballot drop box per country. Or in NC where the courts seem to be willing to allow the absentee ballots of POC to be discarded for technicalities rather then allowing them to show up and “cure” them with new signatures and such.
There should be an absolute iron clad presumption in favor of voting rights above all else. And judges who stand in the way need to be made irrelevant.
gene108
What we really need is a Constitutional amendment that clearly states that voting is an individual right that shall not be infringed.
Elizabelle
John McCain’s mother just died. Aged 108. Had no idea she had been an oil heiress too. Godspeed, Roberta.
WaPost:
Baud
@Yutsano:
There’s a reason the movie is called “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” and not “Nine Brides for Thirteen Brothers.”
Chetan Murthy
@gene108: And that it is a felony to do so (deny a voter’s right to vote and be counted). That states have an affirmative obligation to seek out every eligible voter and ensure they have the choice to cast a ballot that is counted. To. Seek. Out.
dmsilev
In other election fuckery news,
California election officials say GOP’s unofficial ballot drop boxes are prohibited
Those Republicans are potentially at risk of being charged with a felony under state law. It’s not really clear what they’re trying to do, whether it’s just perfomative dick waving or whether there’s something more nefarious (I.e discarding ‘suspect’ ballots) going on.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@gene108: Voting isn’t like guns, that’s just crazy talk.
gene108
@Baud:
Nice, easy to understand talking point.
JPL
Folks in Lawrenceville, GA waited up to 8 hours, and this site was in a minority district. They are going to vote this time….
?BillinGlendaleCA
@dmsilev: If the authorization on the ballot envelope isn’t filled out to designate these folk to deliver the ballot, the ballots are spoiled.
swbarnes2
@Chetan Murthy: I think you have to be careful about helping voters stay comfortable while waiting, because Republicans can construe, say, giving people water on a hot day as bribing someone to vote. I suppose if you loaned people chairs, that might be okay.
Betty Cracker
@Kent: I can sort of see how they get away with bullshit like only one drop-box per county, disqualifications due to technicalities, etc. It’s not right, and it is a suppression tactic, but I sort of understand how they get away with stuff like that.
What I absolutely don’t understand is how the same fucking places can deploy inadequate resources every election day, resulting in hours-long lines that obviously discourage people from voting. It’s not like elections just spring up at random, surprising everyone. There’s a calendar. There’s data that indicates how many people are eligible, etc.
James E Powell
I think the Democrats also have to propose a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote.
That’s just a first draft. Work with me.
Tim C.
Question cause I don’t know. While these lines are normal and horrible, are they normal this long before the election? Not saying this to be Polyanna, but is this an indication of a huge turnout? That’s good news if so.
Cheryl Rofer
@Tim C.: A day or more ago, I saw a report that ten million ballots have already been cast. A few days before that, the number was compared to tens of thousands cast at this time before previous elections.
Kent
@Betty Cracker:
Who’s going to stop them without the courts stepping in to actually enforce the voting rights act? It is the actual policy of the GA government to do it this way. It is deliberate. Only the courts or a Dem Department of Justice is going to challenge them absent some big new voting rights act that they can’t ignore. Or better yet, tossing their asses out.
Right now we have both conservative dominated courts and a GOP Department of Justice. So no one is going to do anything.
glory b
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: They let go of the idea of shame long ago.
Since this is an open thread, I’ll mention here that this weekend Gisele Fetterman, PA Lt. Gov’s wife, tried to make a quick trip to the grocery store without security, was recognized, and verbally attacked in the store, by a woman who repeatedly yelled the n-word at her.
Another customer offerred to walk her to her var, the woman followed her to the parking lot and valled her the n word again.
Remember, this appeared to be someone who recognized her as the Lt Gov’s wife.
dmsilev
@?BillinGlendaleCA: There’s no designated person with those GOP boxes, just …the box. That’s why the state is saying ‘no no no’.
A Ghost to Most
@dmsilev: As predicted. Why Cali, though? Seems pointless, and Jacob Wohl is tied up.
James E Powell
@Betty Cracker:
Every cycle, these longs lines are filled with people of color. The problem is – as with so many things – white people. Republicans expressly disdain POC’s rights to vote. The Democrats, historically, have been reluctant to get too loud about POC’s rights to vote because of their fear of backlash.
They kind of sat on their hands with the Florida voter purge in 2000 and haven’t really done much until this year. By this time, the press/media are fully committed to the RW frame that voter fraud is a legitimate problem and all the Republicans’ efforts are sincerely concerned with voter fraud.
GeriUpNorth
I’m always appalled when I see news stories about people waiting in line for hours to vote. I’ve voted in every election since I was 18, and I’ve never had to wait more than 15 minutes. I don’t know if that would be the case if I had to wait in line for hours. Minnesota also has same day voter registration, so when I’ve moved I haven’t bothered to register in advance, I just show up at the polls with my utility bill and register. If you’re voting by mail and your ballot isn’t accepted for some reason, they will automatically mail you a new one, and they will mail you a registration form with your ballot if you’re not already registered to vote.
It’s easy to vote in this state, and that’s how it should be everywhere! That’s why Minnesota usually has the highest voter turnout in the country.
Sab
Ohio has this weird system. We were an early state from American territories, not British, so we didn’t trust DC much more than London. Our Boards of election are half R half D. Sec of State breaks a tie, but the losers shriek to high heaven and the press.
I think this is a good system. They can fuck with election day voting by restricting voting machines etc, but everyone is equally inconvenienced by early voting problems.
I do not understand what SoS Frank LaRose is trying to accomplish. USPS is a mess in Cleveland from unrelated problems years ago. Every Democratic voter in Cleveland knows where the BOE drop box is. Lots of the suburban voters haven’t been into downtown Cleveland in years and are horrified by the prospect.
Ditto Akron suburbanites: ” Where exactly is downtown?
LaRose lives in Hudson. I bet a huge proportion of his neighbors have never been to Akron in their entire pampered lives. Google search.
dmsilev
@Cheryl Rofer: Per this compilation, just under ten million votes cast so far. Doesn’t include filled out ballots that are still in the mail or whatever, just in-person early and mail-ins received by the counties etc. Some states are already at 25% or more of their total 2016 turnout.
Kent
Needs to prohibit poll taxes or any barrier to voting based on ability to pay of the sort that they have in FL
Needs to automatically enfranchise any prisoner who has served his/her time
“due process of law” is too vague. Most voter suppression actually obeys due process of law. They use all kinds of due process to come up with poll taxes and the like.
I would simply write, “the right to vote shall not be abridged PERIOD, except for people actively serving sentences for felony convictions.
There is no other reason to remove a person’s right to vote. It should be as sacrosanct as the 2nd Amendment
There should also be universal FEDERAL voter registration. Like your social security card. That is how most other countries do it.
NotMax
@Yutsano
It sounds good on its face but why? Assigning a number equal to the number of circuits is as artificial a metric as any other, and inevitably will lead to a demand that nominations for a vacancy be limited to only those who reside in the geographic area assigned a particular circuit.
Seanly
My wife & I live in Idaho so our presidential vote won’t likely matter. However, I want to know that I voted against the bastard. We have to sign our mail-in ballots & my signature looks different every time. My wife & I will be going down to the Basque Block in downtown Boise to vote tomorrow (early voting is usually at the Boise City Hall – maybe they want more room this year?).
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Kent:
Yup, it’s a feature, not a bug. Go to any district where
desireablesdeplorables vote and the setup is entirely different.It’s a combo of a defacto separate-but-not-equal and Jim Crow mindsets when it comes to voter suppression.
Given the states run it, as stated, the only way to get it to change is vote the local bastards out or get an overarching Federal policy that’s enforced.
Again, it’s always about suppressing Dem turnout.
But we all know this.
Chetan Murthy
@glory b:
I assume you meant that the first customer, the racist bigot, was the one who followed PA’s Second Lady out to the parking log. Jesus fuck. Really. I can’t even. I guess I get the idea of yelling at her for her husband’s policies, but …. a racial slur? I mean, plenty of Shitlord sycophants and underlings have been yelled-at in public, and I’d surely yell at Dollar Store Eva Braun if I saw her. So I get that. But I wouldn’t go to a slur against her ancestry. Crikey.
Litlebritdifrnt
@?BillinGlendaleCA: The great thing about early voting is that the so called “poll watchers” don’t know when the voters are going to the polls. Unless they are going to show up every day between now and Nov 4 then they are pretty much useless. From what I have see most dems plan on voting early, the majority of people voting on election day will be Trump voters, so what are they gonna do?
otmar
Btw, I voted in the Vienna municipal election yesterday.
I’ll never understand the fuzz I read in such blog posts. Election mechanics are simply out of scope for unfair play. Automatic registration based on gov data on who lives where is part of it. The local gov does plenty of neutral voter outreach. For god’s sake, they had big billboards with “your x matters” on famous sights like the Riesenrad and city hall. And we vote on Sundays.
By mail you always get a card listing your polling place and your number on the rolls to speed up the process. This year (corona!) they also sent out applications for absentee voting.
Voting took me about 10 minutes yesterday at noon. And that was from getting out of the door to being back. No queue.
Preliminary results were in yesterday later in the evening, absentee ballots are counted today and tomorrow. corona brought a record number of those.
And good news, the right-wing idiots self-destructed this time and send from 30% to about 8%.
Yutsano
@NotMax: I don’t see an issue with the geographical location requirement. Heck I even like that. It would greatly diversify the current composition of the court (is an Ivy League education really a requirement to be a Supreme Court Justice?) and the wealth of experience. It would also bring judges with more experience of the country beyond the east coast elite.
And 13 judges for 13 circuits? Sure. You’re trying to tell me there isn’t a judicial backlog on the Supreme Court level?
Barbara
@NotMax: It was the practice for more than a century. Just as it was the practice to expand Congress as a result of changes in the census.
@Yutsano: They take very few cases and they take cases that disproportionately appeal to their political wishes. The modern court does not serve us well. Maybe it never did, but it certainly doesn’t now.
Yutsano
@otmar: To be fair, you also live in a sane first world country. :P
Betty Cracker
@Tim C.: I think that’s encouraging too. People are showing up! Let’s just hope they’re persistent enough to overcome the obstacles deliberately placed in their way.
Ohio Mom
I get that each state’s voting is managed by the elected Secretary of State, and I see where there are practicalities to the voting process being decentralized.
But having 51 (counting DC here) wildly differing voting periods and rules strikes me as a contradiction to the idea of equal protection. But IANAL.
Patricia Kayden
gene108
@Chetan Murthy:
Gisele Fetterman is not black.
Link to image of her.
James E Powell
@Kent:
A FEDERAL registration? What about States’ Right to deny certain people the right to vote?
You think we should do like other countries?!?!
Why do you hate America?
glory b
@Chetan Murthy: I’ve met her at an event, she’s actually Brazilian, came here as an undocumented immigrant, is now a citizen and has been a great advocate for immigrants and minorities.
She and her husband are featured in one of the last episodes of Anthony Bourdain’s program, he was mayor of Braddock before he ran for Lt Gov, I hope he runs for the Senate seat that Toomey is leaving.
NotMax
@Barbara
Sorry to be so blunt, but that line of argument carries as much water as a sieve. Lots of things were the practice for more than a century and it goes without saying not all of them commendable.
gene108
@otmar:
For most people in the USA it’s similar to what you describe. Voting is a fairly smooth process, where people are not terribly inconvenienced.
But when things get screwed up here, they are beyond any reasonable reason other than wanting to tamper with the vote in some way.
JPL
@gene108: She’s beautiful and I’m glad she shared her story. Normally I shy away from talking about appearances negatively, but all I can say is that woman’s mouth matched her looks.
danielx
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Very easily and without a second thought.
No.
This has been another edition of Simple Answers To Simple Questions.
Sally
@Kent: I’ve commented before, I strongly believe there should be no exemptions to the right of citizens to vote. Including convicted felons. Maybe the jails and justice system would even be improved if their voices were heard. Importantly there would be no confusion about reenfranchising these voters. Why should you ever lose the right to vote? You don’t lose citizenship. Universal franchise.
Kent
You seem to be under the impression that poll watchers are universal or randomly distributed. When in practice it is white suburban assholes like cops and other paramilitary militia types hauling themselves into the inner cities to “watch” heavily Democratic and minority precincts where they try to scare people who might have problematic experiences with the law from coming out to vote.
They NEVER do it in suburban Republican districts.
J R in WV
@Patricia Kayden:
OK, that’s a great 3 sentence riff.
“It’s the same gist!”
Just fabulous…
Thanks!
laura
When Kellyanne was shitmouthing about why people need to show up to vote on election day – this is what they planned for and want – make it as hard to actually do that as possible for the (Frank Wilhoit) “out groups” and easy breezy for the “in groups.”
People can understand the concept of voter suppression when you show them. Trying to keep the evidence off the radar is what we should be on the lookout for.
Also, fuck Brian Kemp with a rusty chainsaw twice sideways.
The Moar You Know
@dmsilev: CA Republicans? Shit, based on what I’ve seen this last week in my supposedly “liberal” beach town, which I have lived in almost all my life, turns out to have a contingent of actual Nazis living here and a crapload more sympathizers with said Nazis than I’d ever have thought possible, they’re burning ballots. I guarantee it.
Kent
I could live with that too. I’m agnostic on the subject. But we do deprive prisoners of all their other civil rights except for the due process rights, so I understand that argument as well. It’s not like prisoners have the right to bear arms or peacefully assemble or run a printing press, etc.
What we actually do is incarcerate far too many people for far too long.
J R in WV
@gene108:
No, she’s Latina, Brazilian so the racist slur was probably not the N’ word, was probably a slur about Hispanic peoples.OK, having seen some of the video, I was so wrong, the ugly woman attacking Ms Fetterman did use the N word, pulled down her mask to make the statement “You’re a N__r!” clear out in the parking lot. So ugly of the despicable woman. Having seen pictures of Ms Fetterman, I’m at a loss for the bigotry shown here.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: My point was there aren’t going to be 50k, not even close.
Kent
Fixed that for you.
CarolPW
@Sally: I think the only reason a felon serving time should be prohibited from voting is if the charge was voter fraud or voter disenfranchisement.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Kent:
There’s no need to. It’s a known fact that *no* voter fraud goes on in any Republican district. /snark
Kent
@?BillinGlendaleCA: No, of course not. They will surgically target key minority precincts. And push the envelope for as long as they can until the elderly poll workers push back and call the police.
Roger Moore
@Yutsano:
We should really have more than 13 circuits, too. California should be split from the rest of the 9th Circuit, for instance. California by itself would still be the largest circuit, but it would be more reasonable than the current size of the 9th. I’m sure there are some other circuits that should be split, too.
Citizen Alan
@Patricia Kayden: I’ve taken to referring to her as “Justice Serena Joy” to the chagrin of the Catholic Federalist Society guy who works in my office.
Sally
@CarolPW: Ha! Fair enough!
Neldob
A good question for ACB might be does she feel any shame, ever, and does she have any shame about how her nomination is being rammed through, and is voter suppression constitutional.
terraformer
I’m continually amazed at this. It’s just so blatant, fuck you and we’re going to close these sites and make people wait. Just, right out there in the open.
That the tumbrels are not laden and do not roll is an indictment on holding to “norms” as a sufficient guard against corruption and malfeasance. Here’s hoping we have a chance to correct all this shit before a competent authoritarian cult and/or personality rises.
Roger Moore
@A Ghost to Most:
Because the California Republican party is barely functional. A functioning party would at least have consulted with a lawyer to try to figure out how to do this stuff legally.
Winston
@Neldob: Could you describe how your religion is different from machiavellism?
Kent
Also this isn’t some sort of master GOP strategy to fuck the election. It just sounds like local GOP MAGA assholes freelancing. And CA is where they live.
Winston
Checked with the election office. My ballot has been received and is in the queue. Polk County, Fl.
patrick II
Is anyone running against Diane Feinstein? I’d like to contribute.
Kay
@Tim C.:
Democrats in Ohio think they are, so much so that they were taking photographs of early voting locations and passing them around in emails. A banked vote is better than a potential vote.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
This is something that goes back to when Taft was the Chief Justice. Before that, the Supreme Court took every case that was appealed to it, though I don’t know if they listened to oral arguments in every case. Taft thought it put too great a burden on the Court and resulted in a massive backlog, and got Congress to agree to the current system where the Court only has to take cases they believe are worth their time. It actually makes sense; there’s no way the Supreme Court could be fully briefed on every case that anyone wants to appeal to them.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@J R in WV: Well, she might be black going by the one drop rule. A lot of Brazilians are. Rashida Jones is black, or at least part black, but you’d never know from looking at her. Not that it excuses any kind of ethnic or racial slur. What a scumbag that woman must be.
Uncle Cosmo
Fabelhaft! Now get your butts across the eastern border & go talk some sense into the damn Hungarians.
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
Burning the ballots makes no sense. They’re putting their fake ballot drop boxes in places where you’d expect mostly Republican voters to use them, e.g. outside Evangelical churches, in front of the local Republican headquarters, etc. It seems like they’re actually trying to make things easier for their own voters. I suppose it’s possible they’re planning on sorting through the ballots and throwing away ones from suspect individuals, but even that isn’t likely to be successful, since people can track their ballots and see they haven’t been received as they should be. I agree with the people saying the Republicans are trying to prove the existence of voter fraud by committing it, but doing so makes as little sense as it always did.
mrmoshpotato
A punch to the Soviet shitpile mobster conman’s fucking orange fascist face.
japa21
@?BillinGlendaleCA: And most that do show up won’t go to the trouble of getting appropriate documentation and will get kicked out of voting places.
Kay
To fix it you would need to get in there well prior to the election and make a demand for the plans for each polling station. I’ve actually seen one of these demands- the Obama campaign used them in ’08. It’s a series of written questions that county boards of elections had to respond to- what machines are they using, how many per polling place, what were the safeguards for a power outage/emergency, etc.
It’s time and labor intensive and you actually need a working relationship with the bds of elections workers – I think everyone involved knows if the plans aren’t sufficient to handle the number of expected voters there will be a lawsuit but when I solicited answers to the questions from our bd of elections they weren’t thrilled but it wasn’t adversarial or hostile.
It’s an investment and it has to be maintained between presidential elections. A longer term project. But that’s what’s required to fix this. Not one big lawsuit, but lots and lots of checking and follow up.
Chetan Murthy
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:
I didn’t mean to imply that she was Black, nor that she wasn’t. Those words (and there words for Hispanics, too) are slurs on people’s ancestry. Just as “camel-jockey” or “wog” is a slur on my ancestry.
WaterGirl
@Winston: !!!!!
cain
@dmsilev:
Just fucking charge them, let them fight it in court. Get them to spend money on lawyers and everything else. Make them pay.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: That is an excellent video!
Who is Don Winslow?
Kay
We need two new voting laws. We need a new and more robust VRA but we also need an election administration law. We have one now- the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) – it was passed after the 2000 election debacle and one HILLARY CLINTON was the driving force behind it :)
Redo that. Make it stronger, with more teeth, and update it to reflect the increased numbers or early and absentee voters. The administration piece is as important as the civil rights piece.
Justice Roberts thinks southern states get their feelings hurt when we put voting regulations in, but that’s an easy fix. Make it so all the regulations apply to every state. He doesn’t like it that some states get less federal oversight than other states? Okay. We’ll heavily regulate all of them. It’s a pain in the ass but since conservatives seem incapable of behaving decently without constant supervision we’ll have to monitor their every fucking move.
Sloane Ranger
Looking at the pictures and videos, there seem to be a decent number of white people in the queue in Georgia so it’s not just black people having to wait hours to vote.
I honestly don’t get how they get away with some of this stuff. I mean I’m neither American nor a lawyer but hasn’t anyone ever argued that the equal protection clause means that there should be x number of voting machines per y number of voters in every polling station? If they have and it failed, what the hell was the rationale?
Chief Oshkosh
@glory b: Yes, the fine upstanding Keystoner who spewed the bilge at Ms. Fetterman is right out of central casting. Just sad. And economically anxious, no doubt.
Ajabu
@J R in WV:
Well, the ugly woman doesn’t look all that fucking bright so probably couldn’t think of an appropriate slur and just went for the first thing that popped into her head. Mrs. Fetterman clearly isn’t “white” (to a real ‘Murican) and the harasser’s vocabulary is likely pretty limited. Dumb ass motherfucker…
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t think it actually is legal. But legal issues require legal responses and that seems like an issue that is stymied by conservative politics in the places that practice this. How many regulars on this blog live in places that have no lines while elsewhere in their states, long lines? I’ve repeatedly told of voting in OH in 2004 and standing 4 hrs in the rain all because of Ken Blackwell, republican shithead. trump is far worse than Ken could possibly ever be and that’s bad. The republican party is what is killing the republican party, we are just living through it’s last years of suicide by bigger and bigger self inflicted knife wounds. Sooner or later they will bleed to death and we can bury them. But they are so far gone that they can’t see what is happening, that it isn’t anyone else responsible for their demise but those fun house mirrors they stand in front of are lying to them.
Chetan Murthy
@Kay: Any new voting administration act needs to outlaw voting machines (except for disabled voters, and under carefully-verified regulations) where voters don’t fill-in their ballots manually (and those ballots get preserved for recounts). Here in CA[1] we use a system where we get the ballots, fill them in (it’s very easy) and they’re tabulated by a machine onsite. So after polls close, it’s quick to roll up all the sites’ tallies. But the ballots are *kept* and can be recounted. We get a barcode strip when we vote, that we’re supposed to keep until after the election has been certified — so that if need be, we could present them as proof that the ballot that got counted, was the ballot we filled-in.
[1] I read that in SoCal, they’re switching to voting machines where the voter selects their votes on a screen; the machine prints out a sheet with a QR code and a list of the voter’s choices, which the voter then presents to the clerk for tabulation by another machine. I think this is a massive mistake, b/c most voters won’t check their votes on that sheet. And the QR code that is used to actually tabulate, isn’t checkable by the vother regardless. I recognize that this is much better for various disabled voters, and sure we need to make allowance for them, but for non-disabled voters, they need to vote “the old-fashioned way”.
There have been arguments made that these new-fangled machines will allow people to vote anywhere they want (e.g. close to work), and not only at their primary polling location. But this is just wrong: make Election Day a holiday. Make it two days. Whatever: just ensure that it’s trustworthy. It’s too important to fuck with just for convenience and the profits of our Capitalist Masters
ETA: But there need to be massive fines and jail time for administrators and their superiors (all the way up to the governor) who don’t allocate sufficient resources so that all voters can vote within a specified wait-time (say, an hour, max [yeah, I know that’s too long, but the important part is to have a max, with penalties, and that that max isn’t *egregious*])
Roger Moore
@japa21:
Most of those “poll watchers” won’t even try to go into the polls. They’ll try to intimidate people outside the polls so they never make it in.
Kay
@Chetan Murthy:
Ohio has the same system and I agree it’s superior. It’s a good balance of speed and security. Jennifer Brunner was our Sec of State and she fought hard for it, and got it. She’s running for state supreme court this cycle.
Another Scott
@?BillinGlendaleCA: “Fight for 15!!”
I like it.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Chetan Murthy:
If it were me I would sue on behalf of the elderly voters, who probably qualify for accommodations as disabled. Those are strong laws and they would be extremely sympathetic litigants. You could hammer a state with a lawsuit like that. It would get their attention and we’d get less chicanery, which is now my favorite word, so thanks Joe Biden.
Chetan Murthy
I could be wrong about all this. But ….
I read about this movement for an Indigenous People’s Day. And I think to myself: if America treated Native Americans the way we treat white Americans, there’d be no need for an Indigenous People’s Day. I mean, I doubt greatly that Catholics in Britain, or Protestants in France (or Germany) have special days when they commemorate some of the atrocities visited upon their ancestors. And there were indeed atrocities. And why? Because for the most part, Catholics and Protestants are treated the same in those countries.
Notably, Catholics are still treated poorly in Northern Ireland (not Britan, but UK) and there are still calls for sectarian provisions.
But I could be wrong.
Sebastian
@James E Powell:
Simple, you deny a voter his FEDERAL VOTE you die in prison as does everyone who knew about it.
Chetan Murthy
@Sebastian: Now THAT is a reform I can get behind!
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: I believe the appropriate term is thugs.
LuciaMia
@Felanius Kootea: Forget a little ‘I voted sticker’, she should get an Olympic medal.
J R in WV
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:
She looked like exactly how she sounded, too. Evil ignorant shrew from top to bottom. Hope she is identified and charged for the harassment. Doubt she can be fired from a job, no way she has one; she is not capable of doing anything well enough to be paid for it.
Another Scott
@NotMax: (Late to the party, maybe already answered, but…)
SCOTUS Justices are assigned Circuits of responsibility:
It makes sense to have a single Justice per Circuit.
And many Circuits are too big. We need rebalancing there, also too.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kathleen
@dmsilev: Just go ahead and think the worst.
Gvg
@Chetan Murthy: sufficient costs money, and election supervisors and boards don’t have the power to set taxes. This means that the culprit isn’t necessarily the board. They allocate within a district of course, but minority areas tend to be poorer and may actually have less money for equipment. Just like school districts, it gets set up that way deliberately. You would have to Have a statewide board responsible with too long a wait measured in comparison. If one area had to wait a lot longer, that would be cause for punishment.
there a lot of laws that say government employees can’t be sued personally for doing their job…I wonder if it would have to be bonuses for better performance.
Sebastian
@Chetan Murthy:
Yeah, enough of this bullshit. Judge im cahoots with SoS? Both die in prison. Aide knew but didn’t report? Dies in prison. Email exchange with governor? You guessed it, dies in prison.
You only need to do this a few times and behavior changes real fast. It has the added benefit to permanently remove ratfuck masternodes like Stone and Libby from the game board.
We keep fending off attacks but do not neutralize the attacker. All this does is give them practice and make them master their craft. Their talent farm needs to be eradicated.
We won’t always be lucky with morons like Wohl and Trump.
Belafon
A new VRA, or dealing with CBP and DHS, or a stimulus, or reconstructing the courts?
Peale
@Kent: I think there should be some national consistency, however. If you look at Florida, for example, there seem to be quite a few things that get elevated to “felonies” that in other states might be misdemeanors. We don’t have a favorable court at all right now to see that stripping felons of their voting rights isn’t very consistently applied because the underlying crimes that count as felonies isn’t consistent.
Immanentize
@Roger Moore: OK. IDGITS! where the fuck do you get the idea that there are 13 federal Judicial Districts. There are 12. Saying there are 13 makes you a dummy.
Top beef of the day. Maroons!
Ruckus
@Chetan Murthy:
The issue has always been and will always be, how well the voting area are filled in on the ballot. Stay in the lines but fill out the box completely. For some, elderly especially this can be difficult. For others, say like myself sometimes my tremor gets bad enough that small controlling issues are very real and it’s very, very difficult. Now you mentioned disabled but the CA system makes it faster and gives you a printed sheet that you can check before it gets dropped in the box. Now any computerized system is going to have issues but I believe the CA system is one that can work. It solves readability issues and gives a hard copy that can be checked. And really any system is going to have issues, there are humans involved at some step along the way. And CA allows you to vote by mail, which gives a hand filled hard copy. You can have it either way you want. And the current way gives you a readable ballot, rather than a separate card (the size of a punch card, for the olds – I’d bet they were using the same machines with optical readers replacing the holes)
I really don’t see how one can have the quantity of voters and hand filling in ballots and not make long lines.
MCA1
@Kent: Agreed. More absolutist language needed, unless an illustrative but explicitly not exhaustive list of suppression tactics and poll taxes is to follow introduction of the basic concept.
Federal legislation to introduce a federal voter ID automatically issued to every SSN would be nice, too, along with federal felony status for vote suppression. Would be nice to require a certain number of polling places/voting machines per capita be provided with equal distribution of quality/speed, etc., too.
Immanentize
@Another Scott: Splitting the ninth — which is California — although population appropriate is impossible? constitutionally. They already have a north and south “division.”. That seems like the best result possible without splitting the State
Chetan Murthy
@Gvg: That’s why I think the criminal liability has to go up to the governor. And it has to be clear that this part of their job, they’re personally liable for. *personally*.
Sloane Ranger
@Chetan Murthy:
Actually, since the Good Friday agreement, Northern Ireland has adopted the principle of trying to get cross community support in every instance. It doesn’t always work but they are trying. Likewise, the Police Service of Northern Ireland now consciously tries to be even handed when sectarian tensions do occur.
As for England, well we still have Guy Faulkes Night where we celebrate the failure of a Catholic plot to blow up the House of Commons by burning one of the plotters in effigy.
Chetan Murthy
@Ruckus:
I guess we’ll have to disagree. (a) voters won’t check their ballots, so the system needs to be designed to account for this, and (b) from what I remember, the -printed- description of the voter’s selections is *not* used to tally the ballots: it’s the QR code that gets used. And the voter can’t check that (obviously).
Also: the speed of the system (with hand-marked ballots in CA) is gated by two things:
(i) how many stations (with little cardboard dividers) are set up for voters to mark their ballots: this is near-infinite, b/c cheap and not computerized
and (ii) how many computerized tallying machines are provided: these are few, and you don’t need many to deal with a large # of voters, b/c they’re fast.
Quite simply, setting aside disabled voters (for whom we must make provisions, absolutely), a system with hand-marking and computerized tallying is going to be -cheaper- than the current system in SoCal — because that system needs a computer+printer for each “voting station”, whereas what we use here in SF needs only a small standing desk-like thing with privacy divider shield and pens.
lowtechcyclist
@Kent:
I’d make that “people incarcerated while actively serving…”
Otherwise, they can do some variation on the Florida ploy and say you’re ‘actively serving’ your sentence while you’re out on parole, or only got probation, or are still paying off fines etc.
There’s no way an ex-felon’s vote can be more of a threat than an ex-felon’s presence on the streets. So if we trust him to walk the latter, we should trust him with a ballot. Period.
(I’m starting to lean towards the notion that, for the most part, being in prison serving a felony sentence shouldn’t remove one’s right to vote, but I’m still thinking about that one. I think I’d at least exclude persons on death row, or sentenced to life without parole: they no longer have a stake in what happens outside the walls.)
I agree with most of your language, though. Being jailed while awaiting trial shouldn’t take away one’s vote. Being jailed for a misdemeanor offense, ditto. And for everyone outside the prison walls, there should be no question.
Sandia Blanca
Although we are pretty backwards down here in Texas when it comes to voter registration, limited numbers of places to return vote-by-mail ballots, and other impediments to the free exercise of our franchise, one improvement that many counties have implemented in recent years is that you can vote at ANY voting center within your county.
That means you can vote close to your place of employment, if that’s easier for you. The voting centers are different for early voting and election day, but we have lots of tools to find a polling place near where you will be.
Immanentize
I know that a number of you are now madly searching the internet for proof of a 13th federal Judicial district. Or for aliens?
Stop. Confess your mistake and your sin and move on.
Sally
@Peale: Yes, that’s why I keep saying don’t remove the right to vote from felons. And not only are there enormous inconsistencies, but we know that too many people are wrongly convicted. And may not be guilty at all. Also, too, some states can be relaxed about reinstating the right to vote, looking at you, Fl. Give these lying bums no room to move. Universal franchise.
J R in WV
We have voted from the same location since the late 1970s — our hillside “farm” covered with trees in SW W Va. We have voted at a couple of closed schools (one now utterly gone, the other a community center) but for a long time now we’ve voted at what was the local high school, and is now the pre-K to middle school. We have never had to wait outside.
The longest we had to wait indoors may have been 2008 (what was different then?) when we were checked in, signed the roll, and then were led to a seat on the bleachers in the gym. Then we scooted to our left as people reached the end of the seated line and were taken to a voting booth, until it was our turn. Most voters had known each other since they were in school in the building, it’s a pretty stable rural population. So lots of chatting — we probably waited half an hour on the bleacher seat, scooting over every few minutes.
Outside poll workers for one campaign of the other need to stay 300 feet away from an entrance to the polling place, so very difficult to legally hassle voters. Most recently the various campaigns do free hot dogs in a canopy tent, if the weather is OK. Esp. at primaries in the spring. In November, not so much.
This year we plan to go to an early voting location on Oct 22, the second day of early voting. Most likely at the county court house, as we will need to renew some permits and pay some real estate taxes, as well as vote early. For the primary, we were the only voters when we went into the polling place, and the two workers were chilling when we came in. Plenty of hand sanitizer, everyone wearing masks, hope that’s the case when we go to vote in the general election in 10 days.
Won’t matter, we both will be wearing our industrial 3M Respirators with P100 filters. Wife has immune system issues, so we’re being really careful. She really wants to vote in person, so super-masks it is.
Many years ago [ around 1980 ] I drove a neighbor over to this same polling place to vote, after I voted in early afternoon. Tommy needed a lift, went in, and I just hung out across the road from the school parking. I saw a guy I was acquainted with, ran a garage where we got brakes fixed and such, so I went over to shoot the breeze. After a few minutes talking, he gave me a bottle of bourbon from a case under the seat of his PU truck, said “you might as well have one, business is over for this one.”
This doesn’t happen any more, too many guys went to jail over it.
Roger Moore
@Chetan Murthy:
I will mildly disagree with you on LA County’s new voting machines. There are a lot of reasons to like the idea of a ballot printer as opposed to a hand marked ballot. The printed candidate names provide a way of double checking the QR code. You can easily hand audit the electronic results by counting the ballots by name much more easily than you can with a system like ink-a-dot. The ballot printers are also advantageous for diverse areas like LA County, where the ballots need to be available in more than a dozen languages.
And they are not a result of some foolish capitalist impulse. They were designed by the county government based on our needs and specifications, not by some outside company. The county owns the design and the software, so we aren’t dependent on some third party to run our elections.
That said, it might have been a smarter solution to the problem to have the ballot printer produce the unmarked ballot rather than the final, marked ballot. You’d get the benefit of being able to produce the correct ballot for each voter on demand, so anyone could vote at any voter center with a ballot in their language, without people having to trust that the printer would record their vote correctly. I still think most of the worries about the system being subverted are greatly reduced by the system being designed by the county rather than by an unaccountable outside company.
Sally
@lowtechcyclist: I know I’m a PITA on this, but incarcerated people, felons if you like, still have a stake in their lives. Inside prison, which could do with some attention. They are still citizens. Some are really, really awful, but it’s right, and better, not to complicate the issue so R’s can wiggle through some excuse as to why people can’t vote. Just everyone votes. Ha – if we had fewer incarcerated people, maybe their combined voices would be even less consequential!
Ruckus
@patrick II:
She’s 87 and has 4 more years on this term. I seriously doubt she’ll run again. The state democratic party endorsed Kevin de León for 2018 but she ran and won. I think out of what 40 million there should be someone who could replace her. She has been popular though, in 2012 she got 7.75 million votes, the most ever in any US senator election.
Sally
@Immanentize: Ok, ok, mea culpa – but I heard it here first! I made a case for fourteen, but my fave is still “fight for fifteen!” .
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Let’s not get silly here, trying to make sense of republican policies.
That’s a vicious circle that can only cause one to get even more pissed off than when they start.
Immanentize
@Sally:
your sins are absolved. Don’t believe everything you read here.
The idea is — 12 justices, one for each district — plus a chief. Hence 13.
Where are the others who have sinned against facts? I await them with open arms.
Meanwhile adding federal districts really depends on splitting California, which is super hard legally.
Roger Moore
@Immanentize:
There are 13 circuits: the 11 numbered circuits, the DC circuit, and the Federal Circuit.
Roger Moore
@Immanentize:
The solution is to break out California into a separate circuit from the rest of the 9th. California would still be big, but it wouldn’t be as ridiculously out of proportion as the existing 9th is.
Immanentize
@Roger Moore: the DC circuit is the Federal Circuit. It is not a separate Circuit. Ooof. I suppose you could separate them — DC as a State and the Federal Appellate Circuit as a separate Circuit that has specific constitutional jurisdictions. But that is not what now happens.. DC cases go to the “federal DC circuit.”
Next bad legal take?
Ruckus
@Chetan Murthy:
I am filling out my ballot by hand. Every registered voter in CA gets to do that, because every registered voter got mailed a ballot. If I want to go to a polling station I can. And that is set up now to keep any lines to a minimum.
So that goes back to my point. If I want to vote in person I can. I can vote by a machine that marks my ballot and gives me a print out that I can read. Does the code match the printed out receipt? I have no idea, but I can get around that by filling out my mailed ballot.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Kay:
Agree completely. Red states have blue parts. Blue states have red districts (with blue voters who still need protecting).
Chetan Murthy
@Ruckus: I’ll agree with you that, IF Congress passes a law mandating that every voter nationwide be given the (opt-out) choice of voting by mail, THEN the CA system is minimally acceptable. I still don’t like that the printed list of selections is not what’s used to tally the vote — b/c QR codes are indecipherable to the voter. I could go further, and if the QR code encoding (that is, not just “what is a QR code” but “how does the QR code turn into the ballot selection” is published sufficiently beforehand, then third parties can turn out apps so that voters with smartphones can scan the QR code and see their selections.
Default choices matter. So does default behaviour of voters.
Roger Moore
@Immanentize:
You need to double check your facts. The DC circuit and Federal Circuit are separate courts. From uscourts.gov:
Immanentize
@Roger Moore: And what would that leave? If California was broken off from the rest of the ninth?
Alaska, Arizona, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, Washington. A completely random non-contiguous Circuit.
And no other state gets its own federal district. Oh well.
Immanentize
@Roger Moore: that is appellate courts, not judicial Districts. Damn!
You do know the difference?
ETA. Are you a lawyer? One who practices appellate law? Just wondering…..
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
New and better voting laws should be first priority. I’d also like to see the Fairness Doctrine brought back. My mother’s descent into conservative crazy starting with listening to AM radio on long drives. Lots of construction workers, truck drivers, etc have it on all day long. That poison needs to come off the public airways.
snoey
@Ruckus: Where does she want to be ambassador?
Immanentize
@Roger Moore: So in your beautiful 13 Justice plan, based on appellate court jurisdiction, the District of Columbia gets two Supreme Court Justices?
Roger Moore
@Immanentize:
California is going to be a problem because it’s so big. If you split California into its own circuit, it would still be larger than any of the other circuits. It makes more sense to do things that way than to split California between two circuits or to continue with a 9th Circuit that’s almost twice the population of any other circuit. And BTW, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, [ETA:] Montana, Nevada, and Arizona are contiguous, so the only reason my revised 9th would be non-contiguous is because it would contain areas that aren’t contiguous with the rest of the country and thus would result in a non-contiguous circuit no matter what you did with them.
Original Lee
@Roger Moore: I think they’re trying to sort out the ones who voted for Biden, under the assumption that those voters are more likely to vote early:
Immanentize
@Roger Moore:
PS.
Your plan also would privilege the very types of specialized issues — patent, international trade — that are dominated by the monied classes. I have never heard such a proposal before.
Ruckus
@snoey:
Hopefully her home…..
Immanentize
@Roger Moore:
I’m all for more judicial districts. But Arizona with Washington without California? Maybe a broader case base to be sure.
Should Texas have its own federal jurisdiction? New York considering Wall Street? Delaware re: corporate law? California will never be it’s own federal judicial circuit. Too much federalism states’ rights stuff at stake.
JeffH
@JPL: Assuming that’s the site I think it is, there’s really no excuse for it. That’s the county Board of Elections headquarters.
SFAW
And make it retroactive to … oh, 2000, maybe. Katherine Harris, Kenneth Blackwell, Brian Kemp, Scott Walker, and a whole host of others doing long terms in Angola or Attica would be pleasing.
Procopius
@Betty Cracker:
Because in general the Constitution leaves the conduct of elections up to the states, and the voters in many states elect Republican Secretaries of State, who are responsible for elections. The answer to why no one is held accountable is, the voters are the ones to hold the Secretaries of State accountable, and if they are satisfied then nothing was done wrong. The DNC has not been very interested in what happens at the state level since Obama and Rahm rescinded the 50 State Strategy, or there might have been more Democratic Secretaries of State. The people who run the Democratic Party seem perfectly happy with that for reasons on which I will not speculate.