Ian in comments made an interesting statement:
I recently switched my registration to republican so I can vote for her [CHENEY] in the primary. It makes my skin crawl and my soul hurt to think about a) being a registered republican and b) voting for Cheney.
What are people who live in competitive or red leaning districts that have closed primaries thinking about changing parties to vote anti-authoritarian? To me, a fundamental belief that democracy, defined simply as a system where parties can and do lose and then accept that fact as they change and wait for the next election, is the key baseline value. Everything above that is policy worth voting on in a very consistent way in the general election.
Democrats as a party believe in democracy. There is no intra-party debate over whether or not an election is legitimate. There are plenty of debates over policy. There are plenty of fights over identity. I have strong opinions on some policy preferences but the core assumption that democracy is a good thing is universal among individuals who have a chance in hell of a winning a primary.
That is not the case for Republicans. Last night in Colorado, the anti-democratic slates in the GOP primaries lost.
Colorado is one of the states that makes it easiest to register to vote & to vote (inc. all-mail voting and wide use of drop boxes). And it has a near-record turnout rate.
It decisively rejected a whole slate of election deniers today running for election offices and Senate.
— Taniel (@Taniel) June 29, 2022
So are people thinking about taking Republican primary ballots when and where available to vote against anti-democratic authoritarians and precluding the ability to add their votes/voices to intra-Democratic party squabbles?
The North Carolina primary cycle is over for 2022. I think that anti-anti-democratic votes are the most valuable votes I can cast in primaries for the next several years.
Boss Mode Activated
cain
I’m glad it showed near record turn out. It wasn’t so hot here in Oregon. But perhaps people can smell that shit’s going down and they need to show up.,
SpaceUnit
Lauren Boebert actually won her primary so don’t break out the champagne just yet.
zhena gogolia
I’m in a blue state but I know my cousins in Wyoming are registered as Republicans so they can vote against the worst crazies
Damned at Random
When I lived in a very red area, I registered Republican because I figured it gave me a input in local primaries where the winning (always R) candidate was chosen. Then I voted D in the general. My intention wasn’t to ratfuck anyone, only to cast a meaningful vote for Congress and state senate & house
mistermix
@SpaceUnit: Her opponent was pretty much an underfunded dud so I’m not surprised.
Since I grew up in a blood red state and have relatives in a couple, the answer to the question of the post isn’t a slam dunk. A couple of examples:
Basically, if you’re in a really red state, I don’t see any problem switching parties to vote.
Mike in NC
@SpaceUnit: What a disappointment that Loonie Boobert came through. The same folks that took down Madison Cawthorn were going after her. I think her so-called restaurant closed, however.
Baud
I’m intrigued by the idea of nonpartisan ranked choice voting to solve some of these problems.
Mike S
There are a lot of recent articles and news stories about how a million Democrats in the suburbs across the country have changed their registration to Republicans. They’re all couched in scary terms but I’ve been wondering how many fall into the “block the bat shit insane republican” category. I am hoping most do because we are fucked if they’re not.
jnfr
Non-affiliated voters are the largest part of the electorate in Colorado, with Dems next, and Rs last.
cain
@Mike S:
Here is another trend that’s going to make the GOP and their gerrymandering get fucked up.
Businesses are moving more and more to remote work which means that they can pretty much go anywhere – and a number of them are moving into the rural areas where the land is cheap.
SpaceUnit
@Mike in NC:
She’s up against a guy named Adam Frisch in the fall. I don’t know much about him except that he was a city councilman in Aspen and that he’s got a lot of money.
I’ve heard talk that he’s got a decent chance of defeating her but I’m not really sure. It’s always been a pretty red district.
TheOtherHank
I live in California with its dumb jungle primary. So far nothing terrible has happened with it, mainly I think, because there are so very many Democrats in the state. If it was a closer divide between Ds and Rs, I think really strange results could happen. That being said, I haven’t been tempted to vote for any Rs since they started doing primaries this way.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jnfr: I see Bennet and Polis both tried to promote the trumpier candidates (or it was tried on their behalfs?) and it failed in both cases. I believe the R Senate nominee has gone so far as to say Biden was legitimately elected!
How do you think the GE looks for Bennet and Polis?
Ohio Mom
Over the years, once or twice, I’ve thought about doing that in a primary, though I forget who was running for what. Both times, in the end I decided that it was better to do my little part to make the Democrat’s support look as large and strong as possible, to send the message that Ohio isn’t quite a lost cause.
Nowadays, if I lived in Wyoming, I’d be exactly where Ian is. Because as David Anderson points out, letting anti-democracy candidates win is too dangerous.
At the same time, I’d be a little worried that I’d be helping Cheney’s trajectory to the White House. Not enough to stop me.
Baud
@cain:
That would be sweet. I think the infrastructure bill includes rural broadband which will make things even easier. It wouldn’t take a lot of people to flip some of those empty states.
Bill Arnold
Votes in primary elections are also generally much higher leverage than in the general election, especially for midterm primaries. The turnout is low so one’s vote is worth more.
Baud
@TheOtherHank:
Didn’t the GOP get screwed by that this cycle?
oatler
FOOL! YOU HAVE CHOSEN THE MANNER OF YOUR DOOM
I could see supporting her but in AZ we’re already gorged on grinning MAGAT sociopath campaign ads. Plus, she’s a Cheney…
Downpuppy
I’m still raging at the AP for their story about party switching. 1 million to Republicans, 670,000 to Democrats, but the headline “One million switch” has been everyfuckingwhere like Roy Kent for days.
Jay
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-contempt-of-court-released-new-york-1.6506076
SpaceUnit
@jnfr:
I’m actually unaffiliated myself, though I vote a straight D ticket. I get both parties’ ballots in the mail. Technically I could vote in Colorado’s Republican primary but I just can’t get over the ick factor.
I carry the republican ballot out to the trash with old pair of ice tongs that I keep around for just that purpose.
Miss Bianca
In Colorado, if you are an “unaffiliated” voter, you get primary ballots for both parties mailed to you. You can only fill out one, but you get your choice.
I’m a Democratic Party officer in my tiny, blood-red county. And I have seriously, of late, considered switching my registration to “unaffiliated” because we have no one here who is willing to stick their necks out and run for office as a Democrat. Hell, we can’t even get them to come to Democratic Party meetings. So, for local elections, the Republican primary pretty much seals the deal.
It’s not exactly the same as actually switching my party affiliation to Republican…but I’ve been a registered Democrat my whole voting life, really. So it hurts a little to think about giving it up, even if it’s for a broader purpose.
Sure Lurkalot
I live in Colorado and tried to get my unaffiliated spouse to vote the Republican ballot (you get both in the mail if you’re undeclared, no penalty in the general). He couldn’t bring himself to vote for the craziest of crazies for fear that if they won in the general, he’d never forgive himself.
Since he could never vote for a Republican, he should just register as a Democrat. He unregistered years ago for who knows why.
ETA, this comment pairs well with Miss Bianca’s and Space Unit’s.
Kay
Just got a call from Marcy Kaptur’s campaign. It’s a phone bank (can hear other callers in the background). They’re having a NW OH organizing meeting 7/16. Toledo will be her city but she’ll want to hold down some of the margins in 5 rural counties. So like 65/35 R rather than 70/30 R in counties with fewer than 30,000 people (each, not combined).
I haven’t seen that done before- a real broad call for volunteers in an area – unless she just has a really good list and it’s targeted but bigger in area. Kaptur went from Biden + 15 to Trump +3 when they redistricted but in the northern tier of the state she is very well known and has passionate, decades long loyalists. She also has a lousy, clownish Trumpy opponent which doesn’t hurt.
Baud
@Kay:
Nice.
TheOtherHank
@Baud:
Probably. I didn’t pay that much attention. This comes back to the fact that there just aren’t that many Republicans in CA, so it’s quite possible for the R with the most votes in a primary to come in 3rd or 4th. I think that happened the last time Feinstein ran for Senate, so the general was between two Democrats. It’s kind of funny when that happens, but I think that a political party should be able to choose a candidate for the general election.
HumboldtBlue
Good piece from Charles Pierce on JB Pritzker.
Miss Bianca
@SpaceUnit: Damn…Adam Frisch? Back when we were still in CD-3 (before redistricting, which took my county in CD-7), we had a lot of the Dem candidates come to our town to campaign. I’m tempted to say, “I’ve never heard of Adam Frisch”, but I think he might have been there. I was thinking that Sol Sandoval might get the nod, between Pueblo (where she’s from) and the heavily Hispanic San Luis Valley still being part of that district.
CaseyL
@Miss Bianca:
Do you have any sense of how many people like that there actually are?
I mean, if no one wants to run as a Democrat (for no doubt very good reasons) why not run as a Republican? A Rockefeller Republican, that is.
Call yourselves “Republicans,” and see if that gets people to listen to you. Plus, you might get more polling places from the state.
Capri
in Indiana there’s no sense voting for a democrat in the primary. You’re lucky to have 1 person running for office. So I vote republican in an attempt to dial down the crazy. The perk of this is getting tons of literature that makes the crazy explicit. In the 2016 election the choice was between Trump and Cruz and I left it blank. Couldn’t bring myself to vote for either.
SpaceUnit
@Miss Bianca:
I’m in District 7 as well.
The race between Frisch and Sandoval was apparently very close. Don’t know what that means for November.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@HumboldtBlue: That’s a great model for a governor, “you have to love every part of your state”, especially in states where a megalopolis forms a blue contrast to a blood-red rest-of-the-state.
Last night I looked up the new IL district where Mary Miller beat the more traditional Rodney Davis, wondering if Miller might be in trouble… Alas, it doesn’t look like it
Kay
@Baud:
I think she can help Ryan who is not as well known in the NW part of the state. There may be a Vance/Kaptur voter but if there is I have never encountered that odd animal. Her whole thing is “I bust ass for you and am extremely authentic” :)
She’s like…3 generations authentic.
Downpuppy
It terrifies me that decent, respectable people can’t present themselves as Democrats, show the flag, and remind the others that the stories are bull.
Winning Through Intimidation is absolutely the playbook to be fought by all means, the first being taking a stand.
Miss Bianca
@CaseyL: What it will get you, in my county, is a recall vote. Seriously. Any Republican who actually commits the sin of trying to, y’know, *govern* is subject to being recalled. At least, that’s what happened five years ago when a number of us Democrats *did* switch party affiliations and voted for the “Rockefeller Republicans.”
And one of the guys who won as a result of the recall vote that time? Who is the least crazy of the cray-cray Republicans at the local level? Guess what. There’s a recall petition out there for him now.
There’s a rabidly reactionary group attached to the local right-wing shit-stirring rag here, that starts all the goddamn trouble with this stuff.
We do have an Independent running against the worst offender among the county commissioners, who is up for re-election this year. In the unlikely event that she actually wins, I fully expect this same group to try to get *her* recalled as well.
You can really tell that our local Nazis have given up entirely on democracy in favor of raw power. I just keep hoping that more and more people might get disillusioned with what they see this group doing – the bullying, the name-calling, the threats – and stop listening to them.
But the right-wing-rag-endorsed candidates just won in the Republican primary here, so I ain’t too hopeful yet.
HumboldtBlue
@Downpuppy:
Did someone say Roy Kent?
Baud
@HumboldtBlue:
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It’s a great speech by the governor, but I dislike the assumption Pierce makes that the speech had the motivational impact on the public that he said it did. There’s no evidence of the impact. If it moved Pierce, he should just say that.
Omnes Omnibus
I live in an open primary state, but I do not think that I could bring myself to ask for a GOP ballot if I were in an closed primary state.
HumboldtBlue
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Very interesting read. Pritzker seems to be a damn fine politician.
Kay
For a while with Kaptur this cycle I thought “well, they know she’s strong so can probably prevail even over their illegal map and that’s why they didn’t put any effort in so she got Trump Yard Guy as her opponent – his claim to fame is a shrine to Trump.
But then I looked at Pennsylvania and their two horrible candidates there and that theory kind of fell apart. There’s just a lot of horrible Republicans so they have a lot of horrible candidates.
Starfish
@SpaceUnit: She is in a very Republican district and will likely be re-elected.
hueyplong
In NC you can pick your primary if you are registered independent. We kept a Trumper off the city counsel (by 200 votes) but could not keep Budd from the nomination for Senate.
The Trumper immediately declared for school board.
Starfish
@Miss Bianca: I have been considering this too!
Jackie
I live in a Deep Red county in eastern WA. Top two winning candidates in the primary of either Party face off in the General Election. My Congressional District has Dan Newhouse – R being primaried by two Trumpies – one endorsed by TFG. He lost to Gov Inslee in 2020, and never conceded.
I’m afraid this year’s GE is going to be two republicans.
Starfish
@Miss Bianca: The use of the recall to menace sitting office holders is too much. The Republicans try that here too, in the very blue part of the state.
They tried to recall three school board members for not being anti-mask whack-a-loons this past year.
Leslie
@TheOtherHank:
It screwed us down here a few years back. Purple district, but the top two finishers were Rs and our solidly D guy (doctor, running on health care) was SOL for the general. I believe the Rs ran some nominally D candidates to split the vote.
Joe Falco
My mother and brother voted Republican in the Georgia primary last month to vote for anti-authoritarian candidates. I seriously considered doing the same, but I stuck with voting in the D column.
CarolPW
@Jackie: I was pretty excited last time to see a Democrat as one of the top two, better than only having republicant’s. Although in 2016 I was happy to vote (when there were only 2 repukes on the house ballot) for Newhouse rather than Didier who is a complete piece of shit.
Quiltingfool
Want to know how things are going in Missouri in re overturning Roe v Wade?
https://twitter.com/l_larsonbunnell/status/1541618759273779201?s=21&t=O8cR2m-MEwqJtOZXrF4PMw
Women are going to die. Republicans don’t give a shit.
Starfish
In Colorado, a lot of people are watching this race, and Epps (a real police abolitionist who was bailing out everyone she could who had bails under $500) just passed March in votes.
Geminid
@Baud: Alaska will be worth watching in this regard. They’re trying out a new system in which there is first a “jungle” primary (in August). The top four finishers will advance to a ranked choice election in November.
At first glance I figured that this system was engineered to benefit Lisa Murkowski, as well as campaign professionals. When I think more about it, I wonder if this will be the electoral system of the future. I want to see how it and different ranked choice systems work out in other states over time, though.
sab
In NE Ohio. Tim Ryan advertising a lot on TV, Hope it is statewide, because the ads are good and he needs state-wide recognition, which he doesn’t have yet.
Baud
@Starfish: Is that Boulder?
@Geminid:
Is Alaska the only red state that has ranked choice? The only other ones I know about are Maine and NYC?
Starfish
@Baud: That race is in Denver. I was paying attention because I am very On Twitter ™, which is probably bad.
Epps was the first person I ever saw truly advocating for Police Abolition. Her non-profit, the Colorado Freedom Fund, raised quite a bit of money to bail folks out these past few years.
Baud
@Starfish:
Very interesting.
Jackie
@CarolPW: Yeah, I’m afraid I’m going to have to plug my nose and take anti-nausea pills and vote for Newhouse.
Our district went heavy for Loren Culp for Gov – NOT looking forward to seeing his signs everywhere, again.
Miss Bianca
@Starfish:
@SpaceUnit: So, I’ve been starting to get panicky-sounding fund-raising emails from Michael Bennet. Considering that he has a war chest of about $2 million already, I’m not feeling super inclined right now to donate more than the modest monthly sum I’ve been donating.
On the other hand, looks like my crazy state rep, Ron Hanks, got shellacked in the Republican Senate primary, which means that the slightly less crazy-sounding Republican is up against him now. Wondering how worried I should actually be feeling?
Mokum
@HumboldtBlue: I am in Illinois and yesterday I voted for Pritzker’s bat shit crazy opponent, Bailey. Just to make sure Pritzker did not have a half way sane Republican country club type as competition in the November election. Illinois voted for Rauner in 2014, so there is always a risk for a repeat, even in Illinois.
Argiope
@Quiltingfool: Yeah. I’m in OH and I had an ectopic when my kid was 3. Feels like the state of my birth is trying to kill unlucky people like me now. I have a meeting scheduled with my pro-choice Republican state Senator to try to get him to support a state ballot initiative to put reproductive rights in the OH constitution. Not holding my breath about how that will go. He votes the right way on this (& only this) issue, but I think he won’t be willing to lead.
Baud
@Miss Bianca:
Yeah, hard to tell. Panic is a fundraising tactic.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Mass had ranked choice voting as a ballot measure in 2020. I voted against it. The measure failed.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Why did you dislike it?
Geminid
@Jackie: Newhouse was one of the ten House Republican Impeachers. Four of them- Katko, Gonzales, Upton and Kinzinger- are retiring. Rice lost his South Carolina primary. Meijer looks good in his western Michigan primary, but if he wins he’ll face a tough rematch with Democrat Hilary Scholten.
The four westerners are Valadao in California, Newhouse and Herrera Butler in Washigton, and Cheney in Wyoming. The first three should benefit from “jungle” primary systems.
Cheney will not, although Wyoming’s system will allow same day reregistration that will allow motivated Independents and Democrats to vote for her. Tom Rice was a six term Congressman in a state that has totally open primaries (there is no party registration there) and he was lost by over ten points. I though that was a bad sign for Cheney.
thisismyonlinenym
Boebert won. One of those election deniers.
My wife sometimes calls her Boobert when she’s particularly miffed by Boebert’s blatant sexualization of herself in her ads. (“Hi all you shitkicker misogynist boy-man pinchers of hooters servers’ bottoms and the women who love them! I’m Lauren Boebert and these are my boobs, my ass and my gun!“). It really pisses her off.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
It is, and apparently one that works, cause they keep doing it. But I remember when Jen O’Malley Dillon was warning us that Biden-trump was closer than the polls indicated, and all the savvy folk said she was just trying to boost fund-raising and drive turn-out.
Like you say, hard to tell.
Miss Bianca
@thisismyonlinenym:
Me too, although your wife’s characterization is fucking hilarious.
jnfr
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I did not see who funded that effort. I don’t think it was anything official from the party, but it could have been. I just don’t know.
I don’t like it as a tactic. I think everything is degraded enough without us contributing to it.
I feel pretty solid on both Polis and Bennet.
Jackie
@Geminid: Yes, he did. That’s about all I can applaud him for. Newhouse was also one of 106 Republicans in Congress to sign on to an amicus brief in support of Texas in a lawsuit challenging the presidential election results against Biden.
Geminid
@Baud: I think Alaska is the only red state with RCV, and this is their first year using it.
Last year was the first year New York City tried RCV, and the outcome was somewhat ironic considering that many liberals are big proponents of this system. Eric Adams narrowly edged out Katherine Garcia when all the votes were distributed, and this result appalled some of the city’s liberals. Adams led in first place votes with 33%. Under the former system, he would have faced a runoff with Garcia because he did not exceed 40%, and the people who voted for several other liberal candidates could have put Garcia over the top in the runoff.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I am against anything that makes elections overly complicated (both administering and counting votes). If the highest vote getter gets less than 50% vote the outcome is not as clear cut or cut and dry as the first past the post system.
In today’s era of lefties like BS shouting rigged primaries and Orange Error fomenting an armed insurrection, the less complicated voting and counting the better.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Do you have runoffs if no one gets 50%? I dislike systems when someone can win a primary with less than half the vote.
I haven’t tried RCV, but it didn’t sound complicated to me. And my assumption is that moderate candidates would actually do better under it.
Geminid
@Jackie: I certainly don’t think Newhouse’s impeachment vote makes him any kind a good guy. I’m just interested in these ten “Impeachers.” I borrow the name from the original Impeachers. These were some medieval English noblemen who “impeached,” or put on trial, the Kings advisors. The King later turned the tables on the Impeachers and had them all beheaded.
Kay
Wow. They are really going to have their religious fundamentalist monitors track womens movements state to state.
I read on this constantly and still it’s coming so fast and furious I can’t even think thru the possible ramifications of each new pregnancy regulation. Whole elaborate new sections of state codes written by far Right political operatives and religious extremists.
Democrats are going to have their hands full even explaining 1/00th of this to voters although I suppose STATE level it’ll be easier to because (obviously) the new pregnancy monitoring and regulation regimes are state-specific.
The Thomas More Society will now be directing whether American women may receive health care in a state where they don’t reside.
Are these the most radically backward laws regarding women in the world? Do any other countries run by religious extremists and far Right lunatics track women’s movements? We’re now in that club?
Jackie
@Geminid: I know. I’m glad Newhouse voted to impeach Trump; yet his signing the letter challenging Biden’s legitimacy seemed to negate his impeachment vote. I’m just sick that I may have to vote for him in the GE to keep a true Trumplican from winning.
Kay
So where’s the states (governor and US Senate) we can hit them really fucking hard with this? Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, first tier
Florida, Ohio, Arizona, second tier
Is Georgia first or second tier? I say first but I don’t know.
Let’s talk about how your neighbor with the tattered Trump flag still up is going to be turning you into the private abortion police if you go get modern, developed nation standard of care treatment for a miscarriage.
Jackie
@Kay: People travel to other states for medical reasons and procedures EVERYDAY. One example is the Mayo Clinics. How would one allowed to travel out of state for specialized medical services not available in their state ie organ transplant – NOT be allowed to cross state borders for ANY medical treatment not available in their state?
Geminid
@Baud: Intuitively, moderates should do well in ranked choice general elections. I think that in Democratic primaries there would no inherent advantage for moderates or liberals.
I think that with all the people running for office now we’ll eventually have to go to runoffs or RCV. You are right about the potential problems of candidates winning with low pluralities. I thought Republicans in Ohio and Pennsylvania ended up with weaker Senate candidates who eked out 33% plurality wins, and this may come back to bite them in November.
A runoff for Ohio’s Republican Senate contest, however, could have resulted in severe and long lasting mental health problems among the state’s population.
Baud
@Geminid:
I’m not crazy about runoffs for primaries either. I think it burns people out. That’s one reason I’m intrigued by RCV.
Geminid
@Baud: I like runoffs, but besides the problems you mention they are not as quick and convenenient as RCV elections. We live in an age of impatience so I think ranked choice voting will be the way we go. I want to see a few states to work out the kinks and find any unintended consequences, though, before I get behind the idea for my own state.
Baud
@Geminid:
Yes, I’m in favor of going slow.
thisismyonlinenym
@Kay: I think wherever the Taliban has power and maybe Saudi Arabia.
Outside if that I think it’s wife beaters and woman abusers who seek to isolate and control where a woman goes, what she does and who she talks to.
Kent
I did the party switch thing in 2012 when living in Texas. You don’t have to switch parties, you just request which ballot you want, D or R.
Anyway, I picked up the R ballot to vote for Ted Cruz in 2012 on the theory that he would be easier to defeat in the general than David Dewhurst who was the mainstream GOP Lt. Governor at the time. He was just as smarmy back then but seemed more beatable.
Well, it obviously didn’t work and you have me to thank for Ted Cruz I guess. So you can be too clever about this sort of thing.
Kent
@Kay: Blue states need to implement reciprocity laws which enable anyone availing themselves of health care in their state to counter-sue ANYONE who attempts to interfere with that right in another state. And make it triple damages plus court costs. So that anyone who attempts to sue from a red state for an abortion had in a blue state can get their ass sued right back for triple whatever they might have won plus court costs. So anyone even thinking of filing such a lawsuit can get their ass bankrupted.
Timill
I’m in TN, where we don’t have party registration, so I usually ask for an R ballot in primaries, as that’s the one with actual names on it…
thisismyonlinenym
@Jackie: Electronic tracking. And snooping by every company, search engine and cell phone maker and wireless provider in the last 20 years
Your cell phone tracks you. It’s a radio. And it’s always on, checking in with nearby cell towers even when it’s not on.
You do a route on a map app on your phone. How do they know how much time each route takes? Or that there’s congestion on the way? Every driver’s phone on that route tells them.
Google, wireless carriers, Apple, et al. They all gather your data, your purchases, the web sites you visit. They track you physically too and can know your daily routine. Where you live, your workday commute, what grocery store you go to the most. “Fitness” apps even spit some of that back to you. They can even track your heart rate and other medical data if you are clueless enough to give it to them. Period tracking apps. All they is need right here.
Any e-fare device on a turnpike tracks you. An airline ticket purchase can trigger a closer look. Gas purchases with a credit card purchases leave a trail. Your bank knows when you are out of state, they can block your gas purchase at the pump because of your credit card isn’t where it’s supposed to be.
Pair it with demographic data every business has been collecting on everyone and yes it is possible they can figure out if a woman of child bearing age is leaving the state, and track where she goes.
Lots of kids have cell phones, certainly most teens. By the time a girl is a teen and can get pregnant there will have been a lot of data to establish a pattern in her life. Anything out of that daily pattern can be made to trigger closer scrutiny.
Try entering your phone number into a google search and see what comes up. And that’s just the surface.
I once, for 6 months, worked for an insurance company. They sold an insurance product for bad drivers. When a driver wanted an insurance quote they, using the name, address, age and SSN provided from the website intake form, queried multiple databases, everything from DMV to Lexus Nexis to court records to credit bureaus to sooper-sekrit Big Data stuff that they probably would have had to kill me if I learned where and how and from whom they obtained the data. From these records of the driver’s legal, financial, public and supposedly private life they look for markers that determine a driver’s propensity for risk. And deny or quote accordingly. All in the time it takes to submit a form on a web site.
The forced birth bastards can know a lot of shit about a woman, and that’s just under current privacy law. They can always subpoena for it, but what a hassle. Just make a law that removes privacy protection from certain data and pass it through to Handmaid Central in real time.
Of course they can just make a law to require the tracking of women of child bearing age, or hey just make them wear a leg bracelet like someone under house arrest. Or implant an RFID chip like a dog or something.
Wouldn’t put it past them. They are going full metal handmaiden.
Marc
We’ve had RCV for local elections in Oakland (CA) since 2010. The first couple of elections the candidates were still campaigning on being the first choice and a lot of voters would only vote for their first choice. This caused a few unfortunate results. Now, most candidates have figured out it makes sense to encourage voters to select them second if they aren’t their first choice. The voters have also figured out that they should fill out their first two or three choices. At this point, it seems to be working well. I don’t know anyone who wants to return to the old system.
thisismyonlinenym
@thisismyonlinenym: Once they have the evidence as to where the woman went, they can interview the woman when she returns. And get a warrant for a pelvic exam if they suspect she have had an abortion. Not much different from how they decide to do a body cavity search. “You are arriving from columbia? Well you look like a drug mule. Step over here…”
They will make a high profile draconian examples out of a few hundred women and girls.
They did this with music and software pirating 20 years ago. Threw some ordinary people in jail for a few years for copying one song. The message was sent.
It’s going to be even stonger message when they sentence them for premeditated homicide.
Honestly, our lax privacy laws and cell phones and internet of things have made it possible for the most grotesque of privacy abuses.
thisismyonlinenym
@Kent: Ordinary people don’t have the money to counter-sue anybody. We need a legal fund to make that work.
StringOnAStick
@thisismyonlinenym: I’d say dystopia here we come, but we’re already there. I really fought against getting a cell phone but eventually I did and now I’m just as addicted to its convenience as anyone else, knowing full well that if we were forced to carry a beacon that only did just that, people would go insane screaming about Big Brother. Oh, but a beacon I can read the web or play games on? Sign us all up!
ian
Well, I sure feel special. Thanks David!