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Author | Topic: Gerrymandering and Voter Suppression | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chiroptera Inactive Member |
From The New York Times:
Trump Says He Will Seek Citizenship Information From Existing Federal Records, Not the Census
Edited by Chiroptera, : Corrected a copy'n'paste failure.It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman |
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
From the New York Times:
Gerrymandering, an Army of Voters Meets a Dug-in Foe As Kagan pointed out in her dissent in Rucho, the majority was very naive (or very disengenious) when they suggested that the voters in the states can remedy the Gerrymandering problem. The article describes how hard it is for the people to fight against privileged groups entrenched in the government. The article does mention one recalcitrant Democratic state, Maryland (where, as I feared, the Democrats point to Republican anti-democracy to justify their own anti-democracy), but most of the anti-democracy is entrenched in Republican state governments. Not that there's no hope at all, but a reminder that the fight for democracy, liberty, and equality is almost always a very hard one, and unfortunately not one that is always guaranteed to succeed.It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn't know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman |
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Chiroptera Inactive Member
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For a party that screams about "witchhunts", they sure do like using them.
From the Guardian:
Revealed: Georgia Republicans use power of state to suppress minority vote The Georgia Republicans are using law enforcement to target their opponents.
Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, and David Emadi, executive secretary of the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, are investigating and issuing subpoenas to political opponents, without publicly showing evidence there was wrongdoing by those parties. Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, pioneered the tactic as secretary of state, where he used his authority to investigate political opponents, liberal political groups and get out the vote (GOTV) organizers working in racial minority communities. The most extreme example of an investigation on false pretenses came on 4 November 2018, two days before the midterm election. The secretary of state’s office knowingly falsely accused the Democratic party of Georgia of attempting to hack the election. The initial round of media coverage reflected the accusation, before the facts were available that the accusation was fabricated. These actions are being taken despite absolutely no evidence of wrong doing, and despite that none of the investigations have ever turned up any evidence of wrong doing. Furthermore, these investigations remain open to tie up the opponent's resources and to hamper their fund raising efforts. So can we quit pretending that the Republicans believe in democracy, rule of law, or Constitutional limitations on their power?Hard as it is to fathom, Mr President, just because you’re the leader of the free world doesn’t entitle you to a free pass. Unfortunately, just a free press. -- Neil Cavuto |
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
From the New York Times:
North Carolina’s Legislative Maps Are Thrown Out by State Court Panel A court in North Carolina has thrown out highly gerrymandered maps for the state's legislative districts. The court's ruling was that it violated the state's constitution that "all elections shall be free". What makes this interesting is that most states have provisions in their constitutions that demand free and fair elections, and, in fact, the courts in Pennsylvania used its own constitution to strike down a gerrymandered map for its Congressional districts. What surprised me is that I would have assumed that judges in North Carolina were either highly partisan appointees or elected in gerrymandered judicial districts. I looked up the North Carolina constitution, and it appears that this panel was in the appellate court which is elected statewide. I guess the lesson is that, at least in some cases, if the majority wants fair elections then they can sometimes get it. At least if they can act before the voter suppression really takes off. We'll see if the Federalist Society's John Roberts has the intellectual honesty to allow this. By the way, this decision was unanimous from a three judge panel that included a Republican. Edited by Chiroptera, : Typos.Hard as it is to fathom, Mr President, just because you’re the leader of the free world doesn’t entitle you to a free pass. Unfortunately, just a free press. -- Neil Cavuto |
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Chiroptera Inactive Member
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From the New York Times:
The Battle Over the Files of a Gerrymandering Mastermind The party of crooked lying cheats, the Republicans, are trying desperately to either have Hofeller's thumb drives and other records returned to them or destroyed, claiming that there's sensitive proprietory information. Ha! I bet. So far just a couple of released documents have shown that the Republicans deliberately engaged in extreme gerrymandering, used race in determining district boundaries contrary to law, and deliberately intended to use the citizenship question to suppress the census count. And there's thousands of documents to go! I am a little curious about what the Party of Anti-democracy is so worried about, though. Most decent, aware folk know the Republicans are scumbags while the cultists are going to stick with them no matter what. Edited by Chiroptera, : Typo in subtitle. Edited by Chiroptera, : Why do I bother to press "preview" when I don't even preview?Hard as it is to fathom, Mr President, just because you’re the leader of the free world doesn’t entitle you to a free pass. Unfortunately, just a free press. -- Neil Cavuto
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
It should not need be said, but I'll say it anyway, that if you've sat in a venue chanting "Send them back," or worse, marched while chanting "You will not replace us," you are by definition not a good person, no matter how many church potlucks you've attended and how much you love your mother. George Orwell:
The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp. I'm not really responding to your post as much as using it as an excuse to bring up what Trump rallies remind me of.Hard as it is to fathom, Mr President, just because you’re the leader of the free world doesn’t entitle you to a free pass. Unfortunately, just a free press. -- Neil Cavuto
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Chiroptera Inactive Member
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From the New York Times:
State Court Bars Using North Carolina House Map in 2020 Elections A state court ruled the state's gerrymandered Congressional district map violates the state's constitution.
But in the process, the three-judge panel noted, they left a detailed record of both the partisan intent and the intended partisan effect of the 2016 congressional districts. That record was so extensive, the judges said, that it left little doubt that opponents of the map would be able to prove in a trial that it violated the State Constitution. The North Carolina constitution has a clause protecting the right to vote and the courts are finding that it was not intended to be a mere formality.
Republican legislators did not immediately respond to the latest order. They could oppose a motion for summary judgment and, should it come, appeal it to the state Supreme Court. But the three-judge panel suggested on Monday that the Republican legislative leaders forgo legal arguments and use the same bipartisan map-drawing process employed to draft the new state legislative districts. Those legislature maps were originally also heavily gerrymandered but were ruled unconstitutional by the same state court.Hard as it is to fathom, Mr President, just because you’re the leader of the free world doesn’t entitle you to a free pass. Unfortunately, just a free press. -- Neil Cavuto |
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Chiroptera Inactive Member
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From the Guardian:
Republicans tried to rig the vote in Michigan — but ‘political novices’ just defeated them Michigan voters have enacted a non-partisan apportionment process to end Republican extreme gerrymandering.
In 2017, the group drafted the measure to give redistricting authority to 13 Michigan residents — four Democrats, four Republicans and five non-affiliated voters, instead of lawmakers. More than 2.5 million Michigan voters approved the measure to amend the Michigan constitution and create the commission last year. By the way, the Republicans never hid their intent for permanent rule: like cartoon villians they, again, bragged about their efforts.
And the GOP lawmakers were not subtle: emails made public last year revealed a Republican aide bragging about cramming Dem garbage into certain Michigan districts in 2011, as they drew the current electoral boundaries. And, of course, the party of anti-democracy is fighting the law in court, under the claim that the non-partisan requirements discriminate against people based on political affiliation. (For people who don't get the joke, we are talking about the defense of gerrymandered districts intended to discriminate against political affiliation!) One would hope this effort to protect democracy survives a Supreme Court challenge:
Even the supreme court chief justice, John Roberts, who wrote earlier this year that federal courts can’t do anything to fix partisan gerrymandering, has held up the Michigan effort as a pathway for fixing the problem. However, I'm with Kagan in doubting the conservatives' sincerity when they pointed toward voter initiatives as a possible solution to gerrymandering. I'm still curious, though, about what our local conservatives feel about the issue. Do they think that gerrymandering is fair and not a big deal? Do they think that it's a violation of democratic norms but the Republicans have no choice but to do what it takes to shutdown the "Dem scum"? Or will they oppose such clear anti-democratic moves even when it's the Republicans that engage in them?For this generation of far-right nationalists, religion is not a question of ethical conduct; it is purely about identity and peoplehood. -- Jan-Werner Müller |
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
From the New York Times:
A Census Whodunit: Why Was the Citizenship Question Added? As a reminder: The Trump administration tried to add to next year's census a question asking whether the respondents were citizens. The reasons were obvious: such a question would have caused many legal immigrant residents to avoid the census, suppressing their numbers, and there are plans among Republican dominated states to base apportionment on citizens rather than residents. The effect would be to decrease Democratic representation. The administration denied this was the reason, insisting that it was to help enforce the Voters' Rights Act. When the issue was brought before the Supreme Court, the Court ruled that the administration wasn't being entirely honest and sent the case back to be re argued in the lower courts. Rather than admit that they are partisan hacks trying to cement into place permanent Republican rule, the administration dropped the question. Recently released documents provide evidence that the reasons to add the citizenship question to the census was political, and that the Trump administration's were dishonest in their denials.
The latest disclosures tend to support their claim that the administration’s stated reason for adding the question to help enforce the Voting Rights Act was a pretext for a scheme to boost Republican political power when population totals from the next census are used to draw new political districts in 2021. The administration claims it was an oversight that they hadn't disclosed these documents before, but...
"It is interesting that each and every document that the administration 'inadvertently' failed to disclose is something that connects the dots between the citizenship question and a discriminatory scheme to dilute the political power of immigrant communities," Dale Ho, a senior lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union who represents some of the plaintiffs, said in an email. "If that’s just coincidence, it’s an awfully convenient one for an administration known for a casual relationship with the truth." I felt at the time that Roberts ruled against the census question because he didn't like being lied to. If and when this question reaches the Supreme Court again, my prediction is that if the administration is honest and admits, "Yeah, we want to exclude people to our benefit because fuck those guys," the Roberts court will rule, "Alrighty, then." Edited by Chiroptera, : Typo in the subtitle.For this generation of far-right nationalists, religion is not a question of ethical conduct; it is purely about identity and peoplehood. -- Jan-Werner Müller |
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
From the Guardian:
Kentucky's new Democratic governor allows 140,000 ex-felons to vote Kentucky has joined a number of states in reconsidering their ban on felons voting. Governor Beshear has signed an executive order that will restore the voting rights to those convicted of non-violent felonies after they have completed their sentences.
Currently, about 10% of the state’s population (more than 312,000 people) is disenfranchised because of this policy, according to a 2016 estimate by the Sentencing Project. Beshear’s order will automatically restore voting rights to those with non-violent felonies who complete their sentences. And it could affect the makeup of the state’s voting population: more than one in four African Americans in the state can’t vote because of a felony conviction, according to the estimate. Beshear said on Thursday that Kentuckians should be ashamed of the state’s high disenfranchisement rate.For this generation of far-right nationalists, religion is not a question of ethical conduct; it is purely about identity and peoplehood. -- Jan-Werner Müller
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
From the Guardian:
For America’s black politicians, winning an election can lead to jail That our local white nationalist is threatening to impeach future Democratic Presidents for no legitimate cause on another thread should no longer be a surprise for people who believe in democracy. This article from the Guardian notes several instances where Republicans use technicalities to overturn the voters' decisions and in some cases even prosecuting their opponents. Interestingly, the victims are predominantly black.
The motivations behind today’s efforts to overturn elections and remove black elected officials are not very different than Reconstruction-era motivations. After all, when a group that has benefited from majority rule faces the demographic reality that they will no longer be the majority, it’s inevitable that some members of that group will seek to simply reverse the results. Some will seek it, but most of the former majority will seem to cover for it.For this generation of far-right nationalists, religion is not a question of ethical conduct; it is purely about identity and peoplehood. -- Jan-Werner Mller
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
Can't read the whole article but I'll take your word for the gist of it. That's unfortunate. The article gives some of the details about the technicalities used by the Republicans to justify their shenanigans; might give your side some arguments to argue against the author's conclusions.
The argument is that the totally partisan illegal methods being used in this current sham impeachment have to be confronted if there is any chance to save our republic.... So this is a case where "two wrongs" DO "make a right"? What if, instead of "saving our republic" it just creates a situation where from now on every single President gets impeached until the Republic finally collapses?For this generation of far-right nationalists, religion is not a question of ethical conduct; it is purely about identity and peoplehood. -- Jan-Werner Mller
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
More Republican contempt for democracy from the Guardian:
Texas closes hundreds of polling sites, making it harder for minorities to vote Last year, Texas led the US south in an unenviable statistic: closing down the most polling stations, making it more difficult for people to vote and arguably benefiting Republicans. A report by civil rights group The Leadership Conference Education Fund found that 750 polls had been closed statewide since 2012. The closures could exacerbate Texas’s already chronically low voter turnout rates, to the advantage of incumbent Republicans. Ongoing research by University of Houston political scientists Jeronimo Cortina and Brandon Rottinghaus indicates that people are less likely to vote if they have to travel farther to do so, and the effect is disproportionately greater for some groups of voters, such as Latinxs. The article points out that the closures can't be attributed to a single policy, but it is clear that the closures are lowering voter participation and that it is affecting minority groups more.The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool. -- Richard Feynman
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
From the Guardian:
Kentucky Republicans quietly tighten voter restrictions as US focuses on Covid-19 Many states are trying to figure out how to allow people to exercise their right (some would call ita duty) to vote while coping with coronavirus. One idea that is getting traction is to make it easier to vote by mail. But then we have this:
As states around the country enacted emergency measures to deal with the outbreak of coronavirus, Kentucky lawmakers quietly tightened and approved a new photo identification requirement that would make it harder to vote. Governor Beshear is expected to veto the bill, but according to the article his veto can be overridden by a majority of the legislature.But [Frederick] Douglass was not gone; he was merely dead. -- David W. Blight |
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Chiroptera Inactive Member
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From the Nation:
The Coronavirus Doesn’t Have to Disrupt Our Elections Titled: Virus-proof elections in the print edition John Nichols makes the case for all states to switch to vote-by-mail for the November elections. Although we all hope the worst of the crisis will be past by November, there is the significant possibility (maybe even probable) that voter turnout will be low because of the pandemic.
In Washington state, where a nursing home was an early coronavirus hot spot, Governor Jay Inslee issued an emergency proclamation on February 29. The March 10 primary election arrived at a moment when businesses were urging employees to stay home and initial school closures were being announced. Yet The Seattle Times reported, "Despite a nearly unprecedented public health crisis in Western Washington that kept both septuagenarian candidates from campaigning here leading up to the primary, turnout appeared on pace to set a new state record for a presidential primary, according to Secretary of State Kim Wyman." Washington state hold its elections by mail.But [Frederick] Douglass was not gone; he was merely dead. -- David W. Blight |
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