Democrats dug themselves an election integrity hole, courts may bury them in it

submitted by [deleted] from justthenews.com

sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]Trajan 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (7 children)

including a provision banning government entities from distributing unsolicited absentee ballot applications

Yeah, to avoid the problem of ballots being sent unsolicited where it's not even clear the person still lives at the address on record or even needs the ballot. Given people needing this have some faith in their ability to post mail, completing a short form and posting it hardly seems onerous. I don't know how universal this is but at least some states require the person send this only once, where they have a permanent disability/illness, after which they will receive the ballot in subsequent elections.

the shortening of the deadline to request absentee ballots to 11 days before Election Day

Because people don't have enough notice of elections? It's not as if there's a couple of weeks in which people must rush to do this. Certainly if there's evidence that unexpected events (e.g. having to be out of state, illness) then the deadline should be reconsidered and perhaps kept to a longer period of time. For most people, if they're only getting onto this two weeks prior to an election then they have bigger problems.

the requirement that voters who do not have identification issued by the Georgia Department of Driver Services photocopy another form of identification in order to request an absentee ballot without allowing for use of the last four digits of a social security number for such applications

Definitely a problem for people who don't have ID. Georgia state ID or voter ID, accepted as identification, is $32 every eight years (amortising to four dollars per year). Anybody unable to obtain suitable ID has bigger issues to deal with than requesting absentee voting.

significant limitations on counties’ use of absentee ballot drop boxes

Vote in person or by mail. Post early if worried a high volume of mail will lead to delays.

the prohibition on efforts by churches and civic groups to provide food or water to persons waiting in long lines to vote

On that I agree water is needed and should be available and provide where wait time is excessive. The average wait time is far lower than the 11 hour extreme cited in reporting. Where wait times are systemically long in some areas there should definitely be provision to reduce this. Setting a maximum acceptable time for waiting would address the root cause. People should not have to wait hours to vote, but there may be extreme situations where volume couldn't have been anticipated.

and the prohibition on counting out-of-precinct provisional ballots cast before 5 p.m. on Election Day.

I don't know anything about this so I won't comment

All of those are designed to disenfranchise the poor.

Nonsense. Sure you could argue that poor people are disproportionately affected, and you'd be right. To argue that requiring identification is designed for that purpose is baloney. It's intended to make voting more secure. You may as well be arguing that ATM PIN codes are designed to keep people with a poor memory from accessing their money.

but removing ballot drop boxes in particular does not have any purpose except restricting people's ability to vote.

You'd have a good point if you focussed on the reality that reduced drop boxes does disproportionately impact people less mobile (e.g. the poor, the disabled). Certainly that's something that should be considered. Speculating on the intention adds no value and only detracts from addressing the practical effects of the measure.

[–]ActuallyNot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Yeah, to avoid the problem of ballots being sent unsolicited where it's not even clear the person still lives at the address on record or even needs the ballot.

Getting as many people as possible to vote is important to democracy.

Because people don't have enough notice of elections? It's not as if there's a couple of weeks in which people must rush to do this.

The question is, "how does this reduce fraud"?

The answer is that it clearly doesn't. It's a way to get people to fall off the electoral role. There is no other effect.

Anybody unable to obtain suitable ID has bigger issues to deal with than requesting absentee voting.

Yeah, they have bigger issues. But the democracy has one regarding them too. Their votes should be counted. They have 11 days to request their ballot. They need to organise their voter ID. This law is designed to disenfranchise some of them.

Vote in person or by mail. Post early if worried a high volume of mail will lead to delays.

What is the benefit of legally restricting the number of drop boxes?

Apart from the obvious: Voting in person has much longer queues in Georgia in Black Areas than white areas. Restricting drop boxes is designed to disenfranchise black voters.

The average wait time is far lower than the 11 hour extreme cited in reporting.

The problem isn't the average. The problem is the bias.

Speculating on the intention adds no value and only detracts from addressing the practical effects of the measure.

The intention is clear.

[–]Trajan 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Getting as many people as possible to vote is important to democracy.

It's a balance between getting good turnout and ensuring integrity of the electoral system. If all that mattered was getting people to vote then we'd simply leave piles of anonymous ballots on every street corner and allow people to pick them up and complete them.

The question is, "how does this reduce fraud"? The answer is that it clearly doesn't. It's a way to get people to fall off the electoral role. There is no other effect.

Because there has to be a cut-off point for registration to allow reasonable time for the mail-in ballot to be sent out and subsequently returned.

Yeah, they have bigger issues. But the democracy has one regarding them too. Their votes should be counted. They have 11 days to request their ballot. They need to organise their voter ID. This law is designed to disenfranchise some of them.

There are unexpected situations, and we should review that data to see if there needs to be an exceptions process. For the vast majority of people they should take responsibility and get this done in a reasonable amount of time. If people are waiting to the last minute to even request a mail-in then they are excluding themselves. The same goes for people who don't bother obtaining ID. There are necessarily limits. The question is to what extent there should be limits and are those limits reasonable? As well as the government's obligation to ensure access to voting there is personal responsibility on the part of the voter.

What is the benefit of legally restricting the number of drop boxes?

Logistics and integrity. Drop boxes need to be secure as well as accessible. Sure you could put a drop box on every street corner, but could they kept secure from tampering? I agree there should be more drop boxes. One per 100,000 is too low a number.

Apart from the obvious: Voting in person has much longer queues in Georgia in Black Areas than white areas. Restricting drop boxes is designed to disenfranchise black voters.

Black people tend to be more concentrated in urban areas. White people living in such areas showed comparable wait times. Poorer people wait longer.

The problem isn't the average. The problem is the bias.

There you go again. The data would actually seem relevant if you weren't focussed more on speculating on intentions rather than looking at the outcome and then working back towards causes. How were the wait times beyond early voting?

The intention is clear.

Yeah, it's always clearest when one starts with a belief and goes searching for validation to the exclusion of anything to the contrary.

[–]ActuallyNot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Black people tend to be more concentrated in urban areas. White people living in such areas showed comparable wait times. Poorer people wait longer.

This is by design. There's no reason to have fewer voting resources, be they booths or drop boxes per person in concentrated urban areas.

[–]Trajan 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

What do you think of most of these reductions being in areas where Latinos and whites are in far larger numbers than blacks? If by design then this seems akin to spraying a crowd with gunfire because there's a criminal hiding amongst them.

[–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The larger counties will suffer the largest reductions in drop boxes. Which will reduce democrat voters ability to vote more than republicans, because urban areas tend democrat.

Republicans know that [b]allot drop boxes saw heavy usage in mostly Democratic metro Atlanta counties during their rollout last year, far more than in rural Republican areas of Georgia, and so the seek to limit them, in the hope of disenfranchising more democratic voters.

[–]Trajan 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

They still have post boxes and polling offices, don't they?

[–]ActuallyNot 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, they've only reduced the number of drop boxes, reduced the hours of the polling stations, closed the polling stations on Sunday, because that's when a lot of black americans vote after church, made it illegal to offer water to people waiting in a queue to vote, and shortened the period of time that registering to vote by mail can be done, while increasing the red tape around it.

But the post office still exists, and the reduced-hours polling stations exist.