This is, IMO, going to be a big topic in the coming year. Republicans have stated their aim to make voting more restrictive in just about every state where they have the means to do so. Democrats would like to pass the Voting Rights Bill named after John Lewis. I’m going to go look up the map of all the states which have pending legislation to restrict voting. Now that we have the election in the rear view, I thought we could try to make this a general discussion thread, where people who have concerns about voting abuses can post as well and we can discuss it from both sides. Please keep memes out of this thread and put them in the boards where we go to talk about the other side, lol.
Voting Law Proposals and Voting Rights Efforts (1 Viewer)
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Optimus Prime
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Guess this can go here
=================
Detroit has been represented by at least one Black member of Congress since 1955. That’s four years before Berry Gordy founded Motown Records, three years before Ozzie Virgil became the first person of African descent to play for the Detroit Tigers, and 17 years before General Motors hired its first Black automotive designer in 1972.
Now that long, proud run is nearing an end. After this November’s elections, Detroit – nearly 80% Black, the largest percentage, by far, of any major American city – will probably be left without any Black representation in the House of Representatives.
An era that covered parts of eight decades, and the careers of heavyweights such as Representatives John Conyers and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick will close.
How is this possible? This is a story about redistricting, good intentions and unintended consequences, about population loss and suburban growth. It’s about the cold, unforgiving math of our political system, and the way overcrowded primaries divide votes and distort outcomes.
And it points to the electoral reforms we desperately need – especially ranked-choice voting, but also an end to single-member congressional districts – if we’re to avoid having the nation’s largest Black majority city lacking representation that looks like the majority of its citizens…….
www.theguardian.com
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Detroit has been represented by at least one Black member of Congress since 1955. That’s four years before Berry Gordy founded Motown Records, three years before Ozzie Virgil became the first person of African descent to play for the Detroit Tigers, and 17 years before General Motors hired its first Black automotive designer in 1972.
Now that long, proud run is nearing an end. After this November’s elections, Detroit – nearly 80% Black, the largest percentage, by far, of any major American city – will probably be left without any Black representation in the House of Representatives.
An era that covered parts of eight decades, and the careers of heavyweights such as Representatives John Conyers and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick will close.
How is this possible? This is a story about redistricting, good intentions and unintended consequences, about population loss and suburban growth. It’s about the cold, unforgiving math of our political system, and the way overcrowded primaries divide votes and distort outcomes.
And it points to the electoral reforms we desperately need – especially ranked-choice voting, but also an end to single-member congressional districts – if we’re to avoid having the nation’s largest Black majority city lacking representation that looks like the majority of its citizens…….
Thanks to bad electoral laws, Detroit will soon have no Black members of Congress | David Daley
If we’re to avoid a future in which the nation’s largest Black-majority city lacks representation that looks like most of its citizens, we need electoral reform
superchuck500
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Ah, fiscally responsible.
DaveXA
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Omg...
. I know the Republicans have already jumped the shark, but if this isn't clear evidence of it, then I don't know what is.- Thread starter
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MT15
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This is alarming.
“The Michigan tale is a good example. As CNN reports, the night before the Michigan state primaries, Wayne County GOP leaders held a Zoom session with partisan observers and poll workers — who are supposed to be nonpartisan — suggesting they secretly bring in pens, pads and cellphones to record evidence of fraud.
This was a practice run for the midterms, according to the Zoom session CNN reviewed. The training was led by local party leader Cheryl Costantino, who has a history of questioning the legitimacy of Trump’s 2020 loss, and election denier Patrick Colbeck, who has spread extensive disinformation about it.
When one poll worker objected that this would run afoul of polling place rules, Costantino advised doing it “secretly.””
“The Michigan tale is a good example. As CNN reports, the night before the Michigan state primaries, Wayne County GOP leaders held a Zoom session with partisan observers and poll workers — who are supposed to be nonpartisan — suggesting they secretly bring in pens, pads and cellphones to record evidence of fraud.
This was a practice run for the midterms, according to the Zoom session CNN reviewed. The training was led by local party leader Cheryl Costantino, who has a history of questioning the legitimacy of Trump’s 2020 loss, and election denier Patrick Colbeck, who has spread extensive disinformation about it.
When one poll worker objected that this would run afoul of polling place rules, Costantino advised doing it “secretly.””
Optimus Prime
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I'd be interested in seeing a couple stats:
1. Of all the cases of fraud how many were Republican vs Democrat?
2. How many genuinely thought they could vote vs committing intentional fraud, and what is the party breakdown of those categories
I'm sure I can guess the results but curious what the actual numbers are
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MAGA Republicans all over the United States have been falsely accusing Democrats of committing widespread voter fraud and stealing elections, and many of them are, in the 2022 midterms, campaigning on the false and thoroughly debunked claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump — including gubernatorial nominees such as Arizona’s Kari Lake and Pennsylvania’s Doug Mastriano.
But in upstate New York, according to the New York Daily News, a Republican elections board commissioner, Jason T. Schofield, was arrested on Tuesday, September 13 “on charges of” allegedly “carrying out a brazen ballot scheme that allowed him to cast votes in voters’ names.”
The New York Daily News’ Tim Balk reports, “Jason Schofield applied for absentee ballots for voters who did not want to vote, and, in some instances, personally pushed voters to sign absentee ballot envelopes, positioning himself or his associates to commit voter fraud in primary and general elections in 2021, according to court papers. The 12-count indictment charging Schofield said ballots were counted from at least four voters who were instructed to sign ballot envelopes but were not allowed to complete them.”.........
A Republican elections official in an upstate New York county is accused of illegally using personal identifying information of voters to apply for absentee ballots that are alleged to have been used in 2021 elections, the Department of Justice said Tuesday.
Jason Schofield, the Republican Board of Elections commissioner of Rensselaer County, was arraigned Tuesday on an indictment charging him with unlawfully using the names and dates of birth of voters to fraudulently apply for absentee ballots for 2021 elections in his county, prosecutors said in a news release.
Schofield, 42, is alleged to have illegally used the voter information in connection with absentee ballot applications submitted to the state board of elections website, according to the US attorneys for the Northern District of New York.
He faces 12 counts of unlawful possession and use of a means of identification, per the indictment. If found guilty, he could face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, the DOJ said in a statement............
1. Of all the cases of fraud how many were Republican vs Democrat?
2. How many genuinely thought they could vote vs committing intentional fraud, and what is the party breakdown of those categories
I'm sure I can guess the results but curious what the actual numbers are
================================================
MAGA Republicans all over the United States have been falsely accusing Democrats of committing widespread voter fraud and stealing elections, and many of them are, in the 2022 midterms, campaigning on the false and thoroughly debunked claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump — including gubernatorial nominees such as Arizona’s Kari Lake and Pennsylvania’s Doug Mastriano.
But in upstate New York, according to the New York Daily News, a Republican elections board commissioner, Jason T. Schofield, was arrested on Tuesday, September 13 “on charges of” allegedly “carrying out a brazen ballot scheme that allowed him to cast votes in voters’ names.”
The New York Daily News’ Tim Balk reports, “Jason Schofield applied for absentee ballots for voters who did not want to vote, and, in some instances, personally pushed voters to sign absentee ballot envelopes, positioning himself or his associates to commit voter fraud in primary and general elections in 2021, according to court papers. The 12-count indictment charging Schofield said ballots were counted from at least four voters who were instructed to sign ballot envelopes but were not allowed to complete them.”.........
A Republican elections official in an upstate New York county is accused of illegally using personal identifying information of voters to apply for absentee ballots that are alleged to have been used in 2021 elections, the Department of Justice said Tuesday.
Jason Schofield, the Republican Board of Elections commissioner of Rensselaer County, was arraigned Tuesday on an indictment charging him with unlawfully using the names and dates of birth of voters to fraudulently apply for absentee ballots for 2021 elections in his county, prosecutors said in a news release.
Schofield, 42, is alleged to have illegally used the voter information in connection with absentee ballot applications submitted to the state board of elections website, according to the US attorneys for the Northern District of New York.
He faces 12 counts of unlawful possession and use of a means of identification, per the indictment. If found guilty, he could face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, the DOJ said in a statement............
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Optimus Prime
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DaveXA
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I never understood the problem with voting by mail. We should all have that option.
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I never understood how backwards the US systems are. Most everything here can be done using something called MyID which is secured by a tripple security system
1. What you know
2. What you have
3. What you get
1. A password which must be changed every month
2. A "token" stored on your pc or cellphone which is validated every time you try to log in. This token includes information about the unit it is installed on so if it is used on another unit it will lock access and notify the owner by regular mail and email.
3. A cellphone with a government 2 factor app/or a goverment isssues key code card
Using this system I can log onto the IRS and since every employer and bank are obligated to report earnings and paid interests, I can usually do my taxes in 15 minutes by just checking the numbers and using my MyID to sign the final report. I can also sign important contracts and access all my medical information.
And yes - I can vote this way too. I can cast my vote up to 2 weeks before the election and if I change my mind, I can even change my vote all the way up to election day, since the actual votes are not counted until 8 PM on election day.
1. What you know
2. What you have
3. What you get
1. A password which must be changed every month
2. A "token" stored on your pc or cellphone which is validated every time you try to log in. This token includes information about the unit it is installed on so if it is used on another unit it will lock access and notify the owner by regular mail and email.
3. A cellphone with a government 2 factor app/or a goverment isssues key code card
Using this system I can log onto the IRS and since every employer and bank are obligated to report earnings and paid interests, I can usually do my taxes in 15 minutes by just checking the numbers and using my MyID to sign the final report. I can also sign important contracts and access all my medical information.
And yes - I can vote this way too. I can cast my vote up to 2 weeks before the election and if I change my mind, I can even change my vote all the way up to election day, since the actual votes are not counted until 8 PM on election day.
DaveXA
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But, but omgzlol taking the ID is a sign of the mark of the Beast! Or something like that.
Optimus Prime
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A series of last-minute challenges to the eligibility of tens of thousands of mostly Democratic voters by acolytes of Donald Trump risk violating federal law and threaten to complicate vote counting in US midterm elections in key states like Georgia.
Many of those efforts -- including one backed by former Trump National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and Overstock.com former Chief Executive Officer Patrick Byrne to toss 37,500 voters from the rolls in a Democratic Atlanta suburb -- have sprung up within the 90-day freeze on voter purges under the 1993 National Voter Registration Act.
As of late August, more than 65,000 voter registrations have been challenged in several Georgia counties, including its most Democratic ones -- far more than the 11,000-vote margin President Joe Biden won there in 2020.
That, as well as challenges in Iowa, Michigan, Florida and Texas, has prompted the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University and the Campaign Legal Center to warn Georgia officials that canceling any voter registrations this close to the November midterms would be illegal. Voting rights groups are considering a legal challenge.
The mass voter challenges in Georgia are allowed under a 2021 state law enacted after Trump’s baseless claims that widespread voter fraud led to his defeat. That law allows anyone to challenge an unlimited number of voters’ eligibility and also allows the state to take over local elections boards they have has trouble administering the election or counting the vote.
If the voter registration challenges proceed within the 53 days left before the midterm elections, it could lead to a chaotic Election Day in a state that is critical to determining which party controls the US Senate. Voters could submit ballots only to find that they either can’t vote or have to cast a provisional ballot that could still be rejected...........
Many of those efforts -- including one backed by former Trump National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and Overstock.com former Chief Executive Officer Patrick Byrne to toss 37,500 voters from the rolls in a Democratic Atlanta suburb -- have sprung up within the 90-day freeze on voter purges under the 1993 National Voter Registration Act.
As of late August, more than 65,000 voter registrations have been challenged in several Georgia counties, including its most Democratic ones -- far more than the 11,000-vote margin President Joe Biden won there in 2020.
That, as well as challenges in Iowa, Michigan, Florida and Texas, has prompted the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University and the Campaign Legal Center to warn Georgia officials that canceling any voter registrations this close to the November midterms would be illegal. Voting rights groups are considering a legal challenge.
The mass voter challenges in Georgia are allowed under a 2021 state law enacted after Trump’s baseless claims that widespread voter fraud led to his defeat. That law allows anyone to challenge an unlimited number of voters’ eligibility and also allows the state to take over local elections boards they have has trouble administering the election or counting the vote.
If the voter registration challenges proceed within the 53 days left before the midterm elections, it could lead to a chaotic Election Day in a state that is critical to determining which party controls the US Senate. Voters could submit ballots only to find that they either can’t vote or have to cast a provisional ballot that could still be rejected...........
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(Reuters) - A Georgia county has validated 15,000 to 20,000 registered voters whose status was challenged ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm election, officials said on Wednesday, leaving another 16,000 pending cases to resolve, according to the group leading the challenge.
The voter challenge campaign in Gwinnett County, a suburb of Atlanta, is led by VoterGA, which backs Donald Trump's false claims that widespread fraud cost him the 2020 election. Supported by prominent allies of the former president, VoterGA has contested 37,000 voter registrations in the county of about 562,000 active voters.
Similar challenges are taking place in counties across Georgia, which has tight races for governor and U.S. senator on the ballot, and the queries have overwhelmed Gwinnett's elections board.
Voting rights advocates contend the campaign disproportionately targets areas with a higher African-American population. VoterGA disputes that, calling it a lie...........
The voter challenge campaign in Gwinnett County, a suburb of Atlanta, is led by VoterGA, which backs Donald Trump's false claims that widespread fraud cost him the 2020 election. Supported by prominent allies of the former president, VoterGA has contested 37,000 voter registrations in the county of about 562,000 active voters.
Similar challenges are taking place in counties across Georgia, which has tight races for governor and U.S. senator on the ballot, and the queries have overwhelmed Gwinnett's elections board.
Voting rights advocates contend the campaign disproportionately targets areas with a higher African-American population. VoterGA disputes that, calling it a lie...........
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PHOENIX — Republicans across the country have embraced an aggressive tactic this year as they seek to tout baseless claims that voter fraud is a serious threat: arming state agencies with more power and resources to investigate election crimes.
Virginia’s Republican attorney general earlier this month announced a new election integrity unit staffed with more than 20 attorneys and investigators “to increase transparency and strengthen confidence in our state elections.”
Georgia legislators recently empowered the statewide police agency to launch election probes.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last month described the arrests of 20 people for alleged illegal voting as the “opening salvo” of a new elections police force.
But a Washington Post examination of an earlier endeavor in Arizona to systematically ferret out voter fraud found it has turned up few cases — and that rather than bolster confidence in elections, the absence of massive fraud has just fueled more bogus theories and distrust.
After investigating thousands of complaints in the past three years, a special unit in the Arizona attorney general’s office created to crack down on illegal voting and other election-related crimes has prosecuted just 20 cases in a state of more than 4 million voters.
The total represents a slight increase from the 16 cases brought by the office in a previous six-year period, according to court filings and hundreds of pages of public records.
Most prosecutions are small-bore, isolated cases of illegal voting, such as six felons who cast ballots though their voting rights were not restored, and three women who turned in ballots for their mothers, who had recently died.
Some Republicans who have falsely claimed voter fraud is rampant now say the limited number of prosecutions shows that the unit is not doing its job.
Leading supporters of former president Donald Trump in Arizona, including the Republican nominees for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, are pushing to allocate even more resources to rooting out election crimes……..
Virginia’s Republican attorney general earlier this month announced a new election integrity unit staffed with more than 20 attorneys and investigators “to increase transparency and strengthen confidence in our state elections.”
Georgia legislators recently empowered the statewide police agency to launch election probes.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last month described the arrests of 20 people for alleged illegal voting as the “opening salvo” of a new elections police force.
But a Washington Post examination of an earlier endeavor in Arizona to systematically ferret out voter fraud found it has turned up few cases — and that rather than bolster confidence in elections, the absence of massive fraud has just fueled more bogus theories and distrust.
After investigating thousands of complaints in the past three years, a special unit in the Arizona attorney general’s office created to crack down on illegal voting and other election-related crimes has prosecuted just 20 cases in a state of more than 4 million voters.
The total represents a slight increase from the 16 cases brought by the office in a previous six-year period, according to court filings and hundreds of pages of public records.
Most prosecutions are small-bore, isolated cases of illegal voting, such as six felons who cast ballots though their voting rights were not restored, and three women who turned in ballots for their mothers, who had recently died.
Some Republicans who have falsely claimed voter fraud is rampant now say the limited number of prosecutions shows that the unit is not doing its job.
Leading supporters of former president Donald Trump in Arizona, including the Republican nominees for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, are pushing to allocate even more resources to rooting out election crimes……..
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weird story
==============
When you vote in Alabama, state law requires you to show a photo ID at the polls.
For most folks, this means a driver’s license, but other forms of government-issued ID are permitted — a military ID, a passport or a college student ID, among others, will do.
And if you don’t have any of those, the Alabama Secretary of State’s office will help you get a special voter ID. The office will even make house calls for the non-ambulatory.
But the last few times Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl voted, he presented poll workers with an ID they’d never seen before.
To someone who had never seen a state employee ID, it could be mistaken for one.
But it wasn’t. It bore a state seal, a barcode and Wahl’s picture. The badge said Wahl was a media representative for State Auditor Jim Zeigler.
But when I asked the Alabama Department of Finance, which administers employee IDs, that department said it had never issued him one, nor was Wahl on the list of employees, past and present, in Zeigler’s office.
As it turns out, Wahl made the ID, he says, with Zeigler’s permission.
And now, the state’s top election official, Secretary of State John Merrill, says that badge is not a valid voter ID.
“It does not meet the standard of any voter ID requirements listed under 17-9-30,” Merrill said, citing where Alabama’s voter ID law appears in the State Code.
In another conversation, I told Wahl that I had concerns that his ID did not pass muster under the law.
“That’s a legitimate question,” Wahl said.
Wahl’s extended family has had trouble for years voting near their family farm in Limestone County in north Alabama.
According to Wahl, his family has a background in Anabaptism, and like Mennonites and the Amish, some of them have religious concerns about being photographed.
In a 2015 deposition, Wahls’ brother Joshua Wahl said he and others in their family believe biometric identification — including photographs that could be used by facial recognition software — is the mark of the beast foretold in Revelation.
This has caused trouble for the Wahls at the polls.
Beginning in 2014, poll workers have refused to let the Wahl family vote with a conventional ballot.
The Wahls have attempted to use an exception to the law that allows voters to cast a ballot if two poll workers sign an affidavit positively identifying them.
Frequently, though, the poll workers at the Wahls’ precinct have been reluctant to do so, and sometimes they have refused.............
www.al.com
==============
When you vote in Alabama, state law requires you to show a photo ID at the polls.
For most folks, this means a driver’s license, but other forms of government-issued ID are permitted — a military ID, a passport or a college student ID, among others, will do.
And if you don’t have any of those, the Alabama Secretary of State’s office will help you get a special voter ID. The office will even make house calls for the non-ambulatory.
But the last few times Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl voted, he presented poll workers with an ID they’d never seen before.
To someone who had never seen a state employee ID, it could be mistaken for one.
But it wasn’t. It bore a state seal, a barcode and Wahl’s picture. The badge said Wahl was a media representative for State Auditor Jim Zeigler.
But when I asked the Alabama Department of Finance, which administers employee IDs, that department said it had never issued him one, nor was Wahl on the list of employees, past and present, in Zeigler’s office.
As it turns out, Wahl made the ID, he says, with Zeigler’s permission.
And now, the state’s top election official, Secretary of State John Merrill, says that badge is not a valid voter ID.
“It does not meet the standard of any voter ID requirements listed under 17-9-30,” Merrill said, citing where Alabama’s voter ID law appears in the State Code.
In another conversation, I told Wahl that I had concerns that his ID did not pass muster under the law.
“That’s a legitimate question,” Wahl said.
Wahl’s extended family has had trouble for years voting near their family farm in Limestone County in north Alabama.
According to Wahl, his family has a background in Anabaptism, and like Mennonites and the Amish, some of them have religious concerns about being photographed.
In a 2015 deposition, Wahls’ brother Joshua Wahl said he and others in their family believe biometric identification — including photographs that could be used by facial recognition software — is the mark of the beast foretold in Revelation.
This has caused trouble for the Wahls at the polls.
Beginning in 2014, poll workers have refused to let the Wahl family vote with a conventional ballot.
The Wahls have attempted to use an exception to the law that allows voters to cast a ballot if two poll workers sign an affidavit positively identifying them.
Frequently, though, the poll workers at the Wahls’ precinct have been reluctant to do so, and sometimes they have refused.............
Alabama GOP chairman made the photo ID he used to vote
Secretary of State says it wasn't a valid voter ID.
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