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What is wrong with the Dems new voting rights bill?

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independentusa

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Voting Rights Bill Passes House on Pure Party-Line Vote
I have head McConnell say it is the Dems trying to steal elections, but I really do not see what is wrong with the bill. It makes the right to vote the law of the land by registering all legal voters. It makes voting easier for everyone by early voting and on site registering, something my state already has. It lets us know who is donating huge sums of money to both parties. It outlaws gerrymandering by both parties and gets the states back to one man one vote concept that everyone should agree with. So exactly how does it hurt your party and help the other? It would seem that the party with the best candidate and the best platform would in elections, not who can eliminate the most voters from the other party or set up districts to make sure your party wins even when they lose, something that both parties have done in the past with gerrymandering. So what is wrong with the bill?
 
What is wrong with the Dems new voting rights bill?
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the main problem is that there are too many Trumpists in office who will prevent it from passing. let's fix that during the 2020 elections.
 
Voter suppression is the GOP’s primary electoral strategy. That’s what’s wrong with it.
 
independentusa said:
Voting Rights Bill Passes House on Pure Party-Line Vote
I have head McConnell say it is the Dems trying to steal elections, but I really do not see what is wrong with the bill. It makes the right to vote the law of the land by registering all legal voters. It makes voting easier for everyone by early voting and on site registering, something my state already has. It lets us know who is donating huge sums of money to both parties. It outlaws gerrymandering by both parties and gets the states back to one man one vote concept that everyone should agree with. So exactly how does it hurt your party and help the other? It would seem that the party with the best candidate and the best platform would in elections, not who can eliminate the most voters from the other party or set up districts to make sure your party wins even when they lose, something that both parties have done in the past with gerrymandering. So what is wrong with the bill?
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^^^All of that sounds like it will keep the GOP from doing as well as they have. I would expect them to oppose it.
 
independentusa said:
Voting Rights Bill Passes House on Pure Party-Line Vote
I have head McConnell say it is the Dems trying to steal elections, but I really do not see what is wrong with the bill. It makes the right to vote the law of the land by registering all legal voters. It makes voting easier for everyone by early voting and on site registering, something my state already has. It lets us know who is donating huge sums of money to both parties. It outlaws gerrymandering by both parties and gets the states back to one man one vote concept that everyone should agree with. So exactly how does it hurt your party and help the other? It would seem that the party with the best candidate and the best platform would in elections, not who can eliminate the most voters from the other party or set up districts to make sure your party wins even when they lose, something that both parties have done in the past with gerrymandering. So what is wrong with the bill?
Click to expand...

In the language of the Bill, what exactly separates Gerrymandering from simply drawing the boundary lines on voting districts?
 
Greenbeard said:
Voter suppression is the GOP’s primary electoral strategy. That’s what’s wrong with it.
Click to expand...

I get just a little sick of that phrase.

By charging admission and only admitting those who have purchased tickets, are theaters conducting a campaign to suppress attendance?

What is the nature of the voter suppression to which you refer?
 
code1211 said:
In the language of the Bill, what exactly separates Gerrymandering from simply drawing the boundary lines on voting districts?
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I have the same question. There are some proposals to fix the issue that seem reasonable to discuss, but the bill doesn't seem to specify a specific approach.
 
code1211 said:
I get just a little sick of that phrase.

By charging admission and only admitting those who have purchased tickets, are theaters conducting a campaign to suppress attendance?
Click to expand...

Uh yeah, that practice would be incredibly problematic in the context of voting rights. The fact that the right views such things as even remotely analogous encapsulates the entirety of the problem.
 
code1211 said:
In the language of the Bill, what exactly separates Gerrymandering from simply drawing the boundary lines on voting districts?
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It requires non-partisan committees to set up districts. It can be done actually with computers. I helped in 1990 in the country I lived in using a program to set new districts for elected county supervisors. It was simple and clean and no one could object as there was no gerrymandering of the districts.
 
independentusa said:
Voting Rights Bill Passes House on Pure Party-Line Vote
I have head McConnell say it is the Dems trying to steal elections, but I really do not see what is wrong with the bill. It makes the right to vote the law of the land by registering all legal voters. It makes voting easier for everyone by early voting and on site registering, something my state already has. It lets us know who is donating huge sums of money to both parties. It outlaws gerrymandering by both parties and gets the states back to one man one vote concept that everyone should agree with. So exactly how does it hurt your party and help the other? It would seem that the party with the best candidate and the best platform would in elections, not who can eliminate the most voters from the other party or set up districts to make sure your party wins even when they lose, something that both parties have done in the past with gerrymandering. So what is wrong with the bill?
Click to expand...

The elimination of Voter ID laws.
 
Greenbeard said:
Uh yeah, that practice would be incredibly problematic in the context of voting rights. The fact that the right views such things as even remotely analogous encapsulates the entirety of the problem.
Click to expand...

There was really only one salient part of my post and you edited that part out.

Why did you perform that edit?

I'll try again:

"What is the nature of the voter suppression to which you refer?"
 
independentusa said:
Some Republicans Acknowledge Leveraging Voter ID Laws for Political Gain - The New York Times




Sorry, but several GOPers in office have actually said that voter ID has made it easier for the GOP.
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So, by demanding that people prove they are who they are is voter suppression?

That's insanity.

Voting is NOT a right. There are restrictions on it that must be attained or earned. Being of age, your address and citizenship are all qualifications to vote at particular polling places.

Voting is a privilege that can be removed and must be restricted to the qualifies.

Without prescribed methods of voter identification, what method will serve the purpose of establishing voter qualification?
 
independentusa said:
It requires non-partisan committees to set up districts. It can be done actually with computers. I helped in 1990 in the country I lived in using a program to set new districts for elected county supervisors. It was simple and clean and no one could object as there was no gerrymandering of the districts.
Click to expand...

Who will program the computers?
 
independentusa said:
It requires non-partisan committees to set up districts. It can be done actually with computers. I helped in 1990 in the country I lived in using a program to set new districts for elected county supervisors. It was simple and clean and no one could object as there was no gerrymandering of the districts.
Click to expand...

Here's the first objection: the Constitution gives the authority to the states for drawing their districts.
 
independentusa said:
It would seem that the party with the best candidate and the best platform would in elections, not who can eliminate the most voters from the other party or set up districts to make sure your party wins even when they lose, something that both parties have done in the past with gerrymandering.
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It would seem. That's all, seem.

Hillary was the best candidate because she won the popular-vote. But, the Electoral College decided otherwise?

How did that happen? That question is well-answered here: Not Your Founding Fathers' Electoral College - excerpt:
Stop saying this is how the system was designed to work.

REGARDLESS OF WHETHER you want to preserve the Electoral College as it is, tweak it (as I do) or scrap it entirely, you have to understand that it doesn't function today the way the Founding Fathers planned.

I think this is worth pointing out in light of the animated responses I've gotten from readers regarding my last column, which called for reform by adding a set of bonus electoral votes which would be rewarded to the winner of the national popular vote.

People seem to make a couple of errors in their reverence for the Electoral College. First, they misunderstand its purpose, and concomitantly they misunderstand what it does and doesn't constitutionally entail.

"The Electoral College system ... was created by the founding fathers for the new Republic not as a direct outgrowth of eighteenth-century political principles but rather as an ad hoc compromise between those who believed in election of the president by Congress and those who believed in popular election," the political scientist William Keech wrote in 1978. Some founders wanted direct election; others mistrusted average voters' "capacity to judge of the respective pretensions of the candidates," as George Mason put it. This was especially true given the expectation – before the two-party system arose to winnow the number of contenders – that voters would be choosing among a host of candidates from far afield. How could some farmer from Virginia or New York know enough about all the candidates from other states and regions, the reasoning went.
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And here: Misrepresentation In The House

Despite its name, the House of Representatives is not so representative.

As the chart below shows, the total vote differential between the two parties for elections to the House in 2016 was 1.2 percent. But the difference in the number of seats is 10.8 percent, giving a total of 21 extra seats to Republicans.

This aggregate over-representation of the majority party is considerably extreme when looked at state-by-state. In red states, Republicans garnered 56 percent of the vote but 74.6 percent of representation. In blue states, Democrats won 60.3 percent of the vote but 69.1 percent of representation.

Misrepresentation is considerably larger within each red and blue grouping than in the U.S. as a whole. Translated into seats in the House, Democrats over-represent blue states ... by 19 seats, whereas Republicans over-represent true red and flipped blue states by 40 seats. Republicans over-represent red states (true and flipped) by 16 percentage points, while in united blue states the disparity is 11 percentage points.

gs_20170222_fig-5.png
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'Nuff said? Probably not ...
 
code1211 said:
There was really only one salient part of my post and you edited that part out.

Why did you perform that edit?

I'll try again:

"What is the nature of the voter suppression to which you refer?"
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Because your bizarre take that voting is akin to buying theater tickets is pretty much all that needs to be said.

If you don't know what voter suppression is, the internet can help you out: Voter suppression in the United States. Go to town.

code1211 said:
Voting is NOT a right.
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The "right of citizens of the United States to vote" is explicitly referenced in the 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th amendments to the Constitution.
 
independentusa said:
Voting Rights Bill Passes House on Pure Party-Line Vote
I have head McConnell say it is the Dems trying to steal elections, but I really do not see what is wrong with the bill. It makes the right to vote the law of the land by registering all legal voters. It makes voting easier for everyone by early voting and on site registering, something my state already has. It lets us know who is donating huge sums of money to both parties. It outlaws gerrymandering by both parties and gets the states back to one man one vote concept that everyone should agree with. So exactly how does it hurt your party and help the other? It would seem that the party with the best candidate and the best platform would in elections, not who can eliminate the most voters from the other party or set up districts to make sure your party wins even when they lose, something that both parties have done in the past with gerrymandering. So what is wrong with the bill?
Click to expand...

It's a step towards allowing illegal aliens to vote. That's what's wrong with it.
 
Greenbeard said:
Because your bizarre take that voting is akin to buying theater tickets is pretty much all that needs to be said.

If you don't know what voter suppression is, the internet can help you out: Voter suppression in the United States. Go to town.



The "right of citizens of the United States to vote" is explicitly referenced in the 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th amendments to the Constitution.
Click to expand...

No, those amendments restrict discrimination based on race, former servitude, age above 18 y/o, or failure to pay taxes.

There is no inumerated right to vote. If there was, then non-citizens could legally vote, since the Supreme Court ruled that constitutional rights apply to any person in The United Stated.

Do you want non-citizens voting in U.S. elections?
 
apdst said:
No, those amendments restrict discrimination based on race, former servitude, age above 18 y/o, or failure to pay taxes.

There is no inumerated right to vote. If there was, then non-citizens could legally vote, since the Supreme Court ruled that constitutional rights apply to any person in The United Stated.

Do you want non-citizens voting in U.S. elections?
Click to expand...

Which part of "the right of citizens of the United States to vote" are you finding ambiguous? Seems like the citizens of the United States part isn't computing. And the right part. So I guess the whole thing.
 
Greenbeard said:
Which part of "the right of citizens of the United States to vote" are you finding ambiguous? Seems like the citizens of the United States part isn't computing. And the right part. So I guess the whole thing.
Click to expand...

What part of there's no enumerated right to vote aren't you getting? Probably all of it.
 
code1211 said:
I get just a little sick of that phrase.

By charging admission and only admitting those who have purchased tickets, are theaters conducting a campaign to suppress attendance?
Click to expand...

Yes. By definition. Another good analogy is yacht manufacturers are suppressing yacht ownership by only allowing the extremely wealthy to afford them. That way, they get to make a profit and these businesses are able to survive. Of course, going to the movies and purchasing yachts are not rights guaranteed by the constitution, and voting is not a business. If every American has a right to vote, then it is voter suppression to make voting even a little bit more difficult for Americans with less money and fewer resources. Making it easier for these Americans to vote is by definition reducing voter suppression.
 
code1211 said:
So, by demanding that people prove they are who they are is voter suppression?

That's insanity.

Voting is NOT a right. There are restrictions on it that must be attained or earned. Being of age, your address and citizenship are all qualifications to vote at particular polling places.

Voting is a privilege that can be removed and must be restricted to the qualifies.

Without prescribed methods of voter identification, what method will serve the purpose of establishing voter qualification?
Click to expand...

The problem is that the states make it difficult if not impossible for people to get the kind of ID's that the state requires to be able to vote. I Wisco where I live they first tried to makde people pay for their ID's which the courts ruled was unconstitutional as it was a poll tax. What the state, which is controlled by the GOP did then did was not tell people they could get ID's without paying the normal fee if they were getting ID's to vote. The courts then to ld them to tell people, but they continued to not ell them until after the election had taken place. Wiscon also had the most restrictive ID laws which allowed for only four types of IDS. They did not include military ID's or Vet's ID. IN the first election after the ID law went into effect in Wisco the estimate was that over 200 thousand voters were excluded from voting. So that is how the GOP uses voter ID to suppress voters.
 
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