Politics Thread

[GoMuskies]

screw an entire city

A largely black, heavily Democrat city at that. In favor of a super white city. Well played MLB.

[xu82]

I can't help you with your wife (!), but here's a couple of thoughts.
In some ways the new law helped voting: drop boxes in rural areas, studying and reacting to long waiting lines, an extra early voting day

In other ways it didn't help.
-Reduced drop box numbers in populous counties and put them inside the voting location, instead of outside.
-They were using signature match on mail in ballots...now you have to provide another form of ID with the ballot.
(If you had registered to vote with an ID, put your signature on file, it was matched to your mail in ballot. Now you'll have to send in another ID with the ballot. Unlike Colorado, who can apparently match signatures with no problem for all the people there who use mail in ballots successfully)
-Georgia's population has grown 25% in the last 20 years (8 to 10 million). The number of precincts to vote has been reduced by 10%; this may explain the very long wait lines in some areas to vote in person.
-Across the South, with the population steadily increasing in many states like Georgia, since the Supreme Court threw out pre-clearance of voting law changes, the number of polling places has been cut by 1,200.
-After standing in lines for hours on election day, if you were in line at 7 PM, you could still vote. The average wait time (after being in line for a long time) was 51 more minutes in black precincts...6 minutes in white precincts.

Maybe a good answer is to have a national holiday for voting like many countries do.

Thank you for a mature, balanced and well thought out response. It seems there is some reason for concern. I still have to point out how ridiculously easy it was to mail in my ballot. If you really want to vote, it’s not hard. Maybe this tilts the battlefield a bit, but if you want to vote, it’s easy to do so.

[D-West & PO-Z]

I admit I haven’t studied this, even living in Georgia. Voting is so damn easy, if you can’t hit that bar maybe you shouldn’t be allowed to vote. We just mailed it in. How hard is that? No ID required (though I think that is reasonable). Just mailed it in. If you are incapable of a little planning, I don’t think you deserve to decide our future. Take your own water or pizza. I don’t like the idea of buying votes for treats. There is no reason to wait in lines regardless.

What am I missing that is so horrible? I’m honest, I’m apparently missing the point. Gov Kemp seems like a clown, but I don’t understand the hate on this. Help me understand the hate, please. My wife hates it, and she’s a smart lady, but she can’t tell me what is so awful about it.


.

I guess my question is what was the point of changing anything? Why the need? Voter fraud is a non issue. It is so unbelievably miniscule there is no reason to eve waste time or energy discussing it.

And regardless of what you think of the new requirements, in terms of how easy you think they should be to meet, will the new law increase voting or decrease? (Decrease is the answer) Who will be voting less?

[paulxu]

You are correct, voter fraud is a non issue, and actual fraud minuscule.

The problem is that the former president spent 5 years telling his supporters that there was massive fraud, and he could only lose because of it.
He even convinced them they had to stop the steal, and they tried to by storming the Capitol.

Large percentages of Republican voters still believe it...there was fraud and that's why he lost...despite 50+ crazy court cases.

In February:

How many? Try 76% of self-identified Republicans in a new national Quinnipiac University poll. That's the number of Republicans who said they believe there was "widespread fraud in the 2020 election."

In April:

60% of Republicans instead believe Trump’s claims that Biden’s win was due to widespread voter fraud despite a lack of credible evidence.

So, some reality may be starting to set in.

It may even have cost them the Senate in Georgia, as some may have stayed home thinking there was fraud and their vote didn't matter.
Even though the Republicans in charge of voting in Georgia said (after 3 recounts) that there was no problem.

So, to answer your question...why change the laws at all?...it's (in my mind) a political play to that base in Georgia.
The Republican legislature and Governor in Georgia wanted to be seen as doing something...anything...to appease that base. Ergo the new laws.
Needed or not.

An added benefit might be the suppression of minority voting, which the state has an unfortunately long history of doing.

[Strange Brew]

I guess my question is what was the point of changing anything? Why the need? Voter fraud is a non issue. It is so unbelievably miniscule there is no reason to eve waste time or energy discussing it.

And regardless of what you think of the new requirements, in terms of how easy you think they should be to meet, will the new law increase voting or decrease? (Decrease is the answer) Who will be voting less?

Dead people.

[Masterofreality]

The definitive article on the idiocy of MLB moving the All Star game. #NailedIt

https://spectator.us/topic/major-lea...eorgia-voting/

[D-West & PO-Z]

Dead people.

Ha, probably. But that was never an issue anyway. Not to the extent of any time or energy being wasted on it.

[xu82]

I guess my question is what was the point of changing anything? Why the need? Voter fraud is a non issue. It is so unbelievably miniscule there is no reason to eve waste time or energy discussing it.

And regardless of what you think of the new requirements, in terms of how easy you think they should be to meet, will the new law increase voting or decrease? (Decrease is the answer) Who will be voting less?

Fair point. I want voting to be EASY and FAIR. It is not fair as currently designed. But it is EASY (whether you agree or not). It could not have been easier. Maybe education regarding the process needs to be better addressed. My goal is to let everyone vote if they want to vote with similar effort required. Some people don’t care to vote, and that is their right. I’m not trying to get everyone to vote, just to make it FAIR.

[noteggs]

-They were using signature match on mail in ballots...now you have to provide another form of ID with the ballot.
(If you had registered to vote with an ID, put your signature on file, it was matched to your mail in ballot. Now you'll have to send in another ID with the ballot. Unlike Colorado, who can apparently match signatures with no problem for all the people there who use mail in ballots successfully)

Honestly, don’t have a problem with either way. Some can argue it’s more suppressive to have someone subjectively reject (signature match) your ability to vote vs objectively checking matching numbers?

Regardless what we think of individual states voting laws today, hopefully we can agree they are not Jim Crow on steroids. Think that same person also said “if you don’t vote for me then you’re not black.” Now that sounds intimidating and suppressive.

[ArizonaXUGrad]

Nothing of what I said has anything to do with Colorado. I’m saying that people like yourself have fake outrage over legislation that is essentially a nothing burger, or maybe that’s my white privilege talking. . If mlb wants to be all “woke,” grandstand, and screw an entire city of revenue that’s their prerogative.

Oh and of course you have a problem with people’s stances on religion that are different from your own...shocking. You are all for businesses making their own decisions right? Well, as long as their opinion shares yours. The left way.

Read Paul's post, it's a nothing burger to you. There are a lot of Georgians who this is not a nothing burger who just got this law shoved down their throats. The measures that allow the legislature to take over an election board should have been enough to get this voted down.