Patterico's Pontifications

4/14/2020

Survey: Should the November Election Be Delayed?

Filed under: General — Dana @ 8:11 am



[guest post by Dana]

A survey of 1,200 registered voters conducted April 8 through April 11 revealed voter concerns about the coronavirus outbreak and the 2020 presidential election:

Sixty-eight percent of registered voters think the coronavirus outbreak will have a big impact on election turnout in the U.S., a new poll shows — and nearly 4 in 10 support delaying the November presidential election until the pandemic is under control.

Democrats are more likely to think the outbreak will have a big impact (80 percent) than independents (66 percent) or Republicans (58 percent).

The survey also found that 39 percent support delaying the November general election until the spread of the coronavirus is under control.

Sixty-three percent of registered voters are concerned about the outbreak’s preventing voting in this year’s elections, including 39 percent who say they are very concerned.

Forty-six percent of voters say they are worried about the possibility that they or someone in their immediate family could become infected while voting where they usually cast their ballots.

An overwhelming majority (78 percent) also said it’s important for their state and local governments to provide alternatives to in-person voting, including 46 percent who said it’s very important.

In spite of President Trump’s claims that “mail-in voting is a terrible thing” because there is “tremendous potential for voter fraud, and… doesn’t work out well for Republicans,” surveyed voters said they would like to see expanded mail-in voting options:

Seventy-three percent of registered voters said they would support expanding access to vote-by-mail, and 80 percent said they would support expanding early voting…Majorities of Democrats (90 percent), independents (71 percent) and Republicans (57 percent) said they support expanding access to vote-by-mail…

–Dana

138 Responses to “Survey: Should the November Election Be Delayed?”

  1. This is a small sampling of voters, and November is seven months away, yet we don’t really know where we’ll be at with regard to the outbreak and the country’s recovery by the time the election rolls around. Also, any decisions on a contingency plan would have to be made well in advance of election day.

    Dana (0feb77)

  2. Gryph: What happens in November if the election gets delayed?

    The internet’s commentariat in mid-March: That’s crazy talk.

    Gryph (08c844)

  3. The potential for mail-in voting being used more widely, with greater potential for voter fraud, which does usually not work-out well for Republicans are not mutually exclusive subjects.

    MJN1957 (28ce29)

  4. Just something else to argue about…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  5. I understand Republican concerns. The only real large-scale voter fraud we’ve seen recently was mail-in.

    https://www.npr.org/2019/07/30/746800630/north-carolina-gop-operative-faces-new-felony-charges-that-allege-ballot-fraud

    john (cd2753)

  6. Ideally everyone votes in person at their poling place and shows some proof of id / residence. If they don’t have sufficient proof at the time they’re given a provisional ballot and a reasonable time to get that in order.

    In some circumstances it makes sense to allow less then ideal voting.
    -Service members deployed overseas
    -People on extended trips,
    -People whose age or health concerns make it unduly hard to vote in person

    If there’s a pandemic going on I think that would be another reasonable situation.
    -It probably increases the risk that the will of the people will be obscured by fraud.
    -It probably decreases the risk that the will of the people will be obscured by lower turnout.
    -It probable decreases the risk of spreading a highly contagious and dangerous disease.

    I don’t support delaying the election for a problem we can see from 6 months away.

    Time123 (53ef45)

  7. Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for us.

    Well, we had a good run…

    The American Experiment: July 4, 1776 – (date pending)

    Demosthenes (7fae81)

  8. @8 We’ll survive this, we’ve survived worse and gotten better over the years
    -women can vote and own property.
    -you can no longer own people.
    -More literacy.
    -less violence and crime.
    -it’s been decades since genocide was an actual policy.

    Time123 (53ef45)

  9. I like voting by mail.

    In the first place, I don’t need any stinking ID because I don’t ask for a ballot. My email is part of my voter registration and the board of elections offers me one. I say yes, and they send it to the name and address on my voter registration which would be me.

    I take my time filling it out and I take it to the mail box myself. I get another email from the board of elections saying that they received it and that they will count it. It will not be in the trunk of a car somewhere.

    If I change my mind or spoil my ballot, I can go to the precinct on election day and exchange my mail ballot for an in-person ballot.

    It doesn’t work out too well for Republicans? Heh! All you gotta do is take a look at the people who call themselves Republicans these days and whom they put in the White House. Yes, I most definitely mean it as an insult. Present company excepted.

    nk (1d9030)

  10. PS The postage is prepaid by the board of elections.

    nk (1d9030)

  11. PPS A signature verification is included and it has to match the one on my voter registration.

    nk (1d9030)

  12. @ Time123, #8:

    We’ll survive this, we’ve survived worse…

    Our electorate, and our population at large, had more character then.

    Allow everyone to vote by mail, such that the last tiny obstacle to exercising the franchise is removed from people who think TikTok has value and allow the impulses of one moment to control the decisions of the next, and watch as they vote this country away.

    There will likely always be something called the United States of America. Rome’s constitution and forms of government didn’t just vanish in 27 BC, either. But we can still mark the date when the Republic died.

    Demosthenes (7fae81)

  13. I’d say let’s increase the opportunity for mail in balloting, but the latest right wing mob frenzy seems to be shutting down the post office.

    Sheesh, I thought this was the 21st century. I still don’t have a flying car, and can not vote from my smart phone?

    Glenn (a56320)

  14. “last tiny obstacle to exercising the franchise”

    You’re telling on yourself.

    Davethulhu (d0f7de)

  15. The survey also found that 39 percent support delaying the November general election until the spread of the coronavirus is under control.

    Bad question.

    The real issue is vote by mail. Mail is considered safe. (after all days can pass between the time the infected person puts his hand on the letter and the time it is opend)

    They could also heat it up 80 degrees for 15 minutes.

    It’s bad also because presidential terms are fixed. And moving it let’s say from the begining of November to the end of November or egnning of December won;t change much/

    Also, in an emergency, states can appoint electrs any way they want. But we don’t want to change that.

    I think we would want to change the nominees.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  16. How does vote by mail work if the post office goes bankrupt?

    aphrael (7962af)

  17. In five states with all mail voting there’s been no evidence of large scale fraud and little evidence of any fraud. But since they’re all Western coastal states I guess it doesn’t count.

    I am surprised more people haven’t noticed that the presidential agenda includes knifing the Postal Service. I wonder how that will actually work out for his rural supporters.

    Victor (4355e3)

  18. I don’t think there’s any problem of the Post Office going bankrupt.

    The New York City subway system, and the MTA in general, not so much.

    Without new money the subways can;’t run for more than two or three more months. Passengers are now at around 7% – and they don;t want it to be more crowded. Suburban commuting is down even more.

    The MTA was heading toward running out of money (too much debt) in 2023 (even with getting income from congestion pricing and fare increases) before the crisis, so maybe the coronavirus will save it.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  19. 18. Victor (4355e3) — 4/14/2020 @ 9:46 am

    In five states with all mail voting there’s been no evidence of large scale fraud and little evidence of any fraud.

    and no evidence even , says the New York Times, that it hurts Republicans!

    In Florida, more voting by mail is considered to help the Republican Party.

    But since they’re all Western coastal states I guess it doesn’t count.

    with ahigher white population.

    I am surprised more people haven’t noticed that the presidential agenda includes knifing the Postal Service. I wonder how that will actually work out for his rural supporters.

    Here’s one argument about this. It doesn’t mention the extra costs Congress imposed o the USPS.

    But whatever happens, the Post Office won’t go out of business (it may skip deliveries on Saturdays and another day or two of the week)

    I’m in favor of letting the Post Office do more things. Maybe print pictures or faxes or emails and deliver them. A minor amount of banking. Or Congress can give it money.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  20. How does vote by mail work if the post office goes bankrupt?

    aphrael (7962af) — 4/14/2020 @ 9:37 am

    Heh. Maybe this is why Trump doesn’t want to bail them out…how deviously clever!

    Dana (0feb77)

  21. In five states with all mail voting there’s been no evidence of large scale fraud and little evidence of any fraud. But since they’re all Western coastal states I guess it doesn’t count.

    Shh!!! your ruining the narrative.

    The Wisconsin GOP/DEMs believed those “theories” too, however, reality intruded and proved those old tales were woefully unrealistic.

    The only organized instanced of fraudulent mail in voting was in North Carolina 2 cycles ago, guess the party of the guilty…party.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  22. In Wisconsin, the liberal candidate for the State Supreme court was a surprise winner in the April 7 primary. The Republicans had wanted o keep thins as they were with the idea they would do better in that election if they did. (it doesn’t change the overall balance, but might affect a future gerrymandering or apportioment decision they say.)

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/us/politics/wisconsin-primary-results.html

    A liberal challenger’s surprise triumph over a Trump-backed incumbent demonstrated strong turnout and vote-by-mail efforts for the Democrats in a key general election state…

    …The victory, by upward of 120,000 votes as of Monday night, came as a shock to Republicans and Democrats alike in Wisconsin, where the most recent contests for president, governor and the state’s high court have each been decided by about 30,000 votes or less. It followed weeks of Democratic anger over Republicans’ insistence on holding elections amid the coronavirus pandemic…

    …Justice Kelly became just the second incumbent State Supreme Court justice to be ousted at the polls since 1967. President Trump had boasted that his endorseme..

    …Ms. Karofsky’s surprise triumph came after Republicans in the State Legislature, and later conservatives on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, rebuffed Democratic efforts to move the date of the elections — held last week but with the results delayed until Monday by a federal judge — or send mail ballots to all voters because of the pandemic.

    The decisive Democratic win offered a signal that the party, highly energized and mobilized heading into 2020, could organize and execute a winning get-out-the-vote program against strident Republican efforts to limit voter turnout in a narrowly divided state widely expected to be crucial in this fall’s presidential election.nt of Justice Kelly had unnerved Democrats in the state.,,

    …Wisconsin Democrats spent the last week in a state of fury, angry that Republicans had forced in-person voting and risked spreading the coronavirus.

    In Wisconsin’s 10 largest counties, Ms. Karofsky improved on the 2019 liberal Supreme Court candidate’s performance by at least five percentage points in nine of them. She flipped two such counties, Winnebago in the state’s Fox Valley, and Brown, which includes Green Bay.

    Democrats spent the hours before results were released Monday afternoon bracing for a defeat and making the case that the Wisconsin contest was illegitimate…

    …Wisconsin Republicans, meanwhile, have defended holding an in-person election amid the pandemic. Robin Vos, the State Assembly speaker who rejected the governor’s requests to postpone the election, worked as a polling inspector while wearing full protective equipment last week. “You are incredibly safe to go out,” he said.

    In the end, Democratic turnout surged in liberal bastions around Madison and Milwaukee. Three weeks before the election, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin shifted all of its get-out-the-vote efforts to virtual organizing and absentee ballot promotion.

    Turnout in rural counties, which tilt Republican and backed Justice Kelly, did not keep pace. He conceded defeat Monday night…

    ..The court race took on national significance for both parties. If re-elected, Justice Kelly, who was appointed to the court by former Gov. Scott Walker, was poised to be the swing vote on a pending decision on whether to purge more than 200,000 people from Wisconsin’s voter rolls ahead of what is expected to be a tight presidential contest in the state. President Trump three times tweeted his support for Justice Kelly, including an Election Day missive urging supporters to “get out and vote NOW for Justice Daniel Kelly.”,,,

    The results follow weeks of acrimonious wrangling between Democrats and Republicans in the state; citing the risks from coronavirus, Democrats wanted to postpone the election as most of the other states with April primaries did. But Wisconsin law forbade Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, from changing the election date without the consent of the Republican-controlled Legislature, which wanted the election to proceed. Republicans also resisted Mr. Evers’s attempts to relax the state’s strict rules requiring voters to upload a copy of a valid identification card to request and receive a mail ballot.

    When Mr. Evers invoked emergency powers the day before the election postponing it until June, the legislature appealed to the State Supreme Court, which blocked Mr. Evers from doing so.

    Major efforts by both parties to get their voters to request ballots led to the largest absentee turnout in the state’s history — more than one million votes by mail, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which said the number was already most likely higher and would rise as all the votes were counted.

    While images from Wisconsin’s Election Day focused on hourslong lines outside the five polling places that remained open in Milwaukee — down from 180 that had been planned — turnout by mail was higher in the state’s two largest liberal counties relative to the rest of the state than it was during the 2019 State Supreme Court election, which was decided by just 6,000 votes.

    The issue befoe the United states suprome Court was exteding the date for I think sending an absentee ballot – many were requested very late and didnt eve arrive in time) which I think one federal judge had allowed. The court said this had never been requested by the Democratic Party.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  23. @ Davethulhu, #15:

    “last tiny obstacle to exercising the franchise”

    You’re telling on yourself.

    Voting should be a little inconvenient. For everyone.

    I don’t want a national holiday for voting, so that I can go anytime I please during the day, or multiple days of early voting to make it easier to fit into my schedule…I want to have to fit voting into my Tuesday, and maybe make a small sacrifice. I don’t want convenient mail-in ballots that I can drop off while running my regular errands…I want to have to show up at the polls with my ID (or, in the days when I voted OOS, locate a notary and show him/her my ID). And I didn’t want to be able to show up as a non-registered voter and ask for a ballot the same way I would show up at a McDonald’s and ask for a Big Mac…I wanted to be forced to plan for that, as indeed I did (the only reason I bothered taking the driver’s test was to have one of the forms of ID that I needed to register to vote).

    I want these things because they stop people from voting who don’t care enough to plan around them. If a person won’t take the time to vote, then they probably also won’t take the time to learn what they’re voting for. That is what I mean to imply. That is ALL I mean to imply. And I don’t know what you’re insinuating, exactly — perhaps that I’m racist, sexist, classist, some other “ist” — but whatever it is, have some guts, be a man, and say it openly.

    Demosthenes (7fae81)

  24. 22. Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 4/14/2020 @ 10:08 am

    The only organized instanced of fraudulent mail in voting was in North Carolina 2 cycles ago, guess the party of the guilty…party.

    The same thing: ballot harvesting – also happens in California, but it’s legal there.

    They can’t get away with this (n an organized fashion – it can happen within families but maybe it mostly cancels out) except in places where is no effective opposition – and even then, the real fraud is just not to involve the voter at all, but just add ballots.

    Going into nursing homes and collecting ballots is something that is done only when the people doing it don’t control the election machinery.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  25. “Should the November Election Be Delayed?”

    No f*cking way. We have seven months to develop a less restrictive – and indeed least restrictive – method by which the people may exercise their fundamental right to vote. The methods of election need to change, not the dates.

    Leviticus (efada1)

  26. “And I don’t know what you’re insinuating, exactly — perhaps that I’m racist, sexist, classist, some other “ist” — but whatever it is, have some guts, be a man, and say it openly.”

    – Demosthenes

    I’ll hazard a guess, and say that Davethulu was insinuating that want there to be more obstacles to the exercise of the franchise. Is that not what you were saying?

    Should people have to pay a small fee to vote as well, to “stop people from voting who don’t care enough to plan around [it]”? Paraphrasing: “If a person won’t [pay the money] to vote, then they probably also won’t take the time to learn what they’re voting for”?

    Time is a currency like any other.

    Leviticus (efada1)

  27. > I don’t think there’s any problem of the Post Office going bankrupt.

    Because everybody stopped sending bulk mailers, and because their cost structure was already a problem, the post office is currently losing $2 billion / month and will be insolvent financially by the end of September.

    aphrael (7962af)

  28. We didn’t do it for Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and we didn’t do it for FDR during WWII and we’re not going to do it for the mopes up there now. Like Leviticus said, they have seven months to get their sheep together or they can just get the flock out.

    nk (1d9030)

  29. > Heh. Maybe this is why Trump doesn’t want to bail them out…how deviously clever!

    This conspiracy theory is going around on the left. I don’t believe it; privatizing the post office has been desired by enough people on the right that i’ve been aware of it as an issue for a quarter century, and that was before the modern vote by mail explosion.

    I think it would be a terrible policy mistake that would hose rural areas, and I think it would end up hurting Republicans if it happened on their watch, but i don’t think it’s politically motivated in a partisan sense; i think it’s motivated by the ideological conviction that government run enterprises are always bad.

    aphrael (7962af)

  30. “That is ALL I mean to imply.”

    No it’s not. You don’t want “undesirables” voting. This has been the Republican playbook for decades now. You can’t outright block them from voting, but you try to pile inconvenience on inconvenience in order to suppress the votes of people you disagree with.

    Davethulhu (55c763)

  31. Leviticus,

    And to really make sure that only careful smart people vote we could have a little test beforehand, perhaps with some questions on the Constitution.

    Every obstacle to voting selects against some portion of the population – limiting voting to working hours during weekdays selectes against people who can’t, or can’t afford to leave work. And because elections have consequences, there will always be people trying to throw up obstacles, as a way of shaping the voting population. But they’ll convince themselves their motives are pure.

    Sure voting requires some formalities, to limit fraud, to prevent accidental voting. But anything other than the minimum needed to insure valid considered voting is almost always in the service of a partisan agenda.

    Victor (4355e3)

  32. @ Leviticus, #27:

    Time is a currency like any other.

    Is it? Jeff Bezos has the same amount of that currency as anyone else — 24 hours per day.

    And no, I would not be in favor of a poll tax. I would, however, be in favor of a voting test. We’ve all read the statistics about how many people can’t name even basic facts about American history and civics. Perhaps those people shouldn’t be voting.

    To head off the obvious objections — yes, such a test could be given orally, and/or in multiple languages.

    Demosthenes (7fae81)

  33. I think this is bad news for Trump. I think the 2016 Pennsylvania and MIdwest victories will be seen as lucky flukes due to Democrat complacency and a very bad candidate. I fully expect these states to go back to voting D for POTUS, and someone like Biden is the kind of person these Midwestern dumbos like.

    Btw, I hope all the liberal R’s and moronic moderates that voted for the D’s in Virginia are liking what they getting in Northam. They asked for it! Just like the moderates in CA wanted their one party state.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  34. >The issue befoe the United states suprome Court was exteding the date for I think sending an absentee ballot – many were requested very late and didnt eve arrive in time) which I think one federal judge had allowed. The court said this had never been requested by the Democratic Party.
    That was misleading and, I think, utterly wrong.

    The problem is that Wisconsin law doesn’t differentiate between “date by which a ballot must be postmarked” and “date by which a ballot must be received”. There’s just one date.

    A lower court extended *that one date* by a week. The Supreme Court said, nah, nobody asked for the *postmark* date to be extended, they only asked for the *receipt* date to be extended. They justified injecting the differentiation into Wisconsin law by saying that since no state allows ballots to be postmarked after election day, clearly Wisconsin law didn’t allow that, either, and the asked-for-remedy of extending the deadline could only have meant extending the *receipt* deadline.

    My view is this is utter hogwash, but i’ve seen reasonable arguments supporting the proposition.

    aphrael (7962af)

  35. >If a person won’t take the time to vote

    what about the person who works two jobs and literally cannot take time to vote without either losing one of their jobs or being punished by having their hours reduced?

    i mean, sure, it’s against the law for employers to do that, but the people in these situations don’t generally have the money to pay a lawyer to get it enforced.

    aphrael (7962af)

  36. “We’ve all read the statistics about how many people can’t name even basic facts about American history and civics.”

    None of these were obstacles to the Presidency.

    Davethulhu (55c763)

  37. As a Caliunicornian, I say it should stay in early November to more closely align with the harvest cycle.

    Harvest those votes, cheating mofo Democrats!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  38. “Harvest those votes, cheating mofo Democrats!”

    You’re thinking of North Carolina, and Republicans.

    Davethulhu (55c763)

  39. @ Leviticus, #27:

    I’ll hazard a guess, and say that Davethulu was insinuating that want there to be more obstacles to the exercise of the franchise.

    I’m glad he’s proved you wrong, BTW. That’s clearly NOT all he was saying. It was clear when he said it.

    @ Davethulhu, #31:

    No it’s not. You don’t want “undesirables” voting.

    Again, say what you mean. Whom do you think I consider “undesirable”? On what evidence?

    @ Victor, #32:

    …there will always be people trying to throw up obstacles, as a way of shaping the voting population. But they’ll convince themselves their motives are pure.

    Lovely little well-poisoning job, there.

    Demosthenes (7fae81)

  40. 39… it’s the law in Caliunicornia, written by Democrats to allow harvesting, with no practical way to keep it clean.

    Dirty mofos!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  41. @ Davethulhu, #37:

    None of these were obstacles to the Presidency.

    I’ll admit it. I laughed.

    My opinion of you at this moment could scarcely be lower, considering you think I’m a bigot. But I admire your sense of humor.

    Demosthenes (7fae81)

  42. “Jeff Bezos has the same amount of that currency as anyone else — 24 hours per day.”

    – Demosthenes

    In line with aphrael’s point, Jeff Bezos never has to work another day in his life if he doesn’t want to. He has a vast reserve of time upon which he may draw at his leisure. The single mom with two jobs and two kids? Not so much.

    Leviticus (efada1)

  43. @ Leviticus, #43:

    And sales tax is likewise far more of a burden on the single mom with two jobs and two kids than it is on Jeff Bezos. Nevertheless, they both pay it.

    Money is a currency like any other, wouldn’t you say?

    Demosthenes (7fae81)

  44. My mom passed five years ago.

    My pop died in Sept.

    We duly reported both, Medicare and pensions etc. were halted immediately. Got all sorts of notifications from sources I never considered (e.g. pop’s armed forces insurance, investments I never knew of etc.).

    My mom still gets mail-in ballots. I’ve called the registrar and notified them both are dead but I’m still getting poll location and sample ballots info for both.

    Nationwide mail voting will be a Dem landslide.
    _

    harkin (b64479)

  45. “Again, say what you mean. Whom do you think I consider “undesirable”?”

    People who vote Democrat.

    “On what evidence?”

    Decades of Republican vote suppression.

    Davethulhu (55c763)

  46. Dave, FWIW I think you’re trying to imply that Demosthenes is racist. I also think you’re trying to be cute about it and not come right out and make the case. I could be wrong and maybe a very close reading of all the comments would show something else. But this is how it comes across to me. If that’s what you mean you should just say it.

    Time123 (ae9d89)

  47. “ Conservative watchdog Judicial Watch is currently engaging in an Election Integrity Project. It has estimated that 3.5 million more people are on U.S. election rolls than are eligible to vote.

    “When you look at those registered to vote, and you compare and contrast those numbers with people actually eligible to vote, you come up with the 3.5 million individuals spread out across the fifty states,” Judicial Watch says in a statement on its website.

    According to the group’s numbers, California holds approximately half of the additional voters with an estimated 1.7 million ghost voters…..

    ….In January 2018, after Trump shut down the Election Commission he had appointed to investigate fraud, citing “endless legal battles at taxpayer expense,” the president called for voter I.D. laws. The New York Times claimed victory, noting that “no state has uncovered significant evidence to support the president’s claim, and election officials, including many Republicans, have strongly rejected it.”

    In reality, many states had refused to hand over data to the Election Commission.

    It’s surprisingly difficult to find good information on voter roll registration. One of the most widely cited sources is a 2012 PEW study which found the following problems with America’s voter rolls:

    Approximately 24 million–one out of every eight–voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate
    More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters
    Approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state

    Is Voter Fraud Real? A look at California’s illegal voter registration problem

    https://themarketswork.com/2018/10/31/is-voter-fraud-real-a-look-at-californias-illegal-voter-registration-problem/
    _

    harkin (b64479)

  48. Demonsthenese And no, I would not be in favor of a poll tax. I would, however, be in favor of a voting test. We’ve all read the statistics about how many people can’t name even basic facts about American history and civics. Perhaps those people shouldn’t be voting.

    Even assuming that you work around the history of such tests being used to remove franchise from blacks and come up with a test that doesn’t disproportionately impact the poor and non-white I wouldn’t support this.

    Democracy has several values. One of them is that it creates a sense in the citizenry that the process is ‘fair’ and that the decisions reflect the will of the people. This allows the leaders of a democracy to lead at the consent of the governed. A pole test would change that.

    Additionally, voting for a candidate because they came from a similar background and you therefor trust them to represent your interests at the state capital is as valid a reason as any other to vote for them. You don’t need to know who which powers are reserved to the state and which to the federal gov. You just need to know that they grew up on a farm just like you did.

    Time123 (ae9d89)

  49. @ Davethulhu, #46:

    Ah, okay. Thank you for saying that. That’s pretty clear.

    I’m going to go ahead and not take you seriously from now on.

    But I did admire that quick-witted joke of yours.

    Demosthenes (7fae81)

  50. aphrael @35. This is clearer than the too brief summaries I read in a news article or two.

    I think you can say that, if ballots can be postmarked later than Election Day, Election Day in Wisconsin would amount to early voting, so in principle, sending ballots after election day, is no problem. I think one of the all ail states (Colorado>) has in person pre-official election day voting.

    But the question is, how is the election law in Wisconsin written?

    If they only asked for the *receipt* date to be extended then they could be sent after incomplete results were released, and that is never done. Maybe the Democrats were hoping for just that. As it is, possibly in revulsion to forcing in person voting in these conditions, the Republicans lost the (officially nonpartisan) state Supreme Court election

    I think the federal judge took it unto himself to order the results embargoed till the postmark/receipt date.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  51. @48 At one point in time i was registered 3 times. I had moved to a different state and then moved back. I was registered in my original state at my first and 3rd address and in the 2nd state. I know because I got information for all 3 registrations one year. I only voted once. It wouldn’t surprise me that much of the 3.5 million can be explained through people moving and dying. To this day I have no idea how to de-register to vote, nor why i would take the time to do so.

    Time123 (53ef45)

  52. Have the election as normal. We’ve been through worse.

    Mail-in ballots with ballot harvesting. What could go wrong? Any new trunks of ballots found in Minnesota lately or has has Washington state been since they stole the Governor’s election all those years ago?

    NJRob (4d595c)

  53. Demosthenes, at 44: and access to currency should not be a bar to exercising voting rights.

    aphrael (7962af)

  54. 1.7 million ghost voters…..

    Most don’t actually have ballots cast for them.

    But in a recount in a close race, they’ll see these absentee votes cast, most likely, by family members of the deceased still living at the deceased person’s address, or one of them. (or else the mail would be returned.)

    It happened in New York in the race for state Attorney General in 1998. New York as very little absentee voting but some people who were sick (usually old) ot put onto apermanent absente ballot list.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  55. > possibly in revulsion to forcing in person voting in these conditions, the Republicans lost the (officially nonpartisan) state Supreme Court election

    the fact that the legislature didn’t simply postpone the election — and in fact *ignored* the special session called by the governor for that purpose — was outrageous.

    aphrael (7962af)

  56. NJRob (4d595c) — 4/14/2020 @ 11:24 am

    ? Any new trunks of ballots found in Minnesota lately or has has Washington state been since they stole the Governor’s election all those years ago?

    Those ballots probably never saw the inside of a mailbox.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  57. Have the election as normal. We’ve been through worse.

    Mail-in ballots with ballot harvesting. What could go wrong? Any new trunks of ballots found in Minnesota lately or has has Washington state been since they stole the Governor’s election all those years ago?

    NJRob (4d595c) — 4/14/2020 @ 11:24 am

    If you don’t think we can ensure election integrity for mail in ballots why aren’t you calling to eliminate them entirely?

    Time123 (53ef45)

  58. Btw, I hope all the liberal R’s and moronic moderates that voted for the D’s in Virginia are liking what they getting in Northam. They asked for it! Just like the moderates in CA wanted their one party state.

    rcocean (1a839e) — 4/14/2020 @ 10:38 am

    All those new gun ban laws all the while preventing people from protesting his actions in the name of public safety. How positively Soviet of him.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  59. We didn’t do it for Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and we didn’t do it for FDR during WWII and we’re not going to do it for the mopes up there now. Like Leviticus said, they have seven months to get their sheep together or they can just get the flock out.

    Basically agree with this sentiment. Only caveat I would make is that the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November is not set in stone, it is a Congressional enactment. A minor move (say to December 1) if it were warranted would not be a calamity.

    One point I have not seen made is that the president’s term ends on January 20. That IS in the Constitution. (20th Amendment moved it to Jan. 20 from March 4).

    Without an election, there is no president as of Jan. 20. Trump or anyone else does not become president by saying so. So if you had no election, after that date, you could just ignore the occupant of the White House.

    (Same applies to Congressmen and 1/3 of the Senators. No election, empty seats. There is no one to pass laws, and any law passed by holdovers is a legal nullity.)

    Bored Lawyer (56c962)

  60. “ Any new trunks of ballots found in Minnesota lately”

    I was working on a project in Minneapolis when that went down. The locals were actually bragging about stealing a senate seat.
    _

    harkin (b64479)

  61. “Dave, FWIW I think you’re trying to imply that Demosthenes is racist.”

    Supporting a historically racist policy doesn’t necessarily mean that he is racist himself. And name-calling distracts from the point of my argument.

    Historically, voter literacy test were written with enough ambiguity that the test giver could arbitrarily decide passes or fails. In practice they were used as a tool to suppress black votes.

    However, modern Republican desire to retain power doesn’t require racist intent. The fact that it tends to target the poor and people of color is just a side effect, those are the easiest Democratic votes to suppress.

    Davethulhu (55c763)

  62. I think the states with all mail voting out serial numbers on the ballots – I don’t know – how do you ensure both no ballot stuffing and the secret ballot?

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  63. Bored Lawyer (56c962) — 4/14/2020 @ 11:30 am

    Without an election, there is no president as of Jan. 20. Trump or anyone else does not become president by saying so. So if you had no election, after that date, you could just ignore the occupant of the White House.

    (Same applies to Congressmen and 1/3 of the Senators. No election, empty seats. There is no one to pass laws, and any law passed by holdovers is a legal nullity.)

    Governors can appoint Senators. The House might have some members. Especially from vote by mail states.

    But as for president, remember this: States can appoint Electors any way they want and they can change the method right up until the date for appointing Electors set by Congress.

    But I don’t think we’d want the president and vice president of the United Sates basically chosen by the combined votes of the state legislatures.

    If 75% of the states appointed electors, one way or another, you just ignore the missing states.

    Now we also have the 20th amendment:

    https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/amendments-11-27

    Section 3.

    If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.

    We could have Congress appointing a president.

    I think Trump would have to sign the bill, but maybe they could get around that. Maybe it could be assed after his term has expired.

    Wait ten or eleven days ad so on.

    But you’d need a Congress.

    We could function with 100 Senators and a House of however so many members.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  64. My mom still gets mail-in ballots. I’ve called the registrar and notified them both are dead but I’m still getting poll location and sample ballots info for both.

    Harkin, I don’t know where you live…but when my mother died, the local elections office removed her name from the lists fairly quickly…I know I never got mail for her and she was off by the next election in November, 2 1/2 months later (I checked with a poll worker when I went to cast my vote). That’s in Broward County, with Brenda Snipes in charge (you probably remember here). It may have been done at the state level. (But the county was quick to remove the homestead exemption, as soon as the death certificate was filed.)

    So that might be a local slow bureuacrat thing.

    Kishnevi (f12dcb)

  65. We went through the War of Northern Aggression, and still had our elections. We went through the War of 1812, and still had our elections. World Wars I and II did not delay our elections. The notion that we would delay our election because of a virus seems silly..

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  66. To this day I have no idea how to de-register to vote, nor why i would take the time to do so.

    One would do so to do one’s part to keep the voter rolls clean/accurate. But that has to matter to one to get one off one’s keister.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  67. @67 do you know how to do it? Have you ever done it?

    Time123 (d54166)

  68. Historically, Jim Crow laws were a creation of Democrats as a means to suppress and disenfranchise black Americans.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  69. Bored Lawyer (56c962) — 4/14/2020 @ 11:30 am

    (Same applies to Congressmen and 1/3 of the Senators. No election, empty seats. There is no one to pass laws, and any law passed by holdovers is a legal nullity.)

    As I said, Goernors could fill vacancies in the Senate, and the House can function even if there are members from only one quarter if the states. It wouldn’t be what the spirit of the U.S. constitution called for, but the government could function. and whenever various states got around to holding elections for the House or sentae the new or replacement members cold be seated.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  70. Time123
    Here in Florida it’s done by the County Supervisor of Elections and the State Department of State. The website of whichever entities correspond to that in your case. However, if it’s like Florida, the process of registering a second time in the same state would include a question about previous registrations that should result in the first registration being deleted automatically because you registered at a different address.

    Kishnevi (f12dcb)

  71. Mr Finkelman wrote:

    But I don’t think we’d want the president and vice president of the United Sates basically chosen by the combined votes of the state legislatures.

    Actually, we kind of do: it would mean that the Republican candidates would win! 🙂

    Only two states have split legislative control, Alaska (three electoral votes) and Minnesota (10 electoral votes), and there are no states that President Trump carried in which the Democrats control the state legislature.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  72. Forty-six percent of voters say they are worried about the possibility that they or someone in their immediate family could become infected while voting where they usually cast their ballots.

    In Wsconsin, they are going to take advantage (?) of this experiment to try to see if happens. Hard to do with a (potentially) killer virus that only has infected one in 50 people, if that. It does kill – a few.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  73. Actually, we kind of do: it would mean that the Republican candidates would win! 🙂

    And, another thing, you also don’t need 538 Electors.

    The election would be perfectly legal if only about 200 Electors were selected

    But if things were that irregular, maybe they wouldn;t all vote fr Trump.

    Maybe the election could get thrown into the (incomplete) House of Representatives. But the senate could pick a vice president among the top two. Or deliberately not pick – or how’s this – Mike Pence gets selected as vice president, acts as president, and the House does not choose anybody and then Congress passes a law which Mike Pence signs that has the effect of making some third person temporary president.

    Who?

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  74. Vote by mail, vote online, etc., etc., etc. Plenty of ways for a sophisticated, modern, technologically advanced 21st century democracy to get this basic right securely up and running. Unless it clings to powder-wigged, 18th century rituals, 250 years out of date.

    Once upon a time, doctors made house calls (yes, really)- and bleeding was the common cure all fer what ailed ‘ya.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  75. Sammy, what you suggest is theoretically possible (although how a state chooses elector is a matter of state law, the state legislature would have to agree that its electors are going to be chosen by them and not by an election).

    But it would lead to a lack of legitimacy to any Congress or president put into office that way. As it is, half the country refused to accept the last election. A president or Congress put into office by a Constitutionally dubious departure from the practice of the last century and more would simply not be respected, and the result would be chaos.

    Bored Lawyer (56c962)

  76. @ Time123, #49:

    Even assuming that you work around the history of such tests being used to remove franchise from blacks and come up with a test that doesn’t disproportionately impact the poor and non-white I wouldn’t support this.

    The history of voting tests is as ugly as sin, I grant you that. And your view is a perfectly reasonable one, though obviously I disagree.

    Democracy has several values. One of them is that it creates a sense in the citizenry that the process is ‘fair’ and that the decisions reflect the will of the people. This allows the leaders of a democracy to lead at the consent of the governed. A pole test would change that.

    I would argue that there’s no such aggregate as “the will of the people” — and that, to the extent such a thing exists and is given voice, it would result in the gutting of the country. “The people” want lower taxes and higher spending. “The people” want expansive personal liberties, but they don’t want commensurately expansive civic responsibilities. “The people” want a government that is limited enough not to meddle in their private affairs, but powerful enough that it will be able to dole out assistance at a moment’s notice. If you want to call this “the will of the people,” you can. I prefer to call it social schizophrenia.
    But whichever it is, its implicit contradictions will eventually be paid for at the behest of the Gods of the Copybook Headings. And none of us will be insulated from that. Nor should we be. After all, to use your language again, we were the governed, and we gave our consent. Perhaps we wouldn’t have, if only we had known what we were signing up for…but we didn’t know, and we signed up anyway, and the forces of logic who have come to collect from us will not care.

    Additionally, voting for a candidate because they came from a similar background and you therefor trust them to represent your interests at the state capital is as valid a reason as any other to vote for them. You don’t need to know who which powers are reserved to the state and which to the federal gov. You just need to know that they grew up on a farm just like you did.

    To an extent, I sympathize with this view. Voting for officeholders should be more about the person than the policies. Times change, and unforeseen situations arise. A person’s background provides the only clue we really have about how they might deal with those situations, and I understand the thought process of a person who looks at two candidates, sees himself and his life reflected in only one, and pulls the lever accordingly.

    But “as valid a reason as any other”? That covers a lot of ground. Our current president reached his station because a plurality of people who lived in certain important geographic units liked — among other things — the way he pissed off, and pushed back against, all the people they didn’t like. Are you a fan of that reasoning process? Is it as valid as any other? If not, what’s the distinction?

    Demosthenes (7fae81)

  77. @ aphrael, #54:

    and access to currency should not be a bar to exercising voting rights.

    If we’re going to continue to use economic terms so broadly, allow me to invoke another. Everything in life involves an opportunity cost. Obviously, this applies with money…if I go to two movies this week, I may not be able to afford to eat out on Saturday night. But it applies to our use of our time as well. The time I devote to this conversation is time I do not spend praying to God, reading Shakespeare, working, checking up on a friend, watching The Avengers, or using a treadmill. Time I spend voting is likewise time I’m not doing any of those things.

    Some people say — let me put it in these terms — that they want the opportunity cost of voting to be lowered as much as possible. Mail out ballots, make the day a mandatory national holiday, etc. I suppose I should say it’s a nice sentiment. But that which costs nothing is rarely valued to its proper extent. I think the bar has already been lowered too far. Perhaps I’m wrong about that. But lower it all the way…and in my view, you make a “tragedy of the commons” situation inevitable. That won’t be because people are stupid, by the way. It’ll be because you just placed their ability to wield their portion of our collective power on the same difficulty level as ordering a takeout pizza. And so that’s how many people will treat it — too many.

    Then again, you probably shouldn’t listen to me. I’m just tryin’ to weed out them “undesirables” is all. At least, that’s what Davethulhu will tell you.

    Demosthenes (7fae81)

  78. Historically, Jim Crow laws were a creation of Democrats as a means to suppress and disenfranchise black Americans.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/14/2020 @ 12:03 pm

    True! They were called Dixiecrats until the 2nd half of the 20th century when they started being called Republicans.

    Time123 (ae9d89)

  79. @78

    1. You’re still not addressing the need for voting to be seen as fair or the need for voting to be seen as representing the will of the governed.

    2. You’re understating the extent to which impediments to voting fall along class and racial lines. When was paid by the hour and I lived in a crappy town voting was a PITA. Once i got a house in the burbs and job with flexibility it became a snap.
    Young Time123 lost out on a half a days wages, which sucked because I spent most of what I made.
    Older (college educated) Time123 lost out on nothing because I could could flex out and leave early.

    Time123 (53ef45)

  80. 48 States have mail in voting for federal elections. 7 states, including mine, have election day as a civic holiday. It’s one of the reasons why mail in ballots in Kentucky need an affirmative excuse to receive, it’s a state holiday.

    7 Months to scale up shouldn’t be a problem, states could easily change the date of certification of the election, which is never actually the election day, to handle the additional time required.

    Colonel Klink (Red) (9878f6)

  81. Demosthenes, the opportunity cost to vote is often unequal. For a retiree, it might be minimal. For a person working an office job, it might mean merely leaving for work a half hour earlier or not going by the dry cleaners on the way home. But for others, it might mean juggling dropping off/picking up kids from school or day care on time and getting them a decent dinner, or going to vote.

    Taking your approach would effectively be put the opportunity cost to vote at maximum, and end up keeping poorer, less educated voters and blue collar voters (the two are of course not necessarily the same thing) simply because they are who they are.

    Kishnevi (f12dcb)

  82. Nationwide mail voting will be a Dem landslide.

    You should have a little more faith in Vladimir Vladimirovich.

    Dave (1bb933)

  83. Demosthenes — the problem is that the cost falls differently depending on the resources available to the person, and that at the end of the day, increasing the cost of voting has the result of reducing the ability of those with few resources to participate in the democratic process, to the benefit of those who have more resources.

    The wealthy, in money or time, have no more right to dictate to the poor than the poor do to the wealthy, and a system which allows the wealthy to participate but excludes the poor is fundamentally immoral.

    aphrael (7962af)

  84. You have to admit: we had much better government when the franchise was restricted to white male property owners!

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  85. This conspiracy theory is going around on the left. I don’t believe it; privatizing the post office has been desired by enough people on the right that i’ve been aware of it as an issue for a quarter century, and that was before the modern vote by mail explosion.

    Heh. I didn’t realize it was a conspiracy theory already. I was saying it tongue-in-cheek because really, would anyone actually buy it as truth??

    Dana (0feb77)

  86. “You have to admit: we had much better government when the franchise was restricted to white male property owners!”

    Your fellow traveler, Demosthenes

    Davethulhu (55c763)

  87. Any attempt to delay the election should be met with armed resistance, if necessary.

    The Orange Herpes Sore On America’s Johnson (OHSOAJ) must be excised.

    Dave (1bb933)

  88. woosh

    Time123 (ae9d89)

  89. “You have to admit: we had much better government when the franchise was restricted to white male property owners!”

    – The Dana in the Former Slave-State of Kentucky

    Depends on how you define “we” I guess. If you define “we” as “white male property owners,” you are probably (albeit tautologically) correct.

    Leviticus (efada1)

  90. When I was in my early 20s I was working 12-14 hr shifts with random required overtime shift pickups and an hour commute each way and not very much money (I worked in an awkward place and I couldn’t afford to live closer). Technically we could request time off to vote. Functionally people who did that suddenly found themselves unable to get other time off, and their random overtime shift backed directly up to their 14 hr shift, at a facility far from their main one (our facilities were spread out with about a 20 minute drive between them). I had a fair number of coworkers who didn’t vote. I was lucky in that the presidential election during the time I worked there didn’t fall on one of my work days. Sometimes “a choice” isn’t really a choice.

    Nic (896fdf)

  91. 83… remember, this is the guy who thought OC going blue in Nov-’18 was completely above board.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  92. @ Time123, #80 (and, in the second part, also to Kishnevi @ #82 and aphrael @ #84):

    1. You’re still not addressing the need for voting to be seen as fair or the need for voting to be seen as representing the will of the governed.

    Seen as fair…by whom? Seen as representative…by whom? If your response is “the people,” then I say again that I think there is no such entity as “the people.” There are several hundred million individual persons, tens of millions of whom can’t vote, and tens of millions more of whom don’t bother. And those who do vote, end up voting for a widely disparate and (in many cases) contradictory set of policies, as enacted by the officeholders with whom they entrust their power. If your response to that is “well, the majority of the people,” then I say again: we have majorities for many propositions, quite a few of which are contradictory to others. This situation is ultimately unsustainable. So, to what do “the governed” consent? What is “the will of the people”?

    2. You’re understating the extent to which impediments to voting fall along class and racial lines.

    I can’t have understated it, because I haven’t really “stated” it at all. Except, of course, to acknowledge that impediments to many things are more of a burden on some classes of people than on others. It is harder for the poor to pay any kind of tax or bill. (As I remember.) It is harder for one-earner households to be able to save money. (As I know very well.) It is harder for households with two working parents to deal with childcare. And it is harder for those who grow up in rural communities, or impoverished communities, to secure access to a wide variety of things, from responsive services to an adequate education. And yes, I am very much aware that these burdens are themselves distributed unevenly across racial and ethnic groups, and that I do not suffer from most of them. (Therefore nullifying my opinion, in the eyes of many.)

    You seem to want to set voting in a class of things that should not be affected, or should be less affected, by such impediments. Perhaps you view it as fundamentally different. I do not. This is not to say that I approve of the situation that some people will find themselves with a more difficult hand to play than other people at some times, or at most times, or perhaps even all the time. I merely acknowledge it as a metaphysical fact, unalterable by me or by anyone else. And attempts to alter the unalterable…they don’t usually end well.

    I think what you’ll say to that is, “Of course we can alter it! We can obviously minimize the burdens of voting.” And indeed you can, as a purely legal matter. Just like you can minimize the burdens of sales tax on the poor, or the burdens of childcare on the working class, or the burdens of growing up in a rural or an impoverished environment. The caveat to all those things is, of course, that you be willing to pay the price. As to the nature of that price, I defer to de Tocqueville: “The American Republic will last until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with their own money.” We love bribing ourselves with our own money. It’s why our national debt currently sits at a number so big that we can’t conceptualize it…a number far larger than the ones that prove mathematically difficult for MSNBC anchors. I don’t mean to focus only on money, by the way. It’s simply much easier to discuss those costs, because they’re more capable of being quantified. But cost is an economic term that applies to far more than monetary calculations, as I believe I implied somewhere upthread. You can always substitute other words for “money” and still have an accurate quote. “Power” is a good one to try it with…or “liberty”…

    Finally, specifically to Kishnevi’s last comment: what I have proposed would not come close to maximing the opportunity cost to vote. Though, if that’s the view you take, I imagine that I must come off looking either heartlessly monstrous or hopelessly ignorant — much like Dana in Kentucky’s and Davethulhu’s caricature of me. And if that’s how you see me…which, to be fair, I don’t know…then my statement that I’m neither is obviously not going to be very good evidence to enter onto my side. But c’est la vie. Apparently some here believe that “advocating for restrictions on voting like no national voting holiday, no widespread vote-by-mail system, and strct ID requirements” is semantically equivalent to “pining to take away the vote from well over 90% of the electorate.” So perhaps it’s finally time for me to, in the slightly misquoted words of the redoubtable Cordelia Chase, find an elsewhere to be.

    Demosthenes (7fae81)

  93. True! They were called Dixiecrats until the 2nd half of the 20th century when they started being called Republicans.

    That’s a convenient old fairytale promulgated by lefty parents, usually when struggling to put their kids to bed.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  94. >Apparently some here believe that “advocating for restrictions on voting like no national voting holiday, no widespread vote-by-mail system, and strct ID requirements” is semantically equivalent to “pining to take away the vote from well over 90% of the electorate.”

    I wouldn’t say it’s pining to take away the vote from 90% of the electorate, and I don’t think it’s fair to ascribe motivation in any event. But it *is*, at the very least, valuing something else more than the effect on the part of the electorate who would be unable to vote as a result of it, and the distribution of that effect across communities, and i don’t see why it’s a problem to point that out.

    all systems involving people involve trade-offs on some level, and acknowledging those seems like it increases systemic robustness.

    aphrael (7962af)

  95. Any attempt to delay the election should be met with armed resistance, if necessary.

    That’s exactly what Xi said…

    ChiCom influence runs deep… so deep that former president Donna Shalala had to commit to corrective action.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  96. Wait, what?

    when did “resisting an attempt to contravene democracy by postponing an election” become “a communist plot”?

    aphrael (7962af)

  97. Haiku, find the movie reference. “As if…”

    Nic (896fdf)

  98. A final thought, actually, directed mostly to Time123:

    If “the will of the people” is so important that we should remove even my relatively modest set of impediments from its expression (save perhaps only those necessary to guard against fraud), having removed those impediments, should we not also make voting mandatory? I mean, how can you truly say “the will of the people” has been heard until every last eligible voter has expressed his/her opinion?

    You, Kishnevi, aphrael, Leviticus, and all other comers may respond as you like without fear of argument from me. (And Davethulhu may snark as he chooses.) Having worked out my position on this issue to my own satisfaction, I am not really interested in further dialogue.

    Demosthenes (7fae81)

  99. When you rob from Peter to give to Paul, you can always count on Paul’s support.

    NJRob (49d5fe)

  100. Mind-blowing presser:

    Full-speed-a-Queeg. Wash those strawberries.

    “WHO are you? WHO, WHO, WHO, WHO?…” – ‘The Who’ ‘Who Are You,’ 1978

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  101. True! They were called Dixiecrats until the 2nd half of the 20th century when they started being called Republicans.

    That’s a convenient old fairytale promulgated by lefty parents, usually when struggling to put their kids to bed.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/14/2020 @ 2:12 pm

    You really denying that the segregationist southern democrats realigned to the Republican party in the 2nd half of the 20th century?

    Time123 (53ef45)

  102. If “the will of the people” is so important that we should remove even my relatively modest set of impediments from its expression (save perhaps only those necessary to guard against fraud), having removed those impediments, should we not also make voting mandatory? I mean, how can you truly say “the will of the people” has been heard until every last eligible voter has expressed his/her opinion?

    I guess you’re done but i’ll respond anyway.

    This feels like a reduction to the absurd. You’ve taken one point of elections, and exaggerated it to an absurd degree to remove an individuals right to make their own choice, which should include the choice not to vote.

    Not voting because you don’t want to is not he same as not voting because of impediments to doing so, such as a pole test or long lines, or unnecessary paperwork.

    Time123 (53ef45)

  103. The man of whom Cicero once said, “inter omnis unus excellat” wrote:

    Though, if that’s the view you take, I imagine that I must come off looking either heartlessly monstrous or hopelessly ignorant — much like Dana in Kentucky’s and Davethulhu’s caricature of me.

    I cannot attest as to what was in Mr Thulhu’s heart, but my point, in response #85, was to aphrael’s immediately above:

    The wealthy, in money or time, have no more right to dictate to the poor than the poor do to the wealthy, and a system which allows the wealthy to participate but excludes the poor is fundamentally immoral.

    I shall admit to having failed to link it properly; I suppose that I snarked a bit too poorly.

    However, aphrael’s statement was one which he might have not thought out well: it was a defense of populism, and populism is not thought of well on this fine site, having given us Donald Trump. So much is written here, and not only by our esteemed host, of how poorly fitted Mr Trump is for the office he holds, how poorly spoken and intellectually incurious he is, &c, &c, &c.

    We have seen the same complaints across Europe as well, about Boris Johnson and Brexit, about Matteo Salvini, about Marine le Pen, and about Geert Wilders. Here, the Republican primary voters, the ones who gave the nomination to Mr Trump, were nothing but a basket of deplorables, whose votes surely should not count, not against Her Inevitableness, the lady who was owed, owed! damn it, the presidency.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  104. Strom Thurmond in 1964, just about all of them by 1980.

    nk (1d9030)

  105. Dixiecrats who rebranded as Republicans.

    nk (1d9030)

  106. Finally, specifically to Kishnevi’s last comment: what I have proposed would not come close to maximing the opportunity cost to vote

    I’m not saying you want to maximize those opportunity costs, but I think those opportunity costs should be minimized as much as possible. You want to impose opportunity costs that are not necessary, and those costs would be greater for identifiable groups, whose right to vote is just as good as yours.

    Kishnevi (779a41)

  107. Mr 123 wrote:

    You really denying that the segregationist southern democrats realigned to the Republican party in the 2nd half of the 20th century?

    I have seen this argument uncounted times, and, as always, it ignores the fourth dimension, that of time. The segregationist Democrats remained Democrats, and the Democrats controlled state legislatures and gubernatorial seats for many years following the Civil Rights Act and other changes. Outside of their states, people like Zell Miller, who remained a Democrat but supported Republicans in 2004, would be among the better known. Richard Shelby and Phil Gramm are among those who were Democrats, and elected as Democrats, but switched to the GOP because the Democratic Party in Washington simply did not mesh with their ideas. Had they remained in state government, they’d have stayed Democrats, in an area where conservative Democrats were the norm.

    Rather, it was their children who, as they grew up, registered as Republicans, because they saw in their registered Democratic parents people who belonged to a party which did not represent them, but represented the interests of northeast liberals and the Washington elite. By the time that they were registering to vote, segregation was no longer an option.

    There is really not much real knowledge of the south outside of the south. What I see does not reflect reality, but caricature, a belief that all southerners secretly want to be Simon Legree, not even realizing that in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Mr Legree was a northerner by birth. Integration proceeded much more smoothly in the south than the north, in large part because there were so many small towns in which forced busing was not an issue; without the separate black schools, many towns had only one school, to which everybody went.

    That was my experience. While the Mt Sterling Independent School System was working on a plan, to be implemented that fall, to bring in four grades at a time into the ‘white’ school, the black school mysteriously burned down in August of 1964, and the entire student body of the DuBois School had to be brought into the white school at once.

    While admittedly I was young, this happening between the fifth and sixth grades for me, I do not remember any problems at all with the integration of the school. If there were parents who had problems with it, I was unaware of them. My mother had no problems with it, but she was hardly a native southerner, born and growing up in Maine.

    The real problems with integration occurred in the north. The good white citizens of Wilmington, Delaware practically destroyed the public schools in response to a forced busing order, leaving a system that, when I moved there, had every parent who could possibly afford it sending their children to private schools. And if that isn’t widely known outside of that area, the integration struggles in South Boston were widely known, as newspapers and the broadcast news had those stories nationwide.

    Today’s most segregated school system? New York City!

    Mt Sterling’s proudest moment came in the fall of 1969, my junior year, in which our school won the Class A state championship in football. There were only 78 of us in my class, and of course the football team was integrated; Charlie Bill Owens was our star halfback, and Dave Cunningham the fullback, and both were black, though the majority of the team were white. It’s kind of hard to be segregationist when you are a team, depending on each other.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  108. I heard – I’m Jill Biden and I approved that massage

    mg (8cbc69)

  109. It’s a little more complicated…

    Chapman notes a split vote among many conservative Southern Democrats in the 1970s and 1980s who supported local and statewide conservative Democrats while simultaneously voting for Republican presidential candidates.[19] This tendency of many Southern whites to vote for the Republican presidential candidate but Democrats from other offices lasted until the 2010 midterm elections. In the November 2008 elections, Democrats won 3 out of 4 U.S. House seats from Mississippi, 3 out of 4 in Arkansas, 5 out of 9 in Tennessee, and achieved near parity in the Georgia and Alabama delegations. However, nearly all white Democratic congressmen in the South lost reelection in 2010. That year, Democrats won only one U.S House seat each in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Arkansas, and two out of nine House seats in Tennessee, and they lost their one Arkansas seat in 2012. Following the November 2010 elections, John Barrow of Georgia was left as the only one white Democratic U.S. House member in the Deep South, and he lost reelection in 2014.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Democrats#1933-1980

    Here’s data on who voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964…

    https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/88-1964/s409

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  110. Ch, That’s interesting…I’ll have to take time to read it before i fire off a pithy 2 line response. 😉

    Thank you for taking the time to provide the links.

    Time123 (53ef45)

  111. “We went through the War of Northern Aggression”

    “a belief that all southerners secretly want to be Simon Legree”

    :thinkingemoji:

    Davethulhu (6adf38)

  112. Our Windy City barrister wrote, over two comments:

    Strom Thurmond in 1964, just about all of them by 1980.

    and

    Dixiecrats who rebranded as Republicans.

    How odd it is, then, that the state legislatures and most of the gubernatorial seats remained in Democratic hands well into the 1990s. Kentucky’s state House of Representatives remained solidly Democratic until the 2016 elections. Virginia’s state legislature was under Democratic control well into the 1990s, and the Old Dominion elected Douglas Wilder, the first elected black governor, in 1989. (Much of that was due to the GOP nomination a complete [insert slang term for the rectum here], but the complete statewide Democratic ticket win.)

    It was the next generation which became Republicans, not the older Democrats.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  113. Simon Legree was actually a Northerner.

    Kishnevi (779a41)

  114. Here’s the vote re: Voting Rights Act of 1965…

    https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/s78

    Looks like some were jumping over to the party that provided more support for the landmark act.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  115. “We went through the War of Northern Aggression”

    a/k/a the Civil War or the Mint Julep Rebellion.

    nk (1d9030)

  116. Not all Southern Democrats were Dixiecrats, and they finally got the actual right to vote, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

    nk (1d9030)

  117. Our Wuindy City barrister wrote:

    “We went through the War of Northern Aggression”

    a/k/a the Civil War or the Mint Julep Rebellion.

    Mint Juleps are most closely identified with Kentucky, and the Bluegrass State never seceded. The official state government remained neutral, though pro-Confederacy advocates formed their own “shadow” government and issued a proclamation of secession. The Confederate sympathizers withdrew from the official state government, leaving unionists firmly in control, and the legislature then voted in favor of the union.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  118. NJRob (49d5fe) — 4/14/2020 @ 3:39 pm

    LOL! That;s funny!

    felipe (023cc9)

  119. The thread sure took a turn into some good old fashioned southerners are racists areas.

    For the original question; there’s an old Jesse Jackson SNL skit, The Point is Moot, that seems to fit here. The question isn’t really should the elections be delayed. The question is how can this be used for political gain? That means that whatever is happening it’s R voter suppression, R’s don’t care about safety so they’ll want to vote normally, and R’s want to maintain power so they want to delay/cancel the election, etc. If Trump takes a position the official narrative will be the opposite and if he changes his position we’ve always been at war with EastAsia. The important part is that whatever happens it’s Trump’s fault, or R’s, or maybe white southerners.

    It won’t matter who is actually pushing which of these options. In some cases the same people will push all of them at the same time, and possibly for contradictory reasons, while claiming the other side is the one advocating the position.

    frosty (f27e97)

  120. Tee Dee Ess can turn liberals into Tea Partiers:


    Joy Reid
    @JoyAnnReid
    ·
    BTW you all realize that check Treasury is sending you with Trump’s name scribbled on it is your money, right? It’s your tax dollars that congress appropriated. Trump is basically the guy who “lends” you back your own lawnmower he borrowed and has had at his house for months…

    _

    harkin (e208fd)

  121. @120, maybe.

    Trumps has already made statements that he opposes mail in voting because it would be bad electorally for Republicans. This isn’t equivalent to opposing it due to fraud concerns.

    Trump says a lot of things. Many of them are mutually contradictory and he rarely explains the inconsistency or the change. There are plenty of examples of him moving back and forth between contradictory positions. It makes it almost certain that no matter what someone says Trump will have both supported and opposed it verbally. In these situations it’s hard to take seriously complaints that his critics aren’t being fair to him.

    Time123 (d1bf33)

  122. Frosty, i’m not aware of any evidence that would make me conclude that Northerner people are less personally racist than southern people. There is evidence of differences in structural biases, but I don’t think those are based on any personal virtue by the people involved.

    Time123 (d1bf33)

  123. The New Mexico Supreme Court just ruled unanimously that they could not order a mail-in vote for the June 2nd primary. Instead they ordered the registrars to mail absentee ballot APPLICATIONS to each voter. Presumably this will reduce the fraud that would come with mailing actual ballots to last-known-addresses.

    So, I went to the state website and submitted an online application.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  124. Just imagine:

    Trump: “Sadly, we have concluded that it is just not safe yet to conduct an election. Accordingly, the election will be postponed another year, to 2027.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  125. You really denying that the segregationist southern democrats realigned to the Republican party in the 2nd half of the 20th century?

    Most norther Democrats supported southern segregation and Jim Crow for the 100 years prior. JFK voted to gut the Civil Rights Act of 1957 by sending it to a committee filled with southern Democrats.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  126. “The New Mexico Supreme Court just ruled unanimously that they could not order a mail-in vote for the June 2nd primary. Instead they ordered the registrars to mail absentee ballot APPLICATIONS to each voter. Presumably this will reduce the fraud that would come with mailing actual ballots to last-known-addresses.”

    – Kevin M

    The most interesting, as-yet-legally-unexplored aspect of this issue is how the Governor’s existing public health orders impact/restrict the right to vote for those who cannot or do not wish to vote by absentee ballot. It is not clear from the orders themselves whether something like voting is inside or outside of their “stay at home” or “mass gathering” purview.

    If the Governor’s orders were deemed to severely burden the right to vote by the elimination or extreme restriction of the in-person voting option, then they would be unconstitutional unless they passed a “least restrictive means” test – and presumably the mail-on election sought by the county clerks & secretary of state would be less restrictive than a reliance on mail-in ballots alone.

    It’ll be interesting to see if things go in that direction.

    Leviticus (efada1)

  127. Time123 (d1bf33) — 4/15/2020 @ 7:51 am

    I’m not aware of any evidence that would make me conclude that Northerner people are less personally racist than southern people.

    I’m not either and in my personal experience having lived in various parts of the country there are regional differences between people but nothing substantial, i.e. no more or less honest, virtuous, bigoted, etc. I’ve met honest and dishonest people, bigots of various varieties and degrees, etc. everywhere I’ve lived.

    That doesn’t have any effect on the stereotypes. In any story, or in this case, political debate, if you need a racist to strawman chances are they will be white and if you can make them southern all the better.

    frosty (f27e97)

  128. That doesn’t have any effect on the stereotypes. In any story, or in this case, political debate, if you need a racist to strawman chances are they will be white and if you can make them southern all the better.

    That’s probably because of the previously mentioned structural issues present in southern states. They’re still being ‘blamed’ for the actions taken after civil war to create apartheid states.

    Time123 (66d88c)

  129. It’ll be interesting to see if things go in that direction.

    The selection of electors from a state does not require an election, if the legislature so decides.

    Dave (1bb933)

  130. It’ll be interesting to see if things go in that direction.

    The selection of electors from a state does not require an election, if the legislature so decides.

    Dave (1bb933) — 4/15/2020 @ 9:58 am

    No one would be happy with this. Even if they did, it doesn’t address offices other than the president.

    Time123 (d1bf33)

  131. No one would be happy with this.

    The winning side would be happy. The losing side wouldn’t. Same as any alternative…

    Even if they did, it doesn’t address offices other than the president.

    True.

    Dave (1bb933)

  132. “The selection of electors from a state does not require an election, if the legislature so decides.”

    – Dave

    Yeah, but this is dealing with the June primary election.

    Leviticus (efada1)

  133. Kevin, Leviticus,

    Y’all think they will still put on the bar exam in Albuquerque this July?

    Dustin (c56600)

  134. I think the entire presidential election process should be abolished.
    The House of Representative should nominate all the Department heads who compose the Cabinet, same as the President does now.
    The Senate would confirm them just as it does now.
    The Department heads would then elect one of themselves annually on a rotating basis to be their President just to gavel them into order, while still remaining head of his, and only his, Department.

    nk (1d9030)

  135. He would also be the titular head of state for ceremonial purposes, and likely need the power to compel attendance at Cabinet meetings.

    What do you all say?

    nk (1d9030)

  136. What do you all say?

    So our masters would only need to buy 269 votes instead of 65 million?

    🙂

    Dave (1bb933)

  137. 136, nk (1d9030) — 4/15/2020 @ 11:07 am

    What do you all say?

    Is this basically the Swiss system?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_Swiss_Confederation

    It has its appeal. It’s basically a collective leadership. I don’t know how it would work.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)


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