Patterico's Pontifications

4/6/2021

MLB Expected To Announce All-Star Game Move To Denver (UPDATE ADDED)

Filed under: General — Dana @ 9:26 am



[guest post by Dana]

As you know, MLB made the decision to move pull the All-Star game out of Atlanta after Gov. Kemp signed the new voter law, which President Biden has mischaracterized as “Jim Crow 2”. Now it appears that Colorado’s Coors Field will host the game:

The 2021 MLB All-Star Game is coming to Colorado, a league source confirmed Monday night.

Just days after Major League Baseball decided to move the game out of Atlanta, the source says MLB is expected to officially announce Tuesday morning that the July 13 game will be moved to Denver’s Coors Field.

“We are excited about the possibility of hosting the All-Star Game and are awaiting MLB’s decision,” Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said in a statement released to The Denver Post on Monday night.

Gov. Jared Polis echoed Hancock’s hopeful statements when contacted by The Post.

“Like so many Coloradans, I’m excited and hopeful that Major League Baseball makes the best decision and formally chooses to play the 2021 All-Star Game in Denver,” Polis said in a statement. “It would be good for baseball and good for Colorado.”

Contrast and compare:

Atlanta, Georgia, is 51% black and 40.9% white, U.S. Census data from 2019 showed.

Denver was 80.9% white and 9.8% black in 2019, according to U.S. Census data.

Numerous sources reported that the MLB’s decision to move the 2021 All-Star game could cost black-owned businesses. Nearly 30% of businesses in Atlanta are black-owned, and Georgia will face an estimated lost economic impact of more than $100 million due to the MLB’s boycott of Atlanta, according to the president and CEO of Cobb Travel and Tourism Holly Quinlan.

As a reminder, political activist Stacy Abrams and Sen. Jon Osshoff warned that a boycott of Georgia would kill jobs and ultimately end up hurting mostly the poor and people of color:

“I absolutely oppose and reject any notion of boycotting Georgia,” said Ossoff.

“Don’t boycott corporations over voting rights yet,” Abrams said in an op-ed.

In a pre-emptive strike, Mitch McConnell has “warned” CEOs not to get involved in the Georgia voter law debate:

U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell lashed out at corporate America on Monday, warning CEOs to stay out of the debate over a new voting law in Georgia that has been criticized as restricting votes among minorities and the poor.

In a sign of a growing rift in the decades-old alliance between the conservative party and U.S. corporations, McConnell said: “My advice to the corporate CEOs of America is to stay out of politics. Don’t pick sides in these big fights.”

McConnell warned companies there could be risks for turning on the party, but he did not elaborate.

“Corporations will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country from outside the constitutional order,” McConnell told a news conference in his home state of Kentucky…

Coca-Cola Co. Chief Executive James Quincey called the law “unacceptable” and a “step backwards.” Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said: “The entire rationale for this bill was based on a lie: that there was widespread voter fraud in Georgia in the 2020 election.”

Independent reviews have repeatedly shown that voter fraud is rare in the United States, and state and federal probes found no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election which the Republican Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Corporate America has long thrown its political muscle behind Republican candidates and officeholders, often funneling more campaign contributions to conservative candidates than Democratic ones.

Meanwhile, other Republicans – including you-know-who – are pushing for Americans to boycott…Major League Baseball.

You can read a comparison of Georgia’s new voting laws and Colorado’s voting laws here.

Batter up!

UPDATE: Five days ago, President Biden on pulling the All-Star game out of Atlanta:

President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he would “strongly support” moving the MLB All-Star game out of Georgia, citing the state’s controversial new voting law that includes a provision banning volunteers from delivering food or drinks to voters in line.

“I think today’s professional athletes are acting incredibly responsibly,” Biden said to ESPN’s Sage Steele during an interview. “I would strongly support them doing that. People look to them. They’re leaders.”

Biden was critical of the divisive Georgia voting law…“Look at what’s happened across the board. The very people who are victimized the most are the people who are the leaders in these various sports, and it’s just not right,” Biden said. “This is Jim Crow on steroids, what they’re doing in Georgia and 40 other states.”

Today, when asked about moving the Masters Golf Tournament out of Georgia, it was a different story:

“I think that’s up the Masters…I think it’s a very tough decision for a corporation, or a group, to make.”

Democrats need to decide on their messaging and stick to it. While they seem lockstep in identifying the new Georgia voting law as the “new Jim Crow,” pulling any perennially popular sporting event out of Georgia is either economically harmful to its residents or it isn’t. You don’t get to flip-flop within the span of a few days just because we’re talking about a different event and expect to be taken seriously. Also, if you believe that these so-called “new Jim Crow laws” are unacceptable in Atlanta where the All-Star Game was going to be held, then certainly they are just as unacceptable in Augusta, where the Masters Tournament is due to be held next week.

–Dana

136 Responses to “MLB Expected To Announce All-Star Game Move To Denver (UPDATE ADDED)”

  1. Good morning.

    Dana (fd537d)

  2. This one really seems to get the cultural conservative’s blood boiling.

    “My advice to the corporate CEOs of America is to stay out of politics. Don’t pick sides in these big fights.”

    Didn’t the left try to keep large corporations out of politics a few years back?

    Time123 (69b2fc)

  3. ‘Altitude is a significant performance factor in the game of baseball, especially with respect to how far a batted ball will carry in the thinner air. The professional baseball stadium in Denver is known as a hitter’s park for this reason, as are a number of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) venues in the western United States that are constructed at elevations greater than 5,000 ft (1,550 m).’ – source, wikiMLBpennyontescale.buntheads

    Atlanta is 1,102 ft., above sea level. Denver is 5,280 ft., above sea level.

    ‘There is only one Major League Baseball stadium whose elevation is appreciably higher than sea level: Coors Field in Denver. There are zero MLB stadiums between 2000 and 5000 feet above sea level.’

    https://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/FoilSim/Manual/fsim0010.htm

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  4. The Laws of Physics are unfair: Boycott Baseball! 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  5. Coca-Cola Co. Chief Executive James Quincey called the law “unacceptable” and a “step backwards.”

    So was “New Coke.”

    _____

    Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said: “The entire rationale for this bill was based on a lie: that there was widespread voter fraud in Georgia in the 2020 election.”

    Turbulence, Mister Ed???:

    Delta Airlines Overview: Delta Airlines was first mentioned on PissedConsumer on Nov 06, 2007 and since then this brand received 1237 reviews. Delta Airlines ranks 75 of 453 in Transport category. The overall rating of the company is 1.9 and consumers are mostly dissatisfied. – source,
    delta-airlines.pissedconsumer.com

    ______

    Georgia House Passes Bill Stripping Delta Of A Multimillion Tax Break After It Slammed The State’s New Voting Restrictions -source, forbes.com

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  6. At this point, who cares? I’m done with pro sports. MLB was my holdout, but they’ve gone right down the BLM/”Social Justice” drain. Sayonara.

    Cleve Watson (f39359)

  7. “My advice to the corporate CEOs of America is to stay out of politics. Don’t pick sides in these big fights.” – Mitch McConnell

    Turtles usually like lettuce; so as your career ends, remember there’s a fence post in Kentucky with your name on it.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/fortune-500-companies-republican-democrat-political-donations-2018-2

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  8. “My advice to the corporate CEOs of America is to stay out of politics. Don’t pick sides in these big fights.”

    Except when it comes to providing campaign cash.

    Corporations gave over $50M to voting restriction backers

    Rip Murdock (35fa71)

  9. I don’t know anyone who admires McConnell, but that’s generally because of how effective he was. he got the better of Obama and Trump. his speech was really good, remarkable in light of how he could turn on and off his sentiments.

    Coke and Baseball are not just companies. They harness our country’s identity and pride. It really is a shame they are stepping in to call people like me worse than ‘segregation,’ though I find promises from legislators to ‘get them back’ to be no different form Liz Warren threatening to do that to Amazon.

    The GOP is beyond a coherent, honest response to this or much anything else, and the democrats registered that Jim Crow 2.0 website well in advance, ready to go with the slur of good people.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  10. Josh Barrow made the point that companies like coke and delta might be responding more to pressure from their employees then to direct outside pressures.

    Time123 (d1bf33)

  11. Coke and Baseball are not just companies. They harness our country’s identity and pride. It really is a shame they are stepping in to call people like me worse than ‘segregation

    I didn’t see anything that inflammatory from either company.

    Time123 (d1bf33)

  12. Corporations gave over $50M to voting restriction integrity backers

    FIFY

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  13. Colorado voting laws are similar to Georgia’s despite decision to move Major League Baseball All-Star Game

    “Georgia has 17 days of in-person early voting including two optional Sundays, Colorado has 15,” the Republican governor said. “So what I’m being told, they also have a photo ID requirement. So it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.”

    Kemp also said it did not make sense to him that President Biden appeared at the NCAA championship game in Indiana and praised the state, which Kemp said was “the birthplace for the photo ID requirement.” …

    As it turns out, Colorado also requires voters to show identification when voting in person, and the state says that first-time mail-in voters may be required to include a copy of their identification with their ballot.

    This is not far off from Georgia, which requires identification for in-person and absentee voting, although Georgia requires proof of identity for all absentee voting. According to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office, voters without ID can use the last four digits of their social security number, a utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or another government document with their name and address on it….

    Fox News asked Major League Baseball if they researched state voting laws when determining a new All-Star Game site, but they did not immediately respond.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  14. Personally, I think that after Trump all politicians think barefaced lying is acceptable.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  15. Not so sure about Coke, which was pretty mealy-mouthed. But MLB has imposed sanctions on a sovereign state for their legislature’s democratic choices.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  16. And given that MLB has that special antitrust carve-out, one wonders WTF they are thinking. Getting this deeply involved in a partisan argument on the one hand, while accepting food from the other hand, seems like hubris.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  17. I find promises from legislators to ‘get them back’ to be no different form Liz Warren threatening to do that to Amazon.

    Suppose there was a special law exempting Amazon from antitrust law. There IS, with MLB.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  18. And given that MLB has that special antitrust carve-out, one wonders WTF they are thinking. Getting this deeply involved in a partisan argument on the one hand, while accepting food from the other hand, seems like hubris.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/6/2021 @ 11:52 am

    sweet, let’s repeal it!

    Time123 (69b2fc)

  19. @2

    This one really seems to get the cultural conservative’s blood boiling.

    “My advice to the corporate CEOs of America is to stay out of politics. Don’t pick sides in these big fights.”

    Didn’t the left try to keep large corporations out of politics a few years back?

    Time123 (69b2fc) — 4/6/2021 @ 9:39 am

    What do you mean? The Citizen’s United case?

    I don’t think this is an either/or thing though.

    There’s a wide chasm between voicing displeasure at a given policy to what mlb did to Denver.

    As to McConnel and GOP… what’d you expect to happen? Its a never-ending escalation with these cancel behaviors.

    whembly (ae0eb5)

  20. *did to Georgia.

    whembly (ae0eb5)

  21. Now when it comes to China, corporations have ahard time caving into pressure because they hit from both sides.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/business/xinjiang-china-cotton-brands.html

    Faced with accusations that it was profiting from the forced labor of Uyghur people in the Chinese territory of Xinjiang, the H&M Group — the world’s second-largest clothing retailer — promised last year to stop buying cotton from the region.

    But last month, H&M confronted a new outcry, this time from Chinese consumers who seized on the company’s renouncement of the cotton as an attack on China. Social media filled with angry demands for a boycott, urged on by the government. Global brands like H&M risked alienating a country of 1.4 billion people.

    The furor underscored how international clothing brands relying on Chinese materials and factories now face the mother of all conundrums — a conflict vastly more complex than their now-familiar reputational crises over exploitative working conditions in poor countries…

    …The global brands can protect their sales in North America and Europe, or preserve their markets in China. It is increasingly difficult to see how they can do both….

    ….or the apparel brands, their dilemma is heightened by the fact that the Chinese government has weaponized China’s consumer market. In fomenting nationalist outrage, Beijing is seeking to pressure the international brands to pick a side — to ignore reports of forced labor or risk their sales in the world’s largest potential consumer market.

    Framing this choice is the reality that China remains the world’s central hub for making clothing.

    In pursuit of alternatives, many international brands are shifting production from Chinese factories to plants in countries like Vietnam, Cambodia and Bangladesh. But moving does not eliminate their exposure to Xinjiang cotton.

    China exports unprocessed cotton to 14 countries, including Vietnam, Thailand, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and yarn to 190 countries, according to the International Cotton Advisory Committee, an international trade association in Washington….

    Major League baseball by the wway made a deal with the Chinese government to promote baseball. The number of stadiums doubled in one year from 40 to 80.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  22. Didn’t the left try to keep large corporations out of politics a few years back?

    Like, what, the NY Times and Washington Post? It is hard to say “These corporations may speak, and these may not” or even “The Press right is different from the Speech right” when they are uttered in the same breath in the Constitution.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  23. There’s a wide chasm between voicing displeasure at a given policy to what mlb did to Georgia.

    Chick-Fil-A CEO gives his own money to oppose “marriage equality.”

    MLB uses monopoly power to sanction state for voting wrong.

    See the difference?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  24. Kevin, that’s a really good way to put it. My point is that we’ve moved past saying we can keep corporations out of politics. Though the MLB move is as big a statement as i’ve seen.

    Time123 (69b2fc)

  25. I think pro-sports has a destructive influence on out polity so I’m happy to see it cut back.

    Time123 (69b2fc)

  26. …the current right wing talking point about how Georgia’s new voter suppression laws are Just Like What They Do in Colorado is pure gaslighting.

    Colorado probably has the best voting system in the country: Everybody is automatically mailed a ballot at the address listed on their voter registration; you can send it back by US mail or return it to any of many conveniently located drop boxes; you can still vote in person several days prior to and up through election day; and you can vote on the same day that you register to vote.

    https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/04/so-now-trying-to-keep-people-from-voting-against-you-is-racist-if-those-voters-happen-not-to-be-white

    The question is how easy is it to vote. Colorado makes it very easy. You wait at home for a ballot to arrive in the mail, fill it out, send it in or drop it off at dropbox, which are numerous in populated counties.

    It reminds me of voting in Washington. Never a line. Never being told you have to go to another precinct. Not being required to show ID every time you go through the two step process of requesting a mail in ballot and then sending in a mail in ballot. Not having to request a ballot in a particular window of time.

    Victor (4959fb)

  27. @21: China is one pandemic away from total isolation.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  28. Speaking of the Laws of Physics, I watched a fascinating documentary on Discovery some years ago titled “The Physics of Baseball.” I was just scrolling, looking for something to watch, and I thought, that’s an odd title for a documentary. It turned out be very interesting.

    What these guys did was place microchips on the bodies of pitchers and on baseballs, using the same technology used to create computer generated images in movies, then filmed pitchers throwing baseballs and created computer generated images of each pitch–a fast ball, a curve ball, a slider, a knuckle ball (which really isn’t a throw but a push), and so on. Thus, they were able to create detailed imagery of the pitcher’s stance, grip, throwing motion, and follow the trajectory of the ball.

    The latter was the most fascinating. Once a ball leaves a pitcher’s hand, it takes the most amazing trajectory. It’s out there, spinning around, taking a curve or a slide, whatever; you never know where a baseball is going to go–it’s moving up and down, all around, until it hits the catcher’s mitt or a bat. The documentary explained the physics involved–how stance, grip, throw, spin, gravity and wind, affect the movement of the ball.

    It was incredible. The one thing I learned was that there’s nothing harder to do than hit a major league slider. The ball looks like it’s going one way, then suddenly it drops and goes another, right into the catcher’s glove. Strike!

    My grandfather loved baseball. When I was taking care of him at the end of his years, he would stay up at all odd hours of the night to watch a game. I had played a little baseball when I was a boy, second grade t-ball. My grandfather attended every game I played. One day, I was up at bat, and my grandfather was watching me. Well, on this particular day I had two strikes and a foul. I looked back at my grandfather and got ready for the next pitch. It was a walk, so I made my way to first base.

    The next batter up hit a pop fly to right field. And the stupid kid who was playing right field, didn’t make the catch and let the ball roll through his legs. I took off, stole second and third, and slid into home base. I won the game, because the other batter didn’t make it past first base.

    My grandfather was so proud of me. He shook my head and said, “You’re not much of a batter, but you do know baseball.”

    That was the extent of my experience with baseball. I won the game by stealing second, third and home, in front of my grandfather.

    I never played baseball again. That was it, a heroic home run, stealing second, third and home, after a botched right field catch.

    But my grandfather was proud of me. That was all that mattered.

    I really don’t care about what these professional sports leagues, or these corporations, do in regards to voting rights. Except, I will say that boycotts are as American as apple pie. The Great Obsequious Party is making a mistake. Following Trump is the road to ruin.

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  29. I didn’t see anything that inflammatory from either company.

    Time123 (d1bf33) — 4/6/2021 @ 11:37 am

    Actions speak louder than words. They are 100% helping with the Jim Crow 2.0 dot com nonsense. It would be ridiculous to say otherwise. As Kevin said, MLB is actually punishing a state here.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  30. MLB is actually punishing a state here.

    Using a monopoly power that is uniquely theirs. Even other sports leagues don’t have that carve-out (which allows MLB vertical integration and control of minor league baseball).

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  31. Coke and Baseball are not just companies. They harness our country’s identity and pride.

    ‘Identity & Pride’– sounds like a new female detective series this Fall on Fox:

    one is bubbly brunette colored sugar-water-sweetie; ‘originally launched Coca-Cola’s two key ingredients were cocaine and caffeine. The cocaine was derived from the coca leaf and the caffeine from kola nut (also spelled “cola nut” at the time), leading to the name Coca-Cola;’ the other is an ash battered blondie who’s been around the bases a few times; ‘a government sanctioned monopoly with taxpayer financed stadiums; in 1922, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that effectively granted Major League Baseball a legal monopoly over professional baseball in the United States.’ – source wikiratingsrace.watch

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  32. Dustin,

    Perhaps they’re responding to their audience which finds that the Georgia bill is an inappropriate attempt to ensure Republican rule by making voting more difficult for urban voters:

    https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1379423316381995009/photo/1

    For those not wishing to click the link it’s to a tweet by Yglesias showing a poll indicating that more people support the MLB move than oppose it, 39 to 28 (32 unsure no opinion)

    And of that group 62% of “Avid MLB fans” support the move

    Victor (4959fb)

  33. MLB is actually punishing a state here.

    Yeah: McConnell’s Kentucky. They my have an annual horse race but still have no MLB team. But a name is on deck ready to play ball:

    The Louisville Sluggers.

    Oh…

    wait…

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  34. My point is that we’ve moved past saying we can keep corporations out of politics.

    There are several divisions here.

    One: CEOs and other corporate bigwigs give money to support politicians, causes, initiatives, voter registration, etc. The Koch Brothers and Tom Steyer being two prolific examples.

    Two: Non-profit corporations advocate political positions. Greenpeace, Sierra Club, ACLU, Pacific Legal Foundation, Focus on the Family.

    Three: For-profit media corporations: Fox News, NY Times, Comcast (there is some spill-over here into the next group)

    Four: For-profit companies advocating for positions that seem to affect others: Nike, Coke, in this case.

    Five: For-profit companies advocating for policies that may affect them: Exxon, Nike, Coke, etc.

    All of these are legitimate speech. Even Exxon should have the right to speak about laws against fracking, for example.

    Not so sure about what MLB is doing, as it falls into none of these, going past advocacy to open economic warfare, using a monopoly power that it has been granted by Congress and the courts. I do not advocate removing that exemption because they speak, but because they abuse it as an economic weapon.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  35. The Cincinnati Reds and perhaps the St. Louis Cardinals will always kibosh a prospective MLB team for the Commonwealth.

    urbanleftbehind (7d898c)

  36. William J Hoge:

    Georgia has early voting at polling places. Delaware does not.

    Georgia has no-excuse absentee ballots. Delaware does not.

    Georgia allows voters who are more than 150 ft from a polling place to receive food or drink even if they are in line to vote. Delaware does not.

    Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines are incorporated in the State of Delaware. If they were serious about supporting voting rights, they would move to another state.

    The MLB is headquartered in New York where the voter law is much more restrictive than Georgia’s voter law.

    They’re a bunch of hypocrites.

    Tanny O'Haley (8a06bc)

  37. Yeah: McConnell’s Kentucky.

    The Louisville Bats, a triple-A team is owned and controlled by MLB. Normally this would be an antitrust violation, but by law it is not.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  38. MLB recognizes that you get a lot of juice by taking a side. I find the whole voting discussion to be pretty unfair. They trashed Georgia for no good reason. They have that right, but they did do it.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  39. Biden’s a divider, he is a president for blue states and democrats. He despises me just as much as he despised Romney, whom he claimed intended to put people into slavery.

    I suppose i’m glad he beat Trump, but some of this is just my ego. Trump was divisive, frankly I think Trump was a traitor on 1/6, but Biden isn’t exactly a loyal servant here.

    Efforts to compromise with democrats have resulted in this smear about jim crow, coke and mlb and bald eagles crapping on good people. Abolish absentee voting entirely. They can’t say anything about that they haven’t already said so who cares?

    Dustin (4237e0)

  40. Georgia allows voters who are more than 150 ft from a polling place to receive food or drink even if they are in line to vote.

    The new bill does not allow someone, other than a poll worker (who presumably is working the polls) to give water to somebody in line whether within 150 feet or past 150 feet.

    Victor (4959fb)

  41. And if Republicans in Delaware wish to protest rules that make it difficult to vote there, they should definitely do it, particularly if those rules were recently imposed in a naked attempt to reverse the results of a recent election.

    Victor (4959fb)

  42. So, if this is OK, how about the following:

    California is about to pass a law that bans most fracking, and probably most oil production, in the state. Gasoline sold in CA has a unique formula which costs $1/gallon extra at the pump. This gasoline is produced at 4 refineries in-state.

    Now, suppose those refineries all decided to “undergo maintenance” at the same time to protest this new law, shutting off all gasoline supplies to California’s motorists.

    Would that be OK?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  43. The new bill does not allow someone, other than a poll worker (who presumably is working the polls) to give water to somebody in line whether within 150 feet or past 150 feet.

    Obviously you misunderstood “MORE THAN” to mean “less than.”

    In any event, it is ludicrous to call these helpful water angles “volunteers.” They are campaign workers, and possibly paid campaign workers. They may communicate that sponsorship to the voter. This is a transparent loophole in the anti-electioneering laws that is now closed.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  44. in a naked attempt to reverse the results of a recent election.

    1. They will reverse nothing. Previous election returns are unaffected.

    2. You announce your intention to pull a Trump: Heads I win, tails you cheated.

    Why are you acting like Trump?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  45. Why would anyone defend campaigns giving snacks to voters close to the polling station? That’s electioneering. Banning that stuff some number of yards from where actual voting happens is a matter of common sense. You can’t take anyone seriously who presents this like people are starving to death waiting to vote because of Jim Crow X 1000.

    Abolishing the compromise efforts up to this point is the right counter, because the democrats have painted themselves into a corner. The most they can say is ‘now it’s REALLY jim crow.’ You could literally implement Jim Crow and they can’t say anything they aren’t saying right now, so screw ’em.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  46. Biden’s a divider

    Biden had a chance to unite, but his party vetoed it. They want to jam through some radical changes while the jamming is good. The country will take their toys away in 2022, and Biden will say the Republicans cheated. He is a shameless in this as Trump was in 2019-20.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  47. 2. You announce your intention to pull a Trump: Heads I win, tails you cheated.

    Exactly. ‘Prove there’s cheating!’ leads to ‘if you win you cheated!’ like nothing.

    there is no point reasoning this out. The president is playing for keeps, and I’m sure if I thought it though I could blame Trump for setting this up with his sore loser routine. But Biden and Team D promised to unite. They deserve nothing but disdain, no careful effort to give them some partial credit. This effort to allow cheating in elections is worse than keeping people from voting, because it’s actually happening right now.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  48. Tnink of this another way: the new law gives Republicans in Georgia an incentive to ensure voting likes are never more than 150 feet.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  49. Dustin, did I read you right that your mailed ballot had been disqualified for a signature mismatch?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  50. Yeah that was in 2004 though.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  51. I voted in person in 2020. And nobody brought me water. It was basically like the slave ships.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  52. Literally all I ask for of Biden is to not be a hateful ridiculous divisive troll who attacks his own people on the basis of stupid political advantage. Be better than that. Be a doddling old democrat version of Dubya. That’s all I ask. Be a good person.

    The nation needed that. 40,000 children lost a parent. Half a million dead. china, russia, they are ascendant and we don’t have a clear idea what to do. A little love goes a long way, but that’s too much to ask for.

    Makes me mad. there will be 100 more of these stupid issues. I’m sure the URLs are already bought, the slams in focus groups as we speak. Criminal law, taxes, college, everything, use ’em for The Party.

    And what will that do? It will kindle what went wrong in 2016. I can see it plain as day, so I’m sure those around biden see it too. They may even perceive an advantage in another Trump-like presidency. Next thing you know, the country is in shambles.

    Makes me mad.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  53. #13 Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/6/2021 @ 11:45 am:

    ……Colorado has what the National Conference of State Legislatures calls a “non-strict” voter ID law for in-person early voting. Voters can produce a number of different types of ID, including ones without photos. And if they don’t have ID, they can vote via provisional ballot, at which time elections officials are charged with verifying their eligibility.

    Georgia’s in-person ID requirement, by contrast, is a “strict” law, requiring photo ID. If a voter doesn’t have one, they can cast a provisional ballot, but they still have to produce a photo ID to a county registrar within three days.

    But this is also somewhat apples-to-oranges. The voter ID law at issue in Georgia isn’t for in-person voting; it’s for mail-in voting. Georgia is going to require a driver’s license number, social security number or other ID on absentee ballots — provisions that some allege may disenfranchise Black voters. Colorado sometimes requires ID to vote by mail, but only when someone casts a mail ballot for the first time, and again the list of acceptable IDs is significantly broader.

    The comparison between Colorado’s in-person ID requirement and Georgia’s new absentee requirement mostly falls short, though, for one main reason: Colorado conducts its elections almost entirely by mail. All registered voters receive absentee ballots automatically, and as many as 99 percent of people who vote use that option.

    Source My emphasis.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  54. The people giving water are often volunteers. And if you’re worried about electioneering you could enforce rules like no t-shirts or buttons.

    And if you are more worried about the subtle effects of someone wearing plain clothes giving water to people waiting in long lines to vote more than the discomfort suffered by people waiting in long lines to vote than I suggest your priorities are out of order.

    Dustin. When you voted in person in 2020 how long did you spend in line?

    As for Biden, how could he, for example unite the country around Covid relief when no Republicans proposed anything close to what he was proposing?

    How can he unite the people around infrastructre when Republicans refuse to support a bill that isn’t paid for and refuse to discuss how to pay for it?

    How can he united the country around election reform when the sole goal of Republicans right now, based on their various bills in state legislatures, is to make voting more difficult?

    Uniting with people who refuse to compromise is difficult. But you fall prey to the usual thing of ascribing agency only to Democrats. It’s the Democrats fault that Mitch refuses to compromise or unite or negotiate in good faith. Always the Democrats fault.

    Victor (4959fb)

  55. 43. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/6/2021 @ 1:52 pm

    They may communicate that sponsorship to the voter. This is a transparent loophole in the anti-electioneering laws that is now closed.

    But does this kind of electioneering matter?

    The reason they do it, or did it, was in an attempt to prevent voters (in heavily Democratic precincts) from dropping out of line. Just showing up possibly encourages people.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  56. …..one is bubbly brunette colored sugar-water-sweetie…..

    Tulsi Gabbard?

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  57. Yeah that was in 2004 though.

    So, a valid vote was disqualified due to an error in the process. If they had, oh, a copy of your gas bill along with your signature maybe they wouldn’t have had an issue.

    This is why I don’t see this whole thing being about fraud, but about a better process. It is far easier to trash a legitimate vote than to insert a bogus one; both have the same effect.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  58. I really don’t understand why giving/not giving out water is tantamount to lynchings and night riders. It seems a rather complete loss of perspective.

    And, actually I don’t really care one way or the other, except it’s unlikely that GA will change this now.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  59. 54. Victor (4959fb) — 4/6/2021 @ 2:14 pm

    How can he united the country around election reform when the sole goal of Republicans right now, based on their various bills in state legislatures, is to make voting more difficult?

    No, no. They wanted to make it easier in heavily Republican rural counties. Early voting on two Saturdays was made mandatory. Not Sundays, because that is used by black churches.

    At the same time the period of time of early voting was allowed was limited. That might discourage campaigns (who may have a limited number of volunteers) from organizing trips to the polls on too many days.

    Election jurisdictions were forbidden from taking money from non government sources, like Fulton County had from an organization connected to Mark Zuckerberg, except that the state could (and maybe will) set up a find which will distribute extra money statewide on a far basis, presumably, making sure that Republican counties get the help (which might mean extended early voting or simply less chance of lines at the polls.)

    Uniting with people who refuse to compromise is difficult. But you fall prey to the usual thing of ascribing agency only to Democrats. It’s the Democrats fault that Mitch refuses to compromise or unite or negotiate in good faith. Always the Democrats fault.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  60. * set up a fund which will distribute extra money statewide on a fair basis.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  61. I’ve updated the post with President Biden’s comments made today about pulling the Masters Tournament out of Augusta, and the need for the Democrats to get their messaging straight.

    Dana (fd537d)

  62. And, actually I don’t really care one way or the other…..

    Based on your passion (“open economic warfare”) I find that hard to believe.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  63. In other sporting news:

    State Department considering joint boycott of 2022 Beijing Olympics
    The State Department said Tuesday that it was considering a possible joint boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympics, as calls have grown for the U.S. to back out of the event due to human rights violations in China.

    “It is something that we certainly wish to discuss,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said, adding that “a coordinated approach will be not only in our interests but also in the interests of our allies and partners.”
    ………

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  64. @37. The Triple-A Bats ain’t MLB– just plain bull ‘durham.’ 😉 When they play in a WS in Yankee Stadium get back to me.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  65. @61. President Plagiarist is a racist.

    End of story.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  66. Dustin. When you voted in person in 2020 how long did you spend in line?

    It was the longest one I’ve ever been in, but not too bad. Maybe half an hour to 45 minutes.

    Jim Crow times … five point three repeating.

    As for Biden, how could he, for example unite the country

    First step would be that Biden has to want to unite the country. And he wants to divide it.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  67. The people giving water are often volunteers.

    Yeah all those people volunteering on election day who have no interest in politics or working as the poll crew. but it’s weird, if you look on twitter, literally everyone who wants to hand out water or cookies at the next election is a die hard zealous partisan democrat who can’t say two things without one of them being that the GOP is the devil. Gee whiz.

    By Victor’s standards, he needs to show me evidence someone died of thirst trying to vote in 2020.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  68. 1990: Augusta National Accepts First Black : Golf: The home of the Masters desegregates. The move follows the uproar elsewhere over exclusion of minorities and women. – source, LAT.com

    Years behind baseball, Joe. Oh, BTW Amtrak Boy, do you still crave tipping Red Caps w/a silver dollar?

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  69. Silver Dollar Tip, Joe: the Homestead Grays weren’t gray; they were black!

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  70. Georgia is going to require a driver’s license number, social security number or other ID on absentee ballots — provisions that some allege may disenfranchise Black voters

    Utility bills or similar statements with a name and address are acceptable. I note that all of these rules (and probably all voter rules of any sort) require a fixed abode, which may disenfranchise the homeless.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  71. Apples /= oranges.
    Colorado has had YEARS during which we’ve implemented and polished our universal mail ballot process; it didn’t try to change its system & processes a few weeks / days prior to a critical presidential election during an anomalous pandemic year.
    https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2020/10/01/colorado-mail-in-ballot-absentee-voting-how-state-perfected-system/3572176001/

    Also, Larimer County, Colorado, pioneered county-wide “vote centers” (as opposed to precinct-limited voting) where a county resident can vote, no matter where in the county he lives. Other Colorado counties followed.
    https://www.larimer.org/clerk/elections/resources/history-vote-centers

    ColoComment (2749a4)

  72. Based on your passion (“open economic warfare”) I find that hard to believe.

    I don’t care about the water bottle rule. I DO CARE quite a bit about legally privileged sports leagues sanctioning states for something this trivial.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  73. Based on your passion (“open economic warfare”) I find that hard to believe.

    What is the outrage anyway?

    1. Some folks may be unable to be handed a bottle of water while in line to vote.

    2. #1 is tantamount to lynching and slavery, says the President!

    Chronic perspective loss.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  74. Would Victor have a problem if someone was visiting each person in that long line and giving them $10 to go home. As a volunteer who thought they might be hungry, of course.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  75. it’s wonderful how the country is coming together again

    JF (6fcdbe)

  76. 2. You announce your intention to pull a Trump: Heads I win, tails you cheated.

    Exactly. ‘Prove there’s cheating!’ leads to ‘if you win you cheated!’ like nothing.

    there is no point reasoning this out. The president is playing for keeps, and I’m sure if I thought it though I could blame Trump for setting this up with his sore loser routine. But Biden and Team D promised to unite. They deserve nothing but disdain, no careful effort to give them some partial credit. This effort to allow cheating in elections is worse than keeping people from voting, because it’s actually happening right now.

    Dustin (4237e0) — 4/6/2021 @ 1:59 pm

    No cheating has been proven on a level to affect the outcome. Massive effort has been put into looking for that proof.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  77. @75. Caught the doc, ‘Four Days In November’ on TCM today; President Kennedy literally did more in the last 24 hours he had on Earth, in terms of basic travel, walkin up and down airplane steps, delivering multiple speeches and just moving around and interacting w/citizens and reporters before he was blown away than President Plagiarist has done in a month.

    Little wonder the idiot plagiarizes; he lacks energy and stamina; he’s too damn old for this job.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  78. Meant to add, I agree with you that Biden has done nothing to bring us together on this issue and his characterization was overblown. I think it was Chait who said “it’s not Jim Crow 2.0. It’s Jim Corw lite.”

    It seems clear to me that the GA legislature took steps to make it harder in the future then it was in 2020 for poor urban voters to exercise franchise despite lacking any evidence that those steps were necessary.

    They also changed the laws to allow the legislature to take make direct decisions about how the election will be conducted. Again, with no justification or problem with the current system.

    I’ll also say that your assertion that people are objecting to this because they want to allow cheating is insulting, probably less then equating your concerns about security with a desire to recreate Jim Crow, but still insulting. I don’t think you mean it to be personally directed at me, but if seems like you’re saying I’m lying about what I think because i want to enable cheating.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  79. Memo to Coca-Cola Co. Chief Executive James Quincey:

    Have a cheeseburger; “for those who think young.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puJePACBoIo

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  80. “That was it, a heroic home run, stealing second, third and home, after a botched right field catch.”

    Technically not a home run….or a steal…..but a run home for the ages! The perfect way to retire from the sport.

    AJ_Liberty (a4ff25)

  81. Well, you guys voted for him, so I’ll have to let you hold the floor on the consistency of narrative.

    steveg (02d731)

  82. No cheating has been proven on a level to affect the outcome. Massive effort has been put into looking for that proof.

    Time123 (9f42ee) — 4/6/2021 @ 6:12 pm

    I agree, and I appreciate your patient attempt to keep arguing on this issue.

    But you’re talking about one specific outcome, the presidential election.

    Frankly, that’s a horse of a different color. It’s not hard to take that leap of faith that such a massive conspiracy would have been caught. This standard could be applied to Georgia’s laws, but it seems the burden is shifted in reverse on the theory of disparate impact.

    There’s no way to have that analysis. It’s just not possible. Take how we differ in what it means that Georgia found zero fraudulent absentee ballots, a ridiculous result.

    But the fact is, new Georgia law will also have that same defense you offered to 2020, in 2022, and the folks who are happy with that, or reject it, will largely flip. Food for thought about 2020.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  83. Would Victor have a problem if someone was visiting each person in that long line and giving them $10 to go home. As a volunteer who thought they might be hungry, of course.

    Why wouldn’t I have a problem with people handing money to people in a voting line actively trying to discourage voting? How is that similar to handing water to people in long lines trying to vote?

    It’s a weird comparison. I agree, by the way, that the volunteers who hand out water are probably partisan, though it’s worth noting that local businesses sometimes also sponsor line warming activities. But the point is that unless the person with the water is wearing shirts and buttons and making political statements, how would the person receiving the water know the partisan leaning? Are they going to quickly use their phones to capture faces and then look them up on the internet?

    And really, how much does it matter if there is the extremely mild encouragement of voters willing to wait long hours to vote? Why are you so intent on making it even more difficult? Conservative love to cite tradition. And in the early days of the Republic political parties set up whiskey barrels by polling places. A cup of water from a volunteer carrying no signs seems kind of mild in comparison.

    And I am glad Dustin that your wait in line was only 45 minutes. Waits of several hours, sometimes as long as 8, have happened in Georgia elections.

    Colocomment: this is a good point – Colorado has done a lot of work to make voting easier. As have Washington and Oregon. But apparently Republicans just ignore the existence of these states and their election systems

    Victor (4959fb)

  84. And Kevin, you persist in equating Jim Crow with lynchings and night riders. Sure irregular violence helped enforce segregation and legal oppression but the heart of Jim Crow was contained in laws and statutes. Look up the history of the Grandfather Clause, White Primaries, and the actual application of the literacy tests.

    This is a dramatization, but based on history, the opening scene of Selma, where Oprah tries to get registered

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YRUUFYeOPI

    What do you think Selma was about, anyway? The Voting Rights Act of 1965, a federal attempt to regulate state and local election procedures across the U.S. because the rules themselves were crooked, not just the trees from which they hung people.

    And the VRA worked pretty well too until Roberts gutted it in Shelby County, overruling the plain text of the 15th Amendment in favor of the enamations of the penumbra of equal state sovereign dignitude.

    Victor (4959fb)

  85. 66. I had just about no line. There’s never been more than 2 or 3 people in line. Because we now use paper ballotts the actual voting does not delay people. You could wait half aminute to place it in the scanner and a bit more to sign in.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  86. I always use the BMD, of which thre is only one ina polling place, but almost nobody else uses it.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  87. It might be that MLB really had to move the All Star game because of the possibility that at least a few of the selected players would not participate, but, if so, it was harmful that they pretended that management thought it was the thing to do.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  88. Democrats are the king of virtual signaling. Eager to lash out at Georgia, timid to lash out at China. Now, poor minorities will lose out on working the MLB All-Star game, while poor whites will gain. Sometimes I think Democrats simply can’t help themselves.

    Good luck with the Masters…Feminists and Democrats have tried it before and failed. Don’t see why it will work now.

    Hoi Polloi (b28058)

  89. I find nothing to complain about in all this. I wanted normal and boring. The only thing more normal than baseball is insipid politicians. And if there’s anything more boring than professional golf ….

    nk (1d9030)

  90. But you’re talking about one specific outcome, the presidential election.

    Frankly, that’s a horse of a different color. It’s not hard to take that leap of faith that such a massive conspiracy would have been caught. This standard could be applied to Georgia’s laws, but it seems the burden is shifted in reverse on the theory of disparate impact.

    I am talking about the presidential elections. Local elections would be much easier to cheat. That’s why in the 3 examples I’ve found of vote fraud conspiracies 2 were for local elections. The third for a statewide election never made it past the planning stage where the leader was trying to organize a large number of fraudulent registrations. It feel apart when one of the potential participants leaked it.

    The 2 that were for local elections were caught after the loser noticed oddities in the voting patterns. From these oddities they were able to quickly gather additional information about specific acts of fraud, basically the cheater was going door to door harvesting AB ballots and changing them to support their desired candidate. The conspiracy itself was small, but they had to interact with a lot of voters and it fell apart there.

    Think about the risk / reward for a potential voter. Voting 2 or 10 times in a statewide election has no real impact on all but the rarest races. But the penalties are harsh and there’s actually a lot of safeguards in the system to catch you. It looks like very few people take that risk given the minimal impact.

    I want to focus on one thing you said; since I think I was imprecise when I originally gave you the information.

    There’s no way to have that analysis. It’s just not possible. Take how we differ in what it means that Georgia found zero fraudulent absentee ballots, a ridiculous result.

    The study didn’t say that GA had zero fraud. It said that there were no fraudulent absentee ballot submitted in Cob county based on a audit of 15,000 randomly selection ballot signatures.

    GA is investigating claims of voter fraud; felons voting, double voting, out of state voting https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/jan/05/heres-why-georgias-republican-officials-are-confid/

    But the numbers in question are small enough that they’re not going to impact the outcome.

    Here’s an example in Montana that they found and are investigating this year. From my read the main culprits are sloppiness by the election officials and ballot harvesting, which is a legitimate problem. https://www.thecentersquare.com/montana/op-ed-a-river-of-doubt-runs-through-mail-voting-in-big-sky-country/article_a6d128cc-8cd2-11eb-a93a-5b8ac6984f59.html

    Time123 (69b2fc)

  91. 83
    But apparently Republicans just ignore the existence of these states and their election systems

    Victor: why single out Republicans? Ask, perhaps, why any state doesn’t simply seek advice from those states that are doing it well, and implement as wanted the [mostly] reliable & time-tested systems and/or processes that already exist?

    State Secretaries of State talk to each other. They have meetings. Their staffs interact. They are not ignorant of what the successful states do. Why re-invent the wheel, eh? To what purpose?

    ColoComment (2749a4)

  92. @91, in most cases it’s because the existing legislature fears changing the rules will help their opponents or give primary challengers an opening to attack. MI and PA had some debate about starting to count early where you could see some of this. Part of the attack was that it would make fraud easier because ‘they’ could figure out how many votes would be necessary to fake.

    Both TX and FL start processing early. It’s part of why they were done so promptly.

    Time123 (69b2fc)

  93. Colocomment,

    I agree that there is a general unwillingness of states to look to each other regarding effective electoral systems. But I suspect that is in part because people look to electoral systems not just for what is effective in providing access to the greatest number of eligible voters, but also to meet other more idiosyncratic goals. Georgia for example is dead set on making sure the election of 2020 doesn’t happen again, which requires them in various ways to move against efficiency or accessibility in pursuit of other ostensible goals, like “election integrity”.

    I pick on Republicans because on the one hand in state legislatures across the country Republican legislators are attempting to pass bills to make voting more difficult for urban voters (and easier perhaps for rural ones) when mail in voting solves most of the issue.

    And on the other hand Democrats are trying to pass HR 1 which actually would use some of the effective methods pioneered in Colorado, Oregon and Washington.

    I don’t think the parties are equal at this point in their commitment to democracy.

    Victor (4959fb)

  94. I pick on Republicans because on the one hand in state legislatures across the country Republican legislators are attempting to pass bills to make voting more difficult for urban voters (and easier perhaps for rural ones) when mail in voting solves most of the issue.

    If you want to look at ways Dem’s try to tip the scales look at Maryland and CA. Different tools, same goal; to maintain power.

    Time123 (69b2fc)

  95. 88. Hoi Polloi (b28058) — 4/7/2021 @ 4:31 am

    Good luck with the Masters…Feminists and Democrats have tried it before and failed. Don’t see why it will work now.

    The Masters cannot be played any other place, or it’s not the Masters. It can only be cancelled.

    The All Star gane can be played in any major league baseball stadium.

    The interesting thing here is I think it was scheduled in Atlanta this year to honor Hank Aaron, who recently died. Hank Aaron holds the all-time record for All-Star games, selected 25 times in 21 seasons. Four seasons (1959-62) had two All Star games.

    Milwakee wanted to substitute but they didn’t get it.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  96. The interesting thing here is I think it was scheduled in Atlanta this year to honor Hank Aaron, who recently died.

    Major League Baseball must have known something Hammerin’ Hank didn’t know, because Atlanta was selected in 2020.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  97. The expectation was that he would be alive to receive the accolades…if I remember correctly, some conspiratorialists thought that Aaron was a victim of the CV-19 vaccine.

    urbanleftbehind (b08362)

  98. It’s Jim Crow lite

    Even that is slander.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  99. Colorado has done a lot of work to make voting easier.

    Why? How easy should voting be? Should they send everyone a limo?

    What is necessary is that voting be open to all who are interested in voting, that times and places for voting be reasonable, that votes be accurately counted, and that those that need help be helped (within reason).

    No system will solve all problems, and it is unreasonable (and probably disingenuous) to demand it does. You also have to prioritize. You may have systems that allow the blind to vote, or the illiterate, or those that only speak Farsi. But you may not be able to handle blind, illiterate Farsi-speakers. There is always an unmet need, and this drives liberals crazy.

    But should everyone vote? There are people who don’t think Trump supporters should vote. Or Bernie-bots. I don’t see the need to pry someone away from her movie-star magazines or his important Aussie-rules football match in order to make a wholly uninformed choice at the polls.

    How easy must it be?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  100. No system will solve all problems, and it is unreasonable (and probably disingenuous) to demand it does. You also have to prioritize. You may have systems that allow the blind to vote, or the illiterate, or those that only speak Farsi. But you may not be able to handle blind, illiterate Farsi-speakers. There is always an unmet need, and this drives liberals crazy.

    What drives liberals crazy, as you put it, is that these burdens always seem to fall harder on lower income urban voters for some reason.

    No one’s complaining that the GA law will make it harder for blind illiterate farsi speakers. They’re complaining that it will make harder then it was in 2020 for poor people who live in cities. They’re also complaining that the law allows the legislature to more directly take over local voting. Which i haven’t seen a great analysis on but so far seems like a bigger problem.

    Time123 (69b2fc)

  101. But if we are talking about groups excluded by current rules, there’s a big group that actually NEEDS absentee ballots but are quite likely to have their vote discarded: the arthritic elderly.

    My late mother, in her last few years, could barely hold a pen, let along sign her name in any recognizable way. She filled out her last ballot in 2016, with my help, but her signature was a pitiful scrawl. It’s not clear whether that ballot was accepted but based on signature alone I’d bet against.

    Now, had there been the opportunity to include confirming information such as a utility bill, a DL number, etc, I could have helped her with that. But the one thing they wanted — her signature — was beyond my ability to assist.

    I note that among the various Georgia “horrors” that some have described, no one has brought up this fairly large group of voters, even though they are the EXACT group that absentee ballots were designed for. For them, the GA changes are an improvement. But I guess they don’t count because “all old people are white.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  102. @101, Your point about the elderly is a good on and they’ll be hardest hit if Dustins proposal to eliminate AB ever comes to pass. I think this would be a net loss of votes for the GOP.

    Does the GA bill offer multiple ways to prove identity for an absentee ballot? Or is it just DL No, which some older voters don’t have once they get too old to drive.

    One thing the should have is a way to track if your ballot was accepted and a process to cure clerical errors. Other states manage that.

    Time123 (69b2fc)

  103. @101,

    In GA you would have had to sign an oath stating that you helped her.

    Any voter can request a mail-in ballot. No excuse is needed. Simply fill out the application to request an official mail-in ballot. Then, mail or drop off the application to your county registrar’s office. We urge you to request your mail-in ballot and get it back to your county registrar’s office as soon as possible. Mail-in ballots must be received by your county registrar no later than close of the polls on Election Day. A voter who has a disability or cannot read and write may get help when filling out the mail-in ballot application and the official absentee/advance ballot. No matter how the ballot arrives, a voter with a physical disability may get help marking his or her ballot. The person helping the voter must sign an oath that is either printed on the mail-in ballot envelope or on the application for mail-in ballot, whichever is applicable.

    Looking this up i also learned that in 2020 GA allowed expired drivers license as proof of ID.

    Time123 (ea2b98)

  104. Why Not Fewer Voters?
    Much of the discussion about proposed changes to voting laws backed by many Republicans and generally opposed by Democrats begs the question and simply asserts that having more people vote is, ceteris paribus, a good thing.

    Why should we believe that?

    Why shouldn’t we believe the opposite? That the republic would be better served by having fewer — but better — voters?
    …….
    …….I’m not convinced that having more voters is a good thing in any case, but, even if I were, that would not be the only good, but only one good competing with other goods, one of which is seeing to it that the eligibility rules on the books are enforced so that elections may be honestly and credibly regulated.

    We could verify eligibility at the polls rigorously and easily, if we wanted to, just as we have the ability to verify who is eligible to enter the country or to drive a car. Of course that would put some burdens on voters. So, what? We expect people, including poor and struggling people, to pay their taxes — why shouldn’t we also expect them to keep their drivers’ licenses up-to-date? If voting really is the sacred duty that we’re always being told it is, shouldn’t we treat it at least as seriously as filing a 1040EZ?

    There would be more voters if we made it easier to vote, and there would be more doctors if we didn’t require a license to practice medicine. The fact that we believe unqualified doctors to be a public menace but act as though unqualified voters were just stars in the splendid constellation of democracy indicates how little real esteem we actually have for the vote, in spite of our public pieties.
    …….
    The real case — generally unstated — for encouraging more people to vote is a metaphysical one: that wider turnout in elections makes the government somehow more legitimate in a vague moral sense. But legitimacy is not popularity and popularity is not consent. The entire notion of representative government assumes that the actual business of governing requires fewer decision-makers rather than more.
    …….
    Representatives are people who act in other people’s interests, which is distinct from carrying out a group’s stated demands as certified by majority vote. Legitimacy involves, among other interests, the government’s responsibility to people who are not voters, such as children, mentally incapacitated people, incarcerated felons, and non-citizen permanent residents. Their interests matter, too, but we do not extend the vote to them. So we require a more sophisticated conception of legitimacy than one-man, one-vote, majority rule. To vote is only to register one’s individual, personal preference, but democratic citizenship imposes broader duties and obligations. When we fail to meet that broader responsibility, the result is dysfunction: It is no accident that we are heaping debt upon our children, who cannot vote, in order to pay for benefits dear to the most active and reliable voters. That’s what you get from having lots of voting but relatively little responsible citizenship.
    ………

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  105. Voting should be so easy that anybody who is a valid voter, above age and a citizen, should be able to do so with minimum effort subject to sufficient rules to make sure that the ballot comes from that person. Which is easily achieved through all mail voting.

    Kevin, you keep using hyperbole instead of argument. People don’t need limos. They do need a voting system that doesn’t set up unnecessary barriers and excludes or restricts effective voting methods, like drop boxes, voting vans, provisional ballots or mail in ballots.

    And they particularly don’t need election laws hastily rewritten for the purpose of making voting by particular parts of the population, old poor urban voters, more difficult so as to secure a partisan advantage.

    Victor (4959fb)

  106. What I was trying to say was said better by Kilgore at New York magazine:

    In evaluating voting procedures, the burden should be placed on authorities to justify voting restrictions and requirements, not on voters to prove themselves nimble enough to avoid the one and meet the other. A ballot is not a prize to be won or lost; it’s a right, and lawmakers or election officials who do not treat it as one cannot expect much respect from voters or their advocates.

    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/republican-bad-ideas-voting.html

    Kilgore has some other intelligent things to say about Republican ideas regarding voting that also merit reading

    Victor (4959fb)

  107. R.I.P. Robert Mundell, 88, Nobel-winning economist and architect of Reaganomics

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  108. The real case — generally unstated — for encouraging more people to vote is a metaphysical one: that wider turnout in elections makes the government somehow more legitimate in a vague moral sense. But legitimacy is not popularity and popularity is not consent. The entire notion of representative government assumes that the actual business of governing requires fewer decision-makers rather than more.

    Democracy derives it’s legitimacy from the consent of the governed. Everyone that wishes to vote and is legally able to do so should be able to. Restrictions from that should arise from necessity and be as limited as possible while meeting that necessity.

    The more restrictive you make voting the less people will accept that the process will result in a fair outcome. This becomes more true if those restrictions map onto different demographics. Rural voters would rightly object if polling locations were determined only by population without regard to county, if that resulted in their having to drive great distances and stand in long lines. If everyone that lived in the upper peninsula of Michigan had to drive to 1 spoke to vote for instance no one would honestly accept that as fair.

    I do feel that too many people are allowed to vote. But I can’t see any way to get the number of eligible voters down to just me, and maybe a few people who agree with my views.

    Time123 (ea2b98)

  109. Does the GA bill offer multiple ways to prove identity for an absentee ballot?

    I have read all kids of things, and so I just went to the source and find that “utility bills” are not acceptable. Some sources had said they were, some did not.

    But it’s not just DLs either. Also, an expired DL is OK. Section 21-2-417 of the GA election law is unchanged in this regard by the new law.

    https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/georgia_voter_identification_requirements2

    What IDs are acceptable?

    Any valid state or federal government issued photo ID, including a free ID Card issued by your county registrar’s office or the Georgia Department of Driver Services (DDS)
    A Georgia Driver’s License, even if expired
    Valid employee photo ID from any branch, department, agency, or entity of the U.S. Government, Georgia, or any county, municipality, board, authority or other entity of this state
    Valid U.S. passport ID
    Valid U.S. military photo ID
    Valid tribal photo ID

    Bring one of these six forms of identification to vote.
    Georgia’s Voter Identification Card

    If you do not have one of the six acceptable forms of photo ID, the State of Georgia offers a free ID Card. An ID card can be issued at any county registrar’s office or Department of Driver Services Office free of charge.

    To receive a voter identification card, the voter must provide:

    A photo identity document or approved non-photo identity document that includes full legal name and date of birth
    Documentation showing the voter’s date of birth
    Evidence that the applicant is a registered voter
    Documentation showing the applicant’s name and residential address

    All of these IDs seem to be conditioned (at some point now, or in the past) on being able to show a birth record or naturalization document. That may be an issue for some (e.g. the homeless, the home-birthed, etc). I’d be interested to hear how Justice Thomas views this, as his upbringing was very much off the grid.

    How would those who find this kind of documentation intolerable deal with the need to for a showing of age and citizenship?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  110. The real problem with the Georgia election law is that it makes more likely the possibility that dishonest election officials will abuse their authority and misreport the results, like maybe what happened in Missoula, Montana.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/upshot/georgia-election-law-risk.html

    Now this law was the result of a compromise.

    Nothing that can happen is impossible now, but it theoretically makes it easier. No that easy – there;s a provision chair of the Georgia election board cannot be anyone who, in the past two years, was a political candidate, campaign organizer or even made a political contribution

    Also to take control takes time, so what this means any attempt to “fix” the results must be along term conspiracy.

    Neither party talks about this. H.R. 1 does very little about this (maybe because that’s the purpose of HR1?)

    This article says you could get into aa constitutional crisis.

    … Public attention has mostly moved on from Mr. Trump’s bid to overturn the election; activists and politicians are focused more on whether to restrict or expand voting access, particularly by mail.

    But trying to reverse an election result without credible evidence of widespread fraud is an act of a different magnitude than narrowing access. A successful effort to subvert an election would pose grave and fundamental risks to democracy, risking political violence and secessionism.

    Beyond any provisions on voting itself, the new Georgia election law risks making election subversion easier. It creates new avenues for partisan interference in election administration. This includes allowing the state elections board, now newly controlled by appointees of the Republican State Legislature, to appoint a single person to take control of typically bipartisan county election boards, which have important power over vote counting and voter eligibility….

    As I said, it doesn’t directly help fake elections. But if the wrong persons got sufficient control of the Georgia Republican Party? It’s easier to organize a conspiracy.

    …If secretaries of state had not certified election results, whether in Georgia or elsewhere, it might have plunged the country into crisis with uncertain consequences. It is not unreasonable to wonder whether there’s a chance of something similar occurring in the future, given how many House Republicans refused to certify the electoral count.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  111. Kevin, you keep using hyperbole instead of argument.

    Reducio ad absurdum IS argument.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  112. The point is that there is always an unmet need. Always. Now, what level of unmet need is acceptable? There people differ. But to say that somewhere between 98% and 99.9% lives “Jim Crow” is absurd.

    And you complain about hyperbole! It wasn’t anyone other than the Democrat Party and their increasingly divisive President that brought “Jim Crow” into this.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  113. Kevin, First, thank you. Second, i don’t have a large problem with the ID portion of the law. There are best practices that should be followed in the implementation and voters should be given a chance to cure clerical errors but with those in place I don’t have an objection. Third, reaction to the absurd is insulting when you’ll readily admit that the maximum position isn’t correct and are arguing over balancing.

    Time123 (ea2b98)

  114. there;s a provision chair of the Georgia election board cannot be anyone who, in the past two years, was a political candidate, campaign organizer or even made a political contribution

    At some point, everyone is a politician and I would not want an election board chair who was naive about politicians. California had a bunch of naive people on its redistricting board in 2010 and they were happily gamed by the pols.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  115. @113, to call what appears to be an attempt to reduce poor urban voter turnout him crow light seems like a reasonable exaggeration. Makes clear what you’re accusing them of wanting to do; reduce black electoral participation and makes clear it’s not as bad as Jim Crow

    Time123 (7cca75)

  116. Third, reaction to the absurd is insulting when you’ll readily admit that the maximum position isn’t correct and are arguing over balancing.

    Yes, well, I’m still having issues with “Jim Crow.” I have not seen Victor walk that back.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  117. Time,

    Why is this GA law necessarily aimed at the urban poor? I would think ccity folk would have adequate social services, both government and volunteer, and such that would be very likely to help out.

    Now, rural voters might be more likely to be impacted. The might be disadvataged by long distances to polling places, or lack of educational opportunities, or a less-connected lifestyle. North GA elects some amazing rednecks. Why are these targeted primarily against minorities? I have met a number of illiterate whites over the years.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  118. Kevin M @109:

    An expired Georgia driver’s license, but not an expired state of Georgia non driver’s ID. Did you notice that?

    Of course the excuse is they are more likely to be fake or used by someone who moved.

    A new photo ID can be obtained for free, at least if disease restrictions don’t get in the way, and provided transportation is no object and you have some underlying documents.

    All of these IDs seem to be conditioned (at some point now, or in the past) on being able to show a birth record or naturalization document. That may be an issue for some (e.g. the homeless, the home-birthed, etc)

    Home births should not be a problem since they also have birth certificates, unless they are signed by a midwife who also faked birth records.

    Homeless people are also having problems getting stimulus checks.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/nyregion/homeless-stimulus-check.html

    …Just about anyone with a Social Security number who is not someone else’s dependent and who earns less than $75,000 is entitled to the stimulus. But some of the people who would benefit most from the money are having the hardest time getting their hands on it…

    …Paradoxically, the very poor are probably the most likely people to pump stimulus money right back into devastated local economies, rather than sock it away in the bank or use it to play the stock market….

    …Mr. Rodriguez said he had made several attempts to file taxes — a necessary step for those not yet in the system — but had given up.

    “I went to H&R Block and I told them I was homeless,” he said. “They said they couldn’t help me.”

    H&R Block said in a statement that the company “understands how important stimulus funds are to millions of Americans, especially those who are experiencing homelessness,” adding, “We’re here to help anyone file a tax return who has the proper identification required by the I.R.S.”

    Near Mr. Rodriguez in line was a man who gave his name only as Polo. Before the pandemic, Polo said, he worked at a warehouse in Maryland. He received the first stimulus payment last year. But after losing his job, he closed his bank account because he was being charged for having a low balance.

    Big mistake. And there are ways around it. And if it was TD bank, the fee could be waived – still can 0 by asking foor it to be refunded every month. Other banks have other workarounds, (Santandar, for inststance charges no fee if there was any activity that month, and Capital One offers a free account if you change your account number, and even with the old one a $250 deposit which can be wothdrawn the same day gets you that month free) and I think New York state law, or maybe it’s federal law, requires every bank to offer an account that charges no more than $3 a month. But then if he was more informed he probably wouldn’t be in the situation he is in.

    Continuing:

    Polo said that according to the I.R.S. website, his second stimulus check, sent to most people in early January, was “still processing.” He has heard nothing about the third payment, which was $1,400. “When you call the toll-free I.R.S. number,” he said, “they put you on hold for an hour.” ..

    ….The city Department of Social Services said its staff and contracted providers were working to help people register for and receive stimulus money. The city and the I.R.S. both list places that offer free tax help, including a few walk-in spots that don’t require appointments. But many people interviewed did not know about them.

    Terrance Wells, 37, who was hanging out in front of Penn Station, said a friend had tried to help him access the stimulus payments.

    “It never went through,” he said. “It never gave us the right form to fill out or anything.”

    The free market has offered a rather harsh solution to those mystified by the system. Steven Todd, 53, who lives at the Mainchance shelter in Manhattan, said that “educated guys who work in finance” had approached homeless people and offered to get them their stimulus money — for a commission of several hundred dollars.

    “People were happy to get anything,” he said. “It wasn’t fair.”

    These finance guys don’t get enough competition. I think people would do it for $40 – and there are people who might do it fr free.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  119. Black voter turnout actually exceeds white voter turnout in Mississippi and Georgia. Nationwide, it did, in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections.

    Now turnout can be increased by telling people that the Republicans are out to stop you them voting.

    These Republican sponsored voting laws are a great motivating tool – for the Democratic Party. Even if it does create obstacles.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  120. @118 Kevin, I think the biggest part of it is wait times coupled with the perception that what appear to be just random results on budget choices or other actions are intentional. The wait times in predominantly black counties are already higher then you would expect and what you see in predominantly white areas. Some of the steps taken in 2020 were intended to address this problem and were thought to have done so. I haven’t seen data to prove that but the fact is indisputable that they tried. Now with this law they’re undoing some of the ‘good things’ that were put in place. So from the view of black voters the situation is bad. It’s worse for them then white neighborhoods things were made better in 2020 and those improvements are being taken away for no good reason.

    Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Shelby v. Holder decision in 2013 eliminated key federal oversight of election decisions in states with histories of discrimination, Georgia’s voter rolls have grown by nearly 2 million people, yet polling locations have been cut statewide by nearly 10%, according to an analysis of state and local records by Georgia Public Broadcasting and ProPublica. Much of the growth has been fueled by younger, nonwhite voters, especially in nine metro Atlanta counties, where four out of five new voters were nonwhite, according to the Georgia secretary of state’s office.

    The metro Atlanta area has been hit particularly hard. The nine counties — Fulton, Gwinnett, Forsyth, DeKalb, Cobb, Hall, Cherokee, Henry and Clayton — have nearly half of the state’s active voters but only 38% of the polling places, according to the analysis.

    As a result, the average number of voters packed into each polling location in those counties grew by nearly 40%, from about 2,600 in 2012 to more than 3,600 per polling place as of Oct. 9, the analysis shows.

    Georgia Public Broadcasting/ProPublica found that about two-thirds of the polling places that had to stay open late for the June primary to accommodate waiting voters were in majority-Black neighborhoods, even though they made up only about one-third of the state’s polling places. An analysis by Stanford University political science professor Jonathan Rodden of the data collected by Georgia Public Broadcasting/ProPublica found that the average wait time after 7 p.m. across Georgia was 51 minutes in polling places that were 90% or more nonwhite, but only six minutes in polling places that were 90% white.

    Time123 (7cca75)

  121. Anyone who is interested in what’s going on in GA should think about following Gabe Sterling on twitter. He’s continuing to follow up on accusations and investigations from the election.

    https://twitter.com/GabrielSterling

    Time123 (7cca75)

  122. President Plagiarist is incompetent.

    Given his running mouth, likely incontinent as well.

    25th Amendment time.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  123. Kevin,

    My reasons for not backing down on the “Jim Crow Light” characterization are probably best explained by this opinion column in the New York Times which I encourage you to read

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/opinion/georgia-voting-law.html

    It discusses the history of Jim Crow laws around elections in the South, noting that they were always facially neutral. Here are some of its concluding paragraphs:

    This brings us back to the Georgia law. To the extent that it plays at neutrality while placing burdens on specific groups of voters on a partisan (and inescapably racial) basis, it is, at least, Jim Crow-adjacent. And as my Times colleagues Nick Corasaniti and Reid Epstein wrote last week, there are key provisions that fit this bill.

    After an election in which 1.3 million Georgians used absentee ballots — and nearly two-thirds of them voted for Biden — the Republican-led government has now cut by more than half the period during which absentee voters can request a ballot, to less than three months from six months. It has also instituted a strict new ID requirement for absentee ballots, adding steps for voters that would invalidate their votes if done incorrectly.

    The new law requires each county to provide drop boxes for absentee ballots, but limits their location and the hours when they are available, as well as the number the most populous counties can have. This increases access for largely Republican-voting rural counties and decreases it for the state’s Democratic urban centers

    One of the lessons of the South after Reconstruction is that democratic life can flourish and then erode, expand and then contract. Democracy is not a solid state, and we should be wary of politicians who would undermine any part of it for partisan advantage.

    It took three decades of struggle, and violence, before Southern elites could reclaim dominance over Southern politics. No particular restriction was decisive. The process was halting, contingent and contested, consolidating in different places at different times. It was only when the final pieces fell into place that the full picture of what took place was clear.

    Put a little differently, the thing about Jim Crow is that it wasn’t “Jim Crow” until, one day, it was.

    Thus I think the Georgia Bill is a continuation of Jim Crow purposes by different, less obvious, means. But having said that I also agree with another writer, Eric Levitz, that the main problem for American democracy right now is not so much the voting restrictions that Republicans are trying to impose but the systematic problems posed by gerrymandering:

    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/04/georgia-voting-laws-democrats-gerrymandering-hr1.html

    This includes both the gerrymandering used to create House districts and state legislative districts, and the 19th Century gerrymandering that created more Western interior states than really warranted as a way of preserving Republican control of the Senate.

    There’s not much that can be done about the latter at this point, except to balance the scales a little with D.C. and Puerto Rico. But as for the former HR 1 will provide some partial remedies.

    I think the Georgia Bill is worth fighting because it is an useful symbol for the way in which American democracy is imperfect and how the Republicans wish to exacerbate its imperfections.

    [Check out Williamson’s recent columns in the National Review openly arguing that fewer people should vote]

    And given American history, I don’t think calling it Jim Crow Light (I prefer traditional spellings) is out of bounds. Or, for that matter, a blood libel.

    Victor (4959fb)

  124. Kevin & Victor, it’s important to note that this new GA law is being passed in a situation where it’s already harder for blacks to vote then it is for whites. ( See my comment up thread for details.)

    If you view it not as “Does this law take us from good to bad” it’s probably not too much to worry. But there’s already a discrepancy and this law undoes things from the 2020 election that were intended to help that.

    Time123 (7cca75)

  125. As a reminder, political activist Stacy Abrams and Sen. Jon Osshoff warned that a boycott of Georgia would kill jobs and ultimately end up hurting mostly the poor and people of color:

    “I absolutely oppose and reject any notion of boycotting Georgia,” said Ossoff.

    “Don’t boycott corporations over voting rights yet,” Abrams said in an op-ed.

    It will be interesting to see who Abrams denounces over this:

    Charles Gasparino
    @CGasparino
    ·
    16h
    What doesnt add up about @staceyabrams criticism of moving All-Star game out of Atlanta: She was initially partnering w @KingJames organization @morethanavote to oppose GA voter law. @morethanavote supports MLB decision to move out of Atl. Has she relayed her concerns to LeBron?

    *******

    More details from
    @MLB sources on @RobManfred decision to pull All Star game from Atl (1/2): Before making the decision “unilaterally,” he conferred with 8 owners who comprise the @MLB exec committee, sources say. Other 22 had even less clue about the move. He had been conferring previously w political activists, they add. Role of @staceyabrams unclear. Her spox says she never advocated a ALL Star game boycott. Yet she “partnered” to protest the GA voting law w @KingJames & @morethanavote, which did. Abrams @MLB had no comment on their conversations.

    https://twitter.com/CGasparino

    BuDuh (984c57)

  126. Georgia Rep proposes a bill to be more like Biden’s home state:

    1. Instead of having up to 19 days of early voting in Georgia, we will have ZERO days of early voting JUST LIKE DELAWARE!

    2. Instead of having no excuse absentee voting in Georgia, you will have to have the excuse of being sick or disabled to vote absentee JUST LIKE DELAWARE!

    3. Instead of having plenty of secure drop boxes in Georgia, there will be no drop boxes JUST LIKE DELAWARE!

    4. Instead of being able to get drink/food from a non-poll worker outside of the 150 foot buffer & drink from a poll worker within the barrier in Georgia, it will be illegal to receive anything of value while standing in line to vote JUST LIKE DELAWARE!

    5. Instead of being able to vote in relative quiet in Georgia, your name will be announced outloud (and your party affiliation during a primary) so that your vote can be challenged by anyone in the precinct JUST LIKE DELAWARE!

    https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10157620769772027&id=634657026

    More at the link.

    BuDuh (984c57)

  127. BuDuh, Does Deleware already have a much longer wait times in predominately black communities?

    Time123 (7cca75)

  128. BuDuh,

    It might cheer you up that a liberal, Derek Thompson, from the notorious liberal magazine The Atlantic noted some of the same things you did:

    As Delaware’s former senator, Biden would be on firmer ground excoriating Georgia for “Jim Crow 2.0” if he could hold up his home state as a model for voting rights. But Delaware has been a laggard on early voting, and its legislature is still trying to legalize no-excuse absentee voting, which allows any voter to request a mail-in ballot. Georgia, by contrast, permits many weeks of early voting and has allowed no-excuse absentee voting since 2005. Voting-rights activists may justifiably focus their outrage on a swing state like Georgia that, unlike Delaware, actually determines the balance of power. But “Jim Crow” rhetoric from northeastern politicians and media figures loses some bite when we consider that Georgia’s voting rights have long been more accommodating than those of deep-blue states including not only Delaware, but also Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York.

    I think that it would be an excellent thing for the country if Republicans in Delaware, and for that matter New York, made a concerted push to make voting more accessible to everyone, tying it into a nationwide effort to increase voting accessibility. This could include finding parts of HR 1 that they think make sense.

    But I doubt that’s going to happen.

    What we do have in Georgia is a situation where the Republican legislature, on the basis of crackpot conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, are passing new laws to make it harder to vote for people in denser urban counties, and to put control of elections more directly in the hands of the same legislature where in 2020 legislators were openly calling for reversing the results of the presidential race.

    And they’re doing it in a state that is a swing state and which has a long history of racially motivated restrictions on voting.

    So the bill you cite isn’t really an attempt to improve voting laws, just to own liberals. Which so far as I can tell is the only real agenda these days besides tax cuts and making voting difficult. As Derek concluded:

    This is what we’ve learned from the Georgia voting-rights fiasco: Corporations are still corporations, the White House’s metaphors are overheated, and the Georgia legislation is far worse. Democrats’ rhetorical embellishments pale in comparison to both the voting-fraud conspiracy theory that inspired Georgia Republicans and the needless provisions of the law itself. Lurking beneath all this confusion and incoherence is a basic partisan difference: GOP activism is about making it harder to vote; Democratic activism is about making it harder to make it harder to vote. If that is the choice before us, I for one know which box I’m prepared to check.

    Victor (4959fb)

  129. Either way, let’s improve voting access in Delaware also.

    Time123 (235fc4)

  130. So much fuss over how a bunch of hillbillies pick out which hogs to slop at the public trough, I swan!

    nk (1d9030)

  131. Time123,

    Completely agree. Let’s improve voting in Delaware too. I bet that if Governor Kemp approached Biden with a proposal to improve voting access in both states, or even approached the Delaware governor, that it would get support.

    By the way I admire the calmness of your temperament and the thoroughness of your research.

    Victor (4959fb)

  132. Thanks Victor, for the most part this site’s commenters are smart people presenting good faith opinions based on facts. It’s easy stay calm when i remember that. 😀

    Time123 (7cca75)

  133. I bet that if Governor Kemp approached Biden with a proposal to improve voting access in both states, or even approached the Delaware governor, that it would get support.

    Should he bring candy and flowers or a small knick-knack for the house? Unless Biden’s DOJ decides to bring legal action for violation of the relevant voting rights laws and constitutional amendments, all Biden is doing is running his mouth, and Delaware’s governor has about the same relevance as the prime minister of Fredonia.

    nk (1d9030)

  134. Nk, There’s opportunity for leadership here outside of the exercise of formal powers. But it takes a few things that i don’t know are possible

    From the Left: Recognition that concerns about voter integrity are sincere.
    From the Right: Recognition that concerns about access to voting are sincere, as well as some acknowledgement that Biden’s electoral victory wasn’t the result of fraud.

    From there I think a deal could be struck. But I don’t think those recognition exists.

    I think a large part of the GOP base passionately believes that election fraud is common, wide spread, and was the source of Biden’s victory. The leader of the GOP (Trump) is likely to attack anyone who says otherwise. That puts any GOP leader who wants to make some sort of deal in an impossible situation.

    Time123 (235fc4)

  135. I’ve lived in Chicago for 54 years. Where people are openly encouraged to vote early and often. 90% of the Democrat base here thinks fraud is common and widespread. And we think the same thing about our Republican neighbors in DuPage county.

    nk (1d9030)


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