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Post by robeiae on Nov 5, 2018 9:56:38 GMT -5
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Post by Amadan on Nov 5, 2018 10:50:14 GMT -5
One of the reasons I don't register with a party (though the downside of that is that in the recent preliminaries the only office I got to vote for was a school board seat).
I don't like the playing gotcha with people, though, not even Ocasio-Cortez - just because you missed a ballot last time doesn't mean you forsake your right to ever say anything about voting again.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2018 11:50:03 GMT -5
I don't like the playing gotcha with people, though, not even Ocasio-Cortez - just because you missed a ballot last time doesn't mean you forsake your right to ever say anything about voting again. Agree. As I've noted, I'm one of those geeks who has voted in every election since I was 18. But. (1) The very young Ms. Ocasio-Cortez may simply only have recently become woke to just how important voting is and to voting suppression, etc. If that is so, I don't see why she's forever debarred from trying to get other young people to be woke. It would have been nice if she'd been woke in 2014, but, well, pretty clearly a lot of young people aren't woke. (2) New York unfortunately has no early voting. If you happen to have to be out of town on voting day, or if your employer is completely unsympathetic to your desire to vote, you could end up being unable to vote despite wanting to do so. You might work multiple jobs, and between them have no ability to get to the polls. She waitressed and bartended -- she may well have been in such a position. If you know you're going to be away, you can get an absentee ballot. But as I recall, you have to get one a good bit in advance. If you get your schedule a few days before, you don't have that opportunity. I think this is stupid -- we should have the opportunity to vote in advance. The voter purges also piss me off.
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Post by prozyan on Nov 5, 2018 11:58:32 GMT -5
I have nothing to add to this other than to state the sooner the phrase "woke" dies, the better the world will be.
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Post by robeiae on Nov 5, 2018 12:11:07 GMT -5
I don't like the playing gotcha with people, though, not even Ocasio-Cortez - just because you missed a ballot last time doesn't mean you forsake your right to ever say anything about voting again. I don't really disagree. But then, the writer of the story--at the NYT, no less--did choose to ding her for this (Alyssa Milano, too), which I guess is kinda the point of these apps.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2018 12:13:24 GMT -5
I use "woke" ironically, fwiw. I think it's past the point where anyone can use it and be cool.
By the way, another weird thing about voting in NYC -- some polling places seem to have MUCH longer lines than others, and you have no choice about which one you can go to. It does not seem to reflect the likely eagerness of people in that district to vote, either, from what I can see.
I live on the cusp between a well-off neighborhood and a poor one. (NYC is especially weird that way.) Until a few years ago, my polling place was three blocks south, towards the well-off section. I never had lines of more than a few minutes. That polling place remains open, and I live in the same place. But for whatever reason, several years ago, they switched me to voting a couple blocks north, towards the poorer district. Now, whenever I go, I face a long line. In 2016 and 2012, it was HOURS long. Out of curiosity, in 2016, after I voted, I walked south past my old polling place. There was a line, but a much, much shorter one. I have no idea why they switched me (it clearly has nothing to do with the old place being overburdened) but the result is that I now have to take a longer time out of my schedule to vote.
ETA: It could be simple proximity; I am slightly closer to the more crowded place.
It also could be that the crowded place is an elementary school and the less-crowded place is the lobby of an expensive doorman building. It's possible they successfully lobbied the community board or whoever decides these things to reduce the election-day riffraff in their building.
All I know is, I used to be in and out in minutes, and in the new place, I have waited upwards of three hours. Even if I go at the crack of dawn, I generally have a (shorter) line. That's my strategy for tomorrow -- 6 a.m.!
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Post by gaild on Nov 6, 2018 4:18:15 GMT -5
Can somebody please explain this to me? Last night I watched a clip on CNN where voters in Wisconsin were complaining that the new ID requirements made it impossible for them to go and vote. One woman said that it was unfair that she had to go and get new ID (she didn't have a driver's license) and that she hadn't applied in time, so now she couldn't vote. Another person said that she liked it better when you didn't need ID. Huh? In the U.S. you can vote without showing proper ID??? Is that true? How can you prevent voter fraud if there isn't system that prevents the same person voting multiple times? Or did it just look like that on the CNN clip?
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Post by Don on Nov 6, 2018 7:15:26 GMT -5
Can somebody please explain this to me? Last night I watched a clip on CNN where voters in Wisconsin were complaining that the new ID requirements made it impossible for them to go and vote. One woman said that it was unfair that she had to go and get new ID (she didn't have a driver's license) and that she hadn't applied in time, so now she couldn't vote. Another person said that she liked it better when you didn't need ID. Huh? In the U.S. you can vote without showing proper ID??? Is that true? How can you prevent voter fraud if there isn't system that prevents the same person voting multiple times? Or did it just look like that on the CNN clip? I think I'm gonna need a popcorn emoji for this thread now. You'll find that in a land where almost all of the citizens approve of the government requiring permission slips for virtually everything you do, from driving a car, to selling a product, to owning a weapon, to giving advice, the one thing that the people don't want to require a permission slip for is the act of deciding who's going to issue permission slips!!!
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Post by Don on Nov 6, 2018 7:22:26 GMT -5
I'm still registered, but unaffiliated. I've gotten notifications on Facebook from both major parties that I haven't yet fulfilled my civic duty and I should rush right out this minute and vote for their crooks.
China's social credit system is just around the corner, here in the land of the free.
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Post by robeiae on Nov 6, 2018 7:58:26 GMT -5
The difference is, our social credit system is gonna be run by the social media corporations, and will favor their politics, as a matter of course.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2018 8:16:24 GMT -5
Can somebody please explain this to me? Last night I watched a clip on CNN where voters in Wisconsin were complaining that the new ID requirements made it impossible for them to go and vote. One woman said that it was unfair that she had to go and get new ID (she didn't have a driver's license) and that she hadn't applied in time, so now she couldn't vote. Another person said that she liked it better when you didn't need ID. Huh? In the U.S. you can vote without showing proper ID??? Is that true? How can you prevent voter fraud if there isn't system that prevents the same person voting multiple times? Or did it just look like that on the CNN clip? At my polling place, there are books of registered voters. To get a ballot, you give your name and sign the book next to your name. You don't need ID, but you can't vote twice. Easy peasy. I suppose it might be possible for you to send someone to vote in your place, but it is still one person, one vote. You could also send someone with fake ID, for that matter. You could do tha tt multiple times. The signature thing seems like a better way to prevent it. I often stop to vote before a run, when I have nothing with me but my apartment key.
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Post by robeiae on Nov 6, 2018 8:48:00 GMT -5
Meh. I don't get the pushback against requiring someone to show ID when they vote, for the very reasons Don notes. Most people don't vote, anyway. The people who do vote also tend to actually be engaged in general society; they have IDs as a matter of course. It's pretty hard to get a job or even to get welfare if one lacks a photo ID. Who are all these people who exist without IDs, anyway, who are unable to get an ID without going deep into debt, but who are also frantic to vote?
I'm actually 100% behind free ID cards. Many States offer them now. All of them should, in my view, just as the Feds should offer free passports. These are legitimate functions of government and exactly why taxes are paid.
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Post by Amadan on Nov 6, 2018 9:27:14 GMT -5
Can somebody please explain this to me? Last night I watched a clip on CNN where voters in Wisconsin were complaining that the new ID requirements made it impossible for them to go and vote. One woman said that it was unfair that she had to go and get new ID (she didn't have a driver's license) and that she hadn't applied in time, so now she couldn't vote. Another person said that she liked it better when you didn't need ID. Huh? In the U.S. you can vote without showing proper ID??? Is that true? How can you prevent voter fraud if there isn't system that prevents the same person voting multiple times? Or did it just look like that on the CNN clip? It's understandable that being outside the U.S., this seems strange to you. In principle, I agree with you that showing an ID to vote seems fairly sensible. The problem, and the reason why it's such a hot-button topic here, is that historically, "voter id" is linked to a whole range of tactics that have been used to suppress the vote, primarily of African-Americans and other minorities. People who are pushing for voter ID requirements typically claim they are concerned about voter fraud, but coincidentally tend to be Republicans in states with large, rural African-American populations who frequently don't have driver's licenses or other official ID. Yes, you might say, it's not that hard to get an ID, and it seems like a minor effort if you want to vote, but it's kind of like closing rural polling places (which requires a lot of poor people without cars to find their way into the nearest city) - it can be argued as a cost-saving measure, but when coincidentally it always seems to affect one particular demographic, it becomes highly suspect. Then you have our national distrust of the whole idea of "documents, please" - Don is the most extreme example of distrust for the gummint, but most Americans have some level of aversion to allowing the government to tag and track us stamped into our psyches.
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Post by gaild on Nov 6, 2018 11:34:59 GMT -5
Okay. Thank you. That clears it up. Sort of. But I find this intriguing... So y'all have the GPS on your phones turned off, right? And Google, Facebook, Amazon etc don't know... Oh. Never mind. It's nothing.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2018 11:47:12 GMT -5
It has much to do with the fact that getting ID in the U.S. can be a pain in the ass, expensive, and take a lot of time, especially if you are poor/live in certain areas. Not everyone drives or travels, so they might not have a license or a passport on hand. I just renewed both my license and my passport -- it cost me about $200 and I had to wait weeks for them to arrive in the mail. If you want to expedite your application, it costs more.
Again, the signature/registered voter book system seems to work just fine in preventing people from voting more than once. (If you aren't in the book for some reason, there is a sign up explaining your options.) Voter fraud is vanishingly small, despite how the GOP likes to stamp their feet about it.)
And as Amadan notes, things like requiring ID or a physical street address (as opposed to P.O. box) has historically been used in a dishonest attempt to suppress minority votes.
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