Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Saturday April 28 2018, @08:34AM   Printer-friendly
from the a-"little-hiccup" dept.

The Center for American Progress reports

As residents of Arizona's eighth congressional district cast ballots in a special election to replace former Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) in Congress, roughly 140,000 of them may be unaware they are eligible to vote because they did not receive the ID card the county is required to send them after they register.

According to the Arizona Republic, Maricopa County officials have not sent all voters the cards they can use to cast a ballot under Arizona's voter ID law because of an issue with the company used to print the materials. The paper reports that just 60,000 ID cards have been mailed to people who recently registered or changed their registration, while about 140,000 have not been sent.

[...] Arizona was one of the first states in the country to enact a non-photo voter ID law when a ballot measure was approved by voters[1] in November 2004. Under the law, the state must take steps to ensure that all eligible voters have an acceptable form of ID. According to the secretary of state's office[PDF], "a county recorder must issue a voter ID card to any new registrant or an existing registrant who updates his or her name, address, or political party preference".

But because of an error by the company used to print the ID cards, they have not been mailed out since December.

Although these citizens could provide other forms of ID at the polls, some voters told the Arizona Republic they're concerned that less informed voters may not realize they are registered without the card.

[...] During the presidential primary in March 2016, some Maricopa County voters waited in line for up to five hours to cast a ballot. The chaos led to an investigation by the Department of Justice and numerous lawsuits, including one filed by the Democratic National Committee.

Before the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Arizona was required to pre-clear any changes to its voting law with the DOJ.

[1] Requires cookies


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 28 2018, @12:50PM (31 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday April 28 2018, @12:50PM (#672992) Homepage Journal

    Irrelevant. The prior restraint by the DOJ was not the appropriate solution.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday April 28 2018, @02:20PM (6 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Saturday April 28 2018, @02:20PM (#673018)

    Imagine this scenario, if you will:
    1. State government passes a law that's blatantly illegal under the Voting Rights Act and/or US Constitution (e.g. 15th Amendment) in both its intent and application.
    2. Various civil rights and voting rights organizations sue to challenge the law on that basis.
    3. 2 years of legal wrangling ensue, during which time the state government is re-elected in part thanks to the illegal law (yes, I know, but it's not an oxymoron in this case) they just passed.
    4. The civil rights and voting rights organizations win in court, and the law is struck down.
    5. The state government immediately passes a law that's nearly identical to the one that just got struck down, and this cycle repeats itself.

    All of this not only could happen, but arguably is happening in many states, including Arizona.

    That's the reason for prior restraint.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by jmorris on Saturday April 28 2018, @06:32PM

      by jmorris (4844) on Saturday April 28 2018, @06:32PM (#673088)

      You have only identified a fundamental flaw with our current "Justice" system. The fact nothing can ever be done through a court in less than a year (other than stopping Trump unmaking DACA or making any other change to immigration law.... those take hours) is the problem you are concerned with. Admitting the courts aren't fixable and giving the Executive branch what are obviously Judicial powers is no solution. Fixing the courts is the solution.

      At this point the process is the punishment. Look how many cases take years and years to get to entirely obvious conclusions. Or to even start. Look at a case I happened to notice again recently. The lawsuit between Michael Mann and Mark Steyn has drug on for years and can't even get to the discovery phase after hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal expense. Does anyone think a 99% person has a possibility of getting justice in such a system? Do YOU have a few hundred thousand dollars and hundreds of hours to waste on just the earliest pre trial motions? IBM v SCO was another entirely obvious case between two very well funded litigants that again took a decade to drag to a bitter end so far after the events that nobody cared anymore. Cops can catch a killer, have video and DNA and it will still be years before a conviction and in a death penalty case another decade or two of pointless wrangling. So neither civil or criminal law work anymore.

      A normal sane person believes nothing that happens in a courthouse can possibly benefit them, only harm them. Any attempt by a normal person to use the courts will simply bankrupt them. That is a problem.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 29 2018, @11:49AM (4 children)

      Yes, I'm well aware that they had good intentions. I'm also aware of what good intentions are used to pave. There is no excuse for seceding judicial power to the executive though. The judiciary at least likes to pay lip service to impartiality; the executive does no such thing.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday April 30 2018, @01:35AM (3 children)

        by Thexalon (636) on Monday April 30 2018, @01:35AM (#673560)

        The states in question could (and sometimes did) sue to put their chosen laws into place over the objections of the Feds, so the judiciary wasn't cut out of the process. What this meant was that the new law wasn't in place while they wrangled over it.

        I'm reasonably convinced the Supreme Court made the wrong call when they got rid of the prior restraint clauses, mostly because the day after their decision the states that no longer had prior restraint and had argued it was unfair because they weren't racist anymore immediately passed laws that were racist in application if not intent.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 30 2018, @11:35AM (2 children)

          If you're talking voter-ID-type laws, they're not remotely racist. What is racist is supposing that black folks can't manage the mental or physical effort of going down to the DMV, paying $10-15, and getting a state ID if they don't already have a driver's license. It's also foolish as anyone who wants to cash a check of any kind already has to have an ID, so it's a problem that was never going to exist in the first place.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday April 30 2018, @04:33PM (1 child)

            by Thexalon (636) on Monday April 30 2018, @04:33PM (#673793)

            What is racist is supposing that black folks can't manage the mental or physical effort of going down to the DMV, paying $10-15, and getting a state ID if they don't already have a driver's license.

            The racist part is when they put the nearest DMV 50 miles away from where black people are likely to be, inaccessible to public transportation, and make it so it's only open during working hours on weekdays so most black person with jobs have to choose between their paycheck and being able to vote.

            Oh, and $10-15 for a valid ID to vote is a poll tax, which is illegal under the Voting Rights Act and was long used as a Jim Crow suppress-the-black-vote tactic.

            Another example of racist application of non-racist law in my home state (this one was shut down by the court system): The secretary of state made it possible for people in mostly-white areas of the state to vote early on the weekends, while closing down early voting on the weekends in mostly-black areas. He even made noises about wanting to put an end to what had become a common practice of black churches doing a service the Sunday beforehand focused on the importance of civic engagement, followed by members carpooling down to the polls in the afternoon to vote. Mostly white churches in rural areas, on the other hand, could and did do the exact same thing.

            The people passing and implementing these policies sometimes will try to dodge the "We're trying to stop black people from voting" (which is still illegal) by arguing "No, we're trying to stop people from the opposing party from voting" (which is apparently OK).

            My opinion on the matter:
            1. The problem these guys were claiming to solve was a non-issue. Voter impersonation fraud was as best as anybody can tell extremely rare, because it's a high-risk zero-reward crime (e.g. you're caught immediately if you try to impersonate somebody who already voted). Which means these measures weren't about stopping fraudulent voters, they were about stopping qualified voters.
            2. If you are trying to stop citizens from voting, and there's good reason to believe they are, then you don't believe in democratically elected government and have no business holding office in one.

            --
            The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 30 2018, @04:57PM

              Ah, so you're saying black people can't overcome exactly the same inconveniences that every other racial group in the nation does? Glad we cleared that up.

              As for equation to a poll tax, that's ludicrous. In fact, the poorer they are the more likely they are to already have an ID. You can't sign up for government handouts without one and you can't cash the resulting checks without one either.

              Another example of racist application of non-racist law in my home state (this one was shut down by the court system):...

              Can you say "working as intended" then?

              because it's a high-risk zero-reward crime (e.g. you're caught immediately if you try to impersonate somebody who already voted).

              That would be a valid argument if both claims made in it weren't patently false. Zero-reward would require that their vote not be counted for the candidate they favor. And, no, you will not be "immediately caught" or even caught at all if you vote in a different polling place than the actual person, given the situation of using someone else's name. To my knowledge there currently are no setups in the US where it's even possible to check that someone hasn't voted in another polling place already. I'm fairly certain it will remain this way too, given that every single attempt to eliminate voter fraud causes Democrats to go absolutely ape-shit.

              ...then you don't believe in democratically elected government and have no business holding office in one.

              Having no business holding office in one would exclude roughly 100% of all elected officials. Now I have no problem with excluding them on these grounds but you can't be partisan about excluding authoritarian asshats who are just in it for the money and power.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday April 28 2018, @03:35PM (10 children)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Saturday April 28 2018, @03:35PM (#673037) Journal

    What do you suggest for an appropriate solution?

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @04:25PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @04:25PM (#673051)

      Signs point to "passing snark." [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 29 2018, @11:53AM

      We already have a solution in place. This is clearly the job of the judicial branch. If they can't be arsed or are unable to do their jobs in a timely manner, that is an entirely different problem.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday April 29 2018, @02:12PM (6 children)

      by VLM (445) on Sunday April 29 2018, @02:12PM (#673396)

      Compare hard demographic numbers like poverty rates, educational achievement, prison rates, and see if folks were better off or worse off during Jim Crow era.

      Note that history might imply I'd assume everyone was better off during Jim Crow era. Not so, it seems a fair debate perhaps 50:50 odds and widely open to interpretation.

      Interestingly that would seem to imply voter participation has little correlation with civilization wide measures of success. Yes ending Jim Crow laws dramatically staggeringly increased the supply of Smug, but you can't eat smug, it doesn't teach kids the 3 Rs in school, it doesn't provide jobs, doesn't reduce crime or prison populations...

      Its entirely mathematically possible that preventing 140K votes is bad solely and exclusively in the sense of reducing smugness levels, its not bad in any other fashion.

      • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday April 30 2018, @05:24PM (5 children)

        by Thexalon (636) on Monday April 30 2018, @05:24PM (#673824)

        Compare hard demographic numbers like poverty rates, educational achievement, prison rates, and see if folks were better off or worse off during Jim Crow era.

        Poverty rates (source [census.gov]): Poverty rates for all Americans drop nearly in half between 1959 (the earliest date the Census was tracking this) and 1969. Poverty bottoms out at 11.1% in 1973, possibly due to Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty", and has bounced between 11% and 15% ever since. This change is even more dramatic among black people, with poverty dropping from 55% in 1959 to 30% in 1974, and today it's down to 22%.

        Educational achievement (source [ed.gov]): Across all racial groups, the percentage of Americans completing high school doubled from the 1950's to today. Again, with black people it's even more dramatic: 20% of black people graduated high school in the 1950's, now 70% do. Similar increases have also occurred for college-level education: Nowadays well over 25% of young Americans have a bachelor's degree, and black people have gone from almost never completing college to about 17% completing college.

        Now, you are right that imprisonment rates, especially among black people, have gone way up since the era of Jim Crow laws. This doesn't have much if anything to do with the levels of reported crimes, because right now the US crime rates are about the same as they were in the 1950's, and there are way more people in jail than there were in the 1950's. What it does have a lot to do with is the War on Drugs, which there's more than a little evidence was set up to replace the now-defunct Jim Crow laws.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 01 2018, @03:10PM (4 children)

          by VLM (445) on Tuesday May 01 2018, @03:10PM (#674161)

          Those are impressive numbers, but there are so many simultaneous changes as per your comment about "possibly due to Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty"" and so forth that its hard to say how the cause and effect works.

          Also "Jim Crow laws" have at least three entirely separate meanings in practice. One is the elimination of voting prevention laws. Another is association WRT blacks such as relative seat position on the bus or in the restaurant or separate bathrooms or schools or whatever. Another is the effect of elimination of the civil right for white people to have freedom of association which leads to secondary effects WRT white flight as a workaround resulting in racial economic segregation in housing and all kinds of weird downstream stuff.

          And there's implementation specific details such as there must be a big difference in end effects between "almost no blacks can legally vote" vs "almost no blacks can not legally vote".

          And a side dish of statistical manipulation, such that much as you haven't been able to profit off Dow Trading Theory for a century in the market because its manipulated, or the unemployment rate is manipulated extensively such that it'll never be reported as bad as the great depression even if no one is working, likewise now that "rate of poverty" is a political football it'll never mean anything in an absolute sense again. Probably some other measure of well being could be invented, percentage of married families or percentage of money spent on entertainment or something..

          War on Drugs, which there's more than a little evidence was set up to replace the now-defunct Jim Crow laws.

          Yeah I donno about that beyond a simple level of both are coincidentally bad for blacks, one because of skin color, and one because of disproportionate representation in the trade. Kind of how the "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment" was inherently black whereas the health department enforcing food safety rules in fried chicken restaurants is merely coincidentally black. A fairness and freedom of choice argument vs predestination, a kid born black never decided to be prevented from voting or not to be treated for an illness, but certainly did consciously decide to sell crack as a side biz. The war on drugs is kinda like how black men are 100x more likely to rape than white men, aside from the correctness of the precise number, does that mean enforcement of anti-rape laws is good idea in general because rape is bad, or via identity politics is it pro-women or anti-black or all three things at once, and which isolated argument is or should be most or least important to society, etc. Clearly historically so far, most of the country has decided for decades its far more important to lock up the bad folks than to fix the discrepancy by race employment figures for certain small businessman side jobs that happen to be categorized as illegal pharma distribution.

          • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday May 01 2018, @03:48PM (3 children)

            by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday May 01 2018, @03:48PM (#674175)

            Yeah I donno about that beyond a simple level of both are coincidentally bad for blacks, one because of skin color, and one because of disproportionate representation in the trade.

            Here's John Ehrlichman, aide to Richard Nixon, explaining why they ramped up the War on Drugs, in 1994:
            "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
            And there's evidence that Reagan had similar motivations for his role in it, and Bill Clinton while not particularly racist himself definitely was willing to sell out black people with actions like the 1993 crime bill to avoid being portrayed as too friendly to black folks.

            Or you can read a book on the subject: The New Jim Crow [newjimcrow.com], which is specifically about how US government policy created the mass incarceration of black men as a way of preventing black people from achieving legal and social equality.

            --
            The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
            • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 01 2018, @05:11PM (2 children)

              by VLM (445) on Tuesday May 01 2018, @05:11PM (#674210)

              Now, hold on here for a minute.

              I don't deny that politician X Y or Z might have hated black folk and here's some convoluted and complicated indirect effect way to F them over so decades ago they pushed it precisely because they don't like blacks. But right from wikipedia, lets look at some crime stats

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States#Homicide [wikipedia.org]

              Inversely, the percentage of individuals in each racial demographic arrested for murder in 2013 (with 2016 population estimates) was:
              0.0102% of Black or African American population (4,379/42,975,959)
              0.0014% of White American (3,799/198,077,165)

              This is not really related to drug trade because the numbers are infinitely smaller than the drug trade as a whole. Yeah I admit a minor level of crossover between employment in illegal drugs and murder, but murder is rare enough that its like correlating lightning strikes with standing out on the street slinging crack, it happens but its not "really" related.

              And my theory is that because black folk murder about ten times more often than white folk, there should be about ten times as many of them in prison. So... lots more blacks are in prison than whites, is not a white problem or a national problem, or a drug problem, it is a black problem. If they stop murdering (and numerous other crimes at similar levels), they'll stop filling up the prisons.

              Its like a divide and conqueror scheme in that there's intentional effort to scramble up completely unrelated points:

              1) Black folks got screwed in the south intentionally WRT voting rights a long time ago

              2) Black folks around ten times more likely to be violent criminals and everything that goes along with that such as neighborhoods turning into poverty despair and lots of suffering and, yes, indeed lots in prison, lots more per population than white. And its all their fault, even if Nixon hated blacks and didn't mind seeing them in prison, its not like he personally forced every black murderer every year including after his death to pull the trigger.

              3) Black folks cannot achieve legal and social equality if they're ten times as violent as whites, its a chimerical goal. Its not possible, without substantial changes, so having bad feelings about it is irrelevant.

              4) There are side issues such as if blacks are ten times as likely to murder than whites, clearly we need black-control, but that is politically unacceptable, so we have to dog whistle it and call it gun-control instead, which is essentially a wasted effort targeting the wrong cause of the problem. Clearly large and ridiculous levels of gun regulation with no black-folks regulation, and infinite pushes for more gun regulation doesn't seem to be working very well. To some extent, support of gun control is inherently racist. Demands to ban assault rifles are little more than thinly disguised dog whistles against young black men. I mean for gods sakes, the definition of an assault rifle vs a hunting rifle is the assault rifle has the same design, you could even say its the same genetics or same species, except the one defined as evil happens to have a black skin, more than a little symbolism here.

              Black folks in prison in ridiculous numbers is caused by black folks needing a better culture a better way of dealing with being inherently extremely violent, not some long dead cracker president who hated them, or weird claims about cultural dislike of violent drug dealers being somehow racist. If its not a black cultural problem, then what does it mean when a black tells another black to "stop acting white"? Clearly black culture is inferior to white culture in the sense of having a murder rate ten times higher, and the strategy has shifted thru numerous mostly ineffective solutions ranging from making them agricultural equipment, jim crow, welfare, mass imprisonment concentration camp style. And there's been calls for stuff that is unlikely to help. Reparations, legalized drugs, maybe tearing down statues (of Nixon?) will magically fix everything ... But it almost certainly will not.

              Now the southerners around the era of reconstruction thought the technology to keep a high crime population somewhat more civilized was in fact jim crow, however unappealing that solution is to northerners. The northerners who knew nothing other than being certain of their own superiority and their moral code of might makes right, enforced change on the southerners, with predictable results, LOL. Throwing another technology on the table, military and ex-military blacks tend to be a lot better off than non-military, now I don't think a blacks-only draft would realistically be implementable, but... Or another anecdote, I have experience that nation of islam blacks don't really like white people (LOL as I recall I was a 'white devil') but none the less on average islam seems to be a technology blacks can deploy that results in better outcomes. Or they can continue to listen to gangster rap, spend government money on drugs, go to prison, and blame whitey for everything, which is very popular for ... some group benefiting off the ole divide and conqueror strategy, LOL. Or invent a newer technology for self control / civilization that works, no idea what that would be. Historically it seems civilization can only be developed from within, never imposed from the outside, so... best of luck? Live apart until they catch up? That went over real well in South Africa, LOL.

              However uncertain or debatable I may me on the above claims, something I am far more certain of... whatever problem black folks have in 2018... I don't think it was Nixon. That might sell books to college profs to indoctrinate the students trendy political views, but its merely enjoyable fiction, like trying to apply Harry Potter to real world, good luck there. There's nothing with reading entertaining fiction or conspiracy theories, just don't try to actually apply any of it, or its not going to usefully work as a predictive model.

              • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday May 01 2018, @06:22PM (1 child)

                by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday May 01 2018, @06:22PM (#674244)

                However uncertain or debatable I may me on the above claims, something I am far more certain of... whatever problem black folks have in 2018... I don't think it was Nixon.

                I didn't claim it was just Nixon. If you look at incarceration rates, though, they skyrocket during Nixon's administration, peak somewhere around 2010, and have only recently started to come down again. And there's no correlation between crime rates and incarceration rates: For instance, crime peaked in the early 1990's, but incarceration rates continued to go up.

                As far as why black people are more likely to commit violent crimes:
                1. Poor people in general are more likely to commit street crimes. Rich and middle-class people who are going to commit crimes usually go for tax evasion, bribery, and embezzlement rather than armed robbery - it's much easier, less risky, and the take is usually greater. Black people are more likely to be poor, hence they are more likely to commit street crimes.
                2. Black people were through racist housing policies (in place until the late 1970's officially, and still largely going on unofficially) forced to live in areas where lead poisoning is much more common, and there's good reason to believe lead poisoning leads to criminal behavior [wikipedia.org].
                3. In environments where violence is common and the police aren't doing a good job of investigating crime, the only defense against violence directed at you is your friends directing violence at the person who went after you.

                The most recent calamity black folks have had to endure in a big way: They were forced into predatory subprime mortgages to buy a home even if they were qualified for prime rate loans, and when their adjustable rates went up they were unable to make the loan payments. This meant that the 2008 mortgage crisis basically wiped out a decade's worth of wealth building by black people [prospect.org]. You can blame the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations for all looking the other way while this was going on.

                --
                The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
                • (Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:24PM

                  by VLM (445) on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:24PM (#675033)

                  And there's no correlation between crime rates and incarceration rates: For instance, crime peaked in the early 1990's, but incarceration rates continued to go up.

                  Really? I would think incarceration is many years downstream of reported crime. In the manner that most drunk driving ends very safely, until one time it doesn't.

                  Rich and middle-class people who are going to commit crimes usually go for

                  The online police blotter in my burb looks a lot more like traffic violations, alcohol related everything (driving, fighting, passing out) with a side dish of pills in recent years, and domestic disturbances over various relationship problems. There's a lot of white people on the street (more or less) getting into verbal and physical arguments. Generally not ending in shootings, admittedly.

                  I would tentatively agree with the lead poisoning situation. The "lets live in a tribal manner" is a problem in itself, not a cause of the problem.

                  There's nothing uniquely black about the housing bubble other than across the board poorer people always get screwed more, that wasn't invented just to punish black folks...

  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday April 28 2018, @05:23PM (12 children)

    by sjames (2882) on Saturday April 28 2018, @05:23PM (#673076) Journal

    But it wasn't prior restraint, it was more like parole or probation since it was in response to previous violations.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 29 2018, @12:02PM (11 children)

      An interesting viewpoint. Unfortunately nothing will ever make it wise to give the executive branch the ability to decide the legality of things. Our founders had a hell of a lot of examples of why doing so would be foolish, which is why we have those powers explicitly separated.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @04:03PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @04:03PM (#673418)

        If you actually understood the issue, you wouldn't be taking such a position.

        The executive branch is generally what decides what is and isn't legal. The judicial branch is what decides what is and isn't constitutional. There is some degree of overlap in terms of _how_ laws are interpreted, not what they are, but for the most part, the executive branch is what determines legality of various things.

        The law in question functioned relatively well for decades, the only reason that it's been under attack is that it turns out that the poor and people of color don't vote for the racist and classist policies that the Republican party has been running on over the last few decades. And rather than waiting for the Democrats to complete their conversion to becoming a second right wing party, the GOP keeps looking for ways of preserving their power by disenfranchising voters.

        This current situation is a great example of that. These are people who are legally allowed to vote who mostly won't vote because we've been throwing people in prison due to misunderstanding eligibility. Meanwhile the much bigger issue of elections fraud remains and issue and uses those few situations of voter fraud as an excuse to make it harder for entire classes of voters to vote.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 30 2018, @11:46AM

          If you actually understood the issue, you wouldn't be taking such a position.

          Yes, I would and I do. Short of martial law, which I am also not in favor of, there is no possible situation that would make fucking up the separation of powers a good idea though. I know you regressive asshats want a God Emperor who never has to answer to anyone and will just mandate people think, speak, and act like you want them to but those of us who are sane do not.

          These are people who are legally allowed to vote who mostly won't vote because we've been throwing people in prison due to misunderstanding eligibility.

          Eligibility to vote is exceedingly uncomplicated. You must have an insanely low opinion of their intelligence if you believe they can't fully understand it. I suppose it's possible you're correct though, so let's find out. Show me someone legally eligible to vote who let genuine fear keep them from voting for Obama. Just one will do.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday April 29 2018, @07:06PM (8 children)

        by sjames (2882) on Sunday April 29 2018, @07:06PM (#673457) Journal

        So do you advise dissolving the DOJ and the position of Attorney General? Because it would be even less advisable to have prosecutors and judges under the same umbrella in an adversarial system.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 30 2018, @11:50AM (7 children)

          Prosecution is a perfectly valid Executive branch function. It calls a question to the Judiciary's attention it does not declare guilt.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday May 01 2018, @08:48AM (6 children)

            by sjames (2882) on Tuesday May 01 2018, @08:48AM (#674080) Journal

            However, prosecution does have the discretion to prosecute or not.

            In the case in question, the DOJ only had supervisory power BECAUSE the judicial branch found that Arizona was apparently unable to comply with the law unsupervised. It was for a limited time, and if Arizona genuinely believed the DOJ was overstepping, they were free to bring the issue back to the judicial. That's not much like the bad old days where it was illegal if the king said it was illegal and there was no recourse.

            It's exactly the same situation as a parole or probation officer. He can't find you guilty of a new crime, but he can determine that you haven't lived up to your end of the agreement that granted you provisional freedom from prison.

            I am absolutely open to alternative suggestions for dealing with a state that has been found to have knowingly abridged the Constitutional rights of it's citizens, and for that matter, suggestions on curbing the power of parole/probation officers over natural people.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 01 2018, @10:28AM (5 children)

              You're correct that the fucking up of the separation of powers wasn't as egregious as it could have been. It was there though. What was done was essentially handing the DOJ the power of the judiciary mixed in with the presumption of guilt rather than innocence. That they could appeal any decisions does not change that.

              How it should have been done is requiring the states submit any new electoral laws to the DOJ or FBI for review, given them sufficient (but only sufficient) time to review the proposed laws, and then taken the state to court if they believed they were racially motivated and discriminatory. That keeps the powers where the belong and does not presume guilt on the part of the states.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday May 01 2018, @11:34AM (4 children)

                by sjames (2882) on Tuesday May 01 2018, @11:34AM (#674110) Journal

                Unfortunately, that leaves the state free to submit one thing but do another. A common problem when it comes to election shenanigans. For example, the case at hand where the state simply disobeyed it's own law.

                • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 01 2018, @07:15PM (3 children)

                  Breaking the law is breaking the law. There's zero difference as far as that goes between submitting something for review then doing another thing and submitting something for approval then doing another thing.

                  --
                  My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday May 01 2018, @08:06PM (2 children)

                    by sjames (2882) on Tuesday May 01 2018, @08:06PM (#674290) Journal

                    It's a matter of how closely the process is watched and so how early enforcement might intervene.

                    In this case, it would have been a win for democracy if the intervention could have happened in time for the election.