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The Guardian reports:
Georgia secretary of state and gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp improperly purged more than 340,000 voters from the state's registration rolls, an investigation charges.
Greg Palast, a journalist and the director of the Palast Investigative Fund, said an analysis he commissioned found 340,134 voters were removed from the rolls on the grounds that they had moved - but they actually still live at the address where they are registered.
"Their registration is cancelled. Not pending, not inactive – cancelled. If they show up to vote on 6 November, they will not be allowed to vote. That's wrong," Palast told reporters on a call on Friday. "We can prove they're still there. They should be allowed to vote."
[...] Palast and the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda filed a lawsuit against Kemp on Friday to force him to release additional records related to the state's removal of voters.
Under Georgia procedures, registered voters who have not cast ballots for three years are sent a notice asking them to confirm they still live at their address. If they don't return it, they are marked inactive. If they don't vote for two more general elections after that, they are removed from the rolls.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:33PM (8 children)
Elections should be Federally managed, in my opinion. Every county doing it differently doesn't make sense. Plus, the politicians in a given county will rig things for their side. And make voting day a national holiday.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:53PM
Fuck no they shouldn't. We are not now and were never meant to be a homogeneous nation. We in fact have quite a lot of words in the constitution to make sure we do not become one. If you really dig on authoritarianism that much, Great Britain would likely appeal to you more than the US. If language isn't a barrier you might even try Russia or China.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:56PM (3 children)
While I understand the perspective, this brings in a whole different issue where bad actors have global scope across the country.
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Letting states do things reduces the scope of said bad actors dramatically and allows a mechanism of redress to the federal level.
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Not saying it doesn't still suck, but, it's better.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:27PM (2 children)
Different AC. Citizenship should automatically make one eligible for voting. Instead of precincts keeping track of registered voters, they should instead keep track of citizens residing within their district. We already have a system of state-level ID (which is mutually exclusive, at least in any state I've held a driver's license in) that could automatically generate the list of citizen residing in each district. A seemingly independent system of voter registration is redundant.
This would leave out some people who have recently moved, but we should ensure that it is trivial (no cost, reduce other accessibility concerns such as hours of operation and travel to the DMV or where ever) to update one's legal address. No system will be absolutely perfect but there is ample room for improvement here. One possible solution is national absentee voting, but that has other conundrums.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:48AM
Suppose I don't want a state ID? Granted it's quite a bit more paranoid, anti-government, anarchistic than I am but it's a legitimate question anyway. I genuinely do not want the state governments building up a database of all their citizens, complete with thumbprint and photo.
Registering to vote is trivial anyway. Par for all the times I've registered is about five minutes after I arrive to register. And if the black folks that Democrats seem to think aren't mentally capable of getting a state ID for themselves can manage it, it must be pretty easy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:58AM
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Fixed :-)
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Registration serves several purposes.
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1) Serves to ensure the voter votes where they live
2) Allows election authorities to send appropriate materials to the voter (e.g. correct ballots in states with closed primaries)
3) is one method of reducing voter fraud (e.g. voting multiple times)
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It is archaic and has its own flaws and it seems like we could implement a better method to handle these.
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So how do we eliminate it without making voter fraud easier? (And no, trusting people is NOT an option, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc0SKvLNdgs [youtube.com] )
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:02PM
They already are, to a large extent. See the 19th 24th and 26th amendments to the constitution, for example.
Its sort of like calling for federal regulation of automobiles when you want the a stop sign down the road from your house.
I suppose in a sort of "starve the beast" attack on the system, requiring absolutely everything to pass thru D.C. for permission would be an efficient way to crash the system.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:31AM (1 child)
The Republicans will never permit that because the wealthier among them don't need to work for a living, while those Republicans who do work for a living often having paid vacations.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:44PM
National holidays without fail result in plenty of poor schmucks who can not have the day off no matter what. As it stands, most every shop will give you time some time during the day to go vote.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.