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posted by martyb on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the conflict-of-interest-much? dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:16PM (18 children)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:16PM (#752641) Homepage
    Those who win one election set the district borders for the next election. And yes, this is always gerrymandering. Such cheating, it's nothing less, is simply part of the US electoral system. Note that I specifically don't call it the US's democracy, as your system of elections barely ticks any of the necessary boxes to deserve that title. Not that the founding fathers wanted a democracy, it was never established as one.

    However, I am sure that these 340000 people will be overjoyed that they won't have to pay any taxes any more. No taxation without representation, after all - I think there's a war that proves that such principles hold.
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  • (Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:31PM (17 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:31PM (#752652)

    No taxation without representation

    The irony is if you believe the far fetched reports, he's implementing no representation without taxation, which ends up being about the same thing. The people de-registered are not known as a group to be net positive taxpayers, so refusal to participate in governmental activities would mostly result in ...

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:43PM (16 children)

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:43PM (#752657)

      ...no representation without taxation...

      Winding up with a whole class of people disenfranchised. I'm sure nothing could go wrong there at all.

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:13AM (4 children)

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:13AM (#752668)

        In general I unironically agree with you.

        In specific, as regards Georgia, with a "winner takes all" election technology and the -R margin of victory being immensely larger than the small percentages seriously being claimed... all the noise just doesn't matter. As a thought experiment say the right capitulated and as some kind of racial reparation payment disenfranchised an equal number of white men; the margins are such that nothing would really change in Georgia. Tempest in a teacup and all that.

        I'm sure nothing could go wrong there at all.

        Combining your comment and mine, fundamentally we're just trash talking Georgia. Its not really that bad of a place, but whatevs.

        • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:28AM (3 children)

          by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:28AM (#752673)

          As a thought experiment...

          It doesn't need to be a thought experiment, as it has been done before. It ends in violence.

          You should read a history book once in a while.

          Even better, the idiots that rule over you should.

          • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:54AM (2 children)

            by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:54AM (#752698)

            Really? I'd be fascinated with an actual citation or example. It doesn't sound very realistic at all.

            • (Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:14AM (1 child)

              by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:14AM (#752709)

              You could start with the revolutions of 1848 I suppose.

              Most of those have remarkable similarities with the current setup in the US.

              Looking at the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 might learn you a thing or two also.

              Of course it might not too, because I am well aware of how your lot feel about Communists. Frankly, looking at the history of almost any European country from 1700 - 1945 or so would be useful.

              • (Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:09PM

                by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:09PM (#753053) Journal

                The Russian revolution established a democratic government under the Duma. Unfortunately, probably, it didn't last long enough to consolidate it's power and was overthrown by the Bolsheviks in essentially a coup. (There was a different Duma before the revolution. The word is just "assembly" in Russian, so it's not surprising that it was used for several different bodies.)

                It's an interesting question as to what kind of government would have evolved if the Bolshevik coup had failed, but AFAIK the evidence isn't very strong in any direction. Think of the US before the Articles of Confederation were adopted. A mix of chaos and demagoguery, with lots of politics. Only a bit more violent and extreme.

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      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:18AM (9 children)

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:18AM (#752670)

        whole class of people disenfranchised

        Given the side dish that the people being disenfranchised were supposedly being specifically targeted because they historically have individually not voted...

        I'm just sayin... if you want to disenfranchise a class of people with minimal effort and fight, your best target selection is to disenfranchise the class of self selected people who don't vote, which makes the whole topic kind of comedic.

        I mean, if they really want a fight, the -R party should disenfranchise only people who've voted in the last ten partisan primaries for the D party. That would at least be fun to watch, worth popping some popcorn for.

        • (Score: 4, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:34AM (2 children)

          by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:34AM (#752681)

          I mean, if they really want a fight, the -R party should disenfranchise only people who've voted in the last ten partisan primaries for the D party. That would at least be fun to watch, worth popping some popcorn for.

          What a weird way to run a country. You should put some adults in charge instead.

          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:52AM (1 child)

            by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:52AM (#752697)

            What a weird way to run a country

            Well, OK, I'm trying to make the point if you have a James Bond Villain trying to mess up elections, its more of an "Austin Powers" parody to try and "hack" the election by preventing known non-voters from voting. Thats not going to be very effective...

            That would imply if the supposed villian's IQ is above room temperature, than maybe the whole squabble is made up fake news?

        • (Score: 2) by http on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:47AM (5 children)

          by http (1920) on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:47AM (#752689)

          Uh, no. Deregistering the voters means that no amount of campaigning, door-to-door, or socialmedia advertising can get them to vote.

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          • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by VLM on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:10AM (4 children)

            by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:10AM (#752707)

            Well, yeah, so if hypothetically the victim of today's two minutes hate were a bad actor, you'd think he'd target the people active and most likely to vote, not least likely to vote.

            I mean, when some rando on SN in mere minutes can plan an evil conspiracy better than the people supposedly involved in the conspiracy ... maybe the whole thing is just a conspiracy theory. It does seem to have great headlines and tweets and anything deeper than a rain puddle examination of the topic starts looking not so impressive.

            • (Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:23AM (3 children)

              by Whoever (4524) on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:23AM (#752748) Journal

              Well, yeah, so if hypothetically the victim of today's two minutes hate were a bad actor, you'd think he'd target the people active and most likely to vote, not least likely to vote.

              Counter opinion: almost no voters change their minds about whom they will vote for. Elections are won and lost by getting "your" people out to vote (and by suppressing the voters who would vote for the opposition).

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:28AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:28AM (#752789)

                Countering your broad overgeneralisation with my anecdata:

                My entire family abandoned the Dems over the course of the last .... oh, decade or so. Some went republican, some went green, at least one went libertarian to my knowledge, but I can't think of a single close family member who will admit to even wanting the democrats in office.

                So I guess I live in a family of party-changing freaks.

              • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 24 2018, @11:03AM (1 child)

                by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 24 2018, @11:03AM (#752896)

                Elections are won and lost by getting "your" people out to vote (and by suppressing the voters who would vote for the opposition).

                Well, OK, and which candidate is being hurt by suppressing people who historically have not voted?

                • (Score: 2) by dry on Thursday October 25 2018, @02:58AM

                  by dry (223) on Thursday October 25 2018, @02:58AM (#753494) Journal

                  The one who has pissed off these people enough that they would finally vote.
                  Here in Canada, the Conservatives pissed of the natives enough that many who had never voted actually went out and tried to vote. These natives generally did not recognize the Canadian government as they'd made treaties with the crown and many had not voted in generations, but they got pissed off enough that they voted, or tried to. Of course the Conservative party took advice from the American Republican party on how to repress votes. Need ID with a numbered street address, well most reservations don't have numbered street addresses so their ID wasn't good enough. Or like my wife, whose ID is in her maiden name, has always voted under her maiden name mysteriously had her voter registration change to her married name between checking the voter list the day before the election and showing up to vote.
                  This is problem with requiring ID to vote. Good idea when done impartially such as here for years, bad idea when a party is prepared to cheat.

      • (Score: 4, Touché) by http on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:50AM

        by http (1920) on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:50AM (#752695)

        Hopefully, it would also end up with a whole class of businesses disenfranchised. That would be worth it for the lulz alone.

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