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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: 4, Insightful) by Mykl on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:43AM (6 children)
The Australian Electoral Commission is an independent body that oversees voter registration, electorate boundaries, campaign rules, vote tallying etc. Politicians have no involvement or influence.
This Map [aec.gov.au] shows the electorate boundaries and results from 2016. As you can see, not a lot of gerrymandering here.
So before you throw your hands up and say it's all too hard, consider an independent body. Oh wait, this is the US we're talking about - there's no such thing as an independent body there. Sorry.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:06AM (4 children)
The USA is too multicultural, or AUS doesn't have enough identity politics, to pull it off.
In the USA both housing location and politics are mostly racial; for example historically far over 90% of africans vote for only one party in the USA. Essentially everyone except very young urbanite college kids live in mostly homogeneous ethnic neighborhoods. That compounds with identity politics to result in some breathtaking gerrymandering.
My limited understanding of AUS politics is your party structure is vaguely socioeconomic class based, like wealthy and white collar vs blue collar, more or less. It would be interesting to hear if that is correct. I'm well aware my one liner could not possibly contain all possible intrigue although I believe in good faith (possibly incorrectly) that it's an accurate ultra-short summary of AUS politics. As such I would not be surprised to hear gerrymandering is not an issue.
(Score: 4, Informative) by deimtee on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:57AM
It used to be that way. Labour was for the proles, Liberal was for the rich bastards, National Party was country voters. Historically the Libs and Nats had similar policies and combined into the LNP (aka The Coalition), which put them about on par with Labour.
The most major of the minor parties was the Australian Democrats, who tried to get the balance of power in the upper house with the very Australian slogan "keep the bastards honest".
However, with the decline of unions the working class element is slowly being purged from Labour, and they are drifting to the right. The LNP, in an effort to differentiate are also drifting further right on some stuff that doesn't matter. Economically the two parties are almost indistinguishable.
This is leading to the rise of many small parties, who get voted for by people pissed off with both main parties. Since we have preference voting, you can vote for anyone you like without 'throwing your vote away'. Rising parties include the Greens (lefties) and One Nation (further right than the mains). The Pirate Party and Sex Party (both libertarianesque) have also made respectable showings in some elections.
I am now one of the growing group of people who routinely puts the two major parties at the bottom of the list in the probably futile hope that throwing more parties and independents into parliament will slow the bastards down a bit.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:00AM
Yep, they voted Republican, the party of Mr. Lincoln, until the dixiecrats joined the Republicans during the '60s civil rights movement.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:00AM
Racial politics is much less prevalent here, but there are definitely the equivalent of 'red' and 'blue' suburbs, states etc.
The major parties in Australia are Labor (working class, pro union, left wing) and the Liberal/National coalition (pro-business, socially more conservative particularly in the past 10-15 years, right wing though probably still to the left of the US DNC). The only other significant party are the Greens (environment and social justice, 'far left'). There is also minor representation nationally from One Nation (anti-immigration, 'far right'), Family First (bring back the 1950's, 'far right') and a few independents.
The two major parties would love to bury the Greens, as they have been growing in popularity and have managed to win seats. Labor in particular is worried because the Greens are eating into their base more than anyone else. The Greens have won a few federal seats which could have been prevented if the incumbents had the ability to gerrymander.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:41AM
there has been major gerrymandering at the State level:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjelkemander [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Australian_state_election,_1968 [wikipedia.org]
but very little at National/Federal level.
the process [funnelback.com] is quite a-political.
Australia still has a reasonably independent government bureaucracy, and, while Heads Of Departments are appointed by the government of the day (to varying [theguardian.com] levels of influence and attempts at partisan or non-partisan appointments), there is still a strong sense of serving the people (Public Service), not the government.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday October 25 2018, @03:23AM
Canada likewise has Elections Canada which does the same thing as an independent body. The only resident citizens who can't vote are the head and deputy of Elections Canada. When the Conservatives got their majority election before last, first thing they started was neutering Elections Canada. Things like no longer being able to encourage people to vote, including no more volunteers everywhere registering voters. Power to investigate fraud and similar shit taken away and so on. If they'd stayed in government, I'd hate to see how things would have gone, same with if they get another majority.
Another thing the right is doing here is pushing for voting in (and out) Judges, as they really don't like most civil rights and Judges kept ruling against them, including striking down laws. Ended up with the PM fighting with the head of the Supreme Court when they tried to appoint an unqualified Judge.