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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: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:49AM (18 children)
I think it's wrong to have a major drive during an election cycle to purge voting records. I've never been purged - probably because I vote pretty regularly. I've never received a questionnaire, asking whether I still live in the county. There has simply never been a question. Most of the time Runaway shows up, and votes. If he misses a vote, you can bet he'll vote the next time around. That's a sign that he can't be assed to sign up for early voting, or absentee voting when he's not going to be home to vote.
But, it's wrong to go through the records, and just purge people. So, the law seems to be unjust. Just how unjust is open for debate, but it doesn't "feel right".
Now, all this frothing at the mouth raging by the left against the right candidate is simply uncalled for. If he's enforcing the law, then he's doing his job. It's already been suggested that left and right get together to change the law. That suggestion just leads to more frenzied foaming and frothing.
I'm already entertaining the thought that the law is probably unjust - and so are some other people. Instead of taking that, and doing something constructive, you foam and froth some more.
Come on, people - do you even WANT to be taken seriously?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:27AM (5 children)
Thank goodness. A voice of reason.
I think the other reasonable people are just content with watching the train wreck up there.
Perhaps the law is racist. (imho this is very likely the intention of the law.) We live in a democracy, ostensibly, so the law must be changed through democratic means. One way to do this is to organize voting registration drives among communities that are disproportionately affected. That would be an entirely reasonable strategy if we're supposing that the law cannot be changed due to disenfranchisement and if we're also supposing that revisiting the civil rights struggles of the 60s is not necessary.
If I may put my tinfoil hat on, I would suspect that the pseudo-left is crying "racisss" for the express purpose of sowing division. Keeping the working class divided against itself plays right into the hands of the ruling class. They seem to be careful to not allow one "side" to gain too many reasonable views and accurate assessments of reality. Some views on each "side" are reasonable. Other views are insane. All to sow the wind....
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:57AM (1 child)
I showed up at a Vancouver soup kitchen at seven in the morning to register the homeless.
I didn't get many takers but one guy was quite stoked that I'd given him the opportunity, while another, a 36 year old man, registered for the first time in his life.
I tried to register a woman of perhaps 60 who said "I've never done that before" but in the end she changed her mind and did not register.
I was dumbfounded that one woman quite bluntly and angrily said "I don't vote!" I expect she has what she regards as good reason for not voting, but to be so strongly opposed to voting doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Whoever on Wednesday October 24 2018, @06:26AM
Well, jmorris thinks you should not be eligible to vote, because you don't have a permanent address.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @05:48AM (2 children)
FTFY! Now run along like a good little Republican, and die in a fire.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @06:13AM
No YOU die in a fire /s. No matter how shameful your fellow citizens are it is not OK to wish death upon them. Runaway drives me batty too but try and save your energy for things that matter, whipping up violent turmoil on a forum is not productive. Stick to calling him stupid and pointing out the flaws in his stable genius.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:43PM
Amazing you can call GP a Republican for having the courage to admit that one of the "sides," in this particular instance, might have some valid points.
These are terms that Trotskyists, i.e. literal left-wing unite-the-international-working-class-to-overthrow-capitalism OMG Socialists, tend to use.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:43AM (6 children)
Great in theory. In practice the political party benefiting from the unjust law wields the most political power in part through application of the unjust law and thus they have the means and the motivation to continue the practice.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:53AM (5 children)
That sounds reasonable, at first reading. But, funny thing - when the OTHER party has control, they seldom do anything reasonable, like amending the law. Case in point - immigration laws at the federal level. Not one congress in the past sixty years has seriously considered immigration reform. I'm not sure about Florida, but I suspect that the D's have controlled Florida's legislature at some point in time. Wonder if maybe the D's didn't write and pass this law for their own reasons . . .
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @05:21AM (4 children)
Maybe if I were a D or R, I'd care about your whataboutism.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:50PM (3 children)
It isn't exactly whataboutism - I'm pointing out that both parties are corrupt. Now, in my opinion, the D's are worse than the R's, but that doesn't excuse the R's. Both parties are corrupt. Neither party should be having the voter roles purged. Both parties should be working overtime to ensure that no one is disenfranchised. Well, no one but noncitizens. Unfortunately, the D's work overtime to sign noncitizens up to vote.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:57PM (2 children)
Going to need a big fat citation for that one.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:28PM
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/oct/18/texas-democrats-ask-noncitizens-register-vote/ [washingtontimes.com]
https://gachiyellow.wordpress.com/2018/10/19/crime-texas-democrats-ask-illegal-aliens-to-register-to-vote-facilitate-voter-fraud/ [wordpress.com]
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/07/31/majority-of-democrats-illegal-aliens-should-be-given-the-right-to-vote/ [breitbart.com]
https://www.dailywire.com/news/34255/watch-pelosi-says-voting-democrats-gives-leverage-ryan-saavedra [dailywire.com]
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/09/26/140-house-democrats-refuse-to-condemn-illegal-aliens-voting/ [breitbart.com]
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/07/idiot-democrat-at-ice-hearing-says-only-reason-its-illegal-for-anyone-to-waltz-into-country-is-because-of-trump-video/ [thegatewaypundit.com]
This last one is kinda cute. This Beto O'Rourke bitch claims to be Mexican, but he's Irish. Not a drop of Mexican in his family tree. But, he claims to be Mexican, to suck the Mexicans into voting for him. His campaign aide, Patsy, sent out a text:
Of course, when called on it, the Irishman denied it, and so does Patsy. The campaign spokesthing says the text was sent by an "imposter".
https://newstarget.com/2018-09-06-democrat-beto-orourke-texts-calling-for-illegal-aliens-to-vote.html [newstarget.com]
You will note, I believe, that most of this crap is taking place in border states. If you live in New York City, or Boston, you're still entitled to an opinion. But, if you want your opinion to be respected, you should at least come down here, and see first hand what is going on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:29PM
They tried on me. I didn't want to commit a crime, so I turned them down.
(Score: 1) by Mainframe Bloke on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:06AM (4 children)
I was listening to a radio show yesterday, the main point of which is that discussion has degenerated into brick-throwing from both sides. Instead of people seeing the point of a discussion as being to reach some sort of mutually-agreed outcome, they now see it as a form of entertainment where the more extreme the argument the better the "crowd value".
I found myself nodding my head in agreement. I was doing the same when I read your penultimate paragraph.
I despair at the state of critical thinking these days: people (myself included sometimes when in a bad mood) can't seem to see beyond their own backyard. The world's complexity is at a point where we need some kind of "reset", perhaps a "Universal Bill of Human Rights" that extends the US one (and perhaps changes some of its more antique entries, but that's another discussion).
The sense of a common ground, where we recognise that all humans have some things in common, is sorely lacking these days. One such thing, for example, is that we are all native Earthlings...now what does that mean and where does it lead?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Wednesday October 24 2018, @06:18AM (3 children)
Ah, the old "they are both as bad as each other" fallacy.
No, one side is not like the other. One side worships the ultra-wealthy. One side ignores science. One side is actively racist. One side works to suppress votes. Etc..
There is no "common ground" with nutjobs. That has been the failing of the Democratic party: to fail to realize that "bipartisanship" has mostly meant: "give the Republicans what they want in exchange for some minor and unimportant concessions".
The Democrats are far from perfect, but to think that there is no difference between the parties is the real lunacy.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:06PM (2 children)
and has abandoned the dream of Martin Luther King.
I had to fix that for you. THAT side flourishes on identity politics. They simply CANNOT not notice who is black, who is gay, who is female, who is Muslim. THAT side caters to every single identity group on earth - EXCEPT for white male hetero Christians. THAT side is openly hateful of any such person. Well - such a person might be acceptable, if they happen to be self-loathing hetero white male Christians. Those self-loathing persons can easily be manipulated, like any other useful idiot.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday October 24 2018, @08:39PM (1 child)
Is this a drinking game? Do we all have to take a drink now that you wrote the words "identity politics"?
I propose a new form of bingo. For each day, we pick one of the dog whistles that the alt-right use and see how many times each comes up. I'm going to start with "identity politics".
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 25 2018, @12:24AM
The whole point of "dog whistles" is that only one side can hear them. Everybody is crystal clear on what "identity politics" means - or should be, by now.
Example of a dog whistle: "I support self defence." - really means: "I am pro-gun." That way politicians can try to cozy up to one side without alienating the other.
Given that the whole "identity is important" schtick came from the democrats, who apparently just retooled their dixiecrat heritage to appeal to the other side, I don't really see a dog whistle here. The democrats are saying: "We CARE about you!" while the republicans are saying: "They care about bribing narrow slices of the electorate, one at a time."
Of course, given that the republicans are pretty firm on bribing slices themselves, it's kind of weird.