“If the purges [of potential voters], challenges and ballot rejections were random, it wouldn’t matter. It’s anything but random. For example, an audit by the State of Washington found that a Black voter was 400% more likely than a white voter to have their mail-in ballot rejected. Rejection of Black in-person votes, according to a US Civil Rights Commission study in Florida, ran 14.3% or one in seven ballots cast.”
"[…] Democracy can win* despite the 2.3% suppression headwind.
And that’s our job as Americans: to end the purges, the vigilante challenges, the ballot rejections and the attitude that this is all somehow OK."
Once again, Trump said (during his first term, I believe) on Fox News Republicans would never win another election if minorities vote. They know this. They consistently make it harder and harder for people to vote, while targeting minorities.
Once again, Trump said (during his first term, I believe) on Fox News Republicans would never win another election if minorities vote.
He was wrong. A big part of the '24 GOP wave came from young male latino and black voters who were entranced by the get-rich-quick promises of Trump/Vance. Online hustler culture on social media has been a huge driving force behind conservative voter expansion.
How 5 key demographic groups voted in 2024: AP VoteCast
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Trump’s share of Black voters rose slightly, driven largely by younger men
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Slightly more Hispanic voters supported Trump in 2020
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Narrow gains with (white) women benefitted Trump
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Trump saw a modest increase with men
Republicans have been leveraging their “business friendly” credentials to win over poorer POC voters for a while. And as Democrats adopt the same strategy, we’re running into the same problem as in 2000 and 1988 - voters aren’t able to distinguish between candidates on economic issues.
For POC women voters, the divisions are more stark. But for men of any shade, Dem decay in social media (their active war on left-leaning TikTok being a huge unforced error in an environment that’s trended hard-right since the Obama admin) and their refusal to deliver on college debt relief, cheap housing, cheap mass transit, or public health care is leaving Republicans with a huge discontented block of younger voters to poach.
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The perma stun proceeds at pace
Didn’t Trump win partially by the black vote going for him? How do we know most of those weren’t for Trump?
No. Black people overwhelmingly still voted against Trump and for Kamala.
Trump won with double digit gains in the Hispanic vote, which is only getting bigger as a demographic. If Republicans continue to gain support here they could control the federal government for a generation or more.
Dem pols are always too afraid to exercise the power they have when they win. Always. When Biden won, DC and Puerto Rican statehood should have been the first things on the agenda.
The GOP is never afraid to exercise as much power as they can get away with.
Biden never had enough control of the whole government to get those things done without Republican buy-in.
A Republican controlled house won’t send a bill like that to the Senate. A Republican controlled Senate won’t send it to the President.
You can be upset at Biden, but we’ve rarely ever given a Democratic president a Democratic Congress to help him get anything done.
Uh, no. He had a Democratic congress the first half of his term. Part of why he lost them is Dems are so tepid with exercising the power the voters give them.
Nothing the Dems do, or even try to do, gin the base up into excitement. The base never feels inspired that the Dems are striving for the goals they claim to represent and want.
This, 100%.
I remember when Democrats had a filibuster proof majority under Obama.
And they still failed to pass single payer healthcare, because of former VP candidate Joe Lieberman. Like, talk about lack of party discipline.
Republican politicians at least deliver what they say they will deliver.
I wouldn’t really say Republicans deliver what they say they’ll deliver. A week before election Trump was saying he’d have grocery prices lower on day one, and then as soon as he was elected he suddenly became aware that was complicated and the wouldn’t be anything he could do about it. Part of his campaign the first time around, too, was that he would provide a brilliant replacement for Obamacare, but after four years he’d done absolutely nothing on that front, and four years after that he still insisted he was going to do that, but admitted that he only had “concepts of a plan.”
They carry out a lot of the culture war aspects of their promises. And they carry out the promises they make to their billionaire megadonors. Everything else they hope gets forgotten about.
They didn’t actually have a filibuster proof majority for much of that time. Franken’s win in Minnesota was contested, and he wasn’t sworn in until 9 months after the election.
Biden never had the power. But Obama did. He squandered it imo but you’re welcome to disagree.
Hang on…WTF!
Re post text: For context, Washington state is mail-only voting, so that number would (I assume) be for all votes, not just specifically requested mail-ins. I didn’t see it in the article, but I wonder if that is predominantly “centralized” or “distributed” in nature; i.e. are technically-valid ballots from all voters being incorrectly rejected by the county elections facilities office at different rates across racial lines, or are there other factors like targeted disinformation, education, local infrastructure, or socioeconomics that disproportionately affect Black (or other types of minority) voters that would make them more likely to produce a technically-invalid ballot?
Those might get the same statistic, but would seem to indicate very different sorts of problems and approaches.
You can vote in-person in Washington if you want to, if you lost your ballot, etc. Also, I think most people here use the drop boxes rather than their mailbox. If not most, still quite a lot.
I work in elections in Washington, there is only mail in voting plus county drop boxes. Yes you can say you lost your ballot or didn’t get it and come in for a replacement, but we give you the same mail in packet you world receive at home.
Yes you can drop it in the drop box in our office or you can take it home and mail it. But any voter can drop their mail in ballot off in our office as well. We don’t have polling places or voting machines, or a way to separate out and assign race to a ballot so we could somehow treat those differently. They all come in as a big stack for processing.
Why do ballots get rejected? Mismatched signatures is the biggest reason. If your signature doesn’t match what we have on file we mail you a form to fix it, we also text and email you. Maybe from demographic groups are less likely to respond? The other one is people who forget to sign, which follows the same procedure.
What I can say is that is there is some sort of disparity, it isn’t happening in the ballot processing room.
Your average citizen would consider dropping it into the dropbox at the location where they just got their ballot to count as in-person voting.
Maybe so, but in that case doing it at home with your own mailbox meets that same criteria.
My point is that there isn’t a different “in person” process. There’s only one process; you get a mail ballot packet, you fill it out, and you drop off in a mailbox or county drop box.
But there isn’t only one process. You can get a ballot and/or vote in-person if you choose to or need to.
Yeah, no.
Even if you choose to pick up your mail in ballot in our office, and even if you drop off in the drop box in our office, you still got a mail in ballot and dropped it in a county drop box. Everyone can do that, you weren’t special or different, just needy.
I’m not arguing that you still get a ballot sent to you. But you are wrong in saying that there is only one method. I had to vote in person once because they sent me an incorrect ballot.
Sometimes you’re not right and it’s okay to accept that and move on.
Edit: and the election site points out where you can go to vote in person. Also, I didn’t go to an office because it was a whole arena dedicated to voting in-person.
Maybe that was back when they still had in person voting in Washington, but it’s just one type of ballot packet and mail or drop boxes now.
Maybe they held your hand and called it in person to make you feel better, but there’s no different process in Washington State that’s different than the mail in process.
By “restrictive voting laws” do you mean voters having to show ID? Like every other country on the planet?
It’s not as difficult to get ID in many other countries
It’s not difficult in the US
It’s harder than it should be
Harder than going to the place that gives them out and asking for one? I’m not going to hold your hand
If only it were that easy!
It is, I’ve done it many times
Are you white? Are you not living in poverty?
I am very happy it has been easy for you. From what I have read that is not the case for many
Most countries that require this also give their citizens free IDs.
https://today.umd.edu/umd-analysis-millions-of-americans-dont-have-id-required-to-vote
And “just get one” is not a solution when you live in poverty and don’t even have the transportation to go to the nearest license branch, which could be miles away. If you still have the proper documents, which sometimes are ridiculous in terms of what is needed.
And then, if you’re black and were born in the South during (and even sometimes after) Jim Crow, it’s entirely possible that there is no official record of your birth because no hospital would admit your mother.
No, this article is talking about things like rejecting registration based on minor clerical errors like ink color, rejecting provisional ballots arbitrarily, and restricting the availability of ballot boxes. That sort of thing.
On the voter id question, by the way, the argument isn’t about whether or not you should have ID to vote, it’s about whether you can get ID in the first place.
Most countries in the world either issue IDs to everyone or allow you to prove your identity with things like bank statements and utility bills, or just somebody else who can vouch for you. The problem with US voter ID laws is that they only give you a few options for acceptable documents, and then make it hard to get those documents.
or allow you to prove your identity with things like bank statements and utility bills, or just somebody else who can vouch for you.
My state’s voter ID allows all of those things and more (including the voter registration card given to you for free when you register and whenever you update your registration as well as SNAP and TANF cards), although here the “somebody else who can vouch for you” has to have ID themselves and has to sign a sworn statement on penalty of perjury that you are who you say you are and that they have known you for at least 6 months.
Yeah, that seems like a reasonable approach.
By comparison, North Carolina attempted to implement a voter ID law in 2016 that was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court because it deliberately targeted black voters.
Why don’t you ever try and actually meet the other side in good faith?
Opponents of voter ID have a very simple line of argumentation, and very clear issues that would need to be solved. Why do you think proponents of voter ID never attempt to solve these issues?
Why do proponents always insist that voter ID has to be implemented in a way that happens to hurt minority voters disproportionately?
Why don’t you ever try and actually meet the other side in good faith?
You first
Opponents of voter ID have a very simple line of argumentation, and very clear issues that would need to be solved.
Like?
Why do you think proponents of voter ID never attempt to solve these issues?
You don’t name them or they’re aren’t an actual issue
Why do proponents always insist that voter ID has to be implemented in a way that happens to hurt minority voters disproportionately?
They don’t
You first
No, I won’t allow you to disadvantage minorities, no matter how often you ask.
Like?
You’ve literally never listened to anyone opposing your view? Or why are you asking me?
You don’t name them or they’re aren’t an actual issue
No, I think you’re a bad faith troll and won’t invest more time than strictly necessary. If you’re not a bad faith troll, it’s literally one search away!
They don’t
You literally started your comment doing exactly this
No, I won’t allow you to disadvantage minorities, no matter how often you ask.
I won’t allow you to stereotype minorities as people incapable of doing things, especially something as easy as getting an ID.
You’ve literally never listened to anyone opposing your view? Or why are you asking me?
I do it everyday, you just don’t have an answer
it’s literally one search away!
Should be easy for you to name them then
You literally started your comment doing exactly this
I literally never said anything about that. Literally
Oh, it’s a bad faith troll, what a surprise, who could have seen it coming, oh no
I just responded the same way you did
If you really think that, I’ll give you one last chance. I’ll explain why your response to my serious points was wrong. You can explain properly why you disagree, without resorting to strawmans or insults or anything. Deal?
My position is: minorities will be disproportionately affected by voter ID laws, since it’s on average objectively harder for a poor person to get an ID (due to transportation, scheduling due to possibly multiple jobs etc.), and minorities are disproportionately poor. You could mitigate this disproportionate effect by first ensuring easy and equal access to ID for all citizens. Even if you disagree on any of these points, you should at least be able to accept that you can get what you want if you give me what I want, and giving me what I want doesn’t hurt you in any way.
So, why do you still ask me to make the first move? Why can’t you see that you’re blocking yourself from getting what you want here?
I won’t allow you to stereotype minorities as people incapable of doing things, especially something as easy as getting an ID.
Strawman racist bullshit, disguised as uplifting affirmation of equality. Tell us you don’t see color while you’re at it.
I did the same thing they did. Why don’t you tell us how you *acknowledge your white privilege *
I try to acknowledge my white privilege by voting for politicians and laws that attempt to mitigate that privilege, by extending it as widely as possible, to as many people as possible.
Your unexamined privilege is demonstrated in claiming things like satisfying voter ID laws is easy when it is not for many, for a variety of profound and serious reasons.
I SENTENCE THIS USER TO ONE HOUR ON THE CHAIR OF CHEER
I sentence you to a lifetime
Like?
You don’t name them or they’re aren’t an actual issue
The biggest and most obvious is that ID isn’t available to literally everyone who can legally vote without cost to the end user of any kind, and as a consequence requiring such an ID is tantamount to a poll tax. Federal ID that’s fully subsidized would be the easiest solution, and if done right you could even optionally fold most state ID systems into a federal one with things like being licensed to drive being an endorsement on the federal ID.
Notably, the same people who demand photo ID to vote also tend to be the people terrified of a federal ID as a concept.
Look at Spain. We have been using our IDs for decades and it’s a great way to solve that problem. You just go to the voting table, show your ID (DNI) and vote. That’s it. And it works for everything related to anything official.
But because of the voting system we don’t have gerrymandering (or at least not that much).
That works great for Spain (and most other countries) because it has a compulsory national ID. This doesn’t exist in the US, so introducing such laws shouldn’t be done before easy access to such an ID exists for everyone.
In the US case it should be a federal ID. With a 6 or 7 letters ID should be more than enough. And compulsory at 13 y.o. You can drive, you have an ID.
Yep, that would be a good solution. Yet conservatives never advocate for this.
We all know. Nothing was or will be done. Now they can rig it from the inside. Was a fun run!
Democrats had the opportunity to fix this when they were in office. They chose to protect the filibuster instead.
Did they or did Manchin and Sinema, who go figure are no longer Democrats, stop them?
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get the fuck out of here with this horseshit
both parties Democrats and Republicans both use voter suppression based on what their check writers want
for example there is bipartisan efforts to keep United States citizens locked up for a list of nonviolent offences such as Bidens tough crime bills and now immigrants and women are on the list too
the education system is also used to suppress votes - no democracy without a properly funded education system
bipartisan effort to keep the minimum wage at $7.25 is another way to suppress votes - tired, overworked people do not vote with an informed healthy mind thus subverting democracy more
state of healthcare is another way voters are suppressed - health people would not vote for the current state of things
the politicians’ check writers also suppress by controlling the media that is consumed along with the entirety of culture deleting content as needed to keep us in line
and the list goes on we need to throw both parties out and start fresh
Keep in mind that minimum wage makes it harder to get a job in the first place (supply and demand) and a higher minimum wage causes inflation.
Just… something to note there. If minimum wage wasn’t so high more 16 year Olds would get jobs while they still live with their parents and can afford having low wages - so they have experience later.
Effectively what we have right now is a paradox where you need experience to get a job, but every job requires a certain amount of experience. This is because of the minimum wage, companies literally cannot afford to train people on the job.
While many of those things may effect people’s ability to vote, how many of them target republican voters? I’m pretty sure that’s what “this shit” that you want them to “fuck out of here with” is talking about.
Reading through their list I can think of specific examples for each point on each side (except the education point though that may be more local or referring to something less specific i.e. religious charter school support) - though that isn’t to imply equality. On most of these points Republicans are pretty clearly worse generally speaking…
Still, I think it was an interesting comment because, while a lot of people dismissed it out of hand, it isn’t wrong to highlight that both sides are guilty of all (except education) these things and to excise this rot will take a lot of effort.
Both parties this both parties that, why don’t you try using both sides of your own brain.
Because both parties use voter suppression to their advantage
They won’t. All they post is “both sides!@!#&$+$($:” over and over again.
Funny how all the bipartisan stuff they mention truly is Republican stuff…
It’s also amusing that they don’t seem to know what voter suppression is.
I guess the 78 voters suppression laws red states introduced is exactly the same as the 0 suppression laws blue states introduced.
of course not the blue states have to word their suppression laws differently
if both parties appeared to be the same then they could not continue this charade we call US elections
both parties are bought and paid for by the same oligarchs but if they acted like they were for the same thing then citizens would catch on even with an underfunded education system and we have to keep the bread and circuses going for as long as possible
Oh look election denialism
Oh look, voter suppression denialism.
We can accept the outcome while still acknowledging the bullshit that occurred. Still, It’s in everyone’s best interest to be rid of the douche. I’ll be in support of anything that furthers just that.
Anything. Glad you’re honest
yeah. ANYTHING MF. wanna find out what that means?
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Voter suppression includes manipulating people into not voting, such as “both sides are the same” and “your one vote doesn’t matter”. I’d probably include pushing people to vote for non-serious third parties, although it may not technically be “voter suppression”.
Imagine not doing your work as a president for 4 years in order to manipulate to not vote for you LMAO 🤣
Yeah trump lost, that’s why he is the president of the united states of America
Guys, ease up with the fickle double think
Next thing you’ll say that Kamala won and she is the one in actual charge of the nation lmao 🤣
Is winning by cheating winning?
So then what makes the presidency?
In the US?
Do you have actual proof? Did you denounce it to the authorities? Hell, have you taken this proof to the press? I’m sure everyone would love to hear and see about it!
They know. They are complicit! Gerry mandering, voter suppression getting rid of polling locations in black neighborhoods. Making it illegal to give water to those waiting to vote. Trump saying something about elon knowing these machine very well. Removing people from voter registration. I’m sure there is more. If you are unaware of these things you are living under a rock.
So, no proof then?
If you want to ignore the proof provided then yes.
Lol where is the proof of cheating the election?
https://lemmy.world/comment/14726844
Here
One better
https://lemmy.world/comment/14729078
There is proof, just because you don’t accept it as such, doesn’t mean it isn’t. Sounds like the arguments flat earthers make.
What is funny is this is everything Aotus did when Biden won. Guess what? We didn’t love to hear about the massive voter fraud he claimed and was unable to prove. Strange that when he won suddenly no problems with voting.
You would have to live under a rock to come up with these double standards. I would like to see someone take proof of gerrymandering to Faux News to see what they do about it. Oh yeah, absolutely nothing.
So no proof?
Proof of gerrymandering and voter suppression?
Gerrymandering is not really up for debate. It happens a lot.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-gerrymandering-tilts-2024-race-house
Voter suppression is nothing new either. The Fascists have been passing laws for decades now under the guise of securing our already secure elections. Here are some in 2024.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-september-2024
Oh okay so no proof then. Where are the fake ballots with like 50 million votes? Where is the cheating man?
Come on, you are sitting in a gold mine if you have all that.
Weird that the Dems haven’t done anything about it last 4 years. Or before that when they had the chance
You were literally given proof. You refusing to read the links is not someone else’s fault.
This is why Kamala accepting the outcome “No matter what”, to prove she’s better than Trump…
Was the dumbest thing she could have done because it was just playing into the GOP’s hand.
The Republican game is “You go high, we go low, because low gets us elected and furthers our agenda.”
I thought their game was “Low, no matter what.”
I think the game is “there’s always more barrel to scrape.”
No one actually ever considered kamala might win. As soon as Biden dropped out, anyone that actually knew something knew Democrats had thrown in the towel.
Guess I don’t know shit then
Guess not
That’s absolutely not true. They had the best campaign since Obama and they did amazing job in that 3 weeks or so, and contrasting disaster of a shitshow that Trump put on made it even clearer.
In the end Americans turned out to be way worse people than predicted, but that was absolutely not obvious.Remember when I said “anyone that knew something.”
Sorry you didn’t fall in that group
One lesson 2020 should have taught everyone and that’s vote by mail WORKS.
Lifting the restrictions on vote by mail for Covid won the election for Biden, and replacing those restrictions in 2024 lost it for Harris.
We should have 100% vote by mail in all states.
One lesson 2020 should have taught everyone and that’s vote by mail WORKS.
It was a lesson national administrators learned. That’s why it was heavily clawed back. 2020 was a big year for Popular Socialist Candidates. Neither party enjoyed a wave year that included The Squad and put a guy like Bernie Sanders in arm’s reach of Biden after Super Tuesday.
We should have 100% vote by mail in all states.
Republicans have been outspoken in opposition to mail-in voting, particularly for younger college-aged voters. But even Dems are lackluster in their support for full enfranchisement, on the grounds that higher participation tends to make controlling primaries more difficult and expensive (the NY-14 upset by AOC being a classic example).
vote by mail WORKS.
Which is why red states didn’t want to use it. Can’t stay in power if you don’t suppress votes.
