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Voting Queue Etiquette: Hey, Buddy, That's Out Of Line! : It's All Politics : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...e-hey-buddy-that-s-out-of-line
shared by anonymous on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • For most of us, Election Day marks a welcome end to months of relentless political ads and partisan bickering.
  • in an age when the rules about when it's OK to express one's political opinion seem to have frayed, what if someone decides the line at the polling station is the place to talk politics?
  • polling station etiquette.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • "I don't need you to know whether or not I voted, or which candidate I voted for. I don't care to know your status or opinion either."
  • Unlike Florida, many states have laws against passive electioneering, such as wearing political buttons or T-shirts within a certain distance of the voting machines — usually the demarcation is within 100-150 feet.
  • McDonald says she felt compelled to start a conversation because the woman was wearing a button that declared: "VOTE — your vagina is counting on you." They wound up passing the hour in line discussing politics.
  • "passive electioneering."
  • Of course, there's no law that keeps people from discussing their political opinions as they're queuing to vote.
  • "While standing in line, I will openly engage in discourse with members of the opposition,"
  • "When it comes to the moment of voting, when you're there at the gates, so to speak, there should be a kind of political silence."
  • respect that in America we honor the privacy of the vote, and that we allow each person to make up his or her own mind."
  • If someone's being rude, you might not want to support their candidate
  • anonymous on 03 Nov 20
     
    Poll etiquette connects to our discussion of how one can influence another person's opinions or thoughts because we care so much about fitting in. On the other hand, many people are stubborn and will fight you off if you try to change their view or talk politics, for example.
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Opinion | 'This Is Jim Crow in New Clothes' - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ing-rights-resonstruction.html
shared by anonymous on 28 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • ‘This Is Jim Crow in New Clothes’
  • Senator Raphael Warnock’s first speech on the Senate floor brought the past into the present.
  • “We are witnessing right now a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we have seen since the Jim Crow era,”
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • “This is Jim Crow in new clothes
  • I submit that it is the job of each citizen to stand up for the voting rights of every citizen. And it is the job of this body to do all that it can to defend the viability of our democracy.
  • The bill that would become the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was first introduced in January 1870 by Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, a Radical Republican and ardent opponent of slavery and race discrimination.
  • as well as the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore pre-clearance to the Voting Rights Act, forcing covered jurisdictions to submit new voting plans for federal approval.
  • arnock is the first African-American to represent Georgia in the Senate and only the second elected from the South since Reconstruction.
  • His presence on the Senate floor is historic just on its own.
  • It represents progress — and yet it is also evocative of the past.
  • A Black lawmaker from the South, urging his mostly white colleagues to defend the voting rights of millions of Americans is, to my mind, an occasion to revisit one particular episode in the history of American democracy: the fight, in Congress, over the Civil Rights Act of 1875
  • The first Black members of the House of Representatives, some of them former slaves, were prominent in this battle
  • They saw the bill as vital in the fight against discrimination and race hierarchy.
  • Warnock argued, the Senate should pass the For the People Act, which would establish automatic voter registration nationally, provide for at least two weeks of early voting and preserve mail-in balloting,
  • “no citizen of the United States shall, by reason of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, be excepted or excluded from full and equal enjoyment” of “common schools and public institutions of learning, the same being supported by moneys derived from general taxation or authorized by law.”
  • “viewed school desegregation as a necessary component of achieving a truly colorblind nation.”
  • Their opponents saw school desegregation as collapsing a distinction between public rights and social rights that would allow the government to
  • “invade all provinces of an individual’s life.”
  • And as their fellow Republicans struggled to pass the civil rights bill, these lawmakers used the debate to devise what Francois calls a “counter narrative to white supremacy” that repudiated Black inferiority in favor of a “vision of human equality.”
  • “It is not social rights we desire,” Representative John R. Lynch of Mississippi, a former slave, said. “What we ask is protection in the enjoyment of public rights.
  • I want to say we do not come here begging for our rights. We come here clothed in the garb of American citizenship. We come demanding our rights in the name of justice.
  • The civil rights bill passed Congress in February 1875, nearly a year after Sumner’s death. It did so without the schools clause.
  • By the end of the century, Jim Crow was in place throughout most of the former Confederacy.
  • It would be over 70 years before the South would send another Black American to Washington.
  • His speech is also part and parcel of a Black tradition of calling on the government to fulfill the nation’s professed values
  • The question, as always, is whether Congress will actually act to secure democracy for all of its citizens and whether we’ll withstand the inevitable backlash if it does.
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In Georgia County, Elections Bills Have Consequences : NPR - 1 views

www.npr.org/...ctions-bills-have-consequences Georgia Ellections racism bias
shared by cvanderloo on 28 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Long before Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a 98-page law that enacted drastic changes to election rules in Georgia this week, some lawmakers were already facing pushback amid an inflamed debate over voting rights.
  • Hancock County is about 100 miles east of Atlanta and one of the poorest in the country.
  • "He knows how important absentee voting and early voting is to this community," he said. "And he goes and introduces legislation to make it harder, more difficult for the very people to vote that are paying him as county attorney!"
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Thornton said he believes that an attorney should be an advocate, not an adversary, and others agree
  • One bill Fleming introduced, HB 531, would have curbed Sunday early voting, restricted mail-in voting, even made handing out food and water to voters a misdemeanor crime.
  • Fleming was county attorney that year when about 20% of Sparta's voters — all Black — had their voter registrations challenged before a mayoral race.
  • While Republicans have proposed hundreds of restrictive bills across the country, Warren says the particular measures discussed in Georgia are personal for Black people like himself that experienced Jim Crow laws firsthand.
  • Warren said Facebook posts and meetings with community members helped mobilize action before the county commission, and now says other local jurisdictions that have hired Fleming as attorney are considering dropping him, too.
  • In the short term at least, it appears that some Republicans are paying attention. The bill signed into law Thursday reversed course on some of the harshest measures, keeping no-excuse absentee voting and actually expanding in-person early voting access.
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Law professor Kim Wehle's latest book is 'How To Think Like a Lawyer - and Why' : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...to-think-like-a-lawyer-and-why critical thinking legal education learning knowledge research psychology bias civic
shared by Javier E on 12 Mar 22 - No Cached
  • a five-step process she calls the BICAT method - BICAT.
  • KIM WEHLE: B is to break a problem down into smaller pieces
  • I is to identify our values. A lot of people think lawyers are really about winning all the time. But the law is based on a value system. And I suggest that people be very deliberate about what matters to them with whatever decision there is
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • C is to collect a lot of information. Thirty years ago, the challenge was finding information in a card catalog at the library. Now it's, how do we separate the good stuff from the bad stuff?
  • A is to analyze both sides. Lawyers have to turn the coin over and exhaust counterarguments or we'll lose in court.
  • So lawyers are trained to look for the gray areas, to look for the questions are not the answers. And if we kind of orient our thinking that way, I think we're less likely to shut down competing points of view.
  • My argument in the book is, we can feel good about a decision even if we don't get everything that we want. We have to make compromises.
  • I tell my students, you'll get through the bar. The key is to look for questions and not answers. If you could answer every legal question with a Wikipedia search, there would be no reason to hire lawyers.
  • Lawyers are hired because there are arguments on both sides, you know? Every Supreme Court decision that is split 6-3, 5-4, that means there were really strong arguments on both sides.
  • T is, tolerate the fact that you won't get everything you want every time
  • So we have to be very careful about the source of what you're getting, OK? Is this source neutral? Is this source really care about facts and not so much about an agenda?
  • Step 3, the collecting information piece. I think it's a new skill for all of us that we are overloaded with information into our phones. We have algorithms that somebody else developed that tailor the information that comes into our phones based on what the computer thinks we already believe
  • No. 2 - this is the beauty of social media and the internet - you can pull original sources. We can click on the indictment. Click on the new bill that has been proposed in the United States Congress.
  • then the book explains ways that you can then sort through that information for yourself. Skills are empowering.
  • Maybe as a replacement for sort of being empowered by being part of a team - a red team versus a blue team - that's been corrosive, I think, in American politics and American society. But arming ourselves with good facts, that leads to self-determination.
  • MARTINEZ: Now, you've written two other books - "How To Read The Constitution" and "What You Need To Know About Voting" - along with this one, "How To Think Like A Lawyer - And Why.
  • It kind of makes me think, Kim, that you feel that Americans might be lacking a basic level of civics education or understanding. So what is lacking when it comes to teaching civics or in civics discourse today?
  • studies have shown that around a third of Americans can't name the three branches of government. But if we don't understand our government, we don't know how to hold our government accountable
  • Democracies can't stay open if we've got elected leaders that are caring more about entrenching their own power and misinformation than actually preserving democracy by the people. I think that's No. 1.
  • No. 2 has to do with a value system. We talk about American values - reward for hard work, integrity, honesty. The same value system should apply to who we hire for government positions. And I think Americans have lost that.
  • in my own life, I'm very careful about who gets to be part of the inner circle because I have a strong value system. Bring that same sense to bear at the voting booth. Don't vote for red versus blue. vote for people that live your value system
  • just like the Ukrainians are fighting for their children's democracy, we need to do that as well. And we do that through informing ourselves with good information, tolerating competing points of view and voting - voting, voting, voting - to hold elected leaders accountable if they cross boundaries that matter to us in our own lives.
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2020 election: Experts are warning coronavirus puts integrity the election at risk. Her... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html
shared by katherineharron on 28 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • As states scramble to delay their spring primaries, election professionals and voting experts are anxiously looking ahead to November and warning that the coronavirus pandemic is already threatening the safety and integrity of the next presidential election.
  • Congress took a step forward this week by approving $400 million in federal grants that states can use to make coronavirus-related adjustments for the general election. But the two parties couldn't reach a deal on the politically-charged question of how to overhaul the voting laws.
  • "At all costs, the election must go on," said CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. "This is not the NBA season or the Olympics. Come November, we've got to vote. If we can vote in the middle of the Civil War, and if Franklin D. Roosevelt can run for an unprecedented fourth term in the middle of World War II, then we can figure out how to make 2020 a free and fair election."
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • More than 136 million Americans voted in 2016, and a record number of them cast early ballots. But nearly 60% of voters still showed up on Election Day, waited in long lines, used communal pens and touched the same voting machines -- all dangerous moves in the coronavirus era.
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Campaigns Mine Personal Lives to Get Out Vote - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...nal-lives-to-get-out-vote.html personal information campaign political data
shared by Javier E on 14 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Strategists affiliated with the Obama and Romney campaigns say they have access to information about the personal lives of voters at a scale never before imagined. And they are using that data to try to influence voting habits — in effect, to train voters to go to the polls through subtle cues, rewards and threats in a manner akin to the marketing efforts of credit card companies and big-box retailers.
  • In the weeks before Election Day, millions of voters will hear from callers with surprisingly detailed knowledge of their lives. These callers — friends of friends or long-lost work colleagues — will identify themselves as volunteers for the campaigns or independent political groups. The callers will be guided by scripts and call lists compiled by people — or computers — with access to details like whether voters may have visited pornography Web sites, have homes in foreclosure, are more prone to drink Michelob Ultra than Corona or have gay friends or enjoy expensive vacations.
  • “You don’t want your analytical efforts to be obvious because voters get creeped out,” said a Romney campaign official who was not authorized to speak to a reporter. “A lot of what we’re doing is behind the scenes.”
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • however, consultants to both campaigns said they had bought demographic data from companies that study details like voters’ shopping histories, gambling tendencies, interest in get-rich-quick schemes, dating preferences and financial problems. The campaigns themselves, according to campaign employees, have examined voters’ online exchanges and social networks to see what they care about and whom they know. They have also authorized tests to see if, say, a phone call from a distant cousin or a new friend would be more likely to prompt the urge to cast a ballot.
  • The campaigns have planted software known as cookies on voters’ computers to see if they frequent evangelical or erotic Web sites for clues to their moral perspectives. voters who visit religious Web sites might be greeted with religion-friendly messages when they return to mittromney.com or barackobama.com. The campaigns’ consultants have run experiments to determine if embarrassing someone for not voting by sending letters to their neighbors or posting their voting histories online is effective.
  • “I’ve had half-a-dozen conversations with third parties who are wondering if this is the year to start shaming,” said one consultant who works closely with Democratic organizations. “Obama can’t do it. But the ‘super PACs’ are anonymous. They don’t have to put anything on the flier to let the voter know who to blame.”
  • Officials at both campaigns say the most insightful data remains the basics: a voter’s party affiliation, voting history, basic information like age and race, and preferences gleaned from one-on-one conversations with volunteers. But more subtle data mining has helped the Obama campaign learn that their supporters often eat at Red Lobster, shop at Burlington Coat Factory and listen to smooth jazz. Romney backers are more likely to drink Samuel Adams beer, eat at Olive Garden and watch college football.
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(4) It's now a crime in Georgia to approach voters in line to give them food and water - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...830a6516f53d90e47bca2ba99ea293 georgia voters crime tok Law social media
shared by aprossi on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • The latest on Georgia's new law suppressing voting access
  • It's now a crime in Georgia to approach voters in line to give them food and water 
  • A lawsuit has already been filed over the new Georgia law limiting voting
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • A Georgia state lawmaker was arrested for protesting the bill outside the governor's office
  • Georgia passed a sweeping elections bill restricting voting access. Here's what you need to know.
  • Georgia secretary of state vows to "ensure" eligible citizens will be able to vote under new elections law
  • Stacey Abrams calls Georgia elections bill "nothing less than Jim Crow 2.0"
  • Voting rights groups have slammed Georgia's far-reaching bill, particularly for its provisions aimed at the secretary of state and local election officials.
  • At least 45 states have seen bills aimed at voter suppression. These are the key states to watch.
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Keep the Filibuster, There Are Better Ways to Reform | Time - 0 views

time.com/...libuster-better-ways-to-reform world knowledge education bias
shared by clairemann on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • After passing an immense $1.9 trillion COVID aid package that was one of the most expensive and significant pieces of social legislation in a generation, the Biden administration realizes that much of the rest of its agenda—election reform, gun control, and civil rights—is dead on arrival in the Senate, a Senate that Democrats only narrowly control.
  • The reason, of course, is the filibuster, the procedural maneuver that allows 41 senators to block multiple forms of substantive legislation.
  • This would be a serious mistake that would enhance partisan polarization and increase political instability. There are better ways to achieve policy reform. There are better ways to lower the temperature of American politics.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • I discovered that thoughtful progressives and thoughtful conservatives each suffered from different, deep fears about our political future. Progressives feared minoritarian rule. Conservatives feared majoritarian domination. Ending the filibuster, perversely enough, makes both fears more real.
  • The Republican Party has won exactly one popular vote for president since 1988, George W. Bush’s narrow 2.4 percent edge over John Kerry in 2004. Yet it won three presidential elections in that span of time
  • Republicans not only have a present electoral college advantage over Democrats, they also have inherent advantages in both the House and the Senate.
  • Do away with the filibuster, and it’s entirely possible that the next Republican government could enjoy immense legislative power without a majority of the popular vote. In fact, they could lose voters by margins numbering in the millions, yet still exercise decisive control over the government.
  • The Democratic Party is seeking to pass laws that would introduce dramatic changes in American elections, transform free speech doctrine, and potentially limit religious liberty.
  • The GOP, for example, is currently in the grips of a Trumpist base that prioritizes angry opposition over compromise. The party largely lacks a positive agenda, so (with some notable exceptions) its priority is clear: No compromise, even when compromise might be prudent. Stop the Democrats. Some Republicans have gone further, descending into a fantasy world of dark conspiracies.
  • Yes, through decentralization, de-escalation, and strategic moderation.
  • That means most Americans live in jurisdictions where, for example, election rules, civil rights laws, gun laws, and a wide variety of economic and social policies are within their partisan control.
  • Gridlock in Washington does not have to mean gridlock in government,
  • Research demonstrates that a majority of Americans are exhausted by partisan politics. Motivated minorities drive most American polarization.
  • A combination of redistricting reform and voting reforms like ranked-choice voting can limit the powers of partisan extremists. Ranked-choice voting—which allows voters to list candidates in order of preference—most notably can reduce the chances of highly-partisan pluralities dominating political primaries.
  • The answer to polarization and gridlock is not partisan escalation. Ending the filibuster would only ramp up partisan acrimony and increase the level of fear and anxiety around American elections. There are better paths through American division. We should try those before we enable drastic measures like majoritarian dominance or minoritarian control.
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Civics education isn't boosting youth voting or volunteerism - 1 views

theconversation.com/-voting-or-volunteerism-156270 research education voting social media bias
shared by clairemann on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • After the insurrection, the impeachment, the trial and ongoing partisanship in 2021, many Americans are looking to civics education as a source of hope, according to George Washington University’s Center on Education Policy, which reports that “Nearly all Americans (97%) agree that public schools should be teaching civics.”
  • But my research shows that states that require civics courses do not necessarily have better test scores, more youth voting or young people volunteering at higher rates than other states. And there may be a connection to QAnon support as well.
  • Unfortunately, though, my research has found that civics education isn’t making the grade. In states that require students to take a civics course, young voters have slightly lower average voting rates – 29.9% – than states without such a requirement – 31.9%.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Washington, D.C., and 39 states – including California, Iowa and South Carolina – have a civics class requirement. These same places also have lower percentages of youth volunteer rates – 22.7%
  • But I was dismayed to find that states without such a requirement had higher rates of volunteerism among younger people – an average of 24.4% – than among those states with a community service mandate – 21.3%.
  • States with lower levels of youth volunteering, youth voting and youth civics test scores are also more likely to have QAnon sympathizers active in politics, or politicians who oppose criticism of QAnon.
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Opinion | What Are Republicans So Afraid Of? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ublican-voter-suppression.html
shared by anonymous on 28 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • What Are Republicans So Afraid Of?
  • Instead of conspiracy-mongering about an election they did well in, they could try to win real majorities.
  • There was a time, in recent memory, when the Republican Party both believed it could win a national majority and actively worked to build one.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Whether shrewd or misguided, cynical or sincere — or outright cruel and divisive — these gambits were each part of an effort to expand the Republican coalition as far as it could go without abandoning Reaganite conservatism itself.
  • It was the work of a self-assured political movement, confident that it could secure a position as the nation’s de facto governing party.
  • There is no such ambition, or confidence, in today’s Republican Party.
  • Republicans have made it their mission to restrict the vote as much as possible.
  • Conservative grass-roots and political action groups are joining the crusade, according to reporting by my newsroom colleague Jeremy Peters, galvanized into action by the former president, who blames nonexistent fraud and illegal voting for his defeat.
  • “So here’s the good news: There is action taking place to go back and correct what was uncovered in this last election.”
  • “It kind of feels like an all-hands-on-deck moment for the conservative movement, when the movement writ large realizes the sanctity of our elections is paramount and voter distrust is at an all-time high,”
  • H.R. 1’s only objective is to ensure that Democrats can never again lose another election, that they will win and maintain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate and of the state legislatures for the next century,”
  • Some of this is undoubtedly cynical, a brazen attempt to capitalize on the conspiratorial rhetoric of the former president. But some of it is sincere, a genuine belief that the Republican Party will cease to exist if it cannot secure “election integrity.”
  • If Republicans could break themselves of Trump and look at last November with clear eyes, they would see that their fears of demographic eclipse are overblown and that they can compete — even thrive — in the kinds of high-turnout elections envisioned by voting rights activists.
  • Indeed, the great irony of the Republican Party’s drive to restrict the vote in the name of Trump is that it burdens the exact voters he brought to the polls.
  • Under Trump, the Republican Party swapped some of the most likely voters — white college-educated moderates — for some of the least likely — blue-collar men.
  • In other words, by killing measures that make voting more open to everyone, Republicans might make their fears of terminal decline a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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President Trump Impeached: 4 Ways Washington Has Changed : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...achment-will-change-washington US Capitol Trump Impeachment
shared by ilanaprincilus06 on 15 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The House of Representatives approved one article of impeachment Wednesday against President Trump for "incitement of insurrection," with 10 Republicans joining all Democrats in a 232-197 vote.
  • But Washington and the country are still reeling from the images of the attack.
  • Now he has a distinction in the history books that no president wants — the first to be impeached twice.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • He also is the president who has had the most members of his own party vote for impeachment.
  • but the split among congressional Republicans about the future of the party is accelerating after the events of last week, and it's happening in real time.
  • "I think every day that goes by, there's going to be people regretting their 'no' vote as more information comes out."
  • She never spoke on the House floor and made it known she thought it was a vote of conscience, but her vote could potentially cost her spot at the leadership table.
  • Biden's allies openly worried about what starting the impeachment train moving would mean for the incoming president's ability to secure Senate confirmation for his Cabinet nominees and press for top priorities like coronavirus relief.
  • "Impeachment now is like a primal scream,"
  • The symbol for democracy used to be a frequent tourist attraction pre-pandemic for school groups learning about the country's founders and history. Now, it has a new image of what can happen when political rhetoric ignites supporters to turn on their opponents.
  • Although members praised law enforcement, and there are amazing stories of those who fought off the mob, the serious security failures have many lawmakers questioning the leadership of the force
  • Members rarely socialized with members of another party. The level of trust has really changed in the past week.
  • Some Democrats are already pledging not to work with Republicans who voted in favor of challenging the election results.
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Trump Impeached By House Over Capitol Insurrection : House Impeachment Vote: Live Updat... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...ng-insurrection-at-u-s-capitol Trump Impeachment House of Representatives
shared by ilanaprincilus06 on 14 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to impeach President Trump for "high crimes and misdemeanors" — specifically, for inciting an insurrection against the federal government at the U.S. Capitol.
  • Trump has now become the first U.S. president to be impeached twice.
  • Ten Republicans broke party ranks to vote in favor of impeachment
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The House voted 232-197 to impeach Trump
  • "Today in a bipartisan way, the House demonstrated that no one is above the law, not even the president of the United States,"
  • If the Senate votes to convict Trump — an outcome that is far from certain — he likely would be barred from holding any federal office again.
  • "President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government, threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of government
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The Voter Fraud Fantasy - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...the-voter-fraud-fantasy.html new york times social media bias
shared by sissij on 29 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Perhaps the most damaging was his insistence that millions of Americans voted illegally in the election he narrowly won.
  • What once seemed like another harebrained claim by a president with little regard for the truth must now be recognized as a real threat to American democracy.
  • That would allow state and national lawmakers to impose even tighter voting requirements, harming minorities, the young and the elderly, who tend to vote Democratic.
  • sissij on 29 Jan 17
     
    Trump's voter fraud fantasy has discussed frequently. In TOK class, I remember once we talked about an example of how the government policy may affect the result of the election. For example, the rule that people need to have an ID to vote may target African-American voters who doesn't have an ID. Although voter fraud is alleged by the election officials to be exceedingly rare, there are still a lot of factors that make the seemly fair election biased. --Sissi (1/29/2017)
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Beyond Billboards - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - 0 views

andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/...beyond-billboards.html Christianity Christmas myth sin
shared by Javier E on 12 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • The Atlantic Home todaysDate();Sunday, December 12, 2010Sunday, December 12, 2010 Go Follow the Atlantic » atlanticPrintlayoutnavigation()Politics Presented ByBack to the Gold Standard? Joshua GreenSenate Dems Lose Vote on 'Don't Ask' RepealMegan Scully & Dan FriedmanA Primary Challenge to Obama? Marc Ambinder Business Presented byif (typeof window.dartOrd == 'undefined') {window.dartOrd = ('000000000' + Math.ceil(Math.random()*1000000000).toString()).slice(-9);}jsProperties = 'TheAtlanticOnline/channel_business;pos=navlogo;sz=88x31,215x64;tile=1';document.write('');if( $(".adNavlogo").html().search("grey.gif") != -1 ){$(".adNavlogo").hide();}Will the Economy Get Jobs for Christmas?Daniel Indiviglio27 Key Facts About US ExportsDerek ThompsonThe Last StimulusDerek Thompson Culture Presented ByThe 10 Biggest Sports Stories of 2010Eleanor Barkhorn and Kevin Fallon al
  • at the force behind all that exists actually intervened in the consciousness of humankind in the form of a man so saturated in godliness that merely being near him healed people of the weight of the world's sins.
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Voter Fraud Protection or Voter Suppression? | Talking Philosophy - 0 views

blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=8204 voter fraud suppression bias
shared by Emilio Ergueta on 27 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • One essential aspect of a democracy is the right of each citizen to vote. This also includes the right to have her vote count. One aspect of protecting this right is to ensure that voter fraud does not occur.
  • This is because voter suppression can unjustly rob people of their votes.
  • However, the sincerity of a belief has no relevance to its truth. What matters are the reasons and evidence that support the belief. As such, I will look at the available evidence and endeavor to sort out the matter.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • One Republican talking point is that voter fraud is widespread. For example, on April 7, 2014 Dick Morris claimed that over 1 million people voted twice in 2012. If this was true, then it would obviously be a serious matter: widespread voter fraud could change the results of elections and rob the legitimate voters of their right to decide
  • Settling this matter requires looking at the available facts. In regards to Dick Morris’ claim (which made the rounds as a conservative talking point), the facts show that it is false.
  • Republicans have argued for voter ID laws by contending that they will prevent fraud. However, investigation of voter fraud has shown only 31 credible cases out of one billion ballots. As such, this sort of fraud does occur—but only at an incredibly low rate.
  • One rather important matter is the moral issue of whether it is more important to prevent fraud or to prevent disenfranchisement.
  • In the United States, there is a presumption of innocence on the moral grounds that it is better that a guilty person goes free than an innocent person is unjustly punished.
  • Keith Bentele and Erin E. O’Brien published a study entitled “Jim Crow 2.0? Why States Consider and Adopt Restrictive Voter Access Policies.” Based on their analysis of the data, they concluded “the Republican Party has engaged in strategic demobilization efforts in response to changing demographics, shifting electoral fortunes, and an internal rightward ideological drift among the party faithful.”
  • One of the best-known methods proposed to counter voter fraud is the voter ID law. While, as shown above, the sort of fraud that would be prevented by these laws seems to occur 31 times per 1 billion ballots, it serves to disenfranchise voters. In Texas 600,000-800,000 registered voters lack such IDs with Hispanics being 40-120% more likely to lack an ID than whites.
  • It would seem that the laws and policies allegedly aimed at voter fraud would not reduced the existing fraud (which is already miniscule) and would have the effect of suppressing voters. As such, these laws and proposals fail to protect the rights of voters and instead are a violation of that basic right. In short, they are either a misguided and failed effort to prevent fraud or a wicked and potentially successful effort to suppress minority voters. Either way, these laws and policies are a violation of a fundamental right of the American democracy.
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Most Campaign Outreach Has No Effect on Voters - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...541485 campaign election partisan outreach voters politics psychology research
shared by Javier E on 01 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • David Broockman, a Stanford University assistant professor, and Joshua Kalla, a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, analyzed data from 49 field experiments—state, local, and federal campaigns that let political scientists access their data to evaluate their methods
  • For every flyer stuck in a mailbox, every door knocked by an earnest volunteer, and every candidate message left on an answering machine, there was no measurable change in voting outcomes. Even early outreach efforts, which are somewhat more successful at persuading voters, tend to fade from memory by Election Day.
  • Broockman and Kalla also estimated that the effect of television and online ads is zero, although only a small portion of their data speaks directly to that point.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • The findings suggest that a lot of the time, energy, and money poured into traditional campaigning methods is wasted, and that the campaign operatives hawking tried-and-true tactics don’t have the evidence to back up their claims.
  • It also casts doubt on the theory of the swing voter who can be persuaded with enough flyers, ad exposure, and conversations with earnest volunteers
  • In reality, Broockman and Kalla find, direct outreach is most effective at improving voter turnout, suggesting that campaigns should focus on getting their core supporters to the polls than reaching out to a mythical middle.
  • This new study suggests that intentionally curated, issue-specific persuasion campaigns may shift people’s views more easily than partisan political campaigns.
  • Emma Green: So, is political campaigning useless?Joshua Kalla: The short answer is ‘no.
  • There are lots of things that campaigning can accomplish. Two decades of research on voter registration and hundreds of field experiments show really cost-effective ways to increase turnout in the base.But on persuasion, yes, we find that on average, there are very small effects.
  • Kalla: A lot of campaign operatives think there’s this big pool of moderate, undecided voters that we can spend money on to persuade them to our side. That strategy is probably not the right strategy. And we should be skeptical of big claims of persuasion.
  • Kalla: All the money is being poured into the same time and the same place. It’s hard to imagine that the hundredth TV ad that a person views is really worth it from a monetary perspective, versus that same money spent in a different race or a lower race. There’s a case to be made that too much money is being spent in the same ways and on the same people.
  • But the takeaway from this paper should not be that campaigns should stop. Campaigns do a lot of work that is measurable in return on getting voters to vote, and persuading voters. It’s just a question of how the money is spent.
  • Kalla: The first order of understanding an election and how people vote is partisan identity. Most people vote based on whether there’s a D or an R next to their name. Unpacking that should be more the focus than the horserace.
  • We don’t see persuasive effects in general elections where a Democrat is talking to a Republican. But in ballot-measure campaigns and primaries and the transgender work, it seems that persuasion is possible.
  • Most Americans view themselves in a partisan lens. When it comes time to vote, it’s less a function of a person running for office than a person with a party label beside his or her name.
  • Green: But what about the roughly 39 percent of Americans who identify as independents?Kalla: A lot of independents tend to be what political scientists term as “closeted partisans.” They might not explicitly identify with a party, but if you ask them which party they lean toward, they’ll often give you an answer. Their behavior tends to look a lot like the behavior of people who explicitly identify as partisans.
  • Green: Our democracy is based on this romantic idea that encounters in the public square—conversations, essays, speeches, etc.— have the power to change how people view the world. If you’re saying that’s basically not true, where does that leave us? Are we all just destined to remain isolated in the prisons of our own convictions?
  • Kalla: I want to draw a distinction with the transgender canvassing work. That was very much focusing on getting people to be introspective and think about times that they or their loved ones have been discriminated against, and how that made them feel, and how that real, lived experience informs their views on non-discrimination laws and views toward LGBT people. That’s close to an ideal of how we want democracy to function.
  • That’s not the type of discourse you see in campaigns. I don’t think TV ads or every glossy postcard is really going to lead to enlightened discourse among the American public.
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Opinion: The real key to winning this election - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html election cnn winning
shared by jmfinizio on 15 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • the ghosts seem to be turning out in large numbers to cast their ballots early.
  • The long lines are an important reminder that the 2020 election will be won or lost based on the ground game.
  • Voting restrictions (photo identification requirements, registration limits and more) that have been imposed in more than 25 states heighten the importance of obtaining as large a margin as possible.
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  • This election feels historic down to the bones.
  • This means that each party needs to make sure that every supporter has a clear voting plan if they have not already mailed-in their ballots.
  • Each party needs to do the better job selling the message that not voting is simply not an option.
  • We live in a passive, observational age where so much of our politics has turned into what we watch, hear, read, email and tweet.
  • The party that forgets to pay sufficient attention to the ground game is the one that will be rendered powerless come January 2021.
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Uganda Election: President Yoweri Museveni Declared Winner As Bobi Wine Alleges Fraud :... - 1 views

www.npr.org/...-winner-as-bobi-wine-alleges-f Uganda Fruaud Museveni Wine
shared by cvanderloo on 16 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has won a sixth term in office, fighting off a challenge by former singer Bobi Wine
  • Wine's run drew many young Ugandans to pay attention to politics.
  • Museveni received 58% of the vote to 34% for Wine
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  • Wine is alleging that votes were rigged
  • Ahead of the vote, Museveni's government shut down social media outlets in Uganda
  • Wine said that security forces were not allowing anyone in or out of his home, and he urged Ugandans to reject the results.
  • called Uganda's electoral process "fundamentally flawed," citing "authorities' denial of accreditation to election observers, violence and harassment of opposition figures" and the arrest of civil service organization workers.
  • The election has been closely watched because of Wine's appeal to younger voters — a crucial strength in a country with one of the youngest populations in the world, where more than two-thirds of the population is under age 30.
  • Wine sought to replace one of Africa's longest-tenured leaders with one of its youngest, hoping to make a generational shift that would be felt across the continent.
  • "Uganda has never witnessed a peaceful transfer of power since gaining its independence in 1962."
  • Wine himself was arrested in November, sparking large protests during which dozens of people died.
  • A recent Gallup poll found that only around a third of respondents in Uganda said they're confident in the honesty of their country's elections.
  • This week, Wine said the military had killed his driver and that his home was raided.
  • But Wine is alleging that the vote was rigged, as election officials face questions over how results were tallied amid an Internet blackout, according to the AP.
  • In an interview with NPR, Wine said security forces were not allowing anyone in or out of his home, and he urged Ugandans to reject the results.
  • Wine became a pop star with music that blends Afrobeat with sounds borrowed from reggae and dancehall.
  • He then turned toward politics, winning a seat in parliament.
  • Museveni recently told NPR that he views pro-Wine demonstrators as "agents of foreign schemes."
  • This week, as ballots were being counted and the outcome of the 2021 vote hung in the balance, there were worries about what a transition of leaders might look like in the former British colony.
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Amazon Warehouse Workers To Decide Whether To Form Company's 1st U.S. Union : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...-form-companys-first-u-s-union amazon laborunion election fair
shared by cvanderloo on 17 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Some 6,000 workers at Amazon's warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., will begin voting next month on a groundbreaking possibility: the first union in the company's U.S. history.
  • Both parties agreed that hundreds of seasonal workers should be eligible to cast ballots.
  • "The biggest thing is Amazon is one of the biggest employers in the United States, and they're heavily, heavily anti-union,"
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  • Unions are a prominent presence at Amazon in Europe, but for years, the company successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the United States.
  • "The onsite voting proposal, which is in the best interest of all parties — associate convenience, vote fidelity, and timeliness of vote count — was not accepted," Knox said. "We will continue to insist on measures for a fair election, and we want everyone to vote, so our focus is ensuring that's possible."
    • cvanderloo
      cvanderloo on 17 Jan 21
       
      Sounds similar to the US election controversy
  • The workers' union-backed website calls for changes to procedures in disciplining, dismissals and safety.
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House impeaches Trump for 'incitement of insurrection' - CNNPolitics - 2 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html trump knowledge research Impeachment
shared by aprossi on 14 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • House impeaches Trump for 'incitement of insurrection'
  • The House voted Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time in a swift and bipartisan condemnation of the President's role inciting last week's riot at the US Capitol.
  • The House voted 232 to 197 to impeach Trump
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  • Ten Republicans, including the House's No. 3 Republican, Liz Cheney of Wyoming, joined all Democrats to impeach Trump for "incitement of insurrection."
  • "We know that the President of the United States incited this insurrection, this armed rebellion against our common country,"
  • "There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution," Cheney said.
  • House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Wednesday that Trump "bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters,"
  • In the Senate, McConnell is not planning to bring the Senate back for a trial before January 19, meaning the trial won't begin until Trump is out of office and Biden has been sworn in.
  • Pence sent a letter Tuesday saying he would not seek to invoke the 25th Amendment as Democrats had urged, and Trump is not considering resigning.
  • After the House vote, Trump released a video statement calling for calm as the threat of new riots -- which Trump said he'd been briefed on by the Secret Servic
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