Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Reelya]

For anyone who's not seen the classic comic "This Modern World" here's the latest relevant strips:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Aqizzar]

As proprietor, all I have to say is ehhh.

Goddamn, how many primaries do I have to catch up on?  I've been busy lately folks.

[RedKing]

So, in a turn of events that comes as a surprise to absolutely no one, Rick Santorum wins the Louisiana primary.

The final tally is:

Rick Santorum - 91,305 (49%)
Mitt Romney - 49,749 (27%)
Newt Gingrich - 29,655 (16%)
Ron Paul - 11,460 (6%)

Santorum won every single parish (this is Louisiana, where they don't have counties...the whole place is mostly a holdover from 18th-century France) with the exception of Orleans parish (New Orleans). This winds up being a minor win for Romney, because he keeps Santorum from turning the race into a clean sweep and nabbing all the delegates.

No more races for the next 10 days so expect things to get a bit herpaderp, both in here and on the national stage as well. That's enough time for Santorum to make up the deficits he faces in Wisconsin if he pushes hard and Team Romney continues to make "Etch-A-Sketch" type gaffes.

[mainiac]

I would be very surprised if team Romney screws up like "Etch-A-Sketch" again between now and Wisconsin.

Shame that Santorum couldn't have knocked another couple points of Romney's tally.

[mainiac]

Republican vote suppression efforts in Florida appear to be a success.  Registrations are down by 80k from 2008 as many voter registration groups have abandoned the state.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/us/restrictions-on-voter-registration-in-florida-have-groups-opting-out.html?hp

Democracy!

[Sirus]

Perhaps I'm not seeing through the legalise, but what's wrong with requiring groups to turn in paperwork quickly? And why are so many groups not operating in protest?

[Nadaka]

Perhaps I'm not seeing through the legalise, but what's wrong with requiring groups to turn in paperwork quickly? And why are so many groups not operating in protest?

Because it is quick enough that a lot of groups can't make that deadline. Leaving scores of people thinking they are registered, when they really are not. Because they think they are registered but are not, they will be denied their vote when they arrive unknowingly at the polling station.

[Aqizzar]

It's not so much that they're not operating in protest, it's that they can't afford to operate under the "two days or a penalty fine" rule.  It's hard to process voter registration applications that fast, especially if they want to make sure they get every right the first time, so they don't get turned into the next ACORN because a few wacky names get lost in the mix.


Meanwhile, a legal battle over some election process in Maine three years ago has "confidential" memos in the National Organization for Marriage", wherein they specifically describe trying to gin up conflicts between Black, Hispanic, and Gay "groups" to crack up the Democratic party's typical voter base.  In other words, very much like the campaigns seen in California's "Prop 8" election a couple years ago, where a gay-marriage referendum was brought down by record turnout of religious blacks, thanks to "voter drive" actions funded by traditionally Republican groups from out of state.

[Karlito]

The article sort of mentions this, but the voter fraud these regulations are ostensibly supposed to prevent never actually existed in the first place, so they basically just make it harder for people to register to vote with nothing good gained in return.

[Sirus]

Perhaps I'm not seeing through the legalise, but what's wrong with requiring groups to turn in paperwork quickly? And why are so many groups not operating in protest?

Because it is quick enough that a lot of groups can't make that deadline. Leaving scores of people thinking they are registered, when they really are not. Because they think they are registered but are not, they will be denied their vote when they arrive unknowingly at the polling station.

So, the solution is to not let them register at all? How does that help?

[Aqizzar]

Perhaps I'm not seeing through the legalise, but what's wrong with requiring groups to turn in paperwork quickly? And why are so many groups not operating in protest?

Because it is quick enough that a lot of groups can't make that deadline. Leaving scores of people thinking they are registered, when they really are not. Because they think they are registered but are not, they will be denied their vote when they arrive unknowingly at the polling station.

So, the solution is to not let them register at all? How does that help?

You're missing the point.  It's not about blocking people from registering to vote, you can always do that, it's about making it harder for private organizations that already operate on a shoestring budget (i.e. the Women's League of Voters and such) to hold public registration drives.  If they can't afford to operate in Florida, what do you expect them to do?

[Sirus]

Perhaps I'm not seeing through the legalise, but what's wrong with requiring groups to turn in paperwork quickly? And why are so many groups not operating in protest?

Because it is quick enough that a lot of groups can't make that deadline. Leaving scores of people thinking they are registered, when they really are not. Because they think they are registered but are not, they will be denied their vote when they arrive unknowingly at the polling station.

So, the solution is to not let them register at all? How does that help?

You're missing the point.  It's not about blocking people from registering to vote, you can always do that, it's about making it harder for organizations that already operate on a shoestring budget (i.e. the Women's League of Voters and such) to hold registration drives.  If they can't afford to operate in Florida, what do you expect them to do?

Ask for donations? Tell the groups they're reaching out to that the groups are being fined for trying to help people? Hell, get the ACLU to help out, I don't care. Point is, giving up without a fight doesn't solve anything, and limits the number of voters far more than getting people registered and then risking a fine.

[Aqizzar]

Well, they're probably doing that right now but the point is that going into the 2012 election cycle, it's become financially and legally prohibitive for groups that were already very-much-non-profit to operate as normal.  They can fight about it all they want, and I'm sure they are, but in the here and now they can't afford to do anything.

[Sirus]

All I'm saying is that I fail to see how refusing to operate, even if only for a few hours, is "fighting it".

In case there were any misunderstandings, I don't approve of what Florida is doing here, but I don't think Women's League of Voters etc is doing enough to change it, especially if they're choosing zero new voters over any new voters.

[Frumple]

... did you read the article Siri? Folks are taking it to the court. Folks are raising awareness on the issue. Some are still trying to get new voters in, yes, but some can't afford to get over the new hurdles. This isn't a refusal for those ones, it is an incapable. There's a difference. They're fighting in other ways, but that particular avenue is blocked to them.