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Post by cbcjanney on Apr 8, 2021 15:57:49 GMT -6
The real issue is that getting ID is something a number of people do not do. Don't need to do for other reasons, even if it is desirable.
Reasons not to do it include not understanding the process, lack of transportation, working hours conflict, difficulty getting child care. Lack of money and time are not trivial problems.
I agree these are not insurmountable, but if the problem here is so severe, lets make it easier, so everyone can more easily do it.
When it's hard to get ID, that is a barrier to voting. At least for some people.
are we comfortable with the segment of population who "don't understand the process of obtaining an ID" deciding who the elected officials at all levels will be? Seems to many of us that living in a democracy is kind of a privilege - that you shouldn't mind being asked to extend or sacrifice just a tad to be able to participate in such important decisions. Why dumb everything down so that the least informed or those living out of the mainstream can influence the outcome IF the product of those dumbing-down policies allow fraud potential to increase, thereby nullifying the votes of many. (unless one is confident that the segment above will always vote the way one party wants or doesn't want them to vote) |
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Post by 00hmh on Apr 8, 2021 16:05:23 GMT -6
We are not comfortable.
Or comfortable with many who don't understand the process, but happen to have ID, or time and money.
Be careful about competency tests for voting, generally. Easy to be like Jim Crow.
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Post by Lurkin McGurkin on Apr 9, 2021 6:54:43 GMT -6
Nobody is asking for competency tests, so don't be ridiculous.
Although I'd be onboard with property owners getting an extra vote.
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Post by 00hmh on Apr 9, 2021 9:00:59 GMT -6
Nobody is asking for competency tests, so don't be ridiculous. Yeah, not exactly. I understand.
But, cbj was expressing a genuine concern, which I share, that if you can't figure out how to vote it is OK to bar you from voting, maybe.
It's not a completely horrible insight in some ways. The argument for literacy tests in the past was similar. Surely if you cannot read the instructions on the ballot it's a problem to have you voting?
But the history is that such tests for voting have been badly abused.
Besides, the barriers to understanding the process of getting ID are not trivial. They require enough computer literacy to navigate the BMV site, and IN.gov site. I remember doing this when trying to help a voter get an ID two years ago, figure out what documents were needed, and it was then hard enough, I was derailed for a while.
My point is there are plenty of people who would fail this test but don't need to take it because they happen to have an ID already.
This is not the only barrier to getting ID though. And given the existence of difficulty, for whatever reason, I am advocating we make it easier to get the ID by helping people with trouble, and enacting other ways to make voting secure but easy.
If that is expensive, I assume advocates of ID would say it is worth it since they believe fraud is a big problem.
The "solutions" we are seeing put the costs on the people least able to afford it too often. Assuming it is a problem. And, I am not convinced we have much proof of a problem with voter fraud anyway.
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Post by Lurkin McGurkin on Apr 9, 2021 9:30:40 GMT -6
Yeah, we get it. You don't want voter ID required. For completely noble reasons. Not that it makes it easier for Democrats to "assist" the uneducated with mail in ballots, or the myriad of other ways they game the election process.
We should completely trust you, right? And every other Democrat.
But then, according to Biden, "No amendment to the Constitution is absolute." If that's not the most frightening comment by a sitting president I've ever heard... Can you imagine how much media coverage that line would get if Trump said that?
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Post by 00hmh on Apr 9, 2021 10:42:33 GMT -6
Yeah, we get it. You don't want voter ID required. For completely noble reasons. Not that it makes it easier for Democrats to "assist" the uneducated with mail in ballots, or the myriad of other ways they game the election process. Mostly I want people to have help getting ID if they need.
If ID is required for mail in voting, I see no harm at all in someone helping get that done, or in delivering ballots to the drop box as is done now.
Both sides help people to the polls now. Both sides take calls from their voters on how to fill out ballots and both sides visit voters or otherwise contact them to answer questions and help. Use of copies of ID and helping voters get copies as needed seems like a logical extension of existing practice.
You are absolutely right that you cannot completely eliminate all gaming of election process. However, several states have extensive mail in voting including Florida and other states where it was instituted by a heavily GOP legislature. VERY little problem has surfaced with it.
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Post by 00hmh on Apr 9, 2021 10:53:36 GMT -6
Yeah, we get it. You don't want voter ID required. For completely noble reasons. Not that it makes it easier for Democrats to "assist" the uneducated with mail in ballots, or the myriad of other ways they game the election process. We should completely trust you, right? And every other Democrat. If you are going to worry about false ID and distrust Democrats, perhaps we should just trust the GOP? Maybe put Gaetz and Greenberg in charge. They seem to have expertise in the area. And both certainly are loyal to and have the full trust of Mr Trump who after all is very concerned about fraud.
And if something else goes "wrong" with the results just put the partisan GOP legislature in charge of any problems like Ga has.
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Post by bleadingcardwhite on Apr 9, 2021 20:13:11 GMT -6
Yeah, we get it. You don't want voter ID required. For completely noble reasons. Not that it makes it easier for Democrats to "assist" the uneducated with mail in ballots, or the myriad of other ways they game the election process. Mostly I want people to have help getting ID if they need.
If ID is required for mail in voting, I see no harm at all in someone helping get that done, or in delivering ballots to the drop box as is done now.
Both sides help people to the polls now. Both sides take calls from their voters on how to fill out ballots and both sides visit voters or otherwise contact them to answer questions and help. Use of copies of ID and helping voters get copies as needed seems like a logical extension of existing practice.
You are absolutely right that you cannot completely eliminate all gaming of election process. However, several states have extensive mail in voting including Florida and other states where it was instituted by a heavily GOP legislature. VERY little problem has surfaced with it.
Ballot harvesting by itself is the absolute purest way of cheating the system and you are encouraging it’s useage... |
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Post by 00hmh on Apr 9, 2021 20:43:30 GMT -6
Providing transportation to drop boxes is not ballot harvesting.
Some states allow regulated agents to deliver the ballots. Often used by those unable to get to the poll. Or for those a long distance from the polls or a mailbox. It should be regulated.
A good alternative would be to provide mobile voting places. Let the box go to the ballot. Or extend deadlines for some such cases as done for overseas ballots.
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Post by 00hmh on Apr 15, 2021 10:59:11 GMT -6
Two drawbacks.
1. Very high casualties.
2. Spawning a variant that is the most infectious to date, and where the vaccines are only about 50% effective.
It takes a relatively long time for herd immunity and involves giving a living virus access to enough people it will certainly evolve variants.
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Post by bsutrack on Apr 19, 2021 19:56:51 GMT -6
An article analyzing the impact of lockdown on Covid deaths in lockdown states vs. those that did not. www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/if-lockdowns-are-needed-why-did-more-people-die-states-locked-down-those-didntFrom the article: "states which did not lock down over the winter, far from having many times more Covid deaths, have actually had fewer – 1,671 vs 1,736 deaths per million. There may be demographic or other reasons that some states have a higher or lower number of deaths than others so we shouldn’t read too much into the precise differences. But even so, if lockdowns are supposed to suppress the virus to low levels and thus prevent ‘hundreds of thousands’ of deaths (or the population equivalent), then how is this possible? The only conclusion is that lockdowns do not work as intended and do not suppress the virus." Fire away, attack the data used or the methodology. The source of the data used is cited. Other that killing a lot of businesses and getting a change in the presidency, the lockdowns didn't do squat. |
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Post by 00hmh on Apr 19, 2021 20:23:15 GMT -6
No state did well. This was a national plague that needed better national response.
The March 2020 lock downs, not universal and uniform, failed in some ways. Much of that due to poorly mitigating afterwards. Some due to inability to isolate population by state borders It did flatten the curve. Gained some time and gained us information.
In NYC had we not locked down, hospitals would have been overrun with many more deaths resulting. That they did as well as they did as well as some states with no lockdown (no rate of infection as high) is a success story not a failure.
Later more recent lockdowns have also occured to stop outbreaks at a critical point. They have saved health care systems.
In states where the peaks did not reach critical stage, that was perhaps not needed. But had the states with hospital capacity threatened done nothing many more deaths would have occured.
At least in those cases the correlation reflects causation the other way. Severe outbreak leads to lock down which holds deaths to the same level as states lucky enough to be able to mitigate infection without lockdown and not need it as badly.
The lockdowns worked. Imperfectly to be sure.
The early lockdown is less clear because of subsequent actions and because they were a failed attempt to stop the disease, one impossible without better national mitigation, a failure that occured in large part because ground gained by lock down was pissed away by failure to mask and social distance.
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Post by 00hmh on Apr 20, 2021 7:10:25 GMT -6
As long as people insist on "freedom" to endanger others, and badly misunderstand the science, we are going to have trouble.
We have in a year came from many believing the virus was the flu, but still don't understand masking and social distance.
Unfortunately we are now seeing consequence of anti-vax advocacy. Which will mean masks needed much longer...
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Post by rmcalhoun on Apr 20, 2021 8:07:59 GMT -6
The Stamina you guys have shown in this circle jerk is amazing. Related note my son is quarantined from school for 10 days after a class mate tested posotive
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Post by 00hmh on Apr 20, 2021 8:47:56 GMT -6
The Stamina you guys have shown in this circle jerk is amazing. Related note my son is quarantined from school for 10 days after a class mate tested posotive These stupid variants are making past practices less effective. I'm surprised a mask mandate and social distance did not work but this especially among teens is what has slammed Michigan. Sadly some of the kids are now ending up in the hospital, too. Should put pressure on developing vaccines safe for kids.
World wide I am pessimistic we can stop the virus from being so widespread that the mass number of incubators mean we are going to see more variants, and some will no doubt be worse. The lucky result will be that a relatively benign variant becomes dominant.
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