2016 Democratic Thread

[lostfan]

Assange has a personal vendetta against Clinton from her time as SoS, he's not even pretending to be objective.

[Jenksismyhero]

He's said he has no interest in leaking Trump stuff and that he does have some.

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/08/26/a...ny-trump-leaks/

 

? It says he has some and will release some but that none of it is good. I can buy that. Trump hasn't been in politics for decades and God know his campaign isn't organized.

[StrangeSox]

? It says he has some and will release some but that none of it is good. I can buy that. Trump hasn't been in politics for decades and God know his campaign isn't organized.

 

Yes that was a pretty good self-own on my part!

[StrangeSox]

Nate Cohn looks at the current state of the polling and previews the coming wave of high quality polls

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/upshot/h...s&smtyp=cur

 

And don't forget the massive disparity in GOTV/campaign organizing at this point. Clinton has dozens of offices in every contestable state whereas trump has hardly any nationally and zero in key states he absolutely needs to win. This election is providing a great experiment for poli sci people on the effects of GOTV efforts. Full-blown modern, expensive, extensive GOTV over essentially nothing, and we'll see if that makes a difference in the polls vs. actual results.

Edited September 7, 2016 by StrangeSox

[brett05]

Sure, but even if you want to get that simplistic (which misses an awful lot of what the court does and why, even strategically how they vote and what cases are even heard in the first place), the aggregate over the past several decades is still not a liberal court.

 

brett, why do you think the NC law should have been allowed to stand? The lower courts found a clear and explicit history of the legislature crafting the law specifically to disenfranchise minority voters.

The reason a law is made does not necessarily devalue the law itself.

Voter ID issue is basic common sense. I need an ID to do so many things, including attend a baseball game for the Wrigley Rooftops but not one to vote? There is nothing stopping anyone from voting multiple times in an election. I could go to my local precinct and cast votes all day long.

[StrangeSox]

The reason a law is made does not necessarily devalue the law itself.

 

Actually it is explicitly illegal to make laws for certain reasons, and NC's law, which was more expansive than just Voter ID, was found to be in blatant violation of those laws.

 

Voter ID issue is basic common sense. I need an ID to do so many things, including attend a baseball game for the Wrigley Rooftops but not one to vote? There is nothing stopping anyone from voting multiple times in an election. I could go to my local precinct and cast votes all day long.

 

Voting is a fundamental right whereas Wrigley Rooftops are not.

 

There are mechanisms in place stopping someone from voting multiple times, and you could not go to your local precinct and cast votes all day. In-person voter fraud is essentially non-existent, and whenever various states have been pressed in court to provide examples, they admit that they can't. There are other forms of voting fraud that are easier and that voter ID does nothing to address.

[CrimsonWeltall]

The reason a law is made does not necessarily devalue the law itself.

 

The law's value was to suppress the black vote.

 

The fact that you think it's only about photo ID tells me you haven't read much about this law.

[brett05]

Actually it is explicitly illegal to make laws for certain reasons, and NC's law, which was more expansive than just Voter ID, was found to be in blatant violation of those laws.

 

By your statement all laws are illegal as all laws are made for certain reasons.

 

Voting is a fundamental right whereas Wrigley Rooftops are not.

 

There are mechanisms in place stopping someone from voting multiple times, and you could not go to your local precinct and cast votes all day. In-person voter fraud is essentially non-existent, and whenever various states have been pressed in court to provide examples, they admit that they can't. There are other forms of voting fraud that are easier and that voter ID does nothing to address.

Voting is a right for some, not all and that is what the voter ID system does.

Not only could I vote all day, but I could cast votes for women and the deceased. There is no way for the judges to know as they verify absolutely NOTHING outside of a name for the correct precinct.

[CrimsonWeltall]

By your statement all laws are illegal as all laws are made for certain reasons.

 

....lol

[brett05]

The law's value was to suppress the black vote.

 

The fact that you think it's only about photo ID tells me you haven't read much about this law.

Perhaps I have misread it months ago. I'm open to that. Can you provide an unbiased link to the bill for me to review?

[StrangeSox]

By your statement all laws are illegal as all laws are made for certain reasons.

 

Uh, no. There are certain reasons that it is not okay for a legislature to use to make a law. That doesn't mean that there are no reasons that are okay.

 

Specifically disenfranchising protected classes is one of those certain reasons that are really not okay to use when crafting a law.

 

Voting is a right for some, not all and that is what the voter ID system does.

 

Uh, really, no. Voting is a right for all except those that have had it explicitly revoked (convicted felons). Voter ID is ostensibly a way to stop in-person voter fraud, not decide who or who doesn't have the right to vote, although in-person fraud is non-existent.

 

Not only could I vote all day, but I could cast votes for women and the deceased. There is no way for the judges to know as they verify absolutely NOTHING outside of a name for the correct precinct.

 

I'll let you puzzle out why this scheme of yours wouldn't actually work and why it doesn't ever actually happen in reality.

[StrangeSox]

Perhaps I have misread it months ago. I'm open to that. Can you provide an unbiased link to the bill for me to review?

 

Read the lower court's decision. The bill doesn't explicitly state "no black people can vote," but the legislative history as reviewed by the court found that to be abundantly clear. Here's a short preview:

 

After years of preclearance and expansion of voting access,

by 2013 African American registration and turnout rates had

finally reached near-parity with white registration and turnout

rates. African Americans were poised to act as a major

electoral force. But, on the day after the Supreme Court issued

Shelby County v. Holder, 133 S. Ct. 2612 (2013), eliminating

preclearance obligations, a leader of the party that newly

dominated the legislature (and the party that rarely enjoyed

African American support) announced an intention to enact what

he characterized as an “omnibus” election law. Before enacting

that law, the legislature requested data on the use, by race, of

a number of voting practices. Upon receipt of the race data,

the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting

and registration in five different ways, all of which

disproportionately affected African Americans.

11

In response to claims that intentional racial

discrimination animated its action, the State offered only

meager justifications. Although the new provisions target

African Americans with almost surgical precision, they

constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying

them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist.

Thus the asserted justifications cannot and do not conceal the

State’s true motivation. “In essence,” as in League of United

Latin American Citizens v. Perry (LULAC), 548 U.S. 399, 440

(2006), “the State took away [minority voters’] opportunity

because [they] were about to exercise it.” As in LULAC, “[t]his

bears the mark of intentional discrimination.”

 

Incidentally, Shelby County is one of the worst Supreme Court decisions ever written and really undermines the claim that the Roberts court is liberal.

Edited September 7, 2016 by StrangeSox

[bmags]

Perhaps I have misread it months ago. I'm open to that. Can you provide an unbiased link to the bill for me to review?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cou...65bc_story.html

 

It was not just voter id, they also cut down early voting to prevent the Pews to the Polls where black churches would all go vote together on sunday.

 

 

[CrimsonWeltall]

Perhaps I have misread it months ago. I'm open to that. Can you provide an unbiased link to the bill for me to review?

 

Just reading the bill isn't sufficient. You have to know the background and intent of it. The NC legislators literally researched race-based statistics on voting practices and then started banning all the ones used disproportionately by black people, with no real justification.

 

Their research found that one voting practice was used more often by white people: mail-in voting. This is also the form of voting MOST prone to fraud. The law left it untouched.

 

http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/...mp;BillID=hb589

[StrangeSox]

Just reading the bill isn't sufficient. You have to know the background and intent of it. The NC legislators literally researched race-based statistics on voting practices and then started banning all the ones used disproportionately by black people, with no real justification.

 

Their research found that one voting practice was used more often by white people: mail-in voting. This is also the form of voting MOST prone to fraud. The law left it untouched.

 

http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/...mp;BillID=hb589

 

This is the history of the entire "Voter ID" movement. Laws that are ostensibly about protecting electoral integrity but ultimately serve to disenfranchise people likely to vote for the other party to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist while ignoring the same potential fraud issues when its more likely to impact their own voters.

[bmags]

It's going to be really nice having Russ Feingold back.

[brett05]

Read the lower court's decision. The bill doesn't explicitly state "no black people can vote," but the legislative history as reviewed by the court found that to be abundantly clear. Here's a short preview:

 

 

 

Incidentally, Shelby County is one of the worst Supreme Court decisions ever written and really undermines the claim that the Roberts court is liberal.

I'm sorry, where is the part that is actually law? Perhaps I missed it.

[brett05]

would this be the summary?

 

http://nc-democracy.org/downloads/NewVotin...maryAug2013.pdf

[Quin]

Both the Houston Chronicle and Dallas Morning News endorsed Hillary.

 

When was the last time those two endorsed a democrat?

[StrangeSox]

That's the court ruling. Read it if you want to understand what was wrong with the law.

[brett05]

That's the court ruling. Read it if you want to understand what was wrong with the law.

I read the PDF as well as the left leaning Washington Post article. It's pretty bold to accuse this of being a race driven event IMO.

[StrangeSox]

I read the PDF as well as the left leaning Washington Post article. It's pretty bold to accuse this of being a race driven event IMO.

 

 

As “evidence of justifications” for the changes to early voting, the State offered purported inconsistencies in voting hours across counties, including the fact that only some counties had decided to offer Sunday voting. Id. The State then elaborated on its justification, explaining that “[c]ounties with Sunday voting in 2014 were disproportionately black” and “disproportionately Democratic.” J.A. 22348-49. In response, SL 2013-381 did away with one of the two days of Sunday voting.

 

See N.C. State Conf., 2016 WL 1650774, at *15. Thus, in what comes as close to a smoking gun as we are likely to see in modern times, the State’s very justification for a challenged statute hinges explicitly on race -- specifically its concern that African Americans, who had overwhelmingly voted for Democrats, had too much access to the franchise.6

 

It's not particularly bold when they were so obvious about it, as the court observed.Read the court ruling in full, if you haven't yet.

Edited September 7, 2016 by StrangeSox

[CrimsonWeltall]

I read the PDF as well as the left leaning Washington Post article. It's pretty bold to accuse this of being a race driven event IMO.

 

Why is it bold? The legislators did research to determine which races use which voting practices and then wrote the law.

 

You can't seriously think it's coincidental that they managed to hit all the practices commonly used by black voters, or that they wrote this law immediately after the VRA's anti-racial discrimination sections got neutered.

[lostfan]

The reason a law is made does not necessarily devalue the law itself.

Voter ID issue is basic common sense. I need an ID to do so many things, including attend a baseball game for the Wrigley Rooftops but not one to vote? There is nothing stopping anyone from voting multiple times in an election. I could go to my local precinct and cast votes all day long.

Try it. Watch what happens. Let us know how it turns out.

[lostfan]

Literally the best possible defense of what NC did is "they didn't do it to suppress black voters, they did it to suppress Democrats" which, if you are actually going to roll with that, holy s*** you're a hack.