I'm not minimizing anything.
People love to gloss over real racism in the electorate, and pretend like the big bad boogeyman of Cambridge Analytica tricked people's parents into voting racist. That's just not what happened.
Those people were enjoying Fox News for 20 years before Cambridge Analytica. Trump won because of extreme voter suppression, clear and simple.
The attitudes of those Trump voters didn't change before or after the election.
The number of Black people that were legally eligible to vote in 2016, but that were illegally prevented from voting, was larger than the entire margin of victory for Trump. But we don't like to talk about that. 🤷🏿♂️
People who know that their family members are racist for a long time, pretend that they only started being racist after Cambridge Analytica. That's a lie.
Trump gave people who were racist inside the house permission to be racist outside of the house too.
@mekkaokereke @oscarjiminy @carnage4life Please do talk more about the details of the voter suppression, if and when you're so inclined and have the opportunity.
I have a broad sense of the techniques (ID requirements, date/time/location restrictions, register purges, mail-in restrictions) but not a good sense of the numbers involved.
@georgeeyong @oscarjiminy @carnage4life
I'll give just 2 examples.
1) Black voters in Milwaukee were targeted with racist voter ID laws.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/voter-suppression-wisconsin-election-2016/
This caused a 20 point electoral swing to Trump.
2) 17 million voters purged from rolls between 2016 and 2018. Disproportionately Black, in places where Black voters have been intentionally disenfranchised.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/purges-growing-threat-right-vote
The purging was 4 million voters more effective than during Obama's election. 4 *million*. Not a typo
@georgeeyong @oscarjiminy @carnage4life
The reason that people like Rachel Bitecofer, me, and most Black folk, are so often right about who's going to win a US election, and people like Nate Silver are so often wrong, is that Nate looks at the stats and polls, which tell you how people *intend* to vote, while we look at turnout/suppression, which tells you how people *are able* to vote.
Voter turnout is all about suppression. And suppression is all about racism. 🤷🏿♂️
@MHowell @q_aurelius @mekkaokereke @georgeeyong @oscarjiminy @carnage4life it should be free period to get an ID needed to vote. Anything less is an indirect poll tax. Not sure what the free option is but I imagine it has some hoops to jump through needlessly.
Really we need better ways to secure an election instead of IDs. The lack of national standards is incredibly disappointing
@clayrosenthal @MHowell @mekkaokereke @georgeeyong @oscarjiminy @carnage4life
It is indeed as dire as we fear.
They have in fact instituted a way to get a free ID in order to deflect this issue.
Great! you might say. And you would be wrong.
It's illegal to have two forms of state ID. You can't have both a state ID and a driver's license.
And in order to get a state ID, you have to voluntarily surrender any extant driver's license. In a state with little to no public transportation.
@clayrosenthal @MHowell @mekkaokereke @georgeeyong @oscarjiminy @carnage4life
So let's say my wallet is stolen in February and I don't have $50 for a new driver's license, so come November, I go to the BMV (we'll ignore that they've closed a lot of them) and I get my free or low cost state ID.
Now I've surrendered my license to drive. If I drive home, I'm driving without a license and am subject to arrest and vehicle impound.
@clayrosenthal @MHowell @mekkaokereke @georgeeyong @oscarjiminy @carnage4life
And when I come up with the money for a new driver's license, now it costs more because I'm not a licensed driver, I need to take the test again.
So what's a low-income working class POC going to do? Keep driving legally. Keep going to work. And just not vote. Because the alternative is unemployment or jail.
By design. So, please, fuck your "not as dire as you fear."
@MHowell @q_aurelius @clayrosenthal @georgeeyong @oscarjiminy @carnage4life
You are not (intentionally) defending it. But like I said in my other post, the voter suppression laws and regulations are designed to make uninformed white voters think "🤔 Huh... that doesn't sound so bad?" and then after the election when millions of Black voters are robbed of their right to vote, to say "🤔 Huh... What an unfortunate unintended consequence! No one could have known that it would be that bad!"
@MHowell @clayrosenthal @mekkaokereke @georgeeyong @oscarjiminy @carnage4life
"It's not actually that bad" is dismissing the problem.
I didn't say you were defending it. You are, however, minimizing it. And that sucks.
It sucks for everyone that you're more interested in minimizing the injustice than addressing it.
And it sucks for you that that's where your priorities are.
I didn't misread. Continue to fuck off.
@MHowell @q_aurelius @clayrosenthal @mekkaokereke @georgeeyong @oscarjiminy @carnage4life
you are the one who said "not as dire as you fear."
Any post-misreading here was committed by the Useful Idiot who saw the words 'Free Option' and then didn't ask any more questions about it.
The people who study voter suppression and know exactly what "free" costs in this context? They know *precisely* how dire this is.
Stop doubling-down on your own ignorance, take a WHOLE PARK BENCH, and sit down.
@q_aurelius @MHowell @mekkaokereke @georgeeyong @oscarjiminy @carnage4life
Damn that’s messed up as hell that getting one ID invalidates the other. And that they’d only offer the state ID free and not a drivers license. These are the types of hoops I feared but was uninformed of, thanks for the info. You shouldn’t have to choose between employment (and therefore survival) and voting, but America loves to keep the working class down
@clayrosenthal @q_aurelius @MHowell @mekkaokereke @georgeeyong @oscarjiminy @carnage4life
There should be a federal level law protecting voting rights.
I know people will say “it’s a union of states so it has to be done at state level.”
My answer to that is simply
“No”.
If you think about it, that’s just an argument for racism. Only laws of physics are unbreakable, everything else’s we made up. I could even argue how it IS a Federal level law but then I’d be entering a Sealion argument. You cannot rationally argue an irrational argument, you are a fool of you try.
People make laws. You the people need to get it done.
@q_aurelius @clayrosenthal @MHowell @mekkaokereke @georgeeyong @oscarjiminy @carnage4life
In Florida a replacement license is $25 and can be done online.
Also if you're driving, you're paying car insurance, gas, maintenance, tolls potentially. $25 *should* not be that much of a stretch. Especially if the person has to use the car to get to work.
I do see how $25 can be a barrier for some.
@elan @clayrosenthal @MHowell @mekkaokereke @georgeeyong @oscarjiminy @carnage4life
Yeah, that's not how poor people live, Elan.
People who say "I'm going to skip dinner so I have $5 for gas to get to work" do not have a spare $25.
Maintenance is getting your BIL to help you put used tires on.
The absolute audacity of "$25 should not be that much of a stretch" suggests you've never been to the food bank.
@queenofnewyork @q_aurelius @clayrosenthal @carnage4life @georgeeyong @mekkaokereke @oscarjiminy @MHowell
Indeed, voter fraud is rare and all in favor of Republicans.
🤔
Has there ever been proven, intentional voter fraud in favor of liberal candidates?
The major security issues that we've seen are from Republicans, e.g. destroying ballots, preventing ballots from being mailed, and deleting entire server data during an investigation. THAT is what needs to be fixed, not on the voter side of things.
That's unfortunate. I missed that news bit, what happened there?
@Onlineadviser
@birdpoof
Signature petition abuse is a very different thing, often involving independent companies and employee incentives to collect as many signatures as possible. If you're paid per signature, you might not worry about explaining what is being signed or about checking if the person is legit.
The question still stands: Do liberals get charged with voter fraud? It must happen, but every time I hear reports, it's about Republicans.
I'm lucky my state is very pro-voter, even more so since we have a blue trifecta now, but the bit about a federal-level registration is really neat. 🤔
@queenofnewyork @q_aurelius @clayrosenthal @carnage4life @georgeeyong @mekkaokereke @oscarjiminy @MHowell
@clayrosenthal
the most reasonable system I'm aware of is the way my country does it:
You can vote with either your Gov't Issues ID Card, your Driver's License or your Passport.
Getting an ID card is not only free, but is in fact something all citizens over 16 are required to have. There are multiple ways to make the process easier, for example, your entire highschool class can get IDs together.
(1/)
@MHowell @q_aurelius @mekkaokereke @georgeeyong @oscarjiminy @carnage4life
@clayrosenthal
and while you are legally required to renew your ID from time to time (for free), you don't have to bring an up-to-date ID card to vote. in fact, in the last election I got to see someone using an ID card from the 1950's, which while it is not valid for most legal processes, is entirely valid to vote with.
that way you both have maximum access and no one can claim fraud.
(2/2)
@MHowell @q_aurelius @mekkaokereke @georgeeyong @oscarjiminy @carnage4life
mekka okereke 
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T.C. Harris
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The Animal and the Machine
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birdpoof
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Talya (she/her) 🏳️⚧️✡️