It's 2023, and there's a US election in 2024 that will determine the future of climate change, war in Ukraine, the global economy, reproductive rights, and global fascism.
And folks still want to talk about Cambridge Analytica in 2015, instead of stuff like this:
The reason you can't make any progress on:
* Climate change
* Reproductive rights
* Trans rights
Is because too many Black folk are denied the right to vote. Focus on that instead of your pet issue.
I'm a climate doomer, because I know that no progress on the climate can happen unless Black voting rights in the US get sorted. And we aren't even paying attention to the Black voting problem, let alone close to solving it.
There is no path to making meaningful progress on climate change that doesn't go through Black people in the US getting to vote. None. The fact that we still can't accept this, is why I'm not optimistic about our chances to do anything meaningful about the climate.
@mekkaokereke Do you see any hope in this?
“The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is launching a super PAC to mobilize Black voters ahead of 2024 in an effort to give the House a Democratic majority and, in the process, elect the nation’s first Black Speaker of the House.”
The Rolling Sea Action Fund
The Congressional Black Caucus is launching a super PAC to mobilize Black voters ahead of 2024 in an effort to give the House a Democratic majority and, in the process, elect the nation’s first Black Speaker of the House. The Rolling Sea Action Fund will raise money as well as invest in different advertising and…
@mickeleh Absolutely not. I think campaigns like this are less than helpful. They turn Black voters off. Especially Black men.
My threads on here are all about racist voter suppression. But the media conversation is always around "getting out the vote" or "mobilising Black voters?" The solution is to yell at the victims to try harder?
The word "suppression" didn't appear in this article even once.
No one is more motivated than Black voters. They don't need to be mobilized. They need help.
Black people wait in line for 8 hours to vote, and take another day off work to register. GOP changes things to make it 9 hours, and requires 3 days off work. The Dem response to this is... to ask Black voters to suck it up because "democracy needs you!" and take the 3 days and 9 hour voting line?
And if Black voters don't take that 3 days off work and wait in line to vote for 9 hours, in sufficient numbers to win for the Dems, then we are blamed for losing the election?
@mekkaokereke @mickeleh Washington switched to mail-in ballots only before I turned 18. I've only ever voted by mail-in ballot.
My ignorance: I didn't realize Washington and Oregon (two of the whitest states) were the only two states that do this until the whole fracas about mail in ballots in 2020.
I still haven't gotten over realizing people have to wait multiple hours in line to vote. It's barbaric and backwards.
I fill out a form on my kitchen table weeks before the election. Takes 5 min
@sidereal @mekkaokereke @mickeleh
Washington state native, here. I was voting before we moved to all mail-in. It was annoying but not difficult. Because, yeah, privilege.
The day they allowed no-excuse permanent absentee ballots I signed up, and never looked back. I hated going to churches to vote - and yeah, I ended up going to a lot of churches to vote.
It's important to note that Washington still allows people to vote in person, if they prefer.
I wish every state did it our way.
@gorskon @realtegan @sidereal @mekkaokereke @mickeleh
I lived in Michigan for nearly all my voting life until we moved to Oregon a few years ago. Mail-in / drop-off voting is the only civilized way.
In Oregon, I get a text & email when the ballot is coming. The ballot arrives on my doorstep. I read the info packet and vote at my leisure in the kitchen. We drop the ballots off, we get email & text that it's been received.
At no point in that process do I stand in a line, not like I did back in Michigan. Everyone should get to do it this way
@alexandrasweetie @mickeleh @gorskon @realtegan @sidereal @mekkaokereke
A saving grace here is that we can drop off at libraries, so it’s not all usps
@stormyfemme @mickeleh @lmorchard @gorskon @sidereal @mekkaokereke
When I was very young, I would sometimes tag along with my mom to polling places. There were lines then. By the time I was an adult, the lines weren't nearly as bad in the places I voted, although I stood in line a few times... churches always had a bake sale on election day for their forced audience.
I really wish we had better election standards across the nation. Nobody should have to wait so long to vote.
@lmorchard @gorskon @realtegan @sidereal @mekkaokereke @mickeleh
Mail-in voting is great! It is, however, possible to set up in-person voting in a way that never requires anyone to stand in a line, though. I’ve never stood in a line since my immigration to Canada, also from Michigan (and I’ve voted at both busy and non-busy times). It’s plenty civilised here. The US just chooses not to set it up like that.
@IPEdmonton @mekkaokereke @mickeleh
We do, in some places. I have never had to stand in a significant line when voting in person in my small Massachusetts city. The places where it is chronic seem to be minority urban neighborhoods in places with hostile state governments. It's hard not to think that it is intentional vote suppression.
@mattmcirvin @mekkaokereke @mickeleh
Note that I’m not just talking about there not being “a significant line” at a Canadian polling place—I’m talking about ANY line. Here you walk in, get your ballot, vote, and leave. That NEVER happened before I left the US. The whole system is just resourced differently.
@mickeleh @mattmcirvin @mekkaokereke
Please read the other things I've said in this thread. I KNOW THIS. I'm specifically NOT referring to "hours-long queues" being the standard in the US. But people voting shouldn't have to stand in the kinds of non-hours-long queues that I had to stand in before I left the US (voting in non-Republican-dominated districts decades ago) either. THAT is my point.
@mickeleh @mattmcirvin @mekkaokereke
The issue with deliberate voter suppression is absolutely a thing in certain parts of the US, but that is NOT what I'm referring to here. I'm talking about how the whole system of voting is resourced and set up across the whole country. It's different from what I've become accustomed to here, and it's NOT just about voter suppression of specific groups. It's ALSO about not valuing making voting easy for EVERYONE.
@mickeleh @mattmcirvin @mekkaokereke
And, in case my original point has gotten lost in all the side conversations: mail-in voting, while GREAT, is NOT the only civilized way to solve this problem.
@jonathanpeterson @mattmcirvin @mekkaokereke @mickeleh
If you read the other things I said in this thread, you know I disagree with that statement rather vehemently, and you know that it's based on having personal experience voting both in the US and in Canada. You can choose not to believe me, but if you haven't had the experience of voting in a country other than the US, I don't see why you would.
@IPEdmonton @mattmcirvin @mekkaokereke @mickeleh I'm not excusing it. My wife and I have spent an evening shuttling water and food to folks stuck in line for hours trying to vote in southwest Atlanta.
But I think you'll find voting for someone like Donald Trump is voting is a quite a simple process. Though hardly necessary, they can just have their Senator give them a ring to check in when they want something.
Lines are for the poors and the browns, but not the experience of all.
@jonathanpeterson @mattmcirvin @mekkaokereke @mickeleh
Again, that’s the opposite of what I’m saying here—that there are ALWAYS lines in the US, even in areas that aren’t being systemically disenfranchised. And if you don’t have the experience of voting in another country, I don’t know why you’d be able to disagree with my point.
And I'm telling YOU that I PERSONALLY experienced lines in all the different US jurisdictions I voted in before I left the US. And every other American I've discussed this with, including in this very thread, has agreed that there is always SOME line in US polling places, it's just that the lines are shorter in places that aren't being systematically disenfranchised. (In Canada that is not the case.)
As for what Canada has to do with this, it's because you're responding in a side thread, initiated by me, that was specifically about how there are lines in the US (even in places that "poor and brown") and there are not lines in Canada (even in places that are). If you don't intend to be participating in that conversation, then we should both stop trying to talk to each other right now, because we're clearly talking past each other.
What I'm disagreeing with, in case it's not yet clear, is your comment that the US has made voting easy and accessible and pleasant for people who don't live in poor and minority parts of the country. I think you'd be stunned at how different it is to vote in other countries, even as compared with those NON-poor-and-minority areas in the US. (I sure was, when I started voting here.)
@IPEdmonton This wasn't a conversation triggered by a post about the most optimally easy voting process imaginable but on the hugely onerous hurdles to voting that the GOP has been putting in front of young people, people getting a college education, poor people, & people of color - all democratic demographic strengths in all the states where they have the power to do so.
Perfect world pedantics to hijack discussions of US racism and progressive policies are WAY too common. Be better.
Seconding this. I'm in England, I've mostly voted in person, and the longest I ever remember having to wait was probably a couple of minutes. Most times it's not even that; usually the place isn't busy. Just occasionally I've happened to arrive when there were a couple of people in front of me, already at the desk.
Solidly red states tended to pass restrictive voting laws and solidly blue states tended to pass expansive voting laws. But in swing states, where the presidential race or the balance of power in Congress could be won, the attempts to expand or restrict the vote could matter greatly.
@dragonfrog @lmorchard @gorskon @realtegan @sidereal @mekkaokereke @mickeleh
Back in the 1990s before I left the US, I always stood in line at LEAST twenty minutes in crowded, unpleasant polling places to vote, and usually more. And those were NOT the places where they were deliberately trying to suppress Black people's vote.
@lmorchard @gorskon @realtegan @sidereal @mekkaokereke @mickeleh
Oregon's Voter's Pamphlet is a glorious thing!
mekka okereke 
Michael Markman
sidereal
Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag ⛈ 🐸
David Gorski, MD, PhD
Les Orchard
Alexandra
Michael Wyman
Sam Levine
Susan
Stormy!
Zardoz
Idealistic Pragmatist 
Matt McIrvin
jonathanpeterson
Jennifer Moore 😷
Emily
dragonfrog
Vincarsi
unicorndeburgh