Democracy Spring/Awakening

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

What's "universal suffrage"?

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

Universal suffrage is giving voting priviledge to illegals, felons, serial murderers in prison, pre-teens, anyone who shows up and wants to vote.

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

Euphemistically worded, universal suffrage is the recipe for voter fraud by getting illegals, dead people, and uninformed people to the polls to vote for Democrats.

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

[ET]

Guess I'll throw in on this one. Just "thinking out load", but based on some of the arguments present, before the concept of "early voting" came along, can we infer that it was "voter suppression" for some 200 years or so to only allow people to vote on Election Day? If we were to return to that rather novel concept (with the inclusion of absentee ballots), would it be considered "voter suppression"? I would like to investigate the history of early voting. I'd guess that it was advocated as a means to get more voter participation. I would really like to see the "DATA" from before and after. I'd also guess that it really had no substantial effect on voter participation. And what do you know, I should have just Googled the question before typing it: . Or .

How much cost should communities be willing to absord in return for how large of a participation increase?

If early voting does not lead to an increase in turnout and/or turnout largely remains unchanged, how can elimination or reductions in it be called "voter suppression"? Just because a bunch of lefties say so? Takes more "DATA" and "FACTS" to make that argument.

[ET]

[ET]

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

[KeithE]

[Tim Bonney]

Keith, I'm the current webmaster for three websites that I've designed and a couple other that I administer for different organizations. Their site isn't much of a website.

The only group I recognize from the list are Moveon.org. Many of them are tiny little groups that have signed up. I think their claim of numbers of organizations is swaying you more than it should.

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

[Tim Bonney]

By the way, no form of voter ID is required in Iowa to vote. Iowans aren't afraid that poor people or people of color might vote. I could even register to vote at the polls if I wasn't already registered.

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

[Dave Roberts]

[Dave Roberts]

[Sandy]

No ID required in Pennsylvania either, though there have been some attempts by tea party extremists to attach it to bills in the legislature. The state supreme court took up one of the cases and basically said that the standard practices of verification of identity used to register voters is enough, and if their name is on the voter registration roll, they sign the blank and that's enough.

If the Republicans still want to sniff around for voter fraud, I'm sure there are plenty of places to look not too far from Donald Trump. They have a primary nomination process that is intricately and deliberately designed to thwart the will of the voters, and Trump has figured out how to make it work to his advantage. There are probably plenty of messes in the register and vote today caucus states. And it's interesting that while, on the one hand, you have conservatives who are attempting to make it difficult for some constituencies to vote, you have Trump supporters taking advantage of all of the easy voting advantages. It seems, given the arguments and the whine, that conservatives are not particularly happy with this basic, core American constitutional principle known as the right to vote.