Voting Rights Act
President Biden is promoting a Voting Rights Act nationwide, superseding all existing state and local voting processes. He claims that the current situation is Jim Crow 2.0, and anyone who does not support the bill is on the side of white racists. This is not merely inaccurate; it camouflages an attempt to achieve nationwide one-party authoritarian rule for the foreseeable future.
Destroy the Audit Trail
The significant provisions of this bill work in tandem to destroy the audit trail for individual votes. First, everyone must be sent an unsolicited ballot through the mail to the last known address. 9.8% o the US population, or nearly 33 million people, move every year. Two-thirds of them are adults, old enough to vote. That is 22 million votes, more than the cumulative margins of every presidential election in this century, dating from 2000 to today. Since it is typically two years between congressional elections, and four years between Presidential elections, it is impossible to consider that no ballots will go to wrong addresses.
In fact, the 2018 congressional elections were so badly skewed in Broward County, Florida, that the oldest person on the planet lives there and has voted in person in every election during his life. The next 30 or so oldest people on earth live in the same county. The election board supervisor, Brenda Snipes, has been mired in election scandals for years, and multiple witnesses have come forward to swear that she opens mailed-in ballots while alone and reports the count, contrary to Florida law.
Voting Rights Act
President Biden is promoting a Voting Rights Act nationwide, superseding all existing state and local voting processes. He claims that the current situation is Jim Crow 2.0, and anyone who does not support the bill is on the side of white racists. This is not merely inaccurate; it camouflages an attempt to achieve nationwide one-party authoritarian rule for the foreseeable future.
The significant provisions of this bill work in tandem to destroy the audit trail for individual votes. First, everyone must be sent an unsolicited ballot through the mail to the last known address. 9.8% o the US population, or nearly 33 million people, move every year. Two-thirds of them are adults, old enough to vote. That is 22 million votes, more than the cumulative margins of every presidential election in this century, dating from 2000 to today. Since it is typically two years between congressional elections, and four years between Presidential elections, it is impossible to consider that no ballots will go to wrong addresses.
In fact, the 2018 congressional elections were so badly skewed in Broward County, Florida, that the oldest person on the planet lives there and has voted in person in every election during his life. The next 30 or so oldest people on earth live in the same county. The election board supervisor, Brenda Snipes, has been mired in election scandals for years, and multiple witnesses have come forward to swear that she opens mailed-in ballots while alone and reports the count, contrary to Florida law.
A McDonald’s in Southern California was reported to have received nearly two dozen mail-out ballots in 2018, and a playground across the street received at least twice as many that same year. That year, Orange County flipped decidedly blue for two years, with all of the Orange County congressional districts turning red in 2020, even as Joe Biden reported a record win.
Third, the act requires national legalization of ballot harvesting. This is the practice of individuals collecting multiple ballots, ostensibly completed by the voter, and delivering them to the polls, or to an unobserved ballot collection box. The most promising hunting grounds for ballots to gather are long-term-care facilities, where the residents are not as sharp as, say, our current Vice President. They are always appreciative of help; some are blind and cannot see what candidate they’ve chosen.
In Pennsylvania, there are about 80,000 nursing home residents. Rehab centers account for another unknown number as do assisted-living facilities. In most swing states, there were more than enough unexamined ballots to overturn the reported results.
Fourth, signature matches are disallowed under the “reform.” This has nothing to do with racism, it is simply anti-democratic. And somehow that is supposed to make sense. To whom is an unasked question.
It overturns the states’ constitutional right to run their own elections as provided for in Section One, Article 4, of the U.S. Constitution.
Fifth, it disallows partisan gerrymandering. That is a settled issue, decided by the Supreme Court. Gerrymandering for the purpose of infringing on a protected group’s right to vote is illegal. Gerrymandering for partisan purposes is acceptable.
A McDonald’s in Southern California was reported to have received nearly two dozen mail-out ballots in 2018, and a playground across the street received at least twice as many that same year. That year, Orange County flipped decidedly blue for two years, with all of the Orange County congressional districts turning red in 2020, even as Joe Biden reported a record win.
Third, the act requires national legalization of ballot harvesting. This is the practice of individuals collecting multiple ballots, ostensibly completed by the voter, and delivering them to the polls, or to an unobserved ballot collection box. The most promising hunting grounds for ballots to gather are long-term-care facilities, where the residents are not as sharp as, say, our current Vice President. They are always appreciative of help; some are blind and cannot see what candidate they’ve chosen.
In Pennsylvania, there are about 80,000 nursing home residents. Rehab centers account for another unknown number as do assisted-living facilities. In most swing states, there were more than enough unexamined ballots to overturn the reported results.
Fourth, signature matches are disallowed under the “reform.” This has nothing to do with racism, it is simply anti-democratic. And somehow that is supposed to make sense. To whom is an unasked question.
It overturns the states’ constitutional right to run their own elections as provided for in Section One, Article 4, of the U.S. Constitution.
Fifth, it disallows partisan gerrymandering. That is a settled issue, decided by the Supreme Court. Gerrymandering for the purpose of infringing on a protected group’s right to vote is illegal. Gerrymandering for partisan purposes is acceptable.”
The official title of the Bill is “For the People Act.” Screw the people act might be more accurate.
I have to admit it; there are some provisions in this cat that are as bad as those in the 2002 act that more or less enshrined digital voting as the default system. (Although HAVA-2002 passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, [House 357-48; Senate 92-2]- a Congress full of technically ignorant people who wanted to show how "with it" they were by endorsing Teh Digital, and anyway no one wants to be seen voting against the disabled!)
I would have preferred an actual negotiation between the two parties on this bill. Taking the most important provisions, and debating the merits of each one, instead of producing some omnibus behemoth. After all, both major parties do get voted for. (Even if I don't like either of them very much.)
Simply viewing the issue pragmatically- of a Presidential administration seeking to obtain either a positive result, or an opportunity to expose the bad faith arguments of the opposition- it's senseless to insist on bill that purports to uphold voting rights on a "all or none, take it or leave it" partisan basis.
But that what we've gotten: a full-court press by one party that doesn't even have the votes to pass the legislation, assisted by news media outlets that are simply pushing a narrative that the only conceivable reason for anyone to vote against the bill is Racism.
Aww, not that again.
I don't get it. As if the Democrats are going to pass this bill by shaming Republicans into voting for it, for fear of being labeled Racist. If their goal is passing a voting rights bill, that's evidently the sum total of their strategy. But it's likelier that the Democrats having concluded (once again) that Losing Is Winning, and that this loss will work to the benefit of the Democratic Party, because its failure will equate to Antiracist Martyrdom. Which is equivalent to saying that the result that really matters for the Democratic Party leadership is the moral elevation of the supporters, in the eyes of each other.
Never mind that there isn't any specific provision in the bill that can be said to directly address overtly discriminatory provisions. It's all about the tacit inference that the only way to properly enfranchise black Americans is to make the entire process effortless- so effortless that even black people can do it. I'm not getting how this is Antiracist. (fwiw, the statistics do not show a particularly inordinate disadvantage as far as black voter participation. I doubt that the problem is anything that a competent political party couldn't remedy with a track record of substantive achievements on behalf of ordinary working people.)
The corollary to the Convenience Provisions is a lessening of Accountability. And this is where the advocates of the 2022 voting bill resemble the supporters of the 2002 voting bill: they're Trusting. While dispensing with realistic safeguards to ensure the Verifying. (The argument- there's only one- for universal mail voting, vote harvesting, etc. is basically the same as the argument for the sweeping surveillance provisions of USA-PATRIOT: "the feared disaster has never happened yet.")
So just as the 2002 Congress and president signed off on a bill that all too often made voting into an unaccountable "black box", in the parlance, so advocates of the the current bill appear oblivious to the reality that the bill, were it to pass, potentially adds even more ways for provenance to be undermined.
Provenance. It isn't too much to ask. But the advocates are all about the Trust. As if their naivete might not potentially backfire on them. But- as was the case in 2002- the supporters are too inflated with self-importance to consider that possibility.
The bill seems an attempt to legitimize various ways of cheating. Because of that it then reduces the notion of an honest vote allowing folk like the Russians to prove democratic ideals are bad. If passed each party would then create a cheat force and we would lose all trust in elections. The money party (now mostly Democrats) would dominate the cheaters, maybe. Cheating teams might cost less than TV ads, so we might benefit.
I'm not a big admirer of mail out ballots in that I think you should put effort into your vote. You should make the effort to go to the polls with your neighbors. It's bad enough that people vote without a real clue about the candidates - vote for the nice looking guy with a goof TV voice. Or vote for the guy that promises you something from the public's pocket. Arrgh!