The Freedom to Vote Act, introduced this morning, reveals a surprisingly good voting rights bill. It reflects a sobriety and understanding of the challenges facing voters that is worthy of its lofty name. It is not just a reformulation of the prior For the People Act, but in many places, it is an improvement.
Much of the new bill is familiar to those concerned about voting rights in our country. The new bill establishes minimum requirements for how states conduct federal elections. It expands voter registration, requires a minimum number of days and hours for early voting and creates a nationwide right to vote by mail.
With respect to voting by mail specifically, the bill rolls back many of the Republicans’ latest disenfranchisement schemes. For example, the bill forbids states from requiring notarization or witnesses to vote by mail. It also requires states to count ballots cast by Election Day if they are received up to seven days after the election. It provides for a free postage system for returned ballots, requires states to notify voters whose ballots are rejected due to a signature omission or mismatch and creates an easy way for voters to cure those ballots.
What makes this new bill exceptional, however, is its attention to several small, but important details that have been raised in the last few months. For example, it requires states to count provisional ballots cast by eligible voters in the wrong precinct but in the correct county. It also imposes a 30-minute limit on wait times for in-person voting. And, in a nod to a significant court victory in Florida, it requires polling locations on college campuses.
Volkonski wrote: ↑Wed Oct 20, 2021 5:17 pm
Time to end the filibuster.
The filibuster is an entirely undemocratic procedure and should be scrapped forthwith. I realize that, someday, the R's will again control the Senate and the D's will long for the use of the filibuster, but it's simply wrong.
It they can't scrap it altogether, return to the days of Jimmy Steward in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. Make the Senator stand in the well of the Senate chamber and speak continuously. No other Senate business should be allowed to be conducted while a filibuster is going on, and Senators must be compelled, by force, if necessary, to attend and sit in their seats.
Personally, I think that it is unconstitutional and always has been. I realize that the Constitution says that the House and Senate can make their own rules, but I don't think that the founders intended that the Senate could create a rule that, IMHO, contravenes the clear intent of the Constitution that bills pass each house, except where there are specific exceptions, such as vetoes, by a simple majority.
This nonsense that a single Senator, who need not even identify him/herself publicly, can simply lodge an objection to a bill and all action on it ceases, needs to stop. But, other Senate business continues, uninterrupted.
For that matter, I am a bit of a radical with regard to the Senate. It is, by definition, an undemocratic institution. A single Wyoming resident has as much clout in the Senate as something like 70,000 California voters. The Senate was created as a compromise between those founders who felt that each state should have equal representation and those who felt that representation should be proportional to the population. I would like to see the Senate abolished completely. Filibuster question solved.
I realize that this is never going to happen.
The UK and Canada have gotten along just fine with an essentially unicameral legislature. I have never heard any sane person argue that the UK or Canada are any less democratic than the US. Yes, I know that the UK has the House of Lords, but the Lords assent is not required for a bill to become law. They can not block an action taken in the House of Commons.
It's a nice, strongly worded memo, worth a quick read of the one-pager.
‘Tone down the rhetoric’: Florida elections officials tell politicians to chill out
The memo comes after months of conspiracy theories surrounding 2020 votes.
Florida’s elections supervisors have a message for elected officials: “Tone down the rhetoric.”
In a plea to officials at “all levels of government,” the group representing the state’s Republican and Democratic county elections officials are asking them to denounce “false claims” surrounding last year’s election.
“During and after the 2020 Presidential Election, the integrity of our democracy has been challenged by misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation that sows discord and undermines trust in America’s electoral process,” the memo states. “Many of us have been threatened by our fellow citizens who have been led astray by these deceptions.
“Instead of standing idly by, we ask all candidates and elected officials to tone down the rhetoric and stand up for our democracy.”
The memo was considered extraordinary for the Florida Supervisors of Elections, the organization representing the officials overseeing elections in the state’s 67 counties. Despite Florida’s turbulent history with elections, supervisors have largely stayed out of the limelight, even while Florida legislators were passing a contentious voting reform bill this year.
Nobody involved in getting folks elected or running for office or in office should be allowed ANYTHING at all to do with setting district boundaries.
Best left to thirteen 7 year olds, given a map and told how many districts need to be drawn. They make their drawings and the 13 are combined to make the maps.
p0rtia wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 10:40 pmI blame Schumer.
I blame....the lack of morals in this country right now. Chuck is a schmuck, but he's dwarfed in lack of integrity by mcconnell (most humans are, though).
Real voter reform. Take all those shitty repugnifuck voting laws and throw them in the garbage: enforce the Voting Act of 1964 like laws still mean something.
Start arresting and jailing mutts that interfere with voting. And no country club prison, jam 'em in Joliette with the rest of society's scum. Make breaking the law have actual consequences.
John Thomas8 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 10:38 pm
Nobody involved in getting folks elected or running for office or in office should be allowed ANYTHING at all to do with setting district boundaries.
Best left to thirteen 7 year olds, given a map and told how many districts need to be drawn. They make their drawings and the 13 are combined to make the maps.
John Thomas8 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 10:38 pm
Nobody involved in getting folks elected or running for office or in office should be allowed ANYTHING at all to do with setting district boundaries.
Best left to thirteen 7 year olds, given a map and told how many districts need to be drawn. They make their drawings and the 13 are combined to make the maps.
John Thomas8 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 10:38 pmNobody involved in getting folks elected or running for office or in office should be allowed ANYTHING at all to do with setting district boundaries.
Best left to thirteen 7 year olds, given a map and told how many districts need to be drawn. They make their drawings and the 13 are combined to make the maps.
