Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa

[Manoli]

So you think Black Americans are ignorant [...]  Do you realize how insulting and racist your opinion of black people is? 

Jeremy said nothing of the sort. They're your words and I daresay your opinion.
If you have a modicum of self-respect, you'll apologise.

I'm not holding my breath

[Manoli]

I read the law in Georgia.  IT seemed very consistent with this and moderate in their rules. 

IN JANUARY, Alice O’Lenick, the Republican chair of the Gwinnett County elections board, warned that she would not let the legislature “end this session without changing some of these laws…They’ve got to change the major parts of them so that we at least have a shot at winning.” She got her wish on March 25th, when Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Republican governor, enacted an overhaul of the state’s voting rules.

Civil-rights groups have sued Georgia, alleging that the bill makes voting harder, especially for non-white voters, thus violating both the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA).

Under the Election Integrity Act of 2021, voters must now present identification when requesting absentee ballots. They have less time to request and return mail-in ballots. Drop-boxes introduced in 2020 remain, but with shorter hours and only one per 100,000 voters. All counties must offer early voting, but none may permit voting outside 7am-7pm, and all can choose more limited hours of 9am-5pm. A new cap on early-voting days may leave voters in the more populous, Democratic-leaning counties of metro Atlanta with longer wait times.

The new law replaces the elected secretary of state as the chief election authority with a nominee of the legislature, and expands the state’s power to take over county election boards.

Congressional Democrats will soon introduce the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (named for a civil-rights icon who died last year), which updates the pre-clearance formula and requires “reasonable public notice” for changes to election law. Most congressional Republicans voted for the VRA in 2006. Most will probably oppose the new version.

The Supreme Court is already considering another VRA lawsuit: Brnovich v Democratic National Committee, which asks whether two rules in Arizona fall foul of Section Two. The conservative justices do not seem keen to strike down state laws just because they disproportionately harm minority voters. Michael Carvin, arguing against the Democrats, was uncommonly frank in explaining to Justice Amy Coney Barrett why the GOP is defending the restrictive laws. Eliminating suppressive rules “puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats,” he said. “It’s the difference between winning an election 50-49 and losing an election 51-50.”

[Alan Klein]

Jeremy said nothing of the sort. They're your words and I daresay your opinion.
If you have a modicum of self-respect, you'll apologise.

I'm not holding my breath

But that's what Jeremy is implying when he says black people don't have the ability or intelligence to obtain ID's so they can vote just like white people.  He's the one who owes the apology. To them.  If Jeremy believes otherwise, then he can defend himself.

Now, I take a different view.,  I believe not only do black people know how to get ID's, but they too want the vote to be honest and not allow their votes to be watered down by those who would use gaps in the rules to stuff ballot boxes for candidates who would not have won the election but for election fraud. 

[Alan Klein]

If the Democrats cheat in Georgia as they cheat here in New Jersey where I live, I could see why they want the rules tightened to prevent election fraud. 

[jeremyrh]

But that's what Jeremy is implying when he says black people don't have the ability or intelligence to obtain ID's so they can vote just like white people. 

I said no such thing. Stop telling lies.

[Alan Klein]

I said no such thing. Stop telling lies.

Why do you feel they're incapable of getting ID's?

[jeremyrh]

Why do you feel they're incapable of getting ID's?

Sorry - we're  not going further until you apologise for lying.

[Alan Klein]

Sorry - we're  not going further until you apologise for lying.

I'm not lying.  That's what you implied. That they're incapable of getting an ID so they can vote.  If you didn't mean that, then what did you mean?

[jeremyrh]

I'm not lying.  That's what you implied. That they're incapable of getting an ID so they can vote.  If you didn't mean that, then what did you mean?

Your lie is highlighted in my post above.

[James Clark]

Why do you feel they're incapable of getting ID's?

It's not that "black people" can't/won't/don't know how to get IDs.

It's that there are systemic barriers like

*access to DMVs
*higher proportions of shift workers that can't go during state business hours
*hourly workers on the edge of poverty that can't take half a day off to go to the DMV
*documentation requirements etc.

that disproportionately impact black people (and other minorities) because they are overrepresented in economically disadvantaged communities.

I will give you this... I believe in many cases Republicans that are advancing these stupidly restrictive voting laws aren't doing so in order to harm "black people" per se.  Rather, they're doing it simply to suppress *Democratic* voters - it's just that a large proportion of the people that they are trying to disenfranchise happen to be non-white.   "Oops," I guess? 

Now did I REALLY need to explain that to you?

If you need more explanation, this WaPo article from 2016 gets right down to it.

Longtime Republican consultant Carter Wrenn, a fixture in North Carolina politics, said the GOP’s voter fraud argument is nothing more than an excuse.

“Of course it’s political. Why else would you do it?” he said, explaining that Republicans, like any political party, want to protect their majority. While GOP lawmakers might have passed the law to suppress some voters, Wrenn said, that does not mean it was racist.

“Look, if African Americans voted overwhelmingly Republican, they would have kept early voting right where it was,” Wrenn said. “It wasn’t about discriminating against African Americans. They just ended up in the middle of it because they vote Democrat.”

[Alan Klein]

It's not that "black people" can't/won't/don't know how to get IDs.

It's that there are systemic barriers like

*access to DMVs
*higher proportions of shift workers that can't go during state business hours
*hourly workers on the edge of poverty that can't take half a day off to go to the DMV
*documentation requirements etc.

that disproportionately impact black people (and other minorities) because they are overrepresented in economically disadvantaged communities.

I will give you this... I believe in many cases Republicans that are advancing these stupidly restrictive voting laws aren't doing so in order to harm "black people" per se.  Rather, they're doing it simply to suppress *Democratic* voters - it's just that a large proportion of the people that they are trying to disenfranchise happen to be non-white.   "Oops," I guess? 

Now did I REALLY need to explain that to you?

If you need more explanation, this WaPo article from 2016 gets right down to it.
 

Vote by mail.  That's what I do.  In any case, you only have to register once in your life.  Then vote by mail.  I couldn't;t wait to register when I was 18 and could vote as a citizen.  If you don't care enough to register, as millions of Americans don't bother too, then maybe they shouldn't vote.  It appears then they don't care enough about their citizenship.  But most people have IDs and can now vote by mail.  Simple.

But to leave unused ballots floating around so crooked politicians can use them to mark up to their favor and vote for themselves as others have done here in NJ, is just not right.  We have to have some way of preventing election fraud. 

[Manoli]

I'm not lying.  That's what you implied. That they're incapable of getting an ID so they can vote.  If you didn't mean that, then what did you mean?

That is NOT what he wrote or said.
It may well be what you INFERRED, but you are no position to blatantly misquote Jeremy and then compound your buffoonery by asinine attempts to disguise what are, in all probability, your own jaundiced views.

You need to get a grip on the elementary use of English.

[James Clark]

Vote by mail.  That's what I do. In any case, you only have to register once in your life.  Then vote by mail.  I couldn't;t wait to register when I was 18 and could vote as a citizen.  If you don't care enough to register, as millions of Americans don't bother too, then maybe they shouldn't vote.  It appears then they don't care enough about their citizenship.  But most people have IDs and can now vote by mail.  Simple.

But to leave unused ballots floating around so crooked politicians can use them to mark up to their favor and vote for themselves as others have done here in NJ, is just not right.  We have to have some way of preventing election fraud.

You understand that Republicans are hard at work trying to kill vote by mail too, right?

Anyway, is your contention that someone who earns 350 bucks a week should drop 5 hours of work so that Republicans can pretend to address a problem where the "solution" kills far more votes than it saves?   Hell, I've never even see any evidence that "illegal" votes don't cancel each other out.   Certainly you don't want to claim that only Democrats would try to cast fraudulent votes, do you? 

[Chris Kern]

I will give you this... I believe in many cases Republicans that are advancing these stupidly restrictive voting laws aren't doing so in order to harm "black people" per se.  Rather, they're doing it simply to suppress *Democratic* voters - it's just that a large proportion of the people that they are trying to disenfranchise happen to be non-white.

Precisely.  The Georgia statute is a common-sense requirement that is designed to prevent an outbreak of voting in the 2022 election cycle similar to the pandemic that resulted in two members of the Democratic Party being elected to the U.S. Senate by Georgia voters in the 2020 election.  That's why the new law was enacted by a broad majority of the state legislature consisting only of Republican members, and signed into law by the Republican governor.  You just can't be too careful when the health of a party majority is threatened.

[Alan Klein]

Precisely.  The Georgia statute is a common-sense requirement that is designed to prevent an outbreak of voting in the 2022 election cycle similar to the pandemic that resulted in two members of the Democratic Party being elected to the U.S. Senate by Georgia voters in the 2020 election.  That's why the new law was enacted by a broad majority of the state legislature consisting only of Republican members, and signed into law by the Republican governor.  You just can't be too careful when the health of a party majority is threatened.

Did you complain when Democrats ignored Republicans and pushed through a lopsided all Democratic votes for the $1.9T bill and will do it again for the $2T bill?   Is it proper that Biden is going to only nominate liberal justices for Federal courts to judge liberally in future cases?  How about the new Democrat-sponsored voting rights bill?  Will it express Republican concerns or only Democratic concerns?  You only see politics at work when Republicans are doing it. 

[Alan Klein]

That is NOT what he wrote or said.
It may well be what you INFERRED, but you are no position to blatantly misquote Jeremy and then compound your buffoonery by asinine attempts to disguise what are, in all probability, your own jaundiced views.

You need to get a grip on the elementary use of English.

Why do you people on your side assume Republicans are racists and trying to disenfranchise voters when they propose voting rules and regulations to make voting less corrupted?  Have you considered your views are prejudiced? Or are you just practicing buffoonery because of your jaundiced views of Republicans?

[Alan Klein]

You understand that Republicans are hard at work trying to kill vote by mail too, right?

Anyway, is your contention that someone who earns 350 bucks a week should drop 5 hours of work so that Republicans can pretend to address a problem where the "solution" kills far more votes than it saves?   Hell, I've never even see any evidence that "illegal" votes don't cancel each other out.   Certainly you don't want to claim that only Democrats would try to cast fraudulent votes, do you? 

There are more dead Democrats voting.  If you could guarantee that the same number of dead Republicans will vote, then I'll go along with your ideas. 

[jeremyrh]

Why do you people on your side assume Republicans are racists and trying to disenfranchise voters when they propose voting rules and regulations to make voting less corrupted?  Have you considered your views are prejudiced? Or are you just practicing buffoonery because of your jaundiced views of Republicans?

You need to own your words and apologise for lying. Then people might have more respect for you and take account of what you say.

[Alan Klein]

You need to own your words and apologise for lying. Then people might have more respect for you and take account of what you say.

Stop accusing Republicans of being racists for wanting to secure voting from fraud.   Maybe you'll get more respect if you stop playing the race card.

[jeremyrh]

Stop accusing Republicans of being racists for wanting to secure voting from fraud.   Maybe you'll get more respect if you stop playing the race card.

Fine. Have it your way. I'm disappointed. I thought you were better than that.