......Change the rules, the districts, and the electoral vote count

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/19/republicans-want-to-change-laws-on-electoral-college-votes-after-presidential/

What makes it so blatantly disgusting is that the head of the RNC is leading/endorsing he effort. Right now it's the main battleground states: MI, VA, FL, OH, NC, and WI that are hot to do it because of complete GOP control.

VA has been even more underhanded by taking an extra step of building an extreme, agressive re-districting plan outside of the normal cycle to arrange a guaranteed GOP coup 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/va-politics/va-republicans-move-on-redistricting-draws-criticism/2013/01/22/f7645ee8-64b9-11e2-9e1b-07db1d2ccd5b_story.html

This was done intentionally when a normally tied senate was missing an attendee to the inauguration - passing 20-19, if it had been a tie the Lt Governor was not inclined to break the tie for the plan so the secret plan was created 2 weeks ago and passed without public debate nor public input - disgusting again!

Now on BDC, the conservatives and alleged moderate cried loudly about secrets, backdoor deals, etc regarding legislation they hated. Will they agree with the cheating going on or look the other way?

This also doesn't include efforts to change voter id laws - despite the facts that there have been no major outbreak of cases of fraud except for GOP violators so far. We know they thought the efforts in OH were OK so we know they don't mind changing the rules in midstream.

 

Oh, you mean likeif the governor is a republican, take away his power to appoint interim congressmen, and when he's a dem, give it back?  Something like that?

In response to GreginMeffa's comment:

BOOM, the morons who think one side is crooked and the other is not are completely clueless on the political reality; or even that one side is more crooked or one side is looking out for the people more.

The reality is Washington is so established in unethical selfish behavior, and desire for power and money that even when new blood goes in with pure intentions they either conform to the establishments culture or they are minimized or ruined!

In response to tvoter's comment:

Who thinks that?

I think the real trouble lies with people, who not always but tend here to be of one political persuasion, that respond to posts about "X person / X party did ABC that is wrong" with "oh yeah? Well YOUR guy did THIS".

As if two wrongs make a right, or at least, the fact of a prior wrong somewhere in spacetime on one's own side immunizes the bad guy on the other side from comment.

(Or, as if the fact of a prior wrong somewhere in spacetime on one's own side means that before one criticizes something on the other side, one is obligated by magic internets rules to post a list of all bad like things on one's own side).

 

 

 

I think we all know what I'm talking about, even if flat denials come out in response.

"The democrats are the party of no ideas and the republicans are the party of bad ideas.  The republican says, "I've got a really bad idea", and the democrat says, "and I can make it shttier", and the only thing worse than that is when these pr1cks work together" - Lewis Black

In response to WhatDoYouWantNow's comment:

I almost completely agree! The only thing I see different is that people chose "sides" when the political parties we have know are both so corrupt and disingenuous that it's more like one. People have different ideologies and each politician with an (R) after his name spews what his base wants to hear and each politician with a (D) after his name does the same for his base. While in reality they are just part of the establishment bent on building their own power and influence on the backs of the actual people.

The facts are pretty clear...

If not for re-districting (it's not ALL blatant enough to be "gerrymandering") at the state house-level, the republicans might have lost their minority in the house.  Of course, we'll never know for sure.  And as it was, they lost the popular vote by millions.

Some could interpret such results as indicating the GOP lost the battle of ideas...and no amount of kvetching about the media, the "47%", or various other right-wing shibboleths can really dispute that.

 

In response to MattyScornD's comment:

You could look at that way or it could have been something as simple as it was a Democrat incumbant POTUS and more dems turned out to vote but, even with that Repubs were able to maintain control of the house.

 

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In response to tvoter's comment:

The two notions are not mutually exclusive.  More dems turning out in dem-leaning districts may have affected the overall count without denting the closely held districts.

I realize the dems do this, too, but the urban-rural divide kind of does it for them.  They also don't have nearly the clout in the state houses to match the repubs.

And yet, I didn't even mention the concerted efforts at the state-level to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters.

If one takes the rightward pundits at their word, those spurned voters would have likely broke toward POTUS and the dems by a wide margin.  But again, we'll never know.

 

In response to MattyScornD's comment:

Who is "they"?

Hundred of thousands disenfranchised? Any proof of that?

 

In response to tvoter's comment:

"they" = state-level dems

Part of the proof is the turnout; part is the long lines which undoubtably turned some people away; part are the business owners who threatened their workers and told them how to vote; and yes, part is the concerted efforts to prevent people from voting.  Voter ID laws also overwhelmingly affect minorities; this is indisputable.

The dems clearly had the registration/turnout edge.  If the repubs had spent more time recruiting for their cause instead of vilifying certain communities en masse, they might have won.

I'll also add that both sides do a really good job of demonstrating to some people how worthless their votes really are; it might be the only thing both sides do well. 

 

In response to MattyScornD's comment:

Haven't heard much about efforts to pass these since the election.....

In response to MattyScornD's comment:

"they" = state-level dems

Part of the proof is the turnout; part is the long lines which undoubtably turned some people away; part are the business owners who threatened their workers and told them how to vote; and yes, part is the concerted efforts to prevent people from voting.  Voter ID laws also overwhelmingly affect minorities; this is indisputable.

The dems clearly had the registration/turnout edge.  If the repubs had spent more time recruiting for their cause instead of vilifying certain communities en masse, they might have won.

I'll also add that both sides do a really good job of demonstrating to some people how worthless their votes really are; it might be the only thing both sides do well.  

[/QUOTE]


Long lines is not disenfranchising! geez!

If ,you dont care enough to wait in line; (I waited about 2 hours) then it's not the lines fault!

Business owners threatening? any evidence of this and evidence it is done more by one ideology?

Saying shlt does not make it true

 

 

part are the business owners who threatened their workers and told them how to vote; and yes, part is the concerted efforts to prevent people from voting.

>>>But unions doing the same is far more prevelent, and just hunk dory

 Voter ID laws also overwhelmingly affect minorities; this is indisputable.

>>>Why?

In response to tvoter's comment:

Long lines is not disenfranchising! geez!

If ,you dont care enough to wait in line; (I waited about 2 hours) then it's not the lines fault!

[/QUOTE]

It absolutely is disenfranchisement if even a single person is turned away, regardless of the reason.

Honestly, I think it's appalling you had to wait two hours.  Credit to you for staying, but not everyone has that luxury and, point-of-fact, a lot of people just don't.  I waited about 5 minutes.  It took longer to walk the three blocks to my polling station.  So, how is that fair?

If the local/municipal/regional election authorities cannot get it together enough to properly estimate turnout, number of ballots needed, space needed...whatever...then they need to find another line of work.  In any case, there is NO justification whatsoever for making it HARDER to vote on purpose.

 

In response to GreginMeffa's comment:

Because they tend to be rather poor. And if they're rather poor, they very likely don't have things like a drivers license or passport. The lack of such documents, in turn, means they are far less likely to have had to dig up a birth certificate to present to initially establish who they are.

In addition, contrary to what many conservatives say here, the poor are typically very hard working.

It is harder for rural poor to rush out to the plae.

And of course there are going to be problems if the bill looks like Wisconsin's (ID places in Democrat-heavy areas closed entirely. Savings used to extend hours of  ID places in Republican-heavy areas).

 

Now, many of these things only really matter if the Voter ID law goes into effect shortly before an election. Which is why Republicans pushed voter ID laws heavily before the election, but seem to not be fussing so much (or at all) since.

 

 

In response to MattyScornD's comment:

BS! If you cant wait in line or are unsure take advantage of early voting available to everyone!!

 

In response to GreginMeffa's comment:

Unions threaten to fire people for not voting how they want?  Really?!  (Have you seen the union numbers in recent years? Historically miniscule. Unions don't have that kind of clout any more.)

Voter ID laws are: 1) equivalent to a poll tax, 2) useless at their stated goal of eliminating  voter fraud (which barely exists anyway), 3) affect predominantly young, poor, elderly and minority voters who either don't drive, don't have photo ID (up to 11% of eligible voters) or don't have the time or proper documents required to get said ID - even if the state ID is free, the documents may not be.

 

 

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Ummm ya, except unions can't 'fire' their members

-------------------------

 

Uhm, yes they can.

Still kinda empty, all ya gotta do (due?) is say yessim boss, I done voted just like ya told me to.

In response to MattyScornD's comment:

Unions threaten to fire people for not voting how they want?  Really?!  (Have you seen the union numbers in recent years? Historically miniscule. Unions don't have that kind of clout any more.)

Doesnt mean it doesnt happen. Successful employer pressure to vote a certain way is miniscule as well

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In response to 12-Angry-Men's comment:

My god man, unions can people all the time.  I know first hand!  Its not firing, its C ya.

And I am not the anti-union conservative dems want me to be.   I am a proud and card carrying member of AFM Local 9-535.