cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/22680392
Thinking of red states vs blue states is busted. Plenty of good visualizations of this over the years, but this election in particular feels really important to point out "We" did not chose this.
When I say we I mean registered US voters, but even less so citizens, and even less so again residents.
Even of the voters who did vote for the GOP candidate, who can say how many really wanted him or his policies vs they just didn't want more of the status quo Dems.
The popular vote tallies in this graphic are out of date too, He definitely didn't win in a landslide the way it can appear with red and blue maps. His win in the popular vote was also pretty small now that more votes have been counted. https://www.thenation.com/.../donald-trump-vote-margin.../
So, what if Biden used broad immunity SCOTUS granted to declare a crisis of democracy - That between massive disinformation campaigns by enemies both foreign and domestic, voter suppression, as well as many other factors, the will of the people can't be discerned from our recent presidential election. That it would be a dereliction of duty both to the people and to his oath to defend the constitution to hand over power to someone whose clear and declared intent is abuse the power of the office to fundamentally reshape or demolish our republic based on this highly suspect and incomplete result (remember, most people didn't even vote)
Here is my off the cuff proposal for what to do after that
A new election, everyone must vote. Trump and Harris on the ballot, but each major party must offer 2 candidates, and we're using Ranked Choice Voting. 1st place gets presidency, 2nd place gets VP.
Biden almost certainly won't do anything like this. He is clearly a coward with a stupid sense of optimism - a "things will be just fine, no need for any drastic measures" ever, mentality, and despite some rhetoric has shown no signs that he thinks there is anything to actually be concerned about from the party which has veered hard towards fascism. But, hey, a guy can dream.
This alone is a huge hurdle. There are people who have no form of ID and we have no free national form of ID, so that rules out any state that hard-requires voter ID. One also cannot assume that these people have the documents required (shitty parents, house fire, homelessness) nor the time and money required to get a state ID. Good luck trying to do a national ID as it brings out the crazies. So there would need to be programs on a per-state level to not only identify these people (as in knowing that there is a person like this in x location right now) but also identifying these people (as in their actual identity) and getting them an ID. This ignores that there are plenty of people who do not want to be identified.
Edit: Some of the timing hurdles I mention are also people who work two jobs (or more) with basically no time to themselves just to survive, let alone do all of the above (particularly when there is poor or no public transit and they don't drive). I lived out of a car for several months when I was 19 or so and a lot of people are a single paycheck away so don't think it's a non-issue.
Why wouldn't this be considered a poll tax. There has to be a way for everyone that is legally allowed to vote to do so for free.
Would need to check each state and verify their state IDs are free. I seem to think before I could drive I got an ID in my state and it was not free, but that was nearly 30 years ago so I don't know what it looks like today
Make getting an ID free then? Isn't that what both sides want? Fewer undocumented (by definition) for republicans, and more people voting for Democrats.