457
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
457 points (99.1% liked)
News
23367 readers
2602 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
But you already weren't allowed to campaign within 150ft of a poling place or 25ft of a voter standing in line. So, that would have already been a solved issue.
This is from the 2010 GA code.
O.C.G.A. 21-2-414 (2010)
(a) No person shall solicit votes in any manner or by any means or method, nor shall any person distribute or display any campaign literature, newspaper, booklet, pamphlet, card, sign, paraphernalia, or any other written or printed matter of any kind, nor shall any person solicit signatures for any petition or conduct any exit poll or public opinion poll with voters on any day in which ballots are being cast:
(1) Within 150 feet of the outer edge of any building within which a polling place is established;
(2) Within any polling place; or
(3) Within 25 feet of any voter standing in line to vote at any polling place.
Edit: I personally believe that the food and water restriction was to make people not want to stick out waiting 2+ hours in line. Unfortunately people seem to have to wait multiple hours every election.
It's 100% another move by republicans to block black voters. There won't be lines where the white voters are a majority.
This is the biggest reason that compulsory voting like we have in Australia is so good.
It's not a violation of free speech at all. You can always choose to just hand in a blank or deliberately-spoilt ballot.
But what it does mean is that the Government is forced to provide adequate resources to polling places to ensure that everyone is able to conveniently vote. You can't get away with nearly as much voter suppression when everyone has to vote.
I can't help but feel this is an optimistic view. There's plenty of things everyone has to do in America that are still much more convenient or differently funded in rich or white areas. For example, going to school or getting government ID.
If you're legally required to vote but voting is made into a very painful experience, who are you going to vote for? The guy that made it very difficult?
Sure, if you haven't been brainwashed into believing it was the other guy who made it very difficult.
Yeah, most people would believe the bad guy was the one who made it mandatory.
Sweet child...
If the voting experience is sufficiently onerous, people will still not vote and pay the penalty (or go to jail). Then it'll be just another tax/burdon on people in disadvantaged areas.
Looks like Western Australia charges $50 for repeated failure to vote. $50 Australian ($31 USD) to not take off work to stand in line for 3 hours getting sunburnt? That's less than minimum wage in my state. It would make financial sense to just go to work and pay the penalty, ignoring the less tangible potential long-term benefit of effecting change in favor of paying rent.
Except voting day in Australia is on a weekend, not during the week. And there are also pre polling centres, where if you plan to be away on vacation or working on voting day, you can go along to a pre poll centre and vote weeks in advance. Australia also has mail in and even telephone voting for those unable to visit these centres.
Some would, for sure. But some would stick it out. And even in many areas thought of as deeply red, the margin required to flip the result is not that much. If you have a previous voter turnout of 2/3, and just 1/4 of the previous non-voters end up voting because it's mandatory, that's an 8 point swing. That would have been enough to swing 4 more states in 2020, as well as Maine's 2nd district. Or if it were the Democrats responsible for attempted voter suppression, those same stats would see 7 states plus Nevada's 2nd flip to Republican. That's looking at the presidential race because the stats were easiest to find and compare, but it's likely even more pertinent in congressional races. Enough of the races would be close enough to basically guarantee the side supporting people's democratic rights will win a majority of seats.
Yeah, I don’t see this working at all. If it does for you guys, that’s great, but we’re talking places where voting rights are already protected. None of these laws actually prevent people from voting, but can discourage enough to make a difference. Even if it’s partisan, the results skew quite racist. It’s only a few places in the US where officials think they can get away with this, but it’s definitely huge news.
Fr a specific example, I believe there was something in Texas like one place to drop off mail in votes per county. Maybe that’s even reasonable in most counties, but not when one county is the city of Houston. Do you really think a measly fine would make people endure that wait?