he sided repeatedly with Republicans to support voting restrictions including voter ID laws and stubbornly resisted reforms including electronic voting machines, online voting registration and digital modernization of his office. His decision to give bipartisan cover and lend his gravitas to Trump’s national voter fraud commission, led by lightning-rod outgoing Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach ®, was the final straw for many of them — but not quite enough to end his tenure.
Why has the DNC historically had the first Presidential contests in rural mostly-white conservative states?
Because they don’t want people of color and progressives to have a significant voice in the first contests.
The DNC should move the first contests out of Iowa and New Hampshire and into more diverse states that represent their base voters. If New Hampshire or Iowa resists, then the DNC can refuse to seat their delegates at the convention.
No candidate would campaign in a state that won’t give them any delegates.
No democracy, no justice.
Voter fraud? That’s something Republicans do.
The article says that some of the opposition was because Gardner “stubbornly resisted reforms including electronic voting machines”. Is the author aware of the fact that many electronic voting machines are insecure and can be hacked? Please, TPM, reach out to the computer security community about electronic voting. As we saw in Georgia, some of the electronic voting machines are incredibly vulnerable and at risk of undetectable manipulation.
The picture alone gives me the heebee jeebiees.
Or, Geebees
It’s absurd that New Hampshire has this special status, but I doubt that’s going to change anytime soon.
But what may well happen is that the results of the New Hampshire primary just get less and less attention. Already, Super Tuesday is where the real action is – and with California getting added to Super Tuesday festivities, that will be even more true.
So it seems possible that in the not-too-distant future, the whole NH primary will be viewed kind of the way the Dixville Notch primary is viewed – combination quaint tradition / media circus, but where the results themselves are just not considered particularly important.
And if so, I expect the same would go for the Iowa caucuses, which are even more ridiculous and antiquated.
Get a grip, Geogie. Seriously.
Gardner’s decision to join the Commission to see what could be done from the inside was not unique (cf ME’s Matt Dunlop). It’s not an indication that he was a supporter of Kobach’s agenda… His staunchest support for voter-marked paper ballots is a positive, not a negative, as Dr Simons points out. (By the way they are counted electronically. But they can be recounted manually —and often are— to check the outcome.)
Last year, he backed a GOP bill — seemingly targeted at student voters — that added new requirements to those registering to vote within 30 days of an election. His critics say his opposition to online voter registration and early voting, which he says “cheapens the value” of Election Day, are anachronistic and harmful to the democratic process.
So with young people’s participation in elections at an embarrassingly low level, this dinosaur wants to set up obstacles. Apparently in his mind, you have to earn the right to vote.
And some (just enough) Democrats wanted this dinosaur to keep his job because…?