Discussion: Meet The Man Pushing SCOTUS For A Monumental Change To Voting Laws

[bd2999]

It is an odd thing to even consider really. I do not see how this is really even discriminating against anybody. It would be like a conservative suing because they live in New Your and the state goes blue. I just do not understand the logic behind this challenge that much.

I mean this is sort of what the voter ID laws and purges wanted to do all along. It would then create issues among the roles themselves and really mess with districting. Add to that restrictions on voter registrations and this may be the end game for the GOP. If you cannot win at the polls over time than change the rules.

[wanderer]

Thanks for a calm, reasoned response. I wasn’t considering the part that all are taxed, legal or not. By the same token, funds being allocated to a district would be by impacted population and not by voters.

[schoolboy]

The article in TPM is factually incorrect. The challengers propose districts be roughly equal in both total population and voters.

By bringing this challenge under the Equal Protection Clause, if the courts find for the plaintiffs then voters will become a protected class under the Equal Protection Clause. That could mean that the voter ID laws may fall on Constitutional grounds and we will have “an affirmative right to vote” that we do not now possess.

[ottnott]

Why shouldn’t districts be divided up by eligible voter count?

In addition to the reasons given by other replies, “eligible voter count” is readily manipulated. If you create incentives to manipulate eligibility, you will see a lot of manipulation of eligibility.

There is no “official” count of eligible voters equivalent to the census. Voter rolls are generally maintained at the county level, with a wide range of resources, policies, procedures, technologies, and ethics applied to maintenance of the lists.

State legislators have some leeway in determining the rules for eligibility. The easiest item to manipulate is residency rules (great for disqualifying large numbers of college students), but legislators have a lot of other rules they could put in place that would favor certain groups. For example, strict rules about notifying voter registrars when you move would favor homeowners over renters.

Mostly, though, you just need to know that the sole reason the effort exists is to put even more power in the hands of groups that have higher turnout – the wealthier, the older, the more whitened.

[ronik]

There is no way to accurately determine the number of eligible voters in a district. The voter rolls show the number of registered voters, but that doesn’t include those who are eligible but not registered. In addition, how could you check to see if someone is eligible? Take their word for it? That could lead to massive amounts of fraud.

[deere_john]

You can, if you want, make the abstract argument. The reality is that Republicans embrace this policy for no other reason than it would reduce the influence of minority voters. If the statistics were reversed and the policy increased the influence of minority voters, Republicans would wrap themselves in the flag and howl bloody murder opposing it.

It’s just like making the distribution of Electoral votes proportional. Not a bad policy maybe, if applied universally, but for some odd reason, the R’s are hot for applying it to states where the D’s are usually the winners who take all, yet get all ho-hum about promoting it in states where R’s are the take-all winners.

[trippin]

Yep – that occurred to me too – the census is prescribed by the Constitution, and it is the basis for apportionment of districts. As it is, people get all freaked out about answering even the simplest questions – one could only imagine adding a question about being an eligible voter!

Consider too that even with using the census, undocumented immigrants are sorely under-reported because of fear of deportation. So while those seeking to redistribute power to the gullible might contend this is about the undue influence of illegal aliens in our government (never mind that Citizens United turns a blind eye to foreign interests dumping unrestricted amounts of money into our elections anonymously) that’s a bogus diversion as it always is.

EDIT: thinking about it some more, we have 435 Representatives, divided among the states by state population, and then divided (i.e., gerrymandered) geographically within the states into Congressional districts. So this affects the Federal level, doesn’t it?

States have been gerrymandering for years, but they do it with the number of Reps they’ve been given to work with. We lost a Dem district locally last census cycle because my state lost a seat, and the right wing state house gerrymandered the remainder to squeeze out the Democrat.

Point being, if apportionment by eligible voters is thought to favor Republicans, they must believe enough people now counted in blue states would be eliminated from the process to yield a net gain in House seats to red states. Seems to me states like Texas and Arizona might lose seats in that scuffle, but it’s said Texas anyhow might be turning blue.

[rssrai]

So if you are a 17 year old and you can’t register to vote yet, you are invisible?

[renfield]

Makes you wonder what makes a man devote his life to 18th century evil.

[anniew]

Look at Florida in 2000. They dropped/purged about 180,000 of voters from their list of eligible voters. Thousands and thousands of them were dropped falsely, no felony convictions, a similar name to a felon, etc. So in addition to trying to disenfranchise a certain demographic and not allowing them to vote (because it never seems to be middle class white people that accidentally get purged) the districts they live in are further disenfranchised for not having their constituents even counted as people.

[blue_bear]

This is all about race. But, it is ironic that they claim that it is having a disproportionate impact on “rural” votes. Last time I looked, everyone from South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming had a lot more voting power in the House (the Senate is out of balance by definition) than residents of larger states given that these small population, predominately rural states get at least 1 house seat when they should get only a fraction of a seat based on population. But, that is not how our system works.

[rapier]

Well he genuinely believes white people are superior and you have to give him credit for trying to fix the American political process to reflect that by political means and so preserve the system by keeping it, in his mind, worth preserving. It’ a pathetic rear guard action however as the superior rational technological world whites have created is breaking down. Just as all empires do because of hubris,vanity, and corruption.

[emilianoelmexicano]

I’m not concerned about this one bit:

I wear Nikes
I’m on social media
I’ll be a millionaire one day

[fgs]

I’m just going to say whoever counts towards parceling out the Representatives, and therefore the Electoral College votes, should count the same when drawing up the districts. I don’t know how traitor state officials drew up their districts when the 3/5 compromise was in effect, but I do know they at least drew them without any sophisticated computer algorithms, which are capable of drawing up whichever boundary the redistricter’s agenda demands.

[jonney_5]

Only if this goes for US Senate seat distribution too

[justamarine]

Non-citizens are not suppose to vote, so how does not counting them elimate their voting rights?

[justamarine]

It isn’t about the handful of those who fit into that isolated example, but the thousands in some districts and tens of thousands in other districts who are not eligible to vote because they are not citizens therefore have no right to vote. Why should the be counted?

[justamarine]

They are not undocumented immigrants, they are ILLEGAL immigrants. Why does the left pretend they just lost their documents or they haven’t had time to get them? They don’t have them because they are here ILLEGALLY!

[borisjimbo]

"I think most Americans including myself favor it,” Blum said. Problem is, it’s not what you favor, Blum, it’s what the law says that’s supposed to occur here.

[kols]

Personally, I see nothing wrong with counting only registered voters. If you are eligible to vote but don’t register that’s your own fault. As long as there is no funny business going on to disenfranchise people it would be fair.
It has never made sense to me why total population should be counted in redistricting or for purpose of the electoral college to decide the president.
The electoral college has outlived its usefulness as far as I’m concerned. The real reason it existed is because the founders themselves were wealthy and educated & a lot of the population back then were not that well educated. Plus only landowners could vote, which, of course, was unfair. Plus there was the problem of transportation and communication in general. The president should be elected by popular vote alone.
This redistricting idea is the same thing. You are counting the total population including children. Children are already represented by their parents’ vote.
Further, maybe if only registered voters were counted maybe all those Democrats who don’t vote would finally get off their duff and make the effort to vote. I do not get why a lot of Democrats only vote during a presidential election.