Discussion: Republicans' Deeply Cynical Move: Dismiss Voting While Making It Harder

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Discussion for article #229208

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This is not so far removed from the good old days when the GOP sent mailers to minority communities reminding them to vote on the next Thursday.

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In many of these states where voting is harder Republicans were voted in promising to make it harder to vote despite less restrictive voting laws, proving it is a matter of will, and not means. I cannot stand all the pissing and moaning!

All of the Republican efforts to make it inconvenient to vote do not excuse the vast majority of of people who do not do it. I live in Pennsylvania, a state where it is as hard as any to vote on any day except Election Day, and there is no reason why Republicans can get out and Democrats do not, especially when Democrats are in the majority. Just get out and goddamn vote in people who will change the laws so it can be easier to vote, and then keep voting for them.

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If Fox News wants to impose some sort of current events test for voting, their viewership is going to do exceedingly poorly.

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You’re not exactly wrong about the lamentable apathy part, but you almost suggest there was some sort of mandate for voter restrictions. In 2010, the GOP was simply the lucky beneficiary of a perfect storm that combined the historic anti-WH trend of an off-year election with an economy that was only beginning to emerge and a once-in-a-decade opportunity to apportion electoral districts. That pivotal election laid the groundwork for the right-wing’s anti-voting movement.

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Give the Republicans even more power and they will go back to the original plan in the Constitution when only people who owned property could vote.

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That’s why I left Pennsylvania and I’ll never go back.

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Voting is the highest civic responsibility, and is also a measure of maturity, which is why so many old people go to the polls, and young people tend to ignore it. And yet, young people have the most at stake, with the most to lose.

Republicans don’t want you to vote unless you are certain to vote for them, because you are part of their Borg Zombie Army. Everyone else needs to be suppressed somehow, by hook or by crook.

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The reason Republicans think YOU PEOPLE shouldn’t vote is breathtakingly obvious. If a majority of eligible voters go to the polls, Republicans more and more in general, and certainly nationwide, lose. They count on and easily motivate their low/no information, hate-filled and lemming-like sheeple ‘base’ to turn out and if they can suppress the opposition with “solutions for which there is no problem” (ala I.D. requirements out the ass) and scare tactics, they have a chance. Still, these are delaying tactics and will, in the end, fail. One just hopes the GOPigs don’t savage the country and its political structure beyond repair before they can be consigned to the trash heap of history where, as the GOP is now, they belong.

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Get out and vote! Don’t sit at home and whine… DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
“It ain’t over til it’s over”.

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You left PA for the sole reason that Democrats don’t come out to vote??? Its a beautiful state and Corbett will be gone soon. Here’s hoping Toomey will be next.

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“Fundamentals” be damned, I can’t believe America is getting ready, through apathy, ignorance, and rightwing resentment, to reward Republicans for all the damage they’ve done with their racist bad behavior. The one hope I have is that I live in Georgia, and can actually help elect Carter for governor, Michelle Nunn to the senate, and a genuinely liberal African American Brian Reese to the congressional seat formerly held by odious blue dog John Barrow and wingnut Jack Kingston. You better believe I’m actively involved with these campaigns! I plan to do some door-knocking today.

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Even if you pass all the hurdles and make it into the voting booth, you still face a fairly stiff reading test.

In California, for example, the state and county office lists are scrambled, requiring you to figure out the party affiliations of every candidate, there is no information on judgeships (literally), and the ballot initiatives are so convoluted that a) nobody but a few lawyers have ever read them end to end, or b) one initiative may mimic another just to add more confusion to the ballot. And that’s all before voting on the local airport management committee and water board.

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*“Voting is the most shallow gesture of citizenship there is,” says Kevin Williamson of National Review, trying to convince people that there’s no shame in not coming out to vote.

This theme is a staple of Fox News, of course, with multiple instances over the past month of hosts saying that women are too clueless to vote. *

I support this action wholeheartedly. I think Fox should continue to try to convince their viewers that voting is unimportant.

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That is an incredibly ignorant post. It’s awesome that you have gotten all of the breaks in life, and voting is so easy for you to do. But it isn’t easy for everyone. Don’t have a car and no public transit in your city? Too f’ing bad, you don’t get to vote.

Poor enough you have to work two jobs that are paid hourly? Well voting is probably going to cost you a shift, and that money can be the difference in whether or not you get to eat that week or not. Too f’ing bad, you don’t get to vote.

Are you physically disabled and can’t stand in line for hours on end (I once waited in line for 5 hours to vote)? Too f’ing bad, you don’t get to vote.

You make it sound like anyone who doesn’t vote has only themselves to blame, while completely neglecting the fact that some people have factors in their lives that make it very difficult to vote. And guess what. Every scenario I just described is a likely Democratic voter. And a recession, a la 2010, makes a lot of the above described circumstances worse. So no, the voters don’t deserve the restrictions placed on voting rights that are currently being put in place. Because even before all of these un-American laws, access to the voting booth was never truly equal.

Late Edit: I apologize for the confrontational nature of that post, but the voter suppression thing really works me up. My wife got caught in the Texas GOP’s recent trap to stop women from voting (they put your maiden name down as your second middle name for the voting rolls, so when your ID doesn’t match they can turn you away). Fortunately, we were on the lookout for it, and when our cards came in we spotted it right away. Fixing it was a real pain in the butt and the SoS office tried to blame her. If she hadn’t changed her name when she got married this never would have happened. So anything that has to do with stopping people from voting really gets my dander up. Which is, of course, not your fault so I shouldn’t take it out on you.

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NOt ONLY is IT COUNterINTUITIve for Libtards TO voTE in MId-terMS, It’s UNconsTITUTIonal. Let’S face faCTs:

  1. Fact ONE: SIngLE woMEN areN’t smarT enough to VOTe IN mid-terMS because IF they Were SMARt, theY’d have HUsbands.
  2. Fact Two: BLAck PEopLE and ANCHOR babies shOULDn’t VOte beCAuse thEY have A SEvere COnflict OF interEST beCAUSe they SUCK at UNCLE SAM’s BOOBS. they ALL get SNAP, secTION 8, NObamacare and NOBAMAphones.
  3. Fact 3: CoLLEge STUDENts SHOULDN’t vOTE beCAUSe theIR braINS aren’t FULLY formed. How ScientisTS know thIS? BecaUSE theY beLIEVe in GLOBAL warming, AmerICAN unexceptIONALISM, SocIALISm, and VOTE LIBTard.

STOP ILLEGAL, IMMOraL MIdterM vOTers FROM STUFFING the BALLOT boX with UNAmeriCAnistIC BELIEFS!!!1!!!one!!1!!!

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White people, and only men. They’d have it that way now if they thought they could get away with it.

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Oh Eustace, that’s a classic!

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The good 'Ol USA is one of the few countries in the world where the voting day is NOT a national holiday.
The reason most people who are poor don’t vote is they either don’t have transportation or they can’t dare take the time off of their jobs to vote.

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And the GOP votes in people that will redistribute from the bottom to the top, which is fine with these hypocrites. Read David Cay Johnston’s work (ie Free Lunch) and you will realize far more goes up than “trickles” down. That despite the protestations of right-wingers who think greed is a virtue, and empathy a weakness.

“The poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits by electing redistributionist politicians,” Matthew Vadum has said, putting explicitly what Romney left between the lines. “Welfare recipients are particularly open to demagoguery and bribery. Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals.”

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