Can someone explain gerrymandering and voter blocking in US politics?

[laPapessaGiovanna]

I'm really sorry to hear that @MaggieMae. If you were an impoverished African State UN would send its observers. (I'm being sarcastic obviously, I am a bit tired of UN's extremely limited usefulness.) I remember when there was the big recounting scandal in Florida in 2000, it seemed so unrreal and impossible, the media's spin on the USA as the best democracy of the world is unbelievable. The sensation from this far away is that the power handling elite won't let go without an impressive fight. 

[zebra #13]

Quote

HARVEY WASSERMAN: I live in Columbus. I’m a registered voter in Columbus. They tried to deprive me of my absentee ballot. But we have followed this thing. I write for freepress.org, and my co-editor and I wrote a piece before the election, entitled "12 Ways Bush is Stealing the Ohio Vote," and frankly, they came up with many, many more. The vote in Ohio was administered by Kenneth Blackwell, the Republican Secretary of State, who served simultaneously as co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio. Prior to the elections, they pulled shenanigans playing around with the registration and the provisional ballots. During the election, on Election Day, they shortchanged many of the inner city polling places of machines so that people wound up waiting three, four, five hours in the rain. We had 11-hour waits at Kenyan College for people to vote, whereas a precinct less than a mile away, there was no wait at all. So, those are the kinds of games they played on Election Day. I could go through for a half hour of what they did, the dirty tricks, straight from the Nixon era, by the way. The overall reality is that the vast majority of votes in Ohio were cast on electronic voting machines that have no paper trail. And many of them were provided by Diebold, the Diebold Corporation, whose owner who lives in central Ohio, famously proclaimed that he would deliver Ohio’s electoral votes to George W. Bush. We are now trying to get a recount. The Blackwell administration is stonewalling any recount. You would think if it was a fair election, they would be happy to have a recount. In one instance in Warren County they called out a Homeland Security Alert, and threw out independent observers during the recount. We have had instances where ballots have disappeared, where there’s been tampering with the machines. As far as I’m concerned, Ohio is not a democracy. And we believe based on the exit polls that there is no way on earth that George W. Bush carried the state of Ohio, therefore, the election. If he loses Ohio, he loses the election.

http://www.democracynow.org/2004/12/23/ohio_voting_rights_activists_call_electoral

 

Quote

 

Jamelle Bouie

Voter-ID Laws

08.28.13 8:45 AM ET

Republicans Admit Voter-ID Laws Are Aimed at Democratic Voters

It’s been clear for a while that the voter-identification laws the GOP has been pushing are aimed at suppressing Democratic constituencies. And Republicans are fessing up, says Jamelle Bouie.

When liberals decry voter-identification laws as tools for voter suppression, they aren’t arguing ex nihilo. The evidence is clear: identification requirements for voting reduce turnout among low-income and minority voters. And the particular restrictions imposed by Republican lawmakers—limiting the acceptable forms of identification, ending opportunities for student voting, reducing hours for early voting—certainly do appear aimed at Democratic voters.

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/28/republicans-admit-voter-id-laws-are-aimed-at-democratic-voters.html

And then you have the "unofficial" ways--voters receiving notices that polling places and or days have changed.   Flyers that probation officers will show up at voting places.  That the sheriff will be looking for past due child support at the polls. 

And you have Bev Harris of http://blackboxvoting.org/  who's been doing yeoman's work on the subject for years. . . .

[sawasdee]

To be honest, @zebra #13, that is much worse than I imagined. it is the level of corruption you would perhaps expect in a banana republic, not in the self proclaimed world's greatest democracy. The Ohio article, especially.

The UK is by no means perfect, on any level, but I have never heard of voter DE frauding of any kind. Voting is on paper, ID is the card sent to your house for that purpose, and the polls are open 7am to 10pm. Lines are very rarely seen. Absentee voting is easily done. Counting is observed by all parties, and close elections are recounted. It ain't rocket science, it's low tech, and it works.

[Mama Mia]

I've never understood wh, for in-person voting., they can't just use machines similar to an ATM - you put in your choices, the machine tallies - and gives you a receipt, with an anonymous, randomly generated, non- identifying,  confirmation number, stating exactly what you entered! And then require the  tallied  results - including the confirmation numbers -be posted , and readily accessible, after the election .

It would make it much harder to lie about results to say Candidate X won in a landslide - if voters could readily see what the actual counts are - and complain if the posted result didn't match their actual choice. It would also ensure that if a voter reviewed the receipt and discovered they made a mistake- they could immediately have their transaction cancelled and start over. An inordinate number of cancellations would also alert officials - and the public - to formatting / technical issues ( I.e. Miami, 2000 -)

They could even set up a similar system for absentee voting - allowing it to be done on- line - with confirmation receipt --- or on duplicate paper.

 

 

 

 

[sawasdee]

4 hours ago, Mama Mia said:

I've never understood wh, for in-person voting., they can't just use machines similar to an ATM - you put in your choices, the machine tallies - and gives you a receipt, with an anonymous, randomly generated, non- identifying,  confirmation number, stating exactly what you entered! And then require the  tallied  results - including the confirmation numbers -be posted , and readily accessible, after the election .

It would make it much harder to lie about results to say Candidate X won in a landslide - if voters could readily see what the actual counts are - and complain if the posted result didn't match their actual choice. It would also ensure that if a voter reviewed the receipt and discovered they made a mistake- they could immediately have their transaction cancelled and start over. An inordinate number of cancellations would also alert officials - and the public - to formatting / technical issues ( I.e. Miami, 2000 -)

They could even set up a similar system for absentee voting - allowing it to be done on- line - with confirmation receipt --- or on duplicate paper.

 

 

 

 

But then nobody could - er - adjust - things to what they SHOULD be.

[VelociRapture]

Just a friendly reminder to our college kids here:

Not sure if this applies to all states or to primaries, but my state (Connecticut) allows absentee ballots for elections. If you'll be out of town during the election (for any reason - not just college kids benefit here) you can submit this form ahead of time. They'll send you a ballot, you fill it out, and send it back in. Just be sure you do this ahead of the election and you send it back before Election Day too.

This is how my siblings, brother-in-law, husband, and I all voted when we attended college an hour away from home. It worked great for us. Check with the Registrar's Office in your hometown to see if it's a valid option for you during the primary (if your state hasn't voted yet) or for the general election. 

(And each Registrar's Office should have someone working for the two main political parties - so if you're registered as a member of either party, ask to speak with the person for your party.)

And anyone not clear on their state's voting laws should check out this website too:

http://www.vote411.org

You can search for information by state or enter your address for more specific information. It tells you what form of ID is acceptable for your state, when the next elections are, and gives info about absentee ballots.

[sawasdee]

@VelociRaptureThanks for encouraging and enabling people to vote - too many elections are lost by apathy!

[ALM7]

On 2/16/2016 at 9:13 AM, 19 cats and counting said:

In the last 30 years, people have been naturally separating (there's a book called "The Big Sort" that discusses this at length) and moving to be around like-minded people.

Thank you @19 cats and counting for the suggestion. I just ordered it, Amazon had the book, and I'm looking forward to reading it.

[ALM7]

On 2/16/2016 at 10:56 AM, Whoosh said:

OK - so if people are easily offended they might want to skip this one.  This is Sarah Silverman (one of my favorites) giving her take on Voter ID laws.  Obviously, not the most technical source and she is biased (but she is knowledgable on the topic).

 

 

Thanks for sharing, Silverman nailed it.

[O Latin]

I never knew how this sort of thing affected college students (which I am, but I go to school in the same city as my permanent address, so it's never been an issue for voting). All of the college students I know/have known who were from somewhere else preferred to stay registered in their home state/town and either vote absentee or just not vote at all. 

[Avalondaughter]

There are other ways of preventing voting.  There are voter registration drives run by Republicans who throw out the registrations for Democratic voters.  You show up to vote, and find you're not on the rolls.  Then the voter rolls can be purged such as what they did in Florida in 2000.  If you can't vote after having committed a felony, then anyone with the same name also is purged.  So if Joe Brown legitimately is not allowed to vote, another Joe Brown might also be taken off the list, along with Joseph Brown and Joseph Braun. 

Then there are the simple sneaky tricks on voting day.  In Florida they used roadblocks.  In Ohio in 2004 they deliberately had a shortage of machines in Democratic districts so that lines became unbearably long and people needed to give up and go back to work.

[sawasdee]

If you read of these tactics being used in a developing country, you'd put it down to corruption, and encourage the use of UN observers...........