“If the purges [of potential voters], challenges and ballot rejections were random, it wouldn’t matter. It’s anything but random. For example, an audit by the State of Washington found that a Black voter was 400% more likely than a white voter to have their mail-in ballot rejected. Rejection of Black in-person votes, according to a US Civil Rights Commission study in Florida, ran 14.3% or one in seven ballots cast.”
"[…] Democracy can win* despite the 2.3% suppression headwind.
And that’s our job as Americans: to end the purges, the vigilante challenges, the ballot rejections and the attitude that this is all somehow OK."
Didn’t Trump win partially by the black vote going for him? How do we know most of those weren’t for Trump?
No. Black people overwhelmingly still voted against Trump and for Kamala.
get the fuck out of here with this horseshit
both parties Democrats and Republicans both use voter suppression based on what their check writers want
for example there is bipartisan efforts to keep United States citizens locked up for a list of nonviolent offences such as Bidens tough crime bills and now immigrants and women are on the list too
the education system is also used to suppress votes - no democracy without a properly funded education system
bipartisan effort to keep the minimum wage at $7.25 is another way to suppress votes - tired, overworked people do not vote with an informed healthy mind thus subverting democracy more
state of healthcare is another way voters are suppressed - health people would not vote for the current state of things
the politicians’ check writers also suppress by controlling the media that is consumed along with the entirety of culture deleting content as needed to keep us in line
and the list goes on we need to throw both parties out and start fresh
Both parties this both parties that, why don’t you try using both sides of your own brain.
Funny how all the bipartisan stuff they mention truly is Republican stuff…
It’s also amusing that they don’t seem to know what voter suppression is.
Because both parties use voter suppression to their advantage
They won’t. All they post is “both sides!@!#&$+$($:” over and over again.
While many of those things may effect people’s ability to vote, how many of them target republican voters? I’m pretty sure that’s what “this shit” that you want them to “fuck out of here with” is talking about.
Reading through their list I can think of specific examples for each point on each side (except the education point though that may be more local or referring to something less specific i.e. religious charter school support) - though that isn’t to imply equality. On most of these points Republicans are pretty clearly worse generally speaking…
Still, I think it was an interesting comment because, while a lot of people dismissed it out of hand, it isn’t wrong to highlight that both sides are guilty of all (except education) these things and to excise this rot will take a lot of effort.
I guess the 78 voters suppression laws red states introduced is exactly the same as the 0 suppression laws blue states introduced.
of course not the blue states have to word their suppression laws differently
if both parties appeared to be the same then they could not continue this charade we call US elections
both parties are bought and paid for by the same oligarchs but if they acted like they were for the same thing then citizens would catch on even with an underfunded education system and we have to keep the bread and circuses going for as long as possible
Keep in mind that minimum wage makes it harder to get a job in the first place (supply and demand) and a higher minimum wage causes inflation.
Just… something to note there. If minimum wage wasn’t so high more 16 year Olds would get jobs while they still live with their parents and can afford having low wages - so they have experience later.
Effectively what we have right now is a paradox where you need experience to get a job, but every job requires a certain amount of experience. This is because of the minimum wage, companies literally cannot afford to train people on the job.
This article is in desperate need of citations and a public revelation of the calculations involved. It also has problems. I can’t speak to other states but where it does mention Pennsylvania, where I live, it omits critical information.
In Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes), the Poison Postcards wiped out 360,132 voters, three times Trump’s victory margin.
These don’t get sent out for fun. This is how the ordinary voter roll maintenance works. The cards are sent out after you fail to vote two consecutive federal elections, or when the department of state gets notified you moved or died through some other means, not for ‘targeting’ voters. You only actually get purged from the roll if you fail to respond to the card AND fail to vote for at least five consecutive years (This isn’t specified as far as I know, but a product of the timings involved). If you show up and vote in every presidential election, you do not get removed from the rolls even if you throw out the postcard. So if this:
According to the EAC data, before the 2024 election, 4,776,706 registrants were removed nationwide simply because they failed to return the postcard.
Includes Pennsylvania, it is simply false. You can read the actual law yourself, they are all online. It’s PA Title 25. Chapter 19 lays out the rules for removal.
Details on Pennsylvania specific mail-in ballots being cancelled, which is a real issue, are woefully absent. According to the Governor’s office only about 1% of the 2 million returned (about 20,000) mail in ballots were rejected.
Of the roughly 1% of mail ballots rejected in the 2024 general election, the most common reasons for rejection were:
receipt after the 8 p.m. deadline on Election Day (33%), incorrect or missing date (23%), lack of a signature (17%), and lack of a secrecy envelope (15%).
Harris lost by ~120,000 ish votes in PA. ‘Clerical errors’ are not even close to closing that gap.
It also mentions Secretaries of State being partisan hacks, but some odd reason fails to mention Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State was appointed by our Democratic governor who was not only a Democrat, obviously, but short listed for consideration as a running mate for Harris. Nevertheless, it is implied we should concerned about his Secretary of State targeting voters from her own party for removal in an election that could have had handed the governor his own path to the White House. Forgive me for my skepticism.
Voter suppression is a big deal, I’m sure there are elections it will swing at times. Heck, there is a fair chance it swung the senate race in PA since that one was only decided by ~15,000 votes, but based on what I already know, this article isn’t credible enough to be taken seriously in its current state.
I keep seeing a lot of arguments along the lines of “they can’t have done that, that’s against the law.”
**Republicans do not care about the rule of law. ** They loudly and repeatedly flaunt this at every opportunity. The entire reason we keep having to talk about this is because of how loudly and repeatedly they prove they are willing to break any law in order to win. The law does not matter, it is toilet paper, it does not stop them. That’s the whole REASON we are all up in arms about this in the FIRST place.
Your argument is a nonsensical one. You’ve illustrated the way the Poison Postcard is supposed to work, absolutely. But did it actually follow those rules? In some places like Texas and Georgia, that answer is a booming, resounding, FUCK NO they didn’t. So what about elsewhere then?
In some places like Texas and Georgia, that answer is a booming, resounding, FUCK NO they didn’t.
I can’t speak to other states but where it does mention Pennsylvania, where I live, it omits critical information.
I’m supposed to believe that hundreds of thousands of Democratic Pennsylvania voters were illegally unregistered and denied their right to vote while democratic county election officials, county attorneys, the governor’s office, the state attorney general’s office, the department of state and many civic/legal orgs all just sat on their hands because of an article whose demonstration of fact taps out at “Trust me bro, I did the math.”
But my argument that we need to see the sources and math is “nonsensical”?
Fuck off.
Based
An award winng investigative journalist who has spent at least the last 25 years looking into this type of behaviour isn’t credible?
this article isn’t credible enough to be taken seriously in its current state.
Upvoting before mods delete this for going against their zeitgeist
Dem pols are always too afraid to exercise the power they have when they win. Always. When Biden won, DC and Puerto Rican statehood should have been the first things on the agenda.
The GOP is never afraid to exercise as much power as they can get away with.
Biden never had enough control of the whole government to get those things done without Republican buy-in.
A Republican controlled house won’t send a bill like that to the Senate. A Republican controlled Senate won’t send it to the President.
You can be upset at Biden, but we’ve rarely ever given a Democratic president a Democratic Congress to help him get anything done.
Uh, no. He had a Democratic congress the first half of his term. Part of why he lost them is Dems are so tepid with exercising the power the voters give them.
Nothing the Dems do, or even try to do, gin the base up into excitement. The base never feels inspired that the Dems are striving for the goals they claim to represent and want.
This, 100%.
I remember when Democrats had a filibuster proof majority under Obama.
And they still failed to pass single payer healthcare, because of former VP candidate Joe Lieberman. Like, talk about lack of party discipline.
Republican politicians at least deliver what they say they will deliver.
I wouldn’t really say Republicans deliver what they say they’ll deliver. A week before election Trump was saying he’d have grocery prices lower on day one, and then as soon as he was elected he suddenly became aware that was complicated and the wouldn’t be anything he could do about it. Part of his campaign the first time around, too, was that he would provide a brilliant replacement for Obamacare, but after four years he’d done absolutely nothing on that front, and four years after that he still insisted he was going to do that, but admitted that he only had “concepts of a plan.”
They carry out a lot of the culture war aspects of their promises. And they carry out the promises they make to their billionaire megadonors. Everything else they hope gets forgotten about.
They didn’t actually have a filibuster proof majority for much of that time. Franken’s win in Minnesota was contested, and he wasn’t sworn in until 9 months after the election.
This is why Kamala accepting the outcome “No matter what”, to prove she’s better than Trump…
Was the dumbest thing she could have done because it was just playing into the GOP’s hand.
The Republican game is “You go high, we go low, because low gets us elected and furthers our agenda.”
I thought their game was “Low, no matter what.”
I think the game is “there’s always more barrel to scrape.”
No one actually ever considered kamala might win. As soon as Biden dropped out, anyone that actually knew something knew Democrats had thrown in the towel.
That’s absolutely not true. They had the best campaign since Obama and they did amazing job in that 3 weeks or so, and contrasting disaster of a shitshow that Trump put on made it even clearer.
In the end Americans turned out to be way worse people than predicted, but that was absolutely not obvious.Guess I don’t know shit then
Oh please. We had the same shit in 2020 and we had a record turn out.
Don’t put the blame on voter suppression when it’s American stupidity and apathy that’s the cause.
But it can be both. Voter suppression just making it way harder for Democrats to win. And ultimately impossible.
It is in the end stupidly and apathy. But, you can’t deny that voter suppression is also a big thing and it should be addressed.
Hang on…WTF!
It’s always “funny” when people act like systemic racism is some reformable problem rather than a major foundation of the entire system.
The system of humanity.
It is not natural to be racist.
Very natural to be afraid of things you don’t know/can’t control
Racism is a product of people exploiting that
In-group out-group bias is very unfortunately ingrained into our brains.
It’s actually very natural to form in/out groups. The issue is getting the species as a whole to overcome it.
In/out groups are natural, but the establishment of those groups on ‘racial’ lines is totally constructed. The concept of race itself doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, it’s a fixation on specific phenotypic traits.
Notice how racial bias is fixated on skin color while other phenotypic differences are largely ignored; people with different colored eyes or hair, different nose shapes, different hair textures, etc. 400 years ago skin tone was similarly trivial, but that changed with the rise of chattel slavery.
The core tenet of tribalism is “They aren’t like us.” That might be based on skin color, hair type, clothing, smell (from different diets), behavior. Modern racism (from the last couple hundred years) likely has some elements of more traditional tribalism with relaxed standards so the people a few hundred miles away can start to wrap their heads around the idea that Irish, for instance, are more or less the same as British.
I do hope people can get to the idea that anyone from a given point on this planet (so far) is just a person and not an outsider, but it looks like we have a way to go.
The core tenet of tribalism is “They aren’t like us.” That might be based on skin color, hair type, clothing, smell (from different diets), behavior.
That’s just not accurate. Its historically been cultural, not phenotypes.
Prisoners of war, which were different skin colors, tended to be accepted into the group once they adapted the captor’s customs.
For the last 200 years, a significant amount of slavery has been limited to certain phenotypes. I agree that prior to that, it was less prevalent. That doesn’t mean we don’t have a historical model of slavery based on phenotype, it’s just more recent history.
On the other hand, the Irish were enslaved by the British centuries before any Africans were. And it’s not because they had no contact. Everyone in Europe who had any power and influence was aware of Mansa Musa, and there were plenty of Sub-Saharan Africans in Iberia and other parts of the Caliphate in Europe.
Being black was just not the liability it eventually became. Being nearby but in a different country was a much bigger one.
This is what I was trying to say but didn’t have the foresight to elaborate and that seems to have earned me some downvotes lol
So do nothing?
What would you suggest people do about this now that America is a fascist dictatorship?
This conversation is so frustrating to witness. Particularly because I remember you were such a strong proponent of Harris though the election cycle, which suggest you have political sense enough to care and know things are bad, but now that the cards are different your plan is to disconnect and feel hopeless? If you truly believe that America is a fascist dictatorship, and realize that we have the largest military in the world, don’t you feel moral imperative to at least try? If the solution you were striving for didn’t work, why is your next move give up rather than look to something like black radical thought, which has for much longer being explaining how the solutions to these problems don’t come with ballots.
I literally asked what is suggested people do.
Am I supposed to come up with the answer myself? Because I’m extremely stupid, so that isn’t going to happen. I wish people would realize that.
I literally asked what is suggested people do.
I feel like this is an obtuse description. There are better ways to ask what should be done that do not read as defeatist if you’re genuine.
No one is expecting you to come up with solutions, that’s why I recommended black radical thought, as these are folks that have been on the front line of fighting and experiencing America’s decent into fascism.
Well I’m sorry I didn’t ask what should be done the right way, but I still have no idea what to be done.
Please tell me how I am supposed to ask what people suggest other than asking them what they suggest.
For fuck’s sake, all I want is an answer. You sure as hell aren’t giving me one.
I can see you’re upset, but genuinely, I think it leads to a better community on lemmy in general to approach with good faith. The point overall being, if you are asking in earnest, and are hoping for answers about what possible way forward we have, I would hope that you recognize that there are better ways to communicate that. I’m sorry it’s upsetting that certain langue is interpreted differently, even if the core is the same, but it’s the reality.
Given that reality, being upfront about your worries and feelings of helplessness is valid and helps to connect rather than dismiss. With that, expressing the lack of knowledge as a personal aspect, rather than framing the exhausting of options you’re aware of as the end of all options, would help show that you are looking for whatever is next.
As for ‘an answer’, it’s not something I can easily give because these are complex issues. The reality is it can’t be distilled down to “Get out and vote” because the problems extend beyond that, and any real answer that match that simplicity would along the lines of “organize” but I assume like me, you’d find that sort of broad advice hollow.
I can’t say what you should do because it depends on your local politics, what you’re able to commit, where your politics sit, and ultimately what you think your place would be in whatever is done. With that I recommend black radical thought because I find it best encompasses the tools needed to learn for the reasons I mentioned. Along side learning, I think reaching out to local political groups for work that can be done would be a great way to see what options and opportunists marginalized folks are making for themselves.
In short, if you fear for the well-being of, black/brown, indigenous, immigrant, queer, or everyone else that will suffer under the coming wave of fascism, do as Mr Rogers says and look for the helpers, and if you can, help them.
Hard to trust any site that uses AI slop in their images.
If they are willing to use AI images, why wouldn’t they be willing to use AI in their writing or in how they interpret the data for their writing?
This whole article could be based on logic or data that AI just hallucinated.
Greg Palaat has been reporting on issues like this for over 25 years.
His book “Best democracy money can buy” is an awesome read, but it’s fucken infuriating corruption he exposes never gets punished.
Okay, sure. Still is a valid question, though.
Also, that doesn’t exactly provide concrete and evidence that he didn’t use AI for this. Only that he has experience in writing without it and provides a character reference.
Plus, he should be aware AI is a bad look and makes it seem like it’s possible AI was used elsewhere, like in his writing, even if untrue. If you don’t know about his credentials and history, like myself, then it’s the simplest next step of logic that they could have used AI elsewhere and we can’t know where without him stating where AI is used.
Additionally, in that case, he should be understanding that using AI for his images helps further diminish a field that his own is similarly being diminished by the same tool and using that tool in that way legitimizes that type of use. Basically, if you make money off of what you’re publishing, then just pay an artist. It’s not difficult. Then you can easily avoid people reasonably questioning whether or not you used AI in the creation of the article.
That’s some thorough analysis, holy cow…
Once again, Trump said (during his first term, I believe) on Fox News Republicans would never win another election if minorities vote. They know this. They consistently make it harder and harder for people to vote, while targeting minorities.
Once again, Trump said (during his first term, I believe) on Fox News Republicans would never win another election if minorities vote.
He was wrong. A big part of the '24 GOP wave came from young male latino and black voters who were entranced by the get-rich-quick promises of Trump/Vance. Online hustler culture on social media has been a huge driving force behind conservative voter expansion.
How 5 key demographic groups voted in 2024: AP VoteCast
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Trump’s share of Black voters rose slightly, driven largely by younger men
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Slightly more Hispanic voters supported Trump in 2020
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Narrow gains with (white) women benefitted Trump
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Trump saw a modest increase with men
Republicans have been leveraging their “business friendly” credentials to win over poorer POC voters for a while. And as Democrats adopt the same strategy, we’re running into the same problem as in 2000 and 1988 - voters aren’t able to distinguish between candidates on economic issues.
For POC women voters, the divisions are more stark. But for men of any shade, Dem decay in social media (their active war on left-leaning TikTok being a huge unforced error in an environment that’s trended hard-right since the Obama admin) and their refusal to deliver on college debt relief, cheap housing, cheap mass transit, or public health care is leaving Republicans with a huge discontented block of younger voters to poach.
-
FTA:
The crucial statistic is that not everyone’s ballot gets disqualified. One study done for the United States Civil Rights Commission found that a Black person, such as Maj. Turner, will be 900% more likely to have their mail-in or in-person ballot disqualified than a white voter.
Okay, I went into this expecting cope, and it’s an actually good article, worth a read or at least a skim. So, let’s do something about it.
Ok, what do you suggest?
That we all stop moping about November and start networking with people on the ground. I’m not looking to the DNC for solutions, they’ve already got top level staff talking about working with Trump however they can. The best place to start doing that, imo, is to start showing up to governing body meetings- city councils, county government, whatever you can do, and start meeting other local activists. A lot of times, you’ll find some that are already part of larger, national networks for action, or they’ll be part of local mutual aid groups, which means that you’re talking with an entry point to a pretty big group. Share your concerns about election suppression and share this article with the people that you meet, talk about what you can do locally together to make a difference (remember, a lot of these are state laws and decisions).
This is 100% actionable, I’m going to a community activism meeting later this month and I plan on sharing this information, though I’m not in one of the affected states. I met this group by going to city council meetings and making public comments about the need to improve our housing stock.
Thank you, this is great information. I agree local politics is the best place to start.
The time to have done something about it was in November. But feel free to try.
I really don’t see another choice. I don’t blame you for leaving, we thought about it too, but it’s not realistic for some of us.
I realize that, and I’m sorry. Like I said, feel free to try. I just don’t hold out hope for success any time soon.
well, progressives did tell all the young democrats not to vote for Joe/Kamala, so they didn’t. you know who did turn out, young people, arab americans, and latino americans who voted for trump, think that made up ~ 2.3%? nah, probably not, right. do they call that a phyrric victory? no that’s egyptian. anyway, congratulations to everyone who marched on every major us city, and took over campus commons across the nation in the spring and summer of an election year, chanting “from the river to the sea”. i wonder if that scared the bezeezus outta just middle america or all of it. nah, probably had nothing to do with it. anyway, enjoy your victory over “genocide joe” (kamala) folks
Are these progressives who told people not to vote for Biden or Harris in the room with us right now?
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/297de20b-14f2-4651-be4a-8d3259719cac.png
Here’s one right here. I’ll keep going back through my comment history because I’ve interacted with quite a few “progressives” who found Biden’s policy to be inadequate were ok with Trump’s genocide policy nothing to worry about.
Oh lots trying to wedge drive. The Stein and uncommitted voters were a big presence. Many of them have very quickly shut up since the election. Golly, how curious.
I disagree. I see the pro-Palestine comments as pretty constant. What I have seen a rise of is of comments from liberals gleefully celebrating the plight of the Palestinians.s
It’s a good thing their odds are so much better under Donald then, huh.
I’m sure he’ll listen to their grievances, amirite?
Also I’m sure they’ll care more about Putin’s ongoing genocide in Ukraine, yes? As Trump suspends all future aid not already allocated to Ukraine, it doesn’t look good, Cotton.
You think some British radio host who isn’t big enough to have his own Wikipedia page was a significant influence on US elections? I can’t even find enough info on this dude to determine what his political views are and whether he self-identities as “progressive” or not.
Every progressive politician in the US was trying to get as many anti-Trump votes as possible.
Apologies it was supposed to be a link to the lemmy post of this screenshot not just the image, because there were enough people who were complaining about biden’s policy but conveniently ignoring trumps genocide accelerationist policy on the post itself. Seems like the copy link button on jerboa is a bit funky.
Once again, a bunch of bots, trolls, astroturfers anonymously posting and maybe claiming to be progressive on the internet. If you fell for it that’s on you.
I didn’t fall for it, I voted blue straight down my ballot on election day, but all these bots, trolls and astroturfers convinced a lot of other people to stay home on election day.
So yes here is an example of those “progressives” dissuading people from voting “in the room with us.” Doesn’t matter if they’re bots and trolls, they masqueraded as vaguely progressive and convinced people to stay home on election day. If they were legitimately progressive or astroturf, the end result is the same, the party of accelerated genocide ended up with the presidency, the house, senate and Judiciary.
Oh just a hint but the “are the XYZs in the room with us” line is supposed to be about sarcastically pointing out something doesnt exist and isn’t easily proven to actually exist.
Oh just a hint but the “are the XYZs in the room with us” line is supposed to be about sarcastically pointing out something doesnt exist and isn’t easily proven to actually exist.
Luckily, all you have to do is point to anyone who doesn’t love your genocide and scream that they’re a russian.
If you’re on a Lemmy instance, you bet your ass they are
Nope, but they sure are on Lemmy.
leftists/squad progressives did tell all the young democrats not to vote for Joe/Kamala
Interestingly, people can self-identify however they want! I didn’t see a meaningful amount of genuine progressives telling people not to vote. There’s speculation that foreign disinformation spread the sentiment of “protest voting” and stirred shit up.
However. Whatever the case, people need to take personal responsibility. You decide what type of information to consume and how to vet it (if you even do). And you are to blame if you decided not to vote or threw it away on an inviable 3rd-party candidate.
I don’t get this repeated talking point. Do you just want people to say you were right? Do you want to quash discussion of politics?
I have a feeling that comments like these, that point backward with blame and promote hopelessness, are foreign disinformation.
They are pointless. Help or get out of the way.
Do you just want people to say you were right?
They want all criticism from their left and only their left to be silent forever.
I suspect these people are astroturfers purposefully trying to stay in the way.
Honestly, the thing I miss most about reddit is the volume of people that had already been to a post and either downvoted garbage like that or meaningfully added to the discussion to the point where it’d be drowned out already. This person is spreading misinformation. Cori Bush (who incidentally lost to a pro-Israel democrat) and AOC both vocally supported Kamala, so they’re just wrong in addition to being pro genocide.
We all know. Nothing was or will be done. Now they can rig it from the inside. Was a fun run!
Democrats had the opportunity to fix this when they were in office. They chose to protect the filibuster instead.
Did they or did Manchin and Sinema, who go figure are no longer Democrats, stop them?
One lesson 2020 should have taught everyone and that’s vote by mail WORKS.
Lifting the restrictions on vote by mail for Covid won the election for Biden, and replacing those restrictions in 2024 lost it for Harris.
We should have 100% vote by mail in all states.
vote by mail WORKS.
Which is why red states didn’t want to use it. Can’t stay in power if you don’t suppress votes.
One lesson 2020 should have taught everyone and that’s vote by mail WORKS.
It was a lesson national administrators learned. That’s why it was heavily clawed back. 2020 was a big year for Popular Socialist Candidates. Neither party enjoyed a wave year that included The Squad and put a guy like Bernie Sanders in arm’s reach of Biden after Super Tuesday.
We should have 100% vote by mail in all states.
Republicans have been outspoken in opposition to mail-in voting, particularly for younger college-aged voters. But even Dems are lackluster in their support for full enfranchisement, on the grounds that higher participation tends to make controlling primaries more difficult and expensive (the NY-14 upset by AOC being a classic example).
