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@Modern Daisy: I know you said you were going to comment and bow out, but I wanted to point out that there were absolutely protests and threats made against President Obama and his family after he won. Trump even requested that we protest against Obama's win in 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-protests-2012-election_us_58266737e4b0c4b63b0cc9f0
It's hypocrisy at its finest.
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What has struck me most about this election is how differently we all experience life in this country. Of course that is a given that everyone has different life experiences and sees things through a different lense, but it is so striking to me how I can look at one piece of information and interpet it so completely differently than someone else. That difference in how everyone processes all of this information is what scares me about our democracy, as citizens we seem on such different pages and it is such a large task to try and honor each of those viewpoints and experiences. I sometimes don't know how it can be done without some group always feeling unrepresented and marginalized based on whatever ideology is currently in power. I think in theory our government is supposed to be compromising to meet the needs/desires of all these differing viewpoints but it seems like no one wants reasonable compromise and there is no place for moderates at the table. It's disheartening to me.
Sorry for the rambling - like so many, I'm unsure what to make of the current state of the nation.
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I've been seeing on the internet that Trump won the popular vote, but of course am not seeing it on general news stations. Does anyone know who actually won the popular vote after all the mail in and absentee and provisional ballots were finally counted?
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@agold: http://www.snopes.com/2016/11/13/who-won-the-popular-vote/
Hillary Clinton is on track to win the popular vote, by a considerable margin.
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@agold: Hillary is currently ahead, and the majority of ballots still to be counted are in western states like CA and WA. The prediction is that she will end up with around a 1.7 percentage point lead. But this is a good article about electoral college vs popular vote elections. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/14/trump-lost-the-popular-vote-that-doesnt-mean-he-would-have-lost-a-popular-vote-election/
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@agold: I'm curious where you're seeing that??
@PurplePeony: I completely agree with that article. An election with the popular vote take all would be MUCH different than what we have now.
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I agree with many points made here. I don't think it is very democratic to have your vote count more or less based on your geographic location and result in someone winning who had fewer votes overall. Just doesn't make sense to me and the majority of Americans (I've read around 2/3) yet we can't do anything about it because it benefits the Republicans and they are the majority in both the house and Senate. Plus since it is in the Constitution it is not a simple majority to do away with it.
Secondly, the whole point of the way our country set up the government was to ensure checks and balances. I just don't see that happening now with Republicans running rampant all over Washington. So basically, we have a president that the majority of Americans do not want and no one really to check his actions. I would say our democracy is in trouble. -
@Modern Daisy: The voter suppression stuff is the scariest to me. There has been a huge decades-long effort to suppress the vote. I was very uncomfortable with it, but at least the Voting Rights Act was there to prevent the worst violations But after the Voting Rights Act was gutted by the Supreme Court, things have changed dramatically. Here's a summary:
<< In the decades that followed, Frye and hundreds of other new black legislators built on the promise of the Voting Rights Act, not just easing access to the ballot but finding ways to actively encourage voting, with new state laws allowing people to register at the Department of Motor Vehicles and public-assistance offices; to register and vote on the same day; to have ballots count even when filed in the wrong precinct; to vote by mail; and, perhaps most significant, to vote weeks before Election Day. All of those advances were protected by the Voting Rights Act, and they helped black registration increase steadily. In 2008, for the first time, black turnout was nearly equal to white turnout, and Barack Obama was elected the nation’s first black president.
Since then, however, the legal trend has abruptly reversed. In 2010, Republicans flipped control of 11 state legislatures and, raising the specter of voter fraud, began undoing much of the work of Frye and subsequent generations of state legislators. They rolled back early voting, eliminated same-day registration, disqualified ballots filed outside home precincts and created new demands for photo ID at polling places. In 2013, the Supreme Court, in the case of Shelby County v. Holder, directly countermanded the Section 5 authority of the Justice Department to dispute any of these changes in the states Section 5 covered. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, declared that the Voting Rights Act had done its job, and it was time to move on. Republican state legislators proceeded with a new round of even more restrictive voting laws. >>
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/29/magazine/voting-rights-act-dream-undone.html
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@periwinklebee: @Madison43: @ShootingStar: @mrsscb: the thought that states like California and New York or Texas and Florida or urban areas would control the outcomes of elections without the electoral college is based on the false assumption that those states or areas vote as a block. California had something like 30% for Trump and Texas had approximately 45% for Clinton. Those areas are diverse, but the majority take all system leads people to believe that *everyone* there is one side or the other.
Also, if all votes counted equally, it might drive some candidates to the center. I know an awful lot of people who would vote for the Republicans based on policies, but won't vote for candidates who push the super-conservative Evangelical Christian agenda. They believe in less government, including staying out of citizens marriages and medical decisions.
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@hilsy85: thanks. Interesting.
@ShootingStar: i saw it on some Instagram accounts I follow and then just by googling. But it wasn't popping up on "normal" websites and I hadn't heard about it on Fox News.
@skipra: i don't know that the republican politicians are "running rampant". But your phrasing did make me laugh. And I don't know that even a majority of Americans even voted in this election so who actually knows who the majority of Americans wanted. It clearly wasn't either candidate. Hilary had the lowest voter turn out for a democratic candidate for a long time. (Although I hear she's creeping up to obama's second election turn out.) it's too bad the left voters didn't turn out more.
@mrbee: It amazes me that people can't already vote. Is there any actual voter suppression going on that you know about or is it that voting somehow isn't already easy enough for some people to figure out how to do? I don't know how people can't already figure out how to vote unless they are of diminished intellectual ability, which may well be the case but that's another issue. You can vote at any polling site even if it isn't your registered site. You don't have to show Id to vote, which I personally think is totally ridiculous but I understand that wow, requiring an ID may be a hinderance. And there already is active encouraging of people to vote. I think that the politicians do a great job of that during the campaigns. If people are unable to be encouraged to vote, what more pandering to them can we do? I don't know that lack of encouragement is considers suppression. Are there just plain lack of polling sites? I see them all over my town. And people need to volunteer to have the polling places at their houses in addition to having them at places like schools and libraries. But how many polling places does a town need to have in order to not be considered suppressing a communities vote? I'm genuinely curious about what supression is happening because if people were actually being denied the right to vote that would be horrible.
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@agold: so I haven't fact checked this myself but seems like a quick overview: https://www.thenation.com/article/the-gops-attack-on-voting-rights-was-the-most-under-covered-story-of-2016/
EtA clearly a liberal slant but the facts are facts. Voter id is required in some states, and while it might be easy for you to obtain proper id, it is not as easy for everyone. Voter suppression is a real thing.This might have more facts: https://www.brennancenter.org/voting-restrictions-first-time-2016
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@agold: so this is just my anecdocal evidence that voting is not as easy as it should be - I am not saying that either of these were intentional suppression but the impact was the same as if it had been. I was living in Brooklyn in 2012 - my polling place was turning away voters who could not show photo ID, despite lots of folks arguing with the officials about it. I was voting at like 6 pm and the lines were extremely long, so there was no way people were going home, getting their IDs and coming back. This year, I am living in a suburb outside NYC, my husband and I go to our polling place and they tell him he's not on their list of registered voters and cannot vote. I pulled up our state registration on my iPhone to show them that he is, in fact, registered to vote, so they allow him to submit a provisional ballot. If I didn't have my phone, or know that our state registration list was online, he would have been denied his right to vote, despite being of above average intelligence and have having registered months in advance.
Both places are extremely liberal, so I didn't think that there was some hidden agenda to prevent us from voting for Obama and then Clinton, but thats how easy it is.
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@agold: I know, only like 55% of voters turned out which was very low. So who knows how the other 45% feel. At least the majority of actual voters did vote against him.
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@agold: In my county (maybe in my whole state, I'm not sure), you can only vote at your registered polling place. It's a three-ring circus trying to get from my job downtown to my polling place 11 miles away if I have to work on Election Day (I didn't this year because I am on mat leave). So I can definitely see how it can be difficult for people to get out and vote sometimes. In the last place I lived, two counties shared the same polling place (rural east KY) and they usually have low turnout because of that. There is also no early voting here. I think a lot could be done to improve it, starting with Election Day being a national holiday so that everyone has a chance to vote.
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@agold: I dunno if it is intentional suppression or not, but I do believe that the way voting is set up greatly benefits middle class people with salaried jobs. I voted early with no stress because I work in the public schools. I just jetted over there at 4:00. I didn't even have to bring my kids because they were still in daycare. Easy peasy. But it would be a lot harder for me to get to my polling place (unusual side of town) after work on actual election day, especially back in the day when my place of business was open until 6:00. Certainly would be a lot more impossible for people who work second shift, night shift, or who get lunch on-site and aren't allowed to leave. Especially if those people already feel disenfranchised from the system, what is their impetus to take time away from their hourly jobs to vote?
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@agold: Another thing to ask might be, are the polling places accessible on foot? Because I know my polling place really was only accessible by car, and I live intown. Still the polling place was at the health department, on the outskirts.
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(Sorry I'm not tagging everyone. Typing with one hand while I nurse my baby. ) These are all interesting things to think about. I really don't mind IDs being required to vote if it's an okay thing for the state to require. If people don't have their ID on them then that's an issue about them not knowing the requirements of their voting places. And the right to vote is a protected activity. A person can't be fired for leaving work to vote. Or going into work late. It would be awful if a person was punished by their work for voting. But that is the employers fault and not s voter suppression issue. It's too bad that people feel disenfranchised from the political system. During Obamas first election, i think he did a great job of reaching through to people who don't normal vote. And now I think Trump did another great job of reaching a different group of people who don't usually vote. But with just a little effort it seems that anyone can vote. It's too bad that anyone would think that making just a little effort is too much to ask of anyone. But that's another problem for another discussion. What in life doesn't require a little thought and effort? I do feel badly if a place isn't handicapped accessible. I did notice clear handicap access at my local family garage polling place this year and specifically don't recall ever having seen that before. So maybe these accessible issues are something that are continually being improved upon. I don't know what it means for something to be accessible by foot. Like is it a polling place in the middle of a train station that you can only reach by train? But people feeling disenfranchised and so they consequently don't vote? I don't consider that to be "suppression". People don't need to be catered too, although I think the majority of people think they are entitled to such treatment. Hopefully polling places are accessible. If they aren't, then us people who realize they aren't can probably find the number to call to ensure that the issues are addressed for the next election.9 remember seeing all throughout the day notices from my local media asking and begging for people to call them about any voting problems they had at polls. This was online, on Instagram and on Facebook and on tv and in the newspaper. The requests were like just wishing something bad would happen! And I didn't see one thing about problems at polls. I think it is always easy enough to volunteer your own house as a polling place. That way you can ensure it's done right. I'd love to have my house as a polling place!!! I'd be inviting all of my neighbors! I'd build a little ramp or something and even speak my best Spanish to people to those citizens who don't speak English. My husband says no to using a place as a polling center! Bummer. I would hang out all day at my neighbors polling house if I could. I love Election Day! And for the record. I really do feel badly for anyone who wants to vote but is denied that right.
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@mrbee: I will respond to you only because I'm 100% positive this will stay civil, lol. That is certainly interesting.. but seems like we're (again) only getting one side of the story here. There aren't really any facts to prove this was some underground republican movement to keep black people from voting. And further, it actually suggests to me that black people who wouldn't normally vote came out to vote for Obama just because he's black.. which seems a little racist. Certainly their right though. I don't know, I showed up to my (new) polling place where I had registered for months ago with an ID because being able to vote was that important to me and I didn't want to take any chances. The rules should apply to everyone otherwise there would be more voter fraud. Hopefully people who felt their vote was suppressed this time around read up on the rules required by their state so it doesn't happen next time.
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We're hearing a lot about liberal/conservative bubbles post election. I think the fact that we apparently have two simultaneous versions of the "truth" running in our country is extremely dangerous to our democracy. I won't address them directly, but some of the comments in this thread are just like I can't even understand how someone can think that way even when I am really trying to. But then I force myself to read some of the articles that are biased towards my opposing viewpoint and that at least makes it make a little more sense (because they are being fed that information constantly).
I encourage people to read, read extensively, read news sources from both sides but if you primarily get your news from Facebook, in particular you need to branch out.
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@Modern Daisy @agold: I think you are both looking at this from a privileged point of view. You both say "Just show up at your polling place with an ID" and it's great that that's how it worked for you. In North Dakota you can't use Student IDs, military IDs, or passports as IDs. What if you don't have a car and therefore no driver's license - what does that leave you? (I'm actually asking. I can't think of anything, but maybe there's another ID common in the US that I don't know about) Texas's voter ID laws mean there are over 600,000 residents who don't have the IDs that they'll accept. You can vote with a concealed weapons permit but not a student ID. Ohio eliminated in-person early voting on weekends and after 5pm. What if you have two jobs and don't have the time to go on election day? Arizona passed legislation restricting the collection of mail-in ballots, a legislation that disproportionately affects Latino voters.
And then there are the poll workers who, through malice or lack of information, tell people incorrect information. You may not have seen anything like that online but I sure did. For example Mark Alexander, who happens to be the Dean of Villanova Law School, was told by his poll worker that he needed extra ID, which was incorrect. Who knows how many other people didn't realize this and just went away?
I'm not saying this was a Republican scheme to stop people from voting (although to be honest I believe it IS, but on a state-wide level and not nationally. I don't think Trump had anything to do with this, I think he just benefitted from it) but I do think it's very clear that there are a lot of disenfranchised people and it's more than people just wanting to "be catered to" or not "reading up on the rules".
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@erinbaderin: I'm curious where you're getting your information, because much of it is incorrect or incomplete.
North Dakota allows voters to show up without a state ID and submit an affidavit that they’re eligible to vote along with their ballot. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/affidavit-allowed-for-north-dakota-voters-lacking-id/2016/09/21/44b8f892-8014-11e6-ad0e-ab0d12c779b1_story.html
Texas allows a ton of different IDs and if you don't have one of those, you submit a statement that you have a reasonable impediment and another type of very common ID document and you're good to go: http://www.votetexas.gov/register-to-vote/need-id/
Arizona only prohibits someone who isn’t related to you from collecting your ballot from you and turning it in. Other states have this rule too. Voters can still mail in their ballots themselves through the USPS or take their ballot themselves or have a relative take it to a polling place. The idea is to make sure that every vote is actually counted and prevent fraud.
Ohio allows you to vote with a paycheck or utility bill in person: http://www.sos.state.oh.us/SOS/elections/Voters/ID.aspx and they had weekend early in person voting on the two weekends before election day: http://www.rockthevote.com/get-informed/elections/state/ohio.html (click on the Voting Early line to expand)
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Just to add to what @erinbaderin: said, voter suppression (or attempts at voter suppression) is a real phenomenon, particularly in areas with a history of voting rights issues. For example, in my state (North Carolina), just this past summer a federal appeals court overturned a voter ID law because they found the intent was racially discriminatory: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/rundown/north-carolina-voter-id-law-overturned-racially-discriminatory-intent?client=safari. In addition, the day before the election last week, the state GOP issued a press release/email touting decreased African American voter turnout, due in part to reduced early voting on Sundays which is extremely popular with African Americans here in NC: https://www.google.com/amp/www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/amp/black-turnout-down-north-carolina-after-cuts-early-voting-n679051?client=safari
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@honeybear: I got everything from the ACLU website.
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@erinbaderin: Our polling place tried to tell my husband he needed his ID and his voter registration card and he couldn't vote unless he had both. Uh, no, that is incorrect ma'am.
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Very briefly, in reading the comments on this thread, I think we have several issues cropping up:
1. News sources. Anything can be a news source these days and people seem to be very polarized that they are "right" and everyone else is "wrong." There is very little trust of sources it seems.
2. Voting in elections varies state to state, would it make sense to simplify the rules and apply the same rules for all states?
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@Modern Daisy: I just want to say that voter fraud has been found to occur at rates between 0.00004 and 0.0009 percent of the time--aka, it is NOT a legitimate problem, and requiring ID or having strict voter requirements in order to prevent fraud is not a legitimate argument. And these rates were true BEFORE strict laws were passed, so you can't say that the low incidence is true due to the stricter laws
https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-fraud-myth
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@erinbaderin: The ACLU is not impartial and not a news source. "Unmitigated propaganda" is a more accurate description, as you can clearly see when you take a look at the actual rules in those places you mentioned.
@jape14: I think it's worth noting that North Carolina had extremely broad access to voting measures in place in this election and Clinton still lost there.
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Speaking of voter suppression...
I want to add that I personally know the person who posted this. I believe it happened too. I was so mad when I read it. Now I'm wondering if is something that I could have reported. I don't know where though.
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@honeybear: How do you define broad? The second link that @Jape14: posted clearly states that black voter turnout is lower than expected (and lower than other states) after restrictive voting rules were put into place.
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@honeybear: that is a great point--and would make me question the reason behind these strict ID laws/strict requirements. clearly they are not helpful in reducing voter fraud. So what is the purpose of them?
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@sunny: I don't have time to read the link right now, but the bottom line is that the Fourth Circuit insisted that NC remove the rules its legislature agreed on and reinstate broad access measures that had previously been approved by the DOJ. Those broader measures were all in place in NC for this election. To be clear, in NC for this election you could 1) register and vote the same day, 2) preregister when you are 16 or 17, 3) vote at least 14 days early (this was mandatory, but jurisdictions could expand that, of course), 4) vote out of your precinct, and 5) vote with an expired photo ID.
@hilsy85: I'll try to get back to you on this. I've got some other things to do now!
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@honeybear: @sunny: I don't want to totally take over this thread, but to clarify, though the court case put those broader measures back in place (including voter ID -- there is no voter ID requirement in North Carolina after the newest circuit ruling), that resulted in at least 17 counties significantly rolling back hours/locations during early voting to this minimum (compared with 2012). Though I'm not a fan of anecdotal evidence, based on my closest early voting location, which happens to be in a majority African American area, the lines were longer and hours shorter than in previous years. Our state Board of Elections is controlled by Republicans and thus it's not quite as simple as "jurisdictions deciding to do more." Several counties eliminated early voting sites on college campuses, a few at historically black colleges. In addition, there was an NAACP suit against the state due to improper purging of voters from rolls that was resolved just a week before the election, meaning that some voters who were affected by this had significantly reduced access to early voting. This is probably not that interesting to people outside NC, but this article is a good overview of the various factors that influenced turnout (one of which could be flagging enthusiasm, but is impossible to separate from other factors): http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/north-carolina-early-voting/506963/
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@erinbaderin: agree to disagree regarding my alleged "privileged point of view". I won't return any name calling on you. Although I will agre that a lot of people in this country lack the whatever to figure out how to vote. Thats honestly really unfortunate and sad on so many levels but I'm not sure how voting can be made any easier aside from removing the individual offenders on a case by case basis.
In California, if you don't have a drivers license, then you are supposed to get yourself a state ID. Looks just like a drivers license. Is that not available in every state? A school ID seems to be the equivalent of a library card. CCW license is at least a government issued document. And public utilities monthly statement seems like a legit document in the same way. I don't think Mail in ballots are a constitutionally protected right. Do mail in ballots even get counted each and every time? For some reason, I think they do not.
@looch: I think it absolutely would make sense to have uniform voting procedures across the country! It's crazy that already isn't the case.
I'm still curious about what the strict voting requirements are (the real ones and not the fake ones made up by crooked poll workers. )
Did anyone see on the news the group of people who severely beat up a 49 year old guy outside a polling place because he voted for trump? And while they were kicking his head, one of them proceeded to steal items out of the mans car? That's horrible violence that should be considered a hate crime. If there is any voter intimidation done by anyone against anyone, I think it should carry a stiff criminal penalty.
But the guy who gave bad information as a dumb joke that someone mentioned up thread,, he's an asshole and the guy who believed him is unfortunate. What do you do? We can tell people to stop being assholes and stop being unfortunate. It's probably an equally hard thing to do for most. -
@agold: actually, in the state of Oregon all ballots are either mailed in or dropped off. And I am an overseas voter so obviously I have to mail in my ballot. I certainly hope all of those ballots are counted!
I agree with the sentiment that voting practices should be the same for the entire country.
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@lamariniere: I voted for the first time in the 04 election by mail- it's been that way here as long as I've been a voter. This year I was too late to mail so I walked it less than 10 blocks to the public works office.
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@youboots: one of my best friends lives in OR and she told me about the system. I thought it was pretty great!
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@agold: WA state is also 100% ballot by mail/drop off. There are no polling stations and you either drop in a USPS mailbox or a ballot box.
@erinbaderin: I agree 100% that we are likely all approaching life from a very privileged POV.
@honeybear: @jape14: I read that while the federal court ruled that the law was unconstitutional, local election boards were able to implement the rules anyhow. I don't have the article handy though.
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@erinbaderin: YES. That was well put.
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@agold: honest question, but why do you perceive the word "privileged" as name calling? Is it not perfectly healthy to acknowledge the advantages we enjoy? I wonder why it is necessary for that word to evoke a negative response at the outset. What word could have been used to explain the same ideas without the negative connotation? Because if the word privilege immediately creates defensiveness, then we need a new word to use.
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@lamariniere: Washington state has a vote-by-mail system, too, and I love it. We get our ballots about 3 weeks before Election Day and can either send them back or drop them off at special drop boxes all around the county. Our county election commissioner just doubled the number of drop boxes here, which is awesome. I find I'm a much more engaged voter because I can take my time filling out my ballot and research any races/initiatives I'm not as familiar with. When I lived in PA, there would sometimes be something on the ballot that I hadn't been aware of until I stepped into the voting booth and I'd have to make my best guess about how to vote. Now, I never feel unprepared to vote (though it actually makes some decisions harder because of analysis paralysis). And @agold: yes, every ballot returned by the deadline (here, either postmarked on or before Election Day or dropped in a drop box by 8 pm that day) gets counted. We can go online to check the status and see that it was received, opened, and processed.
Both places are extremely liberal, so I didn't think that there was some hidden agenda to prevent us from voting for Obama and then Clinton, but thats how easy it is.
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