2021 American Civil War

Adisa

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The argument against In-person voting falls flat when the same people arguing against it are breaking their backs to close voting centers.
 

Cheimoon

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To be honest, these arguments never really do much for me. We should always remain alert on this and not get complacent about it.
  • In the Netherlands there was "no evidence" of the government influencing an independent research organization, until suddenly there was. Conclusions from research were "drastically" rewritten to benefit government officials.
  • Conservatives would have probably told you in the 60s there was no evidence of the FBI spying on targets they deemed subversive, such as the Black Panthers or MLK. Until it turned out they did.
  • Nazi sympathizers would have probably told you in the 40s there was no large scale extermination of Jews and other groups, until it turned out there was.

I don't doubt the voting security of many Western countries but absence of evidence does not always mean evidence of absence. Again, we should always remain vigilant about these things.
I would not dispute these three points, but I am not sure what they have to do with voter fraud? It's quite a different scale and dynamic compared to the things you are talking about, especially in this day and age.
 

GloryHunter07

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It's not having them that's the issue it's being forced to carry them most adults have a driving licence and a passport anyway. It's not a problem for me either I'm not the group that has scuppered every attempted roll out of a National Identification card.
I remember when ID cards was a pressing national issue in the UK. Innocent times.
 

calodo2003

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The argument against In-person voting falls flat when the same people arguing against it are breaking their backs to close voting centers.
Don’t you mean ‘by mail voting’ when those who argue against it close voting centers?
 

nimic

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And I'm all out of bubblegum.

VorZakone

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I would not dispute these three points, but I am not sure what they have to do with voter fraud? It's quite a different scale and dynamic compared to the things you are talking about, especially in this day and age.
Well, I just find no use in the phrase "worries about fraud are nonsense". What good does it do? Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it'll never happen.

My point being that we should always remain vigilant and make sure the government doesn't slack. Who knows if in the future some dominant party tries to influence voter fraud investigations. Most likely we'd be dependent on insiders whistleblowing and/or investigative journalism bringing it under the spotlight.
 

GiddyUp

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Has anyone seen the video of the Democrat congresswoman trying to hand out masks to the unmasked Republicans when they were locked down last Wednesday. His response was " I dont want to get political in here". Where the feck does this dumb dickhead think he is.
 

Pexbo

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Has anyone seen the video of the Democrat congresswoman trying to hand out masks to the unmasked Republicans when they were locked down last Wednesday. His response was " I dont want to get political in here". Where the feck does this dumb dickhead think he is.
To be fair, inside the Capitol is no place to get political.
 

Carolina Red

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Has anyone seen the video of the Democrat congresswoman trying to hand out masks to the unmasked Republicans when they were locked down last Wednesday. His response was " I dont want to get political in here". Where the feck does this dumb dickhead think he is.
And now a 70 something congresswoman who was stuck in there with them has tested positive.
 

Cheimoon

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Well, I just find no use in the phrase "worries about fraud are nonsense". What good does it do? Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it'll never happen.

My point being that we should always remain vigilant and make sure the government doesn't slack. Who knows if in the future some dominant party tries to influence voter fraud investigations. Most likely we'd be dependent on insiders whistleblowing and/or investigative journalism bringing it under the spotlight.
I meant electoral fraud, but I suppose you got that. Maybe I phrased that a little strongly, but it's in response to the many existing worries about voter fraud, such as he stuff that's being aired routinely by the GOP in the US. In practice, that has appeared to be nonsense so far (fraud cases are extremely rare and influence nothing), and no more than a made-up excuse to support their voter suppression efforts.

So my point is that concerns for electoral fraud should not be the first concern when discussing how voting can be made more accessible to people. Certainly all the ways I listed that already exist are very secure, and so would be the digital systems that I expect countries to implement within the decade that already have strong systems to communicate with your government using your national ID#.
 

Cheimoon

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Has anyone seen the video of the Democrat congresswoman trying to hand out masks to the unmasked Republicans when they were locked down last Wednesday. His response was " I dont want to get political in here". Where the feck does this dumb dickhead think he is.
The worst part is rather that it isn't political. This is what public health officials say, and it had nothing to do with political leanings until politicians made it that way for their own electoral gains.
 

Wibble

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I would agree with that, leaving aside Trumpism and the nonsense that surrounds him, to me there is something wrong with people not bothering to turn up and vote in person. Yes I know there are valid reasons for postal votes; disability, working away from home at election time, etc. lots of other legitimate reasons.
Why on earth is someone's vote worth more or less depending on the method by which they vote? What if the original method was written on papyrus and carried to the counting center by carrier pigeon? Or written in the blood of your first born? Or only male landowners are allowed to vote? Times change as do voting methods.

But if I was someone who had voted in person and then saw my candidate beaten predominantly by votes from people who could not be bothered to get off their back-sides and go to the polling station, I think I would be upset too.
Were you not concentrating? Trump spent many months trying to cripple the mail system as Democrats tend to vote by mail more often than Republicans. He then demonised the mail system resulting in his own supporters largely avoiding mail in voting but then acts surprised when mainly Democrats mail in their votes (that get counted last). It is almost as if it were a plan to try to steal the election back when he lost with baseless voter fraud accusations.
 

Wibble

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Voting should be allowed by multiple methods. In person, early/absentee mail in and electronic. It should also be compulsory. You can always spoilt your ballot if you genuinely don't want to register a vote but if you are going to have representative democracy (and after Brexit who wants direct democracy?) then it should be representative.
 

WI_Red

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Why on earth is someone's vote worth more or less depending on the method by which they vote? What if the original method was written on papyrus and carried to the counting center by carrier pigeon? Or written in the blood of your first born? Or only male landowners are allowed to vote? Times change as do voting methods.



Were you not concentrating? Trump spent many months trying to cripple the mail system as Democrats tend to vote by mail more often than Republicans. He then demonised the mail system resulting in his own supporters largely avoiding mail in voting but then acts surprised when mainly Democrats mail in their votes (that get counted last). It is almost as if it were a plan to try to steal the election back when he lost with baseless voter fraud accusations.
Well that is just silly. Would anyone on here ever put their trust in @Mr Pigeon to deliver a pizza, much less their sacred vote? It would likely end up under the body of a dead seagull hooker after a night of crack and debauchery.
 

Cheimoon

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Well that is just silly. Would anyone on here ever put their trust in @Mr Pigeon to deliver a pizza, much less their sacred vote? It would likely end up under the body of a dead seagull hooker after a night of crack and debauchery.
That does not sound like a good pizza topping.
 

Mr Pigeon

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Well that is just silly. Would anyone on here ever put their trust in @Mr Pigeon to deliver a pizza, much less their sacred vote? It would likely end up under the body of a dead seagull hooker after a night of crack and debauchery.
Some daft bastards let me spend £300k last year at my work so weirder things have happened, to be fair.

And ges, I just bought loads of sweeties and a unicycle to make my getaway on.
 

WI_Red

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Some daft bastards let me spend £300k last year at my work so weirder things have happened, to be fair.

And ges, I just bought loads of sweeties and a unicycle to make my getaway on.
Monocle also to complete the outfit?
 

Wibble

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Well that is just silly. Would anyone on here ever put their trust the US Mail to deliver a pizza, much less their sacred vote? It would likely end up under the body of a dead seagull hooker after a night of crack and debauchery.
TM The Don
 

Revan

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McConnell, welcome to the resistance! Always I knew that you are a true constitutionalist.

More seriously, can McTurtle pull this off? Does he want to do so in the first place?

Censure is bullshit, won't achieve anything.
 

berbatrick

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IN WAKE OF CAPITOL RIOT, GOP LEGISLATURES “REBRAND” OLD ANTI-BLM PROTEST LAWS
Three states introduced anti-protest laws since the Capitol insurrection — part of a wider push to criminalize dissent.

https://theintercept.com/2021/01/12/capitol-riot-anti-protest-blm-laws/

Florida’s and Mississippi’s bills in particular represent a new brand of anti-protest laws on steroids, creating penalties for a wide array of activities, from damaging monuments to obstructing traffic. The bills include measures that could encourage harsh law enforcement responses to protests as well as provisions meant to prevent local governments from reducing police funding.

The narrower Indiana bill would broaden the definition of rioting — which the Florida bill did as well — and would criminalize camping at the Indiana state Capitol. The Mississippi bill would also allow the state to strip unemployment benefits from anyone who pleads guilty to participating in disruptive protests.
 

tombombadil

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Solius

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I would agree with that, leaving aside Trumpism and the nonsense that surrounds him, to me there is something wrong with people not bothering to turn up and vote in person. Yes I know there are valid reasons for postal votes; disability, working away from home at election time, etc. lots of other legitimate reasons. But if I was someone who had voted in person and then saw my candidate beaten predominantly by votes from people who could not be bothered to get off their back-sides and go to the polling station, I think I would be upset too.

I am not talking about fraud or attempted manipulation of votes, I just feel attending the polling station is a public demonstration of support for your country, regardless of who you choose to vote for and everyone should be obliged to turn up to vote in person if they possibly can.
Totally agree mate. In fact people that do 50 laps of the polling centre should have their votes count double. That’ll show those lazy postal voters for staying home in a pandemic.
 

The Firestarter

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@Grinner summed it up. There's probably a few USCs that governs how regular forces can be employed/not used when it comes to domestic. I think the only regular force that is granted domestic policy is Delta. I know the investigative fields and special operators work alongside federal and state agencies but have limited to zero jurisdiction. Delta has more freedom from what limited knowledge I have.
Just came across this :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act_of_1807

The act provides a "statutory exception" to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which limits the use of military personnel under federal command for law enforcement purposes within the United States.[2][3
So it appears there is a way, however :

Before invoking the powers under the Act, 10 U.S.C. § 254 requires the President to first publish a proclamation ordering the insurgents to disperse. As part of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, these provisions are now
I can totally see Biden going for that Bible quick.