Mr. Trump’s latest comments came after he said that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had discussed the issue during their summit on Friday in Alaska.
Edit: Changed link from live-blog of it to main article.
Mr. Trump’s latest comments came after he said that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had discussed the issue during their summit on Friday in Alaska.
Edit: Changed link from live-blog of it to main article.
What will likely happen is that STATES will remove mail in voting in places where they lean democrat but keep it in places where Republicans will win. Bare in mind that Trump and the alt right need a scapegoat. Mail in voting is going to be pointed to the reason there is fraud and why Trump and the Republicans should win by default.
Take any “we need to change X about elections” with a grain of salt. Because they will only actually do it if they can either solidify their results or put enough doubt in the system to completely take it over.
The issue is that the states that lean Democrat… tend to have democratic leadership.
And mail in voting doesn’t matter for states like texas that are already gerrymandering away any chance for a Democrat to ever win again. And, because of the electoral college, popular vote doesn’t matter.
They’re not talking about statewide removal, but selectively removing it.
“Mail in voting will only be allowed in counties where 25% of the population is over 10 miles from the nearest polling place. Cities don’t need it because they have one nearby polling place for every quarter million residents, all with a single working machine. The gestapo will be stationed nearby for their safety and no sharing water.”
Again, the issue is that the states that lean Democrat tend to have democratic leadership.
And, to expand on this: This also actually impacts said Democrats.
Even a Colorado (where it is mostly just one “megacity”, the ski towns, and the roads leading to New Mexico that are blue) is not going to accept that. Especially as more and more Democrats want to be the next Newsom (transphobia and all…). This shit would get held up in the courts if not actively defied and there would be lots of active gerrymandering to remove those red districts anyway.
Which is the path we are already on. Red states get redder and blue states get purple but vote for purple candidates that call themselves Demcorats. And then it just depends on whether we have those elections at all.
This is about more than the electoral college. The election they’re working overtime to rig is the upcoming House election. And there are key states like Georgia that have been leaning left but still with red (gerrymandered) state legislature.
Which is still gerrymandering…
Again, short of an outright military occupation, blue states aren’t going to comply with this. And even a lot of the purple states are going to fight tooth and nail because their red leadership knows they are hanging on by a thread.
Ok, maybe I’ve missed something fundamental to your argument for why Republicans aren’t going to use mail in voting restrictions to their electoral advantage. Why do you think blue states need to comply for this to be effective? And why do you think red leadership in purple states won’t benefit from it?
Here is a quick summary of how mail in voting works:
trump can say whatever the fuck he wants. He is still dependent on those local election offices which depend on local county and state governments. So, again, the districts where this would matter are generally blue and democratic and run by Democrats who have both a personal and professional interest in not doing this.
So unless he plans to do a military occupation of all of Denver or LA/SF or whatever for the entirety of November? Those states will tell him to pound sand. And if he is doing a full military occupation… we aren’t having elections anyway.
And same for red leaders in purple states. No, not “Texas is totally secretly purple” but I am talking places like Georgia where it is ACTUALLY democratic voters and not just “moderate” Americans who don’t want to call themselves republicans (and Houston. Houston is actually pretty okay. Less so Austin). That leadership knows the best they can do is avoid rocking the boat because an angry community is a community that votes.
What I DO see happening is exactly what I already said.
Districts that republicans want get accused of fraud with the mail-in excuse. And then big balls is assigned to the case and, what do you know, he just found another 342 million voters for trump… in a local comptroller race.
But the actual mail-in voting won’t be obstructed because, like I said, it actually also benefits republicans very heavily in many districts. Particularly the ridiculously gerrymandered ones where there is a tiny sliver that corresponds to Sister-Grandma Jones who lives 30 miles outside of city limits and can’t walk because she got pregnant again.
Trump’s EOs aren’t where the rules will be set (hopefully, unless the SC just fully declares the Constitution void). It’ll be a the states. And they’ll design the laws on who can do mail in voting to their benefit.
For example, Georgia, with its red trifecta who would like more red votes to be counted both for their own elections and the House, passes a law saying it’s only valid of you live in a settlement with less than X density. X is above suburbia but below cities. And since it’s targeting areas rather than districts, the gerrymandered districts can boost their red votes and suppress their blue votes.
They don’t really care about voters in LA, they care about suppressing Atlanta and Austin so red states stay maximally red. They don’t need to take over blue states, just maintain their current dominance despite the electorate turning against them.
If voter suppression reliably caused the offender to lose no one would do it. But it doesn’t, not when applied subtly and accompanied by spin about how it’s just saving money or securing elections. The people on the margins who are most likely to stay home rather than go to the polls are the same ones who aren’t passionate about voter access and voting in general.