Indiana Senate Bill 167: Holy crap, what a mess.

[TheMysteriousGX]

What are your thoughts on the door-to-door ballot collection then? That's unofficial, done by unaccountable third parties? Republicans oppose it, Democrats are for it, you gonna find a way to rationalize siding with the Democrats again? (You probably are.)

I mean, it's not unofficial, it's not unathorized, it's entirely legal, and it's specifically legal and regulated by the State of California, so...what's the issue? "Republicans oppose it" isn't an argument and it doesn't make it illegal.

Ballot harvesting (ballot collection) laws by state

Ballotpedia: The Encyclopedia of American Politics

ballotpedia.org

It's nothing like unauthorized, unregulated, third-party drop offs masquerading as official ballot drop boxes

But hey, another whataboutism! Can you defend a single, actual point you make or do you just ping-pong between grievances?

 

[tstorm823]

But hey, another whataboutism! Can you defend a single, actual point you make or do you just ping-pong between grievances?

I mean, eventually I'll get bored of you justifying double standards. You do understand ballot collection is regulated now, right? Not forever into the past, and it became regulated due to complaints.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I mean, eventually I'll get bored of you justifying double standards. You do understand ballot collection is regulated now, right? Not forever into the past, and it became regulated due to complaints.

Yes? And? That justifies you lying about California because?

 

[Silvanus]

Confidence in elections is important. Both parties regularly claim foul play and demand recounts, security and accountability are important regardless of the prevalence of fraud. Now, I'll readily admit to you that there is a shallow political play here: Republicans pass election security, which believe it or not the vast majority of people have no problem with and don't think is racist, knowing Democrats will try to obstruct and allow Republicans to campaign on how Democrats want less secure elections. That's the political play here, election security is a winning issue and Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot fighting it, and don't realize its bad for them because they live in a bubble of their own making.

I'm sure election security is popular if you present it simply as election security. If you outlined what the changes actually are, rather than a broad issue of popular principle, I suspect support would plummet. A little bit like the difference between asking "do you support law and order", and asking whether they support racial profiling by the police.

You know what improves election confidence more than chasing shadows? Refraining from spreading the big lie.

 

[Agema]

Gerrymandering predates the Republican Party, and as the opposite of gerrymandering is also gerrymandering, it was unavoidable. Not to say Republicans haven't done some bad gerrymandering, but acting like it's a Republican thing is just wrong. Who discussed cheating in 2020 is an important specification, because you're not remotely talking about the people making local county decisions about polling places, and your claims of giving themselves the legal power to cheat are just 100% based on insinuation.

No, the opposite of gerrymandering is not gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is the deliberate redrawing of electoral districts with the intent of unfairly skewing an election. If borders are drawn under a principle other than the geographic distribution of party affiliation then it cannot realistically be called gerrymandering. It may for various reasons favour one party over another, but this effect should be incidental: transient or fluctuating over time, with no party consistently disadvantaged, and modest.

You're at least right in that a lot of US political shenanigans are not party-specific. But nevertheless, the cultural attitude of using political power to cheat is ingrained in Republicans even if also the Democrats. Fundamentally, claiming the Democrats also cheat in no way defends the Republicans from accusations of cheating.

And let's be clear here, there already exists comprehensive evidence that your last Republican president attempted to overturn a democratic election by numerous scams and immorally undemocratic devices, up to and including packing an angry mob at the legislature. However, instead of being made a pariah, he is still loved by party members, protected and acclaimed by high ranking party politicians, who are enacting bills in line with his lies. The Republicans are implicitly telling everyone they'd rather cheat than lose. We're doing no more than accepting them by their own actions.

 

[tstorm823]

I'm sure election security is popular if you present it simply as election security. If you outlined what the changes actually are, rather than a broad issue of popular principle, I suspect support would plummet.

The majority of every major polling demographic supports specifically the requirement to have an id to vote. The majority of both black Americans and Democratic voters support voter I'd laws.

Yes? And? That justifies you lying about California because?

I haven't lied about a thing.

Republicans are implicitly telling everyone they'd rather cheat than lose. We're doing no more than accepting them by their own actions.

No. Democrats are telling you that. You reject any insight into Republican politics that isn't filtered through Democrats

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I haven't lied about a thing.

You've regularly claimed that Democratic efforts to get people to vote have been unauthorized or illegal despite neither thing being true

 

[tstorm823]

You've regularly claimed that Democratic efforts to get people to vote have been unauthorized or illegal despite neither thing being true

Unless "against the law as written" is illegal, then it's absolutely true.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Unless "against the law as written" is illegal, then it's absolutely true.

Proven otherwise in a court of law, champ. Care to take another swing?

Like, I directly linked you the California law for door-to-door ballot collection. Which you claimed was unofficial and unaccountable, despite both of those things being false

You want me to start taking Conservative arguments seriously, you gotta stop lying

 

[Agema]

No. Democrats are telling you that. You reject any insight into Republican politics that isn't filtered through Democrats

Funnily enough, I read a great deal of content that does not come from the Democratic Party. And when it comes to the point where virtually no-one agrees with the Republican Party except the Republican Party, my inclination is to suspect that the problem lies with the Republican Party.

So, do you think the 2020 presidential election result was (sufficiently) free, fair and accurate that Biden has a genuine mandate?

 

[tstorm823]

Proven otherwise in a court of law, champ.

The PA Supreme Court ruled, on strict party lines, that satellite offices for "mail-in" votes could stay despite not being in the law because they vaguely matched the intent of recent reforms to give people more voting options. In the same session, they kicked the Green Party off the ballot, at Democrats' request, on a paperwork technicality.

That court can go to hell.

 

[tstorm823]

Funnily enough, I read a great deal of content that does not come from the Democratic Party. And when it comes to the point where virtually no-one agrees with the Republican Party except the Republican Party, my inclination is to suspect that the problem lies with the Republican Party.

So, do you think the 2020 presidential election result was (sufficiently) free, fair and accurate that Biden has a genuine mandate?

You only read content that disagrees with Republicans, and don't find that remotely suspicious?

The election was sufficient to accept the results. Does that give Biden a meaningful mandate? Not so sure about that one, as nobody voted for him. Millions voted against Trump, nobody voted out of support for Joe Biden.

 

[Agema]

You only read content that disagrees with Republicans, and don't find that remotely suspicious?

No, I think it means the Republican Party is off-beam when even commenters who have no bone in the fight find it hard to credibly justify much of what they are doing.

What the problem is here is actually that you are such a Republican Party partisan that you are struggling to parse why anyone might disagree with the Republican Party except seeing it as a conspiracy. I think that's actually much of the problem that the Republican Party has: a siege mentality and increasing insularity fed in no small part by it's particularly extreme media.

The election was sufficient to accept the results.

Right. And so what do you have to say about all the Republicans who very evidently think otherwise, some of whom occupy high office?

What do you think about things like Trump phoning state election officials and attempting to strongarm them into overturning election results? The treasure trove of all sorts of other plans we now have in clear evidence to overturn the election?

 

[Silvanus]

The majority of every major polling demographic supports specifically the requirement to have an id to vote. The majority of both black Americans and Democratic voters support voter I'd laws.

Yes, but that's not all we're talking about, is it? You keep stripping out all the rest: closures, restrictions to methods of voting, reducing available time.

The majority have also expressed support for a national rule to allows mail-in voting. Can I rely on the Republican Party to follow the will of the majority and implement both? Or just to pursue the one that doesn't make voting easier, and doesn't help their own demographics?

That court can go to hell.

It doesn't really matter one iota whether you agree with the court's reasoning or not. They decide what is legally admissible, and you don't. So when you say something is against the law, and the court says otherwise, you are categorically wrong.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

The PA Supreme Court ruled, on strict party lines, that satellite offices for "mail-in" votes could stay despite not being in the law because they vaguely matched the intent of recent reforms to give people more voting options. In the same session, they kicked the Green Party off the ballot, at Democrats' request, on a paperwork technicality.

Well sure. Courts tend to rule that unless something is specifically illegal, they're legal. The GOP was free to open such places to drop off mail in votes in places they controlled and opted not to. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that the GOP's response isn't "let's work out a way we can both be satisfied and keep voting being easier" but instead is "let's specifically ban this"

That court can go to hell.

Give me one actual good reason that a legal mail in vote shouldn't count because the postal system was delayed in the middle of a crisis (that we still haven resolved, but that's another topic)

 

[Trunkage]

You only read content that disagrees with Republicans, and don't find that remotely suspicious?

The election was sufficient to accept the results. Does that give Biden a meaningful mandate? Not so sure about that one, as nobody voted for him. Millions voted against Trump, nobody voted out of support for Joe Biden.

As a person who has to read Murdoch papers, but doesn't have to goal of putting Biden or Trump in power (if anything, they're still pretty pro-Trump), its pretty hard to find content that agrees with Republicans because a lot of it is conspiracy theory stuff that I keep getting told shouldn't be in the news

 

[tstorm823]

Well sure. Courts tend to rule that unless something is specifically illegal, they're legal.

You think the rules for running elections is to do anything that isn't specifically banned?

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

You think the rules for running elections is to do anything that isn't specifically banned?

That's how laws work, yes. Do you have a comment on literally anything else in that post or are you ceding that the GOP would rather make voting harder for everybody instead of easier to vote in anyway and that there's zero real arguments for why a vote shouldn't count due to mail delays?

 

[tstorm823]

That's how laws work, yes.

That how criminal law works. That's not how every law works. The laws that define government operation are not "everything not banned in allowed" laws.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

That how criminal law works. That's not how every law works. The laws that define government operation are not "everything not banned in allowed" laws.

This particular wrong belief explains a *lot* actually