Are you white, middle class, and male?
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Especially when I posted to a case of people of color dealing with a case disenfranchisement LITERALLY THIS YEAR. I mean the voting rights act was recently gutted, and we’re all supposed to pretend that the playing field is level somehow, when people of color are disproportionately working class, targeted by the cops, and more likely to have their polling places targeted for closure. Also, less likely to have generational wealth, hence an economic cushion in case of disaster, less likely to have a car, and less likely to live near polling places or near public transit.
This whole mind set of “I can always get out and vote, and hence anyone who doesn’t is a lazy asshole who deserve what they get” is getting mighty tedious.
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Oregon has mail in votes too. I wish we all had that option, but we don’t.
But what about people who are homeless?
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Once again, slowly: these are often counted as provisional.
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Right? HR isn’t there for the employees, but for the company, to protect it.
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And that doesn’t change voter suppression as a real world problem. If there was an active campaign, that you KNOW has a history of turning incredibly violent, would you risk putting your life and the life of your family on the line for that? Because that’s the sort of choices that some people are making. The fear of violent reprisal for voting is a REAL fear that still exists in the modern age. Just because you’re not subject to that, doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
Again, I’m going to stress this, they tried to disenfranchise an entire community in a county here in GA. The Sec. of state recommended the guy who suggested that change, and the sec. of state is running for governor in a tight race. He’s suffered no consequences for this.
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I would suggest that the people who do this out of pure laziness are not working class people with families either.
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It seems to me that your original statements were very clear - some people aren’t voting, and you believe those people have shirked a fundamental civic duty, an ethical necessity (although you harbor no ill will towards those prevented from voting), and categorizing old people as being the source of our political problems is agism and blame-shifting.
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Your experience is not everyone’s.
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No one said that… we’re discuss the issue of ongoing voter suppression, because there are people here who refuse to understand how much of an impact it makes on voters today, especially after the gutting of the voting rights act.
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Not all people who don’t vote are lazy. “Lazy teenagers” is just as much of a stereotype as “angry old white dudes.” If you look at the comments many of us have made, it’s in pointing out that the active campaign of voter supression has led to many people not being able to vote or genuinely fearing about voting, because there is a long history of violence aimed at disenfranchised minorities trying to vote.
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I read through this thread and pondered…to comment or not to comment.
Point blank…voting is a right in this country for all citizens. I think @Melz2 puts in perfectly in stating the government and powers that be should be doing everything in their power to make voting as easy as possible for all people. While we can debate hours on end how to accomplish that, the point is true and spot on and not debatable.
Additional points made by too many to call out are that those said same powers that be have enabled voter disenfranchisement to a sickening degree to hold on to their own power base. Whether through gerrymandering, voting law changes, or voter suppression…the means are irrelevant, the outcome is the same. Make it difficult for those that would vote them out to vote at all.
This statement right here is at the very heart of the issue for a large part of the thread:
Stating an absolute “no legitimate excuse” while then placing your own stipulation/limitation-“if you are physically and mentally able”-on the absolute is disingenuous at best.
It is not up to you to decide what is or isn’t a legitimate excuse or reason someone is unable to vote. And as it has been said I will reiterate in no uncertain terms…one old white guy to another…JUST BECAUSE IT IS YOUR EXPERIENCE DOESN’T MAKE IT EVERYONE’S EXPERIENCE. That is complete and utter bullshit and when @Mindysan33 points out you speaking with privilege…that is exactly where it is lying. My strong suggestion…again one old white guy to another…stop talking and listen. Instead of telling someone else “you have no excuse” listen to their reasoning first.
Show some empathy. Have some compassion. Judge less, understand more.
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Note the grey and purple states:
They don’t permit pre-poll postal voting unless you can convince them that you require it for what they see as a valid reason. Exact requirements vary widely, as does the level of bureaucratic hassle involved in satisfying those requirements.
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Well, if they weren’t so lazy, they’d spend all their time getting the laws changed, right? I mean, it’s really their OWN fault that the way election laws are made are entirely outside of their control! /s
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Case in point:
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Of course not, which is why I asked for sources on the prevalence of the issue. I even later conceded one can come up with scenarios of multiple jobs or public transportation that makes it even more difficult. But the assertion that there is a prevalent issue with employers actively working to prevent you from voting, up to and including firing because of missed work, is rather extraordinary. I’d like something to back up that assertion. One could assert many companies want their employees to vote, as they actively push propaganda about voting in ways to favor them (i.e. the recent “Right to Work” vote in Missouri.)
Note this is separate from other voter suppression issues such as Voter ID laws and Gerrymandering, which I agree are issues.
I posted one and there was a BB article on the other. This is a real world, ongoing issue.
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I think we can post examples of disenfranchisement all day long, but the fact is, across the country and the various flavors of franchise that we have, young people turn out less than other cohorts. There’s a couple basic explanations for this that don’t involve pointing fingers:
- young people are more likely to live transient lives
- young people have fewer concrete investments, like property or careers
- young people are less likely to have kids who are dependent on public institutions
With less concrete at stake, voting seems less important. Of course, there’s all sorts of more abstract stuff at stake all the time, and we shouldn’t wait years until these abstractions become more concrete for everybody–we should mandate voting as a matter of course. Making voting mandatory would short-circuit the current dialogue around voting that is readily hijacked by whatever asshat decides to declare that most people are too stupid to vote. You’re not too stupid to vote
