At my polling center in Dekalb, we usually have about 15-20 machines. Today, we had 4 or 5. It is a primary (Where the main nominee was already decided) so I think less turnout was expected, but seems like a cluster everywhere else in the city. No problems OTP I'm sure where it's reliably red.

Yeah, a friend of mine who sent in an absentee ballot a while back never got it accepted so had to in line. 2.5+ hours later he got to cast his ballot.


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This is fucking insane:

https://twitter.com/markniesse/statu...709216770?s=21


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Meanwhile, I got in and out in five minutes. Absolutely no line. I am just outside the metro area.

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This is why yelling at protestors to vote to change the system doesn't make sense.

At least they have port-a-johns. :p

If voting couldn't change things, they wouldn't be trying do hard to suppress it.

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At least the Dems seem aware of the issue.

The GOP was always going to do this. And they might still get away with it in November.

But I figured that it would catch the Dems completely unawares. They would be just gobsmacked to see the GOP not playing fair.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 1,000 times, shame on me. Fool me 10,000 times, maybe even the Dems start to gain some political instincts?

Just an incredibly sick human being. The guy who got assaulted is a Christian pacifist who if you look at the video was returning a helmet to one of the officers.

I'd ask where the evangelical community is here but we know.

Being aware of the issue doesn't mean they can change it. They've known for awhile about the closing of polling stations in black communities for years now. Once the Voting Rights Act was gutted by racists, it's full on Jim Crow in those states.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKCN1VV09J

Word is Stephen Miller is writing Trump's race/unity speech

Will it be a straight copy/paste from Stormfront or something he comes up with on his own?

The bar is so low for his speeches that if he doesn't drop a racial epithet somewhere he'll be praised by his base and some of the moderates. In the end, it won't change much.

So they're saying Trump is going to unveil new police reforms soon (True Story!)

I'm guessing on list will be "Policeman must wrap barbed wire around batons"

Wait, wait wait. So Mr leave it to the states, wants to create federal police reforms? :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

I expect a ban on chokeholds, except when cops want to use them.

Some misconduct bullshit database that will never actually be used effectively.

Some recommendations for changes that will never make it down the to state level because unions won't allow them.

And, again, not much will change.

Obviously the first step to change is voting in new politicians (not just removing Trump). If that happens, there's a chance for momentum and some form of legitimate reform.

Told my son that if we couldn't fix things after 30+ grade schoolers were gunned down, that nothing would ever move the needle...ever. I'll believe it when I see it.

I think the problem is some parts of the country are making it near impossible to vote for certain people.

You say that. But would we replace them with? Oh yeah, more of the same. Career politicians are what they are.

Who should they be replace with?

Legit question....people always find a reason to hate whomever ends up in those positions. Not who might it be, but for the sake of the Union, who should it be?

What it used to be. Small business owners, teachers, lawyers, etc.

How could you or I even try to enter a senate election. It is so cost prohibitive. Lessen the amount spent on elections. Eliminate PACs.

It makes sense that a speech read by a guy who doesn't believe it should be written by a guy that doesn't believe it.

That's a symptom, not a problem. It wouldn't be possible without decades of cynicism, apathy, etc. And it won't last if there is sufficient outrage from the electorate.


Some are clearly better than others. Politicians are not inherently bad or corrupt, and we have some good ones right now. Just not nearly enough of them. We the people could replace them with the schmuck down the road if we really wanted to.

I can agree to that.

Well we did vote in a non-politician. He even promised to "drain the swamp".


It worked out well, right?

These issues have to be solved from the bottom-up, not the top down. Politicians will always approximate the values of society; a cultural shift in what we value in our leaders. It's like the line about how everyone dislikes frivolous lawsuits until you get specific about what is or isn't frivolous. Similarly, people want politicians to stand up for what is right, until what they think is right differs - then they're mad they aren't following the will of the voters. Integrity and statesman aren't valued nearly as highly as partisanship. Until there's a sea change there, I expect things to get worse not better. The next president will be better than Trump probably, but it won't matter much if we stay on the same path.

If the people in charge don't want people who want change to vote, there is not much you can do. Is there really going to be outrage from a Republican denying a Democrat the right to vote? This is the South. Stopping black people from voting is a tradition for them.

True. But an out of touch with reality guy wasnt the best choice.

The facts simply don't support this level of characterization. Blacks consistently vote in higher numbers than those of Hispanic or Asian descent, and in similar number even to the oppressive Whites.

** 2008 turnout: 66% white, 65% blacks
** 2012: 64% white, 67% blacks
** 2016: 65% white, 60% blacks

If black voter turnout was drastically lower than other minorities, you'd have a valid argument here. It isn't. It's much higher. This is simply yet another area where listening to the dominant narrative seems to cloud the abilities of some (not necessarily yours) to think logically and critically.

I don't think any of it matters.

We are more fractured as a nation than any other time save for the civil war. It really won't matter who we have in office, if 40% of the people disagree with their policy because it isn't their "side" you can't enact change.

the rich will get richer, the poor will stay poor, and minorities will continue to get treated like shit.

idk, 1968 was a bad fuckin year.

Well, senators were picked by the political parties for much of our history.

Keep movin' the goalposts will ya?

Correlation does not imply causation. Especially when you're talking nationally and not on a state or county wide basis.

We also aren't talking about voter turnout. Older people have the highest turnout, but we don't assume that it is easier for them to vote. We also should not make a coordinated effort to make it harder for them to vote.

The fact is that in minority areas, wait times are much longer. And they are actively making them longer. Policies like "exact match" disproportionately effect minority populations. Same goes for purges in voting rolls and reduction in early voting.

It's rather obtuse to see all these moves and not understand what the goal is of them. They aren't putting all this effort into stripping the VRA for nothing.

Also things are getting worse. Georgia closed 80bpolling stations this year. Guess where they were?

I agree with you that voter suppression is a problem, and an increasing one. What I'm saying is that you are taking the argument far further than is justified. We don't know what the turnout would be without that happening. We do know it's not happening on a scale sufficient to disenfranchise blacks dramatically as compared to other blocs.

The issues with VRA and similar tactics also aren't as homogenous as is being implied. Strong majorities favor no-reason absentee voting, but nearly as many blacks favor Voter ID as whites, overwhelming numbers in both cases. So do we stand on the side of not giving them what they want because we think it's better for them?

The motivation argument swings both ways as well. It's clear why a party would want to suppress vote that strongly opposes them - but also clear why the opposing party would want to encourage that vote.

People are still waiting to vote and a judge had to extend voting hours in 20 counties. This was not a legitimate election.

And yes, the point of gutting the VRA was to make it harder for certain demographics to vote. Republicans didn't fight to overturn just for fun.

This is the exact reason Stacey Abrams decided not to run for Senate and instead is devoting her efforts to fighting voter suppression. Lots of smoke that she was cheated out of the Governor 2 years back by massive voter role purges (the aforementioned 'exact match') and by shenanigans that created massive lines at the polls in minority heavy areas. It doesn't take a genius to note that less people are going to vote of it takes an hour rather than 15 minutes. These massive lines is something that has been carried out to an extreme today. These measures are designed to depress the black vote. I can only imagine this being a trial run for November.


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Heisman Candidate Matt Jones?

(just a nugget for the old timers here)

Totally with you here. I'm not joking at all.

We saw the Trump strategy in effect in 2016... lunacy through the entire course of the campaign, then a week or two of twitter-free relative sanity right before the election, let the Dems hang themselves, and just hope the persuadables manage to find their way back to all the old standards: tax cuts, immigration, racism, abortion, rural outrage, anti political correctness, corporate profits, 401(k) balances, Hunter Biden, and whatever concoction they have manufactured to leave out as bread crumbs to vote for him.

Person in Atlanta I know waited 3 hours to vote. They say that their wait was the shortest of anyone they've talked to.

Obligatory wtf how does that happen in the "greatest democracy on earth"

Maybe if people wouldn’t take their sweet time walking through the hot coal station they would be able to vote faster.

The voter suppression serves a dual purpose.

Most directly, it suppresses the votes of black people.

Indirectly, it will cause people to point out "Hey, you are suppressing the votes of black people; that's not fair." Which means when Trump tweets some complete fiction he saw on OANN about "millions of Hispanics stuffing ballots in Wisconsin" or some shit, the media will feel the need to bothsides it and claim that "there are claims of voting irregularity by both Democrats and Republicans"

Basically, it lets the GOP suppress the vote while giving credence to their baseless claims of "voter fraud"

Does this issue mobilize democrats, minorities, and their allies to get out and elect allies to offices of influence? If not, then expect more of the same.

The GOP, following on the success of the generic Trump philosophy, is emboldened to just say the quiet part out loud. Disenfranchise the undesirable groups of voters, to win elections. Simple as that. Kick them off the rolls, intimidate them from showing up, put their understaffed polling places in bad locations... whatever it takes.

yes all this too

I don't see McGrath beating McConnell although I hope it happens. She's the "establishment" pick so I think she gets the nomination, but Charles Booker is picking up momentum right now. Matt Jones endorsed him - though that appears to at least be due in part to the fact that McGrath's campaign allegedly got him removed from his TV show (which he denies, but c'mon). I loved that show (Hey Kentucky) and it's not the same since he was forced to quit as he considered a run for Senate.

There's just something about McGrath that I don't think connects well enough, but maybe the anti-McConnell sentiment will override it. Still, it's hard to elect someone who hasn't held office and lost an election in 2018 in a state that is solidly for the other party.

Bevin killed Bevin, IMO. Honestly, he made Trump look good by comparison. I've never seen someone be as unnecessarily hateful as him - it's like he actively tried to out-Trump Trump. If he had won re-election, his response to the Coronavirus would have been a disaster. I guarantee he would have acted like George Costanza in an apartment fire to show Trump he was his most loyal servant. We probably would have had hydroxychloroquine stations on every corner.

The stupid poll skewing letter the WH released basically boiled down to arguing that the gap in registered voters will go away on election day due to people not wanting and not able to vote.

Trump attorney sends a cease and desist letter over CNN poll showing Biden ahead by 14%

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/10/polit...oll/index.html