Election Year Debate

[sukeban]

Lots of interesting things happening recently with respect to the election. I'll talk about two.

 

1. It appears as though Mr. Romney will, after a brief scare in February and March, take the Republican nomination. For any registered (or leaning) R's out there, how does this make you feel? Are you happy because you genuinely like Romney? Content because you believe he is the most electable? Or dispirited because you feel that he is a ersatz elephant and your true loyalty lies with either Mr. Santorum, Mr. Gingrich or the good Dr. Paul?

 

Personally, I am of mixed feelings about this. For a time in February, I was actually beginning to believe that Mr. Santorum was the more electable candidate for the R's, as he would be able to legitimately and enthusiastically rally the sizable Republican base. Sure, he would likely alienate moderate voters, but if he adopted a full-bore Bush 2k4 strategy (rally the base--forget the rest), I believed that he might just be able to do it. Or at least come the closest. This was coupled with an eye on the polls that state that Mr. Romney is now widely disliked by Americans as more and more voters have seen his true colors (thoroughly aloof patrician carpet bombing the opposition in negative, specious ads) and he has been pulled far to the right by this prolonged primary process. I am thus unsure whether or not Mr. Romney can actually lay claim to moderate voters, as his campaign incessantly advertises. Moot point, however, as Mr. Stantorum is on the verge of losing Pennsylvania, his home state, which will effectively end the primary process (well, maybe not--but that's for another day).

 

2. Republican voter-suppression laws in swing states. In nearly every state where they control the State House, Republicans have passed, in a highly coordinated fashion, laws to restrict voting by demographics sympathetic to Democrat candidates. The reasoning for this is pretty straightforward--Republicans benefit from lower turnouts in elections as there are simply more registered Democrats than there are registered Republicans. Republican voters are also more likely to be elderly (read: retired) and/or wealthy. Democratic voters are more likely to be poorer and younger. Retired folks can vote anytime they want. So can wealthy professionals. Poor folks working two hourly jobs cannot. Students with a full course load and a job cannot. This is speaking generally, of course.

 

So these laws have restricted the time in which early voting (vote by mail--what I like to do) may be selected. They have curtailed the time in which registration forms collected in voter drives may be turned in (down to two days in Florida... meaning if you collect a form on Friday morning it must be turned in by Monday [but you're out of luck if it's a three-day weekend]). Republican Registrars have moved polling places out of urban areas and into suburban areas, creating huge lines in poorer neighborhoods where, by and large, a poor voter cannot afford to wait for three hours in order to vote (lunch break is only an hour long). Legislatures have passed laws requiring the use of a Driver's License in order to vote (can't use a military ID, etc.). You get the idea. There really isn't any rational justification for this either, as most everyone would agree (at least publicly...) that more people voting is always better. Republican legislators might try and shuck some jive and talk about "voter fraud," but that's a straw man. Indeed, where was the concern prior to 2012? Far more likely that Republican strategists have looked at the average voter profile from 2008 and hit upon a course of action to guard against it happening again.

[Aurielius]

Lots of interesting things happening recently with respect to the election. I'll talk about two.

<snip>

2. Republican voter-suppression laws in swing states. In nearly every state where they control the State House, Republicans have passed, in a highly coordinated fashion, laws to restrict voting by demographics sympathetic to Democrat candidates. The reasoning for this is pretty straightforward--Republicans benefit from lower turnouts in elections as there are simply more registered Democrats than there are registered Republicans. Republican voters are also more likely to be elderly (read: retired) and/or wealthy. Democratic voters are more likely to be poorer and younger. Retired folks can vote anytime they want. So can wealthy professionals. Poor folks working two hourly jobs cannot. Students with a full course load and a job cannot. This is speaking generally, of course.

 

@Sukeban

Forgive my cherry picking of your well thought out post but I take exception to this portion of your thesis. Republican opposition is to fraudulent voter registration which is a far cry from voter suppression. Voting is a civic duty and if one cannot be bothered to take the time to perform it then I have little empathy for the lazy. Most of what you are stating is stereotypes of the two ideological camps, I was a conservative in my impoverished youth long before I attained theoretical 'fat cat' status. I voted both as a student with two jobs and a full course load and when overseas fighting for my country, if something is important you make time for it.

[sukeban]

@Sukeban

Forgive my cherry picking of your well thought out post but I take exception to this portion of your thesis. Republican opposition is to fraudulent voter registration which is a far cry from voter suppression. Voting is a civic duty and if one cannot be bothered to take the time to perform it then I have little empathy for the lazy. Most of what you are stating is stereotypes of the two ideological camps, I was a conservative in my impoverished youth long before I attained theoretical 'fat cat' status. I voted both as a student with two jobs and a full course load and when overseas fighting for my country, if something is important you make time for it.

@Aurielius

 

No worries. I meant merely to generalize, not to present a hard and fast rule. I say this with an eye on the cross-tabs of most contemporary polls, as well as the exit-polling data from many of the most recent elections. I've no contention with our shared assumption that it is one's civic duty to make time to vote--but it is also very much the truth that it is easier for a retiree or a lawyer to make it to the polls on election day than it is for a 50+ hour/week worker worried about paying their bills and/or getting fired for clocking back in late. In theory, sure, we should all make time, but limiting access to polling places in such a manner represents a systematic tilting of the playing field toward one demographic at the expense of another. That this is happening in state after Republican state, beginning in 2010 and continuing into the present, would seem to indicate that this phenomenon is not merely a coincidence.

 

Long story short--why are any states in the business of making it harder for people to vote? In my eyes, there really isn't an acceptable answer to that question.

Edited March 29, 2012 by sukeban

[Aurielius]

@Sukeban

Forgive my cherry picking of your well thought out post but I take exception to this portion of your thesis. Republican opposition is to fraudulent voter registration which is a far cry from voter suppression. Voting is a civic duty and if one cannot be bothered to take the time to perform it then I have little empathy for the lazy. Most of what you are stating is stereotypes of the two ideological camps, I was a conservative in my impoverished youth long before I attained theoretical 'fat cat' status. I voted both as a student with two jobs and a full course load and when overseas fighting for my country, if something is important you make time for it.

@Aurielius

 

No worries. I meant merely to generalize, not to present a hard and fast rule. I say this with an eye on the cross-tabs of most contemporary polls, as well as the exit-polling data from many of the most recent elections. I've no contention with our shared assumption that it is one's civic duty to make time to vote--but it is also very much the truth that it is easier for a retiree or a lawyer to make it to the polls on election day than it is for a 50+ hour/week worker worried about paying their bills and/or getting fired for clocking back in late. In theory, sure, we should all make time, but limiting access to polling places in such a manner represents a systematic tilting of the playing field toward one demographic at the expense of another. That this is happening in state after Republican state, beginning in 2010 and continuing into the present, would seem to indicate that this phenomenon is not merely a coincidence.

 

Long story short--why are any states in the business of making it harder for people to vote? In my eyes, there really isn't an acceptable answer to that question.

Counterpoint: ALL states have a absentee voting system, it's simply a matter of applying for it in advance....taking advantage of that option is simply a matter of pre thought, I have used it on numerous occasions when away for an election, never once was I asked why I wanted it, in fact I routinely get an absentee ballot form even in years when I have not applied for it. So..I don't buy into that argument / excuse.

Edited March 29, 2012 by Aurielius

[sukeban]

Counterpoint: ALL states have a absentee voting system, it's simply a matter of applying for in advance....taking advantage of that option is simply a matter of pre thought, I have used it on numerous occasions when away for an election, never once was I asked why I wanted it, in fact I routinely get an absentee ballot form even in years when I have not applied for it. So..I don't buy into that argument / excuse.

Which part of the argument don't you buy? That said voting laws favor a certain sub-set of the population over another or that it is an orchestrated Republican election-year tactic? I could see taking issue with the former--maybe--but not with the later.

 

In any case, I have used absentee voting for every election that I have ever participated in, save for my first, the 2004 Presidential election. So that has been every election cycle (State of California special elections as well) since 2004, including 2010 when I made a special trip from China to Mongolia (not kidding) to mail my absentee ballot.

 

I am quite happy that I only had to sign up for absentee ballots once, when I was eighteen, and that they have been delivered to me (or forwarded) ever since. However, the crux of what I was saying still remains, even if you are skeptical about its implications: Why are red states making it more difficult for people to vote--at all? Passing expansive and restrictive new state laws in order to combat... several dozen, maybe? instances of documented--and convicted--voter fraud seems to be... a bit of an overreaction if you ask me. Fact is, voter fraud is not a large nor existential threat to our democracy or to the integrity of our elections. If Republican legislatures were really concerned about that, perhaps they should be more zealous in combating malfunctioning (and eminently hackable...) Diebold election machines and/or butterfly ballots. These have--and will continue to do so--altered the outcomes of our elections (and in the favor of Republicans, too boot). Voter fraud has never tipped a federal election, at least one that I am aware of, let alone a Presidential election (or two).

 

Lastly, demographic realities are demographic realities. The most rapidly growing segments of the American population are not favorably disposed to the modern Republican party. How is it not in the Republicans' best interests to minimize their share of an election's vote? Until they change their party platform and messaging, they will be catering to an ever-smaller slice of the American population, a population that they would like to ensure remains as large a part of the total electorate as possible. They can only keep this up for so long, however; ultimately demographics will prevail. Sadly, it will likely take this hitting of absolute rock bottom for the Republicans to come to their senses and become a credible governing party again, as they last were in 1992.

[Aurielius]

Counterpoint: ALL states have a absentee voting system, it's simply a matter of applying for in advance....taking advantage of that option is simply a matter of pre thought, I have used it on numerous occasions when away for an election, never once was I asked why I wanted it, in fact I routinely get an absentee ballot form even in years when I have not applied for it. So..I don't buy into that argument / excuse.

Which part of the argument don't you buy? That said voting laws favor a certain sub-set of the population over another or that it is an orchestrated Republican election-year tactic? I could see taking issue with the former--maybe--but not with the later.

 

In any case, I have used absentee voting for every election that I have ever participated in, save for my first, the 2004 Presidential election. So that has been every election cycle (State of California special elections as well) since 2004, including 2010 when I made a special trip from China to Mongolia (not kidding) to mail my absentee ballot.

 

I am quite happy that I only had to sign up for absentee ballots once, when I was eighteen, and that they have been delivered to me (or forwarded) ever since. However, the crux of what I was saying still remains, even if you are skeptical about its implications: Why are red states making it more difficult for people to vote--at all? Passing expansive and restrictive new state laws in order to combat... several dozen, maybe? instances of documented--and convicted--voter fraud seems to be... a bit of an overreaction if you ask me. Fact is, voter fraud is not a large nor existential threat to our democracy or to the integrity of our elections. If Republican legislatures were really concerned about that, perhaps they should be more zealous in combating malfunctioning (and eminently hackable...) Diebold election machines and/or butterfly ballots. These have--and will continue to do so--altered the outcomes of our elections (and in the favor of Republicans, too boot). Voter fraud has never tipped a federal election, at least one that I am aware of, let alone a Presidential election (or two).

 

Lastly, demographic realities are demographic realities. The most rapidly growing segments of the American population are not favorably disposed to the modern Republican party. How is it not in the Republicans' best interests to minimize their share of an election's vote? Until they change their party platform and messaging, they will be catering to an ever-smaller slice of the American population, a population that they would like to ensure remains as large a part of the total electorate as possible. They can only keep this up for so long, however; ultimately demographics will prevail. Sadly, it will likely take this hitting of absolute rock bottom for the Republicans to come to their senses and become a credible governing party again, as they last were in 1992.

Though I hate one liners..both contentions. If something is important to you, make it a priority and do it. Black Americans braved water cannons and attack dogs to vote in the 60's, so inconvenience is a poor excuse.

Edited March 29, 2012 by Aurielius

[sukeban]

Though I hate one liners..both contentions. If something is important to you, make it a priority and do it. Black Americans braved water cannons and attack dogs to vote in the 60's, so inconvenience is a poor excuse.

I don't disagree with you until the part about poor excuses. But you also didn't answer the question regarding making it more difficult for people to vote and the potential justification for doing this. Why are we erecting more barriers between people and the vote, our election turnouts are low enough as it is. Heck, we could go all the way back to hosing down African-Americans with water canons on their way to the polls, perhaps set some poison dart traps (sedatives, not lethal) along the way, too. So long as it didn't physically restrain them from voting, you could argue the exact same thing. Heracles himself might have to clean the Augean Stables, Perseus might have to slay Medusa--if that were required of them before each could cast a ballot. Though it is very much within their power to do so, why bother asking them in the first place? Why not just allow them to vote in downtown Athens with the rest of their friends and family? Why make it harder for them to vote?

 

Also, I am skeptical that such actions can be viewed as anything but electioneering on the part of the Republicans. Do you refute that demographics are trending away from the Republicans, that Republicans as a party are generally older and whiter (and more likely to be male) than the nation as a whole? Because they are. Any poll will state as much. And this is an entirely self-inflicted state of affairs. Truth is, it is just difficult to get excited about the modern Republican message if you are poor or young or a minority or a woman (or all of the above) these days. But this wasn't always the case. Republicans can either a) modify their message to appeal to a larger segment of the population or b) do what they can to ensure that many Americans don't vote (or have their votes not counted if they do). That is the only way for a demographic minority (which the Republicans' demographic will soon enough be) to win a first-past-the-post election.

 

EDIT: Why doesn't the United States just go the Oregon route and make all voting absentee voting? Why not just mail a ballot to every eighteen-year-old and then continue that for life? Who cares about going to some dingy church basement polling place to vote, anyway? I think I have just solved the riddle of our low election turnout!

Edited March 29, 2012 by sukeban

[Aurielius]

Though I hate one liners..both contentions. If something is important to you, make it a priority and do it. Black Americans braved water cannons and attack dogs to vote in the 60's, so inconvenience is a poor excuse.

I don't disagree with you until the part about poor excuses. But you also didn't answer the question regarding making it more difficult for people to vote and the potential justification for doing this. Why are we erecting more barriers between people and the vote, our election turnouts are low enough as it is. Heck, we could go all the way back to hosing down African-Americans with water canons on their way to the polls, perhaps set some poison dart traps (sedatives, not lethal) along the way, too. So long as it didn't physically restrain them from voting, you could argue the exact same thing. Heracles himself might have to clean the Augean Stables, Perseus might have to slay Medusa--if that were required of them before each could cast a ballot. Though it is very much within their power to do so, why bother asking them in the first place? Why not just allow them to vote in downtown Athens with the rest of their friends and family? Why make it harder for them to vote?

 

Don't you think that you are resorting to hyperbole? Requiring someone to conform to a common standard is hardly the journey of Odysseus.

 

Also, I am skeptical that such actions can be viewed as anything but electioneering on the part of the Republicans. Do you refute that demographics are trending away from the Republicans, that Republicans as a party are generally older and whiter (and more likely to be male) than the nation as a whole? Because they are. Any poll will state as much. And this is an entirely self-inflicted state of affairs. Truth is, it is just difficult to get excited about the modern Republican message if you are poor or young or a minority or a woman (or all of the above) these days. But this wasn't always the case. Republicans can either a) modify their message to appeal to a larger segment of the population or b) do what they can to ensure that many Americans don't vote (or have their votes not counted if they do). That is the only way for a demographic minority (which the Republicans' demographic will soon enough be) to win a first-past-the-post election.

 

As a personal opinion it is perfectly valid to have any view you choose, but you are referring to demographics without a source. I am not asking for proof of data since then we will get into a match of whose statistics are valid and unbiased. So in this case we might as well agree to disagree.

 

EDIT: Why doesn't the United States just go the Oregon route and make all voting absentee voting? Why not just mail a ballot to every eighteen-year-old and then continue that for life? Who cares about going to some dingy church basement polling place to vote, anyway? I think I have just solved the riddle of our low election turnout!

 

Considering the length of time that absentee challenges have taken in the past this idea is a recipe for an endless replay of the 2000 presidential election elections but on a pandemic scale.

[sukeban]

@Aurielius

 

Definitely hyperbole. I am--somewhat often, in fact--rather a slave to rhetorical excess. It may indeed be a vice, but I like it--and it no doubt makes for more entertaining reading (and writing). Be that as it may, however, the only real question that I have, and more for national Republicans than for you, is why they (Republicans) suddenly began to care about ephemera such as voter fraud only after a Democrat came to occupy the White House? Where was this great concern about the integrity of the ballot when Bush was in office? I am, of course, trying to slight them for resorting to Nixonian "dirty tricks," but also to give them their due credit. They play the game better than Democrats, they can get their act together (save for this primary process) when it counts. If only, however, it were directed toward more genuinely useful pursuits... like coming up with proposals of their own rather than merely shooting down the Democratic agenda at every turn.

 

As for the demographic breakdown of the Republican party, seriously, I am not making this up. There are conservative college students just like there are liberal cattle ranchers--but this does not make that the norm.

 

Here is a breakdown from 2008 (somewhat exaggerated given the magnitude of Democratic dominance). Source.

 

Obama--McCain

 

Males: 49-48

Females: 56-43

White: 43-55

Black: 95-4

Hispanic: 67-31

Asian: 62-35

 

Age:

Eighteen to Twenty-Nine: 66-32

Thirty to Forty-Four: 52-46

Forty-Five to Sixty-Four: 50-49

Sixty-Five and Over: 45-53

 

Income:

<15,000: 73-25

<30,000: 60-37

<50,000: 55-43

<75,000: 48-49

<100,000: 51-48

>100,000: 49-49

 

But really, are these numbers at all counter-intuitive? What rationale would the median Hispanic voter have to vote for a Republican candidate, when all you hear from prominent national officials is who will build a bigger fence and/or talking about grandmas "self-deporting" themselves back to Mexico? Republicans should have a natural constituency here with a religious, pro-family values, industrious minority--but all they can do is harp about the border and deportation and English as the official language and Minutemen. Bush won the Hispanic vote in 2000. My next-door neighbor voted for him proudly. That's because Bush wasn't obsessed, essentially, with white Christian identity the way that nearly all prominent Republicans are nowadays.

 

Ditto for why African-Americans are, essentially, forced to vote for Democrats because of the memory of racist oppression in the South. And the knowledge that said segregationists used to be Democrats (only because Lincoln was a Republican), but then switched to the Republican party in droves after LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act and Nixon hammered Humphrey with the Southern Strategy. The Republican party absorbed the ex-segregationist Democratic malcontents, and, in time, this has become a large part of their base. The Republican party has lost the Northeast and the West. They have consolidated themselves in the South, Midwest, and Mountain West (though their grip on the later is now tenuous). Demographics are passing this party by. Soon even Texas will be a battleground (increases in Hispanic population) if the GOP doesn't expand its appeal.

 

I am not reflexively anti-Republican, but I am unconditionally disgusted by what the modern (post-2004, especially post-2008) Republican party has become. I do not lump principled, fair-minded conservatives--such as yourself, Aurielius--in with the rest of the rabble. Truth is, I desperately want the GOP to expand its appeal. I think it a travesty how identity politics have corrupted our political process. I wish that voting decisions were made on actual issues and not because of pseudo-ethnic/corporatist (in the Catholic sense) voter-perceived imperatives. My greatest wish was for the GOP to nominate Mr. Santorum and then to be annihilated a la Goldwater in 1964 or Dukakis in 1984. My hope was that said thumping would have caused a reckoning and reshuffling of the cards within the GOP, allowing the party to reinvent itself as the party it was up until 1992. But alas, I now think that far-fetched. And I despair. I despair because even if Obama wins in 2012, he will also have to win over the House and hold the Senate in order to have any chance of passing anything. And that means nothing but continued malaise and decline for our country, for the modern Republican party has failed, as yet, to propose anything of merit as an alternative.

 

Finally, please read this short Wiki article on voter Caging. I work (surprise, surprise) in the political field and have witnessed this firsthand many times here in California. 90% of the time by the California RNC.

Edited March 30, 2012 by sukeban

[Aurielius]

@Sukeban

I did read your source material and first off I consider the targeted practice of 'caging' reprehensible, though at least in my moderate conservative county I have never heard of the practice being utilized, which does not mean that it doesn't exist, just that I have never seen it. It would be fruitless not to admit the party per se is somewhat more to the right than I am, my conservative leanings are more on economic and foreign policy issues, civil liberties to me are hard won freedoms and I would deny them to no one.

 

The Hispanic vote contains a duality you would admit, they hold very conservative values while at the same time are pawns to whomever promises a more enlightened immigration agenda. Both sides play a very disingenuous role in attempting to win them over. I will also concede that most of the African American conservatives that I am friends with are professionals and see the economic agenda of the right as more appealing than the left but the mainstream are definitely more democratically inclined.

 

I would counter your wish with my own. I wish that the democratic party would stop trying to win votes by promoting a "Nanny State' and making economic clients out of their constituency. The problem with bread and circuses is that eventually bankrupts the government ( I refer you to Suetonius). Spending money that we do not have is hardly a recipe for long term economic survival. Why is a balanced budget such an anathema to democrats? The government should like any rational individual attempt to live within their means. The concept of Big Government run wild seems to be the Democrat's mantra. Clinton succeeded by moving to the center, why not emulate that instead of moving towards socialism?

 

I believe the unwanted metaphorical elephant in this election is a foreign policy crisis, specifically Iran with whom our relations with have been a bungled mess since the 50's. It is a ghost of the Cold War imperatives coming back to bite us in the ass. I fear the clock is ticking down on this and frankly do not see a way out of the box. Since both parties share the blame for this I assign no blame specifically but the current administration was extremely naive in it's early dealings with them.

Edited March 30, 2012 by Aurielius