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Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 20, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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What puzzles me isn't so much why my opponents have decided that having people go door-knocking to collect ballots is a very important civil right

My impression is that it comes down to a freedom of speech thing - it's not so much that there is a specific civil right to collect ballots as that a law preventing people from talking to their neighbors about certain subjects would be legally problematic.

That said I suspect "push for a law limiting the number of mail-in ballots a single person can mail in on behalf of others" might be a popular policy for the right to push. We don’t want to stop mobility-impaired granny from having her granson take her ballot to the post office. We want to stop an organized group from going door to door throughout a neighborhood, asking people how they plan to vote and then offering to collect ballots only from those who give the desired answer, and collecting hundreds or thousands of ballots that way.

That said I suspect "push for a law limiting the number of mail-in ballots a single person can mail in on behalf of others" might be a popular policy for the right to push.

It's already in place in a number of states, it's just a matter of the will to enforce it. The footage from 2000 mules was from states that banned third party ballot collection, but there was no will to admit that there was a problem.

Yeah, the whole "this would not be a problem if we actually enforced the laws that are already on the books" thing strikes again.

Though those cases do tend to suggest a course of action that is more along the lines of "apply political pressure towards enforcing existing laws" will be more effective than one that looks like "create yet more laws that will not be enforced".

And "existing laws are not enforced, and they should be" is, IMO, one of the strongest right-wing talking points.