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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   29677 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023

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Not sure how much this will really matter. I feel like as long as I have been paying attention to elections there have been screwups by the major parties that should have had them disqualified from major state ballots. Every time ... nothing happens. They are still on the ballot on election day.

However, if its a third party, and they don't cross every t and dot every i then they get kicked off the ballot in a heartbeat, and the courts will drag their feet on fixing it until the election has passed. The Libertarian party routinely spends a bunch of resources just being on the ballot in all fifty states. And if you have ever paid attention to any of their insider politics or complaints, there is almost always a new state law somewhere that has raised the requirements for third parties to be on the ballots. If there is one thing that republicans and democrats can agree on, it is that they dislike third parties.

I feel like as long as I have been paying attention to elections there have been screwups by the major parties that should have had them disqualified from major state ballots.

Republicans are not barred from the General Election ballot in Colorado.

Trump is barred form the Republican Primary ballot.

Republicans will still be on the Republican Primary ballot in Colorado, no party is being kept off of anything.

And Trump will still win the Republican Primary and be teh candidate, and nothing in this ruling says he won't be on the General Election ballot in Colorado.

(and of course, it wouldn't matter if he wasn't since he was never going to win Colorado, but in terms of the symbolism that's not a thing that's currently happening)

... But yeah, the two party duopoly absolutely conspire against third parties, and it's bad. Not too bad, though, since first past the post voting pretty much guarantees a two-party system at a macro level anyway, even without the thumbs on the scale. We need something like Approval voting to make third parties viable in single-winner elections.

  • -15

nothing in this ruling says he won't be on the General Election ballot in Colorado.

Extrapolating just a little bit, if Trump is ineligible according to the 14th Ammendment, they'd have to keep him off the general election ballot.

I feel like as long as I have been paying attention to elections there have been screwups by the major parties that should have had them disqualified from major state ballots.

Republicans are not barred from the General Election ballot in Colorado.

I should be more clear: it is always specific candidates that fail to meat some standard and should been off the ballot. Often times it is hilariously because they accidentally made the ballot requirements too strict in their continuing efforts to fuck over third parties, and they forgot to exempt themselves from it like they normally do. It is always the R or D next to their name that saves them.

Trump is barred form the Republican Primary ballot.

And I'll reiterate my point: I think it is unlikely to actually happen. I'm about 90% certain that Trump will be on the primary ballot in Colorado come election time. I will take a small token bet of 80% odds to that effect.

... But yeah, the two party duopoly absolutely conspire against third parties, and it's bad. Not too bad, though, since first past the post voting pretty much guarantees a two-party system at a macro level anyway, even without the thumbs on the scale. We need something like Approval voting to make third parties viable in single-winner elections.

First past the post voting guarantees a two-party system. It does not guarantee that those two parties must be the democrats and republicans. The laws and regulations do that.

I'd be happier with approval voting, but likely not by much. I'm not a huge fan of democracy anyways. Making democracy more efficient seems less important to me than making sure democracy can't vote on things I actually care about.

And Trump will still win the Republican Primary and be teh candidate, and nothing in this ruling says he won't be on the General Election ballot in Colorado.

I think this is not quite correct. It's true that the instant case is about the Colorado primary ballot but the underlying rationale is that Trump is ineligible to be President and people who are ineligible to be President also cannot be primary candidates. I would be surprised if candidates who are ineligible for the presidency could be on the General Election ballot.

I mean yeah that makes logical sense to me, but so far this whole thing has been running off complex legal minutia rather than common sense. No idea how the law works, how it will work by the time of the general election, how it will be interpreted and applied, etc.

I've searched and not found any analysis of this question so far, I expect those articles will come out over teh next few days and we'll know more.

Anything can be justified by a state of exception: Next time, there will be a some new reason why some other Republican can't be allowed on the ballot. (When one is allowed on the ballot, it will be "proof" that Republicans can still run, all those other Republicans were just unique exceptions that don't count.)

The Soviet Union had freedom of speech. It was in their constitution. There were just a lot of exceptional circumstances.

When we get to N=2 I'll start considering whether the pattern you're talking about exists.

Two through seven.

I don't understand how a court can ban him from the primary ballot. Isn't it up to the Republican Party?

You can have primaries or caucuses (collectively both are often described as primaries). Caucuses are run by parties, primaries by the state ‘on behalf’ of the parties. Colorado has primaries. If they had caucuses, the court wouldn’t have been able to do this (although their rationale suggests Trump could be barred from the actual presidential ballot for the same reason).

I really, really wish that it were, it's insane that the government is involved in primaries.

But that is in fact how it works, the two main parties sort of appropriate the infrastructure and machinery of the electoral system of many states, and end up subject to legislation by those states thereby.

I think this is a huge conflict of interest for our Democracy, and that primaries should be purely private affairs managed by teh parties among their own members. But unfortunately that's not how it works.

I think it matters in the sense that legitimacy matters. If we’re really going to deny opposing parties the right to be on the ballot then it’s really stretching the truth to claim that we hold fair and free elections. And in my view the only legitimate reason that a group that files to be on the ballot should be denied is that they’ve been convicted of a felony within the last 5 years.

Elections are already widely distrusted, with a sizable chunk of the GOP believing that Biden did not win fairly. This is not going to restore their trust in ballots. And when a big enough chunk of the electorate doesn’t believe they’re being allowed to compete fairly in elections, they abandon elections for more direct action.

If we’re really going to deny opposing parties the right to be on the ballot

Just to clarify, you understand that he's barred from the Republican primary ballot, not the General Election ballot, right?

  • -17

You understand this rationale will later be used to keep him off the ballot in the general election?

It might. Things are happening fast.

There is zero argument that the general is different from the primary so if he runs for the general the court would need to make the same holding.

Do you think this meaningfully changes anything? Some judges just appointed thenselves arbiters of who can and can't run. Now we're quibbling about specifics.

They are the arbiters of the thing they ruled on. That's their job.

To me there is a double jeopardy problem. Trump was already tried for this shit and wasn’t convicted by his peers (ie the senate).

This particular problem isn't one; double jeopardy doesn't apply to impeachment.

Are we sure? I don’t think it has ever been litigated but seems to me the whole impeachment and conviction process is clearly modeled after a trial. Trump was basically tried on these facts and acquitted.

It is not a slam dunk by any stretch but an interesting issue to think through

Stronger claim against Smith since there facing imprisonment.

And in my view the only legitimate reason that a group that files to be on the ballot should be denied is that they’ve been convicted of a felony within the last 5 years.

That seems like one of the least legitimate reasons to deny access to the ballot. "Convicted of a felony" is just another way of saying "the people currently in power, some of whom have explicit allegiances to other political parties, have determined that they think you really, really suck."

If we're going to restrict ballot access based off anything, it should be popularity, based solely on the idea that spending ballot space on someone who is unlikely to win is a waste of resources.

At least a conviction requires a trial by jury. Biden can order the Justice Department to indict anyone he wants, indictments are not convictions.

"Convicted of a felony" is just another way of saying "the people currently in power,

Welcome to the Prison Abolitionist movement, we have pamphlets.

If 'convicted of a felony' is enough reason to be kept in prison and used as slave labor for your entire natural life, it's enough reason to not be on a Primary ballot.

I'm perfectly happy saying it's not enough reason for either of those things, but I will be a stickler about consistency on this one. Anyone who wants to treat the law and courts as reliable arbiters of Justice on a Monday had better do the same thing on a Tuesday, or else expect a finger-wagging.

  • -12

Barring someone from running for office is not necessarily a lighter punishment than putting someone in prison. When you bar an individual from running, you are not only punishing that one person, but you are also punishing an unbounded number of people who would have otherwise voted for him.

Additionally, different kinds of transgressions disqualify you from different kinds of privileges. It's entirely consistent to say that plagiarism disqualifies you from professorships but not from playing professional baseball, while placing insider bets disqualifies you from playing professional baseball but not from being a professor. Similarly, one can be okay with murderers appearing on the presidential ballot while they sit in prison, provided they are popular enough. It would be entirely consistent to believe that committing murder disqualifies you from not being in prison, but that the only thing that disqualifies you from being on the ballot is not being popular enough to make your appearance worth the overhead.

(That said, I have a very dim view of the law and courts and have generally pro-prison-abolitionist views, so there's that.)

Isolated demand for rigor.

Right, that's what I should have said. They're applying an isolated demand for rigor on the concept of 'convicted of a felony' when it's their guy getting convicted.

No, I'm questioning why "convicted of a felony" should be connected to "should not appear on a ballot". I firmly believe that criminal background should have no implication on political privileges. Typically this comes up in the context of voting rights for felons (which is left-coded) but I believe the exact same thing when it's a right-aligned cause.

In fact it's not connected to appearing on a ballot, convicted felons can get elected to any office they want.

There's a specific narrow provision about Officers of the State being barred from election if they commit the specific crime of Insurrection, which is what's being used here. I think it dates to the Civil War or something.

The comment I originally responded to proposed the following restriction:

And in my view the only legitimate reason that a group that files to be on the ballot should be denied is that they’ve been convicted of a felony within the last 5 years.

The status quo, where Eugene Debs can run for President from prison, is my desired state of things.

Increasingly, it appears that the establishment also dislikes second parties.

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