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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   26629 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 2024

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How is that winning the issue? If blue and some swing states are able to exploit a lack of ID to cheat elections and remain perpetually blue, then they can win all the elections via fraud. And all the republicans can do is prevent fraud in already-red states so they don't also flip to blue.

On issues related to local governance, each State being able to do whatever it wants is a victory. But on federal issues, especially elections, that's not good enough.

How is that winning the issue?

Any Federal voter ID law actually able to make it through Congress is likely to also impose restrictions on election administration that red states don't want. Avoiding Federal standards for voter qualification and election administration gives more leeway to put their thumb on the scale.

This is a victory conditional on the belief that Republicans are more prone to putting their thumb on the scale than Democrats, rather than the other way around.

That is, if we have any two parties, A and B, and A is more prone to putting their thumb on the scale, then more leeway towards voting regulations is a victory for A, and less leeway is a victory for B.

It seems nontrivial to simply assume that the Republicans are party A, especially given their recent demands for more transparency and stricter adherence to election rules.

The counterpoint is that laws on the books will always be enforced in such a manner as to restrict red states and allow blue states to do whatever they want.

I don't see why that would always be true. I would expect red-leaning judges to be biased towards the red states, while blue-leaning judges would be biased towards the blue states.

How elections are run is a local issue in the USA, though.

I'm not super familiar with the specific laws, but I'm pretty sure there's some sort of oversight. That is, if the Nevada State legislature suddenly coordinates and decide that all of them are permanently elected, only they are allowed to vote so they always win elections and can pick whoever they want to send to the senate/house/president, the federal government would object. I'm fairly certain they can't just overthrow their own Democracy. The Supreme Court would overrule them somehow, even if they had to stretch the text of some law or constitutional clause to make it happen.

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