Even before President Joe Biden’s long-speculated withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race, allies of former President Donald Trump floated the possibility of suing to block Democrats from having anyone other than Biden on the ballot in November.
But election administration and legal experts said the timing of Biden’s exit on Sunday makes it unlikely that any Republican ballot access challenges will succeed, with some calling the idea “ridiculous” and “frivolous.” Democrats are on safe legal ground as they identify a new standard-bearer, they say, because the party hasn’t officially chosen its nominee. That typically occurs with a vote of delegates at the party’s convention.
“It’s ridiculous for people to talk about ‘replacing Biden.’ He hasn’t been nominated yet,” said Richard Winger, a leading expert on state ballot access laws and the longtime editor of the “Ballot Access News” newsletter.
Friendly reminder to check your voter registration. Many states are un-registering voters for dumb reasons.
Why is this even a thing in the USA? In Belgium, everyone over the age of 18 just gets a letter in the mail. Making people go for tedious registration and what not sounds very undemocratic to me.
That’s because it is! Just one of the thousands of many little ways the American Republicans have made life worse for everyone, including their own. Gerrymandering and tampering with voter registration are historically Republican strategies that serve no purpose other than voter disenfranchisement. They can’t win a popular vote and they know it, so their best strategy is to prevent people from voting in the first place. Hence their history of arcane voter registration rules, disgustingly absurd gerrymandered districts, removal or last-minute changing of acceptable voting locations in Democratic areas, voter intimidation, even active voter endangerment via refusal of water bottles during summer heat - not as in they wouldn’t give you water at the voting lcoation - no, you aren’t allowed to have water, even if you brought your own, even if someone showed up and tried to donate water to you. They took it right out of our hands. Meanwhile we were standing in a line in a parking lot with no shade in 96F weather for multiple hours because local republican leadership also shut down all other democratic voting locations within an hour’s drive.
It is disgustingly undemocratic, dangerous, abusive and frankly it’s embarrassing. These are not politicians, these are spoiled little children stamping their feat and screaming “no, I get to be king, and you have to go home!” They actively will not associate with the word “democracy” anymore because it’s too close to accidentally being called a Democrat.
If you’ve noticed Americans being a little more pissy than usual recently in the last several years, it’s largely because people are starting to open their eyes to this truth. It’s nothing new, but it is starting to get noticed. Trump flipped over a big ol’ rock and suddenly everyone saw all the worms and slugs squirming underneath.
I actually caught myself mouthing “What the fuck” at the water part of your comment. That’s some third world country shit. Everyone’s entitled to water, it’s the most basic human right. How would one argue that a ruling like that benefits the people?
On the surface, it’s not bad. If, for example, you move from one state to another, your previous state may not know you don’t live there anymore. So if they see you haven’t voted in that state for a while, they’ll assume you don’t live there and remove your name from their registration.
The problem is, as usual, how it gives conservatives in the US cover to remove legitimate voters. If you haven’t moved but also haven’t voted for the last several election cycles, you might get removed even if you intend to vote in this election. And you can see how that’s a short jump to “Oh no, we accidentally removed a whole bunch of people who were going to vote against us and darn it, wouldn’t you know there’s no way to fix this in time!”
If, for example, you move from one state to another, your previous state may not know you don’t live there anymore. So if they see you haven’t voted in that state for a while, they’ll assume you don’t live there and remove your name from their registration.
They always know, especially if you’re paying your taxes correctly. Try moving to Colorado. You’ll get registered immediately without doing anything and your ballot will be mailed to you. You don’t ever have to do anything in person.
There’s no reason to unregister someone from voting. In any state.
Why is this even a thing in the USA?
Belgium has a population of only 11.7 Million, a population density of 387 per square kilometer, and a whopping 98.8 percent of the population is Urban.
We have 30 times your population, 1/10th of your population density, and 20% less of our population is Urban.
The United States has 28 Million people, more than twice your entire population, that MOVES every year. Over a million people immigrate into the United States every year, meaning we could literally populate your entire nation in just a decade.
All of that means you cannot simply “send everyone a letter”.
It’s like the old saw “Everything works fine in a small network.” So no offense but relatively speaking Belgium is a tiny network compared to what we’ve got going on in the United States.
Colorado handles it just fine. Sounds like you’re making excuses for your state, don’t lump all the states in with yours.
USA is big therefore they can’t have good things is bullshit.
USA has a lot of people to send mails to, but it also has a lot of people to collect taxes from, those taxes pay for the mails.
The cost to send mails should scale linearly with population, just like taxes. Therefore economics is not a problem. If anything, more mails should mean cheaper per mail since economics of scale take place to bring down costs.
Logistics isn’t an issue either. Just tell each state to sort it themselves. Each US state has roughly the same population as European countries, and they manage the logistics.
Thankfully I’m in the clear where I live. Got some mail in ballets for a different election for everyone in my apartment. Just hoping that nobody tries to do like what was done last time and have republican mail people dump the mail in votes somewhere random. Luckily it wasn’t anywhere near my neck of the woods, but I’m always worried it’ll happen.
