The General US Politics Thread

That makes me uncomfortable.

Anyone with a phone book can give the name and address of someone and then vote. The only way you would know if that wasn't them is if the original name holder comes in.

And even then you have no idea who took their place. So you can't prosecute anything.

Maybe not, but if someone tries to use the same identity to vote twice, then the election administrators can start asking questions. This tells us what the rate of fraud is, and whether or not we have a real problem.

It also allows fraud if you are smart.

For example, if I knew my best friend wasn't voting, I could use their name and no one would be the wiser.

If I wanted to steal an election, I wouldn't look up names out of a phonebook. I'd hack the voting machines to change or create millions of fake votes with no trace.

Any discussions of an ideal world are irrelevant given that in reality, the voter id laws are motivated primarily by disenfranchisement.

edited 20th Apr '14 4:34:59 PM by storyyeller

The average person can't steal an election.

A felon could use this as a loophole to vote. This could also be used to skew local data.

If we mark off people and then realize so many in a certain neighborhood didn't vote, we have a point of inspection. Maybe there are more elderly people in that area who cannot drive. Maybe it's a college block and those kids vote in different districts. Either way it needs to be looked at.

Also not every major election is federal. Local elections often have a heavier impact on a population's daily life than federal. If the mayor steals the election, he can waste $130,000 on aChristmas tree that can't even be stored when we have several elementary schools in dire need of repair. (Actually happened in my city- not the election fraud, maybe, but everything else did.)

What theoretically allows for fraud is largely irrelevant, since in our current system, there's hardly any in-person voter fraud.

Moreover, whether it "allows" for fraud, using someone else's registration to vote would still be illegal. In fact, that's why our current system has such little fraud: the rewards from standing in line at the polls twice instead of once are infinitesimal compared to the risks involved.

Who has the best chance at winning the GOP nomination in 2016?

My first guess is Jeb Bush, but only if he survives the primary.

edited 20th Apr '14 5:49:27 PM by Sledgesaul

Ummm... surviving the primary is what it means to be nominated...

And there's no guarantee Jeb "I support citizenship for immigrates" Bush will appeal to the extremists in the primary, but he has the "moderate" image down that would help in a general election.

edited 20th Apr '14 5:55:06 PM by Sledgesaul

Republicans are still trying to disown the legacy of W, at least in name. They're not going to nominate a Bush.

Though i said 2008 was too soon for a black president, so eh.

Whoever it is, they won't be right-wing enough.

I hope it goes to Bush that way if he does beat Clinton,2020 will usher an Anti Reagan to office. The past presidents have been flips of those between FDR and Reagan so far. Jeb can be the Carter to disenchant the Tea Party as Carter disappointed liberals.

I don't think moderates will survive the primary unless every single challenger self-destructs like in 2012.

Well, that's the trick, though. The Tea Partiers are very good at self-destructing.

At this rate, so are the moderates.

Ehh, I'll settle for total demographic obliteration of the Southern Strategy GOP too.

In other words, all of them?

Re abortion and having children:

There are some people who seriously think that all liberals want to do is to give license for people to have sex all the time with no consequences. Consequences which include actually having to take responsibility for the children that result from it. Consistent with the idea that liberals supposedly (and somehow) want the government to do everything for them, this idea of irresponsibility means that they are against having children at all, and when children are conceived, abortions are used to kill them.

These people don't understand the idea of planned pregnancies and families.

(Of course, they're probably also allergic to the word "planned".)

(Also, these people would have written the first line of my post as "Re abortion vs. having children".)

Well, here's a ray of hope.

—-

Another ray of hope.

How is getting an abortion to prevent a pregnancy you can't afford not taking responsibility? It's a different method than they'd like but you're recognizing there's a potential problem and taking steps to correct it.

First, you shouldn't have had sex in the first place.

Second, pregnancy is God's gift to you, and you're killing an unborn child, so you're a murderer.

edited 21st Apr '14 5:07:20 AM by GlennMagusHarvey

@Glenn: You mean "curse"?

On the other side of the argument, I'm not sure whether calling it "pro-choice" reflects reality all that much. Of all the women who abort, how many do so because they looked on their situation and concluded they have no choice?

@cass it's a point of view thing

I have to wonder if Republicans will even get a nominee at this point.

Rand Paul's likely going to be torpedo'd by his Plagiarism related issues. (I suspect what's been found isn't the bottom of the barrel.)

Jeb will never make it against the "Build a Wall" folks.

Rubio is basically dead political stock.

Christie could very well go to jail.

Scott Walker is linked to a massive corruption probe at the moment.

Maybe Ted Cruz or Rick Scott or Rick Perry could mobilize the party, but, I dunno. It seems like every time a Republican starts gearing to look "Presidential" lately, something's either ruined their reputation or likely going to drag them to a jail cell.

What could happen then if the Republicans can't nominate a candidate, and has this happened before?