The 2018 Midterms

In the general election, Bitzer also found that, compared to other counties in the Ninth District, a much higher rate of mail-in absentee ballots requested in Bladen and Robeson counties—about forty per cent and sixty-two per cent, respectively—were never turned in. In fact, those two counties had the highest rates of unreturned absentee ballots of any district in North Carolina. And an analysis of the voting data by the Raleigh News & Observer found that “the unreturned ballots are disproportionately associated with minority voters,” who tend to vote for Democrats over Republicans. In Robeson County, seventy-five per cent of the absentee ballots requested by African-Americans and sixty-nine per cent of those requested by American Indians were never received by the state.

On Friday, Harris tweeted, “There is absolutely no public evidence that there are enough ballots in question to affect the outcome of this race.” But about sixteen hundred mail-in absentee ballots were requested in the two counties and not returned, in a race decided by fewer than a thousand votes. Nate Silver, a data journalist and the founder of FiveThirtyEight.com, tweeted in response, “There ARE enough ballots in question in NC-9 to potentially affect the outcome.” [/B]


https://www.newyorker.com/news/news...on-fraud-shake-north-carolinas-ninth-district
 
Ben Wikler
‏Verified account @benwikler
10h10 hours ago

Speaking: @IronStache!

“This isn’t a bill. This is a coup. I ran for office, and I lost. I can accept that.

Scott Walker ran for re-election, and he lost. The people didn’t vote for him.

Republican leaders today said they don’t trust Tony Evers.

Well, the people voted. They do.”
 
2. Normally, when an incumbent is defeated in an election, they relinquish power to their opponents for the sake of a smooth democratic transition. Not so with the GOP, who are engaging in efforts to wrest power from statewide gubernatorial offices in Wisconsin and Michigan. The Republican legislatures there are spending their remaining days before the transitions introducing measures to hand more power to themselves and attempt to make future elections less fair. Rather than searching for the reasons they are losing the electorate’s trust, Republicans are resorting to authoritarian measures to cling to power.


https://rantt.com/as-trump-cedes-power-abroad-gop-seeks-to-seize-power-in-wisconsin-and-michigan/
 
smoltzie29 said:
Reducing government's power is authoritarian measures to cling to power?
Click to expand...

Not following your logic here. It doesn't appear that the Republicans in Wisconsin and Michigan (and North Carolina before these two) are reducing government's power in any way. Instead, they are trying to cripple the results of a vote by the people of the state which I would contend is an increase in governmental power.
 
Joe Bruno
‏Verified account @JoeBrunoWSOC9

Exclusive:

A second woman, Cheryl Kinlaw, tells me she was paid $100 by McCrae Dowless

to pickup absentee ballots. She said she never thought it was illegal because Dowless

"has been doing it for years." She says needed extra money for Christmas presents.

#NC09 #ncpol @wsoctv




Dtl0LQFXQAALpSs.jpg
 
Laurel White
‏
Verified account

@lkwhite
Follow Follow @lkwhite
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.@SpeakerVos says if extraordinary session bills aren't passed "we are going to have a very liberal governor who is going to enact policies that are in direct contrast to what many of us believe in."

what are elections for? the people chose who they wanted.
republicans are the sorest losers.
 
57Brave said:
Joe Bruno
‏Verified account @JoeBrunoWSOC9

Exclusive:

A second woman, Cheryl Kinlaw, tells me she was paid $100 by McCrae Dowless

to pickup absentee ballots. She said she never thought it was illegal because Dowless

"has been doing it for years." She says needed extra money for Christmas presents.

#NC09 #ncpol @wsoctv




Dtl0LQFXQAALpSs.jpg
Click to expand...

actual election fraud? the GOP ain't interested in discussing it.
 
Steven L. Taylor
‏ @drsltaylor

As we watch the WI state legislature limit the incoming governor's power, note that the state legislative districts are so gerrymandered that the GOP won ~46% of the statewide vote in Nov but will have ~63% of the seats.

Therefore, there is no easy electoral response to this behavior. There is no small-d democratic response to be had. This is an illustration of the kind of serious problems that single seat districts can create. It shows how gerrymandering can utterly break representativeness

Wisconsin is not being governed in a way that reflects the basic preferences of the majority of its citizens. Minority rule is not democracy.
 
smoltzie29 said:
Reducing government's power is authoritarian measures to cling to power?
Click to expand...

It’s a transfer of power from one branch of government to the other. Which, as it happens, transfers power away from the party which reflected the majority of popular support to one which reflects the minority.

That’s a clown take, bro.
 
Julio3000 said:
It’s a transfer of power from one branch of government to the other. Which, as it happens, transfers power away from the party which reflected the majority of popular support to one which reflects the minority.

That’s a clown take, bro.
Click to expand...

The legislature is reducing executive authority, completely legitimately, completely legally.

You can disagree with the laws they're passing, but they have the right to do it and they're doing it. The new governor can reverse them if he wants, assuming the legislature wants to play ball.

If the people dont like they, they can vote the legislature out of office.

This has happened many many many times.

Not sure what is authoritarian about it... but dont let that stop your scream at the sky party
 
smoltzie29 said:

If the people dont like they, they can vote the legislature out of office.
Click to expand...

DataBoi
GOP won ~46% of the statewide vote in Nov but will have ~63% of the seats

To your credit it is their right as the lame duck .

the Governor cant reverse them without legislative initiative

They cant be voted out of office for 2 obvious reasons a) 2018 vs 2020 b) the 48 - 63 numbers above that derive from gerrymandered districts that will remain gerrymandered next election. Plus two years of current --- outliving the duly elected governors term.
That peace full transfer of power thing-ey

No, to the best of my knowledge, this hasn't happened to this degree before.

My best guess is minority rule is pretty much the text book definition of authoritarianism
 
The legislature and outgoing governor in NC tried this in 2016 tried this and failed.

Hopefully something like this fails too.
 
smoltzie29 said:
The legislature is reducing executive authority, completely legitimately, completely legally.

You can disagree with the laws they're passing, but they have the right to do it and they're doing it. The new governor can reverse them if he wants, assuming the legislature wants to play ball.

If the people dont like they, they can vote the legislature out of office.

This has happened many many many times.

Not sure what is authoritarian about it... but dont let that stop your scream at the sky party
Click to expand...

But, um, nothing about that is reducing the power of government, as you suggested. It’s simply transferring it from one branch to another. That’s what’s constitutes the clownish take. That, and ignoring the gerrymandering.

Legal, yes. But we weren’t disputing whether it was legal. Now, I’m tempted to ask if you think that drawing the district maps when you have the governorship and the legislature so that a minority of votes will win you 2/3 of seats, then legislating power away from the governorship when you lose it is quite how things are intended to work.
 
I guess I also have to question our resident libertarian for falling back on the (apparent...we’ll see) legality of the thing.

Extreme gerrymandering essentially suppressed or nullifies votes. Votes being the only currency of the individuals who make up the state, it seems like those individuals’ right to self-determination is being infringed by an unrepresentative body. Seems like an end-run around those individuals’ rights, legal or not, might tweak his tail a little bit, but apparently not.
 
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