
North Carolina Voting Law Targeted African-Americans “With Surgical Precision” - curtis
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/07/circuit-court-north-carolina-law-targeted-african-americans-surgical-precision
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jcbeard
What's amazing to me is that people who bill themselves as "protectors of our
liberty" have the audacity to blatantly subvert the democratic process that
they claim to hold dear. Changing the voting rules to remove the ability of
people to vote, it's madness. I find it repugnant. We (the US) should guard
the right to vote for all people by making voting days mandatory time off. We
should also relax the voting ID laws. Fraud has never been an issue, NEVER.

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
>voting days mandatory time off.

Think about that for a minute. If it were a full mandatory day off, then
basically no retail could possibly be open. And people who are paid hourly are
often those who can't afford to take a day off at all. Maybe a mandatory paid
two hours?

Making it trivial to vote by mail, on the other hand, means that people can
vote whenever. Like they do in Colorado: Universal vote-by-mail packages are
sent to every registered voter. [1]

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/23/colorado-all-
mail-e...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/23/colorado-all-mail-
election_n_6037028.html)

~~~
jcbeard
You know, some small cities in Europe (thinking of Germany) shut down for
"quiet time" after lunch. Guess what happens? Nothing bad, life goes on. You
know what would happen in America, we couldn't buy stuff for an hour or two.
You know what else would happen? The voices of the people that make this
country run would be heard.

Make it half days for two days. You can easily identify "critical" services
like medical/fire/police and stagger them or have early voting. Things like
this work, and they work well. Doesn't matter how long, two hours would likely
be fine. I've had problems getting to vote in that amount of time. I've waited
in a line at a Texas polling station for more than that (which is why I said a
day).

These voting laws are only half the problem. Maybe via mail would fix the
issue. I doubt people who decry "voter fraud" would trust mail-in ballots.

~~~
Frondo
Mail-in ballots are wonderful. They have them in Oregon (I used to live
there), it's great:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote-by-
mail_in_Oregon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote-by-mail_in_Oregon)

And fraud is negligible (tl;dr, 13 cases of confirmed voter fraud since 2000):

[http://www.ktvz.com/news/early-look-how-prevalent-is-
voter-f...](http://www.ktvz.com/news/early-look-how-prevalent-is-voter-fraud-
in-oregon/38043382)

------
jbapple
You can read the oral arguments in the Supreme Court case that struck down the
preclearance part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965:
[https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcr...](https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/12-96.pdf)

Under that rule, the federal government had the power to prevent changes to
voting rules.

To me, the most interesting part of the oral arguments was this exchange:

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: General, is it -- is it the government's submission
that the citizens in the South are more racist than citizens in the North?

GENERAL VERRILLI: It is not

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finid
As bad as this looks, what are the black lawmakers in NC doing? What's the
democratic leadership in the NC congress doing?

Don't they know how to put up a fight?

~~~
TheDong
> the black lawmakers in NC

There are none. The system has been rigged against them for so long that they
have zero representation even though they're a decent portion of the
population.

See:
[https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/NC#representatives](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/NC#representatives)

There's not a single non-white member of NC's representation.

NC is also one of the most gerrymandered states there is, so it's almost
impossible for change to happen.

Also, there's hardly any democratic representation, again due to historical
gerrymandering.

Please don't accuse those that are being oppressed while not being present.
It's bad enough they're getting screwed over, it doesn't help for someone who
doesn't understand the situation to accuse them for "letting it happen".

~~~
Pinckney
You linked to the US congress and US senate instead of the NC house of
representatives and senate.

[http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/members/memberList.pl?sChambe...](http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/members/memberList.pl?sChamber=senate)

[http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/members/memberList.pl?sChambe...](http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/members/memberList.pl?sChamber=House)

There are 10 black senators and 20 representatives, by my count, out of 50 and
120, respectively.

