U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer wants to make sure people don’t have to wait all day to cast their vote.
The Rancho Mirage Democrat today introduced the LINE Act, which would require the Attorney General and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission work together on national polling place standards. Those standards, which would need to be issued by January 2014, would include setting a minimum number of voting machines, election workers and other resources to ensure no one waits longer than an hour.
“It is unacceptable that many Americans had to wait in line for five, six or seven hours to cast their ballots,” Boxer said in a statement today. “The LINE Act will help ensure that every American has an equal chance to vote without enduring hours-long delays at their polling places.”
We need to watch as this works its way through the Senate to see who will DARE to speak out against it. Then we will be able to easily identify those that only want voter rights to go to the people that THEY want to have the opportunity to vote in this country.
Personally I would LOVE to see this enacted well before the 2014 elections and it is imperative that it be in place before the 2016 elections.
NOBODY in America should have to wait in seven hour lines to vote, and the fact that they do should be a source of national shame. And anybody who is NOT shamed by that is not worthy to represent the people of the United States of America.
Oh I cannot WAIT to see how Faux/republicans manage to spin this as "enabling voter fraud". (grabs popcorn)
ReplyDeleteYou can count on them demanding voter ID cards and things of that nature, but with enough time to enable people to GET those cards - even if it REQUIRES assistance to get the people where they get it done - it won't be a problem. Of course, they could always demand such detailed identification that the process would be delayed, but as I see it, as long as this thing was actually a work IN PROGRESS the kind of crap we saw this year should not happen without being stepped on because of this bill.
DeleteAnd I personally would like to see included a law that makes it illegal to even CONTEMPLATE asking party affiliation during the registration process.
I think they should wrap it up by repealing Citizens United have either govt regulated vote machines/servers overseen by a non-partisan entity, a "National Voter fraud watchdog committee" that will ensure that we do have elections that don't have to be guarded by Anonymous. I'm so thankful to them but we should not have to depend on them to make sure Big Money doesn't buy our elections. And give people Absentee ballots if they want them.
DeleteThe turd blossom was so fucking sure....I still hear his words "When y'all wake up on Wednesday Romney will have 300 electoral votes"~NPR
Here's what I find amusing. While many of the recent, stricter, GOP-promoted voter ID laws are requiring drivers' licenses as a form of ID – thus, depriving the elderly, poor from voting – the upshot of this is that undocumented persons are rapidly winning in court the right to obtain drivers' licenses – because there is nothing in the Constitution that would forbid it (they have the right to travel, and other fundamental rights). Thus, in trying to 'put one over' on grandma, the disabled, and the poor, the GOP may have actually (and unknowingly) 'put one over' on itself, by eventually allowing undocumented immigrants the right to vote under standards the GOP insisted on implementing. The second irony is this. After screeching for years about the socialistic evils (and U.N. dangers) of implementing a national, mandatory ID program, the GOP-sponsored voter ID laws are a huge step in exactly that direction. Thus, they themselves, while screeching for smaller government, are directly promoting Big Brother.
DeleteFilibusterbating: Watch Mitch McConnell Filibuster His Own Bill
ReplyDeleteSenate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) may have made United States senate history today when he beat his own legislative baloney, blocking a straight up-or-down vote on a proposal that he, himself, offered for a vote Thursday morning. The bill, which would have taken the debt ceiling gun away from the head of the U.S. economy by requiring a two-thirds majority to override a presidential increase to the debt ceiling, was McConnell’s idea, but when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid agreed with McConnell’s request for a vote on the bill Thursday afternoon, McConnell objected.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/filibusterbating-watch-mitch-mcconnell-filibuster-his-own-bill/
Claire McCaskill's reaction was amazing!
Delete"Whoah, Whiplash!"
Just as the seven hour wait to vote is a national shame (well said), so is it a great source of pride for me to know that there are Americans who didn't give up but actually did stand in line for however long it took, so they could exercise their right to vote. Kudos to them all!
ReplyDeleteThe Mormon church has launched a new campaign encouraging its members to be more compassionate toward the LGBT community.
ReplyDeleteOn Thursday, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints launched the website mormonsandgays.com, in which it calls for Mormons of all stripes to "love one another."
As Buzzfeed notes, the new campaign reflects an "evolution from [the church's] past teachings" as it asserts that sexuality is not a personal choice.
An official statement posted on the new website reads:
The experience of same-sex attraction is a complex reality for many people. The attraction itself is not a sin, but acting on it is. Even though individuals do not choose to have such attractions, they do choose how to respond to them. With love and understanding, the Church reaches out to all God’s children, including our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.
CNN reports that the website's launch appears to support the belief held by some gay-marriage activists that the LDS church is "toning down its opposition to same-sex marriage."
However, as the Associated Press notes, church leaders still insist that "they aren't changing the Mormon teaching that same-sex relationships are sinful."
Still, church leaders say they hope the new resource will foster a greater "understanding of homosexuality among Mormons and a more civil conversation about the issue."
Church spokesman Michael Purdy told the Deseret News that the site is also part of an effort by the Mormon church “to teach and clarify" the church's position on homosexuality.
"There are some aspects of our belief and practice that are simply not well understood," Purdy said. "Too often these types of big, important issues are dealt with in sound bites, and often by individuals who do not have the complete picture of what the church is doing."
Think Progress' Zack Ford had this to say about the new campaign:
[T]hese improvements over blatant ostracization and condemnation could very well save the lives of many young people and help keep families together. However, with this approach, the Mormon Church has essentially only caught up to the “hate the sin, not the sinner” approaches of the Catholic Church and many evangelical Christians, which are still incredibly problematic.
In 2008, Mormons faced "intense criticism" after church authorities offered vocal support and funding for California's Propositon 8, a ballot measure that called for a ban on gay marriage.
The backlash was swift -- and church leaders say they were "stunned" by the negative response. Since then, the Associated Press writes, the church has been actively reaching out to the LGBT community "to heal tensions."
Meanwhile, the American public has seemed to have grown "more sympathetic toward same-sex marriage," Buzzfeed notes. According to USA Today, a Gallup poll published this week revealed that more than half of Americans support the legalization of same-sex marriage.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/06/mormon-church-calls-for-more-compassion-towards-gays-homosexuality-not-a-choice_n_2252874.html
This is just window dressing as their teachings are still very bigoted. If the president/prophet has some new revelation then you can rejoice. Until then take this with the grain of salt it deserves.
Delete"And anybody who is NOT shamed by that is not worthy to represent the people of the United States of America."
ReplyDeleteOr a Racist, Tea-Bagger!
Anyone who sat watching televised coverage of historic voting in places like Egypt, and made the "Tsk, tsk" sound at the spectacle of long lines for those voters, has to realize just how much more pitiful it was for the people of Egypt and all other countries, to witness the shameful example the United States set, last month.
ReplyDeleteAs former heads of GOP in Florida stated, the whole point was to try and keep Democrats from voting. (As anyone with two brain cells still firing knew from the outset.)
ReplyDeleteOkay, I really fail to understand how you guys have managed to screw this up so monumentally! We have compulsory voting in Australia and we only have 12 hours, that's ONE day to cast our vote unless we have a mailed in overseas type one. Okay. That's about 16 million people (those over 18 roughly) that need to be served promptly between the hours of about 7am to maybe 6pm on a Saturday. It's compulsory so no one can wait, as people have to work! Etc. I've never once seen a line, or ever waited. You park, walk in, state your name get handed the slip fill it out push it in the box and leave. If you wish you can not even bother voting and just shove in blank ballots to each of the two boxes. We also have a wide choice of voting places; generally with at least one or two in walking distance, but many dotted around. It almost seems intentional that it gets so stuffed up in America. What is going on? It's NOT a democracy when voting asks that much of a person (which is asking for too much time from a reasonable person). Not good enough!
ReplyDeleteThe Repubs would not want this Act to pass, because the lower the voter turnout, the better it is for them.
ReplyDeleteThere is a simple solution to this problem. The "Presidental Election" should be just that. That particular election should be for President/Vice President; US Senator; US Representative ONLY. No State elections, no State questions, no City/County elections, etc. The State elections should be held on a separate date entirely.
ReplyDeleteOregon is now 100% vote-by-mail. It's less expensive. There is no time lost from work, no lines, no waiting, no polling places and it works great. You can take your time and read the initiatives. Very civilized. It sure seems like something that could solve many of the voting day issues that seem to happen every election elsewhere.
ReplyDelete