voting Archives - Page 3 of 13 - Ramblin' with Roger

2021 Ballot Proposals: statewide, local

I looked on the ballot from both sides, now.

Before I could vote on November 2, 2021, or earlier, I needed to get up to speed on the 2021 Ballot Proposals. There are five statewide items in New York State, and two in the city of Albany.

There may be other local propositions where you live. They will likely be on the REVERSE side of the ballot from the candidates’ listings, so check out both sides!

The five state proposals are found here.

Ballot Proposal 1

Amending the Apportionment and Redistricting Process
This proposed constitutional amendment would freeze the number of state senators at 63, amend the process for the counting of the state’s population, delete certain provisions that violate the United States Constitution, repeal and amend certain requirements for the appointment of the co-executive directors of the redistricting commission and amend the manner of drawing district lines for congressional and state legislative offices. Shall the proposed amendment be approved?

The Census guy in me supports:
Requiring that state assembly and senate district lines be based on the total population of the state, and require the state to count all residents, including non-citizens and Native Americans if the federal census fails to include them.
Provide for incarcerated people to be counted at their place of the last residence, instead of at their place of incarceration, for the purpose of redistricting. This practice is already established by state statute for Senate and Assembly districts.

I’m ambivalent about this:
Freeze the number of state senators at the current number of 63. Currently, under the state constitution, the number of senators was originally set at 50 and thereafter increased over time to 63.
On one hand, I would support Congress getting larger to counteract the unfairness the current system is applied to larger states. On the other hand, we’re talking about the historically dysfunctional state legislature.

All in all, I’m still thinking about this. Notably, the League of Women Voters of the City of New York recommends a NO vote. This is due, in part, because, “The proposed amendment would unfairly empower the majority party by preventing the minority party from having input into the final proposed maps.” Help me with this one, people.

Ballot Proposal 2

Right to Clean Air, Clean Water, and a Healthful Environment
The proposed amendment to Article I of the New York Constitution would establish the right of each person to clean air and water and a healthful environment.

Of course YES. But how would this work, exactly?

Ballot Proposal 3

Eliminating Ten-Day-Advance Voter Registration Requirement
The proposed amendment would delete the current requirement… that a citizen be registered to vote at least ten days before an election and would allow the Legislature to enact laws permitting a citizen to register to vote less than ten days before the election.

YES.

Ballot Proposal 4

Authorizing No-Excuse Absentee Ballot Voting
The proposed amendment would delete from the current provision on absentee ballots the requirement that an absentee voter must be unable to appear at the polls by reason of absence from the county or illness or physical disability.

YES. People oughtn’t have to lie about how sick/infirm they are.

Ballot Proposal 5

Increasing the Jurisdiction of the New York City Civil Court
The proposed amendment would increase the New York City Civil Court’s jurisdiction by allowing it to hear and decide claims for up to $50,000 instead of the current jurisdictional limit of $25,000.

Sure. It seems to be a response to inflationary pressures. The NYC LWV is YES on Props 2-4, and takes no position on 5.

The local items

Proposition: Council residency requirement
Shall the Charter of the City of Albany be amended to require any person seeking election as a member of the Common Council to be an elector and resident of the ward for which the person is seeking election for a continuous period of at least three hundred sixty-five (365) days prior to taking office and during the entire term of office, except in limited circumstances following reapportionment of Common Council wards?

What? That’s NOT the law already? YES.

Proposition: Increase Community Police Review Board Authority

Shall Article XLIV of Chapter 42 of the Code of the City of Albany be amended to increase the Community Police Review Board’s authority and ability to conduct investigations and to exercise oversight, review, and resolution of community complaints alleging abuse of police authority?

The IDEA of the CPRB was grand. But it has been a paper tiger. “The law was already affirmed by the Albany Common Council, in a unanimous 14-0 vote, in March but requires a citywide referendum from the public to go into effect. That would be a YES.

Building confidence in US elections (2005)

“Measures to encourage and achieve the greatest possible participation in elections”

“I wish that we could just have someone out there say in 2005, Jimmy Carter and James Baker did the Carter-Baker Commission to both tried to expand voting and make it more secure. They had 87 recommendations. Adopt them all. It means you won’t have ballot harvesting, but it means it will be easier to vote.”

I heard someone suggest this on one of those talking-heads shows two months ago. It made sense in building confidence in US elections.

The Commission had “five sturdy pillars.”

“Voter registration that is convenient for voters to complete and even simpler to renew and that produces complete, accurate, and valid list of citizens who are eligible to vote.”

This means not having wholesale purging of voter lists. Voters who move more often – students, renters, e.g. – should not be disenfranchised.

“Voter identification, tied directly to voter registration, that balances election integrity without introducing new barriers to voting, including the casting and counting of ballots.”

Prior to the pandemic, I never had to show my ID when I voted. The last two times, once involving early voting at a central location, and the other in an alternative site, I did. This is not to say it might not be onerous for others.

I’m suggesting something that’s a bit of a bugaboo for some: an option for people to receive an identification card that is FREE and not onerous to obtain. Or, in the alternative, a wider array of verification documents that don’t discourage the franchise.

When requiring, say, a driver’s license/non-driver’s license and the nearest DMV is two bus rides away with long lines, THAT is a barrier to voting. Too often, the ID requirements have been used to, de facto, disenfranchise.

More participation

“Measures to encourage and achieve the greatest possible participation in elections by enabling all eligible voters to have an equal opportunity to vote and have their votes counted.”

Having one drop-off box for ballots per county may seem fair in the abstract. But when one county has a few hundred and another has a few hundred thousand – well, no. People standing in long lines because there are too few polling places in “selected” communities.

I’ve been consistent in giving ex-felons the right to vote. It’s our duty as a nation to rehabilitate. How does that happen when the formerly incarcerated are denied the franchise?

“Voting machines that tabulate voter preferences accurately and transparently, minimize under- and over-votes,
restricting mail-in voting and allow for verifiability and full recounts”

This means non-hackable computers and paper records.

“Fair, impartial, and effective election administration.”

This would preclude a former elected person from asking an official to “find” him some votes.

My great fear is that if we can’t find a way to have elections that most people recognize as legitimate, the country will not exist. That may seem melodramatic, but I firmly believe it.

Amendments 15, 19, 24, 26

As I’ve noted many times, the arc of the Constitution bends towards greater participation in voting by its citizenry. Letting black people and women and 18-year-olds vote. Getting rid of the poll tax. Ultimately, we should be heading forward in making

BTW, the suggestion was offered up by Sarah Isgur, a veteran of the Trump Justice Department, who’s now a political analyst for “The Dispatch.” She suggested it on the July 11 episode of This Week.

Read the 2005 report. It’s only 113 pages long, and it has pictures! What do you think can be done to create a more perfect union that enough people can get behind?

Voter suppression, 2020 edition

The ballot goes in the envelope which goes into the mailing envelope

Voter suppression is alive and well in 2020 America. Some of it is systemic, some intentional.

You may recall that the good voters of Florida – I write that without irony – decided that they would do the right thing in 2018. They reinstated the voting rights of felons who had served their time, except for murderers and sex offenders. Constitutional Amendment 4 was passed overwhelmingly, to my surprise.

But wait! The state legislature almost immediately added a provision that if felons owed fines and court costs, they STILL couldn’t vote. To no one’s surprise, many of the felons are poor. So the extra requirement amounts to a poll tax, which is a violation of the 24th Amendment, ratified in 1964.

To make things more complicated, it is also difficult for felons to determine what they owe. The Florida Division of Elections web site says:

Seriously?

If a person is still unsure about fines, fees, costs, and restitution, and the impact upon restoration of voting rights, the person can ask for an advisory opinion from the Florida Division of Elections. Please review section 106.23(2), Florida Statutes, and Florida Administrative Code Rule 1S-2.010 for how to ask for an advisory opinion and what information is required.

Meanwhile, former New York City mayor and rich guy Michael Bloomberg, with others, is trying to clear the financial debt of the freed felons. Naturally, Florida’s attorney general Ashley Moody has an issue.She requested that the FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigate Bloomberg’s efforts, as “potential violations of election laws.”

Bloomberg and his political operation “have raised more than $16 million from supporters and foundations.” The goal is “to pay the court fines and fees for more than 30,000 Black and Latino voters in Florida with felonies, allowing them to vote in the upcoming election.” Ya know, Florida, if you didn’t violate the will of your populace by instituting a poll tax, Mike and his colleagues wouldn’t NEED to pay off the felons’ tabs.

The naked ballot

Pennsylvania’s ‘naked ballots’ are 2020’s hanging chads. “Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ordered state officials… to throw out mail-in ballots submitted without a required inner ‘secrecy’ envelope in November’s election, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports… Pennsylvania requires voters to place their ballots in an unmarked ‘secrecy’ envelope before placing that inside another mailing envelope.”

With far more people likely to vote by mail in the Keystone State than ever before, this decision literally could decide the presidential election in November. Know also that a total of 16 states are required to provide secrecy sleeves for absentee/mail ballots. That includes New York. Whether those votes will be disregarded without following the correct procedure, I honestly do not know.

The amendments are for voting

the reinstitution of the poll tax

firstvote It occurred to me that many of the Constitutional amendments involve voting and elections. I’m excluding the Bill of Rights. If you ignore Amendments 18 and 21, which canceled each other out over prohibition, it’s a clear majority. The first group involves eligibility of voters, the latter, the process.

Amendment 15 (1870) – says the “right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

But “the promise of the 15th Amendment would not be fully realized for almost a century. Through the use of poll taxes, literacy tests, and other means, Southern states were able to effectively disenfranchise African Americans. It would take the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 before the majority of African Americans in the South were registered to vote.” And the VRA was gutted by SCOTUS in 2013.

Amendment 17 (1913) – removed from state legislatures the power to choose U.S. Senators and gave that power directly to voters in each state. The arguments for it “sounded in the case for direct democracy, and the problem of hung state legislatures. Also, it freed the Senate from the influence of corrupt state legislatures.

Still, some conservatives still argue for its repeal, on the theory that it “would protect states’ rights and reduce the power of the federal government.”

Susan B. Anthony didn’t ask for that pardon

Amendment 19 (1920) – “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

Amendment 23 (1961) – allows citizens residing in the District of Columbia to vote for presidential electors, who in turn vote in the Electoral College for President and Vice President. Now if they could only get a voting Member of Congress.

Amendment 24 (1964) -outlawed the poll tax as a voting requirement in federal elections. The poll tax exemplified “Jim Crow” laws, developed in the post-Reconstruction South. These rules aimed to disenfranchise black voters and institute segregation.

Then in 1966, SCOTUS ruled in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections that “poll taxes for ANY level of elections were unconstitutional. It said these violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Yet some would argue – I certainly would – that SCOTUS in 2020 allowed the reinstitution of a poll tax. It “failed to upend a lower court move that is preventing otherwise eligible citizens with felony records from registering to vote if they cannot afford to pay off old court fees and fines.”

Amendment 26 (1971) – The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Process

Amendment 12 (1804) – if you’re a fan of the musical Hamilton, you may know the Election of 1800. Thomas Jefferson and his vice-presidential running mate Aaron Burr both received an identical number of electoral votes. The amendment stipulates that each elector must cast distinct votes for president and vice president, instead of two votes for president.

Amendment 20 (1933) removed the “excessively long period of time a defeated president or member of Congress would continue to serve after his or her failed bid for reelection.”

Amendment 22 (1951) created a two-term limit on the Presidency. It would not have applied to Harry Truman, who was president at the time of its enactment.

Also

Third Amendment riff – John Mulaney Monologue – SNL (from 3:53 to 6:06)

Hey 19, that’s a woman’s right to vote

19th*

woman's right to vote “The 19th Amendment guarantees American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle; victory took decades of agitation.”

In fact, “opposition to woman suffrage in the US predated the Constitutional Convention (1787)… Still, there was opposition to such patriarchal views from the beginning, as when Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, asked her husband in 1776, as he went to the Continental Congress to adopt the Declaration of Independence, to ‘remember the ladies and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors.’ In the scattered places where women could vote in some types of local elections, they began to lose this right in the late 18th century.”

In July 1848… the Seneca Falls Convention launched the women’s rights movement. “The Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances was ratified by the assembly. They also passed 12 resolutions that specifically necessitated equal rights for women including the resolution that proclaimed women’s right to vote.”

A constitutional amendment was first introduced in Congress in 1878. Some suffragists challenged male-only voting laws in the courts. “More public tactics included parades, silent vigils, and hunger strikes. Supporters were heckled, jailed, and sometimes physically abused.” Many Americans found the idea of a woman voting a radical change. It was generally accepted among men that women should be “protected from the evils of politics.”

Wyoming

Interestingly, the struggle was more successful in the western part of the country. It was Wyoming, in 1869, which became the first territory to grant women the right to vote. When it joined the union in 1890, it became the first state to grant female citizens the ballot. Colorado (1893), Utah (1896), Idaho (1896), Washington (1910), and Colorado (1911) followed.

“By 1914, every state west of the Rockies had granted females the right to vote. Kansas was the only state east of the Rockies to accept women’s suffrage. Why the divide? Some historians believe pioneer women were more highly regarded for their role in settling the West. Others suggest that there were fewer women in the West, therefore men valued and respected them more. Either way, New York didn’t grant women the right to vote until 1917.

“On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed the amendment, and two weeks later, the Senate followed. When Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on August 18, 1920,” the threshold was reached. The amendment was certified on 26 August.

The National Archives is having a virtual commemoration of the centennial of the 19th Amendment. The struggle for women’s suffrage, leading up to and beyond the certification of the 19th Amendment on August 26, 1920.

BTW

In recent Presidential elections, female voters outnumber male voters.

‘Ms. Jacobs! Is that you?!’ AOC’s Twitter reunion with her second-grade teacher.

The 19th*

This Poynter article recaps the 2016 presidential election.

“Hillary Clinton was running for president. Two questions followed Clinton. “Is she electable? Is she likable?

“‘That felt so unfairly narrowly tailored to women candidates,” [Emily] Ramshaw, [then editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribun] said. “That was the moment it first occurred to me that it would be incredible to have a storytelling platform that was by women for women.'”

Launching August 2, “The 19th* is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom reporting on the intersection of gender, politics, and policy. It is funded by a mix of membership, philanthropy, and corporate underwriting. The name says it all, right down the asterisk.”