Poll of the Day > Supreme Court upholds controversial Ohio voter-purge law.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/11/618870982/supreme-court-upholds-controversial-ohio-voter-purge-law

By a 5-4 margin, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a controversial Ohio voter-purge law.

It's known as the "use-it-or-lose-it" law, and it's the most aggressive voter-purge system in the country. The state currently strikes voters from the registration rolls if they fail to vote in two consecutive elections and if they fail to return a mailed address confirmation form.

Those challenging the law said it violated the National Voting Rights Act, which says that a state cannot strike someone from the rolls for failure to vote. The emphasis is to get more people to vote and not have them purged.

The lead plaintiff in the case, Larry Harmon, is a software engineer from the Akron area, who normally votes in presidential election years, but not the midterms. In 2012, neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney excited him, so he decided not to vote.

When he did decide to vote a couple of years later, he found he was no longer registered. He had been purged from the voter rolls, because he hadn't voted in the previous two elections.

Failure to vote is not unusual in this country. In 2016, 29 percent of the registered voters in Ohio failed to vote. Nationwide, the number was even higher, more than a third, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=4501192-Husted-v-A-Philip-Randolph-Institute

Considering what happens when people in this country vote, perhaps we should purge more of them.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Considering what happens when people in this country vote, perhaps we should purge more of them.

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Considering what happens when people in this country vote, perhaps we should purge more of them.

So that we get more Trumps?

AFK's should be removed - if they want to vote they can, y'know, just go register again...
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So long as re-registration is easy enough to not be any sort of a barrier to people looking to get back into voting, I'm actually not opposed to the idea of cutting down on the amount of paper that gets sent out. If it's just going to be ignored anyway, might as well not waste the effort and resources. I'm not sure doing it automatically is the best way to go, though. Giving inactive voters an opt-out option would probably be better, even if it'd result in a lower deactivation rate than doing it automatically.
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adjl posted...

So long as re-registration is easy enough to not be any sort of a barrier to people looking to get back into voting, I'm actually not opposed to the idea of cutting down on the amount of paper that gets sent out. If it's just going to be ignored anyway, might as well not waste the effort and resources. I'm not sure doing it automatically is the best way to go, though. Giving inactive voters an opt-out option would probably be better, even if it'd result in a lower deactivation rate than doing it automatically.

Like...same day re-registering? Relatively painless, like half an hour extra to do, tops?
Plenty of people won't even realize they can't vote till election day when they show up.

If so, then fine. But if that can't be done, then this is really bad.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Considering what happens when people in this country vote, perhaps we should purge more of them.

The 2016 election voter turnout was abysmal.

This is just a sleazy way to give old people the edge, people who already vote more than young people.
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If you haven't voted in years, you have no legitimate reason to gripe about being removed from voting lists.
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TyVulpine posted...

If you haven't voted in years, you have no legitimate reason to gripe about being removed from voting lists.

Except when it wrecks your credit score because reasons.
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As always it's in the interest of decreasing Democratic voters
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

TyVulpine posted...

If you haven't voted in years, you have no legitimate reason to gripe about being removed from voting lists.

Except when it wrecks your credit score because reasons.

Still not a legitimate reason. If you don't vote, it's nobody's fault but your own. If it hurts your credit score, that's too bad.
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TyVulpine posted...

Kyuubi4269 posted...

TyVulpine posted...

If you haven't voted in years, you have no legitimate reason to gripe about being removed from voting lists.

Except when it wrecks your credit score because reasons.

Still not a legitimate reason. If you don't vote, it's nobody's fault but your own. If it hurts your credit score, that's too bad.

Literally holding people's finances hostage.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

TyVulpine posted...

Kyuubi4269 posted...

TyVulpine posted...

If you haven't voted in years, you have no legitimate reason to gripe about being removed from voting lists.

Except when it wrecks your credit score because reasons.

Still not a legitimate reason. If you don't vote, it's nobody's fault but your own. If it hurts your credit score, that's too bad.

Literally holding people's finances hostage.

Since when is doing one's civic duty such a burden? Especially when the ones that don't vote are often the ones complaining about how the government 'holds people's finances hostage'.......
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TyVulpine posted...

Kyuubi4269 posted...

TyVulpine posted...

Kyuubi4269 posted...

TyVulpine posted...

If you haven't voted in years, you have no legitimate reason to gripe about being removed from voting lists.

Except when it wrecks your credit score because reasons.

Still not a legitimate reason. If you don't vote, it's nobody's fault but your own. If it hurts your credit score, that's too bad.

Literally holding people's finances hostage.

Since when is doing one's civic duty such a burden? Especially when the ones that don't vote are often the ones complaining about how the government 'holds people's finances hostage'.......

Seriously? "Since when were duties burdens"?

People are distrustful of government and the electoral system, so they had the bright idea to hold these guys at gun point to do the fruitless dance they know is just to appease the fools that think their vote will actually improve their lives.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

TyVulpine posted...

Kyuubi4269 posted...

TyVulpine posted...

Kyuubi4269 posted...

TyVulpine posted...

If you haven't voted in years, you have no legitimate reason to gripe about being removed from voting lists.

Except when it wrecks your credit score because reasons.

Still not a legitimate reason. If you don't vote, it's nobody's fault but your own. If it hurts your credit score, that's too bad.

Literally holding people's finances hostage.

Since when is doing one's civic duty such a burden? Especially when the ones that don't vote are often the ones complaining about how the government 'holds people's finances hostage'.......

Seriously? "Since when were duties burdens"?

People are distrustful of government and the electoral system, so they had the bright idea to hold these guys at gun point to do the fruitless dance they know is just to appease the fools that think their vote will actually improve their lives.

But if you don't vote, that allows people like Trump into office.
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Yeah, I can't say that I see much of an issue especially given that the law was designed to fix an existing problem.

BlackScythe0 posted...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Considering what happens when people in this country vote, perhaps we should purge more of them.

So that we get more Trumps?

Wouldn't the reverse be true? If it's just political insiders voting, that favors establishment candidates.

adjl posted...

Giving inactive voters an opt-out option would probably be better, even if it'd result in a lower deactivation rate than doing it automatically.

It wasn't meant to purge people for being inactive, it was designed more to correct outdated records. When people move or die, their names can still show in the system (or, at least, that's how it was explained during the NPR segment)

Yellow posted...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Considering what happens when people in this country vote, perhaps we should purge more of them.

The 2016 election voter turnout was abysmal.

This is just a sleazy way to give old people the edge, people who already vote more than young people.

idk, seems like it would favor the young because they're more likely to have recently enrolled in the first place. Given that the focal point of the story is a voter who is noted as having voted in 2004, it's not likely that he's all that young. Plus he was going out to vote against marijuana legalization, which also suggests that he's older (since it's more of a hotbutton issue for young voters)
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TyVulpine posted...

If you haven't voted in years, you have no legitimate reason to gripe about being removed from voting lists.

In practice, I suppose, but not in principle. While the fact that he didn't vote may have triggered the post card, the real issue was just confirming his details not kicking him for not voting.

Andromicus posted...

As always it's in the interest of decreasing Democratic voters

lolwut?

TyVulpine posted...

But if you don't vote, that allows people like Trump into office.

And when people do vote, it allows people like Trump into office.
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I think we need more accessibility to information on the issues and what the candidates goals are. And by information I don't mean the smear campaigns that pop up in advertising around election time. All this law is going to do is create more voters that are uninformed.
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Just be done away with voting and have the candidates fight it out in a death tournament.
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