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sundin13 on 20 July 2020
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EnricoPallazzo said:
sundin13 said:

It is hard for me to reconcile the first paragraph with the second. You say that we should keep the existing rules, because changing the rules in ways that help a party is wrong, yet then you advocate for changing the rules in a way which would help a party. How do you draw this distinction, and might you be making a rash judgement on the first point given the revelations of the second?

You got me wrong. I am against changing election rules, especially if those changes helps only one party and this goes both ways. But that does not mean I don't think there are injustices in the system today. Should changes happen it would need to be widely discussed with society and it would need to be very clear the reasons, consequences of it and most important it would need to be very clear that the objective is not to simply boost one party.

Of course with time things change, society changes and evolves. Hell if you would never change anything women would never be able to vote.

I gave you 4 examples, all of them increases vote turnout and are beneficial to the democratic party. Two with demands that I agree needs to be discussed and maybe changed and two that I truly believe are only to boost one party.

Yeah, I get that, but it just seems so weird to be so adamantly against something and then immediately start listing exceptions. At the core of the voting rights debate is a conversation about rights and injustices.

That said, the main fronts of the voting rights debate are twofold:

1) Voting for individuals who have been convicted of crimes. You already stated that you agree with the democrat perspective on this issue. An interesting anecdote regarding this is that in 2018, Florida held a vote regarding re-enfranchising individuals who had their voting rights revoked because of a criminal conviction and the people overwhelming supported it. However, immediately, the Republican state government started trying to chip away at it, attaching conditions and going against the will of the voters.

2) Voter ID. This goes in the opposite direction. It is an example of Republican governments adding new rules which restrict voting by demanding individuals have certain kinds of documentation. These laws predominantly disenfranchise poor, often minority voters who generally vote Democrat.

You spoke earlier who it is typically the left who seeks to change the rules in unfair ways to benefit themselves. This is not what I have seen in America. The left fights for things like voting rights from ex-cons which you seem to support, while the right seems to favor disenfranchisement of voters.

I suppose my question is: are you unaware of this dichotomy, or do you disagree with my assessment?