Comments on: Crock the Vote

By: Art_In_Seattle

Art_In_Seattle — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:09:59 +0000

Neither Rolling Stone, Mother Jones nor the author of this piece mentions the dismal chaos that’s likely to befall states and localities in which a large number of people vote by mail (including Washington and Oregon, which now require it) if the US Postal Service is allowed to go over the cliff (or gets pushed).

By: mickipacific

mickipacific — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:03:20 +0000

In the 2010 election 73% of the voters in Texas did not bother to go to the voting booths. I volunteered before that election to help register voters. Out of over 1000 people I talked with, only five filled out the voter registration form. The fact is, a large percentage of people really do not care about politics.

By: kellycfa

kellycfa — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 15:46:44 +0000

you cant support and protest at the same time – thats oxymoronic
schafer is taking great pains to strike a centrist discussion article..alas in his disclosure he fails to disclose whether is he a dem or rep..from the feel of the article…instinctively a republican piece in its own self serving motive.
certainly not what i would come to expect from a Reuters OpEd…c’mon reuters…you can do better than this piece which does a bad job even for bipartisanship reporting standards

By: trblmkr

trblmkr — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:25:53 +0000

How is telling us what percent of Californians or Texans are ineligible to vote relevant? Unless one can show these people are voting and not just this innuendo, it doesn’t belong in the article.

By: NancyinStL

NancyinStL — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:24:09 +0000

Nate Silver does not agree on the electoral vote changes.

“Had the proposal been in place in 2008, when Pennsylvania had one more electoral vote prior to reapportionment, Barack Obama would have carried only 11 of the state’s 21 electoral votes despite winning Pennsylvania by a 10-point margin.”

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com /2011/09/15/pennsylvania-electoral-coll ege-plan-could-backfire-on-g-o-p/?hp

By: Sinbad1

Sinbad1 — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:15:25 +0000

I have difficulty understanding how a nation that prides itself on its democracy spends huge amounts on election campaigns but is so cheap and slack about the actual voting process.

By: Fishrl

Fishrl — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:00:29 +0000

The right to vote in the U.S. ought to be sacrosanct.

There are a few things you haven’t mentioned here. For example, Wisconsin recently tightened voter registration requirements – and then closed voter registration facilities in predominantly Democratic districts, ostensibly for budgetary reasons.

During the Jim Crow era, politicians came up with all kinds of excuses for disenfranchising voters. Poll taxes were necessary to pay for the cost of holding elections. Literacy tests were necessary to assure that voters could understand the ballots. All specious. And all rendered illegal by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

http://library.clerk.house.gov/reference -files/PPL_VotingRightsAct_1965.pdf

It’s time to revisit the VRA. We need to make it stronger this time.

By: Gen

Gen — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 11:55:37 +0000

Is this the left wing news blog site? Day after day of left ditch propaganda. I started reading Reuters because they did not post left/right articles…..but know that has changed….time for me to find a different news source, one that reports the actual news rather than one that spins the news.

By: nonchalanto

nonchalanto — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 06:10:20 +0000

The self-proclaimed voice of reason writing this article neglected to note that all the hyper-activity in either direction is apparently only targeted to Democratic voters. It doesn’t take seismograph to figure out who the miscreants will be then. You never hear of schemes to “suppress” Republican voters. So where is the mischief coming from?

By: smarcus

smarcus — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 05:15:27 +0000

@JCnTN

While our economy has not recovered, we are no longer in free fall.

On the other hand can you name one thing that our president’s republican predecessor did not destroy. We can start with our current quagmires in Iraq and Afganistan. Human rights violations regarding torture and Guantanamo (another quagmire.) Unfunded prescription drug plan, Grover Norquist strikes again. Failure in response to Katrina. If those were not enough, how about the complete destruction of the largest and most productive economy in the world, which has also been a huge contribution to our debt by the loss of tax base and need for stimulus. Please tell me what improved from 2001 to 2009.

Undoing eight years of idiocracy does not happen overnight. I think even with our economy running in place, we are improving drastically in other regards.