Bloated ballots latest tactic in Republican war on voting

I saw this segment on the Rachael Maddow Show the other night and I was flabbergasted! (hope I spelled that right)

It seems like every election, we end up waiting on Florida to figure out who the hell won their state which ends up being the determining factor in the election. As a matter of fact, it was because of Florida's inability to hold fair elections that we ended up with America's first POTUS elected by SCOTUS and what a joke that was.

Well after seeing this segment, I'm convinced that the voter suppression initiatives currently under way across America are most highly concentrated in Florida. It's almost like "Voter Manipulation Central" for the GOP. Before I go any further, please check out the video;



So first it's voter I.D. initiative, then it's the "voter purge" initiative, then it's "hey, you forgot to include your dorm room number," then it's reduce and/or eliminate early voting and now it's ballots that are ten pages long. What the hell will they think of next?

With the elimination and/or reduction of early voting days and times, coupled with ballots that are ten pages long, one could only expect to have people waiting all night to vote. That's absolutely ridiculous!

Apparently, among other things, reinforcing the right of all citizens to vote and revamping the way we vote needs to be one of our highest priorities in the future. I think in may be time to legalize absentee or mail in ballots for any registered voter who request them, which would greatly reduce the volume of in-person voters at polling places on election day. Mail in ballots, (without having to swear that I'll be out of town on election day) it's really pretty simple.

Suggestions anyone?

Edit to add; To the Mods, If this article has been previously posted or if you feel that if would be more suited for a different forum, please fee free to take the appropriate action. Flatfish

They know that they are going to lose, badly. They can't win without this level of suppression now.

And the sad thing is, they will still lose horribly. They are running out of room to gerrymander republican districts. They are starting to get into a legal mess with suppression efforts. Don't be surprised if the half of the RNC staff gets indicted after this election. The suppression efforts are actually backfiring and causing an uproar in democratic support and enthusiasm.

Please be assured that I will fill out any ballot, regardless of length, to ensure the people that systematically snubbed Ron Paul get denied.

Not that I will even have to, considering they are so far behind no amount of suppression can help them on a national level now. Lets not even consider the possibility that the libertarian core of the republican party is about to split ranks and vote for Gary Johnson.

To put simply, they aren't getting anywhere with this except deeper in the hole they are digging themselves. And now there is a sort of anti-intellectualism that perpetuates their party down to the very core. One that denies the reality of what is around them and instead endorses a worldview that can't comprehend a loss they are about to experience. And it is my belief that losing to Obama again is going to sunder the republican party and test its resolve more than anything since the great depression landslide defeats.

While they might hate this period of restructuring, I think it is a good thing for the country as a whole. Perhaps it will loosen the grip christian conservatives have on the narrative and allow those who espouse personal liberty to rise to top again. Perhaps a different kind of politics can emerge on the back-end from this, one that perhaps is more libertarian in approach and less about dividing Americans into "Us vs them" mentalities. Perhaps I'm too optimistic but no matter how you slice the pie it looks like Republicans are digging their graves this cycle.

reply to post by nuclear12346


While I'm not for quite as much "liberty" as Ron Paul would like to offer in many instances, I otherwise agree with you.

On the other hand, I thought this thread would attract a little more attention than it has. I don't know, maybe most people are used to having these lengthy ballots where they live, but I've never seen anything like it in my life. I can't imagine trying to accommodate that many voters in a day's time when each of them has to read through ten pages to vote.

Where I live in Texas, it's usually one page (sometimes front & back making it 2 pages) and it never takes me more than 15 minutes to vote and that includes waiting in line.

May I offer an alternative explanation? I've taken it from here: www.tampabay.com...

Like every state, Florida had put some State Constitutional Amendments on the ballot last time around. The State Supreme Court, said that, even though the people had voted for the amendments, they may have been misled by the summary explanation printed on the ballot.

The Legislature had some very harsh words for the State Supreme Court, and said, basically,"Ok, if that's the way they want to play, we won't put the summary on the ballot, will put every "unprintable" word of every "really unprintable" amendment on the ballot. There are 11 amendments this year. Now you know why the ballot is so long.

Romney's trying to prevent voting? Sorry, no.

A Texas Tea Party group has apparently begun challenging voters right to vote in Ohio and Florida, based solely on your congressional district and your address. While it's curious as to how a Texas Tea Party group even got unfettered access to Ohio and Florida registered voters lists, I'm rather surprise that ANY "Tea Party" group - who claim to be "champions" of our constitutional rights - are working so hard to SHUT OUT real Americans and DENY them the right to vote, on any flimsy excuse they can find. "We're here to defend the Constitution and deny you the right to vote" - sounds like a catchy slogan for the Texas Tea Party.

Florida's "bloated ballots" also remind me of several of the reports coming from Ohio, where absentee ballots were mailed out with no instructions on how to fill them out (the instructions are arriving in the mail a week or two AFTER the ballots!) or are arriving so plastered in "Re-elect Jon Husted" promotional slogans many Dems are likely to toss them in the belief they are just campaign literature.

The coordination taking place in all these efforts to restrict/suppress the vote and purge voter lists is not happenstance. There is a great deal of conscious effort begin put forth by some well-funded and well-connected agency among the GOP electoral boards and key swing-state Secretaries of State (OH, PA, FL., in particular) to make all this happen. It sure as Hades isn't random.

Originally posted by charles1952
May I offer an alternative explanation? I've taken it from here: www.tampabay.com...

Like every state, Florida had put some State Constitutional Amendments on the ballot last time around. The State Supreme Court, said that, even though the people had voted for the amendments, they may have been misled by the summary explanation printed on the ballot.

The Legislature had some very harsh words for the State Supreme Court, and said, basically,"Ok, if that's the way they want to play, we won't put the summary on the ballot, will put every "unprintable" word of every "really unprintable" amendment on the ballot. There are 11 amendments this year. Now you know why the ballot is so long.

Romney's trying to prevent voting? Sorry, no.

I thank you for laying out the timeline, but that hardly justifies the outcome.

For starters, when you say that "every state" put constitutional amendments on their ballots, this is hardly true. Did you mean every state with "Republican" controlled legislatures?

When you said that the State Supreme Court ruled that people may have been misled by summary explanations of the proposed amendments, exactly who authored those summary explanations? I suspect it was the same "Republicans" that control the state's legislature and the same one that proposed the amendment in the first place.

When you say that they decided to put every unprintable word on the new ballots in response to the courts ruling, who decided to do this? I suspect it was the same "Republican" controlled state legislature who made that decision too.

Now you're proposing that it's the court's fault that this "Republican" controlled state legislature decided it would be easier and more productive to put "every unprintable word" on the ballot as opposed to writing a realistic summary explanation of the amendment? Please!!!

The plain & simple truth is that, instead of committing to insure that future summary explanations be an unbiased, fair and realistic representations of the bills they are designed to describe, the "Republican" party viewed the court's ruling as yet another opportunity to throw another impediment in the way of free & open voting.

You see Charles, I never said that "Romney was trying to prevent voting." I don't think I ever used his name anywhere in the OP. That may have been what you wanted to hear, but it's not what I said. You may even want to recheck the title of this thread which is; Bloated ballots latest tactic in Republican war on voting I think this is what Bill Maher is talking about when he speaks of the republican bubble where they live in an alternate reality created from things they thought they heard.

Romney is just a peon in the bigger "Republican" initiative to "kill the vote," he's just to stupid and egotistical to care, much like the vast majority of his supporters.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


I couldn't agree with you more! If we keep going down the path that our modern day TP/GOP is advocating, it will be just a short while before we have a POTUS who received 100% of the vote. You know, like Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler.

reply to post by Flatfish

Dear Flatfish,

I'm happy to answer your questions.

For starters, when you say that "every state" put constitutional amendments on their ballots, this is hardly true. Did you mean every state with "Republican" controlled legislatures?

You're quite right, I don't know if 50 states have it on their ballots this election. Some that have are Republican, some are Democrat. It's not worth looking up, but I suspect every state has had an amendment on it's ballot at some time in recent history.

When you said that the State Supreme Court ruled that people may have been misled by summary explanations of the proposed amendments, exactly who authored those summary explanations? I suspect it was the same "Republicans" that control the state's legislature and the same one that proposed the amendment in the first place.

I expect you're quite correct about this, although I don't know what happens if it's a citizen proposed amendment, but we'll assume you're completely correct. But here, a difficulty pops up. Assume that it's a Republican amendment which the Republicans want to pass. You seem to be accusing them of writing bad summaries of their own amenments, which then get the amendments thrown out. That's beyond even the Republicans' level of dumbness.

When you say that they decided to put every unprintable word on the new ballots in response to the courts ruling, who decided to do this? I suspect it was the same "Republican" controlled state legislature who made that decision too.

I agree with you, but I'm not sure. It could have been a unanimous vote, I don't know.

Now you're proposing that it's the court's fault that this "Republican" controlled state legislature decided . . .

Well, that's what the article indicated, and I have no reason to doubt it.

it would be easier and more productive to put "every unprintable word" on the ballot as opposed to writing a realistic summary explanation of the amendment?

I don't know about "easier and more productive," but I do think they wanted to give the courts one less reason to get involved after the amendment had been passed. Can't say I blame them. As far as the summary goes, they thought they had written a good summary. They wouldn't have written a bad summary knowing that that would kill the amendment they wanted.

the "Republican" party viewed the court's ruling as yet another opportunity to throw another impediment in the way of free & open voting.

I wonder if the issue isn't getting changed a little here. This doesn't seem to me to have anything to do with "free and open" voting. Informed voting, maybe, but this doesn't stop anyone from registering and voting.

You see Charles, I never said that "Romney was trying to prevent voting."

You are absolutely correct. You never used the name. I was simply using that as shorthand for the Republican party and it's campaign committees, and it's supporters. It's an election year, and the candidates represent their parties, but again, you are quite right.

I just offered a different explanation for this situation. It seems more believable to me than the OP's, if you don't like it, that's Ok.

With respect,
Charles1952

reply to post by Flatfish


Well hopefully some wise arse will come out next with a version of long version or short version of the ballot like we have for taxes

Yes I am making a joke.

I find very ridiculous that we have gone from a simple x under the main name to a ballot that will give headaches to even the smartest of the bunch.

This will make sure that those elderly pesky voters will get lost within the voting paperwork.

should I get a lawyer to read the ballot first.

reply to post by charles1952


Yeah and if frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their ass when they hop either, but they don't.

What's happening in states across America "where republicans have gained control of their legislatures," is clearly obvious for anyone who is willing to accept the truth. It's an outright open effort to "kill the vote!" Ironically, just the opposite of the democrats lifelong initiative which is to "get out the vote."

Hell, they wouldn't even recognize the votes for Ron Paul, cast by elected delegates to their own convention. It's pretty clear that if they have it their way, you either vote with them or you don't get to vote at all.