Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Voting rights advocates brace for ‘biggest fight of our lifetime’ during Trump administration
This article is about the effect Donald Trump has left on voting rights advocates, and how his recent tweets and statements have angered advocates into wondering if Trump's new administration will make it harder for certain groups of people to vote. They have already had to fight numerous battles concerning certain states revoking voter eligibility for reasons such as voter inactivity and proof of I.D. Advocates are frustrated and worried that with all the claims of voter fraud in the country, laws could be put into place to make voting more difficult.
Are voter rights advocates right to worry about the future of voting in elections? What can they do to prevent laws from going into place that restrict voting? Do you think that they can win the battle against voter fraud alarm in America?
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Unfortunately, I think the voter rights advocates are right to worry about the future of voting in elections. If some states are trying to implement restrictions that are actually comparable to Jim Crow laws, shouldn't we all be pretty terrified? How can we revert back to that?
ReplyDeleteBut can we fight against this with a soon-to-be president who thinks that polling is rigged and that everything is a scam? Can we do anything with a soon-to-be president who is extrememly anti-immigrant? I'm not sure. In fact, his administration might engourage it. I fear for many aspects of our world over these next four years, and I can't help but to wonder if part of "making America great again" will really, truly become something more like "make America white again". If these voting day restrictions themselves are any indication, I'd say we're in trouble.
While I wouldn't say voting restrictions today would be comparable to the overtly racist Jim Crowe laws, these laws need to be amended and not in the way Donald Trump intends to do it. Trump's anti-immigrant policy has been the keystone of his campaign and it is likely we will see some change in the future to the dismay of these voter advocates. Hopefully, the changes implemented won't be as drastic as the president-elect intends them to be. The best way to fight against the possibility of new restrictions and fight current laws is to start informing the public about the injustice of these policies. For example, voter ID doesn't seem like much to ask for to people of our status, but it does restrict those unable to obtain an ID or don't have the documentation necessary to obtain one, and many of those who don't have IDs are members of minorities. Perhaps some kind of media campaign to spread these facts, along with facts about the marginally low voter fraud in America, could ease the nation's tension of voter fraud alarm.
ReplyDeleteTrump is going to push his agenda. With thr Republicans in control of Congress, he will probably have more successes. He is upset about voter fraud and so it seems is much of the American public, at least those who voted for Trump, that his desire to push this legislation through could have wide support. The voter rights groups will have to work doubletime to get their message out to more anad more people and hopefully sway the oublic in their favor before any laws are passed? They might as well lobby Congress while their at it. If they can get the truth out in time and they gather more supporters and cause a big fuss, then they will have a chance.
ReplyDeleteI think voting rights advocates have a right to be very concerned about what a Trump administration means for voting rights. First of all, it is deeply disturbing that Trump continues to claim that there was widespread voter fraud in the election, and that "millions of people voted illegally." These claims have no basis in reality. In fact, voting fraud is very rare in the United States, which begs the question of why the GOP and Trump is going on a crusade to crack down on it. The truth is the Republican Party is attempting to suppress turnout by making it as difficult as possible to vote. This is has never been about voting fraud, just stopping minorities and poor Americans from voting so that they can win elections easily. What is especially concerning is Trump's pre-election talk of having his supporters go into "certain areas" to "monitor" the polls and ensure there is no fraud. We know what Trump means when he says these things. He is not fooling anyone. Voting rights advocates should continue to challenge discriminatory Voter-ID laws in the courts and organize protests to put pressure on legislatures to abandon these policies.
ReplyDeleteI think voter rights advocates do have a right to worry about the future of voting in elections due to Trump trying to suppress anything that doesn't seem to benefit him, from SNL skits to the Hamilton casts speech. It is actions like these that cause worry, along with his tweets of voter fraud being the reason that he didn't in the popular vote. With all of this said, I don't think their will be any noticeable voter suppression, as many are already taking a stand before he gets in office. With such a foundation already in place to take on Trump and anything he tries to pass, I think we are in good standing
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, these advocates honestly sound like they have a very valid point to make. Seeing how Trump has already screamed bloody murder at the potential of illegal voters and his pre-election standings on voting rights, it would be shocking to see how he wouldn't be a major cause of concern and even enemy to voting rights activists. If anything, it just seems like Trump wants to restrict voting populations to those that would be inclined to agree with him, seeing how he has handled criticism to this point reminds of a bully, unwilling to cooperate and demanding everyone to take back their words or imply an 'or else' feeling. What really worries me is if Trump is able to maintain public support and twist his words / actions to maintain this status, then going after these activists. If Trump plays his influence right, he could seriously damage these activists' work in a very short time, which is an incredibly scary prospect.
ReplyDeleteVoting fraud is not often, but what often happens is that people become defensive and try to fix a problem that really isn't there. This issue is traditionally spearheaded by the Republican Party, and now that the GOP is in control, I feel as though many encroachments will be made on voting rights. So therefore I believe that not only do they have the right to be worried, but they have legitimate cause for concern. I think that to prevent laws from passing, they must be very strong in their opposition and convince moderate Republicans to join them, because otherwise, they will get trampled by the majority. I'm not sure they have a good chance to make a difference, but they have a chance, but if they stay rigid and work hard, they may be able to make a change and keep voting free and easy to access for all Americans.
ReplyDeleteI don't think voter fraud happens often, but I do think that polling "malfunctions" occur too frequently to be brushed off as only malfunctions. I think that if there was any rigging done, it was most likely for Trump not against him. In fact in Delaware county it's been said that both democrats are behind the booths making sure that the republicans are pulling the levers to count a vote. I think advocates should worry because rights have been compromised in the past and I'm not sure that any "rules" or common rights matter in Trump's America anymore. Advocates should hold their ground and hope for the best. If stricter laws are put in place around voting identification, then advocates should work just as hard to get voters registered and warn them in advance to prepare them.
ReplyDeleteIt's not one of the questions above, but I think it's interesting to note a statistic from the article on whether or not trump supporters would accept the results. It states that before he was elected, only 69% of Trump's supporters said they would accept the results. However, after the election 99% of Trump supporters said they would accept the results. One could say that this disparity "huge". How much faith did supporters truly have and who is any republican to be upset with a democrat who is unhappy with the results when a third of their party's platform said that they wouldn't accept the results before changing their minds.
As people have already said, voter fraud is relatively rare. I do think the advocates should be worried. It seems as if serious voter suppression is taking place here, which is much more common than voter fraud. From moving polls to heavily enforcing ID laws, the advocates have a lot to work against in order to make voting fair. This Presidential term, advocates will need to be on the lookout and will need to push hard in order to fight for what’s rights. Trump wants to make sure certain groups of people remain oppressed and these advocates will not allow it.
ReplyDeleteHistory has shown us that the government has the ability to restrict voting rights without explicitly stating which group is excluded (the grandfather clause). It's scary, and may go under the radar unless people step up. The last thing this country needs is more voting restrictions: in 2016, less than sixty percent of eligible voters voted. This means that less than thirty precent of America picked Trump as president. When only thirty percent of a nation picks a leader, does it make sense to inhibit the number of people that can participate in this huge national decision?
ReplyDeleteVoting rights oppression is more common than voter fraud. Advocates need to speak out to prevent any sort of suppression on voting rights. They need to persuade the Republican majority to prevent anything like this from happening.
Having laws that make it difficult for certain groups to vote is very scary. Minorities already don't have much say in government with the winner-take-all system, and having voting rights oppression would make this even worse. Voting rights advocates have to make it loud and clear that they will not tolerate this. On the other hand, voter fraud is certainly bad for a democracy but it is rare and less impactful. Having voting rights oppression isn't bad only because minorities won't be able to vote; it sends a message that minorities shouldn't vote and that they don't matter in elections. This mindset could be engrained in the younger generation's head, and it could have much more significant effects even after such laws were removed.
ReplyDeleteExamples of voter fraud are harder to find than copies of "Trump: The Game" and I've tried to find both.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, it's a clever distraction issue. The GOP has used it well over the past few years to get voters to not think about other laws they've spearheaded. To disagree a little bit with Mark, Jim Crow is totally feasable in the 21st Century. You don't have to keep black people from voting, you just have to cluster them in one district so their vote doesn't count. That happens, but I don't see anyone rioting? I think voter rights are something we need to seriously fix in our country, or we'll be in serious trouble for some years to come.
I think that these groups are definitely right to be concerned about voting rights in the U.S. We've seen that under states with like-minded leadership to Trump's voting rights have been gutted in the name of fraud prevention. That's not to mention the gutting of large parts of the Civil Rights Act. The only effective way to fight this is to somehow make voting rights a nonpartisan issue, and mobilize people to pressure their politicians into opposing such measures. People have got to realize voting fraud is incredibly rare, and that the number of people disenfranchised by this law far outnumbers the number of cases of fraud. Although the next four years will be pretty tough, with many likely attacks of voting rights, I think these groups can fight back if they are vigilant.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is a concern that people should be worried about. Trump has constantly been tweeting about Hillary receiving votes that shouldn't have counted, which probably isn't true. Trump's entire campaign was also centered around his strict immigration policies. These naturally xenophobic ideas will eventually translate over to this issue and make it unreasonably hard for any immigrant to be able to vote. These groups are right to worry.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all Trump's twitter use needs to be addressed. Personally I think it is a fine idea to use twitter as a media outlet and inform the public with it, but as a future president he can not be retweeting random high schoolers or spewing out his ridiculous vulgarities. I guess I share that opinion with everyone, but I wanted to say it anyway. In terms of voting rights, I think that it is reasonable that activists are concerned, but realistically I do not believe anything will become of this. I don't think that there will be increased restrictions on voting. There already has been uproar about the photo ID requirement, and I don't think this country will allow any more voting restrictions. We value freedom and the right to vote so highly that if something more restrictive were to pass I do not believe that it would last very long.
ReplyDeleteI do think that voter rights are an important issue in our country. I like what Samir said, with how the idea of voter fraud is often given a political narrative that makes it into a seemingly larger issue and allows for the creation of laws that restrict ease of access for voters. Given how weak voter turnout is already, any barrier to entry targeted towards a specific demographic or group could be regionally devastating. I'd be in support of laws that make the process less restrictive towards all Americans. However, election security is still an issue worth worrying about. Given the security breaches with Russia in this election, it's naive to assume that there isn't any danger of fraud to watch out for.
ReplyDeleteVoter's rights activists surely have reason to worry about the possible new laws concerning voter fraud. Trump himself said that he would have won the popular vote had 3 million cases of voter fraud not happened. But there is hope for voters rights activists. The best way to fight these absurd laws is to call your representative and become more politically active via campaigning for a candidate that does believe in the ability of all americans being able to vote without jumping through hoops.
ReplyDeleteAs Matt said, the best way to fight is to spread more awareness, through social media, petitions, door-to-door techniques, etc. And we have every reason to worry about voter fraud, especially if Trump publicly continues to share his negative blanket statements about groups of people by typing his 140 characters with his tiny sausage fingers. Though this isn't the biggest problem we're going to face and shouldn't be our number one priority, we should certainly work on it sooner rather than later (read: the next election cycle).
ReplyDeleteI agree with what most people have said that voter turnout is so low already that it seems foolish to implement more restrictions on voting. I do believe that voter security should still be a concern, but considering the fact that hardly any Americans actually vote, it seems anti-productive that we would make the process seem even more tedious. While danger of fraud is obviously still present, I agree with Sean in that we might want to consider broadening the rules and regulations on voting. In addition to this, while I do not agree with comparing the voting restrictions to Jim Crow laws, restricting certain demographics of people could become prejudice, which is again exactly what we don't need in this country.
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