#election reform | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ivygorgon · 16 days

Text

AN OPEN LETTER to THE PRESIDENT & U.S. CONGRESS; STATE GOVERNORS & LEGISLATURES

Stand Against Voter Disenfranchisement: Keep Voting Age Fair!

1 so far! Help us get to 5 signers!

I am writing to express my strong opposition to any efforts to increase the voting age to 21 or older. Recent proposals by some Republicans to raise the voting age are deeply concerning and would unjustly infringe upon the civic duties of legal adults.

It is important to remember that many of our nation's founding fathers, including James Monroe at 18, Aaron Burr at 20, Alexander Hamilton at 21, James Madison at 25, and more, were all young adults when they played pivotal roles in shaping our country. Denying young adults their right to participate in our democracy would contradict the very principles upon which our nation was founded. Would you have prevented these American legends knowing they were capable of greatness?

The notion that if someone is "old enough to fight, they are old enough to vote" holds true today. Young adults contribute to society in meaningful ways and deserve to have a say in the decisions that impact their lives and their futures. If 18-year-olds are fighting and dying for you, you must listen to their voices!

Furthermore, restricting voting rights disproportionately affects already disadvantaged minority voters. We should be working to include and strengthen our populace, including BIPOC Americans, reformed citizens seeking reintegration into society, and our extremely motivated youth. We must work to strengthen voting access for all American citizens, not limit it.

In the words of our American colonials who fought against their British rulers, "Taxation without representation is tyranny." Denying young adult Americans their right to vote would undermine the core principles of our democracy that we have held since day one.

I urge you to oppose any measures that seek to raise the voting age and instead support efforts to protect and expand voting rights for all eligible citizens.

Thank you for considering my perspective on this critical issue.

📱 Text SIGN PVTGSX to 50409

🤯 Liked it? Text FOLLOW IVYPETITIONS to 50409

💘 Q'u lach' shughu deshni da. 🏹 "What I say is true" in Dena'ina Qenaga

5 notes · View notes

dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

Text

When voters cast their ballots in the upcoming April election, they will, in nearly all Illinois communities, select one candidate per race. That could change under legislation proposed in the Illinois General Assembly.

At a House Ethics and Elections Committee hearing this week, two bills were discussed that would bring ranked choice voting to the state. The format, where voters select a first, second, third, and so forth candidate, has gained traction recently in states such as Alaska.

Evanston, home to Northwestern University, became the first city in the state to adopt RCV. A November referendum passed overwhelmingly and would apply to municipal races.

The bills - House Bill 2807 from state Rep. Maurice West, D-Rockford, and House Bill 3749 from state Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago - focus on presidential primaries, and municipal and township office races respectively.

Former Colorado House Speaker Terrance Carroll, now a senior fellow at FairVote, a national nonprofit promoting RCV and election reform, told lawmakers the system would benefit voters in Illinois and nationwide.

Carroll promoted RCV as a way to move past personal attacks commonplace in political campaigns and instead focus on the issues. He said assertions that the elderly and people of color would not understand the process were false and offensive.

"For someone who has been involved in party politics, probably far longer than I should have been in my life, it also helps promote more viable candidates who are running for office," he said, serving as the first Black House Speaker in Colorado from 2003 through 2011. "So, it tends to mitigate against the most extreme candidates in both parties."

Opponents have submitted more witness slips than proponents on both bills as of Wednesday. Among them is Andy Bakker, representing the Illinois Opportunity Project and Stop Rank Choice Voting Coalition in Illinois, who spoke to the committee on Tuesday.

RCV would be a "radical change" to the way Illinoisans vote, and he questioned the benefits Carroll mentioned.

"At the end of the day, rank choice voting is a scheme to disconnect elections from issues and allows candidates with marginal support to win," Bakker said. "It obscures true debate and issue-driven dialogues among candidates and eliminates genuine, true binary choices."

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Instead of one choice, voters in a ranked-choice system select their first choice among a list of candidates and then choose their subsequent second, third, and potentially fourth options.

Under RCV, a candidate automatically wins if they receive a plurality of votes as a first choice. However, in cases such as the recent Chicago mayoral race where no candidate secured a majority, an elimination process would begin.

The candidate with the lowest number of votes would be eliminated and each of their votes reallocated to their supporters’ second choice candidate. The process would repeat until one candidate secured more than 50% of the votes.

Amber McReynolds, a senior political strategist with Issue One, said that based on RCV data from states such as Alaska, New York, and California that already use RCV, voter turnout has improved while helping to manage a large field of candidates.

"This is a better voting model to ensure all voices and choices are reflected in the election results," she said, an Illinois native also visiting from Colorado.

WHAT COUNTIES ARE PREPARED TO IMPLEMENT?

Neither HB 2807 nor HB 3749 have effective dates nor have been moved out of committee, but McReynolds thinks if passed, the legislation could be quickly implemented.

More than 80% of Illinois voters live within a jurisdiction that has the systems and software to use RCV, she said. But more than a third of counties would require updates.

State Rep. Dennis Tipsword Jr., R-Metamora, raised concern about the expense of updating election systems for rural counties.

Julie Bliss, county clerk in Boone County, told committee members part of the increased expense is that ballots will be larger. It also depends on what voting software is used. Bliss added every Illinois county has a separate contract with voting companies.

States such as Vermont, Georgia and Rhode Island that have statewide contracts reduce costs and give voters a more uniform experience regardless of county, she said.

The expense estimated for Boone County, home to about 53,000 residents, ranges from $35,000 to $45,000 to purchase the needed software upgrade, she said.

Sangamon County Clerk Don Gray confirmed an upgrade to the county's Election Systems and Software would cost about $1.8 million. However, a system upgrade only would be part of the expenses, he said. Sangamon County also would need to account for increased printing costs due to larger ballots, certification with state and federal election authorities, a software update, and educating the public on what RCV means.

Aggregating election software at the state level could help with costs, but Gray said he would like to know what that means for security measures. He also noted that counties such as Cook which uses Dominion Voting Services for its tabulation, have different needs and financial abilities when it comes to elections.

"The decentralized factor of how we operate today is a great security feature, especially in the age of cybersecurity."

"Our opponents that would like to be nefarious to the system ... have to access multiple points instead of a single, universal centralized system."

With limited data on the expense, state Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, urged more research be conducted before the legislature moves forward with RCV statewide. Like Bliss, she also supported a statewide voting system.

"I understand the idea, I understand it works in other places, but I understand our process does not collect the proper data for us to analyze," she said.

12 notes · View notes

macmanx · 2 years

Text

#dsa #democratic socialists of america #us politics #usa #donate #abortion access #election reform #renters protections #living wage #education #extremely rare political contribution post

11 notes · View notes

gwydionmisha · 2 years

Link

#Mitch McConnell #Chuck Schumer #Election Reform #News

2 notes · View notes

zmyaro · 1 month

Text

I just heard about the Fair Representation Act, which seems to aim to do a lot to inhibit the impact of gerrymandering.

More information about it:

Ask your representative to support it with a couple clicks:

(Put in your information, and it will identify your representative and auto-fill an example email. Sending something is more important than what you write, so you can just send that template if you don't have time/desire to write something else!)

#Fair Representation Act #Gerrymandering #Election Reform #Ranked Choice Voting #Congressional Election

0 notes

reasonsforhope · 1 year

Text

It was a really, really good political news day today in the US (4/4/23)

For anyone who hasn't heard, not only did Trump get arrested, but also:

-We found out that the legal case against him in this prosecution (stormy daniels hush money case) is SIGNIFICANTLY stronger than people had speculated. Like, wow do they have receipts.

-In fact, the evidence was so entirely there that the new question on prime time news (well, at least on msnbc lol) is "Hey, why didn't the federal courts prosecute him for this already???)

-Trump FAILED UTTERLY in his attempts to rally mass protests and demands for "death and destruction" if he was arrested. There was no violence at the arrest at all, and as for Trump supporters? They failed to show up in any kind of numbers--reportedly only about a hundred people were protesting the arrest

-We (aka Judge Janet Protasiewicz) WON what is widely considered to be the most consequential election of 2023, a Wisconsin state supreme court election that handed control of the state supreme court to the left

-Because of that election win, it is now extremely likely that abortion will be legal in Wisconsin, and that Wisconsin won't be able to throw out electors in the 2024 presidential election

-ALSO bc of this, Wisconsin, the most gerrymandered state in the country, will probably get nonpartisan, accurate maps, which COULD FLIP THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES in 2024

-In Chicago, Brandon Johnson, union organizer and former teacher, won the election for mayor, in a decisive win progressives, esp for meaningful criminal justice reform and investment in mental health (whereas the other guy was campaigning on hiring hundreds of new cops and being super tough on crime)

25K notes · View notes

natecoumbe31 · 8 months

Text

No vote, no complaint

That's simply untrue.

I overheard a couple of people from an older generation (you know which one) debating about why the country is falling apart. Their main argument was that Gen X and Millennials aren’t turning out to vote. They summed up their argument by saying, “if they don’t vote, they don’t have anything to complain about.” That’s patently untrue. When the choices suck, you get to complain. When you…

View On WordPress

#citizens #citizenship #election reform #elections #gen x #millennials #vote #voters #voting #who should I vote for

0 notes

mitigatingchaos · 8 months

Text

A Question

If the government can put a serial number on every bill and know when it is taken out of circulation and shredded, why can’t every ballot have a serial number for tracking and integrity purposes? There is only one answer.

View On WordPress

#ballot tracking #Election Integrity #Election reform #elections

0 notes

letsbringbackunclesam · 1 year

Text

Hi,

My name is Manzeel and I am the founder of this sub. I have created this new sub in order to spread the word about a change I want to enact in America's politics for the better. Here's the link to my ideas (handcrafted bill): https://chng.it/RgJVdSSS

The ideas contained within the Change.org petition is a game changer.

Please spread the word!

No more of this nonsensical hate!

#politics #economy #reproductive rights #healthcare #maternity leave #abortion rights #election reform

1 note · View note

jdrachel · 2 years

Link

Enough is enough! Which starts with us no longer being gullible fools. Those in power will continue to lie to us, continue rigging the system in their favor and that of their patrons, the privileged elite, if we let them. Time to get serious about installing a government of the people, by the people, for the people. By electing “people’s candidates” who have proven themselves worthy of our vote.

#climate change #democracy #election reform #immigration reform #livable wage #medicare-4-all #militarization #military-industrial complex #minimum wage #oligarchy #prison system reformsm i #ruling elite #Wall Street #war and peace #wedge issues

0 notes

notwiselybuttoowell · 2 years

Text

Truss’s vision of slashed taxes, deregulated enterprise zones, an even more unfettered City Of London and favours showered on the rich might be more coherent than her predecessor’s flailing opportunism, but beyond Tory party members, who voted for it? Three years ago, the Conservatives offered the electorate a vision of a newly active state and an unrelenting focus on the UK’s economic inequalities and imbalances: to quote from their manifesto, “millions more invested every week in science, schools, apprenticeships and infrastructure while controlling debt”. Both those pledges are now dead: the idea of government spending reshaping the economy has been sidelined by deregulation and tax cuts, and the Tories are suddenly telling us that skyrocketing public borrowing is nothing to worry about.

The impression of a gigantic handbrake turn is confirmed by the end of the ban on fracking – something the Tory manifesto said would happen only if it were proved to be safe. The whole unhinged package offered by Truss and her government surely chimes with an even smaller minority of the electorate than the one that put Johnson in power, but such is the democratic gravity that Conservatism manages to defy: elections now feel like mere pauses for breath before whichever Tory cabal is currently in charge gets on with doing whatever it wants.

To state the blindingly obvious, the voting system that leads to these outcomes is hopelessly broken. Because the Tories’ support is evenly spread around non-urban England, it took around 38,000 votes to elect a Conservative MP in 2019. For Labour, whose support is increasingly clustered in cities, the figure was 51,000. The Lib Dems, meanwhile, got one seat for every 334,000 votes cast, while the Greens’ solitary MP, Caroline Lucas, sat atop a mountain of 865,000.

#uk politics #democracy #tories #labour #green party #caroline lucas #liz truss #election reform #keir starmer

1 note · View note

1968bullittmustang · 2 years

Link

Just imagine how different just our judicial appointments would have been (let alone everything else) if the electoral college had been abolished in the 50s 60s 70s or 80s like it should have been when it became unnecessary and a hindrance to elections

#voting rights #rank choice voting #election reform #politics

0 notes

canisalbus · 10 months

Note

What do you think would have happened if (somehow, idk how but somehow) Machete rose to the rank of pope?

To be perfectly honest? I think most realistically he would've ruled maybe six months at best and then keeled over from stress and exhaustion.

#seriously he wouldn't want to be the pope papacy is for chumps but if he had to #he would've kicked out so many cardinals #his former colleagues riddled with corruption nepotism incompetence and moral decay #it would've upsetted so many elite families but what are they gonna do #pope's power is absolute he could totally do that #just excommunicate the whole lot #do something to get Holy See's finances in order he's been crunching numbers they aren't looking good #build sturdier foreign relations probably he's a diplomat I think he'd likely be extremely done with superfluous wars and useless bickering #maybe commission some extravagant artworks art is nice he knows to appreciate beauty when he sees it #become the senselessly rich patron to a handful of top notch artists although I think he already does that in canon timeline #I'm not sure how he'd handle the ongoing counter-reformation I guess it depends whether this was before or after the inquisition times #minimal public appearances because lord that's way too many people too many eyes being a figurehead is not his strongest suit #develop stomach ulcers get sepsis #historically it's actually not very uncommon for popes to expire relatively quickly after they're elected #they don't even have to be particularly old stuff's just tiring they get frazzled out #answered #anonymous #Machete

231 notes · View notes

tomorrowusa · 2 months

Text

Exactly what language is Trump speaking? Professional translators are often baffled. But we do hear echoes of 1930s Germany in his diminishing attempts at communication.

Trump echoes Nazi propaganda and pushes lie that ‘no one speaks languages’ of migrants in wild border speech

This vid includes Trump's pseudo-English at Eagle Pass.

youtube

If you're an English teacher, get your students to attempt to transcribe some of Trump's attempts at human speech.

#donald trump #cognitive decline #languages #incoherence #nazi propaganda #eagle pass #texas #republican presidential nomination #trump derailed border reform so he could continue to rant about migrants #trump border crisis #election 2024 #vote blue no matter who #Youtube

26 notes · View notes

gwydionmisha · 1 year

Link

#Jan. 6 #Election Reform #News

0 notes

dontmean2bepoliticalbut · 1 year

Text

310 notes · View notes