Trump cheats at golf - the ONE and ONLY politics thread

I had to sit through all 18 hours of the State Board of Elections hearings on the local voting plans. In most counties there are more voting hours available in 2016 than there were in 2012, although in 17 counties there will be fewer. Almost all of those 17 counties, btw, are sparsely populated counties in the mountains or the northeast. The two exceptions are Watauga (where App State is) and Granville (Raleigh suburb). But even in Watauga, the State Board of Elections restored the on campus early voting site at App State.

Regardless, we don't yet know if the long lines the first few days of early voting are a result of the changes local boards made in voting locations or if they're a result of increasing voter interest in early voting.

 

OK. Just to show that I'm not totally dogmatic, I'll concede that. The strong-conservative-women/weak-liberal-women argument's about the dumbest fucking thing I've ever encountered.

 

Wrong.

First, it was local boards of elections that made changes, not the general assembly. Second, only 17 (of 100 counties) are seeing a reduction in voting hours and/or sites. Almost all of those are sparsely populated, rural counties that will overwhelmingly go to the GOP if past performance is any type of indicator. Third, the other 83 counties are seeing no change or an expansion of early voting in 2016 compared to 2012. North Carolinians will have 17 days - well, only 13 remaining - to vote early. There are few people who can't find one day among those 17 to spend an hour or so at the polls, should they choose to vote early.

 

But the article I linked stated that polling places were greatly diminished, from 16 to 1 in one black district. Is this not concerning to you?

 

The article is a little misleading. There's only one Guilford County site on the first day of early voting. There will 25 locations beginning this Friday through the end of early voting.

 

How far would I need to drive before crying constitutional violation? There is one eary-voting location open in my decent-sized county. I don't see Salon or ThinkProgress working on it.

 

Fair enough. Thanks

 

Guilford County is not a "black district." It's a diverse county of nearly half a million people.

I'm not a fan of the Republican-led, local Board of Elections decision to only have one site during the first week of early voting. But the fact that they're expanding it to 25 sites across the county - more than in 2012 and including one Sunday - makes me OK with the plan enough that we should at least see how it works.

Here's a link to the county's plan, btw:

http://www.myguilford.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/EV-Schedule-Revised-092916.pdf

 

The article points out Greensboro is predominantly black. Is that wrong? I assume the rules were made with that in mind, right?

 

Yes, that is wrong. Greensboro has a large black population, but whites still make up just under half of the city's population. Blacks are about 40 percent. And the county as a whole, including Greensboro, is about two-thirds white.

 

I should add that the original Guilford County plan proposed by the Republican majority was most assuredly attempting to cut down on the numbers of Democratic voters taking advantage of early voting. It entirely cut early voting sites on the campuses of NC A&T and UNC Greensboro, and nearly eliminated sites in African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods. What was put in place was a compromise plan that restored many of those and has expanded hours compared to 2012 - including weekend hours - in order to avoid a challenge at the State Board of Education.

In NC the local Board of Elections in every county has three members. Two from the governor's party and one from the opposition party. If the three members agree unanimously on a voting plan, it's put into place. If one member dissents, then the State Board of Elections has final say. So there's a small incentive to work with the minority member to come up with a compromise plan, and that actually happened in Guilford - unlike many other parts of the state.