2018 Midterm Election Thread

You "voter purge" alarmists need a drink of water to calm down a little bit. Do you guys understand that roll purging is a common and normal thing?

If you want me to be alarmed, link the actual facts of the methodology being used and explain why you think it's illegal. I'm sure there are lawyers in the state who'd be more than happy to bring a suit if the law was broken in a purge. As someone who has actually seen unmaintained voter rolls, they can become an absolute nightmare without some regular maintenance. That's not to say that purging can't involve shadiness, but please point out specifically what your accusation is.

And no, you can't just use general surface data like how the majority of the purged come from the lower classes. That goes without saying. Poor people are more transient by nature, constantly changing addresses, changing districts and even changing states. Same for young people. Voting is inherently harder for people not established in a community. This is baked into the system already, and that should be a separate conversation.

In Indiana, if half a million legitimate voters were purged, we should see that reflected in the turnout. Last time Indiana had a Senate race in a mid term was 2010 with a turnout of about 1.75 million. If these 500K purged people are real, we should see that reflected on next month's voting results.

Without actual cold hard evidence of illegality, you guys sound just as unhinged as the "illegals are voting" people on the other side.

 

As an x MN resident, the state is just not good Trump country. Yes it's a very white gun owning state outside the big cities, but rudeness and vulgarity don't sell very well culturally. Here it has to be noted that Minnesota is a unique state in the sense that they have their own progressive party called the Democratic Farm Labor Party which affiliates with the national Democratic party. By doing this, the DFL can distance itself from the national Democrats and present campaigns specifically tailored to Minnesotan voters. The DFL is well loved in the state with the traditions of Paul Wellstone, Walter Mondale and Hubert Humphrey. The DFL guy running for governor is very much in this tradition, as is Amy Klobuchar. Moderate, pragmatic, compassionate and progressive. The fact that they place an extra emphasis on farm and labor issues gives them a lot of support in rural areas.

Trump has some strong pockets of support along the iron range in x mining towns, but unfortunately those towns are decreasing in population and their young people are moving to the Twin Cities, Rochester, Duluth etc ... And even in mining country the industry that is growing the fastest is fishing/hunting/outdoors tourism so left wing environmental concerns are getting more and more traction as the decades go by. As for the rural parts in the Southern half of the state, they're dominated by farming who do a ton of business with China, Canada and Mexico. Trump threw out a last minute bailout to these farmers with his new ethanol program, but it may be a little bit too late. I think a lot of these farmers already took a hit to the pocketbook this year and their unease with the trade wars is already baked into their voting. I think this factor will come into play in Iowa and Wisconsin too where Dems look likely to flip some stuff.

 

Well there you go. This is something I can get behind. Let it go in front of the judicial system. Even though I may not always agree with the result, at least I can see the facts laid out by both sides and I can make up my mind. What I don't like is the twitter gestapo being heavy on alarmism and very thin on facts and data.

 

Wut? I just replayed my entire life in my head and couldn't find that one moment when I "defended the GOP when they attack democracy." All I said was that the alarmism is becoming tiresome, especially when it comes via a tweet from a person I've never heard of with no data or information to back it up ... something that is against TOS for a reason.

I never disputed that shenanigans happen. All I'm saying is that lots of people with an agenda also blow routine things out of proportion in order get a rise out of people.

I've already shared my view on this. The GOP resorting to cheating is a sign of weakness. There is only so much they can do with disenfranchisement tactics. The dam will eventually break on them in places like North Carolina, Georgia and Texas. Any legitimate voter who waits in line for 30 minutes only to find out that they were unfairly purged will hold that grudge for a long time. I know Bernie voters who are bitter to this day that they weren't allowed to vote in the primary, and it's something they carry with them for a long time. And we all know that purging can never really be a surgical instrument, so lots of GOP voters could get purged too. For every vote the GOP thinks they can steal, they're alienating another voter of the future. Karma is a bitch, and it will come around.