In Georgia, conservatives seek to have voters removed from rolls without official challenges - eviltoast

They’re asking election administrators to use their data to purge voter registrations, which means names could be removed in a less public process than a formal voter challenge. The strategy could mean electors won’t be summoned in advance to defend their voting rights and the identities of those seeking to purge voters might not be routinely public.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240702113635/https://apnews.com/article/georgia-voter-removal-software-eagleai-266ead9198da7d54421798e8a1577d26

  • dhork@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    “You have the constitutional right to challenge any other voter in your county,” Frank said at Cherokee County Republican headquarters in Woodstock. “In fact, it’s not merely your right. It’s your duty to clean the voter rolls.”

    Which Constitution says that? Not the US Constitution, the word “challenge” doesn’t appear there at all. And not in the section of the Georgia State constitution regarding voting, either. Is there a secret MAGA Constitution which only they know about, but applies to everyone? That might explain some of the recent SCOTUS shenanigans.

    • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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      4 months ago

      Supreme Court Justice ducks under the desk with a crayon…

      Oh hey look there it is! Right there in the constitution.

      • dhork@lemmy.world
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        You joke, but I have always thought that the reason why the modern Conservative movement leans so heavily on the Founders is that they want to call a constitutional convention to rewrite the whole thing from scratch, and become the new Founders who courts 200+ years from now have to defer to.

          • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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            60% of the population disagrees, yes. However…

            The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures

            So, 34 red state legislatures can propose an amendment. To be ratified, it requires 3/4 of the states (38 out of 50) to ratify it.

            For either of those steps, I’m not sure if the citizens of those states have any say in the matter or if the legislatures can do it all themselves (plus or minus any veto from the governor of those states or legislative overrides of those).

            So, they need 34 states to propose an amendment and 38 to pass it. As some else in this thread said, they already have 28.

              • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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                Definitely. But there’s also disproportionate representation at play.

                Let’s say there’s a mass exodus from the shittiest of shithole states leaving only, say, 100 people. For sake of argument, that’s sufficient for the state to continue existing and with a state government.

                That 100 person state still gets two US Senators and (at minimum) one House rep (technically, it retains as many reps as it had as of the last census up until the next census in 2030). It also qualifies to be one of the required 34/38 states to call for a constitutional convention as well as vote to ratify the proposed amendment.

                So, the takeaway is that all elections matter. Get out and vote every opportunity, and vote for sane people who aren’t going to pull this kind of crap.

                if voting wasn’t this important, why do you think they’re working so hard to disenfranchise so many people?

            • dhork@lemmy.world
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              Conventions aren’t just for amendments. They can be a vehicle to start over from scratch, just like they did in 1789. Then the only barrier we have is that final 3/4 threshold…

              … But do you really think it will stop if they hold the thing, come out with a new document dominated by red state ideas, and it fails to get enacted? They will view the 13+ states that are not going along as traitors, and our newly minted President-King will do something rash to get the new document approved.

              If a constitutional convention gets called, I fear we’ll end up with a 2-for-1 deal, and those MAGA bastards will finish the job that Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee started.

  • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)@badatbeing.social
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    When official means exist to remove non-qualified voters, but groups like this want to circumvent that, it tells you they are acting in bad faith and is the whole reason they don’t want to do it the official/legal way. This should be grounds for election interference, voter fraud, and voter suppression charges.

  • NoSuchAgency@reddthat.com
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    Okay, so they’re asking the counties to remove dead people and people that have moved. They’re not just asking for random people to be taken off.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      Without anyone being able to challenge them. Meaning they can claim whoever they want died or moved and those people can get struck off the voter rolls.

      And if you don’t think Georgia has a long history of preventing certain people from voting, I suggest you look at their history of elections, especially pre-1964.

      • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)@badatbeing.social
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        Groups like this are often using these group sourced lists of people that aren’t Republican, and are terribly inaccurate and full of flaws. These are the same people that were “finding” all the voter fraud they couldn’t prove, or show evidence of once those accusations had to be backed up by something in a courtroom.

    • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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      My registration has been removed three different times and I am very much alive and have lived at my current location for the past 10 years.

      That’s what it says on the tin, but it’s a bad faith message. It’s an attack on the right to vote.

        • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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          My state drivers license should do the trick. It even showed up on their website for a couple months and then suddenly I don’t know who you are anymore. Ridiculous. I know we had one law passed for purging voter rolls and another which greatly restricted how long a voter registration is valid. I suspect, to comply with that law, they just dumped the registrations.

          But I’m going to check over and over again and I’m going to vote. I’m going to vote as hard as I can.

      • NoSuchAgency@reddthat.com
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        “All we’re doing is a free service. Hey, this group of 500 people, or this group of 800 people said they moved. Maybe you should look into it,” I don’t see that being in bad faith or being an attack on the right to vote

        • blazera@lemmy.world
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          they didnt say they moved, different people aiming to remove democratic voters say they moved. And instead of “look into it” its just removal without notice

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        They’re not just asking for random people to be taken off

        Yes. That’s how this works. They are indeed taking random people off the rolls.

        No, he’s right: they’re not taking “random” people off the rolls; they’re choosing who to challenge based on specific characteristics.

    • teamevil@lemmy.world
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      Yeah that’s totally under selling what they’re doing… What they’re actually doing is they are hitting up areas that tend to have more transient quote unquote populations and sending out flyers that look like junk mails saying if you don’t defend your rights within 90 days we’re stripping you of them.

      There is no reason to use trickery or tactics to make it look like junk mail, The only reason the governor of Georgia was elected was because he was able to purge 400,000 legitimate voters off the poles as the Secretary of State. He won Governor by a margin of less than 100,000 which means he basically ensured his own election which is what the right wants to do cuz they can’t just straight win … cuz they want to do terrible things and nobody wants them to do them

        • teamevil@lemmy.world
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          From a book called “How Trump stole the 2020 election” released in 18.

          Also Guardian article https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/19/georgia-governor-race-voter-suppression-brian-kemp

          The books spends more time making him a statement how various conservative legislatures are trying to purge. It talks about what areas they’re trying to purge voters from and explores multiple areas. I felt like it was a pretty good read not saying it’s 100% correct but a lot of things kind of make sense.

          That being said a quick Google has sources saying it didn’t affect the outcome I find it very disingenuous to be expelling voters in good standing while using cheesy junk mail style notifications. If you’re really concerned about getting the voting lists all cleared up fine but do it in a transparent method no underhandedness.

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      What business is it of anyone if the rolls have too many names? People can still only vote once, and the system comes down hard on people who try and trick the system. It should be the State’s job to purge registrations after due process, not the voters’ (and certainly not some random busybody).

      • NoSuchAgency@reddthat.com
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        You’re just being naive to think that. Maybe a person can only vote once in their name, but they can fill out absentee ballots in other peoples names and drop them off in ballot boxes. Thats why having dead people and people that have moved on voter roles just invites fraud.

        • dhork@lemmy.world
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          Yeah, but why do private individuals have to police voter rolls? It should be the state’s job to do that.

          • NoSuchAgency@reddthat.com
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            Why is that? The voters handle elections, count ballots, etc. You really want to trust the state (bureaucrats) to do it? Look at the DMV. They suck at everything they do, just like the government

            • dhork@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              In my state, the county Board of Elections (and their staff) is in charge of the voter rolls. They are employed by the state to do that job, and can be fired if they do a bad job. They also can have access to state vital records, and can take deceased voters off the rolls right away.

              On the other hand, if we leave this job to unelected busybodies, then there is nothing keeping them from adding some extra names to their list, to harass neighbors they don’t think belong there.