isn't it great to live in a **democracy** ?... I wish I did.

[leashedForLife]

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A top Republican just admitted that this is how Trump won Wisconsin

"Gee-willikers, Mr Wilson, do ya think the Repugnickans knew that voter-ID law would keep Demmercrats at home on election day?... Gosh, that's bad, isn't it, Mr Wilson?"

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[JoanneF]

Sorry Terry, you DO live in a democracy. I picked up your subtle suggestion that you are not entirely in agreement with the current US leadership but bottom line, Trump was voted in and nobody has proven any vote rigging. That's how a democracy works, a majority vote (whether by head count or by state) decides the outcome. The people who voted that way are happy, the people who didn't are disappointed and have to suck it up. Be thankful you get the chance to vote, many don't.

 

[Mad Murphy]

Agreed I dont like the man (cant stand the sight of him ) but Americans were given a vote and they used that right to choose this man.
Good bad or downright awful its the way the democratic system works and you just have to hope things swing your way next time.

 

[JoanneF]

Fwiw I don't like him either. But a year ago I wouldn't have thought it possible North Korea would agree to stop the weapons programme.

 

[PWDmum]

Cant stand the man, but the US voted him in ( the old saying comes to mind , be careful for what you wish for ) and that is called democracy !

 

[leashedForLife]

... Trump was voted in, and nobody has proven any vote rigging.

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@JoanneF - did U actually read the article? I don't think U did.

This is the direct quote - on April 12, 2018, on conservative radio host Vicki McKenna's show, Wisc.'s Atty-General Brad Schimel said:
"We battled to get voter ID on the ballot for the November '16 election. How many of your listeners really honestly are sure that Sen. [Ron] Johnson was going to win reelection, or President Trump was going to win Wisconsin, if we didn’t have voter ID to keep Wisconsin’s elections clean & honest & have integrity?”

The "we" that he refers to is the state Republican party - that's who "battled" to get the law passed in time for the 2016 POTUS election. // The law wasn't about "integrity" or "clean, honest" elections - but about disenfranchising voters, mostly ppl of color but not exclusively, as the law also discriminated against the elderly, disabled, & lower-income folks, of all colors & ethnic groups.
This same man, as state Atty-gen, defended the law in court when it was challenged.

This particular Repub is not by any means the "first" to admit that thousands of ppl were prevented from voting in Wisconsin alone, & many hundreds of thousands across the USA, by highly-restrictive, deliberately-crafted voter-ID laws across the U-S; he's just a higher-profile Repub than the others were, & thus he commands more attn, & more headlines, than his predecessors.

Do U believe that he'd misstate a fact about his own party, & lie about the results of the law in his own state? - why?

Further, quote,

"The law, which went into effect in 2016, required specific forms of government-issued photo identification to vote. ...last year, Mother Jones reported that the law kept tens of thousands of eligible voters from the polls & likely tipped the state to Trump.
A Federal court found in 2014 that 9% of registered voters in Wisconsin did not possess the identification necessary to vote.
In a University of Wisconsin study published in September 2017, 1 in 10 registered voters in Milwaukee Co. & Dane Co. who did not cast a ballot in 2016 cited the voter-ID law as a reason why. That meant that up to 23,000 voters in the two heavily Democratic counties - & as many as 45,000 voters statewide - didn’t vote because of the voter ID law. Trump won the state by 22,000 votes.
African Americans, who favored Hillary Clinton over Trump by an 88-to-8 margin, were three times as likely as whites to say they were deterred from voting by the law."
___________________________________________

Do U think the Federal court lied about the number of registered voters who did not have the newly-required form of photo ID?

Do U think the Univ of Wisc fabricated their data?

Do U think the vote-count is incorrect, or that the number of already-registered voters who had voted before but who FAILED TO VOTE in the 2016 election is exaggerated?

Do U think the black registered voters who did not vote, LIED when they said it was the new voter-ID law that kept them from voting?

Do U think this sounds like a democratic process? - I don't. // I think the survey by the Univ of Wisc was accurate; i think the registered black voters who said the voter-ID law kept them away from the polls told the truth. I think the law was deliberately designed to disenfranchise specific blocks of voters.
And thus, it wasn't a "democratic" law, enforced equally & affecting all persons - it was intended to differentiate between desired voters - more income, more 'white', more Repub - & UNdesired voters, who were denied the opportunity to vote.

...The people who voted [Republican] are happy; the people who didn't [vote Republican] are disappointed, and have to suck it up.

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I beg to differ - many of Trump's own party are extremely unhappy, including many influential Repub leaders who supported his campaign & helped to get him nominated, many VOTERS in the body politic who voted for him, & even a number of Trumpling's political appointees.
They're unhappy with his bizarre behavior, inconsistent & changing positions on issues, failure to follow thru on commitments made, & more.

As for those who didn't vote Repub, that's a large & varied mass - including not only registered Democrats, but those who voted for independent candidates, green candidates, Socialist candidates, & other minority parties. // They're not one-size-fits-all folks.


Re myself, "disappointed" is a weak & whiny adjective which doesn't come close to labeling my feelings; 'outraged', 'terrified', & 'deeply worried' come much closer. // Trumpster is busily gutting 60-years of progressive legislation, everything from FDR onward; farm-support for droughts & floods, protection from avaricious financial activity by investment firms & realtors & Wall St, all of it. He's put a man who's vowed to disassemble the E.P.A. in charge of that department; he's stated clearly that the Clean Air & Clean Water Acts are "unnecessary legislation" which "cripple American business" & make it impossible to compete on a global scale, & he firmly believes that the Endangered Species Act is nothing more than a ridiculous impediment to business.

I remember what our rivers & streams looked like in the 1960s; i remember the Ohio River catching fire, Love Canal & cancer hotspots, DDT & the decimation of our bird popns, thalidomide & limbless infants, & women dying after backstreet abortions done by butchers out to make a buck, while Congressional wives went on junkets to Europe & their teenaged daughters had nice safe legal clean abortions done in actual hospitals, by real doctors, with real anaesthetics & antiseptic precautions.
Do U remember those, @JoanneF ? - they're still vivid, to me.

Social Security, food stamps, S.S.I. for permanently-disabled citizens, & many-more of the social safety-net programs are on the chopping block; he's already made our first & only national health-insurance IMPOSSIBLE to continue, by dumping the mandatory sign-on clause.
U cannot run a national health-insurance program with "only sick ppl", or "only disabled ppl", or "only poor ppl", or "only ppl over 40-YO" - U need EVERYONE in the pool, including healthy 18 to 25-YOs, young marrieds, matrons, dads, singles under 40, retirees, the chronically ill, & the lifelong disabled. That is how U spread the risk, & the cost, of national health-care. // By ripping out the mandatory-enrollment requirement, he doomed the ACA. It's walking dead.

2 of my 3 current clients, as a PCA doing in-home personal care, are living on SSI. // At the end of the month, they're eating PB & J on saltines, with Crystal Light as their beverage - because the food money ran out B4 the month did.
If SSI is slashed, what do U think they'll be eating that last 5 to 7 days, each month? Feel free to speculate.
We already have seniors who buy cat-food on sale, to eat it themselves, so that they can afford their Rx meds.

Citizens born in the UK who grew-up with National Health have no idea what it's like to be poor or merely working-class in the USA; ppl here put off going to the Dr until they're forced to go to the E.R. when the symptoms worsen, so they're much sicker, by the time they're seen. // UK citizens are not forced to make such bad decisions.

I fear for my country - the soil, the water, the air, the ppl, the flora & fauna. That's how i feel, & why i feel this way.

- terry

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[Josie]

Wowzers that was a looooooooong post!

 

[JoanneF]

Well, if you believe the voting was rigged then I presume there are better ways of addressing it than having a rant here. America is big enough and strong enough to prove the election was mishandled if that really is the case.

 

[leashedForLife]

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just in case U [general-reader U, not directed to a particular individual] think that only Mother Jones mag would publish such leftist-liberal B.S., what published source would U regard as trustworthy & accurate?

The Atlantic?
How Voter ID Laws Discriminate Against Racial Minorities - The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/how-voter-id-laws.../517218/
Feb 18, 2017 -
How Voter ID Laws Discriminate.
A new comprehensive study finds evidence that strict voting laws do suppress the ballot along racial lines. Rogelio V. Solis / AP ...

the Washington Post?
Do voter identification laws suppress minority voting? Yes. We did the ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../do-voter-identification-laws-suppress-minority-vo...
Feb 15, 2017 -
What we do know is that voter identification laws are spreading rapidly around the country. Before 2006, no state required photo identification to vote on Election Day. Today, 10 states have this requirement. All told, a total of 33 states — representing more than half the nation's population — have some ...


the American Bar Assoc?
Chapter 10: Voter ID as a Form of Voter Suppression | Section of State ...
https://www.americanbar.org/...law.../chapter_10_voter_id_a_form_voter_suppressio...
It's also difficult to separate the ways in which these laws are being applied, & the groups that they most affect, from the history of voter suppression in the United States. Former attorney-general Eric Holder & others have compared
voter identification laws to a poll tax: Jim Crow-era voting fees imposed by Southern ...

here's a fact sheet from the ACLU -
Oppose Voter ID Legislation - Fact Sheet | American Civil Liberties ...
Oppose Voter ID Legislation - Fact Sheet
Voter ID laws deprive many voters of their right to vote, reduce participation, and stand in direct opposition to our country's trend of including more Americans in the ...

... but they're probly too liberal.

How about the multiple voter-ID laws that were introduced & struck down? Most recently: TX & N.C.
Bold added for emphasis:

Supreme Court strikes down strict North Carolina voter ID law ...
www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-strikes-down-north-carolina-voter-id-law-20...
May 15, 2017 -
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court put the final nail in the coffin of North Carolina's strict voter-identification law on Monday, rejecting a Republican bid to revive the measure struck down by a lower court for intentionally aiming to suppress black voter turnout. The justices left in place a July ...


Federal judge strikes down Texas' voter ID law | TheHill
thehill.com/homenews/news/347721-federal-judge-strikes-down-texas-voter-id-law
Aug 23, 2017 -
A Federal court in Texas on Wednesday struck down the state's controversial voter identification law, granting an injunction that bars state officials from enforcing the measure. U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos ruled that the law was enacted with the deliberate intent to discriminate against black ...


Wikipedia has extensive info on the practice.
Voter suppression in the United States - Wikipedia

Of course, if voter-ID laws are thrown out as discriminatory, curtailing early voting or write-in votes is also helpful, since many ppl of color & lower-income workers ** cannot take time off from their lower-rung jobs to go and VOTE on a weekday **, so voting early or mailing it in are the sole options - unless of course they want to make the ultimate sacrifice, take time off to vote anyway AND LOSE THEIR JOBS. Now, that would be intelligent & reasonable, wouldn't it?
Wikipedia includes that tool of vote-suppression, also - & some of the instances where it's been used, in this "democracy". // And we haven't even gotten to gerrymandering districts. That's an old classic, but still used & useful.

This "democracy" is in truth, a de facto autocracy; corporations & their lobbyists have taken control. Industries now write the very legislation that is supposed to "control" their destructive behavior, as witness the dilution & outright gutting of the TANK INSPECTION law passed after W Va's Godawful incident of poisonous pollution, which was a good law - re-written by the lobbyists & lawyers hired by the petroleum, coal, & chemical industries less than 2-years later, with the apparent willing co-operation of the newly-appointed State Secretary of Health, Dr Gupta, who had campaigned vigorously FOR the tank-inspection law as a family physician [EDIT] the year before.
Hundreds of thousands of residents had no clean, safe drinking water for over 3-months, & it later devolved that the water they had BATHED in, was actually unsafe; pregnant women, especially, & young children, were at risk.
It was a neurotoxin, & in children, caused developmental delays or deficits which could be lifelong.

Don't believe it could happen, here?
...

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[leashedForLife]

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part 2 - continued from above.

West Virginia chemical spill shines spotlight on loose regulation - CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2014/01/13/us/west-virigina-chemical.../index.html
Jan 13, 2014 -
State inspectors visited the site in 2012, 2010 and 1991, officials say; The plant had the only permit required -- an industrial storm water permit; West Virginia's governor says he's now considering increasing regulation. It sounds like a dangerous combination: massive tanks holding chemicals near a major ...




CSB Releases Final Report into 2014 Freedom Industries Mass ...
https://www.csb.gov/csb-releases-final-report-into-2014-freedom-industries-mass-cont...
CSB Releases Final Report into 2014 Freedom Industries Mass Contamination of Charleston, West Virginia Drinking Water; Final Report notes Shortcomings in ... The CSB's investigation found that no comprehensive aboveground storage tank law existed in West Virginia at the time of the release, and while there were ...

Leaking Aboveground Storage Tanks - WV DEP - State of West Virginia
https://www.dep.wv.gov/dlr/oer/lastmain/Pages/default.aspx
Leaking Aboveground Storage Tanks.
ALL Aboveground Storage Tank OWNER / OPERATORS: you are mandated BY LAW (47 CSR 63) to report Confirmed, Suspected, or Threatened Releases as stated in Section 6.2 to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection Emergency Spill Line at: 1-800-642-3074.

West Virginia Passes Bill Rolling Back Regulations On Chemical ...
West Virginia Passes Bill Rolling Back Regulations On Chemical Storage Tanks...
Mar 17, 2015 -
The West Virginia legislature has passed a bill that scales back regulations meant to protect state waterways from storage tank spills, a piece of ... rolls back portions of a law passed last year in response to January's spill, which occurred due to a leak in a chemical storage tank along the banks of the Elk ...
_____________________________________


300K ppl in 9 counties, mostly rural villages & small towns, had no safe water - to cook with, drink, or it later developed, to bathe in - for months on end.
A documentary film actually got the lobbyists & industry lawyers on video, hammering out the terms of the new toothless law that replaced the one that required actual, U know, inspections of tanks - to ensure that they were not rusted-out hulks with failing welds. Hundreds of these tanks are all over W Va - & hundreds of thousands, across the USA.


New Analysis Shows West Virginia's Chemical Spill Traveled Into ...
New Analysis Shows West Virginia’s Chemical Spill Traveled Into Kentucky...
Jan 12, 2015 -
The Freedom Industries site in West Virginia, which released 10,000 gallons of chemicals into a drinking water supply, is seen in this Jan. ... The spill saw approximately 10,000 gallons of MCHM leak from a neglected storage tank into West Virginia's Elk River, just upstream from a major water intake facility.


"What Lies Upstream" (2017) - IMDb
What Lies Upstream (2017) - IMDb
Documentary ·
In this scandalous political thriller, an investigation into a chemical spill spirals into an indictment of the entire system meant to protect drinking water, revealing cover-ups at the highest levels of government.
Plot summary
In this classic detective story, investigative filmmaker Cullen Hoback travels to West Virginia to uncover the truth behind a massive chemical spill that left 300,000 people without drinking water for months.
But when Hoback discovers an obscene collusion between chemical corporations and the highest levels of government, the investigation spirals in a terrifying direction, and we learn the frightening truth about what lies upstream of us all.

_______________________________

FULL DISCLOSURE: I watched the film last week, on PBS. Obv, i've been brainwashed.
And everybody knows that PBS is just a radical leftist-liberal mouthpiece for them aging hippies, anyhow - right?

We're all downstream of something - & the polluters are now writing the regulations, with a sitting POTUS who wants the Clean Water Act revoked.
I think i'm very justifiably petrified - & i'm dam*ed glad i'm not 20 or 30-YO, too. // I don't want to live to see the eventual disaster unfold.
- terry

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[Mad Murphy]

From the outside can I just say, we all know and shake our heads at the terrible problems in the US with education, literacy and health care, with the US often being used as an example NOT to offer healthcare. We've seen that even now one of the most powerful countries in the world is denying many citizens healthcare and housing and some of those who have housing have no indoor plumbing..
Yet this same country always finds time and money to interfere in other peoples problems.
Its not unique to the US, its a technique employed by many leaders, they point at poorer countrys and dare their own citizens to moan by saying there are millions worse off then you are.

Maybe it would be a good thing for all US citizens to spend 6 months in another country and see how their great land is viewed and talked about elsewhere.

 

[arealhuman]

Not the case in the US that most votes wins you the election. But yes I agree that democracy is becoming more and more illusory - think of all the subtle ways voters are now influenced outside official channels.

 

[leashedForLife]

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for those who'd like to know more about vote suppression in the USA, here is Wikipedia's entry, with footnotes to verify the accuracy of statements.

QUOTE,
"Impediments to voter registration
Some laws and administrative practices have made it more difficult for people to register to vote. Florida enacted a deadline for the submission of voter registration forms in 2011, with penalties for late filing.[1] The law ended the voter registration work by one organization, the League of Women Voters, whose spokesperson said, "Despite the fact that the League of Women Voters is one of the nation’s most respected civic organizations, with a 91-year history of registering and educating voters, we will be unable to comply with the egregious provisions contained in [this bill]."[2]

Photo ID laws
See also: Voter ID laws (United States)
In the United States, supporters of photo ID laws say that photographic IDs (such as driver's licenses or student IDs) are available and that presenting such IDs is a minor inconvenience when weighed against the possibility of ineligible voters affecting elections.
Opponents argue that photo ID requirements disproportionately affect minority, handicapped, and elderly voters who do not normally maintain driver's licenses. Also, requiring such groups to obtain and keep track of photo IDs that are otherwise unneeded is considered a suppression tactic aimed at those groups.[3]

In one instance, Indiana's photo ID law barred 12 retired nuns in South Bend, Indiana, from voting in the state 2008 Democratic primary election, because they did not have photo IDs.
John Borkowski, a South Bend lawyer volunteering as an election watchdog for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said, "This law was passed supposedly to prevent and deter voter fraud, even though there was no real record of serious voter fraud in Indiana."[4][5]

Proponents of a similar law proposed for Texas in March 2009 argued that photo identification was necessary to prevent widespread voter fraud. Opponents responded that there was no evidence of voter fraud in Texas, so no remedy is required. They said that the "remedy" would decrease voting by senior citizens, the disabled, and lower-income residents. Opponents also cited a study stating that 1 million of the state's 13.5 million registered voters do not have a photo ID.[6]

State Sen. Troy Fraser (R-Horseshoe Bay) said, "Voter fraud not only is alive and well in the U.S., but also alive and well in Texas. The danger of voter fraud threatens the integrity of the entire electoral process." Democratic Caucus Chairwoman Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio) said the proposed law, "is not about voter fraud. There is no voter fraud. This is about voter suppression."
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) spent $1.4 million investigating voter fraud and from 2002 – 2012 brought 311 accusations of voter fraud to the attorney general's office. 57 cases have been resolved; among these convictions were two cases of voter impersonation – arguably the type of fraud that photo ID laws would prevent.[7][8]
More than 8,000,000 votes were cast in Texas, in the most-recent presidential election.

Legislation to impose photo ID requirements was prepared by the conservative organization ALEC and circulated to conservative state legislators.[3]

In 2011, more than 100 Democratic members of Congress urged the Department of Justice to oppose such legislation, arguing that it "has the potential to block millions of eligible American voters, and thus suppress the right to vote."[9]

A recent study[10] published by The Journal of Politics analyzed voter data from the elections starting in 2006 to 2014, & the impact of strict voter identification laws on minorities. They gathered data from Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) and focused on 11 states[11] with strict voter identification laws. The study found that in the states where these strict voter ID laws are implemented, minorities & left-leaning voters suffered lower voter-turnout rates than states who had less-restrictive voter ID laws."


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[leashedForLife]

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another tactic: Purge the polling rolls.

QUOTE, cont'd [Wikipedia, link above]
__________________________________

Purging of voter rolls
On August 24, 2016, Rolling Stone magazine published a report by investigative reporter Greg Palast entitled, "The GOP's Stealth War Against Voters: Will an anti-voter-fraud program designed by one of Trump's advisers deny tens of thousands their right to vote in November?"
Palast reported that "In January 2013, Kobach [ Secretary of State of Kansas] addressed a gathering of the National Association of State Election Directors about combating an [alleged] epidemic of ballot-stuffing across the country. He announced that Crosscheck had already uncovered 697,537 'potential duplicate voters' in 15 states, and that the state of Kansas was prepared to cover the cost of compiling a nationwide list. That was enough to persuade 13 more states to hand over their voter files to Kobach's office."
Palast alleges that virtually all of these 697,537 'potential duplicate voters' failed to meet Kobach's claims that they matched first, middle, and last names, birth dates, and the last 4 digits of people's Social Security number: Palast interviewed Donald Alexander Webster Jr., an African-American registered in Ohio; Crosscheck claimed that D. A. Webster, Jr., was also registered as Donald Eugene Webster (no 'Jr.') in Charlottesville, Virginia. D. A. Webster, Jr., assured Palast he had never been to Charlottesville. Both of these individuals "were subject to losing their ability to vote", Palast reported. Voting twice is a felony, but Palast failed to find any prosecutions of double voting.[12]

In his documentary "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" (2016), Palast explains that over 7 million voters - almost entirely voters of color - were on the Crosscheck lists by the time of the 2016 presidential election, allegedly because these voters had all voted multiple times in previous elections (although no one from these lists had been prosecuted for voting twice, which is a felony crime with a five-year jail sentence). Palast explains that these cross-check lists were produced only in GOP-controlled states, & that the names on the list were common last names of Latinos, African-Americans, & Asian-Americans, such as 'Garcia', 'Hernandez', 'Washington', & 'Lee'. [13]
Since the election, Palast has appeared on the independent media news program Democracy Now! and has explained that on election day, approximately 1.1 million voters of color found themselves bumped off the official voter rolls through Crosscheck.[14]
In 2017, researchers at Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, & Microsoft found that for every legitimate instance of double registration it finds, Crosscheck's algorithm returns approximately 200 false positives. [15]

In 2008, over 98,000 registered Georgia voters were removed from the roll of voters because of "a computer mismatch in their personal identification information". Some 4,500 voters had to prove their citizenship to regain their right to vote.[16]
Between November 2015 & early 2016, over 120,000 voters were dropped from rolls in Brooklyn, NYC.[17] Officials stated that the purge was a mistake, & those dropped represented a 'broad cross-section' of the electorate. However, an WNYC analysis found that the purge disproportionately affected majority-Hispanic districts. The board announced that it would reinstate all voters in time for the 2016 Congressional primary.[18] The Board of Elections subsequently suspended the Republican appointee in connection to the purge, but kept on her Democratic counterpart.[19]

In 1998, Florida created the Florida Central Voter File to combat vote fraud documented in the 1997 Miami mayoral election. Many people were purged from voter registration lists in Florida, because their names were similar to those of convicted felons, who are not allowed to vote under Florida law. According to the Palm Beach Post, African-Americans accounted for 88% of those removed from the rolls, but were only about 11% of Florida's voters.[20] This may have cost Al Gore the presidency in the 2000 US presidential election.
____________________________________________

If none of these tactics dissuade or defeat U, there are other tools to hand. Stay tuned...

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[leashedForLife]

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continued, QUOTE:
______________________________

Limitations on early voting
In North Carolina, Republican lawmakers requested data on various voting practices, broken down by race. They then passed laws that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African-Americans. Among other things, they cut back on early voting.[21]
Later, the North Carolina GOP sent out a press release celebrating the decline in early voting by African Americans.[22][23] Early voting is important for voters who do not have flexible working hours, & cannot take time off on a weekday to vote.

Felon disenfranchisement
Further information, see: Loss of rights due to felony conviction and Felony disenfranchisement
In 2004, 5.3 million Americans were denied the right to vote because of previous convictions. 13 states permanently disenfranchise convicted felons; 18 states restore voting rights after completion of prison, parole, & probation; 4 states re-enfranchise felons after their release from prison & completed parole; 13 states allow felons who've been released from prison to vote; & two states do not disenfranchise felons at all.[24]
Some states require felons to complete a process to restore voting rights, but offender advocates say such processes can be very difficult.

The United States is the only democracy in the world that regularly bans large numbers of felons from voting after they have discharged their sentences. Many countries including Canada, Denmark, France,
Germany, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Norway, Peru, Sweden, & Zimbabwe allow prisoners to vote (unless convicted of crimes against the electoral system).[25] Some countries, notably the U.K., disenfranchise people only while they are in prison (however, this has been challenged by the European Court of Human Rights).

In Florida, during the 2000 presidential election, some non-felons were banned due to record-keeping errors and not warned of their disqualification until the deadline to contest it had passed.

This form of vote suppression in the United States disproportionately affects minorities, including African-Americans & Latinos.[25][26][additional citation(s) needed] Disenfranchisement of felons is opposed by some as a form of the medieval practice of civil death.[26]

Transgender disenfranchisement
Main article: Transgender disenfranchisement in the United States
Transgender disenfranchisement related to voting is also present.

Disinformation about voting procedures
Voters may be given false information about when & how to vote, leading them to fail to cast valid ballots. For example, in recall elections for the Wisconsin State Senate in 2011, Americans for Prosperity (a conservative
organization supporting Republican candidates) sent many Democratic voters a mailing that gave an incorrect deadline for absentee ballots. Voters who relied on the deadline in the mailing would have sent in their ballots too late for them to be counted.[27] The organization said that the mistake was a typographical error.[28]

Inequality in Election Day resources
Elections in the U.S. are funded at the local level, often unequally. In the 2004 elections, Wyoming spent $2.15 per voter, while California spent $3.99 per voter. In contrast, Canada spends $9.51 per voter.
Underfunded election areas can result in long lines at polling places, requiring some voters to either wait hours to cast a ballot, or forgo their right to vote. Voters who cannot wait the required amount of time are therefore effectively disenfranchised, while voters in well-funded areas with sufficient voting capacity may face minimal or no waiting time. This, coupled with the fact that most elections are held on Tuesdays or other weekdays, generally makes voting more difficult for those who work full-time or longer hours, &/or commute.

Delays at polling places are widely regarded as being a greater problem in urban areas.[29][30] In 2012, polling places in minority neighborhoods in Maryland, South Carolina, & Florida were systematically deprived of the resources they needed to operate effectively, leading to long lines on election day.[31]

Since 2013, 868 polling places across the South have been shut down completely; over 400 were closed in Texas alone.[32]

Closure of DMV offices
Closing local branches of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) makes it harder for residents to obtain voter IDs. In 2014, Alabama passed a law requiring a photo ID to vote; soon afterwards, the state shut down dozens of DMV offices in minority neighborhoods.[33][34]"
_____________________________________________________

Do U think that a new law in Alabama that sez U gotta have a state-supplied photo ID to vote, followed by "dozens of DMV offices in minority neighborhoods" closing, is sheer coincidence? - If so, I'd say U're either very gullible or willfully blind, as i can't see any other explanation for failing to see a connection in the timing of those events.

But there's more...

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[leashedForLife]

.

QUOTE, continued:
____________________________________

"Caging lists
Main article: Voter caging
Caging lists have been used by political parties to eliminate potential voters registered with other political parties. A political party sends registered mail to addresses of registered voters. If the mail is returned as undeliverable, the mailing organization uses that fact to challenge the registration, arguing that because the voter could not be reached at the address, the registration is fraudulent.[35]

Gerrymandering
Main article: Gerrymandering in the United States
While the majority of the world's democracies use independent agents to manage elections, 33 of 50 state election directors in the United States are elected partisans. Those party affiliations can create conflicts of interest, or at least the appearance, when directing elections. Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris served as state co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign during the 2000 presidential election, and Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell served as his state's Bush-Cheney co-chair during the 2004 presidential election.[36][29]
According to Richard E. Levy of the University of Kansas, parties in power may use sophisticated computer software to gerrymander legislative districts in their favor, with remarkable effectiveness.[37][38]

Jim Crow laws
Main article: Jim Crow laws
In the United States, voter suppression was used in most Southern states by the Democratic Party until the Voting Rights Act (1965) made most disenfranchisement and voting qualifications illegal. Traditional voter suppression tactics included the institution of poll taxes and literacy tests, aimed at suppressing the votes of African Americans & poor white working-class voters.[39][40]

Off-year elections
As off-year elections generally have much lower turnout, they can be a means for politicians to get policies approved that otherwise would not pass. This is because the low turnout makes it easier for organized interest groups & voters with vested interests to let their policy goals dominate.[41][42]"
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Still think our polling process in this grand experiment of democracy represents the "will of the people"? --- Or is it the will of SOME people, while others who'd like to express an opinion are denied the opportunity? // I think it's the latter.

- terry

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[leashedForLife]

Fwiw I don't like him either.
But a year ago I wouldn't have thought it possible North Korea would agree to stop the weapons programme.

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N Korea didn't "agree to stop" their nuke-weapons program; they agreed to TALK about weapons, threats, the DMZ, & diplomatic relations, not only with S Korea, but the U-S. // The meeting was planned for June 12.

that meeting may be canceled - to protest the U.S. & S Korea joint military exercises, starting this week.

LINK: ** Pyongyang threatened today to withdraw ** if Washington insists on 'unilateral nuclear abandonment'.


Further, N Korea singled out John Bolton, newest national-security adviser, for direct criticism -
"We do not hide our feelings of repugnance towards him."
LINK: Read ** a transcript of the North Korean statement here. **

IMO:
DJT & Jong-un are uncomfortably similar in their "diplomatic" stances - erratic behavior, power plays, threatening talk, believing themselves the sole power in their nation [fairly accurate, in Jong-un's case; delusional, in Trump's].
Being provocative in this instance could quickly move from verbal threats to military action. N Korea's "missile tests" were clear threats, which could easily become brute facts.

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