No. It's about the color of their ballot!
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Republicans in Georgia already moving to take over next election!
- Thread starter southernhybrid
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Thomas II
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lpetrich
Contributor
Another article on this purge: Georgia Republicans purge Black Democrats from county election boards | Reuters
Reuters on Twitter: "Last year, ..." / Twitter
Reuters on Twitter: "Last year, ..." / Twitter
Derec
Contributor
I am not sure about that. The county this MSN article focuses on Spalding County. The authors are outraged that the county election board no longer has a black woman majority. But Spalding County is 2/3 white. If anything, the previous state was the fluke, not the change. Shouldn't the county election boards reflect their counties? Why is it somehow a scandal that whites and Republicans are in the majority on a county board of a county that is majority white and Republican?
Why exactly should there be a permanent black majority on an election board of a county that is 2/3 white?
They made the election board 100% Republican. Thus there's nobody to call foul when they cheat. And there's no do-over on the Presidential election.
Shadowy Man
Contributor
I’m sure if they could find some equally corrupt Black Republicans they’d be happy to put them on the election board.
Looking forward to the day our electors grow some balls and take the power of the electoral college back from the two ruling parties of pricks by collectively voting for someone else.
southernhybrid
Contributor
True confession. I live in Spalding county and there are some details in the article that are crazy. First of all Spalding county isn't a "rural patch". It's primarily made up of a small majority Black city, with surrounding suburbs. Then there is an exurban area that is sparsely populated. I have two friends who live in the exurban area and they are both Democrats. There are no rural areas in my county unless you define anything that's not urban as rural.
There are 3 Republicans and 2 Democrats on the board. The board isn't 100% Republican. One of the Dems is Black. The article says that in the past, the 5th member was decided by a coin toss, but now that member is appointed by a judge. Sadly, my county is majority Republican, but until last year, we had a terrible problem with voter apathy, especially among the younger people, and Black folks. I personally know the mother of two middle aged Black folks who voted for the first time in their lives in 2020 and their mom isn't sure they will vote again. I also know a very poor White woman who has never voted, although someone I know convinced her to register to vote. The woman who never voted, hated Trump, but she still refused to vote. Before I retired, I tried very hard to get some of the younger women who worked in the facility to vote, with very little success. There were a few who did vote regularly, but most never voted. That is one of the problems where I live.
We've never had any problems with voter suppression in my county, although it's true that some idiots searched a dumpster believing that some Republican ballots were tossed out. They discovered nothing. I didn't realize that early voting on Sundays was being discontinued in my county, but to be honest, I've never seen any line of voters, voting here on Sundays.The "souls to the polls" concept may be more popular in more rural areas, but all of the Black women who I know vote during the week. We still have two Saturdays to vote if one can't vote during the week. Our early voting place is easy for anyone to get too, as most people here have cars. Even my poorest friend has a car, and if her car is broken down, she has many family members who could drive her to the polls or she could request an absentee ballot. There are never long lines if one early votes in Spalding, although sometimes there are short lines. It's never taken me more than 20 or 30 minutes to vote in a presidential election. Plus, anyone in Georgia can still request an absentee ballot. We've had the ID requirement for as long as I can remember and anyone who doesn't have a driver's license can get a free state ID. It just takes a bit of an effort.
I don't know anything about the more rural counties mentioned in the article, but Georgia, at least until now, has been the easiest place to vote out of the 6 states where I've lived and voted. Is the media making too much of these little changes? I tend to think so, but we will find out for sure during the 2022 election. But, if anyone can get people to the polls, it's Stacey Abrams.
I do have some concerns regarding Fulton county, but if the Republicans try to take over Fulton county, I think there will be a huge amount of resistance. Fulton is a huge county, spreading North to some very affluent suburbs that likely trend Republican.
There are 3 Republicans and 2 Democrats on the board. The board isn't 100% Republican. One of the Dems is Black. The article says that in the past, the 5th member was decided by a coin toss, but now that member is appointed by a judge. Sadly, my county is majority Republican, but until last year, we had a terrible problem with voter apathy, especially among the younger people, and Black folks. I personally know the mother of two middle aged Black folks who voted for the first time in their lives in 2020 and their mom isn't sure they will vote again. I also know a very poor White woman who has never voted, although someone I know convinced her to register to vote. The woman who never voted, hated Trump, but she still refused to vote. Before I retired, I tried very hard to get some of the younger women who worked in the facility to vote, with very little success. There were a few who did vote regularly, but most never voted. That is one of the problems where I live.
We've never had any problems with voter suppression in my county, although it's true that some idiots searched a dumpster believing that some Republican ballots were tossed out. They discovered nothing. I didn't realize that early voting on Sundays was being discontinued in my county, but to be honest, I've never seen any line of voters, voting here on Sundays.The "souls to the polls" concept may be more popular in more rural areas, but all of the Black women who I know vote during the week. We still have two Saturdays to vote if one can't vote during the week. Our early voting place is easy for anyone to get too, as most people here have cars. Even my poorest friend has a car, and if her car is broken down, she has many family members who could drive her to the polls or she could request an absentee ballot. There are never long lines if one early votes in Spalding, although sometimes there are short lines. It's never taken me more than 20 or 30 minutes to vote in a presidential election. Plus, anyone in Georgia can still request an absentee ballot. We've had the ID requirement for as long as I can remember and anyone who doesn't have a driver's license can get a free state ID. It just takes a bit of an effort.
I don't know anything about the more rural counties mentioned in the article, but Georgia, at least until now, has been the easiest place to vote out of the 6 states where I've lived and voted. Is the media making too much of these little changes? I tend to think so, but we will find out for sure during the 2022 election. But, if anyone can get people to the polls, it's Stacey Abrams.
I do have some concerns regarding Fulton county, but if the Republicans try to take over Fulton county, I think there will be a huge amount of resistance. Fulton is a huge county, spreading North to some very affluent suburbs that likely trend Republican.
Derec
Contributor
Where are you getting that from? The article says that there are three Republicans. The authors apparently thinks that having a white, Republican majority on a board in a majority white and Republican (Trump won 60-40 in 2020) is some kind of abomination or that somehow having a black majority on an election board is sacrosanct.
So all counties should have a black Democratic majority no matter the county partisan and racial makeup?
Derec
Contributor
Well, Griffin is a smallish city (20k or so) and as you say, there are sparesely populated areas. I would guess they make up most of the area of the county. While the difference between exurban (I would classify Henry as more or the exurban county) and rural, to somebody from the big city Spalding would certainly look like a rural county.
I mean, Spalding has farmland. Sounds pretty rural to me. Question though: you have a town called "Experiment". What's up with that?
I think that's a bad idea anyway. The clerical influence in how people vote is too direct.
She will probably win. David Purdue announced a primary challenge against Kemp, and that always harms the incumbent.
Fulton even looks like a gerrymandered district. I am surprised it hasn't been split into north and south already.
Of course, Georgia has too many counties as is. A better solution might be a wholesale consolidation, especially in more rural counties where many counties have <100k people. But even in Metro Atlanta, some reshuffling might be in order.
southernhybrid
Contributor
Griffin has over 25K people now, it's the county seat and demographically it's more like a small city than a small town. The surrounding suburbs probably include about another 10K. Farmland in Spalding? If there is any, I have no idea where that might be, but what would I know, I've only lived here for 23 years. If there is any farm land here, it must be very tiny because I've never seen any, but we do have about 80 churches in the county. ( that's for comic relief ) Spalding is small. It could have been joined with about five other counties and then there might be a little bit of farmland.
One thing I doubt you know is that Spalding is becoming victim to Atlanta sprawl. There are homes being built in many parts of Spalding, and there are plans to build almost 300 new homes in the area in my backyard. Our roads are starting to become very congested. It's not what it was like when I first moved here. When is the last time you visited my fair city? You might be surprised at all the changes going on but we are certainly not a rural patch, although to be honest, you and I probably have better things to do than debate whether or not Spalding is a rural patch.
Oh and in case you haven't kept up with new terms. Exurban is anything that is within about 50 miles of a large urban area, while rural is more than 50 miles from an urban area. I've driven through the rural areas of Georgia when we used to have a condo in Florida. That's where the farm land is located. My two friends are within 10 miles of Griffin. We are 50 miles from Macon and 40 miles from ATL. Most of what was exurban is now being developed. That's enough of that, don't ya think?
I do agree with you about Fulton and also that Georgia has way too many counties. 159 counties is crazy and some of them have only a few thousand people residing in them. So we can agree on some things, which is a good thing imo.
One thing I doubt you know is that Spalding is becoming victim to Atlanta sprawl. There are homes being built in many parts of Spalding, and there are plans to build almost 300 new homes in the area in my backyard. Our roads are starting to become very congested. It's not what it was like when I first moved here. When is the last time you visited my fair city? You might be surprised at all the changes going on but we are certainly not a rural patch, although to be honest, you and I probably have better things to do than debate whether or not Spalding is a rural patch.
Oh and in case you haven't kept up with new terms. Exurban is anything that is within about 50 miles of a large urban area, while rural is more than 50 miles from an urban area. I've driven through the rural areas of Georgia when we used to have a condo in Florida. That's where the farm land is located. My two friends are within 10 miles of Griffin. We are 50 miles from Macon and 40 miles from ATL. Most of what was exurban is now being developed. That's enough of that, don't ya think?
I do agree with you about Fulton and also that Georgia has way too many counties. 159 counties is crazy and some of them have only a few thousand people residing in them. So we can agree on some things, which is a good thing imo.
southernhybrid
Contributor
Derec, I missed your question about Experiment. Experiment is an area in the county, bordering on the city limits of Griffin. It was once a thriving community that had many textile mills. Now the mills have been torn down or are falling apart. Experiment now has a lot of poverty and to be honest, it's kind of a mess. There are actually several small areas surrounding Griffin that are fairly densely populated. There are numerous factories in and surrounding Griffin that are still manufacturing, but the textile mills, other than one that primarily makes hospital supplies, have been gone for decades.
Anyway, I am sort of off topic, but it does give one some idea as to the make up of the voters in Spalding. We have both areas of extreme poverty as well as areas of great wealth. Oddly enough, local politics are quite progressive when it comes to things like infrastructure, including parks, schools, etc.
I hope you're right about Stacey Abrams. She would do a lot of positive things for Georgia, including decriminalizing weed, and expanding M'caid. She might even support decriminalizing sex work. At least I would hope so since the criminalization of sex work usually hurts the women who choose to work in that field. Abrams is a very pragmatic politician who will accomplish things by taking different views into consideration. She's not the scary communist that the Republicans are trying to make her out to be, but I'm sure you already know that.
Anyway, I am sort of off topic, but it does give one some idea as to the make up of the voters in Spalding. We have both areas of extreme poverty as well as areas of great wealth. Oddly enough, local politics are quite progressive when it comes to things like infrastructure, including parks, schools, etc.
I hope you're right about Stacey Abrams. She would do a lot of positive things for Georgia, including decriminalizing weed, and expanding M'caid. She might even support decriminalizing sex work. At least I would hope so since the criminalization of sex work usually hurts the women who choose to work in that field. Abrams is a very pragmatic politician who will accomplish things by taking different views into consideration. She's not the scary communist that the Republicans are trying to make her out to be, but I'm sure you already know that.
lpetrich
Contributor
Like how Founder Alexander Hamilton presented the Electoral College in Federalist Paper #68. Even though electors who do this have long been frowned on as "faithless electors". They would likely not have much of a career in their parties if they tried to organize such a revolt.
I don't like the idea that the President is the only one to be concerned with. I think that we ought to improve Congress. If anything, it's more critical for democracy than he Presidency.
There is some research which finds a correlation between strength of legislature and strength of democracy: Project MUSE - Stronger Legislatures, Stronger Democracies also at 1. Fish pp 5-20.pmd - Fish Steven - Stronger legislatures, stronger democracy - EN - Standards.pdf Also What Makes Legislatures Strong? | Journal of Democracy and some numbers: Microsoft Word - Parliamentary Powers Index, Scores by Country.doc - PPIScores.pdf Some later work: Measuring Legislative Power: An Expert Reweighting of the Fish‐Kroenig Parliamentary Powers Index - Chernykh - 2017 - Legislative Studies Quarterly - Wiley Online Library
It's worth noting that the US Founders started with Congress and not with the Presidency.
southernhybrid
Contributor
While all of us probably agree with you, sadly, I've known people who only vote in the presidential elections. Perhaps our school system has failed them, or they weren't paying attention in Civics or US History classes.
It can very difficult to convince adults that they need to vote in every single election. Even local elections can be very important. For example, we have a special purpose tax in my county that is used for parks, the senior center, schools, roads etc. It has to be passed every year or two and it's usually supported by the majority form both parties. One year is failed to pass, imo, due to the ignorance of people who believe that all taxation is theft, without realizing that we all benefit from the things that taxes are often used to support.
Derec
Contributor
Late reply, but things fall through the cracks with the large number of threads.
25k is still a small/medium town though.
There is definitely farmland (maybe not huge farms, like out west), but I grant you there are more woods than farms. Still rural af, at least compared to a city like Atlanta.
Yeah, Georgia loves their counties small and numerous. We are only second to Texas when it comes to the number of counties.
It was probably a good decade or so, so things might have changed a bit. Nevertheless, I just looked up the stats and Spalding still has a population density 8.5x less than DeKalb, 6x less than Fulton and Clayton and 2x less than Henry, which is more exurban than suburban.
That is a matter of definition. I think density and types of development are better metric than distance.
Let's crack open a cold Guinness to that.
Derec
Contributor
Yeah, not much textiles left in the US. Do you know where the name came from though?
Interesting.
I very much doubt that. What most Dems favor is the sexist Swedish model which is decriminalization for providers and increased criminalization for customers. That said, if Abrams were in favor of true decriminalization, I would even campaign for her.
It hurts everybody involved, customers and providers. The evil of the Swedish model is that it sees customers as enemies to be punished, instead of fellow human beings. If you prick us, do we not bleed?
I think policy should not pit one against the other.
She is not a communist, obviously. But we will maybe see just how pragmatic vs. doctrinaire she is. Radfems are very influential in the modern Democratic Party, particularly the more "progressive" wing thereof.
southernhybrid
Contributor
I recently found out that the name came from the "Experiment Station" at the nearby UGA campus. Yes, we even have two college branches in Griffin, so much for us being mostly rural.Yeah, not much textiles left in the US. Do you know where the name came from though?
Interesting.
I very much doubt that. What most Dems favor is the sexist Swedish model which is decriminalization for providers and increased criminalization for customers. That said, if Abrams were in favor of true decriminalization, I would even campaign for her.
It hurts everybody involved, customers and providers. The evil of the Swedish model is that it sees customers as enemies to be punished, instead of fellow human beings. If you prick us, do we not bleed?
I think policy should not pit one against the other.
She is not a communist, obviously. But we will maybe see just how pragmatic vs. doctrinaire she is. Radfems are very influential in the modern Democratic Party, particularly the more "progressive" wing thereof.
The Experiment Station is still there, but the area has a lot of poverty, run down former textile mills etc. There was an interesting article today about Stacey in the NYTimes. It mentioned that both progressives and moderate Democrats are both claiming her as one of their own. But, I've done lots of research on her and imo, she is extremely pragmatic. When she was the minority leader in the Georgia House, she frequently worked with those on the right to get things done. She is brilliant and knows that compromise and working together is the only way to move forward. I wish we had more politicians who realized that.
I'm a bit negative right now on her chances of winning, but of course, I will encourage people to vote for her, or to vote at all. I've known far too many people who never bother to vote or who only vote in presidential elections. I guess they need some encouragement and some education regarding the importance of voting.
Keith&Co.
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hell, that used to be standard.
I grew up in Idaho. We got almost nothing for ourselves except by offering support in a trade. Our vote on something that didn't affect us to get their vote for something that did.
That was our big criticism of Simms. Our Senator who never did that. Whatever the president wanted, that's how Simms voted.
That used to be a stand-out sort of style, now it's the party platform.
Jimmy Higgins
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No way in heck the Dems taken Georgia and two Senate seats without her being pragmatic!I recently found out that the name came from the "Experiment Station" at the nearby UGA campus. Yes, we even have two college branches in Griffin, so much for us being mostly rural.Yeah, not much textiles left in the US. Do you know where the name came from though?
Interesting.
I very much doubt that. What most Dems favor is the sexist Swedish model which is decriminalization for providers and increased criminalization for customers. That said, if Abrams were in favor of true decriminalization, I would even campaign for her.
It hurts everybody involved, customers and providers. The evil of the Swedish model is that it sees customers as enemies to be punished, instead of fellow human beings. If you prick us, do we not bleed?
I think policy should not pit one against the other.
She is not a communist, obviously. But we will maybe see just how pragmatic vs. doctrinaire she is. Radfems are very influential in the modern Democratic Party, particularly the more "progressive" wing thereof.
There was an interesting article today about Stacey in the NYTimes. It mentioned that both progressives and moderate Democrats are both claiming her as one of their own. But, I've done lots of research on her and imo, she is extremely pragmatic.
To be fair, it is getting harder and harder to work with the GOP.
It comes down to turnout at the polls. Hopefully her being on the ballot inspires enough bonus turnout to get a narrow victory.