Was up because i got to reregister because im im you know were in a system theyre not making it easy it is just tiresome you know. The question is are you my selections truly democratic. Given victories for as this is actually an attempt to limit political participation. And these are of course all very powerful players with money to spend we gave a parson advantage probably one of the biggest ever in history thats how Voter Suppression. Surveys indicate that Many Americans have lost faith in democracy and the problems involved are reflected in this years Election Campaigns. The u. S. Electoral system is based on a number of controversial rules political strategists will do just about anything to help their party win a majority of votes including trying to change those rules to defeat their opponents and a candidate for president can win a majority of the popular vote and nevertheless emerge as the loser. Ah new york nov 8th 26th by late evening it was clear that donald trump would become the next president of the United States. Was either. Supporters of the democratic candidate Hillary Clinton were stunned particularly since she had won the majority of the popular vote. Clinton had 2800000 more votes than trump but her opponent won the election. I think its very difficult to call yourselves a democracy. And believe that the people rule when you have a system that. Is essentially making it more difficult for the person. To win the presidency that the most people what if you were drawing this system up today you would never come up with this crazy convoluted scheme. The Electoral College system was written into the u. S. Constitution more than 200 years ago opponents have never been able to find enough votes in congress to change it what was the original purpose of the Electoral College doesnt a democrat if you look at this from a theoretical point of view as well but its quite interesting on. The authors of the constitution and for the more evidently afraid of mob rule an exit show of voters supposedly let their emotions take over before they dont make rational decisions. And thats why the authors created the Electoral College to serve as a buffer through college. The college chooses the president after the popular vote is counted each state has a specific number of electors based on the size of its congressional delegation its important to note that the electoral votes are not distributed according to percentages the party that gets a majority of votes in a state is then credited with all the electoral votes in that state. So a state is then listed as either for the democrats or the republicans the winner takes it all. The Political Parties go all out to take the socalled swing states where the vote is expected to be close in a tight race these states can make a big difference. President ial candidates often focus their campaigns on just a few key states because the results can have a major impact on the outcome of the vote. After the republicans lost the 2008 president ial. Election they started working on a strategy to take back the white house and both houses of congress. Rock obama became americas 1st black president winning both the popular vote and the Electoral College plus the democrats held on to the house and senate. Just looking at the footage from november 2008 and their early years in office and edwards bringing back sort of the hopelessness of the Republican Party at that time. Turnout in 2008 had a record high and obama won the election with just under 53 percent of the popular vote. Several states switched from republican shown here in red to democrat shown in blue. After the election the republicans launched a campaign to win back the states that theyd lost it was called red map. What republicans determined to do with red map was actually a really ingenious and savvy plan. They knew that state legislatures after the 2010 election would begin drawing the electoral maps that. The next decades politics in this country. Would be fought on. A man who came up with the red map concept was the leading Republican Party strategist. Christiane kosky drafted a 2 step plan and convinced Party Leaders to approve it the focus of the project was state legislatures. But we were able to do was to bring resources to races that normally wouldnt see. At all we have a staff a team a great team. Partners. 30000000. 00. Spent. Much of that money came from wealthy donors including the Koch Brothers and their lobbying organization americans for prosperity the republican. Attack ads on democrat candidates a form of advertising that is intended to show a political adversary in the worst possible light. Attack your opponent. This strategy worked in the 2010 midterm elections the republicans took back control of the house of representatives. Before the election republicans governed 15 states afterwards that number rose to a total of 27. 00 a massive realignment of political power. After the 2010 elections. Began every 10 years. That is required by law states redraw the boundaries of the. District has approximately the same number of people. Thats open to abuse by politicians who seek partisan advantage. This practice was named after Elbridge Gary governor of massachusetts in the early 1900. Electoral district boundaries the borders of one district were so twisted that someone like salamander and then garys name was attached to it the process has become much more sophisticated. Well i mean we have the ability now to look at any voter in america and have a fairly good idea in the coming years how theyre likely to even within the swing voters you can grade you know an affinity score that is done by a sophisticated data modeling and so you have to take. The clicker with the software these lines and you have to go down ok im going to. Take a left onto elm street or do i take a right onto jones avenue. Invariably every turn you may. Is going to have some partisan impact the practice is called gerrymandering the borders are drawn strategically to take into account the Party Preferences of the residents there are 2 ways to do this cracking and packing. Packing means putting as many supporters of the Opposition Party into the smallest possible number of electoral districts as a result the Opposition Party can win a few districts by a wide margin but the party in power can win more districts by a narrow majority. Fracking means weakening the power of the opposing party by distributing voters who favor that party into as many districts as possible where they then constitute a minority the votes have been counted all that matters is the number of districts a party has won not the number of voters. Take North Carolina for example the republicans won the state in 2010 and redrew the electoral boundaries in the next election they won only 49 percent of the popular vote but they took 9 of 13 seats for the u. S. House of representatives they also ended up controlling the state legislature. Gerrymandering can change the results from one elect into the next as seen in wisconsin in 20 team the republicans won only 46 percent of the popular vote but still kept a clear majority in the Wisconsin State Assembly and sent more representatives to congress in washington than the democrats. But this is fundamentally remapped american democracy when a majority of voters in a state are consistently able to elect a majority of representatives. In election after election this has done great and want lasting damage to the idea of one person one vote. Last year the u. S. Supreme court declined to rule in 2 cases of gerrymandering. The justices said this was a matter for state legislatures and the u. S. Congress to decide. Another controversial aspect of the american electoral system involves the voters themselves. Excluded voters. This can be done by taking people off the list of registered voters in a given district for any number of reasons Karen Wilson Mccoy from North Carolina was not allowed to take part in the 26000 election shed moved recently and officials couldnt find her new address in their files when i found out i was person off the rolls. When i changed my address to warm stand. But my new address changed in the system in a Group Similar family of oh my god given right today to vote. In the us people are not required to provide government officials with their address and other personal data those who want to vote have to register with the local election authorities. Fishel lists of voters are updated regularly and the names of people whove moved or died are removed. A recent study shows that states are purging record numbers of voters from these lists 16000000 were struck off between 20142016. Thats an increase of 33 percent compared to the figure for 2006 to 2008 many of these. Members of an Ethnic Minority Group the study says that the increase was highest in states that have a history of voter discrimination. North dakota before the 2018 midterm elections on native American Reservations volunteers helped residents fill out their voter applications but the republican led State Government approved a law that requires voters to obtain a new id card that shows their address people had just 3 weeks to get the card. And some failed to meet that deadline so they were not allowed to vote. The socalled voter i. D. Laws are just one of several measures that make it difficult for people to vote on election day they simply stay home. While voter id if it needs that kind of you. Says that everybody has got an i. D. Not every type of i. D. Becomes an acceptable form of voting id what texas did was to say you have to have a government issued photo id. And then said but your student id from the university of texas a State University for instance will not count but your gun registration card will. In recent years of voter id laws have been passed in many states that are controlled by republicans. Africanamericans finally won the unrestricted right to vote in 1965 and new legislation required states to get federal Court Approval before changing their election laws that help to reduce discrimination against voters prompted a big increase in election turnout and strengthened the democratic process. But in 2013 the Supreme Court ruled that a key part of the 1965 Voting Rights act was invalid the court decided that federal supervision of state election laws was no longer necessary. That cleared the way for states to impose new voter identification laws and other restrictions. The result of this has been efforts to decrease very strategically voter turnout in particular among poor and africanamerican nonwhite voters who tend to vote for democrats by introducing things such as voter id laws things that actually sound very sensible if youre outside of the United States of course you should build have to show your id when you vote but in the United States where there are national i. D. Many people dont have drivers licenses people who tend not to have drivers drivers licenses tend to be poor who tend to vote for democrats its a kind of effort to shape the electorate in a neutral sounding way that actually benefits republicans so thats one big threat. According to supporters of tougher voter id laws these measures how to reduce voter. Fraud but opponents say theres little evidence to back up that claim. And lobbying groups linked to the Republican Party insists they are merely concerned about Election Security and that any new requirements have nothing to do with Voter Suppression among them is a group called freedom works. Yes it is your right to vote but its also your responsibility to make sure its your responsibility to pay your bills on time its your responsibility to go and make sure if you are interested in voting that you are sat in are able to participate in the system i want to make it very easy for anyone in america who is legally able to vote to vote that should be a very easy process however it still should take some amount of personal initiative for you to check in you to make sure that everything is all squared away and youre ready to vote. But democrats say that these measures go too far rush holt served for 16 years in the house of representatives and hes concerned about these developments. The right to vote is the most sacred of the rights that we have there are some people who live for the election and they will engage in Campaign Tactics that are intended to win the election at all cost even those who are conscientious. Can sometimes be fooled by Party Propaganda such as. Being told that oh we must have voter id laws because. Fraudulent voters are everywhere. Consequently its becoming more difficult for some people to cast their ballots and there are other tactics involved such as closing polling stations over the past few years their numbers have been reduced by local Election Officials particularly in Southern States that means that people have to travel further to vote and stand in line longer the impact of this practice is especially acute in neighborhoods that have a large black population. At the same time an estimated 6000000 us citizens are not allowed to vote anyway because theyve been convicted of a criminal offense in some states this form of disenfranchisement applies even after individuals have served their sentence and here 2 africanamericans are disproportionately affected. Then theres creating obstacles to mail in voting. Right now 5 states hold almost all their elections by mail and its an option in 33 others because of the pandemic more people may vote by mail in this years election than ever before they dont want to run the risk of catching the virus at a polling place. But thousands of voters have not yet received their ballot papers and technical problems with the computers at some polling stations have created long delays. I dont say they came early they were here 630 they left at 830 i saw at least 5 people saying they had to go or they had other things to do when they couldnt stand in. Because they there just was no indication of how quickly they were going to resolve the problem we dont really understand that there are you in technology but i also feel like me every time i live in some sort of new technology and theres always a problem i just feel like. I feel like maybe its intentional that its so difficult to cope with it there are fewer such problems in neighborhoods where the population is predominately white and relatively affluent some critics have accused elected officials of targeting ethnic minorities we believe that what weve store here in georgia as well as what we saw in wisconsin last month were were test runs to see how they can take a vote by mail and sabotage it right how they can take these elections which may largely be by mail because we dont know whats going to happen with the chrono virus between now and november so theyre trying to see in what ways they can take the same voters president they do in every other year and how they can translate that into a National Election that will largely be done by mail. In some states voting is conducted by mail only and others post ballots are allowed only in exceptional cases and some republicans refuse to accept coronavirus as a valid reason experts believe an increase in mail in voting will benefit the democrats in any case President Trump has been dead set against the option. Their. Ballots because its going to lead to total Election Fraud so we dont want them to mail in ballots we dont want anyone to bale a ballot now so are the opponents of mail in voting trying to reduce the Election Fraud or do they just want to keep the republicans in power. Even if you compared the 2 main Political Parties democrats actually have a larger brizard potential voters if a lot of those people. Actually able to vote and did so the republicans would have a hard time winning elections divines who given. The next rule of the game is that there is a virtually no limits on the amount of money that organizations can contribute to an Election Campaign funding from the super branch. In 2010 the u. S. Supreme courts ruled that the federal government cannot restrict independent contributions to political campaigns because it violates free speech provisions that are guaranteed in the constitution. But critics claim the ruling gave more power to special Interest Groups and their lobbyists in congress. Money and politics its 1. 00 of a very intriguing subject because the natural gut reaction to everyone is take all money out of politics unfortunately thats not even close to being something in the realm of possibility of for several reasons in this country free speech is very very important and so speech is defined as getting your message out so if you start restricting someones ability to buy an ad or to move a mass edge it actually very quickly gets back down into free speech we proudly uphold freedom of speech as one of the founding principles of this country and thats good but if money equals speech then those with more money have more to say they have more influence in what they say they can distort the political process. And one person equals one vote another. Strong american principle is completely undone if money is the same as speech. Campaign contributions have continued to increase one of the organizations that keeps track of this funding and its donors is the center for responsive politics based in washington d. C. Theyre concerned that transparency is being a routed that really opened the floodgates to a much bigger amount of money in u. S. Elections than was previously allowed with Campaign Contribution limits capping the amount the donors can give directly to political candidates one limit that super pacs and other outside groups have is theyre not allowed to coordinate with campaigns theoretically in many cases this can happen behind the scenes that may happen in a way thats not as obvious to the average person where they might encourage that and theres very limited in force meant by the federal Election Commission which is tasked with oversight of these types of campaign finance. A lot of this money comes from Political Action committees called super pacs there are no limits on the amount that these organizations can give to politicians much of the cash is spent on advertising campaigns. Hillary clinton raised a total of about a 1000000000. 00 for her president ial Election Campaign and about one quarter of that came from super pacs. Donald trump has portrayed himself as an independent candidate who doesnt want to be tied to big donors but the facts tell a different story. In the case of the 2020 alexion weve seen a President Trumpeting his almost imprimatur to these 2 outside groups that are run by his former officials who worked for his campaign who worked for his white house and who are now running outside youre supporting him and he is a peer. At their advanced and has a very close relationship because the laws have gaps. They can effectively operate as extensions of him cans in many cases without violating any rolls. Royces of average citizens are drawn out by the special Interest Groups including super pacs and. These wealthy influential organizations dominate the public debate on major issues. When does a city critique this of the politicians Pay Attention to them and ignore the interests of middle class people. Thats a real problem for the democratic process in america. Will be a moment in with. Freedom of expression versus a 1000000000. 00 business at the end of the day no one can run for congress or the white house without having a sizable Campaign War Chest the rules of the election game in the us can help to sway results at the ballot or mailbox and it doesnt look like the system is going to improve anytime soon. Given the level of perception. Its hard to imagine how we get these institutional forms that are necessary traduced currently i dont think it ever felt so pessimistic or keeping a democracy requires lots of work it requires care and attention that. Americas struggling with the size of government and the social fabric its moving left on things. I hope we dont move too far. To mystic. And im going to keep organizing in light of. This. We cant get there by be complacent we cant get there by saying things are never going to change. But i dont need to keep a day about when the bombs go for over a mansion home the 4th time to leave the mall the closeness and the thinking about. The bottom of the ballets at the nasa dragons most were called the hard 3 years. Degree of books on. The 2020 us election on g. W. Here in Atlanta Georgia were looking at an issue that Voting Rights groups say is that the biggest problem Voter Suppression making it harder for some people to vote and with many georgians already casting their ballots the stakes are high and. We have a story for you today and you tell me. This is g. W. News lawyer from berlin tonight another ceasefire shattered in the caucasus armenia and azerbaijan are blaming each other for more fighting over the disputed region of nagornokarabakh the weekend truce was. Meant to put an end to 3 weeks of violence which has killed hundreds also coming up tonight last call for alcohol and the coronavirus in belgium exploding numbers of new infections are forcing bars and restaurants to close for the next month plus early voting is big
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