Today on The BradCast: The U.S. electoral disasters continue, GOP takeover and theft, and what non-Rightwingers can do about it all. [Audio link to show posted below.]
House Republicans snuck in something else in their new U.S. House rules yesterday, beyond their aborted attempt to gut the independent Office of Congressional Ethics: a provision to make it easier to give away federal lands. Desi Doyen fills us in on the scheme.
Then, a few updates — troubling ones — on the attempted Wisconsin Presidential ‘Recount’, where at least 11,000 votes were revealed to have been mistallied (in a state that Donald Trump reportedly won by just 22,000 votes), only half the ballots were allowed to be counted by hand, the cost was about half of what Green Party nominee Jill Stein had been forced to pay, and the final turnout and voter registration numbers in the state are still unknown (ensuring the results still cannot be verified as accurate, even as Congress will accept the Electoral College results on Friday.)
Those are just a few of the reasons why WI is found near the bottom of the list of states in the Electoral Integrity Project’s newest report. Most of the lowest-ranked states (14 of the bottom 15) are in the South and/or have both legislatures and governorships controlled by Republicans. The survey, a project of Harvard University and the University of Sydney, also determined the U.S., once again, to be near the bottom of the list of established democracies when it comes to how world political scientists and election experts rate our elections.
Finally, we open the phone lines today to ask listeners: What now? What can progressives, Democrats, the left, the center-left, the center — basically, the non-Right — do as Republicans take control of Congress, the White House and a stolen U.S. Supreme Court? Lots of thoughts, with lots of perspective from a lot of great callers…though the last caller of the show may offer our favorite plan of action…
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_WIRecountUpdate_CallersWhatNow_010417.mp3]
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Brad,
I’m sorry, but my inner nitpicker demands I write this. Resistance is futile.
In today’s BradCast, you stated that the Supreme Court overturned Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. I think you are in error as the SCOTUS overturned Section 4, not Section 5.
Sections 4 and 5 together address jurisdictions that are subject to special scrutiny. Section 4 defines which jurisdictions qualify for special scrutiny, then Section 5 details the additional restrictions imposed on jurisdictions that have qualified under Section 4.
Section 5 is still in full effect, but since SCOTUS struck down Section 4, there are currently no jurisdictions under Section 5 scrutiny.
de facto Section 5 is currently moot, and will remain moot until and unless Congress rewrites Section 4.
That is my understanding. I welcome correction from you or Mr. Canning.
Steven Dorst @1:
Your inner nitpicker is absolutely correct on the details above.
If I said SCOTUS “overturned” Section 5, then I was in error, which I will chalk up to misspeaking against the clock on live radio. If I said SCOTUS “killed” Section 5, however (as I believe I sometimes do), I might stand by it, since that’s what they did by overturning Section 4.
Either way, for purposes of this comment section, always listen to your inner nitpicker! 🙂
Only took 11,375 votes to decide WI. Half the difference plus one.
22,147 flips PA.
5,353 would’ve done it in MI.
That’s it, 38,875 crummy fucking votes out of 129 million.