So you know what to do. Offer to take one person you know down to register to vote either Tuesday during the day or Wednesday or Wednesday night.
If you have moved since you registered to vote, it is a good idea to go down and let the clerk know you now live in a new town. Otherwise, you might have your ballot “escrowed” and at risk in being counted in a close race.
Speaking about close races, we all hope Deval walks away with this, but in order to do that, we need to think about this in a new way: “This race is tight and we all need to double our efforts in everyway we can.”
Please share widely!
Don’t forget.
inherently discriminatory like he does ballots in English.
Chinese, Haitian Creole, Khmer, Portuguese, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
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Given that there is no official language of the United States, shouldn’t we print ballots of other languages, in an effort to include as many 18+ US Citizens as possible?
And people can choose which country they want to answer questions about.
answer questions about England?
What are you?
it goes over your head.
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My language (English) is not related to my nation (US of A).
If I substitute English for Portugese, what’s changed? Nothing.
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One more time: English is not the official language of The United States of America. Why in God’s name should the citizens of tUSA be required to take tests or interact with the government in a language that isn’t the official language of tUSA?
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Given that tUSA doesn’t have an official language, there’s no logical argument to force citizens to interact with tUSA in a particular language, and hence things like ballots, voter reg forms, and assorted legal documents have no reason to be solely available in one language.
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If you want to argue that English should be the official language, that’s an entirely different discussion. Given that it is not, there’s no logical standing to require tUSA’s citizens to behave as if there were.
Is this really in question?
Is it official? No, I didn’t think so…
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I live in a very diverse, multi-cultural, multi-lingual neighborhood. What most conservatives don’t want you to know is that in places like Worcester your ethnicity isn’t a big deal. If anything, we simply ask that you do your best to be a productive member of society.
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Just a few houses down is an Albanian family. They’re one of, if not the only, single homeowners on my street…Which is to say, they own an entire three decker converted into a single family home, they’re a functional family, and they do more to maintain neighborhood than the college kids who will be gone in a year or two. The grandfather walks his young grandson a few times a night around the neighborhood. He’s the very definition of what makes a diverse neighborhood what it is…He’s polite, courteous, engaged, etc.
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Do you mean to tell me that he, as a legal citizen, shouldn’t pull a ballot? If this is the best the Repugs can come up with, they best take every suburb because every city will go to those who understand diversity and appreciate it as being as American as our ancestry.
He can pull a ballot same as any other legal resident. But if he doesn’t know enough English to understand it, that’s not my problem.
…that’s not your problem either.
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Is there a law that mandates English as the official language? No. This is a free country. “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” Given that this country was founded on personal liberties, I believe firmly that people should be free to communicate in which ever language they choose.
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Do people need English to prosper in the US? Yes. And English will always prosper because it is the languge of commerce.
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Can a person become proficient in English overnight? No. Mastering a language takes years.
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What about blind people, should they not be allowed braile ballots because they can’t read printed English?
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A citizen is a citiezen. Period. If a person has earned his or her right to be a citizen, then they deserve the full benefits of citizenship. The government works for the citizens. And if that means making accomodations for citizens who are not yet proficient with English, who are illiterate, who are blind, etc, at the voting booth, then the government must make these accomodations.
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If more people will vote because they have a ballot that they can understand more comfortably, that is a good thing. (Unless, of course they don’t happen to vote for your party…)
expect to see a huge uptick in membership of American Independent Party (Q) and/or Interdependent 3rd Party (T) membership.
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Why? Since tUSA voter reg forms have to be really generic to be useful to 50 sets of voting law, they have a spot for political party, but don’t have checkboxes. So, while in MA we have “unenrolled” to be a member of no party, most people who want to be unenrolled use the (incorrect and misleading) colloquial “Independent”.
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Which party town clerks assign these registrants to is anybody’s guess.
Anyone remember the Independent High-Tech party? There were a number of voters who couldn’t vote in the Republican or Democratic party that year because they mistakenly enrolled as Independent High-Tech. I think there was talk after that of prohibiting the use of the word “Independent” as part of a political party’s name because of that. I’m not sure if anything came of it, though.