Five Supreme Court justices and the Supreme Court of Wisconsin have literally just sent elders from the greatest generation with breathing and other health conditions who believe that it is their sacred duty as a citizen to vote, out to public voting places in the midst of a pandemic, in the service of Republican politics.
Shame. Shame. SHAME.
Please share widely!
Sadism is a puke trait.
I’m having trouble figuring out what the federal jurisdiction is here.
As I understand it, the governor of Wisconsin attempted to extend the deadline for counting absentee ballots for today’s election. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that he could not do so. That decision was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. That court ruled 5-4 that the lower court’s ruling should stay in effect.
The result is that the election must happen today.
The right to vote? Let’s just start with the 15th Amendment, Section 1 and go from there.
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. .Amendment XV, Section 1
So, Milwaukee had 80 polling locations but only 5 were open yesterday. Didn’t that abridge citizens right to vote ?
The Republican majorities on the Wisconsin and USA Supreme Courts are murderers, pure and simple. This proves that Republicans would rather kill the voters (Democratic and Independent preferred) than relinquish office.
Cold-blooded murderers and they should be confronted with that reality every time they appear in public.
We really ought to lay off the overheated rhetoric. The chances of dying from this are tiny.
Really? Would you mind explaining that?
Showing my work as of the night of 4/8
Massachusetts cases: 16790 out of population approx. 6.9 million = 0.24%
Massachusetts deaths: 433 out of 16790 cases = 2.58%
Massachusetts deaths relative to population = 0.006%
Massachusetts recoveries: 4316 or about 996% of deaths
US cases: 434114 out of population approx. 327.8 million = o.1324…%
US deaths 14762 out of 434114 cases = 3.4%
US deaths relative to population = 0.0045%
US recoveries: 23774 or about 160% of deaths
Worldwide cases 1511104 out of estimated population 7.8 billion = 0.02%
Worldwide deaths 88338 out of 1511104 cases = 5.85%
Worldwide deaths relative to population = 0.0011…%
World recoveries: 328661 or about 372% of deaths
So yes, in the scheme of things I would say tiny all around. Since we’re talking about the Wisconsin primary their numbers are 2756 cases resulting in 99 deaths out of a population of 5.8 million.
That’s not the approach the very conservative geneticist my wife takes.
Thankfully, the risk of anybody dying remains very small. Humanity has worked several millennia to make that so.
A more suitable comparison is the risk associated with other behaviors, especially disease risk.
For example, here is one comparison of COVID risk vs influenza. The different bin criteria of the two graphs make a direct comparison difficult, but the qualitative result is the same — COVID is about ten times more deadly than the flu. For people over 85, the death rate from COVID is a horrifying 14.8%. How many people do you know who are 85 or older? How many of them have had the flu in the last few years? About one in five of those will die from COVID.
Look at the changes America went through as a result of the 2,996 people killed in the 9/11 attacks. According to sites like this, there have been 16,312 COVID deaths in the US as of 9-Apr-2020 (today).
By next Monday, COVID will have killed more than TEN TIMES as many Americans as the 9/11 attacks.
The current estimates project a total of 2-3M COVID deaths by the time the pandemic has passed. That’s more than four times the total US casualties in WWII.
It’s important that we avoid hysteria and panic. It’s also important that we not trivialize the risk.
Most Americans, including each of us here at BMG, will lose at one friend, family member, or loved one from this pandemic.
The bigger issue is how many voters that would otherwise vote stay home and do not vote because they fear for their lives. I disagree with your blasé approach to this real threat to the public health of the voting public (especially seniors) and how that is a clear and present form of voter suppression. Lines were very long due to social distancing and the state government already reduced the number of precincts in urban areas. Universal vote by mail is the only way to ensure the integrity of the vote during a pandemic of this proportion.
Why did you downrate simple arithmetic above? I agree with you regarding solutions and there’s no excuse for lines at the polls anyway. You never see those in MA.
I didn’t downrate your arithmetic, but it has the same fallacy that I commented on elsewhere.
The absolute risk from COVID, as you’ve sketched above, is irrelevant to the question of voting.
The more relevant approach is to examine the risk of death or serious injury from the act of voting. In the absence of COVID, that risk is approximately zero. In the presence of COVID, that risk is MUCH higher, especially for senior voters and poll workers.
The fundamental issue remains, though — how do we balance the risk of disease and death from conducting an election during this pandemic against the risk of not voting at all in November.
I am over 65 and very much at risk. I don’t want to die from COVID. I would rather risk a COVID infection than see the November elections cancelled.
I am absolutely convinced that if we cancel the November elections for ANY reason, they are likely gone for good.
Nobody is advocating a “blasé approach”. Even better than voting by mail is voting electronically. This is just not that hard a problem, we do more challenging things each and every day.
Our media compounds this issue by relentlessly harping on hysteria while steadfastly refusing to even mention vitally important issues such as what it takes to provide electronic voting in time for the November election.
CNN and MSNBC would serve America far more faithfully with in-depth reporting on the technical alternatives for electronic remote voting and on what it takes to make those systems work by November. I turned on each, briefly, last night. Once more the only voice on CNN was Sanjay Gupta. Once more the only topic on MSNBC was Corona hysteria.
At the heart of this is the same issue I raised at the very start of this pandemic — the conflict between our society’s commitment to protecting life and our equally fundamental commitment to representative democracy.
The near-certainty that Donald Trump and Trumpists will use this pandemic as an excuse to cancel the November election means that we all ought to be confronting this dilemma NOW, while there is still time to respond.
Vote by mail is FAR less reliable than electronic voting. Worse, it takes essentially forever to count all the ballots. We routinely use electronic communication to perform bank transactions valued in the tens of millions of dollars per transaction. We routinely transfer hundreds of millions of transfers for amounts less than ten dollars per transaction. We have long ago learned how to do that securely and privately.
When was the last time any of us had an actual error — a miscalculated balance or an unbalanced transaction — in ANY electronic account with an FDIC-insured bank, a major credit card issuer, or a major financial institution?
Asserting that physical paper ballots marked by hand, mailed and counted are the only secure way to vote is analogous to asserting that precisely weighed coins minted from precious metals are the only secure way to do commerce.
The November election is arguably the most important election of our history. We should address the clear and present threat to that election by turning to our strongest national asset — our information technology. Reliable electronic voting protects against virtually ALL of the traditional voter suppression mechanisms.
We should be demanding reliable nationwide electronic voting by November.
Thank you gsmoke. To me this is obvious. But welcome to the looking glass.
Negligent Homicide is not murder, but it is negligent homicide. Isn’t that bad enough for the other bloggers on here?
Negligent homicide with malice aforethought. That’s murder to me but then I’m not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV.
The fact remains the Republican majorities on the state and USA Supreme Courts are perfectly willing to have voters die in order to vote.
Murder 1 is deliberately and directly causing the death of another with premeditated intent.
Murder 2 is deliberately and directly causing the death of another without premeditated intent.
I doubt very highly a single Justice wants anyone to die. They may not see the risk as great and/or do not feel they have the authority to override other decisions.
Wisconsin elected the liberal to their Supreme Court OVER the con Trump endorsed.
How do ya like them apples ? MAGGOTS.
175 of the 180 polling locations in Milwaukee — a Democratic stronghold — were closed and the Rethugs STILL lost.
These results bode well for the Dems in November.
I think you give the court too much credit Christopher. This was a nakedly partisan decision by a nakedly partisan court. It’s part of a long term plan by the minority supported Republican government to stay in power despite consistently losing elections. It’s a real risk to our democracy that they let Wisconsin get away with this.
I’m a stickler for procedural rules. If I were a judge and someone tried to make a case that the election had to be delayed I would look at the law and see if it made any provision for delay and who was authorized to trigger it. If I did not find such I would feel compelled to say sorry, but I have no authority here – talk to the legislature. Judges must rule according to the law, not their gut concept of fairness.