Democracy is a weird thing. It can at once be measured on a continuous spectrum (more voting options, easier registration, more enfranchised people) but ultimately there's a simple binary: a party/country/election either is or isn't democratic
That line is surprisingly hard to draw; felon disenfranchisement is a nice example. Convenience voting is a good ex too
AFAIK, there are only two states where every adult citizen is still presumptively eligible to vote when they wake up on Election Day
And yet in perhaps the most important sense, I *think* there's a consensus that every state held a free and fair election in 2020--big lie concerns not withstanding--regardless of whether they had a lot of mail or early voting options, regardless of whether they had SDR, etc.
One of the most provocative lines of the political scientist letters last week read that several states "no longer meet the minimum conditions for free and fair elections."
I thought it was too bad that they didn't specify those conditions, which states violated it, and why
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I think this is a tough question, and I think the responses reflect it!
But I thought it'd be fun to weigh-in on the question that I'm more qualified to address, and that's whether West Virginia is Southern politically.
To me, the short answer is 'no'
One test is Civil War politics. For a century, post-civil war politics were defined by Civil War loyalties. WV is a state defined by its Civil War loyalty.
As a consequence WV was not part of the solid South. It voted GOP in all but one election from 1896-1928, for ex.
For fun, here's a map of the 1916 election (still some missing data on cleaning this up, but good enough).
WV even voted GOP in this election, the best Dem showing from the Civil War to 1932.
The contours of the Solid South are clear enough
If you're looking for a strategy that might heighten the contradictions of the filibuster for Manchin, this style of proposal--laws that mandate supermajorities/bipartisanship where only majorities are needed today--is a clever route thebulwark.com/dont-cry-for-h…
In this proposal, the threshold for overturning an electoral slate would increase to a supermajority--though one could choose 60 votes, to make the tension obvious. Today, a vote to overturn a presidential election wouldn't be subject to a filibuster, and only require 50 votes
Another example might be to subject state election laws passed without bipartisan support--say, at least 20% of all major parties, to again align with the filibuster--to VRA preclearance and new standards for partisan fairness
GOP isn't willing to give Ds anything close to what progressives would want or what Ds could do on their own without the filibuster
But it's hard to think of anything like this happening back in 2009 or 2011, and I'd read something grappling with that nytimes.com/2021/06/08/us/…
Speculating, I can imagine four plausible explanations (not endorsing any):
--GOP opposition to Biden isn't nearly as deep as Obama, allowing some level of bipartisanship
--GOP laissez faire mores were routed by COVID/Trump, allowing deficit spending without angering base
--Senate GOP feels an instinct to demonstrate that the system works, given Trump and the filibuster threat
--GOP was always willing to give on infrastructure/competitiveness and Obama didn't properly test it
I think this is worth a read, though I'll take this as an opportunity to note that the focus on Congress as the site of election subversion doesn't seem quite right to me nytimes.com/2021/06/08/opi…
As Ross notes, we're still pretty far from the point where the House/Senate seem likely to just vote to overturn an election on a pretextual basis, even if the GOP gains a majority. There are too many Republicans who just don't seem poised to go along with it.
In 2020, there were just 7 Senate votes to overturn PA.
Opposition to 1/6 commission got 35 votes--a way, way easier vote than overturning an election result.
That's not to say it's a-ok, but I don't see the case that we're close to a congressional majority for subversion
It's probably 5 months too late for something to have a chance of passage, but it's interesting to mull what a bipartisan election bill might have looked like (or perhaps might still).
I can think of two models (and no, don't take any to be likely)
One model is something like a grand bargain, where both sides get something they want out of a deal.
Today's politics are not remotely conducive to grand bargains, but on the merits there's obviously an opening.
It would require both sides to swallow things they don't like, ofc. On the progressive side, they'd probably need to be thinking about how to give ground on mail absentee or photo identification requirements.
This is one of the clearest summaries of one of the more interesting critiques of the NYT call for a narrower, targeted and viable HR1.
But to me, it's very hard to read the reporting on HR1 and think it's the right interpretation of the politics here
At first, it's easy to see why you could think of HR1 as a broad bill that's the basis for a negotiation that eventually gets to something viable--like Biden starting off at $2 trillion on something in hopes of $1 trillion. In this view, narrowing is a premature concession.
But if you read the articles about HR1 in Congress, it's fairly clear that it's not on track to even serve this limited purpose.
It's basically DOA, and it is not poised to serve as the basis for serious negotiations.
It's more like the Green New Deal than a $2 tn infra. offer