More than a million mail-in ballot requests were canceled in three counties in January. Democrats say they're working to stem the effects of the change.
The US was originally envisioned as a federation of independent states, and the Constitution reflects that. Our elections are all run by the states. The states select their senators and representatives to send to the federal legislature. The states select the President.
In fact, originally, our senators were selected by the state legislatures, not a statewide election.
Even today, the popular vote doesn’t really matter in the Presidential election. Those elections simply inform the state how to appoint electors to the Electoral College. Some states are “all or nothing”, some states appoint them proportional to the popular vote.
As such, how those representatives and senators are chosen is left to the individual states, and how the elections are run is the domain of the state.
The Constitution specifically delegates that authority to the States, though, it includes a provision that the federal legislature can claw back that authority in whole or in part by simply writing new laws. The Voting Rights Act, for a great many years, demanded that the various racist states in the South had to have changes to their election process vetted by the Courts before being implemented. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Roberts, declared racism was over and gutted that requirement. That’s when you started to see a bunch of this tomfuckery.
The US was originally envisioned as a federation of independent states, and the Constitution reflects that. Our elections are all run by the states. The states select their senators and representatives to send to the federal legislature. The states select the President.
In fact, originally, our senators were selected by the state legislatures, not a statewide election.
Even today, the popular vote doesn’t really matter in the Presidential election. Those elections simply inform the state how to appoint electors to the Electoral College. Some states are “all or nothing”, some states appoint them proportional to the popular vote.
As such, how those representatives and senators are chosen is left to the individual states, and how the elections are run is the domain of the state.
The Constitution specifically delegates that authority to the States, though, it includes a provision that the federal legislature can claw back that authority in whole or in part by simply writing new laws. The Voting Rights Act, for a great many years, demanded that the various racist states in the South had to have changes to their election process vetted by the Courts before being implemented. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Roberts, declared racism was over and gutted that requirement. That’s when you started to see a bunch of this tomfuckery.
Interesting, thanks for that. I’ll do more research to understand the American context.