Summary

Donald Trump announced plans to reform U.S. elections, including mandating paper ballots, same-day voting, voter ID, and proof of citizenship, while eliminating mail-in voting.

Trump criticized California’s ban on requiring voter ID, calling for a nationwide overhaul. Though mail-in and early voting surged during the pandemic, Trump has long opposed these methods, claiming fraud, despite evidence showing fraud rates are extremely low.

Critics argue his proposals could disproportionately affect rural, disabled, and nonwhite voters, potentially disenfranchising key Democratic-leaning groups.

The reforms would mark significant shifts in U.S. election policies.

    • AmidFuror@fedia.io
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      16 days ago

      Thanks for putting that plain text from the top of the post into a jpeg down in the comments.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      When he declared Nov would be the last election, and winning it meant they wouldn’t have to worry about elections again, he meant it!

      He’s doing exactly what he said he would do.

          • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
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            15 days ago

            Shaming people for having deep moral quandries about voting for a candidate who is actively and directly facilitating genocide is pathetic and pointless and makes you look like a parody of yourself.

    • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      When rural voters overwhelmingly voted for you, making it harder for them to vote seems like a great way to shoot yourself in the foot.

    • nutsack@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      they can also add rules to restrict the number of polling places, resulting in disproportionately long lines in cities where democrats live

      • T00l_shed@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        Often times yes, but they are in gerrymandered districts with adequate polling locations, plus they love to go out and vote for “their guy”

      • enbyecho@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        Aren’t rural people more republican leaning?

        In some places only slightly. Like 55/45. So it would still affect Democrats.

        Edit: I mention this because a lot of folks tend to assume rural areas are almost exclusively Republican and that’s very far from the truth even in super red states.

  • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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    16 days ago

    This is it folks. If he is able to transform our election system with his own two hands, we’ve had our last fair election, I guarantee it. Fraud will be baked in, circumventing any design elements that are ostensibly there to guard against it.

    This is the scariest thing I’ve read since the election.

      • WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        Like that scene at the end of The Dictator, when he finally holds election.

        There are two vote boxes and all the citizens are queuing in front of the box that will vote for his opposition. A tank drives up next to that queue, and everyone leaves the opposition queue, rushing over to join the queue to vote for the dictator.

      • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        16 days ago

        Nah, we are about to have elections like the US used to in the 1900s, filled with political shenanigans. Its bad, but like… that has been how elections have always been run.

        Not exactly russia or north korea, but like half way there.

        Edit: Basically, instead of 51% of the vote, you need 55% or maybe even more, because some of the votes will get thrown out for made up reasons. Slightly marked off center of the bubble, invalid. Didn’t fill the bubble completely, invalid. And they only scrutinize votes for the opposition, and approve the votes for their candidates even if there are the same errors in the marking of the ballot.

    • chakan2@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      They weren’t quiet about this being the last fair election we would have. I’m also not convinced it was actually a fair election.

      But whatever…too late to bitch about the fascists now.

    • 4grams@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      The writing has not even been on the wall here, it’s been part of the plan all along, he’s been saying it all along and it’s obvious after he tried to violently steal it last time.

      We’re in a situation where our only hope I they are too incompetent to pull off the democracy destroying evil they are promising.

    • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      16 days ago

      Well, to be fair, elections have always been biased with shit like this.

      We never really had a 10/10 fair election, there has always been biases in favor of status quo / regressivism. It always took more than 51% of votes for the less regressive party to win. We’re just regressing back to stupid election shenanigans like those 2000 florida ballots designed to confuse everyone. Shenanigans that had always existed, but we evolved out of, but now we are going through a period of regression, as the country has done many many times before.

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Yeah, clearly opening the door to discuss further changes to the election process. It’s dying, and he doesn’t want more people voting, he wants less, if at all

      • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        16 days ago

        Real “stop testing” energy here.

        If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any

        “If we just stop voting, we’d have very few votes against me”

  • crimsoncobalt@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    But… it’s the states that run elections, not the federal government. This doesn’t make any sense.

    • adarza@lemmy.ca
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      16 days ago

      scotus would have to literally rewrite the constitution for the feds to have that much control over states’ elections.

      owait.

    • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      16 days ago

      Um, states run elections, federal laws can regulate them. That has always been the case.

      Southern states used to require the federal governments permission to change their states election laws. That was actually good that federal governments can somewhat regulate state elections, so southern states cant make racist election laws. Then supreme court stuck down that part of the Voting Right Act. southern states then immediately passed Voter ID laws to restrict minority voting.

      Now the funny thing is, because now that the federal government is under a republican trifecta, they are now gonna do a uno reverse and regulate blue states like we used to regulate southern states.

  • splonglo@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    And you’ll have to wait 10 hours to vote on a workday because they’ve limited voting locations to one every million people - like they already do in Georgia.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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    16 days ago

    “mandating paper ballots… while eliminating mail-in voting.”

    Does he not know mail in ballots are paper ballots? 🤔

    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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      16 days ago

      The point is to eliminate voting options, the “justifications” are made up. Anything that moves closer to “not being able to vote” is the goal.

      • scutiger@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        Paper ballots are also easier to falsify, with all the videos of box stuffing in corrupt countries.

        That said, Canada uses paper ballots and hand counting, and I’m not aware of any accusations of election fraud related to that ever happening.

        • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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          10 days ago

          We also have a non-partisan federal elections agency. With individual US states in charge of running their own federal elections, there’s more room for Republican state-level government to cheat on the federal election

  • nifty@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    “We’re gonna do things that have been really needed for a long time,” he said. “And we are gonna look at elections. We want to have paper ballots, one day voting, voter ID, and proof of citizenship.”

    This should come with a national day off for voting, and mandatory voting requirement.

    • Breve@pawb.social
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      16 days ago

      Just the federal holiday would be enough. If someone is too lazy to vote when given a paid day off to do so, then I don’t trust they are informed enough to vote anyhow.

  • Aolley@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    fuck that, mail in voting has done so much good and it’s a prime step in stopping all this. if we had national mail in voting things would get better fast so no wonder they don’t want it.

    what would this mean for states that already do this

  • gnomesaiyan@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    This motherfucker better be in a Popemobile 24/7. I got a bad feeling about this guy’s future existence.

  • Zier@fedia.io
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    16 days ago

    Still following putin I see. Wait until he tries to change Presidential term limits.

  • masterofn001@lemmy.ca
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    16 days ago

    Something something constitution

    Article I, Section 4, Clause 1:

    The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

    https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S4-C1-2/ALDE_00013577/

    What was that about States rights?

    Oh, yeah, they only matter when they do what you want.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Yeah, but primaries aren’t controlled by the states.

      Which is why waaay back in 2024, the DNC and Biden were able to take all of NH primary delegates away…

      • masterofn001@lemmy.ca
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        16 days ago

        That’s not voting, though. That’s what the party decides.

        But, yeah, the DNC highjacked the ability of people to choose the nominee for their party. Again.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          That’s not voting, though. That’s what the party decides.

          And (totally as a hypothetical) if pro corporate interests decided to interfere with primaries by donati g insane amount of money to pro-corporate candidates to ensure corps always win regardless of what letter is by the President’s name…

          Would you describe that as the illusion of choice when after decades those peo corporate interests controlled the parties and then (totally legally) directly influence the primary and ensure the corpo candidates always “wins”?

          And I’m not trying to be a dick here, but unless we fix primaries, we’ll never really “win” in the general, even when the Democratic candidate wins.

          • masterofn001@lemmy.ca
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            16 days ago

            Your point is completely legit.

            Everything we believe about choice is an illusion. Propaganda. The dream is fiction.

            The public believe only 2 options exist. Because, no viable other options exist. At the moment. Any third party is either a spoiler by design, or so limited in scope as to be useless to most.

            Maybe now is the time to start another. A serious effort to form a citizen controlled, truly democratic, accountable, party. With its own primaries and rules. For the people.

            Not next election cycle.

            The DNC and RNC are irredeemably rotten because of the very concerns you’ve mentioned.

            Can’t repair rotted wood. You can cut out the decay and try to patch it up but you’re left with an unstable structure.

            You need to replace it.

            The difficulty is when the money realizes it could interfere and run propaganda to de-legitimize.

            Honest people who can own their faults, who are not afraid of their skeletons, who cannot be blackmailed, are needed.

            An impossible task to be sure.

            But, a lot of things have been impossible.

            If qanon and the tea party can take over a party in a few years…

            • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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              16 days ago

              Does anything other than tradition prevent a candidate from running in the primaries of both the R and D conventions? Could the same person end up as the candidate for both parties?

              • masterofn001@lemmy.ca
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                16 days ago

                2028 might provide an answer the way things are going…

                I don’t know the answer but I would assume party rules would prevent that somehow.

                But, if someone ran for and won the R nomination and the D didn’t do a primary to officially nominate anyone, and that person crossed the aisle… I have no idea what would happen. Maybe it is possible.

  • Jesus@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    Wouldn’t he basically need a constitutional amendment to do this. Which would be almost impossible these days.

    • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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      16 days ago

      Hard to say. voting is up to states for methodology but like we did have restrictions on state due to discrimation till recently that would not allow them to change their rules or purge voters like they do again nowadays.

    • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      16 days ago

      No. Federal government could always regulate elections. We used to require southern states to get federal governments permission before they can change their state election laws, so that they cant make racist election laws, but then the supreme court struck down that part of the Voting Right Act, then southern states immediately enacted Voter ID Laws.

      Now that republicans have a trifecta in federal government, they are doing an uno reverse to regulate blue states like we used to regulate southern states.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        The VRA was an extension of the fourteenth amendment. And the federal government never said the racist states had to do X. They said the states had to submit changes to the federal government to make sure they weren’t racist and thus unconstitutional.

        Trump’s stuff doesn’t have any of that grounding.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Yup. He can try for a reverse VRA but it’s going to be a pretty big fight if he does.

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    Too bad for him the constitution clearly states “the states shall decide” - which is why we have the hodgepodge patchwork bullshit we have now. So he may want to change it, but unless he actually does light the Constitution on fire, this is unlikely to go anywhere.

    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
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      15 days ago

      omm… the Republicans have the supreme court and are in the process of lighting the constitution on fire as we speak?

      • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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        15 days ago

        The constitution doesn’t protect the people from the government. The constitution protects a government from the people.

        When the government lights the constitution on fire, “We The People” are no longer restrained by its restrictions. We are free to establish a new constitution, with blackjack and hookers, and burn down the government established by the old, flaming constitution.