RD2WINAGNBEAR86 said:
blackie said:
RD2WINAGNBEAR86 said:
If you can show up in person to loot, riot, or protest, you can damn sure show up in person to vote. No exceptions. Scared of Covid or too stupid to acquire a photo ID are not valid excuses.
Likely 95%+ of the people that would like the safety of voting by mail did not participate in looting, rioting, or protesting. (And the 95% is probably too low a number.)
Actually, blackie, my stance is not as hardcore as you think. Older folks (65 and older), should be allowed to vote by mail. Handicapped folks, absolutely. If people are still allowed to go buy food at the grocery store, garden tools at Home Depot, and liquor at the liquor store, they should have to show up in person to vote.
If half of the nation is still so terrified of Covid, perhaps we should just delay the election to the Spring. Right?
They are allowed to go to those places, but they don't have to do so. For example, we use curbside pickup at our H-E-B because we don't have to get out of the car. They put it in our trunk......no human contact. And for our other stuff, we order online or have used curbside pickup. We haven't been inside a store in 4 months. Right now our kids loosing us to Covid would cause some real problems in their lives, especially our daughter. We have to take every precaution we can.
My point was that I suspect that the people who really would like the option to vote by mail are not the same bunch out in the streets. They may have susceptible family members, have been working from home and get their stuff as do we, etc. Voting my mail has been done in both red and blue states already. I think for the safety of the poll workers and getting enough to adequately staff the polling places it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand because there were people protesting. (I doubt the rioters and looters are the voting type regardless of how it is offered.)
Personally, I have seen enough from Patrick and Paxton to know that their opposition to voting by mail has more behind it than their stated voter fraud reason. I just can't trust those two. I don't agree with much of what the Dems in Texas want, but I hope to soon see the day when the Dems put up some viable opposition to them and force the Reps to cast a wider net. It seems the Reps will not do that right now. It is a total disgrace that Paxton isn't already in jail or at least has had his trial. The Reps have got to have someone better than him and someone less tone deaf than Patrick.
As far as moving the election to the spring, if it could be done (I don't know), it would likely take congressional action to do so. That would never happen. We have what we have. Hopefully we can do it as safely as possible. What happens if the poll workers see people descending on them without masks, not social distancing, coming in sick, etc. and just walk off? (rhetorical question). Right now I am not convinced we are going to be past this in the spring. I hope so. But the action of the public gives me little confidence that will happen. I would like to go out to a restaurant without a mask and without being concerned about getting sick at least one more time in my life.