Youth voter registration went up 41 percent in Florida

[_Kishkumen]

purging voter rolls and gerrymandering and you call your country a democracy?

A flawed one.

[_subgenius]

Youth voter registration went up 41 percent in Florida after Parkland

Yeah, I'd be totally stunned if Trump wins Florida in 2020. I mean, after Parkland and screwing over Puerto Rico the way he did... tens of thousands flocked to Florida to stay with family. And they'll like be voting too.

Puerto Ricans aren't allowed to vote in Presidential election.

[_Kevin Graham]

Puerto Ricans aren't allowed to vote in Presidential election.

They are if they live on the mainland, and that's the point. Trump's inaction in Puerto Rico, forcing them to move to the mainland effectively turns them into potential voters.

[_Chap]

purging voter rolls and gerrymandering and you call your country a democracy?

A flawed one.

At some point a matter of degree (how bad are the flaws?) can become a change of kind (is this in any meaningful sense a democracy any more?). Let's set a minimum standard for 'democracy', and say that it is a state of affairs in which a government is subject to an informed evaluation of its performance by an electorate, who are then able to displace a government that the majority of persons qualified to vote disapprove of. (I frame that deliberately in negative terms; there may be more useful definitions, and posters are welcome to propose them.)

In Russia, people still get to vote, but no effective expression of views critical of Putin is allowed, and his opponents all turn out to be guilty of crimes that put them in jail or disqualify them from running against him. And as for the voting process, well ... would you still call Russia a democracy, given all that?

How far does the US have to go in the direction of gerrymandering to ensure that a Democrat vote counts for less than a Republican vote, and 'voter cleansing' making it generally difficult for likely Democrats to vote, plus allowing unlimited amounts of privately funded political advertising backed by very rich people, plus ... all the rest of it ... before one ends up being seriously worried about whether the word 'democracy' means a great deal? I don't think the US has reached that point yet, by the way.

[_subgenius]

So, for example, if the significant surge of Democratic voters in California are Bernie-crats we see that this does more harm for Democrats than good. Because the CA parrynow supports de Leon over Feinstein. This will inevitably translate to less money in the war chest for fighting the GOP assault - because the big money behind Feinstein will easily not donate to the Party coffer that endorses her rival. And with the severe swing to the left you can wave goodbye to Kamala's 2020 chances.

This notion for the "increase" in voter registration as being good for Democrats is superficial inasmuch as it ignores the serious fractures in that party. As we see in California it may provide more benefit to Republicans in 2018.

[_Chap]

Winning an election certainly depends on more than the registration of likely supporters as voters.

But if no supporters register as voters, all the money in the Koch brothers' bank account won't get you elected.

[_Themis]

At some point a matter of degree (how bad are the flaws?) can become a change of kind (is this in any meaningful sense a democracy any more?). Let's set a minimum standard for 'democracy', and say that it is a state of affairs in which a government is subject to an informed evaluation of its performance by an electorate, who are then able to displace a government that the majority of persons qualified to vote disapprove of. (I frame that deliberately in negative terms; there may be more useful definitions, and posters are welcome to propose them.)

In Russia, people still get to vote, but no effective expression of views critical of Putin is allowed, and his opponents all turn out to be guilty of crimes that put them in jail or disqualify them from running against him. And as for the voting process, well ... would you still call Russia a democracy, given all that?

How far does the US have to go in the direction of gerrymandering to ensure that a Democrat vote counts for less than a Republican vote, and 'voter cleansing' making it generally difficult for likely Democrats to vote, plus allowing unlimited amounts of privately funded political advertising backed by very rich people, plus ... all the rest of it ... before one ends up being seriously worried about whether the word 'democracy' means a great deal? I don't think the US has reached that point yet, by the way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

You will find Russia in the bottom category(authoritarian) and the US in the flawed democracy category. Be interesting to see how that changes for 2018.