volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@mjmbca I mean that's not true

@WakWak this is why it is so important that we should restore congressional sanction of this sort of activity.

The US should get involved if and only if Congress approves.

But that is unfortunately not what we have been asking of the federal government lately.

@DMTea I mean I'm not going to put for Trump and so that doesn't impact me.

But I do think it is concerning to strike a major candidate from the ballot.

@liquor_american @chrisgeidner

@lauren Believe it or not, sometimes the Supreme Court does get it wrong.

They are after all only umpires.

And sometimes they admit that they are violating the law as they issue rulings that may or may not be respected.

But what we can say here is that states have legal authority to operate their own elections. Regardless of what the Supreme Court may or may not say about it, that is written in law, it is how the United States was set up to operate.

@artemesia it's not because I wanna

It's a question of whether we respect the population as they vote.

Of course we don't have to, but that's the decision for us to make.

@liquor_american @chrisgeidner

@lauren but it doesn't though.

Elections are up to the states regardless of what the amendment says. The ability of any candidate to be on the ballot is 100% to the discretion of the state.

The Constitution does not say anything about who can be on a ballot.

To be clear, you can absolutely vote for somebody who is not qualified to be president. If you want to waste your vote like that, it's your vote to waste. You can vote for my dog if you want to.

It's up to the state as to who gets to be on their ballot for their own voting procedure.

The Constitution talks about who can be president. It's a completely different issue who can be on a state election ballot.

@DMTea worried? Nope!

I am not at all worried.

I mean, I'm not in favor of keeping voters from voting, but this is up to the individual state. If Colorado wants to restrict its voters from voting, well, that's up to them.

But at the least we need to all recognize what we are doing and own it.

@liquor_american @chrisgeidner

@Joe_Hill I mean, that claim has been well debunked.

@lauren Why not?

Voting in the US system is a state function, not a federal function, so it wouldn't be surprising if the Supreme Court deferred to states for how states want to run their elections.

@rhizome Right, so again the point is to own the anti-democratic laws, stating proudly that whatever goal is on the table is important enough that it's worth being anti-democratic.

However in this case it's particularly noteworthy because it's about voting itself.

If it's so important to keep people from being able to vote the way they want to, great! The point is to own that, to say it proudly, and to emphasize how important it is to keep that option away from voters.

@liquor_american @chrisgeidner

@rhizome I mean in cases like this they are.

If you are interfering with the ability of voters to vote for the person that they want to vote for, then even if that's the law, that's an undemocratic law, and maybe that's fine. But let's recognize it.

@liquor_american @chrisgeidner

@artemesia actually yes I would complain about that!

I think people should be able to vote for whoever they want to, because that's how democracy works.

EVEN IF the person they are voting for is un-eligible to hold office, if that's how you want to spend your vote, go for it.

Hell, given this situation if Trump and Biden and Schwarzenegger were on the ballot I'd probably vote for Schwarzenegger! I'm with you there!

So let's just be clear that we are interfering with voter's abilities to vote for the candidate they would like to vote for. If that is for the best, great! So own it. It is undemocratic, but if we need to be undemocratic here, then let's be undemocratic.

The point is to own the choice that we are making.

@liquor_american @chrisgeidner

@liquor_american if you're trying to talk to me, whoever said I don't like what the constitution prescribes?

Like I'm trying to emphasize, if you're down with being anti-democratic because this is so important that it requires anti-democratic responses, great! Go for it!

But own it.

I'm not judging. I'm not voting for Trump. I don't really care. But let's be clear that we are being anti-democratic with this sort of move.

@chrisgeidner

@bigheadtales Yeah, I kind of like knowing things.

I think it's a good thing.

@liquor_american what in the world are you talking about? It has nothing to do with my preferences.

Great! You say the constitution throws the voting process under the bus. Fine. Own it.

It has nothing to do with me or my preferences. It's really about, great if you think it's more important to keep the guy off the ballot, then I guess this is working for you, more important to do this then support the democratic process of voting for who people want to vote for.

I mean I don't live in Colorado. And I don't want to vote for Trump. So it really doesn't impact me.

But if you think this is a good thing, great! Own it!

@chrisgeidner

@bigheadtales Oh gosh you got me back to being distracted trying to correct you on your misunderstandings of the senate rules again.

No, you're wrong but it doesn't matter, because even though any individual senator can, under the rules of the senate, call for a vote at any moment, that doesn't actually matter here because the function of the US government is that the president needs to get consent of the Senate no matter how the Senate chooses to function, so it's 100% up to the president as per the system of checks and balances of the us government.

So again, it doesn't even matter that you are mistaken as to the rules of the Senate because it's up to the president to put forward a nominee sufficiently compelling to get the consent of the Senate under the checks and balances that protect against bad actors in the government.

I mean it's unfortunate that you don't know what you're talking about with regard to the senate. I wish you knew better because I wish all voters knew better so we could stop electing morons.

But at the end of the day the checks and balances set up to protect against bad actors mean that the president is required to work with Congress to fill vacancies.

@liquor_american nope, just stating it plainly.

Keeping a major candidate off the ballot means an interruption of the democratic process.

You might say that no state owes it to anybody to support the free vote, and you may say that it's absolutely worth it to interfere with it, and keep Trump off the ballot, and that's fine.

But it's worth it to own what's going on here.

If it's so important to keep Trump off the ballot that the democratic process should be subverted like this, well then let's own that, and let's say clearly that it's so important to keep Trump away that we are willing to interfere with the voting process.

If that's your position, great!

@chrisgeidner

@bigheadtales no a senator can call for a vote or unanimous consent anytime they want.

@liquor_american The thing is, even if this is legal and correct and even moral or any standard of propriety that you would like to propose, it still does mean people can't vote for the candidate they want.

Even if it is entirely proper to throw out that democratic process, it still has to be owned that the democratic process is being thrown out.

No matter how correct this may be, it does mean people aren't able to vote for the candidate they want to vote for on the ballots.

And owning that might be part of emphasizing how important it is that this be done. It's reasonable to say that this is so important that we have to throw out democratic principles for the sake of keeping Trump off the ballot.

Fine.

It means that is just this important.

@chrisgeidner