Meanwhile in Virginia, the commonwealth leapfrogs to the 21st c. by extending voting hours, allowing mail-in ballots for any reason, making Election Day a holiday, automatically registering voters at the DMV, & reducing paperwork requirements at the polls http://wjla.com/news/local/northam-signs-new-legislation-to-expand-access-to-voting-in-virginia

For my followers outside the US, I’ll summarize it for you: easy access to voting, i.e. democracy, disadvantages Republicans, which is why Republicans want to make voting difficult. Whether we should be generally ruled by democracy is a partisan disagreement in the US.

Our national legislative upper house, the Senate, gives two votes to the 580,000 people of Wyoming and two votes to the 39,500,000 of California. Republicans will justify this anti-democracy by saying—and I’m not joking—that land mass matters more than actual people.

Also people who vote for Democrats are slightly likelier to lack the paperwork or life circumstances (paid time off to vote, flexible work hours on Election Day, etc) to overcome states’ deliberate voting hurdles. This is another way Republicans score power outside democracy.

Republicans, especially with their extreme rightwing agenda of late, cannot win democratically and have thus given up on democracy. They resort to making voting difficult just enough to score more votes, even if they fail to earn their constituents’ consent.

I’m really tired of the “Why does America allows mass shootings that don’t exist to the same degree in every other developed country?” question. Read this thread and get smart. I can’t even elect anyone to the US Congress!