NYC's Voter Registration Problems Present Ironclad Case for Limited Govt.

Should bureaucrats who can't even maintain voter rolls be in charge of more and more parts of your life?

One of the sub-stories of yesterday's New York presidential primaries is just how totally screwed up the Democratic Party voter rolls were in the city so nice they named it twice.

As The Daily Beast reports,

The many messes drew rare national attention to the sad sate of voting in New York City, where broken machines, erroneous counts and worse are commonplace experiences.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who tweeted at 11:50 a.m., "There's nothing more punk rock than voting. #GetOutAndVote", had to change his tune by the end of the day. WNYC reported this morning that 126,000 Brooklyn Democrats had been removed from the voting rolls since last fall.

De Blasio obviously knows as little about punk rock as he knows about running a city (the musical movement that inspired songs such as "We Got the Neutron Bomb," "Blitzkrieg Bop," and "Pay to Cum" wasn't exactly a get out the vote operation). But de Blasio is dutifully called for reinstatements of purged voters, investigations, blah blah blah, as reports pour in about polling places not being open on time, having no workers, broken, machines, you name it.

On a macro level, the story coming out of New York is that either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is going to be the next leader of these United States. That is dispiriting, to say the least.

On a micro level, the NYC Voting Fiasco of 2016 is a stark reminder of precisely why you don't want bureaucrats and government officials running or controlling more and more aspects of your life. They are not very good at it and they really don't give a good goddamn about it. There are some things government should be involved in (I'm thinking, I'm thinking…) and they should be good at those few things. But if it can't even reliably figure out who is eligible to vote, how the hell is it supposed to regulate everything from Uber to the size of sodas without totally screwing the pooch?

Comments

[tarran]

Nick... you are dead to me.

Because of the alt text.

I eat pizza. Occasionally I eat it with a fork. *I* don't wear a leather jacket that needs constant oiling with my lunch-grease.

I'll bet you're a fucking EMACS user too.

[commodious spittoon]

I bet you're not voting for Trump, either. GOPe hack!

[Nihil]

Figures a vim user would admit to eating pizza with a fork.

[WTF]

I eat pizza. Occasionally I eat it with a fork.

You monster.

[colorblindkid]

I would hope all these Sanders supporters realize just how terrible and inept the government is at every possible thing, enough to question their support for the government getting involved in even more things, but I am too old to be fooled into that false hope.

[thrakkorzog]

Haha.

Oh wait , you're serious. Let me laugh even harder.

[sarcasmic]

Government may be terrible and inept, but it is born of good intentions and doesn't waste money on profits to rich people.

[WTF]

Sadly, this is what the left actually believes.

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

What kind of idiot still doesn't understand that you fix problems with government by adding more government? That's how it's done, ya fool.

[Citizen X]

It is known.

[Chipwooder]

When I think of punk, the first things that spring to mind are Bill DeBlasio and the Dem primary.

On the other hand, both DeBlasio and Joe Strummer were big fans of the Sandanistas,

[Jordan]

"There's nothing more punk rock than voting. #GetOutAndVote"

Most nauseating tweet of the year, or of all time?

[Jordan]

Also, since it's NYC, even buying a large soda or salty fries is more "punk rock" than voting.

[Libertarian]

Because we all know punk rockers make a point of voting, right?

[The Master McMonocle]

Maybe he left the "mi" out of "vomiting"?

[Libertarian]

"126,000 Brooklyn Democrats had been removed from the voting rolls since last fall."

Hillary is still using her server to sabotage Brooklyn's favorite son.

[Entelechy]

There's nothing more baroque opera then City Hall: Vote the punks out.

[Libertarian]

If it ain't baroque, don't fix it.

[The Master McMonocle]

-1 Ritchie Blackmore solo

[Notorious UGCC]

Incompetence and dubious hijinks involving the Democratic Party?

In New York?

Next you'll run a story about a dog biting a man.

[Tak Kak]

You know, maybe punk is dead.

[BYODB]

Clearly it is the fault of all the Republicans in New York. (Y'know, the one's who are so 'conservative' that New York has it's own conservative party still.)

Democrats are physically and mentally incapable of disenfranchising people. Especially in Brooklyn. They also have no proven track record of treating racial minorities with anything less than sterling respect, as the Constitution demands. They like them so much they routinely put their hands in their pockets. This is so they can put a few bucks in there as a 'thank you' for their much valued diversity.

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

The trouble with the Republican Party... is that it's full of Republicans.

[BYODB]

Oh, it has a lot of issues, but I was pointing out that Democrats love to blame Republicans for disenfranchisement and racism but when something like this happens it's just glossed over and ignored. Rather like how people ignore the fact that NYC police are rabidly racist in their enforcement. You can't even lampoon that level of logical disconnect where you blame the opposition for something you do daily.

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

When people believe they are on the right side, then everything they believe is right just by virtue of them being on the right side. When something bad happens, it has to be because of some outside force from the wrong side.

As Socrates might have asked, are they right because they're on the right side or are they on the right side because they're right?

[Rhywun]

I'm not seeing any claims of "racism" here - why bring it up?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Democratic Party voter rolls were in the city so nice they named it twice.

Why does the Democratic Party have "voter rolls"?

[Notorious UGCC]

Because it sounds better than "a list of suckers."

[BYODB]

Because that need to know if you're allowed to vote in the Democratic primary in that state?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Wouldn't that be racist?

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

Only if they ask you to show proof.

[kbolino]

Aren't they public, anyway?

[Notorious UGCC]

"But if it can't even reliably figure out who is eligible to vote, how the hell is it supposed to regulate everything from Uber to the size of sodas without totally screwing the pooch?"

But if the government *already* has soda taxes, then consistency demands that we support bans on large sodas...or are you a bigot?

/sarc

[Libertarian]

Screwing the pooch? I think that's the OLD Times Square.

[The Master McMonocle]

If I'm going to listen to a punk song about a neutron bomb, I prefer it to be by the Art Attacks.

[Rhywun]

Last time I voted was around 2008 (in Brooklyn) and they basically flip open a book with a list of you and all your neighbors, and check your name off before you go into the booth. I'm sure compiling these things by hand isn't prone to error at all...

[Robert]

Don't take initial reports of how many Democrats were removed from the rolls as an indication of that number's being incorrectly removed. It'll take a while to sort that out. More often the problem with the board is failure to remove registrations in a timely manner.