Like 1864, the Union should be able to pull off a Presidential election during this latest war

[JayJay]

@altair1013

@JayJay

You do just believe things on faith and require no evidence, don’t you?

That’s a really stupid statement disguised as a question.Try again.

No it was a perfectly valid observation.

You believe things despite the lack of evidence.

You countered the factual statement I made about Oregon’s mail in voting with your feelings and beliefs, not facts.

Actually, not one person has provided a factual basis for asserting voting by mail would be full of fraud. They simply assert it, period.

[Borgia_dude]

@JayJay

@altair1013

@JayJay

You do just believe things on faith and require no evidence, don’t you?

That’s a really stupid statement disguised as a question.Try again.

No it was a perfectly valid observation.

You believe things despite the lack of evidence.

You countered the factual statement I made about Oregon’s mail in voting with your feelings and beliefs, not facts.

Some people have a hard time admitting error.

Actually, not one person has provided a factual basis for asserting voting by mail would be full of fraud. They simply assert it, period.

Hilariously, the absence of evidence is evidence of a cover up. Gotta love it!

[NickN]

@H_Arendt

I have no clue, but I find this line of discussion a distraction from decisions made by the Supreme Court to insist that Wisconsin voters place their lives at risk to exercise the right to vote. If we accept that this is a National Emergency why did the Roberts’ Court base their ruling on the view that these are “normal times.” If the court was right, Evans had no reason to react to the President. If Evans failure to react matters, then that exposes what partisan nonsense the Roberts Court ruling was.

H_Arendt: Thanks for clarifying a lot more on Wisconsin “than meets the eye.”

On the surface, I initially attempted to bring to light how during the Civil War absentee ballots were utilized to spare soldiers the added time and effort often needed to get home and vote. I did also post 3 states not willing to allow troops to vote in the field too. That specific mention was inserted to alert us here in on the forum that even in war time, political parties maneuver around much the same as they do in peace-more normal times.

Bringing us to this coronavirus health crisis, in Wisconsin, the Supreme Court recently pointed to Purcell v Gonzalez ruling against the Governor for a one week extension to postmark absentee ballots.
Back in 2006, the concurring opinion ruled that the emergency injunction was improperly granted. The back drop was Proposition 200 out of Arizona passing in 2004. The heart of the case revolved around if a person who came to vote without a valid picture ID, their ballot was declared conditional. If they came back within 5 days with proper credentials the ballot was officially validated and included in the state’s certified count.

Also brought to light in Wisconsin through this thread is an undertow by Republicans to purge 209,000 people from voter registration rolls because they may have moved.

If anyone here have anymore on this, like do these people have forwarding addresses to send absentee ballots to or whatever, by all means please update this portion of the post.

With November elections fast approaching, this vote purge case in Wisconsin figures to be getting a lot more national attention in the coming months.

The crux of what else Wisconsin is:

Do the highest courts in the land ultimately consider a significant health crisis worthy of allowing governor new executive orders to (temporary) overturn certain voting laws for November?

[NickN]

@Safiel

With the understanding that perfection is obviously beyond reach, I believe it is possible to craft a merit selection system that, to the extent humanly possible, balances out political and legal biases.

What I would push for in a Merit Selection Panel:

1. Half to be appointed by the Governor, half to be appointed by the highest ranking minority party official in the State.
2. Of each half, a certain number would be from the civil plaintiffs bar, civil defendants bar, criminal prosecution bar and criminal defense bar, as well as a couple of lay people. But allocated in such a way so that there is never more than 25% civil plaintiffs attorneys on the commission.
3. Super-majority requirement for recommending candidates to the Governor, which would require a general consensus on candidates.
4. A requirement that candidates be chosen from a variety of interest bars and a limitation of 30% to 33% on candidates from the Civil Trial Bar.
5. The Governor would make his final selection for a Judicial post from the top 3 candidates recommended by the commission.

I pursue 3 goals with this:

1. Merit selection would ensure that candidates are of the highest caliber, in education, experience and temperament.
2. Since the commissions would be ideologically balanced and a super-majority required, candidates would reflect a broader consensus, rather than a narrow ideological viewpoint. It would seek to avoid the situation we see with the Federal Courts, where President’s of either party try to flood the courts with their preferred point of view.
3. The Civil Trial Bar’s influence would be curtailed, both on the commissions and ultimately on the bench. This would prevent the development of a Judicial Hellhole, a condition that exists when the Civil Trial Bar controls the State judiciary.

Obviously, it will not be perfect. No system can be. But I think it would be a helpful step. And it has worked well where it has been tried, some States better than others do to the nuances of each individual State in setting up merit selection.

One big thing that merit selection eliminates is judicial campaign money. When you have both parties spending millions trying to buy Supreme Court seats, there is going to be a problem sooner or later.

Florida learned the hard way in the 1970’s, when 5 of its 7 Justices were removed from office or resigned for various reasons.

Thanks for your well thought out response here.

A big concern of the founding fathers envisioned equal power between the three branches. One plus for keeping the status quo is how difficult it really is to terminate top officials of each branch.

NO term limits for (most) judges appears to be ingenious way that once a senate confirms a judge appointed by an executive, they can no longer be fired.

Impeachment may occur at either the federal or state levels. The super majority requirement to remove an POTUS/Federal officials from office once impeached serves a similar purpose on the state level. Whether federal or state, the exercise to also remove most certainly requires it to be a bi-partisan affair. State constitutions vary on how exactly congress votes to remove or acquit a sitting governor. In the history of the USA, there are only 16 cases of a vote being carried out to impeach a governor. Of those, 9 led to the impeached governor’s removal from office.