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Comment by ryanwaggoner | Hacker News Reader

This is really interesting. This is at least the first half of that: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/megavote/

I was going to sign up for Megavote but it only lets you track 5 issues from a list of talking points including "Civil Rights"?

edit: I didn't mean to be insensitive. minority rights including gay marriage and women's rights are defiantly important and heavily debated civil rights issues. The blanket term "Civil Rights" just dosen't seem to be used to describe those issues very often these days.

At the state level, there's been a rash of legislation the last 2 years that's putatively aimed at curbing "voter fraud", but has the practical effect of disenfranchising black people and college kids.

Got a citation or two for that claim?

Iunno, defunding ACORN, anyone?

Here's a couple quick ones for WI and OH, there's more in a few other states:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-13/wisconsin-voter-id-...

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/most_restr...

On the other hand, consider voter fraud cases like this [1][2].

I'm not in favor of putting too many burdens on the right to vote, and I'm honestly not sure where the balance lies: it's not clear how much fraud does occur, and it's not clear to me how much people are burdened by laws requiring ID (I suspect both are edge cases, but how do they compare in magnitude; what about the risk presented by each?). I just think it's necessary to keep in mind that there really is another side to the story.

[1] http://troyrecord.com/articles/2009/09/27/news/doc4abec35414...

[2] http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/286557/yes-virginia-the...

It seems like there's more republican state legislatures trying to pass voter fraud laws than there are actual documented cases of voter fraud in the last 2 years. That's a hell of a statistic.

Of course, there are people's jobs at stake here.

Gay marriage?

You know, it would seem that that sector gets a whole lot of coverage while much more egregious and dangerous threats to liberty are happening.

It's unfortunate, because such things make great smokescreens while at the same time being so polarizing (wrongfully so) that they blot out more other grave matters and attract crazies that impede genuine progress in gender policy.

EDIT: fixed some bad grammar.

You'd almost think it was a CIA/FBI plot to split off the intelligentsia from the working class.

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