• 2 Posts
  • 865 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: June 15th, 2023
  • dhork@lemmy.worldtopolitics @lemmy.world•Trump Refuses to Sign Housing Bill Until Unpopular Voting Restrictions Pass CongressEnglish
    71·
    7 hours ago

    The President has 10 days (excluding Sundays) to sign the bill, or veto it. If he does neither, the bill takes effect as if he had signed it – as long as Congress is still in session.

    A Pocket Veto is when the President doesn’t sign a bill, and Congress is not in session when the 10 day period expires. In that case, the law will not take effect.

    But, these days Congress never formally adjourns. Even when they go home, local members still hold formal sessions where nothing is done specifically to keep Congress in session. And I think even this Congress won’t simply adjourn itself because Trump wants it to.

    This was also a discussion when Trump nominated idiots like Matt Gaetz, who had no shot of getting confirmed. Trump wanted Congress to adjourn itself, so he could make a Recess Appointment. They declined. If they didn’t roll over then, they won’t now.

  • dhork@lemmy.worldtopolitics @lemmy.world•Trump Refuses to Sign Housing Bill Until Unpopular Voting Restrictions Pass CongressEnglish
    50·
    9 hours ago

    It’s particularly bonkers because the bill passed with a veto-proof majority

    The bill, called the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, passed 358-32 in the House. The Senate approved it Monday with similarly overwhelming bipartisan support.

    So, Trump has zero leverage here. Unless he thinks, somehow, he can convince Republicans to switch sides and vote against a veto override on a bill they already voted for.

    This bill is becoming law whether he supports it or not. It’s also quite popular (with everyone who is not in Private Equity). Usually, he bends over backwards to be seen on the popular side of an issue. This makes no sense, even by Trump logic.

  • dhork@lemmy.worldtoTechnology@lemmy.world•Report: White House delaying release of voting machine security studyEnglish
    12·
    3 days ago

    The key thing for elections is that all counts ought to be auditable and verifiable. It doesn’t matter whether the count is done by humans or electronically. Enough information from each individual vote must be preserved so that counts can be verified, during the legal window for races to be confirmed.

    I am old enough that when I first started voting, we used lever machines. You pushed a lever for your choice in each race, then you pushed a big lever, which “recorded” your choice and resets all levers for the next person. But, it recorded your choice on manual dials that showed the vote total. Sometimes, the dial has issues rolling over from “9” to “10”, or “9999” to “10000”. If your vote got swallowed by the mechanical dial, it’s gone! There was no remedy. At the end of the election, the poll workers reported the counts off the dials. If they needed a recount, they looked at the dials and said “Yup, that’s the count”.

    Today, I vote on a paper ballot, which gets fed into a machine. I can see right away if my vote is accepted – if it is not, I can get a new ballot and try again. All those paper ballots are retained so if there is a recount, they can either be run again or physically inspected by hand. It is much better tha it used to be.