Progressives (Liberals)

It doesn't matter the source.

Voter fraud is rampant.

The Brennan Center's seminal report "The Truth About Voter Fraud" conclusively demonstrated most allegations of fraud turn out to be baseless — and that of the few allegations remaining, most reveal election irregularities and other forms of election misconduct. And numerous other studies have reached the same conclusion. In a recent report, "Noncitizen Voting: The Missing Millions," the Brennan Center debunked President Trump's claim that millions improperly voted in the 2016 election.

Main article: Voter suppression in the United States
In the United States, elections are administered locally, and forms of voter suppression vary among jurisdictions. At the founding of the country, the right to vote in most states was limited to property-owning white males.[16] Over time, the right to vote was formally granted to racial minorities, women, and youth.[17][18][19] During the later 19th and early 20th centuries, Southern states passed Jim Crow laws to suppress poor and racial minority voters – such laws included poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses.[20][21][22] Most of these voter suppression tactics were made illegal after the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 2013, discriminatory voter ID laws arose following the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which some argue amount to voter suppression among African-Americans.[23][24]

In Texas, a voter ID law requiring a driver's license, passport, military identification, or gun permit, was repeatedly found to be intentionally discriminatory. The state's election laws could be put back under the control of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, however, the DOJ has expressed support for Texas's ID law.[25] Sessions was accused by Coretta Scott King in 1986 of trying to suppress the black vote.[26] A similar ID law in North Dakota, which would have disenfranchised large numbers of Native Americans, was also overturned.[27]

In Wisconsin, a federal judge found that the state's restrictive voter ID law led to "real incidents of disenfranchisement, which undermine rather than enhance confidence in elections, particularly in minority communities";[28] and, given that there was no evidence of widespread voter impersonation in Wisconsin, found that the law was "a cure worse than the disease." In addition to imposing strict voter ID requirements, the law cut back on early voting, required people to live in a ward for at least 28 days before voting, and prohibited emailing absentee ballots to voters.[27]

Other controversial measures include shutting down Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) offices in minority neighborhoods, making it more difficult for residents to obtain voter IDs;[29][30] shutting down polling places in minority neighborhoods;[31] systematically depriving precincts in minority neighborhoods of the resources they need to operate efficiently, such as poll workers and voting machines;[32] and purging voters from the rolls shortly before an election.[33]

Often, voter fraud is cited as a justification for such laws even when the incidence of voter fraud is low. In Iowa, lawmakers passed a strict voter ID law with the potential to disenfranchise 260,000 voters. Out of 1.6 million votes cast in Iowa in 2016, there were only 10 allegations of voter fraud; none were cases of impersonation that a voter ID law could have prevented. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, the architect of the bill, admitted, "We've not experienced widespread voter fraud in Iowa."[34]

In May 2017, President Donald Trump established the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, purportedly for the purpose of preventing voter fraud. Critics have suggested its true purpose is voter suppression. The commission is led by Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach, a staunch advocate of strict voter ID laws and a proponent of the Crosscheck system. Crosscheck is a national database designed to check for voters who are registered in more than one state by comparing names and dates of birth. Researchers at Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and Microsoft found that for every legitimate instance of double registration it finds, Crosscheck's algorithm returns approximately 200 false positives.[35] Kobach has been repeatedly sued by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for trying to restrict voting rights in Kansas.[36][37]

In 2018, David Krupa, 19, a conservative Chicago Southwest Side teenager studying political science and economics decided to run for alderman of the 13th Ward in Chicago, Il. against current alderman Marty Quinn. To get on the ballot, Krupa was required to file 473 valid signatures of ward residents with the Chicago Board of Elections, instead Krupa filed 1,703 signatures. In response to this an organized crew of political workers for House Speaker Michael J. Madigan went door to door with official legal papers, they asked residents to sign an affidavit revoking their signature on Krupa’s petition.[38][39]

The Democratic presidential candidates are gearing up for a lengthy town hall event on CNN covering climate change, where they will discuss a range of plans that will entirely upend the U.S. energy sector.

In the last few months, the candidates have tried to outdo each other as they released ever more aggressive plans on energy and climate change, engaging in an arms race of sorts with trillion-dollar spending plans.

There is still quite a gulf between, say, Vice President Joe Biden’s $1.7 trillion plan and Senator Bernie Sanders’ $16.3 trillion plan and everything in between. There is arguably an even greater ideological difference in the modest carbon tax proposals and R&D clean tech funding from South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, which very much rely on private companies and leave existing energy markets largely untouched, and the more dramatic economic and social transformation embedded in Sen. Sanders’ plan, which, among other things, calls for publicly-owned utilities to lead the way on renewable energy.

But perhaps the most striking thing about the climate plans is where the candidates agree. The proposals range in scope, but they are undoubtedly bold visions for a clean energy transition. It was too long ago that a modest carbon tax was seen as controversial; now the baseline in the Democratic Party is a complete phase out of fossil fuels in the medium- to long-term. The Overton window has very much been moved.

As Bloomberg noted, there are several issues that they all agree on. For instance, they will all rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, which, given the scale of the climate crisis, is child’s play. That’s the bare minimum and almost not worth mentioning, especially since it relied on voluntary commitments anyway. It was also done by the prior Democratic administration so it shouldn’t be seen as any sort of bold proposal for change.

More relevant for the oil and gas sector is the call to end subsidies for fossil fuels, which total as much as $14.7 billion annually, including deductions for intangible drilling costs; last-in, first-out accounting; master-limited partnership tax exemptions; and low-cost royalty and leasing rates on federal lands, among others. Some of this was also proposed by the Obama administration but stalled in Congress.

It may give some oil executives a bit of heartburn to see their subsidies on the chopping block, but even if passed, these measures wouldn’t fundamentally disrupt the industry.

But here is where it gets really tricky if you are an oil and gas driller. Many of the top tier candidates want to revoke the permits or otherwise block major long-distance pipelines, including Keystone XL, Dakota Access, Line 3, Line 5, and essentially any other project of this nature. This will severely damage Canada’s oil sands, which will begin to lose access to the U.S. market. Oil sands producers would only have the Pacific Ocean as their way out.

Moving on to other ambitious proposals. All of the candidates – at least all of the viable ones – have vowed to end drilling on federal lands. This was something Senator Elizabeth Warren came out with early on, and other candidates have followed suit. No new leases for offshore drilling, none for BLM land, etc. The candidates point out that to fundamentally transform the energy system, and to hit climate targets that are becoming exceedingly difficult to reach, oil and gas reserves need to be left in the ground.

Some candidates want a ban on oil exports and a ban on fracking.
Related: UK Offshore Oil & Gas Is About To Boom Again

Many of them have some version of a net-zero emissions target, although the timeframes vary. That means eliminating fossil fuels from the energy system entirely, including full electrification of the transportation fleet.

While much of these ideas target fossil fuels, at the same time the candidates want to invest trillions in renewable energy, cleantech R&D, EV fleets and infrastructure, green manufacturing, and a litany of other initiatives intended to accelerate the transition off of fossil fuels.

This is by no means a comprehensive look at all the details of individual climate proposals. But the point is that the U.S. oil and gas industry would be phased out of existence. Much of the plans are hypothetical, and would require heavy lifts by the U.S. Congress. Passing legislation that overhauls huge sectors of the economy is not something the institution is known for.

But there is plenty of room for executive action, notably on major pipeline infrastructure, fracking, air regulations, and drilling on public lands. The President won’t need to turn to Congress to still upend the oil and gas industry.

It’s telling that in the last few weeks, much has been made of the Trump administration’s regulatory rollback on methane emissions, a signature policy from the Obama administration. It’s a testament to the scope and scale of the climate proposals from the 2020 candidates that regulating methane is such an afterthought, a miniscule policy idea compared to the transformational packages on offer.

she knows full well that all of the phony, baseless angst about voter fraud comes from right wing sources.

It's called a recount.

the blatantly partisan nature of articularly /scalia, in the process.

You as usual are completely putting forth yur opinion, ignorant as it is about the workings of election commissions, as fact.

I have never been wrong and you can't site one time I have been wrong.

The fact that the NRA. Is a front for the gun industry is a fact.