Mmmmm. Yes, that is definitely a problem. I think the same protections we have against regular citizens coercing the votes of others will still be effective. No letting anyone else see your ballot. No electioneering within X feet of the polling site.
Have the vote be conducted the same way it is in your local town with volunteers setting up a polling station in some room in the prison. Even if the prison really tries to make their prisoners vote for the candidate that is favorable to the prison, they have no way to verify how the prisoners voted. The prisoners can all vote against and then lie when confronted, and there will be no proof either way.
The hard thing to enforce will be making sure people arenāt rewarded or punished simply for the act of voting or not voting. The prison might not know how prisoners voted, but they will know who voted and who did not. They need some kind of monitoring to make sure that there is no special treatment or punishment given to voters or non-voters.
Maybe in the special case of prisons we need some extra measures. Perhaps make it mandatory for all eligible voters go into the booth and cast a ballot, and get instructions to cast a blank one if they donāt want to vote. That way the prison wonāt know who voted.
There will also be issues getting people in prison to register to vote. Who knows what that process will look like. Iām sure there will be a very large effort by non-profits to get voter registration forms to prisoners and then get them out to the boards of elections.
Right now bread has been denied to many federal government employees. Once we reach the point where bread and/or circuses are denied to the critical mass of American citizens, the dam will break. A shutdown canāt last two years without reaching that point.
I think the question really is, do the Democrats have it together enough to hold on until some department thatās been working without pay breaks and walks out.
Because weāre in for two years of the government being closed more than open if the House gives in.
Eh, if it stays down for just another few months EVERYONE is going to quickly notice they donāt get a tax return. Work for the government or no, rich or poor, all will notice that check they were expecting never comes.
I imagine if itās not open by then something will happen.
I figure that if TSA goes away and people canāt fly, businesses will get in a huff real quick. So of course the GOP will change their tune once that happens.
I donāt think the TSA will full on strike. In fact, until I see otherwise, I donāt think huge scale strikes like that are gonna happen at all in the modern era. Culture change? Who knows?
What they will do is die a slow slow death, more and more will call in sick or no call no show, or that new awesome thing the kids are doing these days where they just up and get another job and donāt tell their old employer and never show up again. The remaining TSA will close gates and generally slow down.
Sorry To Bother You summed up the problem the best: āIf you get shown a problem, but have no idea how to control it, then you just decide to get used to the problem.ā
Weāve had more strikes lately that can be successful like Teacherās Strikes, but Americans are pretty hard to get grassroots change on that kind of scale. Personally I think itās because America is so big and so mired by bureaucracy on Federal/State levels to do change through proper channels.
Iām not really hearing about anyone (that doesnāt already have a right-wing agenda) going to the Democrats saying just give them the wall and make this go away.
Which is good, because whatās happening is an attempt to literally break US democracy.
To be fair, Navy Federal Credit Union is offering such assistance:
However, this may not be available to many of those affected as:
You need to be either active duty or veteran military or Coast Guard, or a family member of an active duty or veteran military/Coast Guard member to even be eligible for a Navy Federal Account.
You need a Navy Federal account with direct deposit set up to be eligible for their shutdown assistance loan.
You need to be a Federal government employee
So this disqualifies a number of people who are affected. If you or no one in your family ever served in the military or Coast Guard, you canāt get the Navy Federal account even needed to get this loan. If youāre working for an affected contractor, but not the government itself, you canāt get this loan.
In effect, this probably only benefits those in the Coast Guard as they are the largest group eligible that is currently affected. The military is not affected by the shutdown, so they wonāt need this. In theory veterans currently working as civil servants would also be able to benefit, but I think thatās also a relatively small number of those affected.
There may be other government employee credit unions out there offering such assistance, but I havenāt heard news of any. I only happened to stumble upon Navy Federalās assistance in a random news article about how people are coping with the shutdown.
In addition, news of even this benefit isnāt exactly wide-spread. I do happen have a Navy Federal account (though not with direct deposit as there are no branches near enough to me for it to be useful for day-to-day banking), but havenāt received any sort of notification of this benefit. Itās not even on the Navy Federal home page either last I checked. I only was able to find the details by Googling for them.
Edit: Okay, it is on Navy Fedās homepage, but only as part of a scrolling list of account options that may not even show it when you load up the page at any given time. Whoever made that design decision needs a tongue-lashing as something like this really should be front-and-center on the home page while the shutdown is in effect.
Tangent: I have never visited my credit union since I opened the account. Iām not sure what kind of day-to-day banking needs a physical presence. I moved far away at one point, and even then other credit unions in the same network with a physical presence would presumably have helped me had I needed it.
I often have to deposit cash and checks at a proper branch due to various side businesses I do. I also just like having a proper branch locally just in case I need to talk to an actual human being to take care of a problem.
That said, I could look into what other local credit unions are in the same network with Navy Fed and would offer the same services I get from a local branch. Right now, Iām happy enough with my big bank that has tons of branches and ATMs in my area that Iām not in a rush to change anything, but only because I was eligible for one of their āeliteā accounts via a prior job. If I lose those benefits, Iām definitely going to jump ship.
I have two bank accounts. One with a Federal Credit Union that I was able to join because of my Dad. They have an agreement with 711 for their no fee ATMs. I also have an account with a major bank that has no fee ATMs and branches all over. Iāve also connected the two accounts so I can transfer money from the CU account to the Major Bank account and vice versa.
Itās seems a little confusing but it gives me options.
About the only good thing I can say about having an account at a major bank is that the particular major bank Iām with hasnāt had any big scandals a la Bank of America or Wells Fargo.