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A real reason why Nazi-ICE is in Minnesota (thelemmy.club)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/boycottus@lemmy.ca
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I'm pretty sure that's a reference to the midterm elections in November 2026

Social media post from Senator Chris Murphy: Pam Bondi just sent a letter to Minnesota officials saying ICE will leave if the state turns over its voter database to Trump. Guess what? This has never been about safety or immigration. It's a pretext for Trump to take over elections in swing states
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[–] 22 points 7 months ago (20 children)

Sorry for the dumb (not Form the US) question: Which information is in a voter database?

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  • [–] 17 points 7 months ago (12 children)

    Name, address, party affiliation, prolly some more identifying information.

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  • [–] 20 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    FWIW, voters in Minnesota do not register a party affiliation. (It varies by state.)

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    Wtf? Why is this stuff even collected? Aren't elections supposed to be anonymous?

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Most countries have some form of electoral roll to prevent fraud. The 'party affiliation' section is a US disease though.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    For real, especially in States with closed primaries. In my state you can only vote in a party primary if you're registered to vote as a member of that party. If I could participate in Democratic primaries without being a Democrat I'd still be unaffiliated.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    But wouldn't it be better to go vote in the Republican primaries? Then you can help influence whether they put in the merely horrible person instead of the actively evil one.

    In fact this seems such an obvious loophole that I'm not sure why this isn't done already? Especially since primaries have such low turnout that it would be much easier to influence.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    It depends on where you are. Like where I am Republicans don't win statewide. It might be somewhat effective if you're organized with others in a closer state? But as an individual, no you're going to get more mileage out of voting in the primaries of the party closer to you in political views.

    Like if I'm closer to Bernie, then what good does it do for me to sabotage the Republican primary if me not voting in the Democratic primary leads to Hillary beating Bernie in the Democratic primary and now it's a Republican I didn't want vs a Democrat I didn't want?

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    No, a lot of information about elections is actually public. Who you vote for is very secret, but your name, address, and the fact that you did or did not vote is often either public or available on request. This is important because if it was just a totally secret thing, there's not much stopping a corrupt election official from dumping as many fake ballots into the total as they like or filling out ballots for people that didn't show up.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    not much stopping a corrupt election official

    In my country, the election officials are thoroughly watched and from various parties to ensure they keep each other in check. It would be near impossible to sneak in extra ballots (at least, a significant amount of ballots that would actually make a difference). There is a voter register but everyone is on that list, you don't need to register to vote.

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    Names and party affiliation. Possibly addresses as well. At least tells them whom to purge, at worst tells them where to find them.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    This is very alien to me, also not from the US. What is party affiliation? And voter registration?

    Like in my country, there is a "vote-registry", which is basically only relevant if you move out or back into the country. It is a "should the government include you to be able to cast a vote" , which is associated with your ordinary government registrerd address. All party "affiliations", or they are memberships here, are handled by the parties themselves.

    Is party affiliation like memberships but centrally registred with the government? Is voting registration not something which is default, but something you have to... Apply for? How is the party affiliation and voter registration linked? You have to include who you intend to vote for?

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Some (but not all) states record party preference (i.e., Democrat or Republican), if provided. You do have to specifically register to vote.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Why do they do that? What is the original reason for it? To people from other democratic countries this sounds very strange.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago

    A lot of States have what's called "Closed Primaries" where they only let people that have registered with their party vote for who will be on the ballot. Ostensibly they do this so say Republicans can't mass join a Democrat primary and skew results by voting for a candidate with no motion that the Republican will easily beat in the general and vice versa.

    In reality it's mostly a tool for party outreach and fundraising. If the Democrats know that 100 Democrats live in this neighborhood and they're like medium propensity voters they might send some volunteers to knock doors in that neighborhood, for example.

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