Whereas I miss the old Aldi "single use" plastic bags because I'd use them a few dozen times (not necessarily at Aldi) before they either got holes or a strap broke or something. I've still some stashed in places for when I need a decent plastic bag to hold something.

This wasn't about coke zero but about two batch numbers of the zero sugar version of minute maid lemon aid, in cans.

I mean, you could accomplish it, but there's going to have to be a line because to get enough BJs in there's no space for travel time. That's a lot of voters, and she's going to have to be fast to blow enough to tip an election.

could also be made to hate immigrants and queer people.

Less that and more that it turns out a lot of people don't vote based on how their candidate or his party feels about immigrants and queer people. There are even a lot of single issue voters whose single issue isn't immigration or queer people.

The only easy grounds for them to do so with an actual constitutional backing would be that interstate compacts are supposed to be approved by Congress.

Not just that, you then need 3/4 of states to sign off on an amendment before it takes effect. More than 1/4 of states benefit from the electoral college, which makes it a hard sell.

There's also that interstate compact (which if it ever takes effect will be challenged in court on grounds that interstate compacts are supposed to be approved by Congress), which is also highly unlikely to take effect for the same reason - there aren't 270 electoral votes worth of states that are either big enough that the electoral college hurts them or willing to hitch themselves so going along with whatever the two or three largest states want.

I didn't say it necessarily was or should be, but it's definitely closer to the line. Signing a meaningless petition that you support your 1A and 2A rights is a lot farther from voting than making a plan to vote is.

The only closer example I can think of was that Fuel the Vote thing a while back where one city in PA set up "satellite election offices" that had all the functions you'd associate with a polling place (you could go in, register, receive your ballot, fill it out and turn it in all in one go) but technically weren't and so didn't need poll watchers and other things required of polling places. So people set up stands giving away free food in a clear attempt to lure people in to vote, but since they technically gave you the food whether or not you voted and weren't giving it to people in line at a polling place (because giving it to you if you are in line to vote is giving it to you because you are going to vote and would step across that line) it wasn't technically illegal.

So you do live in a state where you are firmly in the minority party, and thus the state going purple can only benefit your party. Imagine you with your current politics moved to California, would you want it to become a purple state?

I think the difference in geography makes a, well, difference. It's just a lot of people stuck in tiny towns that are several miles long in one direction and around 150 yards in the other, most of them up different hollows or branches of hollows. Mass transit that's actually workable would be difficult. Hell, I used to date a woman who was a social worker who did in home adult education and more than a few of her clients had directions to get to them that involved things like turning off the road to drive several miles up a creek bed, because neither federal, state, nor county considered it a place worth running a road to.

I kinda think running a ferry line that went up and down river and across, with each line going from one set of locks to the next with a shuttle to take you from one side of the locks to the other and local busing could work, but only for the places on the Kanawha. But even then going from where I used to live to Charleston would look something like bus->ferry->shuttle->ferry->bus. Going to be hard to make that look attractive compared to a 20 min drive.

And mind you I actually like mass transit. The times I've been to Boston I literally just grab a 7-day pass for the T and take it everywhere, but something like it just doesn't seem practical given the geography and population distribution here.

I have a dog door, they let themselves out when they feel like it, for the most part when and for how long they'd like (it's a fenced yard). The cat learned the dog door by watching them, she also lets herself out.

Sure. Let them out so they can fight stray cats, get preggo, get flees and ticks, and all of that fun stuff…

Mine's spayed and wears a seresto collar (which is easily the most effective flea/tick control I've seen - they're pricey for flea collars but being good for 8 months helps mitigate that. Both dogs and the cat wear them.). Now, she does occasionally get into fights with other cats in the neighborhood but that's largely unavoidable. If it's not going well she runs inside to her dog for comfort.

She was supposed to be an inside cat, but we put in a dog door for the dogs and she figured it out from them. It's a pretty basic one without the bells and whistles and electronic lock controls and triple the price. If it were it wouldn't slow her down much, she'd just come and go under the taller dog.

Yeah, but CAH is cutting it much closer than Musk. Bribing people to sign a petition that says you support basic constitutional rights you already have is a lot farther away from buying votes or buying turnout than what CAH is doing, which is walking as close to the line as they think they can get away with to show just how far out the line is.

Didn't say that.

But the petition is being sold here as "pledging to vote for Trump". which it plainly isn't. It's also been sold in this Lemmy thread as paying voters to sign a petition that only Trump voters would ever agree to sign.

The petition that allegedly only Trump voters would ever agree to sign, only states that you support free speech and gun rights. Whether or not I think Musk actually genuinely supports those things (I don't) is irrelevant, that's what the actual petition says.

I mean, if you owned that 10' ring of property, sure. Presumably digging out 10' of public Street or 10' of his yard against his will would fall under vandalism though.

I didn’t vote in 2020 and it says I did, or it says I’m red-leaning when I’m definitely blue, or whatever.

Realistically they can't know who you voted for in the past. That you voted is public record, what ballots were voted is public record, but not a connection between voter and ballot. So how you lean is basically a guess based on information they could have (given what it says about me I'm guessing that lack of party affiliation and being in an extremely red state (I used to vote a mixed ticket, but solid blue since 2018 on the grounds that anyone affiliating themselves with the same party that could nominate Trump doesn't deserve my vote) are the main factors that drove the assumptions about my leanings that it provided.

Presumably that qualifies as vandalism unless you own 10 feet of property in a ring around his house, which is an uncommon situation. Depending on the wording it might also qualify as attempted kidnapping or unlawful imprisonment or something along those lines.

If only I lived in a swing state. Then my vote could have meaning

You presumably live in a state where you are firmly in the minority party? Otherwise you very definitely don't wish you were in a swing state.

To put it simply, swing states are just the biggest states that are purple enough that you can't safely predict what will happen. States like Texas or California going purple would immediately make them the most important swing state by far.

The GOP is terrified Texas might become a swing state. If through some strange alchemy California were to become a swing state it would be an existential threat to the Democrats.

I love how we’ve managed to come full circle. In the early 1900s buying votes was open and totally normalized.

Literally one of the reasons we switched to a secret ballot (it's less effective to buy votes if you can't know who they voted for) in the first place. The first places to switch started in the 1890s, and the last state to switch over did so in 1950.

The payment is for an unrelated action that only someone voting for your candidate would agree with.

Supporting free speech and gun rights (literally all the petition says) is something only a Trump voter would agree with?

That is buying votes.

No, it's not. Specifically because they aren't actually requiring you to vote - they are paying you to make a public apology, post a tweet, and come up with a plan to vote but not based on whether or not you actually go through with that plan or vote at all. That distinction is the specific legal line they are walking.