#(almost) (i need to get it submitted to a ballot box)

[btssavedmylifeblr]

I forgot to send on my voting story. Ok so my brother and I both got mail in ballots, and let me tell you how we both forgot to mail it in so we just thought to bring them to our voting location. The lady there kinda yelled at us? She was confused and didn't know how to go about it. And honestly I just took it because we were the idiots who didn't mail in our ballots. We had to rip them up and they just us new ones to fill out in person and submit. Not exciting, but a story for void snippet. 👀

Anonymous said: Hi!! I'm so excited for void! I voted today around 30 minutes before the polls closed in my neighborhood because I had to wait for my dad and brother to get home from work since they wanted to go all together hehe. It was a pretty fast process! We just pressed buttons on screens (compared to last election where we had to bubble in everything by hand) plus, I got to keep the stylus that they gave us and it works on phones too! 🥰🥰 Thank you! I love your writing so much 💜💜💜

Anonymous said: I did mine through mail me and my husband did and we went to the post office a little while back and then he took us on a nice little date afterward and we got ice cream! Also I love void💖 keep up the good work

Anonymous said: VOTES FOR VOID??? I love democracy and I love VOID! So since May I've (temporarily) moved back home from New York to Indiana RE: covid; I've voted absentee for the both the primaries and presidential election (I'm still in IN rn...blah). I voted early and mailed in my ballot for the presidential election (about 3 weeks ago). Made sure my family was voting (brother mailed it in, mom dropped off a ballot, and dad did early voting) and encourage them to put up a Biden sign in our yard <3

Anonymous said: HI BEE! I ALSO VOTED TODAY! IM 21 SO THIS IS MY FIRST TIME VOTING FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION (my 18th bday didnt make the cutoff since im a december bday) im so happy to have done my part! I made sure to study up on the judges and policies and everything! Luckily the polling place didn't have a line so i was able to get in, get my ballot, and fill it in right away! I even dragged my mom and cousin to come with me. I made a joke on snapchat to encourage my friends to vote too. It was a pic of my "i voted" sticker with a caption saying "omg youre so sexy when you vote aHaha" -🦙

Anonymous said: this is my first time doing this so, so i hope i’m sending this correctly! i voted early in late september by mail! i live in a swing state, so it’s really important for me to vote and not waste time!! bc of my age, this is my first time voting so i’m really nervous 😅

Anonymous said: I voted by email! I'm overseas so I wasn't sure if my ballot would actually make it through in time, so I decided to go electronically. Had to sign a waiver saying I understand that my vote won't be anonymous but I haven't been given a reason to suspect voter suppression/fraud in my state, so I'm happy I think...!

Anonymous said: hi, i voted early on oct 24th. my absentee ballot didn't come in, so i had to travel back home to vote (~3 hour drive). when we got there, there was a ton of people outside the polling place, but no lines, so i was in and out pretty quick. it was my first time voting, so i had all the candidates i was voting for written down on a tiny receipt so i wouldn't forget 😅. my mom was with me, so she voted too. took a pic with my sticker (mask on for extra covid-ness) and went home. drove back the next afternoon!

whippedforkook said: Hi Bee. 💕 I voted in early October - nearly a month ago! 😱 It’s been really weird with all the lead up to the election because it felt like it should have been done once I cast my ballot! A lot of my friends have volunteered to get out the vote: writing postcards to voters, texting, phone banking, working the polls, curing ballots. I didn’t volunteer at all this year, but I hope that all of my friends’ hard work and everyone else’s is enough. I’m also hoping and praying that I will be in a better place mentally for 2022 so that I too can volunteer. Our work starts with 2020 not ends. 💕 Wishing you well. 💕

begineuphoria said: I went and voted last Friday as it was our last early voting day. No way was I going to wait until today with the crowds of people in my area that still act as if masks are somehow infringing on their rights. 🙄 It was a rather normal experience for the most part. Other than having to use a coffee stir stick to press the buttons on the machine to vote. In and out within five minutes.

Anonymous said: I voted down the street at this pretty park this morning. I got up at 5:30 and it was freezing. Luckily I wore like 30 layers and stood outside for 2 hours. Some nasty orange man supporters were rude but everyone else was pretty nice. A really cute older couple was playing soccer with pine cones and kicked it towards me to play too. Not the worst time tbh.

Anonymous said: Did mail-in voting in California! Extremely exhausting and took forever to research all the propositions - they are notoriously tricky in hiding their flaws and one side tends to outrageously outspend the other. But in the end I felt really good about my research and decisions! No need for you to post a snippet for this story - would like to save that to read sometime in the future ;) Thank you so much for doing this!

joonsgotthejuice said: Votes for void??? I am here! I went last Thursday and it was chaotic bc I kept going past the poll place but the line was soooo long so my mom called me and woke me up like "its pouring rain and the line is super short get up I'm gonna pick you up" so thats the story of how I got dressed in 5 minutes and dragged my ass to vote in the rain <3

Anonymous said: i voted early on thursday it was cold and rainy but i went in the late afternoon and thankfully the only waiting i did was a few minutes for an elevator i got very lucky and while waiting for the results is awful the relief that came from voting in general was just great

Anonymous said: Wheeew the polls just closed and I finally got to cast my ballot yayyy ( I was the one working the polls from earlier) it’s been a really really long day and we actually had surprisingly good turnout. I saw a woman try to vote for someone else who claimed to be “helping” and I saw a woman who I’m pretty sure was on some typa something 👀 Overall though I really I’m really thankful for people like you who encouraged people to get out and vote. I hope the odds are in our favor❤️🤞🏼

chelsea-chee said: Hello Bee! Today surprisingly my elderly father wanted to vote so I brought him out with me. He only cared about voting for Biden, which meant I got to help decide who he should vote for with the rest of the candidates and amendments! Say hello to baby bee for me as well! 💖

Anonymous said: Okay I gonna got a chance to vote today and the process wasn’t that bad actually. I went in just now and it wasn’t that busy( thankfully) so no lines. I’m from Texas and it’s gonna be almost impossible to turn this state blue, but every vote counts! I love that you are getting people to vote and also sharing your experiences as well!

owl-orgy said: Dropped off my mail in ballot at a polling location! I originally wanted to vote early in person because I was worried my signature wouldn’t match closely enough but ended up just turning it in and double checked today to make it said “ballot accepted and counted”!

Anonymous said: I voted in person this afternoon, better late than never I guess. I was gonna go last week but then I got cramps from hell. There was no one in line in front of me, I think my county early voted because it was packed everyday the last few weeks

Anonymous said: I voted early a couple weeks ago. Exciting thing though that did happen was I got both my parents to vote for their first time ever.

Anonymous said: I had a mail in vote. So, I filled it out and dropped it in at the ballot box at my library. (I also checked out books for the first time in years, so I had fun!)

bubblyjiminnie said: I literally just finished voting. Lucky for me, the line and wait wasn’t very long, and it was a nice enough day that the short amount of time I had to spend in line outside of the building wasn’t too bad. My social anxiety when it comes to stuff like this tends to be high but that’s what I get for waiting until Election Day instead of going the mail in route. This was only my second time voting, but I’m glad that I did 😊

Anonymous said: I turned my ballot in last week :) I’m not a big fan of crowds and I hate make spur of the moment choices but despite that the first time I was able to vote back in 08 my Mom pressured me into voting in person because “you’d have to experience it at least once in our life”. And ever since then I comfortably vote by mail. I take my time, do all of my research, listen to music, and best of all don’t have to deal with people.

Anonymous said: here in Washington state it’s super easy to vote. I dropped my ballot off in mid-October and it’s already been accounted for! Mail in voting and drop box voting is fantastic and provides equal opportunity and access. Sad to see some people in red states misinforming Americans about it! We also have a referendum for implementing mandatory sex ed, including teaching respect, empathy and consent as part of the curriculum so I was happy to vote yes on that too!

unionrox006 said: I voted about 2 weeks ago by doing a mail in ballot. The other eligible to vote members of my household did the same. We chose to vote by absentee ballot because both my mom and I have an autoimmune disorder, so we have to be careful going out in the pandemic. Tbh, the ballot layout was a bit confusing at first as was all the paperwork and required IDs and documents. But my dad explained it to me and we got them filled out and mailed off. Kinda mad I didn't get a sticker for it though

bluetostone said: Love this and so excited for the next chp of void! I early voted a few weeks ago and because I live in a pretty rural county I was in and out of my polling place in a few minutes. No sticker though 😢. I live in a swing state so it could go either way in terms of delegates. Just praying everyone is safe tonight as the results roll in...though, won't we not know for sure for a couple of days or weeks?

Anonymous said: My mom, sister, and I received our early voting ballots a while ago and I took the longest to fill mine out because it was making me anxious :,( but I did return it before it was due. I checked our ballot statuses and mine and my moms were accepted but my sister’s said they hadn’t received hers back. Then she got another ballot so she filled that one out too and I took it yesterday 👍👍 I think she got two because she changed her address late so they sent two?

vixsynsblog said: Non-interesting voter story: I'm paranoid and live in a highly divided area, so I filed mail-in ASAP, mailed it a few days after cause neighbors are nosy and don't understand boundaries. Was able to track my ballot through my credit company, which was nice. Only thing I was missing was my sticker. Never got one✊😔. So I had to improvise and write it in pen on my disposable mask. I'm working all this week so if riots break out from either side, I'll be at work. Prayers for the safety of others🙏

______

Waaah!!! Thank you all for voting!! You are all my heroes. I am so grateful and proud of you. I’m sorry I ran out of time to respond to you individually. I’m going to drop two big scenes from Chapter 7 in gratitude (one of which will be familiar to my patrons and one won’t). I’m hopeful I will have the whole next chapter out very soon. Love you all!

Void spoilers below the cut.

When you wake up in the morning, there are still no signed HR forms in your messages. Had you been a fool to think they were interested? How much time does it take to decide such a thing? Perhaps just by putting the idea out there explicitly, it had lost all of its taboo appeal. 

There is a calendar reminder waiting for you: Today is chili pepper pollinating day. At least this gives you an excuse to talk to Hoseok. 

You find the science officer in the lab as always, sitting with his knee up against his chest. Hoseok doesn’t look well. He’s got dark circles under his eyes.

“Hey, um…” You shuffle your feet. Want to fuck me? No wait…“You don’t look good. Were you here all night?” you ask.

He blinks at you, bleary-eyed. “Um, was I? Yeah.. I suppose. Lost track of time.” He rubs his eyes, before looking you up and down, then casting his gaze back to the floor. 

All you want to do is ask about the forms. Or the meeting. Or what he thinks of you now. But you don’t. “I need to pollinate the chili peppers today.” Usually Hoseok is the person who assists with that. “But I can get one of the other guys to do it if you need the sleep.”

“No!” Hoseok lurches forward, standing up a bit to rapidly and needing to put his hand back on the bench to steady himself. “I mean, I’m fine.” 

You should disgaree with him. He is exhausted. But you’d like more time to talk to him. 

Pollinating the chili peppers is both time-sensitive and time-consuming, hence why it took two of you to get the job done. There were no insects on your ship to do the job for you and if they didn’t get pollinated, they wouldn’t bear any fruit. Your chili peppers were your favorite crop. Not only a vital source of Vitamin C, but all your food benefitted from having a bit of spice added to it. 

You and Hoseok head for the greenhouse together. The intital set-up gives you something to talk about in the beginning. Hoseok gathers the pollen from one flower onto a paintbrush, then hands it over to you to paint onto the stigmas of each little flower on the next plant in the line.

Slowly the conversation dries up as you fall into a silent rhythm. Other than just enjoying the chili peppers, you must admit that this was one of your favorite tasks on the ship because of the high likelihood that the two of you would brush hands peridically. Always gave you butterflies. But today he seems extra intent on keeping his distance from you. Was he disgusted by you now? His hands are trembling.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” 

His hand twitches so hard that a little rain of yellow pollen cascades onto the floor. He curses in frustration before turning to face you. “Are you sure you’re okay?” 

“Um, yes, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“This, um, plan of yours…” he gestures to the vague tension in the air. “It doesn’t feel like you.”

“I’m trying to save the mission. That has always been my top priority.”

“Yeah, I’m still not clear on how this benefits the mission.”

“Yoongi said…” you start to say, but are cut off my Hoseok’s derisive snort. 

“Look, if you’re in love with Yoongi, just go date him, okay? Don’t feel obligated to include the rest of us out of pity.” 

You frown. “I’m not… I’m not in love with him. It’s just sex. Just biology.” 

“This isn’t you!” Hoseok argues back. “You hated the idea of anyone of us ever treating you that way. And now you just want all of us to… to… use you like that?”  He splutters out the end of the sentence.

“No one is using me! This is my plan! I’m in charge!”

He sighs. “Well, I can’t be a part of it. Excuse me.”

______

Taehyung finds you in the gym. It’s good to see him up and about, even if his arm is still in a sling. 

“Hey, so I need to talk to you about this, um, ape sex thing.” He fishes awkwardly into his pockets and pulls out his tablet.  Maybe Jimin was right. Is Taehyung going to be the first to take you up on your offer?

You pause your jog on the elliptical machine. You wish you weren’t so sweaty and gross for this conversation. Taehyung is such an intimidatingly attractive man with those strong eyebrows and that perfect skin. 

Taehyung opens up the tablet and flips to the form. It’s happening. He’s going to sign the form. Shit. Then what will you do? It’s one thing to say you want to have sex with your whole crew, but what if he’s hoping to go right now? You need a shower. 

Taehyung has really nice hands. Long strong fingers delicately navigating the touch screen. It seems totally improbable that a man this attractive would be into you, even if you were the only woman in the universe. It just adds to your suspicions that hormones are driving everyone crazy. Perhaps if you slept with him once, he’d lose all interest. 

He finds the form and then turns his gaze up to you, staring you down with those eyes. It’s a good thing that Taehyung rarely turns his full gaze on you, because it is almost too much to bear. Shit, is he just going to sign it? Is he waiting for you to give him some sort of signal?

“You can’t do this to Jimin,” he says.

“What?” Not what you were expecting. “Do what to Jimin?”

“This.” He gestures over the HR form. “Signing these forms with everyone. Having sex with everyone. You’re going to destroy Jimin.”

“Jimin’s the one who suggested this whole thing in the first place.” It’s a lie. You know its a lie. Or at least a gross exaggeration. But Jimin was the one who first brought up the idea of sharing. All for the benefit of the man in front of you now. 

“No way.” Taehyung scoffs, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow. “No way was it Jimin’s idea that you sleep with the whole crew.” 

“Well…” You can’t bear his gaze anymore and look down at the floor. “He wanted me to sleep with you.”

That surprises Taehyung. He puts down the tablet. “What? Why would he want that?”

This is awkward. “He, um, thinks you’re in love with me.”

“What?” There is only surprise on Taehyung’s face. It’s actually a relief to see that Taehyung is just as shocked by that idea as you were. “Why does he think that?”

“I don’t know…” You feel kind of dumb now. Of course, Taehyung doesn’t feel that way about you. Look at him. “Cause you told him you were jealous. Cause you can’t stand to be in the same room as us…”

Taehyung bites his lip. “Oh, um, shit, sorry, that’s not what I meant.”

If Taehyung isn’t jealous of Jimin... 

“Taehyung…” He looks up, biting his lip. “What did you mean? Who are you jealous of?” 

Taehyung’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead he reaches for his microphone and mutes it. Out of respect, you mute yours as well. He glances toward the camera in the corner of the room, then stands up and begins unzipping his jumpsuit. 

“Um…” You are distracted by the golden arms that peak from either side of the tank top as the zipper reaches his groin. “What are you doing?”

“Need something to block the camera.”

“We have towels,” you mutter.  But he’s already stripping out of his shirt. The musculature of his back ripples. He hangs the shirt off of the camera to block the rest of the room from view. 

“Yeah, but this way anyone watching will think we’re having sex.” His chest is just as attractive as his back and you flush at the sight of it. Mercifully, he zips back into his jumpsuit as he returns to his position in front of the exercise machine. 

“You want them to think we’re having sex?”

“Don’t you? It plays right into your whole save the mission with bonobo sex plan.”

“I suppose.” Though the plan was also supposed to be that there would be no more secrets between the crew. “What plan of yours does it play into?”

“The one where Jimin doesn’t realize I’m in love with him.”

“You’ve never tried to tell him?”

Taehyung laughs wryly and shakes his head. “How would that conversation go? Hey man, I know we’ve known each other for years and I’ve already seen you naked and that you just think of me as a friend, but I’m in love with you. I know that’s awkward but now you have to spend the next twelve years with me, knowing that I’m attracted to you when you don’t feel the same way.” Taehyung sighs. “Doesn’t sound like a good plan to me. If he doesn’t feel the same way, I’ve just ruined the friendship for nothing and then I don’t even have that.”

“Yeah… I get that.”  There’s something touching about realizing that Taehyung has been fighting the same battle as you for the last two years. 

“I couldn’t tell anyone before launch because what if they wouldn’t let me go then? You know?”

“Yeah, the director wasn’t big on sending anyone who might ‘complicate��� the mission.” The two of you share a sad knowing smile. 

“Yeah… And I thought it would be fine, you know? I like women too. I’d just date women until launch and no one would know. I wasn’t planning on falling in love with my roommate.”

“I don’t think any of us really knew what this would be like.”

“I knew it was going to be a problem. I should have pulled out…” 

Your mind flashes back to that moment of doubt when Hoseok talked you into still coming on the mission.

“But I couldn’t just let him go off into space without me. Even if he’d never feel the same way, at least he’d still be in my life.”

The emotion in Taehyung’s words makes your eyes begin to mist. “You really do love him.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung sighs again. “But he’s in love with you.”

“Well, he thinks he is.”

“What does that mean?”

“He only feels like that about me cause he thinks I’m the only option.”  You wonder if maybe he would feel differently if he knew about Taehyung’s feelings. 

Taehyung frowns and shakes his head. “You don’t give him enough credit.”

“Oh come on, you know him. How many women did he date while we were in training?”

“A few…” 

“And how many of them was he in love with before he found the next one?”  

Taehyung bites his lip. He can’t really argue with that. “So why are you with him then, if you don’t think it’s real?”

You shrug, rubbing your arm. “He wants me. It’s nice to feel wanted, I guess.”

“You know you could have that with any man on this ship right?”

You scoff. “They’re all suffering the same delusion. It’s only-available-vagina syndrome. I just want us all to fuck and get it out in the open. Maybe if we could get it out of our system, they would see I’m nothing special. And then we can get back to the mission.”

Taehyung eyes you up and down. “You don’t give yourself enough credit either.”

You shrug. “You wait and see. Jimin will get bored of me. They all will.”

The two of you both slump backwards in your seats, mulling over your shared woes.  Taehyung bends down and picks up the tablet again. “So what should I do with this?”

“Obivously, you don’t have to sign it. I should have realized that not everyone would be interested.”

“Jimin thinks I’m in love with you?”

“Yeah…”

“Is it okay if we let him think that for now? At least until I figure out how to tell him the truth?”

“Okay.”

Taehyung smiles and signs the bottom of the form, then sends it to you. Your phone lights up with a message. “Thank you,” he murmurs before he leaves. 

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

At 106, MacCene Grimmett is one of the oldest voters in the state of Utah. Though women didn’t have the right to vote when she was born in 1913, by the time she was of voting age, the 19th Amendment had passed. She has voted in every election since, she told her local Fox affiliate, including the Utah County municipal general election last November.

But that time, the centenarian cast her ballot in a novel way: She voted via an app.

America is 174 days away from a presidential election. It’s also in the middle of a pandemic that upended normal life, requiring mass shutdowns and social distancing. Those two things don’t exactly jive.

Having millions of Americans stand in crowded polling places for hours to cast a ballot on Election Day sounds like the makings of a public health disaster — especially if there is a second surge of COVID-19 infections in the fall, as some experts predict. So now, election officials are looking for ways to hold elections remotely. One option that has been proposed is voting via an app on a smartphone or electronic device, just like Grimmett did last fall (though so far, states seem to only be considering this option for certain groups of voters, such as voters with disabilities).

It seems like an obvious solution: With so much of our daily lives now virtual, why couldn’t our elections be moved online too?

Voting online or via an app has even been tested in small elections a handful of times, but election security experts and even the founder of one of the most prominent voting apps on the market, Voatz, say there’s a laundry list of reasons why this technology isn’t ready for prime time. (Not to mention the fact that 19 percent of Americans still don’t have a smartphone, and as many as 21.3 million Americans still lack access to broadband internet, according to the Federal Communications Commission.)1

“I don’t know what I can say to explain this better: This is an incredibly dangerous idea,” said Mike Specter, a computer science Ph.D. student at MIT who has researched voting technology.

Specter told me there are a number of security and privacy concerns with voting online, which includes voting via an app, and that no technology so far has been able to solve these issues.

For starters, there is currently no way to ensure that each individual voter’s device is secure. Malware covertly installed on a voter’s phone could potentially alter the voter’s ballot or prevent it from being properly transmitted, Specter said. And even if the device is clean, election security experts say there are too many steps required to ensure that the ballot a voter submits online is the one actually counted. With a paper ballot, a voter marks their vote by hand and can visually verify it’s correct. A hard copy is also retained, which can then be audited. But with a digital vote, there are many steps that can create a gap between the vote cast and the vote counted.

“If you think about it, we have several versions of what that vote is and there is no way to verify that all those versions are the same,” said Duncan Buell, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of South Carolina. “We have one version, which is what the voter sees in the form. We have another version, which is what gets transmitted by the software. We have a third version, which is the version that gets received by the storage system and then we have another version, which is what gets printed out and tallied by the election officials.”

And if the vote is intercepted at any point in that chain, there is no way to verify that a change had been made. It’d be like passing your paper ballot down a chain of strangers and trusting that nobody adjusted it before the vote was counted.

For the Utah County municipal election in which Grimmett voted by app, military and overseas voters and voters with disabilities could vote remotely using Voatz. But a report earlier this year by Specter and his colleagues at MIT found multiple security vulnerabilities in the chain of information that a hacker could exploit, including learning how a user voted, changing the user’s ballot or even accessing the user’s private information.

Voatz claimed the researchers’ methodology was flawed, but every online voting platform has faced similar challenges, according to Maggie MacAlpine, co-founder of Nordic Innovation Labs, a security consultancy firm that specializes in safeguarding elections. MacAlpine said when election officials have run trials of other online voting software in the past, they invited white hat hackers (computer security experts who attempt to hack into a system the purpose of assessing vulnerabilities) to test the software live.

“They have always gotten in with laughable ease,” MacAlpine said. “Every single time.”

It’s a longstanding problem, too. In 2010, for example, Washington, D.C., was considering a new online voting platform and invited researchers from the University of Michigan to test it. But when the Michigan fight song began playing after every ballot was successfully cast, it was clear the system wasn’t as secure as officials had hoped. And as the MIT analysis of Voatz shows, things haven’t gotten much better in the last decade.

MacAlpine noted that even if there was a completely secure system, there’s currently no way to have an online vote that is both anonymous and auditable. An anonymous vote protects against voter coercion, suppression, or vote selling. An auditable vote protects against any errors or breaches, because officials can conduct a recount. But that combination, which is possible with a paper ballot, isn’t yet possible online.

Voatz, though not the only online voting vendor in the market, has attracted a lot of scrutiny because it has been used by multiple state and local elections to facilitate absentee voting. The company’s co-founder and CEO, Nimit Sawhney, takes issue with a lot of the criticism the company has received, saying there are multiple layers to security and accuracy that protect against the issues raised. But even Sawhney said that at this point, the company couldn’t handle this fall’s presidential election.

“Nationwide would be a huge stretch,” Sawhney said. “We are a tiny little startup. There are about 25 people on our team. For us to be able to claim that we can do elections for 200 million people on a smartphone? That would be naive.”

So what’s a country to do when a pandemic is forcing us apart, but an online election is still a science fiction dream? Each of the experts I spoke to said the same thing: vote by mail.

Planning needs to start now, to make sure ballots are printed off and mailed in time, and that voters know their options for casting a ballot. In-person voting will still most likely take place as well. But experts told me if we want those well-spaced lines for the ballot boxes to be less than a few miles long, we’ll have to vastly ramp up mail-in voting by November.

“We’re going to have a hard time doing it this year,” Buell said. “But we have almost no choice.”

[patriotsnet]

How Many Registered Republicans In The Us

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-registered-republicans-in-the-us/

How Many Registered Republicans In The Us

How Many Republican Senators Are There In California

In Battleground States, Newly Registered Democrats Are Outnumbering Newly Registered Republicans

4.1/5

Total 100

Beside above, how many Republicans are in California? In February 2019, California had 19,978,449 registered voters, comprising 79.09% of its total eligible voters. Of those registered voters, 8,612,368 were registered Democrats, and 4,709,851 were Republicans.

In this regard, who are the Republican senators in California?

California elects United States senators to Class 1 and Class 3. The state has been represented by 44 people in the Senate since it was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850. Its current U.S. senators are Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris.

Who are my senators in California?

Kamala Harris Since;2017 Dianne Feinstein

Closed Primaries Are When Only Registered Democrats From January 2007 To January 2011 There Were More Democrats

This quiz will ask you questions about your political beliefs. Ive seen a lot where it says theyre a registered democrat . 39.66 percent of voters are registered with that party. The most recent poll at the time of writing gives a d+11 advantage. It is not a straightforward question. Prove it by acing our democrat or republican quiz. What republican and democrats believe. Lets start with this example. Altogether, there are 10 states with more registered independents than either democrats or republicans. For example, in kentucky1 as of 8/15/2018, 49.8% of registered voters are democrats while only 41.6% are republicans. The analysis in this report draws on more than 10,000 interviews with registered voters in 2017 and tens of thousands of interviews conducted in previous years (see. Being a registered democrat or republican, or for that matter socialist, green or independent, simply means that when you filled out your voter registration form you checked that box on the form. There are many pressing issues in.

Our Ruling: Partly False

The claim in the post is rated PARTLY FALSE. The tweet that appears in viral Facebook posts cites correct vote totals for Trump and Biden . But it falsely reports the number of registered voters. More than 159Â;million registered voters cast ballots in the general election, out of 239 million eligible voters. So it is completely possible that Trump and Biden would post that many total votes.Â;

Also Check: Are More Democrats Or Republicans On Welfare

Republicans Are Watching Their States Back Weed And Theyre Not Sold

Montana, South Dakota and Mississippi are among the states that have recently passed legalization referendums.

06/27/2021 07:01 AM EDT

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A growing number of Republican senators represent states that have legalized recreational or medical cannabis six approved or expanded marijuana in some form just since November. But without their support in Congress to make up for likely Democratic defectors, weed falls critically short of the 60 votes needed to advance legislation.

Montanas Steve Daines and South Dakotas Mike Rounds, both Republicans, said they dont support comprehensive federal cannabis reform, no matter what voters back home voted for.

I oppose it, said Daines, who is otherwise a lead sponsor of the SAFE Banking Act, which would make it easier for the cannabis industry to access financial services, such as bank accounts and small business loans. The people in Montana decided they want to have it legal in our state, and thats why I support the SAFE Banking Act as well its the right thing to do but I dont support federal legalization.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is vowing to push a far-reaching federal legalization bill, even if President Joe Biden isnt on board. But before he can corner the White House on the issue, Schumer must convince at least 10 Republicans possibly more, since Democrats like Sens. Jon Tester and Jeanne Shaheen are unlikely to back the measure to join his cause.

Why Most Gop Senators Are Likely To Oppose Conviction

Despite strong bipartisan elite fury and dismay over Trumps conduct leading up to and during the January 6 crisis, the base hasnt abandoned him in any significant way. Yes, hes losing some support across the board, but not enough to embolden Republican rebels. A new Axios-Ipsos survey dramatically shows the current public opinion dynamics: a majority of Americans now favor removing Trump from office, but a majority of Republicans still think Trump was right to challenge his election loss, support him, dont blame him for the Capitol mob and want him to be the Republican nominee in 2024. Among the more than one-third of Republicans who appear to identify with Trump more than with their party, support for Trump 2024 which of course conviction in the Senate would make impossible is at an astronomical 92 percent.

Republican senators will be reluctant to fight that sentiment, particularly since there are so many ways they could vote against convicting Trump without condoning his conduct. As his presidency quickly recedes into the background, Senate sentiment for formally burying him may recede as well.

2020 United States Senate elections

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Voter Registration And Turnout Totals

The post is correct in its accounting of Trump’s vote totals. He received more than 74 million votes. The vote total for Biden, 81 million, also is correct, putting the overall total at more than 155 million votes cast.

What the tweets get wrong is the number of voters. There are more than 234 million people eligible to vote;in the U.S. Not all of those people are registered voters, however.

In its thread of tweets, the account MSM Fact Checking;provided conflicting calculations without citing sources. The;initial;post;claimed there were;133 million registered voters.;In another tweet, it;claimed there were 213 million registered voters with a voter turnout rate of 62.5%.;All of these numbers are false.

We know, after weeks of counting, that there were roughly 159 million ballots cast in the presidential election. According to the Election Project, this accounts for 66.7% of the eligible voting population of;239 million Americans..

The U.S. Census Bureau publishes voter registration totals for the nation; its 2020 numbers are not yet available.;

But for example,;in the 2016 presidential election, there were 157 million registered voters. Of those, 137.5 million voted. And there were 224 million American citizens age 18 or older.;All;figures are higher than the number in the claim regarding the 2020 election, when voter registration and turnout broke records.

Fact check:No, Joe Biden’s brother-in-law does not own Dominion Voting Systems

Registered Voters In America

How many registered voters are there in America?

Have you ever wondered about how many people are registered? And to which party? I did some digging and found this information on voters in America.

The University of California, Santa Barbaras American Presidency Project found that 235,248,000 people were of voting age in America as of the 2012 election.; The turnout of voters in 2012 was 129,151,152 making it 54.9%.This is reported by Google for more information.Estimates show more than 58 percent of eligible voters went to the polls during the 2016 election. Nearly breaking the turnout rate set during the last presidential election in 2012.

Democrats

There are about 43,140,758 registered Democrats in America.;Gallup.com says 31% of voters are Democrats

Republicans

There are about 30,700,138 registered Republican voters in America.;Gallup.com says 24% of voters are Republicans

Independents;

According to Gallup.com about 42% of voters claim to be Independents.;According to Huffington Post 40% of American voters identify as Independents. Both reports are fairly close. Close enough for a rough calculation. So independent voters number about 58,448,769 voters.

Summarizing:;

It will be interesting to watch how woman and minorities vote this November. They have the most to lose by not voting.Rick Mercier; updated 2/2020

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Number Of Registered Voters By State 2021

Voter registration is the requirement that a person eligible to vote registers on an electoral roll before that person is entitled or permitted to vote. Voter registration may be automatic or may require each eligible person to submit an application. Registration varies between jurisdictions.

Almost 92 million eligible Americans did not vote in the 2016 presidential election. Voter registration and participation are crucial for the nations democracy to function properly and for the US government to provide fair representation.

Low voter registration numbers and low voter turnout can be the result of several factors. To increase voter registration and participation, barriers to registering to vote, and barriers to voting must be eliminated, such as additional restrictions on identification forms and reforms to ensure all eligible ballots will be securely counted. Additionally, those alienated from the democratic process or discouraged from voting must feel that their voice is heard by their leaders and encouraged to participate in elections.

Some pro-voter policies that have shown to increase voter registration and participation are:

Automatic voter registration.

Senators Committees And Other Legislative Groups

Nearly 4,600 Colorado Republicans changed party affiliation after insurrection at US Capitol

The Senates 63 members represent districts from across New York State. Senators belong to a single conference and one or more political parties.

Weve made it easy to filter senators by party, committee, and the other legislative groups in which they gather to consider the merits of proposed legislation and to better understand complex legislative issues.

Senator has new policy idea

Idea is drafted into a Bill

Bill undergoes committee process

Senate and Assembly pass bill

Bill is signed by Governor

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Voting In Primary And Caucus Elections

States choose a candidate to run for president through primary elections, caucuses, or both. Depending on your states voting rules, your states primary or caucus elections can be open, closed, or a combination of both. The type of primary or caucus your state holds can affect your voting eligibility:

During an open primary or caucus, people can vote for a candidate of any political party.

During a closed primary or caucus, only voters registered with that party can take part and vote.

Semi-open and semi-closed primaries and caucuses are variations of the two main types.

Lots Of Consistency Elsewhere

In the rest of the country, there was much more consistency between party registration totals and the 2016 election outcome, with only three non-Southern states voting against the grain. On election eve in Pennsylvania, there were 915,081 more registered Democrats than Republicans; Trump carried the state by 44,292 votes. In West Virginia, there were 175,867 more registered Democrats; Trump won by 300,577 votes. And in New Hampshire, there were 24,232 more registered Republicans than Democrats in the fall of 2016, but Hillary Clinton took the state by 2,736 votes. Thats it. The other 22 party registration states outside the South were carried in the presidential balloting by the party with more registered voters than the other.

And in many of these in sync states, the registration advantage in recent years has grown more Republican or Democratic as the case may be, augmented by a healthy increase in independents.

The registration trend line in California is a microcosm of sorts of party registration in the nation as whole. Democrats are running ahead and the ranks of the independents are growing. Yet registered voters in both parties appear to be widely engaged. That was the case in 2016, and likely will be again in 2018, with Trump flogging issues to rouse his base. In short, this is a highly partisan era when party registration totals, and the trends that go with them, are well worth watching.

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Gallup: Democrats Now Outnumber Republicans By 9 Percentage Points Thanks To Independents

I think what we have to do as a party is battle the damage to the Democratic brand, Democratic National Committee Chairman Jamie Harrison said on The Daily Beasts . Gallup reported Wednesday that, at least relatively speaking, the Democratic brand is doing pretty good.

In the first quarter of 2021, 49 percent of U.S. adults identified as Democrats or independents with Democratic leanings, versus 40 percent for Republicans and GOP leaders, Gallup said. The 9-percentage-point Democratic advantage is the largest Gallup has measured since the fourth quarter of 2012. In recent years, Democratic advantages have typically been between 4 and 6 percentage points.

New Gallup polling finds that in the first quarter of 2021, an average of 49% of Americans identify with/lean toward the Democratic Party, versus 40 percent for Republicans.

Thats the largest gap since 2012:

Greg Sargent

Party identification, polled on every Gallup survey, is something that we think is important to track to give a sense to the relevant strength of the two parties at any one point in time and how party preferences are responding to events,Gallup senior editor Jeff Jones told USA Today.

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At Least 60 Afghans And 13 Us Service Members Killed By Suicide Bombers And Gunmen Outside Kabul Airport: Us Officials

Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabulâs airport Thursday, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. At least 60 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops were killed, Afghan and U.S. officials said.

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Cook Partisan Voting Index

Another metric measuring party preference is the Cook Partisan Voting Index . Cook PVIs are calculated by comparing a state’s average Democratic Party or Republican Party share of the two-party presidential vote in the past two presidential elections to the nation’s average share of the same. PVIs for the states over time can be used to show the trends of U.S. states towards, or away from, one party or the other.

The Fossil Fuel Industrys Funding Of Denial

CAPs analysis of data from the Center for Responsive Politics shows that these 139 climate science deniers have accepted more than $61 million in lifetime direct contributions from the oil, gas, and coal industries, which comes out to an average of $442,293 per elected official of Congress that denies climate change. This figure includes all contributions above the Federal Election Commissions mandated reporting threshold of $200 from management, employees, and political action committees in the fossil fuel industries. Not included in this data are the many other avenues available to fossil fuel interests to influence campaigns and elected officials. For example, oil, gas, and coal companies spent heavily during the 2020 election cycle to keep the Senate under the control of former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a known climate denierwith major oil companies like Valero, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips contributing more than $1 million each to the conservative Senate Leadership Fund.

This analysis only shows direct, publicly disclosed contributions to federal candidates. The fossil fuel industry regularly spends millions of dollars of dark money advertising to the public; shaping corporate decisions; lobbying members of Congress; and otherwise funding the infrastructure that makes climate denial politically feasible and even profitable.

Read Also: How Many Republicans Voted To Impeach Trump In The House

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Democratic Edge In Party Identification Narrows Slightly

The balance of party identification among registered voters has remained fairly stable over the past quarter century. Still, there have been modest fluctuations: The new analysis, based on combined telephone surveys from 2018 and 2019, finds that the Democratic Partys advantage in party identification has narrowed since 2017.

Overall, 34% of registered voters identify as independent, compared with 33% who identify as Democrats and 29% who identify as Republicans. The share of registered voters who identify with the Republican Party is up 3 percentage points, from 26% in 2017, while there has been no change in the share who identify as Democrats. The share of voters who identify as independents is 3 points lower than it was in 2017.

When independents and those who dont align with either major party are included, 49% of all registered voters say they either identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party; slightly fewer say they identify with or lean toward the GOP. In 2017, the Democratic Party enjoyed a wider 8-point advantage in leaned party identification .

Democrats have held the edge in party identification among registered voters since 2004. The current balance of leaned party identification is similar to where it stood in 2016 when 48% of voters identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic and 44% identified with or leaned toward the GOP and in 2012 . See detailed tables.

Generational Divides In Partisanship

Why American voters in Israel can impact U.S. election

Generation continues to be a dividing line in American politics, with Millennials more likely than older generations to associate with the Democratic Party. However, over the past few years the Democratic Party has lost some ground among Millennials, even as it has improved its standing among the oldest cohort of adults, the Silent Generation. Gen Xers and Baby Boomers have seen less change in their partisan preferences and remain closely divided between the two major parties.

Overall, 54% of Millennial registered voters say they identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with 38% who identify with or lean toward the GOP. In 2017, the Democratic Party held a wider 59% t0 32% advantage among this group. However, the Democratic Partys standing with Millennials is about the same as it was at earlier points, including 2014.

Voters in the Silent Generation are now about equally likely to identify with or lean toward the GOP as the Democratic Party . This marks a change from 2017, when the GOP held a 52% to 43% advantage in leaned party identification among the oldest voters. Still, the partisan leanings of Silent voters have fluctuated over the past few decades, and there have been other moments where the two parties ran about even or the Democratic Party held a narrow advantage since 1994.

Across all generations, women remain more likely than men to associate with the Democratic Party.

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[ismaelqcho280-blog]

9 Ways Mediabox Hd Apk Can Make You Invincible

Listing of most prominent smartphone applications

We do not commonly suggest streaming services to people. After all, everybody has their very own choices and also there are plenty of excellent choices out there.

The app additionally allows you share jobs and entire classifications with other individuals. This makes it wonderful for family usage, small groups at work, or other such groups. It's likewise wonderful for things like grocery store lists, honey-do listings, or any type of other listing. You get all of the features free of charge, albeit in a somewhat limited capability, such as two pointers per task (costs makes that infinite). Some other outstanding choices in the area consist of Todoist, Microsoft To Do, Any.do, and Ike.

The apple iphone XR was the top-selling smartphone model last quarter.

And also, you can publish your pictures to Imgur without limits for sharing to various places. However, there are a lot of amazing choices that don't cost you anything. These solutions are typically sustained by advertising, sponsorship of some type, or another thing. However, there are still some absolutely exceptional apps available that you can utilize free of charge without paying a penny. This is a best all-time listing, type of like hall of fame, so the majority of these apps aren't necessarily new.

Then pick "Digital Wellness" alongside the icon of an umbrella. The attributes are instantly secured by a four-digit pass code so kids can not turn them off on their own. From there, moms and dads can decide to turn on Screen Time Monitoring, which restricts individuals to two hours on the application per day, and Restricted Mode, which obstructs some web content. Bear in mind, Restricted Setting isn't foolproof, as well as even with the filter on, children utilizing the application by themselves could find age-inappropriate videos. As of 2020, there's a Family Safety and security Mode attribute that lets moms and dads connect their very own accounts to their youngsters to manage time frame as well as Limited Setting, and also it includes straight messages as well.

Top Apps Worldwide for Q1 2019 by Downloads

YouTube is the biggest host of videos on earth and also provides monetization choices to customers. I believe the rewards as well as coins earningvia coins is in fact a rip-off. I in fact made 70.00 through the app after playing their coin video games. I have still yet to get anything, so no 7-10 is not accurate.

With a monthly subscription, you can pay attention to albums in order, remove advertisements, and download songs for offline listening. When you have a smartphone at your fingertips, making life considerably much easier is not just possible however probable. Apps are fun, as well as nowadays, they're additionally quite darn beneficial to automate the majority of life's ordinary processes. Use these amazing apps to get the liquor off the beaten track-- like managing to-dos, intending dishes, and making payments-- and also obtain your time back.

Data Go by Google, Ranking: 4.6.

Or you can use your phone calls or social media fans to find close friends already on the app. Lots of youngsters on Tik Tok like to produce video clips, but plenty of individuals do not upload themselves-- they just use the application to locate and comply with content makers.

SHAREit is the very first non-Google performance application to make the listing. This decade has been a time of amazing growth for the mobile economic situation. With a 5% rise in downloads, and also 15% development in customer invest (leaving out third-party Android) year-over-year in 2019 this looks readied to continue in 2020. For a much deeper check out the most effective apps and also games of 2019, examine our blog post on the mobile highlights of 2019.

Price: Free on iphone App Store

Which apps are most successful?

At a rumored $400 price tag, it will likely be the iPhone for people that are anti-Face ID and big-screened phones. But if you want a bigger phone with the latest bells and whistles, then it's a great time to buy any of the phones we recommend above, as Apple likely won't update its core range until September 2020.

Nonetheless, we truly like the combination of YouTube Music and YouTube. For one price, you obtain limitless songs from YouTube Songs with sufficient tracks to compete with Spotify and also Apple Music.

Submit surfing is something everybody unavoidably has (or wants) to do, so you may also do it with a qualified, amazing documents web browser. Strong Traveler is pretty much like it gets in the file explorer apps world. It includes Product Layout, archiving assistance, assistance for the most preferred cloud solutions, as well as even some more power individual stuff like FTP, SFPT, WebDav, and also SMB/CIFS assistance. It looks great, it's extremely secure, and it simply functions well. There is a 14-day cost-free test with a $2.99 cost at the end of it.

What apps are trending?

iPhone and Android are two different systems, so it's natively impossible to get Android apps on iPhone (iPhone 7 and iPhone 6S). And Android apps are mainly designed for Android phones. Also, you cannot install applications that are not authorized and owned by Apple.

The 15 Best Two-Player Mobile Gamings to Play Anywhere.

The number of mobile apps downloaded and install in 2017 is 1 Billion. What it does is allow you check your credit score absolutely free. On top of that, the app will certainly alert you when there are major modifications to your credit report. It is an OTT service offering ad-supported unabridged attribute films for free. The Application is had by Screen Media Films (SMF), so you can anticipate a constant inflow of movies distributed by the SMF. The service also organizes internet series as well as initial programs which can be streamed without paying a single penny.

What is replacing Showbox?

Crackle. Sony's Crackle is one of the most popular free movie apps on mobile. It boasts a bunch of hit titles, various TV shows, and a bunch of genres to choose from. It even has Nielson tracking software so you can be a part of the stats when it comes to popularity.

I was looking for totally free IPTV service for flicks, boxsets as well as live TELEVISION. It has a built-in library available to conserve your favored movies as well as enjoy it later on. Without making use of HDD or data manager space of your smartphone you can conserve movies or dramas into the collection of the application. This application is the heart of countless customers as well as boosting each day as a result of the best service giving. Additionally, it lets you enjoy films trailer as well as know other needed details concerning the movie.

Truecaller APK For Android

The charm of the website is the top search box which is timely as well as easy. One can quickly find the episode number which they desire to watch. There are many video services, legal ones, there not a great deal of cash and some have ads to pay for some content or there is membership. SHOT MOVIE HUB. FROM GOOGLE PLAY SHOP. SHORT 15 SECOND ADS BEFORE YOU BEGINNING THE FILM. NO TELEVISION REVEALS BUT ALMOST JUST AS GOOD AS SHOWBOX FILM COLLECTION AND ALL LEGAL. ShowBox is Dead for good, the programmers have actually stopped the assistance of the Application.

Regardless of which kind motion picture you love to enjoy, you are https://mediaboxhd.site going to discovered right here all category films like Action, comedy, computer animation, adventure, as well as biography and so on . My Download Tube can be your famous choice if you can endure that. Else, you can consider my other choices for top totally free motion picture streaming sites no Register. TorOWL is a brand-new film streaming site, no register needed. Therefore, you can arrange flicks easily making use of numerous filters like groups, formats, ranking, ballots and also even more.

Yes films.

The solutions of Hulu into Live TV began in 2017, before that it simply use to hold a series of TV programs both new as well as old, motion picture as well as various other infomercial programs. It works as a crossbreed of Sling TELEVISION and also Netflix, using both TELEVISION Shows in addition to Online TV to its individuals.

Can you go to jail for streaming movies?

One more method to use Netflix without a Credit card is by using a Netflix gift card. You can buy Netflix gift cards on Amazon or eBay and you can also get them as a gift from your parents or friends. After grabbing your gift card, you need to enter your voucher id to activate it and use Netflix.

Titanium TV as well has a huge catalog of films and TV shows. From the lately released films to the latest episodes, you will certainly find all of it here. I am also impressed with the quality of video clip playback this application offers.

How can I watch movies online for free on my phone?

Technically, yes, movie box is illegal. You are streaming a movie/tv show without the original owner's permission. MovieBox does not have the rights to show owner's copyrighted material. As for getting caught, however, the chances are slim to none.

I needed to assemble this list because Showbox lately obtained shut down permanently. Showbox APK was just one of the most widely utilized streaming apps for flicks and also TELEVISION shows. Given that Showbox is not working anymore, it just made good sense to locate its substitutes.

[stephvisblog]

1. Please read back through your blog and list all the things you did

After our class on the 11th of September, we started brainstorming ideas for both pop up events and activities we could do around campus to get the Voting Is Sexy message out. We brought these sketches to class on the 14th to critique. A couple of my ideas included painting the rock and as a pop-up idea have a couple desks.

The week commencing on the 17th of September we all began working on color palettes inside and outside class that we could use for the rest of the semester. Developing these color palettes was a really important step to ensuring that Voting Is Sexy became its own almost distinguishable brand. After some brainstorming outside of class, the graphics team, myself included, came together and sorted through palettes we thought were visually working. We decided on keeping a strong purple as our primary color, two strong secondary back up colors and a subtler accent color. I helped collate a file that we could share on the google doc so everyone had access to the specific hex codes so all the different team’s work would remain consistent. After class and over the weekend the graphics team began considering wall graphics that could be displayed around stamps that would be useful in both engaging with students and remind people of our presence. Over the weekend we shared our sketches online and were able to begin critiquing parts we thought were successful.

In the Tuesday class, the week commencing on the 24th of September, the graphics team critiqued the sketches in person and we were able to explain parts that might not have been easy to understand just from seeing online. We pinpointed the key ideas we thought would be most impressive as wall graphics and split off to work on these. I presented the idea of having an interactive map of the United States where anyone walking past could stick a pin in where they planned to vote. Each state had the specific dates for both sending in your absentee ballot/online (if that was an option) and attached coming off the map were QR codes linked to that state’s online application. This was also a means to subconsciously remind them that where they were putting their pin in is where they should be voting! I continued working on this over the weekend and the graphics team met up that Sunday to see everyone’s progress and start printing off some photos to put on the walls around stamps. It was also a chance to figure out where would be putting all these images up on the walls and in relation to one another/

The week commencing on the 1st of October I continued working on the interactive map and reorganizing information, keeping it as minimalist and understandable as possible as there was a lot of content being displayed. Ryan and I met up outside of class before Thursday to work on buttons to hand out at the lecture. In the Thursday class I worked on sketches and signs we could use for the lecture to encourage people to engage with our table and funny signs playing off some of our Voting Is Sexy puns. I completed two signs which we ended up printing and using.

The week commencing on the 8th of October, in the Tuesday class I helped work on signage for the lecture series that week, in addition to considering further button ideas. I wasn’t present in the Thursday class but helped before and after the lecture with registering people and engaging with stamps students.

The week commencing on the 15th of October I began working on the Stamps For Stamps Absentee Ballot box that we could place inside the office where students could post their absentee ballots and we would provide them with stamps. We created a simple graphic with a small explanation and covered a box with VOS colors. In Thursday’s class and over the weekend I created a post for the Instagram that broke down the five steps to absentee voting, based off a US letter size graphic we had pinned up around stamps. I simplified the information into 5 square graphics that could be posted on Instagram as a group that viewers could flick through. Each graphic presented the information in a fun screen size appropriate manner to summarize the dense information. Our absentee ballot group critiqued these graphics in our Sunday meeting.

The week commencing on the 22nd of October I finalized the graphics and sent them to Ryan ready to post on the Instagram. I then began creating handouts for the lecture on Thursday. These were the “don’t be spooked” flyers we could hand out during lecture reminding people of our Voting Is Sexy after hours, I also made these into candy size appropriate attachments. Over the weekend I worked on breaking down another graphic for the Instagram to encourage people to think about their plan for November 6th. Again, this was a five-part graphic which Instagram viewers could scroll between. The images encouraged people to consider which polling location they will vote at, how long it will take them to get there, when in the day they will vote, and who with.

The week commencing on the 29th of October I finished up this Instagram 5-part graphic and sent it to Ryan. I then proceeded to create another graphic for the Instagram to emphasize the point that you can’t take a selfie in the polling booth but to encourage people afterwards to emphasize them participating in voting.

2. From your current vantage point, what parts of your work are you most proud of and why?

I’m most proud of my Interactive Map graphic! To be completely honest, I think this was partially because I spent the longest on this graphic so I felt like I was able to achieve an overall better piece of work. I think what made me the proudest was to see how well it went down with students in Stamps. It was clear a lot of people were engaging with the graphic which was so exciting to see, and to see the pins increase over the time was so rewarding. I also think that it broke down a lot of complex information successfully which is so important when it comes to the topic of voting, as there’s so much information out there! Managing to simplify it in a more readable visual manner made the design clear to navigate and got people engaged and educated on their states deadlines.

3. When was voting the sexiest for you? Why?

Finding out the results in Michigan and realizing that the turnout among Michigan students had increased by such a large margin!! Also, the energy on campus of the day of the mid-terms made it feel like everyone was buzzing around excited to vote and informed on their decisions. Having my friends text me when they’d voted further confirmed the importance of what our class has been trying to do all semester!

4. What parts of our collective work did you feel was most impactful? Why?

I think having a presence at the lecture series almost every week and just being able to engage with the stamps community was very impactful. It was especially impactful seeing/hearing everyone’s reactions to our videos that we were able to play beforehand and to receive direct response this way. In addition, the work I made for the Instagram felt more impactful than other graphics purely in the sense that you could see people liking, commenting and sharing our material. Also, as I was logged into the Instagram account from my phone, I was able to receive notifications when people were viewing our profile/liking our content so It was especially impactful seeing how these numbers increased as the mid-terms got closer.

5. What surprised you?

One of the bigger surprises I found was actually how difficult it was to find out the most basic information regarding voting. For example, when researching for the map’s graphics having to find out that multiple states vary in time and date for certain deadlines and work out which states do and don’t have online registration seemed overly complex. Michigan purposely seemed to be making it hard for people to vote and find out essential information.

6. What disappointed you?

I think I was partially disappointed with the lack of time we had from the beginning of the semester up until the election and how that impacted the pressure on the class. Unfortunately, due to my current internship alongside of school work, being available outside of class to help at pop-up events and stay after class wasn’t extremely easy, therefore I was disappointed that I couldn’t help out in these other ways. I’m also such a perfectionist that it’s hard for me to submit work when I know there’s more I can do, but obviously there was time pressure to get out as much content before the mid-terms as possible, so I was disappointed slightly in myself that I couldn’t accept not everything was going to be perfect in my eyes. At the same time, I think if as a class we had set more concrete deadlines for certain graphics and had more of a structure for when certain material needed to go out the pressure could have been elevated

7. Do you think our class added something unique to the collective efforts around increasing voter participation? How would you describe our contribution?

I definitely think we added a unique spin surrounding increasing voter participation. I think playing off this phrase “Voting Is Sexy” was extremely successfully in both building our own cohesive brand/image but also advertising Voting as irresistible to our peers. Having videos play off these innuendos was an extremely comical way to go after a big issue and I think it successfully grabbed younger audience’s attention in the sense that it made you feel as if you weren’t WOKE if you weren’t exercising your right.

[walterblythe87-blog]

Are we all really ready?

As I was in the shower the other day, I was listening to Patriot Soap Box on YouTube.  It was their afternoon live broadcast.  The women who was speaking was reading a post from an anon on VOAT.  It struck me pretty deep because it put a lot of things going on into perspective.  I will share the post with all you fine folk.  Submitted by an ANON.

“For a starter, if I understand things correctly, America is about to see over 50,000 people arrested for crimes that as they are revealed will obliterate doubts or calls for leniency.

As long as the coming ‘purge’ of the swamp (think FISA, Human Trafficking, etc.) is truly as portrayed, it is a good thing.

Most of the people I guess are “higher up”, and they need to go, but what of their lesser minions? Will they be arrested too? Are they going to just watch? Will they run or hide? Will they help or refuse to? How likely is it that they, if civilians, will fight and, if official/enforcement, will mutiny and fight? What will the ultra-left wing “resistors” do?

What would that mean for Patriots? Are you really prepared?

Arresting over 50,000 people scattered across the entire country, some in every State, is a very large and complex operation. Complex logistics and security, yes, but consider the legal aspects involved. To do this whole thing in a Constitutional manner with minimum damage to innocents requires very precise logical thinking, lots of research, and tons of preparation such as the Executive order re: military tribunals which takes effect first thing of 2019 or the declaration of a National Emergency on December 21, 2017 because of the damage these perps were/are doing, can do, and were about to do.

Add to this the complexity of communications with the public - such as Q and his drops. * How do we prepare the people for something like this? * What do we tell them so as to minimize interference and maximize cooperation? * When should what be released and how? Think about that. Information, propaganda, directions, successes. * How well are the releases getting through? How well are they being accepted? Think penetration rate. * What is the best approach to take, the most effective both in penetration and content? Lots of complexity. Lots of analysis. Many small decisions, some minute by minute. Think logically. Connect the dots.

On top of all that, add (the fact?) that there are 50,000+ moving targets to keep track of so that when the time comes, mobilization and take down for all at each location can happen almost simultaneously. That is a very tall order, regardless of the fact that this has been in the works for many years (even back in the 1950's).

Q says, "we have it all". Intelligence (NSA?) helps for sure. Great (military) minds and strategists, yep. Lots of impressive technology, uh huh. And of course POTUS! But is that really it? What if there's more?

[Q #918 - “Wait until you learn who has been talking to you here”]

What if the baker has a secret ingredient?

Remember Jade Helm 15? -- The acronym JADE HELM stands for: → an App: Joint Assistance for Deployment Execution → plus one module within the app: Homeland Eradication of Local Militants. One app, one module, many functions. What are those functions? How many other apps and modules are there? What do they do?

IMO, Jade Helm (2015) was partially a test of an AI to do (among other things) pretty much the exact thing discussed above - monitor and track people in real time via audio, analog, digital input and guide individual take-out teams on the ground. This while also guiding all the teams in the entire operation and while tracking/reporting their positions & progress, predicting and adjusting as situations require. [DJ at Level9News did an excellent job on this & it is well worth the listen -- [https://www.level9news.com/caravan-to-midnight-episode-309-jade-helm-decoded/] ... just separate the robot mechanics from the AI system. IMO. the latter is much further along than the former]

One task or function of this AI is to, “Predict human behavior and act before it occurs.” How does that fit in with Q-drops?

It seems to me this operation is utilizing a military AI, similar to Jade Helm but improved. This may be a fascinating topic and certainly is a huge advantage as to how they can win the battle(s) before engaging. It is also why the op should succeed. It would also explain why or how the plan/op thus far seems to be progressing like a very well played, almost flawless, chess game.

But... Connect the dots. Think logically.

Once the People have the government back (crooked politicians thrown out), where will the financial and corporate execs be? Are not some of these to go also? What about all the corporations and systems run by or owned by the perps?

What if, for example, the top folks at Google fall? Under Executive Order 13818 “Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption” [https://www.federalregister.gov/executive-order/13818] what happens to their extensive personal property? What happens to Google? Who will be in charge?

What happens when the leaders of however many large conglomerates lose their assets and go away? Is it 'game over, let's divide up the spoils'? Or does it initiate the big reset? Or is it both?

Don't get me wrong, under the circumstances, I'm OK with all of that. Really I am. Grateful even. So long as I'm not one of the “spoils”.

All of which underscores the main point & most important fact that we the People cannot afford to relax and let anything like this happen again.

Something big is coming out of all this, much more than you realize and even more powerful and pervasive than before.

[Q+ #2118] -- “there was a time when...”

September is Disaster Preparedness Month. IMO, the Emergency Broadcasting System test (delayed until on Oct 3) will be just that, a test. Would you advertise when you're going to mount an operation of this scope? No, you'd test one of the main (and critical) systems first, and then deploy. It could be 10 minutes later, 1 day, or 10 days, but only after the success of the test is assessed.

Or, skip the test and deploy beforehand. Either way, the big hurdle, IMO, concerns the November elections. What if some of the perps are on the ballot? Unless they've resigned & are not running, which I doubt is the case, do you arrest them before the elections? Or wait until after? If done before, along with timely revelations, the people should understand, but how will ballots be adjusted? Do it after, the people will wonder and there will be a need to re-do the elections and what happens as we wait for those? Either way, it seems to me we're going to need special elections. Meanwhile, who's in charge? Does the military fill-in? Think Martial Law and for how long?

Here's another view on this: [https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-09-23-emergency-report-signed-executive-orders-reveal-trump-is-planning-mass-arrests-military-tribunals-for-deep-state-traitors-like-comey-clinton-and-obama.html] -- 09/23/18 -- EMERGENCY REPORT: Signed Executive Orders reveal Trump is planning mass arrests, military tribunals for deep state traitors like Comey, Clinton and Obama

What is phase +2? Dissolve the Fed and institute a cashless cryptocurrency society? What is phase +3? “Full Spectrum Dominance”? How does WiFi 5g and internet of things fit in? It does, you know. Everything online, all the time, tracked to you and what you do or use. Here's an astute clue: PEARL HARBOR 2.0 -- [https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/pearl-harbor-2-0/]

Increase your attention span. Expand you're field of view. The information has been out there for years.

Mr X says: “Tell him the coming change defies all imagination. We are living through history.” [https://divinecosmos.com/davids-blog/22005-stunning-new-briefings-spy-satellites-down-deep-state-arrests-finally-imminent/]

[Q #1870] -- “This is MUCH BIGGER than even AUTISTS can imagine (MUCH BIGGER!” [Q #1761] -- “Bigger than you realize.” [Q #1658] -- “This is bigger than people can possibly imagine.” [Q #1214] -- “Bigger than you can imagine.” [Q #1103] -- “This is BIGGER than you think.” [Q #1097] -- “Bigger than you know.” [Q #1072] -- “Bigger than you can imagine.” [Q #1032] -- “Bigger than you know.” [Q #772] -- “THIS IS BIGGER THAN ANYONE CAN IMAGINE” [Q #668] -- “THIS IS BIGGER THAN ANYONE CAN IMAGINE.”

Think logically. Connect the dots.

If the country is truly given back to the People, can the people keep it? We lost it once already. Are the People ready and willing to do the work required? Think Constitution. Think Federalist Papers.

And if the country/government is not given back, can the People take it back? Under these circumstances, I think it unlikely but worth a really solid try.

If memory serves (I cannot find the docs at this time) it was Samuel Adams, who while at and participating in the Constitutional Convention, wrote home to his wife saying, (not exact quote but should be close enough to get the point across), 'The success of this “grand experiment” that we are embarking upon depends on every man putting the good of his country above his own.’

Patriots, are you really ready? Be vigilant. Be prepared. In God We Trust”

WOW! When you really get to the core of the matter, it will chill you to the bone.  We don’t know what to expect or how the world will be after all of this happens.  I personally don’t think that we will be set into an AI and cryptocurrency spiral of a new world, but yet again we don’t know.  I have already been prepping and setting up my survival gear, stocking ammo, so on and so forth.  I’m not trying to scary anyone here, but we most certainly need to be ready and prepared to face anything.  Q has been telling us and showing us tweets of these left wing extremists saying that they have mass scale riots planned if Kavanaugh gets confirmed, and that’s just about ABORTION! Imagine how the world is going to react when the human trafficking stuff all starts to come out.  I think most people will be shocked and come aboard the side of the good, but there will be a small portion of people who do not believe it and they will think it is Donald Trump being an Authoritative dictator who is just eliminating his political opposition.  Stay the course and trust the plan.  With that being said fellow patriots, stay vigilante, stay safe.  See something say something and in God We Trust!

-Walter Blythe a.k.a. Wolfie

[whatch3macallit]

How much did vote splitting matter in the 2018 Ontario election?

Analysis of the impact of vote splitting on the 2018 Ontario election

[Note: Bigger images here]

The night of the election, like much of the stop-Ford crowd, I poured over the nail-biting riding-by-riding results and lamented the way vote-splitting acted to strengthen Ford's majority. 

The morning after the election, I wondered what would happen if we could re-do the election, but this time with a better grasp of strategic voting. Still soldiering through a cold, I sat in bed on my laptop with an Excel sheet open and started pouring over the riding-by-riding vote statistics, published on the Global News website by the Canadian Press, with excellent graphic representations by Lucas Timmons.

Methods

I started by collecting screenshots of the poll-by-poll results in every riding the PCs claimed, as well as those  they came very close to claiming.

I used those screenshots to input data regarding vote counts for only the three major parties -- the PCs, NDP, and the Liberals -- into the Excel sheet; selecting ridings where the the combined NDP and Liberal vote counts outnumbered the PCs'. 

I then calculated the number of votes that the second-place party lost by (Switch #). I then expressed this number as a percentage of the third-place party's support (Switch %). Thus, these results can be read as "If [Switch #] ([Switch %]) of [third place party] supporters switched their votes to the [second place party], then the [second place party] would have claimed this riding rather than the PCs."  

Once I had completed this analysis for the selected ridings, I realized that the amount of third-place supporters that would have had to jump ship to deny the PCs a victory ranged anywhere from 2% (very realistic) to well over 80% (very unrealistic). Noticing this, I decided to stratify the total number of seat changes based on Switch %. I called it "percent change tolerance (c.t.)". Using this, I was able to simulate different seat projections with progressively increasing Switch %. 

Results

Based on my analysis, in order to turn the tide of the election from a PC Majority to a PC "Minority" wherein the PCs would control exactly 50% of the seats in the house, 1 in 3 supporters of third-place candidates would have needed to switch their votes to the second-place candidate. Keep in mind this number is a blanket-level maximum of sorts -- in some ridings as little as 1 in 20 could have changed their votes to turn the tide in their particular riding.

To get the PCs down to 60 seats (3 less than a majority), 2 in 5 third-place supporters would have needed to switch. Extrapolating further, for the NDP to win a minority government, as much as half of third-place supporters would have needed to switch votes.

There was little change beyond this point -- while more and more switched votes resulted in a stronger NDP Minority, even at 75% c.t. the NDP were unable to clinch a majority government, due in part to strong second-place Liberal showings still managing keeping seats out of their hands, despite Kathleen Wynne's early concession speech.

Limitations

I will be the first to recognize the limitations of this analysis.

Firstly (and this is something that I genuinely did not anticipate when I began this analysis), the number of votes in each riding that were amassed by Green Party candidates and other, left-field candidates was not insignificant. While in almost every riding these were "wasted" votes, if I was to repeat this analysis, I would incorporate them into the analysis in some way. These were people who showed up to the polls presumably with the intention of voting as a "protest" against "mainsteam" party leaders, candidates, and platforms. Despite the fact that in our first-past-the-post system their votes were only marginally more valuable than another person who didn't vote at all, the very fact that they made time to arrive at the polling station and submit a valid ballot should not be overlooked.

This is especially true with regards to Green Party supporters, of which there were frequently anywhere from 1500-3000 or more per riding (representing 4.6% of the popular vote and a similar proportion of the vote in many ridings). Given the relatively larger ideological, political, and platform-based divide between Greens and PCs compared to the Greens and the NDP or Liberals; I believe it would be wrong to assume that every Green voter would be adamantly opposed to voting more strategically to block a PC win in their riding. Thus, if taken into account, the Green vote would likely have reduced the "change tolerance" required for seat changes to occur in the simulation.

Secondly, this analysis depends on the idea that NDP supporters would be willing to vote Liberal (and vice-versa) to stop a PC win in their riding. Throughout the election, this has indeed seemed to be the case, especially considering the similarity in platforms between the two parties. Furthermore, none of the simulated election re-do scenarios depend on 100% vote switching. However, this was a possible source of error I thought would be worthy of mention. 

Third, this analysis does not account for voter turnout in each riding (which, by the way, can be found here). The assumption here is that eligible voters who did not submit ballots would have voted in identical proportions as those that did, which, while possible, is unlikely. No-shows tend to be younger, more left-leaning voters, but we cannot say with certainty that was the case in this election, nor can we incorporate any non-voter data without published data on this population.  

Furthermore, as previously alluded, this analysis works with the idea that the only people who's minds could be changed to vote strategically were 1) people who voted at all in the first place and 2) only those who voted for the NDP or Liberals, presumably in the hopes that their preferred candidate would win the seat. Green voters, left-field voters, and no-shows have the potential to alter these results considerably. 

Discussion + Conclusions

Seeing this analysis and recognizing it's limitations, I leave it to the reader to decide how much the results of the election could realistically have been changed. 

For those that consider themselves activist members of the capital-L Left (or even the Center / Center-Left), perhaps these numbers can serve as tangible goals for the future. Knowing that educating 1 in 3 would-be voters about the perils of voting un-strategically, or better informing 1 in 3 would-be voters of the strategic vote in their particular riding could have changed the results of the election, how is a member of the Left / Center / Center-Left to react? Optimists and those that believe in the power of people to inform one another and bring about change may feel that this was a very achievable target, especially if they see the untapped potential in converting would-be Green voters and coaxing out left-leaning no-shows. Others, however, may throw their hands up in despair at such a target, deeming it unrealistic. 

Whatever camp you fall in, however, it seems clear that an NDP Majority remained far out of reach. Vote splitting was highly unlikely to have contributed towards stealing a majority government from the NDP.

An interesting finding was that Liberal support was surprisingly high in many ridings, even resulting in many second place finishes, despite the much-hyped Orange Surge and Wynne's early concession speech. Perhaps this says a lot about people who were afraid to get out of their comfort zone -- who saw voting NDP as a potential "risk" despite strategic voting advice saying otherwise in many ridings. I imagine a long-time Liberal supporter standing at the ballot box, who arrived with the intention of voting NDP, but felt at the last second (with good intention) that the best way to stop Ford was still to vote Liberal, the way they had always done. Moreover, seeing the Liberals' strong showing in the province in spite of Wynne's early declaration of defeat leaves it as a toss-up whether this event helped or hurt when it comes to vote splitting. On one hand, if she had not admit defeat (assuming this would have resulted in stronger Liberal support), the Liberals may have been able to capture many ridings in which they ultimately ended in second place. On the other hand, stronger Liberal support could have resulted in "more severe" vote splitting in many ridings where the NDP narrowly missed out on a win. 

Finally, I think it is clear from this and many other election analyses that every vote, and every non-vote, matters. Some riding results were decided by less than 100 votes.

Indeed, when it comes to elections like this one, even silence is deafening... and political deafness is unacceptable.

[syrtissolutions]

A MEDICAID EXPANSION ROUND-UP

During the course of the 2016 Presidential campaign and shortly after entering office, President Trump was set on repealing the ACA's provisions for Medicaid expansion. As a matter of fact, President Trump and the supervisor of The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Seema Verma, are presently considering waivers to the Medicaid program that the prior administration rejected. In spite of the Trump administrations unsuccessful efforts to reform Medicaid on the federal level, a number of states are making attempts to expand their programs. Below is a summary of states in various stages of expansion discussions.

STATES THAT ARE CONSIDERING MEDICAID EXPANSION

Nebraska:

Over the last six years, any attempts to expand Nebraska's Medicaid program have failed because of the Republican leadership. Republican Governors, Pete Ricketts and his predecessor Dave Heineman both argued that the state could not afford to expand Medicaid. In addition, they think that expanding Medicaid would favor able-bodied citizens as opposed to low-income residents, for whom the program was designed.

However, that may all change this November at the polls. Right now, there are several healthcare associations and advocacy groups in the process of gathering signatures from citizens to secure a proposal under the Insure the Good Life Petition. Having seen the effectiveness of Maine's ballot initiative, proponents in Nebraska are gaining confidence that they will generate a similar result. In order for the proposal to be featured on the ballot, a total of 85,000 signatures from registered voters are required by July 6, 2018. According to Insure the Good Life planners, citizens have been receptive to the idea of expanding Medicaid.

Idaho: Despite opposition from the Republican-leaning legislature, Idaho activists are seeking to expand their Medicaid program to 78,000 residents under the ACA with a ballot initiative. Expanding the program would serve to cover Idahoans who fall into a coverage gap because they make too much money to be eligible for Medicaid but not enough to be given subsidized health insurance in the exchange.

In order to get on the November 6th ballot, advocacy groups had to secure a minimum of 56,192 signatures from 18 districts around the state by May 1, 2018. The advocacy groups submitted the signatures before the deadline and say they have the required threshold needed to land a place on November's ballot. At this point, the signatures will need to be authenticated by county clerks before June 30th, in order for the expansion proposal to be voted on.

While expectations are high among supporters, implementation of expansion will fall on the governor and state lawmakers; additionally, they have the authority to overturn voter-passed initiatives. Republican candidate, Rep. Raul Labrador will oppose the expansion initiative if he is elected. According to Labrador," I think that they need to be informed about what Medicaid expansion would do for the state. If you look at every single state that has expanded Medicaid, they're spending more money than they expected to spend ... and that's taking away money from all the other needs."

Utah: Despite having the available federal funding and the states Republican Governor, Gary Herbert's ( R - UT) support of Medicaid expansion, there has been enough resistance from the state legislature in Utah to prevent any expansion momentum. Supporters of expanding Medicaid in Utah pushed back by passing a ballot initiative much like Maine's.

Aside from that, Governor Herbert also endorsed the HB472 bill. The bill seeks authorization from the federal government to expand his states Medicaid program to 100% of the federal poverty level (FPL) while also implementing work requirements in order to deal with the coverage gap. Expanding that states program to 100% of the FPL would extend coverage to 72,000 residents by 2020 instead of 150,000 under 138% FPL. If the bill successfully passes, Utah's out of pocket costs would be far less than if their program expanded to 138% FPL.

Arkansas proposed a similar plan that would have capped eligibility at poverty level instead of 138% of the FPL. CMS did not sign off on the request and it is unlikely that CMS will support the governor's bill since the federal government has only approved these types of requests under the condition that states expand to 138% of the FPL.

While the governor's administration would like to get approval for the bill, Utah voters will also have an opportunity to weigh in at the ballot boxes in November to fully expand Medicaid to the 138% FPL.

Virginia: In February, The Virginia House of Delegates voted and approved a budget adopting ACA Medicaid expansion along with work requirements for enrollees. However, Virginia's Senate budget didn't include arrangements for expansion. Due to the split support for Medicaid expansion, the Virginia legislature was unable to finalize a budget. Because of this, the implementation of Medicaid expansion and Virginia's FY 2019 budget are currently deadlocked. It has been almost two months since Virginia's General Assembly adjourned without consensus.

On May 14th, the Senate met for a special session to discuss a spending plan and the Senate Finance Committee will proceed with work on the budget today. The entire Senate will reconvene on May 22. In order for Virginia to expand its Medicaid program, there will need to be a majority vote in both the House and Senate. If Virginia lawmakers cannot come to an agreement by June 30th, the state will experience its first government shutdown.

LEGISLATIVE DEADLOCK IN MAINE DESPITE ADOPTING MEDICAID EXPANSION

Maine's Medicaid program, MainCare, was approved for expansion last November through a ballot initiative. Voters supported the expansion by 59%. However, for 80,000 low-income citizens who would have been eligible for coverage, the state missed the state plan amendment submission deadline to CMS (April 3, 2018). The legislature is currently facing a deadlock as a result of Governor LePage's (R) resistance to expansion.

After the vote, the governor declared, "this fiscally irresponsible Medicaid expansion will be ruinous to Maine's budget."

Under the law, it is estimated that Maine would spend $55,000,000 yearly on the program and the federal government would cover at least 90% of the cost of MainCare's new enrollees. LePage asserts that the cost of the expansion is double the amount estimated by the state legislature and refuses to implement the plan unless his stipulations are met.

LePage's stipulations include:

• That taxes will not increase • Stabilization money funds won't be utilized • The funding mechanism will be ongoing • Waiting lists for the disabled and elderly are fulfilled prior to Medicaid eligibility expansion.

As a result of Governor LePage's resistance, Maine Equal Justice Partners (MEJP) has submitted a lawsuit against DHHS for failure to act. MEJP argues that the administration is refusing residents coverage that is mandated by law. They are afraid that an estimated 70,000 low-income residents seeking coverage will not be able to enroll by the next deadline, July 2, 2018. Maine's State Attorney General, Janet Mills, declined to represent the governor in the lawsuit. Even so, she did permit LePage's request to seek outside counsel for representation in the case.

The landscape of Medicaid is changing as reformists submit waivers and implement work requirements. Additionally, Republican leadership across the country is resisting Medicaid expansion, strongly believing that it goes against the programs original purpose. In spite of the GOP's opposition, there is a tremendous amount of activity amongst expansion advocates to expand their state's Medicaid programs. Through ballot initiatives, voters are stepping out in front of their legislatures to voice their support for expansion at the polls this coming fall.

Click here to discover more. 

[trendingnewsb]

How Trump Conquered FacebookWithout Russian Ads

It’s not every day that a former work colleague gets retweeted by the president of the United States.

Last Friday, Rob Goldman, a vice president inside Facebook’s Ads team, rather ill-advisedly published a series of tweets that seemed to confirm the Trump administration’s allegations regarding the recent indictments of 13 Russian nationals by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. To wit, the tweets said that the online advertising campaign led by the shadowy Internet Research Agency was meant to divide the American people, not influence the 2016 election.

Antonio García Martínez (@antoniogm) is an Ideas contributor for WIRED. Before turning to writing, he dropped out of a doctoral program in physics to work on Goldman Sachs’ credit trading desk, then joined the Silicon Valley startup world, where he founded his own startup (acquired by Twitter in 2011) and finally joined Facebook’s early monetization team, where he headed the company's targeting efforts. His 2016 memoir, Chaos Monkeys, was a New York Times best seller and NPR Best Book of the Year, and his writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, The Guardian, and The Washington Post. He splits his time between a sailboat on the San Francisco Bay and a yurt in Washington’s San Juan Islands.

You’re probably skeptical of Rob’s claim, and I don’t blame you. The world looks very different to people outside the belly of Facebook’s monetization beast. But when you’re on the inside, like Rob is and like I was, and you have access to the revenue dashboards detailing every ring of the cash register, your worldview tends to follow what advertising data can and cannot tell you.

From this worldview, it's still not clear how much influence the IRA had with its Facebook ads (which, as others have pointed out, is just one small part of the huge propaganda campaign that Mueller is currently investigating). But no matter how you look at them, Russia’s Facebook ads were almost certainly less consequential than the Trump campaign’s mastery of two critical parts of the Facebook advertising infrastructure: The ads auction, and a benign-sounding but actually Orwellian product called Custom Audiences (and its diabolical little brother, Lookalike Audiences). Both of which sound incredibly dull, until you realize that the fate of our 242-year-old experiment in democracy once depended on them, and surely will again.

Like many things at Facebook, the ads auction is a version of something Google built first. As on Google, Facebook has a piece of ad real estate that it’s auctioning off, and potential advertisers submit a piece of ad creative, a targeting spec for their ideal user, and a bid for what they’re willing to pay to obtain a desired response (such as a click, a like, or a comment). Rather than simply reward that ad position to the highest bidder, though, Facebook uses a complex model that considers both the dollar value of each bid as well as how good a piece of clickbait (or view-bait, or comment-bait) the corresponding ad is. If Facebook’s model thinks your ad is 10 times more likely to engage a user than another company’s ad, then your effective bid at auction is considered 10 times higher than a company willing to pay the same dollar amount.

A canny marketer with really engaging (or outraging) content can goose their effective purchasing power at the ads auction, piggybacking on Facebook’s estimation of their clickbaitiness to win many more auctions (for the same or less money) than an unengaging competitor. That’s why, if you’ve noticed a News Feed ad that’s pulling out all the stops (via provocative stock photography or other gimcrackery) to get you to click on it, it’s partly because the advertiser is aiming to pump up their engagement levels and increase their exposure, all without paying any more money.

During the run-up to the election, the Trump and Clinton campaigns bid ruthlessly for the same online real estate in front of the same swing-state voters. But because Trump used provocative content to stoke social media buzz, and he was better able to drive likes, comments, and shares than Clinton, his bids received a boost from Facebook’s click model, effectively winning him more media for less money. In essence, Clinton was paying Manhattan prices for the square footage on your smartphone’s screen, while Trump was paying Detroit prices. Facebook users in swing states who felt Trump had taken over their news feeds may not have been hallucinating.

(Speaking of Manhattan vs. Detroit prices, there are some (very nonmetaphorical) differences in media costs across the country that also impacted Trump’s ability to reach voters. Broadly, advertising costs in rural, out-of-the-way areas are considerably less than in hotly contested, dense urban areas. As each campaign tried to mobilize its base, largely rural Trump voters were probably cheaper to reach than Clinton’s urban voters. Consider Germantown, Pa. (a Philly suburb Clinton won by a landslide) vs. Belmont County, Ohio (a rural county Trump comfortably won). Actual media costs are closely guarded secrets, but Facebook’s own advertiser tools can give us some ballpark estimates. For zip code 43950 (covering the county seat of St. Clairsville, Ohio), Facebook estimates an advertiser can show an ad to about 83 people per dollar. For zip code 19144 in the Philly suburbs, that number sinks to 50 people an ad for every dollar of ad spend. Averaged over lots of time and space, the impacts on media budgets can be sizable. Anyway …)

The Like button is our new ballot box, and democracy has been transformed into an algorithmic popularity contest.

The above auction analysis is even more true for News Feed, which is only based on engagement, with every user mired in a self-reinforcing loop of engagement, followed by optimized content, followed by more revealing engagement, then more content, ad infinitum. The candidate who can trigger that feedback loop ultimately wins. The Like button is our new ballot box, and democracy has been transformed into an algorithmic popularity contest.

But how to trigger the loop? For that, we need the machinery of targeting. (Full disclosure: I was the original product manager for Custom Audiences, and along with a team of other product managers and engineers, I launched the first versions of Facebook precision targeting in the summer of 2012, in those heady and desperate days of the IPO and sudden investor expectation.)

Despite folklore about “selling your data,” most Facebook advertisers couldn’t care less about your Likes, your drunk college photos, or your gossipy chats with a boyfriend. What advertisers want to do is find the person who left a product unpurchased in an online shopping cart, just used a loyalty card to buy diapers at Safeway, or registered as a Republican voter in Stark County, Ohio (a swing county in a swing state).

Custom Audiences lets them do that. It’s the tunnel beneath the data wall that allows the outside world into Facebook’s well-protected garden, and it’s like that by design.

Browsed for shoes and then saw them on Facebook? You’re in a Custom Audience.

Registered for an email newsletter or used your email as login somewhere? You’re in a Custom Audience.

Ordered something to a postal address known to merchants and marketers? You’re definitely in a Custom Audience.

Here’s how it works in practice:

A campaign manager takes a list of emails or other personal data for people they think will be susceptible to a certain type of messaging (e.g. people in Florida who donated money to Trump For America). They upload that spreadsheet to Facebook via the Ads Manager tool, and Facebook scours its user data, looks for users who match the uploaded spreadsheet, and turns the matches into an “Audience,” which is really just a set of Facebook users.

Facebook can also populate an audience by reading a user’s cookies—those digital fragments gathered through a user’s wanderings around the web. Half the bizarre conspiracy theories around Facebook targeting boil down to you leaving a data trail somewhere inside our consumer economy that was then uploaded via Custom Audiences. In the language of database people, there’s now a “join” between the Facebook user ID (that’s you) and this outside third-party who knows what you bought, browsed, or who you voted for (probably). That join is permanent, irrevocable, and will follow you to every screen where you’ve used Facebook.

The above is pretty rudimentary data plumbing. But only when you’ve built a Custom Audience can you build Lookalike Audiences— the most unknown, poorly understood, and yet powerful weapon in the Facebook ads arsenal.

With a mere mouse click from our hypothetical campaign manager, Facebook now searches the friends of everyone in the Custom Audience, trying to find everyone who (wait for it) “looks like” you. Using a witches’ brew of mutual engagement—probably including some mix of shared page Likes, interacting with similar News Feed or Ads content, a score used to measure your social proximity to friends—the Custom Audience is expanded to a bigger set of like-minded people. Lookalikes.

(Another way to picture it: Your social network resembles a nutrient-rich petri dish, just sitting out in the open. Custom Audiences helps mercenary marketers find that dish, and lets them plant the bacterium of a Facebook post inside it. From there, your own interaction with the meme, which is echoed in News Feed, spreads it to your immediate vicinity. Lookalike Audiences finishes the job by pushing it to the edges of your social petri dish, to everyone whose tastes and behaviors resemble yours. The net result is a network overrun by an infectious meme, dutifully placed there by an advertiser, and spread by the ads and News Feed machinery.)

We’ve all contributed to this political balkanization by self-sorting (or being sorted by Facebook) into online tribes that get morphed into filter bubbles, which are then studiously colonized by commercial memes planted and spread there by a combination of Custom and Lookalike Audiences. One of the ways the Trump campaign leveraged Lookalike Audiences was through its voter suppression campaigns among likely Clinton voters. They seeded the Audiences assembly line with content about Clinton that was engaging but dispiriting. This is one of the ways that Trump won the election, by the very tools that were originally built to help companies like Bed Bath & Beyond sell you towels.

Unsurprisingly, the Russians also apparently made use of Custom Audiences in their ads campaign. The unwary clicker on a Russian ad who then visited their propaganda site suddenly could find yet more planted content in their Feed, which could generate downstream engagement in Feed, and thus the great Facebook wheel turned. The scale of their spend was puny, however, a measly $100,000, which pales in comparison to the millions Trump spent on online advertising.

The above isn’t mere informed speculation, the Trump campaign admitted to its wide use of both Custom and Lookalike audiences. There seems to be little public coverage of whether the Clinton campaign used Facebook Ads extensively, but there’s no reason to think her campaign did not exploit the same tools.

“I always wonder why people in politics act like this stuff is so mystical,” Brad Parscale, the leader of the Trump data effort, told reporters in late 2016. “It’s the same shit we use in commercial, just has fancier names.”

He’s absolutely right. None of this is even novel: It’s merely best practice for any smart Facebook advertiser. Custom Audiences was launched almost six (!) years ago, marketed publicly at the time, and only now is becoming a mainstream talking point. The ads auction has been studied by marketers and academics for even longer. The only surprise is how surprising it can still seem to many.

If we’re going to reorient our society around Internet echo chambers, with Facebook and Twitter serving as our new Athenian agora, then we as citizens should understand how that forum gets paid for. Rarely will the owners of that now-privatized space deign to explain how they’re keeping the lights on. Plotting Russians make for a good story, and external enemies frequently serve an internal purpose, but the trail of blame often leads much closer to home. It’s right there, topped by a big, blue bar on our smartphone screens, and could very well be how you arrived at what you’re reading right now.

Update (February 27, 2018): In an unusual move, Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth, former VP of Facebook Ads, posted average CPMs for both the Clinton and Trump campaigns this afternoon. The figures are national averages over time, and while they fluctuate wildly, they mostly show the Trump campaign paying more on a CPM basis than Clinton. While interesting, and the transparency of Facebook is admirable, the data only refute the rather strong statement that Trump always and everywhere paid less. By and large, these data do not confirm or deny the hypotheses contained in this piece.

The data that Facebook needs to show us are average CPMs broken down by targeting type, action type (e.g., clicks or likes), and geography. The first two would help distinguish direct-response campaigns, which typically are precision targeted and high CPM, from more brand-style ad campaigns that are broadly targeted and low CPM. Combining the data from both styles of campaign—which broadly define the two types that advertisers undertake—can be very deceptive, and the two campaign types need to be judged separately.

Furthermore, a breakdown by geography would help determine whether another assertion made in this piece is correct: That Trump paid less to mobilize his base than Hillary. Obviously, combining data nationwide makes this very hard to figure out.

Reportedly, Facebook has asked the campaigns to be more forthcoming with data. As it's in both those campaigns' interests at this point, one can only hope they do so. As we used to say at Facebook: "Data wins arguments."

Facebook's Advertising Machine

Rob Goldman, VP of ads at Facebook, published a tweetstorm on Friday appearing to confirm the Trump administration’s allegations around the ongoing Muller investigation … and he did so without clearing his contributions with his employer.

No, Facebook isn't eavesdropping on you through your phone to better target you with ads. It doesn't have to.

To fix its toxic ad problem, Facebook will have to undergo a massive cultural shift.

Photograph by WIRED/Getty Images

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[placetobenation]

“The revolutionary force for over 50 years in sports entertainment” was a clever tag line used in the mid 90s before every WWF show. For most United States wrestling fans that are still alive, it is a way of life. Greater by the day is the lack of variance in the answer of what wrestling an individual grew up on. For better or worse, WWE has been the standard bearer. Throughout that rich history, performers ranging from Nature Boys to Undertakers have graced the squared circle. Foreign legends have had extended runs and some of the most iconic figures in pro wrestling history have been aces of the promotion reaching unequivocal mainstream pop culture heights in the world of wrestling.

With such a large history to play with, discovering the beauty of Bob Backlund’s charisma or the connection of Bruno Sammartino to the MSG crowd was a new development throughout this project similar to rewatching The Godfather and On the Waterfront to rediscover the genius of Marlon Brando. WWE may not have always been YOUR promotion but for the better part of 50 years, it was THE promotion in the United States and transformed the pro wrestling landscape. This project serves to praise the individuals that best helped shape the vision of Vince McMahon Sr. and Jr. Place to be Nation is proud to present to you a ranking of the Greatest WWE Wrestlers Ever.

– Chad Campbell

Note: Results of this list are based on 118 ballots received between May and December 2017. Voters were asked to submit their list of the 100 Greatest WWE Wrestlers of all time and consider only their WWWF/WWF/WWE career. Ties were broken based on 1) number of ballots a wrestler appeared on and 2) high vote. 

Every wrestler who received at least one vote will be recognized in the coming weeks. Please stay tuned to Place to Be Nation as we reveal all of the honorable mentions right through the cream of the crop. Read the other installments, both written and audio, of this project here.

84. Bob Orton Jr. Total Points: 1,934 Total Ballots: 61 Average Rank: 69.3 High Vote: 23 Low Vote: 100 High Voter: David Carli

Nuance: He was extremely good at what he did but you didn’t get a TON of variety charcater wise from Bob Orton. Always a heel, but really could a man who called himself Cowboy despite never once acting like he cared for the wild west at all become a face? Where were the finger guns? The Rope? The lack of dignity in the form of chaps. Oh. Right he had those. His main run was only about three years so the longevity box is really only half a spur as well. We’d be remiss though if we didn’t mention his bravery in the face of that horrible arm injury. That cost him nearly 20 years of his life. A true hero.

Jump Up Moments: Debuted as Roddy Piper’s… umm… bodyguard; Had many excellent matches with Tito Santana, a great one occurring on the December 1984 MSG show; Fought Jimmy Snuka at The War To Settle The Score; Was in Piper and Orndorff’s corner during the main event of WrestleMania; Was in the first main event in Saturday Night’s Main Event history where he got his ass handed to him by the Hulkster; Fought “Broomstick” Pedro Morales in a solid encounter at the December 1985 MSG show; Is one of three men to have boxed Mr. T and potentially the first to exit the encounter without brain damage, Roddy Piper and Rocky Balboa being the other two; Turned on the suddenly sympathetic Roddy Piper and began to “bodyguard” Adrian Adonis; With Don Muraco opened up WrestleMania III against the Can Am Connection.

Promos/Character: It was all the cast, wasn’t it?

Workrate: Really solid worker for the era. Everything looked crisp and smooth from the guy. At first glance you wouldn’t associate agility with Bob Orton, but given time and the right opponent he was capable of greatness.

Staff Thoughts: Bob Orton was an important part of the early stages of the Rock ‘N’ Wrestling era. Who knows if Piper would have reached the levels he did without his daring, injured bodyguard there to help him out. With more footage with great opponents we would, by today’s standards declare him the best TV worker of his era. Sadly he starred in the house show era which probably helps explain his ranking. Also he fathered a snake.

From the Voters: “So smooth. It’s no wonder Randy is so crisp with his stuff, because his dad was smooth as butter out there, and probably did a better job of making crappy opponents look good. Worked circles around Pedro Morales on a mid-80s house show I watched last year, and created an entertaining match out of it.” – Greg Phillips, May 28, 2017

“Another sentimental favorite. The superplex was a very innovative move when he used it during his 82 run. He was in the mold of Backlund challengers like Valentine, Rose, and Adonis that weren’t your typical monster heels but were on par with Backlund size and skill-wise. All time great run with Piper and Orndorff. His team with Muraco was highly underrated. Orton was the complete package that didn’t need to be the lead guy. He thrived as the “hired muscle” whose actions spoke louder than words” – Tim Tetreault, May 29, 2017

83. Sid Total Points: 1,945 Total Ballots: 63 Average Rank: 70.13 High Vote: 27 Low Vote: 100 High Voter: Troy Brostrom; Taylor Keahey

Nuance: SHAAAAAAAADUP! Evil Sid is legit one of the scariest monsters walking God’s green Earth, and yet, was still able to THRIVE as a face in two very different eras. We only saw a handful of tag matches involving the guy but one of them involved rearranging Brutus Beefcake’s face. Sid is all intangibles. HUGELY over during most of his career and just had an aura that lesser men would kill for. He felt like a big deal. He WAS a big deal, he’s at two WrestleManias and DEMANDED to main event BOTH of them! Watch his walk down to the ring at WrestleMania VIII and tell us that guy is not a star. He’s in synch to the music and is there to kill Hulkamania. He gets dinged for longevity, his run totalling about three years, but we’ll take three years of this suicide machine over 20 years of that’s gotta be Kane machines.

Jump Up Moments: Popped his head out of the curtain like a child after the main event of SummerSlam 91; Tossed Hulk Hogan from the 1992 Rumble to a huge pop; The entire build to WrestleMania VIII is nothing short of incredible character work, from the press conference, to the apology video to finally turning on Hogan it’s perfect; Closed down the local Barber Shop, smashing it to bits with a steel chair; Declared Mean Gene Okerlund a “bald headed little oaf”; Main evented WrestleMania VIII with Hulk Hogan, some may say the match stunk but the opening and the closing segments are WONDERFUL; Came back from hiatus as Shawn Michaels’ bodyguard; Turned Michaels face by powerbombing him into jelly the night after WrestleMania XI; Made an amazing comeback in 1996 by barreling his Crown Vic into a bunch of crates; Was mega over at IYH: International Incident; Murdered Davey Boy Smith at SummerSlam 1996; Had a legit great match with Shawn Michaels at Survivor Series 1996, winning the WWF championship to utter glee from the New York crowd; Solid encounter with Bret Hart from IYH: It’s Time; Main evented WrestleMania 13 with The Undertaker, the less said about the match the better; The more said about him beating up Bret Hart pre-match also the better!

Promos/Character: His charcater, with the exception of possibly his run in the Million Dollar Corporation was ALWAYS bang on. Evil Sid Justice is great in 1992. He crumples his papers (acceptance speech) at the post Royal Rumble press conference, he screams at legit reporters, he was just ON POINT. Even as Michaels’ bodyguard he was interesting. You’ve got DiBiase hitting guys with briefcases but Sid goes and pulls out a knife at WrestleMania XI. Sure he gets points deducted as it wasn’t a pair of scissors, but damnit that man shouldn’t have a knife. Finally his 1996 “Sycho” character endeared himself to the fans so quickly that he was given run of the promotion. As for promos, once again Sid may be the master and ruler of the world. Watch the aforementioned “bald headed little oaf” promo during WrestleMania VIII, the fake apology that preceded it or for a more modern perspective his pre match promo from SummerSlam 1996. Was he a screamer? You bet he was but he got his point across and invented the fist bump to boot.

Workrate: Obviously Sid’s weakness. While far from the worst in-ring worker, Sid struggled with the wrong opponent. Look no further than his match with the Undertaker. His punches looked weak, as did his kicks. No complaints about the powerbomb and chokeslam, which were among the better we’d seen to that point. No one killed jobbers like Sid though. The montage of him murdering guys in the buildup to Mania VIII should be in a damn museum somewhere.

Staff Thoughts: Sid is a sentimental favorite to many people for many good reasons. Sid encapsulates almost everything great about pro wrestling. A great promo with a amazing look and an untouchable aura. If you need any more proof that he’s the master and ruler of the world go back and watch the ending of the Barber Shop: as he screams “I LOVE IT” with shaving cream exploded unto his face we’re faced with one of the great wrestling characters of all time. THAT was pro wrestling. Sid is pro wrestling. SHAAAAAAAAAAAAADAAAAAAAAAAAP

From the Voters: “I absolutely love SID! Watched all the Raws from November 1996-Wrestlemania XII. One of the best promos at the time. Really nailed the tweener role perfectly. His loud-soft dynamics during promos would make Nirvana jealous. His match with Shawn at Survivor Series ’96 is a classic. He had good matches with Bret & Mankind. His punches are goofy but memorable. He came off as a total badass. His interactions with Bret in March of 97 are classic. “You dont know shit, crybaby”. Powerbombing him to Hell at Wrestlemania XII and calling him crybaby as Bret is being helped to the back. Definitely make my list around #70 also. WHO’S DA MAN! FIST BUMP!” – Martin Boulevard, November 14, 2017

“Sid was a beautiful disaster. I really loved him his attack on Shawn after Mania 11, the Shawn feud in late 96/early 97, and just Sid being Sid. The first run kind of sucked. I want to find a case for him, but I doubt I’ll be able to” – Dylan Hales, June 5, 2017

82. Dynamite Kid Total Points: 2,016 Total Ballots: 58 Average Rank: 66.2 High Vote: 25 Low Vote: 100 High Voter: Scott Herrin

Nuance: Dynamite Kid debuted in 1984 and his last match with the WWF was Survivor Series 1988, so he was with the company longer than many give him credit for, but did miss some of this time due to injury. Dynamite was almost exclusively a tag team worker for the WWF and never worked heel, so he scores poorly in our flexibility category. He is credited as being a very influential wrestler and the British Bulldogs are one of the more innovative teams of their time and beloved by many fans years later.

Jump Up Moments: The highlight of the British Bulldogs’ run was likely the WrestleMania II title win over The Dream Team in a really good match. The Bulldogs were accompanied by Ozzie Osbourne for the “Nightmare at the Rosemont Horizon,” which was the highlight match of the night and the Bulldogs’ lone WWF Tag Team Title win. They also had a lot of really good matches with the Hart Foundation around the country and had a heated match teaming with Tito Santana to face former crooked referee Danny Davis and the Harts at WrestleMania III. Teamed with Koko B. Ware to take on Bobby Heenan in a dog attack suit and the Islanders at Wrestlemania IV. Dynamite Kid competed as a singles wrestler in the Wrestling Classic defeating Nikolai Volkoff and Adrian Adonis before losing to Randy Savage in the semi-finals.

Promos/Character: Dynamite Kid was not a good promo and that may be kind. The Bulldogs were given Lou Albano as a manager to cut promos for them. His character was… he was British… and a Bulldog in the ring… I guess? Truth is he wasn’t a good promo and the character was pretty one-dimensional as a great wrestler. The Bulldogs did differ from other babyface teams of the time as they were more badasses than fiery underdogs.

Workrate: This is where Dynamite really makes his case. He was an innovative and influential worker, with many wrestlers to come copying his snap suplex and swan dive headbutt among other moves. The Bulldogs were a different kind of tag team, taking more offense as babyfaces than was typical for the time, which made their matches seem unique and made the Bulldogs stand out. It also got them over as a badass babyface team. The Bulldogs had good to great matches with The Dream Team, the Hart Foundation, The Islanders and Demolition.

Staff Thoughts: Dynamite Kid isn’t the most versatile of performers when you break him down by the NJPW system, but there’s no doubt he’s memorable. His unique style and run with the British Bulldogs stayed with voters decades later. Along with Davey Boy, he pioneered cool and hard-hitting tag-team offense, and his diving headbutt and suplexes have been copied extensively over the years. The Bulldogs were featured parts of WrestleManias II, III & IV, and when they were healthy were among the best teams in the WWF. Even with Dynamite’s injuries the Bulldogs had better matches than many teams. And we’ll always have him to thank for bringing in Matilda and forcing The Weasel to wrestle in a dog attack suit.

From the Voters: “Enough on the resume surprised people are nitpicking here when the biggest problem with most candidates outside the top twenty is longevity. Honestly a year is enough to get on my list nevermind the 4 years Dynamite worked. People are sleeping on Bulldogs vs Dream Team. Also there is a great Bulldogs vs Demolition match from MSG 1988 in the summer. He is not a great FIP, but his offense is still crisp as all hell. Makes the cut! Kelly Nelson see I like Dynamite. ” – Martin Boulevard, November 15, 2017

“I think the pendulum swung too far back in some circles. Dynamite was increadible in the ring and would probably make my GWE if I had done one. However, my gut says he just misses a wwe specific list. I may have to go back and look at what all he did in he WWF that was under the radar though.” – Matthew Richards, May 30, 2017

“Terrific wrestler that in my opinion if he didn’t get injured would of had a better career than Davey Boy. But, based on what he did do in the WWF would make my top 100.” – Matt Rotella, May 29, 2017

81. Dolph Ziggler Total Points: 2,057 Total Ballots: 65 Average Rank: 69.4 High Vote: 28 Low Vote: 100 High Voter: Michael DeDamos

Nuance: Longevity definitely works in Dolph Ziggler’s favor, as he had nearly a year-long run with the Spirit Squad, and has been active with the company under his current gimmick for nearly a decade. Dolph’s played both a heel and a babyface during his long tenure with the company and has moved up and down the card during this time. Still, many feel there is some intangible missing that keeps Dolph from connecting to the crowd at a deeper level.

Jump Up Moments: Ziggler won the Money in the Bank contract in 2012, leading to his memorable cash-in and World Heavyweight Title win over Alberto Del Rio on the Raw after WrestleMania 29. Faced Del Rio at Payback 2013 where the two executed a beautiful double-turn during the match. Ziggler gave a strong, memorable performance at Survivor Series 2014, becoming the sole survivor in the match that “ousted the Authority from power.” This led to Ziggler winning the IC Title from Luke Harper in a crazy ladder match. Defeated the Miz at No Mercy 2016 with his career on the line.

Promos/Character: He suffers a bit from a character that hasn’t evolved much and talks too much about showing off and entertaining the fans and not enough about winning matches. While we all know the name of the game is entertainment, it seems a bit off for wrestlers to talk about it in those terms. Dolph’s character has certainly reached the point of being stale in recent years. He’s been the perennial good hand in the midcard for so long, it’s synonymous with him, and he’s been hurt by too many stop and start pushes (not his fault, but does him no favors).

Workrate: Dolph’s got a list of good to great matches a mile long and can usually be counted to deliver a solid match. The ladder match with Harper at Payback 2013, his work in the Survivor Series 2014 match and a good opener with Rey Mysterio at SummerSlam 2009 stand out as matches to check out. Even in workrate, voter opinions are somewhat split with some believing Ziggler’s selling to be too over the top, while others feel it helps draw them into the match.

Staff Thoughts: Dolph Ziggler is a strong candidate for most divisive wrestler on our list, with some voters touting his impressive string of good to great matches, while others cite his stale character and insist he’s not a good wrestler at all. No doubt his character has grown stale over the years, and certainly the company has never gotten behind him during the periods Ziggler has been hot (after the Survivor Series 2014 match for instance). Still, his list of good to great matches matches up well with most anyone. He’s a former World Tag Team champion, a two-time US champion, a five-time IC champion and a two-time World Heavyweight Champion, so he certainly has the resume. Voters seem to either love or hate The Showoff, but he garnered enough love to make the cut. You can listen to what the guys think on this FYC podcast (warning: if you are a big Ziggler fan you may want to skip this one.)

From the Voters: “His MITB cash in was one of the biggest pops I ever heard. He was the star and played amazing face in peril in the Survivor Series 2014 match. Great Summerslam opener with Rey in 09. Many other great matches to cite. I agree he was never quite able to reach that next tier, and he’s been stale for a while, but I don’t think it disqualifies him from being a top 100. The guys a work horse.” – Michael Schoen, May 29, 2017

“No chance. Awful wrestler. I liked him early in the decade but started to lose interest after he turned heel. Has completely overstayed his welcome. The Shawn Michaels cosplay is out of control. Bad mannerisms, bad offense, lame character, lame promo. Awful, awful, awful.” – Devon Motivator Hales, May 31, 2017

“Dolph is great but he is part of a problem I am having with my list. Guys from the 70s until the 90s worked pretty consistently face or heel and on a part of the card for a good portion of their career. Since 2005 or so, everyone pretty much works with everyone at one point or another. And everyone has a good match with Dolph Ziggler. Maybe not literally but where as in the past you could find signature, standout matches from guys, even the most average wrestler can have a pretty decent match with Dolph Ziggler.” – Michael DeDamos, December 14, 2017

80. Don Muraco Total Points: 2,113 Total Ballots: 56 Average Rank: 63.3 High Vote: 14 Low Vote: 100 High Voter: Grady Blount

Nuance: Don Muraco could be taken extremely seriously as a heel but when needed could also pull out the comedy chops with Fuji Vice. How could one ever cheer the man who plowed through a jobber while eating a sandwich? Simple, have him save Superstar Billy Graham and start coming out to music insinuating he was Jesus Christ. We didn’t get much tag team work from The Magnificent One but his duo with Bob Orton is some of his best stuff in his later years. It’d be silly to proceed without mentioning how important he was to the promotion in the pre-Hogan era. Always over, always a top flight heel and instrumental in helping build the Intercontinental division throughout his nearly two-year long reign.

Jump Up Moments: On June 21, 1981 (the first day of summer YAY!) defeated Pedro Morales for the Intercontinental Title; Feuded with then-WWWF champion Bob Backlund for the latter part of 81; In 1983 began his epic feud with Superfly Jimmy Snuka; He and Snuka would have one of the more memorable cage matches in history on October 17, 1983 at MSG; Throughout 1985 headlined the house show circuit with Hulk Hogan; Won the first ever King of the Ring Tournament on July 8, 1985, defeating The Iron Sheik in the finals; His majesty would go on to feud with Ricky Steamboat giving us the wonderful image of Steamboat hanging by his own karate belt; Speaking of wonderful, fought Paul Orndorff in the opening match of WrestleMania 2; With partner Bob Orton opened WrestleMania III against the Can-Am Connection; Was chosen by Hulk Hogan to be part of his team at the inaugural Survivor Series; Advanced to the second round of the WWF Championship Tournament at WrestleMania IV; Oh and the skits with Fuji, ALL of them

Promos/Character: In a world of legit athletes and bodybuilders, Muraco’s lazy beach bum character worked marvelously. And he was an all-time promo as well. Whether he’s calling Pat Patterson BORING or laughing at Bob Backlund’s hurt arm, you could always could on Don’s ability to get the ire of the crowd, an ire that would only grow as he strutted around the ring. At the drop of a hat he could also turn around and give a lesson on giving a grounded serious promo. Check out his pre-Jimmy Snuka cage match stuff for further evidence of that. His skit work is also incredible. All the stuff with Mr. Fuji is well worth your time.

Workrate: Do YOU like slow lumbering matches? Then Don Muraco is the man for you! He was a prototypical 70s wrestler for all intents and purposes, however few meshed their in-ring work with their character as seamlessly as Don Muraco. He was slow, but that was the point. As much as we can criticize it from a modern perspective it’s hard to deny that he was effective in the ring. The fans were with him. All. The. Way. That’s the point right? If you judge a wrestler’s workrate by how he affects the crowd then surely Don Muraco should rate high.

Staff Thoughts: The Magnificent Muraco is an incredible important cog in the WWF machine. A premiere heel of the early 1980s he could always be counted on to enrage the crowd or eat a sandwich at the most inappropriate time. His reign as Intercontinental champion and early run make him a great, add the skits and he’s a LEGEND.

From the Voters: “I might be the biggest Muraco fan in this group and proud of it! He and Snuka created magic together. Pairing Don with Fuji later on made for one of the most entertaining wrestler/manager combinations in company history. In addition, he was Steamboatsfirst big feud. The tag team of Don and Bob Orton were an underrated team for the first half of ’87. Now, his babyface run. Yes, it was a disaster, but he helped new guys coming into the company such as Bam Bam and the Warrior. Don taught those guys how to work the WWF style while teaming with them in tags against OMG amd Butch Reed. Overall, an above average worker in the ring, one of the best piledrivers of all time and you never knew what he was going to say on the mic. Welcome to the class of 100!” – Jason Greenhouse, May 29, 2017

“He may be one of the most hotly contested people in the whole process. I really can’t stand the guy even in most of his heralded matches vs Backlund, Steamboat, Snuka and Hogan. He did have some appeal and charisma but I probably will have to rewatch the Backlund MSG match and some of the Hogan series to see if they are serviceable enough to warrant inclusion for him. I refuse to watch the Backlund hour long draw from Philly unless I am need of a deep sleep.” – Chad Campbell, May 29, 2017

79. Earthquake Total Points: 2,181 Total Ballots: 78 Average Rank: 73 High Vote: 30 Low Vote: 100 High Voter: Kris Zellner

Nuance: He wore blue sometimes, he wore red sometimes, but he always, ALWAYS made the ring shake. Earthquake was a scary heel who didn’t look like he had an ounce of kindness in him; which is a strange contrast to his good guy character who felt like he had nothing BUT kindness in him. Bad Earthquake would (and could) beat up your dad; good Earthquake would coach soccer with your dad, smiling as you waved at him from the field. What range this man had! Too bad he was only really around for about four years. He killed Hulkamania (for a few weeks), killed a snake and dated a stuffed Cartman doll. If that’s not variety, we don’t know what is.

Jump Up Moments: Debuted on Superstars by repeatedly jumping on and destrucifying the Ultimate Warrior’s back; Replaced Barry Windham at the 1989 Survivor Series and survived his match along with Randy Savage and Dino Bravo, but no word on if he made Mrs. Windham a widow; Was Hercules’ 13th unconquered labor at WrestleMania VI; In the spring and summer of 1990, hit his peak feuding with Hulk Hogan; His attack on the Brother Love Show is the stuff of legend and for a while we thought Hulkamania was truly dead; Co-main evented SummerSlam 1990 against Hulk Hogan; Was the last person eliminated by Hulk Hogan at the 1991 Royal Rumble; In the summer of 1991 killed Jake Roberts’ longtime partner Damien and turned him into snake burgers; Converted a boat into a storm and formed the Natural Disasters; With Typhoon defeated Money Inc to win the WWF Tag Team Titles; Defended Sy Sperling and crushed Adam Bomb all in one night at WrestleMania X; Had a fun sumo match with Yokozuna on an episode of Raw to the delight of Randy Savage and Vince McMahon; Lost weight and had a fun time as Golga, the workhorse of the Oddities

Promos/Character: Was the living embodiment of an Earthquake through and through. A lesser man would have just written Quake on his tights and used the richter scale as a finish but God bless John Tenta for being in perpetual motion whenever he was being interviewed. You CAN’T TAME an Earthquake, Sean Mooney! His promos were a lot of yelling and seemed like he was constantly on the verge of losing his voice, but boy was he intimidating!

Workrate: Fantastic worker for a big man. In particular, his powerslam looked like it could cripple you. Earthquake didn’t need to fly around the ring to get his point across, he was a hoss who would sit on your chest. He did it well, though, and was always convincing regardless of who he was in there with. Also could take a licking, like when Hogan and Boss Man beat the shit out of him with that chair at SummerSlam. Is that why he went crazy and killed that snake? Is that why Jake Roberts in turn went crazy and tried to kill Randy Savage and ruin his wedding? Is Earthquake really only three degrees from the reason Elizabeth got slapped?

Staff Thoughts: Earthquake is a favorite for many and it’s not hard to see why. He’s a big guy that moves around the ring like a guy half his weight and he had a HUGELY memorable feud with Hulk Hogan. Your mileage may vary on what you thought of him as a tag wrestler, but there’s no denying the Natural Disasters were, at the very least one of the top teams in the promotion for a couple of years. Everything you hear about the guy is positive too. He was apparently one of the nicest guys in the business. Except to Jake. WHY DIDN”T HE GO TO JAIL FOR KILLING HIS PET???

From the Voters: “Earthquake was awesome. Main evented Summerslam against the Hulkster and one Half of the biggest tag team I’ve ever seen in WWE. Could move great for a big guy and underrated on the promo skills” – Eric Boyd, May 29, 2017

“Doesn’t have a catalogue of classic matches (that I’m aware of), but he was a solid Hogan opponent and good big man. Found success both as a single and a tag. He’ll likely be on the bubble for me.” – Ben Morse, June 1, 2017

78. Honky Tonk Man Total Points: 2,185 Total Ballots: 71 Average Rank: 70.3 High Vote: 7 Low Vote: 100 High Voter: Karl Grant

Nuance: You could make an argument that he was the most hated heel of his era. Annoying as fuck, sang and danced for ten minutes before every match, never won despite being a champion for eighteen months. These are all positives. He absolutely flopped as a face, and for good reason: he was a fucking Elvis impersonator!!! His tag run was completely forgettable with its only contributions to the business coming via Diamond Dallas Page driving the Cadillac and Greg Valentine trying to curl his lip.

Jump Up Moments: Lost a “vote of confidence” and turned to the loving arms of Jimmy Hart; On June 13, 1987 defeated Ricky Steamboat for the Intercontinental Championship; Beat up Randy Savage post match on the October 3, 1987 edition of SNME, shoving Elizabeth down in the process, This would eventually lead to the creation of the MEGA POWERS; Got demolished by the Ultimate Warrior after declaring “just get me someone out here to wrestle” at SummerSlam 1988, ending his 18-month Intercontinental Title reign; Lost a fun match to Dusty Rhodes at the 1989 SummerSlam

Promos/Character: He’s got long sideburns. His hair is slicked back. He’s coming to your town in his pink Cadillac. I’m not sure if he was cool or bad, but he sure was cocky. Honky was ALL character. It’s not like he has a huge cache of all-time great promos under his belt, but you can bet that he played that persona full tilt every time he entered the arena. He couldn’t sing but he sang. He couldn’t dance but he wiggled those hips. He was great at what he did, and what he did worked. An underrated aspect of his character game was that he had a pretty sweet mean streak when he needed to break it out.

Workrate: Come on now. Can anyone name a single signature spot outside of the shake rattle and roll or the guitar to the head. Honky was the definition of a soft wrestler. He makes the Miz look like Stu Hart. That said, he had a stretch in mid-1987 where he absolutely kept up with world class wrestlers like Steamboat and Savage, delivering classic matches at Madison Square Garden and on TV.

Staff Thoughts: Honky surely makes the list almost solely for being the greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time. It’s an eighteen month run, but WHAT a run. He elevated the title to the point where he could main event the “A” shows against Hulk Hogan. Not only did he elicit a sheer loathing from the fans few have been able to emulate, but he will forever be the catalyst for the formation of the Mega Powers as well as having a huge role in that Ultimate Warrior SummerSlam victory. And that is a moment which is among the best in company history. Without him heeling it up for those months, barely winning or escaping, we surely lose that gem, and maybe the Warrior doesn’t get over to the point he does. Honky is a great example of a guy who got way over in spite of some obvious deficiencies in his game. He STILL gets a pop when he shows up. He sang and danced into a well deserved place in our hearts.

From the Voters: “My most hated heel as a kid by a wide margin. Great character, middling wrestler. Jump up moments are there for someone with a short run. I can’t leave him off, but I can’t gave him high. Might throw him at 90” – Dylan Hales, July 12, 2017

“Honky is in my 60s! I absolutely understand if this seems high (he’s been slowly moving up my list this past month or so, after some HTM on the Network time) bit I can’t imagine a list of the Greatest WWE wrestlers without him even being on it. That just seems willfully overlooking the character.” – Eric Vejnovich, November 30, 2017

77. Marty Jannetty Total Points: 2,192 Total Ballots: 73 Average Rank: 71 High Vote: 17 Low Vote: 99 High Voter: David Carli

Nuance: There is a great discussion on the Facebook group about Marty Jannetty and how he fills the NJPW criteria, if you would like some additional reading. Longevity is surprisingly Jannetty’s high point here as he was with the company off and on from 1988 to 1996 and also had a cup of coffee in 2005. However, he did miss substantial stretches during that time. It’s interesting to think about Jannetty’s flexibility as he had success as both a singles and tag team, but the tag team work greatly overshadows his singles work and his best singles work came against former partner Shawn Michaels. Jannetty’s character never really evolved past the “Rocker” and he spent most of his time as a babyface. The heel run with the New Rockers was a flop.

Jump Up Moments: Marty’s IC Title win over Michaels was one of the first great moments on Raw, and that feud featured many people’s WWF Match of the Year for 1993. Other notable moments include Michaels superkicking Jannetty then throwing him through the Barber Shop window, and a string of tremendous matches as the Rockers against numerous opponents. He won the tag team titles with the 1-2-3 Kid as well in another hot Raw moment.

Promos/Character: Jannetty was a pretty lousy promo. His character work never really evolved beyond the Rockers, although tweaking it to be a “stuck in the past New Rocker” could’ve been interesting, but wasn’t. So, both character work and promos would be a weakness for Jannetty.

Workrate: Here’s where Jannetty makes his case. The Rockers are one of, if not the best, in-ring team the WWF ever had. Their series with the Brain Busters was fantastic. Their match against the Orient Express to open Royal Rumble 1991 is an all-time tag team classic, and they had very good matches with all the teams of the day. In addition to his stellar matches during the Michaels fued, Jannetty also had a really good two-out-of-three falls match with Doink and his lone IC Title defense versus Bam Bam Bigelow. He had a really good tag match with 1-2-3 Kid against the Quebecers, and even had a good match with Kurt Angle in 2005 during his feud with Michaels.  

Staff Thoughts: Marty makes his case on workrate, but he has a tremendous amount of very good to great matches. The Rockers had the bulk of those matches against virtually any tag team, but Jannetty could flat-out go on his own, as shown by his matches against Michaels, Doink and with Kid against the Quebecers. Add that to the surprising moment where he returned to win the IC title from Michaels during the early days of Raw and it was enough for voters to overlook Marty’s shortcomings. Hear JT and Aaron discuss Marty’s case in this podblast.

From the Voters: “One of the most underrated in-ring performers of his era. An argument could be made (and Shawn has made it himself) that Marty was the better worker when they were tagging together. Had a great 1993, some good tag stuff in 94, the aforementioned Shawn match in 96 and Angle match in 05. He was a dreadful promo, but he’s going to be at least an 8 for me in workrate. When he was on, few were better.” – Greg Phillips, June 1, 2017

“Just watched him team with Shawn against the Powers of Pain from the Jan 1990 MSG show and he put on an incredible performance. He even came back in the 2000s and have a really good match against Angle on Smackdown. Add that up with his feud against Shawn and other Rockers work and he likely makes my list.” – Brian Cullinane, May 31, 2017

“Always a solid in-ring guy. Some of the more memorable matches in the early days of RAW involved Jannetty. If it wasn’t for drugs, the guy could possibly have been a bigger player. I say YES.” – Chris Jordan

76. Ken Patera Total Points: 2,408 Total Ballots: 62 Average Rank: 62.2 High Vote: 13 Low Vote: 100 High Voter: Grady Blount

Nuance: Ken Patera was with the WWF for parts of seven years prior to his time in prison and another year in change when he returned in 1987. He was a hated heel for his first run and a babyface for reasons few understood when he returned in 1987. The babyface run was a flop, so Patera can’t get full points for flexibility.

Jump Up Moments: The Texas Death Match against Bob Backlund for the WWF Title in 1980 is an all-time great match. Patera was also involved in “raping Andre of his dignity” angle where the Heenan Family cut Andre’s hair. Patera had a great IC title run in 1980, and also defeated Gorilla Monsoon forcing him to retire. Upon his return he teamed with Hulk Hogan and others against the Heenan Family in the first Survivor Series.

Promos/Character: Patera wasn’t the best promo, which is why he was always paired with Bobby Heenan. Patera played a good heel character despised by fans, but that babyface run in 1987 was trash and has to count against his character work in some way. Why the WWF decided he needed to be a babyface because he went to jail is beyond us.

Workrate: Patera has an impressive list of great matches during his first run. His Texas Death Match vs. Backlund is legendary, and he was one of the top challengers for Backlund. He also was one of the last challengers for Bruno Sammartino during his last reign. Patera won the IC title from Pat Patterson in a good match, leading to his strong IC run.

Staff Thoughts: Ken Patera was a really strong worker with a string of great matches from his first run. As mentioned, the Texas Death Match is must see and anything with Patterson or Backlund is really good. He was involved in the Andre haircut angle and was a key member of the Heenan Family and retired beloved babyface Gorilla Monsoon. The less said about pasty legs babyface jailbird Ken the better.

From the Voters: “Great heel in on and off run between 77-84. 1980 is his peak, as IC champ with several great matches at MSG with Patterson, Morales and the masterpiece Texas Death Match with Backlund. Comeback in 87 started hot but soon sputtered and he didn’t have much left, or no longer cared. Still, heel run is easy top 100 for me, probably top 50.” – Kelly Nelson, May 30, 2017

“Had title shots against all the top guys of his era, including a rare heel v heel match v Billy Graham. Angle with Billy White Wolf is an all timer. Maybe Backlunds best opponent. I-C title run was good. Doesn’t have the depth in the WWE that I’d like but I can’t imagine leaving him off.” – Dylan Hales, June 1, 2017

“How high can one match get you well when that one match is the Texas Death Match against Bob Backlund, pretty damn high? Kelly is right the January 80 match is also an all timer. I need to track down his other stuff from 1980, but he makes it easy based on that. Also a key member of the Heenan Family in cutting Andre’s hair in major angle. Top heel.” – Martin Boulevard, November 19, 2017

75. Sasha Banks Total Points: 2,617 Total Ballots: 64 Average Rank: 60.1 High Vote: 7 Low Vote: 97 High Voter: ElliottPWO

Nuance: The Boss has been with the company since 2012, so has more longevity than you may think, with the bulk of her work being in NXT. She’s played both a heel and face and been part of great mathes as both a single and in tag team matches, usually with other members of the “Four Horsewomen.”

Jump Up Moments: Sasha Banks has been the constant involved in the “Women’s Revolution,” participating in the first women’s  NXT Takeover main event, the first Ironwoman match, the first PPV main event, first Hell in a Cell and was one of the architects in the first women’s Royal Rumble match (though the last one occurred outside the voting period). She’s delivered great results when given the ball in these key situations, delivering some classic matches in the process.

Promos/Character: Sasha is not a good promo and that counts against her score here. However, the Boss character was a critical part of the famed Four Horsewomen era of the NXT Women’s division. Her heel work was the counterpoint to ultimate underdog babyface Bayley and laid the groundwork for some classic matches.

Workrate: Opinions vary on Sasha’s consistency, particularly on the main roster, but the classic matches she had in NXT can’t be debated. She had really strong bouts at NXT Takeover Rival where she won the NXT Women’s title in a four-way match and a successful title defense against Becky Lynch at NXT Takeover Unstoppable. She had a classic match in losing the title to Bayley at NXT Takeover Brooklyn, telling a great story of the underdog babyface overcoming the strong but overconfident heel champion. Without Sasha’s heel work (including making Izzy cry) Bayley’s triumphant win wouldn’t have worked as well. Sasha and Bayley may have topped themselves at NXT Takeover Respect in a 30-minute Ironwoman match, main eventing and stealing the show. Both the matches with Bayley were Match of the Year Candidates. Sasha’s work with Charlotte Flair on the main roster has been some of the best women’s wrestling in company history.

Staff Thoughts: Sasha has the classic matches with Bayley and other very strong matches against other members of the NXT Four Horsewomen. Her Boss character was memorable and provided a solid heel foil to Bayley’s underdog babyface. Anytime the company needs to break ground in the women’s division, they call on Sasha: in HIAC, PPV main events, the Ironwoman match, the list goes on and on. Her main roster run hasn’t been the rousing success that NXT was, but her matches with Charlotte are as good as any women’s matches the company has had. With the current renewed focus on the women’s division, undoubtedly they will call Sasha’s number again, and she may climb higher if we revisit this list in the future. You can hear Good Ol’ Will, Glenn and Stacey talk about Sasha on this FYC podcast.

From the Voters: “Probably the absolute tops of the NXT women in terms of character. As with the other three, there are times when her ringwork gets sloppy as all hell but the highs by far outweigh the lows. One of the last true heel performances vs. Bayley when she MADE A LITTLE GIRL CRY.” – Joseph Monticello, June 2,2017

“The main roster backlash seems like an old talking point given her eventual 2016. Sure she started slow (I think she was actively bad in the Mania 32 match and easily the weak link), and had to overcome some injuries along the way, but the Charlotte stuff was easily the best womens’ stuff in company history. And she’s anchored by the NXT matches, which are all-timers in a lot of cases. I have Charlotte above her, but that’s it for women at this point of the process.” – Brad Warren, June 6, 2017

“Will make my list. I don’t see any argument for any woman over her. The common denominator in all the big angles, feuds, special highlight moments (first ppv main event, first takeover main event, first HITC, first Iron Woman, Raw main events, et). We can argue about if she’s overrated, but she had 3 classics in a year in NXT and the Charlotte feud on Raw was a legit huge deal which had never happened to that degree before. Her overall impact on the business is much stronger than her current push.” – Dylan Hales, June 2, 2017

74. Jerry Lawler Total Points: 2,629 Total Ballots: 70 Average Rank: 63.4 High Vote: 20 Low Vote: 98 High Voter: Good Ol’ Will from Texas

Nuance: It’s tough to gauge Jerry Lawler’s longevity with the company as a wrestler. Clearly he’s been with the company in his announcing role forever, but only sporadically appearing in the ring. The King has shown flexibility going from the slimy heel insulting Stu and Helen Hart to a babyface defending Good Ol’ JR from that bully Tazz and later challenging Miz and (shudder) Michael Cole.

Jump Up Moments: Lawler’s key feud was with Bret Hart, which stretched over two years from Hart winning the inaugural King of the Ring in 1993 through late 1995. The segment at SummerSlam 1993 where Lawler came out on crutches and had Hart fight Doink as a replacement before his miraculous recovery breaking his crutch over Hart is a classic. Lawler was also the driving force in the ECW angle, with his insults of “Extremely Crappy Wrestling” and mic work leading to Lawler working a match at Hardcore Heaven against Tommy Dreamer. Lawler had a strong and memorable feud with Miz, challenging him for the WWE Title on Raw in a TLC match and eventually at Elimination Chamber 2011.

Promos/Character: Lawler’s fantastic on the stick when he’s at his best and that work has helped add a lot of heat to his feuds. His insults of the Hart family during the Bret feud were gold and have stood the test of time. He drove the interactions between ECW and WWF, cutting the promos that drove the rivalry at a time when working together helped both promotions. His commentary work has varied wildly from very good to… well, it depends on your thoughts on puppies… but his commentary work wasn’t considered for this project.

Workrate: Lawler knows how to have a good match and get the crowd into it, getting the most out of everything he does. The SummerSlam 1993 match against Bret is really good and King knows when it’s time to eat crow (or foot in this case) as was evident when he lost the Kiss My Foot Match in 1995. His matches with Miz for the WWE in 2010-11 were incredibly good, particularly when you consider the feud started on Lawler’s 61st birthday (and it was Miz’s best work up to that time).

Staff Thoughts: Lawler’s highs, the Bret and Miz feuds in particular, are certainly high and make great television. No question Lawler’s a wizard on the stick when he’s on. In the interest of fairness, he’s had some dreadful lows as well in feuds with Jake Roberts, Roddy Piper and others. Still the highs outweigh the lows in the viewers minds, and The Kaang has overcome obstacles with Jezebels and found a place nuzzling with puppies on the list of top 100 WWE stars.

From the Voters: “His best feud was with miz and memorable angle with with hart, but also memorable duds with piper, warrior and jake. Don’t see his wwf body of work making 100.” – Shawn Kidd, May 30, 2017

“Hard to judge because he’s been there for so long, but if you just put his periods of being an active in-ring competitor (and all that entails) together, I wonder what you would get. 2 years? The feud with Bret was great, feud with Miz certainly a mark in his favour. A couple of memorable Royal Rumble appearances (hiding under the ring and “it takes a king…”). A few entertaining one-off matches here and there (vs Goldust and vs Mankind are particularly standing out to me). Lots of rubbish too. Bitsa this, bitsa that. Put it all together and what have you got?” – Adam Russell, July 21, 2017

“I love his WWF run…. had some shitty moments but some overlooked awesome ones too. Might not make top 20 for me but easy Top 50.” – Good Ol’ Will, May 30, 2017

73. Dean Ambrose Total Points: 2,650 Total Ballots: 79 Average Rank: 67.5 High Vote: 24 Low Vote: 100 High Voter: James Proffitt

Nuance: Dean Ambrose has gotten over as both a heel and a face, first with the Shield as the Hounds of Justice feuding with top babyfaces and later as a babyface both with the Shield and as a top challenger for Seth Rollins’ title. He’s been with the company about five years, so he has decent longevity. Ambrose’s facial expressions and body language are a distinct benefit to his case, as he uses those types of intangibles to add to his character.

Jump Up Moments: The initial run with The Shield is full of memorable matches and moments, from their six-man with Team Hell No and Ryback at TLC 2012 to their epic encounters with the Wyatt Family at Elimination Chamber 2014 and a reformed Evolution at Payback 2014. Was part of the main event scene feuding with Seth Rollins in 2015, part of a three-way match with Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar at Fastlane 2016 and won the World Title cashing in his Money in the Bank briefcase. Formed a tag team with Seth Rollins winning the Raw Tag Team Championship. He’s a two-time IC champion, the longest-reigning US champion under the WWE banner, a World Heavyweight Champion and Tag Team Champion.

Promos/Character: Ambrose is a good talker, which can add to his character during the best of times. At other times he may be stuck with bad comedy routines, but does his best to make it work. The Lunatic Fringe character has resonated with fans, making him one of the most popular babyfaces in 2015.

Workrate: The Shield six-man matches are all tremendous. Opinions vary a bit on some of his singles runs, with some liking his run as Rollins’ top challenger, while others find it less appealing. He had a good feud with Kevin Owens culminating in a very good Last Man Standing Match at Royal Rumble 2016. His tag team with Seth Rollins led to some good matches with The Bar, including winning the titles at SummerSlam 2017.

Staff Thoughts: Ambrose can be hit or miss for a lot of folks, but looking through his resume, he’s done a lot with the company. In his five years, he’s always been involved in one of the featured feuds in the company. His work in The Shield, his US title reign, feuds against Rollins and Owens and recent tag team work all have memorable moments. Of course, things like the awful Asylum Match with Chris Jericho and the ghost feud with Bray Wyatt do weigh him down a bit too. Here’s hoping the Lunatic Fringe returns from his injury to have more memorable moments in the future.

From the Voters: “For me it’s borderline. Held every title but tag, really good promo even when having not the best material, but working against him is the repetitive matches and some real clunkers like the asylum and losing via exploding monitor.” – Jeremy Ray, May 29, 2017

“Between The Shield 6 mans, the AJ Styles series, the Rollins series, the Owens series, and the MITB/IC ladder matches, the guy is in double digits with 4.25-5 star matches (and some would aruge that the Bray TLC match, the HHH match and the Shield triple threat were 3 more). He even had a top-notch storytelling match with Miz just this week.He’s an outstanding worker with a definitive character that has multiple layers. I get that people expected more, but I’d argue back that what people want, they’ll get when he’s heel again. He’s a face right now, so he’s a “goofy with a devil-may-care side” face. I get the displeasure with booking, but he’s one of those guys who gets asked to make the proverbial “chicken salad” a lot more than most, and his batting average for pulling it off is very good.” – James Proffitt, June 8, 2017

“Will make my list, albeit will be on the lower end of the spectrum. He’s one of my favorites now, but his inconsistent ring work and cheesy comedy is what hurts him from ranking highly. Still, the Shield alone is enough to put him on my list. Add some legitimately great promos, a fire feud with Seth (ending aside) and strong babyface and heel work, and his spot is most likely safe.” – Greg Rossbach, July 7, 2017

72. Bobby Heenan Total Points: 2,737 Total Ballots: 53 Average Rank: 49.4 High Vote: 11 Low Vote: 100 High Voter: Dylan Hales

Nuance: Bobby Heenan was a full-time manager and sporadic wrestler for the WWF from 1984 through his stint as Executive Consultant to the Nature Boy in 1992. Following his stint as a manager he became a full-time broadcast journalist where he stayed with the company until 1993. Heenan worked exclusively as a heel. His facial expressions and comic timing are unparalleled in wrestling and he could walk the line between serious threat and comic relief like no one else could.

Jump Up Moments: Heenan was the driving force leading to Andre the Giant turning on Hulk Hogan, leading to one of the biggest angles ever and creating an electric atmosphere at the sold-out Pontiac Silverdome for WrestleMania III. A year earlier he led King Kong Bundy to main event WrestleMania 2. While the “Weasel” was primarily known as a foil for Hogan, he also had memorable moments teaming with the Islanders in a dog attack suit and losing to Ultimate Warrior and wearing a weasel suit. He also lost to the Red Rooster at WrestleMania V. Managed Rick Rude to the IC title in a shocking win over the Ultimate Warrior and the Brain Busters and Colossal Connection to tag team gold and served as Ric Flair’s Executive Consultant when he was the Real World Champion and eventually WWF World Champion.

Promos/Character: Listen humanoids, has there ever been anyone better on the mic than Heenan? He’s got to be on anyone’s short list of the best talkers ever. The Brain is well-known for his comedy, with good reason, but he could drive home an angle with anyone. Hogan/Andre would not have been the same without him and he even added a lot to Ric Flair’s run, from promoting him as the Real World Champion to when he won the belt. Good Ol’ Will called Heenan the Lex Luthor to Hogan’s Superman, the Joker to his Batman in this FYC podcast and I think that’s an accurate way to describe Heenan’s rivalry with the Hulkster.

Workrate: Workrate’s the category that voters struggled with for Heenan. While he wasn’t a full-time wrestler, as Steven Graham noted in the Facebook thread, The Brain wrestled 126 matches in the WWF from 1984 to 1991. In addition, some would argue that working includes taking an active part in a match through interfering and taking bumps as a manager and Heenan did this in spades. His memorable matches always involve him showing ass and looking ridiculous often involving him wearing a silly suit of some kind, either by design or as a stipulation of losing the match.

Staff Thoughts: Heenan is an all-time great character and one of the top heels the WWF has ever had. How you determine whether he is a wrestler or a manager and whether his work as a manager counted toward his workrate likely determined if he made your list and where he fell. The Weasel appeared on fewer ballots with a higher average rank than others finishing in the 70s, meaning that if he met your criteria for inclusion, you likely put him in a high spot. As a character, it’s hard to dismiss his work and it’s impossible to tell the WWF story without him. He was an integral part of one of the hottest times in company history. Hogan/Andre is not the same without him. And I know his announcing doesn’t count, but has there ever been a more fun match call than Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon at Royal Rumble 1992? Even without his broadcast journalist credentials, Heenan did more than enough to score with voters.

From the Voters: “When you’re more over with than the majority of the roster. His matches were sheer entertainment, even though they weren’t technically sound. His promo and mic work can’t be touched. One of the most memorable figures on the companies history. He may not have been a full time wrestler, but he is worthy on being on the top 100.” – Michael Schoen, May 28, 2017

“I don’t think he’s going to make it as a wrestler, though he’s one of the greatest all-around performers in the business. He was always a manager, who sometimes got in the ring just to face his comeuppance. He was entertaining in those moments, but it was mostly comedy stuff.” – Adam Russell, July 21, 2017

“The reality is you can have great workrate outside of the ring. Both Heenan and Sherri fall into this category. They were often the best part of many matches and the reason they will both be on my list. I currently have Heenan in my Top 20.” – Good Ol’ Will From Texas, May 31, 2017

71. Adrian Adonis Total Points: 2,749 Total Ballots: 73 Average Rank: 63.4 High Vote: 7 Low Vote: 96 High Voter: Andrew Lacelle

Nuance: Adrian Adonis worked in the WWF from late 1981 to 1987, so he has moderate longevity. He was part of the East-West Connection with Jesse Ventura, won Tag Team gold with Dick Murdoch as the North-South Connection and competed as a single as well. He only played a heel during his WWF run, BUT he played two distinctly different heel characters between the New York street tough and the flamboyant Adorable One, so he certainly showed flexibility in this run.

Jump Up Moments: His most high-profile feud in the company was with Roddy Piper, after Adonis replaced Piper’s Pit with the Flower Shop and attacked Piper, along with Bob Orton, Jr. and Don Muraco. This led to Piper destroying the Flower Shop with his crutch and their memorable match at WrestleMania III, ending with Adonis getting his hair cut and Piper retiring for a little while. Adonis was also a driving force in Paul Orndorff turning on Hulk Hogan, constantly stirring the pot on the Flower Shop. His pre-Adorable work saw him as a regular challenger to Bob Backlund for the WWF Championship and Pedro Morales for the IC title, as well as a Tag Team Champion with Murdoch.

Promos/Character: Adonis was a good talker, being able to cut an effective promo, and host his own talk show segment, The Flower Shop. The Flower Shop was the backdrop to the Orndorff turn on Hogan and the Piper feud. Adonis played two effective heel characters, both the New York thug and the Adorable gimmick. While certainly not the most enlightened nor PC of gimmicks, Adonis took the Adorable gimmick and ran with it, going all in with the makeup, leg warmers and scarves.

Workrate: Adonis was a great bumper and moved around very well for a man his size, even as that size increased substantially during the Adorable run. He had great matches with Backlund, like this one for example. There are a number of other matches, including tag team work with Murdoch, shared on the Facebook comments section.

Staff Thoughts: Adonis could do it all, from bumping like a madman in title matches with Backlund to pushing Orndorff closer and closer to his epic turn on Hogan. His feud with Piper was one of the top three or four matches of WrestleMania III, which is about as historic of a card as you can get. He could work singles or tag teams and took a gimmick that should’ve been pure crap, and turned it into something. Adonis garnered such interest from voters that they created this article and this podblast to tout his candidacy. His diverse skill set and moments made a believer of many voters and made any doubters say “Goodnight Irene.”

From the Voters: “Makes the cut for me. Always good in the ring who could really go and bump even when got really overweight. Also had the tag title run with Dick Murdoch and one of the bigger matches at WrestleMania 3.” – Wade Ferrari, May 29, 2017

“He will definitely make the top 100 for me. His feud with piper made me a fan as a kid, but through house shows, prime times etc getting to see more. One hell of a bumper and agree with Jt would love to see more of him and Murdoch as a team.” – Shawn Kidd, May 29, 2017

“A bubble guy for me, leaning more in than out. His skills were very obvious during his matches with Backlund. Had versatility, wrestling singles and tagging with Ventura and Murdoch. Also managed to stay relevant by taking on a whole new persona as “Adorable Adrian”, despite how offensive the gimmick was. Even with all the extra weight, he could still bump like crazy and still pull out some decent work. Had 3 separate runs in the WWF, which shows his longevity. And his promos, especially as the tough New Yorker when he came in with Blassie, were solid. Looking at all that, I gotta pop the bubble and put him in.” – Tim Tetreault, May 30, 2017

70. Jimmy Snuka Total Points: 3,034 Total Ballots: 55 Average Rank: 46 High Vote: 5 Low Vote: 92 High Voter: Jesse

Nuance: Jimmy Snuka came into the WWF as a heel under the direction of Lou Albano in 1982 and stayed with the company until 1985. He would later return in 1989, staying with the company until 1993, before leaving and returning sporadically to diminishing returns each time. Snuka played a despised heel before turning and becoming one of the most over babyfaces of the pre-Hulkamania and early Hulkamania eras.

Jump Up Moments: Is there anyone that doesn’t immediately think of Snuka’s dive off the top of the steel cage during his match with Don Muraco at Madison Square Garden? That moment created a generation of fans, including a young Mick Foley and an aging Scott Criscuolo. Your mileage may vary on whether that is a positive or negative. Superfly also had the overlooked cage dive on Bob Backlund and a red-hot feud with Roddy Piper that started when Piper cracked a coconut over Snuka’s head during a famous segment of Piper’s Pit. Snuka was in the corner of Mr. T and Hulk Hogan during the main event of the first WrestleMania as well.

Promos/Character: Snuka was not the best talker, leading to him being paired with Albano and later cutting some of the most nonsensical, but laid back promos you’re likely to hear. But it didn’t matter, because he’d just smile and do the “I love you” hand signal and that was enough. His Polynesian character and look were unique for the time with his leopard print trunks and headband and he had a connection with the crowd like few others. He was also one of Hulk Hogan’s buddies on the popular Rock ‘N’ Wrestling cartoon, even after he left the company.

Workrate: His work was more about moments than matches and those moments usually involved him jumping off something high. His Superfly splash was one of the first highspots to get truly over. He had famous matches with Muraco triggering the aforementioned leap from the top of the cage, and a famous cage match with Bob Backlund that also saw him leap from the cage, though Snuka lost both those matches. The Superfly continued to return to the WWF whenever they needed a surprise entrant or a legend to trot out or job to the latest disrespectful punk, and those matches got progressively worse. But in his prime he was usually exciting if not always the most skilled in-ring technician.

Staff Thoughts: Let’s address the elephant in the room right away: many voters chose to disqualify Jimmy Snuka from consideration due to a moral consideration because he was charged with third-degree homicide and involuntary manslaughter in the case of his girlfriend’s death in 1983. Others chose to ignore the charges (though he was believed to be guilty by many) and evaluate Snuka solely on his wrestling merits. Both approaches are completely understandable. For voters that evaluated Snuka based on his career only, it can’t be argued he was an unforgettable character in the early 1980s. He was even rumored to be on the short-list of potential top-stars for when Vince McMahon, Jr. took the company national, but was thought to be too unreliable. However, his look, his charisma and his memorable moments, matches and dives make him a huge part of WWF history, and one of the top 100 wrestlers on our list.

From the Voters: “Charisma over skill. He was so so in the ring, but had a great connection to the crowd. Strong runs as both a heel and a face. No real classic matches, but such an enduring character. Late career run as a JTTS hurts his score a bit. He squeaks in on the low end for me.” ��� Ben Morse, May 31, 2017

“The most exciting face from when he left Albano up to when Hogan won the title. The Superfly Splash was THE move everybody talked about at my elementary school. Molten hot feuds with Albano, Muraco, and Piper. When you think of Piper’s Pit, theSnuka incident is always the first to come to mind. Looking back at his promos, they’re such ridiculous, borderline incoherent, gibberish. But that didn’t matter at that time whatsoever. Great matches with Muraco and Piper were based on crowd excitement, certainly not workrate. I’d have to rank him in the 100 based on these factors.”- Tim Tetreault, May 31, 2017

“The original phenom of the WWE, if it wasn’t for him we would be void of the most memorable moments in wrestling history when he jumped off the top of a cage onto Don Muraco. This moment made fans become fans. Just ask Scott Criscuolo if you don’t believe me. I think the makes the top 100.” – Matt Rotella, May 31, 2017

[douglasacogan]

Spotlighting felon disenfranchisement in Florida

I am always pleased to see the New York Times editorial board giving attention to criminal justice issues, and I am especially pleased to see this new editorial focused on felon disenfranchisement.  The lengthy piece is headlined "Florida’s 1.5 Million Missing Voters," and here are excerpts:

Everyone remembers that the 2000 presidential election was decided by 537 votes in Florida.  Far fewer remember another important number from the state that year — 620,000, the Floridians who were barred from voting because state records showed, correctly or not, they had been convicted of a felony.

It didn’t matter whether their crime was murder or driving with a suspended license, nor whether they had fully served their sentence. In Florida, the voting ban is entrenched in the Constitution, and it’s for life.  Today, Florida disenfranchises almost 1.5 million of its citizens, more than 11 states’ populations and roughly a quarter of the more than six million Americans who are unable to vote because of a criminal record.

Felon disenfranchisement is a destructive, pointless policy that hurts not only individuals barred from the ballot box, but American democracy at large.  Its post-Civil War versions are explicitly racist, and its modern-day rationales are thin to nonexistent. It can make all the difference in places like Florida, which didn’t stop being competitive in 2000; the state remains a major presidential battleground, and victories for both parties in state and local elections are often narrow.

That could all change if a proposed constitutional amendment gets enough signatures to be placed on the ballot in November and wins enough support.  The initiative would automatically restore voting rights to the vast majority of Floridians who have completed their sentence for a felony conviction, including any term of parole or probation.

This is a long overdue and urgently needed reform.  The only way around Florida’s lifetime ban — as in the other three states with such a ban, Kentucky, Iowa and Virginia — is a direct, personal appeal to the governor.  In the last few years, Terry McAuliffe, as Virginia’s governor, restored voting rights to more than 168,000 people, and the governors in Kentucky and Iowa granted roughly 9 in 10 of the restoration requests they received in the first half of the decade....

The right to vote is the most meaningful mark of citizenship in a democracy. It should be withheld only in extreme circumstances, and its restoration shouldn’t depend on the whims of a governor.  What’s worse, many of these laws, especially in the South, are inextricable from their racist origins. Florida’s was enacted in 1868 — two years after the state thumbed its nose at the 14th Amendment — with the intent to prevent newly freed black people from voting.  Those effects linger today, as one in five black adults in Florida remain disenfranchised because of a criminal record.

The new initiative, which excludes people convicted of murder or sexual offenses, will be placed on the ballot if it receives 766,200 signatures and will take effect if it earns at least 60 percent of the vote. Its advocates have submitted more than one million signatures to date, although many still need to be verified before the Feb. 1 deadline.

One hundred and fifty years after Florida enshrined this awful law, there’s only one clear way to get rid of it.  Legal challenges have fallen short, the governor is no friend to voting rights, and lawmakers have limited power when it comes to constitutional amendments.  It’s time for Florida’s voters to step up and restore the most fundamental constitutional right to more than a million of their neighbors.

I hope this proposed constitutional amendment can get to the ballot and can garner a super-majority of votes.   As long time readers may know, I have long believed as many people as possible should be enfranchised in a democracy, and my basic thinking on this front was explained in this Big Think piece years ago headlined "Let Prisoners Vote."

Thinking beyond this ballot initiative, I suspect Congress could enact legislation that could restrict the reach of extreme state felon disenfranchisement laws.  I know Senator Rand Paul spoke about this issue some years back, and I would guess they might be some opportunity for some bipartisan legislation to try to limit how some states seek to limit the franchise.  (I recognize there could be some constitutional/federalism issues raised if Congress gets too involved in state voting laws, but often if there is a will to expand the franchise, there can be a way.) 

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247011 http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2018/01/spotlighting-felon-disenfranchisement-in-florida.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

[benrleeusa]

Spotlighting felon disenfranchisement in Florida

I am always pleased to see the New York Times editorial board giving attention to criminal justice issues, and I am especially pleased to see this new editorial focused on felon disenfranchisement.  The lengthy piece is headlined "Florida’s 1.5 Million Missing Voters," and here are excerpts:

Everyone remembers that the 2000 presidential election was decided by 537 votes in Florida.  Far fewer remember another important number from the state that year — 620,000, the Floridians who were barred from voting because state records showed, correctly or not, they had been convicted of a felony.

It didn’t matter whether their crime was murder or driving with a suspended license, nor whether they had fully served their sentence. In Florida, the voting ban is entrenched in the Constitution, and it’s for life.  Today, Florida disenfranchises almost 1.5 million of its citizens, more than 11 states’ populations and roughly a quarter of the more than six million Americans who are unable to vote because of a criminal record.

Felon disenfranchisement is a destructive, pointless policy that hurts not only individuals barred from the ballot box, but American democracy at large.  Its post-Civil War versions are explicitly racist, and its modern-day rationales are thin to nonexistent. It can make all the difference in places like Florida, which didn’t stop being competitive in 2000; the state remains a major presidential battleground, and victories for both parties in state and local elections are often narrow.

That could all change if a proposed constitutional amendment gets enough signatures to be placed on the ballot in November and wins enough support.  The initiative would automatically restore voting rights to the vast majority of Floridians who have completed their sentence for a felony conviction, including any term of parole or probation.

This is a long overdue and urgently needed reform.  The only way around Florida’s lifetime ban — as in the other three states with such a ban, Kentucky, Iowa and Virginia — is a direct, personal appeal to the governor.  In the last few years, Terry McAuliffe, as Virginia’s governor, restored voting rights to more than 168,000 people, and the governors in Kentucky and Iowa granted roughly 9 in 10 of the restoration requests they received in the first half of the decade....

The right to vote is the most meaningful mark of citizenship in a democracy. It should be withheld only in extreme circumstances, and its restoration shouldn’t depend on the whims of a governor.  What’s worse, many of these laws, especially in the South, are inextricable from their racist origins. Florida’s was enacted in 1868 — two years after the state thumbed its nose at the 14th Amendment — with the intent to prevent newly freed black people from voting.  Those effects linger today, as one in five black adults in Florida remain disenfranchised because of a criminal record.

The new initiative, which excludes people convicted of murder or sexual offenses, will be placed on the ballot if it receives 766,200 signatures and will take effect if it earns at least 60 percent of the vote. Its advocates have submitted more than one million signatures to date, although many still need to be verified before the Feb. 1 deadline.

One hundred and fifty years after Florida enshrined this awful law, there’s only one clear way to get rid of it.  Legal challenges have fallen short, the governor is no friend to voting rights, and lawmakers have limited power when it comes to constitutional amendments.  It’s time for Florida’s voters to step up and restore the most fundamental constitutional right to more than a million of their neighbors.

I hope this proposed constitutional amendment can get to the ballot and can garner a super-majority of votes.   As long time readers may know, I have long believed as many people as possible should be enfranchised in a democracy, and my basic thinking on this front was explained in this Big Think piece years ago headlined "Let Prisoners Vote."

Thinking beyond this ballot initiative, I suspect Congress could enact legislation that could restrict the reach of extreme state felon disenfranchisement laws.  I know Senator Rand Paul spoke about this issue some years back, and I would guess they might be some opportunity for some bipartisan legislation to try to limit how some states seek to limit the franchise.  (I recognize there could be some constitutional/federalism issues raised if Congress gets too involved in state voting laws, but often if there is a will to expand the franchise, there can be a way.)