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I’m guessing you haven’t done any fact checking or digging into this. Please do. That little talking point about somehow you commit a felony by giving people water is ‘misleading’ to put it mildly. Even the left-leaning Politifact will point this out.
What is illegal (and should be illegal, and should have always been illegal in my opinion) is to walk up and down the queue as a political campaigner giving out gifts, money (or ‘in-kind’ gifts), food/drink etc. Campaigning at the poll booth is illegal and giving someone a cold bottle of water with XXX candidates name all over it while wearing a candidates T shirt and saying nice things about a candidate…etc. etc. should not be allowed.
That section says exactly that giving food or water is illegal. If one passes out free water or sandwiches, that can be classified as a gift, regardless of whether it has some political party logo on it.
I’d rather have people not be able to be given water than to allow political campaigners to provide gifts at the place of voting. Harsh, yes, but given the choice, I know what I’d take. It seems like the law was intended to stop campaigners from doing so, but has been written so generally that nobody can give gifts (or water).
Hopefully poll workers can provide unattended water stations (or heaven forbid people bring their own water or just tough it out for an hour or two…).
What does one thing have to do with the other? You can bar political campaigners without barring a kindhearted person from offering a bottle of friggin’ water.
I guess you’re not aware that some voters in Georgia stood in line for 11 hours to exercise their right to vote. And this sort of time frame will only become more prevalent if govts try to make it more difficult to vote.
But the law that you quoted prohibits advertising. Then it ALSO prohibits giving away food or water. Period. Even WITHOUT advertising. Even if whoever gives that food has nothing to do with any candidate but just wants voters to be able to wait to vote without being hungry or thirsty. Even if it was the Red Cross or World Central Kitchen, who have nothing to do with politics.
Note that voters in most white precincts don’t have to wait for hours in line to to vote. It’s mostly voters in minority neighborhoods, where there are fewer polling places even though there are more voters. But Georgia’s off my list until the same majority of voters we saw in January finally throw the bigots out and permanently install fair elections.
The law is intended to make it harder to vote. So one party who is in charge can remove polling places in areas dominated by the other party, create long lines and make it illegal to hand out water. It is shameful
I suppose you did not see the 5 and 6 hour long lines at the polls last election day?
Irregardless, most municipalities do not allow ‘electioneering’ within (for example) 100 feet of the polling place. That’s worked for the last 200+ years to keep things like signs and angry right wingers from getting too close.
This section of the new law is simply wrong. Many of us support a national organization called “Pizza At The Polls” to provide sustenance for folks waiting in lines - it also helps folks in line for vaccines - and in the USA, we do not call that ‘gifts’ or ‘politicizing’; we call that 'being a good neighbor’.
Observation & whining
If you search for a rental in my area, Airbnb displays rentals in four different adjacent townships (about 30 mile North South range x 6 miles wide)
I narrowed my search to my immediate area on the map (approx 1mile x 1mile)
My listing with superhost status & over 100 reviews is buried under NEW listings with no reviews & listings with 5 or less reviews.
I knew with the extremely active buy it/rent it real estate market rental offerings were going to increase.
Seeing it “for real” is depressing. In all fairness, my summer is about 50% booked and I’m not oceanfront and have Max occupancy of 2. However my listing is so far down on the list, I’m a bit miffed the newbies are getting such a boost.
It’s like the feeling you get when you realize the cell/mobile phone company is offering new customers a free phone & super cheap rate they won’t give the long term customer who has been paying them (making them money) for years.
I knew Airbnb doesn’t treasure long term, proven hosts but it’s disappointing to see it so blatantly.
The new host boost has been around forever and we all got it, so maybe think of it as it’s their turn. However, it used to be there was a mix of new and old. I used to always be near the top. It sounds like that changed.
You can also console yourself with the thought that established hosts get better guests. I’ve said before that I will no longer stay with a new host. I look for SH, lots of reviews and a high star average.
What Airbnb should really do is rotate the search order on a daily basis, so everyone gets to be on the first page every so often. As is, it’s a vicious circle- if your listing us buried, you don’t get a lot of bookings, which moves you even further down the search.
It used to be that they tried to facilitate the search for the guest. From the guest point of view I’d love to have a search by star rating. That would send all the sub x star rated hosts into a tizzy though.
