The TL;DR - Any pending legislation does not carry over between Congresses (expiring on 11:59:59 on Jan 3rd) and effectively ceases to exist. Any bill sent to the president for signature has a 10 day (not counting Sunday) shelf life before the president must sign or veto before it becomes law automatically.
If a bill is sent to the president such that there is less than 10 days before the next congress begins, the bill can be kept in the president's pocket and basically be vetoed by running down the clock.
While this is true for any moderately sized business, there is a legitimate case for tiny business to do so, as having that in-house can be expensive and potentially more risky. It gives said small business the ability to have that functionality without the dedicated employee and offload the legal risk to the service provider.
Edit: By tiny, I mean like a 10 person operation where no one is super tech savvy.
As a quick recap for what has been going down, and for the love of god don't actually fuck with any of it.
For all of the affected voting sites: Having someones Name and DOB will allow you to view their voter registration (home address) and their current ballot selections if they have voted.
For Oregon: You can update the ballot selections. It will require you to return the electronic print out by email, but you can do so without a signature. An Aussie in the original 4chan thread provided proof of this process. You can also update their voter registration information.
For Washington: You can request a new ballot, but it must be returned physically with signatures. The impact though is that requesting to update the ballot this way invalidates the original ballots for that person even though new one is not submitted.
The best solution is to not rely on one single source but instead look for agreement from multiple sources of differing background. Duckduckgo is a fair launching point as an aggregator. Bing, yandex, and yahoo are usually fine.
Yet many local news sources for Minneapolis seems to be reporting on it, having received it as an email through official channels. Other big, fairly reputable sources are also reporting on it.
Also, stop using Google and use literally anyone else. Google filters their results such that they fit their corporate narratives and not reality.
I'd argue that restriction based on something one has zero control over isn't just, nor in line with allowing all the right to pursue happiness. Set the standards high and allow anyone with the ability to meet them the rewards.
Voting restrictions should be such that anyone voting needs to have a stake in the nation's future and continued success. I'd say make voting contingent on meeting 2 of the following 3 requirements (in addition to being a legal citizen):
- Own and actively live on a plot of land in the US.
- Be a net tax payer and not receiving any government assistance.
- Have served in the armed forces and were honorably discharged.
Not the guy, but I think the concept is this:
- You setup a VPS or similar hosted instance from a provider (usually in eastern Europe or Africa) that will accept giftcards or other cash-purchasable redeemables as payment.
- You setup openVPN on it and use that connection to create your burner accounts.
- ???
- Profit!
Rinse and repeat. Odds are good that if you are the tip of the spear, you're not going to be walking away from it. But, if everyone does the same it will bring the whole thing to a stop very quickly.