California Voted for Slavery

In California they have prisoners fight the wildfires. I find it sickening, but it's a popular program. I wonder if that's where this result comes from. The wildfires get worse and worse and they need bodies to sacrifice. Depressing.

Looks like people voted no to slavery, but the question asked do you not support slavery.

The answer should have been (yes) I do not support slavery.

Instead (no) I do not support slavery.

I can image a good chunk of people got confused with the wording, and I myself am still confused reading it.

The props are worded so insanely that without hours of prep, I would vote incorrectly.

A "resistance" against the will of the majority is generally called a terrorist organization.

Progressive Americans, face it: Most of the people around you want this.

This is the first result I checked for when I woke up this morning, and I nearly vomited when I saw the breakdown. Half the vote is still uncounted, but I don’t think the result will change. I’m ashamed of my neighbors.

Call for resistance? You can get enough Americans to get off their arse to vote every four years?

To be fair, and that’s being very fair, it does end with “allowing involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime” and a case could be made for confusing wording.

It hasn't been called yet but I certainly didn't have California votes to be a slave state on my 2024 bingo card.

People likely voted for not repealing the provision allowing involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime and not for keeping slavery.

Whoever thought combining those two things in one vote was a good idea is an idiot

Oh go away, they did not vote for "slavery". They voted to allow making convicted felons work as part of their sentence. It's slavery in the same sense that working to buy food and pay rent is "slavery". Metaphorically yes, but calling it slavery devalues the experiences of all the people who were kidnapped from their homes, brought here in chains on ships, and sold in a market.

I think it'll be a few days before everything is counted, since California is pretty slow. That said, conservative turnout seems pretty high so I wouldn't be surprised if it fails.

In character for the US. Now it just has to play a Civil War movie and some patriotic montage to act like it isn't there.

I dunno, I voted for it, but California has HUGE conservative areas and the notion of working off your sentence isn't exactly new or seen as particularly cruel by most. Also the comparisons to slavery will fall on deaf ears because it's as much slavery as imprisoning people is kidnapping.

If you are OK with prisons, forced labor within them isn't going to seem significantly harsher.

Isn't work in prisons usually a privilege? Is this something that is actually used? What happens when someone just doesn't do what is asked of them?