Boris Johnson fails in third attempt to call early general election
Last edited Mon Oct 28, 2019, 04:46 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: The Guardian
Boris Johnson has lost his third bid for a general election, after Labour abstained and he failed to reach the two-thirds majority of MPs he needed for a poll. The result was 299 votes for and 70 against.
The prime minister is now expected to back a Liberal Democrat plan to change the law in order to secure an early election, although the parties do not yet agree on a date.The Lib Dems want a date of 9 December, while students are still at university, but the Tories favour 12 December, after some have broken up for Christmas.
Following the vote, Johnson said he would come back to the House on Tuesday with a Bill for a December 12 election that will require a simple majority rather than the two-thirds of MPs required for Monday’s vote. Johnson said: “Later on this evening, the government will give notice for the presentation a short bill an election on 12 December so we can finally get Brexit done. The house cannot any longer keep this country hostage … Now that no deal is off the table, we have a great new deal. It’s time to put that to the
voters.”
Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, suggested his party could also back the Lib Dem plan after coming under pressure to back an early poll. The party has been saying that it cannot support an election until a no-deal Brexit is removed as a risk. “We will consider carefully any legislation on an early election,” he said, adding that a date needed to be locked down in law to prevent Johnson trying to move it for his own advantage.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/28/boris-johnson-third-attempt-general-election-fails
= new reply since forum marked as read
Losing a step...? 
Never had one.
we have the issue here of only being able to register in one place at a time when it comes to students in post-secondary schools - either home residence or school residence. And in the case of those who register at schools, the GOP had been trying to make it hard for students to even do that - in some cases, refusing to allow school IDs to count as an "acceptable" ID for voting or only allowing the student to register from their home address because the school address may be in some dorm that might not be "verifiable" or some other nonsense... Meaning that if the student doesn't go to a school close to home, they would have to vote absentee (which can be a nuisance in itself). 
I know the 4 years I was away from home for college (different state), I had to write to the city of Philadelphia to request the form for an absentee ballot well in advance, send that in, and then hope I got a ballot mailed back to me in time... And then once I completed it, I had to return it at least 30 days before the election. They have since sped up the process a bit (thanks to the request forms being online) and I even heard last week that the state legislature is miraculously even debating whether to offer absentee ballots "for any cause", which is a major shift.
