As a non-American, I don’t know exactly how your polling works, but why am I seeing “plan your voting day” or “set a voting strategy” like they’ve done on the Cards Against Humanity voting campaign?
Where I live, it’s just show up on voting day and cast your ballot, or ask for a mail in ballot, or go to a special voting station if you need (or want) to vote early. Is it the same in the US, and this is just getting people to gather those last pieces of information early and put a reminder in the calendar? Or is there more to it than that?
Thanks!
Studies have shown that if you ask people to make a plan for voting, they are more likely to actually go out and vote. It’s even cited in the FAQ of cards against humanity.
So we ask people to make a plan because it’s an efficient way to make them more involved and more likely to actually go out and vote when the day comes. Not because it’s so hard that they need a plan (unless you live in certain states of course), but because it forces you to think actively about it rather than just passively.
Lines can be long, polls have limited hours (often conflicting with work hours), a person may need a ride to the polling location, etc. Some states have stupid rules like you can’t give people in line to vote food or water, which makes standing in line for hours more challenging.
Wait, you can’t give people food or water if they’re standing in the line? Why the hell not?
And hours in line?? What? Why!
“We hate that poors get to vote in our country. Don’t they know that this was a country founded with the ideals that only landowning white men could vote? Apparently they changed that law at some point, so we just make new ones to make the poors not want to vote. Like depriving them of things they need to live if they choose to do so. It’s what they get for being poors. Johohoho!”
- American lawmakers in poor, conservative states
In all honesty, it’s fucked. It’s so fucked.
The American political system will do everything it can to prevent poor people from voting
In Nebraska, I get my ballot by mail way in advance. I fill it out at my leisure, doing research on candidates as needed. I can then either mail the ballot back or drop it off at one of several locations around town (including any of the public libraries). I haven’t voted in person in years. This method is so much better.
As many have mentioned the real reason is to suppress votes by making the experience miserable.
The cover story for the rules is to prevent campaigns or other groups from “buying votes” by giving people in line food/water in exchange for a promise to vote for their candidate.
So they won’t wait long enough to vote. The excuse used to ban is that they’re being “bribed” with food and water. It’s just pure voter suppression, but who are you going to complain to? The mayor and the police who watch Fox every night?
Because certain people with power find it advantageous to make it difficult for the people in certain areas to vote. If you know that district isn’t going to vote for you, and morality is a thing that happens to other people, you could make the polling place too small with too few workers.
To discourage people from voting. As was pointed out elsewhere, the Republicans only really flourish when a small number of people vote. So they make it as inconvenient as possible for people who are lower income, usually people of colour.
Wait what? And that sort of things is legal? Are you serious? You know, there are countries where voting is obligatory, and others where it is made as easy as possible.
Wait til you learn about Gerrymandering. I’ll not get into it in depth, but essentially the local/state government in the US will set up voting regions to guarantee that one party has a massive advantage.
Must be nice.
That’s cool but the post was clearly about the USA where they have made voting a miserable fucking experience.
It’s voter suppression. By limiting the number of voting locations and understanding them you make long lines where people will wait for hours to vote. By not allowing food or water to be handed out they hope people will get discouraged and leave the line. The official reason is that it could be construed as a bribe to vote a certain way.
Because the people making those rules don’t want those people to vote. They figure, if it’s that much of a hassle, they won’t turn out. Meanwhile, in Republican-strong areas, they have multiple voting locations and very short lines.
Yikes! And I thought that gerrymandering was playing dirty. This is just next level stuff…
Murica.
This was literally the overarching plot for the last season of curb
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Wow. That’s a stark contrast to where I live. I don’t have to register or anything. Just bring that notice I got in the mail. And I’ve never waited in line for more than 15-20 minutes. And we germans keep all the supermarkets, shops and most businesses closed on sundays, so voting will just take place on a sunday and it won’t collide with work either…
Does anyboy know why it’s a tuesday in the USA? I guess sunday would at least help people with a regular office job? Malice? Something that was important in the 18th century when you had to travel by horse to the voting place? Or some mundane reason?
It is Tuesday for some outdated reason that no longer matters and it is kept as a tradition because it conflicts with working days where minorities and other lower income folks will find it harderr to vote.
The lines are long in places where Republicans want to suppress the vote, by not providing enough staffing, minimizing voting stations, and throwing in other hurdles. They also oppose early voting snd mail in voting to make it harder for everyone to vote, because their angry voters are more likely to stick it out through those barriers.
I live in a Republican state that hasn’t gone Dem for president since Nixon, and of course I have never waited more than 5 minutes in line and started voting early when that option was added. I don’t vote Republican, but most of the people do so they haven’t gone as malicious on voter suppression like in the states that have a chance of going Dem.
Americans talk so much about democracy, and this is how they treat their voters… Reading this thread just makes me sad.
How is thay even legal, wtf?
Because the same party doing it is good at repeatedly testing the barriers to discrimination and dismantling laws against it.
Texas and some other states were not allowed to change voting practices without approval for years due to this kind of thing under the Voting Rights Act. Then SCOTUS overturrned that law…
Within hours of a U.S. Supreme Court decision dismantling a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, Texas lawmakers announced plans to implement a strict voter ID law that had been blocked by a federal court. Lawmakers in Alabama said they would press forward with a similar law that had been on hold.
The ruling continues to reverberate across the country a decade later, as Republican-led states pass voting restrictions that, in several cases, would have been subject to federal review had the conservative-leaning court left the provision intact. At the same time, the justices have continued to take other cases challenging elements of the landmark 1965 law that was born from the sometimes violent struggle for the right of Black Americans to cast ballots.
Thanks for the explanations. I think the Unites States should embrace being founded on the principles of democracy, and once being amongst the leading countries with that… And return to being a democracy. Every time I read about some more details, I’m more convinced that one of your major parties doesn’t like democracy, or the original idea behind the USA.
The US was founded on wealthy white male landowners who mostly owned slaves being able to vote, just like their Greek and Roman inspirations.
Expending that concept to the general population took a couple nearly two centuries, and we still haven’t embraced it. We have sucked at being a democracy the whole time.
Also, the parties traded the racists in the 60s and 70s. Republicans were the equal rights party prior to the Southern Strategy while the Dems were the racists up to that point, but Republicans have been on the wrong side of history since then.
I’d expect some equality be ensuredon federal level for at least federal level stuff. Just… wow. I knew US was fucked up, but I somehow always learn there is yet another level to it
That’s what the Voting Rights Act was…
I love seeing people realize the USA is only a Democray for a very specific group of people weather it’s concerning the Judges or the Election process. On top of that thanks to the electoral college if you dont live in a swing state you don’t really get a say. The election will boil down to a few hundred thousand people in a couple states just because of where they live.
Wouldn‘t it be the best thing to make election day a nation wide holiday? Could keep the tradition while also actually allowing people to vote. I doubt that productivity is high on these days nevertheless.
Has this ever been discussed?
National holidays don’t apply to private companies, apparently.
Wait? What?
Private companies are not obligated to provide any amount of leave, paid or unpaid as a general requirement. Some states may have requirements, but there is no federal requirement and many states have none.
The one requirement that I know of is allowing an employee two hours to vote on the one voting day every two years if necessary to make it to the polls. I am fairly certain this only applies if their shift is the entirety of the time the polls are open, and it is not required to be paid time.
Federal holidays can be observed by private companies, but then who will run the movie theaters on Christmas for us to go watch CGI robots fight each other? Or serve us fast food on Labor Day? Etc etc. It’s stupid.
The trick is do you want ANYTHING open on the holiday? Grocery, train station, etc? In America, if anything is open, then the cats out of the bag
Poor people voting isn’t good for profits and it’s literally that simple. Neither party care, a few progressive dems do, at least until aipac tries to get rid of them while the most powerful dems stand behind aipac.
It has, but there are some people who do not like the idea that everyone can vote.
Also it being a holiday doesn’t mean everyone gets off work. There is no federal law that says your business can’t be open 365 days per year, nor is there any law that mandates paid time off.
one of the two main parties knows that if ‘everyone’ voted, they would no longer hold any power whatsoever. so they actively prevent democracy by making it harder to vote.
You generally register when you get your license with new address here but the Crux is this gets complicated if you move from state to state…there is no federal voting registry, you register to your state.
In contrast, in Oregon, we just vote by mail. Fill out you ballot at your leisure, drop it off in the mail box or ballot box by the due date, and you’re set. Also the ballot boxes are all over the place. City Hall, the post office, the library, etc.
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If you live in a swing state there might be a lot being done to make voting difficult.
And if you don’t live in a swing state your vote doesn’t matter enough for any party to try and sabatoge voting efforts. If this is Democracy then democracy doesn’t work.
There is plenty of sabotage in poor and minority districts in non-swing states. There is more on the line than just the presidency.
Anywhere you’ve got decades long republicans in office you will find it extremely hard to vote in America. Elsewhere it’s relatively easy. In Colorado I literally don’t do anything, a booklet explaining all the laws shows up in the mail a few weeks before the ballots do, then the ballot shows up and I can either drop it off in one of the numerous drop boxes, put it in the mail, or ignore it and go vote in person where the lines are short because nobody votes in person.
How does a country like the US have hours long lines…
republicans are anti-democracy and have for decades put in place many obstacles for voting. they know that they only exist as a minority, and true democracy would limit their ability to fuck the rest of us over.
Because pubs like to deter voting
(Hey, non-Americans: “pubs” means “Republicans.” Bars and pubs don’t care whether we vote or not.)
I’ve been to a couple bars where you get a discount on a drink if you have an “I Voted” sticker.
One thing that I think non-USians don’t understand is that our elections are not ran by some non-partisan agency that has a goal of running an efficient, fair election. Our elections in general (although it varies by state) are ran by partisan actors who know which areas vote for their party and which ones don’t. They intentionally try to make it easy for their supporters and hard for their detractors to vote.
I live in Ohio if you couldn’t tell, and our chief elections officer (the Secretary of State) is not afraid to tell people that he wants Donald Trump to win the election. He is not neutral. That’s just the way it is here.
Intentional voter suppression.
It really depends on location and turnout.
Here in my town, the longest I’ve ever waited was a minute or two. Small population, and plenty of booths.
When I lived in a city, I only voted twice, but both times I was waiting maybe ten minutes plus a little. That was, as I was told, average for that polling place. It was a church basement (not in the dank and drippy way lol), so it was a tad small for the number of people in the district. But, over at a school gym that was a polling place, I had a friend wait nearly a half hour. Despite the bigger space, the turnout was huge, and not typical for that specific polling place.
They try to make sure a space is big enough (when everything is working right) for the district, but it doesn’t always work perfectly.
Then, you’ve got locations where the voting organizers are willing to fuck over a specific district and the polls will be under staffed, have too few booths, and may have other impediments to getting things done efficiently.
So it’s not really a single factor that goes into the crazy wait times. Nor is an hour in line the default.
Tx… makes sense.
This is uneducated speculation but what if more people are going to vote as elections get crazier and voting centers aren’t used to the higher volume?
You get even longer queues?
I mean to explain the current longer wait times
Ah I see. Well technically yes but that would be easily preventable with a modicum of planning so it’s much more likely that it’s a deliberate decision.
We don’t have these issues here in Minnesota. Plenty of polling places, short lines.
Here in Duluth I live right across the street from the church that is a polling station. Never taken me more than ten minutes including the walk there and back.
This, however, is not the case in many more densely populated areas that tend to be more blue. There are often long lines for few polling stations. In some places you really do need a plan to be able to vote, especially if you are balancing it with other responsibilities like work or childcare.
For anyone who hasn’t waited hours in line to vote - your democracy sounds nice, the rest of us have to work real hard to make sure our (often less impactful due to the EC).vote counts.
Definitely, my situation would not be normal in Minneapolis, where I was born and grew up. There it was a little more chaotic, longer lines, but still not terrible.
Minnesota hasn’t been one of those states desperately trying to keep people from voting, thankfully.
And we are trying to keep it that way.
