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World reaction to long queues of voters in US

bbc.com

101–110 of 268 posts

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#101
post #47

I'm not saying this is universally true, but in my area, a large portion of the people standing in these long lines are intentionally doing so to make a political statement (or more skeptically, are virtue signaling). There has been one voting station open in the entire county which adequately supported early voting based on historical trends, while dozens more are opening soon and will reduce (if not entirely elimin…

What political statement are they making aside from saying 'I would like to vote'?

Even the densest election board recognizes this year is not based on historical trends and that early voting (which has been touted on national news) is one way to solve the issue.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#102
A lot of people outside the USA don’t realize we don’t have an election. We have 51 parallel elections, each with their own rules.

For example, you’ll never see long lines like that in California or Oregon.

For some reason people are super allergic to having federal standards on how federal elections should be run.

Sure, run your state however you want. But it’s messed up that I, a Californian, have no say in how elections are run in Florida, even though it has a big effect on me, and vice versa.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#103
post #53

Why would you wait in line 11 hours to vote when you can drop off your ballot at a ballot box?

In Texas, where I live, the Republican Governor ordered counties to remove all but one box in each county. In California, the Republican party setup unofficial drop boxes that aren't legal.

> the Republican party setup unofficial drop boxes that aren't legal.

How is this not a felony? AFAIK it is a felony to set up a fake mailbox to steal peoples' mail.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#104
post #75

The article only mentions in passing that these lines were on the first day early voting was open. Of course if everybody tries to show up on the first day, you're going to have long lines. Those polling places will be open for a total of three weeks (up until the weekend before election day--and in many US jurisdictions early voting lasts even longer, in my area it opened two weeks ago) and for most of that time the…

> Of course if everybody tries to show up on the first day, you're going to have long lines.

What you seem to take as obvious does not seem obvious at all to me.

Why should there be long lines? It doesn't make any sense at all for a system that typically does voting all at once on one day.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#105

Why would you wait in line 11 hours to vote when you can drop off your ballot at a ballot box?

Because where they do exist, it's really hard to tell if that ballot box is real. Because one political party has decided to install fake ballot boxes.

The Republican Party of California set up ballot boxes in locations frequented by Republican voters so that they can harvest Republican-favorable ballots and... throw them away?

I get that putting up ballot boxes that pose as "Official" should/may be illegal, but the ballots that go into those boxes are going to get delivered and counted.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#107
post #16

The people behind this would tell you it's a "feature": by making it incredibly undesirable for people in densely-populated areas to vote (which almost universally lean Democratic), you ensure that only the "right" people are able to vote.

I eyeballed a few people making that very same argument right here on HN but draped in the typical and disgusting line about “personal responsibility” when someone was lamenting how difficult some states are making it to even get registered.

HN always has these "hot takes" discounting any societal failings, probably because the average user expects their worthless "Facebook for dogs" idea to turn them into a billionaire and want to keep low taxes

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#108
The reason for this, as the article aptly points out, is because of the historic technique of the American conservative party (today the American Republican Party or GOP) to restrict the ability of traditionally liberal voters (today the American Democratic party) to vote. Given that the working class, naturalized immigrants, and people of color traditionally vote liberal, the best way to secure a win is simply make it as hard as possible for them to vote. So they've opposed legislation guaranteeing a day off to vote [1], making it fairly impossible for people living paycheck to paycheck. They've opposed legislation to make it easier to vote by mail in ballot [2] which would make it easier for working class people to vote. They've purged voting rolls so that people with less understanding of the registration process find themselves unable to vote on election day [3], and of course the incessant cries that somehow voter fraud is a big enough issue that it's worth disenfranchising thousands with strict voter ID laws. In my home state of texas we had once instance voter fraud in the last 4 years, and it was a woman on parole being lied to by her parole officer about her right to vote.

Typical bad faith conservative arguments include that mail in voting leads to voter fraud (it doesn't), voting holidays are a power grab by democrats (Mitch mcconnell's verbatim words), and that millions of Mexicans citizens / non americans are voting in american elections (also no). In texas the republicam governor said vague things about covid and then banned counties from having more than one ballot drop off location. For reference, my county (harris) has one of the largest cities in america (houston) in it, a population of 30 million people, and can take up to an hour and a half to drive from an edge to the center.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/us/politics/election-day-...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/30/trump-vot...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/31/voter-purges...

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#109

The people behind this would tell you it's a "feature": by making it incredibly undesirable for people in densely-populated areas to vote (which almost universally lean Democratic), you ensure that only the "right" people are able to vote.

It is a feature but not how you’re describing. The US governing system is designed in such a way as to move at a glacial pace but also to not make mistakes or over correct. The polling systems may seem broken now but will inevitably get corrected over time. Further, the US take states’ rights seriously and allows states to make many key decisions in terms of how they wish to hold elections. The thinking is that you’d…

> The US governing system is designed in such a way as to move at a glacial pace but also to not make mistakes or over correct. The polling systems may seem broken now but will inevitably get corrected over time.

Is that what the 3/5ths compromise was about? Jim Crowe laws? Poll taxes? Poll literacy tests? Purging voter rolls?

The notion that any of these "features" are necessary for good governance is ludicrous.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#110

Why would you wait in line 11 hours to vote when you can drop off your ballot at a ballot box?

Because where they do exist, it's really hard to tell if that ballot box is real. Because one political party has decided to install fake ballot boxes.

Shenanigans are not limited to one of the political parties. https://nypost.com/2020/09/27/project-veritas-uncovers-ballo...
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