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World reaction to long queues of voters in US

bbc.com

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Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#131

Post by pdonis »

epistasis wrote: post #104
pdonis wrote: 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.

> Why should there be long lines?

Because many people don't stop to think that they have a full three weeks to vote, so they all pile in on the first day as if it were election day (note that the article also talks about yesterday as if it were election day and all these people in the lines would have no chance to vote if they didn't stand there for hours instead of just coming back another day); but early voting polling places, because they are spreading the voting out over weeks instead of all in one day, aren't set up to handle a huge pile of people all showing up at once.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#132

Post by framebit »

Just a little local perspective on the lines in Georgia. The waits that some folks had to endure in the primaries were a huge problem. Georgia absolutely has history of voter suppression like many post-confederate states, and some seriously shady stuff has gone down in the past.

However, the really long lines yesterday were more attributable to incredible turnout on the first day of early voting, which also happened to be a federal holiday so many people had the spare time to come out and vote. There are new voting systems, new volunteers for whom that was their first day running the polls, and a very motivated electorate.

For comparison, today, two days later, I know of at least two people who were in and out in 15 minutes in some of the same areas that had incredible lines on Monday.

There are legit voter suppression stories of great concern in GA, but I don't think the lines of Oct 12 qualify. I'm totally open to being corrected on this opinion though.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#133

Post by nathanaldensr »

jedberg wrote: post #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 ele…

It's not messed up, and the Framers agreed, hence why every state is allowed to determine how to run its elections. The argument of federal power at that scale was lost long ago. If one doesn't like the way one's state exercises its power, one can move to another state. This is a feature, not a bug.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#134

Post by komali2 »

manishsharan wrote: post #9

I think the most worrying aspect is an emerging strain of political thought in the US that USA is merely a republic but not a democracy. I find it quite shocking that it has gained a great deal of acceptance. edit : typo

This is a result of bad faith astroturfing by conservatives. I'm not really sure the objective other than to have something to say when someone points out the glaringly obvious flaws about the electoral college system. It's not an argument against the electoral college system at all...

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#135

Post by rightbyte »

throwaway4good wrote: post #91

The long queues obviously are there on purpose; incredible your sitting government can get away with it. It is really a sign of a broken system - there are supposed to be checks and balances.

What does voter turnout matter when electors are chosen on a district level anyways? Ie a city got its allocated electors versus a town with nicers ques and higher turnout.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#136

Post by beervirus »

dvtrn wrote: post #51
beervirus wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also mail them in. That whole thing was a fake controversy.

I suspect you and I define the words “fake” and “controversy” quite differently.

The opinion issued by the federal appeals court gives a lot more context than any news article I've seen. Even if you read just the first couple of pages, you'll be better-informed than 99% of the people talking about this, and I suspect you'll see my point.

http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/20/20-50867-CV0.pdf

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#137

Post by ocardoso »

From Mexico: We have a better system than the US when it comes to vote ballots and logistics, it's ironic that with all the resources they have, they are unable to do a better job than we do. It's really sad to see how the US politicians have used gerrymandering to drive the outcomes of the elections. It's really encouraging that the people, despite the current situation, are going to vote no matter the time.

Good luck, we hope you get Trump out of the WH.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#138

Post by loudmax »

knubie wrote: post #26

Hanlon's razor applies here. Many people here and elsewhere on the net are quick to point out corruption or voter suppression, but I think a more realistic explanation is plain old incompetence from the people running these places.

I think you're not wrong, but more cynicism is warranted.

As a baseline makes sense that it's going to be easier for people to vote in some places than in others. Money spent in the right places could mitigate that imbalance by making voting safe and convenient for everyone. The United States certainly has the resources to make that happen, but it doesn't. This isn't so much active voter suppression as selective passive voter discouragement.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#139

Post by akiselev »

aluminussoma wrote: post #100

I get the impression that this is an opportunity to paint a political story that makes your side look better (other side is suppressing the vote, therefore my candidate lost!), or perhaps in this specific case, to poke fun at America as it is a favorite international past time. The data I see shows another possibility: voter turn out has increased by a large amount and the government is struggling to meet the demand.…

According to [1] and plenty of other studies of their kind, closure of voting locations have been a major problem since the Shelby decision gutted the voting rights acts. Summary:

> We found 1,688 polling place closures in places once covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Of the 757 counties in our study, 298 (39 percent) reduced the number of polling places between 2012 and 2018. Because presidential elections tend to have higher turnout rates than midterms, we analyzed the data to determine whether the number of polling places varied to meet the different demands of each type of election. They did not. Most (69 percent) closures (–1,173) occurred after the 2014 midterm election.

> The Shelby decision paved the way for systematic statewide efforts to reduce the number of polling places in Texas (–750), Arizona (–320), and Georgia (–214). Quieter efforts to reduce the number of polling places without clear notice or justification spread throughout Louisiana (–126), Mississippi (–96), Alabama (–72), North Carolina (–29), and Alaska (–6).

Can't argue population growth in good faith when polling places are actively being shutdown in states with growing populations like Texas.

[1] http://civilrightsdocs.info/pdf/reports/Democracy-Diverted.p...

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#140

Post by komali2 »

PeterStuer wrote: post #22

Over here voting takes one morning (population 11M), results are in by evening. I can't see why it wouldn't scale.

It does scale, however in the USA, the republican party directly benefits the less people vote, so in states where the republican party controls voting means, you'll see things like long lines, arbitrary voter ID requirements, etc. In the USA, voting is handled at a state level.
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