Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

World reaction to long queues of voters in US

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–268 of 268 posts

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#261

Post by smoe »

apta wrote: post #240
smoe wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing and terrible I think it is pretty fitting. As a Swiss I have voted almost every single time (about 4 times a year) since I was able to, but I have never even left the house for doing that beyond dropping it off in the next regular or official mailbox. I don't know what a polling stations look like from the inside after 15 years of voting, and being completely honest, I probably couldn't be arsed for the major…

Do you have to provide ID when voting in Switzerland?

You automatically get all the material sent from the municipality you are registered in (this is mandatory) around 2 months before each vote in a re-sealable envelope that contains information how to vote, a one-off voting id, the ballot and an inner envelope to place the ballot to be separated from id before counting.

You can either just send back the envelope with your vote via normal postal service for free, put it into a voting drop box that some places have, or bring voting id and ballot to a polling station.

I’m not completely sure if you need other form of ID when voting in person. But don’t think that would be a problem since everyone has a national id card.

https://www.ch.ch/en/demokratie/votes/how-to-complete-a-ball...

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#262

Post by cortesoft »

jdmichal wrote: post #255
cortesoft wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t ignore the attempt to actively make early voting WORSE though, like Texas removing ballot drop off locations that were already in place and changing the rules to only allow one location per county. That isn’t “old rules are out of date and need updating”, that is “actively making the current system worse to suppress voting”

I'm not sure what you're looking for here? Do you want an endorsement that I don't like voter suppression? Because sure, I don't like voter suppression. But you keep bringing up points that are at best tangentially related to the actual topic at hand here. I don't dispute that there's shit that happens, but I also don't see the connection to long lines at early voting.

> I think there was likely not much thought put into the number of early voting locations. It's always been viewed as a low-budget, customer-friendly alternative to voting on election day. That probably should have been re-evaluated given the pandemic and the likelihood of greater numbers of early voters

This part of your earlier comment makes it seem like you are arguing that the early voting issues are simply logistical issues because they didn't "re-evaluate" their process for the pandemic.

I am pointing out evidence that these problems aren't from a lack of planning, but from active suppression.

If you look at any particular incident (like the long lines for early voting in this case), you can think of a lot of innocent reasons it might be happening. When you see the pattern, and you see clear and active suppression, you can't just say "well, all of these other incidents are just poor planning"

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#263

Post by bpt3 »

LiquidSky wrote: post #258
bpt3 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long wait times are occurring across the US this year for early voting; I spoke to someone in Texas (a historically Republican stronghold) who told me lines were 2 hours long in his area on the first day of early voting. US election regulations aren't designed to handle this level of early voting because there has never been this much demand for it. You can debate whether that should change or whether election offici…

>but I don't believe this to be as nefarious as you claim You might want to pay more attention, then. Take your Texas example: the state is currently in a legal battle over the Governor's surprise order two weeks ago to only allow one ballot drop per county [1], meaning that Harris County with 4.5 million people went from 11 drop locations to 1, the same number as rural counties with only several hundred people. And,…

No, I don't need to pay more attention since I'm fully aware of that decision, but thanks for your condescending attitude.

What impact does that decision have on the long lines in nearly every metropolitan area in the US, including places like mine which have no record of any claims of voter suppression or interference at the state level?

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#264

Post by onecommentman »

cortesoft wrote: post #262
jdmichal wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you're looking for here? Do you want an endorsement that I don't like voter suppression? Because sure, I don't like voter suppression. But you keep bringing up points that are at best tangentially related to the actual topic at hand here. I don't dispute that there's shit that happens, but I also don't see the connection to long lines at early voting.

> I think there was likely not much thought put into the number of early voting locations. It's always been viewed as a low-budget, customer-friendly alternative to voting on election day. That probably should have been re-evaluated given the pandemic and the likelihood of greater numbers of early voters This part of your earlier comment makes it seem like you are arguing that the early voting issues are simply logis…

You are using the phrase “active suppression” in a way I have never seen it used before.

Extending the use of the phrase to describe these sort of political tactics has a downside. It waters down the emotional impact of the phrase when being used to describe, say, the poll tax or grandfather clauses in the US South. Real voter suppression.

And thus, in a backhanded sort of way, dilutes the honor of those early civil rights workers who fought, and sometimes died, so that everyone got a chance to vote. Why would you want to do that?

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#265

Post by onecommentman »

If the posted title is correct, this is an article about some comments about some images surrounding an event...the start of an election period.

So if I comment on it, I will be commenting about an article about comments about images about an event. This would violate my rule refusing to comment on things two abstractions away from what passes as reality.

It should violate your rule too.

Cf. the children’s song “There’s a hole is the bottom of the sea”.

“There's a fleck on the speck on the tail On the frog on the bump on the branch On the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea.”

Or “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly”

“She swallowed the cow to catch the goat, She swallowed the goat to catch the dog, She swallowed the dog to catch the cat, She swallowed the cat to catch the bird, She swallowed the bird to catch the spider That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her! She swallowed the spider to catch the fly; I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she’ll die.”

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#266

Post by apta »

smoe wrote: post #261
apta wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have to provide ID when voting in Switzerland?

You automatically get all the material sent from the municipality you are registered in (this is mandatory) around 2 months before each vote in a re-sealable envelope that contains information how to vote, a one-off voting id, the ballot and an inner envelope to place the ballot to be separated from id before counting. You can either just send back the envelope with your vote via normal postal service for free, put i…

That's one problem with voting in the US. It seems that the democrats do not want people to use ID (e.g. a drivers license) when voting. It seems quite obvious that it will prevent voter fraud. They keep pointing to Europe all the time, but then when their policies are contradictory, they're quiet about it.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#267

Post by Leyths »

apta wrote: post #266
smoe wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You automatically get all the material sent from the municipality you are registered in (this is mandatory) around 2 months before each vote in a re-sealable envelope that contains information how to vote, a one-off voting id, the ballot and an inner envelope to place the ballot to be separated from id before counting. You can either just send back the envelope with your vote via normal postal service for free, put i…

That's one problem with voting in the US. It seems that the democrats do not want people to use ID (e.g. a drivers license) when voting. It seems quite obvious that it will prevent voter fraud. They keep pointing to Europe all the time, but then when their policies are contradictory, they're quiet about it.

In countries in Europe (such as Switzerland) where all citizens are issued some form of National ID this isn't an issue. In countries such as the US, or the UK, where forms of government ID are common but not universal, passing laws requiring ID verification to vote is voter suppression. Across all groups it is the poorest that do not have a form of government ID - https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/campaigns/upgrading-our-...

In the UK there were 28 counts of election fraud at the 2017 election, a rate of 0.000063%. Whereas estimates of people without government ID range around 10% of the population (as of 2016, anyway) https://identityassurance.blog.gov.uk/2016/01/25/estimating-...

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#268

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

I'm wondering if there are ballot boxes like this anywhere in the US?

[1] https://www.wahlurne.de/Wahlurne%20Muelltonne%201.png

[2] https://mobil.express.de/image/31438468/max/600/450/a7c42ec3...

[3] https://scheinwelt.lima-city.de/assets/images/mulltonnen-wah...

The above pictures are from Hamburg and Bavaria. When I saw them for the first time I thought were kidding me.

Post reply on HN