World reaction to long queues of voters in US • Hacker News Board

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#241

Post by Balgair » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

rightbyte wrote: post #195

sudeepj wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why this does not make sense? Can you elaborate?

It seems to good to be true?

Here's a 2019 report from the Boston Globe about the extreme lengths that poll workers will go to in India to ensure access:

https://www.bostonglobe.com./news/world/2019/04/13/poll-work...

"The polling booth in Gir Forest National Park in Gujarat is set up for the sole human inhabitant, a Hindu priest who lives among the lions. Polling officials hike for a whole day to reach the remote village of Malogam in Arunachal Pradesh, where just one woman is registered to vote."

"Another Ladakh station, Anlay Pho, is so high at 4,500 meters (almost 15,000 feet) above sea level that polling teams must carry oxygen tanks."

"The voting machines were protected inside waterproof boxes and other polling material was kept dry under layers of plastic cover. The journey ended with a splash: Priyadarshini and the team clambered out and waded through waist-high water to reach the shore. All this for just nine voters."

"Many polling booths in remote areas have no mobile connectivity. Here too, the team had to use wireless sets and satellite phones to send the commission’s mandated twice hourly reports on the progress of polling."

Such a strong commitment to democracy, even through all the other messes in India, is beyond heartening. Such efforts should be emulated throughout the world.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#242

Post by jdmichal » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 6:55 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #218

jdmichal wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly you don't remember the lines of people camping out multiple days to pick up an iPhone...

Then Apple adapted by allowing preorders. Now suffering the queues is elective.

This is hilarious to me because you are basically making the correct point, but with the wrong conclusion. Let's take as a potentially erroneous given that early voting worked perfectly OK. Then, in 2020, it's run exactly the same, but demand is larger than in previous years [0]. That might result in exactly what's being reported here.

So yes, Apple made a mistake with a novel experience. Looks like various supervisors of elections are maybe also making a mistake with a novel experience. But I the latter doesn't get the same slack as Apple?

And, to be fair, at least my local supervisor of elections sent extra mailings this year making it abundantly clear that mail-in voting was an option and how to register for it. So they did make obvious the availability of the preordering equivalent.

[0] I won't say larger than anticipated, because the likelihood is that no one bothered to anticipate at all. Otherwise they might have figured to open more early voting stations this year.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#243

Post by tom_mellior » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 7:14 PM UTC

bpt3 wrote: post #239

tom_mellior wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Not the norm" is a cop-out. Is it the average person's experience? No, and nobody says that it is. The BBC article doesn't say that the average voter needs to wait for hours. But many voters do.

It's not a cop-out, it's a summary of the facts, as opposed to your claims that "many" voters wait in lines like the ones shown in the article and the random picture you found. Like many of the individuals quoted in the BBC article, you know nothing about how voting in the US works and don't understand why people are choosing to stand in these lines right now, weeks before the actual election day and before all early…

It's you who is being condescending. Anyway, we both seem to agree that people -- an unknown number, and certainly not the average voter -- stand in lines for hours to vote. I acknowledge that you think it's significant that they are choosing to do so.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#244

Post by cortesoft » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 7:17 PM UTC

bpt3 wrote: post #115

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #5

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.

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…

In a vacuum, sure.... but when they are removing ballot drop boxes that are already in place, you can’t say that it is because they didn’t forecast demand... it is intentionally reducing capacity after increased demand was already anticipated.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#245

Post by cortesoft » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 7:20 PM UTC

jimbob45 wrote: post #146

akiselev wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

3/5 was written into the Constitution - that couldn’t have been helped. The rest were mistakes, yes, but they make the case for an even higher majority to pass a law, not a lower one. They’re state issues, not federal issues. If you don’t like the distributed governing system of the US, that’s fine, but the system was designed for local majorities to be able to self-govern on internal affairs and, to that end, I woul…

What? So much of our constitution is designed to deal with bad people. It is why the whole idea of a balance of power is in place.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#246

Post by 12xo » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 7:21 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #209

12xo wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One has to understand the root of the cause if you wish to treat the illness. It is no secret that the removal of the Fairness Doctrine paired with the deregulation of media and the removal of Congress's oversight and license requirements helped fuel the right wing media rise over the last 15years. Pair that with the rise of internet based style ad measurement and audience feedback, and you create a media tailor made…

The root cause is that our country is a hegemony founded by rich slave owners. The “decades of decency and abidance to a common good” is a myth that erases the ongoing plight of marginalized people, spun by those who want to keep that status quo. We have always been a violent and oppressive nation — the caste system is enshrined in our national DNA, and we have never in our 250 year existence truly reckoned with it.…

If you think the retraction of voting rights is due to the actions of men some 300 years ago, I dont really have much to say... You might as well go back a few thousand years. However, if you're interested in the actual cause and effects of real, tangible actions and real legislation by living souls. People whose goals were to repress votes to change outcomes, I suggest you study the last 30 years of American media and how the Right morphed the rules to their benefit.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#247

Post by cortesoft » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

jdmichal wrote: post #172

cowmoo728 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The history of voter suppression in certain states cannot be ignored. The argument you're presenting is misleading because the intent of the system is clearly to discourage specific groups of people from voting. There's a long history of voting machines not working (on purpose), inadequate staffing, restrictive laws, and all of this malfeasance curiously manifesting in neighborhoods with specific demographics. People…

> The history of voter suppression in certain states cannot be ignored. Agreed but mostly orthogonal. Providing early voting at all is a drastic improvement reducing voter suppression. Since it lasts for multiple days, it allows for many more people to vote on days off work and other commitments, when they may not be able to easily vote on election day. Providing better early voting would of course do an even better…

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”

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#248

Post by jakelazaroff » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 7:24 PM UTC

jdmichal wrote: post #226

notabee wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why, if the U.S. can avoid becoming a failed state in the near future where laws mean nothing for those in power, the most important priority should be to change how voting is done to allow ranked choice and end the duopoly. It's not rational in most cases to try to run third party candidates given how the math works out currently, but we desperately need to make that viable. Perhaps if a single-issue voting…

I'd rather see approval voting than ranked choice. The outcomes are roughly the same, but the system is easier and less disputable. Which is very much a feature in the US; remember hanging chads in the 2000 race? If they can dispute that, then they can certainly dispute any unclear ranking marks. And also because ranked choice usually comes along with instant-runoff here in the US, which is possibly the only system w…

I would actually still prefer IRV to FPTP. The center candidate's boundary can be unpredictable, but the other boundaries are in basically the same place as they are for approval and Condorcet. FPTP shifts all the boundaries and drastically reduces or eliminates center candidates' winning regions. (I'd also prefer it to Borda, which drastically enlarges center candidates' winning regions).

That said, I agree that approval seems to strike the best balance between simplicity and outcome, with the caveat that where possible we should also have proportional representation rather than winner-take-all districts, e.g. https://www.fairvote.org/fair_representation

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#249

Post by jdmichal » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 7:50 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #248

jdmichal wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather see approval voting than ranked choice. The outcomes are roughly the same, but the system is easier and less disputable. Which is very much a feature in the US; remember hanging chads in the 2000 race? If they can dispute that, then they can certainly dispute any unclear ranking marks. And also because ranked choice usually comes along with instant-runoff here in the US, which is possibly the only system w…

I would actually still prefer IRV to FPTP. The center candidate's boundary can be unpredictable, but the other boundaries are in basically the same place as they are for approval and Condorcet. FPTP shifts all the boundaries and drastically reduces or eliminates center candidates' winning regions. (I'd also prefer it to Borda, which drastically enlarges center candidates' winning regions). That said, I agree that app…

Agreed on all accounts. I'm mostly just disappointed that, when the chance comes to actually affect change, we seem to mostly just be moving from one provably broken system (FPTP) to another (IRV). While at the same time increasing complexity more than necessary to achieve a better outcome.

But even with IRV, I would be happy I could finally throw some votes at third-party candidates whose platform I align with, without throwing away my entire vote.

Re: World reaction to long queues of voters in US

#250

Post by jakelazaroff » Wed, Oct 14, 2020, 8:08 PM UTC

12xo wrote: post #246

jakelazaroff wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root cause is that our country is a hegemony founded by rich slave owners. The “decades of decency and abidance to a common good” is a myth that erases the ongoing plight of marginalized people, spun by those who want to keep that status quo. We have always been a violent and oppressive nation — the caste system is enshrined in our national DNA, and we have never in our 250 year existence truly reckoned with it.…

If you think the retraction of voting rights is due to the actions of men some 300 years ago, I dont really have much to say... You might as well go back a few thousand years. However, if you're interested in the actual cause and effects of real, tangible actions and real legislation by living souls. People whose goals were to repress votes to change outcomes, I suggest you study the last 30 years of American media a…

"Retraction" is a weird word to use. The issue isn't that we're going backwards — voter turnout has generally increased over this country's lifetime [1] — but it's that we're enfranchising people at a relatively slow and demographically disproportionate rate. If you pick 30 years ago as your starting point, you'll miss the start of the war on drugs, white flight and redlining, Jim Crow — all "real, tangible actions and real legislation by living souls, people whose goals were to repress votes to change outcomes".

Right wing media constructing an alternate reality is worrying, of course. But it's myopic to intentionally ignore the mantle of disenfranchisement and oppression that recent politicians have picked up. Their ideas didn't come from nowhere, you know.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_St...