- Always on a weekday, so if you have a job and then a family to take care of after work, good luck finding time.
- Long lines, so that even those who find time are discouraged by standing around in November weather.
- The countless cases of voting locations in minority areas conveniently having broken machines or other barriers that prevent them from voting.
This environment has essentially optimized the experience for one group: retirees who have the time and energy to prioritize their day around voting. It's no surprise that legislation often favors this specific group as a result.
My high-level vision of how digital voting would look:
- A secure open source app that verifies your identity before letting you vote.
- Every candidate on the ballot would have a bio detailing their policies and views, to be filled out by them.
- A digital approach would make it easier to eventually adapt the system to involve things like ranked voting.
This would allow everyone to vote whenever and wherever they want, no relying on external factors like those mentioned above. It also provides one consistent place for every voter to see the same information about the candidates, rather than placing that task in the hands of media and their inherent bias/interests.
That's my 2 cents, I'm excited to see how startups tackle this.