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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   5649 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 13, 2022

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Before I moved to a state with universal vote-by-mail, I pretty much only ever voted in Presidential and (maybe) midterm elections. Since moving, I've voted in every single election I get a ballot for. Being able to vote by mail, without having to ask for the privilege, removes a lot of friction from the voting process. You might say it's not that big of a deal to go vote in person, but where I was living, even if I did early voting it was going to mean about an hour standing in line (either because I got there way before the polling location opened to be first in line, or because I didn't do that and had to queue behind everybody else who did).

For those concerned about fraud, it's perhaps worth noting that I was kind of casual about my signature on a recent ballot, and my ballot got challenged because the signature didn't match my driver's license signature, and I had to go re-sign in person.

Thanks for the reply.

You might say it's not that big of a deal to go vote in person, but where I was living, even if I did early voting it was going to mean about an hour standing in line (either because I got there way before the polling location opened to be first in line, or because I didn't do that and had to queue behind everybody else who did).

That is, indeed, exactly what I would tend to say! But yeah, if it's actually going to an hour of standing in line, that's not great. I'm inclined to agree with @urquan below that the appropriate solution isn't to give up on in person voting, but to figure out why it's not working correctly and endeavor to fix it. I would be highly supportive of measures that make it quick, easy, and secure to vote in person. Solutions that include weekend voting and/or voting holidays seem entirely reasonable to me.

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We need more polling places, and more poll workers. "Ending universal mail-in voting, and dramatically increasing the number and staff of polling places in urban precincts" seems like a great compromise that would make everyone happy.

If nothing else, we'd find out whether Republicans really favor in person voting or just want it be difficult to vote and Democrats really just want it to be easy or have other reasons for wanting mail-in.

Like you, I haven't experienced the giant lines in person. In fact, I've now voted in:

  • Rural village with heavily red voting

  • Moderate sized city that's about half black demographically and votes blue

  • High income suburb that votes fairly (but not exclusively) blue

  • Downtown in Madison, Wisconsin, one of the bluest places known to man

In in none of them have I ever had any meaningful wait at all. The extent to which I've never had to wait makes it very hard for me to believe that the problem with in-person sites is fundamentally intractable. Maybe it gets harder in very dense urban areas, but it also seems like the available infrastructure in these areas should be excellent.

Can an American please explain to me how very long voting queues can be an issue in practice? So from what I understand this happens in very Democratic urban polities, where both voters and the politicians are Democrats. Why not make it as easy as possible for your own voters to vote? Is it just incompetence?

The only datapoint I have here is that a lot of the places that supposedly experience this are places with incompetent administration in general.

Surge planning for anything is tricky.

Couple that with limited funds, dependence on volunteers, and procedures which may be set by a hostile state government, and city or county hands may be tied.

Living in a small town, there are probably single buildings in NYC that house more people than my entire precinct. In order to have a polling station you need some common/semi-public area like libraries or whatever, and there are probably fewer of these per Capita in cities than suburbs/rural. That's what makes cities more efficient in the first place--usuay fine except the when Everyone simultaneously needs to do a thing.

This doesn’t convince me. Aren’t elections mainly held in schools there? (That’s what happens in Turkey at least) Surely the ratio of population to school space is roughly equal in almost everywhere

I dont think they are "mainly" held in schools, although I assume some are. Election day is a school day here, so much of the school space would be otherwise occupied. Cities also will have fewer children per capita, and per square foot building cost is higher in cities, so I don't see why school floor space would proportional, as a rule.

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