The US has had a long history of restricting who gets to vote. Originally it was only white land owning males, then it has gradually progressed into what it is today. Some states are cool with who gets to vote, others are still upset there are certain groups of people who get to vote who they wish didn't (and actively work towards restricting or removing their rights), so those upset states constantly create as many barriers as possible to disenfranchise groups of voters they don't like. If you'd like to see how awful it has been before, I suggest reading about Jim Crow laws.
this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
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America has been turned into a dystopia by republicans where in order to vote, you have to provide birth certificate, social security card, a signed permission slip from your late parents, a blood sample, a piece of the Shroud of Turin, a moon rock, and 75 thousand dollars in unmarked non-consecutive bills.
I'm in Texas. The serials on the bills have to follow the Fibonacci sequence.
In Ohio you can’t use a rock from our moon. Neil might’ve loaned you one from ours
Damn it, I thought they had to add up to avogadro's #
If you’re a conservative however, all you need is a drivers license or state ID, and the names of all your dead relatives who are also voting.
And then they save you time by giving you a ballot with all the Republican candidates already checked.
Studies have shown that if you ask people to make a plan for voting, they are more likely to actually go out and vote. It's even cited in the FAQ of cards against humanity.
So we ask people to make a plan because it's an efficient way to make them more involved and more likely to actually go out and vote when the day comes. Not because it's so hard that they need a plan (unless you live in certain states of course), but because it forces you to think actively about it rather than just passively.
Lines can be long, polls have limited hours (often conflicting with work hours), a person may need a ride to the polling location, etc. Some states have stupid rules like you can't give people in line to vote food or water, which makes standing in line for hours more challenging.
Wait, you can't give people food or water if they're standing in the line? Why the hell not?
And hours in line?? What? Why!
I'm guessing you might be from Canada (Hello up there friend)!
Because certain groups in power are total pieces of @#$_&-+/!
Which States Ban Giving Food and Water to Voters at Polling Places?
Elections in the US didn't used to be so controversial, but in the last 10 years certain groups/parties have been crying foul (baselessly I might add) about illegal voting.
You are supposed to be able to go to the polling place on election day and vote. There are limited voting hours (generally about 12 hours), it is not a national holiday (should be), your employer does not have to give you time to vote (paid or not). You might be able to vote via postal mail (but it varies by state what "valid reasons are" to do that).
The US really needs election reform nation wide.
A holiday could help but it's not a real solution. Think of how emergency services will have to stay operational as an essential entity. Now think of the shitty retail companies that will call themselves essential businesses. You may get some compliance from some retail, but not all. Probably not most. Look at every other solemn non-denominational holidays like memorial day or labor day. Not only do stores stay open, but they have sales for those. People work the hardest on labor day! And that is the group least likely to vote and most likely to swing.
12 hours is usually long enough for people to not be at work at some point, but I'd much rather see a 20-24 hour window. Cover those stuck on double shifts. Cover super commuter workaholics. Cover the person who needed to catch a movie first.
Or do literally anything else to improve our archaic system. It's intentionally kept obtuse and atrocious to keep out the people struggling the most while the other end mails a vote from Aruba.
Recent changes in Michigan extended it from 1 day to over a week, joining several other states offering early voting options.
"The early voting period begins the second Saturday prior to Election Day and ends the Sunday before an election. However, communities may decide to provide additional days of early voting. Under state law, communities can offer up to 29 days of early voting."
https://www.michigan.gov/sos/elections/voting/early-in-person-voting
As many have mentioned the real reason is to suppress votes by making the experience miserable.
The cover story for the rules is to prevent campaigns or other groups from "buying votes" by giving people in line food/water in exchange for a promise to vote for their candidate.
…which is so dumb because I can tell everyone I’m voting for then go in there and vote for instead. 😒
Sure, but they're not asking you before they do it. If one candidate has gone on record saying a certain demographic should have their rights stripped, and there's a district that is populated by mainly that demographic, they don't need to poll the area to guess who's going to lose that district.
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"We hate that poors get to vote in our country. Don't they know that this was a country founded with the ideals that only landowning white men could vote? Apparently they changed that law at some point, so we just make new ones to make the poors not want to vote. Like depriving them of things they need to live if they choose to do so. It's what they get for being poors. Johohoho!"
- American lawmakers in poor, conservative states
In all honesty, it's fucked. It's so fucked.
To discourage people from voting. As was pointed out elsewhere, the Republicans only really flourish when a small number of people vote. So they make it as inconvenient as possible for people who are lower income, usually people of colour.
Wait what? And that sort of things is legal? Are you serious? You know, there are countries where voting is obligatory, and others where it is made as easy as possible.
Wait til you learn about Gerrymandering. I'll not get into it in depth, but essentially the local/state government in the US will set up voting regions to guarantee that one party has a massive advantage.
Bruh the shit going on in Ohio this election cycle where LaRose has reworded (see also the abortion amendment where his "summary" was longer than the actual text of the amendment) the ballot to obfuscate the actual intent of Issue 1 to make people vote No which helps consolidate the Republicans grip
It's ridiculous. My wife is relatively intelligent and she doesn't understand the wording on the ballot and I explained to her that despite the reading, a No vote will continue the status quo. Like I'm a free speech kind of guy but just put the damn text on the damn ballot like don't bullshit us Frankie!
Fuckin schmucks
But if they don't do everything they can to obfuscate the ramifications of voting No then everyone would vote Yes!
They know what they're doing is against the wishes of the majority, otherwise they would put the choices in plain language, or weight the obfuscation the other way....
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Wait what? And that sort of things is legal?
Technically no, if it can be proven that the goal is racial discrimination specifically. Every so often there's a lawsuit claiming just that. Problem is, it tends to get resolved by the Supreme Court which is two-thirds chosen by the "let's make it harder to vote" party.
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Because certain people with power find it advantageous to make it difficult for the people in certain areas to vote. If you know that district isn't going to vote for you, and morality is a thing that happens to other people, you could make the polling place too small with too few workers.
Because it might be seen as bribery to get them to vote one way. This country has pulled every piece of bullshit in every direction when it comes to voting
So they won't wait long enough to vote. The excuse used to ban is that they're being "bribed" with food and water. It's just pure voter suppression, but who are you going to complain to? The mayor and the police who watch Fox every night?
The American political system will do everything it can to prevent poor people from voting
It's voter suppression. By limiting the number of voting locations and understanding them you make long lines where people will wait for hours to vote. By not allowing food or water to be handed out they hope people will get discouraged and leave the line. The official reason is that it could be construed as a bribe to vote a certain way.
Because the people making those rules don't want those people to vote. They figure, if it's that much of a hassle, they won't turn out. Meanwhile, in Republican-strong areas, they have multiple voting locations and very short lines.
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In Nebraska, I get my ballot by mail way in advance. I fill it out at my leisure, doing research on candidates as needed. I can then either mail the ballot back or drop it off at one of several locations around town (including any of the public libraries). I haven't voted in person in years. This method is so much better.
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Wow. That's a stark contrast to where I live. I don't have to register or anything. Just bring that notice I got in the mail. And I've never waited in line for more than 15-20 minutes. And we germans keep all the supermarkets, shops and most businesses closed on sundays, so voting will just take place on a sunday and it won't collide with work either...
Does anyboy know why it's a tuesday in the USA? I guess sunday would at least help people with a regular office job? Malice? Something that was important in the 18th century when you had to travel by horse to the voting place? Or some mundane reason?
It is Tuesday for some outdated reason that no longer matters and it is kept as a tradition because it conflicts with working days where minorities and other lower income folks will find it harderr to vote.
The lines are long in places where Republicans want to suppress the vote, by not providing enough staffing, minimizing voting stations, and throwing in other hurdles. They also oppose early voting snd mail in voting to make it harder for everyone to vote, because their angry voters are more likely to stick it out through those barriers.
I live in a Republican state that hasn't gone Dem for president since Nixon, and of course I have never waited more than 5 minutes in line and started voting early when that option was added. I don't vote Republican, but most of the people do so they haven't gone as malicious on voter suppression like in the states that have a chance of going Dem.
Americans talk so much about democracy, and this is how they treat their voters… Reading this thread just makes me sad.
It's a well known phenomenon that the more people self-compliment about some great quality they have, the less that is the case.
A similar thing seems to happen at a political level - the countries were politicians just harp on and on about how great their Democracy is (in the case of the US) or how old it is (in the case of the UK) have the most flawed Democracies (if they even count as Democracies given how far they stray from the "all votes are equal" criteria) whilst in the best Democracies out there (like The Netherlands where they have Proportional Vote) they never talk about how great a Democracy they are.
I believe it's called Overcompensation.
Personally ever since I figured this out I treat such self-complimenting boasts (both at an individual and at a nation level) as big red flags and so far that rule of thumb hasn't failed me.
Makes you look at Democratic Republic of the Congo in a new way. If it’s in the name, it has to be important to them, right?
Personally the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the one I find that really beats all others in this.
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How is thay even legal, wtf?
Because the same party doing it is good at repeatedly testing the barriers to discrimination and dismantling laws against it.
Texas and some other states were not allowed to change voting practices without approval for years due to this kind of thing under the Voting Rights Act. Then SCOTUS overturrned that law...
Within hours of a U.S. Supreme Court decision dismantling a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, Texas lawmakers announced plans to implement a strict voter ID law that had been blocked by a federal court. Lawmakers in Alabama said they would press forward with a similar law that had been on hold.
The ruling continues to reverberate across the country a decade later, as Republican-led states pass voting restrictions that, in several cases, would have been subject to federal review had the conservative-leaning court left the provision intact. At the same time, the justices have continued to take other cases challenging elements of the landmark 1965 law that was born from the sometimes violent struggle for the right of Black Americans to cast ballots.
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Federal election times are set by 2 U.S. Code § 7 as 1 day after the 1st Monday in November (of even numbered years). The law is from 1875 and from what I can tell is indeed nominally motivated by the voters' need to first observe rest day on Sunday and then travel to their polling place. Keeping it and not having a federal holiday coinciding with it is largely aimed at keeping voter turnout low.
The reasons I was given for first Tuesday in November are:
- After "pay day" at beginning of month (not everyone gets paid on the first of the month though).
- So you will be sobered up from your weekend drunk.
The idea behind #1 is that it should be harder to bribe you if you have recently been paid. The reason behind #2 is that you will be sober when you vote.
Also, in my state at least, alcohol sales are prohibited while the polls are open for voting.
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i vote in every election and ive never even seen a polling place. i don't know why people would need to go to one
If you live in a swing state there might be a lot being done to make voting difficult.
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Anywhere you’ve got decades long republicans in office you will find it extremely hard to vote in America. Elsewhere it’s relatively easy. In Colorado I literally don’t do anything, a booklet explaining all the laws shows up in the mail a few weeks before the ballots do, then the ballot shows up and I can either drop it off in one of the numerous drop boxes, put it in the mail, or ignore it and go vote in person where the lines are short because nobody votes in person.
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How does a country like the US have hours long lines...
republicans are anti-democracy and have for decades put in place many obstacles for voting. they know that they only exist as a minority, and true democracy would limit their ability to fuck the rest of us over.
Because pubs like to deter voting
(Hey, non-Americans: "pubs" means "Republicans." Bars and pubs don't care whether we vote or not.)
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Americans are lazy and kinda dumb so voter turn out mostly driven by drama, feel good messages, and rage. A lot of the "go out and vote" messaging is genuine, but all politics becomes scum and strategy. They can target certain demographics that are likely to vote in a certain way. The goal is to get a demographic with a statistical likelihood of voting for Asshat-A to go out and vote as the Asshat-A voters in that demographic out number Asshat-1 voters.
Voting varies by state law but most of it comes down to mail in a ballot, check a box in person, or click a button in person. The problem is speed bumps. There are major corruption issues that plague US elections as the guys elected are trusted to not be self serving pieces of shit. The voting process can be potentially changed by the people getting voted in, so naturally corrupted groups make voting as inconvenient as legally possible to dissuasive a demographic that is likely to vote against them. (Past efforts:ID checks, reading test, checking if you're a white land owing male, checking if you are brave enough to walk past the KKK, long lines, stupid rules, de-funding the post office to make ballots late.) Gerrymandering manipulates voting by changing districts on a map to change outcomes of votes. Actual voter fraud is rare in the idea of stuffing a ballot box. The corruption game is payed on a map and spreadsheet, with the threat of bribes not showing up.
Voter turn out is generally a good thing as it can offset corruption and is widely pushed, but each group has people they do and do not want participating in the vote. A single Asshat-1 voter staying home because the line is too long, or too dangerous might as well be a vote for Asshat-A and that can be enough to change the outcome of a district. Lower turnout makes corruption easy and leads to a shitty outcome, and everyone is trying to move things in their favor or win the game.
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