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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!
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.
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.
I like how I vividly remember learning about this in middle school and being told it’s illegal, then as an adult I just see it happening????
Must be nice.
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.
Reading this discussion has made me understand a little bit better why America seems to be always on fire…
That's cool but the post was clearly about the USA where they have made voting a miserable fucking experience.
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.
"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!"
In all honesty, it's fucked. It's so fucked.
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?
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.
Yikes! And I thought that gerrymandering was playing dirty. This is just next level stuff…
The American political system will do everything it can to prevent poor people from voting
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.
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.
Or Cancun (heard that from someone named Ted).
I agree (and realize) that a simple holiday wouldn't fix the many ills of our "election system". Just thought it would help. I've heard that England has at least a week to vote [hope that's true]. Anything that would make it easier and more convenient to vote would be a great help (not suggesting making the process less secure).
Murica.
This was literally the overarching plot for the last season of curb
https://youtu.be/dHIPXbLsY_Q?si=KG-IWg7GTeqQ8jiT
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
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.
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...
https://apnews.com/article/voting-rights-act-supreme-court-black-voters-6f840911e360c44fd2e4947cc743baa2
Thanks for the explanations. I think the Unites States should embrace being founded on the principles of democracy, and once being amongst the leading countries with that... And return to being a democracy. Every time I read about some more details, I'm more convinced that one of your major parties doesn't like democracy, or the original idea behind the USA.
The US was founded on wealthy white male landowners who mostly owned slaves being able to vote, just like their Greek and Roman inspirations.
Expending that concept to the general population took a couple nearly two centuries, and we still haven't embraced it. We have sucked at being a democracy the whole time.
Also, the parties traded the racists in the 60s and 70s. Republicans were the equal rights party prior to the Southern Strategy while the Dems were the racists up to that point, but Republicans have been on the wrong side of history since then.
I think democracy as a concept is alright, though. It has some flaws baked in... But I don't think there is a casual relationship to humans being humans and needing centuries to realize women are people, too. And so are people with a different skin color, poor people... Deciding if slavery is a good or a bad thing also has a very prominent place in US history. And we here in Europe also didn't do much better.
I'm proud that we left lots of that behind and we're doing much better now. We're certainly not done yet, there is still quite some way to go... I think it's just a shame that we can't do any better. Or that it'll take decades to get anything productive done, because of the way politics is set up to work. And meanwhile we also have to fight populists, corruption and all the usual annoyances of giving power to people.
I'd expect some equality be ensured on federal level for at least federal level stuff. Just... wow. I knew US was fucked up, but I somehow always learn there is yet another level to it
That's what the Voting Rights Act was...
I love seeing people realize the USA is only a Democray for a very specific group of people weather it's concerning the Judges or the Election process. On top of that thanks to the electoral college if you dont live in a swing state you don't really get a say. The election will boil down to a few hundred thousand people in a couple states just because of where they live.
Americans talk so much about democracy, and this is how they treat their voters… Reading this thread just makes me sad.
As an American: Me too 😮💨
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.
Wouldn‘t it be the best thing to make election day a nation wide holiday? Could keep the tradition while also actually allowing people to vote. I doubt that productivity is high on these days nevertheless.
Has this ever been discussed?
National holidays don’t apply to private companies, apparently.
Wait? What?
Private companies are not obligated to provide any amount of leave, paid or unpaid as a general requirement. Some states may have requirements, but there is no federal requirement and many states have none.
The one requirement that I know of is allowing an employee two hours to vote on the one voting day every two years if necessary to make it to the polls. I am fairly certain this only applies if their shift is the entirety of the time the polls are open, and it is not required to be paid time.
Federal holidays can be observed by private companies, but then who will run the movie theaters on Christmas for us to go watch CGI robots fight each other? Or serve us fast food on Labor Day? Etc etc. It’s stupid.
The trick is do you want ANYTHING open on the holiday? Grocery, train station, etc? In America, if anything is open, then the cats out of the bag
Poor people voting isn't good for profits and it's literally that simple. Neither party care, a few progressive dems do, at least until aipac tries to get rid of them while the most powerful dems stand behind aipac.
one of the two main parties knows that if 'everyone' voted, they would no longer hold any power whatsoever. so they actively prevent democracy by making it harder to vote.
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.
In contrast, in Oregon, we just vote by mail. Fill out you ballot at your leisure, drop it off in the mail box or ballot box by the due date, and you're set. Also the ballot boxes are all over the place. City Hall, the post office, the library, etc.