Why don’t college students vote absentee? (Hint: Stamps) | Hacker News Reader

Why don’t college students vote absentee? (Hint: Stamps)

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4 pointsdrewem21 comments

Well, duh. I'm old, and I think the grocery store and 7-11 carry them. Do they sell them individually? Because here's how I see it playing out:

1. I want to vote, so I fill out my ballot.

2. It needs a stamp. Do I have stamps? Of course I don't have stamps, I'm young and I've never mailed anything in my life.

3. My friend said the 7-11 has them. I hope she's right, because I don't want to have trek over to the grocery if she isn't.

4. I have to buy a whole book of ten? I only need one, and I'll probably lose the other nine before I need another one.

5. Half hour of time and $5 gone because the state tried to save $0.44 on postage.

Yeah, I wouldn't vote, either. I used to drop mine at the drop box because it was easier than finding a stamp (and it's on the way to work). WA finally wised up and just made the envelopes postage-paid.

What an incompetent bureaucracy. Voting envelopes should be “postage paid”. Government should be picking up those costs automatically.

I don't know about the rest of the country, but in California the postal service will still deliver mail-in ballots even if they are not stamped. The counties will reimburse the postal service for the costs of the unstamped ballots.

It's not well known, but the counties would rather pay the postage costs of unstamped ballots than have the ballots be returned and the voter possibly not being able to vote.

It would be nice if that were made official rather than an undocumented feature. I'm nice, and I always put stamps on my ballots, but it would be so much more convenient to not have to dig out my rarely-used stamps.

I read this as "incompetent democracy" and laughed because it sure feels like that lately

If no one votes or too many idiots are voting then you could say the process has become incompetent.

People forget that by not voting they are actually agreeing with every policy going forward. By actually voting you are saying that one side had better policies.

Disturbingly a lot of people who are unhappy with the outcome also didn’t vote and that is incompetence.

I’d still like to vote for policies rather than candidates. The successful candidate would then be chosen based on policy alignment etc.

I sent in at least one absentee ballot long ago. This was some years before I heard of email, so I was used to writing and posting letters. As I recall, the state required that I find a notary, which took a bit more time than finding a stamp.

For what it's worth, if anyone knows college students who can't find somebody to sell them stamps, they can order them on-line at https://store.usps.com/store/home.

Where can you buy stamps in the USA?

It varies by country. Most convenience shops, supermarkets, etc will sell stamps in the UK, and I'd guess the US is like this, but in some other countries only the post office is allowed to sell them.

(My postal votes for the UK come with an international postage paid envelope.)

The last time I bought some it was from my bank's ATM, but that was almost ten years ago. I think stamps were sold by grocers when I was a child, but I have no idea whether they continue to bother stocking them...

In California, ballots are handled by the resident's county government, and I think each county may design ballots and procedures differently as long as they meet some statewide requirements.

The next mail-in ballot in Los Angeles will change format and become postage pre-paid. I suspect they've changed the postage because the new return format appears to be more bulky than a simple 1st class envelope.

My book store sold stamps in college, as did the convenience mart across the street. I never really needed to go to the post office, but you can always buy stamps (and mail weirdly shaped things) at the post office directly.

The largest local drug store chain, CVS, sells stamps. Generally, though, I buy them at the post office, which seldom has long lines.

Maybe I'm old. Maybe I had old-fashioned parents. But it boggles my mind that people can get to be old enough to go to college without knowing how to mail things.

Well, it's getting harder to do that.

When I lived in NYC 15 years ago, I didn't have to think about stamps - every newsstand would carry them, and there's always going to be a newsstand on the way to the subway. And I'd need stamps regularly.

Now I'm living in West Coast suburbia, and the only time I need stamps is when I want to send a postcard to a friend (and I'm being old-fashioned doing that).

To do that, I have to make my way to the post office (I'm not aware of other places that carry stamps), which might or might not be open when I have time to do that (weekend hours got nixed). Or I could order the stamps online, but then I'd have to wait for a while to actually use them.

Is this hard? No. Is this an effort? Yes. Enough of an effort that I buy stamps by the dozen and carry them with me all the time for months just in case I travel somewhere and decide to mail that one postcard -- because I know that once I'm busy enough, I won't make this effort.

Voting should not require an effort.

That's not even getting into the UX of mail which I find hostile. For instance, why don't envelopes have clear "From:", "To:", and "Place stamp here" fields? Yes, you don't need them after you send your hundredth correspondence. But a new mail user would have to Google that nonsense. There's no way in which it is obvious. (And I've sent letters to myself by accidentally confusing the from/to fields as a kid).

And it doesn't surprise me that college freshmen wouldn't know how to mail things. Their parents were responsible for bills back when that was still done by mail... which was about when these kids were born. The need to mail anything is extraordinarily rare, and last time I've needed to mail things was when I sold something on Amazon/eBay.

Aside from selling, I can't even remember what I needed to send anything. Postcards and gifts aren't a need, and to that end -- I didn't even have out-of-state friends as a college freshman. I could just give things instead of mailing them.

So maybe you are old :) Even with that - when was the last time you mailed anything? And when was the last time you needed to mail anything that wasn't a postcard/gift?

Seems odd to have a public postal service and still require people to buy stamps for votes.

Or to have voting on a day when most of the population is working, for states that don’t do vote by mail.

In this country, ease of voting is not prioritized.

The US postal service received exactly zero tax dollars for operational expenses. It relies solely on the money it makes from postage and other service, so it makes sense. Think of them as a private business when it comes to financials.

Not true, since Congress can limit how much a stamp costs.

Edit: Apparently there is a commission set up. It's part of the executive branch, but still, the USPS can't up and decide the price of a stamp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Regulatory_Commission

Ok, but either way that's hardly relevant given the comment I responded to.

I was responding to your statement: "Think of them as a private business when it comes to financials." A private business would be able to set the cost of its services.

Right, you were responding to a statement which is somewhat inaccurate but if corrected would in no way change the argument I was making or its validity. That's my point.

I'm not challenging your first or second sentence. I'm challenging your third sentence. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I was challenging your whole comment, when mine referred exclusively to the price of USPS services.

>I'm not sure where you got the idea that I was challenging your whole comment

I don't, only saying that the bit you're commenting on is wholly irrelevant.

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