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Comment by smokey_the_bear | Hacker News Reader

A lot of voter registration laws are designed to make it hard for young people to vote. They move more frequently or are at college away from their permanent address.

I've missed one major election since I turned 18, and it's because I was on internship 5 hours from where I could vote.

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I’ve moved 10+ times in the past 25 years and voted in every presidential election and most midterm elections. The ones I skipped were because I was younger and didn’t realize the importance of them. It’s not that hard.

And that's great. Voting is important to me too, and it was when I was younger also. It happened that specific year that requesting an absentee ballot was not a high enough priority and I missed it. It wasn't even a presidential election year.

I'm 37 and own a house and stuff now, and move less, and change my drivers license when I do move. It's much easier for me to vote. I don't think about it in advance.

Why is it so hard to acknowledge that while it's not "hard" for young people to vote, it is slightly harder than it is for established middle age people?

Because it takes about 5 minutes extra effort to update your address or request an absentee ballot.

Not every state has reasonable rules around absentee voting or voting access

You could have requested an absentee ballot.

Yes, I didn't say it was impossible to vote. My point was that it is more inconvenient in general for young people to vote than older people, and there are things we could do to increase their participation if we wanted to. We could also hold elections on weekends.

Short of your polling location literally being along your walk to work, voting absentee takes less time than voting in person.

If you had simply googled it, you could have obtained your ballot in less than 5 minutes.

Paraphrasing 'Platoon': You have to be old in the first place to think like that.

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