Comment by cmh89 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cmh89 | Hacker News Reader

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It depends on where you are. In my state (Oregon), voting is easy and secure. We vote by mail as a default and if you move and don't get your ballot, you can go to any voting office and request all the way up until when polls close on election day.

Now, if you are in republican held states like Alabama or Georgia, it's going to be a different story. republicans use several methods to disenfranchise voters, voter ID is just one of them.

1. republicans always aim to have the shortest polling hours possible. This benefits them because their base tends to be older and more time/ability to vote during the day. Working-class voters are especially impacted by this because if they can even get time off during the day, they probably will have to pay for the privilege of voting in the form of sacrificing hours at work and getting a reduced paycheck.

2. The second thing republicans do is close polling stations in areas they don't expect a lot of support. This creates massive wait times for folks who are more likely to vote Democrat.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/smartphone-data-s...

Those hourly workers who are already sacrificing money to vote have to take even more time off to cast their ballot.

3. Another tactic is voter roll purges. A lot of folks don't know that they've been unenrolled from the voter rolls till they show up on election day. This particularly effects renters who might not realize they aren't registered at their current address, and miss mail regarding it because its sent to their former address.

4. republicans will also just shamelessly attempt to discourage Democratic turnout. For example, Georgia got rid of voting early Sunday morning to put a damper on the 'Souls to Polls' movement. There is no rationalization for this. They didn't even bother to lie about it. They just wanted to squash a successful Black get-out-the-vote initiative.

>3. Another tactic is voter roll purges. A lot of folks don't know that they've been unenrolled from the voter rolls till they show up on election day. This particularly effects renters who might not realize they aren't registered at their current address, and miss mail regarding it because its sent to their former address.

I hear this a lot, but states do have to keep their voter rolls up-to-date by law. People move in and out all the time, and not everyone votes in every election. Are there mechanisms that you think are effective in reducing the chances of someone mistakenly getting removed, while still allowing for stale records to be dropped?

There are two things that could alleviate the problem without disenfranchising voters. One, don't purge voter roles right before major elections. Two, allow for same day registration updates.

You show up, they find you in the system at your old address, you submit an updated registration card, they hand you a ballot, and we all move on with our lives.

I think that's totally reasonable, but I'm still left wondering when and how states should actually carry out purging their voter records. Would a year before a presidential/midterm election be fair? Six months? What about primary elections?

As for same-day registration, I'm sort of for it, but only if people understand the cost involved. And it's not about money. I served as a poll worker in California many years ago, which has very accommodating rules for voting. You can register same-day, vote out-of-precinct, the whole smash. It makes it really easy for voters, which is a good thing. But it has a price: it makes the check-in process more complicated. If there are a lot of people who need to do same-day registration (as was the case in my precinct when the city renamed a street a few weeks before the election), then it causes long lines.

Why would you do it before major elections if it's just about book keeping? You could purge them a month after mid-terms and a month after general Presidential because those get the most turnout.

When you purge your voter roles becomes a lot less important if you allow for registration/reregistration on election day regardless.

Oregon has same day registration update (and we have motor voter) and no long-lines because we vote primarily by mail.

Disenfranchising voters to 'avoid long-lines' is just a red herring.

There are lots of ways to create quick, safe voting. Election problems are the result of a deliberate attempt to make voting harder for certain people. Full stop.

I've lived in Michigan, Georgia, Florida, and Texas and (again, as a minority) have never experienced any of these. I'll admit that confirmation bias is a real thing and may apply here, however these points smell of common media talking points and heavy, heavy tribalism. Even as a registered Democrat, I just do not buy into the "Democrats are purveyors of voting righteousness and the Republicans are out to destroy our right to vote" narrative.

That's great for you! That doesn't really have any bearing on the documented reality of republican disenfranchisement of voters.

Sometimes 'common media talking points' are talking points because a real and serious problem exists. There's plenty of evidence of the problem if you want to take the time to get educated on it.

republicans ARE out to destroy the right to vote. They are actively anti-democracy to the point of spreading outright lies about the 2020 Presidential election and attempting to overthrow the democratically elected candidate for US President. This really isn't a 'both sides' thing.

When you have to pretend that both sides are bad so as to appear fair, we call that 'enlightened centrism'. republicans represent a minority of Americans. They'd never have power again if we had fair democratic elections. Democrats represent the majority of Americans. They benefit greatly from fair democratic elections. It's just that simple.

> republicans represent a minority of Americans. They'd never have power again if we had fair democratic elections. Democrats represent the majority of Americans. They benefit greatly from fair democratic elections. It's just that simple.

This is the truth, and is why Republicans are doing what they are doing. It's not because Republicans are bad and Democrats are good. It's because Republicans are going to lose otherwise.

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