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Comment by mardifoufs | Hacker News Reader

>France doesn’t do mail-in voting, early voting or use voting machines en masse like the United States.

I get not doing mail-in-voting but what's wrong with early voting? I remember there was a huge line in front of the french embassy here last elections because there's no exception to that rule for expats. For a city like Montreal with a lot of French immigrants it means a single vote office for thousands of people.

Compare that to the US where you can email your vote in a lot of states if you live overseas... and it becomes clear that access to vote is just not a priority for France.

>What is the DoD Fax Service? If you need to send your election materials to your election official by fax but do not have access to a fax machine you can email them to fax@fvap.gov and FVAP will fax your election materials for you.

https://www.democratsabroad.org/de_how_to_fax_your_ballot_by...

https://www.fvap.gov/eo/overview/resources

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> but what's wrong with early voting?

In France and most European countries, the electoral campaign is highly regulated and designed in principle so that citizens can make a rational decision, and no candidate can unduly influence the vote.

All (major, which is based on the latest parliamentary election) candidates must by law be given equal air time, election funds are limited and checked by the state, the campaign must start at a particular date and end the day before the vote, etc.

Early voting flies in the face of most of this: maybe on day X of the campaign some candidate makes a claim that convinces people to cast their votes then and there. On day X+2, some other candidate claims that the first one was lying. Now, even people who are convinced by the second candidate are unlikely to go and rectify their votes (if this is even allowed). So, early voting favors emotional campaigns and dirty tricks over a reasoned decision.

Of course, this is all in theory - but measuring the results in practice is probably much more difficult.

Yes and, it's generally much easier to vote in France. Better transportation, easy to take time off work, etc.

Throughout the USA, in many jurisdictions, voting is onerous for far too many people. Too few poll sites, not enough gear, hard to take time off work, hard to make trip, etc. So progressives have been pushing early voting, as already allowed for overseas, military, and disabled voters, to mitigate these failings.

The French strategy is better overall. But the USA isn't committed to such practicalities.

While there hasn't been a big deal made of it until recently, absentee ballots have been a readily available thing in the US in at least most jurisdictions for decades. I have very rarely voted on election day either because I was traveling or because I said I would be and it was easier that way.

> what's wrong with early voting?

By French law, the envelopes are inserted into a transparent box that must be visible by any elector during the voting period. Having the box sit several nights without public scrutiny is not as safe.

I think it clashes with all sort of election rules, like the candidates must have had the same air time during the campaign (can’t guarantee that every day of the campaign), also there is a cool down period 24h before the vote where the campaigns are suspended, you can’t publish polls or discuss the candidates programs in the media. I am not sure why you would blame it on nefarious motives.

>I get not doing mail-in-voting but what's wrong with early voting? I remember there was a huge line in front of the french embassy here last elections because there's no exception to that rule for expats.

I assume that their "proxy" system addresses this problem sufficiently for internal voters. Also, the actual voting process is far more streamlined:

https://www.pret-a-voyager.com/2017/05/french-lessons-voting...

so the throughput at polling places is much better. The central mechanism of voter suppression in the United States is lines (ok, also felony disenfranchisement), and every reform the Democrats propose is trying to end-run that system so that the lines won't matter.

> central mechanism of voter suppression in the United States is lines

LOL. So when you see long voting lines in Atlanta, it’s because Fulton County (the entity responsible for polling places)—which is run by a Board that’s majority Democrat and majority Black—is engaged in “voter suppression” of Black Democrat voters?

Potentially, yes. And no, that's not a contradiction, unless you seriously believe that the Democratic Party is doing its best to support working-class Black people. In which case, I'd like to inform you about the great investment potential of this bridge I'm selling.

But you're still going to have to convince me that such lines are a thing in Fulton, specifically. The article I cross-referenced suggests they opened a lot more polling places to address the problem in the last election cycle.

Edit: I forgot to post the article. It's been a hard month.

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924527679/why-do-nonwhite-geo...

> Potentially, yes. And no, that's not a contradiction, unless you seriously believe that the Democratic Party is doing its best to support working-class Black people.

Fulton County isn't run by "the Democratic Party." It's run by a Board elected by the people of Fulton County. It is, moreover, a prosperous, urban area, with the highest median household income in the state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Georgia_(U.S._state)_l.... If it can't run its own elections properly, that's its own fault.

More likely, it's because Fulton County is constrained by policies of the State of Georgia whose executive and legislative officers are..neither majority Democratic nor majority Black.

Sorry, "because Republicans" isn't a response. Read Title 21, Chapter 2, Article 7 of the Georgia Code and tell me how Fulton County's inability to conduct elections properly as it is required and empowered to do under the statute is somehow someone else's fault.

It's very understandable for prevent frauds. The last election in the US was disputed and disputable in the first place because of how easy it is to cheat.

> Compare that to the US where you can email your vote in a lot of states if you live overseas... and it becomes clear that access to vote is just not a priority for France.

That's not true. As a former expat, the only annoying thing is establishing a proxy since it can only be done during "tournées consulaires" dedicated for it, that are of course very rare. I feel the election is fairer without possible easy way to hack-in votes.

What do you mean by fraud?

By voters? Every investigation of postal ballots have shown it to be very rare. Most problems are simple mistakes.

By administrators? Postal balloting is neither more or less prone to cheating than the other electronic voting and tabulation systems. Meaning terrible.

Typically, the vulnerable parts are voter registration (eg caging, purges), signature verification, ballot scanning ahead of election day, and adjudication.

I opposed my state and county switching to all postal balloting.

My #1 concern was that it'd disenfranchise more people (eg USPS loses/misdelivers ~1% of all ballots, some ~40k voters have their signatures challenged every election), resulting in reduced turnout and long-term participation.

On this I was proven wrong. Turnout increased.

Another concern is that postal balloting enables ballot chasing. Which increases the cost of campaigning as well as leads to voter fatigue and alienation.

This appears to be true.

But as long as turnout remains higher, the tradeoff seems worthwhile.

> What do you mean by fraud? By voters? Every investigation of postal ballots have shown it to be very rare. Most problems are simple mistakes.

Any investigation claiming to have a way to measure fraud is a fraud in itself because it is impossible to measure with any ounce of certainty something based on intent and made in secrecy. Also the norm to contest an election is not to show that there was enough fraud but merely to show that the number of irregular ballots is greater than the margin of victory, proving fraud is irrelevant.

The problem with mail-in voting and other early methods is that it greatly increases the attack surface and is impossible to verify the whole process by normal citizens.The fact that nearly half of the US electorate doubted the results is reason enough to never do that again.

How many elections have you observed? Do you know where your county's central count (tabulation) is done? What mfg and vendors does your county use? Have you worked an election? Have you attended any canvasing boards and certification meetings?

> Any investigation claiming ...

Because there never was nor can be Truth? Then why even bother?

> The problem with mail-in voting...

Preaching to the choir.

> ...is impossible to verify the whole process by normal citizens.

Correct. But this Truth in no way minimizes the numerous other legitimate concerns with election administration in the USA.

> ... nearly half of the US electorate doubted

Everyone deserves confidence in our elections. We all have concerns. And democracy is not a team sport. We all lose when elections are not free and fair.

I'd be far more sympathetic to your concerns if I had any reason to believe they were sincere. Which you could begin to demonstrate by acknowledging, and perhaps even agreeing with, some of the other concerns.

> How many elections have you observed? Do you know where your county's central count (tabulation) is done? What mfg and vendors does your county use? Have you worked an election? Have you attended any canvasing boards and certification meetings?

As a citizen it's on my government to prove that the electoral process is transparent and fair, not the other way around. I know they are, in Canada, because I can see my vote in the box and I can see the people who will count them, which happen to be my neighbors, and I could also volunteer to count the vote and the parties can send their own people so supervise the counting (and plan to do the next election btw). With all of this I can verify and trust the process. The same can't said with mass mail-in voting.

> Because there never was nor can be Truth? Then why even bother?

Strawman, didn't say that

> Preaching to the choir.

Not an argument

> > ...is impossible to verify the whole process by normal citizens.

> Correct. But this Truth in no way minimizes the numerous other legitimate concerns with election administration in the USA.

I didn't say the other concerns were invalid, or even talked about them.

> Everyone deserves confidence in our elections. We all have concerns. And democracy is not a team sport. We all lose when elections are not free and fair.

Truism.

> I'd be far more sympathetic to your concerns if I had any reason to believe they were sincere.

Not an argument. Also you're on the Internet, you can only judge arguments on their face value.

I apologize for assuming you're from USA.

> With all of this I can verify and trust the process.

Emphatic agreement.

Gold standard (for US's FPTP form of voting) remains Austalian Ballot using paper ballots, cast at poll sites, tabulated on-site the moment polls close.

Future upgrades will be approval voting for executive positions and proportional representation for assemblies.

Far future upgrades will be strategic use of participatory democracy. Like BC's citizen's assembly and Oregon citizen's juries. (Not to be confused with direct democracy, like our Progressive Era processes for initiatives and referendums.)

Yeah, and the same population who believed in that fraudulent election would likely cities any other country if they did it same way... It is insane that that sort of voting is allowed in any sort western democracy...

In most countries mail-in voting is only allowed with a permission and only for certain reasons.

The voting offices are supposed to be adapted to the amount of French citizens in the area. Here in Belgium there are 12 of them for example.

It's possible that the consulate of Montreal misjudged the amount of voters (the turnout in 2017 was higher than expected for the citizens living abroad, if I recall correctly) but more generally, citizens are expected to make the effort necessary to cast their vote.

> Compare that to the US [...] it becomes clear that access to vote is just not a priority for France.

This is laughable, the number one reason for the ridiculously low turnout in US elections is that elections are held on Tuesdays when people actually need to work.

That'd be easy to fix...

Maybe? If I had to vote in person (I almost always vote early/absentee), I'd be far more likely to be traveling/busy with other activities on the weekend than before/after work on a weekday.

The turnout is usually quite higher in France than in the US though, so it's hard to think that Sunday makes it less likely for people to vote.

There are many factors. The legacy of Jim Crow weighs heavily. As demonstrated by turnout before, during, and after.

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