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Comment by MandieD | Hacker News Reader

Texas counties theoretically email ballots if you send in your overseas voter request each year, but it’s theoretical, because at least my county doesn’t set up their email domain correctly, and thus doesn’t even make GMail’s Spam folder.

Email domain is a subdomain of *.co.texas.us, so it’s probably a state-level issue, but the IP address in the ballot download URL (yes, IP address!) is in the same range as the county’s other websites.

Oh, and the county’s main website is geofenced, so the only way I can get contact info for the elections office is using my Hetzner VM in Virginia as a Tailscale exit point.

Why do I get the feeling that the State of Texas, or at least my home county, is not interested in my vote?

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San Francisco also allows one to generate their ballot and fill it out using an online accessible voting service, which then generates a PDF with your choices and a QR code that you can mail or fax back in place of the “real” ballot.

Considering the number of direct democracy items on the ballot in SF, I’m glad they’ve at least made this part quite usable.

Although it's not clear they actually count them. I posted mine in several weeks ago, but my voter status never updated.

Yeah, voting is such a pain in Texas compared to other states. My brother requested a mail in ballot because of a disability and never received it this year. Him and my parents were also out of state for a medical reason, had to stay longer than expected over the early voting period and Election Day, and as a result couldn't vote. You can also only vote by mail with a particular set of criteria - if you're over 65, disabled, or a few other reasons: https://www.sos.texas.gov/elections/voter/reqabbm.shtml

Election officials are also not always the most informed about rules. When my husband was in college, he was still registered in his home county about an 8 hour drive away. He called an elections office in order to verify that he could still vote for statewide and national candidates. They said it'd be no problem.

He was turned away at his closest polling site on Election Day and could only vote at 1 polling site in the county, downtown, where he had to pay for parking with some of the very few dollars he had and wait several hours.

Another time, I forgot to update my address for a move within the county and had to drive across the city to go to my old polling place. The poll workers at the first site wouldn't even let me cast a provisional ballot or update my address on the spot. I called the state elections hotline to complain, and they were unsympathetic.

I can only imagine how hard it is to vote here for someone who moves around a lot or has to rely on public transportation. It makes me wonder how much of the abysmal 27% voter turnout range for ages 18-29 [0], which is still one of the highest turnouts in 3 decades, is due to voting accessibility issues versus plain apathy.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2022/11/10/1135810302/turnout-among-youn...

In Texas, anytime you move and update your mailing address it generally takes 7 to 10 business days for the information to fully propagate. So the timing could make it so that you are unable to vote if you miss early voting(in the same county) before you move or are not able to reach your voting location on the day off the election.

https://comptroller.texas.gov/help/manage-account/update-add...

Anytime you update your postal address with the US Postal service, they make sure you have the option to also update your voter registration at the same time. Updating your voter registration is just a checkbox away when you are using the website.

https://USPS.com/move

>I can only imagine how hard it is to vote here for someone who moves around a lot or has to rely on public transportation. It makes me wonder how much of the abysmal 27% voter turnout range for ages 18-29 [0], which is still one of the highest turnouts in 3 decades, is due to voting accessibility issues versus plain apathy.

The die in the wool cynic in me would say plain apathy was the most like culprit for low turnout in that age group. Although public transportation in most of the US is an abysmally bad joke. There are some large cities that have decent public transportation but for the most part I feel like if you don't own a vehicle in the US then your are treated as a 3rd class citizen. Even in some cities with public transportation it can be difficult to get even get a job if you don't have your own vehicle(It's a painful catch 22 that a lot of people struggle with).

Something asked on every job application form in my mid-sized Texas hometown was whether you had a valid driver’s license and a car, even for jobs where driving wasn’t your main task. A job candidate without their own car was likely to have problems getting to work on time and much less likely to be flexible.

The DPS offices have been consolidated to very efficient operations far, far from town. The service is improved if you’re a driver with an internet-connected cellphone (quick appointments! Know exactly when to show up to avoid a wait!), but hellish if neither of those things are going on for you, especially the driving bit. This is where you have to get yourself and your documentation to for any sort of ID, not just a driver’s license.

Living in a mid-sized German city where I can walk less than half a mile to a subway station and commuter rail still feels a bit magical. I sometimes go weeks without getting in the car.

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