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Comment by klardotsh | Hacker News Reader

Washington State having full vote-by-mail (there is technically a layer of in-person voting as a fallback for those who need it for accessibility reasons or who missed the registration deadline) has spoiled me rotten, I couldn't imagine having to go back to synchronous on-site voting on a single day like I did in Illinois. Awful. Being able to fill my ballot at my leisure, at home, where I can have all the research material open, and drive it to a ballot drop box whenever is convenient in a 2-3 week window before 20:00 on election night, is a game-changer for democracy. Of course this also means that people who serve to benefit from disenfranchising voters and making it more difficult to vote, absolutely hate our system and continually attack it for one reason or another.

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As a Dutchman, I have to go vote in person on a specific day. But to be honest: I really don't mind doing so. If you live in a town or city, there'll usually be multiple voting locations you can choose from within 10 minutes walking distance. I've never experienced waiting times more than a couple of minutes. Opening times are pretty good, from 7:30 til 21:00. The people there are friendly. What's not to like? (Except for some of the candidates maybe, but that's a whole different story. :-))

In the US, hours-long lines are routine. Not everywhere, but poorer places tend to have fewer voting machines and longer lines.

We've been closing a lot of polling places recently:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/protecting-vote-1-5-election-day-p...

We have early voting, nobody has to wait, they choose to wait

We're on year five of one of the two parties telling voters to not trust early voting. Their choice is because of the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt created by the propaganda they are fed.

Here's the President of the United States on Sunday: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1154418712892...

"No mail-in or 'Early' Voting, Yes to Voter ID! Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is! Millions of Ballots being 'shipped.' GET SMART REPUBLICANS, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!"

That's all happening too, but it's honestly a different topic altogether. We have the ability to vote early. Whether you trust it or politicians are trying to undermine your trust in it, etc.... whole other can of worms

Not everyone does. It varies from state to state. Red states in particular have little to no early voting.

You have early voting, some choose not to trust the early voting system.

Voting machines slow down voting from what I understand

Have not for me. I mark on a paper ballot that then gets fed into a machine to be recorded. That leaves a paper copy and a digital voting record.

Not as much as hanging chads do.

At least in Brazil, that's not the case. You get there to vote, and it doesn't take longer than 5 minutes to leave the place.

So, if you have a minor emergency, like a kidney stone and hospitalized for the day - you just miss your chance to vote in that election?

If so, I see a lot to dislike. As the point I was making is you can’t anticipate what might come up. Just because it’s worked thus far doesn’t mean it’s designed for resilience. There’s a lot of ways you could miss out in that type of situation. I seems silly to make sure everything else is redundant and fault tolerant in the name of democracy when the democratic process itself isn’t doing the same.

If hospitalized on that specific day: Sign the back of the voting card and give your ID to a family member, they can cast your vote

How is that an acceptable response? Honestly. You’re in the hospital, in pain, likely having a minor surgery, and having someone cast your vote for you is going to be on your mind too? Do you have your voting card in your pocket just in case this were to play out?

That’s just ridiculous in my opinion. Makes me wonder how many well intentioned would be voters end up missing out each election cause shit happens and voting is pretty optional

What percent of the electorate is incapacitated on voting day?

What is the that group's deviation from the general voting population's preferences?

What are the margins of the votes on those ballot questions?

Mild curiosity, no idea whether it would be statistically relevant but asking the question is the first step. If you knew the answer, you might want to extend the voting window even if it wouldn't effect an elections outcome it would be a quantified number of people excluded from the democratic process for simply having bad luck at the wrong time.

Please lookup US voting poll overflow issues that come up every election cycle. Just because you experience a well streamlined process doesn't mean that it's the norm everywhere.

Oh, I know. I'm just saying it can be done properly on a single day. It is a pretty challenging and expensive logistical operation though.

Don’t forget you can’t dare offer water or food to those stuck in lines else that’s considered tampering in many (all?) locales in the US.

Mail in voting is just better all around for a geographically diverse place as the US and I wish would be adopted by all states.

Rule of thumb: if Republicans are against it, it’s probably a good thing for everyone else, like mail-in voting.

So excited to see how the right-wing pedants here disagree with this.

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