I have sympathy for non-voters in the US. Not so much out of principle but because of how it is done. Voting takes place on a Tuesday. That’s because in ye olden days you had to allow people to attend church on Sunday before making the trip on horseback to participate in the election. That’s a cute tradition but clashes with the way the economy works today. People are very dependent on their low-wage jobs that they can be fired from easily. If you’re working two of those jobs to make ends meet, you may not have the “luxury” to skip work to go and vote on a normal weekday. That luxury often includes having to fill in a booklet of stuff that’s on the ballot. You’re not just voting on a president, a senator, or a congressperson. You may be asked your option on a plebiscite, a judge, a sheriff, a school board, etc. It is overinflated in my view and explains long slow moving lines at ballot stations that you don’t often see elsewhere. And that’s after a possibly Kafkaesque registration process to be eligible in the first place or to get mail-ins in some states. It is almost designed to keep people away. Maybe you’re taking these structural problems as something “politicians cling to.”
Make election day a public holiday that forces businesses who are open anyway to allow all their employees to go and vote.
A lot of those low-wage workers don’t get federal holidays off. Ever go to a liquor store on Independence Day? Or a restaurant on Veterans Day? Or fill up your gas tank on Washington’s Birthday?
A better system is universal early and mail-in voting with as few impediments as possible. If you need to require identification, that ID needs to be free. There should be no monetary barriers to voting.
I don’t mind your suggestion. I think universal mail-ins are a good idea. At the same time, I have an inkling that you didn’t read my comment all the way to the end.
I have sympathy for non-voters in the US. Not so much out of principle but because of how it is done. Voting takes place on a Tuesday. That’s because in ye olden days you had to allow people to attend church on Sunday before making the trip on horseback to participate in the election. That’s a cute tradition but clashes with the way the economy works today. People are very dependent on their low-wage jobs that they can be fired from easily. If you’re working two of those jobs to make ends meet, you may not have the “luxury” to skip work to go and vote on a normal weekday. That luxury often includes having to fill in a booklet of stuff that’s on the ballot. You’re not just voting on a president, a senator, or a congressperson. You may be asked your option on a plebiscite, a judge, a sheriff, a school board, etc. It is overinflated in my view and explains long slow moving lines at ballot stations that you don’t often see elsewhere. And that’s after a possibly Kafkaesque registration process to be eligible in the first place or to get mail-ins in some states. It is almost designed to keep people away. Maybe you’re taking these structural problems as something “politicians cling to.”
Make election day a public holiday that forces businesses who are open anyway to allow all their employees to go and vote.
A lot of those low-wage workers don’t get federal holidays off. Ever go to a liquor store on Independence Day? Or a restaurant on Veterans Day? Or fill up your gas tank on Washington’s Birthday?
A better system is universal early and mail-in voting with as few impediments as possible. If you need to require identification, that ID needs to be free. There should be no monetary barriers to voting.
I don’t mind your suggestion. I think universal mail-ins are a good idea. At the same time, I have an inkling that you didn’t read my comment all the way to the end.
I guess not! The hazards of splitting attention between reading Lemmy any other things in life
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For BeefPiano@lemmy.world ; I think the key words are “that force businesses who are open anyway”
Perhaps it shouldn’t be a public holiday but some other law that forces (half) a day off on that day.