I saw a couple of different news stories recently about the large numbers of early ballots cast for this election and the difficulties that go with early voting. This raised a couple of thoughts about how we vote and how to improve the process.
Let me start by saying that I think that election day on Tuesday is not optimum. I've argued for a while that election day should be moved to Friday and/or Saturday and made a holiday. While I understand that there will always be a need for early voting, I also understand that it's problematic and probably shouldn't be encouraged unless necessary.
1. I keep seeing stories that indicate that there are counties and states with more registered voters than the population. It seems obvious that this is or at least could be problematic, especially with states just sending out large amounts of mail in ballots fairly randomly.
2. Like it or not, the USPS and their ability to deliver mail in a timely fashion have been the butt of jokes for years, and like most jokes contain a bit of truth. I suspect that very few of us, if given the choice, would simply drop a $10,000 check in the mailbox and trust that it would get delivered. As I'm doing regular marketing mailings through USPS, I'm seeing that different PO's handle the same mailings differently. Further, my mail has recently been getting delivered to other addresses on a regular basis. I realize that it's inevitable that the USPS will have some small percentage of problems with delivery, just because of the volume. I'm suggesting that adding more ballots will increase the number that fall victim to that percentage.
3. When people vote while the campaign is still going on, they are casting their vote based on incomplete information. It seems likely that incontrovertible evidence of Biden agreeing to sell his influence to one of his son's business partners, would convince some percentage of those who've already voted to regret their vote or to want to change it.
4. There is quite a concern over those voters who are unable to correctly complete their mail in ballot, or unable to submit their ballot in a timely manner. I guess I'm not particularly sympathetic to someone who is unable or unmotivated enough to correctly fill out their ballot, and get it mailed or dropped off by the deadline. There is a reason why we stop accepting votes at a specific time and this notion that there should be a flexible deadline, to accommodate those who aren't willing to vote in the generous amount of time allotted.
4 comments:
It's funny to hear Democrats, now that Barrett has been confirmed, whine about how the Republicans have changed or ignored Senate rules in order to "ram through" this process...as if there's some legitimate reason to wait. (Don't want to hear the McConnell example given his reasoning didn't result in something that hasn't happened in American history many time already)
But the problems we're seeing and expecting are the direct result of Democrat policies said to give more people the ability to engage in their right to vote. There was nothing prohibiting anyone before, so I don't see how any of this nonsense was in any way necessary:
Early voting
Mail-in voting
Drive-through registration
Automatic registration when getting or renewing driver's licenses
Extending how long ballots will be accepted
...and other attempts to provide the Democratic party with the means to steal elections.
Absentee ballot requests resolve all legitimate cases where getting to the polls on election day is difficult. There's no need for mail-in options otherwise. There's no less than two years between elections...for those who are mature enough to vote in mid-terms...in order for anyone to be properly registered and prepared to vote on election day. (Primaries add to the times when one might wish to exercise their right, but doesn't really detract from the point) Either one cares or one doesn't and if one cares, one should be willing to expend the effort to vote according to rules that support the integrity of the process...not soften it. I don't want my vote cancelled by fraudulent practices.
I support the notion of a holiday of sorts for voting. One day, every two years, though I see no reason why it can't be on a Saturday, when most businesses are closed. In any case, one argument against would be adding another paid holiday businesses must eat. But it's at most, every other year, not annually.
I agree that there are plenty of options for people to vote if they can't vote in person on election day, and that increasing the number of option just increases the possibility of fraud. I don't have a problem with Saturday, but I do think that making it over two days would allow for more flexibility.
Rather than increase the days for voting, I'd prefer increasing the number of precincts in which people vote. No doubt, some precincts are greatly populated and there's no reason not to break them up into smaller groups, operated by people from those groups. This will reduce waiting times simply because there are fewer people.
Other areas are more spread out, but to make the trip means small crowds because the area is not heavily populated.
If they'd address the problem from this angle, there might not be any need for paid holidays or anything like that. Simply go before or after work and be done with it. In the town in which I live...in the NW suburbs of Chicago...I've never had to wait more than perhaps half an hour, or thereabouts, to cast my vote. In the last six years, I've been working nights, so I go when the polls open. Prior to this period it was after work. The lines were always about the same. So I can't really relate to those who say the lines are holding them for hours. Either few in my precinct cared to vote, or there wasn't a great amount of people in the first place.
Of course, things like more polling booths help as well to keep things moving along.
I'm not wedded to adding more days so much as I am convinced that the answer is not more early voting options.
In a perfect world, there would be an incredibly secure way to vote online and that would be awesome. Unfortunately, I am convinced that a system with a paper ballot is probably the best in case there are problems and those need to be re counted.
Like many things, I don't necessarily have a solution that I think is best, but I think that we need to do something better than simply mailing out ballots to everyone.
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