5 ms·

Our voting system really needs to change, it's completely absurd that it hasn't just moved to a weekend or received special treatment as holidays.

anthony_romeo 10y ago
I agree! If I recall, employers are required to allow some time-off during the day for people to vote. Practically, however, this doesn't happen because a: some districts don't have nearly enough polling places and staff, resulting in hours-long wait times (around where I live, I've never had this problem, but it's a real issue in other (often more poverty-stricken) areas), and b: not many low-wage workers are willing to 'rock the boat' with their employer and would rather just not vote than face any hassle or retaliation. At the very least, we need smoother process where people can go to their city hall and vote over a period of a week or so, or vote by mail/online
bluejekyll 10y ago
Almost every state allows for early voting, and some like CA allow permanent voting by mail selection. Do this on some weekend. Before the election date, why wait for the actual Election Day at all?
bickfordb 10y ago
OR and WA are exclusively vote by mail. It's really convenient.
bickfordb 10y ago
OR and WA are exclusively vote by mail. It's really convenient.
Someone1234 10y ago
Both solutions are less effective than mail in ballots, online voting, or extending the vote duration (e.g. 7 days). People just bring up a "voting holiday" because they want an extra holiday. The reality is that many people would use the holiday to relax, go out of town, or get stuff done and voting percentage wouldn't improve. Ditto with weekends. People go out of town on the weekends, do you think they're going to stop because of a pesky vote? Even if they did for one year word would quickly spread that that is a "quiet" weekend and everyone would go for that reason. If you really want to improve voting: Drive through voting, like McDonald's, that takes the same amount of time as McDonald's to do, and that you have a seven day week within which to do. Literally make it a 5 minute job where you don't even need to exit your vehicle. People might scoff at that, call it lazy, but people ARE lazy. They want minimum hassle, minimum time, and maximum value. That's why drive-through places even exist.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  > People might scoff at that, call it lazy, but people ARE lazy. Or they're just tired because they have two part time jobs (while looking for something more regular), kids, and a pile of chores they've been putting off.
- awesomerobot 10y ago
  Good points. A 7-day duration would be hopefully flexible enough with everyone and would be the most easy to implement.
sp332 10y ago
It depends on the state. Some allow early voting and some encourage voting by mail which is pretty convenient. It will have to be up to the states because the federal government is pretty strictly disallowed from interfering with how the elections are run.
ajmurmann 10y ago
I think what's absurd is that we have a highly polarized political landscape that combined wit the voting system leads to a two party system. That could be easily changed by switching to approval voting. Neither Hilary nor Trump would be close to being viable candidates, since they both had bad approval ratings. As it is now everyone is just voting against the candidate they are most scared of. What's even more absurd is that the actual votes are being counted on a per-state basis. If someone where to design the system from scratch nowadays nobody would even come up with a system that dumb. Just count all the votes. What's the point of involving states at all in a federal election? It shouldn't matter in a federal election if I live in California or Georgia. It's absurd that it does!
- seren 10y ago
  The polarized political landscape is probably a result of the voting system though. In a winner take it all systems, you can get a vote at "any cost" since you won't have to make any coalition later. The only thing in favor of the system is that it creates a clear winner, proportional systems might be more fair, but if parties fail to create a majority coalition you are back to square one. An ideal system might need to mix these two approaches (and some other like vote ranking, lists, etc)
rbcgerard 10y ago
pretty good piece on some possible changes https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12202705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12202705

anthony_romeo 10y ago

I agree! If I recall, employers are required to allow some time-off during the day for people to vote. Practically, however, this doesn't happen because a: some districts don't have nearly enough polling places and staff, resulting in hours-long wait times (around where I live, I've never had this problem, but it's a real issue in other (often more poverty-stricken) areas), and b: not many low-wage workers are willing to 'rock the boat' with their employer and would rather just not vote than face any hassle or retaliation. At the very least, we need smoother process where people can go to their city hall and vote over a period of a week or so, or vote by mail/online

bluejekyll 10y ago

Almost every state allows for early voting, and some like CA allow permanent voting by mail selection. Do this on some weekend. Before the election date, why wait for the actual Election Day at all?

bickfordb 10y ago

OR and WA are exclusively vote by mail. It's really convenient.

bickfordb 10y ago

OR and WA are exclusively vote by mail. It's really convenient.

Someone1234 10y ago

Both solutions are less effective than mail in ballots, online voting, or extending the vote duration (e.g. 7 days). People just bring up a "voting holiday" because they want an extra holiday. The reality is that many people would use the holiday to relax, go out of town, or get stuff done and voting percentage wouldn't improve. Ditto with weekends. People go out of town on the weekends, do you think they're going to stop because of a pesky vote? Even if they did for one year word would quickly spread that that is a "quiet" weekend and everyone would go for that reason. If you really want to improve voting: Drive through voting, like McDonald's, that takes the same amount of time as McDonald's to do, and that you have a seven day week within which to do. Literally make it a 5 minute job where you don't even need to exit your vehicle. People might scoff at that, call it lazy, but people ARE lazy. They want minimum hassle, minimum time, and maximum value. That's why drive-through places even exist.

humanrebar 10y ago
> People might scoff at that, call it lazy, but people ARE lazy. Or they're just tired because they have two part time jobs (while looking for something more regular), kids, and a pile of chores they've been putting off.
awesomerobot 10y ago
Good points. A 7-day duration would be hopefully flexible enough with everyone and would be the most easy to implement.

sp332 10y ago

It depends on the state. Some allow early voting and some encourage voting by mail which is pretty convenient. It will have to be up to the states because the federal government is pretty strictly disallowed from interfering with how the elections are run.

ajmurmann 10y ago

I think what's absurd is that we have a highly polarized political landscape that combined wit the voting system leads to a two party system. That could be easily changed by switching to approval voting. Neither Hilary nor Trump would be close to being viable candidates, since they both had bad approval ratings. As it is now everyone is just voting against the candidate they are most scared of. What's even more absurd is that the actual votes are being counted on a per-state basis. If someone where to design the system from scratch nowadays nobody would even come up with a system that dumb. Just count all the votes. What's the point of involving states at all in a federal election? It shouldn't matter in a federal election if I live in California or Georgia. It's absurd that it does!

seren 10y ago
The polarized political landscape is probably a result of the voting system though. In a winner take it all systems, you can get a vote at "any cost" since you won't have to make any coalition later. The only thing in favor of the system is that it creates a clear winner, proportional systems might be more fair, but if parties fail to create a majority coalition you are back to square one. An ideal system might need to mix these two approaches (and some other like vote ranking, lists, etc)

rbcgerard 10y ago

pretty good piece on some possible changes https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12202705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12202705