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The biggest problem with voting not being mandatory is that a lot of people don't have the opportunity because they can't get off work. If you made voting manda
by mast 16y ago
The biggest problem with voting not being mandatory is that a lot of people don't have the opportunity because they can't get off work. If you made voting mandatory (or at least made election day a paid holiday), this impediment might be alleviated.
That just sounds like a lazy excuse to me. I don't know how long it takes to vote in the US, but where I live in Canada, we just finished our municiple elections. It was one of the longest ballots I can remember, yet the entire process, including walking from my house to the polling station and back, took about 20 minutes after work.
I have to say, I just don't understand this voter apathy or this sentiment that if none of the candidates are any good then don't vote. I really do think it is your duty as a citizen.
- Retric 16y agoI have spent 4-5 hours on more than one occasion.
- mast 16y agoYou're kidding. Why does it take so long?
- randallsquared 16y agoI'm not mzl, but there are all kinds of reasons why it might be a long project: waiting for public transit (especially if there's more than one connection), waiting in line at the poll (if turnout is much higher than expected), etc.
- TheAmazingIdiot 16y agoI've spent an hour and a half before, mainly due to excessive turnout and lack of voting booths. 2 of the 6 machines the precinct received did not verify when turned on. They're an electronic booth with paper printout (yes,what the vote hackers wanted to begin with). However the paper did not agree with the electronic tally, hence machine invalidated. And they got 4x the turnout they were expecting. Now, usually, it's 20 min in line and 3 min for the vote itself.
- Retric 16y agoThe most obvious would be: Broken electronic voting machines. Higher than expected turn out resulting in a backlog. Showing up after work along with a huge group of people doing the same thing. And I suspect some state level manipulation because my area (Northern VA) does not vote for the same party as the rest of the state. Other polling stations with 1/5th the population have the same number of voting stations.
- rcthompson 16y agoIt's quite common for both of the main parties in the USA (Democrats and Republicans) to try to disenfranchise voting districts that vote predominantly for the other party. This can be done by sabotaging voting machines, resulting in long wait times that will discourage people from voting (as mentioned by another comment); or intentionally underestimating voter turnout and delivering too few machines in the first place; or by spreading rumors that it's a landslide and they don't need to vote; or spreading misinformation on how to fill out the ballot, resulting in failed votes; or intentionally putting polling places in the bad part of town to scare away voters; or putting polling places far away from public transit and/or sufficient parking space; or any number of underhanded tactics designed to prevent people from. None of it is ever really proven or investigated, but you tend to get a lot of highly significant p-values on election day, indicating that most of these events are probably intentional, and not accidental. And don't forget Gerrymandering, in which the party in power redraws the voting district lines to ensure that every district has a majority of their party (though that happens before election day): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering Edit: I added a few more examples from other replies that represent common methods of intentional sabotage.