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It's way too easy for the ruling party to put the thumb on the scale and That's what's actually been happening for centuries. These days it's ID laws where cer

It's way too easy for the ruling party to put the thumb on the scale and That's what's actually been happening for centuries. These days it's ID laws where certain IDs are accepted and others aren't based on who is likely to have what. It's closing the places to acquire the ID in the areas that will vote against you It's closing the polling stations, putting them in inconvenient locations, reducing the number of machines, putting only new people at the polling place, reducing the hours of operation, making the directions intentionally confusing ... there's many ways these are being manipulated. Historically it was much worse. Ballots were the parties responsibilities and lots of shenanigans happened there, making the slots too small to fit some ballots, giving the counters a way to "prefer" which ones to count first and thus give a candidate momentum. There's also lots of instances of "losing" ballots or finding stashes after the results were announced. I mean really, it's not a panacea, it's susceptible to dishonesty and manipulation like any other human institution. There's a number of great precautions other countries have done but the blinders of American exceptionalism strikes again and we're still stuck in the relative dark ages.

Gwypaas 6y ago
That's only issues because you choose them to be issues since there's no central constitutionally guaranteed process. Most first-world countries simply require a polling location with certain number of booths per X people, require the maximum distance to one be Y kilometers which makes voting go swiftly. I've never waited in line to vote. Place elections on Sundays and ID's are already ubiquitous because you need them to function in modern societies. Like, I want to show my ID and then see my name be crossed of the list. It gives me the feeling of doing my part of upholding the integrity of the process. The whole election is public, you can observe the polling locations and count. Just show up. This is mostly done by the political parties and watchdog groups. Due to the size of the locations the first count is done a couple of hours after the election closes and the result is published the same evening. We also simplified the process even more to allow you to vote up to 18 days advance of the election day at any place in the country. If you then decide to change your vote you can go to your polling location on the election day and the advance vote is thrown out.

Gwypaas 6y ago

That's only issues because you choose them to be issues since there's no central constitutionally guaranteed process. Most first-world countries simply require a polling location with certain number of booths per X people, require the maximum distance to one be Y kilometers which makes voting go swiftly. I've never waited in line to vote. Place elections on Sundays and ID's are already ubiquitous because you need them to function in modern societies. Like, I want to show my ID and then see my name be crossed of the list. It gives me the feeling of doing my part of upholding the integrity of the process. The whole election is public, you can observe the polling locations and count. Just show up. This is mostly done by the political parties and watchdog groups. Due to the size of the locations the first count is done a couple of hours after the election closes and the result is published the same evening. We also simplified the process even more to allow you to vote up to 18 days advance of the election day at any place in the country. If you then decide to change your vote you can go to your polling location on the election day and the advance vote is thrown out.