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That's unacceptable in my opinion, but it's not the norm at all, even in traditionally democratic-voting areas.

by bpt3 6y ago

542354234235 6y ago
This is the norm and has been happening for the last 8 years. > Across the country, more than 2,000 polling places closed between the 2012 and 2016 general elections… for every 10 polling places that closed in the rest of the country, 13 closed within the jurisdictions once under oversight [of the Voting Rights Act]. Policies that introduce barriers to voting — like Texas’ strict voter ID requirements and North Carolina’s elimination of same-day registration and limits on early voting — have been widely criticized for discouraging minority voters, who disproportionately vote Democratic. The vast majority of the jurisdictions once under federal supervision are in states with GOP leadership. > About a third of all counties that used to be subject to the Voting Rights Act reduced their per capita number of polling places from 2012 to 2016, compared to only a fifth of the rest of the jurisdictions… Some of the most egregious examples of counties closing a significant percentage of their polls are in Arizona. Phoenix-area Maricopa County initially slashed its polling places by 70 percent before the state’s 2016 primary election, spurring a DOJ investigation. [1] [1] https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/kz58qx/how-the-gutting-of-the-voting-rights-act-led-to-closed-polls https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/kz58qx/how-the-gutting-o...
- bpt3 6y ago
  Hours-long waits to vote are not the norm: https://medium.com/mit-election-lab/insights-into-voting-wait-time-from-the-2016-elections-performance-index-6693576e9b99 https://medium.com/mit-election-lab/insights-into-voting-wai... Having a single early voting location in an entire county that size isn't the norm either this year. I do not in any way support the closure of polling places or other attempts at implicit voter suppression, but mischaracterising what is happening in the BBC article (which is describing early voting) isn't helpful.
  - 542354234235 6y ago
    Contextualizing the targeted actions taken towards early voting into the broader actions of widespread voter suppression by the republican part over the last 8 years is not mischaracterization. Saying this isn’t “the norm” because it doesn’t happen in the majority of counties misses the point, since the voter suppression is targeted at specific places. I could have been more clear on what I meant by “the norm”. Of course it isn’t happening everywhere or even a majority of places. I mean that targeted voter suppression i.e. either methods of voting or locations of voting with the highest impact on likely democratic voters, has been the norm. Your linked article stated “Florida saw a scant 6-minute average wait time in 2016” but at that same time Florida had closed polling places in majority black and Latino areas and showed a statistical decline in their turnout. In Texas, if you can target just two counties, both with huge populations and huge numbers of democratic voters, you can affect overall outcome. You don’t have to slow down every single voter in the state for voter suppression to be the norm in that state.
    - bpt3 6y ago
      My point is that the cause of the long lines shown in the BBC article isn't likely to be targeted voter suppression because they are happening all over the US, ranging from areas where generally democrat-voting minorities live and voter suppression has been (and still is) an issue, to republican strongholds, to areas mostly populated by upper income white people (many who vote democrat) who have never waited more than 10 minutes to vote in their lives. Also, everything you're saying is true (voter suppression is an issue in the US), as is everything I'm saying (wait times like the ones shown in the article aren't normal). A number of people, yourself included, have decided to take the discussion on a tangent, presumably because it's more important and/or interesting to you. I'm continuing address the questions of "are lines like this normal for US elections" with "no, it's not" (and here's the data backing that up).

That's unacceptable in my opinion, but it's not the norm at all, even in traditionally democratic-voting areas.

by bpt3 6y ago

That's unacceptable in my opinion, but it's not the norm at all, even in traditionally democratic-voting areas.

This is the norm and has been happening for the last 8 years. > Across the country, more than 2,000 polling places closed between the 2012 and 2016 general elections… for every 10 polling places that closed in the rest of the country, 13 closed within the jurisdictions once under oversight [of the Voting Rights Act]. Policies that introduce barriers to voting — like Texas’ strict voter ID requirements and North Carolina’s elimination of same-day registration and limits on early voting — have been widely criticized for discouraging minority voters, who disproportionately vote Democratic. The vast majority of the jurisdictions once under federal supervision are in states with GOP leadership. > About a third of all counties that used to be subject to the Voting Rights Act reduced their per capita number of polling places from 2012 to 2016, compared to only a fifth of the rest of the jurisdictions… Some of the most egregious examples of counties closing a significant percentage of their polls are in Arizona. Phoenix-area Maricopa County initially slashed its polling places by 70 percent before the state’s 2016 primary election, spurring a DOJ investigation. [1] [1] https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/kz58qx/how-the-gutting-of-the-voting-rights-act-led-to-closed-polls https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/kz58qx/how-the-gutting-o...

bpt3 6y ago
Hours-long waits to vote are not the norm: https://medium.com/mit-election-lab/insights-into-voting-wait-time-from-the-2016-elections-performance-index-6693576e9b99 https://medium.com/mit-election-lab/insights-into-voting-wai... Having a single early voting location in an entire county that size isn't the norm either this year. I do not in any way support the closure of polling places or other attempts at implicit voter suppression, but mischaracterising what is happening in the BBC article (which is describing early voting) isn't helpful.
- 542354234235 6y ago
  Contextualizing the targeted actions taken towards early voting into the broader actions of widespread voter suppression by the republican part over the last 8 years is not mischaracterization. Saying this isn’t “the norm” because it doesn’t happen in the majority of counties misses the point, since the voter suppression is targeted at specific places. I could have been more clear on what I meant by “the norm”. Of course it isn’t happening everywhere or even a majority of places. I mean that targeted voter suppression i.e. either methods of voting or locations of voting with the highest impact on likely democratic voters, has been the norm. Your linked article stated “Florida saw a scant 6-minute average wait time in 2016” but at that same time Florida had closed polling places in majority black and Latino areas and showed a statistical decline in their turnout. In Texas, if you can target just two counties, both with huge populations and huge numbers of democratic voters, you can affect overall outcome. You don’t have to slow down every single voter in the state for voter suppression to be the norm in that state.
  - bpt3 6y ago
    My point is that the cause of the long lines shown in the BBC article isn't likely to be targeted voter suppression because they are happening all over the US, ranging from areas where generally democrat-voting minorities live and voter suppression has been (and still is) an issue, to republican strongholds, to areas mostly populated by upper income white people (many who vote democrat) who have never waited more than 10 minutes to vote in their lives. Also, everything you're saying is true (voter suppression is an issue in the US), as is everything I'm saying (wait times like the ones shown in the article aren't normal). A number of people, yourself included, have decided to take the discussion on a tangent, presumably because it's more important and/or interesting to you. I'm continuing address the questions of "are lines like this normal for US elections" with "no, it's not" (and here's the data backing that up).