I would love to agree here, but I live in an area where they do such a piss-poor job of announcing when people need to vote, that even I have a hard time knowing all of the things and when they happen. I signed up for email/text alerts and they only go out a few days before voting day. For some people, that is not enough time to plan to be off and be at the polling place.
The system is broken.
WhiteRabbit_33@lemmy.world 1 year ago
There is so much voter suppression in the US. I didn’t realize some of the more subtle ways it was suppressed until I moved to a state that has way less of it.
The US needs to end voter suppression. There are several ways of doing this but the top items: Mandate all election days (even those just at the state level) be paid holidays, automatically register all citizens to vote as soon as they turn 18, and make voting compulsory (not with punitive measures)
In Texas, the following is routine suppression other than the common nationwide suppression: -People are often purged from voter registration even if they’re an active voter and voted in the last election. If you don’t check your registration months before the election, you’ll think you’re fine because you just voted but may show up and be told you’re no longer registered.
-Voting registration is cut off 30 days before the election. This is on the high end of the cutoff and further increases chances you get purged, don’t realize it in time, and then can’t re-register. -Voting registration is mail in only. You have to physically print off the form and mail it in. This takes substantially more time when the post office is no longer a common trip for most people. It could easily be an online form like it is in many states. -Rotating polling locations and hours for early voting. If you try to vote early on a day off for instance, you may get to the polling location and realize it’s only open on certain days of the week while other locations are open the full week or it has arbitrarily reduced hours on certain days. Other locations may then be much farther from that location. -Polling locations far way from you. You may have to drive 30 minutes to 1 hour away to vote even in a city or if you don’t have a car, public transit may take prohibitively long (2+ hours one way) to get to the polling location. -Attacking mail in ballots as fraudulent and often throwing them out. Based on 2022 data, 6-20% are thrown out depending on the county.
There are so many more little things which all add up to the purpose of preventing people from voting. No wonder people don’t vote or attempt to vote, can’t, get discouraged or don’t have more time off to vote, and give up
derpgon@programming.dev 1 year ago
Holy shit, that’s brutal.
Glad where I live you just have to show up with an ID at the location assigned based on your permanent residency. Even passport is okay if ID is lost or expires.
If you can’t, you can request a voter card that allows you to vote anywhere in the country. If you can’t vote physically, you can do mail-in.
While voting is physical, you can request voter card via e-residency login. You can also call your local voting committee and request they come to your house directly if you are disabled, elderly, or unable to come.
daltotron@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
Expanding on this, a lot of this is very consistent in the amount by which it suppresses voters, and thus, much like gerrymandering, can be designed around or intentionally enacted. I mean, that’s sort of an obvious thing, but I think it’s still important to take note of and point out, much like gerrymandering and every other form of voter suppression, because it makes it all the more obvious that we do not live in a democracy, even by a little bit.