I’ve been following, mostly via MSNBC, efforts in some states to make voting less convenient by cutting back on early voting hours. The footage shows long lines which have even occurred on Election Day itself. The MSNBC crowd is outraged and there are civil rights suits being filed. Here’s what I don’t understand. There is no inalienable right to early vote; MA doesn’t do it. I can understand if the restrictions are ad hoc by locality because that means it will be more convenient for some than for others, but at least in the story I just saw about FL, it seems Gov. Scott cut back early voting statewide. This does seem to lead to longer lines, but that brings me to the second thing I wonder about. Why the lines at all? I have never waited more than a very few minutes in line to vote and even that is extremely rare even in elections that are reported as high turnout. What am I missing? Do I always vote at inactive times? Does MA just always provide more than enough locations and booths per location that I have taken this relative convenience for granted? Are there complications that slow things down that other states experience that MA doesn’t? I’d be interested in any insight on this.
Namely, we take a lot for granted here in Massachusetts, including the right to vote.
We do NOT allow ballotless voting, period. We are not tolerant of voter-suppression tactics generally. Nobody has a problem voting on election day; NOBODY has a problem voting on election day because of their race.
That is unfortunately not true in many states. There “complications” are introduced deliberately.
I like the ritual of going to the polls to vote, all on the same day, and would miss it if, for instance, someone invented foolproof internet voting.
But in some parts of the country early voting is an important antidote to voter-suppression efforts that would otherwise deny citizens of their fundamental right to vote.
I’ve asked around, and I don’t know anyone who has waited longer than half an hour to vote in my town — and that 30 minutes was someone waiting to vote when the polls opened in order to get to work on time. And we don’t have early voting. And you’re not supposed to vote absentee unless you really can’t make it to the polls.
My guess was that some of this might have involved inadequate electronic voting equipment. But I think Miami Dade County has paper ballots and optical scanners. So all I can conclude is that there is either deliberate voter suppression or gross incompetence/understaffing. It is absolutely shocking to me that in the United States, people are being asked to wait in line for more than 6 hours to cast their vote.
There is no excuse for voting to take longer than an hour unless there are highly unusual circumstances such as Hurricane Sandy. “Large turnout” is not such an excuse. Wish we could have a Constitutional amendment requiring less than a 60 minute wait to vote.