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Wow. That's a stark contrast to where I live. I don't have to register or anything. Just bring that notice I got in the mail. And I've never waited in line for more than 15-20 minutes. And we germans keep all the supermarkets, shops and most businesses closed on sundays, so voting will just take place on a sunday and it won't collide with work either...
Does anyboy know why it's a tuesday in the USA? I guess sunday would at least help people with a regular office job? Malice? Something that was important in the 18th century when you had to travel by horse to the voting place? Or some mundane reason?
It is Tuesday for some outdated reason that no longer matters and it is kept as a tradition because it conflicts with working days where minorities and other lower income folks will find it harderr to vote.
The lines are long in places where Republicans want to suppress the vote, by not providing enough staffing, minimizing voting stations, and throwing in other hurdles. They also oppose early voting snd mail in voting to make it harder for everyone to vote, because their angry voters are more likely to stick it out through those barriers.
I live in a Republican state that hasn't gone Dem for president since Nixon, and of course I have never waited more than 5 minutes in line and started voting early when that option was added. I don't vote Republican, but most of the people do so they haven't gone as malicious on voter suppression like in the states that have a chance of going Dem.
How is thay even legal, wtf?
Because the same party doing it is good at repeatedly testing the barriers to discrimination and dismantling laws against it.
Texas and some other states were not allowed to change voting practices without approval for years due to this kind of thing under the Voting Rights Act. Then SCOTUS overturrned that law...
https://apnews.com/article/voting-rights-act-supreme-court-black-voters-6f840911e360c44fd2e4947cc743baa2
Thanks for the explanations. I think the Unites States should embrace being founded on the principles of democracy, and once being amongst the leading countries with that... And return to being a democracy. Every time I read about some more details, I'm more convinced that one of your major parties doesn't like democracy, or the original idea behind the USA.
The US was founded on wealthy white male landowners who mostly owned slaves being able to vote, just like their Greek and Roman inspirations.
Expending that concept to the general population took a couple nearly two centuries, and we still haven't embraced it. We have sucked at being a democracy the whole time.
Also, the parties traded the racists in the 60s and 70s. Republicans were the equal rights party prior to the Southern Strategy while the Dems were the racists up to that point, but Republicans have been on the wrong side of history since then.
I think democracy as a concept is alright, though. It has some flaws baked in... But I don't think there is a casual relationship to humans being humans and needing centuries to realize women are people, too. And so are people with a different skin color, poor people... Deciding if slavery is a good or a bad thing also has a very prominent place in US history. And we here in Europe also didn't do much better.
I'm proud that we left lots of that behind and we're doing much better now. We're certainly not done yet, there is still quite some way to go... I think it's just a shame that we can't do any better. Or that it'll take decades to get anything productive done, because of the way politics is set up to work. And meanwhile we also have to fight populists, corruption and all the usual annoyances of giving power to people.
I'd expect some equality be ensured on federal level for at least federal level stuff. Just... wow. I knew US was fucked up, but I somehow always learn there is yet another level to it
That's what the Voting Rights Act was...
I love seeing people realize the USA is only a Democray for a very specific group of people weather it's concerning the Judges or the Election process. On top of that thanks to the electoral college if you dont live in a swing state you don't really get a say. The election will boil down to a few hundred thousand people in a couple states just because of where they live.
The swing state thing really makes my blood boil mainly because moving from my shithole red state with the same population as the city I live in now (Los Angeles) my vote means nothing. In fact, I always chuckle when I get political mail here because it’s like “why waste your time?”
Americans talk so much about democracy, and this is how they treat their voters… Reading this thread just makes me sad.
As an American: Me too 😮💨
It's a well known phenomenon that the more people self-compliment about some great quality they have, the less that is the case.
A similar thing seems to happen at a political level - the countries were politicians just harp on and on about how great their Democracy is (in the case of the US) or how old it is (in the case of the UK) have the most flawed Democracies (if they even count as Democracies given how far they stray from the "all votes are equal" criteria) whilst in the best Democracies out there (like The Netherlands where they have Proportional Vote) they never talk about how great a Democracy they are.
I believe it's called Overcompensation.
Personally ever since I figured this out I treat such self-complimenting boasts (both at an individual and at a nation level) as big red flags and so far that rule of thumb hasn't failed me.
Makes you look at Democratic Republic of the Congo in a new way. If it’s in the name, it has to be important to them, right?
Personally the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the one I find that really beats all others in this.
Wouldn‘t it be the best thing to make election day a nation wide holiday? Could keep the tradition while also actually allowing people to vote. I doubt that productivity is high on these days nevertheless.
Has this ever been discussed?
National holidays don’t apply to private companies, apparently.
Wait? What?
Private companies are not obligated to provide any amount of leave, paid or unpaid as a general requirement. Some states may have requirements, but there is no federal requirement and many states have none.
The one requirement that I know of is allowing an employee two hours to vote on the one voting day every two years if necessary to make it to the polls. I am fairly certain this only applies if their shift is the entirety of the time the polls are open, and it is not required to be paid time.
Your second paragraph lines up with state law in California.
Well shit, I thought that was national since even Kansas has it. It is only law 28 states!
Federal holidays can be observed by private companies, but then who will run the movie theaters on Christmas for us to go watch CGI robots fight each other? Or serve us fast food on Labor Day? Etc etc. It’s stupid.
Here’s an idea: Have a few weeks of early voting for people who need to work during the actual voting day, which is on Sunday. Yeah, I know it’s radical and this sort of thing will probably start at least one civil war and a century of chaos and destruction.
The trick is do you want ANYTHING open on the holiday? Grocery, train station, etc? In America, if anything is open, then the cats out of the bag
Poor people voting isn't good for profits and it's literally that simple. Neither party care, a few progressive dems do, at least until aipac tries to get rid of them while the most powerful dems stand behind aipac.
It has, but there are some people who do not like the idea that everyone can vote.
Also it being a holiday doesn't mean everyone gets off work. There is no federal law that says your business can't be open 365 days per year, nor is there any law that mandates paid time off.
one of the two main parties knows that if 'everyone' voted, they would no longer hold any power whatsoever. so they actively prevent democracy by making it harder to vote.
Federal election times are set by 2 U.S. Code § 7 as 1 day after the 1st Monday in November (of even numbered years). The law is from 1875 and from what I can tell is indeed nominally motivated by the voters' need to first observe rest day on Sunday and then travel to their polling place. Keeping it and not having a federal holiday coinciding with it is largely aimed at keeping voter turnout low.
In contrast, in Oregon, we just vote by mail. Fill out you ballot at your leisure, drop it off in the mail box or ballot box by the due date, and you're set. Also the ballot boxes are all over the place. City Hall, the post office, the library, etc.
You generally register when you get your license with new address here but the Crux is this gets complicated if you move from state to state..there is no federal voting registry, you register to your state.
The reasons I was given for first Tuesday in November are:
The idea behind #1 is that it should be harder to bribe you if you have recently been paid. The reason behind #2 is that you will be sober when you vote.
Also, in my state at least, alcohol sales are prohibited while the polls are open for voting.