The turnout gap between white and nonwhite voters in the U.S. is growing fastest in jurisdictions that were stripped of a federal civil rights-era voting protection a decade ago, according to a new study.
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Who could have predicted this outcome? Oh. Right. Everyone. Everyone predicted this outcome. If voting didn't work they wouldn't spend billions to suppress it.
It was 3% “registered Negro voters” in 1960 in Mississippi. That was not due to voter apathy. It was violent voter suppression. And yes, it happen here again.
Want to do something to make voter suppression less successful? Serve as a poll worker—and volunteer to go wherever you’re needed most. It won’t make everything better, but you can make your little corner of the election run more smoothly, professionally, & lawfully.
Great that we have a court that’s willing to make tough, constitutionally sound rulings that both allow states to run their elections as they please and disenfranchise people at will, but also prevent states from running their own elections as they please and barring insurrections from the ballot.
So what would cause folks not to vote? Even 43% of eligible white voters is awful. What are 'restrictive voter ID requirements'? Perhaps there is some discrimination in the way the maps are drawn, but this is about turnout. What would increase the turnout for all Americans to vote?
This is one of the reasons I love the Australian way of doing elections.
Enrolling to vote is mandatory, and voting is mandatory, and as a result the system is designed to make it as easy as it is physically possible to do so.
(preface: the tone here is not sassy, this is something I really do ponder)
I don't understand why voting machines like the ones in Brazil are not more used worldwide. it's safe and fast. we do have waiting sometimes but in general does not take hours.
It's a deliberate effort to discourage voting
Polls in minority areas are sent fewer machines
Supplies of ballots are badly distributed
Polling locations are fewer
I vote by mail in a blue state
If I want to vote in person there is a fast-moving polling station two blocks away
It can be done
Yes. I've seen it happen even in the blue state where I live, when somebody made a mistake in calculating how many voters were in a district and how many would turn out. Then they did things to fix it.
The GOP has worked out that reducing the number of polling stations in areas that lean Dem allows it to suppress votes while also blaming the voters themselves for low turnout. I suspect that the UK's Tory party is taking notes
My worst wait in my mostly white, liberal suburb was 15 minutes. When I hear about people standing in line for hours, and the government criminalizing GIVING THOSE PEOPLE WATER, I don’t have to stretch to reach the obvious conclusion that those voters are being intentionally suppressed.
It takes me longer than that, but only because I fill out the ballot in front of my computer and have to look everything up before I can vote on it. I really don't want to vote for the wrong candidate for East Multnomah County Soil and Water Conservation District.
There are concerted efforts by republicans to lower turnout in areas and demographics that are likely to vote Democratic. Any efforts to turn out more voters are specifically opposed by republicans in various ways.
Another issue is where voters are allowed to vote. Mail-in voting has changed all this, but it used to be that unless you were disabled and qualified for a mail-in ballot, you showed up in person in a particular polling place near your home. This could be difficult for working people ... /1
... if their job was far away from their home and their work schedule didn't line up well with the hours the polls are open. Since the pandemic, many states have changed the rules so people can drop off ballots sent to them in the mail instead of having to stand in line. /2
But some places game the system so there are more polling places in areas with higher income, and the lower-income people who need more flexibility are squeezed out. Like Courtney said, there isn't enough throughput & people who can't afford the wait time don't have the same opportunity to vote. /3
Uh, Andrew, sorry for the presumption but if you're white and live in a majority white and relatively affluent precinct how far do you have to travel to vote and, on average, how long do you have to wait when you get there to cast a ballot?
Also, I will tell you that when I was unemployed and unable to show proof of residence because I didn’t officially live anywhere and had to bounce around from place to place, being unable to update my ID was a problem. I HAD to do mail in voting and go get my mail in ballot from my last residence.
That’s a huge problem for people who are impacted by unemployment and unable to put their name on a lease anywhere. Because they don’t have a permanent residence.
I just googled this for the UK as I had a vague memory that homeless people can register to vote there. In 2020, guidance was that homeless people could use a regular place they went, eg bus shelter, as a voting address. The government has cracked down on needing id since then so it’s likely changed
Paid time off to vote. Some people cannot afford to take time off to vote when they aren't paid for it. Even if you tried to go before or after work, having to wait in line for hours for some people to vote, means they end up arriving to work late, or have to leave early to make it there on time.
Absolutely. And the downside to that is that hourly employees at companies like fast food chains and any service industry retaliated positions would still not be accommodated with a national holiday, unless everything shut down the way it does on Christmas. Which I would support!
Give people nothing to do on Election day aside from voting. No movies or restaurants. Paid time off with at least a requirement that businesses confirm that their employees on shift that day voted.
Should be a paid Federal holiday. Hell,at this point there should be an app for it. If we can bank online we should be able to make it safe to vote that way.
What you said 100%. Also extra-difficult for parents, especially single parents.
It’s hard to blame anyone for not wanting to spend ages standing around in line before or after a workday. It sucks that pure inconvenience is a really effective voter suppression technique just by itself.
Make Election Day a national holiday; move elections to the weekend; make early voting easier for everyone; switch to ranked choice voting to empower voters; support voting rights for the formerly incarcerated; end gerrymandering; expand voting locations; etc.
Vote by mail. I live in Oregon where we only vote by mail and there is no fraud. You have 3 weeks to mail in your ballot and there are no lines, no fees, and no problems.
California here, same deal. Numerous 24-hour drop boxes in my area, extremely easy and convenient to drop off your ballot while out and about for whatever reason… or like you said, you can just mail it in. Apathy is really the only major barrier to turnout here, at least it seems.
The first two are things that sound good but ... don't really help. The people who have trouble getting time off work to vote are the same people who don't reliably get holidays and weekends off. Providing times to vote so that people can fit it into varied schedules is the way to go.
It was a short list of the first handful of things that should be implemented. In an ideal world, in addition to early voting and vote by mail, Election Day would be 3 days to allow everyone an opportunity to vote. But elected officials don't actually want everyone to vote, only their supporters.
Making it a holiday shouldn't be implemented. It doesn't help anything and reinforces the idea that "Election Day" is an important thing. And why 3 days? The approach of allowing a period of early voting and expanded mail voting has been very effective (which is why people are pushing back on it)
Thanks for the response. Because the petulant boy king put it into the minds of millions of Americans, many think the voting process is rampant with fraud. I heard about ranked choice voting from Andrew Yang. What a great idea. Greater accessibility and a national holiday, great ideas.
I covered state and local politics for years and every election cycle listened to politicians complain about low voter turnout. Then I realized it wasn't voter turnout they cared about; it was THIER supporter's turnout they cared about. As long as the people winning election make the rules ...
What do you think about an online/mobile option that uses a registration method requiring some sort of validation and MFA? I know some would scoff at the idea because of the increased fraud potential. However, we trust our banks, utility companies, mobile phone companies, etc. with it.
We sent a man to the moon in 1969. I'm certain 54 years later that secure, online voting is possible, but there is no political will to make it happen.
Precincts in urban areas are under resourced leading to hours long lines which disproportionately affect minority voters. In many cases this is deliberate.
See Texas declaring that there could only be one drop off location per county for early ballots. There are hundreds of counties in Texas but the six account for a large chunk of the population -- particularly the people the Texas government would prefer not to vote.
Not only that but the people who end up having to wait hours tend to be the same people who can't trivially get time off work to vote -- and having time to vote is not legally protected in most states. Flexible voting helps a lot, which is why it's under relentless attack.
I remembered they did something fucky to Houston, but I could only remember passing a law that lets them yank the elections board (or something like that) from any county over a certain population. I thought there was something new about where to vote too.
I think some states have started limiting *when* ballots could be dropped off too. Has to be during work hours. Work week. Maybe only certain days in X number of weeks before the election. Closing drop off artificially several days before the election.
I know at least one state curtailed early voting the Sunday before election day because Black churches made a point to get people out to vote immediately after services.
Part of the VRA was historically discriminatory jurisdictions couldn't close polling places carte blanche. There was judicial preapproval and other safeguards. After Shelby, these jurisdictions started closing polling places left and right, primarily in minority-majority areas.
This article is five years out of date, but it has gotten worse. This is just one of many ways that something can seem "innocent" but cause people to not vote.
When I lived in Savannah, GA, I lived in a white area. I was in and out in 20 minutes top. Right across the water, in a primarily black precinct, there were stories every year of two, three, five hour waits.
I worked a white collar, salaried job. I had a greater ability to flex my schedule to make time for long lines than many of my minority neighbors, who statistically are less likely to work white collar jobs with the flexibility of time to devote to voting if the line is abnormally long.
Also to register to vote requires ID/proof of citizenship and proof of residency. Why folks support having to show ID again when you already gave to the town is beyond me. It’s a pain in the ass. On top of the voter suppression.
IDs is something I don’t get about the US. In Brazil you get an id number assigned at your birth certificate. Later when you want to get a photo id, the first one is free. You have to show that to vote.
My republic is only 120 years old and its democracy is only 30 years old. Still, this is how they bring an election booths to the most remote areas of the country:
Christian nationalists would be screaming about the mark of the devil. Also, if you don’t have transportation to go take the picture you’d still have a problem.
I live in a Republican controlled town, and have voted there for more decades than I want to say.
I have never had to stand outside on line and I have never had to wait more than 10 min to vote. Usually there is no line at all.
They make it easier to vote for their team, but check out Texas where they shut down any voting polls near college campuses and district that are heavily populated with person of colors. Basically creating few places where you have to travel far and stand in line for hours to vote
One: Make election days holidays and mandate non-essential business close for the day or operate at reduced hours.
Two: open polls for at least two days
Three: strike any laws requiring any special identification for voting.
Four: open more polling places
Five: make voting by mail more accessible
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Whocouldaknown?
for once
A vote that counts is a precious thing. Shame on us, and shame on SCOTUS for not respecting & protecting our rights.
More poll workers, more voting.
Enrolling to vote is mandatory, and voting is mandatory, and as a result the system is designed to make it as easy as it is physically possible to do so.
I don't understand why voting machines like the ones in Brazil are not more used worldwide. it's safe and fast. we do have waiting sometimes but in general does not take hours.
Polls in minority areas are sent fewer machines
Supplies of ballots are badly distributed
Polling locations are fewer
I vote by mail in a blue state
If I want to vote in person there is a fast-moving polling station two blocks away
It can be done
It’s hard to blame anyone for not wanting to spend ages standing around in line before or after a workday. It sucks that pure inconvenience is a really effective voter suppression technique just by itself.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/11/us-polling-sites-closed-report-supreme-court-ruling
Eliminating polling places hampers access, combining polling places creates confusion
That’s just 3 off top of head
It’s not that hard.
How were elections secure for the first 170ish years of the republic?
I have never had to stand outside on line and I have never had to wait more than 10 min to vote. Usually there is no line at all.
Two: open polls for at least two days
Three: strike any laws requiring any special identification for voting.
Four: open more polling places
Five: make voting by mail more accessible