I’ve asked this in a couple of replies on Twitter today but not had any response. I’m hoping the hive mind of the Massive can help.
The news, and especially Twitter, is full of photos of people queuing, often for many hours, to vote in the US presidential election. The tone always invites the reader to be appalled that this is happening and suggests that making voting difficult is a deliberate tactic (typically to deter Democrat voters in the posts in my Twitter bubble).
Is there an unavoidable reason that these voters compelled to queue for that long, and so long before Election Day? November 3rd is still a couple of weeks away couldn’t they just come back another day some time between now and then?
BFG says
From what I’ve seen the pics tend to be of people queuing to register to vote which in the States is down to each state & is often engineered by, more often than not, Republicans to ensure the poor & minorities can’t vote with arcane & complex rules which vary from state to state, which coupled with gerrymandering, skew the idea of democracy in the US.
Gatz says
So they’re not actually voting? I know that ‘early voting’ is already happening in some states and assumed the queues were to cast votes.
Moose the Mooche says
As they used to say in NI, “Vote early, vote often”
Remember the “hanging chads” 20 years ago? Innocent times. Well, not really, but these things are relative.
dai says
In Canada you can vote before official polling day, but those days are limited to 2 or 3 days. Not sure if the same in US.
Billybob Dylan says
The USA is a huge country with a population of around 330,000,000. I don’t know how many of those are eligible to vote, though. I got my ballot in the mail last Friday, I’ve completed it, and I could mail it in now, if I chose to. But there’s a ballot drop off location literally just up the road from me, and I can drop it off there anytime between October 24th and November 3rd.
Remember – vote early and vote often!
Billybob Dylan says
I should also say that there are almost certainly many people who have not registered to vote, so I’m sure some of the TV footage is people lining up to register. Every other ad on TV is insisting that you register. Also, we’re not just voting for a president and a vice president (BTW – someone called ‘Rocky’ and Kanye West are running for president and vice president on the California ballot), we’re also voting for various ‘Measures’ and ‘Propositions’ which involve such things as who should be a judge on the LA County Circuit, who should be elected to the LA County school board, homelessness, whether property taxes should be raised, whether those who drive for Uber, Lyft and the like should be allowed to carry on as independent contractors, etc. There’s like 25 different things to vote for!
ratbiter says
There’s no easy answer to this. All elections are organized on a state-by-state basis, even for the President. So everywhere is different.
Apparently in New York City,, there are approximately 4000 voters per polling station. In the UK, the aim is to have 2500 per polling station. So that will slow things down. As will the voting machines – you’re not just putting your “X” in a box on a slip of paper. Finally, you aren’t just voting for President. The ballot paper for my corner of NYC has seven different elections. Add all of that together (and without even considering the question of possible voter suppression) and it’ll be a slow process.
Mrbellows says
Is this how you live your life.
Gatz says
This Australian piece answers my questions, though not why people don’t run up, see the queue, and think ‘bugger that for a game of soldiers, I’ll come back next week’.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-14/why-some-americans-had-to-wait-11-hours-to-vote/12765128
Moose the Mooche says
“Bugger that for a game of soldiers” is not a common idiom in Atlanta.
They’re more likely to day, “Dash it all, I can’t be fagged”