Op-Ed Needed: a new Voting Rights Act

[Kulindahr]

Florida is the last straw: people waiting eight hours to vote, people camping out overnight outside the polling places, and more, all driven by state officials unconcerned about whether everyone gets to vote. But there was Pennsylvania, where at least one machine was turning votes for Barrack Obama into votes for Mitt Romney, and there was Ohio, where officials made illegal changes to the software at the last minute -- besides the appearance of corruption by having family and friends of a candidate owning the voting machines. Add on all sorts of irregularities elsewhere, and it's easy to see that something has to be done.


I say what's need is a new Voting Rights Act, for the whole country. The only questions are how far it should go, and what penalties and remedies it should contain.

For starters:

every voter must have equal access to voting, physically. That means there must be a maximum number of voters per polling place, and a minimum number of machines, and a minimum average travel time with a maximum one as well, plus a maximum waiting time to vote.

No more cutting voting hours to make it harder. No more making polling places harder to get to. No more different standards for different ethnic neighborhoods.

If we are a land of equal rights, those things are a minimum.

 

[Jack Springer]

yeah ... free food, drinks.

maybe recliners to chill in while you wait

free manicures

free massages

yes, let's to the libertarian thing and add more laws.

 

[Kulindahr]

yeah ... free food, drinks.

maybe recliners to chill in while you wait

free manicures

free massages

yes, let's to the libertarian thing and add more laws.

Laws protecting people's rights are the essence of libertarian government. Your cheap shot merely demonstrates you have no clue what believing in liberty means.

As for free stuff -- sure. If some rich people out there are willing to promote such things, it would be awesome; let there be a free barbecue for everyone who voted.

 

[chance1]

I had to fill in what seemed like a high school multiple choice test

with a pen

fill in the rectangular sorta circle

then go to a pseudo fax machine and put it upside down - so the monitor couldn't see it i guess

then "fax" it

and it says "your vote has been counted"

hilariously old school

 

[chance1]

i miss the curtain close - pull the lever (x marks the spot)

finish

pull the curtain back

say bye to the white haired ladies with their dunkin donuts and coffee

 

[TheFireGod]

I had to fill in what seemed like a high school multiple choice test

with a pen

fill in the rectangular sorta circle

then go to a pseudo fax machine and put it upside down - so the monitor couldn't see it i guess

then "fax" it

and it says "your vote has been counted"

hilariously old school

I had that also, at least in my county.

Old school only by the fact that it's paper. Otherwise, it's a good middle-point between touch screen machines and having to read every piece of paper (like they do for UK Parliament elections).

We had touch screens when I voted in 2006 and 2008, but had bubble-in paper and fax since 2010.

Florida was just a hot mess because:

1. There were a shitload of special interest constitution amendments that ran from the middle column of the back of page 1, to midway in the right column of the back of page 2 (on my ballot). And I lived in an unincorporated part of the county, who knows how many more questions that the people in cities/towns had in their ballots. This made voting waaaaayyyy longer.

2. Early voting was cut in half compared to 2008.

 

[TX-Beau]

We have the touch screens. I had to wait a whole 5 minutes to vote.

 

[bankside]

Kulindahr this is quite a departure from what I understood to be your previous principle: that the US was a republic of independent states with no place for this kind of uniformity.

 

[TX-Beau]

Almost - dare I say LIBERAL!!

... Shirley clutch the pearls...

 

[chance1]

Kulindahr this is quite a departure from what I understood to be your previous principle: that the US was a republic of independent states with no place for this kind of uniformity.

quite

evolution is not just something they teach in schools

 

[Jack Springer]

Florida needs to clean house. Get rid of all the old election officials.

The long lines at my polling place were because the local media told people to vote early. The line started before 5:30 (polls open at 6am and close at 7pm). We were extremely busy until noon and then it died off.

Voting is simple with a card you slide into the machine and you mark your ballot with a ink stylus -- but many people screwed up.

I think we only had a few voters after 6:30pm.

The place I worked, an upscale residential care center, gave us breakfast, lunch, and dinner -- no stale donuts.

 

[palemale]

I had to fill in what seemed like a high school multiple choice test

with a pen

fill in the rectangular sorta circle

then go to a pseudo fax machine and put it upside down - so the monitor couldn't see it i guess

then "fax" it

and it says "your vote has been counted"

hilariously old school

I liked the old machines, too. So post-WWII (the age of those machines). I had to wait two hours to vote. They added a whole lot of buildings to my voting district, and cut the number of people signing in. I never had to wait more than 15 minutes to vote.

Of course, there were a number of people casting affidavit ballots. Cuomo permitted New Yorkers to vote anywhere by affidavit ballot because so many voting locations were destroyed or unusable because of Hurricane Sandy.

 

[palemale]

In Miami there were only 15 polling locations.

That is insane. We probably had that many polling locations in all of Greenwich Village.

 

[Kulindahr]

Kulindahr this is quite a departure from what I understood to be your previous principle: that the US was a republic of independent states with no place for this kind of uniformity.

Huh? What "uniformity"? You mean like the "uniformity" we have with freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc.?

The whole point of having a federal government is that rights are recognized uniformly.

 

[Kulindahr]

Almost - dare I say LIBERAL!!

... Shirley clutch the pearls...

Classical liberal, which is libertarian, and quite far from today's liberals.

 

[Jack Springer]

ohhhhhhhhh

liberal = libertarian

Amazing. Are you going to send out a press release?

 

[Kulindahr]

I liked the old machines, too. So post-WWII (the age of those machines). I had to wait two hours to vote. They added a whole lot of buildings to my voting district, and cut the number of people signing in. I never had to wait more than 15 minutes to vote.

Of course, there were a number of people casting affidavit ballots. Cuomo permitted New Yorkers to vote anywhere by affidavit ballot because so many voting locations were destroyed or unusable because of Hurricane Sandy.

It would be interesting to see a map of the US showing the wait time for voting. Florida would obviously be screwed up.

You bring up something that would have to be acknowledged in a new Voting Rights Act: natural disasters. A state clearly shouldn't be penalized for failing to provide access in the face of such a thing; indeed, they should be able to call on the federal government to help meet the standards anyway -- for example, if the standard is no travel time longer than an hour, but highways are out, the National Guard might be called on to do mobile polling stations that go out on circuits, so people don't have to make their way to the regular polling places.

 

[Kulindahr]

I had to fill in what seemed like a high school multiple choice test

with a pen

fill in the rectangular sorta circle

then go to a pseudo fax machine and put it upside down - so the monitor couldn't see it i guess

then "fax" it

and it says "your vote has been counted"

hilariously old school

That's just weird, nothing "old school" about it. Heck, if there's electricity involved, it's not old school.

- - - Updated - - -

ohhhhhhhhh

liberal = libertarian

Amazing. Are you going to send out a press release?

Are you ever going to get an education?

 

[TX-Beau]

Classical liberal, which is libertarian, and quite far from today's liberals.

There's no use dissembling,the primary function of government is to secure the liberty and welfare of it's citizens is still the core of Liberal philosophy.

 

[Jack Springer]

You guys and your technologically implemented voting lol. Over here, its tick box, fold paper, post in ballet box.

What is a tick box?