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Presidential election popular vote tallies lined up against “did not vote” (mbin.grits.dev)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Step 1: make voting compulsory

Step 2: move it to a weekend

Step 3: easy access to prepoll or postal voting for people who can't make it on the official day

Bonus step: change voting system to IRV, or even better, to something proportional like MMP or STV

There you go. America has a functioning electoral system.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Step 2 is out it is in most countries in Europe. But honestly I like how it is in the UK. You vote on a Thursday and people have legally mandated time off during that day to go vote.

I feel like a lot of people would definitely vote if it gave them paid time off from their work.

If you move to a weekend then it comes off their free time and they might be away etc

Also free and no hurdles mail voting.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Where do you get the legal time off thing? afaik that's not a UK law - they would tell you to vote by post if you're going to be at work all day.

What does help is that polling stations are everywhere - I've never had to walk more than a few hundred metres to vote, nor had to wait.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

We're going to need voter id

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This guy is being downvoted, but voter id isn’t a bad thing. Like in a lot of easy things, it’s just that the US is backwards.

In Europe everyone gets national id, and that enables you to vote. It IS voter id, but since it’s not only easy to get, but mandatory, you can’t use it as a means to exclude groups you don’t like.

Get your shit together America.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

IDs are not routinely checked when voting in Germany at least. But there's no voter registration necessary because everyone is registered with their municipality and automatically gets their voting paperwork sent home. You just need that paperwork to vote, no ID. I wouldn't change that setup because giving poll workers ways to refuse voters is not a good thing.

Btw. I've never had to wait in line for more than a minute to vote. Voting booths are usually in walking distance (might be different in very rural areas) and each accommodates maybe 250 people for the day.

Also, there are polling stations in prison. The right to vote can't be taken away.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

So how does Germany ensure that people are not taking other people's voting paperwork and voting several times? I'm sure it must be addressed in some way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

other people's voting paperwork

Same way as they would for the ID, They don't. That's not a common problem. Only people in the same household could possibly access the paperwork and as there are only 250-ish people voting at the same polling station, risk is high that someone voting twice with paperwork of a family member would immediately be found. That there are enough cases of this to sway election results is highly unlikely.

voting several times

Check list. Everyone that is registered at that polling station is ticked off on the list.