The-F-Word.org

There are currently 12 responses to “Election Day is here!”

Join the conversation! Post your comment below.

1. 1 On November 4th, 2008, devil said:

   No long lines for me, I voted absentee over a week ago.

   Fortunately, California has made it easy to vote absentee. And, once you’re registered that way, you stay absentee and they always send you your voter materials early. It wasn’t always like this – you used to have to jump through all kinds of annoying hoops to get an absentee ballot.

   I’m guessing that these states with those horrendous waits to vote don’t make it easy to vote absentee?

   And, yeah, a six-hour wait standing in line to vote is definitely a type of poll tax. I wouldn’t wait in a six-hour line to see Morrissey, and I adore him. Cheers to those tough folks in those lines!

   posted on November 4th, 2008 at 1:33 pm

2. 2 On November 4th, 2008, Charlotte said:

   My voting experience was pretty good; the lines weren’t too bad. Right now I’m sitting at school, proudly sporting my “I Voted” sticker.

   posted on November 4th, 2008 at 2:22 pm

3. 3 On November 4th, 2008, Rachel said:

   I’m guessing that these states with those horrendous waits to vote don’t make it easy to vote absentee?

   Ohio makes it very easy to vote absentee and they also offer early voting. Luckily, the 2004 election caused the state to enact additional laws to make voting easier and thanks to Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, those have happened. The state requires 1 machine per every 175 voters and you have the option of filling out a paper ballot if you don’t want to wait in long lines for machines. Still, there’s been reports of long voting lines, especially in Franklin County (Columbus-area). I read somewhere that there’s a move underway to make early voting a national standard.

   My husband and I voted together and we didn’t have to wait long in line at all, but we didn’t get an “I Voted Today” sticker, either

   posted on November 4th, 2008 at 3:54 pm

4. 4 On November 4th, 2008, Catherine said:

   I don’t know how long the lines to vote in cities are, but in the town I live in in Canada it took me maybe 15 minutes max from the time I walked through the doors of the community centre to the time I walked out. I can’t imagine waiting up to five hours; that would test my patience.

   posted on November 4th, 2008 at 3:56 pm

5. 5 On November 4th, 2008, Lisa said:

   I’m an Ohioan who voted absentee – it’s easy. I’m on a college campus, though, and I had to explain 20 times a day why I wasn’t registered at my current address.

   posted on November 4th, 2008 at 4:30 pm

6. 6 On November 4th, 2008, movie fan said:

   it’s awesome that there has been this “problem” of long lines all over… people taking a greater interest in public issues is always a good thing

   posted on November 4th, 2008 at 11:58 pm

7. 7 On November 5th, 2008, Rachel said:

   My sister, also an Ohio college-age voter, lost her driver’s license and called the state board of elections to see what she needed by way of ID (she’s a first-time voter). They told her that her student ID would be sufficient but luckily, she called me first because she also needed an official letter from the university listing her address.

   posted on November 5th, 2008 at 10:24 am

8. 8 On November 5th, 2008, Nic said:

   I get what you mean, moviefan, but it’s actually a real problem.
   For example: My partner was unable to vote because of the long lines. Well, I guess he could have voted, if he was willing to get reprimanded or fired from his job. Due to a recent move, he’s still registered in Virginia and I’m registered in Maryland, and because I work swing shift and he works “regular” shift, and because we only have one car between us, there was no way for both of us to vote AND avoid problems with employers. He tried to vote before work, but waiting in line would have made him 3 hours late to work. So he took his lunch break to bring me to my polling place, wait for me to vote, and then take me to work. Because he took a longer lunch he had to stay at work until after the polls closed. So he didn’t get to vote. If he didn’t have the luxury of a somewhat flexible schedule, I wouldn’t have been able to vote either. And we were lucky, in that we have the one car and he at least is allowed to take a lunch break. Few working-class people have the luxury of just taking off from work for 4 to 6 hours. I think everyone should get the day off!

   posted on November 5th, 2008 at 7:34 pm

9. 9 On November 6th, 2008, Skreee said:

   Please excuse the stupid question, I am not overly familiar with the US voting system: why do people have to wait for hours to vote? Why aren’t there enough polling stations? Why aren’t elections held on Sundays when most people don’t have to take off time from work? I am sorry, I am seriously confused by this.
   (In Germany, elections are on Sundays, the polling stations are often schools, you get a notice in which room to vote depending in which street you live, and usually with waiting in line, checking your ID and voting itself, it takes about 15 minutes.)

   posted on November 6th, 2008 at 8:31 am

10. 10 On November 6th, 2008, Rachel said:

    Skreee: Here’s my take on it. My state (Ohio) began offering early voting after the 2004 election, when people had to stand in line for up to 10 hours in some places. The problem this year with early voting is that you can only vote at your local board of elections office. Usually, there’s only one office per county, so that restricts the numbers of places a person can vote. Ohio has some 88 counties, meaning you have 88 places to early vote. If you wait for election day, you have a choice of some 880 or so precincts in which to vote. The long lines of 2000 and 2004, however, made some people decide to early vote anyway in the chance that come election day, the lines would be even longer as they were before.

    In Ohio, the newly-enacted voting laws require one machine per 175 voters and if there are long lines, you have the option of filling out a paper ballot instead. This isn’t the case in other states. In one southern state, for instance, a largely black community received one voting machine for 350 voters, while whiter communities in the same state received one voting machine for every 150 voters. This is a clear-cut case of voter disenfranchisement. Long lines, especially lines that mean more than a few hours wait, discourage voter participation. It’s estimated that some 129,000 voters in Ohio were turned away in 2004 from voting because of long lines. If just 10 percent of these voters had voted Democrat, John Kerry would have carried the state, and thus the presidency.

    When you register to vote, you usually have to register as an independent, Democrat or Republican, thus allowing the heads-of-state to predict how a certain area will vote as a group. The secretaries of each state hold the responsibility for maintaining the voting practices of their states and they usually run on a Democrat or Republican platform. If your secretary decides to act in a partisan way, as then-Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell did in 2004, they can manipulate state resources so as to disenfranchise those parts of the state who historically vote with the opposing party.

    There are other factors, too. There are no standardized machines states must use in voting and some states still use paper ballots, which take longer to fill out. Machines are often faulty and break down, or if they are not calibrated, can record votes inaccurately and must be checked. All of this also contributes to long lines at polling stations.

    As for why Election Day isn’t held on a Sunday, the answer can be found in history. The United States began as an agrarian and religious nation and it really wasn’t until the late nineteenth-century that you began to have the rise of urban cities. In the beginning, the electors for the electoral college (the group that really decides the presidency) were to meet in each state on the first Wednesday of December. States had to hold elections sometime in a 34-day period before this date. In 1845, Congress decided to standardize these dates; they passed a law bumping up the electoral college meeting day to the first Tuesday after the first Wednesday in November and designated the first Tuesday after the first Monday of the month as the nation’s official Election Day.

    November was chosen because it fell after the fall harvest and before winter. Tuesday was chosen because most people had to travel to county seats to vote. Holding the election on a Tuesday meant that they could start traveling on a Monday, and thus not break the Sabbath. The only reason we continue to hold elections on the first Tuesday in November is largely in keeping with historical tradition. I, and many others, are of the mind that the government needs to make Election Day a national holiday.

    posted on November 6th, 2008 at 11:20 am

11. 11 On November 7th, 2008, Skreee said:

    Thanks so much, Rachel, for your long answer! How very informative. Thank you for your time.

    posted on November 7th, 2008 at 7:14 am

12. 12 On November 7th, 2008, Jo said:

    I didn’t have to wait hours — I got through in just about fifteen minutes, but then I was voting in a fairly affluent urban area. I’ve never waited horribly long to vote. I get the feeling* that most of the long waits are in poorer neighborhoods. Since poverty is racialized and feminized, that makes Maddow’s point a salient one.

    Making Election Day a national holiday would only help to a certain extent. Many people don’t get national holidays off — and those people are more likely to be in lower-paying jobs. Gov’t agencies, banks and other places that hire chiefly white-collar workers will close for holidays, but blue-collar jobs (retail, food service) don’t, and I’m not sure that heavy industry does either.

    This is related to my complaint re: the caucus states, as well. These are discriminatory — one must not only have the time, but the ability to stay in one place for hours at a time (those with physical disabilities, but also people with small children, for instance). Plus, if turnout for a caucus is more than is expected, people get turned away. Hardly democracy in action, that.

    I think the polls need to be left open longer (say, an 18- to 24-hour period) to account for people who can’t get off work or who work 12 hour shifts (nurses working 7a to 7p can hardly get to the polls by 7:30 or 8p!), or that absentee voting should be made easily available in every state.

    *No studies or stats to back that up, sorry. Based purely on what I remember hearing/reading.

    posted on November 7th, 2008 at 12:49 pm

Leave a Reply