this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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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.
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.
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.
We're going to need voter id
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.
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.
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.
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.
Check list. Everyone that is registered at that polling station is ticked off on the list.