[int_19h]

> with polling locations distributed to balance load

Better yet, do mail-in voting. It works fine for several states already, and all of them see strong correlation with voter participation, unsurprisingly. It's also cheaper. And keep a few basic polling locations around as a fallback for those unable or unwilling to deal with mail.

[toomanybeersies]

Mail in voting can disenfranchise those without a permanent address though, which is an issue to be considered.

And then there's the cases of voting papers being dumped rather than delivered to constituents. And the possibility of tampering with the votes in the mailing system. It wouldn't be hard for malicious actors to toss out papers in majority Republican or Democrat areas to attempt to sway the election.

And having "a few" polling stations would mean that they are further apart and less accessible for people, especially poorer people who don't have the same means and time for transport.

[VLM]

"all of them see strong correlation with voter participation"

Yeah I bet. Your boss will trade your mail in ballot for your paycheck this week. Turn it in with your calculus exam for 5 bonus points. Don't forget to take your ballot to Bible study group this Sunday, we're going to fill them out together to make sure we do it correctly. If you're in a nursing home just hand it to your favorite nurse, after all she's in charge of your medication so you have motivation to keep her happy. Your postman will simply toss it out if he doesn't like your vote but he does have a bid out for $5 if you'd like to sell, because one of the local parties is buying from him for $10 per ballot. On the other hand the gas station clerk down the street is offering $9 because his margins are lower and he paid off the cops like he paid off the health inspector and he's easier to get in touch with.

I suppose if all the dollars are concentrating in ever fewer hands, we need some kind of paper currency, and if they'd allow early voting up to perhaps 3 years and 364 days before the next election... Its possibly the only way we'll ever see the government getting a form of currency into the general public's hands to boost economic activity rather than just bailing out the bankers as usual.

Mail in is fairly banana republic tier. Its kinda like drug legalization, yeah that stuff isn't good for you, but at least if its above board and semi legalized then at least we can observe and track it, kinda, rather than underground and out of control. Actually its more like a red light district, the only way to make it worse would be to drive it underground. At least looking at vote totals we can tell how corrupt an election is based on level of mail in voting rather than knowing its bad but not how bad in total.

[int_19h]

Your boss doesn't need to ask you to trade in your ballot for that. They just need to tell you to take a photo of your filled ballot, inside the booth, before you go and stuff it into the box. Which is exactly what they do in countries where it's a problem.

At the same time, I'm not aware of literally a single complaint about this kind of thing in US states that practice mail-in voting...

And drug legalization is "banana republic tier", really? No. It's a recognition that "this stuff isn't good for you" is not a sound basis for passing laws, for one thing - and for another, it turned out that a lot of "isn't good" was just plain out lies and misdirection.

I mean, seriously, are you saying that WA and OR are banana republics?

[alistairSH]

How do those states that use mail-in ballots deal with the delay that introduces? Must the ballots be post-marked in advance of the election to count? Or, do they defer calling elections until days after the election?

[int_19h]

It varies. In Oregon, any ballot that is received by the post office by the cut-off date (8pm election day) is counted. In Washington, it's as you've described - any ballot postmarked by election day are counted, so it takes a few days to fully count everything.