[jimbob45]

1 - No national election day holiday, so wage-earners often have to forgo income to vote.

PSA: You can register as a poll worker and work election day to guarantee you have time to vote. There's a high chance that your work will give you the time off to go work as a poll worker without it eating into your PTO (and you get paid to boot!).

[PuppyTailWags]

> There's a high chance that your work will give you the time off to go work as a poll worker without it eating into your PTO (and you get paid to boot!).

As an ex-linecook, LOL, there are too many assumptions baked in here to be in the realm of reality for working class jobs

[Loughla]

Holy cow, not even a little bit. This is so, so middle- to upper-middle income centered it's not even funny.

1st you are assuming people have one employer to worry about, not multiple.

2nd you are assuming people have a set schedule daily or weekly.

3rd you are assuming people have PTO.

4th you are assuming the employer will give any amount of shit about volunteerism.

5th you are assuming they won't be given a point or docked for missing a shift.

[valarauko]

I'm curious as to what the solution in this case is then. If election days were holidays, wouldn't the same people still have the same issues with employers? Do shift workers not work on holidays?

[alistairSH]

This is why I suggested nationwide mail-in voting as a solution.

A national holiday might help some workers, but not all. Gas stations still need staffed, etc.

[valarauko]

Realistically, how would that work for these same group of people? They'd have to know well in advance that they would need postal ballots and complete and return them in advance of election day. Would shift workers working multiple jobs be best served by mail-in voting? tbf I'm not sure if there is a better way, but it seems relying on mail-in ballots helps some people and alienates a different group of people.

[alistairSH]

I was imagining the ballots would be auto-shipped based on voter rolls (which get updated with DMV records in many states - this should also be mandatory).

So, check mail box as normal. Receive ballot. Research candidates (or not) and fill out. Drop in the mailbox. Not much different than paying paper bills.

Who were you imagining would be alienated by mail-in voting?

We could do mandatory extended timeframe/hours in-person voting but that costs a lot more (paying to staff the sites, rent locations because you can't just borrow a school cafeteria for a day like we do now, etc).

[valarauko]

Are you suggesting mail-in ballots as a universal option that covers everybody? That seems unfeasible logistically. Does any large country offer universal mail-in ballots?

I think mail-in ballots best serve voters in an environment where they are the norm, rather than the exception. For example, the campaign cycles, like debates, that target the large segment of undecided voters right before election day. The mail-in voter has to be more informed about candidates and policy than an average voter to come to an equivalent informed decision about their vote weeks before the average voter. Yes, if the goal is to simply increase voter turnout, universal mail-in ballots are probably great. I wonder if that best serves the voter, though - hence my question.

My familiarity is with the Indian electoral system, which is highly regarded (at least within the country). Mail-in ballots are an option for a subset of people, but they make up for it by making polling booths readily accessible - your booth is just a short walk away. Election days are holidays, but I'm sure it still impacts workers in similar ways. Still, voter turnout is usually not too bad. Expanding mail-in voting has been discussed as an option for the very large floating population of migrant workers, but we don't have a solution yet. The logistics of offering universal mail-in ballots for a country approaching 1.4 billion is daunting. Already, the General Elections need to be spaced out over several weeks to allow electoral officials and poll workers to cover the entire country.

[namlem]

Early voting. Let people cast their vote for the two weeks preceding the election.

[valarauko]

How does that work? The polling booths are staffed and open two weeks for walk ins?

[namlem]

Yeah. Though you'd need much less staff since you'd be getting lower volume.