[prottog]

> The tragedy is those who want to engage but can't. Due to registration requirements, ersatz poll taxes, difficulty of getting to and from poll sites or keeping tabs on the election calendar.

I hear about this every now and then, but is it an issue in any real number? Maybe the problem of the "difficulty of getting to and from poll sites", which I can see arising due to the nature of this country being large, spread out, and automobile-centric.

Even Georgia, which was recently under fire for so-called voter restriction laws, hands out voter ID cards for free or a non-driver state ID card for under $40 that lasts nearly a decade. I can only imagine that anyone who is unable to obtain one of those has much bigger problems than voting every few years.

[bobthepanda]

So things depend on the state, but IIRC some states have been way more brazen about others.

For example, at one point a proposal was floated to force changes in Texas polling center distribution, but only in counties with over a million people, which was pretty nakedly partisan. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/23/texas-voting-polling...

[anotheruser13]

Abbott, Paxton, and Patrick are the 3 horsemen of the "woke" apocalypse. They will do anything to prevent anyone who isn't an old, white, Xtian (those who profess to believe in Christ but do not follow his teachings) from voting, especially in Harris County.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/01/harris-county-electi...

[alphager]

> Maybe the problem of the "difficulty of getting to and from poll sites", which I can see arising due to the nature of this country being large, spread out, and automobile-centric.

It's not just distance and cost, but time. Someone working 3 jobs simply doesn't have time to stand in line for hours.

[prottog]

Nobody has time to stand in line for hours to vote. Not even retired people would do that!

> Someone working 3 jobs

According to the BLS[0], less than 5% of working-aged people hold more than one job, and presumably a fraction of that have three jobs. Surely society shouldn't optimize for a small minority of the population.

> doesn't have time to stand in line for hours

Data on this isn't great, but one source I found[1] puts a cursory total average across all states in 2020 at around 15 minutes, with the worst average wait time being Indiana at 42.1 minutes. It's confirmed by a 2020 academic paper[2] which puts the nationwide median at 14 minutes.

I can imagine that there are outliers who have to wait unpleasantly long, and that same paper referenced above indicates that people may have unequal voting wait times based on where they live. Ideally voting should be easy for all those eligible to vote.

[0]: https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat36.htm

[1]: https://www.lgbtmap.org/img/maps/citations-polling-place-lin...

[2]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1909.00024.pdf