I don’t think the OP has been truly answered. I have a good friend who lived in Oberlin, OH, in 2004. Oberlin is a very liberal town (it was a crucial stop on the underground railroad) and the Oberline College students even more. So… a few days before the election, the county authorities (who were responsible for running the election) came in and moved a large number of voting booths from Oberlin to rural parts of the county that were reliably Republican and didn’t need them. At any rate, my friend and his wife had to stand four hours in line in order to vote. (My friend was the same age as me then, 67, and I don’t think I could have stood in a line for four hours.) This much I will attest. He also said that he heard that there were black neighborhoods in Cleveland where people waited up to 10 hours to vote! Is this inhuman? More importantly, was it enough to claim the election was stolen in Ohio? (I think so.)
Until the 60s, blacks were simply not permitted to register in most of the south. Then Congress passed laws sending in federal voting registrars. So much for state’s rights. I think they could clean up the acts, although the current Supreme Court might not allow it.
The first time I voted, in 1958, in PA, I was presented with a ballot with maybe 40 offices to choose (governor, lt. governor (separately), some of the more important cabinet positions, federal and state senate and lower house, judges, county sheriff, … Probably not mosquito control officer, nor, as we often joked, dog catcher. The result was that virtually everyone voted a straight party ticket. Then there were the constitutional amendments, which never passed since they required a majority of those casting ballots and most people ignored them which was equivalent to voting no. In Canada, where I have been living for 40 years, I have never heard of an election with more than two offices (mayor and councilman) to be chosen at the same time. The only other elected offices are provincial and federal representative, chosen separately, on the date chosen by the prime minister. It used to be that registrars went door-to-door before each election, but not they use permanent voters’ lists. But even if you are not on the list, you can bring some proof of residence (like an electricity bill) and they will allow you to vote.
So in Canada, voting is easy and you get every encouragement to vote. The US has a long history of discouraging the “wrong” people from voting. Ohio does it better than most, but Indiana is trying to close the gap. Then there is Florida which allows you vote, but miscounts your vote. And the Supreme Court that smiles benignly on the entire process.
