Sure. A bit under 10% of national votes are mailed
Of more significance is the more recent and increasingly popular option of pre-poll voting and almost 20% of votes are cast pre-poll. In some electorates in 2016, over 50% of votes were cast early.
Australians really do like to go to the polls, and do so in “best in class” numbers in no small part due to it being very easy to do. In my federal electorate with about 100k voters there were 38 polling stations, three of which are within a short stroll. And if I can’t get to one of them there are options to vote close to where I am.
The drawback to that is that you might want to spoil your ballot intentionally, but the machine won’t let you.
Happened to a friend of mine, who didn’t like any of the candidates for his ward, but did want to vote on something else - mayor, maybe?
So he intentionally left one section blank and voted in the section he wanted to, and the tabulator spit it out. The poll clerk explained to him that he hadn’t filled in the ballot. He said he knew, it was intentional. The poll clerk called over the poll officer, calling out “this man doesn’t want to ôté for one of the positions! What do we do?”
I think there was a manual override, but so much for ballot secrecy! :smack:
Could this be turned into a plus somehow? I see the chance to collect names for organizing purposes. Today’s angry voter is tomorrow’s campaign volunteer. Either that or lead the line in a chant of “This is BULL SHIT.” and see how long it takes to get things resolved.
It’s just too easy to do this sort of thing if you’re in charge of the state voting system and have no shame. In a way, it’s brilliant. You may have people come out, show up, stand in line for hours to vote for their preferred primary candidate, but come general election time, those people will remember how long it took and what a hassle it was and just decide to sit it out because Trump will win this state anyway.
In a way, and my wife is upset with me for expressing it, I’m disappointed in that Stacy Abrams, who is awesome, doesn’t seem to realize how big of a deal this is. Her whole image after the failed senate race was to fight to make sure GA voting was legit. Well, looks like the GA killed two birds with one stone on this one. Stacy Abrams is weak and you guys in dense districts, well, it takes a long time to vote so might as well just stay home.
Some of the many ways to cheat were outlawed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The important provisions of this Act were overturned a few years ago in a 5-4 decision by the Republican hack John Roberts and his gang of evil-doers. (It was not overturned due to constitutional issues. The court found that Southern states were no longer engaged in anti-black voting practices.)
There was also a long-term injunction issued circa 1981 against the Republican Party prohibiting some of its malicious anti-voting practices. This injunction was allowed to expire very recently.
Over twelve-score years ago, Americans (many of them slave-owners) rallied around the cry “No taxation without representation”; the right-wing whiners applaud those ancient “democrats.” The same right-wingers now encourage police to shoot at those protesting for democracy today.
When conservatives talk about supporting Trump because of Supreme Court selections, this is precisely the kind of stuff they’re talking about.
But in the long run, these decisions cost them public support. A few states are close enough that they can employ these tactics and win statewide elections but at some point the numbers become overwhelmingly against them. If Democrats don’t take advantage of their coming majorities to implement serious election reform that makes the process easier and more representative (FRA, Wyoming Rule, etc.), they’re making a huge moral and tactical mistake.
No remedy? Au contraire. The point of a political question is that there is a remedy, to vote out the politicians. So if you don’t like the fact that you can’t vote, all you need to do to fix it is vote. Simple, really.
It’s hard to use elections to fix an anti-democratic oppression when part of the oppression is to deny free and fair elections.
If the Ds ever do regain control of the U.S., let’s hope they act quickly and thoroughly. As a minimum: Abolish Senate filibuster, statehood for PR and DC, pack the Supreme Court. Destruction of GOP power is more urgent than climate change mitigation, single-payer healthcare and subsidizing schools all added together.
The errors you speak of are likely to be random — as likely to help a Blue-shirt as to help a Red-shirt. Focusing on these is a diversion.
Far more worrisome are deliberate “errors,” like the touchscreen voting machine programmed to give out-of-bounds touches to the Red-shirt. There are a wide variety of ways to cheat, and credible allegations that the GOP has tried several of these ways in the past.