Sounds like we need to mandate vote by mail as an option for voting nationwide.
All these GOP schemes to prevent voting fraud or reduce costs all seem tailor made to reduce turnout of groups that are presumed to be largely non-GOP.
There is a segment of both parties that feel that people who disagree with them shouldn't have a voice - unfortunately it seems this segment managed to get a lot of control in the GOP while on the left side they mostly get relegated to the loony bin.
Both parties are super guilty of gerrymandering, but "voter fraud" isn't a proportionally important issue and it's been abused by some strategists to implement wide spread voter discrimination.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Voter_Registration_Ac... 2: https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless...
Mailed votes are just a bad idea. The simpler and better solution is to have the US federal elections run by a federal non-political commission + a federal voting holiday. Disabled people could use mobile election vans and/or a proxy-vote system like in the UK but limited to them (very imperfect; but safer than a mailed vote, since the proxy's vote is still secret).
Most countries in Europe have no problems at all organizing fair in-person elections.
That made sense when we had a weak federal government and were mostly a conglomeration of states that agreed to work together.
But now the federal government controls a lot of our lives. The way Texas runs their elections has a significant impact on my life here in California.
I should have a say in how Texas runs their elections (and they should have a say in how California runs theirs).
Technically all elections are state/local elections. We don't directly vote for anything at the federal level. Each state has full control over who which presidential candidate it sends its electoral college votes to. That's why states like Virginia can decide to send all of theirs to the winner of the national popular vote.
1. Among other requirements, the ADA likely requires that polling places and some proportion of booths be wheelchair accessible and mandates the accessibility of braille ballots.
We need to stop acting like this hypocrisy and bigotry is a reasonable PoV, and stop bargaining with them. Conservatives and the GOP have a proven track record of bad faith, and any claims they make should be presumed false or misleading until proven otherwise.
Both sides regularly use "States' Rights" if and when convenient. When your side has a majority in Congress, go for a national bill; when your side has a majority in a state, go for a state bill. So it's easy to point to hypocrisy, but I tired long ago of "hypocrisy" as an argument. It's not convincing anyone, it's just a way to score points.
But States' Rights are a legitimate principle, too. The EU member states have rights (including the right to leave, apparently). I think retaining some autonomy is a good hedge against the risk of bad things happening at a higher level of government.
I guess other countries do things that way with lots of observers, etc. to try to avoid the worst problems. But I'm not excited about my state/county giving up its role (which it seems to do just fine) under the theory that the federal government will do better in some other state and county that doesn't currently do a good job.