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Comment by steve1977 | Hacker News Reader

steve1977

He who remains silent seems to consent.

Spoken from a place of true entitlement. Voting is a luxury some of the poorest can't afford, and the republicans have made sure to make it even more difficult now that the supreme court gutted the civil rights act.

I'm guessing you'd have a different opinion if you personally had to wait in line for HOURS because the Rs in your district closed down voting stations specifically to make it nearly impossible to actually vote in precincts that are predominantly liberal or people of color. And it has only gotten worse and more widespread since 2020.

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924527679/why-do-nonwhite-geo...

I don't buy it.

I live in Washington State where we have universal mail-in voting. Unless you're homeless, every registered voter gets a ballot delivered to their door, they can fill it out at their leisure, and leave it back in their mailbox.

Turnout is only like 5%-10% higher than the national average. 30% still don't vote in presidential election years, 45% in midterms.

Typically the homeless are poor. How do they get their mail in ballots?

You can go to a physical voting center if you didn't receive a ballot by mail, or if you are having any other issues registering or submitting a ballot. I'll grant you that this a bit harder than going to a standard polling locating in another state because there aren't as many of them here.

That said, there are clearly far more people not voting than there are homeless people who unable to reliably receive ballots.

Is the argument that 45% of Washingtonians (the portion that doesn't vote in midterm elections) are homeless?

> Spoken from a place of true entitlement.

Maybe. I live in Switzerland. Here even the poor can afford to vote.

Nevertheless, do these poorest really account for a third of all voters?

> Nevertheless, do these poorest really account for a third of all voters?

25% of all eligible voters work jobs like service, retail, or construction where it is very hard if not impossible to get time off work to vote.

Although many states even have laws allowing people to have time off to vote, it's often 2 hours or less, which in many localities is not nearly enough to get through the line.

There are no real blanket voting protections across the country.

It's actually interesting for me to see that voting is on a Tuesday. Here it's always on Sundays. But as a direct democracy, we also vote a couple of times every year, maybe that's a factor.

I thought they could vote by post?

Every state has different laws on this.

Some mail you ballots automatically. Some require you to request a mail in ballot by a certain date. Others will only allow you to vote by mail if you are a senior citizen, have a critical illness or disability, etc. It's a mixed bag, and it's intentionally difficult in some states.

> Voting is a luxury some of the poorest can't afford

They always can take the matter in their hands. Worked wonders in Europe the last fifteen years.

Companies should make the day a holiday even if dipshit Trumpublicans won't make it a federal holiday. Consumers shouldn't shop on voting Tuesday and companies that don't shut down their shops on Tuesday should be boycotted. If you are a company that doesn't recognize you've been given more handouts than your employees then f u.

Remember that the republicans have made it very difficult to vote in a lot of states (huge lines, hurdles, etc.) such that only their demographic has time to vote.

This is why they are so against mail voting. It levels the playing field.

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