Last year, when you folks sent photos of long lines for voting, we wondered in here whether the lines -- and coverage of the lines -- would suppress turnout. Last week, we got evidence that some people who faced more trouble voting became that much more determined to vote. We also got a sense of how many voters gave up because of the lines: in Central Florida alone, about 49,000. From the Orlando Sentinel:
About 30,000 of those discouraged voters -- most of them in Orange and Osceola counties -- likely would have backed Democratic President Barack Obama, according to Theodore Allen, an associate professor of industrial engineering at OSU.
About 19,000 voters would have likely backed Republican Mitt Romney, Allen said.
To give you a sense of what it was like to be one of those people who couldn't make it through the wait, I want to show you the photos sent by the mother of voter in a different part of Florida, starting above and continuing after the jump. (Thank you all again for kickstarting and fueling this story. How to send us stuff.)
The viewer sent these from her daughter's attempt to use early voting in Miami. The daughter showed up at 6:30 in the morning. Four hours later, she had reached the inside of the West Dade Regional Library, with another two hours to go.
Because she had to go pick up her kid, she ended up having to walk away that morning. When members of Congress talk about fixing the lines this year, that's the kind of situation they mean, for her and for what now appears to be many thousands of people who wanted to vote.
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Old Republican Proverb: The most successful way to 'fix' and election is to 'fix' the assurance of ridiculously long lines, just like this.
This is nothing new. It's been a tactic developed over many decades. Unfortunately, Floridians assume that voting is like this all over the country.
It's like watching your country actually getting stolen. I can't imagine living in a State where elections are purposely rigged. The peoples time is as valuable an asset as there is, invaluable in fact. Life decisions are made about time, family time, playtime, commute time, and every day is sacred.
Didnt Florida also have a ridiculously long ballot? I wonder how long on average it took to fill out one of them. The ballot I had in my state took me less than 2 minutes. Its not all about early voting and how long the polls are open, it about not having enough voting booths and ballots that take forever to complete.
The republican try to suppress the vote in every state of the union....their Gerrymandering and block the vote in every way is evident in every state. Some are just more obvious. It really makes the voters mad and cause large turn outs. I think early voting and more voting opportunities is the answer. Some people will still procrastinate until the final day. It is the American way. Usually, I work at the polls, but our state of New Mexico, decided they could not spend the money on as many polling places or as long a time spent on early voting.......so it created longer lines and more inconvenience.
We are one of the states with an ineffective republican governor.
As long as America continues to put elections under local (often partisan) controls, we'll probably see this nonsense proliferate. What outrages us provides immense satisfaction to those seeking power.
We simply cannot allow ourselves to sleep through another election. 2010, with the post-census gerrymandering it enabled, should be invoked for years as our mark of shame. We must return local and state governments to rational actors, if we can find any. Pick off seat after seat, office by office, one at a time. No, we'll not be able to let up our guard. ALEC is always waiting for us to be pre-occupied elsewhere.
Helena...did you complain when it was the Democrats gerrymandering the districts or are you only upset because it is the Republicans who did it?
I personally am against gerrymandering under almost any circumstance. The only exception would be for extremely densely populated areas such as NY where there have to be multiple representatives in the city. In my state, NC, there is NO reason for gerrymandering to take place ANYWHERE. District lines should be drawn along county lines. PERIOD.
just saying...
Give me an example of the Democrats winning the House after their gerrymandering while still being outvoted as happened last year after the Republican gerrymandering.
I'll wait...
Hi, StormGuy --
Good point, of course. But I've been bitching about gerrymandering for decades, from Georgia and California to New Mexico and now Maryland, where the Blues helped our last remaining conservative rep out of a safe district. Plus some other odious shenanigans re Donna Edwards' district. I'm for a competent set of models to weight districts for legal, not partisan factors -- along with a healthy debate about proper modes of representing under-represented minorities. Such models exist, as I'm sure you've seen, but few state legislatures seem secure enough to use them.
(I couldn't bitch while in AZ in the 1980s, too busy in grad school to have a real life.)
Except re reg don't care as long as republicans do it. re reg also believes there are hoards of illegals swimming the Gulf of Mexico to vote in Florida, PA, Ohio and MI. re reg is not known for his honest posts, he points fingers and hides behind Becks skirt.
Just Saying
Hi again, StormGuy --
Got to thinking about your descriptions of metro NYC and your own NC as examples of how to ameliorate gerrymandering.
Could you perhaps help me understand the major principles behind a prospective model for drawing districts post census? I get the gut sensible-ness of working with county borders, but I began wondering how that might play out in an already-racially-"self"-segregated area such as my own. [DC + NW VA suburbs + most of MD suburbs & rural] I can imagine the legitimate -- and not so legitimate -- cries of protest were either MD or VA to set up districts primarily with county lines.
Can you broaden my understanding on this? I know a bit about the Research Triangle area, but little else re NC.
I'm also thinking about implementation, but until we find some common ground on what principles we'd include, implementation will remain a relatively small problem.
mx tx! --bc/hv
Doug...last time I checked, the total number of votes cast on a national basis for the different congressional districts has no impact on either how districts are gerrymandered or on who controls the congress. the last time I checked, that is based on which party wins the greatest number of congressional seats.
If you know different, let me know...I'll wait...
In the meantime, instead of making pithy little liberal talking point comments, help create a solution to the problem that helps our country.
just saying...
helena vargas, your original post nailed the core of the problem. The administration of federal elections is ceded to the individual states. This allows individual states to (1) gerrymander, (2) impose voter ID laws, (3) control the format of the ballot and what state issues will be on it, (4) regulate early and absentee voting, polling hours, and (5) the number and location of polling places.
Gerrymandering skews elections in its own special way, even if voting is simple and accessible. The remaining variables are most perniciously manipulated together to skew access to voting (rather than skewing the power of a vote in a particular gerrymandered district). Curtail early and absentee voting, manipulate poll hours on election day to make it difficult for your opponent's constituents to vote, enact obstructionist voter ID laws at the last minute, stack the ballot with many local initiatives written in unintelligible language, and locate fewer polling places where your opponent's constituents are located. Ohio and Florida are the starkest examples.
The problem lies in the fact that there has always been a single election day for federal, state, and local candidates and issues, and this help[s voters access the polls. Imposing federal requirements for federal elections would either impinge on individual state's rights to regulate state elections, or lead to more than one election day, inconveniencing many voters.
I think it's time -- or past time -- to institute country-wide and consistent voting procedures. Write your federal senators and congressmen.
Yes, I know. Congress is probably still broken. That doesn't mean we shouldn't go on the offense on this front. I have no problem with making the GOP explain why they might oppose yet another useful and popular idea. And I am certain they would oppose it.
Amen! Any election that include federal offices (US Congress, Senate, VP, and POTUS) should follow the same proecedures everywhere. There should be a formula to determine how many voting machines are needed to allow all eligible voters the opportunity within a reasonable amount of time. Election Day should be a national holiday so that nobody's employer can minimize their ability to participate. Polls open the same days, same local hours for all. And no ballot should be so loaded down with local/state items that it takes more than 5 minutes in the booth.
Unfortunately, it would take a Constitutional Amendment to do it, and we have too many red states to get it ratified.
It doesn't require an Amendment:
Article I, Section 4: The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
The XVIIth Amendment over-rules that last phrase, but other than that, there is nothing to prevent Congress from enacting legislation that prescribes the number of machines per voters or even the hours of voting for any Federal election.
Any state that meets the established standards wouldn't be affected, those that don't would be required by Federal law to do so. Sweeten it with some funding and there you are.
I'm not confident about this happening soon...
Doug -- I think the same. Congress could, but probably won't. Not that I have a great deal of confidence in the current Congress, but it's hard to imagine a more irrational set of ad hoc nonsense than our current local and state regulations. So Congress doesn't, States do, and do what those ever-lovin' Laboratories of Democracy are best at doing. Post-election-day Surprise, everyone!
Won't say what I deem those unregulated Labs to be best at, for fear of offending.
Cheers. Sigh.
In Oregon we vote by mail. The ballots usually arrive 2 1/2 weeks before election day. We fill them out at our leisure at home and drop them in designated ballot boxes (for free) or mail them in (for the cost of postage). As long as one keeps one's address current if one moves, the ballots arrive by mail for each and every election. It is easy and efficient.
Sue -- I know! You're right, of course. What I suspect you realize is that Oregonians are (mostly) sane. Lots of the rest of us states, well, aren't so much. Oregon, for one, doesn't have the centuries-old traditions of corruption and rackets so prized in so many of the original 13 and our slightly younger neighbors to the south and west.
In other words, I'm wicked jealous! (John Smith explored our local river before heading back south of the Potomac and settling at Jamestown. I'm serious about that "centuries-old" s**t.)
Even having to wait one hour to vote is obscene, and, as the GOP bandits well know, the costs fall mostly on the working poor and middle class, who can't afford to miss work or to pay for extra child care. (And anyone who thinks people should bring their young children with them to vote doesn't know or has forgotten what it's like to wait even a few minutes in line with a cranky kid.)
Voting by mail should be the standard everywhere.
this was the point...to stop the votes.