Glad that your experience worked well. Not all voters have good flexibility to go off peak. If you raise the price of virtually any good, you get less demand for the good and voting is no different. Make it difficult to vote with long lines and or bad weather and you get less voting. Voter suppression can take many forms. Closing polling places, restrictive hours, short early voting periods, and restrictive id laws are the main tools. I remember once reading a few years ago that at least one area in the country was requiring birth certificates from college students to vote.
Maryland's system that you have to request an absentee ballot and you have to sign it seems very reasonable to me. There are cameras at many drop off boxes and election centers to visual record your effort to vote. Required signature on vote by mail as well as voting in a polling place would provide further evidence of someone trying to vote twice or illegally. Widespread voter fraud has been shown to be a myth. Continued efforts to suppress the vote by making voting difficult by at least one major party in this country is not a myth.
Brian - please consider doing a piece on how much all this "early voting" and such costs the taxpayers in MD. Wheaton library in MoCo was staffed by a small cadre of people. Many sitting at tables twiddling their thumbs (this was on Saturday afternoon). How much does early voting cost to staff and set-up? How much does it "help turnout" or increase participation in our republic? The local politicians never talk about that (they never talk about fiscal common sense in general). How much money is being thrown at a WEEK of early voting? Millions! For what? Meanwhile the machine politicians in MoCo fight us on ending "At Large" voting blocks to keep their power base and DILUTE votes outside of a few neighborhoods! It really is a game. All for show.
Glad that your experience worked well. Not all voters have good flexibility to go off peak. If you raise the price of virtually any good, you get less demand for the good and voting is no different. Make it difficult to vote with long lines and or bad weather and you get less voting. Voter suppression can take many forms. Closing polling places, restrictive hours, short early voting periods, and restrictive id laws are the main tools. I remember once reading a few years ago that at least one area in the country was requiring birth certificates from college students to vote.
Maryland's system that you have to request an absentee ballot and you have to sign it seems very reasonable to me. There are cameras at many drop off boxes and election centers to visual record your effort to vote. Required signature on vote by mail as well as voting in a polling place would provide further evidence of someone trying to vote twice or illegally. Widespread voter fraud has been shown to be a myth. Continued efforts to suppress the vote by making voting difficult by at least one major party in this country is not a myth.
Brian - please consider doing a piece on how much all this "early voting" and such costs the taxpayers in MD. Wheaton library in MoCo was staffed by a small cadre of people. Many sitting at tables twiddling their thumbs (this was on Saturday afternoon). How much does early voting cost to staff and set-up? How much does it "help turnout" or increase participation in our republic? The local politicians never talk about that (they never talk about fiscal common sense in general). How much money is being thrown at a WEEK of early voting? Millions! For what? Meanwhile the machine politicians in MoCo fight us on ending "At Large" voting blocks to keep their power base and DILUTE votes outside of a few neighborhoods! It really is a game. All for show.