Too Long to Vote?

 The most recent complaint from the GOP in my area is that the paper ballots we now use (after decades of electro-mechanical machines that provided no individual hard copy record of each vote) "take too long" to fill out. The ballots use the "fill in the bubble" system we're all familiar with from standardized tests in school and are then scanned (just as our old test sheets were) to record the vote electronically, while the original ballot is secured for any possible future need (such as a recount).

Of course, this system was mandated by a Republican federal law that requires a hard copy of every vote and then backed up by a Republican vote in the state legislature that approved the specific system being used. Many of the complaints argue that it took up to 10 minutes to fill out the ballot in the recently completed primary election.

I find that hard to believe. I voted by mail and filled out my ballot at home. Although I did not time myself, I know I did not spend anything like 10 minutes filling in bubbles...it might have taken 5 minutes. Perhaps the problem is that there were four questions on the ballot in addition to the candidates...and, if you had not familiarized yourself with the issues being voted on, you might have needed time to read and digest them before casting your vote. But that is not a fault of the system--it's a fault of the individual voter, especially since the text of the questions was posted in every polling place for voters to read before getting their ballots and marking them. 

What's more--I know there were poll workers from both parties outside every polling place, handing out literature that included explanations of those questions and the party's stand on each. 

Oh, and the GOP preferred position on all of those questions--including two very controversial ones that the Democrats opposed--won.

Cui Bono?

 The title of this post is Latin for "who benefits?" In law, it's a question asked when there is an issue of financial or other benefit to a person from a crime--be it murder, fraud, or something else. The presumption is that the individual or individuals who gained the most is the most likely culprit.

Who benefits when voting is made more difficult? When the very act of getting to the polls is hard? When proving you have a right to vote is made arduous? Clearly it's not the challengers in an election--they want a big turnout, because it may bring to the polls the people who oppose the incumbents. Smaller turnouts are almost always beneficial to incumbents, who have the name recognition and record to run on; who can, in most cases, rely on those who have voted for them in the past to vote for them again. This is especially true in places where the majorities are very lopsided and have been for a long time.

So, when a legislature acts to restrict access to the polls--by making mail-in ballots harder to get, by "consolidating" polling places, by limiting the hours and days when polls are open--it's a good bet it did not do so to help the minority party. Virtually any voting law enacted by a legislature--whether Republican or Democrat-controlled--is designed to help the party in power.

Election Day: What It's Like

Although I dropped off my ballot at the county seat two weeks ago, I decided to take a swing past a few of the polling places in my neighborhood to see how things looked.

This is my local polling place, in Ward 5 of Ridley Township, at the firehouse. I used to work the polls here until a few years ago. I have never seen lines like this before. Just after 8 AM, about an hour after the polls opened, there were 50-60 people in line...and the line got longer in the ten minutes or so I was there--and it did not noticeably move. I figure the last person in that line had at least a 45-minute wait.

I then went down to the church I attend in Ridley Park, also a polling place.

There are maybe 40 or 50 people on line in this photo. After I took the shot, I spoke to a gentleman who was just exiting and he kindly answered my questions. He had gotten on line at 7:15, he said, and now he was just leaving at about 8:20.

I also swung past two other polling places in Ridley Park, the firehouse and borough hall (which are directly across the street from each other). Lines at both places also numbered 40 or 50, I'd say.

Going to be a long day.