US Congress is a cozy club of multimillionaire boomer lawmakers hoarding power | Arwa Mahdawi - eviltoast
  • treefrog@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I’ve been in hour long lines on the regular in white districts. The black districts on the other side of town people wait all day.

    Additionally you assume no time to get to and from the polls. Which of course takes longer if you don’t have a car. So now do you see how easy it is for voting to be an all day thing for some people? And probably a day off work you can’t afford if you can’t afford a car.

    People in my State use gerrymandering and obstacles like this to discourage voter turnout. They restrict polling locations on purpose to make it hard on purpose. To make lines long. To basically poll tax black people with a missed day of work.

    And you want to pretend your experience is everyone’s experience and shame people for not voting when you don’t live their lives?

    We need to make it as easy as possible to vote and encourage people to get involved. Not shame them. The situation is fucked up enough without shaming each other.

    • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/04/upshot/voting-wait-times.html

      “For most voters on Election Day, things went well. Most people in our data took 20 minutes or less to vote…”

      But even in districts that took much longer, the data they collected shows 110 to 180 minutes as being on the extreme end of the spectrum. No one should need to wait that long, but again, that is in no way, shape or form, the norm. And in no way, shape or form is 180 minutes considered “all day”.

      EDIT: I guess posting proof to my point, gets one downvoted on Lemmy. So I guess Lemmy ain’t that different from Reddit afterall.

      • treefrog@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        That same year, in my city (I won’t say which because I value my anonymoty), voter turnout was down almost 10%.

        And you’re not factoring in distance and transportation to and from the polls. Which is something that affects poor people more (by design).