Re: Glenn V. Fell for Lies About Georgia Voting Law

On Saturday, April 10, 2021 at 10:05:11 PM UTC-4, ajohnstone wrote:
> I've stayed out of this discussion mainly because in the run-up early 
> voting i saw lines and lines of voters waiting for hours to cast their 
> ballot. 
> 
> I assure you that in the UK, this commitment would not have happened. 
> 
> We are accustomed, due to the ample number of polling places, to walk-in 
> and walk-out, having our names marked off by the temporary-employed 
> electoral officials from the voters roll, updated by a mail-out to all 
> households for those eligible to vote to register some months previous and 
> also frequently and regularly amended, for the main reason that loan 
> agencies use it to determine the addresses and length of residence of 
> those applying for credit. As members of the EU, we did have the different 
> rules for EU-born residents. They could vote in local city and county 
> elections, the Scottish and Welsh parliaments and the European Parliament 
> but not in the national General Election. The counting of the votes is 
> centralized regionally and again it is by paid voluntary staff. 
> 
> There are some anomalies due to history. Irish Republican citizens and 
> those from Malta and Cyprus can vote in the UK General Election if 
> resident, regardless of their foreign passports. 
> 
> I was genuinely impressed by the average American voters determination to 
> cast his or her ballot. 
> 
> But it is not rocket-science to devise an easily operated election process 
> even under the most trying of circumstances such as faced by India, for 
> example, which shares the feature of America being a federal union of 
> individual states but with many additional difficulties complicating 
> elections even more than any the USA face. 
> 
> Trying to solve it on a state-by-state basis i believe is merely a recipe 
> for failure and will not bring any resolution to the problem of 
> universality and uniformity. 
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_India

I have been voting since 1972. Through the 2000 election I voted in the 
city of Columbus, OH and since then have been voting in a rural county 
about 45 minutes northeast of Columbus. In all that time I can only 
remember one time that I had to wait in line for more than 10 minutes and 
that was in 2004 when one of the two voting machines at our precinct 
malfunctioned causing a back up. As I recall, I waited in line almost an 
hour. Coincidently, the last person to vote in the United States was in 
our county. It was in Gambier, OH about a 20 minute drive from my house. 
Gambier is the home of Kenyon College (Paul Newman's alma mater). They too 
had a voting machine breakdown and the combination of only having one 
machine and lots of first time voters from Kenyon caused a massive back 
up. The law states that if a person is in line when the polls close they 
are allowed to vote no matter how long it takes. A Kenyon co-ed cast her 
vote a little after 4 am, well after the polls in Hawaii had closed.

The point is long lines at polling places are the exception, not the rule. 
They are usually result of either voting machine malfunctions or first 
time voters. Combine the two and you can get really long lines. These 
problems can happen anywhere. City, small town, or rural. Rich 
neighborhoods, middle class neighborhoods, or poor neighborhoods. White, 
black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American or any other ethnic neighborhood. 
Of course the MSM will only focus on these problems when they occur in 
poor and/or minority neighborhoods. The fact of the matter is our election 
laws are color blind and class blind. They apply equally to voters of any 
demographic group you want to name. The goal should be that every eligible 
voter who wants to vote is allowed to do so while at the same time 
ensuring that their votes will not be cancelled out by an ineligible 
voter. We can argue about the proper balance to strike to achieve those 
two goals, but whatever laws we settle on apply equally to EVERYONE.