Change One Thing
May. 8th, 2012 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennythereaderIf you could make one change to the US electoral system to increase voter turn-out, what would it be?
I have two major ideas:
1) Have the polling places be open for 24 hours. Every polling station in the country opens at 12:00:01 am Eastern Time and closes at 11:59:59 pm Eastern Time. That triples everyones opportunity to get to a poll, and would have the side benefit of reducing the influence that early results can have on people who vote later in the day. I would let stations close early if everyone who was registered at that location had already voted.
2) When people register to vote, let them pick a secondary polling place in addition to the one based on where they live. I suspect most people would chose one near work. It would have to be limited in a couple ways, to prevent people from voting twice and from voting on purely local issues that don't affect their lives. Maybe you would have to declare a month (or a week) in advance which of your options you'd be voting at, and if you chose the non-residential one you'd be given a special ballot with only the races/issues the two locations have in common.
I have two major ideas:
1) Have the polling places be open for 24 hours. Every polling station in the country opens at 12:00:01 am Eastern Time and closes at 11:59:59 pm Eastern Time. That triples everyones opportunity to get to a poll, and would have the side benefit of reducing the influence that early results can have on people who vote later in the day. I would let stations close early if everyone who was registered at that location had already voted.
2) When people register to vote, let them pick a secondary polling place in addition to the one based on where they live. I suspect most people would chose one near work. It would have to be limited in a couple ways, to prevent people from voting twice and from voting on purely local issues that don't affect their lives. Maybe you would have to declare a month (or a week) in advance which of your options you'd be voting at, and if you chose the non-residential one you'd be given a special ballot with only the races/issues the two locations have in common.
