Just curious since it seems so much easier and less stressful during any election cycle to fill out a form and mail it in during your free time.
I get this question a lot, since my wife and I always vote in person. The place where we vote is right around the corner from us, a 2 minute walk. We go mid morning and there’s never a line. It’s just more fun for us, kind of a tradition. The same poll workers have been there for several years and it’s always nice to see them.
As microscopically unimportant as our two votes are in the big picture, they are still important to us.
If I still lived in some of the places I did in the past, I would definitely mail it in. Those places always had a long wait.
Every vote is important.
“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?” - David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
oh, cool.
that makes sense.
i’ve usually lived in busier places, so there was always long lines and just everything was a mess.
and I’ve never lived close, so it was always a chore to get there in the first place.
nice!
Because I voted early in person
using an electronic voting machine?
I’m always paranoid that they will try to throw out my early vote in some way.
I’m a bit paranoid about neighbors stealing it. I live in a place where most people vote the way I do, but I’m still anxious about people just being assholes, or thinking I look like a conservative (I get it, I kinda do) even though I’m not.
I still mail mine in though, I just try to put it in my mailbox an hour before the carrier is gonna arrive to pick it up. Plus, I am subscribed to an email system that tells me when they get it.
paranoia. I am familiar.
you get a confirmation email in the states I know about after your vote is counted early, so you know that your vote was received and recorded.
how would voting in a person make it more difficult for the non-federal employees to throw away your vote versus federal employees in a federal building?
or does it just feel-better-in-person?
I’m just curious about personal experiences here, you should definitely go in person if you prefer that.
Where I vote, I sign a book next to my name, enter everything on a computer, which prints out a ballot. I can review what it says, and then I put it into the scanner which shows that the vote count has increased by one.
The process leaves my “footprints” all over the system. It would be much harder to say I didn’t vote in this way, than if my mail-in ballot “got lost in the mail.”
you can track your mail in ballot, but I do like what you’re talking about, leaving physical recordings and evidence of you voting.
- in my jurisdiction, you have to meet certain criteria to be eligible for a mail in ballot, they don’t just get handed out willy nilly
- i don’t trust the post office with anything vitally important, like a ballot or money
- the early voting place is pretty close to my work, close enough that i hit it up a week and change ago on my lunch break
Hybrid voter here: I enjoy the convenience of filling out the absentee ballot at home, then drop it off personally at an early voting location. A poll worker checks for signature/etc. then I can see them putting the envelope into the box.
Less paper relative to an in-person vote
AskLemmy is not the community for posts about US politics. Locking.
in theory voting through mail would be easier, but in practice it’s a nightmare. i needed absentee ballots for two elections when i was away for school- one arrived late and one didn’t arrive at all! much easier to just do in-person voting in my experience
My state is entirely by mail. Postage is paid now, too, but there are also ballot boxes. Almost couldn’t be easier.
I have had the exact opposite experience, but I’m glad in-person voting works for you
As someone who did vote by mail, Im half convinced they’ll find some bullshit reason to discount my vote. “Didn’t fill in the bubble enough” or some shit."
100% why I think online/digital voting should be standard. It’s insane that so many people are willing to trust some Joe Schmo with their own opinions and desires over a machine that does exactly what it’s told and confirmed to work that way beforehand.
Then the machine may just as well adjust your vote without you ever knowing about it.
Pretty sure all voting security professionals agree that you need a paper trail to verify, in the event of data loss or hacking. Adding an online voting option would be more convenient, but also make it more convenient to foreign interests who want to disrupt the election. The added convenience doesn’t justify the risk.
Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2030/
I’m lucky enough to work for an organization which furnishes me with up to 4 hours of paid leave to vote. Plus, my polling place is on the road home, and I’ve never waited longer than a couple of minutes to vote. Finally, doing it in person feels more impactful, even if that’s just a perception thing.
paid leave is the first answer that would get me to vote in person.
I can’t believe none of you wait in lines haha, it’s good to hear but absolutely surreal.
I don’t think I’ve ever been to a voting office without waiting for at least half an hour.
I voted early in-person.
Because I saw the news about voter dropbox being fire bombed and the head of USPS deliberately slowing down mail. I don’t trust that my mail-in vote will count, so I voted early in-person.
Only one guy was doing the drop box thing and you can recast a mail ballot if you need to. If the crazies try to attack your polling place on election day, you’re probably not getting your vote in on time at all. Also USPS doesn’t lay a finger on ballots dropped in the ballot box, they only carry mail ballots that are mailed instead of dropped off.
It is not an option to vote by mail in my state. I like to vote the day of anyway. Feels official.
Does it have other options than in person on election day, or are people who are in the hospital, on travel, or otherwise unable to visit their polling location on election day out of luck?
There is in person early voting. I think military service personnel can mail in also.
An illogical and faint hope that Harris’s campaign will commit to being less cartoonishly evil in the Middle East if they see their Michigan numbers are looking bad enough and also my polling place is close, quick, and convenient.
Because in some states you’re not allowed to unless you have qualifying conditions. Also going in person early voting allows you to address any potential issues with registration issues to ensure your vote can count.
