In the last election, there were over 224 million American citizens over the age of 18 in the United States, and yet only around 157 million were registered to vote. Even fewer actually voted.
Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey and a current ABC News commentator noted on This Week on a recent Sunday morning: “2017 in New Jersey, the lowest voter turnout for governor in the state’s history. It was 36 percent turnout for a statewide gubernatorial race in New Jersey. To just give you an example, eight years earlier, when I was elected the first time, it was 48 percent. It’s a big, big change.” It may have been 38.5% in 2017, but point taken.
Each state determines how it will run its elections in terms of hours of voting, deadlines for registering. So the ability to stifle the process is quite varied.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed a Motion for a Preliminary Injunction in its lawsuit against the Georgia Secretary of State that seeks to remedy an unlawful racial gerrymander. “The lawsuit concerns Atlanta metro area Georgia House of Representatives Districts that were redrawn in 2015 for the sole purpose of helping white incumbents get reelected.”
New Yorkers face unreasonably early registration deadlines, no option for early voting, severe restrictions on absentee voting and long lines at the polls. The state’s user-unfriendly voting laws caused such dismal voter registration and turn-out rates in the last presidential election that New York had the eighth worst turn-out in the country.
There are far too many other examples to list here.
One activist group recommends that Congress must take thesee steps to secure our elections:
Audit elections to verify that ballots are counted and reported correctly
Require paper ballots (or, at least, paper receipts for electronic ballots)
Enact national vote-by-mail
Develop a national response to foreign attacks on our election systems
For ABC Wednesday
I sent in my absentee ballot!
My ABC WEDNESDAY
People have been told for decades by the Corporate media that voting does not make a difference and it’s all entertainment anyway. They tells us constantly about the horse race and scandals but barely mention issues. So a lot of people either don’t bother to vote or they don’t take the votes that they cast seriously. This is a deliberate manipulation, and it’s working just fine.
Voting is much needed.
Bad governments are elected by citizens who do not vote…
Ekamra Van – Anita
Voting is a privilege hands down!!!
Ann
It is an ordeal any which way one looks at it
I’ve not voted since 2000… I am not planning on changing that decision
Have a splendid, ♥-warming ABC-Wednes-day / -week
♫ M e l ☺ d y ♪ (ABC-W-team)
http://melodymusic.nl/22-V
Where we live we cannot vote because we have not yet received citizenship. Where we don’t live we can vote because we are still citizens of that country. Seems backwards, but I guess it works. We get our ballots in the mail and always return them. It is important to vote and have your voice heard. – Margy
Great post for V and very well written about an important topic.
Happy Times to you,
A ShutterBug Explores
aka (A Creative Harbor)
Good security measures. Your post got me curious so I checked to see if there are any voter security bills in Congress. One was introduced in March 2018, looks to be stuck in committee. Out of 28K+ registered voters in my county, almost 7K voted. Sigh.
In Belgium the vote is obligatory. If you are sick you need a certificate from the doctor, if you are on holidays you have to ask somebody else to vote for you. I don’t like this. It’s never good to force somebody to vote !