Of course, this behaviour lends itself to extreme confidence that the entire counting process has not been corrupted absolutely.
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I know, @ejeffrey beat you to it. I was just remembering the maps in my middle school Social Studies book - maybe they only covered a few years. 1976 had that one green square.
Question 1: Are these primaries organized by the respective party, or are they organized by the same people who organize the actual election?
Question 2 (asked a million times): How come Americans only start complaining about waiting times when they are measured in multiple hours? Iāve never had to wait more than five minutes to vote.
Question 3: What percentage of voters have their party preference publicly registered so they can vote in the primaries? Doesnāt that conflict with the idea of a secret ballot?
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Defense in depth, my friend.
Multi-lateral defeat using insertion vectors positioned at various legislative, technological and individual-based portals?
Arizona resident here. We have mail in ballots, and they are extremely popular.
Edit: one bit of strangeness on the Early Voting/ mail-in ballots; for the first time I can remember they required a phone number on the outside of the envelope, where all can see it. This made me uncomfortable, and Iām guessing, in some cases, it might be a complete no go. We called the election office, and they said it was optional, even if it didnāt say it was on the envelope. Iām also not sure if I trust our officials enough to risk my vote. I can see a case of refusing to put your number on the ballot turning into an excuse to not count the ballot. It also seems to be a bitdiscminatory towards the poor, homeless, and others.
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Whoops, youāre right, didnāt read that far.
Neither have I. Where do you live? The longest wait times seem to be in the Democratic-leaning districts (esp. cities) of republican-majority states, as well as the largest cities like NYC:
http://www.latimes.com/la-na-g-polling-wait-time-state-photo.html
Gotcha. Well in New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts Iāve never had to wait.
Also, to question 3, some states have āopen primariesā where on primary election day you can get a ballot for whichever party you want. Others have āclosed primariesā where you have to be officially, publicly registered as a member of a party to vote in that partyās primary.This doesnāt necessarily violate ballot secrecy, since people are under no obligation to vote for the candidate of ātheirā party." Also, I know many people who intentionally register for the āotherā party so as to influence its primary results. In Massachusetts, it is one of the few ways to actually affect presidential elections, since we know in the general election our stateās electoral votes will go Democratic no matter who the nominees are.
And āsecret ballotā is not actually guaranteed in the US, technically, though in practice it is essentially universal today. Apparently in Kentucky people voted orally until 1891. At this point I suspect the Supreme Court would find a way to strike down any election law that didnāt allow for ballot secrecy, but Iām not actually sure if that has been tested.
To question 1: it probably depends on the state, but basically the party primary elections are publicly organized/funded/counted, ballots are publicly printed and distributed, voting happens at public places like schools, just like the general election.
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It seems like having mail-in ballots as an early and optional voting method is still a barrier if people donāt plan ahead (or in the case of Arizona, people send them in too early since there are reports that people voted for Rubio and sent them in before he dropped out of the race). With five hour long waits in some places, itād be better if everyone just voted by mail.
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Iām here in AZ too and I have always recalled having to add my phone number to my main-in ballot. In fact, in the last election cycle, I actually got a call from the election office to clarify something on my ballot. It was weird but seemed to be fine.
I get market research. This is not market research. This is ātelling people to go home, donāt bother voting, cause its overā when the count has not even started. Combine that with reduced polling places, long lines, and you are doing democracy wrong, and you are making excuses.
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Arizona has had mail-in ballots which was only started a couple of years ago. When the state fully implemented mail-in votes apparently they closed a number of polling places in the process. I did not know that and did not mail in my first mail-in ballot. So on election day I was going to drop off my ballot but my local polling place was closed with no information on where to go. Yeah, it was partially my fault but with a total lack of easily available information the state takes some of the blame for not making the transition easy. I did drive around / search for the next polling place which was just a mile or two away (as opposed to 2 blocks). I was pretty pissed and let the election judges know as well as the press that was hanging out for this very issue. Anyway, I now make sure to send in my ballot in time but the state is still pretty incompetent in this process.
Was voting still going on?
I get that you can extrapolate from early results fairly accurately, but arenāt there generally laws about declaring results (or exit polls) before the voting (not the counting) has finished?
Odd, I donāt remember this at all. It is entirely possible that I just never noticed, and did now because Iām slightly more vigilant towards things like this.
Nope, Iāve been voting by mail in AZ for at least 10 years, and probably longer than that. They have been insanely popular for awhile, but peaking in the last couple years as voter interest goes up (Thanks Obama). This year, the Phoenix election official closed 50% of the polling places, the rest of the state was unaffected. Tucson, which has 50% of the population of Phoenix, had over twice as many polling locations.
Yes, one of my girlfriendās coworkers didnāt actually get to cast her ballot until midnight.
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Dear Commentators:
Iām an Arizona voter, so Iām writing to clear up some things Iām reading. First, I vote by mail-in ballot, so I donāt understand CarlMudās comment at all. I guess itās my turn to be the XKCD character who canāt retire to bed until someone who is wrong on the Internet has been corrected. So we do have a mail-in āturnoutā here, and I would actually recommend the process. Canāt make anyone do it though, huh? Shrug.
Second, Yes, this is not the AZ Primary. This is a new thing. I have no idea who this serves, OK? I was going through the newspapers in my recycling bin at home last February and found a local paper reporting that the AZ Secretary of State gave a talk to the Rotary in the next community over and she told them that there was this new election thing. I told my two sons about it but they would have had to register as either a R or D to vote and that was a lot of trouble, so they sat this one out. Again, our AZ Primary is on August 30th and my sons, as Independents, will be able to vote in that.
This actually does affect the electoral count if one subscribes to the theory that some people donāt vote so much as they like to back a winner. We actually will never know now who would have won if all those people had been able to vote.
So. the problem here is that the whole thing was mismanaged. The folks in charge did not open the usual number of polling places.There were huge traffic jams outside of some polling places. Some people trying to go vote after they got off work couldnāt get through the traffic of other people trying to go vote after they got off work. They rushed up to the line and were told to go home. Thatās just not right. āOopsie, we goofed!ā does not cut it for me.
I have already signed a petition to ask the Obama Administration to investigate this as a crime. Iām not asking anyone here on this forum if they think that will āwork.ā The fact that 70, 000 people want your ass in a federal sling over this might be enough to discourage anyone from trying this sort of ādisenfranchisement by Oopsie!ā thing again.
Cranky AZ Voter
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