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
@zathras is (like me) one of BBSā token foreigners, in his case Austria
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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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The same Maricopa County ruled by mini-Hiltler Sheriff Arpaio?
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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