They shouldn’t be polling/ballot drop-off locations unless they are ADA compliant.
There are plenty of government buildings that are accessible, including schools. Why are we using churches?
I think the main reason churches have been used is that they have big rooms which aren’t in use during the weekday, whereas with schools and government buildings you’re displacing the people who would normally be in that place.
There’s also a bunch of old ladies, who know where everything is and are available to help, in most churches. At least that’s true of the (accessible and progressive) UCC church I grew up in, which is still a polling place. With cookies and percolator coffee.
That said, I’ve voted by mail for decades because it’s just easier, especially since I’m filling out both my ballot and that of my quadriplegic spouse. Under their guidance of course.
Proximity.
You don’t always have a government building in close proximity. I once lived in an area where the polling place was someone’s garage because there was no better option.
Also, not every government building has a large enough room to set up 8-10 voting stations with minimum separations between them, and tables for passing out ballots, and voting boxes, and enough space to accommodate people waiting to vote. In fact, a lot of them DON’T have such a space, and before someone says “but electronic voting”, a good handful of states pivoted away from those years ago thanks to weirdos bitching about how hackable they were and all that.
You know what has to be accessible? Public schools. You know what is right across the street from the two churches that have been my designated voting location? Public schools.
But then all the home skooled Republicans would complain that it’s against their parental rights to have to deal with public edukation and their children’s might end up hearing about those evil "A-B-3"s.
“It’s ‘always’ been this way and I don’t think we should change” (even if it hasn’t always been this way)
So many problems are just solved by universal vote by mail.
No long lines, no time off needed, no accessability issues, all paper ballots. You just vote and drop off your ballot.
I knew churches were exempt from ada compliance. Shitty, but par for the course. I’d never put together the fact that many voting sites are churches. Holy shit.
