#VOTE!
Wear diapers if you have to (I’m serious. I guarantee the wait times in republican run areas is going to be atrocious long), stay in line (if you are in line they have to let you vote by law), and #VOTE!
Some places will let people request an early ballot and you can drop it off at the local board of elections. I recommend that over the diaper line if possible.
Edit- not sure how to vote absentee? Check this resource and select a state for information
CA just does universal mail in ballots. I can read about the issues and candidates at home while filling out the ballot and then walk a block to a letter drop box to submit my ballot. Then I can just track its status online. It’s great.
Honest question: With this kind of system, how do you verify who filled in the ballot? In my country we have “mail in” voting, which consists of going to a polling station in some other district than the one your from, filling in a ballot in the normal way, and then they send it for you.
Also: I’ve seen people talking about how you have to vote in person on election day, don’t the polling stations open before that? I usually vote a couple days before election day, the polling stations open like two weeks before…
No, you vote by mail because you live somewhere that allows it.
If you live somewhere red, you probably need to show up in person on election day, and wait around for hours hoping that you don’t get disenfranchised.
EDIT 2: This map is NOT ENTIRELY ACCURATE. Spot checking NY and PA - these states have restrictions on Absentee ballots BUT also offer less restrictive Early Mail In voting which IS NOT represented. Check your latest state laws here: https://www.nass.org/can-i-vote/absentee-early-voting
In
sevensixteen states, voters still need a reason to vote absentee. That means many voters in these states will need to vote in person at a polling place.
Edit- replaced with newer map from '22, excuse required states doubled since '20.
ALSO, check you registration, and check it again. Tell all your friends to check theirs too. This is important. Republicans are culling those that they don’t want to vote.
Or if they didn’t vote in the last election. They are cutting out names that close to this one. Check it right up till a week from election day to give yourself time to fix their shenanigans.
Legally you have to miss two federal elections, then they have to send you a letter to the address on your voter registration and you have to fail to respond to that letter and then miss a third federal election at a minimum before they can remove you. Or they have to have evidence you’ve moved or died.
So if you vanish from the voter rolls and none of those are true, fix it and then start looking for a lawyer or start organizing with others in the same vote to get a lawyer as a group. And VOTE.
Frequently over simplified. For example, a lot of those states require you to go get your ballot notarized, which can be a bit of a pain or a little cost:
https://www.usvotefoundation.org/absentee-ballot-notary-witness-requirements
Some require you to include a copy of your photo id.
Voting in person is the safest bet to make sure your vote counts and not get disqualified because of some rule you failed to notice/follow.
If you live in one of these 18 states, sign up for mail in voting and have your ballot for a month so that you can research every name on the ballot. I know what skeletons you have in your closet before I vote for you because of this.
If you don’t, I would recommend calling your state legislature to get a mail in voting initiative on the ballot.
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/table-18-states-with-all-mail-elections
Edit: being able to research the candidate’s full history has had me vote for the Republican candidate twice. I couldn’t, in good conscience, vote for the Democratic candidate for Warden last election, because she was the deputy warden of the guy that just got kicked out for having the highest percentage, and possibly raw number, of deaths in his jail for the entire US. The Republican candidate at least had only attempted to cheat on his taxes, so that was an easy choice. The other time was for city council, and the Democrat had run on a campaign of “helping the homeless,” and then voted in every single hostile architecture, and camping ban he could. The Republican was a newbie, so I gave him a shot.
Unpopular opinion: Mail in voting shouldn’t be a thing except in extraordinary circumstances like a pandemic.
There’s a reason for having a secret ballot. People can vote their conscious without fear of any repercussions from members of their community that might disagree with them.
Imagine a woman not really liking a party that wants to take away her rights. Her husband is a strong supporter of that party. That woman may vote differently if it’s done privately rather than having to fill out a mail in ballot at the kitchen table with her husband looking over her shoulder.
Sure it’s a pain in the ass to have to go to polling station, but in that location it can be ensured that everyone is voting privately and how they vote is kept secret from everyone.
Thats incredibly dumb take. I have voted mail in for every election in my entire life, for 26 years. Never had an issue and I have only missed a single local election that was fairly inconsequential. Its nice having 2-3 weeks to figure out how you want to vote.
My office does not allow people to take time off for voting. After seeing people on cnn who were in line at a poll for 16 hours waiting to vote 4 hours from their house, it seems absolutely insane not to do mail in. Unless the goal is to prevent people from voting, that is.
I get your point, but I think if you weigh up the pros and cons, it’s really not a strong enough justification.
You could make the same justification to get rid of online banking, for example - and I’d say that a controlling partner can cause much more harm with control over finances than over voting - but hopefully the counter-argument comes clearer into focus from that example.
This makes for a good headline but it should not stop you from voting. It was indeed a nice turnout for Harris at The Villages, but that place is not only a cesspool, it is a fucking ginormous cesspool. That group is tint compared to the overall population of that shit hole.
SOURCE: I split my time between Wyoming and Florida amd my Florida home is unfortunately just a few exits of I-4 away from that fascist lemon party.
This makes for a good headline but it should not stop you from voting.
Nothing should stop you voting. Even if Harris is predicted to have a 30 point margin, you should push for a 40 point margin. Because even if she wins, the fewer Republicans in office, the more policies the Democrats can implement.
With his presidential grifts and self-pardons on the line, Trump’s gotta be sweating more than JD Vance in a Ramour and Flanagan.
I am surprised I have not seen the white couch meme, but nobody on the couch and 5 Vances.
People are enthusiastic to vote when the party listens to them.
The party had it ass-backwards. “Vote for us and maybe we’ll do what you want. But we both know we’re not gonna” generates no enthusiasm at all. To the contrary, the longer that voting yields the same disappointing results, and the more that people see that the party isn’t interested in anything other than preserving an untenable status quo, the more that this messaging results in apathy and resentment.
“Fine. We’ll do what you want.” HAS generated enthusiasm.
Look, it’s great that she’s doing well but I hope that she won’t do what Hillary did and actually believe she’s got a snowball’s chance in fucking hell to win down there and screw over herself and America by trying to win over a place that’s a pipe dream.
I truly hope she doesn’t. I feel kinda naive thinking she won’t. I know the DNC is great at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
While better shot than Florida, NC is likely a lost cause. Went to Trump in both 2016 and 2020, has elected Robinson who is a not job to lieutenant governor… Yeah Cooper won it both times too but I can’t understand how he won elections that at the same time went to Trump, Tillis, and Robinson… They have some polls pitting the well liked Cooper against Trump and Cooper still lost in those polls.
Obama was the only one in 20 years to win the state and only his first term, and only barely.
I would be ecstatic to be wrong, but probably a bad bet for relatively fewer potential electoral votes than other uses of their effort.
