What I've seen personally was video of lines stretching at least 4 to 5 blocks in New York, I thought, in the last couple weeks, and many other places, as quick overviews on many news reports. I don't know how long the waits actually were.
I've waited 2 hours to vote in a primary. (In 2016). If California, Utah, and other states have their voting figured out, that's great. I think the point is that we could understand that many places in the U.S. may require you to reserve 3-7 hours to vote, so let's figure out some reasonable ways to make voting in the U.S. a reasonable burden.
A thought experiment:
If the Utah legislature has adopted universal mail-in voting safeguarded by a digital database, matching signatures, and unique identifiers on ballots, envelopes, and voters, and Utah is in the running for most conservative state in the U.S., with the Utah legislature run by a Republican supermajority, where does that fit on the discussion of whether every vote being able to count being or not being a conservative vs. liberal concept?
I'm going to go with every citizen being able to vote without undue hassles being an acceptable conservative position. Being an acceptable American position.
So get the rest of the U.S. to accept Utah's standards and practices, because it exemplifies effective American principles.
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But really how do we commit voter fraud?
"Banana republic" voter fraud is committed by the government, regardless of the votes actually cast.
Manipulation of individual ballots is by definition a small scale operation. Submitting fake ballots is limited by the ability to forge someone's signature, and is only possible to slip through if the actual voter does not vote, which is protected by the risk of a felony. So that's the risk of mailing out ballots to all registered voters, right? Fake voters, non-eligible voters, dead voters, are all completely traceable and verifiable for the purpose of protecting the records. Large scale fraudulent voting (enough to affect an election), is not possible with the current standards available in the U.S.
Fraudulent voting of any type is a negligible problem in the U.S. (It is also a negligible problem in Canada, coincidentally.) This is not a tautology. It is a fact.
People keep saying, "But you could!" But people don't. People who attempt to submit fraudulent votes by and large get caught, and their votes don't count. I am not aware of any studies finding any widespread problem of voter fraud. Every study created finds no evidence of non-negligible voter fraud. People continue to make allegations, but no one has found evidence which matches the allegations. People who try, appear to get caught.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/02/21/rosa-maria-ortega-texas-woman-sentenced-8-years-illegal-voting-paroled-and-faces-deportation/4798922002/ [a specific example]
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fact-checking-attorney-general-william-barr-s-claims-on-voter-fraud-election-interference-and-jacob-blake/ar-BB18GuFr fact checking William Barr]
Taking Utah as a positive example, maintaining the database seems to be safe enough and meet American principles of responsibility, equal access, and safety.
The problem with declaring voter fraud as a "conservative" issue, [and taking actions which tend to suppress votes in the name of security], is that a large segment of historical justification of voter ID and ballot security measures were specifically taken to suppress minority votes and were the reason for the creation of the voting rights act.
https://www.findlaw.com/voting/how-do-i-protect-my-right-to-vote-/what-is-voter-suppression-.htmlThe conservatives in Utah, for instance, recognize the benefit and ability of finding a proper balance, and that it's possible to have easy, open, effective, secure, and safe voting without being accused of voter suppression. I suspect they recognize that's a benefit to the conservative brand. They probably recognize that making false claims, or being aligned with historically anti-american programs is not a good look.
Enforcement is obviously necessary, and appears to be occurring. People that attempt ineligible votes, by all accounts, do not succeed. (see reports cited above).
