Just curious since it seems so much easier and less stressful during any election cycle to fill out a form and mail it in during your free time.
I get this question a lot, since my wife and I always vote in person. The place where we vote is right around the corner from us, a 2 minute walk. We go mid morning and there’s never a line. It’s just more fun for us, kind of a tradition. The same poll workers have been there for several years and it’s always nice to see them.
As microscopically unimportant as our two votes are in the big picture, they are still important to us.
If I still lived in some of the places I did in the past, I would definitely mail it in. Those places always had a long wait.
oh, cool.
that makes sense.
i’ve usually lived in busier places, so there was always long lines and just everything was a mess.
and I’ve never lived close, so it was always a chore to get there in the first place.
nice!
Every vote is important.
“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?” - David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
I’m always paranoid that they will try to throw out my early vote in some way.
I’m a bit paranoid about neighbors stealing it. I live in a place where most people vote the way I do, but I’m still anxious about people just being assholes, or thinking I look like a conservative (I get it, I kinda do) even though I’m not.
I still mail mine in though, I just try to put it in my mailbox an hour before the carrier is gonna arrive to pick it up. Plus, I am subscribed to an email system that tells me when they get it.
paranoia. I am familiar.
you get a confirmation email in the states I know about after your vote is counted early, so you know that your vote was received and recorded.
how would voting in a person make it more difficult for the non-federal employees to throw away your vote versus federal employees in a federal building?
or does it just feel-better-in-person?
I’m just curious about personal experiences here, you should definitely go in person if you prefer that.
Where I vote, I sign a book next to my name, enter everything on a computer, which prints out a ballot. I can review what it says, and then I put it into the scanner which shows that the vote count has increased by one.
The process leaves my “footprints” all over the system. It would be much harder to say I didn’t vote in this way, than if my mail-in ballot “got lost in the mail.”
you can track your mail in ballot, but I do like what you’re talking about, leaving physical recordings and evidence of you voting.
I’m lucky enough to work for an organization which furnishes me with up to 4 hours of paid leave to vote. Plus, my polling place is on the road home, and I’ve never waited longer than a couple of minutes to vote. Finally, doing it in person feels more impactful, even if that’s just a perception thing.
paid leave is the first answer that would get me to vote in person.
I can’t believe none of you wait in lines haha, it’s good to hear but absolutely surreal.
I don’t think I’ve ever been to a voting office without waiting for at least half an hour.
Because I voted early in person
using an electronic voting machine?
Because in some states you’re not allowed to unless you have qualifying conditions. Also going in person early voting allows you to address any potential issues with registration issues to ensure your vote can count.
As someone who did vote by mail, Im half convinced they’ll find some bullshit reason to discount my vote. “Didn’t fill in the bubble enough” or some shit."
100% why I think online/digital voting should be standard. It’s insane that so many people are willing to trust some Joe Schmo with their own opinions and desires over a machine that does exactly what it’s told and confirmed to work that way beforehand.
Pretty sure all voting security professionals agree that you need a paper trail to verify, in the event of data loss or hacking. Adding an online voting option would be more convenient, but also make it more convenient to foreign interests who want to disrupt the election. The added convenience doesn’t justify the risk.
Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2030/
Then the machine may just as well adjust your vote without you ever knowing about it.
Lack of trust in the USPS due to trump and dejoy. I do not trust that my ballot will not be tampered with in transit or lost.
I’m not eligible to vote by mail in my state, not many people are.
I voted early in-person.
It is not an option to vote by mail in my state. I like to vote the day of anyway. Feels official.
Does it have other options than in person on election day, or are people who are in the hospital, on travel, or otherwise unable to visit their polling location on election day out of luck?
There is in person early voting. I think military service personnel can mail in also.
- in my jurisdiction, you have to meet certain criteria to be eligible for a mail in ballot, they don’t just get handed out willy nilly
- i don’t trust the post office with anything vitally important, like a ballot or money
- the early voting place is pretty close to my work, close enough that i hit it up a week and change ago on my lunch break
in theory voting through mail would be easier, but in practice it’s a nightmare. i needed absentee ballots for two elections when i was away for school- one arrived late and one didn’t arrive at all! much easier to just do in-person voting in my experience
I have had the exact opposite experience, but I’m glad in-person voting works for you
My state is entirely by mail. Postage is paid now, too, but there are also ballot boxes. Almost couldn’t be easier.
It’s easier and less stressful for me to vote in person. My polling place is like a two block walk and there’s rarely a line, plus I know there’s no room for shenanigans to disenfranchise me.
Mail in voting seems more complicated, although my state mails them out by default and it’s probably just lack of familiarity. Anyway, in person is easy and pleasant so I don’t see any reason to change.
I don’t know if I’d need to buy stamps but I’m already late for my new lawn care guy because he insists I need to mail him a check but I haven’t had stamps in years and he’s about the only check I write
This year is the first time it’s complicated though. My older kid is voting for the first time and I want to vote with him for that milestone. He’s at college but didn’t follow up with mail in voting so we have to figure out the logistics of getting him home on a school/work day
oh great. yeah that totally makes sense.
I always waited in lines lines in an uncomfortable, stressful atmosphere, so I prefer the quietude at my own time in my own home.
Good luck with your son, I’m sure you guys will figure it out.
Hybrid voter here: I enjoy the convenience of filling out the absentee ballot at home, then drop it off personally at an early voting location. A poll worker checks for signature/etc. then I can see them putting the envelope into the box.
I’ll try to fill mine in today. It wouldn’t have been any easier to do it earlier, and it’s preferable to do it on election day or close to it, so you have all the information available. The main contested elections in my district are local ones, and stuff is always happening.
that’s a good point.
has anything significantly swayed your local election preferences this year?
feel free to make up an analog situation to avoid revealing anything personal.
Well, a good scandal might have come along to take out a few of the candidates, though that didn’t happen afaik. Other than that, I mean, what is the hurry? I don’t follow politics all that closely anyway, but there are a few local organizations that I like, so I figure on mostly going by their endorsements. It usually takes me about an hour to fill in the ballot.
I like voting early just so I get confirmation my vote was counted and if anything goes wrong I have a few weeks to deal with it.
your method sounds good too.
