Until Next Time

During the last 4 weeks, the Voter Watch Blog team researched and wrote about the reasons and outcomes of voter apathy, voter turnout, and the accessibility to the polls. We also wrote about the Electoral College, the importance of popular vote, and how voter ID laws affect us. We decided to touch on those important topics because we felt those are the ones that have been specially under fire during the last 5 elections. 

With the usage of facts and a neutral stand point on the political spectrum, we hope we have been able to inform and motivate you– the voter. We hope you found our blogs posts not only informative, but also inspiring.

We would like to thank every single one of your for giving us a few minutes of your time to read our weekly posts. Also, we would like to thank you for reading our points of view and other information that might have been in conflict with your personal believes and ideas. We thank you for your open mind and for your time.

Sincerely,

The Voter Watch Blog

House Committee Votes to Shut Down EAC

This February a House Administration Committee voted 6-3 to shut down the Election Assistance Commission. The EAC was established in 2002 as a part of the Help America Vote Act to assist states in improving their voting systems. This could mean trouble  for voter accessibility in a number of states. Read more here.

Accessibility Issues in the Voting System

There is a major problem in the United States, many people are interested in voting; however, not many get the chance to do so. Accessibility problems involve all technical, mechanical and bureaucratic type of problems that hinder eligible voters to fulfill their desire to vote.

A popular reason why many eligible voters cannot vote on Election Day is lack of proper identification. During the last election for example, there were many voters who possessed an expired ID, however, they also carried their SSN and other type of up to date identification but were not allowed to vote because the law requires a valid, up to date identification card only.  What happens then to those who don’t have the means to obtain a valid ID? According to the Washington Post “many just give up” the elderly who can’t physically go to the MVA to get an ID, or the poor who have no money to get to the MVA or pay a fee.  Settles a 65 year retired engineer describes the system as a “bureaucratic nightmare”.

According to NPR, there are more than 35 million eligible voters who are disabled and decide not to vote because of lack of accessible parking spaces and properly installed ramps for people with disabilities. Ian Watlington, of the national Disability Rights Network (NDRN) explains “Right when you turn to get into the main door, you have a pretty substantial crack in the concrete. One that most people would have to bump over” Another problem that involves people with disabilities is the absence of additional disable parking spaces during Election Day.

Another reason is the lack of translators for Latino immigrants, during the last elections, particularly in Arizona and Florida where there is a big percentage of Latino voters, lacked obligatory bilingual translators; as a result many Latino voters were not able to cast their vote.

Such as one might expect there are always technical problems with polling machines; however, during the last election there were way too many problems with polling machines, creating extreme long lines which caused people to decide between voting and getting to work late, causing a big impact on voter turnout.

Voting Accessibility: Time Stands Still for No Man!

Voting is one of the key components to a democracy. Knowing that, you would think it would be an easy and smooth process to go out and vote. According to an article on Americaprogress.org in North Carolina African American voters had to wait two hours due to technical difficulties.

This led to less voting participation and thus low voter turnout. Let’s not forget, voting takes place on a weekday. Even if it’s for most of the day, it’s still a weekday. Meaning that young adults have classes to attend to and/or work, and the older population 25-40 have work to attend to. People don’t have all day to wait in line to vote and thus end up not voting in all. Accessibility to voting polls is an issue in the United States that should’ve been taken care of years ago.

Also according to Americanprogress.org in North Carolina there were 158 less polling places in 40 counties. If people not only have to risk being late to work/school waiting in long lines but also have to travel longer distances to get to a polling place, what makes you think they’ll go in the first place. Voters can’t all risk calling off work or/and school to stay in line for hours and vote. Let’s not forget what happens when the machines malfunction and cause a polling place to cease it’s activates until fixed. Polling places shouldn’t be harder to get to than your local DMV/MVA and should be an easier and smooth process. These annoyances to quick and/or easy voting accessibility play a part in the over voter turnout and the will to want to participate at all. We need to make more polling places easily available and make the overall process more efficient. This way all eligible voters have an equal opportunity to get to the polls and have an easier time gaining access to the polls.