With another midterm election finished, I find myself wondering why the United States is terrible at voting. The system depends on everyone voting in order to elect candidates that reflect popular opinion, yet voter turnout always suffers.
It will take some time until we can get the exact numbers for the midterm voter turnout, but the New York Times is estimating 114 million ballots were cast. This is higher than in past midterms, but with hundreds of millions of eligible voters, one might expect the turnout to be higher. This can be attributed to the flaws in the system, and ultimately, the inaccessibility of voting as it is not a federal holiday.
Why do people have to register to vote, or in many states even register early? There is no reason for it. In the age of modern database systems, it would not be hard to put a person’s information in and verify it. Making people register just makes more people disenfranchised because they forgot to register before an arbitrary date, or they do not have access to a computer or in-person registry site. It makes little sense and should be amended.
Many countries such as Germany, France and Iraq have systems of automatic voter registration. They also have very high voter turnouts.
Continuing from that, why do the polls close so early? Would it bankrupt the nation if the polls closed at 10 p.m.? Closing them early just makes it more inconvenient for people who may have a late work day or are stuck in traffic. There is no excuse for not having polling stations open at least 16 hours. It would accommodate weird work schedules and unusual sleeping patterns.
I think it is the duty of this government to accommodate as many voters as possible, as after all, voters are the ones who empower our government.
So of course I believe we should get a federal voting holiday. National elections happen every two years in this country on one day. It wouldn’t be an inconvenience for that day to be a federal holiday when everyone has the opportunity to vote instead of trying to fit it into their busy schedules.
A person should not have to decide between providing for their family and the future of their country, especially since the matter of providing for their family can be improved at the polls.
A smaller, but still quite serious issue is the polling stations themselves. We have been voting in this country since the start, so at this point it should be pretty efficient. Yet, during every election there is always a news story about how something wrong happened at a polling station. For example, in my home state of North Carolina, ballots couldn’t be read by the voting machines. And some of the lines at these polling places get extremely long. This inefficiency does nothing but deter voters from having their say.
The United States was the first modern republic on earth and as such is prone to the experimentation that comes with being first. However, it is more than past the time to follow the example of other democracies.
Let's make voting day a national holiday and try to have a less archaic voting system. Voter apathy is extremely high in this country, and I believe fixing some of these issues would help lower that.
