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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

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mails everyone a ballot every election

I hate to beat a dead horse about this after 2020, but does vote coercion or payment worry you at all? It worries me. Having a secret ballot is one of the last bulwarks against the mob (or your spouse). It's better if mail-in ballots are rare, with individually justified (and verified) reasons.

I definitely recognize the potential, though I'm not sure how often that potential is realized. Both of the things you mention are crimes in my state, which is not to say they don't happen.

There are also well known tradeoffs with requiring people to vote in person. People might have to take time off work since voting is often on a work day and can involve a wait of hours. Poll workers or observers might do a little voter intimidation.

The balance of which of these is worse is at least not obvious to me.

People might have to take time off work since voting is often on a work day and can involve a wait of hours.

There are quite a few states (and potentially smaller jurisdictions) that require employers to either allow reasonable employee absence to vote or, in many cases, provide paid time to do so.

I swear, the US is the weirdest country on Earth when it comes to voting.

Has no one considered having elections on a weekend?

At this point, Tuesday is a tradition that has been Federal law since the mid-1800s, although there are jurisdictions that choose to have local or state elections on other days: IIRC Louisiana votes on Sundays on odd years, and a few states have made it a civic holiday.

If that tradition is so important to you then make it a national holiday. Surely, if Juneteenth warrants one, you can spare a day for voting?

There's an awful lot of "holidays" that bankers or government employees take off that the rest of the American public does not. Checking my own calendar (as a federal contractor leech no less) our expected holidays are New Years, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and then a week of days off crammed into the last week of the year to cover Christmas and typical end of year home-for-the-holidays time off. Expected and typicial but we can shift the time off/paid Holiday time to suit personal priorities if for example you find Labor Day morally abhorrent and wanted to celebrate Ayn Rands birthday instead. Aside from government workers (if you have children, arranging for them to be cared for comes up) I don't think I've ever seen something like MLK Day or Washingtons birthday (still the official federal name, everyone else calls it Presidents Day) as anything but advertising banners for some sort of sale, people still going to work like a normal day otherwise.

Then we're back to "do it on the weekend". I'm a traditionalist, but if it's such a pain in the ass to declare a day off for the majority of people, than you might as well bite the bullet, and end the tradition.

You're forgetting the bigger problem with that one, government workers have to do work to run the election. Expecting them to work weekends is a bridge and a half too far, have to be reasonable about such things.

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