On Tuesday, I cast the 604th ballot of the day at my polling place, and I was happy to do so. It was incredibly easy to go into the church assigned to me, sign my name in the register (I had forgotten all about this part! It was very satisfying to sign in the Big Book of Democracy.), mark my ballot, and slide it into the scanner. Had I actually not been still debating my vote for the city council, it would’ve have taken less than 10 minutes.
Participating in the whole election process in yet another state got me thinking about voting in general. So I’d like to present some quick thoughts here in list form, which I may expand out into full posts later on:
- Why the hell doesn’t New York have early voting?
- Same-day and automatic voter registration too. It boggles my mind that this isn’t a thing in every state. I mean, I know the reasons why it’s not, not that they’re ok, but I’m still baffled.
- Ranked-choice voting would make voting so much easier for indecisive people like me. When I can’t decide between the candidate whose views I like but who has no chance to win and the candidate whose views are ok but will probably win, I don’t want to risk throwing the election to a third candidate who I can’t stand.
- It’s great that polls are open so early/late here.
- Florida restored voting rights to more than a million people with prior felonies, so it’s nice to know they can do some things right.
- Seriously, why the hell doesn’t New York have early voting?
- I’m surprising myself with how into voting rights I am. Some groups I like: Let NY Vote, the Brennan Center for Justice, and for what it’s worth, I liked the Vote Save America website that popped up this year was great as a tool to quickly inform voters about their candidates.