The Voting System In Many States Exploits The Kryptonite of Younger Voters

[TomCADem]

While a lot of discussion of voting is focused on the suppression of minority voters, the system also has the affect of suppressing the vote of younger voters. For example, what is the kryptonite of many college age voters? Boredom and procrastination. So, if you were Trump and you wanted to design or sabotage a voting system to suppress the votes of younger voters you would exploit this weaknesses.

First, you would oppose vote-by-mail, early voting, and also reduce the number of in-person polling places to force voters to stand in line for hours on end to vote. If you want instant gratification, you are not going to get it standing in line for hours to cast a ballot.



Second, knowing that many young people procrastinate, you would oppose programs the allow registration close to the election and you would slow down the mail knowing that many young voters might send in a vote by mail ballot very close to the day of the election and due to mail delays, the voted ballot may not arrive until after the deadline to count ballots.

Thus, for all of the protests, which allow for the immediate gratification of the need to express frustration with the way things are, these protests really do not matter if they cannot actually translated into votes for leaders who are willing to take action to address the concerns of younger voters.

[kacekwl]

1. Hey "Kids", this ain't pre-school anymore.

Time to grow up and take responsibility for something other than yourself.

[kentuck]

2. "Kids" have always depended on the Baby Boomers to do the voting and stuff....

...and to protect the democracy. They have never been interested in politics that much. They had better wake up. The Boomers can no longer protect them.

[TomCADem]

5. Is there a legitimate reason to make people stand in line or slow the mail?

I understand that we all have to overcome these artificial obstacles, but they are artificial obstacles that are no different from the so-called literacy tests in the pre-civil rights era. Why slow down the mail in the midst of a pandemic, which will cause folks who send votes close to the day of the election to possibly be disenfranchised due to mail delays. Likewise, why reduce the number of polling locations while also opposing vote by mail in the midst of pandemic?

No one is disputing that people have to vote. Yet, we should also not ignore that Republicans are trying to disenfranchise young people by setting up voting in such a way to exclude them.

[kentuck]

6. Republicans are trying to disenfranchise everyone.

Trump will do anything to win.

Anything.

[JonLP24]

17. I don't think that is accurate

Political young people tend to post at Twitter than places like DU and they tend to be more progressive than older generations, especially the conservative boomers. The whole OK Boomer thing was a controversy here like Karen but what it was mostly younger people replying to older conservatives on social media.

[onecaliberal]

3. Voter registration groups report record numbers of these young people actually registering.

It’s up to all of us to make sure they vote.

[customerserviceguy]

4. My prediction is

this year's election will be such a disaster that we will actually start seriously considering Internet voting. There are billions of financial transactions every day that happen safely, accurately and securely, surely we can figure out a way to do this for an event that happens only a few times a year at the very most.

[TomCADem]

7. I Think Internet Voting Is A Red Herring and the Wrong Answer

Why not just (1) allow early voting over a period of two weeks prior to the official election date to avoid long lines and (2) permit vote by mail while supporting the US post system instead of sabotaging it.

The problem with internet voting is that it introduces the whole question of internet security into the question of voting? In the early 2000s, many election advocates questioned touch screen voting machines on the ground that there was no physical, immutable record of a vote. Internet voting compounds these concerns.

[customerserviceguy]

8. What is wrong

with letting people vote in the same manner as they currently manage paying their bills and do their banking? As far as Internet security goes, put some real IT experts in charge, not county workers who take a two day seminar and forget half of what they were told.

The physical mail is far more vulnerable to dirty tricks than secure sockets layer technology.

[TomCADem]

10. The Most Important Requirement for Elections...

...is faith in the integrity of elections. Most people will have more faith in in-person or mail voting then simply casting a ballot online. As it currently stands, even without casting votes online, there is a great deal of distrust of electronic voting.

Using your example of paying bills online, there have been a lot of documented instances of hacks of even large institutional companies. While it may be possible to steal a physical ballot from mail box or to perhaps intimidate an individual in person voter, it is tremendously difficult to do so on a large scale basis without revealing the effort in the process.

[customerserviceguy]

12. Then sit back

and enjoy the coming shitshow. Over and over again.

[TomCADem]

14. Experian hack exposes 15 million people's personal information

Using your comparison of online transactions, can you imagine the doubts that would arise in a close election involving online votes and electronic tallies without any physical record?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/01/experian-hack-t-mobile-credit-checks-personal-information

Experian hack exposes 15 million people's personal information

Experian, one of the largest credit agency data brokers in the world, has been hacked. Some 15 million people who used the company’s services, among them customers of cellular company T-Mobile who had applied for Experian credit checks, may have had their private information exposed, the company confirmed on Thursday.

Information from the hack includes names, addresses, and social security, driver’s license and passport numbers. The license and passport numbers were in an encrypted field, but Experian said that encryption may also have been compromised.

Connecticut’s attorney general said he will launch an investigation into the breach.

The company said its consumer credit database was not affected and that “no other clients’ data was accessed”, presumably meaning the damage is limited to T-Mobile.

[LymphocyteLover]

11. voting needs a paper trail

internet voting can be screwed with too easily without leaving obvious traces. It will hard to trust the results as only experts can audit it properly and even then it's not clear they can detect all malicious attacks

[customerserviceguy]

13. And you think

that online bank transfers don't have something at least as secure? Maybe I have too much training for my own good (a degree in computer network administration) but I still think it's workable if executed by true IT professionals.

[LymphocyteLover]

18. I'm sure it's workable but is it necessary and will it ever be trustable?

as it is with voting machines, there are so many worries about illicit manipulation of the data that can't be detected without a proper paper trail. Just seems like those worries would be worse with online voting.

[Blue_true]

9. Yes, Trump's were Dream is for us to propose Internet voting.

Talk about shooting ourselves in the foot.

Republicans want to make voting as hard as possible for some voters, and we have repeatedly fallen into their trap.

What we need is to insure that all of us vote and insure that our vote counts. When we vote, we remove republicans from office, only then can we work to insure that every eligible American gets a chance to vote in all elections.

[JonLP24]

16. Estonia votes by phone

It is actually secure from Russian interference and they live next door.

[JonLP24]

15. I voted by mail every election and I like it

I can't see myself jumping through hoops unless the candidate is really great.

[LeftInTX]

19. Young people struggle with mail voting

I helped seniors out in a runoff this summer. Many of them had errors in their applications and had to reapply. And these were young healthy seniors who had never voted by mail before and were regular voters. (The kind that vote in every primary and runoff) I told my neighbor that we need a book called Vote By Mail for Dummies.

I just can't see young adults going through all those hoops. They do much better with extended every voting and extended early voting hours.