Early voting - why do so few do it?

ixoy

Reading about queues 90+ minutes in the US today, I'm wondering why more people in the US don't vote early? From the Wikipedia article here, 33 states allow "no excuse required" voting, which seems to imply anyone can vote before election day in those states. There's a note that it may be a bit more difficult to vote than on the day, but surely more people would exercise this option than queue on the day?

nesf

A combination of lack of information about it, a complicated/hassle prone procedure for registering and the general "ah sure I'll just vote on the day" attitude when busy maybe?

kerry4sam

... their could also be an element of 'sure why break with tradition on voting on polling-day' and miss the hype and excitement and tension that it brings ... most people i'd say although were warned of long queues, thought they would just tough it out for the day that's in it

lostexpectation

don't they have to use some sort of sub-ballot, do they all get counted?

the groutch

can we do our votes now for our next general election, make sure that Fianna Failures dont get back in?

metaoblivia

ixoy wrote: »

Reading about queues 90+ minutes in the US today, I'm wondering why more people in the US don't vote early? From the Wikipedia article here, 33 states allow "no excuse required" voting, which seems to imply anyone can vote before election day in those states. There's a note that it may be a bit more difficult to vote than on the day, but surely more people would exercise this option than queue on the day?

For early voting, they usually don't open all of the polling stations, so the polling station may be farther away. They also have less workers at the polling stations, etc.. This year there was record early voter turn out - around 30% of voters voted early - and some wait times were as long as 8 hours.

JohnMc1

the groutch wrote: »

can we do our votes now for our next general election, make sure that Fianna Failures dont get back in?

Sad thing is there are too many idiots in Ireland that would vote them in again. Strangely enough most of those people want Obama to win.

Chardee MacDennis

JohnMc1 wrote: »

Sad thing is there are too many idiots in Ireland that would vote them in again. Strangely enough most of those people want Obama to win.

lol and who would you suggest we vote for, in ireland its choose the best of a very bad bunch...

JohnMc1

BastardPrince wrote: »

lol and who would you suggest we vote for, in ireland its choose the best of a very bad bunch...

Somebody other than Finna Fall. Sinn Fein. Fianna Gael. anybody else. Irish complain about US being a 2 party but Irelands a one party. Seriously they didn't do **** for 10 years. Did people really think they were going to do something useful this time around?

Manic Moran

I received my ballot sheet over a month ago. It's sitting next to me on my desk as I type this, ready to be filled in.

I see no benefit in my position to early voting. You never know what new information may come to light. Even if you're fairly sure about the Presidential election, there's always no end of new information on the Propositions and Measures which are also on the ballot sheet.

So, in my case, it's a bit of a ritual to me. I like going to the polling station and meeting all my fellow pollees. Given I'm handing in my mail-in ballot, I actually get to skip a lot of the line and just drop it off in the appropriate box.

NTM

leincar

As other posters have said a lot of it is to do with tradition. You will find the majority of early voters will be Democrat as they remember the problems of the last 2 elections in Florida and Ohio. Also Democrats would be more open to new things and change. It's like a lot of things that are unintentionally partisan. For example the majority of U.S. citizens with passports are Democrat yet no one can give a definitive reason.

horseflesh

JohnMc1 wrote: »

Sad thing is there are too many idiots in Ireland that would vote them in again. Strangely enough most of those people want Obama to win.

Right or wrong, this thread isn't the place to be discussing the next Irish general election, whenever that may be.
Strangely enough, most Irish people with an opinion want Obama to win, regardless of which Irish party they support. Where did you deduce the correlation between Irish voters who may vote FF in some future election and Irish "supporters" of Obama?
Do you have any evidence or statistics?
A Venn diagram perhaps?
Or is it all just in your head?
Are most Fine Gael voters egging McCain on?

Ludo

horseflesh wrote: »

Are most Fine Gael voters egging McCain on?

PD supporters are egging on McCain...all 2 if them!!!