We’re two weeks from Election Day, but already the madness has begun. Many states, North Carolina among them, have begun early voting procedures, which is exactly what it sounds like: you get a chance to cast your ballot early. The Obama campaign has been pushing this hard, as it’s hoping to get all of its newly registered voters, as well as traditionally apathetic voters, to cast their votes. Plus, with the very real possibility that there could be problems on election day, including long lines, broken machines and ballot shortages, the campaign wants to make sure everybody gets a chance to vote.
Naturally, this plays right into the traditional Republican fear about too many people voting, so they want to do everything they can to stop it. This includes, it seems, protesting right outside of polling places in North Carolina. Yelling out various epithets about Obama (his cocaine use as a teenager and “terrorist”), as well as caling the early voters “cheaters” (particularly funny because some of the McCain supporters are voting early as well), these protestors are essentially intimidating early voters, many of whom happen to be black.
In California, that’s called electioneering and it’s illegal. Most electioneering laws prohibit any sort of campaigning within the immediate vicinity of polling places. The problem is, electioneering laws get interpreted many different ways, and in North Carolina that interpretation appears to be loose, to say the least.
This illustrates a larger problem that my roommate and I discussed the other day. Specifically, there are multiple different voting methods in the United States, which lead to all sorts of problems come election day (and sometimes after). To give a few examples:
- Different styles of ballot, like the much maligned butterfly ballot used in Florida.
- Different methods of input. In California, we mark our choice with a marker-like tool that makes an ink mark next to our choice. In many other states, there are punch-card systems which lead to questions of intent and chad madness. It’s far more difficult to question intent with ink than it is with half-punched chads.
- Electronic voting machines. These are used in multiple states, and all you seem to ever hear about them are problems. For one thing, computers crash. A lot. And these are some shitty, poorly kept-up computers. For another thing, there are fears that these things are very easy to hack…since they’re, you know, computers. Most of all, though, the biggest problems with electronic voting machines are sometimes caused by outside forces. For instance, in North Carolina, the state only offers machines; there are no paper ballots at polling places (there’s currently a push to get “emergency paper ballots,” but each polling place likely won’t get more than a 100). So, theoretically, if a polling place has its voting machines crash, then voters are up shit creek – they simply can’t vote. And if there are only 100 emergency paper ballots, a huge number of people still won’t get to vote. Electronic voting machines also can lead to stories like this one.
