I don’t understand the obsession with mail voting

1. Many precincts have been closed (mostly in poor or minority neighborhoods). Therefore, lines will be longer. When was the last time you stood in line 4 hours at a grocery store?
2. People have to take off work to vote. With long lines, most can't afford the time off to vote during non-peak hours when the lines might only be a one-hour wait.
3. Lack of poll workers will make it worse. Many are retirees who are in the highest risk group and are not willing to work the polls. Without poll workers, some locations may be further consolidated.

My dad lives in a township where everyone votes by mail. My daughter is in the military and has to vote by mail. I don't assume that I will always be able to vote in person so I request a mail in ballot. A lot of people live in areas with few polling places which leads to very long lines.

I don’t know if “obsession” is the correct way to describe “wanting to safely exercise ones right to vote”

I don’t stand in line at the grocery store or anywhere else, for what it’s worth. If it can’t be done in a quick trip with self checkout, I order online.

It’s really not about me, though. Like Sarah said, I will put on a mask and face shield and stand there as long as necessary to vote that human scum out of office.

My older and/or less healthy neighbors shouldn’t have to do that. Neither should all the folks living with elderly parents at home, or who have a newborn at home, etc. There’s no good reason those folks shouldn’t get an absentee ballot except that Trump hopes he’ll win if they stay home.

Where I live, the polling places are churches and schools. They are already talking about what to do to replace the schools as polling places. Using schools was already a security issue, and now with covid, they will not be using schools at all. Last year they started using some hotel conference centers, so I'm hoping in my area we use the yet more of those.

But, like others have said, there's the issue with transportation, taking time off work, long lines, being mobile enough to get to the polling places, mail in voting just makes a lot of sense for many people.

I had planned to vote mail-in. Now I’m concerned that I won’t receive my ballot in a timely manner to do that.

I’m going to do early voting. One of my reasons for wanting to vote by mail was this— what if, by crazy chance, I have Covid actually on Election Day? I will crawl over broken glass to cast my vote this year. It’ll be early voting for me as soon as I am able. I’ll have to take the risk of waiting in the huge line— and there will be one.

I don't get it either.. Our state has mail voting as long as I can remember.  I have never heard of any problems (maybe a few minor county to county problems) but overall it works very well in our state. (Colorado)

I’m going to make a prediction right now, this upcoming election is going to be filled with fraud, allegations of fraud, and we are not going to know probably until January or February who actually won.


As far as mail in ballots, Trump is the only one who’s obsessed with it at this point. I plan on voting in person early and I think that the option for mailing or absentee ballots absolutely needs to be offered to whoever needs one. We know that there are elderly who can’t get to the voting booths. We also know that most of the people at the polling sites are elderly and our local board of elections has done nothing to recruit new people.


This whole thing is gonna be a cluster you know what, election day.

We’ve been doing only vote-by-mail here in Washington for quite some time. It’s super easy and avoids the problem that your polling place has a two-hour line and you have to go to work.

Republicans have been closing polling places in districts they think will vote democratic and creating four-hour lines to vote. Google “Georgia governor’s election 2018 lines” and you’ll probably pull up a lot of articles documenting this, eg. Even without COVID,
mail voting makes it more difficult to engage in vote-suppressing chicanery.

  😄 In my previous too long post I forgot to mention...

I have already requested my absentee/mail in ballot for November and I will not be going to the polls.  I will, however, drop my ballot off in the ballot box outside of my town clerks office instead of mailing it.  I did mail in my primary ballot though. This was the 1st time since I could vote that I have not gone to the polling place.  It was actually easier because my polling place is much further from my house than my town offices.

On a side note, the 1st installment of our property taxes are due in a few weeks and they are asking people to pay by mail, online, or drop it in the drop box to help keep their staff safe. They are grudgingly having the lobby open for limit access for two days for taxes but are STRONGLY suggesting/asking people to not pay in person. Why would they not want the same thing for voting?

In 2012, I waited 2.5 hours to vote. I was very late to work, but I have an understanding employer. With the recent voter suppression activities of the gop, this is going to be worse than ever this year. Not everyone can give up even a few hours pay to go vote. Not everyone can get transportation to go vote. Not everyone can access childcare to go vote.

It’s not hard to understand, really.  

1.  Our nation has alway had both in-person (at precincts and county election offices) and mail-in voting (absentee).  The trend for a decade at least has been in-person early voting and mail-in, or what is also called absentee. You had multiple reasons to request a mail-in ballot - work hours, out of town, poll worker etc). It’s not hard at all. 

2.  Presidential election years (and the primaries) bring out many more voters who normally don’t vote mid-term or even state/county elections. Polls in most states are open 6am - 7pm or something similar.  The pre- and post-business hours can be heavily attended.  I’ve many times been in line at 6am and it takes at least an hour to get to the voting booth.  We hope this trend is extraordinarily high this year in order to Get Out The Vote(rs)!

3.  The US numbers for the pandemic are the highest in the world.  As things close in for the colder weather we will be packed together inside to vote.  And while usually that’s not a bad thing, this year many are hoping that being smart - wearing a mask, social distancing, staying home if you are high risk - will help to keep us healthy until a viable vaccine is universally available.  

4.  Many US voters don’t want to deal with the anti-maskers, the haters, the spit-in-your-face crowd.  I’m a poll worker.  I’m nervous of the ones who will INSIST they be allowed to vote WITHOUT A MASK and throw a scene.  I’m working mail-in this year, as are some of the people I’ve worked the polls with for years.  We just got another plea from the election chief for more precinct workers.  My hope is the 20-30-40-50 year olds will fill step up to fill the need. 

It’s not hard to understand.  Unless you are Trump and lying and trying to distract and interfere in the election by any criminal means necessary.

Just my humble opinion. 😊 

Do your lines at the grocery store look like this??!??

GA - 2020

This is what people contend with in some precincts in the US.

Does that bear any resemblance to "going to the grocery store"?

Do you understand NOW?!?!






www.ajc.com/politics/extreme-voting-lines-expose-where-georgia-primary-failed/YQUMSTEBVFAY7CR7UQOQEHSVLI/

www.texasobserver.org/lines-wait-vote-texas-primary-2020/

Georgia has 18 days of early voting. None of those people could plan ahead enough to vote early? But you think they would have planned ahead enough to vote by mail?