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CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH t1_isb3m2n wrote

Reply to comment by Schu69 in Connecticut to decide on early voting in November referendum by jr_reddit

Why not allow people to have early voting?

It is fairly easy for something to come up on a Tuesday that makes it hard to come in to vote on election day. Maybe you or your kid gets sick, or something happens at work that suddenly and unexpectedly makes you have to be out of town that day. Or maybe there is a big storm.

Voting early removes the risk of anything happening that would otherwise prevent you from voting. And once again, there is no downside to allowing people to vote early. If you want to wait until election day, as a majority of people do in states with early voting, you can!

Also, if you vote early then political campaigns will stop contacting you, as they know who has already voted.

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mylastdream15 t1_isb80rt wrote

I never understood why early voting wasn't a thing. You would think you'd want to encourage as many people to vote as possible if you wanted a truly democratic process. (And I totally get some absolutely do not want that and their odds of winning decrease if more people vote.) I can't think of a single thing in government where they say you HAVE to do it this day and you can ONLY do it this day. Imagine if they said all taxes could only be paid on ONE day and if you don't you're in trouble. It's crazy. In big elections, lines to vote can get pretty lengthy in some towns and cities as well. If you had say a couple weeks (or more) to vote including weekends. There really wouldn't be nearly as much of an excuse. I feel like wanting to discourage early voting is a tactic to just... Discourage voting in general. Tuesday is just an annoying day to vote on for me. I have to go late and then it cuts into time I'd rather be doing other things (that said, I personally vote every year. ) Now. If I could vote on a weekend. Or a friday. That would be far nicer.

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CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH t1_isd6zb4 wrote

In CT our state constitution has prevented us from having early voting. The CT state constitution is oddly specific about voting procedures and says which day people must vote, unlike most other state constitutions. It isn't clear to me if this was done intentionally to prevent early voting, as early voting wasn't really a thing anywhere when the state constitution was written in 1965.

We tried to amend the constitution in 2014, but the ballot language was confusing and it didn't pass. Hopefully it does pass this year.

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CalligrapherDizzy201 t1_isenq80 wrote

Did you know ahead of time you or your kid will get sick on Election Day? Early voting won’t help in that situation.

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CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH t1_iseu9g8 wrote

If you knew ahead of time you can just vote by absentee ballot. My point is that since we can't know ahead of time for some of these things, it is better to give people many opportunities to vote early to prevent unexpected obstacles from getting in their way. And that people who think that they likely will be able to vote on election day will still vote early to prevent an unexpected obstacle from stopping them.

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CalligrapherDizzy201 t1_isevcl8 wrote

If you don’t know ahead of time, how will you vote early?

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CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH t1_isewcsg wrote

Early voting is when the state allows all voters to vote early. Usually the town/city hall acts as the early voting polling location and all voters can come in and cast their ballots.

The point of this ballot measure is to make it so that you don't need an excuse to vote early. People who likely could vote on election day will choose to vote early. Millions of Americans have already cast ballots for the 2022 election in the 46 states with early voting. Most of those voters don't know if they could have voted on election day, but decided to vote early anyway.

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CalligrapherDizzy201 t1_isewsar wrote

Right, and there’s nothing wrong with that. No excuse absentee voting would accomplish the same thing and should also be considered.

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CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH t1_isex6wr wrote

Allowing No Excuse Absentee Ballots will likely be on the ballot in 2024, assuming that Democrats retain control of the CT General Assembly.

To get something on the ballot it needs to be passed by the CT General Assembly twice in 4 years, and the passed a measure to allow no-excuse absentee voting in 2021 and Democrats have said they will do it again in 2023, in time for the 2024 election.

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CalligrapherDizzy201 t1_isexir5 wrote

Excellent.

The way we do things in this state is backwards sometimes. Why in the world would it have to be voted on twice? Or at all? The procedure to get questions on the ballot should be simplified.

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