This is such a weird thing to think about being Australian, where you can go to almost any local school to vote.
But you can still have you vote outside of the area you live in from basically any other polling place in the country (if it is a federal election). And the same can be said for state and local, go to the closest open polling to you, let them know you’re out of district and they point you to the correct line, done.
Yep, and it’s compulsory voting, on a sensible day of the week and even pre-poll so you can just go in early if you want to. And sometimes there are sausages.
we call it democracy sausage and they tend to be at most polling places and run by local charities or community groups… it’s brilliant tbh - national pride in our democracy manifested in additional support to charity
I have lived in several counties in Illinois and North Carolina. They have been urban or semi-urban counties. I have never experienced any problems voting anywhere I’ve lived. In fact, it seems like they bend over backwards to offer every option for voting. I am much more concerned about gerrymandering and effective bribery of elected officials using campaign donations.
Schools, town halls, community centres, some libraries, some council buildings, certain community spaces like scout halls, basketball stadiums, rotary clubs etc.
Old churches that are now public halls are also opened as voting stations, and some actual churches while not open for voting due to conflicts of interest, do establish rapid housing programs so people can get legal addresses for electrotal enrolments in time for voting, and others will be open as census sites for homeless folk to record themselves on census night. I grew up in bum fuck nowhere and on election day if the weather was tolerance AEC would set up an open polling station on the local football oval just to move through the register faster than what the tiny local school could handle.
Since covid lock downs, eastern states especially have enhanced their postal and early voting processes.
For about 2 weeks before elections (local, state, federal) for the most part you can just walk into any of the above buildings, in litteraly any suburb town or city that’s participating in the election, and cast your vote.
If you do your research on best venues and times, you can knock out your vote in 10 minutes flat. No queue.
Some people are eligible for postal votes too, you can request the ballot be mailed to you, or pick one up from the post office and cast your vote without leaving your home block.
But we’re far from competent. While I love our preferential voting system, it’s not well understood by the public, our LGA’s are still subject to gerrymandering, and there are large swaths of our community that are legally prohibited from voting for various reasons that I personally feel is an unethical antidemocratic policy. There are also huge groups of indigenous peoples who do not have accessible electoral education, trustworthy polling processes, and are disenfranchised from the electrotal process, with little government support or funding for culturally appropriate programs for engagement. Despite our preferential voting, we have essentially devolved to a two party system with neither major party really being any better, do we want the party of bigots, or the party of other bigots?
In Germany it’s overwhelmingly schools. There are several in every district everywhere, they are public buildings, they are easily accessible, they have enough room for events like this… It’s a no brainer.
i believe during times of sausage-related crises the state emergency services step in and air lift sausages from hardware store warehouses to effected polling places
they do not, however, transport onions by this means as they would cause unnecessary slip risk to the crew
This is such a weird thing to think about being Australian, where you can go to almost any local school to vote.
But you can still have you vote outside of the area you live in from basically any other polling place in the country (if it is a federal election). And the same can be said for state and local, go to the closest open polling to you, let them know you’re out of district and they point you to the correct line, done.
So this is what a competent country looks like. Must be nice.
Yep, and it’s compulsory voting, on a sensible day of the week and even pre-poll so you can just go in early if you want to. And sometimes there are sausages.
Okay you trying to hurt me? Because it seems like you’re trying to hurt me.
we call it democracy sausage and they tend to be at most polling places and run by local charities or community groups… it’s brilliant tbh - national pride in our democracy manifested in additional support to charity
We call it a sausage sizzle (democracy sausage at voting time) and they’re delicious 🤤
You guys sure are doing it right out there!
I have lived in several counties in Illinois and North Carolina. They have been urban or semi-urban counties. I have never experienced any problems voting anywhere I’ve lived. In fact, it seems like they bend over backwards to offer every option for voting. I am much more concerned about gerrymandering and effective bribery of elected officials using campaign donations.
At a school. Imagine! We vote in the churches across the street from the schools.
Schools, town halls, community centres, some libraries, some council buildings, certain community spaces like scout halls, basketball stadiums, rotary clubs etc.
Old churches that are now public halls are also opened as voting stations, and some actual churches while not open for voting due to conflicts of interest, do establish rapid housing programs so people can get legal addresses for electrotal enrolments in time for voting, and others will be open as census sites for homeless folk to record themselves on census night. I grew up in bum fuck nowhere and on election day if the weather was tolerance AEC would set up an open polling station on the local football oval just to move through the register faster than what the tiny local school could handle.
Since covid lock downs, eastern states especially have enhanced their postal and early voting processes.
For about 2 weeks before elections (local, state, federal) for the most part you can just walk into any of the above buildings, in litteraly any suburb town or city that’s participating in the election, and cast your vote.
If you do your research on best venues and times, you can knock out your vote in 10 minutes flat. No queue.
Some people are eligible for postal votes too, you can request the ballot be mailed to you, or pick one up from the post office and cast your vote without leaving your home block.
But we’re far from competent. While I love our preferential voting system, it’s not well understood by the public, our LGA’s are still subject to gerrymandering, and there are large swaths of our community that are legally prohibited from voting for various reasons that I personally feel is an unethical antidemocratic policy. There are also huge groups of indigenous peoples who do not have accessible electoral education, trustworthy polling processes, and are disenfranchised from the electrotal process, with little government support or funding for culturally appropriate programs for engagement. Despite our preferential voting, we have essentially devolved to a two party system with neither major party really being any better, do we want the party of bigots, or the party of other bigots?
In Germany it’s overwhelmingly schools. There are several in every district everywhere, they are public buildings, they are easily accessible, they have enough room for events like this… It’s a no brainer.
Not the hardware store? How you do you get your sausage?
i believe during times of sausage-related crises the state emergency services step in and air lift sausages from hardware store warehouses to effected polling places
they do not, however, transport onions by this means as they would cause unnecessary slip risk to the crew