The voting marshals insisted that all cell phones be turned off, not silenced, but powered down. Evidently, the fear of electronic mayhem has caused this.
I early voted a couple of weeks ago. still a 20 minute process.
In GA, they had a sign saying no cell phones allowed; however, it is not like they were doing anything to check. I just left mine in my pocket and hoped no one would call and figured if they did, I would just hand it to one of the poll workers until I was done.
In my location, the booths do not have true privacy (they have side blinders, but no privacy curtain, anyone walking behind me can see my screen) so the workers would see me if I used my phone, but it occurred to me that if I wanted to buy your vote, I could have you text me a video of you pushing the submit button after showing the screen confirming who you voted for, so I would guess that is the concern about phones in polling locations. Without the video I would have no evidence that you kept up your end of the deal!
As for people not voting, I can understand it, depending on the specifics. In a
solidly red or blue state, anyone voting against the majority of their state is essentially wasting their time by going to the polls (and it is not like they have the day off from work to go cast a vote). Heck, in my county, over half of the positions on the ticket are uncontested Republicans because no one is willing to "waste their time" running for an office as a Democrat. I'm sure the opposite is true in other states/counties.
There is an interesting (and legal) way around this, called vote swapping, but the logistics take a more than casual involvement in voting.
United States presidential elections[edit]
Vote trading occasionally occurs between United States citizens
domiciled in different states (and
therefore citizens of those respective states) to demonstrate support for third-party candidates while minimizing the risk that their more favored (or less disfavored) major-party candidate will lose
electoral votes in the nationwide election (
i.e., the "
spoiler effect").
[4] For example:
- A Republican-leaning libertarian whose preference order is {Libertarian, Republican, Democrat/Green, Green/Democrat} and who lives in a "swing state" might trade votes with a Republican who has libertarian sympathies, lives in a state considered "safe Republican" or "safe Democrat," and has preference order {Republican, Libertarian, Democrat/Green, Green/Democrat}.
- A Democratic-leaning progressivist or socialist whose preference order is {Green, Democrat, Libertarian/Republican, Republican/Libertarian} and who lives in a swing state might trade votes with a Democrat whose preference order is {Democrat, Green, Republican/Libertarian, Libertarian/Republican} and who lives in a state safe for one major party or another.
However, I see not voting as a vote against the current election/political system. Not voting can be read as a indicator of how many are disenfranchised with the system (likely the two party political or the electorial college system). Personally, I think that a popular vote makes sense not that it can be practically implemented (it couldn't when the current system was agreed on as law). If only 30% of the US public participated in an election, that would send a very strong signal that the system is broken (and the US is pretty low on voter participation).
All of that said, this years elections have a serious wild-card aspect to them. I don't know of any other time where I believe it is safe to say more people are going to the polls to vote against the opponent than to vote for their own candidate. I think this is
true on both sides of the ticket.
I would speculate that 15% to 20% of the people voting for either candidate are enthralled with their candidate and the other 20% to 35% have some distaste for having to vote for their own candidate in order to attempt to block the opponent!
