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[Lord Shonus]

The reason you hear about people waiting in lines for hours is that Election Day is not a federally mandated holiday, nor are the state primary elections state holidays. This means that the polls are empty most of the day, then fill up big time in the afternoons when first shifts let out and everyone goes to vote at once. As for why you have to go through a primary in the US, it's because people decided that they don't want the party bosses to be able to just say "This is your candidate. You have no say in the matter. If you don't like it, feel free to vote for somebody who can't win."

[Aklyon]

The reason you hear about people waiting in lines for hours is that Election Day is not a federally mandated holiday, nor are the state primary elections state holidays. This means that the polls are empty most of the day, then fill up big time in the afternoons when first shifts let out and everyone goes to vote at once. As for why you have to go through a primary in the US, it's because people decided that they don't want the party bosses to be able to just say "This is your candidate. You have no say in the matter. If you don't like it, feel free to vote for somebody who can't win. make people complain you're wasting your vote on someone else"

FTFY

[Reelya]

Australia, we always put our elections on a Saturday. But I'm guessing that in America a simple solution that actually makes it easy for everyone to vote is the last thing they want. Keep 'em working long hours, make voting optional, and put the vote on a work day. The very idea of setting up polls that are basically empty for the entire time the poll is held is fundamentally inefficient, for no good reason.

Primaries are needed if there is a direct election of the presidential candidate, but are more important for FPTP voting. With Instant-Runoff voting, you could have multiple presidential candidates on the actual general ballot, without getting the spoiler effect. So "primaries" would not be needed at all if the method used in the general election was improved.

In parliamentary systems, it works differently. The party that wins the most seats in Parliament gets to form a government. This may, or may not, include who they want for Prime Minister. Each party chooses who they're going to run in each district, so there's less centralization than in a Presidential system (no national candidates, only local). And people just register as "voters" where I live, there is no such thing as being a registered "X" voter. That in itself is dangerous. Ballots are secret for a reason. By being able to target people by party affiliation, the risk of political targeting is too great.

[mainiac]

The reason you hear about people waiting in lines for hours is that Election Day is not a federally mandated holiday, nor are the state primary elections state holidays. This means that the polls are empty most of the day, then fill up big time in the afternoons when first shifts let out and everyone goes to vote at once. As for why you have to go through a primary in the US, it's because people decided that they don't want the party bosses to be able to just say "This is your candidate. You have no say in the matter. If you don't like it, feel free to vote for somebody who can't win. make people complain you're wasting your vote on someone else"

FTFY

Oh no, then you might get cool kids points and feel good about yourself.

[Flying Dice]

Australia, we always put our elections on a Saturday. But I'm guessing that in America a simple solution that actually makes it easy for everyone to vote is the last thing they want. Keep 'em working long hours, make voting optional, and put the vote on a work day.

The very idea of setting up polls that are basically empty for the entire time the poll is held is fundamentally inefficient, for no good reason.

Welcome to America, land of the technically free and home of the conditionally brave.

[Orange Wizard]

In parliamentary systems, it works differently. The party that wins the most seats in Parliament gets to form a government. This may, or may not, include who they want for Prime Minister. Each party chooses who they're going to run in each district, so there's less centralization than in a Presidential system (no national candidates, only local). And people just register as "voters" where I live, there is no such thing as being a registered "X" voter. That in itself is dangerous. Ballots are secret for a reason. By being able to target people by party affiliation, the risk of political targeting is too great.

In NZ we use an MMP system where people vote for a local candidate and their preferred party. Parties get more list seats (that aren't associated with an electorate) depending on how many party votes they get, in addition to the electorate seats. It means we can avoid situations like in the UK where UKIP got a yuge number of votes but no(?) seats.

[Calidovi]

Australia, we always put our elections on a Saturday. But I'm guessing that in America a simple solution that actually makes it easy for everyone to vote is the last thing they want. Keep 'em working long hours, make voting optional, and put the vote on a work day.

The very idea of setting up polls that are basically empty for the entire time the poll is held is fundamentally inefficient, for no good reason.

Welcome to America, land of the technically free and home of the conditionally brave.

i guess you could say that the ® is silent

[TheBiggerFish]

Australia, we always put our elections on a Saturday. But I'm guessing that in America a simple solution that actually makes it easy for everyone to vote is the last thing they want. Keep 'em working long hours, make voting optional, and put the vote on a work day.

The very idea of setting up polls that are basically empty for the entire time the poll is held is fundamentally inefficient, for no good reason.

Welcome to America, land of the technically free and home of the conditionally brave.

i guess you could say that the ® is silent

It is, a lot of the time, dark too.

[SalmonGod]

Seeing claims of voter suppression in NY.  Supposedly tens of thousands of people whose registrations have been mysteriously fucked with.  Mostly altering their party affiliations, which are required to vote in the primary in that state.  Even a claim from one person that the form they allegedly signed to drop their party affiliation has a signature that looks directly copy/pasted from their driver's license.

[Shadowlord]

In which party, or both?

[i2amroy]

Seeing claims of voter suppression in NY.  Supposedly tens of thousands of people whose registrations have been mysteriously fucked with.  Mostly altering their party affiliations, which are required to vote in the primary in that state.  Even a claim from one person that the form they allegedly signed to drop their party affiliation has a signature that looks directly copy/pasted from their driver's license.

Oh hey, welcome to the "Whelp you're screwed but tough luck there's no way to fix it" club with Arizona! We also had thousands of democrats (some of them having been registered democrats for over 40+ years) showing up as independent/green party on the rolls and screwing people out of being able to vote! (Though we also had extreme BS happen with polling locations resulting in some people waiting over 9 hours to just be able to get a vote in because they cut the number of voting locations down to like 1/3rd of what they were in the last election).

[SalmonGod]

In which party, or both?

Mainly happening to Democrats.  And, supposedly, to Bernie supporters.  But I'm on my lunch break and don't have time to see how consistent these claims are across sources.

[mainiac]

We also had thousands of democrats showing up as independent/green party on the rolls and screwing people out of being able to vote!

Yeah, cuz it's not like the candidate who alientates those who usually vote in primaries and who appeals to those too cool to be registered democrats might have supporters forget their party registration.  Nope.

But lets be real.  Unsubstantiated claims of wrongdoing usually happen to campaigns where the writing is on the wall and they know they lost but dont want to admit it.  The just world cognitive bias kicks in and they insist that they only lost because the other side cheated.  And CLEARLY that would be ridiculous to compare to this campaign.  The people who oppose Clinton are known for their incredibly open minds and reasonableness in describing those who disagree with them.

[Shadowlord]

We also had thousands of democrats showing up as independent/green party on the rolls and screwing people out of being able to vote!

Yeah, cuz it's not like the candidate who alientates those who usually vote in primaries and who appeals to those too cool to be registered democrats might have supporters forget their party registration.  Nope.

Victim-blaming much?

Devin Cannon’s voter registration has been marked “independent” for as long as she can remember. This means she’s never been allowed to vote in a major party presidential primary election in New York, which operates on a closed primary system.

But this year, she wanted to change.

“I truly did not feel that I belonged in either party,” she told ThinkProgress via email. “And suddenly Bernie Sanders came along.”

Cannon knew she had to switch her party affiliation to Democrat if she wanted to vote for Sanders, the independent U.S. senator from Vermont who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. She also knew that she had to change her party by October 9, 2015 — more than six months before the election happened. New York’s October deadline is the earliest change-of-party deadline in America.

Not wanting to miss her chance, Cannon said she mailed a change-of-party form to the Monroe County Board of Elections in August. But when she checked on the status of her registration last month, she was told her form wasn’t received until late October. She would be ineligible to vote for Sanders in the spring.

“I hung up feeling completely defeated and confused and honestly just started crying,” Cannon said.

[i2amroy]

Yeah, cuz it's not like the candidate who alientates those who usually vote in primaries and who appeals to those too cool to be registered democrats might have supporters forget their party registration.  Nope.

I'm not saying anything about who this happened to supporter wise, just that it happened to a lot of people. It happened to my Mom, who has been a registered democrat for over 15 years in the state now, and it happened to an old lady that I know who has been a registered democrat for over 60 years. One was going to vote Hillary and the other Bernie. Both of them ended up having to cast conditional ballots and had to go through quite a hassle to even convince people that they were allowed to do so.