Early Voting & already some f*** ups.

If you didn’t already know, early voting has already started in many U.S. States. If it can be used as an indicator of total voter turnout for election day (November 4th), then this election should see a record number of voters. The low number of people who vote had always annoyed me, especially since I began living overseas in a democratic country where if voter turnout is anything less then 70% it’s considered “low”. This year’s record turnout in the U.S. should top 60%. What’s really annoying is that with early voting in many States and absentee ballots available in all States plus the Federal Mandate that all employers must give their staff enough time off to vote there are no schedule excuses. In Taiwan there are no such luxuries. To vote you must return to the country and go to your assigned polling place (based on your residence). This is difficult for people who live in one part of the country but work in another and especially for those Taiwanese living overseas. But somehow they manage to make it to their polling place and vote. But then again, Taiwan has a literacy rate of something like 90% so more people can actually read the ballots. It’s also a direct democracy in which the popular vote really does directly effect the outcome of an election, not a “pseudo-democracy” in which the popular vote is simply a suggestion to a select group of electorates.  It could also be that Taiwanese are very proud of their Democracy. I mean, it’s the only Chinese democracy that exists and their nearest neighbor is the largest and most powerful communist country in the world…and it also happens to be Chinese.

But I digress. 

Let’s get back to early voting as an indicator for November 4th. Not only does it point to a possible record voter turnout but also a record number of problems. There have already been issues with polling machine errors and staff shortages. Think these can all be resolved in 11 days?

And of course the “spiritual home” of election f**kups is taking center stage…

On the plus side, for me at least, early Democratic voters are outnumbering early Republican voters by a margin of 2 to 1.

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